Sixty-four

In the beluga’s gallery, tattooed men wrestled each other to the floor. Near them the Roumanian grandfather played his fiddle while a dozen anomalous pairs of dancers swung wildly. Maud wore a frilled red Spanish gown and danced with the Esquimaux patriarch. In his robe of silk dragons, Tai Shan twirled a reedlike Haitian sister. Groups of torches cast changing light across the dancers; shadow was full dark since the moon was just a sliver. I sat cross-legged in my nightgown near the Sioux camp. This carnival had woken me; I hadn’t bothered to dress, but a giantess in her sleeping clothes aroused no attention here.

I had encountered this before, in almost all the traveling shows where I’d worked and lived. A single night buoyed up by some charged current, an unexpected exuberance among the performers that carried us crackling and sparking through the night. On these occasions some would fight. Some would succumb to passions that normally lay dormant. Someone would sing more beautifully than she ever had, bringing someone else, who hadn’t cried for decades, to tears. Some would turn from the lamplight and walk away, never to return. A carnival loosened us from the calendar’s stricture. Tonight, among the Congress, was such a night. No costumes here and no stage tricks. It was neither show nor celebration, but a simple pouring forth, a departure from the ordinary bounds. A carnival, indeed. Carne vale. O flesh, farewell.

The wrestling match ended in a roar of laughter. The defeated man lay on the floor with his heaving, blue-inked chest to the ceiling. His adversary helped him up and handed him a bottle. Four children scampered out of the darkness, their faces greased in black-and-white geometric patterns, transformed into grinning skulls of the dead. They brandished sticks, coming straight at me. One of them screamed and leapt into my lap for protection. The others stampeded away.

I felt no urge to dance, sing, or even stand. I felt strangely light, and that was enough celebration. No longer a lone fortress towering above, I sat comfortably like one of the children, eagerly looking instead of being looked upon. The bright blood on the fighters’ knuckles. The shouts of the dancers. The drops of sweat glistening on the back of the child in my lap. My vision became elemental. I was aware that this carnival articulated a joy unknown by most people. It is a necessary mechanism, this joy, for without it none of us could persist in our public and, more important, in our private lives. The shifting orange flames of a hundred lamps blurred the delineations of the Congress itself; all Representatives of the Wonderful had dissolved into one grinning, spinning population. And I was anonymous, hidden from view, small. I remained as still as possible, not even daring to reassure the wild-eyed child on my lap.

On the other side of the gallery someone fired a gun. It might have been Grizzly Adams, who I knew was over there, or it could have been someone else. A group of people, including one figure wearing a huge wooden mask painted to resemble a bird or a dragon, ran over to the wall and plugged the bullet hole with a cork, cackling and shouting. Music never ceased, but changed hands often. Oswald La Rue danced a jig to the bells and metallic notes of an African instrument.

Near me, two figures emerged from the Sioux camp, where I knew They Are Afraid of Her’s body still lay wrapped in blankets, now with several woven storage baskets set atop her. One figure was the Sioux grandfather, wearing his usual top hat and dark vest. The other’s face was in shadow but my heart jumped because I thought it was Barnum. When he turned, I still wasn’t sure because his face was painted like the face of the child in my lap, with black and white grease. He leaned down to speak into the Sioux grandfather’s ear. It was Barnum, or was it? He turned from the grandfather and disappeared into the crowd. The Sioux shook his head and stepped out onto the gallery floor. A younger man hurried after him holding an uncovered oil lamp and a wooden crate. He set the crate on the floor, and the grandfather stepped up to face the Congress.

“Babylon the great is fallen!” the grandfather shouted. “It is fallen and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hateful bird! Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”

No one appeared to be listening. After a moment of looking around, the grandfather shrugged. He pulled a small glass vial from his pocket. He unstopped it and appeared to drink. He took the lamp from the hands of the younger man and blew the alcohol across the flame in a whooshing cloud of fire. People whooped and clapped.

“Babylon is fallen,” the grandfather said more softly. “Seal not these sayings, for the time is at hand.”

The younger man helped the grandfather down from the crate. Suddenly the small child leapt from my lap and ran away. Another song started up and a roar from the men across the gallery flowed over us.

