Ascension

by Steven Galloway

  Peering into the apartment, András saw that it was empty. There was no furniture and the walls were bare. “Salvo isn’t here now?”

  “No. He will darken our door no more.”

  “Where is he?” András stepped forward, insistent.

  Esa backed up, her hand ready to slam the door shut. “I don’t know. He is a wire walker, I heard.”

  “What has he done?” András could not believe that Salvo could have done something that would make his aunt hate him so much.

  “He has destroyed our lives. Because of him my husband must work two jobs, is working himself into a grave, and my son must live in agony because we cannot afford his medicine. Everything we had is gone.” Esa’s voice rose in volume and timbre, and she stood up straighter.

  “Maybe,” András said, surprising himself, “we can help.”

  “How could you help? Do you have money?” Esa took another step back.

  “No. But maybe I could find work. We’re family.”

  Esa’s eyes narrowed, her lips pursed. “I already told you. You are not my family.” And she shut the door.

  As the lock clicked, Etel stood, transfixed. She hadn’t heard a word Esa Nagy had said. All she could do was stare. That, she thought, is my mother’s sister. That is what my mother looked like. Hair, eyes, hands—these fragments were as much as she would ever see.

  She took András’s hand and followed him down the stairs and out onto the road. She did not see Esa watching them from the window as they retreated up Viola Street.

  “András,” she said, her voice a whisper, “is that what our mother looked like?”

  András paused. He looked down at her, tears in his eyes. “No. Our mother was a million times more beautiful. She was nothing like that woman.”

  Etel nodded, but she did not believe him. From then on, whenever she would think of her mother, she would see the face of Esa Nagy.

  Months and then a year passed. Tomas Skosa and Salvo and Margit travelled Europe, walking for the poor and the wealthy and criminals and royalty. Salvo saw no more butterflies. On the wire his mind was clear; he was peaceful and unafraid. He was at least as good a wire walker as Tomas Skosa, if not better. He was twenty-one years old, as tall as he would ever be, but not as filled out as he might have been if he’d been able to eat properly and regularly.

  They had been in Warsaw for a week, and would be moving on to Budapest the next day. Salvo had spent the morning exploring the city, returning to their hotel in the afternoon to rest before their evening performance.

  Entering their room, Salvo saw the floor was covered in blood. Tomas Skosa lay face down, arms splayed, naked below the waist. At first Salvo thought he was dead, until his leg moved slightly and a low moan gurgled from his lips. In the far corner of the room Margit crouched, her eyes fixed on Tomas, her hair a tangled mess. Beside her lay an iron kettle with a dent in one side.

  “What happened?” Salvo asked, rushing to kneel beside Tomas.

  Margit stayed where she was. “He will use me no more.”

  Tomas stirred slightly. He grunted, and his arms and legs retracted, coiling underneath him as he tried to stand. Salvo attempted to aid him, but Tomas brushed him aside. He managed after much effort to stagger to a chair and collapse onto it with his full weight. His hand gingerly touched his head, fingers locating a four-inch gash that was steadily leaking crimson down his cheek and onto his shirt. Salvo handed him a cloth, which he pressed to his wound.

  Slowly, Margit walked to where Tomas sat. She drew herself to her full height and stared down at him. “You will use me no more.”

  Tomas smirked. He pulled his hand back as if to strike her. Margit flinched, and Tomas lowered his hand. “I will do what I like,” he said, his voice a growl.

  “No,” Salvo said. “You won’t.”

  Tomas turned to Salvo. “What?”

  “You won’t touch her again, Tomas. Not a finger.” Salvo’s voice wavered, but he held his ground.

  Tomas tried to stand, but he was unable. He hit the floor hard, then vomited. He looked up at Salvo, blood running into his eyes, sweat on his brow. “Help me.”

  Salvo pulled him to his feet and shuffled him to the bed, where he gently lay him down. “I will get a doctor,” he said.

