Birchwood Read online

  ‘Stuffed!’ he cried, greatly tickled. ‘Yet very lifelike, would you not say? Fearsome. Ha!’ He clasped his hands on the shelf of his big belly and beamed at me, not without fondness, amused by my chagrin. ‘It is real, you know, Gabriel. They find it quite convincing.’

  They were the folk who paid to look upon these wonders. There was both mockery and reverence in the way he spoke the word. People believed the shoddy dreams he sold them! The fact filled him with awe.

  ‘You see, my boy, they pay to gape at our stuffed friend here, to make faces at Albert the monkey, to watch us capering about the stage, they pay, mark you, and their pennies work like magic wands, transforming all they buy.’

  We sat down side by side on the shaft of the trailer. He took from his waistcoat pocket a short black pipe and stuck it between his teeth, folded his arms and gazed at the blue hills away behind the town. I watched him suspiciously, with the uneasy feeling that he was making fun of me. He was an odd old man. I liked him. The sun, still low, was in our faces, and now I saw a figure approach out of a mist of light, skimming down the path by the caravans, a tiny figure on a threewheeled cycle. At first I thought it must be Prospero, and I stared at Silas. He said nothing. The little man pulled up before us and put one sharp shoe to the ground. He had a big square head and enormous hands. His black eyebrows and his hair were as smooth as fur. He wore a neat grey suit tightly buttoned. A red scarf was knotted at his throat. He was less than four feet tall.

  ‘Well well,’ said Silas, by way of greeting. ‘There you are.’

  The little man stepped down from his cycle, tugged the wrinkles out of his jacket deftly with finger and thumb, and gravely bowed.

  ‘Silas, my friend, how are you? And…?’

  ‘This is Gabriel.’

  He shook my hand.

  ‘The name is Rainbird,’ he said loftily, as though presenting to me something of inestimable value. We made room for him on the shaft and he settled himself daintily between us, clasping his mighty hands in his lap. Silas looked at him over his pipe and asked,

  ‘Well, any news?’

  Rainbird squirmed, feigning a delicious horror.

  ‘What a day, O! what a day. Would you believe it, I was knocked off my bike. Just look at my things.’ There were a few faint mudstains on his jacket and his shoes were damp. ‘A child it was, a little girl, no higher than that. I could have slapped her face, I really could. And what's so funny, may I ask?’ Silas was chuckling. He turned his laughter into a cough and waved his hands apologetically. Rainbird sniffed. ‘I see nothing funny, I'm sure.’

  He turned his attention to me and looked me up and down with a calm appraising gaze, and, still with his odd eye upon me, said to Silas,

  ‘Not much doing in these parts. Tenant farms, mostly. A village or two. They say the gentry are trigger-happy. Go north is our best bet.’

  Silas nodded, paying scant attention to this information. He said to me,

  ‘Rainbird is our scout.’

  The little man glared at him.

  ‘O that's all,’ he said, with heavy sarcasm. ‘Our scout. Nothing more.’

  Silas grinned, still gazing away toward the hills.

  ‘Does a couple of tricks too, for the show.’

  ‘Tricks! Well!’ cried Rainbird. He ruminated darkly for a while, then shrugged and turned to me again. ‘Well Gabriel? Another hopeful, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Running away from home, are you?’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Aha, I thought so.’

  ‘Sir, the girl, the one who knocked you off your bike…?’

  Although Silas did not stir, or look at me, I fancied that his delicate almost pointed ears quivered. I was sorry at once that I had spoken, and cursed myself inwardly for my incontinence. Had I not vowed that I would proceed upon my quest in silence cunningly? Now here I was, blurting out my heart's secrets, with no going back. Rainbird was examining me with a new interest, waiting for me to finish my question. When he saw that I would not, he said,

  ‘She was some child, I don't know. Why?’

