Love, Let Me Not Hunger

by Paul Gallico

  Marvel said, “Christ Almighty!”

  Cotter nodded. “I want to get ’em out of there.”

  Marvel glanced at his watch again. “How much longer?” he asked, looking at the sky.

  “Ten or fifteen minutes, I’d say. She’s been comin’ faster than I thought she would.”

  “Can we finish? We got ten minutes to go. If we send ’em home without seeing the last number they’ll talk.”

  “O.K.,” said Cotter, “but you were running over. What the hell was that? A new act?”

  Marvel said, “You can search me,” and cocked another eye towards the sky. The Birdsalos emerged dripping. From within the tent came the shouts of the clowns doing a run-around to cover the setting up of the cage for the animal act. In the lowering gloom, men bared to the waist marched by with sections of the steel tunnel through which the big cats would enter the arena. Others were carrying pieces of the cage itself.

  “O.K.,” Marvel said, and went back into the tent.

  The matinée performance always ended with the presentation of the mixed group, the lion, tiger, and leopard, put through their paces by Fred Deeter as the Great Marco in his African hunter’s costume of khaki breeches, brown boots, white shirt, and pith helmet; and of course was the first act on the evening show, which meant that the safety cage and tunnel had to be put up but once for the two performances.

  Somehow Mr. Albert had managed to recover from the ordeal to which he had been subjected, and, still soaked and ruffled, appeared to supervise the setting up as well as to drag in the pedestals on which the animals took their seats.

  At first when he re-entered the ring there was a great burst of laughter and applause, but it quickly died away as he went about his business and it became obvious that he was not going to do anything funny or fall down or be doused with water again. So that once more, astonishingly, he was not there and no one took any further notice of him.

  Marvel passed Deeter awaiting his entry cue. Rose was with him, clad in jodhpurs and white blouse. They had taught her to work with Deeter as well in this presentation, outside the cage, of course, where she gave a passable imitation of apprehension as the ex-cowboy put the animals through their routine and as with the Liberty horses, milked for applause by pointing to him at the conclusion of each trick.

  She hated this act and was always miserable at the sight of the glorious beasts forced into humiliating poses. She was glad when she heard Marvel say—“Cut it way down, Fred. Five minutes. Let’s get them out of here.”

  “Phew!” said Deeter. “You’re telling me!”

  The big beasts were so torpid that they had to be prodded through the tunnel, but once inside the cage the American never gave them a chance to think about themselves, running them through their routine at dizzying speed and letting the tiger and the leopard get away with hesitations and disobediences which would never otherwise have been permitted.

  For an instant the bright floodlights within the tent were overpowered by a great glare of purple lightning, followed some six or seven seconds later by a rolling peal of thunder which drowned out the circus music. There was an uneasy stirring among the audience and the animals grumbled, whined, and flinched. Deeter held them by sheer force of will, put them into their pyramid and then went and leaned himself into the group, his arms about the lion and the tiger, which was the climax of the act and the finale of the circus. The next moment the beasts were slinking out through the steel tunnel and Deeter took his bow. The show was over.

  Yet, oddly, none of the audience moved from their seats or showed any inclination to head for the exits.

  The programme had made it plain that the Great Marco was the last number on the bill. The panatrope was giving forth an exit march. All the performers had vanished from the tent.

  Marvel strode to the centre of the ring and shouted, “That’s all! Goodbye! Go home! Finito! Finito!”

  It was then he became aware that the members of the audience were remaining in their places as a mark of respect to the startling and flamboyant woman in the front row whose attendants were gathering up her possessions and wraps and preparing to quit the arena.

  Marvel said to himself, Fat bitch! What the hell are they kowtowing to her for? Aloud he shouted again, “Hey! Hey! Finito! Go home! Bigity storm coming!”

