The Orphan's Tale

  Luc points out at a small steeple on the horizon, silhouetted against the setting sun. “I went to école there,” he says and I smile, picturing him as a young boy. He had lived his whole life right in this village, much as I might have back home had things been different. He goes on, “I have two older sisters, both married and living in towns not far away. My grandparents lived with us, too, when I was a child. There was always so much laughter and noise.” There is a longing note to his voice that makes clear those times are far gone.

  He reaches under a pile of hay and produces a darkened glass bottle, half-empty. “A bit of Chablis from my father’s cellar,” he says, grinning wickedly. He passes it to me and I take a sip from the bottle. Though I know nothing about wine, I can tell that it is a good vintage, the taste layered, spicy and deep.

  In the corner where he had hidden the wine, I notice something still half-hidden beneath the hay. Curious, I move closer. There is a thick tablet and a set of paints. “You’re an artist,” I remark.

  He laughs, wrapping his arms around his knees. “That’s a big word for it. I sketch, when I can get paper. I paint, though not so much anymore. My mother loved art and was forever taking me to galleries wherever we went on holiday. Once I wanted to go to Paris and study at the Sorbonne.” His eyes are animated as he speaks of art and his childhood.

  “Is it far? Paris, I mean.” I am embarrassed not to have a better sense of geography.

  “About four hours by train these days with all of the stoppages. I went with my mother to see the museums. She loved art.” There is a note of sadness to his voice now.

  “You still live with your parents?” I ask.

  “Just my father. My mother died when I was eleven.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. Though my own parents are still alive, his loss seems to echo my own, strengthening the ache I have worked so hard to bury. I want to touch his arm in comfort, but it seems I do not know him well enough. “Do you still plan to study art?” I ask instead.

  “It doesn’t seem possible anymore.” He gestures to the countryside below with long tapered fingers.

  “But you still want it,” I press.

  “Painting seems so frivolous now,” he replies. “I don’t know what to do—I don’t want to just sit here. Papa wants me to join the LVF, but I don’t want to fight for the Germans. He says it doesn’t look right for the mayor’s son not to go, and I can only hold him off for so long. I’d run away, but I don’t want to leave Papa alone.”

  “There has to be another way,” I offer, though I’m not sure I believe it.

  “It’s just this damned war,” he says, his voice rattling with frustration. I am surprised to hear him swear. “It’s turned everything on its head.” He turns away. “What happened at the show the other day with the man and the girl, it isn’t the first time. There were Jewish families in Thiers who had been here my whole life. They lived over on the east side of town, just past the market. One of the boys, Marcel, was a friend of mine at école.”

  “Your father, he orders the police to round them up?” I ask.

  “No!” he snaps, then quickly recovers. “My father follows orders. He maintains a pretense of support in order to protect the village.”

  “And to protect himself,” I blurt out, unable to hold back. “How can you stand it?”

  “Really, he isn’t like that,” Luc continues, calmer now, his voice pleading. “Papa was different before my mother died. He once gave a family a house for an entire year rent-free.” Luc needs to believe that his father is a good man, and he is asking me to believe it, too. I had done the same. After my own father had kicked me out, I still remembered the mornings when we’d walk into town for fresh bread, just the two of us, him whistling as we went. He had bought me an extra croissant. I was still that girl, though. What had changed?

  Luc continues, “I begged my father to at least help Marcel’s family. But he said there was nothing to be done.” His words pour out in a tumble as though he has not until this very moment been able to share with another the things that he has seen.

  “It’s hard when the people we love do awful things,” I offer.

  We both sit silently then, the now-dark sky causing the light in the loft to dim. I notice that his jaw is square and strong, a faint late-day stubble pressing through.

  “Where are you from?” he asks, changing the subject.

  I shift uneasily. Until now, I have managed not to say much about myself. “The Dutch coast. Our village was so close to the sea you could walk down to the end of the road and catch your dinner.” It seems so strange to be talking about the life I’d lost. I want to tell him everything, about how my parents cast me out and how I found Theo. But of course I cannot.

  “Why did you leave?” Luc asks abruptly.

  No matter how many times I am asked that question, I am still ill-prepared to answer it. “My father was very cruel, so when my mother died I took my brother and fled,” I say, repeating the now-familiar tale. I am not ready to tell him the truth.

  “It’s hard not having your mother,” he says, looking deeply into my eyes. I hate myself for the lies I’ve told. But right now, even though my mother is not dead, losing her feels more real and painful than ever. “And then you joined the circus?” he asks.

  “Yes. Just a few months ago.” I pray he will not ask about the time between.

  “It’s remarkable that you learned to do all of those tricks so quickly.” His voice is full with admiration and wonder.

  “Astrid trained me,” I say.

  “That angry older woman?” I struggle not to laugh at his perception of Astrid.

  At the same time I am defensive of an outsider criticizing her. “She’s amazing,” I say.

  “She didn’t perform at the show,” Luc notes, but I don’t reply. I can’t tell him the rest of the story, why Astrid is angry with me, without revealing to him the fact that she is a Jew. “Perhaps she’s jealous that you were in the show and she wasn’t,” Luc ventures.

