Circus of the Grand Design (24 page)

Everyone yelled: "Brisbane!" Bodyssia got up and lifted him into the air. He grasped his hands over his head and gave a whooping cheer.

"And so, to dinner," Dillon said. He sat down, and one of the acrobats began a song in his language; the other three joined. Though Lewis couldn't understand the words, the melody and sound of their voices thrilled him. Someone tapped a rhythm on the table, another hummed along, and soon all were humming and tapping with foot or hand.

When the song ended, a movement in the balcony caught Lewis's attention. The red-haired hostess unhooked a swing that had been clipped to the railing. She maneuvered herself onto the flat seat and began to sway back and forth above them. The waiters delivered the first course, a crunchy seaweed salad. A few people, including Dillon, looked up occasionally from their food to watch the swinging woman.

Lewis whispered to Perry: "I didn't see any Oblong Henry in the bookstore here."

"Didn't expect to," Perry said. "Things here—"

"Why do we stay? It's not fair to Barca—he can't even be with us at the banquet." The red-haired woman returned to the swing carrying an acoustic guitar.

"We can't leave until the show has run it course. That's our way, and Barca understands."

"Did you ever hear about Granite and Butterfly?" Bodyssia asked Lewis. "Butterfly would stand on the bottom end of a teeterboard. Then Granite would jump down on the high end to pop her into the air. Wings would sprout from her backpack, and she would glide around singing."

Jenkins handed Perry a bottle of wine and asked him something. Perry turned away from Lewis and tilted his mouth close to Jenkins's ear.

The woman strummed her guitar and sang. Her voice rose and fell with her swinging, making it difficult to hear. Lewis caught occasional lyrics, something about Butch, a playground bully, and in another, a cowboy named Ramsey. The songs mixed with the surrounding conversations—Gold and Desmonica offering baby names, two acrobats arguing about netball scoring, Bodyssia describing the hotel's exercise equipment to anyone listening. The courses kept coming, a purple flower with wide, thick petals sautéed in butter, steamed greens with long, hollow stalks, breaded and fried things that resembled soft-shelled crab but appeared to be made from vegetable protein.

Was he thinking Cybele's name or did someone just say it aloud? A waiter refilled his wine glass; Lewis looked at it suspiciously. How many glasses had he drunk?

"You of course know the basic mythological background," Jenkins said.

"Of course," Perry said.

"There are conflicts over which is the older of the two versions. I opt for the Tale of Renewal, though I suppose I made the choice more from its artistic merits than logic. And because our own horse reminds me of it."

"Yes, it does. And sometimes I wonder—"

Two of the acrobats shouted across the table at each other, making Lewis miss the rest of Perry's statement.

"The act of valor, and the passage across the parched landscape," Jenkins said. "I've always had a penchant for acts of valor. Though of course their historical origins are always less grandiose than the myth. But the idea of one chosen man on the magical horse braving harsh elements to bring the land back to fruitfulness has a romantic appeal."

"Except his reward is castration and abandonment."

Jenkins laughed, slapping the table. That was the most animated Lewis had ever seen him.

"No meaningful story has a happy ending," Jenkins said.

Their conversation turned to the subject of horses, the flesh-and-blood variety. Lewis wished he could have heard their whole exchange. He felt someone rubbing his shoulders and looked up.

"Clowns relieve tension, it's my job," Miss Linda said.

Had he looked tense? "Feels great," he said and closed his eyes, wondering whose job was to relieve the clown's tension.

Desert finally came, with coffee and after-dinner drinks. Dillon stood and raised his glass. "And now, we bid farewell to this meal. Matinee tomorrow—please
attempt
to acquire sufficient sleep." He drained his glass and turned to go.

Miss Linda whispered in Lewis's ear: "I've got to go too," and fled the room.

"Wow, I've never seen her move so fast," Gold said.

Jenkins and Perry left; the rest stayed to finish the remaining wine. The woman on the swing still played her guitar, now fingerpicking a sad-sounding instrumental, but the crowd in the restaurant had thinned; Lewis planned to do the same.

"We're going back to my room to play some Whassis," Dawn said. "You want to join us?"

