Entwined (8 page)

A woman seated in front of Ruda shook her fist at the skinheads, then turned to her companion, and they began talking to the rest of the occupants of the bus. "If your skin is the wrong color, if it isn't pale enough, if your hair is too dark, too curly, these pigs will attack. Something must be done! Why has this hatred been allowed to continue and fester? Turn the machine guns on them, fascist pigs!"

When Ruda got off she was engulfed in a strange fear. Two yards from the bus stop, she saw a huge poster of herself. The incongruity made her gasp, but the image calmed her, comforted her.

She took out her map, and looked for the direction to Keller-man's hotel. She hesitated, checked the dwarf's scrawled note, and headed down a dimly lit street to a small bed and breakfast establishment that could hardly be described as a hotel.

It was almost ten when Ruda walked into the dingy reception. There was no one around; she then turned to what looked like a guest register, scrawled all over with memos and messages. "T. Kellerman" was listed in Room 40. She waited another minute before heading to the elevator. On the fourth floor, she stood outside Kellerman's room listening to the sound of a television, the volume turned up loud. She tapped and waited, tapped louder, then the door inched open.

"They should have called from reception," he said petulantly as he opened the door wider. He was in his shirt, tie loosened, and he was wearing suspenders, wide, red suspenders. Ruda closed the door and looked around the small room, dominated by the TV set.

"Jesus, Tommy, what made you choose this dump?"

"It's cheap, nobody asks questions, and nobody's likely to come looking for me, that answer enough?"

"Yeah, I suppose so, but I'm surprised you haven't had a brick thrown through the window, or found a turd in your bed!"

"Got scared, did you?"

Ruda shrugged, then after a moment: "More like sickened."

She put her large leather bag on the edge of the bed. As she turned, Kellerman suddenly clasped her tightly around the thighs, and buried his head in her crotch. She didn't resist.

"Still working the same foreplay game, are we?" she asked sarcastically.

He chuckled, and stepped back. "Lemme tell you, that's turned on more women then I can count, they love it, hot breath steaming through their panties. Just a taste of what is to come, because when I ease the skirt down, really get into it, no woman can resist me, not when I've got my tongue working overtime."

Ruda laughed and unbuttoned her coat, tossing it over her bag.

"You disgusting little parasite, I thought you'd have grown up by now, but then I suppose it's tough—not ever growing, I mean."

Kellerman hitched up his trousers and crossed to the mini bar. "Want a miniature drinkie? From your own miniature lover?"

He peered at the rows of bottles in the fridge and chose a vodka for himself.

"I won't have anything."

"Suit yourself," Kellerman said as he opened some tonic and found a glass. His stubby hands could reach only halfway around the tumbler.

Ruda sat on the bed watching him as he fixed his drink, dragged a chair from the small desk by the fridge, moved it closer to the bed, then waddled back to get his glass, handing it to her as he gripped the chair by the arms to haul himself into it.

Sitting, his feet hung just over the edge of the chair, small child's feet encased in red socks to match his suspenders, his scuffed shoes on the floor.

"Cheers!"

Kellerman drank almost half the contents of the glass, burped, and wrinkled his nose.

"So! You came. I was half expecting you not to turn up."

Ruda opened her bag and took out her cigarettes. Kellerman delved into his pockets for a lighter.

"Did you go to the cashier?" he asked, looking at the large leather bag.

"Yes."

He flashed a cheeky grin. "Good. I'm glad we understand each other. The license, all our papers, are in that drawer over there. They still look good…guy was an artist!"

Kellerman eased himself off the chair. "You may not believe this, but I don't like asking for the money."

Ruda laughed. "Asking? Blackmailing is the word I would use."

"You have to do what you have to do. I'm flat broke, and in debt to two guys in the U.S. It's been tough for me ever since you left."

Ruda smiled. "It was tough before I left. I'm surprised they employed you in Paris. Those folks worked hard for their dough. Way I heard it you were blacklisted, you'd steal from a kid's piggy bank, you have never given a shit for anyone but yourself. How long did you get?"

Kellerman shrugged. "Five years. It was okay, I survived, the cons treated me okay…the guards were the worst, bastards every one of them, called me monkey or chimpy."

