Ascension

by Steven Galloway

  He was worried for András and Etel and Margit as well. He did not know if they had been caught too; for all he knew, they could be in the room next to him. He tapped on the wall, hoping that someone might tap back, but no one did. Without warning, the door opened. Even though the light in the hallway was anything but bright, Salvo squinted his eyes at its intrusion. He got to his feet, and when a rough voice commanded him to step out of the cell he did. A pair of guards escorted him up a narrow staircase and into a large open room. He was thrust roughly into a chair in the centre of the room, and his guards retreated to the doorway. Salvo scanned his environs, looking for a way to escape, seeing none.

  A man in a black uniform strode into the room, his boots echoing sharply on the stone floor. He sat at a desk opposite Salvo and for a long time he said nothing, shifting papers on his desk in what Salvo assumed was an attempt to make him nervous. It was successful.

  “I assume you know why you are here,” the man said.

  “No,” Salvo said.

  “You are an intimate of Tomas Skosa?”

  “Yes.”

  The man nodded. “How long have you been an associate of Mr. Skosa?”

  “Since 1928. He taught me to walk the wire.”

  The man looked at Salvo for a long minute, a frightening, assessing look. “I have seen your act. It is very good.”

  “Thank you,” Salvo said, taken aback.

  “Tell me, are you afraid when you are up on that wire?”

  “No,” Salvo said. “Only when I am on the ground.”

  The man gave him another long look, then wrote something on the papers on his desk. “You should be more careful about who you choose to associate with, Mr. Ursari. Tomas Skosa was not a man to be trusted.”

  Salvo nodded. He knew this as well as anyone, but he was unsure why the Gestapo would have any feelings either way about Tomas. The man’s use of the past tense when referring to Tomas made his mouth go dry.

  “You may go,” the man said. “I do not believe you are involved in this matter. Be aware that you are being watched. I have made an exception in your case. I would not like to regret it.” The man raised an eyebrow, watching to gauge Salvo’s response.

  “Thank you, sir. I am involved in nothing.”

  The man motioned for the guards, who came and removed Salvo from the room. He was taken back to his hotel in a similar car. When he got to the room the blood was gone from the wall, and there were three dollops of fresh plaster at chest height. Their belongings were still scattered across the floor, and he cleaned these up, wondering what had become of the rest of the troupe.

  Soon the door opened and András entered hesitantly, Etel and Margit behind him. “They let you go?” he asked.

  Salvo nodded. “Yes. You were taken too?” He looked past them into the hallway, afraid they were not alone.

  “No,” said András. “Margit saw the black cars parked outside the hotel and we kept walking. We watched them take you from across the street.”

  “Tomas is dead,” Salvo said. He was surprised to hear his voice crack with sorrow.

  Margit stood, looking Salvo straight in the face. “He was a spy, Salvo.” Her voice betrayed no sadness.

  Salvo knew then how fortunate he was to be alive.

  “Did you get our pay?” Etel asked. Without it they would be stuck in Berlin.

  Salvo checked his pockets, fearing the money had been taken when he was searched. It was still there. He exhaled, relieved.

  Etel took the money from him and began to fill their suitcases. “Then we should probably get away from here.”

  “Who was he spying for?” Salvo asked, looking at Margit.

  She shrugged. “I think he was working for a lot of different people.”

  “We should go,” Etel said again. “They may be coming back.”

  “You knew about this?” Salvo asked Margit.

  “No. But I can see it now.” She looked Salvo straight in the face. Her look did not convince him she was telling the truth.

  “We should go,” Etel said once again.

  “Quiet!” yelled Salvo. “We will go soon enough.” He lowered his voice. “We are going to America.”

  András stood. “Fisher-Fielding?”

  “Yes.”

  “I will not go,” András said. He crossed his arms in front of him and paced between the window and the bed.

  “Yes you will. You said you would go before.”

  “I will not run away.”

  “We are not running away,” Salvo said. “It is time to go, and we are leaving for a better place.”

