By mid-morning the little booth in the square had a row of shoes no larger than thumbnails, each pair waiting on a velvet scrap. The marionettes did not rush. They practiced a bow to the painted curtain, then a nod to the hand that held the strings, and only then took a single careful step toward the footlights.
We asked at the kiosk beside the booth. “They used to start the first line too soon,” said a woman with a paper bag of pretzels. “Now they greet the curtain first. The play lasts longer, but nobody minds.” A boy in the queue added that the left slipper always waits for the right one, which felt, he said, like good manners.
A note in the park keeper’s book thanked whoever waxed the tiny soles. “Please do not applaud until they have finished nodding,” it read. “The hand is still saying hello.”
The next afternoon the same two puppets came back and asked, through a very small bow, if they might try a second step. The curtain nodded once. They stayed with one.