"You must be used to nicknames by now…"

"Yeah, haw haw…sticks and stones may break my bones but…"

He leaned forward, a frown on his face. "I'm shrinking, Ruda, do you notice? Prison doc said it was something to do with the curvature of my spine. I said to him, Jesus Christ, Doc, I can't get any smaller, can I? I said to him, if this goes on I'll be the incredible shrinking man, and he said…"

Kellerman shook his head as he chortled with laughter. "He said, that was done with mirrors! They built giant chairs and tables, then…fuck it! How could he know, eh? How could he know!"

Kellerman was referring to his obsession, a fun-house mirror he used to haul everywhere he went. The mirror distorted a normal human being, but it made Kellerman look tall and slender—normal. One night in a fit of rage he had smashed it to pieces, and wept like a child at his broken dream image. He turned now to peer at himself in the dressing table mirror, his head just reaching the top of the table. The effect was comical, even funny, but Kellerman was not a clown. He was a man filled with self-hatred, and convinced of the fact that if he had grown, he could have been recognized as handsome as a movie star, a Robert Redford, a Clint Eastwood.

He cocked his head, grinning. "You know they got drugs now to prevent dwarfism? If they detect it early enough, they pump you with steroids, and you grow. Ain't that something?"

Kellerman loathed his deformity; when drunk he was always ready to attack anyone he caught staring at him. The circus was his only employment, his short body rushing around the ring, being chased and thrown around. He opened another vodka and drank it neat from the small bottle.

"Did you work with the Frazer brothers in Paris?"

Ruda asked the question without really wanting a reply; her heart was hammering inside her chest. She had to get him into a good mood, she didn't have the money.

Kellerman nodded. "Yeah, the Frazers had bought my electric car just before I went to jail. So when I turned up and told them I needed a few dollars they put me in the act. My timing was right—you know little Frankie Godfrey? He had joined the act about four years ago. Well, he's been really sick, water on the brain maybe, I dunno. Some crazy woman a few years back got up from her seat and attacked him, she just hurtled into the ring and began knocking him around. The audience thought it was all part of the show, but she was a nut case. Ever since the poor sod's had these blinding headaches; still they paved the way for me to earn a few bucks. Then the management found out about me—gave me my walking papers, they told the Frazers to get rid of me. Cunts all of them."

"Serves you right, if you steal from the people who employ you, and virtually kill a cashier, what else do you expect?…I did that show, Monte Carlo, wasn't it?"

"I borrowed the dough, I was gonna pay it back. Yeah, Monte fuckin' Carlo, I only went there to date Princess Stephanie!…haw haw!"

Ruda laughed. "Oh yeah, where were you going to find two hundred thousand dollars? From Prince Rainier?"

Kellerman chortled, and pointed to her handbag. "I'm looking right at half that amount now! You know something, we made a good team, we could do it again, I'm good with animals."

"Fuck off… you hate anything with four legs."

He shrugged. "No, I'm serious. You hear what that high-wire act got paid for a stint in Vegas? I mean the real dough is in cabaret. And there's a double act with big cats, you know, mixed with magic—they make their panthers disappear. I dunno how the fuck they do it, but it's got to be a con. You ever thought of trying the Vegas circuit? I got contacts there, I mean maybe to have me in the act might not be a good thing, but I could manage you. I mean Grimaldi's washed up, or filled up with booze, I hear, and you were shit hot with that magic stuff."

"The day I need you to manage me, Tommy,
I'll
be washed up."

Kellerman continued talking about acts he had managed, and she let him carry on, only half listening. There had been a time when Ruda had felt deeply sorry for him, because she had been in the same dark place. In retrospect, she had made herself believe that that was the reason she had married him, it united them. Earlier, he had been the only connection to this past, now he was the reminder.

When they met, Kellerman was not as grotesque as he was now. He seemed boyish, innocent, his full-lipped mouth and exceptionally white even teeth always ready to break into a big smile. But as he aged, the anguish inside him, his self-loathing, not only seemed to have deformed his body, but was etched on his face.

She was so engrossed in her thoughts that Kellerman startled her when he suddenly hopped onto the bed beside her.

"You aren't listening to me!"

"I'm sorry, I was miles away."

