Wonder Show (11 page)

“Is that what you think I am?”

“Aren’t you? Nothing wrong with it.”

But it sounded wrong to Portia, like an insult or a bad joke, to be so easily identified with other strangers. People who had come and gone and left no mark. People who had simply disappeared into the past and never been seen again.

“You don’t know anything about me,” she snapped. “You don’t know why I’m here or where I’ve come from, and you don’t want to know. You want me to keep my secrets? Fine. But don’t accuse me of hiding something when you’re the one who told me to mind my own business.”

“I didn’t—” Gideon started, but Portia was already striding away.

“Wait!” he shouted, and then she heard his feet thumping the dry ground as he ran up behind her and grabbed her shoulder. His hold was firm, but careful, and Portia willed herself to stand still, to feel her own bones beneath his hand, before turning to face him.

“I didn’t mean—” he stammered. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve seen a lot of folks come through here, acting like they care about the show and then running off again. Couple of ’em turned out to be reporters. Just wanted to take pictures of the freaks and put them in the newspaper.” He scuffed his shoe in the dirt. “There aren’t that many good reasons for normals wanting to join up with the sideshow, y’know. Mostly they’re after something.”

He looked at her.

“That’s not why I’m here,” Portia said quietly.

“Then why?”

“I—” The words, again, pushed at her from the inside, wanting to get out. “I’m looking for my father.”

Gideon seemed relieved, as if he’d been afraid that Portia’s reason was something insidious, something much worse than a lost parent. “Does he work for the circus?”

It was a simple question, one that Portia had tried not to ask herself too directly. Because the truth was that she did not know whether Max really had joined up with a circus, much less
this
circus. She did not know if he was here, or within a thousand miles of here, or even if he was alive. Her throat burned, and she swallowed hard.

“I don’t know where he is,” she whispered. “I just . . . I had to find a place to look for him. And he loved the circus, once.”

“It’s as good a place as any,” Gideon said, “to look for someone. You’ll see, tonight. It’s empty now, but pretty soon there’ll be people everywhere, more than you can count. I can help you, if you want.”

She shook her head, but smiled. “Jackal wants me by the stage, so I can keep an eye out.”

“Well, I’m working the ticket wagon tonight, so I’ll see everyone except the folks who sneak in. If you change your mind—”

“Thank you,” Portia said. She couldn’t say why, but she felt that this was her work to do, that if anyone was going to find Max in the crowd, it should be her. It must be her. Besides, how could she describe him to Gideon, tell him who to look for, when she didn’t have a picture to show? Even the picture in her head was more than five years old, and five years could change a person. She doubted Max would recognize
her.

She could only hope that, if he did set foot on the midway that night, she would find a way to see him, to know him, and this time, not to let him leave without her.

Inside

That evening Portia went inside for the first time.

Jackal said she needed to observe his methods before she could make any attempt at her own bally, and he told her to bring a quarter for admission. But Portia was not about to surrender any of her precious savings to follow Jackal’s orders, even with the added bonus of finally having her curiosity satisfied. It was unheard of for Jackal to give anybody anything for free. But he had become addicted to having a pupil. So he relented, and Portia became the only nonpaying sideshow spectator in the history of the Wonder Show.

The crowd had been drawn, as they were meant to be, by Mosco’s and Marie’s acts. They were the pit show, designed to entice passing rubes with their strange and marvelous tricks. Portia stood to one side of the stage. She thought again of The Pinhead and the accordion, the strains of tinny music reaching her ears as she sat high on the stranger’s shoulders. She glanced at the faces below—she could see everyone, but it was like looking into a forest from far away, impossible to distinguish one tree from another. Still, she scanned the crowd, searching for anyone she recognized.

It would be impossible to find someone,
Portia thought,
if you lost them here.
She looked again behind the carnival games, past the place where she knew the trucks were parked, into the blackest dark. And she felt such despair that she had to close her eyes.

The night voices threatened to speak again, and she fought them off.

One night at a time,
she told herself.
The world is smaller than it seems.

