Goldenland Past Dark (18 page)

“Don’t say that. Nobody wants—”

“Tell me, what did the others say to you before their defection?”

Webern took off his glasses and carefully wiped them on his shirt. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that, Boss.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Since everybody else’s going to try and get jobs over there . . .”

“Yes?”

“I guess I was just wondering what you were planning to do.” Webern put his glasses back on. “If you were going to, you know, go on with your circus, or—”

Dr. Show looked affronted. He plucked at his bow tie.

“This is not the first time my vision has been tested, and it will not be the last. If you’re suggesting that I might despair over a slight such as this, you know little of the strength of my character.” He twisted one end of his moustache defiantly.

“No, no, that’s not what I meant. I know you’ll be all right and everything. I just was wondering where you were going to go, what you were planning to do. You know, for a job.”

“Ah. Well, I have my skills. Perhaps I’ll return to the continent. As I said, sometimes I wish I’d stayed.” Schoenberg moved his pale fingers dexterously, manipulating invisible cards. Then a new thought occurred to him. His face climbed through what seemed like a preordained series of expressions, like notes on a musical scale, until finally he lifted his head and looked at Webern with a devilish gleam in his eye.

“My boy, have
you
ever visited Europe?”

Webern looked down at the drink in his hands.

“I can’t say I have.”

“But you must! To truly understand clowning, you must visit its very roots. Oh, the things I could show you, Bernie! On the continent, you’ll see the grand halls of kings, where jesters once plied their merry trade, and the cobblestone roads once traveled by wandering minstrels all the way to Rome. The circus there is like Chartreuse: the recipe is ancient, but known to few. You and I will learn its secrets. Perhaps we’ll even find Molara’s family and make amends. I could return the swords, at least. As I recall, her brothers used to perform a comic mime in utter silence, accompanied only by their sister’s flute—it was quite your sort of thing. What do you say, my boy? Shall we stow away on a steamer?” He glanced around, then laughed wildly. “After all, you said it yourself—there’s no going on like this.”

“Dr. Show . . .” Webern looked away from Schoenberg, over at the two swords that hung crossed above the trunk. One still shone; the other, opaque and battle-scarred, half-blocked its glancing light. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

“Oh, nonsense, of course you can.” Dr. Show waved his hand dismissively. “At your size, we can pack you in a crate quite easily.”

“That’s not what I mean. You see, Nepenthe . . .” Webern finished his drink in a gulp, then said the rest in a single breath. “Nepenthe got a job with the Other Circus’s freak show—she’s there right now, fixing up our bunk—and they wanted her so much they agreed to take me on, too—just doing odd jobs at first, but if I learn fast—well, they’ll let me clown.” In fact, Frank had offered him a job with the Parliament of Freaks up front, but Webern turned it down categorically; he didn’t want to perform anywhere but the big top. “They’ve got a great set-up over there and . . .”

Schoenberg rose slowly to his feet until he towered over Webern. He cast his glass down. It bounced on the dirt floor without breaking.

“
Et tu, Brute
? Why did you come back here, may I ask? To soothe your conscience? To drink my fine liqueur? Or merely to torment me?”

“Please don’t yell at me, Dr. Show.”

“I’ll do as I like, you ungrateful—”

“Stop it, stop it, stop it! You’re the one being ungrateful. I’ve worked so hard for you! I went along with every—and I’ve never complained or called you—crazy or—or—and didn’t you notice, I’m the only one who came back?”

Dr. Show’s expression changed again. As the anger drained away, his face took on the quality of a well-wrung sponge. He stood there idly for a moment, then reached into his sleeve for a handkerchief. Three emerged, red, green, and yellow, knotted together at the ends. He used them to mop his brow. As Schoenberg sank back onto the cot and bent to retrieve his glass from the ground, Webern felt a strange emptiness where his insides used to be. It was almost as though he might float away.

