The Orphan's Tale(30)
“Astrid?” Noa says in her timid voice. I turn to her. She watches me nervously, uncertain what to do.
I push past my doubts, and take her hand. “Come,” I say and together we step from the train.
Scanning the crowd, I see a look in the eyes of the people, not of scorn but of admiration and hope brought by our arrival. Adults watch us with the wonder of children. The circus had always brought light to the places it visited. Now it is a lifeline. I lift my chin. If we can still give them this, then the circus is not dead. There have been circuses from the times of the Romans and Greeks, our traditions centuries old. We had survived the Middle Ages, the Napoleonic Wars, the Great War. We would survive this, too.
8
Astrid
We make our way across the station platform. The horses, which have been hitched to the beast wagons, stomp their feet impatiently, snorting steam from flared nostrils. In the cages they pull, the lions and lone tiger are on full display. There are camels, too, and a small brown bear, standing alongside the procession on a leash. Last year, we had a zebra, but it died over the winter and Herr Neuhoff had not been able to replace it.
Slowly the parade begins to move, snaking forward toward the village, a spray of faded slate rooftops cast into a hillside with a medieval cathedral at the top watching over it all. Not so very different from the dozens of villages I’ve seen on the road over the years. Once the circus had moved more swiftly, a town a day, setting up and performing two or three times before taking down the chapiteau and moving on at night. But the train lines have slowed us now and the Germans restrict where we can go. So the bookings are chosen more strategically, places where we can camp for a week and draw spectators from the surrounding villages, like spokes on a wheel. Or can we? Noa’s earlier doubts echo in my mind. It has been more than four years of suffering and hardship here. It seems if the war drags on much longer, the people will simply stop coming.
The incline grows steeper and the procession slows as the horses strain against the weight of the wagons. Alongside the roadside there is a small cemetery; a tangle of headstones sits embedded in the side of the hill. At last we reach the edge of Thiers, a tangle of narrow streets lined by three-and four-story houses pressed close, seeming to lean on one another for support. At the top of the high street, the din of the awaiting crowd grows and the air crackles with excitement. A trumpet blares as the parade begins, heralding our arrival. Our open carriage, adorned with streamers and drawn by horses in jeweled headdresses, is near the front, ahead of the lions’ wagon with the trainer riding atop. The grandeur and bright colors of our procession glare against the withered facades of the buildings. The streets are unchanged from the villages in past years. But for the red flags with swastikas hanging from a few buildings, it would be possible to imagine we are not at war.
We move painstakingly through town, wagons inching forward. Boys wave and catcall at us from the crowd. Beside me, Noa stiffens in response to the adulation, clutching Theo more tightly. I pat her arm reassuringly. To me this is normal, but she must feel so naked and exposed. “Smile,” I say through my clenched teeth. It is a show from the very moment we step out.
On a wrought-iron second-story balcony, I notice a boy, or a man perhaps, nineteen or twenty at most. He does not join in the cheering and waving, but watches us with a mix of disinterest and amusement, arms folded. He is handsome, though, with wavy charcoal hair and a chiseled jaw. I imagine that his eyes, were I close enough to see their color, would be cobalt. Something on our wagon catches his gaze. I start to do my best show wave. It is not me he is watching, though, but Noa. For a second I consider pointing him out to her, but I do not want to make her even more nervous. A second later, he is gone.
The cobblestone street narrows so that the parade presses close to the onlookers. Hands shoot out, small children eager to touch us, the spectacle, in ways that simply would have been rude with anyone else. They cannot reach us, though, and for that I am grateful. The faces in the crowd are different this year, eyes weary from the war, skin drawn more tightly across the cheekbones. But we are changed, too. Closer one might see the cracks, the animals a bit too skinny, performers using a bit of extra rouge to cover fatigue.
The spectators follow the parade down the winding lane toward the market square, then onto another road that leads out of town once more. Though the incline is gentler than it had been on our ascent, the road is bumpy and uneven, marred with ruts and potholes. I put a hand across Noa and Theo as we are jostled so they do not fall from the bench. I might have suggested that she leave Theo with Elsie or one of the other workers; a baby has no place in a parade. But I knew that Noa would be nervous and draw comfort from having him with her. I study the child. He does not seem scared by the noise and crowd. Instead he leans comfortably against Noa with his head cocked, seeming entertained by the commotion.
A few kilometers farther, the pavement gives way to dirt. Noa takes in the crowd that runs behind. “They’re still following us,” she says. “I thought they might have lost interest.”
“Never,” I reply. The onlookers keep up tirelessly. Women jostle babies and children pedal alongside on their bikes, their Sunday suits turning brown with dirt kicked up from the road. Even barking dogs join the melee, becoming a part of the parade themselves.
A few minutes later the road ends at a wide, flat grass field, broken only by a cluster of trees at one end. The wagon halts with an unceremonious bump. I climb down first, then reach out to help Noa. But she looks past me, eyes wide. The raising of the big top is almost as much of an attraction as the circus show itself, and not only because it is free. An army of workers with tents and metal poles and rope have fanned out over the field. The circus needs more hands than we can possibly bring with us, which is good news for the local men who are looking for work. They stand, bare-armed and perspiring, at the periphery of the flattened tarp, which covers the entire field, tied to stakes that surround it.