Noa looks as if she wants to protest. I have no confidence that she is ready to do it here, but we have no choice. I go to the other ladder and climb to the catch trap, nodding at Gerda, who has been loitering with a few of the acrobats. She starts up the ladder behind Noa with disinterest. I study Gerda warily. She is no more welcoming to Noa than the other performers, but practical enough to tolerate her because we need her for the act.
As Noa nears the top of the opposite ladder, her foot slips and she nearly falls. “Easy,” I call from my board. Though I mean it as reassuring, it comes out sounding like a rebuke. From below come laughs from the other performers, as their suspicions about Noa’s lack of skill have been confirmed. Even from a distance, I can see her eyes begin to water.
Then her back stiffens and she nods. Noa jumps with more force than I have seen from her. “Hup!” I call.
She releases with surprising precision for her first time in the big top. Our hands lock. Once there would have been a coach on the ground to give the commands, and men to do the catching. But with so many gone to war, we have only ourselves now. My brother Jules had been my catcher. Until these past few weeks of training Noa, I had not fully appreciated his strength and skill.
As we swing back, I release her in the direction of the bar, which Gerda has sent out. With every pass, Noa’s movements become stronger. She is performing in spite of—no because of—the skepticism of the other performers. Grudgingly the expressions below turn to respect. My hope rises. Noa has earned their respect and she will earn the audience’s, too.
“Bravo!” a voice calls out from below. But the tone is mocking. Noa, who is on the return, nearly misses the far board. Gerda reaches out and grabs her before she falls. I look down. Emmet is holding a mop high in the air, mocking Noa.
I climb down the ladder angrily. “You fool!” I hiss.
“She’s not an aerialist,” Emmet replies with exaggerated patience, as though speaking to a small child. “She was a cleaner at the station in Bensheim. That’s all she’s qualified to do.” Emmet, I know now, has been stirring up ill will among the other performers, encouraging them not to accept Noa. He has always needed to pick on others to hide his own weakness. But how had he found out she worked at the station? Surely he does not know the rest of Noa’s past.
“Why now?” I demand. “The show is in an hour. We need her ready and you are undermining her confidence.”
“Because I didn’t actually think we would go through with this farce,” he replies. Or that she would be able to do it, I add silently. A part of him, I suspect, is jealous. Noa has been able to manage mightily with just weeks of practice, whereas he has been here a lifetime with no talent to show for it. But it seems unwise to point this out to him now. “This needs to work, Emmet,” I say slowly.
“For your sake,” he sneers.
“For all of our sakes,” I correct.
Noa, who has come down the ladder, watches from a distance. She has heard enough, I know, to be uncomfortable. There is a flash in her eyes as she expects to be rejected yet again. How is it possible after all that she has been through that she can still let people hurt her?
She stands on one side of me, the rest of the performers on the other. I am an island, caught in between.
I take a step in her direction. “We need Noa,” I say firmly and loudly enough for the others to hear. It is a calculated risk; I need the good graces of the circus folk as much as she does in order to maintain my identity and hide. No one responds. But I’ve gone too far to back down now. “In any case, I am with her and anyone who isn’t is against me.” Noa’s face folds with disbelief, as if it is the first time that someone has stood up for her.
The others scatter to rehearse. “Come, let’s go get ready for the show,” I say, taking her hand and leading her from the big top.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Noa says when we are outside. Though we are well out of earshot of the others, her voice is barely a whisper. “You have to think of your own safety.”
“Nonsense.” I wave my hand dismissively, though in fact she is right. “You must harden yourself to the impressions of others.”
“And what do you think?” Her voice is breathy. Despite what I have just told her, I can tell she cares about my opinion more than just about anything. “Do you think I am ready?”
I hesitate. I think she needs another year of training. I think that, even then, she might not be able to do it, because the lights and a thousand eyes upon you change everything.
I think that we do not have a choice. “Yes,” I lie, unable to look at the brightness of her smile. And together we go prepare to perform.
