Firetale (11 page)

“
Mr. Bernardius, let me get
changed and help the guys. The longer we talk …”

“
Greg,” Lazarus said,
interrupting the magician. Bernardius stared into Greg’s eyes from
the top downward. At such moments, the old man seemed to the
magician a truly otherworldly creature, ancient, observing life
from a height where he could see everything, including small human
joys and big fat sins.

“
Greg, when I was young and lived
in my father’s house, black workers told their children bedtime
stories. Sometimes I tried to eavesdrop unnoticed as they told
these tales.” Lazarus’s voice had softened, and Greg thought he saw
a smile under the rugged ringmaster’s long beard.

“
I really liked the fairy
tale about Tro the
Antelope and Kozo the Tree. Once they were inseparable friends. And
this is how they had become friends. Tro often had to flee from her
pursuers, hunters who preyed on animals. She was very noticeable
because of her height and long horns. Once, the antelope stopped to
rest under a tree and began to tell the tree—Kozo—about her
troubles.

“
‘
Sister
,” said Kozo. ‘I know how to save you. Once you feel in
danger, hide quickly under my branches. They are wide and long, and
hang down to the ground, and will securely hide you.’ Tro thanked
the tree warmly. Afterwards, she often escaped from her enemies
under the protection of her friend. Under his branches she felt
completely safe, since neither man nor beast could see her here.
One morning, the antelope suddenly began to eat Kozo’s leaves.
‘What are you doing, miserable creature?’ asked Kozo. ‘I gave you
refuge, and this is how you repay me!’ ”

“
Tro said nothing in reply and
continued to eat the green branches. And so it was every day. She
ate every day and ate off all the branches she could reach. Tro
understood that with only the smaller leaves on Kozo’s branches,
her shelter was becoming less secure. But the antelope liked the
leaves so much that she could not help herself. A few days passed,
and a hunter came by and immediately noticed the antelope. She
slept soundly under the tree, but the leaves no longer covered her.
The hunter took aim and killed the antelope. So Tro paid with her
life for her ingratitude and carelessness.”

“
I got the story, Mr.
Bernardius,” said Greg.

“
Greg, the circus was created to
protect those like you, me, and Martha. Those you see every day.
For things to remain exactly as they are, there are rules, my
friend. Rules that you tend to break. Greg, I know about your
absence. For now, everything goes smoothly, but if you continue,
you will jeopardize all of us.”

“
I won’t, Mr. Bernardius. No
problems because of me. I swear.” In Lazarus’s eyes anxiety was
replaced with hope. “You know me, I can solve all the problems,”
added Greg before trudging off. Lazarus took a deep breath and
didn’t try to catch the magician. The tentmaster looked longingly
after Greg and then returned to work.

Greg
’s trailer was a few dozen feet away,
but he was so tired and devastated that he felt as if the walk took
him an hour. When he went inside, Martha was cooking something. He
looked at her, and his heart trembled. She wore a light floral
midi-dress. His first gift to her. When she joined the circus, her
entire wardrobe consisted of things given to her by the dancers she
worked with. The girls showed compassion for the cute stranger with
amnesia and collected some clothes for her. Greg did not like these
ultra-short skirts with sequins, which looked as if they were for
adolescents rather than adults, nor did he like the gaudy-colored
cardigans. After Lazarus and Greg took in Martha, the magician
bought a dress for her in the next town they visited, but for a
long time he dared not dare give it to her, for fear of being
misunderstood.

Martha saw Greg, and
her carefree manner
vanished. “You got lost again last night. What clothes are you
wearing? Are you okay?”

“
Don’t worry, I’m fine. You know,
my fire will not let me down.” Greg was trying to be lighthearted,
but Martha was not amused.

“
I know you’re reckless, Greg.”
She tried to maintain a strict look, but couldn’t.

“
You know, I’m very tired,” said
Greg and he sat down on a sofa. Martha sat down next to him and
hugged him. Greg felt the darkness dissipating in his chest, as the
fatigue of a sleepless night retreated. His thoughts became clear
and devoid of anguish and pain. A moment later, he fell
asleep.

Martha lived on the outskirts
of
a town
populated with losers who barely made ends meet. The place was
quiet but dirty, and, once there, Lazarus and Greg immediately knew
in which shack they needed to look for the girl. Her house was
cleaner than the others. The other houses’ lawns looked trampled,
while hers was green and neat with some flowers randomly growing on
it. To Greg the entire area looked like a black-and-white
photograph in the center of which, where Martha lived, an artist
had drawn a bright, colorful house.

Martha lived with a neighbor, a
woman, also a dancer from the bar,
who sheltered her when no one else would
let a stranger without ID on their doorstep. The neighbor was
delighted with Martha, and excitedly told the two men about how her
life had changed since her friendship with her. She had quit using
drugs, stopped dating with wrong guys, and began to save some
money, which she hoped would allow her to move to another city, the
farther away the better, where she would not have to make a living
dancing half-naked around a pole.

To Greg
’s surprise, Martha confided in
Lazarus at once. And when the circus manager offered her a job, she
accepted without hesitation. The moment she said yes, Greg’s heart
almost broke in his chest, but he did not dare show his emotions.
Martha’s neighbor begged Lazarus to take her as well, if not as an
employee, then at least as far as their next destination, but
Lazarus gently refused her. Greg knew why. The circus was not a
place for ordinary people. He wondered if Martha had ever suspected
that she was a demionis.

In the circus
, the girl immediately became a
universal favorite. Demionis felt no great love for each other, but
Martha was accepted as if everybody had been waiting a long time
for her to show up. After she joined the circus, everything
mysteriously improved. Even the old wyvern stopped spitting fire
when he was in a bad mood, and Blanche and Black had fewer quarrels
with melonheads. The only one who shunned the girl was Greg. He did
not realize it until the day she first spoke to him.

