Entwined

Chapter 9

Grimaldi had been drinking steadily all evening. He and Tina had gone out for dinner, and now they were about to make the rounds of some nightclubs. He had asked the taxi to stop when he saw a familiar street; very excited, he directed the driver to a doorway from which emanated loud music and around which a throng of kids were milling. He couldn't believe the club was still in existence. He had paid off the taxi before he realized his mistake; it was not the same club he remembered.

Tina moved down the murky stone corridor lit by a naked light bulb. She shrieked over the music that it was a terrible place. A young punk passed them, laughed at Tina, and then shouted to his friends. "What did he say?" shrieked Tina.

Grimaldi put a protective arm around her. "He said, 'Welcome to the Slaughterhouse!' "

The club was throbbing with kids where once it had resounded with the screams of slaughtered animals. Tina pushed and shoved her way to the bar. The music was so loud it was impossible to hear. Grimaldi felt his age among all these kids, dancing and drinking, smoking pot, and openly passing drugs. He suggested they drink up and leave.

Tina pouted. "Don't be so boring! This is the one night we have. Once the show starts, I won't be able to get out."

Grimaldi shrugged, made his way to a small alcove and a couple of crude benches. Tina sat on his knee as he squeezed himself onto the edge of a bench. She tipped back her bottle of beer, her feet tapping to the music. All around them young men and women prowled in black clothes, dark faces, white makeup. They shouted and danced while Grimaldi leaned back on the old white tiles, giving a shove to the girl behind him as she fumbled with her boyfriend's pants.

A young man asked Tina to dance. She kissed Grimaldi, gave him her purse and her half-empty bottle of beer, and dived onto the dance floor.

He sat waiting, getting hotter and hotter. He finished Tina's beer, and began to look around the crowd of thrashing kids to see if he could find her. He got up, looked over the heads of the dancers and saw her flinging her body around, dancing with her eyes shut, loving every minute of it.

Grimaldi made his way up the crowded staircase, and then pushed and shoved his way out. He heaved for breath on the pavement, and looked right and left. He was trying to get his bearings, sure the old club he remembered had to be close by. He grabbed hold of the beefy doorman, and shouting to be heard, tried to describe Tina in the event she came out looking for him. He told the doorman he had her handbag. He said that he was looking for a club called Knaast that had been in the area.

The doorman pointed down the street. Grimaldi walked for about ten minutes, stopped and turned this way and that, and was about to give up and return to the Slaughterhouse when he saw the club door. He grinned, and crossed the road.

The club looked the same, but the clientele had changed a lot. The club was now a leather bar; he had never seen so many chains and leather jackets crammed into such a small space. Beefy bar men, with T-shirts and muscles, wearing spikes and God knows what attached to their chests and throats, served customers, chained to bars. Some men were chained to each other, carrying on animated conversations, as if their chains were part of the decor.

Grimaldi pushed his way to the bar, asked for a beer, and turned to face the club floor. Only then did he realize that the patrons were all male! He was asked to dance by an aging homosexual in a strange leather helmet, a jockstrap and white tights. He downed his beer, and tried to edge his way toward the exit but it took a great deal of jostling. He shoved a large muscular man wearing an SS hat, who turned and gripped Grimaldi by the testicles. "Don't push me!"

Grimaldi grimaced, the man's grip tightened. "I just want to leave, I am not looking for any arguments."

"You don't, cocksucker?"

Grimaldi was eye to eye with the SS officer's handlebar mustache. "I don't, but you will get in a lot of trouble if you don't get your fucking hands off me!"

"Make me," lisped the pursed lips through the mustache. Grimaldi backhanded the SS queen, then jabbed an elbow in his throat. He could feel his testicles burning as the man went sprawling.

Suddenly a blond-haired boy tried to swipe Grimaldi with his whip. Grimaldi snatched the whip and began to crack it, giving rise to a mixture of hysteria and applause. A bottle of champagne was waved at him from behind the bar, the chained barman screaming it was on the house, and Grimaldi abruptly broke up, laughing. The incident was so crass, so hideous, he had to laugh, and everyone joined in. He kept on saying he had only fallen into the place by mistake, he was straight. "Just get me out of here, somebody get me out!"

Grimaldi could hear his name being shouted, bellowed. "Luis... Luis... Luis!"

Grimaldi shook his head. His name was being yelled by a bloody chimp!

