The Ringmaster's Daughter: A beautiful and heartbreaking World War 2 love story

by Carly Schabowski

  The crowd erupted with applause, and Stephanie rode Camille around the ring as a procession of performers entered the tent.

  First Bastien the lion jumped through hoops, then the fire eater touched them and made them burst into flame. The crowd oohed and aahed. Then from above there was a shout, and everyone looked up to see Frieda sailing through the air, all in white, her face dotted with crystals and sequins so that she glimmered as she flew.

  Below her, the acrobats had appeared; they tumbled and twirled, juggled and danced, making the crowd disorientated.

  Before they could take it all in, the performers dropped to the floor, looking as though they were dead, and Frieda fell from the sky like an injured bird to be caught in the net.

  Michel rode Beau back into the ring, his nerves causing Beau to jitter and step backwards, then sideways.

  ‘As you can see, our performers have gone into the afterlife. But do not fear! Today is the day we can bring them back to us!’

  With a round of applause, a figure appeared. A creature on stilts, head to toe in black, with only his deadened face and dark eyes to be seen. He asked the audience to chant words unknown to them, and as they did, the band picked up pace, the words spilling out faster and faster until there was a crash of cymbals, then all went black.

  The spotlight came on, again pinpricking lights on each performer as they woke, missing out Frieda in her net.

  The band struck up a Spanish tune that made the performers tumble and flip – they were alive and well! Now they moved quickly, seamlessly, and were joined by the triplets on horseback who flipped on and off Claudette. The mare rode well, her gait perfect, her nerves holding strong.

  Then, just as the crowd were settling in for the show, the lights went out once more.

  This time the audience clapped and jeered, for they thought they knew what was to come. Any minute now the lights would appear, and the troupe would take their bows. They clapped some more, and more… then slowly the applause stopped. There were murmurings of confusion in the crowd.

  As Michel reached the back of the tent, he grabbed Frieda’s hand. Then, suddenly in front of them was Herr Weber – Odélie’s soldier friend.

  ‘What is happening? Where are the lights?’ he demanded.

  Michel looked around. ‘They’ll come back on.’

  ‘I’m getting Wolff,’ Weber said, his smile thin, barely showing his teeth.

  ‘Wait, just wait!’ Michel grabbed Weber’s arm.

  Weber pulled his arm away, and with a backhand slapped Michel so hard he fell to the ground.

  Frieda gasped and bent down to help him.

  Within seconds, two more soldiers appeared. One grabbed Frieda’s arms and pulled her to her feet. Michel was scrambling to stand when the other solider caught hold of him.

  Suddenly, from inside the tent, they could hear a loud cheer as the lights reappeared and the band struck up a ditty. Laughter followed a cymbal crash – Hugo and the clowns. The show was not yet done.

  ‘See?’ Michel nodded towards the tent. ‘See.’

  ‘No matter. You can come and wait with us. I’m sure the brigadeführer will want to have a word with you after the show – thank you for everything.’ Weber smiled, this time showing his teeth.

  Serge suddenly appeared and seized Weber, then punched him hard in the face. The other two soldiers let go of Michel and Frieda, and rushed to Weber’s aid. Each tried to grapple with Serge who moved quickly, first punching one, then forcing the other under his large arm, his head under his armpit.

  ‘Go! Go now!’ Serge hissed.

  Michel saw Weber trying to get to his feet, the other soldier unconscious. Michel pushed Weber back down and kicked him hard in the ribs so that he yowled with pain and curled up into a ball. Serge gripped the other soldier’s head so tightly he passed out, then let him flop to the ground.

  ‘Serge, you must come with us!’ Frieda pleaded. ‘When they see what happened…’ She trailed off.

  ‘Don’t you worry about me, girl.’ Serge caught her in a quick embrace. ‘You go now. I’ll hide these three. Got some nice rope back there. I’ll keep them hidden – go now and be safe.’

  Michel looked wildly around him; the music was swelling, the acts coming to a close.

