Orphans of the Carnival

by Carol Birch

  “Go with the Doctor,” said Madame Soulie. “I’ll be right here. Go on.”

  The Doctor adjusted his snake as if it were a scarf. “Come on in here,” he said. “Come on now, nothing here to be scared of.”

  Behind the curtain was a short passage, another door, a small dark room with a picture of the Virgin Mary on the wall and an elephant’s tusk in the corner. Bunches of herbs hung from the ceiling, white candles burned tall and straight on an altar, and the air was smoky and rich, heavy with a dark soporific perfume she could not place. He motioned for her to sit in one of two chairs drawn up close beside a small table spread with shells and straws, sat down himself in the other, took the snake’s thin head gently between the fingers of his right hand and settled its brown and yellow coils more comfortably. It turned its face to look up at him. Behind him on the shelf was the skull of something small and delicate.

  “He’s beautiful,” Julia said.

  “This here’s a lady,” said the Doctor, smiling.

  The snake’s round black eye was still.

  “What do you want?” the Doctor asked.

  “Madame Soulie said she told you about me.”

  He nodded.

  “I might be cursed,” she said.

  He nodded again.

  “My nurse said it was because my mother walked out in the dark of the moon. My guardian said that was nonsense. But no one has ever told me what I am.”

  He sat rubbing his beard for a long time.

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “I’m twenty-one,” she said.

  “Let me see you.”

  She took off her veil, and he sat looking at her without any movement for so long she wondered if he was trancing her. His eyes were soft and bloodshot but very penetrating. He winked suddenly, and she smiled. “Answer my question,” he said. “What do you want from me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You want me to make you like everybody else?”

  “Yes.”

  “No,” he said, leaning forward and speaking sharply, “that’s not what you want. Think again.”

  She thought he was scolding her and spoke too loudly in self-defense. “Can you lift the curse?”

  “Ha.” His smile was sudden and brilliant. “Can’t do a thing for you.” He reached across and took her hand. “That’s no curse. I can give you some gris-gris though. What you want? A man?”

  She was shocked.

  “I pray to St. Jude,” she said.

  “What’s he say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Take off your glove.”

  She did. His two big hands closed around her cold hand. “Close your eyes,” he said.

  They sat in the dark, which darkened more, as if the candles were going out one by one. It was like falling half asleep. He took his hands away. He was burning herbs, moving around, shaking something that whispered, saying softly: Papa Legba, Papa Legba, Papa Legba, over and over again. She thought she could hear someone else nearby singing along, a woman’s voice or maybe more than one, but it seemed unlikely and she didn’t want to think about where it was coming from.

  “Will I ever be loved?” she asked.

  The Doctor gave her a drink, straight into her mouth, his big warm hand on top of her head. “You’ll be loved,” he said, “Within a year.”

  He moved away. Through her eyelids she could see the flickering of candlelight and heard the rattle of shells and bones falling.

  “Open your eyes,” he said.

  Two bowls, white powder and dust.

  “Someone’s watching out for you,” he said, sitting across from her, studying the bones. “Your mamá’s watching.”

  “She gave me away,” said Julia. Her voice came out double, vibrating. Her eyes fell upon the small neat skull on the shelf. A cat, she decided, and her eyes filled up. Poor puss.

  “She’s watching over you anyway,” he said. “And she’s not the only one.”

  “You said I wasn’t cursed.” He wasn’t going to help her, it was obvious. How could she ever have thought it? “Can’t you tell me anything?” she said. “I wanted you to tell me what I am. I don’t know.”

  “No curse to lift,” he said. “And what you are? You’re a strange girl, that’s all. Hush.” He closed his eyes and sat silent for a while. “You’re going across the sea,” he said, “you’ll keep moving.”

  “Me?”

  “Just moving, always.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Something’s coming,” he said, “big something.”

  “Bad or good?”

  “Both.”

  She laughed. “That means nothing.”

  “No,” he said seriously, “that means everything.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “No matter.”

  What did you expect, she thought. Wave his arms? Say the right words? Lo! A miracle. “But there are curses,” she said, pulling on one of her gloves.

  “Listen,” he said, “I can fix a curse. I can lift a curse. Whole lot I can do, but I can’t lift a curse that isn’t there. Can make you feel better though.”

  “What about what my nurse said? How my mother walked out in the dark of the moon and that’s why I’m like I am.”

  “Your nurse don’t know what she’s talking about,” he said. “Your mama can walk out any old moon she likes long as she’s careful.”

  He was back there in the chair opposite her, leaning on one elbow, frowning, his snake advancing from his left shoulder into the air before him.

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said, “it just seemed wrong. Why the baby gets the curse for what the mother did. And maybe she didn’t even know she was doing it.” She looked down at her hands, one gloved, one hairy. “Madame Soulie says there’s a devil baby running about on the roofs. I was so scared. I couldn’t get to sleep that night for thinking about him.” She pulled on the other glove. “Poor thing. Running about all night across the roofs and down the alleys all on his own and everybody running away from him and all because of something his mother did.”

