We reach the train and I help Astrid into the sleeper car. Though it is late, the carriage is empty, the others still clustered outside talking about everything that had happened. I help Astrid to her berth. “You should rest,” I say as I take off her shoes. She does not reply, but sits stiffly, staring straight ahead. Though I have seen her here dozens of times, she looks strangely out of place. She should be with Peter, celebrating their wedding night. Now that dream is gone. It hardly seems possible.
I reach back through the door of the train to take Theo from Luc. Then I try to hand Theo to Astrid. Usually he is such a comfort to her, but now she waves him away. “Astrid, we’ll have to make arrangements for Herr Neuhoff,” I begin. “We’ll have to cancel tonight’s show, of course. But by tomorrow we should perform again. Don’t you agree?” I hear a note of pleading in my voice, wanting her to take charge as she always has. She sits motionless, though, her will gone. Tears well up in my eyes and spill over. I want so much to be strong for her but I cannot help it. “Oh, Astrid, I just can’t believe that Herr Neuhoff is gone.” Even though I had known him for only a few months, he was in so many ways more a father than my own had been.
“He isn’t the only one,” she replies sharply.
“Yes, of course,” I reply hastily, wiping my eyes. I have no right to cry in front of her when she has lost so much more. “We mustn’t give up on Peter, though. He’ll be back.” She does not reply.
Suddenly her face blanches. She lies down, clutching her stomach. Then she turns away to face the wall and lets out a moan. This is not just grief, I realize, but pain. I see it then, a small pool of blood under her, seeping through her skirt onto the sheet. “Oh, Astrid, your baby!” I cry, blurting out her secret in my panic. The stain grows larger even as I watch. “I’ll go into town and find a doctor.”
She shakes her head with resignation. “There’s nothing to be done,” she replies. “It’s too late.”
“Someone should check you,” I protest. “Let me fetch Berta at least.”
“I just want to rest.” How long has she known this was happening?
“I’m so sorry...” I search for the right words. “I know what it feels like to lose a child.” But my child survived to be born; whether this makes it better or worse I do not know.
“It’s for the best really,” she says darkly. “I never would have been any good at being a mother.”
“That isn’t true,” I protest. “I’ve seen you with Theo and I know that isn’t true.”
“You must admit, I’m hardly the mothering type.” Her eyes do not meet mine.
“There are all different kinds of mothers,” I say, trying to help but feeling at the same time as though I am just making things worse.
“Without a baby, I’m free to perform or do anything else I’d like,” she says as if trying to convince herself. She rolls toward me. “Nothing is going to change what has happened.” Then she looks past me and her eyes widen. I turn to see Luc, who stands uneasily in the doorway to the carriage, not daring to enter but not wanting to leave me either after all that had happened. “What is he doing here?” Astrid demands.
“Astrid...” I struggle to find an explanation as to why I am with Luc after I had sworn to her I would stop seeing him. But I find none.
“Convenient how he took you away from here just before the arrest,” she spits in French, wanting Luc to hear. “He must have known.”
“No!” I cry. Luc would never betray us. I wait for Luc to say something to deny Astrid’s accusation and defend himself. But he does not. Astrid’s distrust seeps through me. Luc had seen Peter’s act, and even warned Peter it would lead to trouble. I recall Luc’s words to Peter the night he had come to the circus: They’ll arrest you... Was that a prediction or had he known what was to come?
“This is all his fault!” Astrid flares, hurling all of her anger and sorrow at Luc. I want to tell her that Peter, not Luc, is to blame for doing the routine after Herr Neuhoff had forbidden it. But now is not the time. It would only make things worse.
Luc raises his hands in surrender, unwilling to quarrel. He steps off the train and into the shadows. I sit down beside Astrid and wrap my arms around her. Even if Luc is innocent, it is because I was off with him that I had not been here when Astrid needed me. She shudders violently. Then she closes her eyes, so still I check to make sure she is still breathing. Her losses slam down upon me then: Herr Neuhoff, her child and Peter, all taken from her in a single night.
Or perhaps not. I look toward the door of the railcar. “Hold him,” I tell Astrid, pressing Theo firmly into her arms.
I walk to the door of the railcar and step down, but don’t see Luc. Maybe he has gone. A moment later, he steps from the shadows. “Is she all right?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I say, fighting back tears. “She’s lost everything.”
“I’m so sorry,” Luc says. “I feel as if this is all my fault.”
“What do you mean?” A rock of dread forms in the pit of my stomach. Had Astrid been right about him after all?
“My father was complaining about the circus a week or so ago,” Luc begins slowly. “He said the show coming here would only cause trouble. I told him how I had warned Peter about the routine, told him not to do it again. I thought it would help. But that only seemed to make him angrier.”
“Peter chose to do the act,” I reply. “That wasn’t your fault.”
Luc shakes his head. “There’s more. Papa warned me to stay away from you or there would be consequences. I thought I’d been careful going back and forth. But if he had one of his men watching me, and he followed me here tonight and saw the wedding... I’m so sorry,” he says again, grabbing my hand. His face watches mine, eyes pleading.
“You didn’t mean to do anything,” I say. But I pull away. Even though he hadn’t meant to, Luc had brought ruin to the circus, just as Astrid had warned. I am suddenly angry, not just at Luc, but at myself.
“If you want me to go now, I understand,” Luc says. “You must hate me for what I’ve done.”
“No,” I reply firmly. “I know it wasn’t your fault. But we need to fix this.”
“How?” he asks.
“We must do something to find Peter.” Doubt clouds Luc’s eyes. He has seen people taken by the police too many times and knows how impossible this is.
I square my shoulders. I had failed Astrid once before. I cannot let that happen again. “Your father,” I say. “This was a police action. Surely he knows something about it.”
Pain crosses Luc’s face at the notion that his father was somehow involved. “I will talk to him first thing in the morning and see if he knows anything.”
“Morning could be too late,” I reply. “We have to go see him now.”
“We?” Luc repeats with disbelief.
“I’m coming with you,” I say firmly.
He puts a hand on my shoulder. “Noa, you can’t.”
“You don’t want your father to see you with me,” I say, stung.
“It’s not that. But everything is so dangerous right now. Why can’t you just wait here?”
“Because I have to do this for Astrid. I’m going to see your father now, with or without you.” I look him squarely in the eyes. “With would be better.”