The Fortune Teller's Fate

by Audrey Berger Welz

  “No one would guess that they’re twins.” Vladimir gazed at them, entranced. “They’re as different as night and day.”

  To Vladimir’s chagrin, Bella insisted that this second girl be named for each of her grandmothers. Just when Vladimir couldn’t hide his disappointment a minute longer, she added, “Do you like the name Lucia Akinsya Club?”

  Vladimir’s chest blew up with pride. “It’s beautiful. Maybe we could call her Lucky for short.”

  “Yes, Lucky is a good family name.” Bella smiled, and Vladimir passed out vintage Chas Goodall & Son playing cards instead of cigars to all his friends, in honor of his queens.

  That night, after everyone else had fallen asleep, I got out my book of births and wrote in it “July 7, 1914,” and then “Queen Diamond Claire” and “Queen Lucia Akinsya Club.”

  I paused, holding my fountain pen just above the paper. Outside, a whip-poor-will called. “Diamond Claire’s cheeks sparkle, and her white-blond curls shine like the moon,” I wrote.

  It was true. I could have stared at Diamond for hours—she was as hypnotic as a lit candle. Vladimir had been as awestruck as I was. “Donatella, if you hadn’t been the one who assisted Bella when she was born, I might think Diamond was a fairy changeling. How did two people with dark brown hair ever make a child so blond?”

  There was no doubt whose daughter Lucky was—even at birth I could see Bella in her. “Determined, intelligent, and a good screamer,” I wrote in my book. Already, though, I wondered if a child so insistent on attention might find life with three dazzling sisters difficult.

  All of the queens of the deck were now in play. Sadly, there would be no kings. When the doctor called in the afternoon, he congratulated Bella on her healthy twins. But he frowned when he looked at Bella’s white face. He took her pulse, and then pulled Vladimir aside.

  “Any attempt to expand your family further is out of the question,” he said sternly. “This delivery weakened Bella terribly—another would endanger her life.”

  Bella cried when she heard the verdict. “Vladimir, I’m sorry. I wanted to give you a son.”

  “Listen to me, Bella.” Vladimir put his hand on her arm. The steel was back in his eyes as he looked straight into hers. No longer was he the pacing wreck he’d been the last few weeks. “Our daughters are all I could ever want. I have all my queens in one hand.” Still Vladimir sometimes wondered if his cousin Viktor wasn’t the only one the gypsy fortune-teller had put a curse on.

  I found my jealousy of Bella was quickly replaced by the love I felt for these babies. Even my misguided feelings toward Vladimir began to wane by comparison. So I helped Bella change diapers and fix bottles and babysat, and Bella became dependent on me, and I let this attachment grow for it was the purist love I had felt since I was a child.

  Every once in a while, I imagined what it would be like to have my own family, and when I did I sometimes saw the mysterious face of Hervé. But by now so much time had passed that I was not certain if the face I saw was his or my imaginations. Several circus men had vied for my attention, but they only saw the fortune-teller and never the Russian dancer. Truthfully, they didn’t know what to do with me, but it’s not as if I made it easy. So, I put my love instead where it was returned in kind without expectation, in the twins.

  Our lives developed a happy rhythm, and time proved a balm to me, helping to bury much of what I had lost. The girls continued to grow. However, every time I heard a sigh from one of the queens, I had to stop myself from looking into their future. Now, I wonder, would it have made a difference?

  ¯¯¯

  Over several years, I saw Vladimir get frustrated and upset. “Don’t they understand how grateful I am to have such a wonderful wife and four amazing girls?” he’d say. But he was patient and also determined to defend his family. He had plenty of time to play his hand. Occasionally he’d stop by and test the waters of my female mind by asking me questions—“What do you feel about the suffragettes?” “Should a woman have the right to inheritance?”

  Then one morning he buttonholed me in my carriage. “I’m going to honor Bella and the queens,” he said. “The entire world is going to know just how proud of them I am.” And I knew he meant it.

  I watched him stride briskly away, and I didn’t hear another word until the morning Bella came to fetch me.

