by John Boyne
‘I’ll be here tonight,’ she said quietly, barely aware of how she was finding either the courage or the language for the words. ‘After the show. Around midnight. I’ll be here then.’
Bill reached down and took a bite from his sandwich and nodded. He said nothing for now but knew that he would be there at midnight also.
Ellen Rose had never been with a man and even as she stole along the back of the trailers towards the tent where she had met my great-grandfather only hours earlier, she felt a wave of nausea rushing through her stomach with the tension of her intended actions. Although she was terrified at what might be to come, and amazed at her own intentions, she resolved not to stop walking, for if she stopped for even a moment to consider her actions, she ran the risk of changing her mind and returning to her tent and then what would become of her?
Through all of Isaac’s stories, he has never been fully able to explain to me the reason why Ellen Rose and Buffalo Bill Cody were so immediately attracted to each other. My theory is that Ellen, my great-grandmother, saw in Bill a way out of the Regis-Roc Circus. He was an extravagant, famous man from the other side of the world; she was a crippled girl, albeit a beautiful one. For Bill’s part, he had long since separated from his wife, Louisa Frederici, although the legalities of that relationship remained intact. In the intervening years he had made a habit of seducing the majority of the girls who came through the wild west show, not to mention the thousands who came to see him as he travelled around America and who were happy to sacrifice either their honour or simply the night to a man with such a reputation as his. My theory is an unromantic one: she was using him, and he was just doing what he always did. Isaac, on the other hand, told it differently.
His take on that night is that Ellen Rose and Bill Cody met as arranged in the kitchen area of the tents. It was dark but Ellen lit a candle as she waited, somewhat irritably, for her paramour to appear. She glanced at her watch. There were still two minutes to go before midnight but she feared that he would not arrive. She could feel her heart beating heavily inside her chest and her left leg ached slightly, as it always did in moments of tension. The slightest thought could have seen her hurry from her waiting post and back to her safe bed, but she refused to allow herself to give in to these ideas and sat patiently, biting her lip as she nervously gripped the table before her. She could feel a warmth inside her and knew that now, at last, at the age of twenty-four, she wanted to be with a man. And what was wrong with that, she reasoned.
‘Miss Rose,’ said Bill as he appeared from the shadows, just as midnight struck. ‘True to your word, I see.’
She sighed and nodded, as if she had given up any pretence of being there for any innocent reason. ‘I was determined to come,’ she said quietly, glancing around to make sure that no one could hear or see them.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I did a quick scout around before I came in here. Everyone’s in their beds. It was a long day, after all.’
‘Yes,’ said Ellen. ‘I saw you, you know. With the queen.’ The wild west show had performed their regular routine before Queen Victoria earlier in the day and afterwards, in quite a break with her normal procedures, the queen asked for its founder to be presented to her. ‘What did she say to you anyway? She looked quite enamoured.’
‘She said that she had never seen such a display of courage before and that, despite our turbulent histories, she would raise a toast to America that evening at dinner.’
‘And you. What did you say to her?’
‘I was told not to say anything unless she asked a direct question,’ he replied, stepping behind Ellen and lifting her hair out of the way so that he might kiss her gently on the neck. ‘And she never did so I simply smiled and bowed. That was it. That was all the uses she had for me.’
Ellen sighed as she felt the warm breath of her intended lover whispering around her bare shoulder. As he kissed her towards her shoulder, the front of his teeth skimmed her skin gently and she felt an urge to press her body back against that mouth, so that he might bite into her and enter as deeply into her person as he could possibly do. She shut her eyes and spun around as if being carried along by the air, their lips met and he raised her on to the table, standing between her legs, edging them apart slightly despite her natural inclination to modesty.
