That Circus
The town lay at the foot of a range of hills that grew by stages into proper mountains. By the time the circus set up shop there — it was so long ago — people had cleared some of the forest slopes to build houses. They didn’t dare move too far up, although Grandpa prided himself that one of our ancestors, shrugging off the displeasure of his fellow citizens and even the mayor, had put together a kind of cabin right at the top: to live at such heights, far above the town, gazing down on your more or less humble fellow humans — that was too much. He’d been one of a kind, Grandpa boasted, and Mother smiled indulgently. Grandpa had large sinewy hands, and when he spoke his eyes lit up and his fingers danced about like joyful little animals. I was just a kid in those days and couldn’t make much sense of things. I knew that in the hills there was a circus with acrobats, conjurors, and huge wild beasts, splendid and terrifying, which were prowling loose or had come down from lairs higher up; no one had the courage to go there anymore, and for a long time the circus people didn’t dare go down to town to put on shows, as they’d done in the past. Once in a blue moon a skinny acrobat, wearing a dirty, patched-up sailor’s jersey, would go through a few modest routines that even children found unimpressive; or an aging conjuror in a tattered green tail coat would pull some paltry ribbons from his ears or mouth — a snake, a rabbit, no big deal at all. Only old folk still remembered the daylong spectacles that had once set everyone alight with pleasure and awe. There had even been a special place, a kind of arena, where people would gather to behold the wonders: flying acrobats with fishlike bodies who floated through the air like falcons; rubbery contortionists who scrambled up endless steps until they were lost from sight; dancers and conjurors; and above all the animal trainer I dreamed of so often in childhood. I used to think of him even in later years, although I was sure he was dead and the animals had escaped from their cages or turned wild again, while no one dared to go into the hills and the forest was reclaiming the long-abandoned houses on the slopes. Once upon a time, the trainer would come down from the mountains to the sound of trumpets and, sometimes loud enough to smother them, the growls of wild beasts and the delighted shouts of people waiting at the edge of town. On such days no one went to work and the pealing of church bells shook the towers and roofs; even the mayor, his gray beard strewn over his broad chest, considered it a real holiday, and tail-coated officials appeared on the balcony of the town hall and raised their right arms in a gesture of salute. First came the trumpeters on white and black horses, blowing as loud as they could; then the huge elephant with yellowish tusks and a baldachin covered in gold and precious stones, on which the trainer sat looking absently over the crowd, an ever tauter, ever wearier smile on his desiccated lips; and finally the matchless animals, some loose, some in cages: white giraffes with mauve patches, tigers with red and yellow stripes, bearded lions, large fierce bears of every color looking scornfully at the antlike rush of frightened yet curious spectators, who, eager not to miss a minute of the show that had just begun, could never quite be sure of what was to come, since there was no gong, no spotlight, only a few orange or pink suns made to rise for the great occasion. The trainer remained motionless: his eyes, Grandpa said, bulged sparkling from their sockets, while people awaited the wonders to come with baited breath. And were they ever wonders! Grandpa shouted, as deaf as he was old, but with the trainer’s exploits still pristine in his memory. I listened to his tales open-mouthed: it was as if I could see the trainer’s long whip rip through the air like a flash of lightning, or the tigers fly above the arena, or the elephants kneel down in prayer, or the white bear climb a rope until it disappeared into the orange sun hovering like a balloon above the audience. Women and children shouted with fear when one of the artistes stuck her curly head into a lion’s mouth, then her shoulders and arms, until all you could see were her hips and long legs beating the air as if she were swimming, and then her neck and head again as they came out unharmed; the spectators had fallen silent, but now they were on their feet in the stands, clapping and roaring their approval. Grandpa’s lined but agile hands were tigers and ballerinas, bears, dancers, and kangaroos strutting in pursuit of the merrily colored balloons that Plato, the most popular conjuror and the only one allowed to take part in the trainer’s act, inflated through a long tube shaped like a shepherd’s horn. How happily Grandpa’s hands danced on the table as I listened with my mouth slack! Then all of a sudden they would stop and Grandpa’s eyes would lose their gleam; it was such a long time ago, after all, and Grandpa was deaf and didn’t understand our questions, he fell silent and looked away, his hands lay motionless, still like animals, but animals exhausted by all the futile rushing around. Only he, the old man of the family, had still been able to see circuses, way back in his childhood. And Mother claimed that even that wasn’t true, that his stories were based on hearsay or something he’d read somewhere; a good thing he didn’t hear her. Anything to do with circuses used to irritate Mother, and I remember how she would torment her tall son when he dressed up like an acrobat, turning red with anger and calling him a dirty little beggar. Everyone else was like her; some do still speak of the circus now and then, but as of something so remote that it’s become the stuff of barroom legend, tired banter to be exchanged after a few glasses, and only once all the other topics have been exhausted. Grandpa was one of the last enthusiasts, perhaps the only one I’ve ever known. After he died, my interest in the circus fell away more and more, probably because all the material about it had been anecdotal. I haven’t forgotten Grandpa’s stories, but neither do I give them any thought; they lie somewhere deep inside me, surfacing only rarely, when I recall the animal trainer. It’s pretty much the same for everyone: a childhood grandfather sits in an armchair, elderly but with nimble hands acting the part of a ballerina or tiger; sometimes his fist — the trainer — clenches and bangs the table, and you’re thrilled by his skill and severity; sometimes his hand advances on four finger-paws, fierce but frightened of the trainer’s whip, or rises gracefully on the tip of his ring finger and becomes a fearless white ballerina dancing among wild beasts. Yes, Grandpa was an enthusiast: he’d seen all that with his own eyes as a child; he paid no heed to the wry smile on Mother’s face. Children believed him and, playing “circus” themselves, invariably wanted to be the trainer — even the girls, who would really have been more suitable as dancers, it would have seemed. When we had a chance, we ran off to the edge of town, where a wall was under construction, and gazed for a long time at the green hills and the yellow, pink, or green patches that we guessed to be circus vehicles abandoned by acrobats and beasts alike after the trainer’s death. Few of us ever ventured beyond the walls, and none brought back any new information; some, indeed most, claimed they had seen only forest wildlife common in the area, while others kept a mopey silence, and a few never returned at all, but disappeared climbing the mountains. We cycled near the walls, looking toward the hills and trying to make out wagons, trapeze artists, dancers, animals, even the white elephant covered in gold and precious stones that had carried the famous trainer, the legendary tamer; Grandpa’s big knotted fist crashed down on the table, rattling the glasses and making us jump, and we closed our gaping mouths and swallowed hard, our throats parched with emotion. Then we grew up and soon Grandpa was really old, his fist becoming paler by the day. We got interested in other things. We did still ask him sometimes about the circus dancers, but jokingly and with all manner of innuendo, so that he lost his temper and threatened us with that frail and ancient fist.