9
Noa
I follow Astrid away from the big top. Outside, spectators still mingle, buying tickets at a hastily erected kiosk and watching the workers put up the smaller tents. Crew bosses shout orders, their hoarse voices mixed with the clanging of hammers driving metal spikes into hard earth.
“Thank you,” I say, referring once more to what had just happened with the other performers. Once I thought Astrid would never accept me. But she stuck up for me—and she thinks I can do this.
She waves her hand dismissively. “We can’t worry about any of that now. We must prepare for the show. It starts in an hour.”
“So soon?” I ask.
“It’s after four.” I had not realized it had gotten that late, or that the parade and tent raising had taken so long. “We begin at six. Earlier than we otherwise would have because of the curfew. We need to get ready.”
“I thought we already did.” I look down at the dress she had loaned me an hour earlier on the train, so tight that my parents would have a fit if they saw me in it.
Ignoring my last remark, Astrid leads me across the crowded field to where the train has come to a rest at the end of the tracks. “The fairgrounds were built close to the tracks so we can sleep in the railway cars,” Astrid explains. She gestures in the opposite direction toward some trees. “There are a few cabins and tents we could use if it was warmer. This isn’t a great village for us,” she adds in a low voice. “The mayor has become very close to the Germans.”
“He’s collaborating?” I ask.
She nods. “Of course we didn’t know that last year when we booked the dates.” And canceling surely would have aroused too much suspicion. Because, above all else right now, it is essential to maintain the pretense of normalcy. “We’ll stay in Thiers for nearly three weeks, though, because it’s centrally located and people will come from all over Auvergne for the show.”
At the train, Astrid steers me to a carriage where I have not been before. The railcar is warm and crowded with women changing into costumes and patting on heavy makeup. I pause to watch one of the acrobats paint her legs a darker shade of tan. “She does that because her tights are too ripped to repair,” Astrid explains, noticing my curiosity. “There simply aren’t more to be had. Come.” She chooses a costume from the rack against the wall of the train car and holds it up against me. Then she hands it to one of the dressing girls and disappears. I am thrust from one set of arms to the next like a bundle of laundry, embarrassed of my own stale smell from too many hours on the train without washing. Someone pulls the dress Astrid has chosen over my head, another declares it too loose and begins to pin. Am I really to wear it? It is smaller even than a swimming costume, no more than a bra and a bottom. My stomach, tighter than when I came to Darmstadt from all of the training but still far from perfect, spills over the elastic top of the briefs. The costume is ornate, scarlet silk with gold trim. It carries a faint odor of smoke and coffee that makes me wonder who had worn it previously.
Astrid reappears and I gasp. Her two-piece, scarcely a few handkerchiefs woven together, makes my costume look modest. But Astrid is born to wear it—her body is chiseled from granite, like a nude goddess statue i
n a museum.
“You want I should try to flip in a hoop skirt?” she asks, noticing my reaction. To her the immodesty of the outfit doesn’t matter. She does not wear it to entice, but to perform well.
Astrid gestures for me to sit on an upturned crate. She takes rouge and dots my cheeks and slashes my mouth with cherry red like a clown. Other than the times I had stolen a bit of Mama’s powder to look older for the German, it is the first time I have worn makeup. I stare at the stranger in the cracked mirror someone has placed on top of a steamer trunk. How have I come to be here?
Astrid, seemingly satisfied, turns away and begins applying her own makeup, which with her unblemished skin and long eyelashes hardly seems necessary. “Do I have a few minutes?” I ask. “I want to go check on Theo.”
Astrid nods. “Only just. Don’t be gone too long.” I start down the narrow corridor in the direction of the sleeper car, hoping that the sight of me in strange makeup will not scare Theo. But as I begin to pass through the next carriage, I stop, hearing voices.