‘If he was still here,’ said Bill, stepping back for a moment and looking at the young girl directly in the eyes, even as he lowered her blouse to reveal her breasts by candlelight, pale, trembling. ‘I’d kill him for what he did to you.’ He reached a hand down and hooked it under the knee of the damaged leg and buried his face in her bosom for a time as she closed her eyes again and leaned backwards, clearing her mind of all worry as she allowed him to do with her what he would, never interfering, never speaking, never asking for anything. When they made love, all she could see was the hero, the adventurer, the great American Buffalo Bill Cody, who was in love with her and would take her away to a fantasy life. She could never love or be loved by anyone quite like this man.
At least, that’s the way Isaac tells it.
Chapter Twelve
Last Days
The Clinton piece made me a lot of friends in the New York media world. And the magazine offered me a regular interviewing position, along similar lines as the one I had held in Paris. I was happy to take it for until then I was feeling at something of a loss in Denver as Hitomi concentrated on her career and this gave me a chance to work towards my own ambitions again.
After much discussion, we agreed that we would continue to live in Denver until the end of the academic year, before moving back to New York so that I could pursue this opportunity. Hitomi wrote to the university which had employed her on our last trip there and although there were no positions currently available, they promised to keep her in mind should something come up. In the meantime, she wrote to several others and appeared confident that a job would come her way at some point once we got there.
Shane was born in early spring, the first Cody in four generations to be born in America. Hitomi was not in labour for long – only a couple of hours – and seemed surprised, even a little disappointed, that childbirth on this occasion had not been as painful as she had been led to believe it would be. Our son was perfectly healthy and his face, a mixture of our east–west genes, captivated me with its smooth skin and tiny arched eyebrows, reminiscent of the Naoyuki line, and the piercing blue eyes and snub nose of the Codys. They were released from hospital after a couple of days and we settled down to our initial couple of weeks of nervous parenting in our Denver apartment.
I phoned Isaac from home on the evening that Shane was born and told him the news.
‘Where are you calling from?’ he asked me.
‘I’m back home.’
‘Well what are you doing there if your wife’s just had a baby?’
‘She needed to sleep,’ I replied defensively. ‘As do I. We’ve been there all day.’
He grunted, as if this was a weak excuse but carried on anyway. ‘So I’m a grandfather at last,’ he said. ‘Makes me feel old.’
‘Isaac, you are old. You’re almost eighty.’
‘Yes, but I never felt it before. Have you got a name for him yet?’
‘Yes,’ I replied quickly. ‘We had names ready for a boy and a girl in advance. We wanted to know what his name was from the moment he was born and not just call him “baby” or something. So we’re calling him Shane.’
‘Shane?’ asked Isaac, and I could tell from the tone of his voice that he was disappointed. ‘Why do you want to call him that? What sort of a name is Shane?’
‘His name, that’s what sort. It’s a name we both like.’
‘I thought you’d call him Sam. Tradition, you know.’
I shook my head and stayed silent for a moment. It was true that Isaac had been named after his great-grandfather, and that he in turn had named me for mine. I had considered this and even discussed it with Hitomi; following the tradition would have me
ant calling the child Sam but, although we both quite liked the name, we believed that by calling him that we would be deliberately allying him to the western side of his personality. He was going to be born an American, of mixed-race parents, and it was unlikely that he would ever live in Japan – at least while he was a child. That being the case, we wanted to choose a name which had no definitive family history on either side. Hence Shane.
‘We’re going with Shane,’ I repeated, hoping he would let the matter drop and he did then, even though I could tell that he was annoyed with me.
‘Well I suppose you’ll be bringing him over on a visit,’ he said. ‘Let him see where his father grew up.’
‘Soon,’ I said. ‘We better wait a few months at least before bringing him on a plane. Why don’t you come here in the meantime?’ I suggested, knowing that he would greet this idea without any seriousness.
‘No thanks,’ he said, proving me right. ‘I’m too old to go travelling around the world. Do you want to kill me or what?’ I gave a small laugh, which seemed required, but was disturbed by his voice as he spoke. It seemed weaker and more subdued than I remembered it. Whenever I thought of visiting now, I felt slightly nervous that I would find my father a shadow of his former self. My guilt at leaving him alone in London continued although I did nothing to salve it. I was aware that he had few years left in him but had put the thought out of my mind for the most part.
