The Ringmaster's Daughter

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by Jostein Gaarder




  Panina Manina, a circus trapeze

  artist, falls and breaks her neck. As the

  ringmaster bends over her he sees around

  her neck an amber charm, just like the one

  he gave to his own child before she was

  swept away in a torrent sixteen

  years before.

  The theme of a father finding a long-lost

  child runs through this magical novel from

  the author of the international bestseller

  Sophie's World. The tale is narrated by Petter,

  his most intriguing creation since Sophie, a

  precocious child and fantasist who grows up

  to be a storyteller of disturbing mischief.

  Rather than be an author himself, Petter

  makes his living selling stories and ideas to

  professionals suffering from writers block.

  It's a lucrative trade. As he sits like a spider

  at the centre of his web, Petter finds himself

  in a trap of his own making.

  THE

  RINGMASTER'S

  DAUGHTER

  Also by Jostein Gaarder

  Sophie's World

  The Christmas Mystery

  Hello? Is Anybody There?

  The Solitaire Mystery

  Through a Glass, Darkly

  Vita Brevis

  The Frog Castle

  Maya

  THE

  RINGMASTER'S

  DAUGHTER

  Jostein Gaarder

  Translated by James Anderson

  Weidenfeld & Nicolson

  London

  A PHOENIX HOUSE BOOK

  First published in English in Great Britain in 2002 by

  Phoenix House

  Copyright � H. Aschehoug & Co (W. Nygaard) AS, Oslo 2001

  Translated from the original Norwegian edition Sirkusdirektoerens datter

  English translation � James Anderson 2002

  The right of Jostein Gaarder to be identified as the

  author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance

  with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  The right of James Anderson to be identified as the

  translator of this work has been asserted by him in accordance

  with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

  reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,

  in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,

  photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior

  permission of both the copyright owner and the above

  publisher of this book.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is

  available from the British Library.

  All author's royalties from this book will be donated to the Sophie Foundation.

  The Sophie Foundation awards the annual Sophie Prize (100,000 US dollars)

  for outstanding achievement in working towards a sustainable future.

  www.sophieprize.org

  ISBN 0 297 82923 8

  Typeset at The Spartan Press Ltd,

  Lymington, Hants

  Printed in Great Britain by

  Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

  Phoenix House

  Weidenfeld & Nicolson

  The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

  Orion House

  5 Upper St Martin's Lant

  London WC2H 9EA

  My brain is seething. I'm bubbling with hundreds of new ideas.

  They just keep welling up.

  Perhaps it's possible to control thoughts to a certain extent, but to

  stop thinking is asking too much. My head is teeming with

  beguiling notions, I'm not able to fix them before they're ousted by

  new thoughts. I can't keep them apart.

  I'm rarely able to remember my thoughts. Before I manage to

  dwell on one of my inspirations, it generally melts into an even

  better idea, but this, too, is so fickle of character that I struggle to

  save it from the constant volcanic stream of new ideas ...

  Once more my head is full of voices. I feel haunted by an excitable

  swarm of souls who use my brain cells to talk to one another. I

  haven't the equanimity to harbour them all, some must be racked

  off. I have a considerable intellectual surplus and I constantly need to

  unburden it. At regular intervals I have to sit down with pencil and

  paper and relieve myself of ideas ...

  When I awoke a few hours ago, I was certain I'd formulated the

  world's most competent adage. Now I'm not so sure, but at least

  I've given the virginal aphorism a due place in my notebook. I am

  convinced it could be traded for a better dinner. If Isold it to someone

  who already has a name, it might make it into the next edition of

  Familiar Quotations.

  At last I've decided what I want to be. I shall continue doing what

  I've always done, but from now on I'll make a living out of it. I

  don't feel the need to be famous, that's an important consideration,

  but I could still become extremely rich.

  I feel sad as I leaf through this old diary. I was nineteen when

  the entries above, dated 10 and 12 December 1971, were

  written. Maria had left for Stockholm several days before,

  she was three or four weeks pregnant. In the years that

  followed we met a few times, but now it's been twenty-six

  years since I last saw her. I don't know where she lives, I

  don't even know if she's still alive.

  If she could see me now. I had to jump aboard an early

  morning flight and get away from it all. In the end, the

  external pressure built up to something like the one inside

  me, and so an equilibrium was achieved. I can think more

  clearly now. If I'm careful I may be able to live here for a

  few weeks before the net tightens around me for good.

  I'm thankful I got away from the Book Fair in one piece.

  They followed me to the airport, but I doubt if they were

  able to discover which plane I boarded. I bought the first

  empty seat out of Bologna. 'Don't you know where you

  want to go?' I shook my head. 'I just want to go away,' I

  said. 'On the first plane.' Now it was her turn to shake her

  head, then she laughed. 'We don't get many like you,' she

  said, 'but there'll be a lot more in the future, believe me.'

  And then, when I'd paid for my ticket: 'Have a good

  holiday! I'm sure you deserve it ...'

  If only she'd known. If only she'd known what I

  deserved.

  Twenty minutes after my plane had taken off, another

  one left for Frankfurt. I wasn't on it. I'm sure they imagined

  I was heading home for Oslo, with my tail between my legs.

