Peter Carey - The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith

Breathing deeply from his broad athlete’s chest, he smiled at us, and held this tiny creature briefly by the tail.

‘Meneer, Madam,’ he said. ‘We give you …’

He dropped the fish into the water.

‘The Water Sirkus.’

And so the show began, a breathless, relentless entertainment-the man in the suit and bow tie walking through the water, looking for the fish with a flashlight. The huge fish that eats the man. The tiny man, no more than two feet tall, a Simi, of course, but it was endless. There was underwater dancing, great comic interludes, replicas of famous paintings, villainous creatures who seemed so real until they climbed from the water and then were hit by cannon and exploded in the air above our heads.

There was no plot, or shape, although there was the continual preoccupation with drowning that distinguishes Voorstandish art in general. There was no circus ring at all, and as such it would have damned itself, not only politically, but also theatrically, with the members of the Feu Follet. But few of the critics at the Feu Follet ever saw a Sirkus. Certainly not the Water Sirkus. They therefore overlooked one vital thing — the Sirkus is thrilling. Would it have captured half the world if it were not?

The last ‘act’ of the Water Sirkus was a performance of ‘Pers Nozegard’, the first ever performed beneath the water. The plot you know: the child whose beauty is boasted of by its mother in the hearing of sea spirits, the capturing of the child, and its life under the sea with mermaids while its parents mourn above, thinking it drowned, the funeral in the world, the child’s christening in the water etc.

In this production the performers said their lines underwater.

This was such a new development in the Sirkus that when the father turned to the mother and said the first words of the little play (‘Our child is dead’) the audience hooted and stamped with appreciation.

I for my part assumed the actors were miming a pre-recorded sound track. But later, in the finale, as the holograms spun, as the performers made themselves into a great water wheel, hand to ankle, and spun at speed, and what looked like a real live dog walked calmly through them and wagged its tail, one of the performers bumped a bright blue coral reef which had been a feature of the show.

‘Shit,’ he said.

It was only then that I knew what everyone else in that Dome had known from the beginning — that these brave performers were really saying words underwater and these words were being broadcast to us in our seats. I had witnessed one of those technical feats, the invention of which had probably resulted in the form of entertainment we had just witnessed.

I was beginning to reflect on this, and what this meant about the Voorstand Sirkus generally, when I felt myself half strangled from behind. I turned my head. I saw the face. It took me three, four, five seconds to understand who it was, this man who was cutting off my air pipe by embracing me so emotionally. He had bronzed skin and jet-black curly hair. He had sequins on his shoulders. He shone like a king in the midst of the common folk in the crowd, and when he let go my throat and hooked his big hands underneath my arms, and picked me up, all sixty-five pounds of me, none of the Mouse’s admirers disputed his right to have me to himself.

‘Hello, Tristan,’ he said in that big actor’s voice.

Madam, Meneer — it was Bill Millefleur.

It was not that he had grown older — indeed, he was as young as ever — but that I had changed him in my memory. I had remembered his sneer, his spleen, the hurt and anger in his eye.

But here he was, my maman’s circus boy — his handsome sun-lamped face — mint smell, flossed teeth gleaming — little crooked scar on his chin. He looked so soft, and beautiful, and burnished, shining. He was so big, had such good skin, such glossy hair. He stood shoulder high above the crowd, and although he was not as famous as I thought he was — he had the look of someone very famous indeed.

This was the man who had picked me up so many times before, and put me down and walked away each time I needed him, but when he held me aloft and smiled up at me, I loved him without reserve. I felt a sort of giddiness, a great surge of relief.

I had worked so long in learning not to love him, not to trust him, but all he had to do was hold me, and he melted me, the Sirkus man, like he melted my maman — such charm, such energy, such focus — so many times before. What it is — I wonder, do you know? — to be loved by someone beautiful.

I forgot about Jacqui and Wally. I felt a great surge of happiness, of completeness, as my father carried me above the crowds. The tide of my already turbulent emotions made me unobservant and it was not until much later in the night, when I was falling asleep on my father’s dining table, that I saw, in my mind’s eye, the crew-cut man named Gabe sitting quietly in row 3.

*

Over and over again, we find this is the case — once in an overseas market and therefore beyond the control of the Saarlim Sirkus Convention, Sirkus managers have a habit of changing names and characters to suit what they believe are ‘local conditions’. This makes the Voorstandish Spookganger Drool into the Efican Phantome Drool and results in such fracturing of the character that Phantome Drool has lost all historical and mythic connection to the Deuce and the Hairy Man.

*

This being my first Sirkus, I was no connoisseur, so as to whether they were holographic images (as I believed) or Class IV Simis (as I now think possible) I am afraid I cannot say with any accuracy.

[TS]

Seven o’clock on the evening of the Water Sirkus found Wally on a plateau of sweet emotion. Steam from the bathroom drifted out into the hotel room where he sat. He was no longer agitated, but almost serene. The tickets to the fabulous Water Sirkus lay beside him on the quilt — three long paper slips on onion paper inside an embossed silver envelope.

He had washed, showered, shaved. He could feel that clean cotton next to his skin. He had taken his beta-tene. He had taken aspirin, but not too much. The landlopers out on the balcony were singing. They had a violin and a drum. They were like crickets in the night.

At seven-fifteen he walked along the corridor to the elevator in his formal bow tie and tails.

This time he was prepared for the odours and confusion of the Colonnades. He held his nose and grinned and shook his head and when he walked he tapped his cane jauntily on the sidewalk. If the crowds had remained normal he would have reached the Sirkus in an excellent mood.

But he was in the company of Bruder Mouse and before we had gone twenty yards there were admirers stretching out their hands to touch the Bruder’s grey furry face.

‘Shoo,’ he said when the crowd began to form. ‘Go on — skat.’

But no one shooed and no one skat.

‘Piss off,’ he said.

But it was half past seven at night, and bow-legged Bruder Mouse was on the town.

‘Tristan! Jacques!’

This was the first time we had a chance to show Wally the successful act we had spent the week developing — the cartwheels, the tumbling, the juggling with tennis balls or apples.

‘Don’t do that,’ he said. ‘For Chrissake.’

‘Look at him,’ Jacqui said. ‘He’s amazing. He’s a star.’

‘Just stop it,’ the old man hissed.

‘But why?’

‘No reason — just stop.’

There was a reason — he had not planned it. It was not part of his secret. It upset him so much that, when that show was finally over and Jacqui and I escorted him along the streets of Kakdorp, his head was pushed forward from his shoulders, his brows down on his old grey eyes, and he looked so much like a bad-tempered old vulture, a predator, that he helped effect what physical force might not have done — the comparatively peaceful entry of Bruder Mouse into a Water Sirkus.