  “No. No doctor.” Tomas’s speech was slurred.

  “You are not in charge any more.” Salvo’s eyes were hard. He was not going to lose this battle.

  “Fine. It’s your act now. I don’t care. But no doctor. No doctor.” Tomas seized Salvo’s arm. His grip was strong.

  “All right,” Salvo said, and Tomas’s hand slackened as he lost consciousness.

  Margit moved to the edge of the bed. “Will he die?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Margit bit her lip. “I hope he dies.”

  Salvo stepped back. “I do not think you do.”

  “Yes I do,” she said, nodding her head. “And you shouldn’t think you know what other people wish for.”

  Not long after he took Etel to see their Aunt Esa, András got a job in a stable. He did not mind the work as much as he would have thought; the horses were easy to get along with, and some of the people who worked there were tolerable enough. András also discovered that he took to a set routine quickly; for a Rom, he knew, this was unusual. He had fought against such a notion from the time he was born until he left the Mór Roma. After that, necessity won out over any ideas of how things ought to be. Besides, the job paid enough to rent himself and Etel a warm room and put food in their stomachs.

  It was, however, physically demanding work, a seemingly never-ending amount of shovelling. As time went on, András grew to loathe the act of shovelling, and his job became harder. He could feel his mind growing numb. He began to long for a change.

  After one particularly tedious day, András waited to cross Andrássy Avenue, when his gaze drifted to a sign that was taped to a lamp-post. He could not read well, but he recognized his brother’s name, or at least he thought he did, and it was possible that the person who walked the wire in the poorly lithographed poster was Salvo. András seized the arm of the first person who passed.

  “Excuse me,” he said, seeing the man had taken his gesture as hostile. “Can you tell me what this says?”

  The man examined the poster. “There’s a wire act in Serpent Square tonight. Seven o’clock.”

  “And the name there?” András pointed at what he thought was Salvo’s name.

  “Salvo Ursari.”

  András was unable to speak. The man pulled his arm from András’s grasp and continued down the street, looking back and shaking his head. András stared at the poster. His brother was in Budapest. This could not be true. He must not allow himself to believe it.

  Realizing that it was already past six, András turned and sprinted the five blocks that separated him from Etel. He found her sitting on the front step of their building, smoking. He did not think she should be smoking. It was not a habit for women, let alone twelve-year-old girls. Normally he would have told her as much, but he decided not to say anything this time.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  Etel stood up, flicking her cigarette into the gutter. “Where are we going?”

  András paused, wondering if he should tell her. “There’s a show in Serpent Square.” It was better that she not know until András saw for certain whether the performer was Salvo or not. There was no point in building her up for a disappointment.

  They reached the square just as the walk was about to begin. A wire had been strung across the square, attached to a building at each end, about forty feet above the ground. A sizeable crowd had gathered, and Etel had to hold on tight to András’s shirt to keep from being separated from him as they pushed their way to a better vantage point.

  When the walk began, Etel did not look up right away. Instead, she studied the faces of the people who stood eyes skyward, the way their faces gained intensity and relaxed their hardness as they lost them
selves in the event. When she finally did look up at the wire, Etel was unable to stop a rush of air from escaping her, as though she had been hit in the stomach. On the wire she saw a ghost. A thinner, younger version of András, with the same unruly shock of coarse, uncombed hair. Etel remembered the story of the Rom who loved a ghost, and she was afraid, thinking that perhaps this spectre had come to claim her, that her time among the living, which she already considered to be illegitimate and stolen, was at an end. She wanted to run away, but found she couldn’t move.

  If Salvo was a ghost, he did not feel like one at that moment. He felt the opposite, utterly alive and mortal. He had done few outdoor walks of this type before, and Margit had done even fewer. In addition, this was the first large outdoor walk he had done since Margit had ended Tomas’s wire-walking days, and even though Salvo had never particularly relied on Tomas for support during a walk, he would have been glad on this day to have him on the wire instead of down below, where he was no doubt frowning with disapproval.

