Circus: Fantasy Under the Big Top (31 page)

Wakeful, the circus became very uneasy. Such signs are not to be ignored by a circus, and together with the odd boy, the circus was sure morning would bring ill omens.

Sunrise brought light, but clouds covered the sun. Even so, striking began and was well underway when Señora Bruja returned from searching for the boy. She came to her tent, tears in her eyes. She sat in her chair, knocked her crystal to the floor, and sobbed.

The circus waited and listened. She would speak when she had breath.

At last, she picked up her crystal, settled it on her table, wiped her eyes, then spoke. “He’s dead.”

“The boy?”

“Yes.”

The crying took her again, and she sobbed a while longer. The strikers came and found her crying. The circus sent them to do other chores while it listened to Señora Bruja.

“How?” the circus asked.

“Bullies in the village. He told them that he talked to you.”

“So they killed him? For that?”

“No. They only laughed. He laughed as well. One hit him, and still he laughed. They told him to stop laughing. He told them he was going to become a circus and that he would be a boy who smiled and laughed from now on.”

“And?”

“They beat him to make him stop laughing. They kicked him to make him stop smiling. He laughed and smiled. One of them kicked his head. He died.”

The sobs came to her again.

The circus could not cry, but it sighed long and hard. It let the damp winds come in and out of its remaining tents, and it moved the horses and bears to groan, and even the strikers paused in their work and crossed themselves for the boy, though they did not know that he was dead.

“We killed him,” Señora Bruja said.

“No,” the circus said. “Hatred killed him. They hated his smile, and they hated his laughter, and they killed him.”

“We told him he could be a circus.”

“Yes,” the circus said.

The rain came at that moment. It was a powerful rain, a hard rain, and Señora Bruja’s tent was the only tent left standing, so all the strikers, and Geeks, and freaks, and barkers, and even the two acrobats came and gathered in her tent.

Señora Bruja lit a lantern and placed it in the center of the table beside the crystal, which scattered shards of colored light throughout the tent.

One of the acrobats said, “This is a very strange storm. A terrible storm. The tent will not hold.”

One of the strikers said, “It will hold. We set the stakes deep and the poles are strong.”

The circus said, “Maria, tell them.”

Señora Bruja said, “We have done wrong; we must set the wrong right.”

The circus had her tell the tale of the boy, and when she was finished, the circus told her that it had a plan. It gave her instruction for all its people.

Even in the terrible storm, the strikers went out of the tent, the barkers went with them to help if they could, the acrobats climbed poles and lines to secure tents even though lightning might kill them, and Señora Bruja read in her mystical books until she was sure she knew how to do the things she needed to do in the days to come.

On dawn of the day after the circus was to have left, the big top was up again—the big top, the midway, the barkers, the Wheel of Fortune, the Bottle Toss, and Señora Bruja’s tent. The acrobats cavorted in new sunlight in the early morning path to the gates of the circus, and the circus had been moved so its fences and gates surrounded the village’s graveyard.

The big top stood over an open grave, a freshly dug grave, a grave at center ring that was just the right size for a boy who had smiled in the face of death.

The man on stilts, the fat lady, the acrobats, and all the strikers and barkers and animals went into the village and handed out fliers to a free show.

The acrobats, who were by far the strongest and fastest of all in the circus, took special care to find the bullies, the three boys who had beaten a smiling child. Each of those boys received a special, front-row ticket.

Now, the mother of the boy who smiled was sad, of course. While the village buzzed with excitement for the strange doings of the circus, she donned a black scarf, her black dress, and she cried while she washed her son.

Crying, she put him in a small cart. Still crying, she hitched her burro to the cart and started up the hill outside the village, started the long trudge through the jungle forest and up to the graveyard where she would say goodbye to her son.

She was so sad that she didn’t notice that the circus had moved. She was so sad that she didn’t notice the line of silent circus people on both sides of the path to the graveyard.

