Page 62 of The Ringmaster’s Daughter

‘I’m sure she is. I just wanted to check on Claudette’s headdress, that it was right, but if you don’t think that Werner wants it to be perfect…’ Michel shrugged.

Serge stood aside and as Michel walked past, their shoulders brushed against each other. Michel turned to look at Serge, but Serge did not turn around.

Michel bypassed Odélie and the triplets’ caravan and made his way instead to Jean and Giordano’s. From outside, he could hear Giordano practising his newest song, and when he opened the door he saw Jean-Jacques copying Giordano’s movements as if they were a mirrored reflection of each other – yet one tall and one small. He stood and listened to the tune; it began with a story about a boy, a boy who longed to have a friend, and the friend he found was in his long shadow that followed him everywhere. The boy and his shadow grew together and eventually became one; at which point in their routine, Jean would appear and carry Giordano on his shoulders, a giant cloak covering them both – a nine-foot-tall boy who was now at one with his shadow.

Michel waited until Giordano had reached the point of his narrative when his shadow would take him and make them one, then entered.

‘No, no!’ Giordano shouted. ‘You ruined it! Almost there, almost at the end! Michel, what were you thinking?’

‘You performed it last week and the week before in the town squares; you’re fine.’

‘It’s still new, not perfect!’ Giordano threw his hat on the ground then slumped into a chair, his chin on his chest as he pouted.

‘Ignore him, Michel – sit, sit.’ Jean directed him to the other chair, then sat on the end of his bed.

‘Your feet must hang off the edge when you sleep.’ Michel nodded towards the short single bed.

‘They do. I don’t think I’ve ever had a bed that my feet stay in all my life.’

‘Not even when you were young?’

‘My feet have always stayed in my bed,’ Giordano interrupted, keen to be included in any conversation. ‘They know where to stay. Give me a drink. I’m nervous. I must calm my nerves now.’

Jean stood and poured each of them a shot of Hugo’s génépy, which was stronger than ever. Michel placed his own glass on the ground, still mostly full.

‘Too bitter, he can’t get the right ingredients anymore,’ Jean said and followed suit, placing his full glass on the floor.

‘Tastes good to me.’ Giordano knocked back the rest of his génépy.

‘You would say that. You said that the first time I met you!’

‘In that bar?! In Montmartre? Yes. I probably did say that. I was in Paris three days before anyone spoke to me. “The small Italian”, they called me behind my back. Le petit étalon italien.’

‘They were calling you the small Italian stallion, my friend.’ Jean laughed, and Michel joined in.

‘Who cares what they called me? They were jealous. Jealous of the Italian who robbed the French of their women! Pour me one more, Michel, to numb the nerves.’

‘I was glad I met you that day,’ Jean said, a look of melancholy on his face. ‘Who knew we were to be friends? The giant and the stallion?’ He laughed again.

‘You needed me,’ Giordano said, between sips. He turned to Michel. ‘He had lost his job in another circus.’

‘So had you!’ Jean shot back.

‘I did not lose my job. I simply decided it was not for me.’

‘Let’s just say, we found each other, and we needed each other.’ Jean poured some more génépy into his own glass.

‘How did you come to be here?’ Michel asked.

Jean shrugged.

‘It was those people,’ Giordano blurted, ‘those ones, you know? The ones who said we were not right?’

Jean placed his glass on the ground and looked at Giordano.

‘You remember, Jean-Jacques? We were in that small apartment near the graveyard, and we would juggle and sing, and play hide the queen under the cups. The police, they told us to move; the people, our neighbours, they told us we were wrong and then that day, that day in the cemetery when we took our lunch against the falling grave, Werner appeared.’

‘Hush now, you’re drunk.’ Jean made to laugh but it rang false.