No Stars at the Circus

by Mary Finn

  Two of the chariots were shifting a bit as if they wanted to start racing but I couldn’t figure out how they were doing it. Nobody was touching anything and there were no wires that I could see.

  Then Signor Corrado pointed to the people in the front row and told them to come up. When they got close he moved forward and tapped underneath the platform. All the chariots took off! One of them got right ahead and went round the middle at a lick but then it bumped itself over and was passed by the others.

  I kept looking at the crashed one because right away I could see the tiny, tiny legs. There really was something pulling the chariots along!

  It was a real live flea circus. I’d read about them in my comics.

  La Giaconda stopped playing. She came forward and used her flute to move people into two lines and after they’d had their look at the chariots racing she pointed them back to their seats. Mostly they said nothing much. One boy asked if he could hold one of the chariots on his arm like he did last year but Signor Corrado smiled and shook his head.

  The man who’d said he was itchy started scratching really hard when he came up. It was the fifth time the chariots were going round. I knew the man was just stupid but it was making me itchy just to see him scratch. He had pimply skin all over his arms.

  But Signor Corrado was able to deal with him. He spoke in a very loud voice so everybody could hear. He said the man should show some respect for the rare art of the flea circus.

  “Because, ladies and gentlemen, these tiny patriotic French animals are straining their hearts and their extraordinary leg muscles to give pleasure in a grey and cold world.”

  I remember his words perfectly. Because it was right then that I decided I would have a flea circus of my own. Anyone could get fleas. They weren’t rare, like lions. I just needed to learn how to train them. When I got good at it I’d be able to earn a bit of money and we could buy some nice things on the black market. Then Papa wouldn’t have to sell any more watches.

  TROUBLE

  The show was nearly finished. Signor Corrado lowered the lid of the suitcase and told me I could sit down. La Giaconda came out of the caravan holding a cowboy’s hat and started to go between the lines, collecting money.

  The last act was Alfredo. He slinked out of the van wearing a kind of ballet costume for men. He was Signor Corrado’s nephew, but this was the first time I’d seen him. He was very thin, especially his face and his legs, but he had as much hair on his head as a lion, except it was greased back.

  He juggled with balls and then with some pretend swords, and Signor Corrado played the organ. Every time Alfredo dropped something Signor Corrado played a bad chord. It was clever because people didn’t know whether to boo or not. They thought maybe Alfredo was a clown, like the poodles.

  But in the end some of them booed anyway. Then the noise behind us got really loud. The man who’d been causing the flea trouble stood up and pointed at where Mama and Papa were, under the trees. He shouted out, really loud.

  “What about them, over there? Why do the likes of them get to stand there and look for free when we have to pay? Don’t tell me they’re patriotic Frenchmen! We know what they are!”

  Everybody looked. You should have seen Mama’s face. She looked as if she would faint. Papa took her hand and led her off, away from us. But they kept their heads high, at least as long as I could keep them in view. Signor Corrado made a face at me that meant stay right where you are. Nadia put her hand in mine, the one that was still holding the marionette. The poor old marionette was shaking like a skeleton.

  Some people began to call out to the man, “Shame” and “Steady on”, things like that. But he was still shouting after Mama and Papa.

  “See how they run! See how they run!”

  One of his friends roared out a horrible word. I won’t write it down. I hoped Mama was too far away to hear it.

  But you’ll never guess what happened next. One of the policemen on street patrol rushed over and stood right in front of the line that was making all the noise. He held up his big stick and made sure they all saw it. Then, in a loud voice, he told the man to leave.

  “Get out now, thug. But not before you put some money in the lady’s hat. And if I ever see you here again, ruining everyone’s fun, I’ll lock you up in a heartbeat.”

  La Giaconda spoke loudly too. She said, “We don’t want money from the likes of him, Officer. But thank you for your help.”

  The man had to get up and go off, all red in the face, and his line of friends too, grumbling away. Everyone else watched. Someone cheered and someone booed.