  ¯¯¯

  “He’s outdone himself this time. Come!” Bella pulled off my covers, awakening me. I had no idea what she was talking about, but by the sound of her voice I knew I had to get up to see what Vladimir had concocted. Ten minutes later, I was out the door and rushing right behind her, my breath making little puffs in the crisp late-fall air.

  Bella entered the girls’ room like a steam train about to slip a rail. “Hurry, get dressed! We’re going to the big top.”

  Both sets of twins were lying in their beds with their covers over their heads. When they heard Bella’s high pitch, they scrambled to put on their clothes, not caring which shirt belonged to who, or if it was inside out. Bewildered, we all hurried out the door, the girls rubbing their eyes.

  “What did Papa do?” Lucky asked me. “Mama’s really excited.” I didn’t have a clue, though obviously it was big.

  “Congratulations!” carnies yelled as we hurried through the midway.

  “Thank you,” Bella replied.

  Anxious to discover what everyone else seemed to know, the girls and I increased our speed.

  We arrived at the big top and stopped, looking up. High above, a new banner, much bigger than the one it replaced, gleamed in the early morning light. Where The Vronsky Family Circus had flown for generations, flanked by a bold heart and spade on one side, and a diamond and club on the other, a new name was painted in huge, bright letters: The Circus of the Queens. Ann Marie giggled and Spade started to cry. Diamond and Lucky wanted to know what it said.

  Bella put her hand over her mouth, overwhelmed, and looked at me. “I swear I love my Vladimir even more than before, if that’s possible.” She didn’t say it out of spite or to hurt me. She said it because she meant it and she knew that I would understand. Then she looked at Diamond and Lucky, Ann Marie and Spade, and a tear brought about by pure emotion was falling down her cheek. “It reads, ‘The Circus of the Queens.’ The queens are you four girls. Your father has dedicated our circus to you. That’s how much he loves you.”

  Vladimir played his hand, and he held it up for the whole world to see. “It’s the best play I ever made,” he told me years later.

  “It was a brilliant move,” I agreed. “Both the girls and the circus reaped more rewards than either of us could have imagined.” Yes, word of the Vronskys’ Circus of the Queens traveled fast, across oceans, even to Europe, even to France, even to a man whose main ambition was revenge, and another who was jealous of their past.

  The circus was a pipeline to the world, and by the time the third or fourth person told the same tale, it usually was more interesting than when it began.

  Talk of Vladimir, Bella, and the queens preceded us everywhere we went. There was something in the way Vladimir chose to honor his wife and daughters that captured the imagination of women, men, and children everywhere. And as the word got out, these tales grew taller and wider, until sometimes even I didn’t recognize them.

  Images of the queens were woven into tapestries. Mythical adventures with just enough truth in them were shared over late-night fires, then passed from stagehand to advance man as the circus journeyed from town to town. “The Vronskys come from Russian aristocracy,” I heard one stagehand tell another.

  “They share the blood of the royals,” the advance man replied, and I did nothing to correct him.

  Ann Marie Heart, Spade, Diamond Claire, and Lucky became famous across the country. The Circus of the Queens became much more than a name, and I became the keeper of our truths.

  Chapter 22


  In our prime, the Circus of the Queens had twenty-four train cars, including six sleepers and several tableaux wagons of ornate design. In each town we visited, the festivities began with a parade. The windjammer band would march down Main Street with a calliope not far behind. A clown riding a brightly dressed floppy-eared donkey doubled as security.

  The horses and camels had names like Nellie and Concetta. The tigers were Midnight, Satin, and Baby. Before each show, a promenade of clowns, red-nosed fun-makers, entered on unicycles while their dancing dogs did somersaults and dives. Our collection of clowns, trapeze artists, equestrians, and high-wire acts was larger than our menagerie of exotic animals. Many other circuses had more; however, we had something they didn’t—our history and our myth.

  Bella and I developed an unspoken understanding and my relationships with each of the queens grew deeper than I ever thought possible.

  ¯¯¯

  “Good,” said Sam, “now lean forward and put your hands on Napoleon’s shoulders. Close your eyes, one-two-three, one-two-three. Can you tell which hind leg is pushing off, which front leg is leading?”

  “Yes, Sam. Please, can I stand up now?”

