Orphans of the Carnival

by Carol Birch

  “I know. But I don’t like his face. It’s false.”

  “False?”

  “He’s always smiling,” she said, “but his eyes never smile. You’re like that too sometimes.”

  “Isn’t everyone?”

  “Yes, but he’s like that all the time. Anyway you’re not like that with me, only with other people. But he’s like that all the time with everyone. And he laughs too much.”

  “Poor man!”

  The ugliest woman in the world, the walking singing, dancing, impossible woman beast opened to a packed house. Watching with Volkov from the wings, Theo was almost tearful with pride and anxiety. Look at her. Just look. If she messes it up now. My God, she’s a pit pony, a Trojan, the way she’s gone at it. All this new stuff. Over and over again at midnight, the words, the steps, the dancing fingers on the fret board. And look, all they want is to look at her, eat her face. She could just stand there. What a crowd. Not just hoi polloi, this lot, look at those aristocrats. Volkov beside him spoke some Russian thing, the tone was my God, oh my God. Never ceases to impress. Oh my God, my God, just look at her, what is she—is she even human? Look at their mouths hanging open. She paraded along the front of the stage playing her guitar, singing some old song and swaying her skirts. When she went into her dance, she was so practiced she didn’t have to think about it. At least that’s the way it looked. Oh, she’s a good girl, she is. Wait’ll she does “Lorena.” Oh, Lorena. Pure sentiment was a sensation he liked to sniff out, confront and destroy at first stirring, but “Lorena” bashed through all that. “This is all the rage at home,” she’d said, in some godforsaken little hole in Poland, singing it for the first time. She played it now on her harmonica, a thin, slow, plaintive tune. To see those huge lips so sensitively draw such yearning from that old harmonica. Terrible. Quite terrible. Such beauty. Such a surfeit of ugliness. Then she sang:

  The years creep slowly by, Lorena,

  The snow is on the ground again…

  And it was all he could do to keep the tears from his eyes.

  The crowd went mad. Volkov bounced up and down, applauding vigorously. Theo could have crowed. Wouldn’t you like to have her? Wouldn’t you just love to steal her away? Don’t worry, you’ll get your cut. Up struck the band. White dress shining in the spotlight, she performed a ballet and a Spanish dance, her old stuff, well perfected, then sang an aria she’d learned specially, one of those Russians. Her voice strained a little at times but recovered itself quickly. “Ah, now we come to the best bit,” said Theo. “Here come the boys.” Shouting, laughing, they leapt onstage, they’ve been flattering her and she’s basking in it, very good for the performance. She greets them with a massive smile, the audience draws a breath, the boys take her hands and all three dance in line, a quick-footed jaunt that involves a lot of changing places and backward and forward. Here’s where it could all go wrong, the timing must be exact, but she’s got it to a tee, good girl, God, they’re loving it, look at their faces, and those boys, the way they gaze at her. They’ll never forget her. Something about these Russian lads, half of them have got the Steppes running in their blood, half wild themselves, I suppose. She does like them. Well, they allow for the costume changes, so necessary, and the crowd likes it. Old Volkov there, she’s right, he has greedy eyes. Look at that ridiculous dance, the old Cossack thing, all hup! hup! hup! as she glides off. Grinning, clapping their hands, dancing backward. She reappears as a Scottish lassie in a kilt and throws herself into a wild highland fling, a killer but she handles it. Look at those tiny feet go, slipping against one another like little fishes.

  “You can’t say this girl doesn’t have stamina.” Volkov laughed with his cold fish eyes. Next she was a sailor in white bell-bottomed trousers, cross-armed, dancing a hornpipe, and then, by God, in less than a minute, a Russian peasant in a red skirt with a fancy apron and a lot of embroidery, trailing long colored hankies from her fingertips.

  The crowd as one stood up and cried, “Bravo! Bravo!”

  “Oh, yes, yes,” said Volkov. “Oh, yes, bravo, bravo, bravo.”

  She glided ’round the empty stage as if on wheels, waving the hankies in the air so they coiled and floated lightly with the music, three times ’round, her massive wild face aloft. The boys and their shiny boots returned, handing her gracefully between themselves into the final dance. They are on springs, their legs fly out, their boot heels crack. And Julia center stage, quick stepping, swirling, a butterfly.

