Entwined (36 page)

Kellerman and two pals had planned a robbery together. They would go to a circus where he had once worked. Kellerman knew when and where the takings were counted.

The robbery, seemingly so simple, got out of hand and the cashier, a man who had himself lent money to Kellerman at one stage, was shot and died on his way to the hospital. Kellerman had planned to run away with Ruda, but he had barely arrived back at the rooming house with the money when the police came for him.

Ruda had been arrested along with him and held in jail, suspected of being his accomplice.

Perhaps one of the few decent things Kellerman had ever done in his grubby, miserable life was to deny adamantly that Ruda had played any part in the robbery. She was released. She went to see him only once, and had listened to him as he begged her to find a good lawyer. Then she had looked at him and asked how she was to pay for it. He had pleaded with her: "You've got to help me, Ruda, please. Help me get out of this!"

She hadn't even waited for the visiting time to be over; instead she had said, with a half smile: "No, Tommy. I'm through helping you. You see, Tommy, you should never have opened my box. It's mine."

Ruda never tried to contact Kellerman again. She read in the papers he had been sentenced to eight years. By this time she was already heading back to Florida, and arrived at Grimaldi's winter quarters on the same day he had been asked to leave. Grimaldi was broke: The people who had befriended him could extend their charity no longer.

Ruda acted as if he were expecting her, putting down her suitcase beside the table, picking up his notice to leave, and walking over to the manager's office. She paid over two thousand dollars in cash and asked if she could use Grimaldi's shack for fortune-telling. They all knew about Kellerman's arrest—the fact that he had stolen from his own people—but Ruda stood her ground, saying she had walked out and filed for divorce as soon as she knew what he had done.

Grimaldi had run up huge debts, and just to have the rent paid made Ruda's appearance acceptable. She promised that from that moment on she would take care of him, as though she had wished to substitute one loser for another. Luis asked himself why. Why had she come to him?

Ruda had returned to the run-down trailer and ordered Luis to get out while she cleaned the place up with buckets of water and disinfectants, washing and scrubbing as he sat on the steps drinking beer. She borrowed a van and carried the filthy sheets and laundry to a laundromat; she ironed and tidied, bought groceries and cans of paint. She was up at the crack of dawn, painting the outside of the old trailer, forcing old "Two Seats" to lend a hand. Grimaldi never lifted a finger.

Ruda slept on the old bunk bed in the main living area; Grimaldi had the so-called bedroom.

One morning, Grimaldi leaned against the open door, watching her work. She was sweating with the effort, it was a blistering hot day. He caught her arm as she was about to push past him.

"Where's Kellerman now?"

"In jail. We're through, finished. He's history." She released her arm, and went inside. It was dark, there were flies everywhere. She poured water from a bucket into the sink—they didn't have running water.

"We got a quickie divorce, only cost a few dollars. If I'd known how cheap it was to get rid of him I'd have done it years ago."

Grimaldi slumped into a chair. "So you married him?"

She turned, hands on hips. "Yeah, I married him. I had no way of getting out of Berlin—he was my way. That answer your question?"

He looked up at her helplessly. "I don't know what you want from me. Why are you doing all this?"

"You got somebody else?"

He laughed. "Does it look like it? I'm just trying to get a handle on what you want."

Her eyes were a strange color—amber—they reminded him of his cats, and even in his drink-addled mind he felt she was dangerous. She had moved close to him; it was not sexual, it was a strange closeness. She put out her hand and covered his heart.

"Marry me."

He had laughed, but her hand clutched his chest. "I'm serious; marry me. I'll get you back on your feet, I'll get you going again. All you need is money, I can make money, I can get enough so you can start again, but I want some kind of deal, and if I am your wife, that's a good enough contract."

"My wife?"

She returned to the sink, began scrubbing a pan. "Think about it. I don't want sex, sex doesn't mean anything to me. It'll just be a partnership."

Grimaldi grinned, not believing what he was hearing. "You got any idea how much cats cost?…and feed, and transportation? Then there's the training, it'll take months to get an act, any kind of a decent act together."

