No Stars at the Circus (16 page)

“Don’t snivel, boy,” she said. “You’re a musician. It’s written all over your face, even though you’re so young. And music is a privilege.”

She started fumbling inside her fur coat. She wasn’t holding me any longer but I didn’t dare move. Even though she was quite old I’d say she’d have caught me again, I was so petrified.

“But it’s shocking that you’re not better cared for. Here, I’m going to give you something.”

She took out a purse and from it a banknote. She pressed it into my hands.

“Here, boy. Take the métro. The train will take you straight all the way.” She pointed. “Over there. If you don’t do that you’ll get so cold you simply won’t be able to perform at all. Believe me, I know these things. Good luck with your exam.”

She was gone before I could say anything, even thank you.

I looked at the banknote. It was so long since I’d seen one. Fifty francs. There were some words right under the person’s picture. They were printed to look like old-fashioned handwriting and they were spelled in a funny way. But guess what they said:

“Nothing is impossible for a willing heart.”

Mama’s words. It was a message. Not from the wireless but from a real live German.

But there was no yellow van at the Foire du Trône.

There was just a shape cut into the ground where it had stood and where the grass was still flattened. There were no Corrados.

I went down the street, looking at all the other vans. I recognized the ones that belonged to the strongman, the fortune teller, the tumblers. But none of the vans was the nice yellow of a fried egg on a pan and they all had their doors closed. Even if I wasn’t supposed to be in hiding I’d never have dared knock on one. It was much too early. There were only a few people walking on the street and just a couple of men coming along the path on bicycles. Where was Papa’s bicycle now?

I felt sick.

The kiosk at the top of Cours de Vincennes was open. I could see Violette inside, with her big yellow hair. She was talking to an old man, giving him cigarettes. When he moved off I pushed the scarf down from my face and went over to the kiosk.

“Where’s Alfredo gone?” I asked her. “The Corrados’ van isn’t there.”

She looked at me as if I had something wrong with my head.

“Don’t you know? They’ve gone off to Neuilly. This place wasn’t good enough any more, they said. Truth was, everybody was sick of their stupid tricks. That greasy tramp, the one whose name you mentioned, can go and jump in the river for all I care. So don’t come talking to me about those people.”

It was a really bad word she called Alfredo. It wasn’t
tramp
.

“How do you get to Neuilly?” I asked. “Is it in Paris?”

But suddenly Violette wasn’t looking at
me
. Her eyes were fixed on something behind me and she looked a bit frightened. I turned round.

Pimply Arms.

Not that you could see his arms now, because he was dressed in a long black coat. It was open at the front and there was a long stick hanging from his belt, like the ones policemen wear. I didn’t need to see his arms. I knew his face straightaway, even though if you’d asked me a minute before what he looked like I couldn’t have said. It was just the worst face.

He came right up and put his hands round my neck until the fingers met at the back. He didn’t even have to squeeze to do that, his hands were so big. Then he took them away and held tight to my arm.

“Welcome back, little flea-boy –
Jonas Alber
.” he said. He tipped his cap to Violette. “Thanks for that, Violette. You could have told him to scram, and he might have made it.”

Violette began pulling down the wooden shutter of the kiosk. She was nearly crying. “I did nothing to help you, you creep! Nothing!”

Pimply Arms laughed. “Better keep the place open for the troops, Violette! They won’t like to see you all closed up so early.”

She banged the shutter closed. “Devil!” she shouted. Already she sounded far away.

“It was good of you to come out of your mouse hole,” Pimply Arms said to me. “Important people were looking for you. Now we’re going to take a little walk. And on the way you’re going to tell me where you’ve been all this time. And who was stupid enough to take in vermin like you.”

He started pulling me along with him towards the big roundabout at Nation. My feet must have been doing something to keep up with him but I couldn’t feel them moving. My brain wasn’t working at all. It was frozen.

“You don’t know my real name,” I managed to say. “Jonas Alber is just a stage name.”

He laughed again but not as much as before. “Don’t try to be smart. It won’t help you.”

“Do you think Madame Fifi’s parents called her that when she was a baby?” I asked. “That’s a stage name.”

