Lynda Plante - Entwined

They faced each other. After Rebecca left, Mamon seemed to calm down. He still wavered, but Ruda moved in closer. Her whole body was covered in sweat. Adrenaline was pumping through each vein.

"Come on... come on Ma'angel. Up red... red UP! MAMON!"

She moved closer. His massive jaws were open and drool hung from his mouth as he tossed his head from side to side. There was silence now. The orchestra had just finished playing a segment of Wagner's The Ring, the moment when Siegfried discovers his beloved.

Ruda knelt on one knee and bowed her head. There was a gasp as Mamon sprang as if to attack her. Instead, he leaped over her head and landed perfectly on the pedestal. Slowly he lifted his front paws in the air. Ruda crossed to the pedestal and stood in front of him. Directly beneath him, she opened her arms to accept the applause, facing him.

"Mamon... good, good. Gently now, good boy." Ruda turned her back to Mamon, and he slowly lowered his front paws onto her shoulders. The spotlight shrank until it shone on Mamon's head. She turned to look at him. She could smell his breath, she could hear his heart pumping. She was at his mercy.

"Good boy... good, KISS!"

Ruda stepped quickly away. On command he was off the pedestal and running for the tunnel. She was left alone to bow, and take the thundering applause. The audience gave her a standing ovation.

"Ladies and gentlemen we now have an intermission... but hurry back to see the second half of the fearless, the extraordinarily daring Ruda Kellerman's act. Meet Wanton, the panther. Meet more of Ruda Keller-man's amazing family of wild beasts."

The lights came on as the ice cream girls streamed down the aisles. Many members of the audience remained in their seats dazed, unsure of what they had just seen.

Ruda was panting and patting her face dry with a towel as she ran across toward her trailer to change for the second half of the act. Grimaldi was waiting. "Don't take him into the second half, he's crazy. He refused to obey you time and time again."

She turned on Grimaldi. "I can control him, I did . Now back off. I know what I'm doing."

Only then did she stop, look around. "Where is she? Luis, where is she? "

Grimaldi snapped back that she was by the cages with Mike and Vernon. He continued to follow her: "She becomes as crazy as the bloody animals... Ruda — Ruda, will you listen to me! "

Ruda was splashing through the mud toward the trailer. "I hear you, Luis. But please don't ask me to listen to you ! I saw the rifle, Luis! I don't want you in or near the ring for the second half, hear me? You are pitiful, pitiful ! So desperate to be part of the act you have to stand there like something out of a Wild West show!"

She ran on. The sweat she had worked up in the ring now mingled with the cold rain, making her shiver. She entered the trailer, leaving the door open for Luis. "I'm cold. I'm cold ! Run the shower."

Rebecca was not with Mike, as Grimaldi had believed, but on her way back to the trailer. She was about to open the door when she heard Ruda's angry voice. She stood motionless as Grimaldi shouted. "Don't order me about as though I were a dog!"

"Then what are you? What possessed you to stand like a prick with that bloody rifle!"

"Maybe I was worried about you — you hadn't rehearsed, you were distracted because of this Rebecca business."

"She is my sister, my sister, Luis! You know what that means to me? Can you even contemplate what it means to have found her? She came to me, she came to me, Luis! "

Grimaldi sat heavily on the bunk bed, wiping his hair with the towel Ruda had tossed aside. She was pulling off her boots as she talked. Outside, Rebecca was frozen, unable to move from the trailer steps, huddled in Vernon's rain cape.

"Help me with my boots."

He held the toe and heel and jerked hard.

"She took a long time finding you. Why didn't she turn up earlier?"

The boot came away in his hand and Ruda fell back. She pushed her other foot out to him, and he began to pull off the boot. "She didn't know I was alive."

"She tell you she looked for you?" he asked.

Ruda pushed against him. "I looked for her, she looked for me. Yes, yes, yes! Oh come on, pull, Luis, I've got to change."

"There's something wrong with her, Ruda. I tried to tell you earlier. There was a man, said he was her husband. He was with a woman, a doctor. They said she was sick. I think they meant crazy sick!" He pulled hard at the boot heel. The boot came away and Ruda fell backward again.

"What did they tell you?"

"Nothing much. I just felt it from the way they were so desperate to find her. They knew about you. They were looking for you. I said they'd best come to the trailer after the show."

"Why did you do that?"

"What else was I supposed to say? I knew she'd been here— Christ! They wanted to try and find you there and then. If it wasn't for me they'd have been wandering around..."

"You should have just minded your own business."

"You are my business."

"Since when?"

Luis hesitated. "Since you killed Kellerman."

She stared at him and he sighed. "I know Ruda, so don't deny it. I know you killed him."

Ruda unbuttoned her shirt. "Ah, I see. You are going to blackmail me, is that it?" She pulled her sweat-soaked shirt off. "Try it and I'll get your bloody rifle and I'll shoot your fucking head off..."

Luis grabbed hold of her. "You know what I was prepared to do for you? That inspector — when I saw him arrive, you know what I wanted to do? Say it was me, say I killed Kellerman! I was going to do that for you Ruda, because—"

Ruda let the shirt drop. "Oh God, what did you tell him, you fool!"

"I told him nothing. They were just coming to see the show, they had free tickets. I said nothing."

She seemed almost amused. "You were really going to do that for me?"

He pointed to the clock. "You got ten minutes. I'll get the boys ready."

She unzipped her pants slowly, never taking her eyes off his face. "He took a long time to die. I never meant to kill him — but he threatened me and... there was this big green ashtray, very heavy. I kept on hitting him and his teeth fell out. I remember seeing his teeth on the carpet. He was always so proud of his white teeth, but they were as false, as fake, as he was."

She took a deep breath. "Oh God, Luis. He took such a long time to die."

Ruda kicked her pants off. The terrible jagged scars were shining with sweat. She looked up to him and held out her arms. He hugged her tightly.

"Nobody will hurt you. I won't let them."

She stroked his face. "So if they come for me, you'll say you did it? You'd really do that for me?"

Luis kissed her forehead. "Yes, yes, I'll say it was me. Nobody will ever hurt you again, I promise."

She cupped his face in her hands and kissed his lips. Her eyes searched his eyes. She traced his lips with her fingers. "Be nice to her, Luis, she was always the weak one."

"Yes, I can tell."

She gave a strange smile. "Can you now? I underestimated you."

Luis tapped his wrist to indicate the time, and brought her the costume. He heard the shower being turned on, and eased the plastic cover from the white jacket, glad to be needed.

Outside, Rebecca sat hunched on the steps. When she heard Ruda call out for her costume, she moved away, afraid to be seen. She lost her footing, falling in the thick mud. She tried to stand, but she had slid halfway beneath the trailer.

The trailer door opened. She could see the polished boots, and hear Ruda telling Grimaldi to bring her to the ring.

"And Luis... no gun! Promise me?"

As Ruda hurried away, Rebecca could see Grimaldi's feet. She crawled a few inches, calling out to him. The mud oozed beneath her. She could smell the wet earth, and she was lost. The dank stinking tunnel, the stench of the sewers, the scurrying rats. Two tiny girls forced to stay silent. They clung to each other. Above them they could hear the clank of steel-edged boot heels against the rim of the manhole cover. They were waist deep in filthy water. Rats swam around them. They heard the echoes of boots and screaming voices.