  But it isn't always wise to take the shortest route home if

  your tail is between your legs.

  I've put up at an old inn on the coast. I sit staring out across

  the sea. On a promontory down by the shore stands an old

  Moorish tower. I watch the fishermen in their blue boats.

  Some are still in the bay, hauling in their nets, others are

  moving towards the breakwater with the day's catch.

  The floor is tiled. The chill strikes up through my feet.

  I've put thre
e pairs of socks on, but they're useless against

  these cold floor tiles. If things don't improve soon, I'll pull

  the counterpane off the big double bed and fold it to use as a

  foot-rest.

  I ended up here quite by chance. The first plane out of

  Bologna could just as easily have been for London or Paris.

  But I feel it's even more of a coincidence that, as I write, I'm

  leaning over an old writing table where once, long ago,

  another Norwegian � who was also an exile of sorts � sat and

  wrote. I'm staying in a town which was one of the first

  places in Europe to start manufacturing paper. The rums of

  the old paper-mills are still strung out like pearls on a string

  along the valley bottom. They must be inspected, of course.

  But as a rule I ought to keep to the hotel. I've taken full

  board.

  It's unlikely anyone in these parts has heard of The

  Spider. Here everything revolves around tourism and

  lemon growing, and fortunately both are out of season. I

  see that some visitors are paddling in the sea, but the bathing

  season hasn't yet begun and the lemons need a few more

  weeks to ripen.

  There is a phone in my room, but I have no friends to

  confide in, there have been none since Maria left. I could

  hardly be labelled a friendly person, or a decent one, but I do

  at least have one acquaintance who doesn't wish me dead.

  There was an article in the Corriere della Sera, he said, and

  after that everything seemed to start falling apart. I decided

  to get away early next morning. On the flight south I had

  leisure enough to think back. I am the only one who knows

  the full and complete extent of my activities.

  I've decided to tell all. I write in order to understand

  myself and I shall write as honestly as I can. This doesn't

  mean that I'm reliable. The man who passes himself off as

  reliable in anything he writes about his own life has

  generally capsized before he's even set out on that hazardous

  voyage.

  As I sit thinking, a small man paces about the room. He's

  only a metre tall, but he's fully grown. The little man is

  dressed in a charcoal-grey suit and black patent leather

  shoes, he wears a high-crowned, green felt hat and, as he

  walks, he swings a small bamboo cane. Now and then he

  points his cane up at me, and this signifies that I must hurry

  up and begin my story.

  It is the little man with the felt hat who has urged me to

  confess everything I can remember.

  It will certainly be more difficult to kill me once my mem-

  oirs are out. The mere rumour that they are being penned

  would sap the courage of even the boldest. I'll ensure that

  such a rumour is circulated.

  Several dozen dictaphone cassettes have been securely

  deposited in a bank box - there, now that's out - I won't say

  where, but my affairs are in order. I've collected almost one

  hundred voices on these tiny cassettes, so these already have

  an acknowledged motive for murdering me. Some have

  made open threats, it's all on the cassettes, which are

  numbered consecutively from I to XXXVIII. I have also

  devised an ingenious index that makes it easy to locate any

  one of the voices. I have been prudent, some might even call

  it cunning. I'm certain that hearsay about the cassettes has

  saved my skin for a couple of years now. Supplemented by

  these jottings, the little miracles will have even greater value.

  I don't mean to imply that my confessions, or the cas-

  settes, will be any guarantee of safe conduct. I imagine I'll

  travel on to South America, or somewhere in the East. Just

  now I find thoughts of a Pacific island alluring. I'm insular

  anyway, I've always been insular. To me there's something

  more pathetic about being isolated in a big city than on a

  small island in the Pacific.

  I became wealthy. It was no surprise to me. I may well be

  the very first person in history to have plied my particular

  trade, at least in such a big way. The market has been limit-

  less, and I've always had merchandise to sell. My business

  wasn't illegal, I even paid a certain amount of tax. I lived

  modestly, too, and can now afford to pay substantial tax

  arrears should the matter ever arise. It wasn't an unlawful

  trade from my customers' point of view either, just

  dishonourable.

  I realise that from this day forth I'll be poorer than most

  because I'll be on the run. But I wouldn't have swapped my

  life for that of a teacher. I wouldn't have swapped it for an

  author's life, either. I'd have found it hard to live with a

  definite career.

  The little man is making me nervous. The only way to

  forget him is to get on with my writing. I'll begin as far back

  as I can remember.

  Little Petter Spider

  I believe I had a happy childhood. My mother didn't think

  so. She was informed of Petter's unsociable behaviour even

  before he started school.

  The first serious chat my mother was summoned to, was

  at the day nursery. I'd sat there all morning just watching the

  other children play. But I hadn't felt bad. It had amused me

  to see how intensely they lived. Many children find it fun to

  watch lively kittens, canaries or hamsters; I did too, but it

  was even more fun to watch lively children. And then, I was

  the one controlling them, I was the one deciding everything

  they did or said. They didn't realise it themselves, neither

  did the nursery assistant. Sometimes I'd have a temperature

  and have to stay at home and listen to the Stock Exchange

  prices. At times like these nothing at all would happen at the

  day nursery. The children would just keep getting in and

  out of their jump suits, in and out. I didn't envy them. I

  don't think they even had any elevenses.

