Entwined (26 page)

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 w^hole 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.