Orphans of the Carnival

by Carol Birch

  It was the marriage proposal that clinched it, even though initially the old man objected to the age difference. Thirty years, but Theo knew he didn’t look his age and managed to trim a few years off without being specific. He spoke movingly of his first marriage and sad bereavement. The success of that union, he stressed, a bond so strong, so misunderstood by some of lesser sensitivity, must speak for him. He of all people could truly understand a woman like Marie. He of all people could give her wealth, security, respectability, marriage, children. He didn’t mention the mummies.

  “You are talking about public display,” her father said.

  “Not at all. I am talking of artistry. She has a fine voice, I’m told.”

  “Who told you that?”

  No one had, but it was a good stab.

  “Oh, it’s well known. I don’t remember where I heard it.”

  “She sings,” her father said, as if stating the obvious. “And of course she plays the piano. I gave her a good musical education.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Singing and playing the piano at home for the family is one thing,” said her father, “I’m sure she has no inclination for anything more.”

  “One step at a time,” said Theo. “First the young lady must be consulted. Her happiness in the matter is the only thing that counts.”

  The old man sat sucking his teeth thoughtfully for a while, but Theo could see he’d gotten him. “Come tomorrow,” he said. “Let me talk to her.” He smiled faintly but none of the tragedy lifted from his eyes, which strayed to the window, the garden. “She’s a very strong-willed girl,” he said, “she won’t do anything she doesn’t want to.”

  “Oh, absolutely!”

  Out in the sun, Theo strolled along by the garden wall, looking up. “Rapunzel, Rapunzel,” he said. A man cleaning the windows of a house a little down the road had stopped for a break and was sitting in the shade of a side alley eating a hunk of bread. Theo couldn’t resist it.

  “Borrow your ladder for a minute,” he said, taking it from where it leaned up against the house.

  “Hoy!” the man cried as he bore it away, but Theo had already propped it against the high wall and was up there peering over into the garden. There she was. Nothing like Julia, that was his first thought. Thinner, paler, more nose, less mouth. Fine beard and mustache though, and her jet-black eyebrows were gloriously bushy. She was lying on her stomach on a blanket on the lawn, twenty feet or so away, reading a book. A white dress. Trees and bushes billowed ’round the edges of the lawn, and he got an impression of small children by the back of the house.

  “Marie!” he called. She looked up and met his eyes at once, seeming unsurprised. Perhaps strange men looked over her wall every day. “Marie,” he said, “I’m Theo.”

  She stared back at him, unperturbed. More mannish than Julia.

  He smiled.

  “Hoy,” said the man, standing at the foot of the ladder.

  Marie looked back to her book as if he were of no interest to her whatsoever.

  “See you tomorrow, Rapunzel,” he said, kissing his fingers to her, and climbed down.

  “Quite finished, have you?” said the man.

  She was in the garden when he called next day. A small table and two chairs had been placed in the shade of a lime tree, and she was sitting demurely in a pale blue dress with lace at the neck and elbows. Her book lay open facedown in front of her. Her father, who was giving nothing away, introduced them formally, then left them alone, but Theo knew they were being watched. Two small girls looked out of a high window in the back of the house, and he sensed other eyes.

  He opened his mouth to speak but she cut him off. “Well,” she said, not smiling, though her eyes seemed amused, “you’re the desperate suitor.” Her voice was edged with sarcasm.

  He laughed. “I am.”

  Up close, she was impressive, eyes piercing and intelligent, lips full and soft. Her nose spread wider than her mouth, wider than its own length, so flat it seemed to be melting, sinking back into her face.

  “Let’s be frank,” she said. “I never saw you in my life till your head appeared above my garden wall yesterday. You never saw me. And yet you want to marry me. This is pure business.”

  “I wouldn’t put it like that, but…”

  “I would. Certainly from my point of view. Just because I’m like your first wife in one respect doesn’t mean we could make a good marriage.”

  “Of course not.”

  “And you’re old enough to be my father.”

  “Just about,” he said. “I’m sorry about that. Not a thing I can do about it.”

  “What would be expected of me? You want me to sing? Suppose I can’t?”

  “You can.”

  “Where would we live?”

  “Vienna. St. Petersburg. Anywhere we fancy. Money’s not a problem.”

  “You’re talking about a nomad’s life,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “To some extent.”

  “I won’t do that forever,” she said. “For a while, perhaps, but not forever.”

  “Of course. Thank you for your honesty,” he said. “Let me try to explain something.”

  She raised one of those magnificent eyebrows and quirked one side of her mouth.

  “I have hunches,” he said.

  “Hunches?”

  It wasn’t what he’d meant to say, but on the spur of the moment he was inspired to meet honesty with honesty. She’d like that.

  “Yes,” he said, “it was a hunch. Don’t misunderstand. I’m nothing if not rational, but experience has taught me to respect certain apparently inexplicable reactions to circumstance. I don’t believe in precognition, obviously. But the mind responds to things picked up by the senses…”

  “Yes, yes,” she said. “You have hunches.”

  “Only very rarely.” He shrugged, a considered gesture intended to be endearingly awkward. “If they were not rare, they’d be meaningless. And as soon as I heard your name, I knew.”

