The Orphan's Tale

by Pam Jenoff

  I turn back, daring to interrupt him one more time. “Sir, one last thing—Astrid would be very angry if she knew I told you.”

  I watch the conflict on his face, wanting to agree to keep my secret, but unable to promise without lying. “I won’t say I heard it from you.” The offer is little comfort. I’m the only one who knows. Worry tugs at my stomach as I walk from the train car.

  When I reach our carriage, Astrid sits on the berth in the darkness, holding Theo, who is sleeping. I fight the urge to poke him so he will open his dark eyes and look at me. “He went down a few minutes ago,” she says. Knowing that I just missed Theo being awake almost makes it worse. She strokes his cheek gently.

  “I wanted to ask,” Astrid begins. I freeze, trying to come up with a plausible excuse for where I had been. “On your way back, did you see Peter?”

  “Not since we left the backyard. He was rehearsing,” I say, mindful that it isn’t quite the right word for fixing things after the show.

  “I wish I could go to him. But he prefers to sleep alone on the road once the performances have begun.” Her eyes drift longingly in the direction of Peter’s train car. “After seeing Erich’s colleague...” She dips her chin low to her chest. “I just don’t want to be alone.” Her hands tremble against Theo’s back.

  She is lonely, I realize. I had gotten used to being on my own during my months working at the train station at Bensheim. Having grown up an only child, it was not so difficult. But Astrid had gone from her large circus family to Erich and then quickly found Peter. Despite her fierceness, she can’t handle being alone.

  “You aren’t alone,” I say, feeling a second-best substitute, inadequate. I wrap my arm around her. “I’m here.” She stiffens and for a second I wonder if she will pull away. Since coming to the circus, it has always been me needing Astrid, depending on her. Now the opposite seems true.

  Astrid stretches out on the berth with Theo in her arms. I slip in beside her, her body warm. We press our foreheads together like twins in the womb, one entity breathing together. I feel comfort in a way I hadn’t since leaving home. Astrid had joked once that she was old enough to be my mother. But it is true. I see my own mother now, as clearly as I had the day she watched me leave. She should have fought for me, protected me with her life. Now, having Theo, I understand what her love should have been and was not.

  “What are you thinking?” Astrid asks. It is the first time she has taken an interest.

  “About the sea,” I lie, too embarrassed to admit that I yearn for the family that had cast me out.

  “The sea, or the people who live near it?” she asks, her tone even as she sees through my answer. “Your family—you still love them, don’t you?”

  “I suppose.” The admission feels like a weakness.

  “You cry out in the night for them,” she says. Feeling myself flush, I am glad she cannot see my face through the darkness. “I still dream about Erich,” she confides. “And I still have feelings for him.”

  I am surprised. “Even though he...”

  “Turned me out? Rejected me? Yes, even then. You love the people they were before, below all the awfulness that made them do this thing, you know?”

  I do. In the sadness of her voice, I can hear how very much it hurt when Erich turned his back on her. “But now you have Peter,” I remind, wanting to ease her pain.

  “Yes,” she acknowledges, “it isn’t quite the same, though.”

  “He cares for you a lot,” I press.

  Beside me I can feel her stiffen. “Peter enjoys my company. That is all.”

  “But Astrid... I can see how much he cares for you...and you him.” She does not answer. How can Astrid not see the truth about Peter’s feelings? Maybe after all she has been through, she is afraid to want more.

  “Anyway, we were talking about you,” Astrid says, shifting the subject. “I know you miss your family. But the past is the past. Face front, shoulder to the wind. You have Theo now. You are never going back.” Her voice is firm. “You need to accept that if you are to save yourself and Theo. Unless, of course, you find his family. You want him to find his family, don’t you?” she presses.

  A knife of pain shoots through me. “Of course. It would be a relief,” I reply, my voice hollow. Though I had thought of Theo’s family, prayed for them, I cannot imagine ever letting go of him. He is mine now.