  Then the circus proprietor saw that the silver-haired man in the striped trousers and black coat accompanying the woman was now making his way around the cage and coming towards him with neat, precise steps, and a most earnest expression upon his grave countenance. Marvel then remembered that before the performance this same man had presented himself at the ticket wagon and purchased a block of a hundred and fifty of the cheaper seats. This block during the performance had been solid with poorly dressed children who had been the noisiest in their appreciation of the Marvel Circus. Perhaps this was why the townspeople were respectful to the old cow.

  He now came closer and Marvel saw that he bore a purse in one hand. He bowed politely and then said in excellent English, “Mister Marvel? The Marquesa de Pozoblanco de la Mancha wishes me to say that she has been well entertained by your company and desires to show her gratitude by requesting that you accept this.” And he handed it over.

  For the first time in his cynical life, Sam Marvel gaped. The purse was fat and within came the crisp crackle of notes. Such a thing had never happened to him before in all his years of show business. The major-domo bowed again and retired. Marvel looked over in the direction of the Marquesa. She was standing waiting, dishevelled from her great bout with laughter, her tall comb askew in her wig, her cheeks streaked with sweat run in rivulets through her paint, her fan once more moving at hummingbird speed. The mocking expression again appeared at the corners of Marvel’s mouth. He removed his bowler hat, placed it over his heart, and swept her a large and exaggerated bow.

  Again the purple glare lit up the tent, and this time the lag between flash and thunder was less appreciable. The Marquesa remained unmoved and unhurried, and at Marvel’s deep obeisance flashed him a horrid smile, revealing two even rows of manufactured white porcelain teeth. Then she raised one fat white arm with the five white little slugs of fingers on the end of it with their glittering jewellery, waved him a kind of benediction, and thereafter, moving with ponderous stateliness, passed from the arena with the major-domo, the chauffeur, and the duenna in file behind her. The audience then broke up quickly and made for the exits with a rush. It was high time they did so.

  When Marvel went outside, but half of the sky remained in the east, and a strange greenish light was over all, which threw a pallor upon the faces of the townspeople. They were now anxiously hurrying away from the lot and towards the town. Engines on ancient cars sprang into life, echoing from the walls of the nearest houses. There were cries and shouts of families being herded together, and nervous laughter as they were urged off in the direction of home and safety, for it was obvious there was not much more time left.

  Filled with relief that they had managed to get away with it, Marvel and Joe Cotter stood side by side watching the thinning crowd and the departure of the Marquesa. Boosted from behind by the maid, she was thrust into the rear seat of her vintage Rolls-Royce, a ’35 or ’36, with the tonneau and door unusually enlarged. The springs squeaked as she settled down, the tiny black-clad maid beside her, almost blotted from view by the great bulk of her mistress. The major-domo took his place next to the chauffeur, and the car sailed majestically from the parking place. Several of the men among the townspeople still hurrying from the lot raised their hats as it swept by, and off towards the east where, some ten kilometres or so out, lying like a fertile oasis on the flat countryside the Marquesa had her domain—a finca of legendary luxury and unnumbered buildings concealed behind a circle of lime-washed walls, large enough to enclose a small village.

  The last vehicle was clear of the car park; the final scurry of hurrying footsteps had died away. Cotter said, “So you made it.”

  Marvel spat
out the remains of the stump of his Schimmelpenninck and tried not to let the tent boss see him shiver. He had brought his shows through some notable wind and rainstorms, but there was an extraordinary and peculiar malevolence to the sound of the thunder and the Stygian blackness of the sky which was blotting out their world that unsettled him.

  “Christ,” he said, “look at that!” Then, coming to a decision: “Pull down!” he ordered savagely.

  Cotter snorted. “Pull down, my arse! It’s too late. We’ll never make it. What the hell were you doing mucking around there all that time? I thought you were going to cut it short.”

  Marvel thought back to the weird, hysterical scene he had witnessed and the strange hypnotic effect it had had upon him. He said, “That goddamned silly old man.” But he had no further answer for Cotter, for they were miles apart in their approach. In show business when you had something running for laughs and the tent was rocking with it and people would talk about it when they got home that afternoon and spread the news, telling their friends about it, you let it go on.