  I only saw my father on Sundays. We went to the circus.

  The circus wasn't bad, but when I got home I'd begin to

  plan a circus of my own. That was far better. It was before

  I'd learnt to write, but I assembled my own favourite circus

  in my head. No problem there. I drew the circus as well, not

  just the big top and the seats, but all the animals and circus

  performers too. That was hard. I wasn't good at drawing. I

  gave up drawing long before I began school.

  I sat on the big rug barely moving a muscle, and my

  mother asked me several times what I was thinking about. I

  said I was playing circuses, which was the truth. She asked if

  we oughtn't to play something else.

  'The girl on the trapeze is called Panina Manina,' I said.

  'She's the ringmaster's daughter. But no one at the circus

  knows it, not even her, or the ringmaster.'

  My mother listened intently, she turned the radio down,

  and I went on: 'One day she falls off the trapeze and breaks

  her neck. It's the final performance, when there aren't any

  more people in town who want to buy tickets for the circus.

  The ringmaster stoops over the poor girl, and just then he

&nbs
p; sees she has a slender chain around her neck. On the chain is

  an amber trinket, and inside the trinket is a spider that's

  millions of years old. When he sees this, the ringmaster

  realises that Panina Manina is his own daughter, because he

  bought her that rare trinket on the day she was born.'

  'So at least he knew he had a daughter,' my mother

  interjected.

  'But he thought she'd drowned,' I explained. 'You see,

  the ringmaster's daughter fell into the River Aker when she

  was eighteen months old. At the time she was just plain

  Anne-Lise. After that the ringmaster had no idea she was still

  alive.'

  My mother's eyes widened. It was as if she didn't believe

  my story, so I said: 'But luckily she was saved from the

  freezing cold water by a fortune-teller who lived all alone in

  a pink caravan by the river, and from that day on the

  ringmaster's daughter lived in the caravan together with the

  fortune-teller.'

  My mother had lit a cigarette. She stood there disporting

  herself in a tight-fitting costume. 'Did they really live in a

  caravan?'

  I nodded. 'The ringmaster's daughter had lived in a circus

  trailer ever since she'd been born. So she'd have found it far

  stranger to move into a modern block of flats on an estate.

  The fortune-teller had no idea what the little girl's name

  was, so she christened her Panina Manina, the name she's

  kept to this day.'

  'But how did she get back to the circus?' my mother

  asked.

  'She grew up,' I said. 'That's easy enough to understand.

  Then she went to the circus on her own two feet. That

  wasn't the least bit difficult, either. This all happened before

  she became paralysed!'

  'But she could hardly remember that her father was a

  ringmaster,' my mother protested.

  I felt a pang of despair. It wasn't the first time my mother

  had disappointed me; she really could be quite dense.

  'We've been over this already,' I said. 'I told you that she

  didn't know she was the ringmaster's daughter, and the

  ringmaster didn't know either. Of course he couldn't

  recognise his daughter when he hadn't seen her since she

  was one and a half.'

  My mother thought I should rethink that part, but there

  was no need. 'On the day the fortune-teller fished the ring-

  master's daughter from the river, she stared into her crystal

  ball and foretold that the little girl would become a famous

  circus performer and so, one fine day, the girl made her way

  to the circus on her own two feet. Everything a real fortune-

  teller sees in her crystal ball will always come true. That was

  why the fortune-teller gave the girl a circus name, and

  taught her some fine trapeze tricks, too, to be on the safe

  side.'

  My mother had stubbed her cigarette out in an ashtray on

  the green piano. 'But why did the fortune-teller need to

  teach her ...?'

  I cut in: 'When Panina Manina arrived at the circus and

  demonstrated her abilities, she was given a job on the spot,

  and soon she was as famous as Abbott and Costello. But the

  ringmaster still had no idea she was his daughter. If he had,

  he certainly wouldn't have allowed her to do all those risky

  stunts on the trapeze.'

  'Well, I give up,' my mother said. 'Shall we go for a walk

  in the park?'

  But I went on: 'The fortune-teller's crystal ball had also

  told her that Panina Manina would break her neck at the

  circus, and a genuine prophecy is impossible to avert. So she

  packed up all her belongings and went to Sweden.'

  My mother had gone into the kitchen to fetch something.

  Now she was standing in front of the piano with a large

  cabbage in her hand. It most definitely wasn't a crystal ball.

  'Why did she go to Sweden?' she asked in amazement.

  I'd thought about that. 'So that the ringmaster and the

  fortune-teller wouldn't have to bicker about who Panina

  Manina should live with after she'd broken her neck and

  couldn't look after herself any more,' I said.

  'Did the fortune-teller know that the ringmaster was the

  girl's father?' my mother asked.

  'Not until Panina Manina was on her way to the circus,' I

  explained. 'Only then did the crystal ball tell her that the girl

 

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