Paper Dolls (5 page)

“Can you tell my fortune?” I ask her.

I have never had my future foretold, but I would very much like to hear it—especially of a future away from the circus. I don’t even mind if her words are just a silly bit of flibberty-flabber. I still want to hear that I get away from all of this. She nods her assent.

There is no room in my trailer to set out her cards, so I take her to find a suitable place for fortune-telling. We wind our way through the tents and trailers and empty stalls. In the fields beyond the big tent, circus clowns practice their leaps and tumbles. They wear Pierrot-style costumes with pointed caps and diamond-patterned costumes. In the deep light, they look quite magical—as though there is a twilight world where people spend their hours perfecting performances that no one will ever see. The men wear their hair longish, instead of donning the awful fuzzy wigs that clowns of other circus’s wear.

Cousin Henry and Audette are locked in bitter argument inside their trailer. Audette’s voice is rising to a screech. I know how it will end. It will end with noisy sex with their trailer door left wide open for everyone to see.

My mother sits outside her trailer in her wicker wheelchair— puffing on a cigar and laughing with a group of black jazz musicians. I can tell from the tone of her laughter that she’s drunk. Grandfather tells me she's lonely. Perhaps she is, but she is never lonely enough to converse with me for more than a minute at a time.

My governess, Miss Kitty, sits primly inside her trailer and sets out books. As the spinster aunt of my mother, she had no options in life. She was given the role of teaching all the younger performers their daily lessons. I am the only one who actually attends the lessons. She isn’t very good. She’s obsessed with obscure philosophers and Greek tragedies and doesn’t seem to teach much of anything else. She has insisted on teaching me etiquette though, and I take weekly lessons on things such as setting a table properly and the art of waltzing. Like my English mother, she speaks very proper English, but that is where the similarities between her and my mother begin and end.

I find a small table for Madame Celia near the workers’ tents. The workers are busy with putting up the big top now. They won’t play their rowdy games of poker and euchre until much later in the night.

We seat ourselves opposite each other at the table and she sets out her cards. She studies them carefully for a moment.

“Ah, Cherie, you have had an interesting life. On the road for many years, no?”

“I’ve been on the road ever since I can remember,” I say wistfully.

Her expression changes, and she frowns as though trying to push a thought from her head. Her eyes close and she reaches for my hand, cards scattering as she does so. Perspiration beads on her forehead and chin. When she opens her eyes, the color of them is changed, deepened.

Her fingers grasp so tightly my hand hurts.

“You are soon to take a train into Mexico….”

I nod. "Yes, grandfather told me we’re heading through the Copper Canyon."

Her mouth sounds dry when she says, "You must not go."

I try to take my hand away but she refuses to release it. "Of course I must go. I go wherever the circus travels."

“None of you must take this journey!”

“I don’t like this fortune very much, Madame Celia.” I struggle to stay polite.

“Vous ne comprenez pas! I am no longer telling you your fortunes.” She shakes her head violently. “There are things I have seen before, things of nightmares. Things that cannot possibly
be
. Things beyond this world. There are people in your circus meddling in things they don't understand."

"You're frightening me."

I will her to stop and tell me the fortune I wanted to hear. But her pale eyes glaze and widen with fear.

"Your grandfather—he must not take the circus train into the Mexican mountains. I see him. I see him taking possession of an item. I cannot see the item clearly but I sense it holds a key—a key to things that should never be unlocked. Terrible things. I see a great affliction infesting the entire world."

I jump up from the table, almost sending it toppling. “You’re mad!”

She draws her wrap close under her chin, eyeing me in horror. “And you… Que Dieu nous aide!”

I don’t want to hear more. I back away from her but I can’t release myself from her gaze.

She stares into me, stares right through me. “I see death coming for you in this year. But not a natural death. Non Cherie, you will not die a natural death…."