‘Have you been to see your great-grandfather recently?’ he asked me after a pause and I shook my head, despite the fact that he couldn’t actually see me.
‘Not recently,’ I said. He was of course referring to Lookout Mountain, where Buffalo Bill was buried and where I had been only once in my time in Denver. ‘Maybe soon.’
‘You should go and tell him the news,’ he said and I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.
‘You realise he’s dead of course,’ I said, attempting to be humorous but, as ever, he took me up the wrong way.
‘Don’t get smart with me, boy. Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean you can’t treat him with a little respect, all right? You go to his grave and tell him about his great-great-grandson. That’s the least you can do. It’s important to keep the link between the generations.’
I was tired and didn’t want to argue so agreed to do so. ‘All right, Isaac,’ I agreed, even though I knew the chances of me returning to Lookout Mountain at any point in the near future were slim. ‘I’ll go there soon. You want me to send you some photos?’
‘No,’ he said bluntly. ‘You don’t take photos of graves. That’s disrespectful too.’
‘I meant of Shane,’ I said irritably. ‘Do you want me to send you some photos of your grandson?’
‘Oh,’ he replied, a little chastened. ‘Yes, that would be good. Do that. And tell Hitomi I said hello.’ I nodded. Typical Isaac; don’t send your love, just send a greeting.
‘I’ll speak to you soon,’ I said. ‘Take care of yourself.’
He laughed, as if the idea was outrageous, and without another word hung up the phone.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, here’s the crux of it: it is the business of storytelling which always lay at the heart of my relationship with my father. He was always less concerned with building a bond between us than he was with finding a common ground whereby our dialogue might continue. His subject matter was his grandfather and that has been my subject too as I have recounted our relationship and my own story. I spent a large portion of my adult life so far away from my home because I felt there was nothing left for me there; I discovered a new home in Hitomi and, subsequently, in my son. However, just as Bill wrote stories and plays about himself and created his own self-perpetuating myth, and just as Isaac carried those stories down and urged me to write about them, so the lines between what happened and what we wanted to happen blur and even I don’t know where the truth ends and the fictions begin. But all stories must have a climax; in Isaac’s stories of Buffalo Bill, that came with the sexual encounter between my great-grandfather and great-grandmother, Ellen Rose. In Isaac’s own story, it’s probably the moment of my birth and his abandonment by my mother, when he took over my teaching and training and moulded me in a certain image. And for me, it came in 1999, when, at the age of twenty-nine, my first life ended and I was forced to begin a new one.
It was a warm Saturday evening and Shane, who was then five months old, was unsettled. He was teething and his temper was getting the better of him. I’d been out for most of the afternoon, editing an article at the newspaper office, and when I got back home, Hitomi was looking a little stressed from her day. ‘He hasn’t stopped crying,’ she said, dragging the back of her hand against her forehead, which was perspiring slightly. ‘He went to sleep for a couple of hours in the afternoon but other than that, he’s just been at it all day.’
I picked up the baby and held him aloft, peering into his bright blue eyes for a moment and stuck my tongue out at him. Pleased to see me back again and surprised by my sudden gesture, he stopped crying and stared at me as if I was mad. I bared my teeth at him now and growled and he cried again but when I held him close to my chest, so that he could feel my heart beating against his cheek, he quietened down and sucked on his thumb happily. I grinned at Hitomi but instantly saw that she was not in the mood for parental one-upmanship. ‘It’s just his teeth,’ I said. ‘He’s bound to be like this.’
‘We’re out of the gel,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I finished it earlier. I better go out and get him some more.’ The gel she was referring to was the foul-smelling mucus which we rubbed on his gums to alleviate some of the pain of teething. It was ice cold and usually did the trick but he seemed to be going through tubes of it at a ridiculous rate. I was beginning to worry that he was addicted to the stuff.
