Rain Village - Carolyn Turgeon [67]
“Did you know, Tessa,” Paulo leaned in, “that Lollie saved my life with her vision? Once I was going to ride a black Arabian called Diablo, who would have shaken me off his back like water if Lollie hadn’t stopped me from going to the stables herself. After Luis I wouldn’t risk it. She could tell me to stay off the wire forever, and I would.”
“I can still feel it,” Lollie said, “You know, visions don’t fade the way memories do. They become part of what you are.”
“Mary told me you could see things,” I said. “She said it gave her goose bumps to listen to you.”
At the sound of her name, everyone turned to me. I remembered what Ana had said in the train car: that all the circus people told stories about Mary.
“She is dead,” I wanted to say. “When she died there were leaves tangled in her hair, and I had to pick them out one by one.”
But I did not speak.
“Did you know Mary well, Tessa?” Mauro asked quietly.
I had no voice to answer him with. A black hole gaped in me where Mary had been, one that swallowed all my speech. I could feel the blood rushing to my face, my hands fluttering against my plate.
Mauro placed his hand over mine the way Carlos had earlier. But Mauro’s touch steadied my hand in an instant.
I looked up at him.
“Yes,” I said finally, after a long pause. “I did. I thought I knew everything about her.”
I could barely breathe. Mauro stared at me intently, as they all did.
“You know,” Lollie said slowly, brushing her hand over mine, “I remember the day she showed up here as if it were just a moment ago, just this morning.”
“Really?” I asked. I hadn’t realized how much I, too, craved to hear about her, who she was and had been.
By now it seemed that everyone in the cookhouse was gathered around our table or sitting quietly at their own, listening. I was surprised to see Ana at the next table, next to the ringmaster, who was barely recognizable in his sweatshirt and jeans. She waved at me and smiled.
“Oh, yes,” Lollie said, laughing. Her laugh cracked her face open until she was more like a girl swinging from a tree over a creek than a regal circus star. “Marionetta. Men used to drop wedding rings outside her door. Movie stars sent her garlands of roses, which she’d dump in the trash bins outside. She was never interested in men like that. Mary had only two loves in her life, William and Juan Galindo. That was how she first came to the circus. She followed Juan here. ‘Who is she?’ we asked. ‘She is a like a dog,’ he said.”
“‘Like a dog.’” I laughed.
“That’s what love makes of us,” said José.
“Well, I took her in,” Lollie continued. “I never liked Juan. For ten years straight he was the star of the Flying Ramirez Brothers. Though his family’s name was Galindo, Juan used the name of my grandfathers to spread his own fame until he became the most sought-after, popular star here, even more so than Geraldo is now.”
“And women sell clay sculptures of Geraldo in the villages we pass through,” Carlos added.
I marveled at the idea of Mary going crazy for such a man, then remembered Lollie with Geraldo just that morning. If that was love, then I didn’t want any part of it.
“So I despised Juan, of course, and was ecstatic at the opportunity Mary presented to me. I could see past what Juan saw—and all he could see was the ice that had melted from Mary’s body as soon as he came near it. I saw it all pass before me: Mary, her waist pressed to the bar, her hands gripped around it, whirling and whirling until she was free and flying toward the ground.”
“You wouldn’t have known it to see her,” Carlos interrupted, looking across the table at me. “She seemed too wild, way too wild for the trapeze.”
“Even my own brothers didn’t believe it when I said she would be a great flyer,” Lollie continued, laughing. “But I took her in and tried everything to rid her of the smell of spices. I burned her