A Lesson for the Cyclops (2 page)

The Cyclops looked at the bag again. It seemed plain enough, the surface completely unremarkable save for a row of intricate chartreuse stitching.

She glanced around to make sure she was alone, and then opened the bag once more.

Inside was vast. Vast and empty. By all rights, the bag should have had no weight to it at all, yet it felt about as heavy as a small melon. Left to itself, the bag tended to fill out toward the bottom, as though it were partially full, but the Cyclops was able to press the surface completely flat if she wanted, and could fold it into a small space roughly the dimensions of a deck of playing card. When she unfolded it, however, the back once more returned to its half-full shape.

The Cyclops looked at the tent in which the wounded man slept. Just who
was
he?

The Cyclops made excuses to pass by Marco’s tent the next day, hoping to catch a glimpse of the stranger. He had been asleep for nearly a day and his fever had not yet broken. Marco had the haulmen attend to the stranger in shifts, sitting beside him with buckets of frigid water drawn from the nearby stream. When the stranger began to sweat more than usual, the haulman would mop his brow with the cold water in an effort to keep his fever under control.

On her sixth pass, the haulman on duty called out to her.

“Hey, freak!” he shouted, his voice sounding anxious “Get over here, willya!”

She hesitated, caught between her desire to get a closer look at the stranger and fear of what the haulman might want her for.

An implicit hierarchy existed at the circus. Marco was at the top of this pyramid by virtue of being the owner. Below him were the circus’s headliner acts, such as Alfredo and Conchinara, as well as the brother and sister trapeze act Stefan and Sophia. Beneath them were the other popular attractions such as Stihl the Strong Man and Dale the fire-eater.

Next came the hucksters. Below them were the haulmen and ticket-takers. Finally, at the bottom were the Freaks, and the Cyclops, the lowest among them.

Being at the bottom of the hierarchy made the Cyclops an ideal victim for the bullies in the circus, particularly those among the haulmen who felt the work they did was beneath them. They sometimes shoved her, or insulted her until she cried, and, very rarely, hit her. They were cautious about causing her any visible injury, since they considered her Marco’s property. Nobody wanted to damage the boss’s property.

On one particularly bad occasion, one of the haulmen had almost raped her. They had been celebrating the end of a successful run in Venucha, and the drinking and dancing had gone on late into the night. The Cyclops had remained by the fire long enough to be polite before heading back to her tent. Oddly enough, she felt more alone when she was surrounded by people who thought her lower than a dog than when she was by herself, with only her dreams of a happier world to keep her company.

As she had weaved through the stalls, all in various stages of disassembly, a man staggered toward her and clamped a hand over her mouth.

“Don say nuttin’,” he had whispered. His breath smelled sickly-sweet, like rotten apples.

She had tried to flee, but his iron grip dragged her to the ground. She lay there, sobbing and still half in shock. She couldn’t make out his face in the darkness, but she saw that he wore the overalls of a haulman. As she watched, her attacker began to unfasten those overalls.

“… been wondering what yer like down bottom without that fucked up face of yers…” he mumbled. He fumbled at her skirt with his large, drunken, and useless hands.

Then he pulled a knife.

She had begged him, pleaded with him, to stop, until he slapped her so hard her ears rung. She cried softly as he slit the fabric of her skirt.

“… gonna give you sumthin’ special …” he said, climbing on top of her. One of his hands clutched her breast like a vise. Then he reached back and eased his breeches down.

“Please,” she begged. “Please, stop…”

“… gonna give you something goooood …” he said.

He grabbed her breast again and leaned in to lick her face. His breath was so foul that she gagged.

The gagging was contagious. After she started gagging, he did, too. Then he looked at her face as if for the first time. His eyes widened in disgust. Abruptly, he leaned to the side and threw up by her head. When he was finished, he half-heartedly returned his attention to her.

Then he threw up again.

That must have killed the mood for him, because after he vomited the second time, he climbed off her and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Stupid freak, look what you gone and done,” he mumbled. Then he kicked her once in the thigh and staggered off, leaving her half-naked beside a pool of vomit.

