Orphans of the Carnival

by Carol Birch

  Michael shuffled in, dumped Julia’s grip and guitar in the middle of the floor and stood looking down at them, breathing heavily.

  “Well, don’t just leave them there,” said Madame Soulie, “take them across.” She clapped her hands, and as Michael picked up the grip and Charlotte the guitar, turned the clapping into a Spanish dance in their wake, urging Julia after them.

  “We are all one big happy family here, madame!” she called after them as they emerged into the backyard. It was large, with three two-room shacks opening onto it. Curtains hung over the windows. A table and benches were pushed against the side of a brick kitchen, and half a dozen chickens pecked between weed-grown stones in front of it. A swing had been fixed to the bough of a very old apple tree. She was aware of figures, one in a doorway, one peering out of a tiny crisscross window, but she felt scared and didn’t look at them. Halfway across the yard a little stooping goblin came running out from the kitchen, sudden and utterly impossible. She screamed.

  “It’s only Cato,” Michael said.

  He was all face and not enough head. What there was of his head was dark brown and exaggeratedly egg-shaped, bald and tapering to a point like a dunce’s cap.

  Seizing her hand in his little stick fingers, he spoke urgently in a high voice that broke and stuck and skidded nasally, drowning any words.

  “So tiny,” she said.

  His fingers were hot and squirmy. His face pushed itself avidly at her with a massive width of smile. A fat black woman in a guinea blue skirt and white blouse appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, a wooden spoon steaming in her hand. “Come on now, Cato,” she said patiently, “you get back now.”

  “He likes people,” Michael said, looking back over his shoulder. “You never saw a pinhead before?”

  “Never.”

  She stared into the shiny crinkling eyes, wanting unaccountably to unveil.

  “He’s just a big baby,” Michael said.

  “Cato!” the cook called.

  Mewing excitedly, Cato ran back to the kitchen. His breeches were cut off at the knee. His legs were thin, bent sticks and his feet were too big. He put his head very far back and smiled up at the cook as if he were trying to break his face.

  “Here we are.” Michael was lugging her grip through an open door. Charlotte, a frail thin-faced girl, stood back and waved her on in, staring at the veil as if trying to see through.

  “Thank you,” Julia said. Wouldn’t you just love to know what’s under here? She looked around. It was plain but comfortable. Someone had tried to make it nice with blue flowers in a jug and a clean yellow tablecloth. A game of solitaire was abandoned on a side table. Two narrow beds were neatly turned down, and a pink curtain was half drawn back on a rail of wide, brightly colored skirts. Michael put her grip down. Charlotte drew back another curtain, heavy gray linen. “You in here,” she said. “You sleep here and put your things in there. You want chocolate?”

  “I’d love some,” said Julia.

  “Look,” the girl said. “You got a window.”

  It was open for the air but covered with a net. Another net was ’round her bed. Veil on veil on veil.

  “I’ll bring you some chocolate,” said Charlotte, staring blatantly. “You’ll want hot water too, I guess.”

  The boy didn’t look at her at all.

  When they’d gone, she tore off the veil and tossed it onto the bed. She was dazed. Three weeks and she’d be on a real stage in a theater. What have I done? She got under the net and lay down on the narrow bed with her hands over her face, moaning softly. I should have gone back to the mountains, she thought. When she was little she thought the mountains were full of people like her, that there was a place up there where all the women were hairy and had more teeth. And it had occurred to her to just set off, take that path she clearly remembered, along which her mother had walked away. The path rose first gently and then, in the distance where everything turned blue, very steeply.

  Where was the girl with the chocolate and the hot water? She jumped up again and stood at the window, listening to the sounds beyond the end of the street, a muffled hum, a whistle, a rumble and a call. The Mississippi, how far away she didn’t know, not far, she’d seen it from the train, the big steamboats paddling up and down with people on the upper decks with hats and parasols. I am a woman who’s been on a train, she told herself. I’m in a great city. I’m going to New York. I could go anywhere.

  A baby cried somewhere, out along the back alley.

