by Ursula Hegi
The Sensational Sebastian and I live three wagons from the kitchen wagon called The Last Supper. I’ve missed my chance of returning home the night of the show. Missed it again the following morning. And now that I’ve missed that chance for eleven days, it’s too late to go home. Too soon. I earn my wages: mend costumes, match old designs, help The Sensational Sebastian brew an elixir that he claims will make mortals live forever. Though skeptical, I make sure he swallows a spoonful at breakfast, because every time he performs I’m terrified he’ll tumble into death: his hand will sweat and slip from the trapeze or he won’t catch the trapeze as he flies toward its arc. I cannot imagine being without him.
At the concession stand, before and after each show, I sell his elixir in clay pots with calligraphed labels, Für Immer—Forever. Next to me our cook sells Würstchen—sausages, and Brötchen mit Fisch—rolls with fish. Her face is lovely except for the lower half, sunken as if her features were patched from different lifetimes.
“If you are ever ill,” she tells me, “I’ll make your favorite food for you, but I need to know what it is. Now. You may not be able to tell me if you ever get deadly ill.”
“Kuchen. Apfelkuchen.”
Customers wait in line for our Venetian candy, a golden confection of nuts and honey, so unlike the cheap candies other Zirkusse sell. Our recipe comes from Herr Ludwig’s dead wife, Pia, who grew up in Venice where she sold her confections from a wooden display strapped to her waist.
“And your second favorite?”
“Some other Kuchen.”
She nudges me. “Confess.”
“Erdbeertorte.”
“A sweet lining to your stomach, then, Danish Woman!”
“Why do you call me that?”
“Because you’re from the Danish border and are fluent in German and Danish.”
Everyone at the Ludwig Zirkus speaks and dreams in several languages, evidence of where we’ve lived and worked, plenty to serve us as we cross the borders. Dutch, German, and Italian for both Ludwigs. French and German for The Sensational Sebastian. Russian and German for Luzia The Clown. Half a dozen languages for Marliss The Cook and her husband.
* * *
Back home in Rodenäs, I recalled my dreams upon waking, but being with The Sensational Sebastian erases those flicker images of night, draws me beyond my skin, toward him.
We travel north, cross the border into Denmark to perform in Tønder and Boderslev. No matter where we stop, we barter Zirkus tickets for food: vegetables and fruit in season or canned; wrinkled apples and pears and carrots from the root cellars of farmers; fish and sometimes meat.
In the towns where we set up the big tent, The Sensational Sebastian points out statues in parks and cemeteries. “Men who turned to stone because they settled in one place.”
“Those statues have never been anything but stone.”
“Ach, Sabine … Sabinchen.” He cups his long hands around my face. Kisses me. And again.
“Chiseled from stone to resemble humans,” I whisper into his mouth.
“I love you so much.” Tears in his eyes. He blinks them away. “You’re so lucky it’s me you found.”
“Before you turn to stone?”
“No no.” His laugh lines deepen.
“I miss my dreams.”
“I mean lucky you didn’t get seduced by one of those fellows who have a new woman every season. Some women will follow a Zirkus for months.”
“And now I’m one of them?”
“Not like you. Last spring a woman from Oberkassel followed us. She was after the Twenty-Four-Hour Man. As usual.”
“Every night I used to dream.”
“Audiences think Zirkus people are amoral. That’s why they expect behavior they won’t tolerate in their towns. I still don’t see why the Twenty-Four-Hour Man. He’s so ugly.”
“So ugly he’s handsome.”
“Is that what you think?”
“It’s what Cook says.”
“What else does she have to say about her husband?”
“It’s … confidential.”
“Tell me.” He plants flutter kisses all over my neck.
I laugh. “He isn’t just called the Twenty-Four-Hour Man for arriving twenty-four hours ahead of the Zirkus.”
“Too fast, then?”
“Stamina.”
* * *
The Ludwigs barter a young lion from a big Zirkus that won’t keep crippled animals. His left hind leg turns inward—a genuflection, a curtsy—so that he stumbles over himself; but he doesn’t look clumsy.
“He looks majestic,” says Luzia.
“Like a Sphinx,” Herr Ludwig says.
“Good temperament,” Silvio says.
“Let’s name him Egypt.”
Egypt becomes ours for two ponies and forty hours of tent repair by The Whirling Nowacks—Icarianists—not only quick and talented at foot juggling one another, but also at patching and mending canvas, using pliers to yank long needles with twine through the stiff fabric.
At the Ludwig Zirkus, the lion Egypt does not have to brace the head of the ringmaster between his jaws.
He does not have to leap through burning rings.
He does not have to feign fury.
He is Egypt now, the leading actor in Herr Ludwig’s scenario: The Seven Plagues of Egypt. Egypt is content to amble around our arena, led by Luzia The Clown. I design a saddle for him, silver and cognac damask, and one matching stocking that we pull up high on his injured leg and anchor to his saddle where seven monkeys teeter and clutch one another.
Every performance is unique. What remains the same is Herr Ludwig’s dignity when he strides into the ring, tuxedo and top hat, giving all of you magic and exhilaration that make the intake of your breaths more vibrant.
