Orphans of the Carnival

by Carol Birch

  “E per la mia signora…” said Theo, turning and gesturing toward her. A third glass was produced.

  “You don’t have to do any fancy tricks,” Theo said, “just ride into the ring and do a couple of circuits. Maybe just one or two little tricks if you feel you could…”

  The man had bright eyes in a square brown face. They moved on and off her face as he poured her a drink.

  “Oh, I can ride,” she said, “I used to ride Marta’s pony. Ask him where Cato and Ezra are. Zeo.”

  More babble. A lot of babble. The man’s face was shiny, as if someone had spent all morning polishing it.

  “They’re in the town,” Theo said. “There’s a house.”

  Here in the park, the wagons made a small village along the edge of a meadow, by the trees. But some of the company were in a house nearby, Raniello said. The landlady was very good, very discreet, no trouble at all, and very reasonable. They were taken on for a two-week run till their Vienna season should begin, given two rooms in the old house, a part of a tenement, with a courtyard and many stairs and unexpected passages leading into unknown realms. The landlady lived on the ground floor with her son, and the show people kept to the second floor on the right-hand side of the courtyard.

  When Ezra Porter heard from the landlady that his friend Julia Pastrana was here, he came lolloping down the passage like an enthusiastic bear. “What a gift, what a gift!” he kept saying, grinning hard, shaking her vigorously by the hand over and over again. His chin looked bigger, more double. He was trying to grow whiskers but you could see it was a struggle. Apart from his head hair he was smooth like an Indian, even his chest. She knew this from seeing him wash it at the pump in Madame Soulie’s yard. Hovering with his smile and raised brows in the background, Theo was thinking, this isn’t a bad setup, not bad at all. Wonder if he plays poker. When the girl came out, thin, very dark, sour-mouthed, with her arms folded in front of her, she stared at Julia’s heavily veiled face, then looked at him but didn’t smile.

  “Theo,” Julia said, “this is Ezra Porter. This is my manager, Theo, Theo Lent…oh, hello, Berniece…where’s Cato?”

  “Asleep,” Berniece said.

  “Go and wake him,” said Ezra.

  “You go and wake him.”

  “Oh, no, don’t wake him!” Julia said. “How is he?”

  “Oh, fine.”

  “No, he isn’t,” said Berniece, “he’s been having an earache.”

  “Yes, but it’s on the mend now.”

  “You’re not the one that’s up all night with him,” Berniece muttered, clicking her nails.

  “Look, my room’s just here,” said Julia.

  “Terrific! Mrs. Vels! Mrs. Vels!” Ezra called down to the landlady, a worn-down, kind-faced woman who was halfway up the stairs with a bowl of water. “You don’t mind if we change rooms with Angelo, do you?”

  “Don’t ask me,” she said, “ask him.”

  Ezra rapped on the door of the room next to Julia’s, and it opened at once as if the person on the other side had been listening all the time and knew what was going on. Angelo was a beaky Italian with sad eyes. “You wanna move?” he said in a perfect American accent, “fine with me, I gain.”

  “You do,” Ezra agreed, “you get a view over the river and the town.”

  “Nobody asked me,” said Berniece.

  “Oh, come on, Niece. You don’t mind.”

  “Suits me,” said Angelo. “I got hardly anything to move anyway.”

  “I have,” Berniece told his retreating back.

  Mrs. Vels trod heavily across the landing, spilling a little hot water as she went.

  “Let me,” said Theo.

  “For the lady’s room,” she said patiently, letting him take over.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Vels. Julia, you should rest.” He smiled his best gracious smile, first at Berniece, then at Ezra. “Don’t feel you have to change anything on our account. I wouldn’t have anyone inconvenienced.”

  “Of course,” said Ezra. “You must be tired. You been traveling all day? Look—after the show, I’ll bring some beer. You come to our room.”

  Julia left them talking outside, closed the door, took off her boots and looked out of the window, rubbing the toes of one foot wearily against the back of her other leg. The room faced onto the high wall of a farrier’s yard, and a narrow alley that ran between one street and another. It was late afternoon. The sky above the rooftops was dove gray. She lay down as she was, under the covers. The fire in the small grate had not yet warmed the room. She was very tired but it was impossible to sleep because of the talking in the passage, the opening and closing of doors, the footsteps on the stairs.

