Carol Birch - Orphans of the Carnival

The Doctor’s face was serious. He looked at her for a long time without blinking or saying anything, putting his hand beneath the head of his snake. His eyes were full, as if he’d seen a whole world of sorrow. She couldn’t tell how old he was. Old. Poor eyes seen it all. ‘You know I knew that devil baby,’ he said, and a chill ran through her.

‘For sure.’

‘Is he real?’ she whispered. ‘Is it true?’

‘True as anything.’

‘And he cries in the alleys?’

‘I never heard him.’

‘What was he?’

‘Born red. Scales, like this.’ He ran a finger along the snake’s body. ‘Born screaming. Nothing anyone could do. Mama couldn’t look at him. Friend of mine tried to raise him but he ran away. Don’t know where he went.’

‘Ran away? A baby?’

‘Six months old, up and ran. Little bumps here,’ he touched his brow, ‘little horns. No hoofs, never had hoofs.’

‘But what was he?’

‘A baby.’

‘A baby what?

‘Who knows? I knew his father. And he said his wife never said that thing about the devil anyway, people just made that up.’

‘And you saw him? The baby? What was he like?’

‘Oh a very bad thing. Couldn’t get near him. Terrible thing. Woman I knew tried with him but he grew too quick.’

‘But what was he?’

‘A bad baby. And when people started seeing him here and there his whole family took off. He’s around, they say.’

He took from under the table a small bottle and a tiny red bag and slid them across the table to her, and she understood that their time was up. ‘What is this big thing that’s coming?’ she asked.

‘Love,’ he said, ‘up the road.’

‘Within a year, you said.’

‘Within a year. For sure.’

They stood.

‘Did he have a name?’ she asked as he held the door for her, ‘The baby?’

‘Valentine,’ the Doctor said. ‘His name was Valentine.’

She paid one of the women $15 on the way out.

‘He’s marvellous, isn’t he?’ Madame Soulie said as they got into the carriage. She was tipsy from drinking wine in the front room.

‘Is he not a slave?’ Julia turned the red gris-gris bag in her fingers. It was sewn shut. She had no idea what was in it, only that it felt like tiny chips of bark and would draw fortune. The love potion was in her pocket. ‘What is he? How can he have so much money? That good house.’

‘A free man,’ said Madame Soulie and laughed. ‘Came as a slave from Africa and now look. Free, rich and black. He must have power.’

The night of the show, Julia dusted herself with orris root and combed herself very carefully, arms, breasts, shoulders. Her head hair, adorned with gardenias and feathers, was done up in curls. Rose-pink silk flounced about her short full figure on a froth of white petticoats. From the carriage she saw the posters all along St Charles Avenue for the show, her name at the top and bigger than all the rest. She saw the crowds on the steps and all along the block, the flowers above the great doors in front of the theatre, and all the lights from the chandeliers shining out from the foyer. The carriage took them round the back. Rates, in a frilly white shirt, his sparse grey hair pomaded, handed her down and led her in through a warren of scurrying forms only dimly seen through the veil to a small room with mirrors and chairs, a table with glasses and a bottle of brandy.

There was some time. The walls were flimsy. Next door, Ted and Jonsy and Michael were laughing about something. Myrtle, brush between her toes, painted Indian ink around her eyes. Delia blew a kiss to her reflection. Julia fiddled with her gardenias, flicking an imaginary speck of dust from her rose-coloured stocking, inspecting the pearl buttons on her tight white shoes.

Her nerves were jiggling.

She felt better sitting in the wings, watching, waiting her turn drinking water and wine. Funny how different people were when they performed. Jonsy, the stone-faced and silent, laughed and grinned, cakewalking across the stage, the whiteness of his skin and hair against the pinkness of his eyes and suit. Ted curled his hands into claws when he picked at his flesh, his face turned into something unearthly and slightly wicked. He pulled the skin under his chin up over his face till it covered his nose completely and his eyes glaring out above looked mad. Then it was Myrtle and Delia’s turn. They played a Jew’s harp. Myrtle’s lips were waxed and carmined round the frame. Delia, balancing on a pedestal by her side, plucked the reed.

The world stopped at the footlights.

Rates came and stood at her shoulder. ‘What a marvellous place this is,’ he murmured suavely. ‘Think of this, Julia. Only three years ago the great Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale, was up on that very stage. And now here you are. Julia Pastrana. Top of the bill!’

Till the last minute she thought she’d turn and run, just turn and run, think later.

It was time. No different from singing at home at a party, lowering the veil across her face, blood beating in her ears. She took her place in the centre of the stage and breathed deeply behind the shiny purple curtain. My God, but the stage was wider than she remembered. The others, who’d all gone before and could now rest, were watching from the wings. The auditorium rustled. She heard Rates walk out in front of the curtain.

He spoke in a voice she’d never heard before, basso profundo , declaiming, ‘Ladies and gentlemen! Mesdames! Messieurs! I am proud to announce! The world debut! Of the most remarkable woman in the world! The greatest wonder of nature! From the wild mountains of Mexico! Perhaps — even — the Missing Link!’

A long breathless pause.

‘I give you! The only one of her kind, the truly incomparable — Julia! Pastrana!’

The curtain rose.

The theatre was a great gold cavern with a thrilling echo. The lights lit up faces, row after row after row, every one fixed on her. She smiled beneath her veil. Her lips had dried up so she tried to lick them but her tongue, too big at the best of times, had dried up too and seemed to have doubled in size. She swallowed. Sing to the people at the back, Rates had told her. The back was miles away. But first the band struck up the Minute Waltz. A little run on the tips of her toes then into the dance, keeping time with all the changes, twirl, pirouette, pique, turn. Slow down. Glissade, then into the Hungarian Dance, and from there to flamenco, swishing her skirts and stamping. The crowd cheered. When she stopped and curtseyed, they cheered more. Then Rates walked out and took her hand, holding it high to his lips and bowing to her as if she was a great lady.

‘Wonderful, Julia,’ he said quietly to her, then turned to face the audience. ‘And now it is time!’ he cried, ‘to reveal to you — one of the great wonders of our time, the only one of her kind — the non pareil — the most remarkable being known to mankind — la- dees and gent lemen — Mesdames — Messieurs — I give you—’

They had rehearsed it time after time above Brady Childer’s grocery shop. She held herself ready, arranging her face into an easy yet dignified smile that would become more animated as the audience relaxed — and after all, as Delia had said, what more was this than what she’d been doing all her life one way or another?

‘—the one and only!—’

She stepped away from him and lifted one elegant white-gloved hand to the end of her veil.

‘—Miss JULIA PASTRANA!’

She unveiled.

There was a moment of absolute silence, a second or two at most, then a collective sucking like a hurricane drawing in its breath to blow. A few people shrieked. Julia walked towards the front of the stage. She heard a wag in the audience say, ‘It’s a chimpanzee in a dress!’