Carol Birch - Orphans of the Carnival

Theo hung back.

The usual sort, he thought, scanning the crowd. A couple of military men, a few distinguished and delighted middle-aged women, lavishly dressed, with their indistinguishable husbands. A tall blond man with a haunted face and thin lips stared with something approaching passion. And there was the beauty he’d seen earlier, now wearing something golden-brown and shiny that displayed her fragile shoulders. Rudakov was saying the girl’s name. Liliya Grigorievna Levkova, my cousin. She laughed in a self-conscious way when she was introduced, wrinkling her nose and narrowing her eyes. It made her even more beautiful.

Theo drank too much that night and remembered little afterwards apart from Liliya Grigorievna Levkova, shimmering always in the corner of his eye, and the intense blond man, who scarcely blinked and never took his pale eyes from Julia for a second. At some point, Rudakov crossed over to the man and drew him by the arm to be introduced:

‘My very good friend, Professor Sokolov.’

Sokolov pushed his furrowed brow at Julia, his staring grey eyes.

‘Madame Julia Pastrana,’ said Rudakov, a flourish in his voice.

‘Hello,’ said Sokolov in English.

‘How do you do,’ said Julia.

‘Monsieur Lent,’ said Rudakov, ‘her husband.’

Sokolov barely glanced at him, but gripped Julia’s hand as if he’d never let it go, and stuck his face right in hers so that she drew back a little.

‘Professor Sokolov is a very distinguished doctor,’ Rudakov said.

The professor began to talk to Julia stumblingly, smiling and sweating — had read everything ever written about her, followed her progress, utmost fascination, immensely gratified — and on and on, till Theo drifted away, floating round the room with a vague smile on his face and another drink in his hand. Someone was playing something dull on the piano. Old Volkov was getting tight. Then he saw her, Liliya Grigorievna Levkova talking animatedly to the mother of Prince Rudakov, a stern old lady in a pearl cap. And glory, she caught his eye and came running over as if he was an old friend. ‘Oh, Mr Lent,’ she said in perfectly accented English, ‘what a lucky man you are!’ Close to, she was not as young as she’d appeared from the balcony, but none the worse for that.

‘Am I?’ he said.

‘She’s so sweet! So lovely!’ A delightful voice, low and eager and exciting.

‘Oh. Yes, she is.’

‘It’s so romantic,’ she said. ‘I can’t wait to hear her sing. I’ve heard so much about her!’

‘Julia is a very fine singer,’ he said.

‘Everyone’s dying to hear her. And will she dance? Oh, she must dance! What a pity we have to sit through all the others first. And I hear you are to tour very soon?’

‘Yes. And then we are going to Saint Petersburg. To the circus. We will make Saint Petersburg our home for a while.’

‘Oh! We’ll be so sorry to lose her.’

‘We’ll be back for the Christmas season.’

‘How wonderful. You’ll be in Saint Petersburg in the summer.’

‘Yes.’

‘She has such an effect on everyone!’ said Liliya Grigorievna. ‘Just look at Professor Sokolov.’ She giggled. ‘Poor Julia! Go and rescue her.’ She turned him, giving him a familiar little nudge in the back before swishing off to talk to someone else. Where she’d touched him, it was as if a little creature had woken up under the skin. He found himself beside Julia. Sokolov was speaking urgently at her, a set smile on his face.

‘Theo,’ she said, taking his arm, ‘Professor Sokolov has been telling me all about his collection of anatomical Venuses. They sound horrible.’

‘Horrible but fascinating no doubt.’ Theo’s smile widened and quavered. ‘Forgive me, Professor, I must borrow my wife for a moment.’

Solokov bowed politely. ‘Of course,’ he said.

‘Not another doctor,’ she whispered in Theo’s ear, rising on tiptoe as he led her away.

‘Don’t worry.’ He lowered his head. ‘This is purely social.’

‘I’m sick of the lot of them.’

‘Not surprised.’

‘I’m not a piece of meat,’ she said.

‘You most certainly are not.’

No more, he’d promised, after the last one. No more poking and pressing and measuring.

‘Not exactly a doctor anyway,’ he whispered, ‘I don’t think.’

‘These Venuses,’ she said, ‘they’re opened up. You can see what’s inside.’

‘My love, they want you to perform,’ he said.

She sighed. ‘Do I have to?’

‘I think they’ll be very disappointed if you don’t. I think they’ll never smile again.’

‘They’ll get over it,’ she said glibly, but she’d been expecting it.

‘Not the full show, of course.’ He leaned close and spoke into her ear. ‘Just a song or two, and one of your pretty Spanish dances. Nothing too strenuous!’

‘I don’t mind dancing,’ she said.

‘And a song? That little Russian thing?’

‘That’s a whole performance, Theo,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you say? I haven’t got my guitar.’

‘Yes, you have. It’s in the box.’

‘So you knew?’

‘Oh Julia, you must have realised. You know what these things are like. Lots of other people are going to be doing their turns and none of them are going to be anywhere near as good as you. It’d be peculiar if you didn’t perform.’

So, after sitting through a great deal of apparently hilarious stuff in Russian and the mediocre warbling of several ladies and a portly baritone, the party was treated to three songs and a Russian dance from the one they had after all come to see. Julia performed as well as she’d ever done, and they applauded wildly, turning their delighted faces to one another.

‘Oh Julia,’ Theo called out, ‘one more please.’

‘Oh yes, yes!’ cried Liliya Grigorievna, bouncing a little.

‘Sing “Lorena”,’ he said. ‘A new American song,’ he explained to the people, went to take a sip and noticed that his glass was empty.

She didn’t want to but smiled obligingly and once more picked up her guitar.

Oh, ‘Lorena’ would slay them. He retreated to the back of the room and refilled his glass. The doors to the verandah stood open. The chandeliers glittered, the crystal glasses glittered, her big black eyes glittered. Big black, wet eyes. He saw Sokolov, his doctor’s stare. He looks like a thin white bird, a crane or something. Oh, what a specimen you are, my jewel. No one else has got what I’ve got, and everyone wants it. Professors want you. A hundred months have passed, Lorena, since first I held that hand in mine. She brings tears to the eyes. Look at them. The parted lips. The fixed eyes. Not one of them can look away, not for one second. Don’t suppose they all understand the words but even so… he slipped out onto the verandah. The air smelled of lilac. Before him, just about still visible through the deepening night, a descent into a steep wooded valley. From out here it was just a woman’s voice, a nice voice, not magnificent but sweet and full of feeling. Hard little worker, my Julia, uses what she’s got. She’s bought you this. This lot, that ridiculously beautiful woman, they wouldn’t give you the time of day if it wasn’t for her. Snobs the lot of them. And that pompous old general. Those awful whiskers and that stupid little beard. Those villages we came through, probably full of cholera. What a world. And that fat fool down there stuffing himself like a goose. Still, the same everywhere. Jesus, he could have gone down the sewers himself one time. Back there. Easy to go under in this business. The sultry evening air carried the drink to his head very quickly. No more going under. Not for me. Not any more.