Masters of Illusions (17 page)

Margie said, “Let me get this right. Charlie, you had a ticket to the circus, but your father took it away.”

“I thought you knew that, Margie.”

Margie wondered why he would lie. She said to her aunt, “Do you think Charlie is trying to find the arsonist because he feels
guilty about the boy you gave the ticket to? That the boy might have died?”

“Yes, oh, yes. That’s what I came here to say. I finally found the courage to see if a boy from Barbour Street died. But he
didn’t.”

Aunt Annette’s theory wasn’t right, Margie was sure of that. Margie tried to catch Charlie’s eye but couldn’t. Charlie said,
“Aunt Annette, I’ve checked, too. I checked a long time ago. I know the boy didn’t die in the fire.”

“You checked?”

“Of course.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

Ruth-Ann said, “I told you, Ma. Because he’s Charlie. Because our Daddy is really his Daddy. His own was a dud. He’s a chip
off the old block—our Daddy’s block, not his Daddy’s block. The brilliant Martha would tell us that, right Margie?”

Ruth-Ann was always jealous about Martha because her own children were such a disappointment to her. Cindy touched her mother’s
arm. She said softly, “Tell Charlie what you saw at the circus. If you want to help him, then just tell him what he’s asking
you to tell him.”

Annette refocused on the Kleenex. “I didn’t come to encourage him.”

Charlie said, “Aunt Annette. I know you worry about me. I’m all right, though. Some people believe the fire was an accident.
I don’t. I just want to prove I’m right.”

She sighed. “Okay then. You always want to know where people were sitting, isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

“But you know where we were sitting.”

“Yes.”

Margie looked at the Map. She interrupted. “I don’t know where. Charlie, why aren’t their names on the wall?”

He said, “I know their seats. One of them was supposed to be mine.”

Annette said, “We were way over at the end of the tent—the opposite end from where the fire started. Near the bandstand. The
music was very loud where we were, but I didn’t care. All I knew was that I wanted… I wanted to strangle your father, Charlie,
for not letting you come with us. I can still see your little face.…”

“What did you see from your seat near the bandstand?”

She breathed heavily. “First, I heard people yelling: ‘Fire, fire!’ And then everyone began to stand and point. I saw the
little circle of flame. It seemed little because the tent was so big. But when I saw it, the circle must have been three or
four feet across. The band stopped what they were playing and went into the ‘Stars and Stripes.’

“Just before you heard someone yell fire, what did you see?”

“I watched the lady getting the lions and tigers out of the cage and down the chute. She was a little bit of a thing, but
the lions and tigers jumped off their stools one at a time and ran right through the chute. And the big spotlight went on,
aimed at the top of the tent. The center peak of the tent. The Wallendas had already climbed up their ladder. The sun was
so bright that day that the Wallendas didn’t have shadows. The way they do at night. At a night performance, the big spotlight
makes huge shadows of the performers against the tent. I used to love the circus, Charlie.”

Margie said, “My mother loved the circus. My father told me.”

And now, along with his aunt’s and cousins’, Charlie’s eyes shifted to Margie’s. Cindy said, “We love you, Margie.”

Cindy had said those same words to her the day Charlie told his family he had broken his engagement to Sylvia and was marrying
someone else, and then introduced the someone else. Cindy, who never talked, made sure she let Margie know that everything
was all right. Now Cindy’s eyes and Charlie’s bore into one another’s. Ruth-Ann said, “Jesus, Cindy, you’re still some kind
of hippie.”

Cindy’s eyes shifted back down to her feet. Annette ignored this. There was nothing she could do about having two children
who were opposites. Charlie said, “Go ahead, Aunt Annette.”

Little shreds of Kleenex were spread across her lap. “The Wallendas looked so tiny up there. Like little toy soldiers. One
of them was a lady. The men were dismantling the animal cage. The cage took up the whole ring. When the last tiger was into
the chute, the men were already taking the cage apart.”

Margie said, “Leopard.”

Annette said, “Whatever. The men took the cage down as fast as the Wallendas climbed their ladder. The first thing I thought
when I saw the fire was that at least the animals wouldn’t be trapped in the cage. I never dreamed it would be the people
who were trapped.”