She never was sure which haulman had tried to rape her, so in her mind they all were potential rapists. That's why when the haulman called out to her from Marco’s tent, she felt the familiar dread she'd felt since that horrid event whenever any of
them
took note of her.

She considered pretending not to have heard him, but he called out to her again, louder.

“Dammit, freak! Get in here!”

She lifted the flap with a trembling hand and entered the tent. The attractive stranger lay shirtless and pale on a cot, his brow dotted with perspiration. The dark-haired haulman stood beside him, hopping from foot to foot.

The Cyclops stared at him in confusion. “Why are you—?”

The haulman rushed at her. She flinched, anticipating a blow to her face, but he knocked her aside.

“Out o’ me way, dammit!” he said. “I’ve had t’ drop a load for over an hour now and the guy who’s suppossa relieve me didn’t come.”

He pointed at the bucket and then at the stranger. “You, stay here. Keep him cool until I get back. If any asks, I tole you to do it.”

Before she could reply, the haulman hobbled off in an odd crablike gait, cursing and pleading with his bowels for patience.

Now she was alone with the shirtless stranger. He lay on the cot, seemingly dead to the world. His chest rose and fell rapidly—too rapidly, it seemed—and his body was perspiring profusely. Anyone else would've looked terrible, under the circumstances.

The Cyclops approached him hesitantly. “Hello?”

He did not respond. She extended a shaking hand to his forehead and winced. He was so hot, it hurt to touch him!

She settled into the chair beside the cot and located the rag that the haulman had been using to dampen the stranger’s face. She wrung it out over the dirt floor and dunked it into the pail, drenching it thoroughly. She applied the dripping rag to his forehead, blotting the wetness out of his eyes with her sleeve.

The stranger moaned once, almost a whimper.

Encouraged by this, she wet the rag again. This time, she ran it along the sides of his neck and under his chin. He had what looked to be a week’s worth of stubble on his face, and it scratched the back of her hand.

She stole a timid glance at his chest. At first, it had appeared to be hairless, but she now realized it had a light fuzz of nearly blond hair. She thought about touching that hair with her index finger, but decided that would be too brazen.

However, he was still sweating, so she wet the rag again. Feeling giddy at her boldness, she ran the rag over his chest. She marveled at the shape of it, the way it rose and fell so powerfully. The image of one of the circus’s lions came to mind.

She noted an assortment of scars on his chest. The quantity and variety led the Cyclops to believe he had lived a very interesting life for someone so young. She could only speculate as to what sorts of adventures might have produced the individual scars.

Now she glanced at his belly and was astonished to see how developed those muscles were. He hadn’t seemed very strong when he had stumbled into camp half-dead, but she imagined that muscles like those didn’t develop by chance. This man had used his body for something difficult. Could he be a laborer? But then she would have expected his chest, shoulders, and arms to be bigger.

She was acutely aware of the sheet that covered him from his belly button on down. She took a furtive look at the tent opening, and then with a mischievous smile, she lifted the sheet for just long enough to take a good, long look. She inhaled sharply and felt her cheeks grow warm.

She decided she had better stick to cooling his face and chest.

She dunked the rag into the pail again, but her mischievous smile remained.

The Cyclops was on display when the word reached her that the man had regained consciousness. The day was swelteringly hot, and even in the sheltered half-darkness in the Freak Show’s maze of rooms, the heat was enough to make her head ache and to bathe her in sweat.

After the last mark departed and before the next one would arrive, one of the midget twins leaned over and quickly whispered the news. The Cyclops’s heart pounded. In fact, she was so excited that she almost forgot to get into character as a man and a boy idled up to her cage to gawk.

The Cyclops smiled and twirled her hair with her finger. She whistled a tune and danced in place for a few moments, emphasizing the swaying of the hem of her gown.

“Papa?” the boy said, his voice hesitant. He was perhaps around ten, his hair blond and raggedy. “Is that a man?”

His father, a plain man in middle age, scrunched up his face at her. “I think it’s a girl, Leilano. I ain’t certain, but that’s how it looks to me.”

The comments from the marks never stopped hurting, not even after nearly a decade as a freak. She smiled broader, squeezing her eye tightly to hold back the tears. She began to hum a sweet song, as a young lady might do.

