The Invisible Circus

by Jennifer Egan

  Phoebe turned down a long, narrow side street. It was suddenly very quiet. There were no cars, just men on foot and women leaning in doorways, one in a short yellow dress with bruises on her legs; another, a pixie-faced girl with flecks of red polish on her fingernails. Phoebe gazed at them in plain awe while the hidden surging crowd edged nearer, closing her in, cheering her on, air rushing in and out through her windpipe, and now she heard some other sounds, clicking, hissing sounds she didn’t recognize.

  A man muttered something as he passed, taking in Phoebe with flinching eyes, the hissing, clicking sounds gathering force as her path crossed that of another man, with a walrus mustache and damp-looking skin; Phoebe felt his eyes on her hips and breasts and looked down at them, startled by the presence of her own body here on this street, as if she’d discovered she had a beard or mustache. Hold on, she wanted to say, wait, no—her eyes locking with those of a woman naked under her blue fishnet dress, small breasts, dark pubic hair, the woman making a nasty face and spitting on the street in the expert manner of people who often spit, and Phoebe realized this spitting could only be meant for herself and felt a surge of wonderment that she, like these women, was bones and flesh, breasts and hips—Phoebe felt them moving inside her clothes, prickling slightly the way limbs do when they’ve fallen asleep and the sensation was thrilling; for a moment it was thrilling, and then the moment passed and she was terrified.

  Phoebe glanced behind her, but the way back looked just as long. Hundreds of women seemed to lie in wait for her now, their hostile noises gathering force as she walked, drowning out the cheering crowd. Phoebe noticed garbage, dusty window shades, smells of stale milk and pee. A skinny girl in a torn green dress seemed about to faint, her eyes rolling back in her head as a man pushed her through a door; Phoebe heard coughing, gagging sounds—here it was at close range, exactly what she’d wanted, but entering this world was not the same as eyeing it with longing. Now she had to get out, something terrible was about to happen—No, Phoebe thought. No! Breaking into a run, breasts flapping against her chest, a cramping sensation low in her abdomen as if she were going to bleed and meanwhile the drug was growing stronger by the second like some maniac twisting a dial in her brain. She could hardly run, like dreams where your limbs won’t move, but Phoebe hauled them along, her clumsy bag of tools, past the jeering women, past men who bore an eerie resemblance to fathers of her childhood friends, finally bursting from the side street onto a wide boulevard where cars and buses drove merrily past and heat shook the air into streamers.

  Something in Phoebe had turned, she’d lost control, was engulfed now in pure unmitigated terror. It was the fear of before, in Reims, the fear of all her life. Every thought struck her with unbearable force, pushing her to the edge of sickness. This is too extreme, she thought. But you wanted extremes. But not this—I didn’t want this, or maybe I did but I’ve changed my mind. Well, too late. Each time she relaxed, the world promptly collapsed into shaking particles; a herculean effort was required just to assemble it sufficiently to walk through, foot after foot. When she reached the curb, Phoebe had no idea what to do, which signal she was waiting for, everything a gnash of colors and lights and roaring sound. She stood a long time until she sensed a pause around her like held breath and then she was crossing a river, picking her way among bleached stones with the sound of birds and running water, a waterfall—I’m in the country! Phoebe thought—then she stumbled against something hard, a metal garbage can, and she had crossed the street. It was a busy street. She had no idea where she was going.

  She was lost in a sea of molecules, atoms, shifting colored patterns. Every instant had the dazzling power of retrospect, those dreams that shiver across your skin the next morning like the stroke of a feather. This will kill me, Phoebe thought, I can’t stand it. I don’t want it. Much of this she was saying aloud, “I can’t stand it. It will kill me. I want to go back,” until a man shook her by the arm and spoke sharply in French and Phoebe jerked open her eyes which she hadn’t realized were shut, and a woman in a yellow floral dress advised her to hail a taxi and return to her hotel. But a split second later that same woman was speaking rapid French to a newspaper vendor and Phoebe realized she hadn’t said a word: it was one of those half-dreams where you think you’ve gone to the bathroom but find when you wake that you’re still desperate to go. Phoebe raised her hand for a taxi—a historic moment—she was standing outside a castle signaling trumpets to hail the approach of a monarch in a jewel-encrusted crown, gleaming white horses, shadowy forests hovering just beyond sight, then a taxi stopped and Phoebe got in and the driver took off, and she opened her eyes to find herself standing in the midst of a crowded sidewalk, one hand thrust in the air as people pushed past her.

