The Orphan's Tale(32)

But am I any better? I wonder. I, too, had treated Noa coldly in the beginning, wished that she would go. Though I have accepted her since the police came to Darmstadt, I have viewed her as a necessity, part of the act. I have not done anything to make her truly welcome.

Suddenly guilty, I climb down the ladder to her. I ignore the others, willing her to do the same. “Are you ready?” Noa does not answer but looks around the tent. To me this is normal, almost all I have known. But I see it as she does now: the cavernous space, rows of seats being assembled endlessly after one another.

I take her hand and stare hard at the others until they look away. “Come. The ladders are looser here than in the practice hall. And everything shakes a bit more.” I keep talking as we climb, partly to ease her nerves and partly because there are things—important things—she needs to know about the differences between Darmstadt and the big top. After a lifetime I can perform anywhere—the scenery fades and it is just me and the bar and the air. For Noa, though, every little detail could make a difference.

“Let’s start with something simple,” I say, but there is terror in her eyes as she gazes downward. She is going to fold. “Pretend they aren’t there.”

She takes the bar with shaking hands and jumps. At first she is jerky, reminiscent of her first day on the trapeze. “Feel for it,” I urge, willing her to remember all I have taught her. As she falls into the familiar forward-and-back rhythm, her movements smooth.

“Good,” I say as she returns to the board. I have been sparing with my compliments, not wanting to make her complacent. But now I offer more than usual, hoping to bolster her confidence. She smiles, drinking in my praise like water. “Now let’s practice your release.”

Noa looks as if she wants to protest. I have no confidence that she is ready to do it here, but we have no choice. I go to the other ladder and climb to the catch trap, nodding at Gerda, who has been loitering with a few of the acrobats. She starts up the ladder behind Noa with disinterest. I study Gerda warily. She is no more welcoming to Noa than the other performers, but practical enough to tolerate her because we need her for the act.

As Noa nears the top of the opposite ladder, her foot slips and she nearly falls. “Easy,” I call from my board. Though I mean it as reassuring, it comes out sounding like a rebuke. From below come laughs from the other performers, as their suspicions about Noa’s lack of skill have been confirmed. Even from a distance, I can see her eyes begin to water.

Then her back stiffens and she nods. Noa jumps with more force than I have seen from her. “Hup!” I call.

She releases with surprising precision for her first time in the big top. Our hands lock. Once there would have been a coach on the ground to give the commands, and men to do the catching. But with so many gone to war, we have only ourselves now. My brother Jules had been my catcher. Until these past few weeks of training Noa, I had not fully appreciated his strength and skill.

As we swing back, I release her in the direction of the bar, which Gerda has sent out. With every pass, Noa’s movements become stronger. She is performing in spite of—no because of—the skepticism of the other performers. Grudgingly the expressions below turn to respect. My hope rises. Noa has earned their respect and she will earn the audience’s, too.

“Bravo!” a voice calls out from below. But the tone is mocking. Noa, who is on the return, nearly misses the far board. Gerda reaches out and grabs her before she falls. I look down. Emmet is holding a mop high in the air, mocking Noa.

I climb down the ladder angrily. “You fool!” I hiss.

“She’s not an aerialist,” Emmet replies with exaggerated patience, as though speaking to a small child. “She was a cleaner at the station in Bensheim. That’s all she’s qualified to do.” Emmet, I know now, has been stirring up ill will among the other performers, encouraging them not to accept Noa. He has always needed to pick on others to hide his own weakness. But how had he found out she worked at the station? Surely he does not know the rest of Noa’s past.

“Why now?” I demand. “The show is in an hour. We need her ready and you are undermining her confidence.”

“Because I didn’t actually think we would go through with this farce,” he replies. Or that she would be able to do it, I add silently. A part of him, I suspect, is jealous. Noa has been able to manage mightily with just weeks of practice, whereas he has been here a lifetime with no talent to show for it. But it seems unwise to point this out to him now. “This needs to work, Emmet,” I say slowly.

“For your sake,” he sneers.

“For all of our sakes,” I correct.

Noa, who has come down the ladder, watches from a distance. She has heard enough, I know, to be uncomfortable. There is a flash in her eyes as she expects to be rejected yet again. How is it possible after all that she has been through that she can still let people hurt her?

She stands on one side of me, the rest of the performers on the other. I am an island, caught in between.

I take a step in her direction. “We need Noa,” I say firmly and loudly enough for the others to hear. It is a calculated risk; I need the good graces of the circus folk as much as she does in order to maintain my identity and hide. No one responds. But I’ve gone too far to back down now. “In any case, I am with her and anyone who isn’t is against me.” Noa’s face folds with disbelief, as if it is the first time that someone has stood up for her.