I crept over to the huddle of tents, past the big top and scattered throughout the midway. I recognized Costas’s tent right away, the pale green canvas I’d seen him carrying earlier. It was apart from the other tents, closer to the edges of the midway. My heart started pounding so loudly it drowned out everything else. I had such a good life, performing with the Velasquez Circus, traveling all over, living with a man I was in love with and who loved me more than anything. It was crazy for me to think that I needed anything else.
But I found myself standing in front of his tent, crouching down to it. Tapping the canvas. Bending down and crawling into the tent when he lifted up the flap. Sitting with my legs crossed next to him. With the flap tied open, I could faintly see him in the moonlight spilling in.
“I was hoping you would find me,” he said.
I looked at his gypsy face and green eyes. He sat facing me, and our knees touched. I felt as though I could tell him anything, and had to remind myself that he was a stranger. For several long moments we just looked at each other.
“You were really the boy in the story, weren’t you?” I asked, finally.
He laughed. “It’s amazing that you heard of me and my story. That Mary knew.” His voice was soft, deep.
“Tell me about the place you grew up in,” I said. “The way you were kept from the world. It’s all true, isn’t it?”
He smiled. He pushed back the hair that had fallen over his face. And then he told that ancient story, the one Mary had whispered in Mercy Library as the sun slanted through the windows. The hair stood up on the back of my neck and goose bumps rose on my skin as Costas spoke of the father who had kept him hidden away from everything, out in the middle of the country.
“For over seventeen years I lived in the center of Turkey with no one but my father for company,” he said. “When I turned eighteen, he decided to introduce me to the world. We threw our clothes in a bag and walked out together, farther and farther, and everything changed as we walked. We came upon roads and wagon tracks; the trees changed color; and I began to see little houses and then a girl I might have dreamt of, if I’d known to dream of such things before.”
“The girl with red toenails and black hair down to her knees?” I asked, unable to sit still.
“Yes,” he said, laughing. “Yes. Poppy. I married her, and we have a son.”
“Oh,” I said, wincing a little. “It is a story Mary told many times. I would ask her to tell it to me when I was most sad, and imagined what it must have been like, seeing those girls with jewels in their hair. I always felt hidden away, like you were.”
“It was wonderful,” he said. “Everything opening up, like all the flowers blooming at once.”
“And you have a son with Poppy?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “A boy. Four years old. And you are married to the tightrope walker?”
“Yes,” I said, blushing and looking down. “What happened then?”
“We moved to Greece,” he said, “and broke my father’s heart. We were happy for a few years, until I started thinking about the past. And started this journey. First to find Mary, and now the youngest sister, who is still there. In Rain Village.”
I remembered them from Mary’s stories—Katerina, the older sister who’d left when Mary was a child, and Isabel, the young one Mary had left behind.
“Isabel,” I said. “The youngest.”
“Yes,” he said, looking straight into me. “I’ve left my wife and son to seek out my own past and history. My aunt, my family. To find what beats in my blood. Do you understand that?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
I looked at him, unconsciously tracing Mary through his features and gestures. I watched his face as if it could explain to me why it was so important for us to find out who we are and where we come from. Why we think that history can fill the holes that nothing else can reach.
“I dream of it, you know,” I said. “Rain Village. All the time.”
“So come with me.”
I felt his gaze in every part of my body. I felt as if I had found a crucial part of myself, like my whole life had led me to that moment.
“I don’t know why it’s so important,” I said. “To go there.”
“Is it?”
I looked at him. “Yes,” I said, and then the feelings rushed over me, the thoughts crystallizing even as I said them. “Without her, I never knew anything good. She gave me my life. And I never even knew her, what made her so sad. What made her walk into the river. I hate that I don’t know that. I have to know that. Is that crazy?” I almost couldn’t look at him. It seemed insane that I could even think to tell him these things.
He leaned forward. “No,” he said, gently. “It’s your past. Who you are. I was happy, too, but never whole, never. There was always something missing.”
“They don’t understand,” I said, swallowing back tears. “Not really. She changed my life. I mean, she gave me my life.”
He stretched out his hand, placed it over mine. “Is that really true?” he asked. “Sometimes people just spark things in us that are already there, don’t you think?”
“No,” I said. And then, more emphatically, “No.”
He watched me, waiting.
“She taught me how to read,” I said. “How to see things. She taught all of us that. Everyone in Oakley took to books and reading, because of her. Except my family.” I thought of Geraldine sneaking under my mattress to find my books. “She gave me words,” I said, “and vision. She taught me how to see the world differently. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes,” he said.
“It’s like when you walked into the world after all those years of being hidden away. That’s how I imagined myself, as like you. Except with me it happened on the floor of that library. She’d tell me stories and read poems to me, and it was like the entire world just cracked open and was different. Because of her.”
“It must have been very hard for you when she died,” he said softly, leaning toward me.
“Yes,” I said, conscious of his skin, his smell. He could touch places in me that Mauro couldn’t, I realized. “It was.”
“It must have been hard to see that she could not save herself, when she had done so much to save you.”