  She’d met Rates the day of the wedding. She’d been called from the kitchen to sing and play her guitar. All the doors and shutters were thrown open to the patio. Everyone was there, all the bright sparkling crowd of them, the boys, the young men and their wives, Doña Inés, her mouth held in the tight way she had when she was pretending not to be drunk, all the young bucks and flowery girls, and the children, some of whom had not seen her before. This was a particular treat for them. But it was nothing. She’d been stared at since she’d come into the world. She wore her red dress, a red flower in her hair, stood before the bank of paper flowers and strummed on her guitar, the same old thing she’d learned on, red and scratched. She sang “La Llorona” and “La Chaparrita,” then laid the guitar aside, took up her harmonica and played for Doña Inés, “A La Nanita Nana,” and everyone sang along. Afterward Don Pedro came forward, kissed her hand and held it and stood smiling before the crowd. “My dear friends, Señorita Julia Pastrana!” he said, and they cheered and laughed and some gave her sweets and little gifts. Listen to her! That voice coming out of that face! One lady gave her a necklace made of blue stones. “I think you’re miraculous,” the lady said. The mamás brought their babies in their arms to look at her, and she smiled and smiled. One child was afraid and screamed and was carried away by his scolding sister, saying “Oh, Enzo, making such a fuss. Señorita Pastrana will think you’re very rude.”

  “Not at all,” said Julia, but the girl did not hear. Poor little boy, she thought, will he wake screaming, with a great jerk, seeing me in the dark?

  “Who taught her to sing?” someone asked.

  Will he try and try to put my face from his mind and be unable, and wish he’d never seen me? Will I have him waking in a sweat still when he’s a man grown up with his own babies?

  “I did,” said Marta, who’d changed out of her wedding gown and put on a green-and-white dress over several layers of frothy lilac petticoat. She had not taught Julia to sing. Julia had always sung. She’d sung around the Palace as a child, sung as she worked, sung as she fixed a hem. She never showed herself unless she was called, and these days she was not called upon so much, usually only when Don Pedro had a visit from some important somebody with silk lining in his cuffs. And if that important somebody or that important somebody’s wife had heard of her and wanted to see her, she’d come out when they were sitting with their cigars and brandy, all ready and waiting and agog, in her red dress with a red flower in her hair. That had been Don Pedro’s idea, but she liked it. Red flower, black hair. Or purple bougainvillea from the vine growing along the boys’ balcony. Hoolya! Hoolya! Calling her to the patio. Hoolya! Hoolya! Summoning her to entertain them.

  Rates had appeared in front of her, a round-faced man in late middle age with a prissy little mouth and the plump chin of a great baby. He was in company with an intense boy, one she remembered, one of those who got the pull, whose eyes got stuck on her in a troubled way.

  “Señorita Julia,” the boy said, “you did not dance.”

  She wasn’t at her best; she was tired. She’d been up long before light with the other servants. It had been a horrible day. She’d been crying because of the blue dress. If she was very careful, she could cry without anyone knowing, letting the tears hide one by one, strictly controlled, in the hair beneath her eyes. This was useful.

  “Not tonight,” she replied.

  “I saw you dance once before.”

  She smiled politely.

  “I wish you wou
ld have danced,” he said stubbornly, his eyes steady.

  “Shall I dance for you now?” She smiled, picked up her skirts and did a couple of swirls, backward and forward, side to side, stamping her feet and finishing with arms akimbo. A cheer went up from those close by who saw. The older man applauded.

  “You have talent,” he said with a slight bow of the head. A Yank, by his accent.

  “Thank you, señor.”

  “Didn’t I tell you?” The boy spoke with an air of great seriousness. “She’s remarkable. She speaks English, Uncle. And you ought to see her dance. The way she points the toe.”

  “Indeed.” The man held her gaze. “Miss Pastrana,” he said in English, “you really ought to go on the stage.”

  Julia smiled, looked down.

  “She exceeded all expectations,” Don Pedro said jovially, appearing at her side and putting one arm about her shoulders. “I taught her to read myself. She can speak French too, if it’s called for. Can’t you, Julia?”

  “Mais bien sûr, monsieur,” said Julia, raising a laugh.

  “Miss Pastrana,” the man said, as the band struck up once more and Don Pedro was dragged away to the dance floor by one of his daughters-in-law, “have you ever been in New Orleans?”

