by Robert Lax
and the communists are no good.
In Czechoslovakia they have a big factory
(it goes on for blocks) making automobiles,
but in it they have people spying;
if anyone does a good job, he gets a promotion.
“That’s better. It’s an American idea.”
“That’s not bad.
But what is needed is to have bosses and workers
working together,
not against each other;
just working together.”
“How’s it ever going to happen?”
“I don’t know.
Everybody’s against everybody;
French against Italians against Germans,
and bosses against workers.”
“What can you do about it?”
“You can see the situation.”
“But what can you do about it?”
“Nothing.
I don’t know.
Oh yes
I know.
But nobody will ever do it.”
“What’s that?”
“It takes one man
who knows all the languages
very well
to go from country to country,
from factory to factory,
and talk to the workers
and talk to the bosses,
and make them see the situation.
And then get them to work together,
main à main pour la paix.
Not anticapitalist (we need capitalists).
Teach the workers to work with the capitalists
and teach the capitalists to work with the workers.
Marxism is a good idea,
but the people who believe it are not all good.
Christianity is a good idea, but nobody practices it.
We don’t need any more marxists or christians,
what we need is men of goodwill.
But even if somebody did that,
went around from one place to another,
and the idea was taking hold,
someone would come up to him and say,
Yes that’s a good idea,
main à main pour la paix,
we’d like to buy it
for a large sum of money.
(so they could use it their own way!)
And don’t you think the guy would sell it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ah!” said Fritz, “He would just as sure
as you’re standing there.”
THE DEVILS
A busy
mischievous
music
begins
which has in it
a thin
vibration
of the
nether-
world,
and the
two
young
devils
rush
into
the ring
(red tights
horned hoods
raised eyebrows
and black capes).
They scramble
up the rope ladder
onto their
white diabolic
seesaw;
standing
together a
moment on
the trapeze bar
before they
step
carefully
to
opposite ends
of the
delicate
teeter-totter
high
above the ring.
Now
the music begins,
a waltz
a plaintive
song
of an alto
sax
rising,
rising,
and pleading.
They unclasp their capes
and drop them
to the ring.
Jean is
heavier
and sits
at his end
adjusting the
weight,
while Jacques
at the other end
stands up
raising his
hands above his
head.
(The audience
applauds
while Jacques is
standing)
Jean gets
up
slowly
slowly
adjusting
the balance
at every move
slowly
slowly
until
he is standing.
He raises his arms
one to his side
the other
is slanting downward
toward the center of
the seesaw.
Moving slightly,
seeming to
hold the balance
only
with the movement
of his hand,
while Jacques
starts down
leaning
out
to add weight
bending his knees
spreading his arms
arcing
his arms out
slowly
slowly
until he is
moored in a
sitting position
while Jean
stands
his
hand
held gently
toward the
center,
playing
(slightly)
with his fingers
strings
of balance.
Then Jacques
descends
farther,
climbing carefully
over the edge
at his
end;
at first
hanging
on,
then taking a
bit
in his
mouth
he
hangs,
extending his arms
and pointing his toes
to the ground.
And Jean,
still
standing,
moves
his weight
from foot
to foot
and holds his
hand
toward
the center.
The crowd
is silent;
rapt.
Women look
up;
their hands
clasped;
their
eyes are
held
as
by some
living
glow;
for all
of us are
on
that
moment’s
balance.
Then
Jean
cries out,
drops
to
his
end
and
both
begin
to swing
head over
heels
head over
heels;
Jean
over
Jacques
over
Jean
over
Jacques;
red
devils
flying
as the white
seesaw
pivots
on the trapeze
bar;
Jean over Jacques over
Jean over Jacques
to rollicking music.
Then
Jacques
arrests
the swing,
stands on the
trapeze bar,
grasps a
long rope,
and slides
down
to the ring.
Jean
follows
him.
Both
lift their arms,
smile,
then
duck
from the
ring
to a strain
of their
nether-
world music.
(Jacques told me
that the most
important thing
in circus life is
“Qu’on veut arriver!”)
CHILDREN
Three children
sat on a trunk
that William Randal
keeps his
dancing
puppet in.
The oldest was a boy,
the wisest was a girl,
the youngest was another little boy.
The girl was sitting on the trunk,
the boys were leaning over
it and talking.
All three of them wore new straw hats.
The girl had a little
paddle-like
paper fan.
She had large,
wondering eyes;
very serious and
wise.
And they were comfortable
and well dressed
and knew a great deal
about the ropes
and canvas
and the show.
They were talking over
the things they knew.
Earlier I had seen her
climbing a rope ladder
in her great straw hat,
and the little boys
were following.
Now,
on the trunk
with her legs like a young
deer’s resting,
she sat and listened
with gravity
and amusement
to the gay or
solemn
piping
of their
discoveries.
CIRCUS AT TWILIGHT
Sitting
on the fence
between
the street
and the circus,
I watched the sun
going down
between the tent
and the row of caravans and cages;
watched the last of
daylight
die
far off
across the field
across the city
behind
St. Peter’s
dome.
Here was the darkness,
the slightly
reddened
twilight,
the food wagon,
sleeping wagons
(dark and low)
the eating tent,
and then the new
pond in the field
(and their reflections
walking in it
toward the tent
of tables)
and the pump
(and their figures
bending to it humbly).
