by Pam Jenoff
I do not answer. Something, some detail of one of our identity cards, had given us away, belied the fact that they were fakes. Easy, I think, forcing myself to breathe normally so as not to panic Noa. The others are eyeing us nervously now. Noa slips her damp hand into mine, trusting as a child. I brace myself, waiting for the guard to return and drag us from the car.
“Your shoes,” I whisper urgently.
“What?” Noa tenses, her nails digging into my damp palm.
“Put them on. If they should take us...” I stop, not finishing as she begins to shake. It is essential that we appear calm when the guard returns.
But he does not come. Five minutes pass, then ten, my dread worsening by the second. Had he gone for the other guards? How I need Peter here with me. Noa squeezes my fingers once, then holds fast, not letting go. The train car rocks and starts to move.
“Our papers,” Noa whispers, her voice growing louder with urgency. “They’re gone.”
“Shh.” We are still on the train. We have not been arrested. But we are continuing on without our papers, which is almost as bad.
A moment later, Herr Neuhoff appears at the door of the carriage and gestures to me. “Here,” he says when I reach him. In his thick fingers he holds all of our documents. A strange look crosses his face and I wonder how much he had to bribe the guard to look the other way and not ask too many questions.
As the train picks up speed there is a collective exhale, the whole carriage seeming to relax at once. Everyone is awake now and the girls rise and dress, jostling into one another in the cramped, swaying space. Outside, the sky is lightening, pink behind the dark silhouette of a terraced vineyard, capped by a crumbling church.
Sometime later, one of the kitchen workers appears at the end of the carriage, passing out a breakfast of cold bread and cheese. The countryside begins to thin, farmhouses dotting the fields more frequently. Children peer curiously from the windows of houses and run along the tracks as our brightly painted train cars pass, hoping to catch a glimpse of the animals.
We continue on in silence, traveling over an aqueduct, and a valley unfurls, revealing a red-roofed village beneath stone castle ruins, ringed by fields of withered brush. Mossy-roofed cottages dot the hillside. They are punctuated by the occasional chateau or church with a crumbling belfry, alabaster stone walls warmed by the sun now high in the sky.
A ripple of excitement runs through the coach. Almost there. “We have to get ready for the parade,” I tell Noa.
“Parade?” Noa asks, her brow furrowing.
I sigh inwardly, reminding myself how much she still does not know. “Yes, after we arrive we will get off the train and immediately parade through town on carriages. We offer a preview to get the locals excited about the show.”
I watch her face as she processes this new bit of information, looking for signs of nervousness or fear. But she simply nods, then sets Theo down so she can dress.
The girls begin to primp as well as they can in the cramped space, applying rouge and blackening their eyebrows. “Here.” I pull a pink sequined dress from my trunk and pass it to Noa. She looks around, still embarrassed to change in front of the others. But there is nowhere to go, so she slips it on, nearly stumbling in her haste.
“Will they even come see us?” Noa asks. “The French, I mean? Surely to them we are still German...”
“I thought the same thing the first year after the war began,” I reply. “Not to worry. The people still love the show. The circus has no borders.” The audiences do not see the show as German, and they come faithfully each year.
The train wheels grind to a halt as we near the station. We do not get out right away, but continue preparing as the wagons, which had gone ahead or been leased locally, assemble out front. The animals are unloaded first, their cages placed on wheeled platforms. We shuffle toward the exit, the space becoming cramped and the midday air warm as we await our cue.
At last the door to the carriage is flung open and cool, fresh air wafts in. The station is nearly as packed as the railcar had been, dozens of spectators pressed close, waiting to welcome the circus to town. Flashbulbs pop from cameras in rapid succession. After the quiet of the train the chaos is jarring, like someone turning on the lights too quickly in the nighttime. I stop midstep, causing the girl behind me to bump into my back. I am filled with doubt, unable to move. Usually I love the open road, but suddenly I long for Darmstadt where I know every inch of the land—and where I have a place to hide. Going on the road last year as if it were not wartime was hard enough. Now I have the added burden of making sure that Noa can perform, that she and Theo are kept safe. How can I possibly carry on?