“They want a show of our allegiance as part of the performance.” I crane my neck to hear better. It is Herr Neuhoff, his voice low and terse. “Perhaps a rendition of ‘Maréchal, nous voilà’...”
“Impossible!” Peter snarls at the mention of the Vichy anthem. I jump back so as not to be seen. “I’ve never been told what to perform by the government, even during the Great War. If I didn’t kowtow to the czar, I’m sure as hell not going to do it now. It is more than just politics. This is about the integrity of the show.”
“Things are different now,” Herr Neuhoff presses. “And a little indulgence might go a long way toward...helping things.” There is no response, but the stomping of footsteps and a door slamming so hard the whole carriage shakes.
A bell rings, which Astrid had told me earlier was to summon us to the backyard, the area behind the big top where we will assemble and get ready to perform. I look longingly down the corridor of the carriage. There is no time to see Theo.
Outside, the once-barren field around the big top has been transformed with a half-dozen smaller tents that seem to have popped up like mushrooms. The midway is filled to capacity with men in straw hats, women and children in their Sunday best. At the entrance to the big top a day bill had been posted, touting the acts that one would see inside. Smaller acts, the jugglers and sword swallowers, give impromptu performances to lure the crowds. A brass band plays lively tunes to the queue at the ticket window, easing their wait. The air is perfumed with the sweet thickness of candy floss and boiled peanuts. Such treats hardly seem possible with rationing and so many struggling just to eat. For a moment I am giddy, a young girl once more. But the treats are here for those lucky few with the sous to spend—certainly not for us.
I skirt around the edge of the big top. A handful of young boys are lying flat on the ground trying to peek beneath the tent, but one of the seasonal workers shoos them away. The periphery of the tent has been adorned with tall posters of the starring acts. Astrid in her younger years looms above me, suspended midair by satin ropes. I am transfixed by her image. She must have been about the same age I am now, and I am so curious to know her.
I pass the beer hall they’d erected at the end of the midway, a bookend to the carousel opposite. Boisterous male laughter explodes from within. It is a delicate balance, Astrid had explained: we want to lubricate the audience enough so that they will enjoy the show, but not so much that they will become unruly and disrupt it.
Peter, whom I had seen just minutes earlier with Herr Neuhoff, sneaks from the back of the beer tent with a flask in hand. How had he gotten here so quickly? He eyes me uncertainly. “Just a quick one for the road,” he says, before ambling away. I am surprised—I had not imagined that performers would be allowed to drink before a show. What would Astrid say?
I reach the backyard. My eyes travel nervously toward the top of the tent. It seems impossible that the tent, nothing more than some fabric and poles, can possibly hold the hulking trapeze apparatus—and us.
Astrid, seeing my worry, walks to my side. “It’s safe.” But in my mind I will always see the time I had fallen toward the earth, ready to die. “How are you holding up?” she asks. Without waiting for an answer, she rechecks my wrist wraps and holds out the box of rosin for me to coat my hands once more. “We don’t want you getting killed,” she says. “Not after all of the work we’ve put in.” She adds this last bit with a smile, trying to make a joke of it. But her eyes are solemn, concerned.
“You don’t think I can do it?” I venture, not sure I want to hear the answer.
“Of course I do.” I listen to her voice, trying to gauge whether it is forced. “You’ve worked hard. You’ve got natural ability. But this is a serious business for all of us. There is no room for mistakes.” I nod, understanding. The danger is as real for Astrid as it is for me, even after so many years.
I peek inside the dark tent, which looms high like a giant cave. There is a ring in the middle, some forty feet across, set apart from the audience by a low fence. I’d heard from the other performers about the American circuses, great big ones like Barnum that had three rings. But here all eyes would be focused on the main act. The first two rows of seats are covered in a ruby velvet cloth with a satin gold star on each, designating that these are the good seats, the important ones. Behind these chairs, crude wood benches rise in concentric circles nearly to the rafters. It is the complete circus of the ring, spectators on all sides, that gets to me—there is nowhere to hide or turn away, eyes from every angle.