Some sat near it
and eating,
spoonless,
from tin plates,
scooping up beans,
drinking wine
from deep
long-handled
canisters;
and beyond the lake
and the water hose,
the avenue of lions
(dark cage-wagons
whence rose
a plaintive
roar).
In lines
as weary,
graceful
as the sky,
as much at home
as mountains,
rose the tent.
Above it were two lights
and letters
before.
Below it
were the midway lights;
long pointed stars
and gently
looping
vines of light,
cascading
as an arch
above the
midway.
But in this lake
this pond
this pregnant sea,
all is reflected here,
all shadows pass
as circus
from the field;
and light
falls on it
gently
as a star.
With the last 500 lire I bought marsala and eggs and sugar, and brought them to Fritz just after supper. He put them away in the electric wagon, saying thank you. At midnight I walked home, through the Roman ruins in tennis shoes, wondering sadly why I had not been asked for zabaglione.
The day before they left Jean Le Fort said,
“Surely you are coming with us.”
I said, “Do you think so?”
He said, “Surely.”
I packed a canvas bag with a few things and
returned to the field. All that night I
watched the demontage while Fritz and
Randal talked to each other about the
circus life and laughed about me.
When his work was done Fritz wrapped
himself in blankets, stretched out his
sleeping bag, and slept on the field while
the heavy trucks rolled and backed
around him (a dark cocoon on the
black field with the dark night standing
over him).
I watched Raymond and George
packing the last of the wire cables.
I helped Harry stack the sections
of iron fence.
I watched the monteurs, mute as
rain clouds rolling the tent
in four huge bundles and
loading them onto the truck;
and bringing down the great
central light and lowering
the masts.
I slept for a minute in one of
the berths in a workers’ caravan
hung with red coats and gold-striped
pants.
In the morning, dewy and cold
with the air like ground glass
we stood on the fields while
the trucks lined up and
waited.
Fritz was up now, calling hoarsely,
wearing his cap and jacket and checked
green shirt. His truck was the
first in line. He kept gunning
it and waiting.
On the way out of Rome in the early morning, on the long road, white-fenced and lined with flowering trees, we were guided by three municipal cops on motorcycles, friendly, turning back to signal the directions, glowering involuntarily beneath their black helmets.
I rode in a big cab with Robert the chauffeur and two brothers from Savoy who did the perch-pole act.
At one roadside place where we stopped for coffee, Fritz came stamping in, jacket off but wearing the windy green shirt, “Has anyone got a cigarette?” I had one and threw it to him. “Thanks!” he shouted, lighting and seeming to eat it.
After the stop, Robert’s truck got ahead of the others and led the way out of the villages in the valley up the mountain roads in the clear morning. The motor heated. So did the day. We took off our sweaters, unbuttoned our shirts, leaned out of the windows. The red trucks followed up the winding roads like caterpillars.
“Where’s Fritz?”
“See, there below.”
“Where are the Le Forts?”
“Way down there. Just coming around. See the little white trailer?”
Robert’s truck made all the hills with no trouble. But we could see the others pulling off to the side, stopping, rolling back. On one hill the Le Forts honked past us, pulling the light white trailer. They had put down the top of the roadster, two were sitting up front, two were outside on the back ledge of the rumble seat, waving as they went by.
“What is the name of the next town?”
“Rieti.”
“Is it far?”
“Another two hours.”
At about two o’clock we pulled into Rieti. A few cars were there ahead of us and Banane had begun to stake out the ground.
We were in a field a little outside town, near a big closed building (a theater or market) but still in an area of public drinking fountains, bars, and a watermelon stand. The villagers stood around watching us quietly. Fritz’s truck did not arrive till late. When it did he swung it into the lot. A cheer went up from the rest of us when he hopped out heavily and threw his cap to the ground. The monteurs (roustabouts), the roughest-looking crew to arrive, rolled off the trailer where they traveled, lying in the folds of the rolled green tent, sleeping or talking, making jokes, passing cigarette butts between them. Hats askew, hair uncut and full of dust, chins unshaven, grimed and sweaty from their travel, they leapt from the weather-beaten canvas, landing on the field like a rain of rockets.
Frtiz went directly across the field to where a pipe coming out of the earth issued in a stream of water. He leaned down and drank from it, washed his face in it, looked up, drew breath, and smiled.
I threw him a cigarette. He laughed. “Merci, Robert!” He reached in his pocket for matches; struck, and brought fire to it. Then he walked back across the lot where the other workers were eating lunch from tin army plates and drinking wine from field canisters.
The generator truck was still on the road, turned off to the side, unable to move. The tent could be put up, but until the generator truck arrived, there was nothing real for us to do. The roustabouts, having eaten quickly, began to hammer at the iron stakes.
“Now,” I said to Fritz, “shall we see the town a little?”
“No,” he said, astonished, “I have to work. Tomorrow we will take a walk through the town.”
“Good.”
Toward 7 in the evening Jacques Le Fort and I stood in the grey light near the electric wagon, looking into the blackness of the tent, regarding absently a flap of tent and rope tied to a stake.
“Do you like it?”
“Yes, it is a good place for me. I’m glad I came along.”
The crowds were beginning to gather, but there was no saying whether they would see a spectacle tonight. Fritz came and sat beside us on the steps of the wagon.
“Where will you sleep tonight?”
“Here on the ground.”
“No, I’ll give you my mattress,” said Fritz.
“And I’ll bring you a blanket. Jean has one in the car,” said Jacques.
“And Randal will bring him a blanket; he told me he would,” said Fritz.