Nightmare Carnival

She was across the room upending files of photos, programs, and transcribed interviews. He lunged after her, trying to protect his archive of lost lives.

Henry’s book is stuffed with original snapshots, letters, and his own handwritten notes. He flicks through until he finds his favorite photo, pressed like a leaf between the pages. A cropped version’s reprinted within the book, but the original is of the whole Saunders inner circle, dressed for dinner.

This group portrait was taken against the backdrop of Paradise, a mile-long plot of land that was part fun fair, part circus, part county show. There’s Rebecca, Christos, and their dog sitting on a picnic bench. The Russian trapeze artists, Nikolai and Lara, are standing beside them. Nikolai’s arm is around Lara’s neck, pulling her close. His lips are planted on her cheek and Henry can never decide if she looks annoyed or amused. Whether they were sister and brother, or lovers, remains a mystery. The Giant, real name Jacob Stein, has dark eyes in a long face. Nancy Fotheringale, the Wax Lady, leans on his arm. There’s Rollo, the clown, face unpainted and hair slick with pomade. And Leo Saunders, of course, at the center of everything.

Henry looks at the photo, back across forty-six years, and wonders if his memories have been colored by research. These people are vivid in his mind, even though he never knew them, just orbited them during his eighteenth summer, every spare penny and evening spent in Paradise. He wasn’t a freak when he walked among them. Disfigurements were a mark of pride among this wondrous clan, like the Wax Lady’s melted face or the long, cadaverous features of Jacob the Giant. If anyone did look at Henry, he fancied they might mistake him for one of these fabulous people. So fabulous that someone like Rebecca Saunders made the thing he was so ashamed of feel like an artful embellishment.

Henry watches the interviews he recorded when he was writing his book. Although the light falls and fails, he doesn’t turn on the lamps, just lets the glow from the screen wash the room. He can hear his twenty-nine-year-old self talking to Rollo, the man in the frame.

This film version of Rollo has reached that perplexing stage called middle age, yet at forty-three he shows no sign of a sedentary paunch. He lounges on the chair like it’s a throne.

“So, why clowning?” Henry asks.

He wasn’t interested in Rollo, not really. Henry just wanted to butter him up and loosen his tongue. The man was his closest link to the Saunderses.

“Why not?” Rollo’s voice is neutral. Henry can see the danger in that neutrality that he wasn’t socially adept enough to pick up on back then.

“It’s not the most glamorous of acts.”

“No? Not dignified enough for someone of your intellect? A child’s diversion?” Rollo’s mouth contorts into a sneer. “Clowning is the most complex of entertainments. We have the greatest breadth of skills of any circus performer.”

Henry can see how he had been caught out, having to rack his brains to conjure up the man in full regalia, under the spotlight’s glare.

“I remember that you came into the big top standing on a zebra’s back.”

“Yes.”

“And you were locked in with the lions.”

The audience had gasped, fearful when they thought he was in danger. Then Rollo turned from bumbler to lion tamer, cracking the whip with aplomb.

“That’s right. I was an acrobat, actor, I did elephant and lion work, I was a bareback rider and a high wire walker, among other things. But clowning is more than that. It’s Greek, don’t you think?”

“Pardon?”

“Clowning. It’s comedy. It’s tragedy. It fulfills a basic human need. Did you know that priests and clowns served the same purpose in ancient Egypt?”

“No, I didn’t.” Henry’s voice is small. The clown’s no fool. Henry musters up all he knows about clown taxonomy to try and redeem himself. “You led the troupe as an auguste, not a blanc?”

Blanc, the white faced, dignified straight man of the act.

“Auguste is more interesting.” An auguste clown’s face was a riot of color that exaggerated the features. Rollo wore a matching shrunken suit that exaggerated his size. “It’s a better character. A troublemaker.”

“How did you know the Saunders family?” Henry was keen to steer Rollo toward the subject.

“They took me in. His mother, Lil, did gun tricks. Leo and I grew up together. I was hanging around the Minolta State Circus after I ran away from an orphanage.”

“You ran away to join the circus.”

Listening now, Henry’s face burns at his own glib attempt to lighten the mood.

“To join the circus,” Rollo repeats, his face set hard enough to smash Henry to pieces with a look.

“You knew them well then. You were almost family.”

“They were my family,” Rollo corrects Henry, “the only family I’ve ever had. Lil taught us guns. Leo and I were both crack shots. Leo was sixteen when she died. I was fourteen. Christos, Leo’s brother, was only five.”

“Where was their father?”

“Tuberculosis. Giorgio died when Christos was a baby.”

“What happened after Lilia Saunders died?”