Boris was up on Fredrick Lazars' shoulders, the little animal's arms and legs virtually covering the man's face. Boris was pursing her lips; she looked as if she were the one calling Luis.

Grimaldi broke up in a roar of laughter, and the two men clasped each other in a bear hug as Boris whooped and screeched with excitement. Lazars introduced Grimaldi to friends and ordered drinks, dragging Grimaldi to a brick alcove.

An hour later, Tina stood outside the Slaughterhouse club, in tears. She spoke no German, and her young dancing partner was still trying to persuade her to return to the club. She pushed him away, she shouted that she was looking for someone, but he began to pull at her arm.

"I'm looking for somebody... leave me alone!"

"I help you... I find for you, okay?"

Tina was so relieved he understood English, she hugged him. and kept tight hold of his hand as he talked to the doorman, who pointed down the street.

"Your friend, ze big man... go there, you come? I show you, come with me, yes?"

Tina teetered after her young friend, looking back doubtfully to the doorman, who gestured to the street with his hand. "Zat way... he go zat way."

While Tina was walking down the dimly lit alleyway, Grimaldi was staggering out of a taxi, with Lazars. Boris was on Lazars' shoulders; the two men were stumbling around the pavement. Lazars tried to get his wallet out of Boris's hand but Grimaldi took out a thick wad of notes and paid the driver. Tina's handbag was still hooked over his arm, though he seemed unaware of it. He was very drunk. Lazars bellowed for him to follow as he entered his apartment.

Lazars handed Boris over to Grimaldi, and opened two bottles of beer. He drew up two chairs, and then weaving slightly he spread both his arms, beaming. "She's a good girl, you won't regret this, and I'm giving you a good price!"

"I don't want a fuckin' chimp!"

"But you know somebody who would want her! You got lots of contacts, somebody'd want her. She's two years old, lot of years in her. She's intelligent, sharp, an' I've got all her papers, her certificates, her inoculations; it's a hell of a deal, I can't keep her here, shake on it! Look at her. You don't have a heart for human beings but a heart for animals. You don't have compassion... I love her, my friend, but I am willing to let you have her."

Grimaldi shook his head. "I can't..."

"Put her in the act."

Grimaldi drank the beer, and banged the bottle onto the table. "Forget it, I don't want a goddamned chimp!"

Standing Boris on the tabletop, and pulling a worn old cardigan over the chimp's head, Lazars showed the little animal as much affection as if she were a child. "She's toilet trained. She could live in your trailer, heard it's like a palace."

"You been up to the grounds?"

"No, Tommy Kellerman told me, you know he's dead?"

Grimaldi yawned, scratching his head. "Ruda had to identify him!"

Lazars tucked Boris up in the old horsehair sofa, gave her a teddy bear to cuddle, patted her head, and waited for her eyes to close before he opened two more beers.

"Do you remember the mad Russian, Ivan, the crazy horse?"

Grimaldi nodded. "He's a tough one to forget, you been over there? I hear he's still with the Moscow Circus."

"Yeah he's still with them, earning peanuts and working in that jungle of concrete and glass. He's got eighteen tigers, ten lions, and two panthers — act's good, he's good — one of the best, but..."

Lazars drank thirstily, and then stared at the bottle in his massive gnarled hands. "Not the way it used to be. Ivan took me to see the cages, steel cages on wheels, hardly enough room for the poor creatures to turn around in. You know, all my life I dreamed of working with big animals, but I never had the money or the breaks, and then — just like that!"

Lazars slapped the table with the flat of his hand. "I changed my mind... my whole outlook changed. I didn't wish it anymore. I talked to the Soviet Union's Society for the Protection of Animals, SSPA, I said there should be greater controls. You know, they lost three, three giraffes a few years back, they transported them around in railway carriages. They couldn't stand upright, hadda travel with their necks bent, crouched on their knees, for five days. But they told me they could do nothing against the power of the Soyuz-gostsirk — the organization that runs most of the circuses in Russia. It sickened me! For the first time I began to think we should reconsider, try again to find the heart of the circus."

Lazars opened more beer, and gulped half a bottle before he continued. "Then, my friend, my eyes were opened. You ever seen France's Circus Archaos? You seen it?"

Grimaldi shrugged. "Yeah, but it's not everyone's taste!"

"They got chainsaws, punks, Mad Max, and fire! Rock music — it's new, its exciting!"