Charlie filled in the pause. “So people began to point.”

“Yes. At the little circle of fire. For those few seconds everyone waited for someone to put it out. But no one had a chance
to put it out. In the next second, the circle turned into one big long pillar of fire straight up the whole side of the tent.
Like a streak of lightning, only straight, and then the band broke into the ‘Stars and Stripes.’ They played it real loud.
I grabbed the girls’ hands and ran around the grandstand. We were in the front row because we had the police tickets. When
we got around the grandstand, the whole top of the tent was one big sheet of fire, and at that point, the pieces of canvas—burning
pieces—began to come down. To this day, I don’t know how the Wallendas got out. But they did. I didn’t see anything. Someone
had cut the tent behind the grandstand with a jackknife. We slipped through the cut. Then I ran with the girls.”

“You were one of the first to get out.”

“Yes.”

“And what did you see?”

“People running. Just like us. We ran to the edge of the lot and then I had to sit down. I held the girls’ heads in my lap
and I watched the circus burn to the ground. It looked like the newsreels. Like a whole street in London, firebombed. Except
it was daytime and it was a circus tent. And the band kept playing and playing. The music made it seem like the whole thing
was a terrible nightmare; as long as the band played it couldn’t be real. That’s what I kept thinking: This is just the newsreel;
in a minute, the movie will come on. Isn’t that so foolish?”

Charlie said, “A lot of people told me they thought of it as a newsreel. Aunt Annette, did you see any people near the tent
who were not acting the way everyone else was acting?”

Now she looked up. “No, Charlie. I never saw what you’re wanting someone to see. I couldn’t take my eyes off the tent, though.
I couldn’t look away. Everyone else was looking away, but not me. Maybe because I hadn’t been enjoying the circus. Your father
saw to it that you missed out on everything. Everything! And your mother, God forgive me, she—”

“What happened next?”

“Next? The tent began to sway. The two ends of the tent disintegrated, but the center pole swayed for what seemed like such
a long time and then it came down. Just before it fell is when the music finally stopped. The musicians all ran out of the
tent and ran to a place right near where we were sitting. They set up their instruments and they started playing again. They
had their drums and cymbal stands with them and everything. The backs of their red uniforms were all black. I said to the
girls, ‘See, everyone got out okay’”

Cindy’s little voice arose. “But that wasn’t so.”

“No, it wasn’t. Then the pole fell and what was left of the tent fell with it. Everything was flat and black and smoldering
and the only thing left standing was the Wallendas’ platform. It was way high up against the sky and I knew then how dangerous
their act was. All alone, against the sky, the platform seemed a mile high. But then it toppled, and when it did all the screaming
and the music, too, was drowned out by the sounds of sirens. So I told the girls that their Daddy was coming to find us, that
he would have to do his duty first, though. He did. He did his duty and then he found us.” She looked up. Her face was covered
with tears. “That’s everything I remember.”

And then Margie waited for Charlie to ask his aunt what she remembered before the fire. When she and the girls had arrived.
They’d skipped that part. But he didn’t ask. So Margie did. She said, “Aunt Annette, before the fire, was anyone walking around
the tent? Someone acting strangely? Carrying something that seemed not to belong?”

Cindy excused herself and left the room. She’d been four years old. What horrible things did she hold inside? Annette lifted
her head. “No, honey. Just everyone all excited about going to the circus.” She turned to Charlie once more. “You’ll never
find him. Six thousand people were there. Another couple hundred performers and hands. You won’t do it, and what if you do?
The dead will stay dead and Little Miss 1565 won’t come back to her mother.” She turned to Margie. “And your poor dear mother
won’t come back to you. It’s a long time now. A long time.”

Charlie said, “You’re married to a cop, Aunt Annette. What’s the time limit on justice?”

She said, “Don’t you dare lecture me, Charlie. I do believe in justice. I do. But I also believe that if there was an arsonist,
he was caught when he went and set another fire. Besides, arsonists are sick people. They can’t really help what they’re doing.
Finding a mentally ill person is not justice. Justice is seeing that circus tents don’t get waterproofed with gasoline ever
again.”

