Orphans of the Carnival

by Carol Birch

  They toured the East Coast while he made arrangements. First London, he said. Then Paris, Berlin.

  He talked. Oh, how he talked. On a train rattling through the night, everything out there peculiar and dreamlike, the dark land. He’d been in the business since he was in the crib. His father and mother had run a house for those of the human curiosity class, the wondrous, the strange, the nondescript in every sense of the word. That’s what she was, he said. The singularity, the truly one and only. Cursed? Come on! You’re a bloody marvel! Blessed, more like. It had all gone, he said, everything he’d had. Father, mother, the house. Let me tell you this, Julia, what I haven’t seen doesn’t exist, believe me, been broke as it’s possible to be, down in a pit but got back up again, up now, nice and steady. Got a good nose, see. Read the market. Up and up and up, and now I am a wealthy man. I have ideas. I’ve been all over Europe. You’d love it, Julia. There’s so much, there’s just so much.

  “You’ll be a rich woman,” he said, “because I’ll be a rich man.”

  She began to wonder, as the cities and the miles and the time flew by, if this was what it was like to be married. Of course not. They never touched, apart from her hand on his arm, his cupping her elbow, touching her fingers as he helped her down from a coach. But there was coupledom in all those traveling hours, the daily life of the circuit jogging on, she and he the only constants. She could talk to him, tell him about it all, home, New Orleans, everything. At first it felt odd to travel alone with a man, but that soon passed. More and more he took on the role of lady’s maid, bringing hot water first thing, combing her hair out after a show, the touch of his hand on the back of her neck sharp and startling. His quick triple rap on her door was familiar. The more he did, the more he kept the others away. She missed those old days of company, Myrtle and Delia, Cato, the dancing in the yard, the breakfasts. When she was not onstage or practicing, she read books and played her guitar. Rooms. Rooms that looked out on streets and streets and yet other streets, sometimes an alleyway or wall, or rooftops reflecting morning sun that crept through thin curtains onto her eyelids, waking her early. But it wouldn’t be for long. In Europe, the circuses were bigger and grander, he said. There the great circus performers were feted, adored. The ball in Baltimore, he said, was nothing compared to the glittering evenings that awaited. And anyway, wasn’t life good? He had money. She had new clothes, new boots—she hadn’t worn her red ones since they’d got her into trouble—new kid gloves, new white petticoats, a collection of veils in different colors to match her several outfits, and when he came back from wherever he went when he was gone, he liked to talk, on and on, rambling along in the most intimate way, almost as if he were talking to himself, so that even though she hardly saw a soul apart from him it didn’t seem to matter so much.

  “You put the same things in the booklet,” she said, “I took a look, and some of those things are still there, all that about the Diggers eating out of a trough.”

  “Ah, yes,” he said, raising his thin black eyebrows, “but the whole thrust is different. It’s a matter of emphasis. Look, I make it quite clear how vastly superior you are to the Digger Indians. And of course I deliberately leave a question mark over your origins.”

  “But that whole story…” she said.

  “See here.” He pulled a crumpled copy of the booklet out of his pocket. “Listen to how I phrase it. I deliberately say— Where is it? Oh, here— Yes— ‘It is generally credited.’ Take note of that. ‘Generally credited.’ That says nothing about truth.” He looked at her and smiled. “What is truth, after all? We make our own.”

  “Do we?”

  “And see here.” He flicked over a page. “I’ve been extremely careful with the language. Here. ‘The statement that is generally credited concerning her is as follows.’ That’s the way I put it.”

  “And the baboons,” she said, “and the bears.”

  “Julia,” he said, dropping the booklet, leaning forward and taking her hands in both of his, a gesture that both moved and scared her, for no one had ever done it before. “This is a throwaway. This is not the truth. Nobody wants the truth. What they want is a story. A good one. You could be anything. Your ‘loup-garou.’ Your demon baby. That is a piece of paper. Pah! This is you! This!” He turned her hands over in his, staring fiercely down into her palms as if in wonder. “God!” he whispered, then let go of her hands and drew back. “Never forget,” he said, “that words on a piece of paper are nothing more than paper. They have nothing to do with your own self.”