I was sorry to hear someone call my name. I did not want to rise up. Ana! I did not recognize the voice. Where is she? She must be here. I was hidden. What a blessed, blessed thing to be. I relished it for whole minutes. I savored each moment until they found me.

“We need you.” It was the Esquimaux, or maybe it was the Yamabushi. I could not tell but I rose up and glided behind the man as he hurried between dancers, across the gallery floor to the beluga tank.

The whale’s viewing platform was crowded but they made room for me. Something was wrong. The whale was not singing.

The red-bearded voyageur stood at the edge of the platform. “It swallowed my bottle,” he said softly. I could see in his eyes he did not mean for it to happen.

“A bottle,” I repeated. The whale hung just under the surface of the water. I had never seen it motionless. It had always whistled and chirped in circles, endless circles.

“And it was a big bottle. And then it stopped swimming.”

The whale rose to the surface, exposing its blowhole. A puff of droplets and air issued forth.

“The bottle’s probably stuck in its throat,” I said. The people on the platform nodded and looked up at me expectantly.

I thought the water would be putrid but it was not, just cold. It was also deeper than I expected; I could not reach the bottom and had to swim. The sounds of the carnival faded. My dress billowed out from my body as I pushed off from the wall. The tank felt much bigger now that I was in it. I remembered They Are Afraid of Her gliding in circles, one arm thrown over the creature’s back. I drifted toward the whale. At first it backed slowly away from me. I slowed down, and I crooned to it in soft words. I even whistled.

The whale raised its head and turned so that it could see me with one of its small eyes. Someone lit another torch on the viewing platform. The whale blinked and lowered its bulbous, milk-white face. When I came close again, it did not move away. I reached out an arm and stroked the silk-smooth skin of its back. I positioned myself in front of it and gave both of us a few seconds to get used to our proximity. The whale had many small scars across its forehead. I did not want to wait too long. I put my hands on either side of its head. A firm touch would ease its nervousness, I hoped. I was not rough. I told the creature I would do it no harm and then I pried open its mouth. It must have let me inside, because I know it could have thrashed me away with one quick motion. It must have braced itself against the side of the tank, then, because when I slipped my arm into its mouth it held steady so I could do my work.

I reached inside, past its rough tongue and the corrugations of its upper throat. By the time my elbow was at the threshold of its mouth, my fingers had reached a taut, ribbed chamber. Another few inches and they pushed into a soft cavity. I explored, feeling the pillowy flesh pulse and quiver. I felt the bottle’s neck just as the whale’s teeth brushed my shoulder. I tried to grasp it, but it slipped away. I found the bottle again and thrust one finger into it to hold it. I tugged. The whale breathed shallowly through its blowhole, but I held my breath. I pulled the bottle gently up. The whale’s body constricted around it, I felt the creature gagging but it did not dart away. I pulled the glass free. It was covered in foul-smelling bile and it took some strength to disengage it from my finger. The whale remained with me, again raising its head to look at the terrestrial world.

I shivered, filled with sudden happiness as the beluga gently swam around me and began to trill.

The Titans were put on the earth to fight the Olympian gods. The words from the old book came back to me from Pictou. They were put on the earth to fight, but I had never had a purpose here, so the whole world became my adversary, until some opportunity for good work, like this, arose. The realization did not upset me as I bobbed in the water. On the contrary, I felt a great burden sloughing away. It was a pure, fleeting sensation and I could recall no other like it. The whale swam. It whistled. It resumed its circles. When I turned back to the people on the platform, they saw something radiant on my face. I could tell it was something they’d never seen before. Among them was Tai Shan. When I reached out he pulled me from the water.

Tai Shan took off his dragon robe. Beneath it he wore loose white trousers and a white tunic. He draped the silk robe over my shoulders and gave me the sash. He waited until I had it tied and then he bowed to me, from the waist and with his palms together at his chest.

“Thank you, Ana.” He held this posture for a few more moments and then he went, ghostlike in his pure white, away from me among the revelers. I watched him walk across the whole gallery and disappear through the door to the stairs that led out of our world.