He pinched my arm. “Funny that the rest of your family was called Alber. I wonder where they’ve all got to now, don’t you?”

He noticed the music case then because it kept hitting against his leg. He stopped.

“What have you got there? Give it here.”

Music cases have a special bar. It’s a really simple thing but Pimply Arms had no idea how to work it, especially because he was using only one hand. He was keeping the other one fastened like a hook to my arm.

“Open it, you,” he snarled. “And don’t try anything or I’ll hand you over to our masters in pieces. Where’d you get a good leather bag like that anyway? You stole it. Look!”

I’d taken the case from the piano room but I hadn’t noticed the name printed in funny gold letters on the flap. Berthe Weiss. It had to be the Prof’s wife’s name. Just as well the German woman on the bridge hadn’t spotted
that
. She was so fond of music she might have known Berthe Weiss, the famous singer.

I opened the bar. Then, just like before, I flipped the case over and emptied the music all over the path. Pimply Arms thumped the side of my head, really hard.

“Pick those papers up, you filthy brat. On your knees.”

He let my arm go but that was only so he could knock me over, which he did. Then he kicked me until I was kneeling and he pressed his big booted foot hard on my back to keep me there. The ground wasn’t just freezing, it was covered with frozen lumps. Stones, I suppose, but they felt like pieces of ice cutting into me.

I sneaked a look around. There was still nobody much out walking. I guess the people who didn’t have to work were staying in bed to keep warm. At least there weren’t any soldiers anywhere near. There was very little traffic at the roundabout. We’d got quite close to the métro station entrance but it was still a street across from where we were. I didn’t think Pimply Arms planned to take the métro, because then he’d have to pay for me. He didn’t know about the money I had in my pocket. Not yet, anyway.

I picked up all the music sheets and put them sitting on top of the case, as if it was a tray. Then I stood up. My knees were skinned and cut. I could feel the blood trickling down into my socks, but the funny thing was how warm it felt. My blood was the warmest thing I had.

I held the case out to Pimply Arms. That way he’d need two hands to take it, even if it was only for a second. But he didn’t move to hold it. All the time I’d been picking up the music he’d kept one hand on his stick. Now he took it from his belt.

“Are you mocking me, you little piece of dirt?” he said.

“Look!” I shouted. “The parachute! Coming down over there!”

He stared at me and then, even though you could see he knew he shouldn’t, he turned all the way round, to look where I was pointing.

I dropped the case hard on his feet and ran.

I suppose the salmon and the eels don’t worry too much about all the dangers in the Atlantic Ocean. Or all the fishermen waiting for them on the rivers. If they did worry they’d be too scared to set out at all and the whole Atlantic Ocean would get clogged up until they all died, and then there’d be none left. No, they just stick to what they know and off they go, with their fishy maps.

It’s not that easy for humans, though.

No. 1 – We don’t know exactly where we’re going most of the time.

No. 2 – We keep thinking about the bad things that can happen.

No. 3 – It’s easier to see a human running than something that’s covered up by the whole ocean.

But I was much faster at running than Pimply Arms was. He was a bit fat to start with, and you can bet his big coat was no help. He kept shouting for people to stop me but I don’t think they liked the sound of him because nobody lifted a hand to grab me. When I’d reached the bottom of the métro stairs there was still no sign of him arriving at the top. I didn’t worry about buying a ticket this time. I just wriggled under the bar and ran down one of the corridors, towards the platforms.

Nobody saw me dodging under, or if they did they didn’t care.

There’s a really small boy. He’s dead scared of something. Let’s leave him alone
.

There was a train waiting, with all its doors open. The really strange thing was that it was exactly like a fairground Ghost Train because the very second I jumped into the carriage, the doors slid over and the train moved off. It was weird, but you couldn’t have asked for better help from a train.

I crouched down below the window and pretended to be fixing my shoe, so that Pimply Arms or the station men couldn’t see me if they made it as far as the platform. Then we were in the tunnel and I could stand up again. I didn’t care where the train was going. All I had to decide was where to get off. But definitely not the first station because that would still be too close to Nation.