  “So you want to get married on a hunch?”

  “Yes. I am convinced this is the right thing to do.”

  She drew in a long breath, put her head on one side and just looked at him. When he began to speak, she put her hand up. “Ssh,” she said, “I’m thinking.”

  It was a little unnerving. She didn’t take her eyes off him and hardly blinked for several long minutes.

  “The others just wanted to show me,” she said finally. “Why do you have to bring marriage into it?”

  “To protect my assets.” Suddenly the businessman, leaning forward. Then he smiled. “So you don’t go running off with the first smooth talker who offers a better deal.”

  “I could do that anyway,” she said. “Marriage wouldn’t stop me.”

  “Of course.” A half shrug, less sure of itself.

  They sat in mutual contemplation after that, till the moment had grown intimately peculiar. She was nowhere near as hairy as Julia, he realized. Her throat and chest, what he could see of it, were smooth and white but the back of the hand fiddling with a strand of her hair was covered in a dark down, as was the arm revealed by the falling back of her sleeve.

  “I’ll take you,” she said suddenly. “Shall I tell you why?”

  So easy!

  “Oh, please, do.” It starts again. Glory be. He felt a smile wrap itself across his face.

  “Because,” she said, “I would stand on my head singing nursery rhymes if it got me out of here.”

  Impulsively, he reached across and took her hand. It was tiny and hairy, like Julia’s, and the feel of it gave him a jolt in the chest. “I’ll take you away,” he said earnestly. “You’ll travel. See things.”

  “I’d have gone with the others too,” she said. “You’re not the first. But I never got the chance.”

  She was dying of boredom, the old man never let her out.

  “Let me make one thing clear,” she said. “I’m nobody’s monkey.”

  The wedd
ing took place discreetly in the large parlor of Marie’s father’s house. Her mother, a pale scrawny woman, wept silently throughout, glancing nervously at him from time to time as if he were death himself come to bear her child away. A gaggle of children smirked and nudged each other. The priest, hearty and florid, did his best to pretend this was a wedding like any other, while her father was positively elated. After all, thought Theo, noting the gleam in the old man’s rheumy eyes, he couldn’t wait to get rid of her. When it was all over and the carriage drew up in front of the house, her little brothers and sisters—there seemed to be many—finally realizing that she was going away, burst into a caterwaul of grief, gathered ’round her and clung to her skirts. Her mother mournfully embraced her. Marie smiled indulgently, casting a quick, shrewd sideways glance at Theo, returned the embrace briskly, kissed each child in turn, then turned to her father.

  “Good-bye, Papi,” she said.

  “Liebling,” he said, hugging her closely but briefly, then kissing her on both cheeks. “Be happy.”

  “I will.”

  She smiled as she veiled, then ran down the steps and into the carriage.

  “I don’t want her put on display like an object,” the old man said, following Theo down the steps.

  “Of course not,” said Theo. The old man would be mad not to realize she’d end up on a stage. Of course he knew. You don’t marry your bearded daughter to a showman and expect her to live a normal life. “Anyway.” Theo turned to shake the old man’s hand before joining her in the carriage. “Do you really imagine anyone could make Marie do anything she didn’t want to?”

  The old man smiled. And when all the waving was done and they were on their way, Marie put back her veil and laughed. “I’m free!” she said. After that she was glued to the window, a smile on her face, watching the new world roll by. They’d make easy stages from Stuttgart to Munich, from there on to Lake Mondsee for a month-long honeymoon. Then Vienna. You can have dance lessons there, he said. The first night in Pforzheim, he took the best room in the hotel and ordered a lavish meal to be sent up with two bottles of champagne. She ate steadily, calmly. If she was sad about leaving her family it didn’t show.

  “Do you like the chicken?” he asked.

  “Very nice.” She looked up. “The broth’s delicious.”

  “See how good life can be, Marie,” he said, “how much you’ve been missing.”

  She put down her spoon. “Do you think I didn’t eat well at home?”

  “Not at all. I’m not just talking about the food. You’re going to see the world. Meet people. Wait until Munich, we’ll go to the theater. You’ll love it.” He remembered saying all these things to Julia. “Have you ever been to the theater?”

  She laughed without humor. “Me? A prisoner?”

  He felt sorry for her. “Didn’t he let you go out at all?”

  She looked away. “Once or twice.”

  God!

  “It must have been very dull for you—locked in your high tower.”

  “Oh, believe me,” she said, “it was. Thank God you came along, that’s all I can say. My prince on horseback.” She looked at him and laughed suddenly. “Not that you look it.”

  He felt slightly insulted. Count yourself lucky, he wanted to say.

  “Our plans then?” she said. “We sail on the lake. We walk in the hills. We go to Vienna, I learn to dance. And then?”

  “We taste liberty, Marie,” he said, judging the moment ripe for a touch of romance, “we become as Gypsies, not a care in the world. Oh, you have no idea! The music, the crowds, the call of the new, the magic of the next bend in the road. The rain on the roof of a wagon, the neighing of horses, the—”

  “And I sing and dance?”

  “Yes. But not till you’re ready. You’ll be wonderful.”