  I laugh aloud. “Astrid, jealous of me? That isn’t possible.” Astrid is talented, famous, powerful. But then I see myself through her eyes, a younger woman with the child fate had denied her, performing when she cannot. Maybe the idea is not so ridiculous after all. “It isn’t like that,” I add. “Astrid is a famous aerialist. She’s just very intense. Peter says she’s a danger to herself,” I add.

  “Peter, he’s the clown?” Luc asks.

  I nod. “He and Astrid are together.”

  “He sure didn’t like me,” Luc says with a half smile.

  “He’s very protective of Astrid,” I explain. “She thinks it’s just for company but she can’t see the depth of his feelings for her.”

  He watches me intensely. “I can imagine.”

  I look away, feeling myself blush. “The show...you never told me what you thought.” I brace myself for the criticism that would surely crush me.

  “You looked beautiful,” he offers and I blush. “You were amazing.” He pauses for a moment, then adds, “It’s just that I was sad for you.”

  “Sad?” My happiness fades.

  “Doesn’t it bother you?” he asks. “All of those people, watching, I mean?” His tone is one of concern. But there is pity, too. “You don’t have to do it, you know,” he adds.

  I can’t explain that in the spotlight I am someone else. Still, how dare he judge us? “I’ve found something I’m good at,” I say defensively, crossing my arms. “A way to take care of myself and Theo. Not that you would understand.”

  Suddenly being alone with him and all of the lies between us are too much. “I have to go,” I say abruptly. I stand so quickly I lose my balance, nearly tumbling from the loft.

  “Wait.” Luc grabs my leg to steady me, his arm warm through the fabric of my dress. I look down. Though it is not
nearly as high as the trapeze, there is no net and I am paralyzed with fright. What am I doing here?

  Luc draws me down to the hay once more, closer now. He places a hand against my cheek. “Noa,” he says gently. Our faces are inches apart, his breath warm on my upper lip. Waves of confusion swirl around me. He likes me; I know that now. I cannot pull away.

  Luc kisses me. For a second, I stiffen. I should say no for a dozen reasons: it is impertinent of him, presumptuous and too soon. Astrid would say I should not be here with him at all. But his lips are tender and sweet with wine. His warm fingers cup my cheek, seeming to lift me from the ground. Our breath mingles. For a moment I am just a carefree, young girl again. I move closer, pushing the past firmly aside as I fall into him.

  When Luc pulls back, he is breathless and I wonder if it is his first real kiss. He reaches for me again, eager for more. But I put my hand on his chest, stopping him.

  “Why me?” I ask bluntly.

  “You’re different, Noa. I’ve lived in this village my whole life with the same people. The same girls. You make me see the world in a new way.”

  “We won’t be here for that long,” I protest. “And then we’ll move on. To the next town.” No matter how much we like one another, I am leaving and there is nothing to be done. We have only now.

  “I don’t want to go,” I blurt, embarrassed to feel my eyes burn. I’ve lost so much before: my parents, a child. Luc, a boy I hardly know, should not matter at all.

  “You don’t have to,” he says, drawing me close. “We could run away together.”

  I tilt my head upward; surely I’ve heard him wrong. “That’s madness. We’ve only just met.”

  He nods firmly. “You want to leave. So do I. We could help each other.”

  “Where would we go?”

  “To the south of France,” he replies. “Nice, maybe or Marseilles.”

  I shake my head, remembering Astrid’s tale of her family and their failure to outrun the Reich. “Not good enough. We would have to go farther south, across the Pyrenees through Spain.” We. I stop, hearing the word that has slipped from my mouth without realizing it. “Of course it’s impossible.” A delightful fairy tale, like one I would spin for Theo to soothe him to sleep. Children playing make-believe. I had always planned to take Theo and go. But now the idea of leaving is hard to imagine. “I have to go with the circus to the next town. I owe them that much.”

  “I’ll find you,” he promises gamely, as if the miles and borders are irrelevant.

  “You don’t even know where we are going,” I protest.

  In the distance, the cathedral bells toll. I listen, alarmed. Nine chimes. How had it gotten so late?

  “I have to go,” I say, pulling away reluctantly.

  He follows me down the ladder and from the barn. Neither of us speaks as we make our way back through the woods. It is after curfew and in the distance the town is shuttered and still. At the edge of the circus grounds behind the train, I stop. I do not want anyone to see me with Luc so late at night. “I should go alone from here.”

  “When will I see you again?” he presses.

  “I don’t know,” I say and his face falls. “I want to,” I add hurriedly. “It’s just so hard to get away.”

  “We don’t have that much time. Can you meet me tomorrow night, after the show?”

  “Maybe,” I say, unsure how I will manage it. “I’ll try. But if I can’t...” If only there were a way to send word. I have no way to reach him. I scan the fairgrounds, thinking.

  My eyes stop at the back of the train. Each carriage has a box underneath, I recall. The belly box. On some of the cars the workers use it for keeping tools handy. I pull out the one beneath the sleeper car. It is empty.

