Entwined

by La Plante, Lynda

♦ ♦ ♦

  Ruda was backing up the ladder now. Roja turned inward, the circle getting closer, tighter around the ladder. From her perch, Ruda rocked the ladder dangerously.

  “Roja!…move move…RIGHT…RIGHT! SASHA!…SASHA DOWN!”

  This was the most dangerous part of the sequence. Ruda readied herself for her famous flying leap, the cats forming a tight group in front of her. Grimaldi and Rebecca moved closer to the bars.

  “Sasha DOWN.”

  Grimaldi looked at Rebecca. She was repeating Ruda’s commands word for word: “Sasha…Sasha…Sasha!”

  Grimaldi looked back to the ring. Sasha was acting up. “DOWN! Sasha. Down, down!” Rebecca said.

  Grimaldi grabbed her arm. “Shut up…shut up!” he hissed.

  Rebecca turned to him, seemingly unaware of who he was.

  “DOWN…DOWN!”

  Grimaldi sighed with relief as Ruda sprang forward and lay across the cats’ backs. After the cartwheel turn, Ruda jumped back onto her feet. She gave the command to spread out. The applause was deafening. Now the cats were running like a wild pack. Ruda bowed, and commanded the animals to form the chorus dance line.

  Sasha was acting up again. This time she refused to back up onto her hind legs. She swiped at Ruda, snarling and growling. Then she began to fight with the tiger next to her. Ruda crossed over to them.

  “SASHA, NO…Up, up, UP!”

  Rebecca was shaking, repeating over and over: “Sasha…Sasha…”

  Vernon became very tense. The cats refused several commands. Instigated by Sasha, fights were breaking out. Sophia, the female at the end, joined in. Sweat streamed off Ruda’s face.

  Ruda pushed, cajoled, shouted, and ordered. At one point she cuffed Sasha’s nose—hard. Sasha lashed out, but at last they were in line, behaving. They began to form the pyramid, then the rollover, as Ruda moved one of the pedestals into the center of the arena. It was a bright red pedestal with a gold fringe. As rehearsed, Roja broke from the row and nudged Ruda from behind. She turned round to face him, shaking her finger, then returned to setting up the next pedestal.

  Vernon’s eyes were glued on the waiting tigers. At Ruda’s command, they all sat back on their haunches, paws waving in the air. Ruda looked as if she were gesturing to each one to keep in the sitting-up position. She moved in and out of their territory, giving small hand signals for one or another to try to get off their pedestal. They swiped at the air with their paws, as if refusing. Ruda put her hands on her hips in mock frustration.

  Vernon got the radio message from Mike. “Mamon’s on his way down.”

  With her back to the tunnel, still pretending to admonish the tigers, Ruda got a large bottle of milk and fed Roja, then looked back as if pleading for him to sit on the pedestal. The children in the audience shrieked with laughter.

  A small spotlight moved to the entrance of the tunnel. Now Mamon crept out slowly, as if sneaking up behind Ruda. When she turned, she pretended not to see him, but actually gave him the command to move behind her, while still encouraging Roja to sit on the pedestal.

  Roja refused. Ruda pretended to get angry; the children, as expected, began to shout: “He’s behind you!”

  As trained, Mamon kept moving stealthily behind Ruda. Every time she turned she gave the command for a tiger to head back down the tunnel. Each time she turned back to her row of tigers, one was missing. Ruda made an elaborate show of counting tigers and looking puzzled. Roja feigned an attack and Ruda sidestepped him. The audience hushed as Roja made another run at Ruda. This time she crouched down and he jumped over her head and ran into the tunnel. Ruda took out a bright red handkerchief and wiped her forehead. When she turned back, she stared in astonishment—all the pedestals were empty! All the tigers had gone down the tunnel!

  Vernon whispered into his microphone. “All clear…all clear. Bolt on, wait for Roja, over. Okay, he’s clear, he’s out.”

  The children screamed once more. “He’s behind you!”

  Mamon roared and the children fell silent. Ruda turned in mock fear to face the big lion. Vernon got the radio message. “All back. Trapdoor down.”

  Ruda was now left with Mamon, and it was as if that had been his intention all the time, to clear all the other cats away and be the star.

  Ruda issued Mamon the command. “Red!” and continued to look forward to the empty tunnel, pretending to be puzzled that the others had disappeared.

