There are a few bigger buildings and lots of smaller ones, all linked from above with loads of enclosed aerial walkways. It means the Dreg performers never even have to set foot outside once it’s built. It keeps them nice and separated from the Pures, like a giant ant colony in the sky. They’re like worker ants, I suppose, scurrying busily here, there and everywhere for our entertainment.
I try to spot the girl again, but it’s getting dark and everyone looks the same from this distance. I see her image though; it plays on repeat, one of the ten or so they keep beaming up into the sky.
I keep trying to figure out how I can persuade my parents to let me go and watch a show. They’ll never agree – not with the way they feel about Dregs. I have to though. I have to see if it’s true, what everyone else is saying about the shows. I have to see her, dancing on the tightrope.
HOSHIKO
It’s pitch black by the time we’ve finished working. My hands are bleeding and I feel myself swaying as we’re finally pushed into the dorms and the doors are locked shut.
Finally, six whole hours with no guards, no Silvio, no Pures. They don’t bother to supervise at night – it saves money, I suppose, and it’s not as if any of us can go anywhere.
I scan the room for Greta and Amina, taking in the appearance of everyone else as I do so. At first glance, you’d think we had nothing in common at all. All different colours and creeds make up this crazy circus; a more diverse group you’d be hard-pressed to find. When you look more closely though, we’re more alike than you’d initially think.
It’s rare for a member of the Dreg Cirque to make it to adulthood, so pretty much everyone’s young, but most people look miles older than they actually are. Every face, even the tiniest of the children’s, is lined with worry and exhaustion, and many people bear scars and injuries – physical confirmation of how dangerous what we do is.
In another world, we’d all walk different paths, but in here we’re a unit. We share a common existence: the same worries, woes and hatreds. We shore each other up when we can, bear each other’s burdens as much as we’re able to. They’re my family now – the only family I really remember.
There are about fifty of us all together, sometimes a few more, sometimes a few less as new faces arrive and old, and not so old, faces leave.
I spy Greta across the room and she rushes over to me, flinging her arms around my waist and pressing her head into my stomach.
“I missed you!” she says. “I hate it when we’re not working together.”
“Me too,” I say. “Where’s Amina?”
“She’s in the san already. One of the new boys got his arm crushed while he was erecting the scaffolding.”
I wince. That’s not good. If his arm’s too injured he might not be able to perform, and if he can’t serve his purpose, he’ll be redundant to them, and we all know what that means.
“Amina thinks she can fix it. Well, that’s what she said to me, anyway.” She frowns. “It might not be true though; she never tells me what’s really going on.”
I give a dry laugh. Greta’s right; if the poor guy gets taken away, Amina won’t tell Greta that – she’ll make up some story or other. She tries to spare her from as many of the gory details as she can. We both do. It’s an impossible task in this place but neither of us want to see the light that’s still there in her eyes extinguished any sooner than it has to be.
Amina used to do the same thing to me all the time: offer edited versions of the truth. She’d still do it now if I let her get away with it, even though there’s no point any more – any delusions I had about life in here are long since over.
There’s not much chatter in the dorm tonight and the communal area is already thinning out as everyone makes their way to bed. We’re all equally exhausted; it’s painful, physical work building the circus up from scratch and they always seem to forget to feed us on the first evening.
I think about waiting for Amina, but there’s no point. She might be gone all night anyway, and she’d be cross if she found me sitting up.
“You need your sleep,” she’s always saying. “Look what happened to me.”
She’s right. We have to take our chances of rest when they come.
“I’m so tired,” I tell Greta. “I’m going straight to bed.”
She looks up at me, her blue eyes beseeching, and I can’t help but smile; the unspoken question in them is blazing.
“No,” I protest, weakly. “No way. There’s not enough room in one bunk. You’re right next to me, anyway.”
“Please!” she begs. “I won’t be able to sleep at all if I’m on my own.”
“Well, I won’t be able to sleep at all with you fidgeting around next to me!”
“I won’t fidget, I promise. I’ll be really still. I’ll scrunch right up. You won’t even know I’m there.”
I shake my head. Every night Greta makes the same promise and every morning there I am, half hanging out of the bed, while she lays star-fished across it.
She grins up at me. “Please?”
It’s a pointless conversation. She knows I can’t say no to her. She’s got me completely wrapped around her little finger, has done since the day she arrived nearly a year ago now. Anyway, if I say no, she’ll only keep me awake with her crying.
“OK,” I concede, just as we both knew I would. “But only tonight. Tomorrow, you’re on your own.”
She nods, earnestly. “Whatever you say, Hoshi.”
We make our way into the women’s dorm, down the thin central passage to our usual bunks, right at the far end.
