Circus of the Grand Design

by Robert Freeman Wexler

  "Divisional crush, ablets, and I'm done." She clenched the handles of a nearby pair of rods that extended from the wall. Bracing her feet against a rubber thing on the floor, she pulled, first with her right hand, then her left. Her cheeks turned pink.

  Lewis sat on the stool, its seat still warm from her body, and stared at a maze of thick rubber bands and levers. Guessing, he flipped a lever, and it released the tension on the rubber bands. He removed the thickest and tightened the lever. Copying Bodyssia, he gripped the ends of the bar and tried to bring them together, but could only push them partway. He levered off two more bands. It sure felt good to be exercising, and he didn't have to be embarrassed that Bodyssia was so much stronger. Look at her—these performers with their muscled bodies.

  He had awakened in the lounge, face down, arm hanging over the side, couch cushions indenting his cheek, but filled with new energy. Cinteotl's tea and sleep, that was all he had needed, and it hadn't been a normal sleep, more like a restorative trance caused by the tea. Renewed vigor—he could taste it, a glowing thread dappling throughout his system, a virus of well-being, reconstructing him into a vessel worthy of his new companions. Pull-pull-pull, yes! He opened himself to the kaleidoscopic transfusion: the Cybele film, root tea, push and pull of exercise, expanding into muscle, into heat, rising through him and out, yes, out...and, fingers limp, he let the handles fall.

  "Guess you're like me," Bodyssia said.

  She had finished the exercise and leaned against the wall, flexing her arms and examining them, as if checking to see how much they had grown from this session of weight lifting.

  "After a show, everyone is usually too hung over from cranking up, but I have to get in her and do it." She moved to a padded bench and hooked her feet under a strap.

  "There was a performance last night?"

  He got up and stood over her. "How was there another performance? I didn't feel the train stop. Didn't see anyone getting ready. Didn't hear anything." He felt like he couldn't speak clearly.

  Bodyssia finished her exercise and lay on her back. "Wasn't worth the effort. One of those 'free animal' zones so I couldn't do much."

  ~

  Prisoner of light and dark, tucked away in a comfortable cell, but a cell nonetheless. What chance for escape? No way to know the time to exit the train, no way of knowing when their next stop would occur. Endless day-nights of grayed-out windows, and Dillon, with nothing to give Lewis but the madness of the obsessed. Where were the winter afternoons, resplendent and cold? He yearned for them, his youthful dreams, but his destiny lay with the circus, did it not? And with Cybele. Queen of his dreams, radiant and warm in her world of shadows. I am here, I am here, his thoughts cried to her.

  He sank to the floor beside the weight machines. The immensity of Bodyssia receded into the mists cloaking the depths of the gymnasium. It seemed to take a long time for her to reach the exit. Her passage was so gradual at first he thought she walked in place, but then she was gone.

  How long did it take to set up, perform, and take down the circus? The worst thing was missing the mechanical horse. He needed to compare it to the one from the movie while its image was fresh. At the end, the father had built it. Tears formed as he recalled how the father had fashioned the metal parts and assembled them.

  But it just wasn't possible for so much time to have slipped past while he lay in the lounge. He felt stupid asking about it. Not that anyone was likely to help him. These self-centered performers couldn't see beyond their own noses. He would have to discover everything on his own, starting with Cybele. The film had been a message; now he needed to interpret it.

  He tried to remember his Cybele—pale skin, dark hair, dark dress. There had been several times in the past that he had awakened, or dreamed he had awakened, to find a person or a disembodied face in his room, had stared at it, blinked, stared, blinked, till he finally became truly awake and the face was gone. What if Cybele had always been near? But then she would have to be the goddess and he didn't believe in such things.

  There had to be a correlation between the length of the train, the number of rooms, and the elusiveness of Cybele. He pulled out the map and his calculus book. Could the total height of the circus personnel have some relationship to the train's length? Then, by knowing the length of the train he could determine Cybele's height by solving for x. On a separate sheet, he listed everyone's name and approximated heights for them, beginning with himself; he found a total of 95 + x feet (x for Cybele). She was at least five feet tall, therefore, (100 feet) + (6 + x inches) = (total height of circus personnel), and (total height) x (relationship of height to train's length [y]) = (length of train [z]). Or, (100 + x)y = z.