  “Or if not, he could be adopted. He isn’t yours. He belongs with a family. You are a young girl with your whole life before you. Someday you will have to let him go.”

  I am his family, I think. I gesture around the railcar in the darkness. “This is my life.” I do not plan to stay with the circus forever. I need to get Theo farther away, out of Germany for good. But right now it is hard to imagine anything else.

  “One day you may feel differently,” she replies. “Sometimes our forever life does not last as long as we think.”

  Her words seem to echo through the stillness of the sleeper. I bite my lip to keep from protesting. I had given up my child once and it almost killed me. I could not survive that kind of pain again.

  Of course Astrid does not know this. My past is still a hidden secret. It seems to grow now in the space between us, pushing us apart and making every bit of our friendship a lie.

  “Astrid,” I begin. I need to tell her right now about how I had come to be at the station the night I found Theo. About the German soldier. This secret cannot continue festering between us.

  “If it is about the act, we can discuss it in the morning,” she says drowsily.

  “It isn’t that.”

  “Then what?” she asks, lifting her head. I swallow, unable to speak. “Thank you,” Astrid says before I can respond. There is a vulnerability to her voice I have never heard before. “That is, I don’t think I’ve told you that I appreciate what you are doing. Without you, I couldn’t possibly continue to perform.” Strictly speaking, that isn’t true. She could continue on the Spanish web or another solo act. But her heart is with the flying trapeze, and my being here makes that possible. “I want you to know that I am grateful,” she adds, finding my hand beneath the blanket.

  A lump forms in my throat, blocking the words I had meant to say. I could push through it, insist on telling the truth. But she squeezes my hand and there is a warmth between us that has never been there before. My will to tell her evaporates and blows away like dust. “What were you going to say?”

  “Nothing. That is...it’s about Peter.” I cannot bear telling her the whole truth about my past now. But in my haste to avoid my secret, I blurt out another: “He was drinking before the show.” I cringe, unsure whether I should have said this. It is not my business. But some part of me feels that she should know.

  Astrid does not respond right away and I feel her stiffen with concern beside me. “Are you sure?” she asks. “He always acts strangely before a performance.” Her voice is uneasy, not wanting to acknowledge a truth she already knows.

  “I’m sure. I saw him coming from the beer tent.”

  “Oh.” She does not sound surprised, only sad. “I’ve tried so hard to stop him.”

  Try harder, I want to say. How could a person as otherwise strong as Astrid not be able to stand up to him?

  “I just feel so helpless,” she declares, her voice cracking. I expect her to cry, but she simply shudders. I move closer and she falls into my arms, Theo sandwiched between us so tightly I fear he might wake and fuss. “So helpless,” she repeats, and I know she is talking about not just Peter.

  Finally, her shaking subsides and she huddles closer to me. “The show is the thing,” she adds, growing drowsy. “As long as we can keep performing, everything will be fine.”

  My mind reels back to my conversation with Herr Neuhoff. I recall his troubled look when I told him about the German recognizing Astrid.


  And I can’t help but wonder if I have made a terrible mistake.

  10

  Noa

  “I’m going into town,” I say to Astrid. I hold Theo on my lap, spoon-feeding him the last of his lunch. It is a banana—a rare find by one of the kitchen workers—that I had mashed together with a bit of milk. When Theo first tasted it, his eyes widened with surprise and he gurgled at the unfamiliar richness, so different from the usual bland porridge. Good food for Theo is scarce, since I cannot register him for a ration card without raising questions. So I give him whatever I have for myself to eat that is suitable.

  I set down the bowl, hoping Astrid will not protest. It is almost noon on Sunday, two days since our first show, and we have already finished four hours of rehearsing. My shoulders ache fiercely and an earthy smell rises from the dampness of my skin. “I’m going to the hotel to wash,” I add. Since there is no running water at the fairgrounds, the circus keeps two rooms at a small hotel, one for the men and one for the women, where we can go to bathe each week.

