“Antoinette,” her husband said, quietly, “you know that we cannot turn back or change direction. We follow the route card, always. Violet knows where to find us. She will return when she is ready.”
Mrs. Lucasie sobbed again and leaned against him. He held her, eyes closed, and did not move. The moonlight shone on his white hair.
Somewhere in Portia’s mind, a small voice began to whisper. Tell them people don’t come back, it said. Tell them what you know. People leave and they don’t come back even if you wait like they told you to.
But she knew that would not help.
The truth often doesn’t.
Mosco cleared his throat. “We’d better get a move on. Got to make Rushville by morning.”
Slowly, everyone trickled back to the trucks and started them up, and the night filled again with the sound of humming motors and low voices and the yellow glow of headlights. They drove through the night, inching ever closer to the state line. Town by town, Portia was gaining her freedom. She could hardly begrudge Violet hers.
Portia thought suddenly of Delilah—still stuck, more likely than not, in the only place Portia had ever abandoned. There was always someone going and someone left behind. Portia had been both. She had enjoyed neither. But she knew that leaving a place was sometimes necessary, when you couldn’t breathe there anymore, when you weren’t yourself because of it.
Maybe that was what had happened to Max, she thought.
But just because everyone else gave up so easily didn’t mean she had to do the same. She had already allowed her mother to fade into unreachable memory, let Sophia drop her off at Mister’s like a parcel of potatoes, watched Caroline thrash and heave through her last living moments. If there was only one person Portia could retrieve, only one story for which she could write the ending, it was Max.
She would do whatever she had to. There was no other way.
What Was Left Behind
They arrived at the edge of Rushville just after dawn. The roustabouts weren’t far into their routine—they wouldn’t be done for a few hours more and the performers were nowhere to be found, so Mosco sent Mrs. Collington and Mrs. Murphy to the pie car to start breakfast.
“We’ll eat early. Get everybody fed and out of the way,” he told them.
“Circus eats first,” Gideon reminded him.
“They won’t make a stink as long as they don’t have to see us,” Mosco snapped. Then he called after the ladies, “Don’t use the good coffee or the potatoes off the top of the bin!”
“Bad coffee, old potatoes,” Mrs. Murphy shouted back. “You sure do know how to treat a lady!”
Mosco waved her off and continued hollering at the next person he saw, which happened to be Portia. “Don’t you have something that needs doing besides standing around?”
She wasn’t at all sure what she was supposed to be doing, since Mosco had decided to spare her from the kitchen—perhaps he felt bad for her, in light of Violet’s sudden departure. “I guess,” she said.
“Then do it.”
“Right.”
She was rescued by Gideon, who said she could help him lay out the stage boards and the banners for the bally line.
“I’ll just get my tools,” he said. “Meet me on the midway.”
“How do I know where the midway is? The lot isn’t set up yet.”
“Midway’s always in the same place. Forty paces east of the Big Top.”
“Which way’s east?”
But he was already walking away.
At least she knew how to find the Big Top. Couldn’t miss it, in fact, not with its peak being the highest point on the lot. I’ll just start at the entrance and walk forty paces from there, she thought. Only so many directions to go.
As she passed the Wonder Show caravan line, she noticed a small crowd outside her trailer. Marie, Anna, Doula, Mrs. Murphy, Mrs. Collington, and Polly and Pippa were gathered around in a tight circle, and it wasn’t until Portia got right up close that she could see what they were doing.
They were going through Violet’s things.
All the items she had left behind were spread out on a blanket on the ground, and the women were bickering over them. Scarves, clothes, hairpins, magazines, a World’s Fair souvenir pillbox, a pillow shaped like Texas. Laid out like prizes.
“Stop it!” Portia pushed past Polly and Pippa. “What are you doing?”
Doula held up a worn blue skirt. “Is the code,” she said. “Someone leave things behind, we take things they leave.”
“What if she comes back?”