  The tidiness of the numbers excited him. The crew's estimated heights added up to a precise number of feet with no leftover inches. So Cybele was exactly five feet tall, making the total height 100 feet. He modified his equation to 100y = z. The train must be 10 times the total height, or 1000 feet (333 yards, about 19 percent of a mile).

  Without the two giant ones and the diminishing tunnel car, there were eleven train cars, and they should be about 91 feet each (1000/11 = 90.90909). Also, the combined heights of the circus personnel should correspond to the distances between stops, which would vary as the circus gained or lost performers. He jumped to his feet and rushed to the caboose, seeing no one on the way. From there, he would walk the train, counting his steps to measure the length.

  But the caboose measured 45 feet: his theory proved wrong so soon after its inception. The next car (his own) also measured 45. No matter, a good researcher is always willing to adapt to new data. If all the cars were 45 feet, then the total of the eleven cars was 495 feet, leaving 395 feet for the two giant cars with his total of 1000 feet (and he decided that because of its seeming infinity, the diminishing tunnel car couldn't be included). That should be right, close to 66 yards apiece. He would keep going. At 150 feet (three cars plus five feet) he reached Desmonica's door, which opened.

  "Come on in," she said and dragged him inside. She pushed him into a leather barber's chair. He was relieved to see she hadn't regained her weight. After that long sleep in the lounge, he had begun to doubt many of the things he thought had been happening. She pumped the foot pedal, raising the chair until their heads were at the same level. Looking at his reflection in her brass-framed mirror, he thought his face appeared less haggard. She took out a pair of shears.

  "I really can't stay right now," he said. He started to get up, but she jammed him back into the seat.

  "Having your hair in a ponytail accentuates your forehead. Don't you think?" With the shears in one hand, she gathered his hair and yanked it back.

  "Let go—that hurts." What was her problem?

  She relaxed her hand. "You're right, I'll leave it long." Humming, she swiveled the chair around to face her. "I don't know though, I'm really in the mood to cut."

  "I appreciate it, but I'll have to come back later." Desmonica lowered the chair. Thinking she was letting him go, he started for the door, but she guided him to a stool in front of the bathroom sink.

  He pressed his hands against her shoulders to keep her back, but she knocked them away and straddled him, turned on the faucet, and pushed his head down. The water scalded him. He squirmed, told her to get off him, but he couldn't dislodge her. When she finished washing his hair, she towed him back to the barber chair.

  Twisting his head from side to side, she said: "I just have to get the right image before I start."

  She released his hands, but he didn't want to move while she held the scissors. When she began cutting, he closed his eyes, but clashing metal close to his right ear made him re-open them. Desmonica waved the scissors over her head.

  "János is a great man," she said, so loud Lewis cringed. "The greatest man. He needs to live among the people, where his greatness will be appreciated. Then I can give him an heir. Cinteotl gives me the drink, so I don't get pregnant until then." She spun him around and dug her comb int
o his hair, then cut. He closed his eyes again, but when she slapped the scissors down on the counter he had to open them.

  He stared at his reflection. It wasn't a bad haircut. "Thanks so much." He eased his legs from the high chair to the floor.

  "Not yet." She put both hands around his neck and pulled him back into the chair, choking him. "Not till you tell me what you think about my plans." She kept a hand on his shoulder, warm and heavy.

  Could he talk? His neck throbbed, but he had to say something to calm her. How would Dillon handle the situation? "A spring rain is always welcome," he said. "Irrigating complex furrows sown with promises. Wheat grows in abundance, and from it flows life."

  Her eyes closed, her expression returning to the János-rapture that had consumed her at the pool. He lifted her hand from his shoulder and kissed it, then scrambled from the chair.

