Vanishing and Other Stories (39 page)

And to a graduate student in braids and a wool skirt: “Your heart line begins right under your middle finger, so my guess is you have a disregard for the responsibilities of love. A very sexual nature.” Marie lowers her voice. “By sexual, I mean dangerous.”

When customers leave the tent, she tucks their money into her back pocket. She is a businesswoman who understands a changing world. Women are working, couples are swinging, parents are splitting, and everyone wants to know what will happen next. You sit outside the tent, your face hidden in your hood, and suck on peanut brittle. Next to the circles of blush on your mother's cheeks, the varnished nails glued to her fingers, no one notices you anyway.

 

 

WHEN YOU LEAVE FOR UNIVERSITY
, your mother will give you a stiff hug at the international airport. You will have taken everything you own from the apartment she bought two years before. Your records, your books, your off-the-shoulder sweaters will be tucked into a trunk held shut by two leather straps. Your mother will find a man—wearing a grey trench coat, and about to step on a plane—to lift the trunk onto the conveyor belt.

“Work hard, Jilly,” she'll say. “And don't eat the cheese—I heard about a woman who got a stomach full of worms. They're centuries behind us when it comes to pasteurization.”

Then she'll pull you to her and press your face to her wine-coloured hair. She'll pat your shoulder, then your head. You'll want
something from her, some sort of guarantee. But she'll push you away and ask if you have your passport, your traveller's cheques.

 

 

“
ARE YOU THE NICE LADY
I should talk to about my future?”

You look up from your peanut brittle and see a man with a mouth that takes up half his face. He is smiling.

“Are you the lady with the magic eye?” He's not in costume, but you can tell from his accent that he works for the circus because Marie told you these people come from the other side of Canada, where they speak French. This man was obviously not prepared for rain. He wears jeans with reinforced knees and a button-up shirt with the cuffs rolled. He is soaked through. You don't answer his teasing, just look at him and grip your knees.

“Here, you want something?” He pulls a box of cinnamon hearts from his shirt pocket, and you shake your head. This is how you remember much of the past few years: as a swirl of men. When they acknowledged you, it was to shut you up with a bag of penny candy. You don't remember faces, only the muscle of denimed thighs that passed you in the trailer's kitchen as you coloured in a book or spread margarine on toast. You remember the way they messed the curls on top of your head.
Cute kid
, they'd say, or nothing at all. Your mother has jobs, but these men are her career. She goes months without one, then finds someone—someone older, lonely, well-off enough that he can help a girl out. Buy her wine, pay her rent. You have questions about your father—what was his name? what did he do? was he good at crosswords?—but you think of these men and never ask.

This man, still almost a boy, crouches beside you and taps your knee. “You sure? You don't want any?”

“Are you in the circus?”

“In a way.” He picks at his mud-spattered boots.

“Can you fly?”

“I can climb things. Ropes, buildings.”

“A cricket flew into my hand this morning. Just like that.” You fail to snap your fingers.

“There are different kinds of crickets, you know. Some live underground, some on trees.”

“What kind is this one?” You pull the crushed body from your pocket.

“Ah.” He touches one of the snapped legs. “A nearly flawless specimen. This is a scaly cricket. If it jumped to you, it must have been in love with you. That's what crickets do. They fall in love every night and they sing about it.”

“Put that thing away, Jilly.” Your mother's shadow and her voice loom over you, and you shove the bug into your pocket. “People at the circus don't want to see dead things.”

“Is that true?” You look up at her legs. “Do crickets fall in love?”

“Who is this?” Marie stands under the tent and looks at the man. A curtain of water separates her from you and him.

“Of course it's true. It's scientific,” he says. “The females have eardrums on their elbows and that's how they hear the song.” He stands and faces your mother. “Imagine that. Hearing with your elbow.”

You watch him as he looks at Marie's blousy shirt and tight, flared pants. His eyes crinkle, his head tilts, and he steps an inch
closer to her. All through your adolescence you will watch men do this in her presence.

The boy runs his hand through his hair and keeps talking. “In French we call them
grillons
. There's a song. About a couple who make love in a field and the crickets start to sing.”

“Do you need something?” Your mother uses the same tone with him as she does with you, and you feel sudden ownership of him.

“He wants you to tell his future.”

“I was told to visit you. I was told you can see things.” He steps closer to your mother, and stands under the water that falls from the lip of the tarp.

“I'm supposed to be here for the customers. The people who pay to get in.” Marie crosses her arms.

“It's actually a funny song. Eventually the crickets get so loud that the couple has to cover their ears. They have to hide under a blanket.” He leans toward her and pretends to pull a cinnamon heart from her hair. “Candy?”

“I'm very busy.” She steps back from him into the tent. On the inside wall, she has hung a poster of a gypsy woman. A mockery that doesn't resemble her at all, except for the hard glint in the eyes.

 

 

ON YOUR WEDDING DAY
, you will send your mother a Polaroid: you and your student outside the Registro Civil. Him in sandals, a buttoned shirt, a tie. You in the blue skirt and jacket you sewed for the occasion. Out of practice with a needle, you struggled with the
material—stitch, rip, restitch—and in the photo the skirt will ride up higher than expected.

Your student—no, your husband—will look at something beyond the camera: a pigeon maybe, or a woman sipping coffee. His posture will be perfect, and your head will tilt toward him, a curl of your hair blowing in your face. One of your hands will be raised to block the sun from your eyes. The other clasps his arm.

He's too cute
, your mother will reply in a “Congratz” card.
Hold on tight
.

 

 

THE MAN
'
S NAME IS PAUL
, and though his skin is becoming leathery, he is only twenty-three. He works as a roustabout, fixing guy lines, painting and repainting the purple barrels that the bears roll around on. You break off a chunk of peanut brittle for him and he brings you to the circus's muddy backyard. You see the clowns up close and notice their smiles are only painted on. A family of five rehearses jumps on their unicycles, and quilts cover the cage where the elephant sleeps. Two women and one man wear turquoise and groom horses. They shout something at Paul.

“Arrêtez, là.”
He puts his light, callused hand on your head.
“Elle est avec moi.”

He brings you to the wall that shields the grandstand from backstage, and points to a hole in the canvas. Inside, the show is on, and someone—hard to say if it is a woman or a man—swings high above the ground on a loop of rope. The crowd is quiet.

“That's the cloud swing.” Paul kneels beside you. “I help set that up. It can hold anyone's weight.”

You watch the performer hang upside down from one leg, then swing and shimmer in the spotlight.

“I have to be just as brave as him. I climb just as high. And if anything snaps, it's on my head.” Paul laughs. “It's on all our heads, I guess, but you know what I mean. Took me a week to get the courage to climb that pole.”

More interesting even than the slim figure flying through the air is the way Paul's mouth moves. You get lost in his slanted words and added syllables.

“Were you born in the circus? My mom says people are born here.” You imagined weddings in the centre ring, births there too.

“Not me.” He watches through the hole the size of a thumbprint. “You're mom's tough.
Chiante
. Tell me, does she like flowers?”

He stares through the hole in the canvas and you see sequins reflected in the curve of his eye.

“She probably wants me back now,” you say. “She's probably wondering where I am.”

 

 

YOU WILL CALL YOUR MOTHER
once a year, every New Year's Day. But it's the time you phone to tell her of your first marriage—its devastation—that you remember. The cost of the call will make both of you more concise, more honest, than in any of your letters.

“You fall too hard.” The connection will be bad and her voice will fade in and out. “Always have. You're too sensitive.”

“Is that bad? Sensitivity?”

“You scare people. You're like a tightrope act gone wrong.”