Conrad Aiken - The Collected Short Stories of Conrad Aiken

Even at that distance, I could see that Paul must be right. There was something regal in the proud and careless stance of the two blue figures. They stood there above the crowd with a sort of indolent patrician contempt; you feel the same thing in a caged lion or tiger at the zoo. And when we had descended the steep stairway, which quartered down the face of the little cliff, and had pressed through the crowds of merry-makers round the gambling booths and coconut-shy, and came to the foot of the red plush dais, it was at once evident to me that not only had Paul not exaggerated, but that he was guilty of an understatement. The boy and girl—for they seemed hardly more than that—were blindingly, angelically, beautiful. Angelically, because they were both so incredibly fair, so blond, so blue-eyed—but also because there was a fierce purity about them, something untamable, almost unchallengeable. Vikings, yes—Paul had hit the nail on the head, as usual. And the effect was further heightened—now that I looked again—by the fact that the girl, who was otherwise dressed exactly as the boy was, in a blue shirt open at the throat, and loosely fitting dark blue trousers, wore a snug little blue hat, which sat very close to her fair head, with bright silver wings at either side. The effect was really magical; for as she looked over our heads, undazzled by the brilliance of the spotlight in which she stood, it was as if she were already in swift motion, already positively flying. She was speed itself—she was an arrow. And her eyes were the bluest, and the fiercest, I have ever seen.

Meanwhile, the boy had raced the engine of his motor-bike three or four times with a shattering roar, the ticket seller announced through a little megaphone that the performance, the last of the evening, would begin, and people were climbing up the rickety stairs that led to the top of the great varnished cylinder which was called the Drome of Death. A perfect cat’s cradle of wire stays tethered it to earth—I noticed that these, like the wall of the Drome itself, seemed to be brand new—a fact which subsequently, of course, was verified. The boy and girl wheeled their motor-bikes along the runway to a door in the Drome, which an assistant clamped fast behind them, Paul bought the two tickets, and we hurried up the stairs.

“Do you mean to say they’re going to ride round in this mere barrel?” I said, as we seated ourselves, and looked down into the wooden interior. Viewed from the rim, it really looked like an enormous dice-cup. The two vikings stood beside their motorbikes, wiping their hands.

“Of course. Nothing but centrifugal force—quite simple, really, I believe—they’ve been doing it for years in the States—but just the same it gives you quite a thrill. And those two people —my God, did you ever see anything like them? Look at that girl! Look at the way she stands there! Like a flame, my boy—she’s like a flame. And he’s really just as fine—they’re married, I think.”

“Married? Those children?”

“Well, she’s wearing a ring—you’ll see it when she comes up here.”

“Comes up here?”

“Right to the top, almost up to the top—that’s why they’ve got this guard-wire here.…”

The boy, his fair cool face turned upward, was saying:

“—you see how it is—the risks are thought to be too great, and therefore we are unable to obtain any insurance whatever. No life insurance company will take us—no matter what the premium. That is why I ask you to make any contribution you can, no matter how small—it simply goes into a separate fund which we keep in case of accident.”

He stood there, looking up, calmly and as if appraisingly—one hand resting lightly on his hip—the girl was leaning idly, indifferently, against her motor-bike, not looking anywhere, and visibly bored—it was all quite extraordinary. A cultured voice, too, clear and firm—the accent that of a gentleman. Pennies, sixpences, a few shillings, fell spinning and rolling into the Drome—he said “thank you—thank you—” as he stooped unhurryingly, and with irreproachable dignity, to pick them up. The girl watched him, unmoving, for a second or two, and then began examining her fingernails.

She remained like that, too, exactly like that, at the center of the Drome, while he started his motor-bike, rode with increasing speed round and round the tilted floor at the bottom, and then suddenly was circling round the wall itself. The uproar was deafening. The pent-up racket of the motor-bike would have been quite enough by itself—but in addition the Drome began to creak terrifyingly under that swift rush of pressure and weight, and you could see it actually changing in shape as the rider flashed round the gleaming walls. Higher and higher he came, spiraling always nearer, until at last he was roaring past us within arm’s reach of the top, the hot gust beating against our faces and gone and then back again, his fair hair blown back like a flag. And then he was dipping downward again: and had taken his hands off the handlebars; and his arms outspread, was circling as easily as a swallow. It was as beautiful, and looked just as easy, as that. It was pure flight.

I was just going to say something like this to Paul, and just thinking to myself that swallows alone, of all birds, seem to use flight for pure pleasure, when I happened to look at the girl. She had not moved. The proud face, under its silver wings, was turned slightly aside and downward, she again examined her fingernails, still leaning idly against her tilted machine, only once did she glance upward toward the moving figure above her; and then it was a glance not so much directed toward him as beyond him. Was she—as she appeared—so completely indifferent to him? Or was the whole behavior merely professional? It did not change when he dropped down, slowing, to the tilted floor, and came to a stop beside her—nor when he said something to her, in a low voice, either. Something very brief, only a word or two—he looking straight at her, she looking away—instructions, perhaps, or a word of advice. She simply continued to look away, as if through the walls, while he was announcing to us, in his polite and cultured voice, that he and his wife were the first in the world to ride two motor-bicycles simultaneously in the Drome of Death—adding, as a cautionary note, that it would be as well if the spectators would keep a little back of the guard-wire. And then, in another moment or two, the girl had mounted her machine, and was circling with greater and greater speed for her first strike onto the wall, and—flash!—she was already there, and the two bright wings were swiftly mounting toward us. It seemed to me that she had rushed the whole attack on the perpendicular wall much more rapidly than he had—or could I be mistaken? And that even now she was traveling faster. In next to no time she was whizzing round the very top, barely below the guard-wire, the beautiful viking face fixed in a sort of fierce serenity of speed, the loose blue collar blown back from the white throat; and then, below, the other machine had suddenly shot upwards; and in an indescribable uproar which seemed to be racking the walls to pieces the two flying figures circled and recircled, one above the other—the girl keeping rigidly at one level, the boy alternately dipping and soaring. One didn’t know which of them to watch—the rapt face above, or the more brilliant performance of the boy below. But now, one had to watch him for once more he was sailing like a bird, with his hands off the handlebars, and now too he was taking something out of his pocket—it was a square of black silk, a black handkerchief, fluttering as fiercely as if it were flame in its attempt to escape from his hands, the two hands holding it up before his face. Yes—he was actually going to blindfold himself! The black square blew over his face, over his eyes, and was held stiffly there by the sheer speed at which he was moving, and now again, his arms outspread at either side, he swooped like a swallow round the shining Drome, easily, effortlessly, while the girl above, traveling a little more slowly, for the first time seemed to be watching him.…