  Silas took the pipe out of his mouth and peered into the bowl, poked at the dottle with the nail of his little finger, clamped the pipe between his teeth again, gave it a couple of experimental puffs and put a match to it. He was waiting for me to proceed, and a perfect blue smoke ring, hovering above his head, seemed somehow to betray, unsuspected by himself, the very shape of his interest. Rainbird glanced inquiringly from one of us to the other. I found to my surprise that I had begun to enjoy my position at the centre of attention.

  ‘Well, I'm searching for someone, you see,’ I said, and added, faintly, ‘a girl.’

  Rainbird's mouth formed a little circle, and he said,

  ‘Oo, are you now, indeed?’

  ‘Yes. My sister.’ They looked at each other and nodded slowly, apparently much impressed. ‘My twin,’ I said, quite reckless now. ‘She was stolen-’

  ‘By fairies?’ Rainbird asked innocently.

  ‘No no. I never knew her, you see, I mean I don't remember her, but I'm sure…that is I…’

  I stopped, and looked at them suspiciously. They were altogether too solemn. Silas put a florid red handkerchief to his nose and blew a trumpet blast. Rainbird's nostrils quivered peculiarly.

  ‘And her name?’ he asked.

  ‘I-I don't know.’

  ‘O? And what does she look like?’

  Silas nudged him.

  ‘He doesn't know that either, I'll bet.’

  They brooded for a moment, and Rainbird drew a deep breath and said gravely,

  ‘Why then you have plenty of scope, haven't you?’

  Silas gave a great sneeze of laughter, and Rainbird hugged his knees, pleased as punch with his joke. Their merriment made the shaft tremble under us. I could not understand it. Granted, my story had sounded silly, but why did they find it so screamingly funny? Once again I felt, as I had felt in the caravan earlier, that I was the only one who was ignorant of the rules of their game.

  ‘Plenty of scope!’ Rainbird squeaked, beside himself, and slapped Silas on the back. The old man began to cough uproariously. After a while their hilarity subsided, and Rainbird happily swung his little legs. I said icily,

  ‘I have a picture of her, you know.’

  Silas gave me a curious glance.

  ‘I'm sure you have,’ he murmured, and it was impossible to tell from his tone whether he believed me or was being sarcastic. Without another word I strode away from them, to the black caravan under the steps of which I had left my pack. The golden children, Justin and Juliette, leaned out over the halfdoor and watched me eagerly as I rummaged through my things and brought out the small framed photograph. I hurried back the way I had come, and met Rainbird and Silas strolling with the cycle between them. Silas took the picture from me, and glanced at it and handed it to Rainbird, who winked.

  ‘She's a dandy,’ he said, and sniggered.

  Silas laid his hand on my head and smiled at me benignly.

  ‘Come along,’ he said, ‘come along, Sir Smile.’

  24

  THAT NIGHT , as the ramshackle dream of the Magic Circus unfolded, I sat with damp hands and dancing heart in the centre of the third bench from the front, from whence in a little while Silas would pluck me out into the glare and glitter of my new career. The packed audience vibrated, sweating with excitement, their faces lit by the flickering glow from the oil lamps on the stage, where Magnus of the big ears sat on a stool squeezing rollicking tunes out of a wheezy accordion. We did our best to sing along with him, but no one knew the words, and there rose from the benches a drone of moans and mumbles in the midst of which I feared my own stagefright was audible, a piercing hum. At last, with a last flourish on the squeezebox, Magnus withdrew, and to the accompaniment of a roll on an unseen bodhran Silas sauntered out of the wings with his arms hieratically lifted. He welcomed the patrons, he sketched the delights the evening held in store. His hat
was as black as a raven's wing.

  Exit Silas right, bowing low, and enter left Mario the juggler, his black eyebrows arched, who filled the stage with glittering wheels and flashing spokes of light. His splendid scowl never faltered though the whirling rings got tangled on his wrists and the indian clubs cracked together like skulls, and his hot eyes only burned more fiercely the more hopelessly his act went askew. Next came Rainl?ird in a wizard's cloak, and a pointed paper hat festooned with silver stars which provoked some hilarity among the young bucks at the back of the tent. He conjured billiard balls out of the air, transformed a cane into a silk scarf. A white mouse escaped from a hidden pocket in his cloak.