I stayed standing, near the doors, but there was a woman sitting opposite who kept staring, first at my knees and then at all the rest of me because I was still breathing so fast. The blood had got all crusty now and I suppose that made my knees look even worse.

“I fell down the steps,” I said to the woman. “I’m late for my music exam.”

Then I remembered I didn’t have the music case any more. But the woman didn’t seem to notice that.

“Oh dear,” she said. “Here, use this.” She gave me a handkerchief. “Spit on it and rub,” she said. “Sit down. It’ll be easier.”

So I sat beside her and cleaned up my knees as best I could. They were getting stiff now. I wasn’t sure I could run if I had to, even though my breathing was nearly normal again.

“I’m sorry about the handkerchief,” I said.

She got up. “You can keep it, but take better care of yourself next time. Remember, being late is much better than being dead.”

I was sorry to see her go because it had looked like we were together, even if it was only for a short time.

I didn’t recognize any of the station names until we came to the stop for the cemetery. My Granny Berlioz is buried there. One time, when we still lived in rue de la Harpe, Mama brought Nadia and me there. Not Jean-Paul, though he really wanted to come. It was for Granny’s birthday, even though she was dead. Mama brought sandwiches and some peaches in a bag and we sat on one of the seats to have our picnic. Then Nadia spent ages following a black cat around and I had a good look at the really old gravestones. The best one had a statue of a man who was killed in a duel. He was lying flat with his pistol beside him, and his hat that had fallen off when he was shot. The hat and the pistol were all part of the statue. I told Jean-Paul about it when we got back but he said I was making it up.

A lot of people got on the train at that stop. Two German soldiers all in black pushed their way on, ahead of everyone. They squeezed themselves beside an old woman but she mustn’t have liked that one little bit because she got up and came down to stand near me. I didn’t want the soldiers to notice me but I got up and gave the woman my seat because it would have looked worse if I hadn’t. Anyway, the soldiers didn’t even notice.

I had my scarf tight around my face again. I didn’t even have to pretend I was cold because I was shivering so much. Everyone else kept their heads down or looked at the dark windows.

I got off at the first station that had another line going through it. There was a bit of a wait for the next train on that line, which was not good. I didn’t think Pimply Arms could know where I was now but he might have got a message to all the métro people.
Stop the boy in the brown suit and the grey scarf
. And I had no ticket either, if anyone came along checking for them.

I stood behind the tallest people I could find. They were two nuns wearing long robes and huge stiff white hats with two peaks. From where I was the hats looked like albatross wings. I bet people thought I was an orphan, standing there behind the nuns, but that would be a good thing. I just hoped they would continue travelling in the same direction as me and not go somewhere peculiar.

The platform was the warmest place I’d been since I left the Prof’s kitchen. The more people that crowded onto it, the warmer it got. Everyone got pressed together. I hadn’t seen anybody except the Prof for so long that it was a bit strange to see so many other people, and all at once too. I didn’t want anyone to touch me, even by accident. I pulled in my shoulders and kept my hands in my pockets.

I kept staring hard at the nuns’ backs. One of them had a tear in her robe that was sewn up with yellow thread, exactly the colour of the stars Jews had to wear. There were ten and a half tiny stitches.
10a
. Our address in rue des Lions. Somebody shoved me to the side but I got back again, standing behind the nuns. I really didn’t want to catch anybody’s eye because even if they’re not looking for you people can be bossy. But if they thought I was with the nuns, and if the nuns didn’t know I was standing behind them, I’d be all right.

I just wished there were some other children around to take people’s minds off me. There was only one other boy that I could see, standing near the edge of the platform, but he was older, maybe fourteen, and he had long pants and a school bag.

The big iron barrier clanged across the passageway, to stop any more people running onto the platform. That gave me a fright because I’d forgotten how loud a noise it makes, like something in a dungeon. Then I could hear wheels humming, getting louder, and smell the wind and the sparks, and the train rushed out of the tunnel, all in a mad hurry to get to Châtelet. That was the station I’d picked, to come up out of the métro. It was near the river and I knew how to find my way back to the Prof’s house from there.