"No thanks. I think I'll go to bed. I'm pretty done in."

She smiled and blew him a kiss. These circus people with their false dramatic flair—at one time a kiss from Dawn would have thrilled him. Now, nothing. He walked out with them, said goodnight when the elevator reached his floor.

He stuffed his clothes into his bag and went back to the lobby, where he asked the smockless woman at the check-in for Abigail, then sat on the couch, nervously rehearsing what he would say. When she arrived, he found himself speaking with confidence, telling her that he needed to return to the train, requesting that she arrange access. Though why would he question his abilities? Of course she would help him.
He
rode the horse. And she, whatever hierarchy the smocks signified, merely worked in a hotel.

She told him to go back to where the crew had met before the performance, describing a nearby door that opened to the loading dock. She would call to have the night security guard let him through.

He found the double-door that opened to the loading ramp where he had entered the first night. It would be so nice to lay down beside Cybele, lose himself in her limonene scented skin. She...But no, what he really wanted was to stare at a blue sky. Long ago he had noticed that if you concentrated enough, the blue began to change form, to flow in and out of the spectrum, a living thing of blue. Damn this mall-town, Cybele, and the circus. Give him a shack in the hills and he would be happy. He recalled the first time during his tenure with the circus that he had gotten off the train—Bellmouth Bay, or something like that—and his joy at being outside. He was meant to be a man of the trees and fields.

Where was that security guard? This city, any city, and especially the train, could never be his home. His circus friends though, he would miss them. Dawn, with her voice like tinkling high notes on a piano, Gold's arrogance, Perry. But goodbye was still far away.

A man came down the hall and told Lewis to follow him through the double-doors. Lewis picked up his bag. The man looked familiar, but the smocks made everyone look alike.

"We need to wait here a minute," the man said.

Lewis recognized him from the park, the one he had seen watching the jugglers and talking to the two smockless men. The door behind them opened, but before Lewis could turn around, a weight struck the back of his head.

~

Something—the passage of the train, Cybele's selection of him as myth-fulfillment consort—had elevated his awareness in such a way that he...
felt
. Not a physical sense, but a subconscious awareness of everything around him. Whereas the other performers withdrew on an inward-seeking course, he grew into a role far beyond what his mundane origins would have indicated. Though the understanding came to him in a rush, as he fell the four or five feet from the loading dock, he knew that in a sense it had always been with him, locked up and unusable for conducting his life. And his rootless life was but a symptom of this buried awareness. In psychological terms, he was hidden from himself.

What course then, for this newly self-aware person? He hit the pavement and blackness replaced his speculations.

~

Lewis lay in the dark. His shirt clung to his skin, damp, sticky, stiffening. Pain unraveled his right side, and the bare concrete floor pushed against his bones. He touched the back of his head: a bump, tender but it didn't feel bloody. Someone had hit him? When he tried to sit up, the pain in his side made him cry out. He became aware of loud, ragged breathing, somewhere near. His left hand touched a wall; he pushed himself against it and sat up, pulling his knees close as protection. His right leg hurt to bend.

He strained to locate the source of the breathing and laughed, a dry gasping chuckle. The ragged breathing was his own.

"So what the hell happened," he said aloud. He heard a rustle, barely audible over the sound of his heartbeat. This time it couldn't be him.

"Is that Lewis?" a voice from far away asked. Who here could know his name? Again the voice. "It must be you. I can recognize your scent."

But he didn't smell, did he? Not like Dawn when she finished her elephant rehearsals. The voice reminded him of someone, its hesitancy, the way the phrases turned down, like gasps. He had known so many people in his life. It could be anyone.

"Are you hurt? Lewis?"

Yes, he knew that voice, or at least one similar.

"They got me after the dinner. Running back to my room. They were in the elevator. I don't like riding elevators with other people, but I needed to get back to my room so, no choice, and they grabbed me, took me down and down. They said they'd let me go after they got what they wanted."

"Miss Linda?" Yes, her voice, speaking faster, but hers. He crawled toward her.

Later, but how much later he couldn't know, he woke with his head in her lap. His body jerked, and he sat partway up. Firm hands against his shoulders pushed him back down.

