Masters of Illusions (25 page)

He took several long, deep breaths. He said, “Margie. I thought the tent would catch fire, what else could I think? What would
a ten-year-old think?”

“Yes. That is what a ten-year-old would think. But what else would he think? What did you think would happen after the tent
caught fire?”

His eyes grew focused over Margie’s head, back to a scene in 1944. He put himself back there one last time. “I thought it
would be like a fire drill at school. Everyone would file out. But since this was a real fire, and not a drill, the firemen
would come.”

“Then what would happen? When the firemen came?”

“They’d put the fire out.”

“You set a fire you knew the firemen would put out.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because they’d have to cancel the circus for that day. Everybody would miss out, just like I had to miss out. Even that brat,
Ruth-Ann.”

There was just silence. Then Margie said, “Your father caused the fire. Your mother caused it, too, as if she struck the match
herself” The room became silent again. He didn’t get angry. Charlie reached over and took Margie’s hand. His voice stayed
a little boy’s. “I thought the firemen would put it out.”

Margie said, “I know.”

She took off her sneakers and climbed into bed with him. She snuggled up to him. They made love.

Charlie would be the one to get Margie out of the jar of horseradish. Not Martha, not Radcliffe, not a million books. Charlie.
He’d pull her out-the little girl who wouldn’t have plastic surgery, who had refused and refused. The teenager who wouldn’t
go to college, wouldn’t go anywhere, just like her father. The woman who just wanted to make sure everyone saw what they’d
done to her. Fuck you, Miss Foss, and fuck everybody else. Look what you people did to me!

Now Charlie was finally able to read her mind.

The backdrop of this novel, the great Hartford circus fire, was a real event. And the unidentified child who was known as
Little Miss 1565 was a victim of that fire. In 1991, after an intensive nine-year search, a Hartford firefighter, Lt. Rick
Davy, discovered the identity of that child. Her name was Eleanor Cook.

Of the 169 people who died in the fire, there remain six who have yet to be identified, including an infant, less than a year
old.

Mary-Ann Tirone Smith grew up in Hartford, Connecticut.