At the fair, Effie’s despondency lifted, and she began to take an interest in what was going on around her. Pedlars with brightly coloured wares; an old man with a barrel-organ and a dancing monkey in a scarlet coat; some jugglers and acrobats; a fire-eater; and some gypsy girls dancing to pipes and tambourine.
She lingered for some time in front of the dancers, her eyes fixed especially upon one girl of about her own age, but with the dark skin and loose blue-black hair of the gypsy race, her feet bare and her ankles—nicely turned ankles, I noticed—ringed about with jangling bracelets. She was wearing a gold-embroidered skirt, scarlet petticoats, and a multitude of necklaces. Effie was enchanted.
‘Mose,’ she whispered to me as the girl ceased her dance, ‘I think she must be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.’
‘Not as beautiful as you,’ I said to reassure her, taking her hand.
She scowled and shook her head irritably. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘I mean it.’
Women! Sometimes there’s no pleasing them.
I was ready to move on; the freak-show had begun, and I could hear a crier extolling the marvels of ‘Adolphus, the Human Torso’, but Effie was still watching the gypsy. She had moved towards a faded blue-and-gold tent by the side of the path, and a crier now began to announce that ‘Scheherazade, Princess of the Mystic East’ would tell fortunes using the ‘Magickal Tarot and the Crystal Ball’. I saw Effie’s eyes light up, and resigned myself to the inevitable. Summoning up a smile, I said: ‘I suppose you want to know your fortune?’
She nodded, her face vivid with eagerness. ‘Do you think she’s really a princess?’
‘Almost certainly,’ I said with great seriousness and Effie sighed with rapture. ‘She has probably been cursed by a wicked witch and is reduced to living in poverty,’ I continued. ‘She has lost her memory and disguises her magical powers as fairground charlatanry. But at night she turns into a silver swan and flies in her dreams to places no-one but she has ever travelled to.’
‘Now you’re laughing at me,’ she protested.
‘Not at all.’
But she was hardly paying attention. ‘Do you know, I’ve never had anyone tell my fortune? Henry says that kind of thing is witchcraft in disguise. He says that in the Middle Ages they would have been hanged for it, and a good thing too.’
‘Pious Henry,’ I sneered.
‘Well, I don’t care what Henry says,’ said Effie with determination. ‘Would you stay out here and wait for me? I won’t be long.’
Anything to keep the lady happy. I sat down on a stump and waited.
The High Priestess
14
It was hot inside the tent and what light there was came from a small red lamp on the table in front of me. The gypsy was sitting on a stool, shuffling her pack of cards, and she smiled as I came in, beckoning me to sit down. For a moment I hung back; surprised that she was not the woman who had danced, but an older woman, a scarf drawn over her hair and a thick layer of kohl outlining her tawny eyes. Something covered in black cloth stood on the table beside the lamp and as my eyes lingered upon it, trying to decide what it was, ‘Scheherazade’ indicated it with one strong, still-beautiful hand.
‘The crystal ball,’ she explained. Her voice was light and pleasant but accented. ‘I have to keep it covered or it loses its power. Please cut the cards.’
‘I…Where is the girl who danced?’ I asked hesitantly. ‘I thought that she would be telling the fortunes.’
‘My daughter,’ said the gypsy curtly. ‘She and I work together. Please cut the cards.’
She handed me the pack of cards and I held them for a moment. They were heavy and looked very old, with a shine to them born not from grime but from much respectful handling. I gave them back with reluctance, for I would have liked to look at them more closely, and she began to spread them in a spiral pattern around the table.
‘The Hermit,’ began Scheherazade. ‘And the Ten of Wands. Oppression. This man speaks of virtue, but he has a shameful secret. The Seven of Cups: debauch. And the Nine of Swords: cruelty and murder. I play the Lovers, but they are covered by the Knave of Coins. He will bring you joy and despair, for in his hands he bears the Two of Cups and the Tower. But who is here, riding atop the Chariot? The High Priestess, bearing the Ten of Swords, which spells ruin, and the Ace of Cups, great fortune. You will trust her and she will save you, but the cup she offers is filled with bitterness. Her chariot is driven by a Knave and a Fool, and beneath her wheels lie the Ace of Wands and the Hanged Man. In her hands she brings Justice and the Two of Cups which spells Love, but hidden inside the cups are Change and Death.’ She paused, as if she had forgotten that I was there, and spoke softly to herself in Romany.