  The Doctor’s face was serious. He looked at her for a long time without blinking or saying anything, putting his hand beneath the head of his snake. His eyes were full, as if he’d seen a whole world of sorrow. She couldn’t tell how old he was. Old. Poor eyes seen it all. “You know I knew that devil baby,” he said, and a chill ran through her. “For sure.”

  “Is he real?” she whispered. “Is it true?”

  “True as anything.”

  “And he cries in the alleys?”

  “I never heard him.”

  “What was he?”

  “Born red. Scales, like this.” He ran a finger along the snake’s body. “Born screaming. Nothing anyone could do. Mama couldn’t look at him. Friend of mine tried to raise him but he ran away. Don’t know where he went.”

  “Ran away? A baby?”

  “Six months old, up and ran. Little bumps here”—he touched his brow—“little horns. No hooves, never had hooves.”

  “But what was he?”

  “A baby.”

  “A baby what?”

  “Who knows? I knew his father. And he said his wife never said that thing about the devil anyway, people just made that up.”

  “And you saw him? The baby? What was he like?”

  “Oh, a very bad thing. Couldn’t get near him. Terrible thing. Woman I knew tried with him but he grew too quick.”

  “But what was he?”

  “A bad baby. And when people started seeing him here and there his whole family took off. He’s around, they say.”

  He took from under the table a small bottle and a tiny red bag and slid them across the table to her, and she understood that their time was up. “What is this big thing that’s coming?” she asked.

  “Love,” he said, “up the road.”

  “Within a year, you said.”

  “Within a year. For sure.”

  They stood.

  “Did he h
ave a name?” she asked as he held the door for her, “the baby?”

  “Valentine,” the Doctor said. “His name was Valentine.”

  Madame Soulie paid one of the women fifteen dollars on the way out.

  “He’s marvelous, isn’t he?” Madame Soulie said as they got into the carriage. She was tipsy from drinking wine in the front room.

  “Is he not a slave?” Julia turned the red gris-gris bag in her fingers. It was sewn shut. She had no idea what was in it, only that it felt like tiny chips of bark and would draw fortune. The love potion was in her pocket. “What is he? How can he have so much money? That good house.”

  “A free man,” said Madame Soulie and laughed. “Came as a slave from Africa and now look. Free, rich and black. He must have power.”

  The night of the show, Julia dusted herself with orris root and combed herself very carefully, arms, breasts, shoulders. Her head hair, adorned with gardenias and feathers, was done up in curls. Rose pink silk flounced about her short full figure on a froth of white petticoats. From the carriage she saw the posters all along St. Charles Avenue for the show, her name at the top and bigger than all the rest. She saw the crowds on the steps and all along the block, the flowers above the great doors in front of the theater, and all the lights from the chandeliers shining out from the foyer. The carriage took them ’round the back. Rates, in a frilly white shirt, his sparse gray hair pomaded, handed her down and led her in through a warren of scurrying forms only dimly seen through the veil to a small room with mirrors and chairs, a table with glasses and a bottle of brandy.

  There was some time. The walls were flimsy. Next door, Ted and Jonsy and Michael were laughing about something. Myrtle, brush between her toes, painted Indian ink around her eyes. Delia blew a kiss to her reflection. Julia fiddled with her gardenias, flicking an imaginary speck of dust from her rose-colored stocking, inspecting the pearl buttons on her tight white shoes.

  Her nerves were jiggling.

  She felt better sitting in the wings, watching, waiting her turn, drinking water and wine. Funny how different people were when they performed. Jonsy, the stone-faced and silent, laughed and grinned, cakewalking across the stage, the whiteness of his skin and hair against the pinkness of his eyes and suit. Ted curled his hands into claws when he picked at his flesh, his face turned into something unearthly and slightly wicked. He pulled the skin under his chin up over his face till it covered his nose completely and his eyes glaring out above looked mad. Then it was Myrtle and Delia’s turn. They played a Jew’s harp. Myrtle’s lips were waxed and carmined ’round the frame. Delia, balancing on a pedestal by her side, plucked the reed.

  The world stopped at the footlights.

  Rates came and stood at her shoulder. “What a marvelous place this is,” he murmured suavely. “Think of this, Julia. Only three years ago the great Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale, was up on that very stage. And now here you are. Julia Pastrana. Top of the bill!”

  Till the last minute she thought she’d turn and run, just turn and run, think later.

  It was time. No different from singing at home at a party, lowering the veil across her face, blood beating in her ears. She took her place in the center of the stage and breathed deeply behind the shiny purple curtain. My God, but the stage was wider than she remembered. The others, who’d all gone before and could now rest, were watching from the wings. The auditorium rustled. She heard Rates walk out in front of the curtain. He spoke in a voice she’d never heard before, basso profundo, declaiming, “Ladies and gentlemen! Mesdames! Messieurs! I am proud to announce! The world debut! Of the most remarkable woman in the world! The greatest wonder of nature! From the wild mountains of Mexico! Perhaps—even—the Missing Link!”

  A long breathless pause.

  “I give you! The only one of her kind, the truly incomparable—Julia! Pastrana!”

  The curtain rose.