  Grimaldi tensed up, Vernon moved closer. Mamon was behind Ruda, but he was nowhere near where he should be, nowhere near the pedestal. His head hung low and he was moving stealthily forward.

  “Red…Ma’angel…Ma’angel…!”

  Grimaldi heard Rebecca gasp. She broke free of him and clung to the bars. Her face was rigid. “RED…RED…RED!!”

  The sawdust churned up behind Mamon as he made a fast U-turn, and at a terrifying gallop careened across the ring, flinging himself at the railings, toward Rebecca. He seemed crazed, swiping at the bars and snarling.

  The audience became silent. Ruda moved to the center of the ring. Only the ring was lit, not the barrier, so the audience could hardly see Grimaldi or Rebecca. But Rebecca fell back, terrified.

  Ruda kept the pedestal between herself and Mamon.

  ” YUPPPPPPPPPPPMAMON…UP UP… RED RED…MA’AANGELLLLLLLL!” He was too far across the ring to be forced back to the tunnel again. He began a crazed run around the barrier, teeth bared, his eyes crazy.

  “Red, GOOD BOY…Ma’angel…Red!”

  Rebecca was tugging at Grimaldi, saying over and over: “Red, red, red…”

  Vernon snapped an order for someone to get ready to let Ruda out of the trapdoor on that side. Mamon was going crazy.

  Torsen bit his knuckles, his face white. “He’s out of control. Look at him, he’s going for her!”

  Rieckert sat back in his seat. “Bloody hell…she must be mad! He’s going to attack her.”

  Mike sent one of the boys to stand by the trapdoor. Grimaldi signaled for him to get to his side. He pushed Rebecca forward.

  “Take her out, just get her out of the way. I’ll handle it, I’ll see to the trapdoor.”

  Rebecca called out to Ruda, but the orchestra was playing at full volume. Only the few rows close to Grimaldi could sense something was very wrong.

  Rebecca was dragged out, unable to tear her eyes from the ring. Grimaldi cocked the rifle. There was a gasp from the banks of seats close by.

  Helen gripped the baron’s hand. “Can you see him? He’s got a rifle, but I can’t see Rebecca. I think something is wrong…Do you think this could be part of the act?”

  Mike listened as Vernon repeated into the radio that Mamon was going crazy, and that Ruda couldn’t control him.

  “He’s acting up! No…no—hold the panic.”

  They faced each other. After Rebecca left, Mamon seemed to calm down. He still wavered, but Ruda moved in closer. Her whole body was covered in sweat. Adrenaline was pumping through each vein.

  “Come on…come on Ma’angel. Up red…red UP! MAMON!”

  She moved closer. His massive jaws were open and drool hung from his mouth as he tossed his head from side to side. There was silence now. The orchestra had just finished playing a segment of Wagner’s The Ring, the moment when Siegfried discovers his beloved.

  Ruda knelt on one knee and bowed her head. There was a gasp as Mamon sprang as if to attack her. Instead, he leaped over her head and landed perfectly on the pedestal. Slowly he lifted his front paws in the air. Ruda crossed to the pedestal and stood in front of him. Directly beneath him, she opened her arms to accept the applause, facing him.

  “Mamon…good, good. Gently now, good boy.” Ruda turned her back to Mamon, and he slowly lowered his front paws onto her shoulders. The spotlight shrank until it shone on Mamon’s head. She turned to look at him. She could smell his breath, she could hear his heart pumping. She was at his mercy.

  “Good boy…good, KISS!”
>
  Ruda stepped quickly away. On command he was off the pedestal and running for the tunnel. She was left alone to bow, and take the thundering applause. The audience gave her a standing ovation.

  “Ladies and gentlemen we now have an intermission…but hurry back to see the second half of the fearless, the extraordinarily daring Ruda Kellerman’s act. Meet Wanton, the panther. Meet more of Ruda Keller-man’s amazing family of wild beasts.”

  The lights came on as the ice cream girls streamed down the aisles. Many members of the audience remained in their seats dazed, unsure of what they had just seen.

  Ruda was panting and patting her face dry with a towel as she ran across toward her trailer to change for the second half of the act. Grimaldi was waiting. “Don’t take him into the second half, he’s crazy. He refused to obey you time and time again.”

  She turned on Grimaldi. “I can control him, I did. Now back off. I know what I’m doing.”

  Only then did she stop, look around. “Where is she? Luis, where is she?”

