The Invisible Circus

by Jennifer Egan

  She would tell him, Phoebe decided, what had happened in Europe. It was pointless to hide it.

  “Wolf,” she said when they were moving.

  She told everything, starting with London, moving on through each city, marooned in Karl’s apartment in Amsterdam, frightening those children outside Dinant, finding God, losing Him again. She’d expected to grope for descriptions, but found instead that they tumbled from her, stunning Phoebe with a wash of unexpected relief, even power. For out of the nightmarish surge of events a story had hardened into shape and it was hers, that story. She could tell it. She’d escaped.

  Wolf drove in silence, expressionless. When Phoebe reached the part about trying to throw herself through the glass in Paris, he swung off the road. “I’m sorry,” he said, killing the engine. “I can’t drive and listen to this.”

  The car was only an inch or two from a split-rail fence. Wolf leaned on the wheel, staring through the windshield while Phoebe finished. Afterward they sat in silence. Phoebe noticed a cow to her right with a smooth yellowy coat, enormous bones protruding from her backside. She felt calm, light.

  “It’s wrong,” Wolf said. “You going through that.”

  His grim tone unsettled Phoebe. She searched for some answer.

  “It’s just wrong,” he said.

  “Well, God,” she said. “I mean, it’s not like you caused it.”

  They drove on, stopping soon after in a village for lunch. A shallow river pushed through the heart of the town, fat geese, soft black ducks paddling near the shore. Bright paintings adorned nearly every building: Christ on Saint Christopher’s shoulders, a knight on horseback waving a long medieval banner, the Madonna holding baby Jesus.

  They ordered lunch and sat outside, at a black picnic table shaded by a striped umbrella. “What I can’t fathom,” Wolf said as the waiter brought their sandwiches, “is why you forced yourself to come to Europe at all. I mean, Christ, why put yourself through that?”

  “I didn’t force myself,” Phoebe said. “I wanted to.”

  “But why?”

  “To find out what happened.”

  “You know what happened!”

  “I don’t.”

  Wolf looked bewildered.

  “And besides,” Phoebe went on, “in the postcards it sounded so intense, everything she did.”

  Wolf stared at her. “Phoebe, she killed herself.”

  Phoebe lifted her sandwich and ate, avoiding his gaze.

  “She killed herself,” he repeated. “I get this feeling you don’t really understand that, like you think—I don’t know what you think.”

  “You don’t know what happened,” Phoebe said.

  Wolf pushed away his untouched food and lit a cigarette, swallowing down the smoke like nourishment. Phoebe tore into her sandwich, gulping whole mouthfuls unchewed, nearly choking herself.

  “Yeah, but you’re forgetting, Phoebe, I was on that trip with her,” Wolf said. “When she was writing those postcards, I was there, okay? Me.” He knocked a fist against his chest.

  A wisp of anger rose in Phoebe’s throat. She ate more quickly. “So tell me,” she said, not looking up.

  Wolf rubbed his eyes. The energy seemed to leave him.

  “Was it drugs? Was it heroin or something?”

  “Sure it was drugs. It was everything that came along, that was Faith. No, it wasn’t drugs.”

  “Then what?” Phoebe pressed.

  Wolf threw back his head as if consulting the air. “The problem is, you do something crazy for long enough, it starts seeming normal,” he said. “To hold that edge you’ve got to go further and further out, and Faith had no trouble with that. But it changed her. Made her something else.”

  Phoebe held his gaze, listening.

  “Only one thing I ever saw her scared of: stopping. Like in that quiet, I don’t know, like something terrible would happen. All it took was one person egging her on—everyone wants a show, and Faith was usually willing to provide one. But she’s the one who suffered. Like the guy wearing the lampshade, the life of the party till everyone goes home, then he spends half an hour puking blood in the toilet.”

  Phoebe looked away. Her sister in the amusement park, heaving over a trash can. Wolf had kicked the image to life. Faith thrashing in their father’s arms, the violence of it.

  “All that energy, that incredible hope—it just turned. In the end she was one more person looking for kicks, anything that would take her someplace she’d never gone before. And me,” he laughed bitterly, “talk about arrogance, I was arrogant enough, fucking idiotic enough to think I could control this.”