  Salvo tried to stop thinking as he made his way across the wire. Margit was a few paces behind him, and he knew that she looked to him for guidance. He must not show his reluctance, for her sake. The thought of others counting on him helped collect him. There was a power in responsibility that was new and exciting to Salvo. By the time he reached the middle of the wire he was in full control of himself, and he knew there would be no mistakes today.

  He turned to face Margit, and when she reached him he bent his knees, squatting on the wire, the palms of his hands level with his chest, facing the sky. Margit put her hands on his, and with a spryness she had never attained under Tomas’s tutelage, she sprang into the air, her feet arcing above her head. When she had her balance, Salvo raised himself from his crouch. He brought his hands together as Margit shifted her weight. Then she removed her left hand from his and held it at a right angle to her body. Below they heard the people in the crowd applaud. Salvo was happy to hear them; a two-high one-handed stand was one of the most difficult tricks he and Margit could do.

  To Etel, the impressiveness of the handstand served only to solidify her belief that Salvo was something other than human. But for András it had the opposite effect. Seeing his brother execute such a risky feat made him real. It took Salvo out of memory and placed him squarely back in the world. Slowly, as he watched Salvo lower his partner to the wire, András began to understand that Salvo, his brother, was indeed very much alive.

  András suddenly felt a wave of apprehension pass over him. He did not know what sort of man Salvo had become, and he didn’t know if he wanted to bring him out of the past. In memory, his brother was a slightly irritating but likable, almost noble, boy. András knew that he would not be able to bear having that image destroyed. He had lost too much of his family already.

  He remembered Etel and turned to her. He could tell that she knew who Salvo was, that he was their missing brother, and he lost his nerve. He did not catch any inkling of Etel’s true feelings, that she was afraid and would gladly have fled. If he had they would have been miles away by the time Salvo came down. Instead, they stood at the door of the building that had supported one end of the wire, waiting for Salvo to exit.

  As Salvo stepped through the door and onto the street, it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the light. He heard cheers as people recognized him, and he linked his hand in Margit’s and raised their arms in salute. For several minutes he shook hands with admirers and well-wishers, saying little but smiling and nodding graciously as warranted. Slowly he became aware that someone behind him was watching him; he could almost feel eyes boring into his back. He turned to see who was there.

  Salvo would later describe the sensation as similar to being suddenly immersed in ice water. He instantly recognized András. His mouth went dry, and his throat constricted.

  András forgot all his hesitations and fears, and stepped forward, embracing his brother. He wept freely and did not let go of Salvo until his tears began to abate. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” Salvo asked, finally able to speak.

  András half laughed, half began to cry again. “I don’t know.”

  Then Salvo saw Etel. He did not know who she was, but he knew somehow she was related. She could not have looked more like an Ursari.

  “This is our sister, Etel,” András said, seeing Salvo’s confusion.

  “But she is—”

  “No. Our father placed her in his tool trunk during the fire. She survived.”

  Salvo felt weak in the knees. “I didn’t know. I watched the house burn. I didn’t know you were in the trunk.”

  Etel said nothing. She was still not sure what to make of Salvo, though he seemed less and less like a ghost. She moved towards him ever so slightly. “I don’t remember it,” she said, her voice a whisper.

  András stepped between them. “Why did you leave so quickly?”

  “I was afraid. I went to burn the church. I found I couldn’t.” Salvo hung his head, ashamed.

  András locked his eyes on Salvo, waiting until he raised his head. “I could,” he said, his voice serious.

  Salvo nodded, understanding. “They would have been looking for you.”

  “They were. I think they have stopped now.”

  Etel listened as her brothers exchanged small details of their recent lives. Salvo seemed real enough. Maybe he actually was her brother. She smiled slightly at the thought that it could be true. But a voice inside her told her to be careful.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” she asked, pointing at the wire.