Lazar
us had sent the regular advance
team—Zinnober, Greg, and Martha—to some town, where they had to
perform the usual tasks: tell the locals about the circus, paste up
posters, hand out flyers. Greg attracted attention by performing
free tricks on the street, which invariably drew many kids. No one
could refuse to take a flyer from Zinnober, seeing him as the
perfect man. Martha’s flyers were snapped up immediately, as soon
as someone drew close to her. Usually, the three separated to reach
more people, and did not meet while in a town. When the business
was done, they met at the car and returned to the circus. But this
time, while showing tricks to some students on their way home after
school, Greg noticed Martha. While he was wondering how they came
to be in the same part of town, the girl approached him.

“
Hey, Greg!” said
Martha.

“
Hi.”

“
I noticed that you’ve been kind
of avoiding me.”

“
Me? Why? You’re trying to fly
away from me, like a butterfly from the flames,” Greg said, blowing
a fiery cobweb out of his wrist Spider-Man style. The trick
fascinated the children.

“
Well, I’m not. I’m no more
afraid of your fire than these children are. But you’re afraid of
me.”

Greg realized she was
right. He was afraid
that he was too bad, too evil for her. It seemed that even Blanche
and Black, whose eerie past he had learned about from the
archivist, had more right to associate with her than he did. Greg
tried to convince himself that these thoughts were pure nonsense,
because he had never been ashamed of what he was doing. But the
fear of being too wicked rose again, and he felt like a helpless
pimpled boy too frightened to approach the queen of the
ball.

Martha looked into his eyes for the first
time since they met, and smiled. “Don’t be afraid of me, Greg.” Her
smile defeated his fear. He realized that his interest in her was
mutual. And since then they had been together.

Returning to the city, they
ha
d fun
joking about this and that, and only Zinnober silently watched the
dull landscape outside the Galaxie Skyliner.

Martha
soon tired of just being part of the
advance team. She was fascinated by the circus and begged Lazarus
to give her the opportunity to perform. She considered flexibility
to be her forte and decided to become an aerialist. So Martha
became the first artist of the “Lazarus Bernardius’ Circus” who did
not use the abilities or the appearance of a demionis for
performances. Her trapeze acts under the dome, alone and without a
safety wire, always thrilled crowds, and people watched the show
with excitement and bated breath. Martha had always been confident
in her skills, but Greg convinced her to improve her act. Ever
since the magician had discovered his ability to manipulate fire,
he ceased to be afraid of anything. But meeting Martha, he felt
fear again—the fear of losing her. It was a new feeling for him. He
was not used to being afraid for someone. Greg used fire to protect
people, but never because of any affection for them.

The trick was called
“Escape from the
Fire Serpent.” Martha was a princess kidnapped by a dragon. The
fire monster picked up the girl from the center of the arena and
took her to the very dome of the circus, where it left her on a
tiny platform on which it was only possible to stand or sit. A few
meters from the platform began a maze of trapezes and ropes strung
at different heights above the arena. Martha covered the distance
between the platform and the first trapeze, swung on it, and jumped
to the rope. And then, as if she were a character who had jumped
from a computer game, she mastered all the obstacles and made it to
the tapes of the dense fabric, which she unwound as she descended
to the ground. During the “escape,” the fiery serpent, sent flying
by Greg, circled around the girl. The monster rose from the arena
and then tried to snatch the girl from the trapezes, then it
circled around in impotent rage, making figure eights.

In fact, Greg
had invented the
“Fire Serpent” to protect Martha. Like the trick with the dove, the
snake made of flames was harmless to humans, and if Martha fell
from a trapeze, the fire monster would have easily caught her in
the air and delivered her to the ground unharmed. Greg knew that
Martha suspected his real intentions, although she never said so,
and he was grateful for it.

Soon it became apparent to everyone in the
circus that Greg and Martha were together. Both were happy, but
Greg sometimes was tortured by doubts. Murders. He could not
abandon them, though the desire to kill was not so strong when
Martha was around. He felt that Martha not only gave him relief but
also tied him to the circus. He had never thought of the circus as
his home, only as a convenient refuge from which, if necessary, he
could easily escape. But Martha’s appearance changed everything.
They were attracted to each other like darkness and light. He had
always considered the statement “opposites attract” absolute
nonsense, but with Martha, he felt complete. Now escape from the
circus meant tearing himself in half. And he did not dare take
Martha with him. She loved the circus, and everybody in the circus
loved her. Greg did not want to take from Martha everything she
loved, dooming her to a life with a killer, wandering
aimlessly.

Martha was sympathetic
to Greg’s
disappearances. He was amazed at her complete trust in him, but for
her it was natural.

“
I do not know what you’re doing
when you leave. But when you come back, you’re full of darkness. I
know that you can’t live without it, and I’ll protect you from the
darkness, which brings only pain, but one day I’ll find a way to
save you,” she told him once.

When Greg woke up, Martha was
lying next to him, nestled against his shoulder, embracing him. Her
breath was warm and serene. He tried to get up without waking her.
Greg
was
surprised at how awkward he was as he tried not to disturb her
sleep. He had slipped from Martha’s embrace and put his feet on the
floor when the girl’s warm hand went up his back and ruffled his
hair.

“
You’re not sleeping?” he
said.

“
Of course not.” Martha turned on
the bed, and her summer dress rode up, revealing her thighs. Greg
did not deny himself the pleasure looking at them.

“
Well, if you’re awake …” he
drawled with a smile.

“
I’m thinking the same,” she
said, pulling him to her and kissing him.

Record made on 12/16/1923

Archivist: Luca