  Phoebe stood up. She couldn’t listen, was physically unable to hear her sister described in these terms. She left the table without a word, a funny ringing in her ears. “Hey, wait,” Wolf said. “Phoebe, don’t just—hey, come on!”

  She kept walking. She heard Wolf leap to his feet, then the anxious protests of the proprietor, whose bill they hadn’t paid. By the time Wolf caught up with her, she’d reached the grassy slope of the riverbank. High on the opposite side stood a church, its twin onion domes oxidized blue-green and crowned with crosses, spindly as weather vanes. “Phoebe,” Wolf said from behind her, breathless.

  He moved in front of her, catching Phoebe’s arms and forcing her to stop. She waited, eyes toward the grass, knowing he would apologize.

  “What kind of shit is this?” Wolf said.

  His grip hurt her arms. Phoebe looked into the angles of his face and found the narrow eyes full of rage. She tried to squirm away but Wolf held her fast. Phoebe thought he might hit her, half hoped he would.

  “If you don’t want to know, don’t ask,” he said softly. “Hell, I’d rather you didn’t ask. But don’t ask and then run away and expect me to chase you.”

  He let her go. Phoebe stayed where she was, swallowing dryly. A piece of cheese was stuck near the top of her throat.

  “You remember Faith however you want,” he said, “that’s your business. Leave me out of it.”

  Phoebe turned away in despair. The water looked like dark beer against the rocks. Two old men stood nearby, surrounded by white geese snapping at hunks of dry bread they pulled from their pockets.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I was in love with her,” Wolf said. “Crazy about her, absolutely crazy. I don’t expect I’ll ever, ever feel that way about someone again. Jesus God, I hope not.”

  He squatted at the water’s edge. Phoebe sat hunched on the grass, chin on her knees. “What about Carla?” she said.

  “It’s night and day,” Wolf said with feeling. “You can be in love and still have a life, you know? You can build something. Faith and I were like thieves. Nothing belonged to us, it was one long spree.” After a moment he said, “On the other hand, we were kids.”

  Phoebe lay flat on the grass, watching the clouds break apart and recombine like railway cars. Wolf came and sat beside her, and she saw that the anger had left him. “I’m not saying Faith was bad,” he said. “You know I’m not, Phoebe, you know all this—you must! She was full of conflict. Before we ever spoke I knew that, just seeing her at school, the sadness in her face. Skirts every day, blouses buttoned to the neck. These weird, sad eyes. It’s the clearest picture I’ve got of her, in a way.”

  “You had a class with her, right?” Phoebe said, sniffling. “Physics or something?”

  “No,” Wolf said. “We were three years apart—we wouldn’t have had any class together. She probably made that up.”

  Phoebe sensed him debating whether or not to go on, weighing the use of it. “What happened really?” she said.

  He’d noticed Faith, Wolf finally said, watched her with mild curiosity for weeks until once he was driving home from school in his truck and he’d spotted her hitchhiking—in her proper blouse and skirt, the most weird, incongruous sight. After that he’d look for her sometimes driving down Eucalyptus, and now and then she’d be there, thumb out. Alone, always. Once he’d driven past just as Faith was
getting into someone’s car and he’d had a silly urge to follow it, make sure nothing happened to her. But he had a girlfriend at the time, Susan, and she was with him.

  Phoebe raised herself onto her elbows. She could hear Wolf sinking into the story, wanting to tell it. There was yielding in his voice, the pleasure of giving way where normally he would resist. “So what happened?” she said.

  Once, when Susan wasn’t there, he’d driven down Eucalyptus and, sure enough, there was Faith hitchhiking, so he’d pulled over and picked her up. “I think we go to high school together,” he’d said, which apparently was news to Faith. This surprised him, he had to admit; he’d kept a pretty high profile. Faith was achingly shy, just looked out the window saying nothing, and Wolf had no idea what to say, either, that’s how edgy she made him. Finally he asked why she hitched, didn’t she know that was dangerous for a girl to do alone? Still watching the window, Faith said, “The bus is slow.”

