"Mmm," she said, undecided. In the aftermath of their lovemaking, when they were feeling so close and warm, she thought she could tell Stephen anything.
"How was it for you today at the Gorge?" he asked. "Were you so scared for me?"
"Not—not overly so, I suppose. A few months ago I never could have imagined putting myself through such an ordeal. But today I watched."
"And how do you think this happened, this change in you?"
"Love made it happen," she said slowly. "Love."
He slid out from under her and propped himself on one elbow. His expression was earnest.
"Do you love me enough, Juliana, to make your peace with what I do for a living?"
She stared up at him, her heartbeat escalating. He was asking a lot.
"I'm not sure," she said brokenly.
"If you have an anxiety attack every time I go on the wire, it is no good. I could not concentrate, knowing that you were upset."
She stared at the crease in his upper lip. It was such a sensual upper lip. But it wasn't sensual enough to distract her from the conversation.
"I know," she said.
"Your worry stems from that night of the fall in the Superdome," he said carefully, afraid to press her too hard.
"I don't want to talk about it," she said, turning away from him, her panicky feeling overridden by a sense of inevitability.
He wished he had not spoken. But there was so little time!
He put his arms around her and turned her to face him.
"Hush, Juliana, it's all right. You are safe in my arms, and we will not talk about that night if you don't want to."
Again she surprised him. "Stephen," she said, clearly struggling to control her voice, "I will tell you what. I've never told a living soul."
She sat bolt upright, kneeling on the bed, completely naked in the relentlessly brilliant light of the moon. Her cheeks were ashen. She pulled the sheet around her shoulders and took Stephen's hand.
"This is how it happened," she said, and she proceeded to tell him about that terrible night in the Superdome all those long years ago.
* * *
On that fateful journey, the Andrassys had arrived in New Orleans late one night and gone directly to their hotel suite. The next night, Saturday, a month before Hurricane Katrina came close to destroying the city, they were scheduled to perform at the Superdome in a special show sponsored by the Shriners to benefit handicapped children.
On Saturday morning, while Grandfather Anton and Julie's father, Sandor, and Uncle Bela had been setting up the rigging at the Superdome, a delighted seventeen-year-old Julie explored the antique shops on Royal Street in the French Quarter with her mother, whose name was Elisabeth, and the cousins.
Julie's brother, Tony, and Paul, Michael and Albert were quickly bored with antiques and cheerfully splintered off from the female contingent to take an eager look at Bourbon Street, well-known for its nightclubs of every description.
"You wouldn't believe the characters we saw while we were walking on Bourbon Street," Tony enthused afterward, when everyone met back at the hotel restaurant for lunch. "A man stood on the street corner playing seven instruments at one time. And we peeked in a topless bar and saw this—"
"Did you tell Julie about the sidewalk painter?" Paul interrupted hastily.
"No, that's something she'll have to see for herself," Tony said with a grin.
"Well, let's go over to Bourbon Street right now," Julie suggested, jumping up from her chair. "C'mon, everybody."
"No, Julie," her father said. "Everyone must rest this afternoon for the performance tonight."
"Oh, pooh," Julie said, slumping back into her chair. "Here we are in the most interesting city in the United States, and I have to sit around this hotel all afternoon." She glared daggers at her father, who ignored her.
But in the elevator on the way back to the family suite, Paul told Julie quietly, "The guys are going out after the performance tonight. We'll take in the jazz at Preservation Hall, maybe go to a few clubs while we're at it. You can come with us if you like."
Julie had brightened at this idea. "Thanks, Paul. I will." She shot him a happy smile as she and Eva left the group and went into the room they shared.
Eva flopped on the bed. Then, as now, Eva had required lots of sleep.
"Wake me in plenty of time to get ready for the performance," Eva told Julie as she plumped up her pillow and settled into it.
"Okay. Say, are you going with us to Bourbon Street tonight after the show?"
Eva yawned. "I doubt it. You're not thinking of going, are you?"