  The theater was a great gold cavern with a thrilling echo. The lights lit up faces, row after row after row, every one fixed on her. She smiled beneath her veil. Her lips had dried up so she tried to lick them but her tongue, too big at the best of times, had dried up too and seemed to have doubled in size. She swallowed. Sing to the people at the back, Rates had told her. The back was miles away. But first the band struck up the Minute Waltz. A little run on the tips of her toes then into the dance, keeping time with all the changes, twirl, pirouette, pique, turn. Slow down. Glissade, then into the Hungarian Dance, and from there to flamenco, swishing her skirts and stamping. The crowd cheered. When she stopped and curtseyed, they cheered more. Then Rates walked out and took her hand, holding it high to his lips and bowing to her as if she were a great lady.

  “Wonderful, Julia,” he said quietly to her, then turned to face the audience. “And now it is time!” he cried, “to reveal to you—one of the great wonders of our time, the only one of her kind—the nonpareil—the most remarkable being known to mankind—la-dees and gentlemen—mesdames—messieurs—I give you—”

  They had rehearsed it time after time above Brady Childer’s grocery shop. She held herself ready, arranging her face into an easy yet dignified smile that would become more animated as the audience relaxed—and after all, as Delia had said, what more was this than what she’d been doing all her life one way or another?

  “—the one and only!—”

  She stepped away from him and lifted one elegant white-gloved hand to the end of her veil.

  “—Miss JULIA PASTRANA!”

  She unveiled.

  There was a moment of absolute silence, a second or two at most, then a collective sucking like a hurricane drawing in its breath to blow. A few people shrieked. Julia walked toward the front of the stage. She heard a wag in the audience say, “It’s a chimpanzee in a dress!”

  Someone shouted, “Loup-garou!” She laughed. Her eyes twinkled, her smile was genuine. Now that she was on, she didn’t feel so bad. I’m looking at you, she thought. You are looking at me. And you’re paying. The band played “La Llorona.” She’d sung it hundreds of times, it’s what she’d always done, and she sang it tonight with a certain lightness and spring that somehow accentuated its tragedy, walking up and down the front of the stage and peeling off her long white gloves, discarding them as she looked out into the sea of faces, meeting eyes boldly, as fascinated by them as they were by her. The crowd roared and waved its handkerchiefs, and it was such a glorious moment she thought she might faint.

  The night before they left for New York there was cold ham and figs and a jug of wine, laid out on the table in the yard. Cato and Ezra Porter were heading for Knoxville in two more days, and other people were coming to stay in the shacks ’round the yard.

  “Going on a big train, Cato,” Delia said, wafting the air with a palm fan.

  Cato was sitting on the henhouse.

  “You and Cato,” Julia asked Ezra, sipping her wine, “how did you come by each other?”

  “Found him near Pittsville, Alabama,” Ezra said. “In a bar. Was with a man called Flynn who had fleas he used to feed on a big special vein he had running down the inside of his arm.”

  Cato’s bare heels drummed the side of the henhouse.

  “Cato, get down from there,” said Ezra. “Poor stuff, it all was—you know—not even the midway, back of the midway, out of the midway, box on the sidewalk, tent thrown over three sticks, you know?” He got up and traipsed over to the henhouse. “Someone brought Cato in the bar. This kid kind of pushed him in. Was scared, not like he is now. Me and Flynn sitting there and the bartender just staring, says, Jesus Christ, it’s some fucking freak. What the hell, get it out of here. And Flynn just about filling his pants. Didn’t bother me. They used to bring the freaks through every year where I grew up. I knew what he was.”

  He took Cato’s hand. Cato pulled it away and walked along the ridge of the henhouse, arms outstretched.

  “Kid said he’d been following him about like a lost dog and he didn’t know what to do. He’s been walking up
and down all day just up the road, they shooed him away, and now he’s following me, he says, and I don’t know what to do. Look, he’s giving me the creeps. From the plantation most like, bartender says. Better take him to the sheriff. They don’t want him up there, the boy says. They put him out.”

  Julia took her drink over to the swing, sat down and swung gently.

  “And I said, no,” Ezra said, “people’d pay money to see him. And Flynn says, I ain’t going anywhere with that thing.”

  Loose-jointed, Cato jumped down and moved with his peculiar bent-kneed gait over to where Julia swayed under the apple tree.

  “So after that,” said Ezra, “it was just me and Cato.”

  “Hoo-hah!” Cato said, holding up his arms as if wanting to be picked up.

  “You want to swing?” she said. “Shall I push you? You won’t scream, will you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Come on then.” She got down and put her drink on the ground and he clambered on with sounds of gobbled delight. As she pushed, he howled with joy and his thin bare feet kicked wildly.

  “Cato!” she said, “You promised!”

  Madame Soulie came out of the house carrying a banjo and sat down with the rest. “It’ll be very quiet around here tomorrow when you’re all gone,” she said.

  “The new batch’ll be here before you know it,” Rates said, peeling a fig.

  Madame Soulie played “Rose of Alabamy,” slow at first.

  “I’m not pushing you, you’re too noisy,” Julia said.