Pegasus: A Novel (16 page)

All three of them were quiet as they watched the candles on the tree, thinking about
what they missed most. And when the boys went to bed, he blew the candles out. He
didn’t want the trailer to go up in a blaze, but it had been nice to light them for
a while. He thought about Alex and his father as he lay in bed that night, how they
were faring, what kind of Christmas it was for them. He was worried about his father
being alone, and he wrote to him often, but there was nothing he could do to help
him now, and he knew that Alex was dropping by to see him as often as he could. And
he assured Nick in his letters that his father was doing well. Nick hoped that was
true.

There was a festive feeling on the fairgrounds for the week between
Christmas and New Year’s. People invited each other into their trailers for meals
and a drink. Others went out and had dinner in town. The circus gave a big party in
the main tent right before New Year’s, which almost everyone attended, and Nick and
his boys went too. It gave them a chance to meet new people and see the few they already
knew. Nick heard every imaginable language around him, and was surprised by how many
Germans there were, as well as numerous Italians and French.

With the emotions of Christmas behind them, there was New Year’s to get through, and
then the boys would go back to school after their vacation. They liked the school
that other children from the circus went to. And their English was getting better.
And they were to leave on tour in April. Nick was looking forward to it as a welcome
change that would keep them busy. And it would be interesting to see new places, and
discover America town by town, from one coast to the other. The boys were excited
about it too.

They spent New Year’s Eve with Gallina and Sergei and their family, and Nick and the
boys went home shortly after midnight. He had let both boys have a taste of champagne,
Toby more than Lucas, who only got a drop. He and Rosie played checkers and fell asleep
long before midnight, and Nick carried him home when they left. It had been a nice
way to end the year, with their new friends, and comforting to speak German with them
and share similar traditions.

The next day, Nick was grooming the horses when he saw Lucas walk down the road with
Rosie, heading toward the big top. He told him to be back in time for lunch, and Lucas
promised that he would. And he had just finished brushing Pegasus, and started on
Athena, when Rosie came running into the tent, in tears.

“Lucas got hurt!” she shouted at him in German. Nick stopped what he was doing and
stared at her, terrified at what might have
happened. He could have been trampled by an elephant, stuck his hand in a tiger cage,
or been run over by a truck. In the world they lived in, anything could happen, and
might have. There were plenty of dangers at the circus for a child, particularly one
as adventuresome as Lucas.

“What happened? Where is he?” Nick asked her with a frantic look, dropping the brush.

“The big top … he wanted to try the low wire, and he fell. I think he hit his head.
His eyes were closed after and he didn’t get up.” Nick didn’t stop to question her
further—he ran as fast as he could toward the big tent, which was the center of activity
of the fairground. He couldn’t imagine what would have gotten into Lucas to play on
one of the low wires, set up for practice for the high-wire acts. He ran into the
tent, looking for him, and saw a small knot of people near one of the low-wire setups,
and pushed his way through, fearing the worst. He had already lost his wife and one
child, he couldn’t bear the thought of losing another, adrift in this unfamiliar land,
which made everything seem even worse. And he saw Lucas immediately, lying on the
ground in his short pants and plaid shirt, but his eyes were open and he was talking
when his father got to him, and then Nick saw who he was talking to. It was Christianna,
in a white leotard and ballet shoes, kneeling on the ground, stroking Lucas’s head.
Lucas was smiling at her, and she had put a damp cloth on his head and told him not
to get up.

Nick turned to her immediately, wondering how she came to be there, and if she had
seen Lucas play on the wire. Maybe it had seemed normal to her.

“What happened?” he asked her in a sharp tone.

“I don’t know,” she said softly in English, in her strong Polish accent. He had never
spoken to her before. “I came in right after he
fell. He’s all right, his eyes are fine. He got a bump on the head, but he can see
clearly. We can call the doctor, but I think he will be better in a little while.
And his neck is fine too.” She knew what to look for and had checked. Her voice was
very soft as she spoke to Nick, but she seemed sure of herself and unafraid, and she
had been very gentle with the child.