  András stopped, remembering where he had heard those words before. He did not like that Salvo had invoked the memory of their father at a time like this, but he was forced to concede to the necessity of the situation. “All right.”

  Etel said nothing, but Salvo knew she would go where András went.

  Salvo turned to Margit. She was the only one remaining who had not wanted to go. She sat on the edge of the bed.

  “I will go.” She looked cold.

  They left Germany the next night. Though Salvo feared they were being followed, they crossed the border into France without incident, and four days later they boarded a freighter bound for New York, their passage having been arranged by Cole Fisher-Fielding. As they left port, Salvo was finally able to relax for an instant, before he began to think about the possibilities that the Fisher-Fielding Extravaganza held, and his moment ended.

  FIVE

  Somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, Salvo lay on the metal decking of what he had come to consider hell. He’d just completed retching his insides into the sea and knew he’d probably have to do so again any moment. Etel sat beside him, quietly smoking, reasonably sure that no one had ever died of seasickness. The motion of the ship didn’t bother her, nor did it seem to bother András or Margit, who were asleep in their bunks. Salvo seemed to be the sickest person on the boat, so sick that most of the other passengers had trouble believing that he was the same Salvo Ursari that walked on a wire high above the ground.

  Etel knew who he was, though, because she recognized herself in him. She knew that Salvo did not know this, that he even thought she did not like him, which was not true. She held Salvo in awe, his ability on the wire worthy in her eyes of such reverence.

  Pushing her thick black hair out of her eyes with long, tobacco-stained fingers, she tossed the butt of her cigarette into the ocean and lit another. She inhaled, savouring the smoke as it entered her. Margit often complained that Etel reeked of smoke, even after she bathed, and she knew it was true, but she didn’t care. Etel loved smoke far more than she loved Margit.

  She exhaled sharply. Salvo seemed a little better. “What will the Fisher-Fielding Extravaganza be like?” she asked him.

  “I don’t know,” he mumbled weakly.

  “Will there be animals? And many other people?”

  “Probably.”

  Etel frowned. She did not think she would like such surroundings, and she knew that Salvo wouldn’t. “How do you feel?”

  Salvo didn’t answer her. She pushed a cup of water towards him, but he made no move to drink it. She picked it up and drank some herself, then pushed it back to him. He managed a feeble sip.

  It felt strange to Etel to be going to America. Though she had moved from place to place her whole life, somehow having something as large as the ocean between where she was and where she was going made this different. And though no one had ever said as much, Etel knew they would not be returning.

  “Do you know what today is?” Etel asked.

  “No.”

  “It is my nineteenth birthday.”

  “Congratulations,” Salvo said. Then his stomach contracted and he spilled a little more of himself into the ocean. Etel shook her head, silently willing the five days that must pass before they would reach land to go quickly.

  TRAVELLING ON A MUCH FASTER SHIP and without particular misery, Cole Fisher-Fielding reache
d New York a full week ahead of the Ursaris. He used this time to prepare for the upcoming tour.

  It was a circus born of the imagination of Cole Fisher-Fielding, and to a lesser extent, his brothers and sisters. They were not a circus family; their parents had looked down on such pageantry, even after the achievements of their children. The siblings who had chosen to make their living in other professions were shown an obvious favouritism; even those who managed to fail spectacularly at mundane aspirations were preferred over the circus children. Though far less successful than their siblings, they were in respectable professions, which mattered greatly to their parents, who held aristocratic ambitions. Following the deaths of the Fisher-Fielding parents, the families of the original seven founders rarely spoke to the families of the seven who spurned the big top. Instead of healing, the rifts grew wider.