  They sailed from New York on a mail ship to Liverpool. She walked covered through the raucous crowds of sailors and nervy passengers in knots and scatters, seeing little of the teeming wharf but aware of incessant noise and a hectic press of bodies. Theo held her tightly by the hand, keeping her close to him as if she were a child, up the gangway and onto the great ship. It was top-notch, he said, the only way to cross. “Look at that, the size of those wheels! Safe as houses. And I got you the best, Julia. The best I could.”

  Her cabin was small but comfortable. For most of the eleven-day voyage she stayed in it, taking her meals in there alone. It was just easier. “All that gawking,” Theo said. “Don’t you get sick of it all? Gawk, gawk, gawk.” It was hard to be on board ship, to hear the waves and smell the sea and not have freedom of the decks.

  He’d knock on the door. “Julia,” he’d say, “I brought you some wine.”

  “Oh, thank you, Theo,” she’d say, and with a wink he’d set it down on the tiny table in her tiny cabin, and off he’d go. Other times, he’d cram himself in, sit down with his hands behind his head and laugh, tell her about the lovely dining room and make fun of the other passengers to keep her amused. When the sun was beginning to fade, he’d come for her, and she’d put on her veil and gloves, and they’d go for a walk about the deck. If the sea was calm it was heavenly, a lovely time of day. The moon would come up and make the water oily black, and the stars would remind her of home. There was fog off the Grand Banks, and a few rough days toward the end, but mostly the weather was fine. She enjoyed the rough times, in any case. She never got sick. Theo did. One particularly bad day when the sea threw up walls of water and heaved them creaking in and out of great troughs and valleys, she went up on deck and walked about holding onto things. It was wonderful. They’d told the passengers to stay below and everyone was hunkered down calling for sick bowls, but she went up in her veil, folding it back from her face when she saw the emptiness of the deck, letting the wind whip tears backward from her eyes. The weather scoured her face. She was an ant on a bobbing cork. If she let go, the sky would whip her away like a bit of old paper. She walked about for ten minutes before dropping the veil once more and going down to see how Theo was.

  “Do you need more water?” she asked, putting her head ’round the door.

  Theo was lying on his side with a white face and his hair greasing up the pillow.

  “No, thank you,” he said weakly. He’d not been sick for the past two hours but the faint smell of vomit lingered.

  “They’re saying it’ll be better tomorrow,” she said.

  “Uh.” His closed eyelids flickered.

  “That pillow needs turning,” she said. “Move your head.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “No, move your head.”

  “Julia,” he said, “I’m trying not to move my head.”

  “Won’t take a second. Here. Let’s slip this under, there. Better?”

  Just like the old days, nursing Solana. He turned onto his back and frowned, swallowing loudly, his throat convulsing, opened his eyes and looked at her, focusing slowly like a child waking up. She had an urge to stroke his high white forehead, could have done so easily, just wiping the sweat away, but she fought it down.

  “I’ve been up on deck,” she said quickly.

  “In this? Are you mad?”

  “It’s lovely. There’s no one up there. I can walk about without my veil.”

 
“Do be careful, Julia.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. You don’t need to tell me.”

  “Sit down for a minute,” he said. “I’m bored stiff.”

  “Someone recognized me by my boots once,” she said, sitting down on the end of the bed.

  “There you are.” He swiped sweat from his forehead. “You can’t be too careful.”

  “It was horrible.” She looked away, suddenly awkward to be this close with him, all sick and tousled as he was in his pajamas.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “They threw stones at me. Children.”

  He waited a moment, and it seemed to her that the air between them charged like a battery. “Go on,” he said.

  “Beach came and chased them all away.” She looked at him and smiled, dispelling the charge. “Have you ever been really scared?”

  He thought.

  “I mean really scared, like you were going to die or something was going to hurt very badly?”