  But when the man got as far as the road he turned round and roared back at us.

  “It won’t be long now till this country is cleaned up! We’ll see who gets kicked out then!”

  The policeman shook his stick at him again and began to move after him, and the man ran off.

  Signor Corrado came over and stood in front of Nadia and me.

  “Don’t worry, my brave ones,” he said. “Alfredo is already on his way to fetch your parents. They won’t have gone far. You just sit tight and when they come back I have something to ask them.”

  TOMMASO’S EARS

  It didn’t take long. We saw Alfredo coming back, leading Mama and Papa. He looked like a skinny sausage bobbing along in front of them. Or like the stripy Pied Piper that Mama had told us about.

  Everyone else had left.

  Nadia rushed towards Mama and hugged her. Signor Corrado held out his hand and helped them step over the sandbags. “I apologize sincerely,” he said. “Nothing like that has ever happened before at any performance of ours.”

  Mama had tears in her eyes but Papa was boiling inside. I could see that.

  “You see what they’ve made of our country?” he said. “Of course, it’s not your fault, Signor. But we can’t breathe the air itself now, it seems.”

  Signor Corrado told us all to sit down.

  “I have a proposal,” he said. “I know it will sound strange after all that but hear me out. My wife is joining us.”

  La Giaconda came down the steps of the van, leading a boy by the hand. He was about my age and he had thick black curly hair like hers. He looked pretty miserable even though he was wearing a pair of real football boots. They were black and gleaming with polish, as if they’d never been used.

  The two of them came and stood beside Signor Corrado.

  “How’s my boy?” he said. “Better?” He got his fingers stuck, rubbing the boy’s hair. But the boy didn’t laugh. He just stood there.

  “This is our Tommaso,” Signor Corrado said to us. “He hasn’t been at all well lately. He’s been in hospital.”

  “Oh dear,” said Mama. “Why?”

  “The Necker Hospital for Sick Children,” said La Giaconda. “He has a problem with his ears. Mastoid infections. He has to go back into hospital again soon.”

  Mama turned pink. “That’s where our Nadia goes too, with her ears! Say hello to Tommaso, Nadia!”

  Nadia made a face at the boy. A nice face, not a rude one. He just stared back at her and dug his boots into the ground.

  “You see, Tommaso can’t go to school right now,” Signor Corrado said. “If you could spare your Jonas to come and help us out on Sundays and be a friend to Tommaso, I would promise to take the best care of him. Myself or Alfredo would pick him up and return him to you. We’d feed him well. And he would have absolute protection at all times.”

  He rubbed my hair this time. “Your Jonas is such a smart boy. He gets completely involved, a quality I like. I think he’d enjoy being part of our show. What do you think?”

  What did I think? Take a guess! But of course it was Mama and Papa he was talking to, not me. And guess which one of them thought it was a good idea and which one a bad idea?

  I bet everyone gets that one wrong.

  But it wasn’t decided right there on the spot, not with Tommaso ruining his boots, kicking the studs into the ground. And Papa still boiling ove
r with fury.

  Mama said, “We’d better go home and talk about this, Signor…” and she stopped.

  “Corrado,” said Signor Corrado. “I am Luigi and my wife is Lucia. We’re from Bologna. In better times.”

  Then he winked at me. “Don’t forget, Jonas would earn a little bit, too. The labourer is worthy of his hire.”

  We went home then.

  But in case anybody wonders, it was Papa who thought it would be a good idea for me to come to the circus on Sundays. That was because he was all wound up and angry about the stupid laws for Jews that kept us down. He didn’t think the horrible man at the circus would make any bother for me, because he hadn’t even noticed me.

  But Mama was just plain scared about it all.

  “You said he should have other boys to play with,” Papa said. “I don’t want him at school, so here’s his chance. And he won’t be on his own, going there or coming back. He’ll be with an Italian. That’s a lot safer than he’d be with me.”