As a mother should be who must bury her son, she was so sad that she did not notice that the circus held open the flaps of the big top for her or that the sun disappeared when she, the cart, and the boy went inside, or even that the open grave was in the center of center ring.

She simply went about the business of wrapping her son in her best linens and, with the help of two strikers, laying him into the grave.

While she knelt next to her son’s grave to pray his soul into the next world, the people of the town arrived for the promised, free show.

As the circus expected, they had all noticed that the circus had moved. Not one person from the entire village could resist the invitation to come to the big top in the graveyard. Such a thing had never been seen, never even been heard of.

The tiers of benches filled. The performers prepared. Señora Bruja donned the Ring Master’s uniform, and the Ring Master helped harness the trick horses and helped muzzle the dancing bears.

All in silence.

The orchestra wore black. They sat with their instruments on their laps.

The crowd was silent.

The performers were silent.

The tent flaps and ropes were silent.

The only sound in all the circus-surrounded graveyard was the sound of a mother praying for the soul of her son.

When she said, “Amen,” she looked up. For the first time, her grief parted enough to see that she and her son were surrounded by the villagers and that the villagers were surrounded by a circus.

Señora Bruja, wearing the top hat and tails, stepped up to her, placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, and said, “Your son loved the circus.”

The boy’s mother nodded.

“We wish to say goodbye in our way. May we?”

The mother looked around. She nodded again.

Two clowns came across the center ring and helped the woman to a seat. A trainer came with carrots for the burro and led him away to one side.

The seats were full. The bullies sat in a row, excited and a little confused, but clearly unrepentant.

Señora Bruja smiled and lifted her hand to her Ring Master’s top hat.

The circus closed the tent flaps. Ropes tied them shut. Darkness filled the space inside the tent.

Señora Bruja began the performance. The music sounded. The clowns moved into the center ring.

People murmured in the darkness.

Someone tried the ties on the flap and found they could not undo the ties without light.

Clown horns sounded. Clown laughter filled the tent.

Señora Bruja announced each act in order, and each act performed in the darkness.

From time to time, people tried to leave by the tent flaps or by crawling under the edges of the tent, but at the edges of the tent they found tigers and lions and geeks and bearded ladies.

Finally, the acrobats had swung on their trapeze in the dark, the most dangerous and death-defying of the feats, and one that was very important to the circus’ plan and the magics of Señora Bruja’s books.

Señora Bruja called for lights, and the spotlights were lit, and the big top over the boy’s grave filled with light, and the people of the village sighed their relief.

Señora Bruja stood before the three bullies. “This was a performance for our friend, Manolo,” she said. “Forever more and after that, he will never again see a circus because of what you have done.”

The bullies fidgeted and looked about.

Señora Bruja pointed to one, the smallest, “You,” she said, “to prove how big you were, threw the first stone.”

“He was laughing at us,” the boy said.

“You,” she pointed to the second boy, who was bigger and leaner and harder in jaw and arm, “to show that you were bigger and stronger and loyal to the other boys, you struck the first blow.”

“He wouldn’t quit smiling,” the boy said.

“And you,” she strode up to the largest of the boys, the boy that had the darkest eyes, the boy that hated so much that he would never smile unless someone else was hurt, the boy whose hatred infected others. “You set them to the task, and you kicked Manolo so hard that he died.”

“He’s different,” the boy said, “His father was from the North. He deserved to die.” The boy spat.

The people of the village bowed their heads in shame. The clowns frowned, filed up, and stood in a row, three on each side of Señora Bruja.

“You!” she said, pointing to the first boy, “Come down into the ring.”

“No,” the boy said, but two clowns had already grasped his arms. The boy screamed for help, and several men in the crowd began to get up, but the circus shook and stretched its ropes and raised such a howl that the men became afraid and sat back down.

Señora Bruja brought the boy to the grave. The clowns held him.

“Here,” she said, “Is where a boy’s joy ends. Here is where you put him, and here is where you will one day come.”

