Пэм Дженофф – The Orphan's Tale: The phenomenal international bestseller about courage and loyalty against the odds (страница 14)

Reluctantly I sit up and place Theo in his bassinet. His eyes follow me as I wash at the basin. I make the bed, running my hands along the sheets, which, though so much coarser than the fine linens in the villa, were still worlds better than anything I had slept on since leaving home. I moved to the lodge the day after I arrived. It is a long room, beds laid out dormitory-style in two rows. The lodge is nearly empty, most of the other girls already gone to practicing and chores. I dress quickly then start for the door with Theo. I do not want to appear lazy. I need to work hard to earn my place here.

I carry Theo to the front of the lodge where a handful of toddlers play on the ground. Reluctantly I hand him to Greta, who draws him close, tickling his chin until he coos. Jealousy nags at me and I fight the urge to grab him back. I still do not like sharing him.

I tear myself away and set out from the lodge toward the practice hall. Winter has begun to ease. There is a little less bite in the air and the snow has begun to melt, leaving the ground muddy and smelling of peat moss. The birds that hunt seeds call out merrily. If the weather permits, in the evenings before it gets too dark I walk Theo around the circus grounds, past the practice hall to the menagerie where the tiger and lions and other animals are penned, looking out of place against the snow-covered pine landscape like characters in the wrong storybook. It seems there are endless places at the circus to explore, from the work quarters where laundry is done by the truckload to the circus alley where some of the clowns rehearse.

I near the practice hall and pause, trying to push down my dread. Though I have trained with Astrid every day, I still have not let go and flown. Each day I wait for her to give up and tell me to leave. Come back tomorrow, she simply says.

She has not kicked me out yet. But she treats me like a nuisance, makes it clear that she would rather not have me around and is only tolerating me until I go. I puzzle over again what brings out such dislike. Is it because I am new and lack talent? And yet, she is not always mean. A few days after I arrived, she had brought me a small box. Inside were folded clothes for me and Theo. Everyone had contributed something. Lifting out the faded baby caps and socks, the blouses for me that had been darned many times over, I was touched, not only by the generosity of the circus folk, who themselves had little to spare, but by Astrid, who had thought to gather the items. Perhaps she did not want us to leave after all.

The previous day as I neared the practice hall, though, I’d heard her and Herr Neuhoff speaking in low voices. “I’m doing all I can,” Astrid said.

“You must do more,” Herr Neuhoff countered.

“I cannot get her ready if she will not let go,” Astrid pressed. “We have to find someone else before it is time to go on the road.” I walked away then, not wanting to hear what would happen if the arrangement did not work out. I had originally said I would try for only two weeks. But now that time has passed, I find myself wanting to stay longer and keep trying—and not just because we have nowhere else to go.

When I enter the training hall, I am surprised to find Astrid already atop the high board where I usually stand. Am I late? I brace for her to berate me. But she grabs the bar and leaps off.

“Hup!” Gerda swings from the far board to catch her. A strange lump forms in my throat as I watch Astrid work with someone else. But I see how much she misses it, being the one to fly through the air. She must hate me for taking her place.

Gerda sends Astrid flying back, then swings to her own board. Astrid soars now like a rider taming a wild beast, bending the trapeze to her own will. She spins by her ankles, by a lone knee, barely touching the bar to which I always cling fast. Gerda watches Astrid with disinterest, almost distaste. She and the other women do not like Astrid. Within days of arriving, I heard the whispers: they resent Astrid for returning and taking her spot at the top of the aerial act while they had worked for years, and for coupling up with Peter, one of the few eligible men the war had left. The girls at the home were much the same, sniping and whispering behind each other’s backs. Why are we so hard on one another? I wonder. Hadn’t the world already given us challenges enough? But if Astrid notices their coldness, she doesn’t seem to mind. Or perhaps she just doesn’t have need for any of them. She certainly doesn’t need me.