"Bullshit. What kids want to see clowns in dirty mackintoshes and rubber boots, Bull shit!!"

Lazars banged the table. "No, you are wrong, my friend. They have some of the finest performers. The heart of their circus are the jugglers and the trapeze artists. The shows have all been updated, they cater to the new audience, the kids, the teenagers that don't want to see fucking bears pedal bikes, chimps, like Boris, forced to become entertainers. They see through it, they know it's a fucking lie! You train a dog to sit and you've got to use force. Animals are no longer wanted."

"Bullshit! Don't give me this arty-farty crap about the French. They tried an animal-free circus in England and it flopped belly up, nobody came. You stand by the box office and you hear every other caller ask: What animals? They come for the animals!"

"No, not anymore. Luis, they see with their own eyes, they see man trying to prove he is top dog! They see man only wanting to dominate other species. They see the tragic animals hemmed into their cages, they see..."

"I should get back!" Grimaldi tried to stand up, and slumped back into his chair again.

Lazars took no notice, and handed him another bottle. "So, how is Ruda? She's come a long way, she's queen now, huh?"

Grimaldi nodded, and Lazars began to reminisce about the time when Grimaldi himself was a big star attraction. They swapped stories, recalling past glories... the two massive men seated on either side of the small table in the filthy cluttered kitchen. They laughed, they slapped each other's shoulders, and plowed their way through the crate of beer.

Suddenly they fell silent, caught up in their own private memories.

The first time Grimaldi had seen Ruda was with Lazars; Grimaldi was with a group of performers having a night out. He was drunk that night, had been drinking for the best part of the evening when they all stumbled to the basement club.

The city was bombed out. Abject poverty was everywhere, the only escape was in drink. The people were dazed, hungry; the aftermath of the terrible war hung like a sickening cloud. Memories of prewar times, of affluence, of dreams were pushed roughly aside; living and being alive was all that mattered, surviving the only priority.

Grimaldi had money then, one of the few who had. He was a young boy of fifteen when the war started, and had gone with his father to the United States, where his father died. It was in America that Luis learned his two brothers had been killed on the Russian front. He built up the act, and was one of the first performers to return to Europe after the war. It was the mid-fifties, and word had spread that young Luis Grimaldi was someone to watch. Those he was out with that night had all seen his performance, and everyone was slapping his back, toasting him. Then Ruda and the old magician had appeared on the cabaret stage in a puff of pitiful green smoke. This elicited general catcalls and yells, and a bottle was hurled at the old man while he attempted to continue the act.

The audience was called to attention by a taped drumroll. The old man asked for the patrons' participation. He was greeted with whistles and lewd remarks. Dressed in cheap black bra and panties, with laddered black tights and high-heeled shoes, Ruda appeared disinterested in her own performance, passing the tubes and hoops with a half-hearted smile on her face.

The magician had drawn from various pockets small silk handkerchiefs, red, blue, green. With great showmanship he had thrown them into the air, and urged the audience to hide the silks. Grimaldi's friends took a bunch of the squares, blew their noses with them, and tossed them aside, while Grimaldi tucked one into his right boot.

Ruda stood impassive, her head half turned from the blinding spotlights. Now the magician slipped a thick black blindfold around her eyes.

He began to thread his way through the audience. Ruda, in a low monotone, named the colors as each was retrieved.

"Red, blue, red, red, red, blue, green, red, blue, green..."

At one point she seemed ahead of the magician as the colored squares were caught and held aloft. She turned her head slightly as if listening, and yet kept reciting the colors. The audience had grown quiet, caught up in the act as the old man worked the club, gathering the squares; at times he had his back to her, it was impossible for her to cheat.

He stepped in front of Grimaldi. "Red..."

Grimaldi shrugged his shoulders, smiling, denying that he had hidden a square.

"Red..."

They had all cheered as he retrieved the red silk square from his boot.

Grimaldi and his friends had continued on to another club. It was almost dawn when Grimaldi hailed a taxi to go home. While waiting he saw her, standing on a street corner. She was still wearing her costume, but now she had an old brown thin coat around her shoulders. He saw her stop two men, and then shrug her shoulders as they moved on.

The taxi pulled up and Grimaldi got inside, the cab did a U-turn, coming to her side. She stared dull-eyed at the cab, and then stepped forward. Grimaldi wound down his window, about to say he had seen her act, when she stuck her head in the car and asked, "Do you want a blow job?" He shook his head, but she hung on.