Pippa snorted. “She’s not coming back.”
Portia had told herself the same thing, but for some reason, hearing it said out loud infuriated her. She pushed the twins away from the trailer. “Get out of here!”
Pippa stepped up to shove Portia back, but Polly had planted her feet and wouldn’t budge, so Pippa had to settle for swatting at Portia’s arm. “You have a lot of nerve, ordering me around! Who do you think you are? You’re not even in the show!”
Then Portia uttered the forbidden word: “Freak.”
And Pippa came back with a worse one: “Normal.”
Anna flinched.
Anywhere else in the world, it wouldn’t have been an insult. But here, within sight of the midway and the bally, normal was the worst thing to be. It was the strange ones who survived, who turned a profit and got their pictures taken and stayed locked in the memories of everyone who saw them. The twins were royalty here, and they knew it.
And so did everyone else. Which was why none of the others intervened when Pippa finally uprooted Polly enough to lunge at Portia, claws out and ready to strike. Portia ducked out of the way—it was easier to evade the pair than to hold her ground. They were twice her size, after all, even if Polly wasn’t a willing participant in the fight. Pippa continued her attack and Portia continued to bob and weave out of reach, until Gideon arrived to find out what was taking her so long to walk forty paces.
“What the hell?” He dropped his tool belt and got hold of the twins around their waist.
“Let me go!” Pippa shouted.
“Me, too!” Polly squeaked. Her face was flushed pink.
“Not until you tell me what’s going on here,” Gideon said, and he tightened his grip while the rest of the women took another step back from the scuffle.
Jackal appeared as if out of the air. “I thought I heard the telltale shrieks of a catfight,” he said. “Looks like I’m just in time.”
Pippa thrust an accusing finger at Portia. “It’s her fault! We were just standing here, and she came up and started pushing us around.”
“They were stealing!”
Gideon let go of the twins and said to Jackal, “Keep your eye on them,” and then he turned to Marie. “Well?”
She shrugged. “We were not stealing. Violet is gone. We were going through what was left behind. You know the code.”
Portia was indignant. “How can you just take her things?”
Doula shook her head. “They are not her things. She get them from others who leave, she leave them behind. This is our way.” She took Portia by the arm. “Come, I show you.”
“But I was going to help Gideon—”
“Go,” he said. “It’s fine.”
“What about what she said?” Pippa huffed. “She accused us of stealing. She called us a freak.”
“Oh, pipe down,” Mrs. Murphy told her. “You’ve done your share of name-calling.”
“More than your share, I’d say,” Mrs. Collington offered.
They were still arguing as Doula dragged Portia away.
“Wait for me!” Jackal jogged up behind them.
“What you want?” Doula barked.
“Why, only the pleasure of your company, my dear. A leisurely morning. A story or two. And perhaps”—he winked— “a spot to drink.”
“You roll cigarettes?”
“Until my fingers go numb, just for you.”
Doula rolled he
r eyes. “You don’t listen to anything this one tell you,” she said to Portia. “He have head full of money and heart full of lies. Is worst combination.”
I can think of worse, Portia said to herself. But she only nodded and let Doula lead her away.
What (Else) Was Left Behind
Doula’s trailer looked the same every time Portia was in it—cluttered with junk, nearly choked with it, and yet there were always small rearrangements taking place so nothing was where she thought it would be. The chair she had used last time wasn’t in the corner anymore. Doula’s card-reading table had migrated to the other side of the room, and her record player was nowhere to be seen. Portia half wondered if these possessions moved themselves, out of boredom, or desperation. Perhaps they were enchanted. Perhaps the rug could fly and the walls could speak and the coat rack turned into a handsome gentleman every night.
Stranger things had happened.
Portia had seen them herself, by now.
“Your abode is a true cavern of wonders, Miss Doula,” said Jackal.
“Sit,” Doula said, pointing toward the card table.