‘Is there more?’ I asked after a time, as she seemed lost in thought.
Scheherazade hesitated, then nodded. She looked at me for some time with an unreadable expression, then she stepped towards me, kissed me quickly on the forehead and made a sign with three fingers of her left hand.
‘You have a strange and magical destiny, ma dordi,’ she said. ‘Better to look for yourself.’ And she carefully unwrapped the crystal ball from its black covering and pushed it towards me.
For a moment I was unsure of where I was; the ball reflected the light so that I had the illusion of being out of my own body looking downwards. The scene was familiar, stylized like the figures on the Tarot: a girl sitting at a table where a gypsy watches over a hand of cards. Suddenly I was light-headed, almost dizzy, overflowing with unreasoning laughter, but feeling dislocated somehow, as if struggling with lost memories.
When shall we three meet again? I said to myself, and I laughed aloud, uncontrollably, as if in recollection of some wild and ridiculous farce.
Then a depression, as abrupt as the hilarity, seized me, and I was close to tears, the image of the crystal blurring before my eyes. I was afraid, disorientated and without memory of what had frightened me, looking into the clouded surface of the crystal and trembling.
Scheherazade was singing gently, almost idly under her breath:
‘Aux marches du palais…
Aux marches du palais…
’Y a une si belle fille, lonlà…
’Y a une si belle fille…’
I tried to stop myself from falling out of my body towards the crystal, but the pull was too strong. I could no longer feel my limbs, no longer see beyond the clouded surface where, at last, some of the cloud was beginning to disperse. Scheherazade was singing softly in a rhythmic, lilting voice, three notes rising and falling compulsively. As I followed the coaxing beat I found myself leaving my body without effort, my senses warping, spiralling out of control. I allowed myself to drift, guided by the sound, and was conscious of drifting through the darkness right out of the tent and high into the air like a child’s balloon.
From far away I heard Scheherazade’s voice, gently coaxing: ‘Shh, sshhh…that’s right. See the balloons. Watch the balloons.’
Vaguely I wondered how she could have known what I had been thinking, then remembered, with a childish, absurd delight: she was Scheherazade, Princess of the Mystic East. I giggled.
‘Sleep, little girl,’ she whispered. ‘It’s your birthday, and there will be balloons, I promise. Can you see them?’
They were drifting around me, all colours, shining in the sun. I nodded. From a great distance I heard my voice in sleepy reply.
I saw the tent from above, saw Mose sitting on his stump, heard the pedlars selling their wares.
‘Hot gin’erbread’ and ‘Ribbons and bows’ and ‘Liquorice laces’. I smelled the mingled confusion of hot pies, candyfloss and animals. I hovered, directionless, for a few moments like some fairy-tale sky-ship, then I felt myself being drawn gently down towards a scarlet tent across which was stretched a banner which read: ‘happy birthday marta’. All around the banner were strings of balloons, and I thought I could hear music from inside the tent, the music of a barrel-organ, or maybe a chi
ld’s clockwork toy. I began to float down towards the tent.
As I touched the ground I realized that the sun had disappeared. It was cold, and the bright banner had vanished; in its place I saw a small, tattered poster, advertising:
The Gallery of the Grotesque!