"You can name your price!"

Grimaldi asked the driver to move on, but she still clung to the window. "Oh, it's you. It was in your fucking boot. You like to make people look like shit?... Fuck you!"

Grimaldi shouted for the driver to stop. He got out. She backed away from him, afraid. But he smiled and complimented her.

"You know, that was quite good. You should get rid of that old man, work up a real act, you're good! It has to be some kind of trick, but it works."

She hung back, pressing herself against the wall until he returned to the taxi and drove off. But the following morning she was there, hanging around his trailer.

"I'm looking for work."

Grimaldi had brushed her off, but nothing deterred her. She came by every day. He would give her a little money, get rid of her, but she still turned up. He would find her sitting on his steps, no matter what the weather, waiting; asking for a job, or peddling a blow job, masturbation. He ordered one of the stewards to keep her out, but she came back. If she wasn't hanging around his trailer, she would be waiting by the cages. She was always there, always in the same worn brown coat, and always hungry.

Grimaldi had been having an affair with a very attractive Italian trapeze artist. She screamed at him to get rid of the whore. He then became nasty with Ruda, physically shoving her away. Still, she came back.

There were only a few more days left on his contract before he was to travel on, and so he had given in. He became more pleasant, asked where she came from, if she had a home. She would shrug her shoulders. Then he did a foolish thing, seeing her huddled outside his trailer in pouring rain; he had asked her inside.

Once inside, she showed genuine interest in his photographs and reviews. He offered to take her coat, but she refused, sitting in the sodden coat, smoking.

"Will you take me with you when you go?"

He had laughed, saying this was impossible. He was going to Austria, then on to Switzerland, crossing back to Italy and then, he hoped, America.

She offered to be a groom, sweep, do anything. He had told her she would have to be hired by the circus bosses.

The next day, he found her sitting in his trailer. He chucked her out, but after his show she was back. Exasperated by her persistence, he said that if she had the right papers, passport and visas, he would see what he could do with the circus boss.

Later that night she came back, tapping on his window. He shouted for her to get the hell away, but she kept on tapping and in the end he had opened the door.

"Look, I said I don't want you around. If you got the papers leave them. I'll see what I can do, now go..."

Brazenly, she had walked past him into the small bedroom, taking off her filthy coat. She had on the black brassiere, black panties with a garter belt. The stockings were even more laddered.

"I've got someone with me, okay? Whatever you have to say, make it quick."

"I got no papers, I need you to help me, I need money."

He laughed at her audacity.

"My husband won't let me have any money."

"Your husband?"

"Yeah, the old man, I work for him, it's his act, you know, the magic man?"

Grimaldi hitched up the small towel around his waist. "Like I said, part of the act — the part with the colored silk squares — you should work it up. I mean I don't know what the signals are, but it's good."

"Signals? What do you mean?"

"Well, how you do it, how you get the colors in the right order, and so fast."

"Oh... that's no trick, that's just something I can do. I can do that easy, ever since I was a kid." She was looking around, peering into his bedroom.

"Well, it's good. The old guy's not so good, though. You should get a new partner."

Suddenly she was in his arms, coiled around him. She pinched his cheek with her finger and thumb. "You lied, there's no bloody woman here."

He didn't want to kiss her, or even touch her, but he stood there and let her go down on him. He let her take him in the middle of his trailer.

When it was over, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"That was for free! I'm going now."

He had felt guilty, and had thrust some money into her pocket.

She took out the bills and counted them, and then she had looked up and smiled. He had never seen her smile before.

"Next time I come, I'll have a visa, you can take me with you then. My name is Ruda... R U D A, you won't forget, will you? Thanks for the money."

He left the next day, but he didn't forget her — five years later when she turned up again, he recognized her immediately. It was in Florida; she was accompanied by her husband, Tommy Kellerman.

Grimaldi woke up, he had no idea where he was. His head throbbed so hard he couldn't lift it. He felt something warm and hairy curled by his side, and as he lifted the stinking blanket he saw Boris's face.

"Whoop... Whoop."

Grimaldi let the blanket fall back over the chimp. Loud snoring was coming from across the room. In the darkness he could just make out the sleeping Lazars, his legs propped up on the table, his head on his chest, still sitting in his chair.