  He thought some more, then said, “I don’t think I have. Not like that.”

  “I was scared then. One boy had a knife and he kept coming really close with it. And I got this scar. From a stone. Look.” She leaned a little forward and parted some of the hair on her cheek.

  “My God, I never noticed that,” he said.

  “Oh, you wouldn’t. It’s a small thing, but at the time…”

  “Children are cruel,” he said. “Here’s what you do.” He raised himself up a little and put his hands behind his head. “You step outside yourself. Don’t react.” He put on his half smile of nonconcern. “They don’t exist.”

  “A stone exists when it hits you in the face,” she said.

  “Well, you could probably debate that with a philosopher.”

  “Don’t think I’ll bother.”

  He smiled.

  “Why?” she asked. “When have you had to do that?”

  “Do what, chick?”

  She softened at the ease of his tone.

  “Pretend you didn’t care.”

  “Oh.” He sniggered. “Everyone has to do it sometimes.”

  “Hm!” she said, looking away, slightly annoyed, he thought, for some reason. So he went on talking. “You know, you don’t own the monopoly, Julia. I had to stay at my uncle’s up in Westchester County. My cousins were pigs.”

  “What did they do?” She looked back, interested.

  “What they…it wasn’t so much what they did as…”

  He was beginning to look bilious again.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” he said, “but I think I’ll sleep some more.”

  She left him to rest, closing the door quietly and going back to her cabin, where she lay down on her own bunk and thought about him for a long time, feeling sorry for the poor boy in Westchester County with his horrible cousins, and wondering what it was they’d done to him.

  She tried to go on deck again next day but too many of the crew were about, and then it was too late because the sea calmed down, the screaming wind died away to a mumble, and the weather turned to a gray drizzle that accompanied them all the way to Liverpool, where they disembarked in a solid downpour.

  The docks went on forever, huge piers and basins, massive buildings lining the river. The sky above them was bunched and black, and rain put a gleam and a polish on the stones of the quay. They got a bus straight to the station, through rough old streets, narrow and crowded. Packs of hungry-looking boys roamed and the cobbles shone. At the station the waiting rooms were full. On the platforms the people pushed so close to the edge with their suitcases and trunks it was a wonder they didn’t spill over onto the line. They waited two hours for the London train. Babies screamed, one striking up as another subsided. She thought she’d die of weariness. Theo made her a place to sit, next to a wall and shielded from view by a tower of trunks, but she became hot and started sweating under the veil. Her hands itched and she longed to take off her gloves and give them a good scratch.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, “you can have a sleep on the train.”

  They were traveling first class; they’d be in London by nightfall.

  “So soon?” she said.

  “This is a small country, Julia.” He sat down on an upturned suitcase and smiled. “You’ll get used to it.”

  And after the vast American distances she’d covered, after the Atlantic Ocean, England was indeed tiny. It took them only seven hours to get to London. They reached the hotel in Covent Garden just before eight. It was a beautiful place, Julia thought, much nicer than any she’d stayed in before. The window boxes on the front were full of red geraniums, and there were flowers in the lobby and more in her room, a huge spray of tall spearlike plants in all shades of pink and purple that gave off a heavy, heady scent. The proprietress was a short, round affable woman with carrot-red hair and thin black crescent eyebrows who greeted them personally, introducing herself as Mrs. Dellow, and showed them to their rooms. The staff had been well prepared, she said. The garden at the back was for the use of guests (ha ha, if we ever get a fine day!), though I would suggest that the lady wears her veil if any of our other patrons happen to be there. Oh, of course. Shall you unveil now, madame? Or would you rather wait? It’s all the same.

  She unveiled.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Dellow. “There you are.”

  Well warned. Julia smiled.

  They ate privately in a room downstairs, served by a young waiter who stole discreet glances at Julia as he set down the dishes. The food was bland and needed salt. She had not managed to sleep on the train after all. Things were bigger than they should be, brighter, because she was so tired.

