Page 17 of The Ringmaster’s Daughter

It felt to Michel that mere seconds passed before Jean reappeared, his face pale. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

Jean was suddenly pushed roughly aside as two strong arms lifted Michel from his seat. He heard Madame Geneviève gasp as he was dragged down the aisle, away from the frightened-looking giant and the solemn dwarf.

Once in the next carriage, a door was opened and the arms, which Michel had realised belonged to Serge, threw him into an opulently decorated parlour.

Michel scrambled up, steadying himself on a gilt-edged chair.

‘A stowaway then?’ a voice said.

Michel looked around the compartment to find the source of the voice; at the back of the carriage was a compact four-poster bed, thick purple curtains hung around it; nearby stood a rich mahogany writing desk and seat, then the chair Michel was leaning on, and across from that a sofa of the deepest reds and purples, strewn with heavy cushions coloured burgundy and stitched with gold thread.

‘You won’t answer me? You come onto my train, infiltrate my troupe, and you won’t answer me, the ringmaster?’ The voice was loud, the person near.

It was then that Michel realised the voice was coming from the mound of pillows on the sofa. In fact, the voice was the mound of pillows. It moved and shifted towards Michel so he could see now that the sofa’s occupant was dressed in a burgundy jacket and riding breeches, a white shirt unbuttoned to show a red potbelly. The speaker’s face was lined with crimson spidery veins, and Michel was reminded of those clients of Odette’s who drank her cheap wines and beers late into the night.

‘I’m sorry,’ was all Michel could think of to say.

The man managed to heave himself into a sitting position. His black, twirled moustache rivalled Serge’s for its lustre and movement as he spoke. ‘And what are you sorry for?’

‘For being on your train?’

‘Are you asking me or telling me?’ The man lit a pipe, and as he did the flame illuminated his face, showing Michel cool black eyes under heavy brows and the puffy skin of one who did not often get to bed before late. ‘You woke me from my nap. I do not enjoy being woken from my nap prematurely, do I, Serge?’

‘No, you do not.’ Serge was leaning against the adjoining carriage door. ‘You certainly do not.’

The ringmaster leaned towards a low side table where a cut-crystal decanter sat next to a matching tumbler. He poured a thick measure of brown liquid into the glass then knocked it back in one.

‘Serge tells me you were fighting. Not only do I have a stowaway on my hands, I have one who is so confident that he thinks he can harass my troupe?’

‘I didn’t—’ Michel began, and Serge reached over and grabbed his upper arm so tightly that Michel thought he would rip it off.

‘No need to argue. I do not deal with stowaways. Or at least, I deal with them in only one way. Serge! See to it that our friend here finds his way home.’

‘Yes, Werner,’ Serge answered, and made to pull Michel from the cabin.

‘Oh, and Serge?’ the small, rotund ringmaster said. ‘Bring that Jean to me later. He has much to answer for.’

Moments later, Michel was facing an open door between the two carriages. He saw the trees rushing by, could feel the air on his skin as Serge tipped his body towards the opening. Michel pushed his weight backwards, feeling the warmth of Serge against him. He tried to speak, tried to beg, but the wind caught in his throat. The trees were slowing now, the ground that was once a blur of grey and brown was now dirt, pebble-stones. The train’s brakes squealed beneath them as they rounded a bend. Then Michel saw the trees grow closer, felt the wind once more as he sailed through the open door towards the sky; then to the ground, the pebbles, the stones and the dirt as the train click-clacked away from him, the giant and the dwarf watching from a window as their stowaway rolled in the dust and mud, down a bank and away from sight.

Four

La Campagne

As Michel lay on the warm, damp afternoon earth, he listened to the train as it headed away from him. He groaned and moved first to one side, then the next. He lifted one leg, then the other, repeating the movements with his arms. Nothing broken, nothing too badly damaged. His right side ached – it had taken the brunt of the landing – his palms were bloodied and grazed, his knees similarly ripped, but otherwise he was, in most respects, in one piece.

He stood and took in his surroundings – a small shelf of land above a steep green hillside, that below held a silvery snake of river between blots of verdant woods, brown roofs and ploughed criss-crossed fields surrounding the plain, with a church spire announcing the village.

He stretched a little and managed to walk a few steps towards a tree. Leaning against it he looked left, right and above to the train tracks, and then he spotted it – his bag. Carefully, he made his way over to it and hefted it onto his back. Although not heavy, the weight pulled at his shoulders and the muscles surrounding his bruised ribs, made him wince.

A narrow path littered with leaves and overgrown weeds led from the outcrop to the hill, and then down into the village. Michel followed it, watching each foot as he took a step, leaning his weight to where he could bear the bag better, so his ribs did not scream with pain.

It took him some time to reach the foot of the hill, where he found himself in a field of sunflowers that had yet to open. Their thick stems jutted from the ground in neat rows, and Michel, suddenly tired from the descent, lay amongst them to catch his breath and ease the pain a little.

He lay back, putting his bag under his head, and closed his eyes. The pain was not worse, but it was not better, and his side burned. He tried to imagine something else to shift his focus from the soreness, and found himself thinking of her face once more – the emerald eyes, heavily kohled, which in his mind’s eye had looked at him with a questioning amusement, as if he were a new animal to play with – perhaps he would dance for her or sing, making her plump rouged lips turn upwards into a smile.

Michel opened his own eyes and watched the streak of clouds overhead, remembering how just a day or so before, he had stood on the bridge over the Seine, looking at the sky, wishing it would rain and dampen the heat of Paris. The clouds here danced and changed from moment to moment, first showing him a horse, then, as he watched it, transforming itself into a balloon, then into a cup, then disappearing altogether. He moved to sit; his shirt was stuck to his back and he could smell himself, a rich musk that would surely make the flowers wilt.

He could hear the hum of the grasshoppers that cooled themselves all around him, yet he never saw one. The caw of a lonely crow pierced the quiet countryside, and eventually Michel stood, heaving his bag onto the other shoulder, following the field towards the river.