  Chapter 17: Ex-Wives and Crackpot Theories

  "I suppose," Lewis said to Floyd Perry, between sips of an oily stout, "that before joining the circus you were a professional jockey?" They sat in the dining car. Because they were in a public place, Lewis didn't mention the book Perry had given him. He hadn't had time to look at it anyway.

  "Drink up, boy. This is the stuff for stimulating discussion. A good pint of this and your mind flows like the homestretch of the Lancaster Derby."

  Cinteotl slipped plates in front of them. Steak, cigar-shaped green beans, and something that looked like fried potatoes.

  Perry was saying something about one of his ex-wives. "We didn't want kids. I got fixed so I wouldn't have to worry. So it's twelve years of marriage and the woman says, 'babe, I'm ready for children of my own and you can't help me.' So out she goes. And I thought, okay, here's a woman who's nearly forty and sees things catching up to her. But get this"—he slapped the table—"next thing I hear, she's moved in with that horse trainer Melvin Merrimack and is taking care of his delinquent son."

  Lewis ate, content, letting the taste and texture sooth him. The type of meat was unimportant, and these beans, he had never seen beans like this, but what did it matter? After so long without decent food, he would remember this meal always. This food, this life, this traveling home that carried him from his native lands. Abandoned by his past, no, not that—he had left, a volunteer thrown in with a roving troupe of magicians, crossing borders, casting aside grief. Dispossessed together, that was the circus and its crew, a part of the grand design.

  "Horses are like big, contrary dogs," Perry said. "You have to keep letting them know you're the boss, otherwise there's no controlling them. With women you have to hold on till they stop bucking, and nine times out of ten you're on your rump spitting out dust."

  "That's real flattering," Leonora said from behind Lewis.

  Her harsh voice jarred his pleasant mood. He looked up from his food in time to see her leaving the dining car. Gold hurried after her; he gave Lewis a quick salute as he passed.

  Dawn was there too. She stopped. Would he be interested in going to watch her rehearse on the elephant? Why not. He had eaten. But he needed to do the measuring. She put an arm over his shoulders, insisted. Women after him again. The measuring could wait. He found theorizing more interesting than application anyway. And she smiled in such a cheering way. She put her arm through his as they walked to the elephant car.

  ~

  Barca was already there. He had led one of the smaller elephants from the grassy pen to the one with the packed dirt floor and strapped on one of the platform-saddles. In the other pen, the large, hairy elephant was off on the distant hill; the second small one stood in the pond. It waved its trunk and bellowed. Lewis sat on a stool and Dawn went into the pen. He couldn't remember what she had told him about her act. Something to do with gymnastics. The saddle had two sets of wooden parallel bars, one higher than the other.

  Barca spoke to the elephant, a word that sounded like "hoekstra." Lewis looked up: Dawn had taken off her warm-ups and was standing on the elephant's head. She looked perfect, compact, muscular body in a pink leotard. He waved, but she didn't notice.

  Something about his formula for determining the length of the train bothered him. He flipped open his legal pad. It depended on Cybele's height being exactly five feet. But plus or minus a few inches shouldn't matter. Say she was five foot six. That wouldn't be enough to make much difference in the final product. Dawn swung on the bars as the elephant lumbered around the pen in an oblong path. She held herself above the higher bar with her hands while doing a split. Now he could see why she was so strong.

  He started laughing about his crackpot theory. He had made up the heights for everyone but him, Gold, and Bodyssia anyway. Dawn swung around some more, handstands, loops, turns, splits. He wanted to kiss her again. Cybele was unattainable (if not nonexistent!), and the way he obsessed about her was unhealthy. She had only visited him the one time. It was stupid for him to keep waiting for her. Too bad Dawn would be smelly after rehearsing.

  Turning to a new page, he sketched Dawn and her elephant.