  ‘Go! Go now!’ Serge urged once more. ‘There’s no time.’

  Michel took Serge’s hand and shook it. ‘Thank you, Serge.’

  ‘Enough now – go!’

  Michel lifted a flap at the back of the tent and turned quickly again to see Serge dragging one of the soldiers towards a stack of crates.

  A car was waiting outside, its engine ready. Werner stood, holding on to Bertrand’s arm.

  ‘Papa…’ Frieda said, tears already rolling down her face.

  ‘Go. I love you.’ He kissed her.

  Michel hugged Bertrand. ‘Quick now, Michel. Be quick.’

  ‘I can’t leave you here, Bertrand – I can’t,’ Michel said.

  ‘You’ve no choice. I’ll be fine – I’ll pretend I was watching the show. Madame Rosie and I, we’re going back to Paris. I’ll be fine – it’s time for me to go home.’

  ‘But Bertrand…’ Michel gripped his friend’s arm. ‘What about the others? I can’t just leave them.’

  ‘You’re not,’ Werner said. ‘I’m their ringmaster. I’ll see them right. You keep my daughter safe, you hear? You keep her safe.’ His eyes filled with tears.

  Frieda did not want to let go of her father, and Michel had to peel her away and place her in the car.

  ‘Go, Michel,’ Werner said.

  Michel climbed in after her and the driver immediately pulled away.

  Both Michel and Frieda looked out of the rear window, watching Bertrand and Werner wave a sad goodbye. Then, someone else appeared – Giordano, being led by Henri towards Jean.

  ‘Henri found him!’ Frieda said, crying and laughing at the same time.

  The last thing Michel saw was Jean hugging his friend next to the candy-cane canvas that dipped and blew in the wind.

  Part Three: Winter

  I’ve lived to bury my desires,

  And see my dreams corrode with rust;

  Now all that’s left are fruitless fires

  That burn my empty heart to dust.

  Struck by the storms of cruel fate

  My crown of summer bloom is sere;

  Alone and sad I watch and wait

  And wonder if the end is near.

  As conquered by the last cold air,

  When winter whistles in the wind

  Alone upon a branch that’s bare

  A trembling leaf is left behind.

  ‘I’ve Lived to Bury My Desires’, Aleksandr Sergejevich Pushkin

  Sixteen

  New York

  The air has changed once more. This air is cold – colder than I have ever known before. It blows over the Hudson River, bringing with it snow, sleet and that smell of river water – a rich, heady scent of decaying trees and ancient mud banks, a scent that to some is perhaps unfortunate, but it takes me back to my childhood, and to my home.

  I wake to the cold and wrap a dressing gown around me – a worn old thing given to me by a kindly neighbour. A Polish woman, herself escaped to this strange city with little but her sick husband and a few treasures. Her husband is now dead. His skinny frame never recovered from the torment of the camp he escaped, and he died in her arms, wearing this gown. Some would think it morbid that I wear it, yet I think it an honour. He endured more than I have, even though my heart is perhaps more broken by love than his; at least he had his wife near him at the end.

  I make coffee. Now I own two mugs: one blue and one white with a blue trim on the lip. I choose the white mug; it matches the colour of the sky and the snow that fell last night. I fill it to the brim with a dense black coffee that I found cheap in the deli two blocks away. It smells of chestnuts and perhaps chocolate – it is harsh, bitter, and too strong for most – yet for me it is perfect.

  My ch
air. My only chair. My chair – I like to say these words. It is grey and patched in places, but it is stuffed with horsehair and this is the reason I love it so – it reminds me of the chair in Bertrand’s apartment in the 14th arrondissement, the chair I always wanted to own. I own it now. It cost me one dollar in a market that runs down the side of the block every Friday morning for people like me – for we who do not yet belong.

  I sit, allowing the stuffing to sink and envelop my weight – not that there is much of it – and sip at my coffee whilst the snow falls, thinking as always about her; wondering where she is and if perhaps today is the day I will see her again, even though I know it’s impossible. A year has passed and yet it feels as though I have just arrived; as if this is all still a dream.