"Sure. Paul invited me."
"It doesn't sound like something your parents will let you do."
"Why, I'm almost eighteen years old. I'm practically an adult.
"You'd better check with them first," Eva cautioned, knowing how strict her own parents and Julie's could be.
Before long, Eva was sound asleep. Julie wasn't really tired, so she leafed through an old copy of Seventeen and tried to get interested in the stories, but they all seemed too juvenile. She was a full-fledged member of a talented performing troupe, earning her own living. Stories about girls trying to get boys to talk to them at the beach didn't satisfy her anymore.
Finally, impatiently tossing the magazine aside, Julie stood and went to the window. The city was spread out before her in all its glory—the Superdome, the French Quarter, the Mississippi River. She wished she were out there exploring it—but of course, it was Grandfather Anton's edict that they all must rest in the afternoon before a performance, and the Andrassys rigidly observed this rule. When they were performing the nine-person pyramid, any one of the Andrassys could be the weak link that caused the structure to crumble. It was supremely important to be in excellent physical and mental condition before attempting it.
Julie heard soft voices in the living room of their suite. First she heard Grandfather Anton's low rumbling tones, and then her mother's higher ones. Finally her father joined in. This was perfect—a time when she could speak to them privately about going out with her brother and her older male cousins. Quietly she slipped into the living room.
"Why, Julie, you should be resting," her mother scolded.
"I'm not tired," Julie retorted. Her mother's accusatory tone made her hackles rise.
"Please go back to your room and rest for tonight, Julie," Grandfather Anton said. He sounded stern, but then as family patriarch he was always strict about the rules.
"No," Julie said defensively, causing her father's eyebrows to lift sky high.
"Julie, you heard your Grandfather." Her father was firm. Grandfather Anton's word was law.
"What I mean is, Paul and the boys have asked me to go out with them tonight after the show. May I?"
Her father wrinkled his forehead. "You've never gone out with them before," he said.
"They've never invited me. And this is New Orleans, Dad. Please, I want to see—more of the city." Julie had the good sense not to mention the wonders of Bourbon Street.
"Julie, I believe you are too young to go out with the boys." Her grandfather eyed her sternly.
"Eva goes with them sometimes."
"Eva is older than you."
"Only by a few years. Anyway, the boys get to go out all the time, wherever we're performing. You let them stay out until all hours last New Year's Eve in New York." With typical teenage pique, Julie was determined to get her way.
"It is different for boys. And they are also older than you are."
"Grandfather Anton, things have changed. Nowadays girls do whatever boys do. Anyway, my brother and my cousins aren't boys—they're men. And at eighteen, I'm hardly a girl—I'm a woman." Julie tossed her head.
"You are not eighteen yet, Julie. And in this family, things have not changed. If I say you cannot go out late at night, you cannot. I don't want to hear any more about it." Grandfather Anton turned his back. As the boss of the family, both on the high wire and off, this authoritar
ian old man was accustomed to having his way in everything.
Something in Julie snapped. She was sick of having to do what her grandfather said all the time, even though he thought he had her best interests at heart. She desperately wanted out from under his thumb, and she longed to make her own decisions for once. Her independence would have to come someday, and to her way of thinking, that someday was now. What better way to prove it once and for all than by going with the boys to Bourbon Street that night?
"I don't have to do what you say," she said in a low angry tone."And I won't."
"Julie," her mother began, visibly distressed.
"In a few months I'll be legally old enough to drink and vote. I'm a modern American woman, and Grandfather Anton's thinking is old-country and old-fashioned." She stuck out her bottom lip stubbornly.
"Do not attack your grandfather, Juliana!" barked her father, who would not stand for revolt against the family patriarch from his own child.
Julie's mother advanced toward her daughter, holding out both hands in a gesture of supplication.
"After the show tonight we will go for a snack together, you and me. Would you like that, Julie?" Clearly Elisabeth was trying to spread oil on troubled waters, but Julie was not to be distracted from what she saw as a major step in her maturing process.