  I need help, she thought, I need help! Seized by unendurable panic, she burst through the doors to a restaurant filled with lunchtime eaters, but the room was indecipherable to her eyes like photographs where some trick of the lens crystallizes the world into squares. “Help, I need help!” Phoebe bellowed, and the room fell painfully still. She noticed smoke in the air, a smell of clams, and thought, My God, I’m really here, I’m not making this up.

  A heavyset man approached, a slim brown cigarette in one hand, mustache resting like a centipede on his upper lip. “I need help,” Phoebe whispered.

  “Please, mademoiselle, you are ill?” he asked, guiding her gently by the arm to one side of the restaurant, but no, no, Phoebe thought, what can he possibly do? Just holding still for this long was such agony; a terrible force had gathered behind her like tons of water ready to explode through a narrow pipe—No, she couldn’t stand it; she pulled away from the fat man and bolted from the restaurant back to the street, heart beating wildly, pushing up from her chest so she wanted to spit it out on the pavement and stop its freakish pounding. Behind her the pressure was mounting, pushing against her like a crowd trying to fit through a narrow door and Phoebe walked, walked faster but still it was behind her, inside her, coursing through her veins, a sick panic like nothing she’d felt in her life. Frantically she reasoned with herself: There’s nothing to be afraid of, everything will be fine, but it wasn’t true and she didn’t have any more time for this; she was running now, a half-pace ahead of her terror, her mind scrambling for the right combination of thoughts to unlock her from this nightmare—numbers, she thought, weren’t combinations numerical?—1, 2, 3, 86, 87, or maybe some pattern of words: blade, blithe, butternut, bittersweet, she was going to die, something terrible was going to happen and why is that so bad? Phoebe thought, Faith died young and I’ve done nothing but admire her for it, but I don’t want to die—I don’t want to! Her thoughts pounding away like machine-gun fire: I don’t want to die I don’t want to die I want everything back the way it was before I hate this please God if I can just come down please God if I can just have back what I had before. But that’s exactly what you didn’t want, said a different voice, you’ve spent your life longing to throw it away. And Phoebe knew this was so.

  She leaned against a building and tried to swallow down her heart. Whisk, wide, water, wattle, the wings of angels, the whiteness of feathers. She closed her eyes but no, it wasn’t helping, she would certainly die—it was a horror, the mistake of a lifetime, because even if by some miracle she did survive, she would be brain-damaged for life. She tried to think of Faith, but what filled her mind instead were those poor prostitutes, legs like bruised fruit, garbage and foul smells at the heart of what had always seemed so thrilling, so mysterious—nothing but violence and sorrow and rot.

  Phoebe sank to her knees on the pavement. She shut her eyes and tried to pray, teeth chattering although it was hot, hot pavement under her knees, but God must have gone away, she’d lost Him in the swirl of moth-colored stockings and cones of bleached hair. Or maybe there was no God on this side of the glass, maybe that was why Faith buried the rosaries and Bible after their father died, but Phoebe tried praying anyway, hands clasped above her head, eyes shut, lips moving fran
tically. Occasionally someone leaned down and tried to help her; a man in a charcoal suit even spoke to her briefly in English, but Phoebe couldn’t answer, just stared at his face, watching it expand and contract while the man moved on to other languages. “Español, Deutsch, Italiano?” he asked with rising alarm, and it crossed Phoebe’s mind that maybe he was God, maybe on this side of the glass God looked like anyone else, a man in a suit, and she found herself clutching his leg, feeling the warm bone inside flesh inside cloth, and thought, Am I holding the leg of God? Then the man wrenched away, disappeared into the crowd but some time later Phoebe saw him again, crossing the street with a man in uniform, a round boxlike hat on his head and he looked like a cop—Phoebe forced herself to stand and walk because every drop of blood in her veins was illegal, polluted and full of poison and thank God, there was a taxi stand, Dear Mom, Phoebe and … “Place Saint-Michel,” Phoebe told the driver with a clarity that startled her, and they drove awhile, classical music on the radio, the milky feathers of doves, the long, silky wings of insects, Dear Mom and Phoebe and Barry, Here we are in, 4, 5, 6, Our Father who 7, 8, Yesterday we went to, 9, 19, Forgive me, Father, it has been four months since my … Wolf was a drag as usual, next we go to …