Nick nodded and turned to Lucas then. “What made you do that? That was a very stupid,
dangerous thing to do. You could have broken your neck.” His own terror made him sound
harsh, but he was scared more than angry. The low wire was only five feet off the
ground, and was nothing compared to the high wire, but it was high enough for him
to have done himself some serious damage. Nick was relieved he hadn’t. He looked gratefully
at Christianna, as he lifted the boy into his arms. And when he did, Lucas closed
his eyes and said he felt sick to his stomach.

“I think he has a concussion,” she said quietly. “But if you keep him in bed, he’ll
be better tomorrow.” And then she smiled. “It used to happen to me all the time, in
the beginning.”

“Is that why you’re brave and foolish enough to work without a net?” Nick said, only
half-joking. Every time he’d seen her do it, it upset him. And as he gazed at her,
he knew he had never seen such brilliantly blue eyes in his life, and they bored into
him like a bright light she was shining on him. It took his breath away when he saw
them and made him want to close his eyes. But he couldn’t stop staring at her now.
She was mesmerizing.

“It’s what my family does,” she answered simply, undisturbed by what he’d said. But
it was also how her mother had died, and her father had gotten hurt. It sounded like
a bad family tradition to him. “Would you like me to come and watch him with you for
a while?” she offered, and Nick didn’t know why, but he nodded, and the girl
in the leotard followed him out of the tent, and walked quickly to their trailer with
him. “I’ll get the doctor if you like,” she offered, but Lucas was talking animatedly
on the way back, and seemed to be recovering rapidly, despite the nasty bump on his
head. “I think he’s all right,” she said again, and walked cautiously into their trailer
behind Nick with his son in his arms.

“You scared me to death,” he scolded Lucas, who looked sheepish as his father laid
him down on his bed, and went to get another damp cloth. Christianna already had it
ready for him, and handed it to him when he turned around. He put it on Lucas’s forehead
and told him to stay there for a while, and then he came back into the living room
to thank Christianna for her help. “He shouldn’t have done that,” Nick said, upset.

“They shouldn’t leave the wire up. I always take it down after I work. People don’t
realize that it’s still high enough to get hurt.” He nodded and couldn’t resist asking
her a question, as her eyes burned into his. Her gaze was intense. And standing next
to her, he realized what a tiny person she was. She was barely bigger than a child
herself, but she was a woman, with infinite gentleness in her gaze as she looked up
at him. There was something totally fearless about her that intrigued him, and the
wisdom of the ages in her expression.

“Why do you do that? It’s so dangerous. I watched you at the Christmas show, and it
made me feel sick. I was frightened for you,” he said gently. She fascinated him.
“I’m sorry if I sounded harsh before, but I hate to see you do it.”

“It used to make me feel sick too,” she admitted, “but it doesn’t anymore. I’m not
afraid. That’s why I can do it. It’s the fear that makes you fall. If you’re not afraid,
you don’t fall.”

It sounded overly simplistic to him, and too confident and optimistic. “And if you
slip?”

“I never do,” she said quietly. He could see, talking to her, that she had no fear
at all, at least not of the high wire. But something had happened to bring her parents
down, other than fear. And they had been experienced too.

“You might one day. Isn’t there some other way you can thrill the crowd?” he asked
her bluntly.

“Not like that. That’s what they want. It’s why they come.” And he knew that in part
what she said was true. They loved the danger and the risk, he could sense that when
he saw the crowd’s reaction to her act. “Your horses are very beautiful,” she said,
changing the subject away from herself. “I like the white ones. They look like dancers,
and what you do with them looks like ballet.”

“It almost is, and when I work with them as a pair, it’s called that.” Nick smiled
as he said it. “Do you ride?”

“I have. Horses frighten me,” she said, with a small smile.

“I find that hard to believe. A woman who dances on the high wire without a net can
hardly be afraid on a horse a few feet off the ground.”

“They’re unpredictable. You never know what they’ll do. On the wire, I only have to
depend on me.” What she said was true.

“With a good horse, you can depend on them too. I’ll show you sometime.” She nodded
and seemed to like the idea, and then they went to check on Lucas again. He was lying
on his bed, playing with a toy, and he seemed fine. Lucas looked up and smiled at
her.