  Yip! Yip! Yip!

  The crowd goes wild.

  She finished with a simple Russian folk song, alone with her guitar.

  “Julia,” Theo said, stepping in front of Volkov to greet her in the wings, “my love, you have conquered Mother Russia.”

  Polina banked up the fire. “There,” she said, getting heavily to her feet. “Keep you lovely and warm.”

  Julia lay sprawled on the big sofa with her head on a cushion. “Thank you, Polina. Look at the snow! It’s so beautiful.” Her shoes lay askew on the rug. The snow fell strong and steady past the window. Polina didn’t even give it a glance. “You must feel the cold so much,” she said, stooping to pick up the shoes, “coming from a hot country.”

  “Yes,” said Julia, “but I’m beginning to get used to it. It was cold in New York. It was cold in Europe.”

  “Polina,” said Theo, coming in from the bedroom in his dressing gown and slippers, red wine spilling over his fingers from a tilted glass, “did Julia tell you about the show?” He strode across to the fire and stood grinning before it.

  “A great success,” said Polina, setting the shoes neatly side by side next to the bedroom door, “I knew it would be.”

  “It’s colder here,” said Julia, “but I came in stages so…”

  “A triumph!” Theo was tight. They’d been drinking downstairs with Volkov and some fat friend of his whose name she couldn’t remember, a prince no less—only prince here didn’t mean the same as in other places, it seemed. Princes and counts abounded. She’d had only one glass of champagne, but the men had polished off half a bottle of vodka before starting on the wine. It had been so boring. “And I have to say, Polina”—Theo gestured with his glass and more wine sloshed—“your coaching was a stunning success!” He laughed. “The voice of the people! Where are you from, Polina?”

  “From Meshchanskaia,” she said, as if that would mean anything to him. “Careful, sir, don’t spill your wine.”

  “Ah,” he said, “where the peasant tongue holds supreme sway. Julia, I think it worked.”

  “What did?”

  “The common accent. They loved it.”

  “Will there be anything else?” Polina asked.

  “Don’t think so.” Chuckling, he took a swig. A long strand of hair had come adrift and slanted across his left eye. “That’s all.”

  “What I do like about snow,” Julia said to Polina, “is being warm inside watching it fall. The fire’s magnificent. Theo, please don’t block the heat.”

  He jumped aside. “At once, my lady!” When is that girl going? His head was about to burst. Go on, you silly girl, get out. Thank you.

  “Can you believe what we have achieved?” Wide-eyed, he walked about in his new dressing gown, which was exactly the same color as his wine. “There’s no limit.”

  “She reminds me of me.”

  “Who? Polina?”

  “She reminds me of me when I was at home.” Julia yawned. My God! The mess of teeth!

  “Do you still think of it as home?” he said, a little sadly.

  She had to think about that. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “Home is with you.” Her eyes closed. “I’m asleep,” she said, smiling.

  All of a sudden he felt weepy. Not like him. My diamond mine, my fortune, my millstone, he thought, still amazed at what he’d done. Look at her. He could go out. Send her off to bed, go where no one knows him, a drink, a game of cards, a few discreet questions. He could find them, the girls in their small rooms. Girls who don
’t know he’s married to a freak.

  There was a tap on the door.

  “Oh, let Tolya in,” she said, “he cheers me up.”

  “Don’t I cheer you up?”

  “Of course you do,” she said, sitting up, “but you’re here all the time. Come in, Tolya!”

  “Tea,” said the boy, coming in with a tray. She even knows what his knock on the door sounds like, thought Theo, placing himself once more in front of the heat. The fire jumped when the door opened, and the wind howled. I’m not going out in that, he thought. But still, he knew he’d never be able to sleep, his mind was feverish.

  “They went wild, Tolya!”

  “Of course.” He smiled his big-toothed smile, putting the tray down on the small table beside Julia. “I’ve been listening to them talk. Prince Rudakov wants to invite you to his party.”

  “Oh, dear,” she said, as if it weren’t a huge honor, “I’m not sure I’ll enjoy that.”