Kellerman rested his head back against the pillows; his small feet in their red socks pushed at her back and irritated Ruda, so she got up and sat in the chair he had vacated. She was tense, her hands were clenched, but she told herself to be patient, to be nice to him. She mustn't antagonize him.

"Strange coming back after all these years, isn't it?"

She made no reply. He tucked his short arms behind his head, and closed his eyes. "You think it's all stored away, all hidden and then—back it comes. I've had a long time to think about the past, in prison, but being here, I dunno, it makes me uneasy, it's like a secret drawer keeps inching open."

Ruda was trying to figure out how to tell him that she did not have the money. She racked her brain for a deal she could offer him. She was surprised by the softness, the sadness in his voice; he spoke so quietly she had to lean forward to hear him.

"When my mama handed me over, there were these two women, skeletons, I can remember them, their faces, almost as clearly as my mama's. Maybe even clearer. One woman was wearing a strange green satin top, and a torn brown skirt…filthy, she was filthy dirty, her head shaved, her face was like a skull. She hissed at Mama through her toothless gums. 'Tell them he's twelve years old, tell the guards he's twelve.' My mama held on to me tightly. She was so confused and said, 'He's fourteen, he's fourteen but he's small, he's just small.' The woman couldn't hear because one of the guards hit her, then I saw her sprawled on the ground. I still remember her shoes, she had one broken red high-heeled shoe, and a wooden clog on her other foot."

"I've heard all this! Come on, why don't we go someplace for a meal." She had to get him out, stop him drinking, talk to him, reason with him.

Kellerman ignored her. "The next moment Mama and me were pushed and shoved into a long line. Eva, my little sister, was crying, terrified, and then the second woman whispered to Mama: 'Twins…say your children are twins.'

Ruda arched her back. "Shut up!" Her heart began to beat rapidly, as if she were being dragged under water. She felt the damp darkness, smelled the stench, and she clenched her teeth, not wanting to remember.

"Don't, Tommy, stop…I don't want to listen!" But she could hear the voice: "Twin…
twins
…TWINS," and she got to her feet, hugging herself tightly. She moved as far away from the bed as possible, to stand by the window. She could feel the hair on the nape of her neck stand up, her mouth felt dry, and the terror came back. The rats were scurrying across her. In the gloom, the white faces of the frightened, and the gaunt faces of the starving glowered at her. The stinking sewer water rose up, inch by inch, and they held her up by her coat collar so that she wouldn't drown. A blue woolen coat with a dark blue velvet collar. Hers had been blue, her sister's red.

"Don't, Tommy, please don't…"

But he wasn't hearing her, he was too wrapped up in his own memories. He gave a soft heart-breaking laugh. Eva was almost as tall as he, with the same curly black hair: She was only ten years old. Eva had always been so protective of him, so caring. How he had adored her!

Ruda moved closer to the bed determined to calm him, but it was as if he were unaware of her presence. He stared at the ceiling and began to cry.

" 'My son is fourteen,' Mama shouted, and all around us was mayhem, but all I did, all I could do, was keep staring at the second woman who had approached us. She was wearing a pink see-through blouse. It was too small, you could see her breasts, her ribs, she was covered in sores. She had on a blue skirt, it had sequins on it, some hanging off by their threads. The skirt must have been part of a ball gown, because it had a weird train. It was gathered up and tied in a knot, a big knot between her legs. Like the other skinny woman, she had one high sling-backed gold evening shoe and what looked like a man's boot. I was so fascinated by these two skeleton women that I couldn't catch what was going on. But the next moment, a guard dragged Eva away; he kicked Mama, kicked her so hard she screamed in agony. She was screaming, screeching like a bird: 'He's fourteen, but he's a dwarf, he's a dwarf, please don't hurt him, he's strong, he can work, but don't hurt him, don't kick him in his back, please . .

He sobbed.

"She said it, my mama said it, for the first time I heard her say what I was…"

Ruda sat on the bed, she reached out to touch Kellerman's foot, to stop him talking, but he withdrew his leg, curling up like a child. His voice was no longer a whimper, but deeply angry. "He took me then, pointed with his white glove, first to me, and then to a lineup of children on the far side of the station yard. That was the first time I saw him, that was the first time. I've never told you, I have never told you that, have I?"