The Anubis Gates

“And who says so?” inquired the clown, somehow freeing one arm from a stilt to point at Punch. “Who says you ought to be hanged? The police? A crusher-lover, are you?”

Punch shook his head.

“The magistrates? Are they anything more than a bunch of fat old fools that want to stop you having your fun?”

On reflection Punch had to admit they were not.

“Is it God, then? Some bearded giant that lives in the clouds? Have you ever seen Him, or heard Him say you mustn’t do as you please?”

“Well—no.”

“Then come with me.”

The two puppets began walking in place, and after a few moments a beadle puppet appeared, and announced that he had a warrant “to take you up, Mr. Punch.” Punch looked abashed, but the clown pulled a tiny gleaming knife out of a sleeve and stuck it into the beadle’s eye. The boys sitting around Doyle cheered as the beadle fell.

Punch danced a hornpipe, clearly pleased. “Mr. Horrabin,” he said to the clown, “can you get us some dinner?”

The show went back to the standard story line and Punch and the clown stole a string of sausages and a frying pan from a public house landlord, though Doyle didn’t remember the landlord being actually killed.

Punch, feeling frolicsome, was doing a whirling dance with the string of sausages when a headless puppet entered, also dancing, the stump of its neck bobbing up and down to the beat of the accelerated organ music. Punch was terrified by this apparition until Horrabin explained that it was only his pal Scaramouche, “and isn’t it fun to be pals with things everybody else is afraid of?” Punch pondered this, knob chin on his fist, then laughed, nodded, and resumed his dance. Even the Horrabin puppet was dancing on its stilts, and Doyle was awed to think of the contortions the puppeteer must have been going through to keep three puppets dancing and the music going too.

Now a fourth puppet whirled on stage—it was a woman, with the sort of exaggeratedly voluptuous figure that little boys chalk on walls, but her white face, dark eyes and long white veils made it clear that she was meant to be a ghost. “Judy, my sweet creature!” exclaimed Punch, still dancing, “you’re ever so much more beautiful now!”

Punch jigged to the front of the stage, and all at once the music stopped and a curtain dropped behind him, isolating him from the others. He did a few more hesitant steps and then halted, for a new puppet had appeared—a somber figure in a black hood, and it was pushing along a gallows with a little noose swinging from it. ,

“Jack Ketch!” said Punch.

“Aye, Jack Ketch,” said the newcomer, “or Mr. Graball, or the Grimy Reaper. It don’t make no difference what you call me, Punch. I’ve come to execute you, by order of the Law.”

Horrabin’s head popped out for a moment from the wings. “See if you can kill him,” he said, and withdrew.

Punch clapped his hands. Then with a lot of double talk he got Jack Ketch to put the noose around his own neck, just to show how it’s done, and Punch pulled the rope, hoisting the executioner puppet into the air, its legs somehow kicking realistically. Punch laughed and turned to the audience with spread, welcoming arms. “Hooray!” he cried in his cartoon character voice. “Now Death is dead, and we can all do as we please!”

The curtain behind him snapped back up and the music came on with a crash, very fast and wild now, and the puppets were all dancing around the gallows, Punch hand in hand with Judy’s ghost. A couple of the boys and one of the old men got up from the pavement and walked away, the old man shaking his head in disgust.

Punch and the Judy ghost danced up to the front, so that when the curtain dropped again and the music ceased they were alone at the front of the stage. “That, ladies and gentlemen,” piped Punch, “was the new and corrected Punch’s Opera.” Punch slowly looked round his audience—thinned down to only two old bums, three boys and Doyle. Then he did a quick jig and pinched the ghost puppet obscenely. “Horrabin did your humble servant a good turn or two, lads,” he said. “And any of you that’s interested can come talk to me backstage.” He gave Doyle a stare that was surprisingly intense for glass eyes, and then the outer curtains swept in from the sides. The show was over.

One old man and one boy walked around with Doyle to the back of the narrow booth, and the Punch puppet, looking very small away from the scaled down stage, waved at them from over the top of the curtain that served as a stage door.

“My admirers!” the puppet squeaked. “One at a time—Lord Foreigner last.”

Feeling like a fool, Doyle stood behind the evidently imbecilic boy while the old man shuffled into the booth. It’s as though we’re waiting to get into a confessional, he thought glumly. The image was reinforced by the murmured questions and answers he could hear from inside.