  He laughed, but it wasn’t a jokey laugh. After a while Mama said she would let me go once and see how it went.

  “I did like that man,” she said slowly. “And I’m sorry for the poor boy. He looked so sick and unhappy.”

  Anyway, that’s how it all began a few months ago, with me and the Corrado family. And now I am going to bed.

  1 OCTOBER 1942

  Today the Prof gave me my first piano lesson! He said his secret plan was moving along, little by little, but he could see it wasn’t very healthy for me to be up in the attic on my own all day, even if I was devouring books.

  “We’ll try a lesson, Jonas. It’s taken me this long to realize that even if the neighbours hear you play a few scales, they’ll just think I’m taking on pupils again. Doing some work after all this time.”

  I suppose he meant after his wife’s death.

  He said he had one good neighbour who never complained about his pupils’ playing and one bad neighbour who did.

  “That fellow used to act as if he was under siege by Napoléon every time the piano lid went up. The letters I used to get! Well, his holiday is over now. I’m back at my work again.”

  The music room was small and painted the same red cabbage colour as the hall. All that was in it was a piano, and two stools. But it was a grand piano, not an ordinary one like ours. It nearly touched the two ends of the room. It was golden-coloured and polished and the lid was open. You could see all the red hammers and the wire strings inside.

  The Prof sat me down on the music stool and spun it round to make it go higher. That was fun but when it was set right he said, “Let’s hear my best pupil’s pupil play, then.”

  That made me nervous because it was so long since I’d played. And I’d never played a grand piano. I tried to delay by telling the Prof about playing the organ at the circus but he only laughed. He said an organ in a circus was probably specially tuned to sound ridiculous.

  “After all, people expect to hear poop-poop noises at a circus. Don’t worry, all your good work with your mother will come back to you soon enough.”

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t true. My fingers felt as if they were just stiff bones. They wouldn’t do anything I wanted them to. My scales sounded terrible, like cats walking up and down the keys. Not even cats running. I wanted to say sorry to the golden piano.

  The Prof told me to take a break. He played the Brahms lullaby for me and I watched his fingers.

  Then he said, “Try that, Jonas. Just pick it out as you hear it in your head and don’t worry about what old Herr Brahms wrote down on his music sheet.”

  I was much better doing that, playing by ear. I even made up something for my left hand to play, to go with the melody. It sounded all right, though I bet Brahms wouldn’t have thought much of it.

  We went back to doing scales and I was better that time, and then we did some Beethoven. The Prof played part of the Moonlight Sonata and I closed my eyes to hear it better. It was like having Mama playing in the parlour in rue de la Harpe at night, when we were in our beds.

  He told me Mama was only fourteen when she became his pupil and that she’d already won lots of prizes. He said the other students called her “the lovely Berlioz”, even the girls, because she was so pretty and so nice to everyone. That was a little strange, thinking about Mama at that age, only four years older than me. She married Papa when she was twenty.

  Then at last I remembered to ask the Prof the date. I was a bit surprised when he told me it was 1 October. I’ve got a bit confused. I think it’s from being inside all the time.

  Anyway, that means I’ve been here nearly six weeks.

  I didn’t tell him about my birthday. But it is exactly two weeks away. I suppose that even if I hadn’t asked the date I should have guessed it by looking at the trees I can see from my room. The ones in the park, with their few leaves hanging on tight. Every year there are some leaves left when 15 October comes round. Mama says they hang around just for my birthday. But mostly, they’re gone.

  I can see the fallen leaves now from the attic window. They’re just blowing around the paths and getting into piles in the gutters. Nobody’s sweeping them or clearing them up.

  The days went by so fast because I spent so much time writing about us all going to the Corrado circus. Which is odd because that was just one day nearly seven months ago.

  But it was good to think about Nadia’s birthday again. When we all meet up I’ll read those chapters out to her. I think they make a good story. It’s all true and it has a beginning, a middle and an end.

