Orphans of the Carnival

by Carol Birch

  “But you don’t love me. Not really.”

  “Adam,” she said, “you’re making too much of this.”

  “Oh, yes, much too much.”

  He walked out. Didn’t slam the door, went down to his own place, didn’t slam that door either.

  Rose lay down on the red sofa and covered her face. He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone. The relief was wonderful and immediate. Oh, God! She sat up, got up, walked around crying. I never made a promise. No way I gave him any expectations. Why do they do this, why do they do this, why do they always do this? The world piled up against her like a freak tide about to break through. Why do they always want to change things? Smother. Stop your breath. This is who you are now. What I say. What I think you are. They change you and change you and change you, and then when you say, hang on a minute, perhaps this isn’t me, they come at you with that lost dog look and cry and hang their heads and it’s all your fault. Not just a little bit of it, all of it, always your fault.

  She stood looking out of the window. Bring on the rain, she thought. Then I can lie down and close my eyes and listen to it and forget everything else. But no, not today, no rain, only a thick gray sky like glue, lumpy like that stuff we had when we were little and pasted pictures in scrapbooks. Gloy. She wanted him back so she could say, hey, do you remember Gloy? It had a red top that always got gummed up? Looked like snotty frogspawn. He’d remember. In the days before they were together you could say a thing like that, and he’d say, Yeah, I remember. It had been nice then. OK, so the sex had to happen. Run its course. But why did people have to make such a big deal of it?

  She couldn’t bear another second of real life. She took Tattoo down from the mantelpiece. More of his stuffing was falling out. She lit candles all around the room, tall ones, stumps, white, blue, red, then turned the gas fire high, got the heavy eiderdown from off her bed next door and lay down under it on the sofa with Tattoo, needing that feeling, the stillness, the hiss of the fire, the colors in the dark inside her eyelids.

  A phone rang downstairs, shrill and peremptory. Attend to me! Now!

  No. Won’t. The world is not. Call up the deep woods. Walk in among the trees. In the heart of a letter on an illuminated manuscript made long ago, a mystical landscape, wildwood of hart and hound and hare and moon, where she could stay as long as she liked.

  Deeper. Deeper.

  She lay down there under a tree, fell asleep and dreamed she was in New York with Adam. She’d never been to New York in real life, but it was definitely New York. They were in a bar. They were whiling away the hours till it was time go to the airport to catch a plane back home. Next they were outside and it was raining and nighttime, still New York, lights and cars, wet sidewalks. They’d lost all their money and their passports, everything, and they were just walking along in the rain. It was lovely. It’s real, isn’t it? Not a dream, she thought. But then it all started to break up. There was a moment, one fraction of a second when she thought that if she looked sideways—right or left, it didn’t matter—she’d see a new place. Like Narnia or something.

  She’d been in this moment before, many times, and she always wanted to stay, turn her head and see that place. She never did though. Instead she woke up.

  Poland, Czechoslovakia. Christmas in Budapest, beautiful city in the snow, lights hung in the trees, the fire in their hotel room banked up high and all the bells suddenly gloriously pealing on Christmas morning. Then the year gone, and another progressing. She turned twenty-five. Warsaw, Krakow, Brest. East, farther and farther, wide plains and lakes and vast forests, and the sense of excitement welling up all over again every day, something new, something more; more world, more life. They traveled in stages through a long white winter, bought furs in Minsk, stopped once in a village, where she heard from below in the inn where they stayed the sound of someone playing a zither, and at night the sound of wolves howling very far away in the woods. Money flowed. Nothing was out of reach. She still liked to sew now and then, but these days she could hire the best seamstresses available and give them precise instructions. Low-cut, skirts short, silks, ribbons. Theo grew his hair and whiskers and looked very distinguished.

  “You will slay them in Moscow,” he said. “They can’t wait. How’s this for a name, Julia? Ilya Andreyevich Volkov. They all have three names. And they use them too.”