  Well, look, how would she feel about a detour to the beach? Faith said okay, not seeming to care one way or the other, so Wolf drove her to Ocean Beach, wondering what the hell he thought he was doing, it wasn’t even nice out for chrissakes, but he parked on the Great Highway and the two of them sat looking over the dashboard at the dunes and ice plant, fog condensing on the windshield. Gray sky, waves lumbering up, nose-diving onto the sand. Faith just stared out there saying nothing. Wolf getting more and more nervous at the silence, when suddenly she turned to him and said, “Hey, want to go swimming?”

  He assumed this must be a joke. No one swam in San Francisco—who swam? It was late fall, the water gray and impermeable-looking as rock. But Wolf said, “Sure, why not?” thinking if it was a joke then hell, he’d call her bluff, and he followed her out of the truck onto sand that felt heavy and cold as freshly poured concrete. Faith took off her shoes but kept on the rest of her clothes, a blouse and skirt that whipped her legs in the wind, a Sunday school outfit. She headed toward the water, Wolf trailing reluctantly, thinking how his clothes would make him sink, how heavy blue jeans got when they were wet, about riptides and undertows and crosscurrents and whatever the hell else people drown in. When his toes touched water, he said, “Hey, you really want to do this?”

  Faith just stood there, wind tearing her hair. She said, “Are you scared?”

  “Fuck no, I’m just … No, I’m not scared.”

  And seeing no way out of it, he leapt in ahead, like diving through a sheet of glass, such a terrible, crushing cold, but he beat her in at least, though Faith was right behind him. Wolf thought he would die for sure but he kept on swimming, he’d be damned if he was going to look like a coward in front of this freshman, this prissy little girl, Jesus Christ. So with the teeth knocking in his head, he kept going, straight out. Sharks, he hadn’t even thought about sharks—after all, this was the fucking ocean. But some distance out a funny thing started to happen: the cold water began to feel almost hot, literally kind of tropical, warming his limbs; it felt pretty good, he had to admit, and on top of that there was this weird power, being out there in that gray heartless sea—as if you’d crossed over to a place most people didn’t know existed. Faith swam near him. Wolf had the impression some of that heat he felt was coming from behind her skin, and he reached out, touching her—just did it—they kissed right there in the water, so easy, as if they knew each other when all they’d done was say five words and jump in the freezing sea. When Faith looked back at the empty beach, she was smiling. Wolf had never seen her really smile before; it shook on her face she was so cold, and he wanted to get her back onshore. Around school he was pretty used to calling the shots, being a senior, having the truck and all, but as he breathed the cold salt air and the wind beat his head, Wolf had a feeling those days were probably over and he didn’t mind, really. He was actually kind of glad.

  Back onshore the cold made them stammer. “You want me to take you home like that?” Wolf asked as water ran from Faith’s skirt and blouse and long hair all over his front seat. His parents were in Mexico on vacation. “Or you want to shower and change at my place?”

  And not hesitating, Faith said, “Your place,” though she was only fourteen and had never been with a guy in her life, but nothing scared her, nothing. Or maybe she liked being scared.

  Wolf looked away, his sharp, handsome face full of pain.

  Watching him, Phoebe felt a weird, elated glow. Her sister had risen again, untouched, majestic, invincible. The feeling seemed to lift Phoebe up and crush her, stopping her breath.

  Wolf glanced down at Phoebe, who lay on the grass. Their eyes locked and she saw that parting in his face, a stirring deep in his eyes, and it seemed to her then that she was pulling him down, that she could do that. The sensation was eerie, like finding each other in a dream. Wolf looked away. He covered his eyes with a hand, as if they hurt. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  fifteen

  It was fully night by the time they parked the car. Street light swarmed in the flowering trees outside Wolf’s building, as if drawn by their sweetness. Rounding the top flight of stairs, Phoebe caught a flutter of harpsichord music and saw a band of light under Wolf’s door. Wolf saw, too, and from the brief unreadiness in his face she guessed he hadn’t expected this. “Carla’s here,” he said.

  The bright indoor light shocked Phoebe’s eyes. Carla sat cross-legged at the table, reading a newspaper. Her cigarette leaned in an ashtray. Phoebe’s first thought was how tall she seemed, even sitting down. Wolf greeted her in German somewhat stiffly, but Phoebe noticed the familiar, easy way their lips met.