"No, Mother," she said defiantly. "I'm going out with the boys."
Grandfather Anton whirled and confronted her with beetle brows lowered.
"That is enough," he said.
"You are wrong, Grandfather! You see me as the baby of this troupe, but I carry a full performing load just like the others! Why won't you let me have the privileges of an adult? It isn't fair!" Spots of color flared in her cheeks, but she stood her ground.
Elisabeth could never bear any dissension within the family. Quiet and soft-spoken herself, she was always the peacemaker.
"Father Anton," she said placatingly to her father-in-law, "perhaps just this once—"
"Elisabeth!" Julie's father said in shock. None of them ever questioned Grandfather Anton's benevolent dictatorship.
"But Sandor—" Elisabeth said, clearly distressed to be caught in the battle between generations.
"Enough! Julie has caused enough trouble." Sandor's dark eyes flashed the same fire as his daughter's, and he folded his lips into an unyielding line.
"Please, children, do not argue," Grandfather Anton said imperatively.
Julie felt bewildered by what she had accomplished. All she had managed to do was start a hair-raising family row. Now her father was insisting that her mother leave the room and let the two men handle the problem with Julie, and her mother was crying. Julie had stirred up a tempest, all right. She wished she could feel some sort of grim satisfaction about it, but all she felt was sadness.
She fled to her room, where Eva was sprawled on her bed sound asleep. Through the closed door Julie heard her father and mother arguing. Grandfather Anton was trying his best to smooth everything over.
Well, what would she do now? She obviously wasn't any closer to going out that night than she had been when she started. Perhaps she could sneak out. No, that would never work. Her mother always checked on her at night. Maybe she should have taken Elisabeth up on her offer to go out for a snack after the show. It still might be possible to finagle her mother into checking out Bourbon Street with her.
The argument in the living room diminished, then died out altogether. Her mother and father went to their room, and Grandfather Anton went to his. He always rested before a performance like everyone else, and he always called Nonna at home during his rest period. He was probably telephoning Nonna right now.
Julie must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew, her brother Tony was knocking gently on the door.
"Julie! Eva! Time to leave for the Superdome!"
Julie kept quiet during the ride to the arena. No one mentioned the argument with her parents and Grandfather Anton, so apparently no one else had heard it. This didn't surprise her, since the bedroom that she and Eva shared was the only one that opened off the living room. The others were situated off a long hall, and the door from the hall to the living room had been closed.
"All right," Grandfather Anton said when they had assembled in a quiet place outside their dressing rooms for costume check. They lined up, impressive in their blue leotards with the shiny silver spangles. Grandfather Anton consulted his clipboard. "Tonight are scheduled to perform—let's see—me, Sandor, Bela, Paul, Albert, Tony, Eva, Julie, and Michael. Elisabeth, you will sit out tonight."
"Julie, are you coming with us tonight to Bourbon Street?" Michael asked, leaning toward her and speaking in an undertone.
"No, Grandfather and my parents won't let me," Julie whispered back.
Michael opened his eyes wide. "I'm going! I thought they'd let you if I went!"
This galled Julie particularly, because Michael was only a few months older than she. Her father, standoffish toward Julie on the way to the Superdome, caught her eye and sent her a look which unmistakably meant "be quiet!" Her mother, red-eyed as though she had been crying, stared at the floor. Julie could tell that Elisabeth was still miserable over the afternoon's argument.
"Now," Grandfather Anton was saying encouragingly, psyching them up for the performance as he always did. "We have a large crowd out there, and we will give them our best. Remember—no other troupe in America performs the nine-person pyramid. We are the very best on the high wire." Then he paused as he always did. What he was to say next was the most important part of his speech before a show.
"Is everyone feeling well? If there is any reason, mental or physical, why you cannot go on the wire, please tell me now." His dark eyes swept over the troupe. It was his policy that anyone could refuse with no questions asked. That was why there were ten performing Andrassys and only nine in their famous pyramid.
