The Orphan's Tale(11)

The baby grows heavier with every step. I slow, breathing heavily, then reach down for a handful of snow to ease the dryness of my mouth, the coldness burning through the holes in my glove. I straighten, nearly dropping the child. Is he thirsty? I wonder if giving him a bit of snow will help or make things worse. Holding him at arm’s length, I am suddenly helpless. There is so much I do not know. Other than those fleeting seconds after I had given birth, I have never held a child, much less cared for one. I want to set him down. Empty-handed I might make it to the next village. He would have died in that train car anyway. Would this be so much worse?

The baby’s hand, no bigger than a walnut, shoots up, grasping for my finger and holding tight. What does he think when he looks up and sees a face different from the one that he had known since birth? He is almost the exact same age that my own child would be. I imagine a mother whose scars still ache like mine. Looking at this child, my heart breaks open. He once had a name. How could a child too young to know his own name ever hope to find his parents? I will him to breathe, to keep going until we can find shelter.

I cradle his head gently before covering it once more. Then redoubling my efforts, I press on. But the wind grows stronger now, whipping the snow-clad branches at me and making it hard to breathe. Stopping a second time had been a mistake. There is no shelter other than the train station for many kilometers. If we stay here, we will die, just as surely as the child would have on that train.

“I can’t do this!” I cry aloud, forgetting in my desperation that I must not be heard.

The wind howls louder in response.

I try to move forward again. My toes are numb now, legs leaden. Each step into the sharp wind grows harder. The snow turns to icy sleet, forming a layer on us. The world around us has turned strangely gray at the edges. The child’s eyes are closed, and he is resigned to the fate that has always been his. I take a step forward and stumble and stand again.

“I’m sorry,” I say, unable to hold him any longer. Then I fall forward and everything goes black.





4

Astrid

The squeak of a doorknob turning, hands pressing against hard wood. At first, they seem part of a dream I cannot quite make out.

The sounds come again, though, louder this time, followed by the scraping of the door opening. I struggle to sit. Sharp terror shoots through me. Inspections have come without warning in the fifteen months since my return, Gestapo or the local police who do their bidding. They have not noticed me yet, nor asked for the ausweis Herr Neuhoff had gotten for me, the identification card I fear will not be good enough. My reputation as a performer is a blessing and a curse in Darmstadt, giving me the means to survive, but at the same time making my false identity a thin veneer, nearly impossible to maintain. So when the inspectors come I disappear into the bottom of one of the tarp-covered wagons, or if there is no time, into the woods. But here in Peter’s cabin, with its lone door and no cellar, I am trapped.

A deep male voice cuts through the darkness. “It’s only me.” Peter’s hands, which I feel so often in the night these past months, stirring me from dreams of the past I do not want to leave, rub my back gently. “Someone has been found in the forest.”

I roll over. “Who found them, you?” I ask. Peter hardly sleeps, but walks at night, prowling the countryside like a restless coyote even in deepest winter. I reach up to touch his stubbled cheek, noting with concern the circles that ring his eyes more darkly now.

“I was down by the stream,” he replies. “I thought it was a wounded animal.” Peter’s vowels are over-rounded, v’s nearly w’s, his Russian accent undiluted by time as though he had left Leningrad weeks and not years ago.

“So naturally, you went closer,” I say, my voice chiding. I would have gone the other way.

“Yes.” He helps me to my feet. “They weren’t conscious so I carried them back here.” His breath holds a hint of liquor, drunk too recently to have gone sour.

“They?” I repeat, the word now a question.

“A woman.” A bit of jealousy passes through me as I imagine him holding someone else. “There was also a child.” He pulls a hand-rolled cigarette from his pocket.

A woman and child, alone in the woods at night. This is queer, even for the circus. No good can come from strange happenings—or strangers.

I dress hurriedly and pull on my coat. Below the lapel I can feel the rough outline of torn threads where the yellow star had once been sewn. I follow Peter out into the frigid darkness, tucking my chin low against the biting wind. His cottage is one of a half dozen scattered across the gently sloping valley, private quarters saved for the most senior and skilled of performers. Though my official residence is in the lodge, a long building set apart where most of the other girls sleep, staying with Peter had quickly become the norm. I slip back and forth at night and before dawn with only the slightest pretense.

When I came back to Darmstadt, I had meant to stay only long enough for Herr Neuhoff to find a replacement aerialist and for me to figure out where I was going. But the arrangement worked, and as I prepared to join the circus on the road that first year, my visions of leaving waned. And I met Peter, who had joined the Circus Neuhoff during the years that I was gone. He is a clown, though not the type of buffoon whom noncircus folk normally associate with the title. His performances are original and elaborate and they combine comedy, satire and irony with an artistry that even I have never seen before.