  Grimaldi snapped back that she was by the cages with Mike and Vernon. He continued to follow her: “She becomes as crazy as the bloody animals…Ruda—Ruda, will you listen to me!”

  Ruda was splashing through the mud toward the trailer. “I hear you, Luis. But please don’t ask me to listen to you! I saw the rifle, Luis! I don’t want you in or near the ring for the second half, hear me? You are pitiful, pitiful! So desperate to be part of the act you have to stand there like something out of a Wild West show!”

  She ran on. The sweat she had worked up in the ring now mingled with the cold rain, making her shiver. She entered the trailer, leaving the door open for Luis. “I’m cold. I’m cold! Run the shower.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Rebecca was not with Mike, as Grimaldi had believed, but on her way back to the trailer. She was about to open the door when she heard Ruda’s angry voice. She stood motionless as Grimaldi shouted. “Don’t order me about as though I were a dog!”

  “Then what are you? What possessed you to stand like a prick with that bloody rifle!”

  “Maybe I was worried about you—you hadn’t rehearsed, you were distracted because of this Rebecca business.”

  “She is my sister, my sister, Luis! You know what that means to me? Can you even contemplate what it means to have found her? She came to me, she came to me, Luis!”

  Grimaldi sat heavily on the bunk bed, wiping his hair with the towel Ruda had tossed aside. She was pulling off her boots as she talked. Outside, Rebecca was frozen, unable to move from the trailer steps, huddled in Vernon’s rain cape.

  “Help me with my boots.”

  He held the toe and heel and jerked hard.

  “She took a long time finding you. Why didn’t she turn up earlier?”

  The boot came away in his hand and Ruda fell back. She pushed her other foot out to him, and he began to pull off the boot. “She didn’t know I was alive.”

  “She tell you she looked for you?” he asked.

  Ruda pushed against him. “I looked for her, she looked for me. Yes, yes, yes! Oh come on, pull, Luis, I’ve got to change.”

  “There’s something wrong with her, Ruda. I tried to tell you earlier. There was a man, said he was her husband. He was with a woman, a doctor. They said she was sick. I think they meant crazy sick!” He pulled hard at the boot heel. The boot came away and Ruda fell backward again.

  “What did they tell you?”

  “Nothing much. I just felt it from the way they were so desperate to find her. They knew about you. They were looking for you. I said they’d best come to the trailer after the show.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “What else was I supposed to say? I knew she’d been here—Christ! They wanted to try and find you there and then. If it wasn’t for me they’d have been wandering around…”

  “You should have just minded your own business.”

  “You are my business.”

  “Since when?”

  Luis hesitated. “Since you killed Kellerman.”

  She stared at him and he sighed. “I know Ruda, so don’t deny it. I know you killed him.”

  Ruda unbuttoned her shirt. “Ah, I see. You are going to blackmail me, is that it?” She pulled her sweat-soaked shirt off. “Try it and I’ll get your bloody rifle and I’ll shoot your fucking head off…”

  Luis grabbed hold of her. “You know what I was prepared to do for you? That inspector—when I saw him arrive, you know what I wanted to do? Say it was me, say I killed Kellerman! I was going to do that for you Ruda, because—”

  Ruda let the shirt drop. “Oh God, what did you tell him, you fool!”

  “I told him nothing. They were just coming to see the show, they had free tickets. I said nothing.”

  She seemed almost amused. “You were really going to do that for me?”

  He pointed to the clock. “You got ten minutes. I’ll get the boys ready.”

  She unzipped her pants slowly, never taking her eyes off his face. “He took a long time to die. I never meant to kill him—but he threatened me and…there was this big green ashtray, very heavy. I kept on hitting him and his teeth fell out. I remember seeing his teeth on the carpet. He was always so proud of his white teeth, but they were as false, as fake, as he was.”

  She took a deep breath. “Oh God, Luis. He took such a long time to die.”

  Ruda kicked her pants off. The terrible jagged scars were shining with sweat. She looked up to him and held out her arms. He hugged her tightly.

  “Nobody will hurt you. I won’t let them.”

  She stroked his face. “So if they come for me, you’ll say you did it? You’d really do that for me?”

  Luis kissed her forehead. “Yes, yes, I’ll say it was me. Nobody will ever hurt you again, I promise.”