Suddenly Julie, acting purely out of spite, stepped forward. "I cannot go on the wire, Grandfather," she said. She was aware of Eva's quick, puzzled glance. Her father's head shot up, and his eyes narrowed.
Grandfather smiled, their earlier argument forgiven. "That is fine, Julie. If you feel that you are not ready, Elisabeth will take your place. Elisabeth?"
"Yes," her mother said, reaching in front of Michael and solicitously touching the back of her hand to Julie's forehead. "I'll go instead of Julie." She dropped her hand at Julie's hostile stare, looking relieved that Julie didn't have a fever.
"Julie, is something wrong?" Eva asked as the performers slipped on their clogs for the walk to the arena.
"I don't feel well," Julie said, refusing to smile.
"Well, then," Eva said. But she was obviously perplexed. Julie was always in the best of health and had never sat out before when scheduled to perform.
Julie's mother reached over and gave Julie an unexpected hug. But Julie scowled and stared straight ahead. She was still angry at the three of them—her father, her mother and Grandfather Anton.
The band in the arena struck up a brassy fanfare, and the performing troupe donned their blue satin capes and lined up in order, with stately Grandfather Anton in the lead. Then, as the crowd cheered, they marched briskly in time to the music into the arena, heads held high, right arms raised, smiling and confident. No one would guess that any of them had been involved in a family row just hours before.
Julie, alone in the corridor, almost went back to the dressing room to wait out the performance. But for some reason, she changed her mind and tugged on a raincoat over her costume. Then she slipped into the arena and sat on the sidelines, watching as the Amazing Andrassys climbed the tall ladder to the platform where they would embark upon their journey on the wire—their last one together for a long, long time.
Chapter 12
For two or three minutes after Julie's low voice ceased to speak, nothing was said between the two of them. Julie, her hands clasped in front of her, stared into space, reliving the nightmare of that night. Overwhelmed by the sorrow w
ith which she told her story, Stephen was reluctant to break the silence.
Finally he said quietly, "It must have been very difficult for you to tell me this."
She looked at him, and it was with relief that he saw that her eyes were clear and bright, not glazed with tears.
"It was," she admitted, "but I feel better for it."
"So you have been living with this self-imposed guilt all these years," he said, caressing her forearm.
"I have been living with guilt, but it wasn't exactly self-imposed. It was real, Stephen." Her eyes, black as onyx, glinted with self-loathing.
"Many things can go wrong on the wire. You were not on the wire that night with the others. There is no way you could possibly know what caused the pyramid to fall."
"I know what caused it to fall. It was my mother. She was the weak link that night. I saw her falter on the bar where she balanced between my father's and Michael's shoulders; I saw her desperately try to save herself. But it was too late by the time she lost her balance. And then she took all of them with her." Julie shuddered, remembering the panic-stricken look on Elisabeth's face as she attempted and failed to grasp a guy wire as she fell.
"This is not your fault, Juliana." Stephen lifted himself up from the pillows and tried to pull her close, but she shook off his hands.
"Of course it's my fault. Stephen, don't you see? I refused to go on the wire for no reason at all except my stupid teenage tantrum, and my mother took my place. She was still upset about our argument that afternoon, but she thought I was sick! So she went up anyway! She is the one who should have sat out that night, not me!"
Stephen's chest constricted at the thought of the torture that Julie had hidden in her soul all these years. "So afterward, you shouldered sole responsibility for taking care of Nonna, is that right? Because it was your fault that Grandfather Anton and the others died?"
Julie nodded, pressing one hand to her mouth as if to contain the grief knotting in her throat.
"Have you ever told anyone else any part of this story?"
Julie shook her head. "No. No one knew about the argument except Grandfather, Mother, Dad, and me. And they were dead. I couldn't bear for the others to know that I was the reason the accident happened. How could they ever forgive me?
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