  She ended the routine, and Barca tapped the elephant's head; it kneeled so she could hop off. Lewis stood up and clapped. "Bravo," he said. Smiling, Dawn bowed, then walked over to him. He shut the legal pad so she wouldn't see his sketch. "I can't wait to see your act during a performance," he said. Flattery would be good. Show interest. He had told Gold how to act, why not use some of it himself? "You're so graceful up there." He took her hand and kissed it. "And beautiful."

  "You're sweet." She sat on the stool next to his and kissed his cheek. "I need to run through it again after I rest for a minute." She unscrewed the cap of a water bottle and drank.

  It was nice having her so close, wearing only a thin leotard. She said something about scraping her knee at their last stop. He touched her thigh. It was hard, like Bodyssia's arms, but he liked the feel of her smooth skin. He decided it would be better to wait until after her second practice session to try kissing her again.

  When Dawn finished her second session she helped Barca unsaddle the elephant and herd it into the larger pen.

  "Bye for now girlies," Barca said and shut the gate. He took a white cape with a fur collar from a peg on the wall and draped it over his shoulders. Lewis watched him leave. He didn't feel like he knew Barca at all. Had he really interviewed him?

  Dawn drained her water bottle. Lewis lay his satchel on her stool and stood. She was so short beside him, eight inches shorter according to his estimate. Nineteen inches shorter than Bodyssia. He took her hand again, and feeling bolder, gave her a quick kiss on her lips.

  "Your performance is so magical. I hope my description for the program expresses its beauty."

  "The same thing, over and over. You don't know how it is." She bent to pull on her sweat pants.

  "Would you like to go back to my room for a drink?"

  "I need a shower. These damn elephants stink." She left.

  ~

  He despaired of ever fitting in with these performers. He needed consistency. Dawn had pulled him on top of her in his room, then pushed him away. Maybe he should be more aggressive, knock on her door after her shower and invite her to dinner.

  No, best to stay with the things he could control, like mathematics. He resolved to measure the train from the elephant car to the diminishing tunnel car. He walked, toe-to-heel, and the uniformity of measurement cheered him; at the end of the third corridor car he stopped and wrote 45 feet on his list.

  Not ready for the diminishing tunnel again, not now, maybe never, he sat on the floor and turned to a new page in his journal notebook.

  ~

  Chance has little to do with the elements of our situation. Once a factor has been analyzed, one hopes that the essence of belief expounds upon its recognizable qualities in a way that serves to redefine its main characteristics. Conversely, if a factor has not been analyzed, it is best left in this anonymous state, unless further deliberation is necessary. The analysis can be broken down into its mathematical dimensions, cultural significa
nce, aesthetics, and form. For example...

  ~

  What was he doing here? He longed to stand outside and feel the sun, the wind. The walls of the train trapped him. Nearly a quarter mile from here to the caboose. He had to get there now. He jumped to his feet and started running.

  By the elephant car he was winded, gasping. He stopped, bending over, hands on his knees. So out of shape. Had to keep going though, all the way to the caboose. He ran into the horse and capybara car, ran toward the next door. A looming shape, like a tree leaning into the aisle at a crazy angle. He ducked under the low branches, but something caught him, lifted him up.

  "There you are, cute guy." Not a tree: Bodyssia. She was in the pen with her animals, had reached across the pen's chain link fence to snare him. She set him on the fence, with his feet hanging down on the inside. The tops of the fence links bit into his thighs, but he was afraid to complain. He stammered something about needing to take notes on Dawn's act. For the program, for the program, he kept repeating, holding up his official duties as a shield. Her grip on his arms tightened; he stopped squirming, remembered that he had read somewhere about not allowing wild animals (and that included Bodyssia) to sense your fear, no matter how great.

  One of the capybarabears padded over and sniffed his feet. It yawned, showing the fangs that couldn't belong to a plant-eater. Bodyssia yawned too, and for a moment, he thought he saw fangs in her mouth.

  "You're just in time to watch me feed my little darlings." She moved closer, pushing against his dangling legs, squeezed him to her...now the pain in his thighs was unbearable but...too weak to push her away. She squashed her lips against his. He couldn't breathe, she was pressing him so tight. He felt himself fainting.