  The white tent was now outlined against the pitch blackness behind it and the lurid purple lightnings. Yet there was not a single breath of wind and the canvas was as calm and solid as a stone building. There was something horrid in the way the thunder continued long after it should have finished its peal. It went on and on and on, each thudding boom on a lower note, until it seemed there was no longer room on any scale of sound for a still lower detonation.

  The tentman took one final look at the listless pennons atop the canvas roof and said, “She could ride it out. The Spiggoty said there was more noise than wind. Well have the seats flat.”

  “Well, hurry!” said Marvel, turned on his heel and walked off in the direction of his living wagon, trying not to seem to go too quickly. He wanted to get inside and shut the doors and windows against the Thing outside. He felt that he wanted to pull the sides of his caravan around his shoulders, put his head under a blanket, and hide.

  Cotter produced his own whistle from his pocket and blew it four times. The three British tentmen and a dozen or so of the Spaniards employed from the town came running. Mr. Albert was with them.

  “Take the seats down and lay ’em flat,” ordered Cotter. The men went inside the tent and soon the sound of the clatter of wooden planking filled the stilly air. Cotter went out and started a round of the outside of the tent, his appraising expert eye lingering upon every stick and rope.

  C H A P T E R

  1 0

  The cold front, heralded by lighter clouds verging in colour from pearl grey to dun racing ahead of the inky canopy of the thunderstorm, whistled through the circus area, flapping loose canvas and ropes, picking up programmes, newspapers, empty paper bags, and wrappers of sweets and biscuits, whirling them about the grounds madly or sending them aloft with the funnels of dust like miniature twisters, unnerving and unsettling the circus people, chilling their sweat-covered bodies as the temperature in the space of seconds dropped twenty-five degrees, and sending them hurrying to their wagons to take shelter.

  It was not a hard or even dangerous blow, but the suddenness of its icy breath following upon the cloying, all-enveloping heat had the effect almost of stripping them of their clothes and leaving them naked and exposed to the monster following upon its heels.

  The beasts, too, were already uneasy and frightened by the mystery of the first frigid blast, the soughing of the wind, the pistol snaps of canvas, the scurrying and trampling of feet as the performers rushed for their quarters, and the shrilling of Cotter’s whistle, and added their roars, barks, coughs, whines, neighs, and the wild and miserable trumpeting of Judy. The unexpectedness of the cold, the sudden viciousness of the attack, the terror of the darkness behind it, upset the usual calm of people who, living an outdoor life, were accustomed to taking cataclysms of nature in their stride and coping with its problems. Everybody moved as though the devil were after them.

  Rose, still clad in the brown jodhpurs and thin white shirt as she had been for the finale with Deeter, ran with quickening panic in her heart for the living wagon she shared with Jackdaw Williams. This, with two others, those of Fred Deeter and the Birdsalos, was parked at the side of the road where it dipped below the level of the tober which was almost at the height of the roof tops and where they had thus managed to find a little shade from the broiling sun.

  The chill which seized her was less due to the cold blast from the hideous sky or the dust rising about her flying feet than to the fact that the little van looked so puny in the face of the storm now upon them. She wanted to hold it clutched tightly to her breast, shelter it, and protect it. Yet even as she ran, her mind was on Toby and the animals, particularly the small, furry, terrified ones whose squealing, shrieking, chittering, and whimpering penetrated through the racket and the complaints of the larger beasts.

  Jackdaw Williams, the tatters of his tramp garb whipped about his legs, the wind blowing the wisps of his fright wig about, was at the steps just ahead of her. He said to her, “Get in and batten down. We’re for it. Christ, it’s cold!”