  “Ever run into Delia and Myrtle?” Julia asked.

  “I did once,” said Ezra. “Well, Delia anyway. Myrtle’s out of the business. Had a baby. A boy. Got married.”

  “Delia’s on her own?”

  “Last I saw.”

  “You get here now, Cato, I can’t stand it.” Berniece’s lips were set in a straight line. Cato, doing a ridiculous dance, bony knees akimbo, shrieked and squawked in his nightshirt. Wet-eyed with laughter, leaning together like schoolboys giggling at a prank, Theo and Ezra were drunk, and Cato was wild. Since six o’clock he’d been celebrating Julia’s reappearance with mad showing off and hysterical dances that grew ever more deranged and frantic.

  “He should have been in bed an hour ago,” Berniece said.

  “Look, Cato,” Julia said, “we can have a lovely time tomorrow. We can go and see the horses.”

  Berniece made a grab for him, but he skipped away and she stumbled.

  “Whoa, girl!” Ezra grabbed her elbow.

  “You do something,” she said, pulling away and sitting down. Her face went completely blank, as if someone had just passed a hand in front of it, wiping out sentience.

  “Behave, Cato,” Ezra said, reaching once more for the vodka.

  Cato ran ’round the room drumming on the backs of the chairs, warbling in a reedy falsetto. He stopped, hunchbacked in front of Theo, leaned on his knees and pushed his face up close.

  “Hello there,” Theo said.

  Cato nasaled something.

  “Can’t understand a word you’re saying,” said Theo, laughing.

  Berniece poured a shot of vodka and knocked it back as if it were poison. “This room’s not as nice as our old one,” she said.

  “It’s fine,” said Ezra expansively.

  “All we’ve got is a wall.” She looked at Julia. “We could see all the people going up and down the street.”

  “You really didn’t have to move on our account,” Julia said. “We could have visited just as well in your old room.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “But this is nice,” said Ezra. “I mean, think about it. He gets on so well with Julia. They’re great together. Once he’s settled down—”

  “He means he wants you to babysit,” said Berniece, pouring herself another and twisting one leg behind the other awkwardly.

  “She don’t have to babysit if she don’t want to,” Ezra said stoutly, “I never said no such thing. But Julia never used to mind watching him now and then, did you, Julia?”

  “Not at all.”

  “It’s no big thing,” said Ezra.

  “Christ, no,” said Theo. “We all help each other out.”

  “See.”

  Berniece threw back her head and poured the liquor down her throat.

  “You know,” said Julia, “I don’t mind looking after Cato at all. He always behaved quite well for me.”

  “Ha!” said Berniece.

  Cato wheeled away from Theo’s knee, landed by Berniece and scrambled messily up onto her lap, pulling up her skirts with his bare feet trampling into her, arms clamping ’round her neck in an urgent stranglehold. “Cato…” she said, desperately trying to cover her legs, the white bloomers bunched at the knees. “Oh, please…” He kissed her, jumped down, stood in front of the fire doin
g funny faces, switching between a frown and a smile, on, off, on, off, getting quicker and quicker till all of them, willing or not, were laughing.

  “Don’t laugh!” Berniece said, laughing herself, “it makes him worse.”

  On, off, on, off, past funny to scary.

  “Stop it.”

  “How does he do that?” Theo offered Ezra a cigar.

  Julia got up. “Come on now,” she said, “you show me where you sleep.”

  “Naah!”

  “Yes!”

  “Do as you’re told now,” said Ezra.

  “Show me your bed, Cato. Come on.” Julia took his hand and led him behind the screen to his cot, which had been made up very cozily with an eiderdown and bolster up against the wall.

  “Dark!” he said.

  “Nice!”

  He threw himself backward on the bed, just missing banging the long cone of his head on the wall.

  “Well, aren’t you lucky to have such a lovely cozy bed. Get under and I’ll tuck you in.”

  “You should give him a dose of cordial,” she heard Theo say.