Jackal and Portia did as they were told, and watched as Doula opened drawer after drawer. Finally, she found the one she was looking for. She pulled out a tin box and brought it to Portia. “Open.”
Portia lifted the lid. There was a smaller package inside, canvas, tied with twine.
“Keep going,” Doula said.
Probably some kind of trick, Portia thought. She’s going to make me unwrap it seven times, and there’ll be nothing inside after all.
But curiosity (and Doula’s insistence) made her continue, and when she unrolled the canvas like a sail, she was rewarded by the sight of . . . more junk. A pocketknife, a dragon carved out of soap, and a box of straight pins.
“Ah,” she said.
“You don’t know what they mean,” Doula snapped. “Like always, I must explain.” She sighed dramatically, as if all of this hadn’t been her idea in the first place. “Jackal, get me a drink. I tell her the stories.”
“I’ll get your drink,” said Jackal, “but I tell the stories around here. You just sit tight and don’t interrupt.”
1. The Pocketknife
His name was Freeman Barnes.
He was billed as The Human Torso, the man without legs or arms, without even a trace of them. He did everything with his mouth: rolled cigarettes, signed his name, everything. He was a religious man and held church services every Sunday from his trailer. He’d get someone to open the window and get himself propped up against the sill inside, and let loose with the Word of God. Played all the hymns himself, on the harmonica.
There were certain things, of course, that he couldn’t do for himself. He could get around just fine—moved himself along like an inchworm—but eating was difficult, and dressing himself was next to impossible. Luckily, Freeman managed to get married as easily as most people tie their shoes. Nearly as often, too. He wasn’t short on charm, he could sing like an angel, and he made a more-than-decent living on the show. Freeman had plenty to offer his Mrs. Barneses, and he liked being the man of the house. Charity had its place, he believed, and that place was not in his trailer. Women never stuck around for long, but there was always a new one waiting in the wings.
Freeman’s teeth and lips were strong, and he wanted to make sure they stayed that way or he’d be out of work. So he found himself a pocketknife and took up whittling. Just before he and the sixth Mrs. Barnes took off to start their own show, he carved a set of chess pieces as a wedding present for Ernst and Lily, and a herd of soap dragons for them to give out to the guests.
He was a great believer in marriage, after all.
2. The Soap Dragon
Some folks said it was a marriage made in heaven, but Ernst and Lily always called it “made on earth” instead. They weren’t born looking like a matched set. They made themselves into what they became, and it was a long piece of work. They were artists. They had vision.
They called themselves Adam and Eve. Their act was mostly a series of poses that showed off how their tattoos played off each other—he put his arm around her waist, and there was the serpent wound around the Tree of Knowledge on her back. They stood back to back, and there was the most perfect fleur-de-lis you ever saw, from their shoulders down to their wrists. It was a dance, it was an art gallery come to life.
When they decided to get married, they wanted to celebrate with something really spectacular, but Ernst had always favored elaborate, showy tattoos, and Lily’s father had started inking her when she was thirteen. Neither one of them had enough clean skin left for anything big, at least not where they could show anybody else. When they were on stage, Ernst wore a little pair of shorts and Lily had the same, plus a top. They were totally exposed. Almost.
So the rumor was, they got their wedding tattoos where the proverbial sun doesn’t shine. A pair of dragons that met up when they—
“Jackal,” Doula interrupted. “Is not important. Move along.”
“Sorry.”
Their wedding was the event of the season. They put a proper ad in Billboard so the whole circuit got notice of the date—carnies and freaks came from miles around to celebrate. And everyone was given a soap dragon, hand-carved (so to speak) by The Human Torso, who, in addition, performed the ceremony and serenaded the bride and groom with a lovely rendition of “Hava Nagila” on the harmonica.
Turns out Ernst and Lily were Jewish.
Who knew?
