by Robert Lax
we shall be performers in Rome;
we will be here for a month,
we will be part of the flow of this life
and all through
the month of July
a part of its flow.
When we leave,
Rome will remember
and we will remember.
Sitting in the tent they said,
“But you could come this afternoon.”
“Really?”
“Surely!”
After a tour of the zoo, where we enjoyed the small white pony, and where we saw the five staring baby wolves—and they gave me the french word, loups (cuteau), and indicated tiny with their hands—we issued from that tent and went around past theirs to the back of the main tent, the performer’s entrance, where we met William Randal, a French clown, cousin of Zavata, and Nono, the dwarf sténodactylo from a northern town in France, who, tired of life and taunts in an office, woke his parents one night when the circus was in town and said, “Please, Mother and Father, I desire to go with the circus.” They cried and he cried, but he went and has seldom cried since (so beautiful is his smile and so content his soul). He is a friend of William Randal’s.
The Le Forts introduced me to another man, big and big-faced, stern and kindly, who shook my hand and said he was enchanted (and seemed to be) with an American journalist who had come to see the show. We talked of photographing the circus from the outside and at night from the inside with lights.
There was music inside the tent. And though I tried to keep my eyes upon the presence of my friends, they strayed, hoping to catch a moment’s view of the ring.
The Le Forts could see this and they asked the big-faced man if I could enter. William Randal looked at me to see if this is surely what I desired. In less than a moment I said yes, and the big-faced man said yes. And they said to me, and indicated with their hands, go with him (follow after and he will take you to your place). They came with me almost to the row of seats, then left for their trailer. The big man pointed to a row of blue canvas chairs and said, “Take your choice.” I thanked him and took the nearest one.
After he departed another came, the perchist’s brother, whom I welcomed. He sat in the chair beside me.
“Fait chaud,” he said, mopping his brow as a charade.
“Yes, hot.”
“Not many people.”
“But for a matinee it isn’t bad.”
“It is too hot. Last night the tent was full.”
We watched the girl from Milan (the French clown’s friend) in a ballet dress as she rode a white and black horse around the ring; kneeling and leaning against his neck, and pointing one toe daintily in the air. She whirled down, spun around, and regained this position. She leapt from the horse and ran beside it. Again with a leap she mounted, sitting sideways on the bareback horse; her arms held out, her hands dropped prettily, jogging as the horse went around. Smiling she rode as with wings in the air.
There was music playing. There were dancers. There was a family of boys who tossed a small brother from one to another and who leapt in the air as he swiftly ran under them.
The wind blew open a flap that led to the performer’s entrance. In sunlight slanting through the door I saw the clean, taut, supple calves of an acrobat. A moment later, to solemn music, the Brothers Le Fort entered.
A platform had been raised in the center ring and they stepped up and stood upon it, each at one corner of the platform. Facing the audience in front, they raised their arms slowly up the side and over their heads (a solemn salutation full of light), “Mesdames, Messieurs, we salute you. Behold, regard the wonder we have been gifted to perform.”
They step together and René ascends, standing on the shoulders of his brother. Solemnly, as music plays, he drops his hands while Albert raises his. He then bends (hand to hand), he stands, René upon his palms, upon his brother’s upraised hands; and every muscle strains and every vein stands out; the muscles of the lower brother’s back are all symmetrical, and all stand out; the leaves and branches of the slim spinal tree, and all the human structure top to toe is taut with the effort of the ritual. Now René moves his weight to one side, pointing his toes, arcing his body to the right. His right hand presses down upon his brother’s; the left goes free to find a point of balance for the whole. A moment thus the form remains. Then René redescends, carefully, slowly, with lithe decorum, never breaking the mystical line of balance.
There is a moment when they stand in line, their muscles still taut from the exercise. They stand outlined in the light, then they turn again to the audience, lift their hands; the applause is like the sound of leaves or rain.
Now they face each other (music playing), grasp each other’s hands, and both lean back, their backs curve down like the line of a boat, with weight at the center. Then with Albert leaning back and René leaning forward, he lowers him to the floor. Albert’s knees rise up like a fulcrum. René, a lever, seesaws over them. Again they are hand to hand and begin a new ascent. With labor of muscles, Albert turns on his side, raising his brother as he does, thrusting him upward with his lower strength.
There is a moment for the sculptor: Albert’s back beginning the ascent; then all is fluid again as they arise. And there is no art but this, the main a main, to reproduce the wonder of that rising.
“Do you think,” they had asked, “an act like this is too slow for the circus in America? In the music hall I think it would pass, but for the circus do you think it is too slow?”
Performers’ entrance;
round stools the
elephants stand on their heads on,
a clown,
a dwarf,
two hand balancers working out,
a girl in a ballet dress limbering up,
a tan Norwegian horse waiting for his act to begin,
the boys who work around the circus standing, watching,
the flat cars out in the back with all the neighborhood
children standing, watching,
the German worker watching.
William Randal practices his dance. Zavata gives him a couple of new ideas. Zavata suggests another trick, “Throw the puppet out when you dance with her. See, like this.” Randal watches. Sees that it’s funny. Everybody watches. All are charmed to see one instruct another.
The perch-pole boys about to enter;
the grey troupe’s perch-pole coming out
of the curtain over the performer’s entrance.
The juggler going to enter.
Thin line of red lipstick on truck driver’s mouth,
white satin tights over scrap-iron body,
long, coarse blond hair,
scar of lanced carbuncle on back of neck,
the blond hair chopped off by barber (or stable boy).
The big bag of chalk or sawdust they reach their
hands into to dry them.
The silhouette of the girl getting flipped by an understander against the performer’s entrance curtain in the long light of afternoon.
