Carol Birch - Orphans of the Carnival

She was drawing to a close when he returned to the room, standing by the verandah doors with his glass and his empty grin.

I hardly feel the cold, Lorena.

That’s the way, Julia.

An uproar of applause. The beauty was jumping up and down and clapping her hands, turning to the girl next to her, all teeth and lips and perfect little nose. Sokolov applauded sternly. His mouth constricted to a thin short line, perfectly straight. Theo watched his wife engage with the process of acclaim and congratulation, using all the bits of Russian she’d learned, ‘Yes, thank you, how kind.’ He watched Liliya Grigorievna cross the room like a fawn and embrace Julia, then he watched them converse. Amazing, those two faces close together, their two mouths side by side. It made his head spin. The world could not contain such strangeness. He found himself next to them. They were talking animatedly.

‘Liliya Grigorievna was just telling me that there’s this wonderful fortune-teller in Saint Petersburg,’ Julia said. ‘She lives near the circus.’

‘And now he’s going to laugh at us,’ Liliya Grigorievna said.

‘Indeed,’ said Theo, smiling, ‘I am.’

‘Theo,’ she said later back in their room, ‘you knew I was going to perform. You brought my guitar.’

‘Of course I did, dear.’

‘How much did they pay us?’ she asked.

He laughed.

‘Theo! It’s not funny. You should tell me these things.’

‘Come on, Julia, you know you’re not interested in all that.’

‘I thought this was a social visit,’ she said. ‘But I find I’m the paid entertainment as usual.’

‘It’s both!’ he cried, coming behind her and clapping his hands down on her shoulders. ‘Haven’t you had a nice time?’

‘How much did Rudakov pay?’

‘Julia,’ he said, pushing himself down beside her and smiling drunkenly into her face. His hair was in a mess and his cravat was loose and stained with wine. ‘You know damn well it wouldn’t mean a thing to you if I did tell you an amount. We did well out of it. You don’t have to worry about a thing. We — we did well.’

‘I’m always the entertainment,’ she said.

‘Of course you are,’ he said, ‘because you’re so wonderful.’

‘I like Liliya Grigorievna,’ she said later, tucking her feet in under his thigh as they lay in bed. ‘When we get to Saint Petersburg, I want to go and see that fortune-teller.’

‘Don’t waste your money,’ he said, ‘it’s hogwash.’ Then after a moment, ‘Anyway, who was this fortune-teller who said you would travel a very very long way? A thing just about anybody with half a brain could have told you.’

‘It was in New Orleans,’ she said.

‘Oh, your time in New Orleans.’

‘I want to see her, anyway.’

Theo yawned. ‘Oh, if you want,’ he said, ‘as long as you know you’re wasting your money. Tearing it all up into tiny pieces and throwing it in the sea. Who cares?’

‘Oh, you,’ she said sleepily, and in a moment had drifted away silently and completely. There one minute, gone the next.

Wide awake and still drunk, tears starting in and out of his glazed eyes for no good reason, Theo stared at the moonlight shadows stealing over the top of the curtain onto the ceiling. These tears made no sense, and he didn’t understand them. He only knew he felt terrible. Julia slept by him like a faithful dog. He could feel a pulse beating strongly under the fur in her neck where his hand rested. ‘It’s not fur,’ she always scolded, ‘it’s hair.’ As if it made a difference.

*

After a long tour they arrived in Saint Petersburg in a high summer of thick yellow heat and many storms. ‘Here’s where we get you on a horse again,’ Theo said. Close by their rooms was the grandest circus of them all. She was tired as hell, and it felt as if they’d been on the road forever.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

She’d been getting weepy these past couple of weeks. Sentimental weepy, so that the sight of a dog scrounging round a bin or the sound of birds singing in the dark of an early morning would set her off. Now she stood looking out of the window at the gnats dancing in a smoky pollen haze that hovered outside the window overlooking the garden behind their lodgings.

‘Why are you crying?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, and grabbed his hand and kissed it and told him she loved him.

‘I love you too.’

He could say I love you and mean it, at the same time crying out a silent howl of confusion to the heavens. Who is she? Who am I? What am I doing in this strange land?

‘Oh, I’m all right,’ she said, pulling herself together. ‘I’m perfectly fine,’ and stepped away and began picking at the garland of small white flowers she was adjusting for tomorrow night’s performance.

‘Well, you’ve got a whole day off. What are you going to do?’

‘I think I’ll read for a bit.’

‘Good idea. Put your feet up.’ Theo paced twice about the room.

‘I think I’ll go out,’ he said.

‘Bring me something nice,’ she said, looking up, ‘from the pastry shop.’

‘Not in a hurry, are you? I thought I’d take a stroll around.’

‘Not in the least.’

He went back to the circus, walked about behind the scenes, just strolling with his hands in his pockets, drinking in the smells of the place. Nothing like it. How could he live without this? The circus was in his blood. He’d tried other things, they didn’t work. God! Raising his eyes to the glory of the place. Not so much a circus as a huge palace with columns and frescoes and chandeliers. He’d never forget the sight of her in that ring last night, riding in on a white horse, three times round then dismounting — and — smoothly into the dance as the horse is led away. Such a small thing, Julia in that great space of red curtains and gilt, the tiers of boxes around the ring going higher and higher, back and back, with the toffs and the swells with their jewels at the front, and everyone else behind. Oh, you have cracked the nut, boy, you’ve made it , he told himself. One in the eye for the folks back home . From the circus he walked down to the river, over a bridge, back across another, went into a tavern and sat in a corner with his drink, his suave smile imposing itself upon his face as it did more and more these days, even when his insides were quivering. He drank a few more then walked back, got half way upstairs before remembering about the pastry shop and went back for a couple of sweet buns.

When he got back, she was gone.

He looked in the other room. ‘Julia?’ he said. ‘Julia?’

But there was nowhere she could be. She’d gone out.

He broke out in a sweat.

She knew exactly where to go. Behind the circus, Liliya Grigorievna had said. The street with the barber’s on the corner, and on the other side a draper’s shop. A few doors down, red door, number sixteen. And on the way back from yesterday’s rehearsal she’d seen it plain, as if it wanted to be found so easily, the barber’s corner, the draper’s opposite, a quick glance down the narrow street as they passed. I’ll go now while he’s out, she thought. I’ll just knock on the door and make an appointment, I’m sure she won’t be able to see me straight away. I’ll get back before him, and he’ll never know. Ah, but then I’ll have to get away again, won’t I? One thing at a time.

It was ages since she’d been out alone. Not since the American tour. She walked past the pastry shop. Her bonnet was deep, the veil very thick and long. A young man was swabbing the steps. He smiled and tipped his head to her, respectful, and she nodded back. It wasn’t far.

The door was answered by a very beautiful little girl of eight or nine with long tangled golden ringlets.