  “I have never been anywhere, señor.”

  In English he replied, “Should you decide to make your fortune, señorita, come and see me in New Orleans. My card, señorita.” Which he presented with another small bow.

  “My uncle is in the entertainment business in New Orleans,” said the boy importantly.

  The name on the card was Matthew Rates.

  “New Orleans,” he said, “New York.”

  The outer door opened, Charlotte coming in with the chocolate.

  “Charlotte,” she called, “I’ve taken my veil off. You can bring the chocolate in here if you like, or leave it on the table and I’ll get it when you’ve gone.”

  Julia set about unpacking her grip, putting things in the small cupboard next to the window. A moment later a voice said, “Miss Julia, there’s some pecans too,” and when she turned Charlotte was standing by the curtain with a bowl of hot chocolate and a dish of pecans on a tray. For a long moment she held Julia’s eyes, devoid of expression, then she set down the tray. “Mr. Rates say he’ll come by for you when you’re rested,” she said.

  “Thank you, Charlotte.”

  Then she was gone. To tell. She was used to freaks, of course, but still. The chocolate was dark and wonderfully rich, and Julia drank it by the window, eating pecans and looking out at the twining plant on the back wall of the yard, thinking about Cato. He doesn’t know he’s a pinhead, she thought. He lives in that face like I do, but it’s different because he doesn’t think about it.

  I do.

  And there were more to meet. She’d be a difference among differences. It was a peculiar feeling.

  Later Mr. Rates came across with Madame Soulie. “At last!” she said, walking straight over to Julia and peering down eagerly into her face, “I can see you! Oh my, oh my, you really are the strangest person I have ever seen.” Her eyes bugged out. “And believe me, I’ve seen a few.” She reached down and touched the hair on Julia’s cheek with one finger. “You are quite unique.”

  “So I’m told,” Julia said. There were no freaks among freaks, but it was dawning that she really did surpass the lot.

  “You didn’t exaggerate, Matt,” Madame Soulie said.

  “What did you expect?” Rates looked smug. “When have I ever exaggerated? She’ll slay them in New York.”

  “Ooh, it’s lovely and soft!”

  Madame Soulie’s hand was light and cautious. She stepped back. “You are so like an ape it’s scarcely credible,” she said. “You just don’t look human. And yet you do. And you speak so nicely.”

  “I can’t be an ape because they don’t talk,” Julia said in French, smiling, “but I know how I look.”

  “Absolutely!” Madame Soulie laughed. “An ape doesn’t talk!”

  “I talk,” said Julia. “I speak French and English and Spanish. An ape doesn’t speak French and English and Spanish.”

  Madame Soulie goggled with delight.

  “Mr. Rates,” said Julia, “Whom am I sharing with?”

  “Myrtle and Delia,” Madame Soulie said. “You’ll get along fine.”

  “Of course you will,” said Rates. “Come and meet them.”

  They were in the next-door shack, which had big shutters opening out onto the yard and served as a communal parlor. The room smelled heavily of citrus and was crowded with fraying armchairs. Rates led her in by the hand through the open door. They’d been told about her and knew what to expect. There was a White Negro, a Rubber-Skinned Man, a Girl with No Arms and a Girl with No Legs. Michael sat scratching his pockmarked face on a piano stool. Seeing her for the first time, he smiled slowly.

  “Jonsy,” Mr. Rates said, gesturing at the yellow-haired paint-white Negro, whose cochineal-colored suit matched his pink eyes. He stared at her, aghast. “And this—” indicating a dark, heavy-jawed girl in a calico dress, who ended at the waist and appeared to be growing out of the florid roses on the rug “—this is Delia.” Delia twitched a corner of her mouth and one eyebrow. “And Myrtle.” A plump blonde woman in an orange kimono and red shawl half reclined in an uncomfortable-looking, overstuffed green armchair, drinking from a tin cup.

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said.

  “And this is Ted.” Ted sat beside a small card table knitting a black stocking very nimbly. The Rubber-Skinned Man, she assumed, but he just looked ordinary.

  “And here,” said Rates, grandly, “is Julia.”

  She smiled. She was terrified.