The performer’s entrance is the place of the most (magic) activity. It is between the world of performance and preparation.
The moment before flowering (long) after planting. A moment before the bursting of the bud; almost the moment of bursting. When the flap opens, it is the bud unfurling; the green bud of the flower. A charmed place. It is within the tent, not of it. It is intimate with the tent, but has a wide door to the backlots.
To the audience
it is the tabernacle
from which
the
awaited
enters.
For the performers
it is a place
for a moment’s
rest.
In the afternoon it shares
the streaming
rays
of sun,
it gets the breeze,
the view of the lot,
the people beyond,
the ruins,
the world outside.
The people inside
are willingly cut off.
The performers (priests)
help them forget;
help forget
by giving them
(the cream)
give them the life
of outside,
concentrated
and
perfected,
and thus
refocusing them
for another look
at a world
whose pattern they had lost
a world
before whose
multiplicity
their eyes
had
grown
dim.
THE JUGGLER
The juggler
is throwing
and catching
(standing
where the tent
flaps open)
practicing
his art.
Hours a day,
with Indian clubs
steadily moving;
if one of them drops,
he moves very slowly,
bending
and reaching
to pick it up.
Two from the right hand
two from the left,
and catching two and two;
one from the right,
and one from the left,
one from the right,
and one from the left;
catching them
one by one.
They wing
through the air;
they fly like birds.
They land
in his hand
like pigeons
roosting.
They are clubs turning,
whirling,
birds flying,
comets falling.
They are
fields
moving,
circling,
flying,
being moved
from hand to hand
(his hand
sends flying,
his hand
brings home).
But there is a law
in earth and air
to make
the bird
return.
Between his turns
the juggler stands
holding his clubs,
resting his weight,
watching the earth.
Again he is swift,
is agile,
full of wit.
He commands
and they follow;
he sends them spinning
where they intend to go.
He is here,
is there,
moving swiftly;
one who hides
from cloud,
to spring
to mountain-cleft,
to a voice
within a flame.
He leans back
and throws them
over his head
(two at a time,
two at a time)
catching
and throwing
(under his right leg,
under his left,
under his right leg,
under his left)
his solemn dancing
is only a way
of letting clubs
go by.
The juggler
is playing,
throwing and catching,
resting,
returning;
practicing
his art.
A LOVER OF CATS
The young
Czechoslovak
told me he was a lion
tamer,
and that his father
had been one
before him;
until
a lion
ate
him.
He said that
nonetheless
he loved lions
and loved to be
a trainer;
that the work
took tremendous
concentration,
that the lions were
moody
from day to day
(one never knew)
and it was
better
not to be married
if one was to follow
this profession.
Lions were
dangerous
yes,
but he
liked them.
After a few moments’
conversation,
and a short
uncomfortable silence,
he
excused himself.
Later
(from a distance)
I saw
him
sitting alone
on the crosspiece
of his wagon,
thinking.
He had said
he was a man
without a country,
that he would rather
live with lions
than people.
Somebody told me
that evening
that he was not
the tamer,
that he was just
a boy
who helped around the zoo;
feeding, cleaning up,
prodding the lions
as they prowled
through their tunnel
to the big cage
for the performance.
He stood
alone
at one matinee
listening to the
sound
of the
tamer’s whip,
the growling beasts,
the music of menace.
His eyes
were held by the movement
of the enormous
cats.
When he
saw me
watching
he looked away,
and for several
days
I did not
see him.
Then
I found him
asleep
under the bleachers
in the afternoon;
shirtless,
facedown,
resting on folded arms.
Exactly
at the center
of his back
(between his
shoulder blades)
there slept
a small
white mouse.
A clown
called me over to look.
Aware of the audience
the mouse half woke
and moved to a higher
position
on the boy’s left
shoulder.
Later (waking)
the lion-man
held the mouse
in his hand
and stroked it,
smiling very kindly.
He took me back to
his wagon
to see
the punctured
cardboard box
the white mouse
lived in.
One night
during the show
he sat in the shadows
of the performer’s entrance.
“How’s it going,” I said.
“All right, it’s hot.”
“How’s the small beast?”
“What?”
“How’s the mouse?”
“Oh, fine”;
he smiled.
Later still,
in the dark
he stood looking in at the ring
through a
part
in the performer’s curtain.
A narrow
shaft of strong light
hit his face;
shadows of the lions
played across it.
In the air
was th
e sound
of the crowd,
the whip,
the roaring,
and the music.
FRITZIST
The lion tamer
said to me,
“He’s good; Fritz.
He’s a character.
He is an original man.”
Fritz
was over in the sunlight
washing his feet;
a big man
in a visored
straw cap
and bathing trunks.
He sat
on a camp stool
splashing his feet
in a tub of water,
methodically soaping
one leg at a time.
“Comment ça va, Fritz?” I said.
“Ça ne va pas.”
“Comé, çe ne va pas.
C’est que vous fait mal?”
“Ah, c’est le monde.
C’est le temps.
Le temps sont mauvais.”
“Il n’y a pas de la paix?”
“Jamais la paix. La guerre toujours.
Encore il sera sûrment la guerre.”
“Vous le croyez.”
“Sûrement.”
“Il n’est pas possible à faire la paix?”
“Not a chance.”
“But why have war?
Nobody wants it.”
“Yes, the capitalists want it.
The capitalists on both sides want it.
The people don’t, but they do.”
“How does it work?”
“The capitalists get government contracts
to make guns and cannons.
They make guns and cannons for ten years
until all the governments have a big supply.
There is nothing to do with a big supply
of guns and cannons but shoot them.”
“What can you do about it?”
“Nothing.
The capitalists are no good,