“I never understood,” I said. “She showed me that there was the circus, and then she wouldn’t leave with me. I asked her, you know. To leave with me.”
“What did she say?”
I felt I was half there with Costas, half back in Oakley with her. Sitting by the river eating strawberries, listening to her describe her fate. “She said she couldn’t leave. That sometimes the world closed down until there was no room left. She wanted me to go without her.”
“That is a terrible story.”
“She was done with life. I didn’t know that then. I don’t understand it now.”
“Have you never felt that way?” he asked.
I stared at him. “Have you?”
“Yes,” he said. “Many times. I’ve always felt there was a hole at my center, that I had no place, no home.”
“But you have a wife and a son.”
“And you have a husband,” he said. “And the circus. I have never seen anything so extraordinary as you in the air, Tessa. And yet here you are.”
“But I have never felt like I was done with life,” I said then, defensive suddenly, a new feeling moving through me, something strong and ferocious. “Even at the moment when I knew Mary was gone and I felt that I had nothing in the world.”
Suddenly his palm was on my waist and his face moving toward me. His eyes fierce and blazing. I felt my whole body tense, my hands shaking.
“I should go back,” I said, pulling away.
“I’m leaving the day after tomorrow.”
I nodded, unable to look at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, reaching for me, and I ran out into the night, disheveled, my heart racing. I couldn’t see straight. I ran past the big top, st
opped in the menagerie, and leaned against the tiger’s cage. Tears rolled down my face. The tiger crept over to the bars. I reached out and touched her fur.
It all hit me then: how I had never really known so many things about Mary, never known what had made her so broken or what had made her step into the river and drown herself that autumn day. How I hadn’t known about the crazy ring that had gleamed from her neck, the one she’d told me about in her story of the peasant girl. How I had never even known what had led her to that library in Oakley to read thick books and turn her back on her own life. I had visions of people following me, hunting me down, she had said. She had given up on life, left me alone to face the future. I sobbed, and the tiger pressed her body against the cage, comforting me. I thought then that what Costas had said was true for me, too: something had been missing in my life, hovering around the edges and flashing in my periphery, a nagging sense of having left something half done. I needed to understand what had happened to her. I needed to understand it so badly that it seemed crazy I hadn’t been to Rain Village already.
Sunlight crept over the lot. It was one of those moments in life that seemed to have always been there, when you know so strongly that something has to occur that it may as well have already happened.
When I got back to the car Mauro was sitting up on the bed waiting for me.
“Where were you?” he asked. His anger was a palpable presence in the room, making its own shadows against the wall.
“I took a walk,” I said. My eyes filled with tears. I was grateful for the window shades blocking out the dim sunlight. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“You saw him.”
“Yes,” I said. “Just to talk. I needed to talk to him.”
“I don’t understand. Why?”
I stood there. “Because of Mary,” I said, my voice breaking. “Don’t you see? Because of everything that happened.” I gestured helplessly.
“Tessita,” he said, softening. “That was so long ago. Why do you keep it so close to your heart?” He came over to me, cupped my face in his palm. “You have to let go of it, all that dolor.”
I leaned in, let him pull me to his chest. I wanted to believe that there was nothing beyond this, right here. That the pain inside me didn’t matter.
“You don’t understand,” I said finally, pulling away and looking up at him. “This is my one chance. I can put everything right.”
Even in the pale light I could see the stricken look on his face. “Your chance?” he repeated. “Chance for what?” He flung up his hands. “What can you set right?”
My face was raw with tears, my throat sore from crying. “I think I have to leave, Mauro,” I said, before I even realized I would say it. My voice cracked as the words poured out. “I have to go to Rain Village. I have to see it, put all of this to rest.”
He looked stunned. “What? You just mean a visit, both of us?” He stared at me and then looked, suddenly, as if I’d smacked him across the face. “With the gitano,” he said.
“Not because of him.” Even as I said it I was not sure what was true, and what wasn’t. “It’s something I feel in my bones, pulling me. I will come back. I will. I just need to see.”
“What about the circus?” he asked, pacing the floor, red with anger. “All of this? You’re just leaving to go to some imaginary place? This man comes and that’s it, adios? How do you know he’s not just telling stories?”
“I’m coming back,” I said. “I just know I have to go there. It’s like one of Lollie’s visions. I just know.”
“You just know that you have to go with him.”
I didn’t know if he was right. Suddenly I wasn’t sure of anything. If the crazy fever still had me under its hold or if Mary had come straight from the past to yank me from my future.
He turned around and looked right into me. “Why do you want to bring out all this pain, Tessita? We’re so happy. Why can’t you let it alone?”
My heart ached for him. “I just can’t,” I whispered. “It’s always there. So many unanswered questions.”
“What if the answers just make you more unhappy?”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“What if it doesn’t change anything?” he asked, taking my hands in mine.
“Then I will come back,” I said. “And we’ll be happy again.”
He got very quiet then, still. “And what if you don’t?”