Grandfather—the ringmaster—asks the audience for another round of applause for S
parrow
and
Conrado
. We take bows to another round of cheering. My father gave me the performer’s name, Sparrow, when I was small. I don’t know Conrado’s real name, but that’s normal for the circus. People here find their identity in performing—all else is just waiting or travelling between shows.

A group of jazz musicians play to the side of the big top rings. It’s time to perform what Henry calls
the dance of the seven veils upside-down
. Conrado unties seven brightly-colored lengths of silken material from a horizontal ring—the lengths almost falling to the ground. I leap onto a sash. The spotlight follows me as I twirl and spin from sash to sash. If I fall, I could end up in a wheelchair like my mother—or worse—I could die. Madame Celia’s fortune-telling crashes through my mind. I have to banish these bad thoughts. Bad thoughts are poison in the circus. A moment’s loss of concentration could cause you to slip.

Upside-down, I watch my mother as she fans herself and smiles coquettishly at one of the saxophonists. She takes a microphone and begins to sing a jazz song in what she calls her slow and sensual voice. We used to always use classical music for my seven-veils performance, but my mother insisted we move with the times. How my mother developed a talent for singing, I do not know. I think she wanted to keep herself viable to the circus. Her voice sounds more husky and harsh than sensual.

For a moment, I think I see Madame Celia amongst the audience. But her seat is empty when I look that way again.

I move onto my finale—a series of fast spins whilst hanging downwards on one sash. I hang my entire body off the sash except for one leg, and throw my arms out as though I am reveling in the moment. Blood rushes to my head and I see the audience only as lines of flashing color. The spin sends me to the brink of a dizzying faint.

The crowd hushes for a moment, and then breaks into riotous applause as I slide down the sash to take my bows. Wafts of popcorn and beer and stale soda assail my nostrils. Already, the crowd is restless, scanning the rings for the next performance. Grandfather announces the clowns and the magic act.

Groups of human Pierrot clowns move into the two outside rings with two of the small elephants and begin their routines.

Henry strides into the center ring brandishing a red cape. As usual, he wears the heavy makeup of the clowns, even though he is the circus’s only magician. I wonder if he wears it so that no one recognizes him outside the circus. Henry always seems to be either involved in shady deals or involved with someone’s teenage daughter.

Audette follows Henry in her silly mincing little skip. She is dressed in a new pink satin leotard and black striped stockings. Her breasts are pushed up, looking like a couple of fat half-moons sitting on her chest.

Henry introduces them both as Horatio and Audette. Audette apparently isn’t worthy of any special name.

Two clowns push a long, wooden box into the ring. The box sits upon a stand.

Audette gestures a look of mock-horror to the audience as Henry asks her to step into the painted box, but she dutifully steps inside and lies on her back. Henry closes and locks the box.

The clowns in the outside rings stop their performances and watch Henry and Audette with their hands either over their eyes or clapped onto the sides of their faces.

“And now, dear audience, boys and girls, women and men,” Henry announces, “I shall perform a highly-specialized cut with my saw, and render the box in two pieces. This requires a great deal of skill and mental concentration. I ask that you not speak or eat or even shuffle your feet. Not so much as a whisper. Should I make a cut on even the slightest deviation of angles, dear Audette might suffer the most gruesome of fates.”

He pauses and looks about the audience for effect, flicks his cape back and raises the saw above his head.

The audience obeys Henry’s request for quiet. During performances, Henry has a commanding tone to his voice that audiences listen to intently. Henry begins sawing the box in a backwards and forwards motion whilst the crowd holds their collective breath. The clowns hide their faces with each drag of the saw’s blade.

I wish Henry really would saw Audette in half. But I know how it ends. Audette will spring from the box—to thunderous applause—even greater applause than what I receive. And she will bow and shimmy as though she has just achieved something wonderful. And all she had to do was lay herself down in that silly box.