“Dr. Show,” he said, “I didn’t mean—”

“No, Bernie, you are entirely in the right. I do apologize.” Schoenberg pressed the handkerchiefs to his eyes. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s just, Nepenthe and I can be happy, I think. She said—she wants me to come. And anyway,” Webern went on, surprising himself with every word, “it’s what
I
want, too. You really should see it for yourself. Then you’d know. I mean, it’s beautiful. The acrobats and the trapeze artists . . .” He trailed off. Schoenberg sat motionless, his head still in his hands. This wasn’t going the way Webern had hoped at all. “I didn’t come here to torment you.”

“I know, my boy.”

“No, but really. I want you to come with us. I came to convince you. They’re always hiring people, over at Barker & Smart, that’s what Frank said, and I know that if you wanted to you could—”

“And what would I do in this Other Circus, may I ask? Allow me to repeat what I told you long ago: I cannot juggle, I do not throw knives. I ride bareback only when necessity demands it. I am a ringmaster, Bernie. That is my only skill.”

“That’s not true. You’re a magician.”

“Ha.”

“No, really. You’re great at it. I’ve seen you—”

“Tonight is the night for unpleasant confessions, it seems. Bernie, despite my—I failed on the vaudeville circuit. Before I changed careers, I was reduced to performing at bar mitzvahs and children’s birthday parties.”

“That’s not so bad.”

Schoenberg smiled wanly. “Spoken by a man who’s never found himself upstaged by cake.”

Webern forced himself to smile back, but Schoenberg turned away. He placed another cigarette in his holder and lit it.

“Leave me now, Bernie. I’ll make my decision in the morning.”

“Are you really okay?”

“I am fine, my boy, quite fine.”

Webern stood up, walked to the curtains, then stopped.

“At least let me help you put this stuff away.”

Webern went back and picked up the two empty glasses, as well as the empty bourbon bottle. For a moment, he looked around, as if trying to find somewhere to wash them. Then, impulsively, he threw all three objects in the air and began to juggle.

Webern bent, dipped, and scuttled around the tent, as if the juggling was next to impossible for him. He slid onto his knees, grabbing one cup at the last minute, and spun around on one heel to keep the bottle from falling to the ground behind him. As he performed, his expression kept changing: he grinned with foolish triumph after a near save, grimaced with exaggerated concentration, and opened his mouth in a perfect “O” of surprise when a glass struck the tent’s centre pole and rang it like a bell. Then, slowly but surely, his juggling fell into a measured tempo, as if he had just gained his footing at long last. He smiled with lazy contentment as the objects spun round him, seemingly of their own accord, like spokes on a wheel. Just as he appeared completely confident and in control, all three rained down and hit him on the head—cup, cup, bottle.
Plunk, plunk, plunk!
Webern stuck out his tongue drunkenly, crossed his eyes, and fell over backwards.

It was a perfect performance, but as he got up and dusted himself off, he noticed that Dr. Show wasn’t laughing. In fact, Schoenberg’s eyes looked misty as he stared down at his shoes, watching the dark reflections there.

Webern felt stupider than he ever had in his life.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Show. I thought I could cheer you up,” he said.

“No, that was splendid. Splendid. Thank you. I truly appreciated it.”

“I hope you aren’t mad at me.”

“No, I understand your situation all too well. And I’ll think over what you proposed. It was quite kind of you, to come and see me like this.”

“All right.”

“Bernie?”

“Yeah, boss?”

“You asked me once if I had any children.” Schoenberg smoothed the colourful handkerchiefs draped over his knee. “After I left the Old Country, apparently Molara confessed herself to be pregnant. By myself or the ironsmith, she couldn’t say. Her cousin offered to marry her, but she refused. She chose instead to fall upon the very sword whose creation she believed had ruined her. At least that’s the story Mars Boulder told to me.” He idly touched the tip of his cigarette; its fire had gone out. “I wonder now, what he’d have been like. That gypsy son.”

Webern didn’t know what he wanted to say, and he didn’t know the words to say it. He looked at Dr. Show for a long time, but it was as if the ringmaster was sitting on the deck of a ship that had already set sail. The distance between them was opening wider and wider. “All right. I’ll come back in the morning, boss.”