“Thank you for helping me,” he said with a shy smile.

“Don’t play on my wire again,” she said with a look that told him she meant it. She
had a will of iron, and it showed in her eyes. She was a tiny person, with an enormous
spirit. She had to be in order to do what she did. And then Rosie walked into the
trailer looking for Lucas and Nick. Nick called out to tell her they were in Lucas’s
room. She appeared in the doorway looking panicked, and then burst into a broad smile
when she saw he was all right.

“I thought you were dead,” she said to her friend.

“I wasn’t,” he said proudly. “Just resting for a minute.”

“You rested for a long time,” Rosie said matter-of-factly. “I called your name and
you didn’t wake up.”

“I hit my head, but it’s better now. She helped me,” he said, glancing at Christianna
again, and she smiled.

“You were already awake when I got there, just a little dazed.” She had gone to practice
and found Lucas on the ground, coming to. Rosie had already run off to find Nick.

“I don’t want you two out of my sight from now on,” Nick scolded them both. “It’s
my fault for letting you go off on your own. I didn’t know you’d be foolish enough
to play on a wire.”

“My mama won’t let me play on it either,” Rosie confessed to Nick, as Christianna
walked slowly out of the room. There was nothing more for her to do, and she didn’t
want to intrude. Nick followed her to the front door.

“Would you like to come and see my horses sometime? You can ride Pegasus. I’ll hold
the reins.”

“Not if he stands on his back legs,” she said shyly.

“He knows not to do that if I’m not riding him or telling him to,” Nick said with
a warm look. “I won’t let him frighten you. He’s very tame. And Athena is even more
so, if you’d rather try her.”

“Maybe sometime,” she said cautiously.

“You’re welcome anytime,” he said as she stepped out of the trailer into the winter
sunshine. It was a warm day. “And thank you again for helping Lucas. He’s lucky you
were there and knew what to do.” She had kept him from getting up too quickly, which
would have been dangerous. He might have fainted and hit his head again.

“I’m glad he’s all right.” He could have broken his neck, too, which was what she
had feared at first. It was how her mother had died. She smiled at Nick again then,
and left, with her perfect tiny body molded by the leotard as she headed back toward
the big tent. Nick stood and watched for a minute and then went back inside.

“She’s pretty,” Lucas volunteered as soon as his father came back into his room. “I
like her.”

“I do too,” Nick said, smiling at him.

“Why does everyone say she’s crazy? She’s nice.”

“Because she works without a net,” Rosie explained. “That’s a stupid thing to do.
My mama says she does it because her father makes her do it, and he’s crazy too. He
must be really mean to make her do a thing like that.” And as he left the two children
to their conversation, Nick wondered if her father really did force her or if Christianna
actually liked what she did. She seemed to, and had no qualms about it. To her, it
was just work, like any other job. Most of the people in the circus seemed to feel
that way, with no sense of how unusual it was. And many of them had done it for generations,
unlike Nick.

He went out into the winter sun again, and sat on a chair someone had left outside
the trailer next to them. There were four acrobats living in the other trailer, and
they were often noisy at night. They were Chinese, from Hong Kong. And as he sat there,
and lit a cigarette, Nick thought of Christianna again, how beautiful and delicate
she was and how brave. He hoped she’d come to visit his horses sometime, and then
he scolded himself. She was twenty-one years old, and he was about to turn forty-four.
He couldn’t even think about pursuing her as a woman, and yet she appealed to him
immensely. He was riveted by her eyes. He went back inside then and pushed her from
his mind. The last thing he needed was to get involved
with a young girl at the circus, and he told himself that she probably thought he
was too old anyway.

But in spite of his good intentions, she haunted him all day. He kept thinking of
her expression when she talked about not being afraid of the high wire, or when he
found her in the big top leaning over Lucas. There was something so gentle about her
and at the same time so strong. He tried to forget about her and found he couldn’t,
and by the end of the day, he felt bewitched. All he could think of were those bottomless
blue eyes.