"Yeah, I'm sure it's a lot, but we can do it, and I am willing to learn. I can muck out, do anything you tell me to do. I've been around circuses now for long enough, I know the ropes, and I know it's hard work."

He sighed, shaking his head. "No way, I couldn't do it…I'm finished."

She threw the pan across the room. "You were the best, the best, and you can be the best again. I'm giving you a chance."

He grabbed her hand, dragged her out of the trailer, and crossed to the back of the sheds, to the pitiful remains of his once fine act. He shoved her against the bars. "Look at these animals, they're as fucked and as finished as I am…You don't know what you're talking about, you have no idea of what an act, an act the likes of mine took, years—
my father, his father before him
…and that's what I'm left with…"

She gave him one hell of a punch. "They'd turn in their graves if they heard you. Go on, get another bottle, go on, get drunk…you weak bum!"

He stormed off in a rage, wanting to hit her back, but wanting even more to hit himself. Alone, she had stared at the bedraggled unkempt cats, their filthy cages, their ribs showing through their matted coats. She grabbed a bucket of water and headed back to the trailer.

The water hit him in the face, then the bucket. "You bastard! You can get drunk, you can let yourself go, but what you've done out there is a crime…you're starving them to death."

"I have no money to feed them…I got no money, and nobody wants to buy them!!"

She rolled up her sleeve, shoved her tattooed arm under his nose. "See this? I've been caged, I've been starved, I've been beaten, I've been to hell and back and I am still here. I am still fighting, and I have enough for the two of us, you got ten minutes before I take a gun and shoot what's left of those poor creatures, and then I'll leave a bullet for you. You won't let them suffer another hour, you hear me?…
You hear me?
"

She had slammed the door of the trailer so hard it came off its hinges. She went around to the cages. Never having been inside a cat's cage, she simply unbolted the door, stepped in, and took out the empty trays. She then rebolted the door and went back to the trailer. He was sitting, head bowed.

"What do they eat?"

"Meat, horsemeat…maybe I should put myself in there, let them have a go at me!"

Ruda stormed out and went into town. She came back an hour later, carrying a stack of boxes. She found Grimaldi mucking out the cages, Two Seats using a hose to wash them down. She cleaned out the bowls, and carried the fresh meat to the cages. Two Seats gave a toothless smile to Ruda, and he touched her hand with his gnarled, crusted fingers.

"I don't know what you said, but I thank God for you, young woman."

They fed the cats and went back into town for fresh bales of hay and sawdust. Neither of them brought up the question of marriage. Luis stopped drinking and began to exercise the animals. Two Seats collected the old plinths from the storage huts and dusted and washed them down. The heat was oppressive and the small trailer airless; they continued to sleep separately.

Four months after Ruda's arrival, Grimaldi took off for town. Old Two Seats sat on the steps glumly muttering that he doubted if the boss would come back that night, he'd be getting plastered at the local whorehouse.

Ruda flopped down on her bunk. "Shit! Shit!" She had traded one bum in for another. She was wondering if she had made the wrong decision when she heard Grimaldi calling her. Luis had returned, stone sober, and he put on the kitchen table an envelope and a small red box. It was a marriage license and a wedding ring. He said nothing, just pointed to the table.

He hovered outside the trailer, watching her from the window as she opened the envelope. He saw Ruda smile—she who so rarely smiled—and then slowly open the ring box. She snapped it shut, was about to walk out to him when she heard Grimaldi ask the old man if he had a suit.

"A suit!…You must be jokin', it's at the pawnbroker's."

"Well, get it out, and by Wednesday, 'cos you're gonna need it."

"What fer?"

"Wedding, you old bugger."

"What?"

"We need a witness, me and Ruda are getting married next Wednesday."

There was a loud guffaw, and then a lot of back slapping. She came to the door, and Grimaldi held out his big hand. She took it, gripped it tightly as the old man wrinkled his nose and then threw his hat up in the air with a yell.

"By Christ—that's the best news I've heard in years!"