I slip out of the big tent. The group of young girls who perform stunts on the elephants’ backs sit with the armless unicyclist smoking cigars. Two of them are Henry’s sisters. They aren’t very good performers. But grandfather had taken in all of Henry’s family, including his parents and uncle, as they were too poor to manage their affairs. His parents are meant to run the ring-toss stall but they are quite useless. I am sure they are even stealing money from the circus.

The girls titter as I pass. They know I consider smoking uncouth—and the language they use even more so. They often tell me I’ll end up an old dried-up spinster just like Miss Kitty the governess.

The stalls come to life as people begin to stream out of the big top. The circus is finished for the night and the stalls are eager to hawk their games and wares and freaks of nature. Each stall owner is louder than the next, trying to convince the marks—customers—to spend their money with them.

The air is steamy, choking—the stench of the animals and the brine of the docks combined. The lions prowl restlessly in their cages, their rumbling growls raising the hair on the back of my neck. I used to think it was cruel to keep them in such small enclosures, until my mother pointed out that the lions have a good, safe life—far from the daily fight for survival in Africa.
Safe
is a foreign word for any of the big act circus people. Performers lead a precarious life—and accidents are commonplace.

Beyond the lion cages, men hose down the elephants. One of the elephants sneezes over a man with a loud bellow. The man lets free a string of expletives while the others laugh and slap their knees.

I hurry past. I detest the crude sorts that work for the circus, however essential they are. Miss Kitty sits in her trailer, pulling a pained expression in the direction of the men—then returning to reading love poems out loud.

The words drop like pearls from her tiny, thin mouth. Her choice of poetry seems odd to me at times and entirely unsuitable. She doesn’t know about lovers or love, having had neither, and therefore shouldn’t speak of them.

Retreating to my trailer, I pull out the few treasured books that I have and attempt to study them. I stumble over the words—words I don’t know the meaning of, words I cannot pronounce. Grandfather paid for Henry to be sent away to boarding school to complete his education before joining the circus. No such privilege has been extended to me. Grandfather says he couldn’t bear for me to be away from him and that education is not so important for girls.

I decide my new word of the day shall be
obsequious
. I see it in a book and it sounds rather grand. Tomorrow, I’ll look it up in Miss Kitty’s enormous dictionary. But the noise and clamor of the stall holders and crowds soon defeat me. I cannot concentrate for another moment. I snap my book shut. I take the wooden clown from the shelf and leave to wander the circus grounds.

A light is on in grandfather’s tent. Silhouettes of men and women move about the tent, wine glasses and cigars in their hands. Perhaps seven or eight of them. Probably investors for the circus. I want to go and sit with grandfather, but he doesn’t like me to be there when he entertains investors. So I slip inside the tent and sit behind the bar. I just want to hear his voice. Grandfather is the only person in the entire world who notices me when I’m not performing, the only person who makes me certain I am really alive.

I see Mr. Baldcott and suddenly wish I hadn’t come in. He swills dark-colored wine in his glass before drinking it down his thick neck. "Of course, I don't have infinite funds to throw at this." He looks purposefully at Grandfather.

Grandfather clears his throat. "We're close. We just need the final piece of the puzzle."

A woman dripping in pearls and heavy jewelry stretches her fingers out as though she is trying to feel something in thin air. "But is there any guarantee? I've almost bankrupted my estate on charlatans before, and yet I've come no closer...." Her voice is deep for a woman, strident.

A thin, anxious-looking man crosses his arms—Jeke. A friend of grandfather’s. "I want this more than anything. But it seems many of us are concentrating on the end result without considering what we’re delving into. None of us here should forget just what we’re doing here. There's a distinct possibility of catastrophic consequences."

What are they talking about?
Something that could destroy the circus?

Grandfather holds up a hand. "Jeke, that kind of thinking is exactly what has stopped this project dead in the past. Fear keeps driving everyone back. Well, I’ll put it to you that if you’re not in with us one hundred percent at this point, then you should step aside. It’s agreed we should proceed with caution, but not with negative thinking.”