  “Can’t get it down him,” Ezra replied.

  Cato got in and lay down, and she tucked him in and gave him a kiss. He was like a bird that chirped away till you put the cover on the cage. Before long, the darkness in his den had put him out.

  “Niece,” Ezra was saying, as she emerged from behind the screen, “I don’t go out that much.”

  “Yes, you do.” Berniece lit a match.

  Theo winked at Julia, and she smiled. It was nice, as if they were an “us” like Ezra and Berniece.

  “Is he asleep?” asked Ezra.

  “Of course he is.” Berniece blew smoke and clanked the bottle neck on the rim of her glass. “She’s got the golden touch. Haven’t you, missy?”

  “Come and sit here, Julia,” said Theo, patting the seat beside him. “Have a drink. Where’s your glass?”

  “Only one more. And water please.”

  “Oh, horrors! Water!” Berniece said, head wreathed in smoke.

  The drink flowed. The men guffawed like boys over stupid things, Berniece scrunched herself up small on her chair and bit her nails, swinging her slippered foot. Julia, sipping, smiled and looked around her, bright-eyed, wondering if this could be a new thing of belonging, like Madame Soulie’s yard, but the more she thought about it, the more she doubted. She thought of Myrtle married, a mother, and looked at Theo, the way when he giggled his grin made a childish slash in his face, the way the greased hair fell loose across his forehead. She could never have him. What a thing to think, even for a second. When she closed her eyes, she saw New Orleans, the carriage taking her to Bayou Road to see John Montanee, the streets sliding by, the moon full and high, a face in the sky. Her hand went into the pocket of her skirt to the little bottle with its few remaining drops of love potion.

  “Shh!” said Berniece to the men. “You’ll wake him up.”

  “He never wakes once he’s gone off.” Ezra stood up and hovered about with a soft silly look on his face.

  “What are you looking for?” Berniece kicked him lightly.

  “I thought we had some lemons.”

  “We did. We do.”

  “Have you ever had vodka with hot water and lemon juice, Theo?”

  “Can’t say I have.”

  “Oh, let me make it.” Julia jumped up. “I know how to do that.”

  She stood by the window watching as Ezra lifted a pan from the stovetop. “Let me squeeze the lemons,” she said, and when it was all done and she’d run across and taken Theo’s remaining drink from him and poured it into the steaming cup, she turned her back on the room, retrieving the bottle from her pocket and emptying the last three or four drops in with the rest.

  “Here, Theo,” she said.

  “Listen to them,” Berniece said, “listen out there.” She’d thrown up the window and was leaning over, looking down into the alley. The sound of drunks singing their way home floated up. Suddenly she turned. “You can get out onto the roof,” she said, looking at Julia. “Want to see?”

  “I’d love to.” Julia had poured herself a hot drink too. She lifted the cup and let the sharp aroma swim about her nostrils.

  “My God,” said Berniece in a low voice.

  She’s looking at my nose, Julia thought. The way my nostrils move.

  “Come on.” Berniece stood up, flounced across to the door. “This way, this way.” She led along the passage and up to the attic, a long row of rooms with a long dormer window opposite looking out onto a wide flat space between the yard and the street. The tiles were warm, and they sat down side by side looking up at a sky full of stars. The moon was a wide crescent.

  “Well,” said Berniece, “it’s nice to have someone new to talk to. You’ve been around a bit, hey?”

  “All over the place,” said Julia.

  “Same with us. You think, oh, here we go, the romance, the road, all the strange people…you been to Paris?”

  “No, not Paris. We were going to, but they wrote horrible things about me so we didn’t go.”

  “Me neither. I want to go there.”

  “I go to a lot of places,” Julia said, “but I don’t really see them. I can’t go out like other people, so it’s…”

  “I know! You think: oh! I’ve been to Amsterdam and Cologne and Berlin and what have I seen? Walls. Stuck in with Cato. It’s like having a baby. Not that I’d know.”

  Berniece blew smoke at the sky.

  “Don’t you like it on the road?” said Julia. “I do. I like all the new places. Everything new. Voices. Trees. Money.”

  “But you don’t see it,” said Berniece.