It’s so quiet in here tonight, an exhausted hush. It’s always like this on the night we set up; everyone’s even more tired than usual and sleep becomes the most important thing of all. It’s not normally that way. Night-time is the only time we ever get to be together and even though we’re always, always bone-tired, we all try to make the effort to stay up, just for half an hour or so. Sometimes we practise reading and writing, but not as often as we know we should. It’s hard to concentrate when every part of your body is aching and your eyes are struggling to stay open. Mostly, we just gather together and one of the older kids tells a story. Sometimes the stories are made-up; fantasies to remove us for a brief, precious time from this place of pain and carry us away on flying carpets to magical worlds – to beautiful princesses and handsome princes and gleaming palaces, to fairy godmothers who make everything better with a swish of their wand. More often than not though, it’s a true story. An account or recollection, or a history lesson about something from the past, about our heritage and how the world came to be the way it is. It’s the only way we get to learn about who we are, about what we are. The sense of injustice I carry around with me like an iron ball resting in the pit of my stomach is strengthened by these sessions. They make it heavier to carry, but they make it more powerful too. Everyone else feels the same, I know that, but most of the others seem to be able to deal with it better than me. Amina has somehow managed to turn it into resilience; into hope, not hatred. She’s certain that things won’t always be this way.
“Look at history,” she says. “There’s always a change; there’s always an end. Walls come down, regimes are toppled, the people rise up.”
I love Amina, but she’s wrong.
This Cirque has been around for over forty years now. Forty years of Pures paying their money to come here. Forty years of Dreg kids being wrenched away from their families and forced to perform here in the name of entertainment. Forty years of brutality, of pain, of death. The evil at the heart of society is ingrained. How can it ever end?
I lay straight down in my hard little bunk and Greta shuffles in next to me, wriggling her tiny body so she’s snuggled right up.
Just when I think she’s settling, she jumps up again to grab Lucy, her doll, from her own bed. The filthy bundle of mismatched cloth, sewn together so lovingly, is all she’s got left of home and she never sleeps without it.
She turns to face
me and I feel her warm breath on my face.
“Greta!” I whisper. “Stop breathing all over me!”
“Sorry,” she whispers back, but doesn’t move away. “Did you see the statue?”
“Yes.”
“Wasn’t it huge?”
“It wasn’t that big. I didn’t think it was that impressive actually.”
“Didn’t you? I liked the big gold man.”
The big gold man – she hasn’t got a clue what he represents. I’m glad of it.
“It’s exciting, isn’t it?” she says. “Being in the capital?”
“No! Why would it be? What difference does it make? It’s not as if we’re going to be doing any sightseeing!”
“No. I know, but … there’ll be loads of important people coming to watch us; that’s what Silvio said.”
“Greta, there’s nothing special about any of them. They’re not any better than you or me; none of them are.”
“Still. I like seeing all the people in their fine clothes.”
I swallow the retort that springs to mind. Amina’s right; we have to try our best to preserve her innocence, to keep her a child for as long as we can.
I suppose you could say that Greta’s like my little sister, but it’s more than that really. I might be only sixteen, but I feel like her mother.
The truth is I love her and Amina more than anyone in this whole messed-up world. More than my own family, even – after all, it’s been eleven years since I saw them.
The main reason I fight to survive every night is so that I can keep training Greta. I don’t want her to have to get out there and perform, God knows I don’t, but I have to make damn sure she’s ready for it when she does. I have to keep her safe, even though I know that the better she gets, the less vital I become.
I can still remember every detail of the day she arrived like it was yesterday. It wasn’t long after Amina’s accident and we were in the arena, rehearsing.
Silvio had given us three days to adapt the show to feature just me, instead of the two of us. I was really jumpy, we both were; scared he’d suddenly change his mind about keeping Amina, about her being useful. That he’d sweep in and take her away and I’d never see her again.
I kept losing my balance and slipping on the wire. Amina was trying not to get irritated, but even she couldn’t hide it. She didn’t say anything, but I knew she was scared: for me as well as her. If I couldn’t carry the show all on my own, it wouldn’t just be her who’d be at risk. She was trying to keep it all inside but every time I made a mistake I could see her shoulders tighten, her jaw clench.
There was an unfamiliar tense silence between us and then the big doors swung open and Silvio came in, dragging this dirty little scrap of a girl by her white hair.
“Meet our newest recruit!” he sneered. “She’s just passed selection. Hardly with flying colours, but beggars can’t be choosers. The rest of them were bloody awful; this one at least has some potential, I suppose, some flexibility.” He pulled her arm behind her back, hard, and she cried out.
He looked me up and down, appraisingly. “How are the rehearsals going?” he asked suspiciously.
“Fine,” Amina and I both answered at once.
“I hope so. High wire is still one of our biggest pulls, God knows why. You’d better be able to draw the crowds in on your own, girl. I don’t want to have to rip the whole thing up and start all over again.”
The threat hung in the air.
The whole time Greta was just staring at me, her lip trembling, her big eyes wide, pleading with me to do something. He released his hold eventually though, and pushed her so that she landed in a crumpled heap at my feet.
“Anyway, this street rat is my insurance policy, for now. Train her up, fast,” he ordered and swept out of the room.