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’ll get it. You stay in and relax.’
‘No, William, I need a break,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I need some peace.’
‘Why don’t I go for the gel and take him for a walk with me,’ I suggested. ‘It’s pretty cool out so he’ll be fine. The air might even send him off to sleep in the meantime. I’ll put him in his pram, walk to the drugstore, and take the long way back. It’ll take us about an hour. You can have a nap or a bath or whatever.’
Hitomi sighed and pressed her hand back against her shoulder. ‘Would you?’ she asked plaintively, and she was almost crying with happiness at the prospect of an hour’s peace and quiet which she could devote entirely to herself.
‘Of course,’ I said, laughing. ‘Look at him anyway. He’s happy right now. I’m clearly his favourite parent, by far. You run a bath. I’ll stay out for as long as possible.’
‘Stay out all night,’ she said with a smile. ‘Don’t come back till the morning if you don’t want to. Maybe the pair of you could hit a strip club or something. Favourite parent indeed!’
‘He doesn’t like them,’ I replied, gathering up my keys. ‘Thinks they’re exploitative.’ Shane’s pram was sitting in the corner of the living room and I placed him inside it gingerly and put his dummy back in his mouth. The prospect of movement was keeping him quiet for now and he put up no objections when I strapped him in carefully. Walking up behind my wife, I placed my hands on her shoulders and kneaded them between my fingers, achieving just the level of pressure which I knew relaxed her and which might deliver her from the knots which lay beneath. ‘You want anything while I’m out?’ I asked her quietly, raising her hair at the back and kissing her gently.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, turning around and hugging me. ‘I might want something when you come back though.’
I smiled. ‘Take a bath then,’ I said. ‘You stink.’
‘Charming.’
‘I love you, you know that?’ The words were out of my mouth before I knew why; I did love her, of course, I just had no idea why I chose to tell her at that moment. She looked a little surprised but pleased by my spontaneity.
‘What’s not to love?’ she said, her fi
nal words to me, and I gave her a wink and wheeled Shane out of the apartment.
The wild west show stayed in London after Queen Victoria’s jubilee celebration for another six weeks and then travelled around Britain playing in Manchester, Liverpool, Cardiff and Edinburgh. Crowds gathered along Princes Street when Buffalo Bill arrived and paraded through the city with Annie Oakley and the other members of his troupe. A reception was held for him afterwards in Edinburgh Castle where he was toasted by the Prince of Wales once again. As they travelled the country, the format began to change. Buffalo Bill’s previous trips around the world had convinced him that there was more to his entertainments than simply the western aspect, although that continued to dominate the show. Now, however, he introduced performers from Russia and Mexico, Europe and the Far East, each dressed in their native costumes, each demonstrating to the audience their own particular skills and fighting abilities. Many of these talents were invented by Bill himself and not all of the foreign performers were actually of the nationality they pretended to be. To demonstrate the new multinational aspect of the show, it was re-christened ‘The Congress of Rough Riders of the World’ and played to packed audiences. Bill himself was planning on one more week in London before returning to the States and set off for there alone after the festivities in Edinburgh had ended.
Ellen Rose had not seen much of my great-grandfather since their one-night liaison after the jubilee show. She had woken the next morning with a great feeling of joy, for she had fallen in love the night before and believed that that love was reciprocated; she was wrong. Unfortunately for her, ever since Bill’s separation from his wife Louisa, and probably for quite some time before that, he was accustomed to having relationships with the girls who followed his every move and had fallen in love with the myth he had created for himself along the way. He had worked hard to turn William Cody into Buffalo Bill and enjoyed the entertainments his self-created fantasy offered him. As he passed through London again, she made another attempt to see him, sending him a letter at his hotel and he arranged to meet her in the bar of the hotel later that evening.