  “Sometimes I go out with my veil on. But I have to be very careful.” Julia smiled. “I went for a walk in New York once. I got on a trolleybus.”

  “I can’t even do that with Cato,” said Berniece, closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the sloping tiles. “It’s really just too much trouble taking him out. Everyone at him all the time. Can’t leave him alone, trailing after him like the Pied Piper. He likes it at first, and then he gets upset and some of them are cruel. It’s not worth it.” She yawned and opened her eyes. “God, it’s just so beautiful up here,” she said. Down below, the neighborhood cats cried viciously at one another.

  “Listen to them,” Julia said, thinking of the devil baby. Poor, poor thing.

  “I’m run off my feet,” said Berniece, “and Ezra’s not really very good with him. Just lets him do what he wants. I’m just a nursemaid really.”

  “I once knew this girl,” said Julia. “I don’t know how old she was. Her hair was going gray but I don’t think she was very old. She was unhappy all the time. She kept wanting to go home, but then she didn’t really want to when it came to it. I don’t know why she was so unhappy. Always crying, all the time like a leaky faucet. She could sit on her own head and cross her feet under her head like a bow.”

  Berniece laughed.

  “Zelda.”

  The cats had shut up, and the sudden silence startled them.

  “People come and go,” said Berniece.

  Julia stood up and walked a little way along the tiles. “You don’t want to be like her,” she said. “Always wanting to be somewhere else. Even if she got to wherever it was she was wanting to get to, she’d still want to be somewhere else.”

  Across the low wall, Julia saw roofs, slope after slope, all silver.

  “You’re not stupid, are you?” said Berniece.

  “I don’t think so.” Julia turned her head. “Are you?”

  Berniece laughed. “I’ll say one thing,” she said. “You sure do meet some unusual people in this line of work.”

  “You should be glad you’ve got a nice man like Ezra,” Julia said, sitting down again. “He’s nice, Ezra, don’t you think?”

  “Of course he’s nice.” Berniece looked away, and that blank look came over her again. “Know what I liked most about him when I met him? Cat
o. The way he was with Cato. I thought, here’s this poor little freak and isn’t he lucky he landed with this kind man and not some other.” She leaned her head back against the slope of the roof. “Some of them out there, you know,” she said, “they’re terrible. You’re all right though, aren’t you, with Theo? Funny thing, you and him.”

  “Well,” said Julia, and could think of no more to say, wondering what it was that was pressing down on her, some feeling. She got up again and walked to the low wall.

  “Certainly wasn’t Ezra’s looks I went for,” Berniece said. “Looked like a cross between a three-year-old and a bear.”

  There was a clattering and a clumping, and the heads of the men poked through the window.

  “Come out,” Berniece said. “See how pretty it is.”

  “Julia?” Theo’s voice.

  “I’m over here.”

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Looking.”

  “Looking at what?”

  Theo materialized behind her, smelling of liquor. She sensed him swaying slightly and closed her eyes, wondering what was wrong with her. A mood of roaming sadness was on her, the kind she used to get, when Solana would flick her with a cloth and say, never mind, put it behind you, whatever it is, come on, there’s all this to be washed. The old kitchen. The tiles. The smell of pepper. The cats in the alley were yowling at the moon again. The devil baby darted among the chimneys. She felt sad for the moment she was in, as if it had already gone, this night, the four of them drunk on this Prague rooftop.

  “Julia,” said Theo, “we’ll try you on a horse tomorrow. Shall we?”

  “Wonderful,” she said.

  “You know, he’s not a real showman, Ezra isn’t,” he said later, saying good night outside her door, “not from way way back like me, he just sort of drifted into it from meeting someone on the line between New Orleans and St. Louis.”

  Poor Theo, she thought later, lying in bed as the cats wailed, a sound like the devil baby breaking its heart in the alley. Her sadness coalesced around Theo, the pathos of his ridiculous knowing smile that really wasn’t sure of very much. All the time building himself up, telling himself he matters, she thought. He knew a million people and none of them really liked him. She saw that now and it made her care all the more for him, because he wasn’t a bad man and it wasn’t fair.