  Ilya Andreyevich Volkov was the theatrical agent to whose house they were going. Desperate he was, said Theo, desperate to host the marvelous ape woman. Everyone wants you, you know. He’s got a big house right in the middle of Moscow.

  “Theo, you’ve been everywhere,” she said.

  “Not quite.” He smiled, took her hand and pulled it under his arm. They were traveling by night in a coach, through snow, blue under a high moon. From the window she could see a tall peaky castle high on a hill. She found the snow enchanting. It was like stepping into a picture in a book, a landscape she was dreaming. And Theo could even speak a fair amount of Russian. He was in a good mood, excited by his return to the East. It must have been twelve years, he thought.

  “So again,” she said. “How do I say, ‘I’m very pleased to meet you?’ ”

  “I’ll write it all down for you.”

  March was bitter cold in Moscow, snow hard packed. A sledge pulled by two ill-matched black horses met them from the coach, and a tall big-boned young man came forward and introduced himself politely in French. His name was long and unpronounceable, instantly forgotten.

  “Ye gods, it’s cold,” Theo said. “Yes, this is our trunk, and this bag here is ours. How far?”

  “Not very far. Please, this way.” The boy was clumsy in his gestures. “We will be there in twenty minutes. Please sit here, madame.”

  Solicitously, smiling awkwardly, he spread a thick red blanket over Julia’s knees. Teeth chattering, nose turning red, Theo tucked it in. It was dark already, and starting to snow again. When she looked up it fell swirling black against the peculiar swollen sky.

  “It’s all right for you,” Theo said, “you’ve got a fur coat,” and laughed.

  The veil kept the wind from her face, her eyes were wide but all she saw from the fast-moving sledge were huddled hurrying figures in wide dark streets, high buildings with many windows and steps, and the round-shouldered back of the tall young man, the cap pulled well down over his ears and a collar pulled up over a gray muffler.

  “You know, Julia,” Theo said, “last time I was here it was spring. Lovely place. I don’t recognize a thing yet. Never mind, this surely can’t go on for too long.” He raised his voice. “When does the weather pick up around here?” But the boy didn’t hear.

  Julia felt him quivering next to her as if a string inside had been tightened to the limit and was straining not to snap. She took her gloved hands out of her muff and put them over his. He was wearing a pair of gloves she’d bought him for Christmas in Budapest. She’d veiled up and they’d gone to a market, and she’d made him go and stand somewhere else so he wouldn’t see what she was getting him. The woman had looked at the veil as if it were a face she was trying to fathom. He’d been wearing the gloves ever since, they were good and warm, and she chafed them as if it could make a difference. He laughed and his breath was white fog. “Twenty minutes,” he said. “Twenty minutes. I’m timing it.”

  It took twenty-three.

  Volkov was at the door to greet them, wearing a professional smile. “At last, at last!” he said, running down the steps, a handsome wizened little man with a look of premature age. “My good friend!” He clapped Theo on the shoulder. “Madame! We will speak English. Yes?”

  The house was a plush, overblown affair, full of gilt and fat pink satin. Volkov was rich.

  “Ilya Andreyevich Volkov,” said Theo smoothly, “it has been a very long journey.”

  “And you are tired. Tolya!” he shouted to the boy who’d driven them in and was now bringing in their luggage. “Show Mr. and Mrs. Lent to their rooms.”

  Theo hated th
at. Mr. and Mrs. Lent. Was there something in the way he said it? Behind the smile, the style, the smarm. They’re all the same, he thought. You can see the thoughts turning in their heads like cogs. They do it. What’s it like? And he’s not even seen her yet.

  “Shall I send up chocolate? Please, you must rest. And later, when you are rested…”

  Yes, later, the revealing.

  When the boy had left them alone, Julia lay down on the bed at once, scarcely taking time to look at the two large comfortable rooms they had been given. “I might sleep,” she said.

  Another revealing. One more. One more, one more, and one more and more and on through life.

  “I’m so tired.”

  “No rush,” said Theo. “Let them wait. My God, look at this.” He was fingering the curtains. “That’ll keep the cold out. You could wear that on the Steppe herding your goats or whatever it is they do. That must’ve cost.”