Grimaldi cursed. How in God's name had he got here? He couldn't remember. He sighed, and the strong hairy arm patted his chest gently. He inched up the blanket again, and the round bright button eyes blinked.

"What time is it, eh?"

Grimaldi tried to sit up — but slumped back again. Better to sleep it off, he doubted if he could stand up anyway.

Ruda was wakened by a bang at the trailer door. She lifted the blinds, and saw a bedraggled Tina waiting outside.

"What do you want?"

Tina peered through the window. "Is he here? I can't pay the taxi... he took my handbag. Let me in!"

Ruda put on an old wrap, stuffed her feet into worn slippers. She got her wallet and opened the trailer door.

"You know what time it is? How much do you need?"

Tina was red-eyed from crying. "He just left me, he took my bag."

Ruda laughed. 'That's my husband! Here, take this."

"Is he back? Did he come back?"

Ruda shook her head, about to close the door, her hand on her hip.

"I can't get into my trailer, the girls lock the door."

"What do you expect me to do?"

"Can I come back, after I've paid him?"

Ruda shrugged and left the door ajar, then returned to the bedroom and closed the door. She heard Tina enter, followed by the clink of cutlery. She stormed out. "Eh! What do you think you're doing?"

"I was making a cup of tea."

"Oh were you? Don't you think it would have been polite to ask? You wake me up, get money out of me, and now start banging around in my kitchen. You've got nerve, a lot of nerve."

"I'm sorry, do you want one?"

Ruda hesitated. "Yeah, white, one sugar."

Ruda got back into her bed, turned on the bedside light. It was after four; she leaned back, listening to the girl banging around searching for the tea, then she heard the rattle of teacups and her door inched open. Tina had a tray with two cups and a pot of tea, she'd got sugar and biscuits. She poured Ruda's cup, spooned in the sugar, then stirred it carefully.

Ruda took the cup, watching Tina pour her own, then she laughed softly. "Well isn't this cozy? You fancy keeping the baby in my room, do you? Little pink elephants on the curtains, frilly crib, white baby wardrobes?"

Tina edged to sit on a small stool in front of Ruda's dressing table. "I got really frightened, he was with me one minute and the next he just disappeared. He's got my handbag, my money, my cards, checkbook — everything. I'm worried about him, do you think he'll be all right?"

Ruda opened her bedside drawer, took out a bar of chocolate, breaking it into pieces. She sucked on a large piece, not offering Tina any. Tina took a biscuit and nibbled it. "I mean, he had been drinking."

Ruda said nothing, kept on staring at Tina.

"Actually, I wanted to talk to you, Ruda. Is it all right if I call you Ruda?"

Ruda took another bite of chocolate, and sipped her tea. She found it amusing to watch the stupid little bitch squirming.

"I know he's talked to you about the baby, and we've never really spoken, he said you'd agreed to a divorce."

Ruda licked her mouth, leaving a dark brown chocolate stain.

"I know how much the act means to you. I was watching you in rehearsal, I mean I was really impressed. I don't know all that much about training, but..."

"Impressed! Well, I am flattered." Ruda held out her cup for more tea, and Tina scuttled to the tray and poured, spooned in more sugar, and then started for the door.

"I don't want any milk, never have milk in the second cup, thank you."

Ruda smiled, and Tina sat down on the edge of the bed.

"I love him."

"You love him. How old are you?"

"Age doesn't matter."

"Doesn't it?"

"No, and I think I can make him happy. He's really excited about the baby."

"Is it his?"

Tina flushed. "That's a terrible thing to say. Of course it's his."

Ruda slowly put her cup down and leaned forward. Tina backed slightly, and then allowed Ruda to take her hand.

"What tiny little hands you've got, let me see your palm. Oh yes, really interesting, my my! What a lifeline."

Tina moved closer, allowing Ruda to press and feel her open palm. "Do you believe in that stuff? I think it's all mumbo-jumbo."

Suddenly Ruda gripped Tina's hand so hard it hurt, but she continued smiling, as if she were joking. "And I think everything you say is a load of crap — you little prick teaser. You don't love Luis. You don't love that big bloated old man, that drunken has-been, you want..."

Tina tried to draw her hand away, but Ruda held her in a viselike grip, pulling her closer and closer... and then, there was no smile. Ruda's face twisted with anger, and with her free hand she punched Tina's belly, pummeled it as if it were a lump of dough. Tina twisted and tried to break herself free. She started screaming — terrified, trying to protect her womb.