  She cupped his face in her hands and kissed his lips. Her eyes searched his eyes. She traced his lips with her fingers. “Be nice to her, Luis, she was always the weak one.”

  “Yes, I can tell.”

  She gave a strange smile. “Can you now? I underestimated you.”

  Luis tapped his wrist to indicate the time, and brought her the costume. He heard the shower being turned on, and eased the plastic cover from the white jacket, glad to be needed.

  Outside, Rebecca sat hunched on the steps. When she heard Ruda call out for her costume, she moved away, afraid to be seen. She lost her footing, falling in the thick mud. She tried to stand, but she had slid halfway beneath the trailer.

  The trailer door opened. She could see the polished boots, and hear Ruda telling Grimaldi to bring her to the ring.

  “And Luis…no gun! Promise me?”

  As Ruda hurried away, Rebecca could see Grimaldi’s feet. She crawled a few inches, calling out to him. The mud oozed beneath her. She could smell the wet earth, and she was lost. The dank stinking tunnel, the stench of the sewers, the scurrying rats. Two tiny girls forced to stay silent. They clung to each other. Above them they could hear the clank of steel-edged boot heels against the rim of the manhole cover. They were waist deep in filthy water. Rats swam around them. They heard the echoes of boots and screaming voices.

  The darkness began to swallow her. Rebecca’s heart beat rapidly as she tried to force the memories away. She tried to concentrate on getting herself out from beneath the trailer, but the fragmented memories overpowered her.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Ruda snapped at Vernon that she could handle Mamon, all they had to do was their job, and she would do hers. Vernon backed off and looked at Mike. They were radioed up to the main soundboard, ready to start the second half of the show. Ruda asked Mike, “Where is she?”

  Mike’s thoughts were on Mamon and for a moment he looked blank.

  “My sister. She was with you, wasn’t she?”

  Mike shook his head. “She went back to the trailer.”

  “Go and get someone to find her, she might have gotten lost
. Tell her to stand by Grimaldi.”

  Ruda was pacing up and down as the orchestra started the second-half intro. “Mike! I don’t want him with that bloody rifle. If he comes in with it, get it away from him. Don’t let him go in the ring with that goddamned thing.”

  Mike nodded. He didn’t even know where Grimaldi was, and he would not risk looking for him now. He signaled to one of the helpers to go and look for Grimaldi and Rebecca.

  Ruda edged closer to the entrance. She stamped her feet. She was wearing her second costume, a white jacket, black trousers, and black boots, with black leather gloves. The white shoulders of the jacket were padded since she would be working with Wanton. He was very unpredictable and could give a nasty scratch. She was in fact always more worried about Wanton, though he was only a quarter of the weight of Mamon. Panthers were more difficult to train by far.

  The release cages were lined up. Three male lions paced up and down, as eager to get into the ring as Ruda. Behind the lions came the lioness, behind them the tigers. The last two cages held Wanton and Mamon.

  “Ladies and gentlemen—Please take your seats for the second part of the show. Take your seats, please…”

  Ruda turned to the standby board. The red and green lights were not on. She looked back to the ring, and tilted her head from side to side. Her neck was tensing badly. “Come on, come on,” she murmured, her hands clenched at her sides.

  Mike received the radio signal that Grimaldi was in position on the far side of the ring. Alone.

  Vernon came to Ruda. He pressed his earpiece. “Bit of a delay with a big party on the left bank of seats.”

  “Shit! Any money it’ll be the bastards that haven’t paid to get in anyway.”

  Ruda shifted her weight from one foot to the other and sighed impatiently, then gave a fleeting look around for Rebecca and asked again if Mike had located her. Mike smiled, gave the thumbs up. Ruda nodded. “Make sure she’s okay, will you?” Again he nodded, and Ruda breathed in deeply.

  Ruda closed her eyes trying to concentrate on the act, but she couldn’t stop thinking of Rebecca. When she’d helped Rebecca change, she’d noticed her clothes, even her underwear, were of the finest quality. She had worn a big diamond ring. Ruda tapped her stick against her leg. Rebecca had four children, a rich husband. Her life must have been very different from her own. She wondered if Rebecca had tried to find her, tried as hard as she had…Ruda opened her eyes, forcing herself to concentrate. “Are the pedestals set up?” Ruda asked no one in particular. Vernon replied that they were. Ruda looked again to the lights. “What the hell’s going on! Come on, light up. Red, come on red…green, red, green!”