She looked up at me and she said exactly the same words we all say. The same words she repeated night after night after night when I held her as she cried herself to sleep. The same words she’s stopped saying now. The words I stopped saying too. When? I can’t remember. When thoughts of home faded from memory to myth, when this place took its evil hold and became more real to me than the time before.
“I want my mummy.”
We didn’t get any more rehearsing done that day.
Amina and I picked up the broken little creature from the floor and tried to fix her, to patch her up and mend her tiny wings. And we’ve kept her going so far, with Amina’s bandages and plasters and cream, and with a lot of protection and love and support. She’s stronger than she was, I suppose, but she still doesn’t belong here. None of us do but Greta especially is too good for this world: too gentle and delicate. She won’t survive in a place like this much longer. She’s like a butterfly, and butterflies need sunshine and air, space and freedom, not spotlights and locked doors. Butterflies are vulnerable; their wings can be too easily crushed.
Any day now, Silvio will call for Greta to make her debut. I’m surprised he hasn’t already. And, when he does, she’ll be OK; I know she will. I keep telling her she’s nearly ready, even though she doesn’t believe me. She’s so talented, such a natural up there; the crowd are going to love her. How could they not? Fierce pride swells up inside me every time I look at her, bringing with it such an intense sense of protection.
I’m not the only one who thinks she’s like a butterfly. It’s the name Silvio’s already coined for her: the Butterfly. He sees her beauty and frailness as a commodity, something he can turn into a brand. The Butterfly and the Cat, that’s Greta and me.
BEN
I can’t sleep so I wait until it’s quiet and then do what I always do when I need someone to talk to – creep down to the kitchens to find Priya.
She’s baking bread. The warm smell fills the air as soon as I push open the heavy door.
She looks up and tuts when she sees me.
“What are you doing up at this time of the night?” she chides. She’s only pretending to be cross though – I can tell by the twinkle in her eye that she’s pleased I’m there.
I sit down on the stool and watch her working. It’s cold down here, despite the ovens, and I hug my knees up to my stomach. Priya glances over at me and immediately stops what she’s doing to go over to the cupboard. She carefully takes out her sari. I wrap myself in it gratefully, remembering the first time I saw it. How I was down here, chatting to her one cold morning, and I started to shiver. She was clicking her tongue and telling me to go back upstairs where the heating was on or at least to get myself a jumper, but I ignored her, and stayed sitting there, huddled up on the stool.
She kept looking at me doubtfully, like she was making her mind up about something, and then she went to the food cupboard and pulled it out from the back. It was hidden under a bag of rice and wrapped in brown paper. I’ll never forget what it looked like when she shook it out. The weak winter sunshine filled the room that day, like it does sometimes when it’s that low in the sky. The sari seemed to catch the light as it billowed, casting it back across the room. Turquoise satin, shimmering with gold and purple: like peacock feathers. Heavy and cool to the touch.
“Don’t tell anyone,” she whispered. “It’s contraband.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but she told me all about it, eventually. It had been her grandmother’s wedding dress, from the time before. Her mother had kept it and passed it on to her. When they outlawed traditional Indian costumes she’d hidden it away at home, but it was so damp there that she was worried about it spoiling. She’d smuggled it in here after that.
“One day I will give it to my daughter,” she said. “Perhaps she can get married in it, when things improve for us.”
That was the first time it dawned on me that she had her own family. The first time I realized that her life didn’t revolve around me, around being a servant for us.
After that, I managed to persuade her to talk about them more and more. She was cautious at first, but she couldn’t stop herself. Especially when I asked
about her children, Nila and Nihal.
I’ve always been a bit envious of them, this boy and girl I’ve never met. I know that’s absurd – I have everything and they have nothing – but the way her eyes shine when she talks about them always makes me feel a bit sad and empty inside. She loves them so much, it’s obvious. She only sees them for a few hours a month, on her half day off, but she talks as if she lives for those times.
I wonder if my mother’s eyes shine like that when she talks about me. I can’t imagine that they do. I don’t suppose she ever mentions me at all – she’s far too busy discussing more important things.
Priya has already started making more bread and her fingers work quickly as she kneads the flour and water together until they merge into one.
“What’s up then?” she asks. “What’s stopping sir from sleeping this time?”
“It’s the Cirque,” I tell her. “I really, really want to go but I already know Mother and Father won’t give me permission.”
She stops what she’s doing and looks sharply at me, her face uncharacteristically hard for a moment. “Why would you want to go there?”
“Why wouldn’t I want to go?” I say. “Everyone says it’s amazing.”
“Yes.” Her tone is dry, her voice brittle. “I bet they do.”
She’s working the dough now, pushing into it with her fist and pummelling it into submission. Again and again she slams it down heavily on the surface and pounds into it. It almost looks like she’s punching someone, the way she’s going at it. The atmosphere’s really different all of a sudden. She’s completely ignoring me and concentrating on the bread. Her lips are tight, her shoulders are hunched up.
It doesn’t feel like it usually does when I slip down here. Normally, we chat away for hours, even though we both know it’s forbidden.
I sit there awkwardly, watching her.
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