  “Sit here, Julia, next to me,” said Myrtle. “Want a drink?” She flourished an opened bottle of brandy.

  The chair was scratchy, the smell of perfume overpowering. Myrtle handed her a tin cup with brandy in the bottom. It warmed her and went straight to her head. So this is how it’s to be, she thought. No return.

  After that, though she remembered talking to Myrtle about the journey, and realizing that the hand raising the cup to Myrtle’s reddened lips was actually a very supple, long-toed foot rising gracefully from layers of skirt, she was so tired it all became dreamlike, and she said she really must go to bed or she’d fall asleep where she was.

  In bed with a swimmy head from the brandy, she thought of old Solana back home. Her voice calling, high and thready. Lying there bedridden now, peevish thing worn-out from nursing them all, the young men and boys, Marta, Julia too when they brought her in from the orphanage. Julia was the one in and out all day dealing with the dribble and phlegm, the smell of piss, the feeding and washing and wiping of mess. The night of the wedding she’d shown Solana the man’s card. “Look.” In the process of emptying the old woman’s bedpan. “This man thinks I could make a lot of money on the stage.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Solana had just finished a coughing fit. Her eyes streamed and her nose ran clear water. Her face was like the picture of a brain in a book in Don Pedro’s study.

  “Why is it so ridiculous?”

  Solana’s breath came in long icy shards. “What man anyway?”

  “I don’t know. Just a man. Sit up.” Wiping the old woman’s nose.

  Solana squinted knowingly. “What’s the matter with you? Someone upset you?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t know why you still let things upset you, Julia,” she said, irritated, “I’ve told you enough: God loves you, that’s all you need to remember.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you know?”—cough, cough—“Do you? I don’t think so.”

  “I’ll fetch your broth,” said Julia.

  And later, in spite of the tiredness pinching her bones, she hadn’t been able to sleep. You have talent. She’d got up and gone down to the inner patio, drunk water from the pump and sat on the steps with her head leaning against the dusty pink wall. Indeed. You really
ought to go on the stage. Her feet ached and she wanted to cry for no good reason. They were still at it in the salon, but it was peaceful here. Yes, I am a very lucky girl. I know.

  And you, Julia—Solana’s voice when she was younger. You’ve done well. This lovely house. You started off in a cave and now look! You can read! That day he came for you, that day was your lucky day.

  Solana came from Zacatecas and had two lost sons, one killed by Santy Anna’s soldiers, the other gone away with them to Texas and never come back. Died at the Alamo because he’d have returned if not, God knows he surely would have returned. Santy Anna was a fat little devil, Solana said. That good man Don Pedro, a great man, a kind man, took me in, and was fair from the first day. While Julia scoured pots and cleaned the sink, Solana told her how it was.

  “He took you in too with your curse, and he wouldn’t have any of us say a thing against it. Got you from the orphanage. And all I know is your mother went out walking in the dark of the moon, and that’s not your fault, and there’s no more to it than that.”

  “Why?”

  “Only God knows.”

  “There may be more people like me.”

  “Not where you came from. They wouldn’t have put you out if you’d been the same as them. You’re from the Diggers, way up there,” pointing a finger up as if to heaven. “It’s a terrible hard life up there, poor as dirt, but they’re not like you. There’s no more. You’re one of a kind, my love. Your mother wasn’t like you, no one was. Doesn’t make you worse than anyone else. You’re what you are. You’ve still got a soul. Now, wash those radishes.”

  The courtyard was softly shaded. There was that old iguana Federico on the vine watching her, a wily old beast who’d lived with the family for as long as anyone could remember. It had all been so pretty, the carretelas departing, the padrino escorting the bride, the horses’ manes white, threaded with scarlet. And all the lovely dresses, the orange, the pink, the blue one Marta screamed over. She should have given it to me, Julia thought. She’s got so many, she’d never have missed it. I could have altered it, it would have fit. She stood up, the blue dress falling around her in imagination, Rates’s words in her head as she climbed to the gallery: Should you decide to make your fortune, señorita, come and see me in New Orleans. She leaned out, pretending she was behind the footlights in a theater. A cheering crowd threw roses. The men tossed their hats in the air. Such tiny fine feet, they said.