3. The Pins
Arthur Plumhoff felt no pain. There were all kinds of stories by way of explanation. He’d been in the war, and the shock of what he saw made him numb all over; he was some kind of a warlock; he had elephant skin that only looked human. Sometimes they said he’d just been born that way.
Whatever the reason, Arthur could stick himself full of pins until he looked as if he were made of metal. Whole body—face, arms, legs, everything. He even shaved his head and put them all over his scalp, later on. He was billed as The Human Pincushion on account of the act, but by the time I knew him, he was doing more than just pin-sticking. He’d take sewing needles and embroider designs on himself with thread, like Ernst and Lily’s tattoos, only Arthur would unravel ’em every night so he could start over the next day.
Afraid of commitment, I guess.
Then he got into audience participation. He’d get ladies to come up on stage and embroider him themselves. They were always squeamish at first, but Arthur would talk them through it and keep promising they weren’t hurting him, and pretty soon he’d be covered with hearts and flowers and “Betsy loves Walter” and such. Somewhere along the line Arthur got himself a set of metal rings with needle joints, like earrings, and had Lily put them all around his back. He’d pick a girl out of the audience, hand her a pair of ribbons, and let her thread the rings like shoelaces. Looked like he was wearing a corset from the back. Always got a laugh.
Of course there were always a few hecklers in the crowd, nonbelievers, doubting Thomases. Arthur may have been numb, but he was prideful, too. Couldn’t pass up a challenge. He was a damned fool for a challenge.
We were playing our last show somewhere in Michigan—Houghton Lake, maybe—and some fella dared Arthur to put a sword through his front. We begged him not to, but he said he’d just weave it through under the skin, just like with the pins and needles. I suppose we wanted to see what would happen. Arthur’d never done anything so grand before. It would have changed his show forever.
If it’d worked.
It looked as if it worked. He got the blade clear through, in one side and out the other, and the crowd went wild, cheering and calling out like they’d just seen the Second Coming. Arthur up there on stage, strutting around like the king of the barnyard. He kept that thing in him as long as the cheering went on. Then the sound dipped a little, and everyone knows that’s when you’re done, when the tip turns back against you. Arthur decides to finish with a flourish, so he whips the sword back out
, and before you can blink, there’s blood everywhere. Fountains of it. Sprayed the whole front row like a garden hose.
Doc said Arthur must have gone too deep, maybe nicked an organ somewhere along the way. Took hours for him to die.
But I tell you true: people are still talking about that show. Arthur Plumhoff, the man who felt no pain.
Jackal poured himself another drink and leaned back in his chair, regarding Portia with a satisfied grin. “There you have it,” he said. “A little bit of history. Your very own piece of the past.”
She looked at the things on the table—they didn’t have names, they weren’t even really unique. They could have come from anywhere. “Is it true?” she asked Doula. “Or is it just a story?”
“Only truth is what you can touch. Someone leaves and they are gone for a while, I might think I dreamed them. You might think so, too.” Doula tapped the lid of the tin box with a craggy finger. “That is why I keep things. To believe.”
She reached into her shawl and pulled out one of Violet’s lipsticks.
“To remember,” said Doula. She laid the lipstick next to the dragon, the straight pins, and the knife. She rolled them into the canvas, tied the twine, and dropped the bundle back into the box. The snap of the lid sounded like a gunshot.
Jackal fished another glass out of the cupboard behind him, poured an inch of vodka into it, and pushed it across the table to Portia. Then he raised his drink and said, “To Violet.”
Forever after, Portia would think of her friend when she heard the ring of glass meeting glass, or felt the burn of vodka in her throat.
The Size of an Empty Space
That night Portia wandered the lot. The circus talent and the roustabouts knew her by now, recognized her from the pie car, so she was not able to blend in as well as she once had. But amid the crowds of strangers, she felt cushioned, protected. These unsuspecting souls would never guess who she was or where she had come from. They were not looking at her, any of them. She was utterly anonymous.
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