  “No, no, not yet. Patience, girl. Sit up straight. Now, let’s see your scissors… Let your legs swing. Give yourself time to feel the rhythm.”

  At first I could only see dust swirling in a single bar of light, piercing the canvas overhead. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I could make out the massive form of a dapple-gray horse, cantering very slowly in a circle around a slender young woman: Samantha Devine, the circus’s head horse trainer.

  Sam’s parents were circus people too, and Sam had been performing with them since she was a little girl. When her folks retired, Vladimir, who knew her family, had invited Sam to join the Vronsky Family Circus, and after the birth of the first twins, she’d stepped into Bella’s place. Many had fought for the job, but Bella had been firm. “It’s only fitting, given our family history, that a woman head the equestrians.”

  I squinted at the tiny figure on the horse’s back, at the glint of red sequins… Could it be? I blinked.

  Several days later, a voice called me from the wooden bleachers. “Here, Donatella. Come watch my baby girl!”

  I started up toward Bella, glanced back down at the arena, and nearly fell off the step I was balanced on. Ann Marie had risen to her bare feet, standing like a living flame on the horse’s broad bare back.

  “Bella, are you both crazy? She’ll slip and fall! And what if the horse spooks?”

  “Calm down, Donatella. That’s why they call Napoleon a rosinback—the rosin gives her a good grip. And he’ll take care of her. Worth his weight in gold, that horse.”

  It was true; the triple beat of Napoleon’s feet was hypnotically steady, never wavering.

  ¯¯¯

  “Hands in the air, Ann Marie,” Sam called. “Now bend your knees…hold your balance…come down to sitting again. Good girl!” She whistled softly to the horse, and he fell smoothly into a walk and then halted.

  “Okay, now we’ll show your mama your new trick.” Sam walked over and stood beside the horse. “One, two, three…”

  Ann Marie leaned back until she was lying over the horse’s rump.

  “And…now!”

  Curling herself over her shoulders, Ann Marie gracefully somersaulted to the ground behind Napoleon. She looked over at us, beaming from ear to ear.

  “Mama, did you see?”

  I glanced over at Bella. There were tears of pure joy in her eyes. “Yes, darling, I saw.” And she opened her arms as Ann Marie flew up to her.

  From that moment on, nothing could have stopped Ann Marie Heart. Although she had a very sweet nature, she liked to stir things up, and she could be defiant. Her tutors loved her for her quick wit, though when one told her she was wrong, and she had decided she was right, she’d push and push until the tutor gave in.

  She rarely had to push that hard, though. She was like a magnet: somehow, people almost always ended up bending to her will.

  Sam was one of the rare people who could stand up to Ann Marie. I liked talking with Sam. Her parents were from New Orleans, and she spoke French. It wasn’t quite the same French that Mme Strachkov had beaten into me, true, but when she sang Cajun songs and one of the men brought out an accordion, it could sound as good as the best opera, and as lively and passionate, too.

  Ann Marie loved being around Sam, and Sam enjoyed baiting Ann Marie. “I’ll show you a better way to do that if you practice your dismount three more times,” she’d say. Then Sam would share a trick, and Ann Marie would almost always get it right. It was clear that, like her mother and grandmothers, Ann Marie was born to be on a horse.

  All of us were finding our places in those early years. My own life became just one of a much larger whole. I’d become the circus: its blood my blood, its life my life, its burdens mine to shoulder as well.

  It was not an easy life, but it was absorbing. It wasn’t the life my parents would have chosen for me. But I was a different person, in a different world, and I knew in this time and place I was where I should be.

  ¯¯¯

  Diamond’s translucence was more than skin-deep. She wore her feelings where everyone could see them, on her face. People seeing her for the first time were certain that they knew her; so much so that it became easier to go along with them and Diamond didn’t care. She was a natural actress, with the ability to transform herself into any character she pleased. When she entered a room, her presence was so striking that even the most talkative person in it would stumble over their words. Her seriousness was matched only by her humor. And it soon became obvious that she had a connection with what some would call the other world.

