“I wanted to ask,” Astrid begins. I freeze, trying to come up with a plausible excuse for where I had been. “On your way back, did you see Peter?”
“Not since we left the backyard. He was rehearsing,” I say, mindful that it isn’t quite the right word for fixing things after the show.
“I wish I could go to him. But he prefers to sleep alone on the road once the performances have begun.” Her eyes drift longingly in the direction of Peter’s train car. “After seeing Erich’s colleague...” She dips her chin low to her chest. “I just don’t want to be alone.” Her hands tremble against Theo’s back.
She is lonely, I realize. I had gotten used to being on my own during my months working at the train station at Bensheim. Having grown up an only child, it was not so difficult. But Astrid had gone from her large circus family to Erich and then quickly found Peter. Despite her fierceness, she can’t handle being alone.
“You aren’t alone,” I say, feeling a second-best substitute, inadequate. I wrap my arm around her. “I’m here.” She stiffens and for a second I wonder if she will pull away. Since coming to the circus, it has always been me needing Astrid, depending on her. Now the opposite seems true.
Astrid stretches out on the berth with Theo in her arms. I slip in beside her, her body warm. We press our foreheads together like twins in the womb, one entity breathing together. I feel comfort in a way I hadn’t since leaving home. Astrid had joked once that she was old enough to be my mother. But it is true. I see my own mother now, as clearly as I had the day she watched me leave. She should have fought for me, protected me with her life. Now, having Theo, I understand what her love should have been and was not.
“What are you thinking?” Astrid asks. It is the first time she has taken an interest.
“About the sea,” I lie, too embarrassed to admit that I yearn for the family that had cast me out.
“The sea, or the people who live near it?” she asks, her tone even as she sees through my answer. “Your family—you still love them, don’t you?”
“I suppose.” The admission feels like a weakness.
“You cry out in the night for them,” she says. Feeling myself flush, I am glad she cannot see my face through the darkness. “I still dream about Erich,” she confides. “And I still have feelings for him.”
I am surprised. “Even though he...”
“Turned me out? Rejected me? Yes, even then. You love the people they were before, below all the awfulness that made them do this thing, you know?”
I do. In the sadness of her voice, I can hear how very much it hurt when Erich turned his back on her. “But now you have Peter,” I remind, wanting to ease her pain.
“Yes,” she acknowledges, “it isn’t quite the same, though.”
“He cares for you a lot,” I press.
Beside me I can feel her stiffen. “Peter enjoys my company. That is all.”
“But Astrid... I can see how much he cares for you...and you him.” She does not answer. How can Astrid not see the truth about Peter’s feelings? Maybe after all she has been through, she is afraid to want more.
“Anyway, we were talking about you,” Astrid says, shifting the subject. “I know you miss your family. But the past is the past. Face front, shoulder to the wind. You have Theo now. You are never going back.” Her voice is firm. “You need to accept that if you are to save yourself and Theo. Unless, of course, you find his family. You want him to find his family, don’t you?” she presses.
A knife of pain shoots through me. “Of course. It would be a relief,” I reply, my voice hollow. Though I had thought of Theo’s family, prayed for them, I cannot imagine ever letting go of him. He is mine now.
“Or if not, he could be adopted. He isn’t yours. He belongs with a family. You are a young girl with your whole life before you. Someday you will have to let him go.”
I am his family, I think. I gesture around the railcar in the darkness. “This is my life.” I do not plan to stay with the circus forever. I need to get Theo farther away, out of Germany for good. But right now it is hard to imagine anything else.
“One day you may feel differently,” she replies. “Sometimes our forever life does not last as long as we think.”
Her words seem to echo through the stillness of the sleeper. I bite my lip to keep from protesting. I had given up my child once and it almost killed me. I could not survive that kind of pain again.
Of course Astrid does not know this. My past is still a hidden secret. It seems to grow now in the space between us, pushing us apart and making every bit of our friendship a lie.
“Astrid,” I begin. I need to tell her right now about how I had come to be at the station the night I found Theo. About the German soldier. This secret cannot continue festering between us.
“If it is about the act, we can discuss it in the morning,” she says drowsily.
“It isn’t that.”
“Then what?” she asks, lifting her head. I swallow, unable to speak. “Thank you,” Astrid says before I can respond. There is a vulnerability to her voice I have never heard before. “That is, I don’t think I’ve told you that I appreciate what you are doing. Without you, I couldn’t possibly continue to perform.” Strictly speaking, that isn’t true. She could continue on the Spanish web or another solo act. But her heart is with the flying trapeze, and my being here makes that possible. “I want you to know that I am grateful,” she adds, finding my hand beneath the blanket.
A lump forms in my throat, blocking the words I had meant to say. I could push through it, insist on telling the truth. But she squeezes my hand and there is a warmth between us that has never been there before. My will to tell her evaporates and blows away like dust. “What were you going to say?”
“Nothing. That is...it’s about Peter.” I cannot bear telling her the whole truth about my past now. But in my haste to avoid my secret, I blurt out another: “He was drinking before the show.” I cringe, unsure whether I should have said this. It is not my business. But some part of me feels that she should know.
Astrid does not respond right away and I feel her stiffen with concern beside me. “Are you sure?” she asks. “He always acts strangely before a performance.” Her voice is uneasy, not wanting to acknowledge a truth she already knows.
“I’m sure. I saw him coming from the beer tent.”
“Oh.” She does not sound surprised, only sad. “I’ve tried so hard to stop him.”
Try harder, I want to say. How could a person as otherwise strong as Astrid not be able to stand up to him?
“I just feel so helpless,” she declares, her voice cracking. I expect her to cry, but she simply shudders. I move closer and she falls into my arms, Theo sandwiched between us so tightly I fear he might wake and fuss. “So helpless,” she repeats, and I know she is talking about not just Peter.