“Astrid?” Noa says in her timid voice. I turn to her. She watches me nervously, uncertain what to do.
I push past my doubts, and take her hand. “Come,” I say and together we step from the train.
Scanning the crowd, I see a look in the eyes of the people, not of scorn but of admiration and hope brought by our arrival. Adults watch us with the wonder of children. The circus had always brought light to the places it visited. Now it is a lifeline. I lift my chin. If we can still give them this, then the circus is not dead. There have been circuses from the times of the Romans and Greeks, our traditions centuries old. We had survived the Middle Ages, the Napoleonic Wars, the Great War. We would survive this, too.
8
Astrid
We make our way across the station platform. The horses, which have been hitched to the beast wagons, stomp their feet impatiently, snorting steam from flared nostrils. In the cages they pull, the lions and lone tiger are on full display. There are camels, too, and a small brown bear, standing alongside the procession on a leash. Last year, we had a zebra, but it died over the winter and Herr Neuhoff had not been able to replace it.
Slowly the parade begins to move, snaking forward toward the village, a spray of faded slate rooftops cast into a hillside with a medieval cathedral at the top watching over it all. Not so very different from the dozens of villages I’ve seen on the road over the years. Once the circus had moved more swiftly, a town a day, setting up and performing two or three times before taking down the chapiteau and moving on at night. But the train lines have slowed us now and the Germans restrict where we can go. So the bookings are chosen more strategically, places where we can camp for a week and draw spectators from the surrounding villages, like spokes on a wheel. Or can we? Noa’s earlier doubts echo in my mind. It has been more than four years of suffering and hardship here. It seems if the war drags on much longer, the people will simply stop coming.
The incline grows steeper and the procession slows as the horses strain against the weight of the wagons. Alongside the roadside there is a small cemetery; a tangle of headstones sits embedded in the side of the hill. At last we reach the edge of Thiers, a tangle of narrow streets lined by three-and four-story houses pressed close, seeming to lean on one another for support. At the top of the high street, the din of the awaiting crowd grows and the air crackles with excitement. A trumpet blares as the parade begins, heralding our arrival. Our open carriage, adorned with streamers and drawn by horses in jeweled headdresses, is near the front, ahead of the lions’ wagon with the trainer riding atop. The grandeur and bright colors of our procession glare against the withered facades of the buildings. The streets are unchanged from the villages in past years. But for the red flags with swastikas hanging from a few buildings, it would be possible to imagine we are not at war.
We move painstakingly through town, wagons inching forward. Boys wave and catcall at us from the crowd. Beside me, Noa stiffens in response to the adulation, clutching Theo more tightly. I pat her arm reassuringly. To me this is normal, but she must feel so naked and exposed. “Smile,” I say through my clenched teeth. It is a show from the very moment we step out.
On a wrought-iron second-story balcony
, I notice a boy, or a man perhaps, nineteen or twenty at most. He does not join in the cheering and waving, but watches us with a mix of disinterest and amusement, arms folded. He is handsome, though, with wavy charcoal hair and a chiseled jaw. I imagine that his eyes, were I close enough to see their color, would be cobalt. Something on our wagon catches his gaze. I start to do my best show wave. It is not me he is watching, though, but Noa. For a second I consider pointing him out to her, but I do not want to make her even more nervous. A second later, he is gone.
The cobblestone street narrows so that the parade presses close to the onlookers. Hands shoot out, small children eager to touch us, the spectacle, in ways that simply would have been rude with anyone else. They cannot reach us, though, and for that I am grateful. The faces in the crowd are different this year, eyes weary from the war, skin drawn more tightly across the cheekbones. But we are changed, too. Closer one might see the cracks, the animals a bit too skinny, performers using a bit of extra rouge to cover fatigue.