Ruda hauled Tina almost on top of herself. Tina kicked out with her legs, but Ruda dragged her closer, and covered her mouth. Tina could feel Ruda's body beneath her, and she twisted again, tried to turn.

"Don't struggle or I'll break your neck."

Tina began to cry, her body went limp. She knew she couldn't fight, Ruda was too strong.

"Promise not to cry out? Promise me?... Promise!"

Ruda jerked Tina so hard she gasped. "I promise! I promise! Just don't hurt me, don't hurt my baby, please..."

"If you scream or cry out, then I will hurt you, maybe even kill you." Slowly Ruda released her grip, easing Tina from her, and then rolled off, and leaned up on one elbow. She smiled down into the frightened girl's face. Tina was like a rabbit caught in a poacher's beam of light. Her eyes were wide, startled, and terrified. She was transfixed, unable to move, too scared to cry out. Now Ruda's strong hands stroked and caressed, with knowing assurance, gently easing down Tina's skirt to feel between her legs, her voice soft and persuasive, a half-whispered monotone, hardly audible.

"On nights when they held their entertainments, when they had their drinks, their music, we knew we were safe for one or two hours. We'd hear the laughter, we'd hear the singing, the applause, the shouting..."

Ruda unbuttoned Tina's blouse, cupping the heavy breasts in their white lace brassiere. Her skin felt soft, so soft. Ruda had an overwhelming desire to hold Tina, as if she was some long-forgotten lover she wanted to protect. She no longer frightened her, she knew that, and she cradled Tina in her arms, drawing her closer, her lips close to Tina's face. She gave gentle, almost sweet kisses to her neck, to her ears. Tina felt the sadness sweep over her like a wave, a terrible sadness. She could not stop herself giving in return a childlike kiss to Ruda's neck. "Where were you?" Tina asked hesitantly, unsure what was happening, why it was happening.

Then Ruda rested her head against Tina's breast, while Tina softly stroked the back of Ruda's head, as if to encourage her to continue. "Where were you?" Tina repeated.

"Oh, I was someplace, someplace a long time ago. The older ones discovered there was a flap beneath the main hut, that we could wriggle beneath, hide under the trestle benches, hide and wait to see the show..."

Ruda moved to rest her head on the pillows. Tina could easily have got up then, but she didn't move. The strong woman's sadness had mesmerized her.

"What was the show? Was it your first circus?"

Ruda sighed. "Yes, it was a sort of circus. They had animals, they had dancers, and they had hunchbacks, and giants. They had every imaginable human deformity, but they had chosen only the prettiest girls, they were thirteen, maybe a little older, but each one had her head shaved, her body hair shaved, and they wore coronets of paper flowers... red flowers, like bright red poppies."

Ruda's eyes stared at the ceiling, her face expressionless.

"They made the dwarfs fuck the giants; they made the hunchbacks fuck the pretty sweet virgins; they forced the dwarfs to ride the dogs' backs with their dicks up their arses. They clapped and applauded, laughed, and shouted for more. Then they began to beat the pretty, weeping girls, and they kept on beating them until their white bodies were red with their own blood, as red as the paper flowers on their scraped and scratched bald scalps. One of the trestles moved, cut into my leg. The others escaped, they crawled back under the feet of the bastards, inching their way out. But I couldn't. I was trapped, I had to keep on watching. When I shut my eyes, it made it worse because I could hear them, hear the cries, hear the dogs."

Ruda seemed unaware of Tina, who slowly inched away, and then slid from the bed until she knelt on the floor to pick up her clothes. Ruda made a strange guttural sound, half sob, half cry, and covered her face with her hands.

"Oh God, my poor Tommy, poor Tommy...!"

Tina slipped on her blouse. Ruda made no attempt to stop her from leaving. She wiped her cheek with the back of her big raw hand.

"Not until the show was over, not until they were too drunk to stand, too drunk to care, could I crawl back. Next morning, I saw what they'd done to the older ones. They were on the cart, the skin of their little bald heads burst open, clouds of flies stuck to their blood, purple-black rimmed eyes. They only wanted to see the show, to see what made everyone laugh."

Tina crawled toward her skirt. Suddenly Ruda rose from the bed, her hand outstretched. "Don't go. Please stay with me, just for a little while."