  “You haven’t heard me sing,” she said. “Listen,” and launched into a spirited soprano “Wanderlied.” Her voice was ragged ’round the edges but easily passable.

  “Oh, you’ll do fine, didn’t I know it.” He laughed, applauding. “Wonderful!”

  She broke off. “Your hunch,” she said.

  “My hunch.”

  “Look,” she said, “I want to make a lot of money. Then I’ll quit. I’m only going to do it for a few years, then I’m going to settle down and have a nice comfortable life.”

  “A perfect plan,” he replied. “If you want to make a lot of money, there’s something you must do.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “The name Pastrana is known all over Europe. All over Russia. No one knows Marie Bartel.”

  “And?”

  “The name is the draw. You are Marie Pastrana, sister of the renowned Julia.”

  She frowned, then laughed. “I don’t care,” she said. “They can call me anything they like, so long as they come.”

  Theo stood, fetched the second bottle of champagne, his nerves fizzing up like the bubbles as he popped the cork. Oh, this was going to be easy! It was all coming back, that feeling, possibility, excitement, the sound of the wheels of his golden coach approaching over long hard roads.

  “Not Marie,” she said. “Something more exotic.”

  “Yes!” He poured. Her glass overflowed, and she held it away from herself.

  “Zenora,” she said. “I’ll be Zenora.”

  Two weeks by the lake had a soothing effect. Marie liked to linger on their balcony, half sitting, half lying, reading a book, or leaning forward with her arms on the rail and her head on her arms, a dreamy smile on her face, watching the people walk up and down by the lakeside far below. She was so pleased to be out in the world that she could be perfectly content to stay like this for hours, and the view was beautiful. Sometimes, veiled, she walked out with him, and it was like walking with a ghost, Theo thought, this small veiled thing on his arm, just like the good old days. Once, they hired a boat and he rowed out very far from shore, and she sang, old things he didn’t know. Not bad. Not bad at all. Give her six months, she’d be ready. It would be easy to pass her off to the rubes. She was covered with hair and that was all that mattered to them. But she was nothing like Julia. She didn’t have that same great maw. In bed, she was curious and frank and unnervingly preoccupied with herself, her body more feminine than Julia’s, her face more masculine. It was better with Julia.

  “There’s something I have to tell you,” he said one night when they had just made love. She was lounging in bed; he was up, wandering about in his dressing gown smoking a cigar and stopping every now and then to look out of the window at a far mountain against the dark sky. How to tell?

  “Then tell,” she said.

  “You need to understand. The show we’ll put together must consist of more than your performance.” He swung ’round and looked at her. She was plaiting her long, straight hair. “It must have a historical dimension. You are the sister of Julia Pastrana, don’t forget.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said, “if I’m her sister, won’t it seem funny that I don’t speak Spanish?”

  “Oh, you can learn a few words. Enough. The point is the show must tell a story. They need to see her. They need to see the real Julia, her child, they need a story. They see her and wonder, then see—you, the living, breathing continuation of her presence and talent…”

  “I don’t quite see…”

  “Marie, when she died…” He stopped, and she saw that he was struggling. His manner alarmed her.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “There was a doctor,” he said. “Sokolov. At the university. A scientist. I’ll give you something to read about it, you’ll see how important it was. They were working on a new method of preservation, it was very important, a huge leap forward—”

  He had crossed the room and was sitting on the bed staring at her. His eyes were uncertain, slightly beseeching, but as he continued to speak they toughened and steadied. “I really need you to understand this, Marie. She was embalmed. And the baby. It was some—some method—som
ething incredible, and the university was so delighted to have them. It wasn’t…”

  “They were embalmed?” she said flatly. She’d stopped playing with her hair and the plait, slowly loosening, looked as if it were exhaling.

  “Yes.”

  There was a silence.

  “What are you saying?”

  “Marie,” he said. “You’re going to hear people say bad things about me. Some people. Oh, you know me, you know I’m not a monster, just read these—”

  He jumped up, went to the drawer where he kept his papers, his correspondence with theater people, agents, that sort of thing, and pulled out a handful of journals and playbills. “Here,” he said, thrusting them at her, “just read them. I’m going for a walk.”

  When he got back two hours later she was up, sitting on the balcony in her gown. The papers lay scattered on the bed, the Lancet, the reviews, the advertisements. Big blue letters. The Embalmed Female Nondescript. She came in when she heard him, closing the balcony door. “Give me one of your cigars,” she said.

  He tried to read her face. “Here.” He passed her one and she looked at it, frowning.

  “Mummies,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  She met his eyes with a strong intelligent look that never wavered. “Did you love her?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He said it in a suave, clipped way.

  She didn’t blink for a long time and looked at him with an unreadable expression.

  “Let us talk,” she said.

  “Let us,” he agreed, lighting their cigars.

  “Where are they?”

  “Vienna.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  “Marie,” he said, “there’s nothing distasteful about it, I promise you. The mummies are displayed in a glass case very respectably. You wouldn’t have anything to do with them, they’ll really just be a backdrop to your show. The people will come to see them, then they’ll see you and your talent, and you’ll…”