Rain Village - Carolyn Turgeon [98]
“Everyone thinks you have a wonderful, secret past now,” Paulo said. “And then they come and you’re all light, a spinning blurring thing. It’s incredible.”
He passed me a copy of the paper as we rested on the grass. There, right on the front, were two photos, side by side: me darting out in the hoop, all lights and sparkle, and Mary, hanging by her hands from the bar, her hair in a long ponytail down her back, as beautiful as I’d ever seen her. I couldn’t even trace the mixture of feelings it brought out in me: anger, rage, love, pride, a sadness that blotted out everything.
Mary would always be attached to me, I thought. I would never leave her to forge my own way.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Those first weeks with the Velasquez Circus passed by in a whirlwind. The pace was frantic and crazed, something I wasn’t used to after the unhurried luxury of Mexico, the dull throb of the factory, the long days at Mercy Library. In the circus it was working and crowds and shows and moving to the next lot, always. Building and dismantling, building and dismantling again. Asserting ourselves in the world with the brightest lights, loudest colors, and visions out of a dream.
I practiced every day, learning new tricks and perfecting old ones, adding little flourishes to my standard routines. No matter how crazy everything got, or how many whispers I heard or thought I heard as I walked by, no matter how many fans ran up to me begging for my autograph or just wanting to touch me, I could hang from the rope or the bar and feel like everything was normal. Exactly right. I dreamt of the tricks at night, woke up with adrenaline rushing through my body. I learned to wrap my shoulders in a sheet that hung from a steel hook overhead, and to glide through the room, wrapping and unwrapping myself as the sheet shimmered and flapped around me. In time I could wrap the sheet under each shoulder so that it hung out like wings, wrap it around my torso and throw my arms above it so that it seemed I was not held up by anything at all.
And still I tried to master the flying trapeze. I climbed to the platform and stared at Paulo hanging from the cradle, his feet wrapped around it, his body hanging down and his arms stretched out. As he swung, he kept his eyes on me the whole time. He called for me to jump to the bar, and then, once I was there, swinging upward into empty space, he called for me to release my hands and fly into the air, spinning and turning and then reaching out at the exact right moment to place my hands in his.
I swung. I released. I soared in the air, and time slowed down. I could have been up there for hours. Turning, precisely moving my body from one position to the next. And then I froze up at the moment when I should have given myself over completely to the world, to the air, to Paulo’s sure hands reaching out for mine.
Again and again the fear spread like ice through my body. I missed his hands and dropped into the net. I became an expert at falling, falling smoothly on my back and bouncing up to land on my feet. Landing on the back was important. Landing on the belly, as I had more than once, could tear your muscles and burn your skin. Landing on the head or feet could result in a broken neck, broken ankles. Luis was like a ghost haunting the ring, and I think we all woke up at least once, our bodies drenched in sweat, thanking God that we could still move our fingers and toes, that we were still whole.
“Tessita, just let go,” Mauro told me. “When you’re up there, just give yourself up to it. Trust that Paulo is there.”
After all my failures, I was surprised sometimes that Paulo still showed up in the tent each morning, dressed in his catcher’s outfit. More and more it was just him and me. Now that we were back on the road, Lollie was thoroughly