  Astrid reaches into her trunk and hands me a little cake of soap. “Here,” she says and I take it from her gratefully. The soap that the circus had given us is little more than a scratchy pumice stone, but this bar is smooth and sweet smelling. “I made it from sap,” she adds. I am continually amazed by Astrid’s resourcefulness, and the things she knows how to do from growing up on the road. Then her brow wrinkles. “Be back in an hour. I want to fix your knee hang and work on the split before tomorrow’s show.”

  “But it’s Sunday,” I protest. The one day we do not perform. In the backyard of the circus on Sundays, circus folk practice a bit or play cards or simply rest their weary bodies. The children run free playing tag or hoops, enjoying a day where no one corrals them back from the big top or shushes them to be quiet.

  A day of rest—but not for me. Astrid has me rehearse as much as if it is any other day, with just a few hours off after lunch to feed Theo and spend time with him. Today, it seems, I am not even to have that. I know better than to argue the point. Even though I have managed my first few performances Friday and Saturday, there is still much work to be done. I have attempted only the straight pass: I swing to a great height and she catches me by my arms as I fall. But the variations we might attempt are endless: pirouettes and somersaults, the ankle-to-ankle catch. What I have learned is just a drop in the ocean of aerialist arts, miles from good enough.

  “About that...” I break off. “I was thinking if I twisted at the end of the second pass, you could catch me in reverse.”

  It is the first time I have dared to offer a suggestion and Astrid stares at me as though I have sprouted horns. Then she shrugs and waves her hand. “That would never work.”

  “Why not?” I press. “I would be lined up for the return and it would look better than just the straight pass.”

  She purses her lips in annoyance, as though I am a child pushing for sweets after having been told no. “You need to keep working on the fundamentals. Don’t get ahead of yourself.” I step back, stung. I may perform well enough for the show, but she will never consider me an equal. “Anyway, you should get started if you want to make it into town and back,” Astrid says, changing subjects. “I’ll watch Theo for you.”

  “You don’t mind?” I ask, looking longingly at Theo. Though I am desperate to bathe and feel clean again, I do not want to leave him. I see so little of him on show days—by the time the last performance is over he is long since asleep. I hate to give up any of our precious Sunday afternoon together. How I’d love to bring him into town with me! He could use a proper bath, instead of the metal pail in which I pour water over him, causing him to either cry angrily or squeal with delight, depending on the temperature. But I can’t bring him into town and risk the extra attention and questions.

  “Not at all.” Astrid walks over and takes Theo from me. There is something in the tender way she looks at him that speaks volumes about the child she never had. She has been a bit kinder to me as well in the two short days since the first show. She is still demanding of my performance. But it seems like she actually thinks I can perform and be one of them. And after we spoke the other night about Peter and the past, I almost feel that we are friends who can trust one another.

  Or at least we could be, if not for the secret I am still keeping from her about my own child and the German who fathered him. I should have told Astrid weeks ago—it might have eased the damage. But I had not, and the truth remains buried between us, festering. Now it is not just the secret itself, but the deception of having kept it from her for which she would hate me.

  “If you go through the woods, along the edge of the stream, it’s quicker into town than the road,” she offers.

  I tilt my head, trying to envision the route she has described. Other than coming here by the main road the day of the arrival, I haven’t left the fairgrounds.

  “The path is just behind the big top,” she continues, sensing my confusion. “Why don’t we walk with you for a bit and I’ll show you?”

  I follow Astrid, who weaves through the narrow aisle between the berths with Theo. We pass a dancer tinting her hair auburn with a homemade dye. Another darns a hole in her practice leotard. By the door, a heavyset woman from one of the sideshows changes without modesty, her large breasts indistinguishable from the folds of flesh beneath them. I avert my eyes. With so many women living in one place, there is very little privacy—just one of the many things about circus life I will never get used to.

