Gerda sends Astrid flying back, then swings to her own board. Astrid soars now like a rider taming a wild beast, bending the trapeze to her own will. She spins by her ankles, by a lone knee, barely touching the bar to which I always cling fast. Gerda watches Astrid with disinterest, almost distaste. She and the other women do not like Astrid. Within days of arriving, I heard the whispers: they resent Astrid for returning and taking her spot at the top of the aerial act while they had worked for years, and for coupling up with Peter, one of the few eligible men the war had left. The girls at the home were much the same, sniping and whispering behind each other’s backs. Why are we so hard on one another? I wonder. Hadn’t the world already given us challenges enough? But if Astrid notices their coldness, she doesn’t seem to mind. Or perhaps she just doesn’t have need for any of them. She certainly doesn’t need me.
“She’s magnificent, isn’t she?” a deep voice asks. I had not heard Peter come up behind me. We stand silently watching as Astrid swings higher. Taking her in, his eyes seem to dance with wonder. Peter’s breath catches slightly as Astrid flings herself into the air and spins not once, not twice, but three times. She circles upward, defying gravity.
But then she starts to drop downward at great speed. Peter steps forward then stops, powerless to help her. He exhales quickly when Gerda, who has swung out, grabs her by one ankle, catching her before she catapults to the ground. “The triple somersault,” he says, recovering from his fright. “Only a few people in the world who can do that.” Though he tries to sound nonchalant, a faint sweat has broken out on his brow and his face has gone slack with relief.
“She’s amazing,” I reply, my voice full with admiration. In that moment, I do not just want to be like her—I truly want to be her.
“If only she wasn’t such a danger to herself,” Peter says, so low under his breath I’m not sure I am meant to hear.
Astrid reaches the board and climbs down the ladder to us. Her skin is coated with sweat, but her face glows. She and Peter stare at each other with a hunger that makes me embarrassed to be in the room, though they had surely been together just a few hours earlier since Astrid’s bed in the lodge had been empty all night.
“Ready?” she asks, seeming to remember that I am there, without taking her eyes off Peter.
I nod, and start up the ladder. Below a half-dozen or so other performers rehearse, twirling hoops, doing flips and walking on their hands. My schedule with Astrid is the same every day as it had been the first: training from seven until five with a brief break for a bucket lunch. I’ve gotten better, I think. Still, for all of the practice, I have not let go and actually flown. It is not for lack of trying. I swing endlessly to strengthen my arms. I hang upside down until the blood rushes to my head and I cannot think. But I cannot let go—and without that, Astrid has said over and over, there is no act.
We start with the moves we have already practiced, swinging by my hands, then the hock and ankle hangs. “Pay attention to your arms, even when they are behind your back,” Astrid commands. “This is not merely performance. Theater is two-dimensional, like a painting. There, the audience sees only the front. But in the circus the audience is all around us, like sculpture. Think graceful, like ballet. Don’t fight the air, make friends with it.”
We work all morning around the moment I had been dreading. “Ready?” Astrid asks finally after a break. I can avoid it no longer. I climb the ladder and Gerda follows, taking her place beside me on the board.
“You have to release at the height of the swing,” Astrid calls from the far board. “And then I will catch you just a second later on the way down.” It makes perfect sense, but I leap and as with all the times before, I cannot let go.
“It’s useless,” I say aloud. As I swing helplessly from the bar, I catch a glimpse of the horizon through one of the high practice hall windows. Beyond the hills, there is a way out of Germany, a route to safety and freedom. If only Theo and I could swing out of here and fly away. A thought pops into my head then: go with the circus to France. Farther from Germany, Theo and I will have a chance to flee to somewhere safe. But that will never happen unless I can learn to let go.
“You’re done, then?” Astrid asks as I swing back to the board. She tries to keep her voice neutral, as if she has been disappointed too many times to let anyone do it again. But I can hear it, that faint note of sadness buried deep. At least some part of her thought I could do it—which makes my failure even more awful.
I look out the window once more, my dream of escaping with Theo seeming to slide further from reach. The circus is our ticket out of Germany—or would be if I could manage. “No!” I blurt. “That is, I’d like to try once more.”
Astrid shrugs, as if she has already given up on me. “Suit yourself.”
As I jump, Astrid leaps from the opposite board and swings by her feet. “Hup!” she calls. I do not release on the first pass.
Astrid swings higher, drawing close to me a second time. “Do it!” she orders. I recall Astrid’s conversation with Herr Neuhoff the previous day and realize that time is running out.
It is now or never. The entire world hangs in the balance.
I lock eyes with Astrid on the opposite trapeze and in that instant my trust is complete. “Now!” she commands.
I let go of the bar. Closing my eyes, I hurtle through space. Forgetting everything Astrid has taught me, I flail my arms and legs, which only makes me drop faster. I fall in her direction, but too low. She misses me and I tumble forward. There is nothing now between me and the ground, which grows closer as I fall. In that instant, I see Theo, wonder who will care for him after I am gone. I open my mouth but before I can scream, Astrid’s hands lock around my ankles. She has caught me.
But it is not over yet. I hang upside down, helpless as a calf about to be slaughtered.
“Reach up,” she orders, as though it is simple. “I can’t help you. You have to do this part for yourself.” I use all of my force to reach up against gravity, performing the world’s largest sit-up, and grab on to her.
“Okay when I say ‘now’ I’m going to send you back with a half spin so you are facing the bar,” she instructs.
I freeze. She cannot seriously expect me to fly through the air again to the bar, miles away and moving fast. “I can’t possibly.”
“You must. Now!” She hurls me through the air and the bar finds my fingers. Clasping it tightly, I understand then that I need to do almost nothing—she can position me as surely as a marionette on strings. But it is still terrifying.
I reach the platform with shaking feet and Gerda helps steady me before climbing down the ladder. Astrid, who has come down from her own side, waits until Gerda has gone before starting up to me. “That was close,” I say when she nears me. I wait for her to praise me for finally letting go.
But she is staring at me and I wonder if she is angry and will fault me for panicking. “Your brother,” she says. Anger that she has been holding back blazes in her eyes, suddenly set free.
I am caught off guard by the sudden shift in topic. “I don’t understand...” She hasn’t brought up Theo since the first day we practiced. Why is she asking now?
“The thing is, I don’t believe you.” She speaks through gritted teeth, her fury unmasked. “I think you are lying. Theo’s not your brother.”
“Of course he is,” I stammer. What would make her suspect this now?
“He looks nothing like you. We’ve given you a place here and you are taking advantage of us and lying to us.”