The Orphan's Tale(41)

“Not at all.” Astrid walks over and takes Theo from me. There is something in the tender way she looks at him that speaks volumes about the child she never had. She has been a bit kinder to me as well in the two short days since the first show. She is still demanding of my performance. But it seems like she actually thinks I can perform and be one of them. And after we spoke the other night about Peter and the past, I almost feel that we are friends who can trust one another.

Or at least we could be, if not for the secret I am still keeping from her about my own child and the German who fathered him. I should have told Astrid weeks ago—it might have eased the damage. But I had not, and the truth remains buried between us, festering. Now it is not just the secret itself, but the deception of having kept it from her for which she would hate me.

“If you go through the woods, along the edge of the stream, it’s quicker into town than the road,” she offers.

I tilt my head, trying to envision the route she has described. Other than coming here by the main road the day of the arrival, I haven’t left the fairgrounds.

“The path is just behind the big top,” she continues, sensing my confusion. “Why don’t we walk with you for a bit and I’ll show you?”

I follow Astrid, who weaves through the narrow aisle between the berths with Theo. We pass a dancer tinting her hair auburn with a homemade dye. Another darns a hole in her practice leotard. By the door, a heavyset woman from one of the sideshows changes without modesty, her large breasts indistinguishable from the folds of flesh beneath them. I avert my eyes. With so many women living in one place, there is very little privacy—just one of the many things about circus life I will never get used to.

We step outside. Earlier when we’d gone to practice, the sky above the big top had been painted in pinks and blues. But now a wreath of fog sits atop the chapiteau like a cap drawn low across the brow. We cross the backyard of the circus, the open space where tent meets train car and the circus people spend their time, away from the prying eyes of the audience. Undergarments flap shamelessly on a clothesline. Near the cookhouse, the steamy smell of boiled potatoes wafts out, signaling the menu for dinner. I hear the clanking of dishes, a half-dozen workers washing dishes from the noon meal.

As we pass the big tent, the noises from inside are a familiar symphony, a clarinetist practicing and the grunt of the strong man mixed with the clanking of swords as two clowns engage in a mock duel. Through the gap in the curtain, the arena looks sad in the harsh light of day. The velvet seat cushions are frayed and stained. The once-clean sawdust that covered the ground is now littered with candy wrappers and cigarette butts. A pool of yellow in the corner where a horse had urinated gives the air a sour smell.

At the edge of the fairgrounds beneath a just-blossoming cherry tree sits Drina, exotic purple skirt splayed around her, large knuckles bending beneath jeweled rings as she shuffles a deck of cards. She joins the circus each year, Astrid told me, appearing at the first tour stop and staying until season’s end, entertaining audiences on the midway before shows. In this strange world where almost all are accepted, Drina is still an outsider. Not just because she is Roma, a Gypsy; the circus has all kinds of races. But her act is a sort of trickery it seems, like magic. Not circus, Astrid said disdainfully. It is an expression I’ve heard often in the months since I’d joined them, used to describe performances that do not fit into the circus ideal.

Drina waves me over. I hesitate, looking to Astrid. “Can I?” I ask. “I’ll only be a minute.” She rolls her eyes and shrugs. I move closer, curious about the odd-looking deck of cards Drina spreads in front of her purposefully in a formation. “I don’t have any money to pay you,” I say.

She reaches up and grabs my hand without asking, runs her coarse fingers over the lines on my palm. “You were born under a lucky star,” she says. Lucky. How many times had I heard that before? “But you have known deep sorrow.” I shift uncomfortably. How can she possibly tell? “You will know peace,” she adds. It seems rather a bold prediction for these times. “But first there will be illness—and a break.”

“A break, like a bone?” I ask. “And who is going to get sick?” She shakes her head, saying no more. Suddenly uneasy, I stand. “Thank you,” I say hurriedly.

I start back to Astrid, who is twirling in a circle with Theo to amuse him. “What did she say?” Astrid asks, curious in spite of herself.

“Nothing important,” I reply self-consciously.

“I don’t know why you believe in such things,” she scoffs.

And I don’t know why you don’t, I want to reply. But I fear it will sound rude. “I like the promise of the unknown, of what might be out there.”

“The future will be here soon enough,” she replies.

Farther from the circus grounds, we start into a forest and cut through the trees. They are denser than they had appeared from a distance, a forest of pine and chestnut. It is not so very different from the one I’d been struggling through the night I’d taken Theo. But the snow is gone and tiny shoots of grass and weed poke out of the damp earth. Light slants through the branches, which are dotted with the earliest of green buds. Something rustles in the low brush, a fox or perhaps a hedgehog. If the weather had been mild that night as now, I might not have collapsed and found my way to the circus at all.