"Stay still," she said. "You passed out. You need to rest." He tried to speak, but his throat was dry.

"They gave me a little water," she said. She pressed a bottle against his lips and tilted it up; he swallowed a mouthful, then another. "That's enough for now." She pulled the bottle away.

He closed his eyes. Something touched his face, a soft, stroking. Miss Linda's fingers, strong fingers, they calmed him. What of their predicament? Who then, to lead the troops to victory? Shapes flowed in and out. Was the ceiling always this close? He opened the rear door of Martha's car and got out. His car was parked beside it. Martha leaned over and listed things she wanted him to buy her. Her mother sat beside her on the front seat. Was it his Martha or the smocked Martha?

"I was just having the oddest dream," he said to Miss Linda. She brought the bottle back to his lips and gave him another swallow. "Thanks." He reached up to touch her with his unhurt arm, found her shoulder with his fingers.

"Maybe they're all in on it," he said. His arm was too heavy to keep where it was. He let it flop onto his chest. They would be missed at the matinee, but no one would be able to find them. What did these people want? It had to be the mechanical horse. Abigail had sent him down to meet the alleged security guard. She knew Lewis was the rider and had alerted the gang. They had probably taken Miss Linda first because they had the opportunity, but he was the real target. Cybele would have to rescue them. No one else had the power.

"I think I would go mad, here in the dark alone," Miss Linda said. "I haven't even tried to find a door. Sat where they left me, then they brought you in. I'm going to get up now and feel around. I need to rest your head on something."

"Help me take my shirt off." He tried to raise his arms, but they were too heavy.

"No, you need to stay warm. Use mine." He felt the bottom of her sweatshirt slide up behind him. She held him by his shoulders and replaced her lap with the folded shirt.

The sounds of her movement blended with the rushing in his ears. Was the room over a subterranean stream? Everything moved. He lay in the middle of a footbridge suspended over a deep gorge. The bridge swayed; he was afraid to stand. Far below, water crashed over rocks. Spray misted the air. He could make out a rainbow where the sun struck the spray. A cry sounded. Had someone fallen into the gorge?

"They left my bag!" A glow appeared, revealing Miss Linda squatting on the floor with a canvas shoulder bag. Her white bra reflected the flashlight's glow. She pointed the light toward him. "I keep a small flashlight in my bag," she said.

"I can sit up against the wall now," he said. "You should put your shirt back on."

"It's okay. Tee-shirt in my bag, and a small can of lycopodium too. We might be able to use it to get out of here."

"Lycopody...?"

"Clown fire. Powder. Expose it to air and it reacts, explodes, then the air puts it out." She held the light in her mouth and rummaged through the bag.

He sat up, using the wall as a backrest. The movement made him dizzy. "They want the horse," he said.

Miss Linda handed him the water bottle. "Finish it," she said. "I've got another in my bag."

How did she carry so much in that bag? He swallowed the rest of the water. Clowns always did the least-expected things. They were good to have around, more useful than Dawn would have been, for instance.

"The horse," he said. A drop of water ran down his chin and it seemed to take him a long time to raise his sleeve to wipe it off. "It's special. Haven't you noticed how people are always trying to get it? The woman at the hotel asked me about it, and the man who brought me down here—saw him hanging around with some others, watching our group. They must want to trade us for it."

"The lycopodium has a quick-release. We'll have to close our eyes. They won't expect anything. It'll blind them, for a little while anyway."

"Shine your light all the way around," he said.

In a tiny closet at the far end, several wire hangers dangled from a rod and a tin mop bucket lay upended below them.

"Those hangers—I'll try to wrap a couple together to hit them with."

She brought the hangers. This was silly. What was he going to do, slap their captors with a piece of wire? He bent the hook away from where it wrapped around the other end. Surprise would help. Their lack of panic impressed him, especially hers. She was such a timid thing. Not that
he
had ever been exposed to something like this, but he rode the horse. He was expected to be able to handle any situation. He had acted against Horton's giant henchman, hadn't he? His bruised shoulder throbbed and his fingers couldn't seem to unwrap the wire