Carol Birch - Orphans of the Carnival

‘Of course.’ A half shrug, less sure of itself.

They sat in mutual contemplation after that, till the moment had grown intimately peculiar. She was nowhere near as hairy as Julia, he realised. Her throat and chest, what he could see of it, were smooth and white but the back of the hand fiddling with a strand of her hair was covered in a dark down, as was the arm revealed by the falling back of her sleeve.

‘I’ll take you,’ she said suddenly. ‘Shall I tell you why?’

So easy!

‘Oh please, do.’ It starts again. Glory be. He felt a smile wrap itself across his face.

‘Because,’ she said, ‘I would stand on my head singing nursery rhymes if it got me out of here.’

Impulsively, he reached across and took her hand. It was tiny and hairy, like Julia’s, and the feel of it gave him a jolt in the chest. ‘I’ll take you away,’ he said earnestly. ‘You’ll travel. See things.’

‘I’d have gone with the others too,’ she said. ‘You’re not the first. But I never got the chance.’

She was dying of boredom, the old man never let her out.

‘Let me make one thing clear,’ she said. ‘I’m nobody’s monkey.’

The wedding took place discreetly in the large parlour of Marie’s father’s house. Her mother, a pale scrawny woman, wept silently throughout, glancing nervously at him from time to time as if he was death himself come to bear her child away. A gaggle of children smirked and nudged each other. The priest, hearty and florid, did his best to pretend this was a wedding like any other, while her father was positively elated. After all, thought Theo, noting the gleam in the old man’s rheumy eyes, he couldn’t wait to get rid of her. When it was all over and the carriage drew up in front of the house, her little brothers and sisters — there seemed to be many — finally realising that she was going away, burst into a caterwaul of grief, gathered round her and clung to her skirts. Her mother mournfully embraced her. Marie smiled indulgently, casting a quick shrewd sideways glance at Theo, returned the embrace briskly, kissed each child in turn then turned to her father.

‘Goodbye, Papi,’ she said.

‘Liebling,’ he said, hugging her closely but briefly then kissing her on both cheeks. ‘Be happy.’

‘I will.’

She smiled as she veiled, then ran down the steps and into the carriage.

‘I don’t want her put on display like an object,’ the old man said, following Theo down the steps.

‘Of course not,’ said Theo. The old man would be mad not to realise she’d end up on a stage. Of course he knew. You don’t marry your bearded daughter to a showman and expect her to live a normal life. ‘Anyway.’ Theo turned to shake the old man’s hand before joining her in the carriage. ‘Do you really imagine anyone could make Marie do anything she didn’t want to?’

The old man smiled. And when all the waving was done and they were on their way, Marie put back her veil and laughed. ‘I’m free!’ she said. After that she was glued to the window, a smile on her face, watching the new world roll by. They’d make easy stages from Stuttgart to Munich, from there on to Lake Mondsee for a month-long honeymoon. Then Vienna. You can have dance lessons there, he said. The first night in Pforzheim, he took the best room in the hotel and ordered a lavish meal to be sent up with two bottles of champagne. She ate steadily, calmly. If she was sad about leaving her family it didn’t show.

‘Do you like the chicken?’ he asked.

‘Very nice.’ She looked up. ‘The broth’s delicious.’

‘See how good life can be, Marie,’ he said, ‘how much you’ve been missing.’

She put down her spoon. ‘Do you think I didn’t eat well at home?’

‘Not at all. I’m not just talking about the food. You’re going to see the world. Meet people. Wait until Munich, we’ll go to the theatre. You’ll love it.’ He remembered saying all these things to Julia. ‘Have you ever been to the theatre?’

She laughed without humour. ‘Me? A prisoner?’

He felt sorry for her. ‘Didn’t he let you go out at all?’

She looked away. ‘Once or twice.’

God!

‘It must have been very dull for you — locked in your high tower.’

‘Oh, believe me,’ she said, ‘it was. Thank God you came along, that’s all I can say. My prince on horseback.’ She looked at him and laughed suddenly. ‘Not that you look it.’

He felt slightly insulted. Count yourself lucky, he wanted to say.

‘Our plans then?’ she said. ‘We sail on the lake. We walk in the hills. We go to Vienna, I learn to dance. And then?’

‘We taste liberty, Marie,’ he said, judging the moment ripe for a touch of romance, ‘we become as gypsies, not a care in the world. Oh, you have no idea! The music, the crowds, the call of the new, the magic of the next bend in the road. The rain on the roof of a wagon, the neighing of horses, the—’

‘And I sing and dance?’

‘Yes. But not till you’re ready. You’ll be wonderful.’

‘You haven’t heard me sing,’ she said. ‘Listen,’ and launched into a spirited soprano ‘Wanderlied’. Her voice was ragged round the edges but easily passable.

‘Oh you’ll do fine, didn’t I know it,’ he laughed, applauding. ‘Wonderful!’

She broke off. ‘Your hunch,’ she said.

‘My hunch.’

‘Look,’ she said, ‘I want to make a lot of money. Then I’ll quit. I’m only going to do it for a few years then I’m going to settle down and have a nice comfortable life.’

‘A perfect plan,’ he replied. ‘If you want to make a lot of money, there’s something you must do.’

She raised an eyebrow.

‘The name Pastrana is known all over Europe. All over Russia. No one knows Marie Bartel.’

‘And?’

‘The name is the draw. You are Marie Pastrana, sister of the renowned Julia.’

She frowned, then laughed. ‘I don’t care,’ she said. ‘They can call me anything they like, so long as they come.’

Theo stood, fetched the second bottle of champagne, his nerves fizzing up like the bubbles as he popped the cork. Oh, this was going to be easy! It was all coming back, that feeling, possibility, excitement, the sound of the wheels of his golden coach approaching over long hard roads.

‘Not Marie, she said. ‘Something more exotic.’

‘Yes!’ He poured. Her glass overflowed, and she held it away from herself.

‘Zenora,’ she said. ‘I’ll be Zenora.’

Two weeks by the lake had a soothing effect. Marie liked to linger on their balcony, half sitting, half lying, reading a book, or leaning forward with her arms on the rail and her head on her arms, a dreamy smile on her face, watching the people walk up and down by the lakeside far below. She was so pleased to be out in the world that she could be perfectly content to stay like this for hours, and the view was beautiful. Sometimes, veiled, she walked out with him, and it was like walking with a ghost, Theo thought, this small veiled thing on his arm, just like the good old days. Once, they hired a boat and he rowed out very far from shore, and she sang, old things he didn’t know. Not bad. Not bad at all. Give her six months, she’d be ready. It would be easy to pass her off to the rubes. She was covered with hair and that was all that mattered to them. But she was nothing like Julia. She didn’t have that same great maw. In bed, she was curious and frank and unnervingly preoccupied with herself, her body more feminine than Julia’s, her face more masculine. It was better with Julia.

‘There’s something I have to tell you,’ he said one night when they had just made love. She was lounging in bed; he was up, wandering about in his dressing gown smoking a cigar and stopping every now and then to look out of the window at a far mountain against the dark sky. How to tell?