20
Young Widows with Infants
Once I’m with child, I stop correcting The Sensational Sebastian about staying in motion to prevent his body from turning to stone. It’s a story he needs to believe—just as I need to believe that with me he’ll be different. Stay. Forever the playful lover who turns to me, only me, after he’s dazzled every female in the audience.
But he grows restless. Smokes more. Can’t fall asleep in the quiet. We winter on farmland by the Rhein in Emmerich, the last German town before the Dutch border, where local children come to spy on our training sessions.
I nest. Sew blue curtains and line them with muslin. Stencil the wooden floor of the Annunciation wagon with clouds.
The Sensational Sebastian likes my decorating.
Then The Sensational Sebastian does not like my decorating.
“Too much like a woman’s place.”
“Herr Ludwig likes it.”
“That man is unnatural. Just watch him with those monkeys.”
“What are you saying?”
“You know why he is famous as a monkey trainer?”
“Because he is very good at it.”
“Because he has … unnaturally close relationships with monkeys. That’s why he looks like a monkey.”
“He does not!”
“Crossing over. A territorial thing. I heard one of his monkeys mauled him.”
“Heard from whom?”
“From him—I heard it from him. So proud of being understood by monkeys. Accepted by them. Not a word about the danger.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“He thinks he is so remarkable. Courting monkeys.”
“That’s nasty. You get like that when you’re bored.”
He stretches out on our bed. “Come here, Sabine.”
I shake my head. “Don’t talk nasty about him.”
“Just look at his ears.”
* * *
The second week of February 1859, it gets so cold that The Sensational Sebastian and I don’t want to get out of bed. Snow pelts the river at a slant as if drawn with chalk, but inside our Annunciation wagon we keep each other warm.
“I think Luzia likes the giant Nowack,
” I say.
“What did you find out?”
“Nothing for sure. Just intuition.”
“She’s a great performer.”
“So is he.”
“But that huge forehead!” The Sensational Sebastian leaps up, pounds the window.
I rise to my knees, brace my belly. “What is it?”
“Stop it, you!”
A cluster of farm boys, hooting and throwing snowballs at two dogs frozen together while mating. As the dogs yowl and try to scramble in opposite directions, the boys throw more snowballs.
“Stop it, you!” The Sensational Sebastian pounds the window.
The boys shriek. Clap.
In a frenzy now, the dogs bite the air. Struggle to pull apart.
Stark naked and yelling, The Sensational Sebastian leaps from our wagon, shakes his fists at the boys; a thick stripe of brown hair crawls up his back and neck; tufts of hair sprout on his shoulders. Like a bear, a savage beast. The boys scatter.
As he kneels in the deep snow and steadies the dogs, rubbing their throats and muzzles, I think what a tender father he will be after all. I had no idea he could be that gentle, that patient. Tears in my eyes, I watch him slide his hands low beneath the dogs’ bellies, stroking and talking and warming them till he can guide them apart.
* * *
The Sensational Sebastian loves me for as long as he can see the exit. As I grow wider around our child, I block the light. Still, he gets past me. Joins another Zirkus that’s traveling inland. Proves himself a visionary. And me a dreamer.
“There are men like that…” Herr Ludwig tells me. “Always on the way to somewhere else.”
“Was he more restless than others?”
“He was terrified.”
“Of me?”
“Of living in any one place and forgetting the road. Many of them are. I hope you’ll stay with us.”
I thank him. Because how can I go back home to the shame of being with child but without husband? “At least here no one knows me.”
Silvio Ludwig yells for the runt. Testy with one another, they haul the Annunciation wagon next to the Ludwigs’ as if the Zirkus had been expecting me all along.
“Now that we’re neighbors,” Silvio tells me, “I hope you won’t hear my father’s snoring.”
“I’m far enough away.”
“His snoring wakes me up several times a night.”
“I usually fall asleep early.”
“It’s been getting worse. I’m tired all the time.”
I don’t tell him that, by three in the morning, I’m awake, mouth dry with fear of what’s going to happen next. To keep that fear at bay, I recite a list of my sewing plans till I doze off.
new outfits for dancing dogs
iron Luzia’s cape
take in seams on Herr Ludwig’s tuxedo + remind him to eat more
mend costumes for Whirling Nowacks
buy fabric for Egypt’s stocking and saddle blanket
blankets and clothes for the baby
I promise myself to stop believing anything The Sensational Sebastian tells me, including the powers of his elixir Für Immer. No more flimflam guarantees. No more concocting Forever. Silvio Ludwig shows me how to concoct his mother’s Venetian candy, sticky and sweet.
My dreams come back to me.
* * *
The child of The Sensational Sebastian begins her break from me six weeks and three days after he’s made his break. Pains take me while our caravan travels along bumpy roads through flat terrain, far from any town. Silvio Ludwig saddles a horse and rides off in search of a midwife.
His father stays with me. “It always gets better,” he says when I scream.
The iron smell of blood so strong it’s like a taste.
I curse The Sensational Sebastian. “What’s his true name?”
“Didn’t he tell you?”
“He said The Sensational Sebastian.”
“Fritz.”
“Fritz?”
