Circus of the Grand Design (22 page)

~

Lewis and Perry moved their horses forward. Offstage, kettledrums thumped.

~

Lewis: I, borne upon the river's bosom

Likened to a lover, yet not so free,

Denounce your insinuations.

Perry: Then to arms, noble Pericles,

And your fortunes may yet flourish.

Lewis: Also to you, noble Thaliard;

I'll show the virtue I have borne in arms.

~

Each time they brought their swords together cymbals crashed. They swung at each other, thrusting and parrying. As they fenced, they steered the horses around the arena, fighting and riding so that everyone in the audience could see. After two circuits they returned to the middle, and Lewis knocked Perry's sword from his hand.

~

Perry: The day is yours, Lord Pericles

And here, I hope, is none that envies it.

In framing an artist, art hath thus decreed,

To make some good, but other to exceed.

Lewis: You are a right courteous knight;

Then honor be but equal to my will.

Which, to preserve mine honor, I'll perform.

~

Their act over, they turned to the audience; Perry dipped his chin, and Lewis held his sword above his head and swept it downward dramatically as he bowed from the waist. The crowd applauded, and they moved off stage. Lewis had never experienced such an immediate rush of pleasure. He had been surprised to find the performance well attended. After what happened on the river he had expected the show to be cancelled. Enjoying himself so much seemed insensitive. But that was part of the ancient trust—he and his fellows transported their audience to the realm of pleasure, allowing them respite from pain.

When they came back out with the rest of the circus for the closing procession, Lewis again waved his sword, feeling like an ancient conqueror. He hoped it would never end.

Backstage, Dillon took the horse as usual. Emotions poured through Lewis. He wanted to walk the streets of the town in costume, where he could be recognized by all who had attended. But no, that wouldn't be proper. Outside of the arena he returned to anonymity.

From behind, Dawn called out his name. "Come on, you be the metal horsy," she said and jumped on his back, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"What are you doing?"

"I wanna ride the metal horsy!" She squeezed his waist with her legs. "Come on horsy, take me home. Go and go and go." She leaned back and waved her arms in the air; her sudden movement threw off his balance. They fell. He landed with his head in her lap. "Metal Horsy fall ouch. My butt hurts," she said.

As rehearsal flowed into rehearsal and performance into performance, Lewis fell into a trance. The timelessness of the train combined with the demands of performing left him numb to his surroundings, dampened his inquisitiveness. The novelty of becoming a performer gave way to the work, the repetition. Every show unfolded like the one before, and he began to see them only in terms of his own part. A scattered few stood out: one in which Gautier nearly threw Perry, another when Lewis dropped his sword while galloping after Perry and didn't know whether he should stop to pick it up or keep going (he kept going, and Miss Linda ran out to pick it up and hand it to him as he came back around) and, the worst performance of all, in a tent on a day so hot and humid Lewis was sure he wouldn't survive the afternoon. He thought he would become bored with his lines, but they became so automatic he hardly noticed himself speaking.

Dawn and Bodyssia appeared to have lost interest in him. He didn't know or care why. Save for their lack of romantic attention, neither behaved any different toward him. Both treated him as a friend and fellow performer. He supposed any insulated group was like that. Newcomers were treated with caution and curiosity. Conversely, with Cybele, his relationship, if it could be called that, intensified. He would come in exhausted from a practice session with Perry or a workout with Bodyssia, and she waited, drawing him toward her even when his body told him he was tired, hungry, or uninterested. What strange threads she spun to tow him so willfully behind her remained ambiguous to him.

His life with her lacked conversation. She rarely spoke. Sometimes, he would describe his rehearsals or performances, his interactions with the rest of the crew. She would smile as she listened, encouraging his one-sided dialog; when he grew tired of speaking, a gentle silence filled the room. Leaving her became difficult, but he couldn't convince her to accompany him to the dining car, or outside to see whatever town they were performing in. More and more, he stayed in his room. He would have missed one performance if Perry hadn't banged on the door loud enough to rouse him from Cybele's side.

After one show, he had been drinking with the acrobats in the dining car, when something, a scent perhaps, or a musical tone, reminded him of Cybele. He had rushed back to his room, where he found her sitting at his desk, starring into the cloud of windows.

She remained motionless, not acknowledging him until he plunged his face into her thick black hair.

Later, he dreamt that cold, amorphous beings wedged him into a locker in the storage car. Particles of blinking light bored into his retinas. Blinded, he shut his eyes and turned away. When he opened them, he stood naked and cold before a tree, the trunk of which was so large it would have taken the whole circus crew to join hands and encircle. The tree radiated warmth. He sat in front of it, holding his palms close to the hairy bark.

"Into me goes the nurturing heat of the earth," he said, then repeated again and again.

~

He awoke whimpering and clutched Cybele's breasts. Using the edge of the bed for support, he stood. Cybele remained asleep. Where had she come from? He felt as though he had emerged from delirium. He dressed and headed toward the dining car; the hall lights dimmed as he walked. Gold's door opened.

"Hey guy," Gold said, punching Lewis lightly on the shoulder. "You on your way to grab some supper? I'll join you." Gold pulled a small blue ball from his pocket and bounced it with a backspin so that as they moved forward it waited for them.

Lewis reached into his pocket to touch Cybele's warm black figurine.

They ordered food and sat down, Gold leaned toward Lewis and spoke, keeping his voice low. "Hey, I'm glad I ran into you. I really need someone to talk to right now."

Gold's face looked different—his expression—his former smirk had softened, approaching tenderness. When had this change occurred? Lewis felt he was looking at Gold for the first time.