The spectators follow the parade down the winding lane toward the market square, then onto another road that leads out of town once more. Though the incline is gentler than it had been on our ascent, the road is bumpy and uneven, marred with ruts and potholes. I put a hand across Noa and Theo as we are jostled so they do not fall from the bench. I might have suggested that she leave Theo with Elsie or one of the other workers; a baby has no place in a parade. But I knew that Noa would be nervous and draw comfort from having him with her. I study the child. He does not seem scared by the noise and crowd. Instead he leans comfortably against Noa with his head cocked, seeming entertained by the commotion.
A few kilometers farther, the pavement gives way to dirt. Noa takes in the crowd that runs behind. “They’re still following us,” she says. “I thought they might have lost interest.”
“Never,” I reply. The onlookers keep up tirelessly. Women jostle babies and children pedal alongside on their bikes, their Sunday suits turning brown with dirt kicked up from the road. Even barking dogs join the melee, becoming a part of the parade themselves.
A few minutes later the road ends at a wide, flat grass field, broken only by a cluster of trees at one end. The wagon halts with an unceremonious bump. I climb down first, then reach out to help Noa. But she looks past me, eyes wide. The raising of the big top is almost as much of an attraction as the circus show itself, and not only because it is free. An army of workers with tents and metal poles and rope have fanned out over the field. The circus needs more hands than we can possibly bring with us, which is good news for the local men who are looking for work. They stand, bare-armed and perspiring, at the periphery of the flattened tarp, which covers the entire field, tied to stakes that surround it.
“I feel useless just standing here,” Noa says after climbing down from the wagon. “Should we be helping or something?”
I shake my head. “Let them do their job.” We can no more help raise the tent than the workers can swing from the trapeze.
All of the prep work is done but the real show has been saved for the crowd. Elephants, which had not been part of the procession but brought here directly by the train, are harnessed. On command, they start walking away from the center, heaving the hauptmast to its full height. Then the horses are led outward, pulling the shorter poles into place, and the whole thing seems to rise like a phoenix from the ashes, a tent the size of the massive gymnasium at Darmstadt where seconds ago there had been nothing. Though they have undoubtedly seen it year after year, the crowd lets out a stunned gasp and applauds heartily. Noa watches silently, awed by seeing the big top go up for the first time. Theo, who had been chewing on his fingers, squeals with approval.
The crowd begins to dissipate as the workers move to secure the poles. “Come,” I say, starting in the direction of the big top. “We need to practice.”
Noa does not move, but looks hesitantly from me to the child and back again. “We’ve been on the road for almost two days,” she complains.
“I’m aware,” I reply, growing impatient. “But we only have a few hours before we get ready for the first show. You have to rehearse at least once in the big top before then.”
“Theo needs to be fed and I’m exhausted.” Her voice rises to almost a whine and I am reminded yet again of just how young she is. I remember just for a second what it was like to want to do something else, to look through the window of the practice hall and see girls skipping rope in the valley and wish that I could join them.
“All right,” I relent. “Take fifteen minutes. Go get him settled with Elsie. I’ll meet you in the big top.”
I expect her to protest again but she does not. Her face breaks into a wide smile of gratitude, as though given a great gift. “Thank you,” she says, and as she carries Theo in the direction of the train, I look back over my shoulder toward the big top. Acquiescing was not entirely for Noa’s benefit. The workers are still tightening the poles; the trapeze is not quite ready. And she will rehearse better if she can concentrate on flying, instead of worrying about Theo.
As Noa disappears into the train, my doubts rise anew. Since she first let go and flew last month, she has grown stronger in her training. But she is still so inexperienced. Will she hold up day after day in front of the lights and the scrutiny of the crowd?
I walk into the big top, inhaling the moist earth and damp wood. This is one of my favorite moments each season, when everything at the circus is fresh and new. Other performers, jugglers and a few contortionists, have trickled in, working on their own acts. Peter is not here and I wonder if he is rehearsing privately, out of view, so as not to be rebuked for the political act Herr Neuhoff forbade him from performing.