  Each falling flake reminds me of her – when laughter and murmurings of love whispered their way into my ears.

  I try every day to shake the memory from my mind, to concentrate on the present, but the snow draws me to it, leading me into a memory that is whitewashed as a dream – which takes me back to her.

  It was as though winter appeared the moment we drove away in that car, in October 1940. The autumn leaves littered the road and a frigid rain hit hard on the windscreen. Frieda huddled into me for warmth and I held her close, every now and then feeling her body move as she quietly cried. As we drove, I realised I had not said a proper goodbye to Beau. I had dismounted and left him with Eliáš. I had forgotten my friend.

  The car ride was a blur. The driver, a man Henri said he trusted with his life, had a scar from ear to cheek on one side of his face. He didn’t talk, other than to tell us to lie flat on the back seat every now and then.

  He drove quickly, around bends, up hills, only stopping to fill the tank from a jerrycan he kept in the back.

  Frieda cried for Werner, for the others. I held her and tried to soothe her. ‘They will be fine,’ I said. ‘Henri will see them all right.’

  Eventually she fell asleep, her head on my lap, drained from the performance, the fear, the goodbyes.

  ‘Do you smoke?’ I asked the driver.

  ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

  ‘You want one?’

  He nodded.

  I tapped out two from the packet and lit one for him. He took it and didn’t say thank you.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘The coast,’ he said. ‘Where else are you going to get in a boat? Your bags are in the back, by the way.’

  ‘I didn’t pack a bag.’

  ‘Someone did.’

  At dawn, we reached a rugged outcrop. I could smell the sea before I saw it; the salty freshness that always made me feel excited. Despite our circumstances I felt my stomach flutter at the sense of adventure.

  I woke Frieda, who was pale and still so exhausted. She sluggishly came around, and our driver told us we had to get out of the car.

  ‘It’s freezing out there,’ I said.

  ‘I can’t stay.’

  ‘What do we do?’

  ‘You wait.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here. You wait here. They won’t be long.’

  ‘Who is they?’

  ‘You’ll know when you see them.’

  I was angry at this man, this stupid silent man, even though he had helped us.

  Frieda and I got our bags from the trunk and huddled together like refugees. I told her what I thought we looked like.

  ‘I guess we are now,’ she said, and shivered into me.

  The silent man was right. Within ten minutes two men appeared from a craggy path below the lip of the cliff.

  ‘Bonnet?’ one said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Better get a move on.’

  We followed him down the steep path, the other man at the rear, both of them turning their heads every so often, reminding me of birds checking to see where their prey was. I supposed, though, that we were the prey.

  Just as it was getting light, past the blue grey of dawn, we reached a pebbled beach and a rowing boat.

  ‘Get in,’ the man at the rear said.

  ‘We are rowing to England?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  I got in and held Frieda tight.

  ‘I don’t feel well,’ she said.

  ‘Just put your head on my shoulder and close your eyes,’ I told her.

  The men were impressive in their rowing and we moved quickly through the waves, leaving a silent wake. Their arms were powerful, and they moved in such synchronicity that I realised they had done this many times before.

  We rowed around the edge of a longer outcrop; then, just as I thought we were heading out into open sea, I saw a large boat anchored in a tiny space between the rocks, hidden from view. They pulled the rowing boat up alongside it and we climbed up a ladder onto the deck.

  No one spoke to us. No one asked to see anything but the flimsy tickets allowing our passage.

  The engine started with a splutter and those of us on deck, maybe twenty or so, looked up at the cliff edge, expecting any moment to see an army of Germans firing down at us.

  No one came.

  The sea was as cold and hard as iron. It did not want to let the boat pass through, chaffing and tugging at the bow like a child trying to cling to its mother. But the boat did not stop, ploughing on steadily, focused on the next channel, and then perhaps the next. We sat on deck with most of the last passengers to arrive – we could not go below to the hold which was dryer and perhaps safer. Instead, we sat under a balcony above; held on to each other and allowed other passengers to sit close to us, our bodies protecting one another.