  He sat down, pulling off his collar.

  “I’m not going down,” she said.

  “Old money, you see. You can always tell old money from new. He doesn’t really need to do this, you know, all this show stuff, he does it because he’s got the bug. It gets people like that. Wait until he sees you.” He laughed shortly, a huffing of breath. “Bet he lies awake all night.”

  She didn’t go down that night. She went straight to bed. Someone knocked on the door, bringing hot chocolate. Theo carried it in to her and she drank it sitting up against the pillow, watching the snow drift past the window. There’s nowhere farther than this, she thought. The other side of the world. She closed her eyes. A dream of heat came, Mexico, drenching sun. Heat came through her palms from the cup she held. When she opened her eyes, she couldn’t focus for a moment, and thought the fire that crackled in the grate was the glowing in the brazier when Cayetano was getting ready to shoe a horse. But then she saw the snow sifting down, finer now like flour, and it was still snowing next morning when she woke, dressed carefully and went down to meet the household. There they stood in a line as if she were royalty or the new mistress, all perfectly prepared: Volkov, his ancient mother and the servants. The mother was a tiny shriveled thing with watery lips and pale sore-looking eyes, very bent over, leaning on a stick on one side and the arm of a stout maid on the other. There was a housekeeper, a cook, a couple of girls, and Tolya, the tall young man from the night before. Theo, in personable professional mode, did the introduction. Well-trained, he thought. Not one of them showed a flicker. You’d think they met women who looked like apes every day. He got an urge to laugh. She didn’t open for another two weeks. Till then she was under wraps, with only this lot and the Salomansky musicians getting a look. Oh, yes, they may look as cool as cucumbers, but look, they’re overjoyed, they’re wild, already they’re thinking in their minds what they’ll say, even though they’ve been sworn to secrecy. You should see her! It’s unbelievable! Just you wait.

  She’ll slay them.

  The sledge, driven by Tolya, carried them most days between the house and the rehearsal room at the Circus Salomansky. Tucked in with her furs in a shawl that covered her nose and mouth, she was no different from all the other muffled forms carefully picking their ways along the freezing pavements. Theo, in new checked trousers and with perfume in his lengthening side whiskers, wore a habitual smile by her side. She was practicing new steps, a Russian dance with two handsome booted male dancers who flattered her shamelessly. Now you are happy, he thought, watching her count time with the pianist, because of me. She works hard. God, she’s come on! At her peak. And with the new costumes. Poor Theo. Poor, poor Theo. Such a refrain to have always running in your head. Poor, poor Theo, an idiot high voice nagging on the edge of consciousness, as inescapable as the sky, no matter that his face wore its perpetual wry smile and his eyes were soft. Nonsense, nonsense, all is well. But so many voices spoke in his head. What have I done? What woman now would have me, tied to that? If he puts his thing in that he’s not putting it in me. The way they look at me, everyone, all with that same question. Does he actually do it with her?

  Yes, he does. He does, and it is altogether compelling. He is obsessed. There’s no doubt revulsion plays a part in it, he doesn’t understand it, why he grows hot and tense and hard even as a shiver of horror shoots along his spine. Everything stands up for her, every hair on his head, every nerve and fiber.

  “Are you all right, Theo?”

  She was bending down toward him where he sat, a look of concern on her face.

  “Yes, love,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know. I thought you looked, I don’t know, sort of serious.”

  He laughed. “Serious? Me?”

  “Watch my new dance,” she said, swishing away. “Tolya’s been teaching me.”

  At Volkov’s she practiced her new songs, three Russian, one new from America. Polina, a big friendly girl who brought her hot water in the morning, had been drafted in to help with pronunciation.

  “That’s impossible!”

  “Not at all. Try again.”

  Theo, lounging in a chair, crossed his legs and lit up a fat black cigar. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, “an accent can be charming.”

  “And this line?” Julia asked. “This means?”

  “By the edge of the lake where you gave me your hand—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said again. “You don’t have to know what it means, you only have to know the sounds.”