After Webern disappeared through the curtains, Schoenberg untied his shoelaces and removed his tuxedo jacket. Beneath it, he wore only a dickey and suspenders. He hung the jacket on a notch in the tent pole, then pulled out his wallet from his pants pocket and opened it. It contained a single crumpled dollar and one weathered photograph. He pulled this picture out and smoothed it with his hand.

It was a snapshot of himself, taken after a talent contest when he was sixteen, shortly before he left home for good. In it, he sported white gloves and a cape. His first moustache, a source of real pride at the time, was impeccably waxed and turned up at the corners. Beside him was a cardboard sign, painted in gold and crimson, he recalled, though the black and white photograph coloured it grey. It read, “Watch Gilderoy the Great Make Himself Disappear!”

Schoenberg put the photograph away and looked over at the two swords that hung, crossed, against the tent’s canvas wall. He stepped over and lifted down the older one by its jeweled hilt. In his hands, it felt cold and heavy. He stared down at the cobwebs of scratches dulling its once-bright surface. Then he ran a finger along its edge. To his surprise, it still cut him easily.

His mind turned again to Molara (or was it Moirae?), and the first time he’d seen her dance. He remembered vividly the village square, the way her ankle bells had jingled as her feet stamped the cobblestones, the brown hens that pecked, indifferent, at the dirt, even as the crowd filled the air with their raucous cheers. But even when he closed his eyes, he could no longer see her face. Perhaps because he’d hardly seen it at the time. In those days, women’s faces stayed with him no longer than their names.

It seemed to him now that his youth had passed behind a painted screen of his own creation, a screen that passion and vice had served to illuminate but never to pierce. Upon the screen shone images of the glorious path his life would one day follow: marvelous illusions, daring escapes, intrigue, adventure, and above all, unquestionable genius, all evoked in the most brilliant of hues. Only now, in his old age, his “obsolescence”—he muttered the word out loud, like a curse—had that barrier finally been slashed to tatters.

Dr. Show hefted the sword up onto his shoulder and held it there, as though knighting himself. He felt its edge touch the skin just above his collar and felt the blue-green vein pulsing there. He wondered how Molara had felt dancing with the sword, if she had ever feared the sharpness of its blade. She might have believed that any misstep she took would bring her only the pain that she deserved. Any true artist would hold himself to the same standard.

“
Acta est fabula, plaudite
,” Schoenberg intoned.

He held still for a moment and watched as his breath fogged the aged metal. Then, carelessly, he let the sword clatter to the ground, turned around, and hobbled back to his cot.

“You old fool,” he murmured.

Because, after all, wasn’t this the final delusion, the final shred of the screen that had once shielded him—that he still had an audience now, after all these years? That he was a failure, true, but that somewhere one-time admirers looked on, mourning amongst themselves of how far he had fallen, how he had squandered his youthful promise?

There were no lookers-on now, if indeed there ever had been. The world was not waiting for his next act. Even Bernie had forsaken him: Bernie, who had once committed grand larceny on his behalf, whose standards were so low he saw no shame in performing alongside a sick pony in a child’s backyard. Bernie, who he’d thought would be there until the end.

Schoenberg felt his chest constrict tighter than before, and then all at once release—as if, stepping outside for the first time in years, he was at last able to exhale and breathe in fresh air. The world was not waiting for his next act. Fans were not thronging at his door. No one in Europe remembered him; there was nothing to return to, there. What he did now mattered to no one except himself.

How had it taken him so long to see? He could adopt a new name, a new set of tricks—he could leave behind the Cadillac, with its sticky scent of spilled dried rum, and the swords that had caused so much sorrow and made a madman track him across the world. He could leave behind the circus that bore his name, the cobbled-together tents, the ridiculous red trailer and filthy cages. He could leave behind his debts. Again, he saw the clockwork carousel roll down the hill, faster and faster, its ancient gears grinding as it thundered toward vanishing, and again he laughed out loud, but this time with real joy—with relief. What freedom it gave him, what sudden exhilarating freedom it gave him, now in his obsolescence, to begin again!