  I held Frieda as the boat rocked from side to side, feeling her heart beat with mine; warming her with anything that I had. Our clothes were damp, our feet frozen and wet inside our shoes. Frieda fell asleep at some stage – a sleep that made her talk of wild things, and moan and cry out. I held my palm to her forehead to check for fever, but the icy drizzle, the slap of waves on the boat and the cries of the seamen to veer left then right, made me a useless doctor and I could not tell how she was.

  A man with a long, wet beard came forward and told me that there was a little space in the second hold; enough perhaps for her, but not for me. At least she would be dry there.

  I helped the man carry Frieda, who murmured deliriously of the triplets; that they were too young and liable to fall.

  ‘Nieces and nephews,’ I told the bearded man.

  He nodded.

  We placed Frieda in the smallest of spaces below deck, next to an older woman and her daughter who was perhaps Frieda’s age. They promised to watch her and immediately wrapped her in a blanket. I left her there with the strangers and made my way back on deck, thankful that she would be taken care of.

  Southampton was the port we stopped at, an English port, and I was happy to see dry land once more. Frieda, although still sick, became brighter once she felt land underfoot.

  I went to a seaman to find out where the ship to America was leaving from. He pointed to a larger ship further down the dock and we scurried there as the horn sounded.

  I gave the man our tickets. ‘Not enough,’ he said. ‘The fares have gone up.’

  ‘How can that be?’ Frieda asked.

  I could see who he was, this man, making a few more coins from the desperate. I wanted to hit him, to shout at him in my exhaustion, but then Frieda grasped his wrist and looked him dead in the eye. There was something in the look she gave him; desperation perhaps – whatever it was, he related to it, and could not deny her.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘That’ll do. It’s enough.’

  Has it been almost one more year? Another year here in New York? The Christmas of 1942 approaching, and me with little to think of once more than Frieda.

  As I sit here and watch the flakes of snow fall on another year gone, I can almost convince myself that my former life did not exist – that it was all a dream and I appeared here as if by magic.

  A knock at my door moments ago disturbed me. It was
my neighbour – the Polish lady. She brought me a pan of cabbage and sauerkraut with sausage. It smells dreadful but, surprisingly, tastes delightful. I am not one to dismiss free food – not with the meagre wages I earn.

  I work in a launderette. It is for rich people who have stains on their clothes from the wines I used to drink when I was in France, and the food my mother would cook. Now I make sure I get rid of those stains. My boss is Jewish. His name is Levi. He has a daughter, Miriam – a widow. She has a child and is not much bothered by me, but her father does not wish to leave her the business without a man in charge. I suppose he is looking to me. I am not sure that he should.

  I have another chair now; it is green like new leaves on a tree in spring. And I have a rug on my floor which takes some of the stinging coldness away from those bare floorboards. I own books. Many books. Books are so cheap and at times free. It is surprising to me how many times I find an abandoned book on a park bench, in a bin or on the bus. All these books remind me of Bertrand; of his living room and shelves stacked with volumes. I take them as much for me as I do for him – I know he would want me to collect them and hoard them as my treasures. I read into the night, and on my days off, I sit outside and read once more, and this stops the loneliness, the feeling of being somewhere so foreign without a purpose.

  Central Park is my favourite spot, especially at this time of year. The frozen ponds become busy with children and partners skating, holding hands, their scarfs trailing behind them, their laughter hanging in the snow-covered branches of the trees that surround them. For three days, I have a break from work. Three days when families eat turkey and sing and play games. Levi invited me to their home but I said no. I now regret it.

  I spend Christmas Eve walking the busy streets. My favourite is where the department stores live; all gussied up with lights, decorated trees, and red, green and gold window displays. The sewer grates here smoke and steam in the middle of the streets, and I keep thinking that at any moment they will bust open and something magical will appear.