  “Of course you will,” Theo said. “It’ll be just what you need. I knew this kind of thing was going to happen. Didn’t I tell you? Whats his name. Bartolomeo or whatever and his sister.”

  “Maximo and Bartola,” she said. He was always going on about them.

  “They met royalty. Went to the White House, shook hands with the president. And they weren’t anywhere near as good as you, they were more akin to your little friend Cato.”

  “Cato,” she said wistfully.

  “Anyway,” said Theo, looking irritatedly at Tolya as he poured tea for Julia, with a delicate touch for such a clod of a thing, “are you quite sure you’re the person who should be telling us this?”

  “Sorry, sir,” said Tolya, not sounding it at all. “Didn’t really think.”

  If I was Volkov I’d never employ him, thought Theo, sprawling himself into a chair.

  “And my dance?” Tolya said. “It went well?”

  “Oh, Tolya, you should have been there! It was marvelous! You’d have been proud of me.”

  “I am proud of you.”

  “No, really, really, the steps you taught me, they made the show. They were the highlight.”

  “Well, not quite,” Theo said dryly.

  The stupid boy laughed. “Miss Julia,” he said, “you are so nice a person.”

  “I’ll tell you something,” she said, “you’re easily as good as those other two, those dancers. You should have been up there on that stage with me.”

  Tolya snorted. “Much better to dance with you here,” he said. “I am very privileged.”

  “You most certainly are,” said Theo.

  “Anything for you, sir?” The boy straightened, turning with a polite smile. “Tea?”

  “I have my wine.”

  “Ah, but those boys, Tolya!” said Julia, picking up her cup and warming her hands ’round it, “Oh, you should have seen them, the life in them.”

  “I suppose a dance like that,” Theo said, “in a country like this, probably comes from the cold. You have to dance to keep warm.”

  “There may be something in that,” Tolya said, beginning to withdraw.

  “Certainly damn freezing, this place.” Theo stretched his legs and put his slippered feet on the fireplace screen.

  “Yes,” she said, “I miss the sun.”

  “Wait until spring,” said Tolya.

  Spring came suddenly, along with an invitation.

  Prince Rudakov sent a carriage to bring them out to his coutry house for a weekend party, and Volkov rode with them. The sun was hot, everywhere was willows, a haze hung over the fields, rolling away into wooded distance. Now and again they passed a church or a wretched huddle of shabby huts and knocked-together barns, and sometimes carts drawn by bony horses, ragged people at the reins. At last the driver pointed with his whip to a red roof among the green slopes, and a few minutes later the house came into view, long and low, with many windows and a balcony running the length of the upstairs story. A sloping lawn ran away at the front and tall trees closed in on three sides. Rudakov was there as soon as the carriage turned into the drive, waiting in a pale linen suit like an eager child about to get a present. “Enchanté, enchanté,” he was saying before she’d even gotten out of the carriage, and Theo stood by, beaming like a proud father as the Prince fawned all over her.

  “The countryside is very beautiful,” she said in Russian, something she’d learned specially.

  The house was sumptuous inside. She unveiled in a small parlor. Rudakov had seen her before, of course, but there was his mother and sister, his wife, three stiff little boys on their best behavior. And when they’d all stared their fill and exclaimed their delight, a servant showed them to their room. Julia started fretting about her dress, a flounced crinoline with tiny bows decorating each tier of the skirt and one great bow fanning out at the back, trailing long silver ribbons. It was too fancy, she said. The kind of thing for grand entrances and sweeping down wide curving staircases.

  “Nonsense,” he said, wandering out onto the landing, standing a little dazedly looking over the balcony rail. A door in one corner opened and a tall young woman in a pale pink dress ran across the atrium with skirts raised. He caught a glimpse of a thin white ankle before she vanished through another door. Well, now, he thought, craning a little over the rail. Maybe cop a dance with her later.