  We step outside. Earlier when we’d gone to practice, the sky above the big top had been painted in pinks and blues. But now a wreath of fog sits atop the chapiteau like a cap drawn low across the brow. We cross the backyard of the circus, the open space where tent meets train car and the circus people spend their time, away from the prying eyes of the audience. Undergarments flap shamelessly on a clothesline. Near the cookhouse, the steamy smell of boiled potatoes wafts out, signaling the menu for dinner. I hear the clanking of dishes, a half-dozen workers washing dishes from the noon meal.

  As we pass the big tent, the noises from inside are a familiar symphony, a clarinetist practicing and the grunt of the strong man mixed with the clanking of swords as two clowns engage in a mock duel. Through the gap in the curtain, the arena looks sad in the harsh light of day. The velvet seat cushions are frayed and stained. The once-clean sawdust that covered the ground is now littered with candy wrappers and cigarette butts. A pool of yellow in the corner where a horse had urinated gives the air a sour smell.

  At the edge of the fairgrounds beneath a just-blossoming cherry tree sits Drina, exotic purple skirt splayed around her, large knuckles bending beneath jeweled rings as she shuffles a deck of cards. She joins the circus each year, Astrid told me, appearing at the first tour stop and staying until season’s end, entertaining audiences on the midway before shows. In this strange world where almost all are accepted, Drina is still an outsider. Not just because she is Roma, a Gypsy; the circus has all kinds of races. But her act is a sort of trickery it seems, like magic. Not circus, Astrid said disdainfully. It is an expression I’ve heard often in the months since I’d joined them, used to describe performances that do not fit into the circus ideal.

  Drina waves me over. I hesitate, looking to Astrid. “Can I?” I ask. “I’ll only be a minute.” She rolls her eyes and shrugs. I move closer, curious about the odd-looking deck of cards Drina spreads in front of her purposefully in a formation. “I don’t have any money to pay you,” I say.

  She reaches up and grabs my hand without asking, runs her coarse fingers over the lines on my palm. “You were born under a lucky star,” she says. Lucky. How many times had I heard that before? “But you have known deep sorrow.” I shift uncomfortably. How can she possibly tell? “You will know peace,” she adds. It seems rather a bold prediction for these times. “But first there will be illness—and a bre
ak.”

  “A break, like a bone?” I ask. “And who is going to get sick?” She shakes her head, saying no more. Suddenly uneasy, I stand. “Thank you,” I say hurriedly.

  I start back to Astrid, who is twirling in a circle with Theo to amuse him. “What did she say?” Astrid asks, curious in spite of herself.

  “Nothing important,” I reply self-consciously.

  “I don’t know why you believe in such things,” she scoffs.

  And I don’t know why you don’t, I want to reply. But I fear it will sound rude. “I like the promise of the unknown, of what might be out there.”

  “The future will be here soon enough,” she replies.

  Farther from the circus grounds, we start into a forest and cut through the trees. They are denser than they had appeared from a distance, a forest of pine and chestnut. It is not so very different from the one I’d been struggling through the night I’d taken Theo. But the snow is gone and tiny shoots of grass and weed poke out of the damp earth. Light slants through the branches, which are dotted with the earliest of green buds. Something rustles in the low brush, a fox or perhaps a hedgehog. If the weather had been mild that night as now, I might not have collapsed and found my way to the circus at all.

  “I thought I might also look for some extra food for Theo in town,” I tell Astrid. “Some rice cereal or fresh milk.”

  “It’s Sunday,” Astrid points out. I nod. That’s the catch: the one day that I can get away to town is the same day that most shops will be closed. “Of course there is always the black market...” I’d heard of such things from the time our village was occupied, as well as at the girls’ home and the train station, people selling goods illegally that one couldn’t get elsewhere at a higher price.

  “I wouldn’t know where to begin finding that.” My shoulders slump. “Perhaps if I ask in town...”

  “No!” she replies sharply. “You must not do anything to arouse suspicion. If you ask the wrong person, it could raise dangerous questions.”