  The pale twins, Ada and Ida, barefoot, swathed in veils, danced a solemn pavane to the accompaniment of a tune from Mario's tin whistle. The audience sat rapt, heedless of the incongruous bump of bare heels on the boards. The dance ended and the girls drooped sinuously into the wings, fluttering their pale fingers. A roar went up. The men whistled and stamped their feet, the women bravely smiled, but in a moment all were silent as Magnus tumbled head over heel across the stage and leapt to his feet before us, grinning. He wore huge checked trousers, sagging braces, outsize frock coat, false bald skull, a cherry nose.

  ‘I say I say I say…’

  We had Mario again, in a new outfit, heaving Justin and Juliette about the stage in a display of acrobatics. They raised a storm of dust. Flamehaired Sybil, with Magnus and Mario disguised in hunting pink, played a scene from a popular melodrama. Eyes flashed, riding crops whistled.

  ‘Aubrey, that cad deserves a thrashing’

  I had begun to think that my moment would never come, but at last the bodhran rolled again and Silas appeared in a dented top hat and white gloves, and a frock coat which still bore some dusty traces of its first appearance on the back of Magnus the clown. He was followed by Justin and Juliette carrying between them a mysterious something hidden under a black cloth. They set it down on a table in the centre of the stage. Silas doffed his hat, peeled off his gloves and laid them on the table. He adjusted the pin in his cravat. The audience shifted its backside restlessly.

  ‘Who knows,’ Silas cried, turning suddenly and glaring down upon us, ‘who knows the power of the will, ah, my friends, the strength and weakness of the mind?’

  We pondered the question while he pulled on his gloves again, put on his hat. He advanced to the edge of the stage.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said quietly, ‘I am the keeper of dark powers, bestowed upon me by the gipsies of Persia. The druids of old knew nothing of which I do not know, the secrets of the alchemists are my secrets. I am Silas, to whom the world's will is as a twig, to be snapped-like that!’

  He clicked his fingers, and behind him the golden children whipped away the black cloth and revealed Albert the monkey sitting in his cage with his arms folded and his black lips drawn back. The audience gasped. Albert scratched his belly. Silas smiled faintly.

  ‘My assistant,’ he said, and opened the door of the cage. Albert peered up at him inquiringly, shrugged, and clambered out and perched on a corner of the table. Silas closed his eyes and put his hand upon the creature's bald head, stood motionless for a moment and suddenly cried out, staggered, regained his balance, and roared,

  ‘Now his power is mine, will strengthen mine, his very soul has entered me. Look at him, he is empty.’ Albert indeed seemed drained, crouched there gaping. ‘Only when I have finished here will I give him back his substance, only then-’

  Only then Albert's wicked sense of humour got the better of him. He roused himself out of his torpor and sprang on Silas's back and knocked his hat off, jumped down and scampered around the stage, shrieking and chattering, with Justin and Juliette after him. There was pandemonium. The audience was beside itself with glee.

  ‘Hooray!’

  ‘A banana, give him a banana.’

  ‘Peg something at him.’

  ‘Aye, peg your man!’

  ‘Wait! He have him.’

  ‘Begob he have him right enough.’

  Ahh …r

  Justin lay on the boards and carefully drew out from under him the dazed monkey, and, clutching the brute between them, the children brought him before Silas.

  ‘Ah, wretched animal! Thought you could escape, did you? Thought you could break my power? Here, hold his head, hold him now.’ Again he clasped that grey skull in his fist, again he cried out. ‘Now! Now, take him away. Go!’

  They thrust poor Albert into his cage and swept him off, and Silas turned to us again.

  ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, I call on you for a volunteer.’ My cue! ‘Who will test his will against mine? Who among you will risk a journey into the unknown depths of his own soul?’ I leapt to my feet and waved my arms, speechless with excitement. Silas beamed at me. At the other side of the hall two or three strapping fellows stood up, grinning foolishly and scratching their heads. Silas adroitly ignored them, and they sat down again abruptly. ‘Come up, brave lad, come, this way. Look friends, a beardless youth. And your name?’