  “Here,” I say. “If I can’t get away I will leave you a message.” A secret mailbox that no one else knows.

  “Tomorrow, then.” He kisses me boldly, then steals away, glancing around carefully to make sure no one is watching.

  I race back to the campsite, breathless. There is an excitement with Luc that I’ve never felt before. It had not been like this with the soldier. I see now how the German had taken advantage of me, and taken a piece of my youth I will never recover. With Luc, though, the past feels like a bad dream that never happened. Is that even possible?

  I had not understood how Astrid could ever love again after her husband had cast her out. Now it seems that I might have a second chance, too. Suddenly everything that has happened to me seems to make sense. I used to imagine that the German had never come. But if that had been the case I would never have known Theo or come here and met Luc.

  How I wish that I could talk to Astrid about it. In her rare kinder moments, she is almost like a big sister and I just know she could help me make sense of it all. She will never see past Luc’s father, though, to who he really is.

  As I reach the door to the train car, Elsie appears. Her face is pale and creased with worry.

  “Thank goodness you’re here.” Still annoyed at her letting him too near the animals, I push past her into the train car. But the place where Theo usually sleeps beside me is empty once more, and Astrid nowhere to be found.

  My blood runs cold. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Theo. He’s sick and he needs help.”

  15

  Noa

  Elsie starts down the length of the train corridor and I follow close behind. “What happened?” I ask.

  She stops at the door to a carriage near the front of the train where I’ve never been. The sick car, they call it. It provides care to those who are ill and prevents disease from spreading to the rest of the circus, Astrid had explained once. An antiseptic smell fills the air. From inside come coughs and moans. Theo could catch worse than what he already has in there. His wail cuts sharply through the other sounds. I start forward. “He can’t stay here. I’m taking him with me.” Timid Elsie will not stop me.

  But Berta, the woman in charge of the sick car, appears in front of us, her immense girth blocking my way. “You can’t come in here,” she informs me.

  “Theo’s sick,” I protest. “He needs me.”

  “Herr Neuhoff’s rules—no healthy performers allowed in the sick bay.” Viruses make their way through camp like wildfire: dysentery, grippe. A bad case of influenza could take down the entire show.

  I peer over her shoulder. Theo lies on one of the berths, tiny and alone, buttressed by a rolled blanket so he will not fall off. “Is he all right?”

  Berta’s brow wrinkles with concern. “A high fever,” she says, not shielding me from the truth. “We’re doing everything we can to bring it down, but it’s so difficult with the little ones.”

  My stomach twists. “Please let me help.”

  She shakes her head firmly. “There’s nothing you can do.” She closes the door.

  Astrid, I think, running for the sleeper car. But her berth is still neatly made and she is not there. Desperately, I race from the train across the fairgrounds in the direction of Peter’s cabin, the only other place Astrid might be at this hour. It is nearly ten, late to be showing up unannounced. Too worried to care about interrupting sleep or whatever else they may be doing, I knock on the door. A minute later, Astrid appears in a dressing gown. It is the first time she has been with Peter at night since we went on the road. Taking in her tousled hair, I am furious: I had left Theo with her—how dare she hand him off to someone else?

  But I cannot risk angering her now. “Help me,” I beg. “It’s Theo. He’s sick.”

  Astrid stares at me with cold blank eyes, then closes the door in my face. My heart sinks. Even if she hates me, surely she won’t refuse to help Theo. But then she reappears dressed and starts toward the train. I run to keep up.

  “He was fine when I put him down earlier,” Astri
d says. “Elsie was minding him and you said you would be right back.” Her tone is accusing. “How long has he been sick?”

  “I don’t know. They won’t let me see him.” I follow her onto the train.

  At the entrance to the sick car, she turns back, holding up her hand. “Wait here,” she instructs.

  “Theo needs me,” I say, grabbing her arm.

  She shakes me off. “You won’t be doing him any good if you get sick, too.”

  “What about you?” I press.

  “I’m out of the show at least,” she replies. “But if you get sick the act will be ruined.”

  It is about the show, always about the show. None of that matters to me. I just want to see Theo. “There’s no time to argue,” Astrid says. “I’ll be right back.”

  Astrid closes the door and I wait outside, hearing Theo wail. Guilt surges through me. How could I have left him? An hour ago, I’d been with Luc, secretly glad to be freed for a moment from the burden of taking care of a child. I hadn’t meant it, really. And even though I know it is not possible, part of me wonders if that somehow brought him danger.

  From the corridor between the two railcars where Astrid has left me to wait, I gaze out the grimy train window in the direction of the village. We have no doctor and the only medicines are the home remedies that Berta keeps in her kit. I would ask Luc for help if I thought it would do any good. But we can’t risk taking Theo to a town because of the questions it might raise about who he is and where he came from. Surely someone will discover the secrets we’ve been keeping when they see he is circumcised.

  Suddenly the wailing inside the sick car stops. I am at first relieved that Theo has settled down, but I can’t help thinking that something is wrong. I throw open the door, not caring about the rules. My heart stops. Theo has gone stiff and his arms and legs jerk. “What happened?” I cry.