  “I’m not sure whether I’m awake or asleep,” she said, pushing her plate aside.

  Theo smiled, lighting a cigar. “Then you must go to your room and sleep,” he said. “And I have someone to meet.”

  “Aren’t you tired?”

  “Never,” he said.

  It was about the German tour, he said. He saw her to her room, touched her fingers briefly and was gone. She changed into her white nightie. So tired, yet where was sleep? Two comfy chairs were set in the alcove, and in the large bay window overlooking the square was a table, where she placed her books. An hour later she was still looking out of the window, wide awake, Yatzi lying across her knees. London, said her muddled head. The strange square with its moonlit railings, the black outline of the buildings on the other side of the square sharp against the deep blue skyline. I have crossed the sea. With a man. With dark eyes, and hair with a big wave in it licking backward from his brow.

  Morning brought sunshine and a clean wet smell from the leaves outside the window. A pigeon crooned on the sill. Julia had managed a few hours’ sleep but was wide awake again by six, sitting in her nightie on a cane-backed chair watching sunlight through gauzy white curtains, lost in thought. In two days they opened on Regent Street. Her best show dress was hanging on the screen, white, frilly, ribboned. Once, in Cincinnati she thought it might have been, she’d seen a boy and girl perform a sweet pas de deux outside the big tent, so beautiful, their pink costumes fluttering in a growing wet breeze. Neither could have been more than fifteen. The dance she was perfecting now was growing ever more balletic. That’s what she wanted—something to give her that feeling she got when she saw those two lovely butterflies dance. The dress was too bulky. Pretty though, a light sea foam froth about the hem. These days the clothes she wore were so much more beautiful than those she’d made and altered for Marta. Remember her? Running in and out every half an hour or less and putting on a new dress, each with its own particular pair of shoes and stockings, its own particular necklace or mantilla. If she could see me now. She’d have been married to young what’s his name three or four years now. And the boys? They were becoming dim, receding into the strange fog of memory. Poor Marta. Poor young what’s his name. Poor boys. They’re not seeing the world.

  And look at me.

  Her back was to the door
, so she didn’t notice when the maid opened it and came silently in with a fresh towel over one arm. Their eyes met in the mirror and the girl screamed, a horrible high, curdling sound. The pigeon launched itself from the windowsill with a loud batting of wings. Julia screamed too, jumping up, heart hammering. It was too sudden, the scream nightmarish. The girl had a long white face, oblong, big-chinned. With her staring eyes and weirdly gaping mouth, she seemed like a vision from a fever.

  And then because Julia screamed, the girl screamed more, and they both stood with their hands up by their faces, frozen, screeching at each other like demons.

  People came running.

  “For heaven’s sake, girl, there’s no need for that!” Mrs. Dellow came strutting in like a hen. “Pull yourself together!” she hissed, then turning to Julia with a look of practiced concern, said, “Miss Pastrana, I do apologize, Marjorie’s been away, she didn’t know.”

  Theo’s worried face appeared behind Mrs. Dellow’s shoulder. “Are you all right, Julia?”

  “Yes, yes, I’m perfectly all right,” she said too quickly, but her heart was pounding in a sickly way. “I’m sorry, I was just startled.”

  “Of course you were.” Mrs. Dellow gave Marjorie a little push on the arm. “Screaming like that, you stupid girl!”

  The girl shook and stuffed a handkerchief into her mouth. “I’m so sorry, ma’am!” Fat tears welled in her eyes. Poor girl was mortified.

  “It’s all right,” said Julia.

  “I’ve been off sick, ma’am,” the girl said, stealing a look, “I didn’t know…nobody told me…I thought the room was empty. I’m so sorry.”

  “Please,” Julia said, “it really doesn’t matter.”

  “It would be a good idea to lock the door, I think,” said Theo.

  “Not at all, Mr. Lent.” Mrs. Dellow shooed the girl from the room. “Why on earth should she? Marjorie. Did you go in without knocking?”

  “I thought it was empty, ma’am.”