  Salvo put his hands in his pockets. “A man taught me.”

  Etel thought about this. If Salvo was not a ghost, if a person could actually do what she had seen him do, then she would like to do that. “Can you teach me to do that?”

  Salvo looked at András. “Yes, I can.”

  András shook his head. “We could not learn that.”

  “Of course you can. You are Ursari.”

  Etel smiled a wide smile. She had two brothers now.

  The two couples danced on the wire, the men with their backs to each other, the women opposite their partners, moving in perfect time. Below, the Viennese gentility marvelled at their grace. The music stopped, and the women retreated from the wire, as did the older-looking of the two men. The remaining wire walker—almost handsome, with green eyes that shone all the way to the ground—paused, patiently waiting for the audience’s full attention.

  He faced the end of the wire and from a standing position fell backwards, sending the crowd into a collective gasp. Before the gasp died he was on his feet again, having executed a seamless backwards somersault. A young woman with the same eyes walked out, handing him a chair. He placed the chair on the wire, the length of the wire running down the middle of the seat, the four legs dangling. As though gravity did not exist, the man’s own legs rose into the air, and his hands came to rest atop the back of the chair. His handstand was flawless, which impressed the crowd, but not as much as when he wobbled slightly, placing one hand perpendicular to his body for balance, deftly recovering. They did not know that he was never in danger of losing his balance, that this was done simply for effect.

  He returned his feet to the wire and, lifting the chair to his waist, was rejoined by the man and the other woman, by far the smaller of the two, blonde hair instead of black. She stood between the men. The chair was placed behind her, and as she sat it was hoisted to the men’s shoulders. The Viennese clapped, astounded. This stunt they hadn’t seen before. The woman was returned to the wire, and the wire walkers returned to the platform, where they bowed graciously. The next day the newspapers would run a story recounting this evening’s feats, and many would wish they had not missed the show.

  Tomas Skosa was at the performance, but he did not perform. He hadn’t in the two years since Salvo had effectively taken control of the troupe. His connections with booking agents and intimate knowledge of the cities of Europe w
ere valuable, though, maybe more valuable than his skills on the wire. He was not a young man any more; he doubted whether he could have walked the wire, even if he wanted to. As he watched the others perform, he was coming off a very bad day—not the worst he had gone through since Margit had attacked him with the kettle, but definitely on the negative side of things. That morning he had been unable to pull back the blankets on his bed or tie his own shoes, even the simplest tasks of coordination presenting difficulty. He felt better as the day went on, but not so much that he wasn’t presently having trouble lighting his cigarette. He dropped his lighter and smiled as the woman sitting next to him retrieved it and ignited his cigarette for him. He leaned the tip of his cigarette in and inhaled, relieved. “Thanks,” he mumbled self-consciously, awkwardly taking back his lighter and fumbling it into his pocket.

  The woman was pretty, and there was a time when he would have asked her out to dance. Tomas thought of the good time they would have had, how their bodies would have soared with music and movement. No more, he knew. On a day like this one his feet would be frozen, his arms jerking as if in a hanged man’s death spasms. When such days came along, he was forced to consider whether life was still worthwhile.

  He turned his attention to the wire. The boy Salvo, who was no longer a boy, had treated him far better than he would have expected, and, Tomas realized, far better than he had ever treated Salvo. A part of him hated Salvo for his kindness. If he were not obliged by circumstance he might have left. But what kept him there more than anything was the simple fact that this Rom was without a doubt the best wire walker Tomas had ever seen. His brother and sister weren’t bad either, and even the girl Margit, once properly taught, had shown more skill than Tomas had thought her capable. But none of them was in the same class as Salvo.

  Whether Salvo had any idea of his talent, he never indicated. When he was on the wire he appeared as though he was oblivious to everything else, which, Tomas reflected, was exactly what he had taught him. His pride in the boy, a pride he kept secret, kept him with the troupe as much as the people he needed to contact in various cities or the many duties he had.