Rain Village - Carolyn Turgeon [59]
I was mesmerized. I think I stopped breathing.
Everything slowed down as the two of them sped through the air so smoothly they appeared to be gliding, as if they had all the time in the world to throw themselves from the bar and into each other’s arms, their hands locking in midair, he pulling her up and the two of them swinging back and forth, flipping over each other and the bar as if they were of the same body. This is what it means to be in love, I thought, and a longing clutched my chest. I thought of the fortune-teller’s words: You will have a great love. I had never felt it before, that kind of longing, and it opened in me like a wound. Lollie and Geraldo glided back and forth. All the music stopped, and the only sound was air, the hush of their bodies splicing through it. Swoosh, swoosh, as if time had stopped.
When the show ended I felt drained. It had taken all my longing and hope and balled them up until I couldn’t see straight anymore, and now everyone was headed back into the midway, or back home to their families, leaving me alone on the bleachers among piles of paper cups and popcorn bags.
For a few moments the tent was almost empty. There was barely a sound, just the roar of the rides and the ballies outside. Inside, everything was as still as a landscape after a storm. I was so nervous I could barely breathe. This was my chance, I thought, for a new life.
I pushed my way past the flap in the tent, the curtain that separated the performers from the audience, and headed to the train cars curled up out back.
A miniature city had cropped up behind the big top, I saw. Aside from the train cars, where the stars of the circus and the menagerie traveled, there were tents and trucks and vans, an army of cooks and vendors and talkers and workmen spread out among the performers. Ignoring the terror that yawned open inside me, I took a deep breath and walked past the small tents that had cropped up across the field, back to the shiny monster draped across the landscape. I hurried past fire pits lined with rocks, little portable stoves heating pots of coffee, camps of families sewing nets and costumes, and blankets spread out over the grass, despite the chilly autumn weather. I saw the bird girl in a tank top, her wings folded up beneath it, carrying a jug of water to a fire. She nodded to me as I walked by, and I looked down, trying to seem like I knew what I was doing, and scurried ahead.
The moon shone down on the metal of the train. Most of the windows were illuminated by light. The performers rushed in and out of the train cars, preparing for night, some in costume and some not, most somewhere in between, with glitter-covered skin and T-shirts. When no one was looking, I hopped onto one of the cars and pushed my way inside. The first thing I saw was the pointed top of the main tent through the dim windows, which stretched out on both sides of the car. The lights sparkling through them seemed different from the way they did outside—almost sad, and nostalgic, flickering through the dim train windows. The car was empty, and a hush hung over everything, the kind that makes you tiptoe and whisper.
Before I had time to look around, a girl entered the corridor from one of the other compartments.
“Who are you?” she said, walking straight up to me.
I jumped with surprise.
“You are so small!” she exclaimed.
I looked up at her, but she had not meant the words unkindly, I saw; she was only about ten years old, and her pale face was smeared with sloppy freckles. Her teeth were giant squares behind her lips.
“Are you looking for the sideshow tents? They’re back there,” she said, pointing in the direction I’d come. “They sleep in their tents, most of ’em.”
“No,” I whispered. “I’m looking for Lollie.”
“Who?” she asked. As I looked closer, I could tell the girl was a circus child. I would come to recognize them in an instant, with their muscled legs and arms, the sheen of the lights playing across their skin, their callused hands.
“Lollie,” I said