  But when evening came, it wasn’t a dancing sort of a do, more of a grand soirée, with a piano only, and lots of formal introductions. Julia’s entrance was a showpiece. Prince Rudakov was waiting at the foot of the stairs as she tiptoed down on Theo’s arm, her dress like the great cup of a flower, lifting and settling as she moved. She’d been getting ready for hours and her hair was a flowery masterpiece. The Prince led her into the big parlor where ornate chairs were artfully arranged around small tables bearing dishes of Turkish delight and bowls of pink and blue flowers. The guests stopped their twittering and turned as one to gaze.

  “My dear friends,” Rudakov announced in a ringing voice, “I am delighted to introduce to you Madame Julia, the great artiste.”

  Theo hung back.

  The usual sort, he thought, scanning the crowd. A couple of military men, a few distinguished and delighted middle-aged women, lavishly dressed, with their indistinguishable husbands. A tall blond man with a haunted face and thin lips stared with something approaching passion. And there was the beauty he’d seen earlier, now wearing something golden brown and shiny that displayed her fragile shoulders. Rudakov was saying the girl’s name. Liliya Grigorievna Levkova, my cousin. She laughed in a self-conscious way when she was introduced, wrinkling her nose and narrowing her eyes. It made her even more beautiful.

  Theo drank too much that night and remembered little afterward apart from Liliya Grigorievna Levkova, shimmering always in the corner of his eye, and the intense blond man who scarcely blinked and never took his pale eyes from Julia for a second. At some point, Rudakov crossed over to the man and drew him by the arm to be introduced:

  “My very good friend, Professor Sokolov.”

  Sokolov pushed his furrowed brow at Julia, his staring gray eyes.

  “Madame Julia Pastrana,” said Rudakov, a flourish in his voice.

  “Hello,” said Sokolov in English.

  “How do you do,” said Julia.

  “Monsieur Lent,” said Rudakov, “her husband.”

  Sokolov barely glanced at him, but gripped Julia’s hand as if he’d never let it go, and stuck his face right in hers so that she drew back a little.

  “Professor Sokolov is a very distinguished doctor,” Rudakov said.

  The professor began to talk to Julia stumblingly, smiling and sweating—had read everything ever written about her, followed her progress, utmost fascination, immensely gratified—and on and on, till Theo drifted away, floating ’round the room with a vague smile on his face and another drink in his hand. Someone was playing something dull on the piano. Old Volkov was getting tight. Then he saw her, Liliya Grigorievna Levkova talking animatedly to the mother of
Prince Rudakov, a stern old lady in a pearl cap. And glory, she caught his eye and came running over as if he were an old friend. “Oh, Mr. Lent,” she said in perfectly accented English, “what a lucky man you are!” Close to, she was not as young as she’d appeared from the balcony, but none the worse for that.

  “Am I?” he said.

  “She’s so sweet! So lovely!” A delightful voice, low and eager and exciting.

  “Oh. Yes, she is.”

  “It’s so romantic,” she said. “I can’t wait to hear her sing. I’ve heard so much about her!”

  “Julia is a very fine singer,” he said.

  “Everyone’s dying to hear her. And will she dance? Oh, she must dance! What a pity we have to sit through all the others first. And I hear you are to tour very soon?”

  “Yes. And then we are going to St. Petersburg. To the circus. We will make St. Petersburg our home for a while.”

  “Oh! We’ll be so sorry to lose her.”

  “We’ll be back for the Christmas season.”

  “How wonderful. You’ll be in St. Petersburg in the summer.”

  “Yes.”

  “She has such an effect on everyone!” said Liliya Grigorievna. “Just look at Professor Sokolov.” She giggled. “Poor Julia! Go and rescue her.” She turned him, giving him a familiar little nudge in the back before swishing off to talk to someone else. Where she’d touched him, it was as if a little creature had woken up under the skin. He found himself beside Julia. Sokolov was speaking urgently at her, a set smile on his face.

  “Theo,” she said, taking his arm, “Professor Sokolov has been telling me all about his collection of anatomical Venuses. They sound horrible.”

  “Horrible but fascinating, no doubt.” Theo’s smile widened and quavered. “Forgive me, Professor, I must borrow my wife for a moment.”

  Solokov bowed politely. “Of course,” he said.

  “Not another doctor,” she whispered in Theo’s ear, rising on tiptoe as he led her away.