“She’s magnificent, isn’t she?” a deep voice asks. I had not heard Peter come up behind me. We stand silently watching as Astrid swings higher. Taking her in, his eyes seem to dance with wonder. Peter’s breath catches slightly as Astrid flings herself into the air and spins not once, not twice, but three times. She circles upward, defying gravity.

But then she starts to drop downward at great speed. Peter steps forward then stops, powerless to help her. He exhales quickly when Gerda, who has swung out, grabs her by one ankle, catching her before she catapults to the ground. “The triple somersault,” he says, recovering from his fright. “Only a few people in the world who can do that.” Though he tries to sound nonchalant, a faint sweat has broken out on his brow and his face has gone slack with relief.

“She’s amazing,” I reply, my voice full with admiration. In that moment, I do not just want to be like her—I truly want to be her.

“If only she wasn’t such a danger to herself,” Peter says, so low under his breath I’m not sure I am meant to hear.

Astrid reaches the board and climbs down the ladder to us. Her skin is coated with sweat, but her face glows. She and Peter stare at each other with a hunger that makes me embarrassed to be in the room, though they had surely been together just a few hours earlier since Astrid’s bed in the lodge had been empty all night.

“Ready?” she asks, seeming to remember that I am there, without taking her eyes off Peter.

I nod, and start up the ladder. Below a half-dozen or so other performers rehearse, twirling hoops, doing flips and walking on their hands. My schedule with Astrid is the same every day as it had been the first: training from seven until five with a brief break for a bucket lunch. I’ve gotten better, I think. Still, for all of the practice, I have not let go and actually flown. It is not for lack of trying. I swing endlessly to strengthen my arms. I hang upside down until the blood rushes to my head and I cannot think. But I cannot let go—and without that, Astrid has said over and over, there is no act.

We start with the moves we have already practiced, swinging by my hands, then the hock and ankle hangs. “Pay attention to your arms, even when they are behind your back,” Astrid commands. “This is not merely performance. Theater is two-dimensional, like a painting. There, the audience sees only the front. But in the circus the audience is all around us, like sculpture. Think graceful, like ballet. Don’t fight the air, make friends with it.”

We work all morning around the moment I had been dreading. “Ready?” Astrid asks finally after a break. I can avoid it no longer. I climb the ladder and Gerda follows, taking her place beside me on the board.

“You have to release at the height of the swing,” Astrid calls from the far board. “And then I will catch you just a second later on the way down.” It makes perfect sense, but I leap and as with all the times before, I cannot let go.

“It’s useless,” I say aloud. As I swing helplessly from the bar, I catch a glimpse of the horizon through one of the high practice hall windows. Beyond the hills, there is a way out of Germany, a route to safety and freedom. If only Theo and I could swing out of here and fly away. A thought pops into my head then: go with the circus to France. Farther from Germany, Theo and I will have a chance to flee to somewhere safe. But that will never happen unless I can learn to let go.

“You’re done, then?” Astrid asks as I swing back to the board. She tries to keep her voice neutral, as if she has been disappointed too many times to let anyone do it again. But I can hear it, that faint note of sadness buried deep. At least some part of her thought I could do it—which makes my failure even more awful.

I look out the window once more, my dream of escaping with Theo seeming to slide further from reach. The circus is our ticket out of Germany—or would be if I could manage. “No!” I blurt. “That is, I’d like to try once more.”

Astrid shrugs, as if she has already given up on me. “Suit yourself.”

As I jump, Astrid leaps from the opposite board and swings by her feet. “Hup!” she calls. I do not release on the first pass.

Astrid swings higher, drawing close to me a second time. “Do it!” she orders. I recall Astrid’s conversation with Herr Neuhoff the previous day and realize that time is running out.

It is now or never. The entire world hangs in the balance.

I lock eyes with Astrid on the opposite trapeze and in that instant my trust is complete. “Now!” she commands.