  Shivering, she scrambled up the ladder, helped inside by a push from the clown who tumbled in after her, pulled up the steps, and jerked the door shut. He said something else to her, but whatever it was she didn’t hear for it was drowned by an appalling salvo of thunder whose repeated reverberations made the tea mugs and thick glasses shiver on the shelf, and the kettle dance and vibrate on the iron stove. She felt suddenly paralysed, as though not knowing what to do or able to move, until the man broke the spell by slamming shut one of the windows and twisting the handle to lock it, and shouting at her, “Get a move on! What are you standing there for? Put away everything that could bust.”

  She then closed the other window with the small ruffled chintz curtain she had affixed to it over Jackdaw’s onetime protest that he didn’t want his caravan all tarted up, and busied herself putting away things that might break or fall.

  There was a great glare of purple lightning and the gap of no more than a second between the flash and the thunderclap showed that the storm was overhead.

  Rose whispered, “The animals! What will happen to them?”

  Jackdaw Williams, who had ripped off his wig and pulled a sweater over his shoulders, said, “Bugger the animals! What’ll happen to us? Look after the bloody bird!”

  The jackdaw screamed and pecked as Rose took it, forced it into its cage, and pulled the covering down over it.

  There was no panic in Joe Cotter, only anger and frustration. He had no fear of the elements. Given an hour he could have had his top down, dropping the small forest of poles lorded over by the tall, stout king pole, and letting the canvas down flat to the ground where the wind could not get at it, and it could suffer no more serious damage than a soaking. Now he was faced with a battle against a tent straining in a tempest. The responsibility for the life and continuation of the show rested upon his shoulders.

  Worse, he was aware that his force of Spanish labour—the tentmen and ring boys hired from the town—was melting away one by one. Set to the task of pulling down the supports of the cheaper plank seats rising in tiers and laying them flat on the ground, they would edge towards the exit and suddenly vanish, and he knew they would be legging it for the shelter of their homes. He had warned Marvel that in a crisis inexperienced hands hired from a village would be of no use.

  The enclosure swayed, rattled, shook, and ballooned in the grip of the icy wind. If the force were no greater than this she would weather it; but in this strange, arid, terrifying foreign land he did not know to what strength the wind might build. His angry eyes took in the cage for the cat act still up. If the canvas were to tumble onto the circle of steel it would be shredded to ribbons in an instant.

  He shouted, “Christ all bloody mighty! Get that cage down! Where’s that bloody barstid Albert?”

  But Albert was not there. He had gone off in the blackness, unfearful, undaunted, to look after his animals.
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br />   The cages of the Nubian lion, the Indian tiger, and the African panther were mounted on gaudily painted circus wagons open at the front. At the top of each one was a hinged wooden covering which could be let down over the bars so as to enclose the cage completely and keep the beasts dry and secure during wind or weather.

  If Mr. Albert was exhausted from his efforts in the heat of the afternoon or the unaccustomed tossing about he had sustained, it did not show in the speed with which he tore along the aisles of the circus set-up on the lot, now empty and deserted of every human. There was not a soul to be seen except this white-haired, black-coated figure flapping along in his ungainly but effective gallop.

  The three cats were parked closest to the back yard of the main tent to enable them quick entry to the arena through the steel tunnel, and the beasts, wildly excited by the darkness, the glaring lightning, the noisy thunder, and the rush of cold wind, were leaping and charging madly about from side to side of their enclosures. But they paused stock-still when they saw Mr. Albert, like children distracted suddenly in the midst of a tantrum. He talked to them as though it were just any other day or any other time and he wished to feed them or reach in with broom or shovel to remove their droppings.

  “Here, here, what’s all this?” he cried. “Acting like a lot of boobies, that’s what! It’s only a little storm. What would you be doing if you was out in the jungle, that’s what I’d like to know? Here you are all snug and safe with your Uncle Albert.”

  He reached through the bars and roughed up the top of the nose of the tiger, causing the beast to sneeze with surprise and delight. The old man unhinged the two parts of the wooden flaps, brought them down over the cage, and locked them into place; he saw that the small air holes cut in their sides were clear, and through one of which a gleaming eye was shining.