As Anna gathered her sister Marie’s knives and exited the stage, the rubes whispered and shuffled nervously, unsure of what they would see next.

And Jackal went to work.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, friends and neighbors,” he bellowed, “allow me to change your lives!”

It was key to have an opening line that was just this side of unbelievable. Did the rubes think their lives would really change because of what was in the tent? Of course not. Did they want to risk missing out, just in case it was something truly spectacular? Of course not.

Portia saw the midway crowd draw almost imperceptibly closer. Elevated above them, in his blinding white suit and bowler, both hands on the podium as if he were just barely able to contain his excitement, Jackal looked every bit like the preacher salesman that he was.

“That’s right, folks, change your lives, that’s what I said. For inside the tent behind me sits a stage full of the strangest people you have ever seen. Seeing is believing, folks, but you won’t believe your eyes. It’s the most marvelous collection of human oddities this side of the equator.”

A murmur rippled across the crowd, equal parts doubt and interest. This was the balance Jackal wanted to upset in his favor. “It’s like making cheese,” he’d told Portia. “You want to skim the bad stuff off the top and get to the parts that’ll give you what you want.” The first to go: anyone with young children.

“Not for the faint of heart, folks,” Jackal warned. “If you’re prone to nightmares or you’ve got a weak ticker, you’d best move on.”

A few mothers clucked their tongues and gathered their offspring immediately. “Let’s go see the elephants again,” one said.

“I wanna see the freaks!” her son wailed.

The woman gave Jackal a disapproving look over her shoulder as she led the disappointed boy away by the arm. Portia smiled a little, thinking of the mothers of Brewster Falls calling their children away from the road when she came flying by on the red bicycle.

“That’s okay, son,” Jackal called after them. “You come back by yourself next year!”

Some of the men in the crowd chuckled.

“Listen up, folks. We’ve got a six-in-one to beat the band. This is what your neighbors will be talking about at the grocery store and the dancehall, and even”—Jackal winked—“at the church social. This is what you’ll tell your grandkids about when they ask you for your best stories. They’ll say, ‘Tell me a story,’ and you’ll say, ‘Have I told you about the time I saw the fattest woman in the world and The Wild Albinos of Bora Bora?’ Yes, sir. Yes, ma’am. This is where it’s at.”

He lowered his voice just a bit, hitting a conspiratorial tone. “And would you believe you can see every one of these marvelous marvels for only a quarter?”

The next to go: anyone without a quarter. Or the willingness to spend it.

There was still a decently large crowd, though, and Jackal gestured to the podium, where Anna waited to collect the money in a tin can while he went inside to wait for his audience.

Portia stepped off the side of the stage and joined the slow herd of spectators entering the six-in-one.

It was hot.

It smelled like sawdust.

The crowd inched forward as if they had been set to slow motion.

It was darker than the waning day outside, and the sounds dimmed, too. None of the happy chatter, the vendors calling out, the music, the animals. There was only the low buzz of urgent whispers, the occasional stifled laugh. And then, before Portia’s eyes had even adjusted, Jackal began to speak. “Step in, step in, folks! Plenty of room for everyone!”

Portia could see now that the tent was much bigger than it needed to be. It was mostly empty, even with Jackal’s voice pouring into every corner. There was one long stage laid down the middle, like a giant dining room table, with room on all sides for walking around. Room for the rubes to see the freaks from every angle. The entrance brought them to the front of the stage, where Mrs. Murphy sat in a plush blue wingback chair.

Portia knew she should be listening to Jackal—that was why he had let her in, so she could witness his ballyhoo—but something about seeing her new companions at work, lined up on the stage like a buffet, made it difficult to concentrate.

Mrs. Murphy was looking very intently into her lap, and as Portia was drawn forward, she saw the woman’s hands moving steadily, rhythmically. Needlepoint. She was working on her needlepoint.

Portia thought of the dozens of needlepoint pillows in Mrs. Murphy’s trailer and began to feel a little ill.