  The driver was talking. They had stopped; the numbers on the meter made no sense to Phoebe but she handed him bills until he stopped her with some impatience, pushing the money back, and Phoebe got out, dropping coins in the taxi, on the pavement. Statues sparkled around her like salt licks. So many people. Phoebe turned around slowly, staring in each direction until she saw the river, and yes, she knew what to do, yes she had a plan, the key to ending this nightmare; a wind seemed to blow her body toward the river and she climbed on the bridge, traffic roaring past, her ears filled with sounds of the forest, the jungle, running water; she knew what to do, the postcards were leading her astray, they were bad clues leading her to destruction; now a thudding determination rose in Phoebe, 12, 13, 14, 15, I just hate those crazy, Faith’s cards in her hand, her sister’s photograph, too; Phoebe leaned over the railing, Dear Mom and Phoebe and light, lapiz, lamentation, lullaby, water swirling below, so many boats but the water wasn’t blue the corruption was everywhere, Faith’s cards in her hand—they’re killing me and I don’t want to die—the water sickly, sticky-looking like the swimming pool water she’d dreaded as a child, hairy chest, a gold whistle meant jump—Phoebe let the postcards go, they swirled, scattered, grew small so quickly like confetti, that day once a year when everyone throws white paper from the windows of downtown, she’d thrown the picture too, Faith whirling down to the water; I’ve done it again, Phoebe thought, sent her to the water a second time—God forgive me please it was her or me, one of us had to go, Forgive me, Father, nothing was ever how you thought, a life lesson ha ha, 19, 18, 17, postcards resting on the water, floating there, she was free of them now, Thank God, Phoebe thought, she knew where to walk, she was walking, pretending to walk; if she concentrated hard enough she could organize the world an instant at a time before it burst its seams yet again, forgive me, Father, there was her hotel, a miracle from heaven. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” she murmured aloud while ascending the endless flights of stairs to her room, her blue room, her own backpack crumpled on the floor. Forgive me, Father.

  Collapsed on her sunken bed, eyes shut, Phoebe found no darkness or quiet; it was like being inside a radio where the station keeps switching, Dear Phoebe, You wouldn’t believe what … Strands of light, guitar music in bright, quivering strands, cars moving outside her window in yawns of blue, her hands on her breasts, their softness oddly comforting, 91, 92, 93, it would go on forever; summer camp, bottles of beer on the wall the rocking yellow bus, Faith in the front seat the driver’s pet, her long hair hot with sunlight, melted like oil, the children’s voices, Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, 102, 103, I love you, Phoebe thought, I love you, I’ll do anything for you but I don’t want to die, I’m sorry I threw them away, please God forgive me but it was all wrong, 29, 30, nothing was working. Phoebe stood, crossing the tiny room to the mirror above the sink. Her reflection a sea of shifting colors, purple, green, pink, eyes entirely black at the cores. A freakish face, a ritual mask carved in her image but her own face, not Faith’s, and Phoebe shook her head, closed her eyes and popped them wide again, then shook the mirror, turned away and looked back suddenly to catch the reflection by surprise … cloth, cath, mise, wise, 68, 67, 66, but there was her own obstinate face, her own no matter what she did, I’ve killed her, Phoebe thought, her own empty face, the pounding heart she could practically taste, goddamn this … Dear Mom and Phoebe and … Seized by a spasm of anger, Phoebe slammed her fist into the mirror, shattering her own startled look into several bright pieces that clattered into the sink.