  The Fisher-Fielding big top was the largest there was. It could seat ten thousand people in relative comfort, along with animals and performers, rising sixty feet in the air at its apex. The outer circumference was supported by numerous minor poles, each twenty feet high. Oval in shape, the big top was ringed by bleachers on the shorter sides and seat wagons on the longer lengths. These wagons consisted of twenty rows of seats ascending from the ground, higher at each consecutive row. The seats folded out from the wagons, requiring minimal set-up. Inside the wagons performers waited for their cues, and attendants kept a watchful eye out for people, mainly children, trying to sneak under the side walls of the tent. Down the centre of the big top ran a line of sixty-foot poles, each topped with a flag, forming the high point of the tent. Guy wires, ropes and sub-structures made up the rest of the skeleton of the big top. Over all this stretched the canvas, made by sail makers specifically for the F-F for a sum that few circuses could afford. It fit together in sections laced and unlaced at each venue by expert hands.

  Once the big top was up, the animal menagerie was erected and the seat wagons and bleachers were unfolded. The rigging for the various aerial acts was checked and rechecked. Outside, the midway began to be assembled, and preparations commenced for the “spec,” a free parade designed to entice people into the big top.

  By the time the Ursaris arrived in New York everything was set to go. The F-F was opening the season with an indoor show at Madison Square Garden, as it always did. Salvo couldn’t believe the scale of the F-F. It made the Wintergarten look like a tavern. There had to be at least a hundred clowns. Two trapeze acts. Wild lions, tigers, panthers. Elephants. Sword swallowers. Equestrian acts. Anything and everything the circus could dream up, the Fisher-Fielding Extravaganza had. It frightened Salvo beyond belief.

  Salvo had revamped the entire act for the North American audience. In the big top they were much higher than they had been before. They would use balancing poles whenever possible. Also, the tricks had to be more complex; it was harder to sell a wobble, because it was harder for people to see one. The biggest change was the use of bicycles. None of them liked using bicycles, but other high-wire walkers used them and audiences liked them, so they didn’t have much choice. Salvo resolved that if they were going to use bicycles, they would use them spectacularly. And they wouldn’t use a net.

  András was furious when Salvo told the rest of them that there would be no net. “Who are you to decide this for us?” he said, slamming his hand on the pole that supported their rigging.

  “It is better this way.” Salvo did not allow András to scare him. He knew he must win this argument.

  Etel looked at András, then at Salvo. She said nothing, knowing there would be no changing either of their minds. Both ways were the same to her.

  “Better for who?”

  “For all of us. If you have a net, your mind will know that you can fall. But you can still get killed if you fall. You bounce out, maybe a bicycle falls on you—anything can happen.”

  András shook his head. “A net can save you.”

  “No.” Salvo put his hand on András’s shoulder. “The only way is never to fall. A net makes falling more likely. So we will use no net.”

  Salvo turned and walked away. He didn’t look back. He wanted to, but even more he wanted to appear strong. He and András had had this discussion before, and Salvo wanted the issue settled once and for all.

  When his brother was gone András swore in Romany, uttering a phrase that Etel understood but Margit did not, though she could tell as well as Etel that he was upset.

  “He is wrong,” András said.

  Etel shrugged. “Maybe he is. Or maybe he isn’t. If we ever find out, it will be too late to do anything. He knows more about the wire than any of us, though.”

  “So you’re taking his side?”

  “No, I’m taking no side.” She pushed a coil of hair out of her face.

  “You can’t do that.”

  Etel looked András square in the eye. “Yes, I can.” She held his stare for several more seconds, then left. There was no talking to him when he was agitated.

  András watched her leave. There had been a time when she would have sided with him. He did not want to feel betrayed, but he did.

  Margit had moved and was standing next to him. “You are with Salvo on this?” he asked her.

  Margit smiled at him. “Take me for a walk,” she said.

  “But what do you think about the net?” András knew what she thought, but he wanted to hear her say it.

  “I think it is a nice night and I would like to see the stars.” She took his hand. “I think we spend far too much time talking about what we do on the wire.”

  András sighed. Maybe she was right. He was beginning to wonder if he cared that much about whether they used a net or not, or if he wasn’t more concerned with not losing an argument. “All right,” he said.