A most Admirable Display of
Murderers, Monsters
and Freaks of Nature Depicted in Wax
I felt myself moving towards the tent-flap, my elation dimming rapidly. I had begun to feel cold, with a dull, sickly chill which pulled me from my delightful dream of flying into an earthy darkness. I saw the tent-flap open by itself and, although I struggled, I was not able to escape the malignant attraction of that opening. I could smell stale straw, kept for too long out of the sunlight, the musty reek of damp old clothes and the sharp scent of wax; and as I entered the tent, and my eyesight began to adjust to the darkness, I saw that I was alone and that all around the sides of the tent—which now seemed very much larger than I had first thought—were placed wooden pens or enclosures, housing the life-sized exhibits. I wondered why I had felt such a sensation of dread as I first entered; these figures were wax, their limbs held together with horsehair and whalebone, their clothes glued on to their bodies. The blood was red paint; even the gallows in the famous hanging scene had never been used for a real execution. But I was suddenly convinced that they were all real, that Burke and Hare in the corner were waiting there just for me, assessing me greedily from under thin masks of wax…
I moved backwards, angry at myself and my childish, unreasoning terror, and cried out aloud as I ran straight into the exhibit at my back. Even in my discorporate state I felt a moment’s tension as I touched the wood of the pen, and I whipped round to face the thing behind me. An enclosure of wire and planks surrounded a still scene; tacked on to the wood was a sign which read:
THE HERMIT
Please do not touch the exhibits
I moved a little closer, squinting against the troubling light, and saw that the scene was a tiny bedroom, like a child’s, with a narrow bed covered with a patchwork quilt, a small stool, bedside table and a couple of coloured prints of the type I had had when I was a girl. There were flowers on the bedside table, marigolds in a glass jar, and by the bed a small stack of wrapped presents. Beside the open window a bunch of balloons swayed in the draught.
But why had I thought it was dark? The light was streaming in from the window on to the bare floorboards; evening light which reflected a warm rosy radiance on to the bright little room. A man was sitting on the side of the bed, no doubt to say goodnight to his little girl, who was in her nightdress, a stuffed toy frozen in one hand. She looked about ten, long black hair hanging down dead straight around a solemn, pointed face. The man’s face I could not see, as he had his back to me, but I could guess at a certain heaviness of build, a square jawline, a stiffness in the posture which I found faintly familiar. I moved forwards curiously, wondering vaguely why this comfortable domestic scene had been included in the Gallery of the Grotesque.
As I moved, the girl’s head snapped towards me and I jumped back with a stifled scream. The girl froze again, her eyes fixing me with a stare so intense that I found it difficult to believe she was merely a thing of wax and horsehair. Reluctantly I stepped forwards again, angry at myself for having been startled so by a piece of machinery; at the London Waxworks there had been similar devices, triggered by pressure on a plate in the floor, enabling the exhibits to move as the onlookers passed by. I found myself scanning the floor for the concealed plate.
There! As I passed a certain point she moved again, turning her head towards the man with a fluid, boneless movement that could surely not be mechanical. Her hair fell across her face and she brushed it back with a nervous little gesture, the other hand clenching at the thick cotton of the nightgown. I was suddenly convinced that despite the misleading term ‘exhibit’ these were real actors, playing out some ghastly charade for my benefit, and I was suddenly angry at my nervousness, angry but, at the same time, filled with a dreadful sense of predestination. I knew what I was about to see as if it were a memory from my own past and, impelled with a growing sense of urgency, I touched the wire which separated me from the scene and called urgently to the child.
‘Little girl!’
The child did not react but moved warily towards the bed. I raised my voice.
‘Little girl! Come here!’ I heard my voice rise shrilly, but the child might as well have been clockwork. I tried to call again, but found myself moving instead right into the enclosure and into the scene. Suddenly I began to feel dizzy; half falling, I reached out towards the figure of the little girl as if to ask for help…
And I was ten once more, ten and coming to see my mother, as I did every Sunday. I loved my mother and wished I could be with her every day, but I knew it wasn’t possible; Mother had work to do, and didn’t want me in the way. I wondered what her work was. I liked Mother’s house, so grand and full of pretty things—elephant statues from India and hangings from Egypt and carpets from Persia, like in the Thousand and One Nights. When I was grown up, maybe I could come and live with Mother all the time, instead of at Aunt Emma’s—except that Aunt Emma wasn’t my aunt at all but a schoolteacher, and she didn’t like Mother very much. Not that she said anything, but I could tell from the funny face she used to pull when she said ‘your poor mother’, as if she had just swallowed cod-liver oil. Mother would never give me cod-liver oil. Instead she always let me eat at the table with her, instead of in the nursery with the babies, and there would be cake and jam and sometimes red wine with water in it.
