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By Root 172 0

the crouched figure, the manic hand. If it was not stopped it would burst. That was absurd. He wanted the hall to be quiet, the figure’s terror stopped. He could see the yellow-ringed eyes, the shirt bloody from the darkness of sweat, the mask of the painted face looking up like a dog. Patrick stood up and stumbled over feet until he reached the aisle. He wanted to be out of here, out of this building. He was covered in the heartbeat of applause which started to come faster. Each footstep as he moved released the terrible noise. He was among members of the band, the silent band which sat there waiting for the next act when they would be required to play. He saw the huge instruments on their laps which in their curls and convolutions looked like frozen organs of the body. He climbed up, slipping at first because he still couldn’t remove his eyes from the face and the banging white hand. He stepped over a lamp. Then he was up there on stage, and as soon as he approached the exhausted figure he saw up close that the performer was much smaller, that it was a woman.

He knelt and held her by the shoulders, his arm on her damp back. He leaned forward, caught the hand still trying to smash down again like a machine locked in habit, a swimmer unable to stop. He swerved the palm away from the floor and brought it slowly down to her thigh. Then he looked up, through the halo of light into the sudden silence.

There was a crowd standing on the upper level as well. Hundreds more than he had thought. He looked back at the woman, the costume made of false silk, a cheap glittering material from the streets, drenched in sweat. This close he could recognize nothing of the figure he had seen perform. It seemed washed out, exhausted statuary. One tear of sweat cut a path through the thick makeup. Now the eyes, hidden in the circles of paint, focused on him, then reacted with shock. She bent forward. He felt his hand slide against the sweat of her cheek. He had forgotten where he was. She pulled herself up, her arm on his shoulder. She walked downstage slowly towards the kerosene lights, spreading her hands wide and then clapping them. A slow beat. There. There. There.

Then, with her arms out, the crowd cheering, she raised her swollen hand and now everyone was standing yelling at her. She brought her fingers to her lips and the audience became quiet. She threw the name of the next performer into their midst like a bell, and a man walked into the light carrying an umbrella. The crowd was immediately with him. Patrick began to move backwards to the makeshift curtain. He looked down embarrassed and when he looked up again she had left the stage.

Backstage he would be an outsider. He recalled the touch of that hand on his shoulder as she pulled herself up. And the voice he had recognized. He tried to remember the washed-out face, its features under the makeup. Behind the curtain there were just a few performers in half-light – one kerosene lamp on the floor. How should he enter a room where a giant takes off its head? Where a dwarf stands up to full height. The Macedonian juggler he had watched perform half an hour earlier with absolute abandon was packing the thirty hard oranges neatly into his suitcase. No sofas, or arches of light, just performers cleaning up. A man putting on his socks. Someone reading The Racing News. At the far end of the hall he saw an Indian walking a puppet towards a corridor, as if escorting someone frail. Patrick went after him. The man turned right along the Venturi corridor and disappeared behind another curtain. Here among the strangely shaped pipes and meters the air was humid. A great cheer went up from the audience. As the man came out Patrick caught his arm and asked him where the puppet dancer was. The Indian jerked his head towards the curtain and handed him a flashlight.

He walked into pitch darkness. When he turned on the flashlight he saw swaying feet. He moved the light up the brocade robe – a king hung up there, the strings and wood handle attached to a pipe. Three or four ceiling pipes held all of