There was a small placard fixed to the front of the stage.
EMMELINE MURPHY,
it said.
BEARDED LADY.

The man in front of her elbowed his friend. “Her beard’s better-looking than yours, Fred!” They both barked with laughter.

He’s right,
Portia thought. Mrs. Murphy’s beard was red and gold, so silky it glowed like an oil painting.

Still, Mrs. Murphy did not look up.

Mrs. Collington, on the other hand, smiled and waved so the flesh under her arm danced hypnotically. No one waved back, so Portia raised her hand to say hello, but the expression on Mrs. Collington’s face didn’t change, even a little bit. Then Portia realized that she wasn’t waving to the crowd. Or at least, she wasn’t looking at the crowd. She was looking over their heads—giving the appearance of being happy to see them, of being the friendly, jolly fat lady they expected and had paid to see.

MRS. COLLINGTON,
her placard said.
800 POUNDS.

Jimmy and Jim were, of course, next to each other, labeled
WORLD’S SMALLEST MAN
and
IRISH GIANT
. Portia wondered if Jim was in fact the tallest man in the world but had to admit she’d never seen anyone taller and probably neither had anyone else in the crowd, so who were they to argue? He looked rather sad and resigned to sitting there and letting people stare at his ankles, which showed because his pants were never long enough. Even though he made them himself. He always underestimated how tall he really was.

Jimmy could have had the opposite problem, out of wishing to be taller, but his clothes fit him flawlessly. He was very distinguished from toe to neck and all scowls above the collar. He gave Portia an especially fierce glare, and she glared back until the crowd forced her to keep walking.

Move along,
the crowd was saying.
Let us be done with this. And get a good long look while we’re here.

So on they went, past the
WILD ALBINOS OF BORA BORA,
who stood like dignified statues. Even Joseph. On they went, whispering, pointing, laughing nervously, until they came to the end of the stage and found themselves at a dark curtain. Jackal was waiting.

“Behind this door,” he said, low so everyone had to strain to hear him, “is the sixth and greatest act in our distinguished display. A true wonder of nature awaits you. The sight is yours for a single dollar. One dollar, folks. That’s all it’ll cost you for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But I warn you: you will never be the same after this. Enter. If. You. Dare.

“Otherwise,” he added in a flat tone, “you may exit to my right.”

About half of the crowd had had enough wonders of nature already. No one complained about having paid a quarter and seeing only five freaks. They simply extracted themselves and walked silently, carefully out of the tent, back to the evening light and the midway and the normal things of the normal world they lived in. There was a burst of noise when the tent flap was lifted, and then it dropped and the close quiet of this other realm was restored.

“Now,” Jackal said, grinning, “we see who the real men are.”

For it was only men who remained. Except for Portia.

Perhaps they had heard the stories of other carnivals, had heard about the blowoff, the final act in the freak show that cost extra and often involved some half-naked exotic woman. A woman with a tail or a third breast. A woman who was somehow both a woman and a man, top half and bottom half or, even stranger, divided down the middle.

Portia knew better, though. Because she hadn’t seen Polly and Pippa on the stage with the rest of the cast. And they had to be somewhere.

Portia waited until all the men were through and stepped up to Jackal. He gave her the eyebrow again.

“End of the line for you,” he said.

“Jackal,” she said. “Let me through.”

“Not a bloody chance,” he replied. There was something behind his smile, a secret behind a steel door. He would not relent, Portia could see that. But she had rarely come to a door and not tried to open it.

“But you want me to know,” she reminded him. “You want me to bring the customers back here. I have to know what I’m talking about, don’t I?”

“Go,” he told her. “Walk around. Blend in. Listen up. See what they’re seeing, how they’re seeing it. You’ve got to know your audience.”

“I’ve seen the lot. I know it already.”

“Not at night, you don’t. You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen the lot at night.” Jackal pointed at the exit and smiled again. “It’s that way.”

Then, as she turned to go, he spat, “And they’re not
customers.
They’re
rubes.
Don’t ever forget that.”