I looked up at him and felt like my heart was breaking. I started sobbing, big wracking sobs, and I doubled over, the pain was so intense. Mauro leaned in and gathered me up, wrapped me in his warm body.
I thought of our first date in Mexico City, of our wedding. He carried me over to the bed then and stayed pressed against me, shushing and lulling me to sleep. “I do not understand this, Tessita,” he said. “Why you cannot leave the past behind you. Why you can’t understand that this is your life now, that the past just brought you here.”
When I woke up a few hours later, Mauro was gone. The room seemed eerily silent, the sun much too bright flowing in. It all came back to me. The night before. Costas, Mary. Rain Village. I turned on my side, and my head throbbed with pain. Slowly the sounds of the circus drifted in—the laughter and voices, the roars of the tigers, the tinkling music and popping of the sideshow games.
The door pushed open then, and I sat up, immediately self-conscious. Mauro walked in carrying a cup of coffee and bowl of fruit. I was so relieved I jumped out of bed and ran to him.
“Oh, Tessita,” he said, setting the tray on the edge of the bed and pulling me into him. “No more tears.” He sat down and I leaned into his side. “So what are you going to do?” he asked.
I clung to him, holding him as tightly as I could. “Please understand,” I said, talking into his ear, his hair. “Please forgive me. I will come back to you.”
His body was stiff, but he relaxed it then, held me tight in his arms and pressed his face to my neck. “Then go,” he whispered. I could feel wetness on my neck. “The gitano is leaving tomorrow. You have much to do.”
He pulled back, and I stared into his black eyes, the curving lashes. “Just come back to me,” he said. “Don’t lose your heart.”
“Thank you,” I said. My whole body was trembling.
“I will not stay and watch you go with him,” he said, stroking my face and hair. “Do not ask it of me. I’m going to stay in town for a day while you pack up. If you change your mind and are still here, I will be the happiest man in the world.”
“I will be faithful to you,” I said. “I will come back.”
He leaned down and kissed me, his lips as soft as pillows. “Good luck to you, mi amor,” he said. I watched him stand up and turn to the door. So proud, a star of the circus. He slipped out into the day, leaving me alone.
I spent the next several hours wrapped in the sheets, crying, wishing I could stop time. Over and over I wondered if I could let Costas go and keep my life the way it had been before, but his presence and Mary’s story had burrowed into me, illuminated every missing part. Everything had changed. It was early afternoon by the time I forced myself out of bed. Mauro was right: I had a lot to do.
After I dressed and bathed, I went to the tents to find Costas, trying to avoid the curious faces turning to me as I went by.
“I’m coming with you,” I said, as soon as I came upon him. I saw the relief in his face, but before he could say anything, I turned away.
I spent the rest of the day doing chores. I gathered my things and set my wages and contract in order. After listening to him plead and bribe and shout for most of the afternoon, I worked out a settlement with Mr. Velasquez for all my future missed shows, and then I cleaned out the train car and packed one large duffel bag. I had accumulated a chunk of money over the years, and I gathered as much of it as I could and sewed it into my pockets. I knew I was taking far more than I would need for a short journey, but I didn’t think about what that meant.
When I told Lollie I was leaving, she promised
to keep my costumes safe, along with whatever else I could not carry with me.
“I knew this day was coming,” she said. “Just be quick, chica. And come back. Don’t mistake her past for your own future.”
“Why, Tessa?” Paulo asked, when I told him. “Aren’t you happy here?”
“Yes,” I said, “I am. But I just know this is something I have to do.”
He shook his head and walked away.
That night, the night before Costas and I left together for Rain Village, I spread glitter over my cheeks for the last time, staring into the mirror at the woman I’d become. I had to reapply my eye makeup several times to fill in the paths of my tears. I stuck my feet in my sparkling slippers, draped a cloak over my rhinestone-covered leotard, and set out for the ring.
The circus makes everything beautiful, transforms any pain. As I twirled over the crowd, I just let the air hold me, make me into someone new. Even the tears that fell down my face sparkled like diamonds under the light.
Afterward we walked silently from the big top to the backyard. No one was smiling or laughing the way they usually did. Carlos, furious, wouldn’t even look at me. The dark, silent mood seemed in direct contrast to the whirling lights and music and shouting coming from the midway and front lot. When I returned to the empty train car, I took off my costume with shaking hands and carefully folded it into my open bag. I reached into the pile of clothes and pulled out my pink lace skirt. Taking a breath, I split open the hem, let Mary’s opal ring spill onto the table. The swirling colors lit up the room, and dazzled me. Suddenly I was so sad I could barely see straight. I slipped the opal onto my right ring finger and held up both of my hands to the light: everything I loved and wanted in the world seemed reduced to those two blinding spots on my hand. My wedding ring, and the ring Mary had fastened to a chain around her neck before she walked into the river.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Costas and I set out into the early morning. The ground seemed empty and stunned under the hot sun; my body felt thick above the concrete and sidewalks. We walked into town, and I felt unmoored, like I was exchanging one self for another. I imagined Mauro alone in a hotel room, preparing to head back to our empty train car.