The boy cried. He sobbed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

Señora Bruja lifted her long-fingered hand, and with a quick motion, she flicked a tear from the boy’s cheek. The tear rose in the spotlight. It flashed like a trapeze artist in a sequined suit. It rose, arched, sparkled, fell, and came to rest on the linens of Manolo’s shroud.

The clowns released the boy, who ran for his life. The tent flaps untied, opened, and let him run off into the bright daylight of the first day of his new life.

The tent flaps closed again.

The people murmured, but now that they had seen what the circus had in mind, they were more calm.

Señora Bruja and the clowns went to face the second boy. “You,” she said, “Come down.”

Braver in his cowardice than the first boy, the second stood tall and stepped into the ring. Escorted by clowns and Ring Mistress, he approached the grave. There, he made a show of crying and claiming he was sorry.

The circus laughed so all could hear.

The sound of it sent a stir of fear through the crowd.

The false sorrow of the boy ended.

Señora Bruja took up his hand. “You,” she said, “drew first blood with your blow, and you shall return in kind.” She crossed his palm with a long fingernail. A cut appeared in his palm.

The boy howled in earnest now, and the clowns held him.

Señora Bruja spoke, “If you have no sorrow for your actions, then you will give of your life.” She shook his hand, and three drops of blood arched out, crimson and bright, and fell to the shroud—one each over Manolo’s eyes and one over his mouth.

People gasped. A woman screamed.

Señora Bruja freed the boy.

Holding his injured hand, he ran. He ran, looking back over his shoulder, and he tripped on the ring, tumbled, fell, broke his neck and died.

Silence filled the tent.

The lifeless boy, still holding his hand, head bent back and to the side in an impossible posture, held the eyes of every face in the big top.

The clowns and Señora Bruja stood before the third boy. “Come down,” she said.

The third boy said something very rude. He stood, turned, and headed for the aisle and the tent flaps.

A bear three times his size stood on hind legs in the aisle. Its hands came up to its muzzle and stripped away the leather cup and straps. The bear lifted its lip and growled.

A wet stain appeared on the boys pant leg.

A girl giggled, and the boy turned red.

“Come down,” Señora Bruja said.

The boy, followed by the dancing bear, came into the ring. He followed Señora Bruja to the grave of Manolo.

“Manolo came to us,” she said. “He wanted to be a circus.”

A few foolish people laughed, still believing it was only a show. Most did not.

“That’s just stupid,” the boy said.

The circus laughed. The boy cringed. Silence filled the tent once more.

“You kicked his head,” she said. “What gift do you offer the dead?”

The boy spit on the shroud.

Señora Bruja nodded.

The clowns grasped the boy’s arms.

The boy struggled, but these clowns had striker’s muscles. These clowns could lift a fifty pound mallet and bring it home on a stake. These clowns could hang upside down from a pole ring and pull on fist-thick ropes and tie them off.

The struggles of a boy, even a boy the size of a man, were nothing to them.

Señora Bruja took the boy’s head between her hands. She looked deep into his eyes. “From you,” she said, “The gift shall be mind. For all your days, and until you are one hundred years old, you will know that once you hurt a smiling boy. You will remember the joy in his smile and laughter, but you will never see joy in a smile or hear it in laughter again. You will remember that once your mind was clear—but you will only speak gibberish and riddles and everyone you meet will laugh at you and make fun of you.”

She kissed him on the lips, took water from his mouth, then she too spit on the grave of Manolo.

The clowns released the boy. He screamed. He cried. He spoke, but only foolish noises and slobber came from his lips.

The little girl laughed again.

Señora Bruja turned to the people. She held up her top hat. The trumpet sounded three times. She thanked them for coming to the performance, and she bade them go, she bade them remember Manolo, and she bade them be kind to one another in his memory.

The tent flaps opened.

Silent, somber people filed away from the circus and back to the village.

Finally, only the circus, the people of the circus, a mother, a burro, and an open grave remained.

“Come,” Señora Bruja said, “Come down.”

The mother stepped into the ring.