Sometimes the pretty young ladies who lived in the house with Mother would come down and talk to me; I liked that because they were always so kind, giving me gingerbread and sweets, and they always wore the most lovely dresses and jewellery. Aunt Emma must never know about that; years before, when I was still a baby, I had let something slip, and she had been terribly angry, saying, ‘Surely the woman has no shame, allowing a child into that place, and with those abandoned creatures!’ I tried to say that they weren’t abandoned, that they had plenty of company every day, but she was too angry to listen, so now I don’t say anything at all. It’s safer that way.
But tonight Mother said that I would have to go to bed early, because she’s expecting company. I don’t mind; I sometimes pretend to go to sleep and then, when she thinks I’m in bed, I creep down and watch the pretty ladies and the guests through the gap in the banisters. I’m very quiet; no-one ever sees me. Well, hardly ever. Not till tonight.
He was very kind, though, the gentleman; he said he’d not tell Mother. He didn’t even know Mother had a daughter at all and he seemed surprised, but he was very kind; he said how pretty I looked in my nightgown, and that, if I was a good girl, he’d come and put me to bed and tell me a story.
But now I’m not so sure. He looks funny, staring at me like that, and I wish I’d never asked him here. He frightens me. I said, ‘What about my story?’ but he didn’t even seem to be listening. He just keeps looking at me in that funny way, and suddenly I wish Mother were here. But if I call her she’ll know I was out of my room…Now he’s coming forwards, with his arms held out; maybe he’ll just give me a goodnight kiss and leave me alone.
‘Like mother, like daughter,’ he whispers as he pulls me towards him, but I don’t understand what he means. He smells funny, salty, like the river after the rain, and his mouth is very cold. I try to push him away; I don’t understand why, but he frightens me—he’s kissing me the way grown-up men kiss ladies.
I say ‘No’ but he just laughs and says ‘Come here’ and some other things I don’t understand. He’s so strong that I can’t move my arms to push him away; I’d like to bite him but I know he’s Mother’s guest, and I do so want Mother to love me and to want me to live with her for good. I don’t want to be a baby. But I can hardly breathe; I try to say, ‘Stop, you’re holding me too hard,’ but the words won’t come out. Suddenly he pushes m
e on to the bed; he’s so heavy on top of me that I’m afraid he’s going to squash me, and he’s beginning to take off my nightgown; this time I manage to give a little scream, but he puts his hand over my mouth. I begin to struggle; never mind about being a baby, I don’t care if Mother finds out, I don’t care if Aunt Emma…I manage to get my teeth into his hand and I bite down hard; he tastes horrible, of sweat and perfume, but he swears, and lets go. I take a breath and scream.
‘Mother!’ He swears again and slaps me hard across the face. I scream again and he grabs me by the neck. He’s cursing all the time, saying ‘Bitch bitch shut up bitch shut up shut up…’ but my face is against the pillow and I can’t breathe. My head is so tight, like a balloon. It feels as if it’s going to burst and I can’t scream, I can’t breathe, I can hardly move with him on top of me and I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe. He seems to be moving away, so far away into the distance, and I can hardly feel the pillow over my mouth, hardly taste the starch and the lavender scent in the thick linen. In the background I can hear Mother’s voice calling me:
‘Marta?’
Then nothing.
15
I was beginning to become impatient; she had been in there for long enough to have her fortune read a dozen times, and I was the one who was going to have to pay the gypsy bitch when she finally did come out. I was getting cold, sitting there with nothing to do, so I got up and walked into the tent.
For a moment I was disorientated; the tent seemed cavernous, filled with the reflections of torches like some dead Pharaoh’s pyramid. Then, as my eyes adjusted, I realized that it was after all just a small tent, strewn with the usual trappings of the fairground charlatan, the sunlight streaming in through the tent-flap on to the array of gilt and paint and glass, showing it to be just that. Effie did not flinch as I threw back the tent-flap, but remained sitting with her back to me, her head hanging loosely to one side. Of ‘Scheherazade’ there was no sign.