Ruda reached over and placed her hand on the unborn, the rounded belly of the young girl. "I will see that you have money to travel, but you must leave."

Tina backed away, the expression in Ruda's eyes made her afraid again. "You will leave, Tina, but without my husband."

Tina blurted out a pitiful: "No... no!" She would never forget the look on Ruda Grimaldi's face, the strange hissing sound before she spat out the words: "He is mine!"

The slap sent Tina reeling against the wall. At the same time Grimaldi eased open the trailer door, silently, so as not to wake Ruda. He heard the cry, went to Ruda's bedroom, and opened the door. For a moment he was unable to comprehend what he was seeing.

He slammed the door, burst out of the trailer, and began to vomit. He turned as Tina rushed out hysterically, half undressed, sobbing. She gasped. "My handbag... I want my handbag."

Tina snatched it from him and ran. She stumbled once, flaying the air with her hand, and then was out of sight.

Ruda was at the trailer door, looking at him... shaking. "You better get some coffee down you. Come on, I'll get Mike to clear up in the morning."

Grimaldi, dazed, allowed himself to be helped back up the steps, stood as she took his jacket, peeled off his shirt.

"Christ, you stink. What the hell have you been doing?"

"I met Fredrick Lazars, we got drunk..."

"Sit down and let me take your pants off, you stink like a dog!"

Grimaldi sat as she heaved off his boots, unbuttoned his pants.

"I slept with Boris, a baby chimp."

He curled up on the cushions. She brought a blanket, put it on him, then placed a bottle of scotch next to him for when he came around. She knew he would be unable to face the day without a drink. When she was sure he was asleep, Ruda returned to her room and slumped onto her crumpled bed, confused by the evening's events. What had she just done?

She rubbed her arms with revulsion, very angry at herself. She had told Tina, stupid little Tina, about a part of her life that she had never shared with anyone before. Why? She bit her knuckles. Tina had made her feel something, the girl's soft body in her arms had reminded her of a warmth, a loving, she had forgotten. But it wasn't the same. It was stupid to even think of it now. She had to get her mind straightened out, had to think straight. She had even offered to pay her money to leave — why? "Ruda, what do you want?"

Even if she didn't want him, was it the real truth that she didn't want anyone else to have him, either? That surprised her. "What do you want?" Ruda said aloud as she started pacing up and down the small bedroom. Her pace quickened, and she paused twice looking up at the cupboard. She could feel its pull, but every time she got close to it, she turned and walked back across the room. She paused by her poster. She pressed her hand against her own face, and then she couldn't stop herself. She stepped up on the small stool by her makeup mirror, and opened the small cupboard above. She had to balance on tiptoe to reach it, her hands pushing aside boxes and hats until she felt the cold sides of the black tin box.

She hugged it to her chest, secretive, like a child, and then got to her hands and knees, lifting the carpet until she found the key. She always felt a strange sensation opening the box — pain pierced her insides. The odd assortment of treasures, her secrets that meant so much to her, but were of no value to anyone else. She spent a long time fingering, touching her "things," unaware of the low humming sound she made, her body rocking backward and forward.

"Mine, mine... mine..." She licked the small oval gray pebblelike object, then replaced it, and looked to the poster of herself. "Mine, mine, mine." Her face in the center of the brightly colored poster became a distorted skeleton head. She could see the loaded truck, weighted down, being dragged through the muddy yard, teetering dangerously to one side. Beneath a hastily thrown tarpaulin, she glimpsed the stacked, bloated bodies, and from the crushed bellies of the corpses came the hideous hissing sound of escaping gas.

As the truck tilted a body slid from beneath the tarpaulin and fell to the ground, rolling to one side. The guards shouted to the orderlies to get the corpse back on the truck, but then in the darkness something glittered on the fat bloated hand with fat purple fingers. The guard tried to wrench the thick gold wedding ring free, but try as he might he could not release it. He picked up a spade and, holding it above his head, he brought it down blade first across the dead woman's hand. The fingers jumped, as if they had a life of their own, fingers like black sausages, and they rolled in the mud. The guard dug this way and that, swearing and shouting but unable to find the ring. He gave up and screamed for the truck to move on. An orderly unhooked his coat belt, made a loop, and flicked it over the dead woman. He dragged her by her neck back onto the truck, and then pulled the tarpaulin down. The guards and the Kapos began to push and shove the truck forward through the freezing muddy ground.