"Leonora has finally seen the wisdom of falling for me wholeheartedly, as I had dreamed she would." He tossed the ball into the air, caught it on its descent, and shoved it into his shirt pocket. "Of course being a father has an appeal to me. It's an opportunity to project my acquired skill and knowledge into a deserving recipient. I can mold a character after my own to ensure a more lasting legacy. The only negative aspect is..."

He lowered his voice to a whisper and glanced around the room. "This is difficult to admit, but...Leonora...we've never had sex. Not ever." He pantomimed juggling, but, his concentration off, dropped one of the imaginary objects. "We were saving it. She says she hasn't done it with anyone else since joining the circus, so it has to be mine. She wouldn't lie, that's not her style."

So Leonora was pregnant. Was he supposed to be confessor now? Okay then, he would give him a biology lesson. "You know you don't necessarily need to have had sex," Lewis said.

Gold pressed his palm to Lewis's mouth. "Not so loud," he said.

Lewis pushed Gold's hand away. "Fine." He lowered his voice. "I'm just saying, if you've ejaculated near her vagina and the sperm found a way to swim in, well—"

"I've never blasted without cranking," Gold said, so loud Lewis flinched.

A flush crawled up Gold's neck and covered his cheeks, and Lewis thought Gold's face might explode.

Gold continued, his voice low again. "That's not the way I do things."

"Sorry. You brought it up. I was just trying to help. It's nothing you can't find in a biology textbook."

The redness faded from Gold's face. He put his rubber ball in the middle of the table, touching it with both thumbs. He stared at it for a moment before speaking again. "My life is defined by my command of these objects. I will not lose control. What is this force tearing at me?"

Lewis decided he needed to pull away from Cybele to find time for himself. When he was with her he lost track of everything
but
her. It was stifling. He had even given up his speculations—research—into the nature of the train.

Gold clapped his hands. "I've got it—there'll be a vacant room because of Desmonica and János. Either his or hers, right? Unless one of the other acrobats has taken it. The four of them could be spread over four rooms since they've all got women again. But Linusz and Cirill always share." He jumped up. "Thanks guy, I'm going to go find out right now."

Lewis took a few bites of the meat and grain mixture Cinteotl had brought. Yes, he needed a break of some sort. Cybele fulfilled more desires than he had known existed, but she left him empty. Leonora—her pregnancy obviously Cybele's machination. His too, in a way. It was as though the intensity of his life with Cybele impregnated the crew. Who would be next?

The four acrobats and their female companions, including a very pregnant Desmonica, entered the dining car.

"Drink," János said, and Lewis accepted a shot glass offered by Cirill. Thoughts of Cybele tugged at him, a walnut-sized knot lodged deep in his stomach. He resisted, vowing not to go back to his room for many hours. Listing the possibilities, he decided he would: rehearse with Perry, watch a movie, eat again, and then, depending on whether anything else came up and if he felt like it, go to her.

He knocked on what he thought was Perry's door, but Cybele opened it; he had somehow returned to his own room. Following her, he soon found himself in bed and fell into unconsciousness with the impression he was melting into her flesh.

"Lewis! You're going to be late." Bodyssia's bellow and heavy footsteps faded down the hall. Why was he standing naked in his doorway?

"Hey, neat costume," Brisbane said.

Jenkins passed, towing a trunk on a dolly. "Don't forget your overnight bag," he said. Lewis moved back inside and closed the door.

"Guess I need to get into my costume," he said to Cybele, but she wasn't there.

~

The train had stopped behind a concrete structure with a high, curving roof. The door at the back of the building opened automatically with a sucking swish as he neared it. The acrobats were in the ring; he had missed the opening promenade.

"Dillon's sprung for a hotel," Gold said through a flowing web of multicolored balls. He dropped one of the balls, but caught it with his toe and kicked it back into the flow.

After final promenade, everyone changed backstage, leaving their costumes in a storage room. A brassy-voiced woman wearing a yellow raincoat took them along a curving hall to an escalator, then up to a vast room with a floor of green-veined marble.

"Look at this great space," Dawn said. Her voice echoed off the stone floor. "Race you!"

She cartwheeled across the floor, followed by two of the acrobats. Desmonica let go of János's hand and pointed after them.

"No, tonight my beautiful body is tired," János said. "I will walk along beside you."

Standing at the elevators, Lewis felt detached from the group, from their good-natured jostling and laughter. Voices around him, but not including him. He could join Perry and Jenkins. He had never talked much to Jenkins. Only in passing. Regarding Jenkins—what did
he
know? Did his position give him access to things? Obvious Dillon couldn't run the train alone. Maybe Jenkins would tell Lewis something important. Jenkins and Perry spent time together—could he trust Perry to relay information? Not useful information. Not after that rot about orbiting spheres. The elevator doors opened and he got on.

His room was on the twenty-third floor. Linusz, Cirill, and the Chala women were down the hall; everyone else was scattered throughout the hotel. Lewis felt drunk from the amount of space, enough room for a king-size bed, table and chairs, dresser, small sofa. He wondered whether Cybele would appear. Solitary sleep would be a welcome thing. He curled up in the middle of the bed and closed his eyes, but too many thoughts and images danced through. He flopped onto his right side. Who among the circus crew knew? Then onto his back. Who noticed that their destinations existed off the maps of their lives? Maybe Perry
had
discovered the truth.
Something
happened—the clouded windows...destinations. And over onto his left side, unable to find a comfortable position, a magic pose that would eliminate his endlessly repeating thoughts.

Frustrated, he dressed and went downstairs to look for the hotel's bar. The only other patrons were sitting at a corner table; Lewis sat on a barstool and ordered a beer. He was surprised no one else from the crew were there. Could
everyone
but him sleep? Someone approached the bar, but he didn't look to see who.