  I hope she put the marionette in a safe place. She used to take it everywhere with her.

  4 OCTOBER 1942

  NEW CLOTHES

  My shorts and shirt have got pretty dirty. Smelly, really. All this time the Prof has been washing my vest and underpants himself because he didn’t want the laundry woman who collects his clothes to see them and start asking questions.

  “There’s always the possibility Madame Belcher might be a crow,” he said. “With her, I’m afraid I wouldn’t rule it out.”

  He told me crows are people who write letters to the Germans telling tales on other people. They don’t sign their names. They just have black hearts through and through, the colour of a crow. Now I know it must have been a crow who told the Germans about us being Jews and having a nice shop in rue de la Harpe.

  There was only cold water and rough red soap to do the washing with but the Prof did his best. I said I’d do it but that was before he let me come downstairs, so I couldn’t, really.

  The underwear takes a long time to dry because he can’t hang it out in case someone sees it. He has to hang it up in the kitchen. So when it’s down there all I have to wear is the shirt and the shorts. It’s getting pretty cold now and I’m going to need a jumper or two for the winter. Or else I will turn into an iceberg.

  I told the Prof that La Giaconda would be sure to give me some of Tommaso’s clothes, if he was to go and see her. But he said he’d see about it in his own way.

  Anyway, today when he got in from the Conservatoire he came upstairs and asked me to come down to the kitchen. It was really warm there compared to my room. He had a big grin on his face. That was unusual. There was a brown paper parcel on the table.

  “A present for you, Jonas,” he said.

  I didn’t expect it would be anything much, but it was a proper boy’s suit made of some brown woolly stuff. The suit pants were shorts, not longs, but it wasn’t bad at all.

  Plus there were two white shirts and new underpants, two pairs.

  I went into the piano room and put the suit on. The pants were a little scratchy on my knees where the lining ended but it was better than having smelly ones. All the Prof would tell me was that he’d made a decent swap. He didn’t say what he’d swapped but I think these clothes are pretty good ones.

  He said he thought that there were some warm jumpers somewhere in the house, ones that his son Robert used to wear when he was young.
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  “They’ll be in a drawer somewhere, under mothballs,” he said. “My wife spent such a long time knitting them she said she’d never throw them out.”

  Then he looked sad so I told him the suit was the best clothes I’d had for a long time.

  “My mother would love to see all these things. She’d write a letter to thank you.”

  I said we’d pay him back but he said not to worry about that right now. Then we had some porridge with some of the honeycomb a friend had given him and I decided to tell him about my flea circus to get him cheered up again. I’ll write down pretty much what I told him.

  SUNDAY AFTERNOONS AT THE FAIR

  When Papa said it was all right for me to go to the fair I started helping the Corrados every Sunday.

  Well, nearly every Sunday. There was the time Nadia and I got the measles. I was much sicker than she was. Mama thought at first I must have picked it up at the circus but Giselle Bauer had the spots too and so did all the Kamynski girls on the first floor, so it was really their fault.

  Papa had to sell another watch to pay for a doctor to come and see us. I don’t even remember the doctor. Mama said that was because of the fever. I nearly boiled over.

  All the other Sundays I went to the fairground. Usually Alfredo called for me, but sometimes it was Signor Corrado. They both knew the quickest way to Nation but Alfredo walked so fast I couldn’t keep up with him. Just as well Mama didn’t know that, what with all the potato bug patrols going past with their guns and their mean faces.

  One morning when I was trailing way behind Alfredo a soldier smiled at me and pretended he was ringing a handbell. I knew straight off he thought I was a proper Catholic altar boy like Jean-Paul, even though I didn’t have the dress he had. One time long ago Jean-Paul stole the handbell from his church and we played with it until Mama found out and made him take it back. Anyway, I made a really good-boy face right back to the German. Fooled him!