  Carla’s short pale hair looked smooth as an animal’s pelt. In spite of her height she was finely boned, her delicate face frank, unguarded, its delicacy there for the taking. Her shoulders curved inward a little, as if in apology for the full, soft-looking breasts under her white cotton sweater. “I am happy to meet you,” she said carefully, in a strong accent. She took Phoebe’s hand in both her own, a decisive grip offset somewhat by the slenderness of her fingers. Phoebe felt the engagement ring. Afterward she peeked at it, a modest diamond, pure white, as if a drop of light were trapped inside it.

  Phoebe murmured something, overtaken by shyness. It struck her only now, meeting Carla, how prepared she had been to dislike her.

  Cloistered in the bathroom, Phoebe listened to Wolf and Carla speaking German, their gentle voices muting the harsh language as if muffling its edges with felt. A second door connected the bathroom to Wolf’s bedroom, where Phoebe’s backpack still was. While changing into jeans and a T-shirt, she peered around the room; last night when she’d slept here, she’d been too drained and dazzled by the turn in her fortunes to notice very much. Now she was drawn to Wolf’s dresser, a scatter of loose change and restaurant matchbooks. Phoebe hovered at the door, listening to Wolf and Carla. Was there a difference in the way he spoke to his fiancée? It seemed to Phoebe there was—a readiness to laugh, something. She knew only one phrase in German, Ich liehe dich: I love you. At least they weren’t saying that.

  On the desk lay Wolf’s translation work, the unbound pages of a typeset German text on the left, and on the right, face-down, an enormous stack of handwritten pages. Phoebe flipped over the top sheet and found it crammed with minute, painstaking writing that she thought at first could not be Wolf’s. “In order to be effective,” she read, “the brace, which acts as a kind of corset on the growing spine, must be worn twenty-three hours of each day, with the remaining hour spent in therapeutic exercise (see Appendix 1).” The pen was one of those black artist’s pens whose ink comes out through a needle. Phoebe lifted a few more pages and read, “These sores, caused by heat and chafing from the plastic in the first weeks of use, should be treated with astringents, such as rubbing alcohol, in order to toughen the skin. Avoid all moisturizers, lubricants and balms; these will only prolong the condition.”

  There was a knock. The door opened and Wolf regarded her quizzically. Phoebe realized she was crouched like a thief over his manuscrip
t. “I was—curious,” she stammered.

  Wolf grinned, moving closer. Phoebe sensed that he rather liked the idea of her spying on him. “Find anything interesting?”

  “Yes” sounded shameless; “No,” potentially insulting. “I don’t know,” Phoebe said truthfully. “I’d just started looking when you came in.”

  Wolf laughed. “Don’t let me stop you.”

  They stood together, the manuscript before them. Phoebe smiled nervously.

  “It’s a bore,” Wolf said in a different voice. “Treatments for adolescent scoliosis.” He shrugged, moving to the door. “Will you join us?”

  Phoebe stood by the living room window. Outside, the tall trees shook dryly in the wind, their dense leaves distilling the white lights beyond to pinpricks. Wolf sat on the couch next to Carla, his right knee touching her left. Part of Phoebe refused to believe in the authenticity of their affection. She’d felt this skepticism with other couples, too, a suspicion that their closeness was contrived merely to persuade her, that without her there to watch, they would move apart indifferently.

  Carla asked whether Phoebe had enjoyed Ludwig’s castles, her uncertain English giving the questions a stilted, textbook aspect. “I am sorry,” she said, lighting a cigarette and blowing a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “My English is very …” She paused, as if groping for the proper pejorative, but managed only, “… bad.”

  “You never speak it,” Wolf said.

  Carla turned to him. “I know, but some years ago I am …” She looked away as if embarrassed, laughing suddenly. In that laugh Phoebe heard an eerie likeness to Faith—the same abandon, as if the laughter were a pair of arms she was letting herself fall into.

  “I feel strange, in English,” Carla told Phoebe, real surprise in her voice. She motioned at Wolf. “Like he is stranger.”