Charlie didn’t address that. Never had. That was not justice. He said, “People know right from wrong. Especially after they’ve
killed a hundred and sixty-nine people, and scarred a couple thousand more.”

From Charlie’s face, Margie could see that he wanted to argue some more, but he had too much respect for his family. And Annette
hadn’t said anything important to him, anyway. As far as what she’d seen at the circus, there was certainly nothing new. Of
course, there wouldn’t be. It was just the same thing over and over again. Palma was right. It was time to get him to stop.
Margie realized that, and Annette could see it. Maybe Palma had spoken to her, too. Margie thought: And I’m no goddamn different
from Palma. Margie felt as if she were just like the wife of any alcoholic, putting up with abnormal behavior out of some
sort of screwed-up version of love that looked like, and felt like, and smelled like loyalty, but was something else. Margie
had no idea what.

Margie was not a manipulator. She got no pleasure from power struggles. She would not connive to get Charlie to stop; she
would not pussyfoot around. She had no interest in saying one thing that really meant another thing. Margie was able to admit
to herself, though, that thoughts of making Charlie’s favorite dessert and buying a special bottle of wine did enter her mind,
but she kicked it all out and left her mind clear.

So when she and Charlie went to bed that night, she said, “Charlie, I don’t want you to do this anymore. I don’t want to hear
the words
circus
and
fire
next to each other again. I want all this to be over. I want to turn your room into a guest room for Martha—something pretty
for when she comes back on her breaks.”

“Martha has a room.”

“She’ll need a bigger one when she’s got a husband. And her room can be for the babies.”

Charlie, the great compromiser, mentioned to his wife that she was getting ahead of herself. Margie said, “But I can’t wait
anymore.”

“For me to find him?”

“No, Charlie. For you to stop trying.”

So he said, “Give me a year, Margie.”

Margie said, “Sure.” She’d hoped there’d be a compromise, as there had always been, and she leaped at this one. What’s a year
compared with all that’s gone before? Then she said, “Tell me what it is you’re after. Tell me. And if you say justice, I’ll
spit in your eye.”

“You don’t believe I’m after justice? Since when?”

“Since Louise Banks was identified. That’s enough justice to go around. That’s all anyone needs to close the book.”

“There’s one more chapter to this book.”

“And if the arsonist’s dead? If you find him and he’s dead, what are you going to do? Dig him up and have him arrested? Electrocuted?”

Margie felt Charlie turn toward her in the dark. She waited, but he didn’t say anything. She said, “Charlie, I’m sorry. I
didn’t mean to be sarcastic. I was trying to make a point.”

Charlie tried to make a point. “Why don’t you want to find out who did this to you?”

“Did
what
to me? There’s nothing
wrong
with me. You’ve got me all wrapped up in this because you think there’s something wrong with me. But I was a
baby,
Charlie. I don’t remember the pain I felt. I don’t remember anything. I’m happy! I’ve got all that I ever wanted.”

“Is what it did to your father all you ever wanted?”

A lump rose in Margie’s throat. She would not let him catch her. “The war is what happened to my father.”

“All right, then—somebody killed your mother and got away with it. Do you want that?”

“I don’t remember her!”

“Even if you don’t remember her, somebody killed her. And if she’d been there for your father when he got home, maybe his
life wouldn’t have been destroyed.”

“But it’s too late now. He’s not going to change.”

“But I’ll change.”

And that, she knew, was Charlie’s justice. Some kind of personal vendetta. Maybe the damned Abruzzi roots just came out stronger
in Charlie than the rest of the family. Margie said, “Charlie, another year. And I know that it won’t be as simple as you’re
trying to make me believe it is. This stuff isn’t some little hobby. When it’s gone, you won’t just be able to turn around
and take up fishing instead. You hate to fish, remember?”

He said, “Yeah.”

“You must promise me to get this all out of your head and find the reasons for why you’ve been obsessed with that circus.
We’ll go to a psychiatrist together, Charlie. Martha will tell us how to do that. You need some peace. And so do I. I really
believe… I mean I really believe, Charlie, that even if you find the arsonist in the next year, you still won’t have peace.”