Page 85 of The Ringmaster’s Daughter

‘Could she not have come back to you with the baby?’

‘I told her not to even try. I wanted them to be safe, so she arranged with her parents that she would go to live with her sister, who would take care of them, and she would be away from the hands of her father.’

‘He never saw her grow – never saw his daughter’s first steps,’ Giordano lamented.

‘My friend, you are drunk. You always cry when you get this drunk.’ Jean wrapped his arm around Giordano’s shoulders.

‘I am not! I am not! I am sad.’

‘Hush, Giordano. I got her back, didn’t I?’ Werner said.

‘How?’ Michel asked.

‘Well now, that’s the next part of my story. You know, Michel, I may seem mean to you, but I am not – not deep down anyway. I work hard, and I work hard to protect others too. Frieda came to me when she was just ten years old. A vision of her mother. I knew what she would say before she said it.

‘I was in Paris back then, a place I have always called home. It was raining and cold, and the water clogged up the gutters, and the drains gurgled with the vast quantities of water trying to push through them. I sat in my apartment – my mother’s childhood home – and listened to the rain on the window, the sound of quick footsteps on the pavement as people hurried home.

‘There was a knock at the door. I thought it was Serge. He was due to come around and give word on the train, how much it was going to cost to fix it and get us back on track by spring. I opened it and there she was. “Papa,” she said. Just like that. “Papa.”

‘I hugged her to me, and she cried into my chest. She cried because her mother was dead from a disease that had wracked her in the past few years. She cried because her mother’s family had not helped her. She cried for me, for me and her mother and the love we had.

‘When she had calmed down, I sat her in a chair and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.

‘“It is dangerous for us in Hungary,” she said. “I had to come to you – she told me to come to you. She told me to get a train and give a note to the conductor which asked for him to help me. He did. He helped me all the way to Paris and then put me in a taxi and it brought me here.”

‘I was astounded at her – so brave for one so young. I had written often to Éva, but I had never received a reply. I assumed that the letters had been put straight into the fire. Only a month before, I had written to tell her of the train breaking down, of having to stay in Paris for a few months.

‘“You found me,” I said.

‘“Mother said you liked to come here for the winter. She knew you would be here – she showed me your letters.”

‘“But she never wrote back,” I said.

‘“She wrote you this.” Frieda handed me a letter.

‘I could not wait; I opened it right there and then. I cannot tell you word for word, nor do I wish to tell you everything she wrote to me. But she told me of her illness, that she had little time left. My letter had come at an opportune moment: she acted fast and sent Frieda to me when she knew exactly where I would be. She told me she loved me. She told me to take care of our daughter.

‘When I had finished reading, I took my daughter’s hand in mine. “You are here. You are mine. You are safe.”

‘I gave her my surname and Serge found a man to make her some papers. She did not want to hide – she was proud to be Jewish, proud of her heritage, her mother. But I explained to her that things would be easier this way. All she had to do was go along with pretending to be someone else for a while, and she would stay safe.

‘She listened to me. How could she not? She had nowhere to go. The war, although still ten years away, was already beginning back then, Michel. I had seen on my travels the way Jews were being targeted; I had heard of Hitler, of his plans, and seen how many listened to him. She had to be Frieda Neumann, as much as I now despise the origin of that name. I taught her German history, not that I knew much of it myself. I taught her to disguise her accent and speak French fluently. Then we started on German. She was a good student and taught herself in half a year.

‘Serge, an outcast from his own family, was the one who suggested she learn the trapeze. Her mother had been a natural – perhaps she would be too? I did not want her to be part of our act. I wanted to keep her safe, but she was bored and determined, and once she saw photographs of her mother performing, there was little I could do to stop her.’

Werner stopped talking and rubbed at the tiredness in his eyes.

‘More?’ Giordano held the bottle of wine over Werner’s glass.

Werner nodded, then took three deep gulps.

‘You can stop,’ Michel said, not meaning it, but he could see the effect it had had on Werner. This story had reduced him to a smaller man still; his chest was deflated, his eyes sunken.

‘I have started so I will finish,’ he said.

‘Frieda was a force. As things progressed, she picked up waifs and strays wherever we went. Mostly those on the fringes of society – those of different faiths, the disabled, the different. She saw talent in everyone she met. As I said, this was before war broke out, but there are many who have always been persecuted – gypsies, orphans, thrown in homes and hospitals, locked away as if they are mad.’ Werner looked to Jean and Giordano, who nodded in agreement. ‘Anyone who did not fit. Anyone who needed sanctuary. I was thinking of her when I hired Jean and Giordano, knowing what they were facing in Paris – no work, the looks they got… I thought I could offer them more.

‘As time wore on, the face of our troupe changed, and soon the only original members were Serge and Odélie. Serge realised sooner than I did that we now had a large group of people who were not only performers, but who relied on us to keep them alive. I made myself more German when war was talked of. I spoke German, I shook Nazi hands, I bribed. I got myself so deep in lies that by the time war did break out we had to see this through. And then, one day, a stranger climbed aboard our train, and we gave him a job. A stranger who could be anyone. A stranger who could find out the truth and give us all away.’