  As soon as they stepped outside they realized no stars would be visible from the depths of the city. Margit was disappointed.

  “This has happened before,” András said.

  “No stars?” She leaned closer to him.

  “Yes. There was a time once when a giant fish leapt out of the sea, high into the air, and this fish swallowed up all the stars. People everywhere were very unhappy, as they had grown to love the stars, and without them the sky seemed empty. They searched the world for someone who could catch the fish and put the stars back in the sky, until finally they found a Rom who was said to be the most clever man ever to live. This Rom missed the stars as much as anyone, so he agreed to help.

  “He went to a great king and begged him to loan him a diamond. This king was not a fool—one does not just give every Rom who comes to their door a diamond—but when he found out what it was for, he agreed.

  “So the Rom took the diamond and tied it to a line, and one night when the moon was right he cast it into the sky above the sea. Sure enough, the fish leapt up and swallowed the diamond. When the fish realized it was snared, it put up a fight that lasted the whole night and the next day and the next night. After three days the fish had no more fight left in him and he gave up the ghost.

  “The Rom sliced open his belly and the stars floated out, back to their proper places in the sky. The Rom told the king that his diamond had been lost in the struggle, but the king was so happy to have the stars back that he did not mind. The Rom gave the diamond to a beautiful girl, and she fell madly in love with him. From then on things have been as they are.”

  Margit laughed. “That’s a good story. Where did you hear it?”

  András’s shoulders lowered. “My father told it to me.”

  Margit stopped laughing. “Do you miss him?”

  “Yes.” András did not tell her that there were times when he had trouble seeing the faces of his parents in his mind.

  “And Salvo. Does he miss your father?”

  András nodded. “He does.”

  “He never speaks of him. He never speaks of anything that has happened to him.”

  András thought about this. “He was on his own. Etel and I were together, but he had no one. Th
at’s why he’s different.”

  “I’m glad you’re not like that.” Margit smiled again.

  I could get used to that smile, András thought. He took her hand and they continued walking. They had no destination in mind.

  WHEN SALVO INFORMED COLE FISHER-FIELDING of his decision not to use a net, his reaction was mixed. The pure circus enthusiast in him loved the idea. And he knew audiences would go for it. But the F-F was known as a safe circus; no one had ever died while performing in the Extravaganza. He expressed his safety concerns to deaf ears. In the end Cole relented.

  Their first night was a sell out, as most of the dates were that year. They would be in Madison Square Garden for another week, and then they would take the big top on the road, playing dates across the continent for the summer and early fall. The Ursaris followed the cat act, waiting nervously on the platform as the crowd marvelled at the animals’ surly obedience. Finally the cats were directed back to their cages, and the band played the Ursaris onto the wire.

  For the first trick, Salvo and András each rode a bicycle across the wire. Salvo handed off his bicycle and they crossed back on András’s bike, Salvo doing a handstand on the handlebars. Next, Etel and Margit made a crossing on foot, stopping in perfect synchronicity to lean forward and place their poles on the wire, simultaneously executing handstands. As they did this trick, Salvo and András each strapped on a harness that secured a six-foot pole between them. When Etel and Margit arrived at the platform, Etel boosted Margit onto the pole, where she balanced as Salvo and András crossed. Etel rode the bicycle back across the tightrope then, so that both bicycles were on the same platform. Next came their final trick, by far the best one.

  Without removing the harnesses, Salvo and András took to the bicycles, András in front, Salvo behind. Etel, an eight-foot balancing pole in her hands, stood on the pole between the bicycles. Margit stood behind her, without a balancing implement, holding on to Etel’s shoulders. On Salvo’s cue, the bicycles started forward. After they were in motion, Margit leapt up onto Etel’s back, her feet resting first on her hips, then under her arms, then on her shoulders. With what looked like minimal effort, she paused in a squat. Then, with no more hesitation than if her feet were firmly planted on the ground, she stood.