Peter had mentioned it a few days earlier. “Herr Neuhoff is trying to persuade me to water down the act, bury it.”
“I know,” I replied. “He spoke to me about it, as well.”
“What do you think?” Peter was normally so self-assured. But his face was troubled and I could see he really did not know what to do.
It was only because of me that he was considering acquiescing at all. “Don’t stop yourself on my account.” I did not want Peter to have to sacrifice his art for me and resent me after.
Now the workers have just finished securing the trapeze. The foreman, Kurt, has them do this before the seats and other apparatuses, knowing that I will want to practice right away. I walk to where he is conferring with two laborers about the angle at which the benches are to be set. “Has the ground been leveled?” I ask. He nods. It matters a great deal for the trapeze. The slightest unevenness in the earth could affect the speed at which we fly and destroy the precision of our routine—causing me to miss catching Noa.
I walk to one of the ladders and give it a firm tug to make sure it is secure. Then I climb up to the fly board. From below comes the murmur of some of the dancers, chatting as they stretch. I leap without hesitating. The air rushes beneath me and I stretch forth. As always in this moment I feel sixteen again, the sound of my family’s laughter ringing in my ears as I fly. When I first came back to the circus, I wondered if the time away would have made me slower, if I could remember the moves. I was in my late thirties, perhaps too old for this. Others by now had retired to teaching or marriage or seedy cabarets in Dresden or Hamburg. But the air was all I had known. I was good at it still. Why shouldn’t I keep going? In a few weeks my body thinned, the richness of those long dinners in Berlin melting from my midsection, and I was as good as I had ever been—better even, Herr Neuhoff remarked once. I could not tell him that I flew higher and flipped harder to reach a place in the dark eaves of the big top where I could hear my brothers’ laughter, and where Erich’s rejection could no longer find me.
As I swing back up to the board a few minutes later, the chatter of the performers below stops abruptly and the tent grows quiet. Noa stands at the entrance to the big top, looking young and scared. T
he other performers eye her warily. They have not been awful in the weeks since she joined us, but they’ve been distant, making clear that she does not belong. It is always hard for new performers at the circus. Indeed, they had hardly welcomed me with open arms when I returned. And it is even more difficult for someone like Noa, who is seen as not qualified, too inexperienced to succeed.
But am I any better? I wonder. I, too, had treated Noa coldly in the beginning, wished that she would go. Though I have accepted her since the police came to Darmstadt, I have viewed her as a necessity, part of the act. I have not done anything to make her truly welcome.
Suddenly guilty, I climb down the ladder to her. I ignore the others, willing her to do the same. “Are you ready?” Noa does not answer but looks around the tent. To me this is normal, almost all I have known. But I see it as she does now: the cavernous space, rows of seats being assembled endlessly after one another.
I take her hand and stare hard at the others until they look away. “Come. The ladders are looser here than in the practice hall. And everything shakes a bit more.” I keep talking as we climb, partly to ease her nerves and partly because there are things—important things—she needs to know about the differences between Darmstadt and the big top. After a lifetime I can perform anywhere—the scenery fades and it is just me and the bar and the air. For Noa, though, every little detail could make a difference.
“Let’s start with something simple,” I say, but there is terror in her eyes as she gazes downward. She is going to fold. “Pretend they aren’t there.”
She takes the bar with shaking hands and jumps. At first she is jerky, reminiscent of her first day on the trapeze. “Feel for it,” I urge, willing her to remember all I have taught her. As she falls into the familiar forward-and-back rhythm, her movements smooth.
“Good,” I say as she returns to the board. I have been sparing with my compliments, not wanting to make her complacent. But now I offer more than usual, hoping to bolster her confidence. She smiles, drinking in my praise like water. “Now let’s practice your release.”