  “I want to know what it means,” Julia said. “How can I give it feeling if I don’t know what it means?”

  “Well,” he said, “happy, sad, whatever the mood. That’s all you need to know.”

  Polina, her back to him, made a face, very slight. Silly man, her face said.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Come in!” called Theo.

  Tolya entered backward with a tray. “I’ve brought you some cocoa,” he said.

  “Oh, lovely!” She clapped her hands. “Just what I want!”

  “Not for me.” A glass of red wine was on the small table by Theo’s side.

  “Tolya’s a country boy, did you know, Theo? That’s where he learned to dance. Didn’t you, Tolya?”

  No conception of how to treat a servant, Theo thought. You’d have thought this was a family friend dropping by. She was much easier with these two than she was with Volkov and the old lady. The crone kept pretty much to her own quarters with her nursemaid, and Volkov was out at his office a lot of the time, so they didn’t see that much of them anyway, apart from at mealtimes, which were awkward and protracted.

  “Look! He’s been teaching me.” She seized the boy and whirled him around, humming some Russian tune he must have taught her.

  “You’re a marvelous dancer,” Tolya said, “such an easy pupil.” He looked delighted. Well, of course, imagine, something to tell the grandchildren about, the time I danced with the eighth wonder of the world. Something you’d never forget, as Theo knew, an armful of sweetly smiling animal, a womanly arm around you, little hand, gardenia, furry brow as strokable as a cat’s, lips of an ape, thatched black brow.

  “I have danced with many men,” Theo heard her say. “In Baltimore they were lining up. But you, Tolya, you are the best.”

  The boy was pretty and beardless with long fair hair and a ring in his ear. She really liked that young man.

  “Wait till you see all my costumes,” she was saying to him. “How many changes do I have, Theo? Is it five? The kilt, the sailor, the—”

  “Four,” said Theo.

  “But I will not be coming,” said Tolya.

  “Why not?”

  “I will be working,” he said and laughed, dancing backward, drawing her after him.

  “That’s terrible,” she said. “You must come.”

  Look at that, Theo thought. What’s she doing? Is she flirting with him? The way she lifts her face, the way she turns. Is she making a fool of herself? Surely not. But the boy acts charmed, as if she’s a
normal girl, and that big lump Polina is clapping her hands and singing along.

  “It really isn’t difficult,” Julia said, growing breathless.

  “Not for you,” said the boy.

  “There,” said Theo, standing, “I think it’s time you rested, Julia. Thank you, Tolya. Thank you, Polina.”

  “I’m not tired,” said Julia. “Dance with Polina!” And she grabbed his arm and the arm of that silly girl and shoved them together, and the girl began to shriek with laughter as if someone were tickling her. It was like dancing with a heaving overstuffed bolster. Theo didn’t want to seem like a misery, so he whirled her twice ’round the room to show he was willing and deposited her by the door. “Madame,” he said gallantly, opening the door, “you dance like an angel.”

  Her face had gone bright red, whether from the exertion or the thrill of being in his arms, he could not tell. But then she looked at him, and her eyes were serious. “No, sir,” she said with pathetic dignity, “I dance like an ox, as you well know.”

  His smile faltered, then reasserted itself. “There’s no answer to that,” he said cheerfully.

  “Thank you for the dance, Miss Julia,” Tolya said, following Polina out the door, glancing shyly sideways at Theo, who inclined his head, smiling and formal.

  “You must come,” she said. “Both of you.”

  “You know, Julia,” Theo said when they’d gone, “I wish you showed the same enthusiasm when we dine with Ilya Andreyevich Volkov and his mother.”

  “They’re boring,” she said simply. “And I can never remember all their names. It’s much easier with Tolya and Polina. They’re just Tolya and Polina.”

  “Oh, you get used to it. And yes, he is a bit of an old bore, and she is practically nonexistent, but don’t forget we’re in their house. Eating their food. And I don’t think you realize quite how much that man has done for us. For you. We’re all sold out, everywhere. The entire tour is his doing.”