  It was good that Diamond was such a clever mimic, since she didn’t speak a word until the age of three. Living with her became a nonstop guessing game, and we all learned to play. “She’s so good at showing exactly what she means; maybe there’s no reason for her to speak,” Bella would explain to guests. She shone in every conversation effortlessly without ever saying a word.

  Still, Vladimir and Bella were concerned. They got opinions from doctors in every town we passed through, but no one had answers. “Nothing is physically wrong with your daughter,” they’d say. “For now, it appears that she simply doesn’t feel the need to talk.”

  “When Diamond is ready to say more,” I’d say, trying to reassure them, “she’ll let us know.” But Vladimir and Bella got more and more worried.

  Lucky, who was speaking at one, was afraid that somehow she had swallowed Diamond’s voice. “Did I take Diamond’s talk?” she asked.

  Bella and I both answered, “Absolutely not!” But Lucky didn’t seem to believe us. She began to compensate for Diamond Claire’s lack of vocabulary, acting as Diamond’s translator and never straying too far from her sister’s side. Lucky could read Diamond’s body language better than most people comprehend the words in a book, and when she was only two, Lucky through Diamond asked her father for a swing.

  When Diamond finally did decide to speak, her first word wasn’t Mama or Dada, it was “push.” Upon hearing that, Vladimir immediately instructed his men to build Diamond a miniature trapeze and they were to hang it from a tree in every town we visited. It was soon obvious that Diamond’s disinclination to talk had no effect on her ability in the air. She’d laugh as she swung, as if her legs might touch the heavens. Watching her, Vladimir’s eyes would light up with fierce admiration.

  Even on the ground, Diamond was full of cartwheels and games, and when we sang around the campfire, she’d happily hum along. Her second word wasn’t Mama or Papa. Bella swore it was “go.”

  “We were boarding the train,” Bella said, “and Lucky got distracted by a woodpecker. Diamond inpatient, gave Lucky a little push, and said, ‘Go.’”

  I laughed. “Perhaps our Diamond Cl
aire has a bit of drifter in her soul.”

  Lucky was a bit like the last kitten in a litter, rushing for the food bowl the second it was put out. She always tried to insert herself into whatever was going on be it with her sisters, her parents, or me. She was kind and considerate and truly loved all the members of her family, but I knew that privately she was jealous of her twin, Diamond. Diamond could attract an audience simply by wearing an expression, and it was to Lucky that everyone turned for an explanation.

  While Ann Marie was learning tricks on her pony, Spade was dancing across a high wire, and Diamond was flying through the air, Bella and I struggled to find a place for Lucky. Lucky was small, like a gymnast, but she tripped over twigs, ran into beams, slipped on dry floors, and didn’t like speed or heights. She hated when she scraped her elbow or bruised her knees, but she was smart, and she had a natural ear for a beat.

  One afternoon I took her to pay a visit to Fred, the leader of our windjammer band. He talked to Lucky about rhythm and how it keeps everyone together. “It’s the most important ingredient in a band,” he said. “Everyone would get lost without it.” Then he handed Lucky a tambourine. Surprise of all surprises, she was good.

  “The band’s rehearsing this afternoon,” he said. “Would you like to join us?”

  She looked at me. “Can I, Donatella?”

  “I don’t see why not,” I replied, smiling.

  Lucky played with the band for an entire hour. I had never seen such a big smile on her face. Soon she was marching with them. Though she was still a bit insecure, playing with the band gave her confidence: now she had a place in the circus, too. She’d play her tambourine as loud as she could, so everyone would notice that she was keeping the band together.

  Meanwhile, Spade walked in her father’s footsteps across a rope tied tight. It began when Ann Marie and Bella found her balancing on a thin log over a creek in northern Atlanta, and it continued with her walking every railroad track wherever we stopped. She would balance on one foot on the great wooden stakes tying down the big top, and in a few months she’d mastered skipping from tree stump to tree stump, or walking across thin boards laid between those stumps, pinwheeling her arms and throwing her body back and forth for balance. The more she fell, the more she got back up and tried, tried again, and as spring gave way to summer, her hesitant, jerky movements became supple and rhythmic. By the age of five, she could dance across the wire as naturally as most young girls skipped rope.