As it disappeared, the ragged men, hidden like nightmare shadows, appeared like a pack of dogs, scrabbling in the mud until one of them, on his hands and knees, found the ring. "Das gehort mir!" "Mine!" But the others tore at him and beat him. He screamed and screamed; "Das ist der meinige, meinige, MEINIGE!" The pitiful man clung to his treasure, fought like a demon, then desperate to save himself, he threw the ring and it shot through the air, sinking in a puddle two feet away from a tiny little girl, a little girl crying from pain in her leg, terrified by what she had just witnessed... a frightened Ruda, crawling between the alleyways of huts, safe from the shadow men, on the other side of the barbed wire fence. The man clung to the meshing with his skinny hands, his mouth black, gaping and toothless, like a starving jackal he screeched: "Das ist der meinige, das gehort mir, das ist der meinige!" Ruda had crept back to her hut, silently lifting the worn blanket, slipping in to lie beside her sister, needing her comfort, needing to feel the warmth of the tiny plump body. In her sleep, Rebecca turned to cuddle Ruda, to cover her with sweet, adoring, childish kisses. Ruda felt safe and warm. They had a prize worth a fortune. A golden ring. The music, the red paper flowers, the screams and the anguished faces blurred in her mind as Ruda, not old enough to comprehend the misery, felt only the burning pain in her leg, and repeated over and over in her mind: "Das ist der meinige, das ist der meinige... meinige, meinige..."

Ruda carefully relocked her treasure box, hid the key, and returned the black tin box to its hiding place. She knew she could not sleep, and as it was after five decided she would shower and get ready for the first feed of the day. As she soaped her body, turning around slowly in the small shower cabinet, she felt the tension in her body begin to ease. But she could not rid herself of her deep anger. She carefully wrapped herself in a clean soft towel, patting herself dry, then pointed her left foot like a dancer. There was still the small scar where the trestle bench had cut into her leg, so many years before. She poured some lotion into her cupped hand and massaged her leg. The wound had festered. She had been so frightened of telling anyone that eventually she had been taken to the hospital bay. They had put a paper dressing on it. Days, perhaps weeks later the pain had become so bad, she had been carried back to the hospital by an orderly. Lice had eaten into her leg beneath the pus-soaked bandage, and she had been forced into the delousing bath, screaming and crying out in pain. It was as a result of the festering wound that she came to the attention of Papa. She had been taken to see him that afternoon, wearing clean clothes, washed and cleaned, her hair combed, her wound well bandaged with a proper dressing. That was the first time she had been alone with him, the first time he had asked her if she wanted to play a very special game with him. He had sat her on his knee, given her a sweet and bounced her up and down. When she didn't unwrap the sweet, he had asked why not. He had smiled, she remembered, asking why she didn't want the sweet. He even playfully tried to take it away from her.

"Das ist der meinige!" The little girl's fist clenched over the sweet as she glared into his handsome face. Her determined expression delighting him, he smiled, showing perfect white teeth.

Ruda tossed the towel aside. She continued to rub the lotion into her body, then she dressed. The anger was gone now. Thinking of Papa always made the anger subside. It was replaced, as it had always been, with a chilling, studied calmness. Ruda braided her hair, gave a cursory look at her reflection. She passed the poster of herself and lightly touched it with her hand. The poster represented everything she had fought so hard to attain, and nothing would take it from her. She didn't even look at the poster as she passed, but she whispered quietly to herself, making a soft hissing sound: "Das ist der meinige!"

Luis was still asleep where she had left him. She drew the blinds, pulled the blanket around his shoulders, and opened the door. Outside she picked up the hose and washed down the trailer herself. Then she began to whistle, stuffing her hands into her pockets as she strolled over to the cages. She looked skyward, shading her eyes. It still looked overcast.

Ruda passed between the trailers, calling out a brisk good morning to the early risers. There was movement now, some trainers and performers were heading to the canteen for breakfast, some like Ruda were getting ready to prepare their animals' feed.

She made her routine morning check, passing from cage to cage, calling every cat by name, and then she stopped by Mamon's cage.

He was lazily stretching, he threw back his head and yawned. "You're mine, my love." She leaned against the rails, and he swung his head low, stared at her, and then threw his black mane back with a roar that never ceased to delight her. He seemed to roar her inner rage.

"Everything's all right now ma'angel!"