“Papa, why don’t she got no nose?”

The farmer shrugged. “Son, some people are just born ugly. The gods must hate them, I guess.”

Conchinara was with the man by the time the freaks arrived. As the Cyclops entered the tent, Conchinara was laughing gaily at something he had said.

“Oh,” she said, fanning herself with a feathered hand-fan, “I must remember to be careful around
you
. You have a wicked tongue, sir.”

He sat on the cot in which he had slept the last three days. His skin was still pale, but the redness around his eyes had gone, and he seemed to be in fine spirits.
Too
fine, actually, judging from the way he looked at Conchinara.

“My lady,” the man said with a lascivious smile that made the Cyclops’s heart ache, “I can assure you that my tongue is the least wicked part of my body. I know; I’ve looked. Twice.”

Conchinara laughed again, her voice every bit as musical as the Cyclops’s wasn’t. Her dark eyelashes fluttered coquettishly. She leaned toward him conspiratorially, revealing an expanse of perfect olive skin and a deep, inviting cleavage. The Cyclops did not want to be in the same tent with such beauty. She was hideous enough on her own, but when compared to Conchinara …?

“But perhaps you’d prefer to check for yourself,” D’Arbignal said to Conchinara with a wink. “Just to be sure, you know.”

“The gentleman mocks me!” Conchinara said, placing a slender hand upon his.

“Mock you?” he said. “Never. Tease you, perhaps, but I’d never mock a lady as beautiful as—ah, company!”

He smiled broadly and waved his hand in a theatric gesture of welcome.

“Come in, come in!” he said. “The sun is blistering out there. Come into the shade!”

Conchinara did not look pleased at the intrusion, but they were just the oddities. She must know they were no real threat to her.

“Hoow … how are you feeling?” Pahula said, her eyes lowered and demure.

“Never better!” the man said. He tested his shoulder by swinging his arm and winced. “Well,
rarely
better, anyway.”

His audience laughed at his jest. He had the natural charm of an entertainer; it was obvious he was in the trade. An acrobat? Thespian? Some kind of showman, in any case.

Conchinara squeezed his hand. “I’m so glad you’re feeling better. I was very worried about you.”

“Fear not,” he said, grinning. “It’ll take more than that to get me to quit this world!”

“How did you get your wound?” one of the midget twins said.

A roguish sparkle shone in his eyes. “Why, in a duel, of course!”

“A duel?” the Cyclops said, incredulous. “With arrows? And you were hit in the back!”

“I didn’t say it was a
fair
duel,” he said, and again, his audience laughed. “But I’ve been remiss. We haven’t been introduced.”

He performed a little bow and flourish from his cot. “I am D’Arbignal: sailor, singer, a fair dancer and a terrible poet, an occasional philosopher and an itinerant adventurer. I am also the greatest swordsman in the world! And you, my lady?”

The Cyclops blinked in astonishment. His words bounced around her head, and she tried to take it all in.

“Me?” the Cyclops said. “My … uh … my name is Maria.”

“It is a great pleasure meeting you, Maria,” D’Arbignal said.

One of the midget twins whispered to the other: “Did
you
know that her name was Maria?”

“But speaking of swords,” D’Arbignal said, returning his attention to Conchinara. “I recall stumbling into camp crazier than a 400-year-old mage who’d summon a demon to protect his village. I remember swinging my rapier at people, and that they were brave enough to take it from me. I thank you for that, and if it’s not too much trouble, ask that you reunite us.”

Conchinara flashed a guilty expression at the Cyclops.

“Um,” Conchinara said.

All present were staring at the Cyclops. She wished she could vanish into the ground.

Instead, she said, “I did that. I held your sword for you.”

D’Arbignal grinned and his eyes sparkled. “Did you now?”

Only then did the Cyclops realize the unintended double entendre’.

“Not like that!” she said, her face warm.

“Fool,” Conchinara muttered. “Of
course
it wasn’t like that.”

All the people looking at her made the Cyclops uncomfortable in a way being in the Freak Show never had. “I’ll … uh … I’ll go get it for you. And your bag, too.”