♦ ♦ ♦

The wedding had been a small affair with just a few people from the winter quarters. They had lunch at a local restaurant, and then returned to feed the cats. Ruda had been very quiet, she had smiled for a photograph, but as the day drew to a close she continued to find things to do, anything to delay the consummation of the marriage, even though she was unsure if that was what Luis wanted. She had arranged a platonic partnership with Kellerman, but after six months he had demanded to have sex with her. Kellerman revolted her, but nevertheless the marriage had been consummated, insofar as it ever could be. Kellerman liked kinky sex, her physical problems had never bothered him. He liked her to give him blow jobs, liked the sight of her on her knees in front of him.

Luis had brought flowers and champagne, and she noticed that the bed linen had been removed from the couch she had always slept on. Luis was in high spirits. Having made the decision to marry Ruda, he was now more than willing to take her into his bed. He opened the champagne, and then produced a box, which he gave her with a flourish. She opened it, and the delicate nightdress, its lace and frills carefully snuggled in white tissue paper, made her bite her lips. She didn't even want to take it out of the box.

''Don't you like it? It's silk, the lace is from France, is it the right size? Take it out, go on take it out…"

Slowly she had held the delicate nightgown against herself.

"You like it?"

She whispered that it was beautiful, and he asked her to put it on. She hesitated, and seemed so distressed he wanted to put his arms around her, but she stepped away from him. "Nobody ever gave me anything…"

"So let me see you in it?" he said gently.

"You want this to be a proper marriage?"

Luis was confused, he said that he thought that was what she wanted, and she had turned away from him, hunching up her shoulders.

"I guess that is what I want, Ruda. I mean, maybe I've not been the best person to have around, not said the right things, but you wanted to marry me, didn't you?"

She nodded, but when he tried once again to hold her she fended him off. "I want to tell you something, I sort of thought you knew…"

Again he tried to make her turn to him, look at him, but she pulled further away. "Don't, please don't touch me."

She lifted the soft silk to her face, almost caressing the gown. "Luis, I can't have normal sex. Something was done to me when I was a child. I can make it all right for you, but that is all."

Luis had a sudden vision of her as having had her sex changed: Was she really a man? He couldn't hide his revulsion, his confusion. "Jesus Christ, what a fucking time to tell me! Are you kidding?"

She turned to him, unbuttoning her shirt, her face rigid. "Do you think this is something to kid about? Do you?"

She began to undress in front of him, and he now backed away from her. She undid her blouse, took off her bra, and then started to unzip her trousers. "Look, Ruda, don't…don't, I can't deal with it, please, Ruda!"

She continued to undress, easing her pants down. She had on a pair of thick cotton underpants. Grimaldi was convinced she was going to show him a penis. Instead, he saw the terrible scars on her belly. He stared in disbelief.

Ruda then held up her wrist, showing him the tattoo. He looked from the row of numbers to her body; he couldn't look into her eyes.

"I'm surprised you've never commented on it before."

He swallowed, and gave a half smile, but his hands were shaking. "I guess I'm just not very observant…"

She stood in front of him with such helplessness, such shame, her head bowed. He picked up the gown, and slipped it over her head. Then he stepped back.

"Now you look like a bride."

The small space between them was like a chasm he did not know how to cross. Seeing her standing there in the white negligee made him want to weep.

Her voice was husky, her head low. "I'll make up the bed on the sofa…You don't have to be with me, I understand."

He gathered her in his arms and held her tightly. His voice was thick with emotion. "What kind of a man do you think I am? We said to each other for better or worse, didn't we? Well, I don't think you got such a great bargain, so maybe you're damaged too, that's okay, we'll make out."

Ruda had clung to him, her whole body shaking. When he cupped her face in his big hands, two tears rolled down her cheeks. He told her then that he loved her. Maybe it was those two tears, he had never seen her cry before, and he had carried her into the small bedroom and gently laid her down. He undressed, and then he got in beside her, and he reached out and cradled her in his arms.

"Don't ask me about it, Luis. You don't ever want to know what was done to me, because it might open up a darkness inside me that I could not control. It happened, and now it's over…"

He had never felt as protective of any living soul. He kissed her head as she rested against his chest. "I will always take care of you, Ruda, nobody will ever hurt you again. You are my wife, this will be our secret, no one will ever know."