“Now wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute,” Greg says as I come up to Rosie. He forces his shoulder between us, his face hard.
“Humor me,” I say. “Please. About the last thing in the world I’d do is hurt this bull.”
He continues to stare at me. I’m still not entirely sure he won’t clobber me from behind, but I turn to Rosie, anyway. She blinks at me.
“Rosie, nog” I say.
She blinks again and opens her mouth in a smile.
“Nog, Rosie!”
She fans her ears and sighs.
“Prosz?” I say.
She sighs again. Then she shifts her weight and lifts her foot.
“Dear Mother of God.” I hear my voice as though from outside of my body. My heart is pounding, my head spinning. “Rosie,” I say, laying a hand on her shoulder. “Just one more thing.” I look her straight in the eye, pleading with her. Surely she knows how important this is. Please God please God please God—
“Do tytu, Rosiel Do tyu!”
Another deep sigh, another subtle shifting of weight, and then she takes a couple of steps backward.
I yelp with delight and turn to an astonished Greg. I leap forward, grab him by the shoulders, and kiss him full on the mouth.
“What the hell!”
I sprint for the exit. About fifteen feet away I stop and turn around. Greg is still spitting, wiping his mouth in disgust.
I dig the bottles out of my pockets. His expression changes to one of interest, the back of his hand still raised to his mouth.
“Here, catch!” I say, sending a bottle flying at him. He snags it from the air, looks at its label, and then glances up hopefully at the other. I toss it to him.
“Give those to our new star, will you?”
Greg cocks his head thoughtfully and turns to Rosie, who is already smiling and reaching for the bottles.
FOR THE NEXT TEN DAYS, I serve as August’s personal Polish coach. In each city he has a practice ring set up in the back end, and day after day, the four of us—August, Marlena, Rosie, and I—spend the hours between our arrival in town and the start of the matinée working on Rosie’s act. Although she already takes part in the daily parade and Spec, she has yet to perform in the show. Although the wait is killing Uncle Al, August doesn’t want to unveil her act until it’s perfect.
I spend my days sitting on a chair just outside the ring curb with a knife in one hand and a bucket between my legs, cutting fruit and vegetables into chunks for the primates and shouting Polish phrases as required. August’s accent is appalling, but Rosie—perhaps because August is usually repeating something I’ve just yelled—obeys without fail. He hasn’t touched her with the bull hook since we discovered the language barrier. He just walks beside her, waving it under her belly and behind her legs, but never—not once—does it make contact.
It’s hard to reconcile this August with the other one, and to be honest I don’t try very hard. I’ve seen flashes of this August before—this brightness, this conviviality, this generosity of spirit—but I know what he’s capable of, and I won’t forget it. The others can believe what they like, but I don’t believe for a second that this is the real August and the other an aberration. And yet I can see how they might be fooled—
He is delightful. He is charming. He shines like the sun. He lavishes attention on the great storm-colored beast and her tiny rider from the moment we meet in the morning until the moment they disappear for the parade. He is attentive and tender toward Marlena, and kindly and paternal toward Rosie.
He seems unaware that there ever was any bad blood between us, despite my reserve. He smiles broadly; he pats me on the back. He notices that my clothes are shabby and that very afternoon the Monday Man arrives with more. He declares that the show’s vet should not have to bathe with buckets of cold water and invites me to shower in the stateroom. And when he finds out that Rosie likes gin and ginger ale better than anything in the world except perhaps watermelon, he ensures that she gets both, every single day. He cozies up to her. He whispers in her ear, and she basks in the attention, trumpeting happily at the sight of him.
Doesn’t she remember?
I scrutinize him, watching for chinks, but the new August persists. Before long, his optimism permeates the entire lot. Even Uncle Al is affected—he stops each day to observe our progress and within a couple of days orders up new posters that feature Rosie with Marlena sitting astride her head. He stops whacking people, and shortly thereafter people stop ducking. He becomes positively jolly. Rumors circulate that there may actually be money on payday, and even the working men begin to crack smiles.
It’s only when I catch Rosie actually purring under August’s loving ministrations that my conviction starts to crumble. And what I’m left looking at in its place is a terrible thing.