“He was born Fritz Fuchs.”
Laughing pulls my belly against its own rising, crushes the layers of myself. I heave.
“Would you like me to get one of the women?”
“I came to many of your shows before I met him. I—”
“Tief atmen, Sabine.” Breathe deeply.
“You are the best storyteller.”
“This story is for real.”
“I looked forward to your stories in the ring all year long.”
“Let me get Luzia.”
I’m taken by an abrupt longing for my mother. Want my mother with me. Now.
“Luzia said to get her if you need her.”
“She’ll keep talking and talking, not listening, just talking.”
“I can ask Cook.”
“She’ll want to stuff food into me.” I feel nauseous, as if I’ve eaten too much.
“She gets like that. With all of us.” He smiles. “Tell me about your mother.”
“How do you know I’m thinking about her?”
“Tell me your mother’s name.”
“Heike.”
“Tell me about how it was between you … before you came to us.”
“My mother has secrets. My mother—” I moan.
“Go on, Sabinchen.”
“—only eats half of the communion host. My mother says—”
“Go on.”
“—one must never use up all of the Lord.”
* * *
Herr Ludwig cups the crest of my belly with his hands, leans in to listen. His hair falls away from the ear that faces me, a nubble, a chewed-up nubble that he usually hides well under his hair or hat.
I don’t feel disgust. Just a strange tenderness for him.
He raises his head, shows me how to draw with my fingertips, circles small and large that reach along the sides of my belly. “Like this, Sabinchen.”
I whisper, “You have secrets too.”
“Many secrets.”
My belly rises and hardens. “Secrets about … the monkey.”
“What monkey?”
“The one that mauled you.”
“Circles. Make circles … Circles.”
I concentrate on those circles, make them come together around the peak of my belly button, then widen along my ribs, my waist.
“Very good.”
His praise brings me to tears. “Thank you.” Crying and gasping for air.
“Tief atmen, Sabinchen,” he reminds me.
I suck in all the air in the wagon. All the air in the world. Push it out.
“I was arrogant,” he says. “Assumed a human code of behavior from animals. Gratitude and ethics—”
“My mother—”
“Tief atmen.” He guides my hands around my belly. Hums to me.
“My mother walks with the whole length of her body leaning forward—”
“So do you, Sabine.”
“My mother makes … lace.”
Screaming, then.
“—lace … the most … expensive lace in Rodenäs.”
Screaming I’m the one screaming, while Herr Ludwig keeps humming and saying, “It always gets better. It always—”
* * *
Hands limber and sturdy tug the child from me. “A girl,” he announces in his ringmaster’s voice just as she wails and flings out her arms as if startled by her own voice. “What a little performer.”
I reach for her.
“Already she wants applause.” Gently, he lowers her onto my belly.
Slippery, she is. Slippery with whitish streaks and with blood. No air between her and me, that’s how close, except now she is outside me and already rooting about. I didn’t know it was possible to love like this, and with this love comes the shock that my mother must have loved me like this. How I must have devastated her by leaving without word. To lose my daughter is too much to fathom. I hold on to her. Give her my mother’s name. Heike.
“Young widows with infants,” Herr Ludwig says, “c
an count on the mercy of their neighbors.”
“Everyone knows I’m not a widow.”
“Your child doesn’t.”
“How about old widows?” I laugh though I’m stretched sore. “What separates us young widows from old widows?”
“Youth and—”
“—and evidence,” I claim, feeling reckless, giddy.
“Evidence?”
I caress my baby’s sticky belly. “Evidence of fögeln—” I cover my mouth. But I’ve only shocked myself.
Herr Ludwig chuckles. “How very … astute.”
“I never talk like this.”
He kisses the baby’s feet. Kisses every one of her toes.
“I’ll name her Heike.”
“After your mother.”
“But what do I tell people about her father?”
“You may give him my wife’s death.” Tears in his voice. “Pia loved the high-wire.”
As he tells me the story of her last performance—so dazzling, so audacious—I see Pia Ludwig spin, not the rapid fall he witnessed as a young husband, but the forever-spinning toward the arena, and as the sawdust rises around Pia’s sequined bodice and settles on her throat, her lips, I feel the tearing of my heart that I didn’t allow when The Sensational Sebastian became lost to me.
* * *
“Wait here.” Herr Ludwig hurries for the door.
“Where would I go?”
Within minutes he’s back with something bundled in linen. “Think of it as a gift from my beloved Pia.” He folds back the linen and shakes out a huge shawl—deep blues and purples so close in color that the strands shift as he drapes it around us.
The baby and I flicker in and out of sleep nursing and sniffing each other—drowsy and moist and warm—and when I open my eyes Luzia is swaddling the baby, then cleaning me while the baby tugs at my nipple with tiny piglet slurps, tugs me toward a sweet-swampy pond of sleep till a smell hauls us to the surface, vanilla, and Luzia dribbles Vanillepudding between my lips while we flicker out again in the midst of swallowing, fusing.
21
I Kill The Sensational Sebastian
I wrap Pia’s shawl around Heike and carry her to The Last Supper wagon where Cook has baked my favorites: Apfelkuchen und Erdbeertorte.