The crowd begins to trickle into the tent and I pull back so as not to be seen. The ushers and program sellers are in fact lesser performers who can scoot out as the auditorium fills to put on their own makeup and prepare for the show. I study the spectators as they take their seats, a mix of well-to-do townsfolk in the front and workers on the higher benches, freshly scrubbed but a bit ill at ease, as if they do not belong here. Barely a few francs for food yet they still found a way to get that ticket to the show. These are the lucky ones who can afford to forget for a few hours the hardships beyond the tent flaps.
As the sky grows gray and we near showtime, the chatter in the backyard silences and everyone grows focused, almost grim. The acrobats have one last cigarette. They are stunning in their sequined costumes and headdresses. Their flawless makeup and coiffed hair give no indication of the primitive conditions in which we’d dressed. Astrid paces in the far corner, deep in thought. Given the intensity of her expression, I do not dare to disturb her. Of course, I have no preshow ritual of my own. I stand to one side, trying to act as if I have done this my whole life.
Astrid waves me over. “Don’t just stand around letting your muscles get cold,” she admonishes. “You need to stretch.” She bends and gestures for me to lift one leg onto her shoulder, an exercise we’ve done many times at the winter quarters. She straightens slowly, raising my leg, and I try not to grit my teeth but rather breathe and ease into the dull, familiar burn that travels up the underside of my thigh.
“Do you want me to stretch you?” I ask when she has helped me with my other leg. She shakes her head. I follow her gaze across the backyard to where Peter rehearses apart from the others. He’s changed into an oversize jacket and trousers now and his face, stubbled minutes earlier, is an unbroken field of white greasepaint. “Astrid...” I begin.
She looks over at me, as though she had nearly forgotten I was there. “What is it?” I falter. I consider telling her about the disagreement I heard Peter having with Herr Neuhoff on the train, or seeing Peter come from the beer tent. But I do not want to worry her right before we go on.
“You’re nervous,” she says evenly.
“Yes,” I admit. “Weren’t you at your first show?”
She laughs. “I was so young I can’t even remember it. But it is normal to be nervous. Good, even. The adrenaline will kee
p you on your toes, keep you from making mistakes.” Or make my hands shake so badly that I can’t hold the bar, I think.
Inside the tent, the lights are lowered and the whole house thrown into darkness. A spotlight comes on, creating a pool of gold on the floor at the center of the ring. The orchestra strikes a stirring chord. Herr Neuhoff appears, majestic in his bow tie and top hat. “Mesdames et Messieurs...” Herr Neuhoff booms into a microphone.
The “Thunder and Lightning Polka” begins to play and the plumed horses prance into the ring. Their riders, among the most ornately costumed of the women, have no saddle but ride bareback, hardly sitting at all as they scissor their legs from side to side. One rider stands and tumbles from a standing position backward through the air, landing neatly on a second horse. Though I have seen the act in rehearsal, I cannot help but gasp along with the crowd.
The program of the circus, Astrid explained once, is deliberately designed—a fast act, then a slow one then fast again, lions and other dangerous animals interspersed with human pantomimes. “You want the light bits after serious,” she’d said, “like cleansing the palate after each course of a meal.” But there are practicalities, too, such as the time needed to bring the animal cages in and out that makes placing them close to intermission a necessity.
Watching, I realize that the design of the big top is deliberate, too. The angles of the benches are steep to face the gaze downward. The rounded seating makes the crowd play off one another’s responses, and the unbroken circle is like a wire for the electricity that fills the tent. The audience sits motionless, mesmerized by the web of color, lights, music and artistry. Their eyes dance with the arc of the juggler’s balls and they gasp in appreciation as one of the trainers waltzes with a lion. Astrid was right: even as war rages on, the people still have to live—they shop for their foodstuffs and tend their homes—why not laugh at the circus as they had when the world was still whole?