  There was pain in her hand. Holding it to her face, Phoebe spied a tiny sliver of mirror wedged in the soft place between her first and second fingers. Warm red blood flowed toward her elbow. Phoebe watched the blood, fascinated by its warm abundance, this wealth of extravagant color hidden away beneath her own plain flesh. Something calmed in her now, cool in her chest, her head, warm blood pushing away the fever, drawing it out of her. No, she thought, I will not die this time; bleeding, cutting the soles of the feet made you well in the old days, it will end like everything else, I believe it will end. Thank God, thank you dear God, Dear Phoebe … Hail Mary, three wishes, I wish for my life back again, please God the cracks in the ceiling, the tiny insects, please God the moments of silence, of nothingness cool in her chest, the heart gradually calming. Slowly Phoebe slid the shard of mirror from her skin, relishing the exquisite flash of pain that reached to her heart and held it a moment, held it like a fist, then fled her body in one last warm push.

  part three

  thirteen

  Trees were in feverish white flower outside the lavish, dilapidated building where Kyle’s cousin, Steven Lake, and his wife, Ingrid, lived. Phoebe lingered on the street, hesitant to ring the bell so early. She’d taken the overnight train to Munich from Paris, giving the Lakes, who had never heard of her, no warning of her arrival. She’d been afraid they might say there wasn’t room for her.

  Phoebe sat on the front steps to wait. Days had passed since the acid trip. The pounding of her head had been unbearable at first, gray-blue bruises on her forehead and temples and scalp. For two days she’d lain quite still on the sagging bed, listening to scattershot sounds from the street. She’d been afraid to move; the membrane between herself and the acid trip seemed very thin, like the soft patch on an infant’s skull. Sudden, drastic movement might puncture it, causing her to fall back through. Carefully Phoebe would creep down the many flights of stairs to pay for her room and buy food. On the third day she’d begun reading her book of Charles Dickens stories: blacksmiths, scullery maids, Christmas roasts, somehow they were what she needed.

  She’d thought at first that she might go home. But with time this seemed less and less possible, like turning around on that narrow street lined with hissing women, finding the way back just as long.

  When the ache in her head subsided, Phoebe had turned to the task of repairing her room. She moved carefully, as if each bone in her body had been broken and reset. She wrapped the pieces of shattered mirror in a T-shirt and smuggled them out to the street, where she emptied them into a wastebin. Her bloody hand had stained the bedspread, but after several bouts of scrubbing and hanging it in the sun to dry, the stain (the whole spread, in fact) had faded.

  Faith’s postcards were gone. She’d thrown them into the Seine. Phoebe remembered doing it, the driving, frantic sense that this move held the key to her survival, but she no longer knew why. Now there was nothing to guide her—if you chose a place at random, how could it matter whether you went there? The address of Kyle’s cousin, Steven Lake, was still wrapped around the pink joint at the bottom of her wallet. All this time she’d carried it.

  Phoebe leaned against her backpack and drifted into shallow sleep. At exactly nine o’c
lock she woke, climbed the steps and pressed buzzer three. An intercom clicked on, a man’s voice spoke in German.

  “I’m looking for Steven Lake,” Phoebe said, pronouncing the name slowly.

  “Steve’s in Brussels this summer,” said the same voice, but American now.

  “Brussels,” she said.

  “Yeah, I’m renting while they’re gone. You want their address? Hello?”

  Phoebe felt as if she were sliding down a hill.

  “Hello?”

  “I was supposed to—give him—” She was stammering.

  The intercom clicked off. Phoebe turned back to the empty street. The flowering trees had a sweet, powdery smell. She was in Munich, Germany. When a buzzer sounded, Phoebe whirled back around, throwing her weight against the door.

  “Third floor,” he called. The hall was shadowy. Phoebe began toiling up the stairs under her backpack. She heard descending footsteps, and through the hair that had fallen across her face, glimpsed a tall man wearing wire-rimmed glasses. She questioned the point of hauling the backpack upstairs when Steven Lake didn’t even live here.

  “Here, let me take that,” the man said, lifting it from her shoulders. Phoebe noticed a slight double-take at her appearance. The bruises were still visible, ashy smudges above her eyes and on her temples. She lowered her head. The man sprang ahead toward the first landing. Phoebe sensed the hurry in his step, an eagerness to get on with his day.