“Here he is.” Astrid. She sounds so far away. I try to open my eyes, but glass shards grind at my face and I can manage only a slit. Enough to see Theo, whom she has placed on top of me. He is here, but I cannot feel him through the searing pain, worse than a thousand bee stings.
I am lying on the ground, some fifteen feet from the big top. How had I gotten here? In the distance, what is left of the chapiteau smolders, reduced to a pile of charred canvas and broken poles. The fire brigade, too late, waters the wreckage so it does not spark and catch fire to the parched nearby forest.
I reach for Theo, but Astrid presses me back down gently. “No,” I manage hoarsely. “I must.” She moves him higher on my chest without letting go. “Is he all right?”
“Perfectly fine,” she assures me. I search the child to see if the smoke had harmed his tiny lungs. He gives one cough, a protest. His coloring is good, though, his eyes bright.
Then I lie back, unable to hold my head up any longer.
“Rest,” Astrid urges and as she pulls Theo back, I can see there are burn marks on her arms.
“What happened?” I ask. She hesitates, as if not wanting to tell me. “I’m not a child, remember? No more hiding the truth.”
“The tent collapsed on top of you,” she answers quietly.
I relive the moment in my mind, feel her pulling me from the fiery wreckage falling upon me and crushing me to the earth. “I can’t feel my legs,” I say, gasping for air. There is a sharp pain as I breathe inward, then a spasm of coughs shoots daggers through me.
Astrid wipes my mouth with her sleeve and when she pulls back it is stained with red. Panic crosses her face and she looks around desperately. “Medic!” she cries and I can tell from her cracked voice that it is not the first time she has tried to get me help.
But no one answers or comes to our aid. It is only us now.
“Help will be here soon,” Astrid promises.
In the distance I hear the whir of a siren. The police will be here soon, too. There will be questions, an investigation. “The pass,” I remember. Astrid is supposed to be leaving right now. “After tonight it will be useless. You have to go.”
She waves her hand, as though swatting a fly. “I won’t leave you.” A few minutes earlier, she wanted me gone. But she is not angry anymore. At last, she has forgiven me. She knows all of my secrets now and has not turned away—which is the one thing I wanted all along. Relief rises over my pain.
“You have to go.” I raise my hand and touch Theo. “Take him.” The words hurt my throat.
“But...” Astrid begins to protest.
“Now,” I add. “Or it will be too late.” I lie back weakly.
“You can still go,” she presses, unwilling to see the truth before her. “I’ll give the pass to you like I said earlier. You can leave with Theo and the two of you can be together.”
Her voice is so earnest that for a second I almost believe it. “No,” I say as reality crashes down on me once more. My dream of escaping to freedom with Theo has been destroyed. I cough again, wheezing for air.
“I’m going to find help,” Astrid says again, starting to rise.
“Stay with me.” I use my last bit of energy to catch her hand. “I’m not going to make it.”
She shakes her head, but at the same time, she is unable to deny the truth before her. “I can’t leave you behind,” she says, still fighting.
“What choice do we have?” The circus is gone; the fire has undone what war could not. “You have to take Theo. You’re his only hope.”
Theo squirms on my lap, as if recognizing his own name for the first time. I run my hand over the softness of his head and in that moment I see before me the man whom he will grow to be. He will not know me. Tears flow from my eyes, burning the raw flesh of my cheeks. Like his birth parents, I will fade from his memory forever.
Someday you’ll have to let him go. Astrid’s words, spoken on the night of the first show, come back to me as clearly as though she is saying them now, though her lips do not move at all. Like one of Drina’s predictions come true.
“You did it,” she says through her tears. “You became an aerialist.” And in that moment, I have everything.
Almost everything. “Luc,” I say. Though he failed me, I cannot help but think of him. Pain shoots through me as I remember Luc’s betrayal. “You were right about him. I tried to go meet him like we planned. But he never came. He didn’t care for me at all.”
“No, no, that can’t be right,” Astrid protests. “He came all this way for you. It doesn’t make sense. I’m sure he had a reason. If you want, I will try to find Luc for you,” she offers instead. “Find out why he couldn’t meet you and tell him what happened.” We both know that’s impossible. He has disappeared and she has no way of finding him.
But I love her for offering. “First you praise my flying and now you are being nice about Luc,” I rasp. “I really must be dying.” We both laugh so improbably then, my throat scratchy as an old record on a phonograph. My chest heaves with pain.
Astrid takes Theo from me, cradling him in her arms. If only they were mine. She lifts her head. There is a kind of clarity to her now and in the shine of her eyes I see the many siblings of the great circus family that had gone before her. A few hours earlier, I was not sure she could survive herself. How will she flee and care for Theo? But she seems stronger than she had been since losing Peter. And with Theo, she will not be alone. He looks at me as she rocks him gently, not understanding.
“Go now, before it is too late,” I manage, using the last bit of strength I have left. Astrid does not protest, but kisses my cheek, then lowers Theo to do the same.
They need to leave now while no one is watching. I close my eyes, knowing that she will not go while I am still here. She does not leave, but lies down beside me, still holding Theo. I will my breath to slow and suddenly it is the three of us back in the railcar, sleeping together as one. I feel her shift away and the space beside me grows cold as she rises and starts for the trees.
I force my eyes to stay shut, unable to watch them leave.
When I open them again, they are gone.
But I am not alone. The sky has cleared and as I look up at the field of stars, not quite yellow, I see faces. First Peter, looking down on Astrid, watching over her. “I did it.” I had saved her, though not at all in the way he had planned.
Then farther in the distance of the night sky, I see Luc. I will never know why he did not meet me. But I forgive him. Wait for me, my love. I am coming.
And finally I see Herr Neuhoff. In the end after the performers had taken their final bows and slipped from the stage, he stands as he had started, alone in the spotlight. He sweeps the crowd with his gaze, gives that tip of his hat, an invitation and a farewell.
And then darkness.
Epilogue
Astrid
Paris
I was never the one who was supposed to make it.