  All was noise and light up here, another world. Silas prodded me and roared, so it seemed, into my face.

  ‘Name!’

  ‘Gab-’ I began, and was prodded again.

  ‘What's that? Speak up, boy, don't be afraid.’

  ‘Johann Livelb, sir,’ I said, but my voice did not work, and I had to repeat that outlandish alias which Silas had found for me god knows where.

  ‘Well well, a foreigner, eh? Tell me, Johann, would you say that you have a strong will, eh?’

  ‘I don't know, sir-I mean yes. Sir.’

  ‘Yes. Good. Stronger than a monkey's, would you say?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Laughter.

  ‘Stronger than mine, would you say?’

  I opened my mouth and closed it again. I could not remember the answer, and when I searched in my poor frantic conciousness for the other answers I realised that I could not remember them either. All those lines, so carefully rehearsed, gone! Silas saw that I was lost, and bared his teeth at me. Justin brought out a three-legged stool and I was thrust down upon it. Silas took out his watch, a gold repeater, and dangled it before me on its chain.

  ‘Attend me now, boy, put all your attention upon me, your very soul.’ He swung the watch slowly. ‘You begin to feel drowsy. Come, you cannot resist me. Ah, sleep comes…sleep…sleep…’ He pocketed the watch and glanced at the audience. ‘See,’ he whispered, ‘see, he sleeps, he is mine. Boy! Speak!’

  He watched me apprehensively as I stood up with my eyes half-closed, my arms hanging limp by my sides. One phrase from all that was lost came back to me.

  ‘Master, I am your slave, do with me what you could.’

  He winked at me, and turned with a triumphant smile to face the surge of applause.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, what shall I have him do, my slave?’ He crooked a finger at me and brought me to his side, and for my ears only hissed, ‘Would, not could, you clown.’ He was a hard master.

  I was made to crow like a cock, crawl like a snake, swim on dry land, leap from the stool with my arms flapping. I sang a song. I danced. The audience roared. Never had I felt such freedom, I cannot explain. Silas snapped his fingers at last and I was sent back to my seat. A great sigh filled the tent. The cast came back on stage to take their bows. I had no regrets at not being in their midst, for there on the bench among the crowd I was a magic creature, a unicorn. Silas laid aside his hat and gloves.

  ‘Gentles, gentles, our revels now are ended…’

  25

  IT WAS STRANGE , that so easy deception of so many. I say deception, but that is not it, not exactly. They wished to be deceived, they conspired with us in our fantasies. Silas's act hardly varied all that week-except that Albert more or less behaved himself and I conquered my stagefright-yet those who returned night after night, and they formed more than half of every audience, gazed at his antics with happy enthusiasm as though for the first time. Indee
d, toward the end, there appeared in some of those faces a smug proprietary look-they knew what was coming next. It was a game that we played, enchanters and enchanted, tossing a bright golden ball back and forth across the footlights, a game that meant nothing, was a wisp of smoke, and yet, and yet, on the tight steel cord of their carefiJ lives we struck a dark rapturous note that left their tidy town tingling behind us.

  Tingling too were our players when the lights were doused, and the dreamers straggled home to their second sleep. We all crowded into the cramped dressing-room tent behind the stage, laughing, shouting, falling over each other, knocking over candles, our nerves aquiver, seized by a manic gaiety which sprang from we knew not where, bubbled up through our blood and pop! burst as the greasepaint fell like scales from our eyes. Then one by one, sober now, we crossed the dark field to the black caravan where Angel waited for us with potato soup and bread and huge pots of tea. Most of the night we spent there, conversing idly, while the solitary paraffin lamp burned down. The children dozed, the pale twins sang in soft reedy undertones, and Silas sat in his high rocking chair and smiled down on us all through wreaths of pipesmoke. That was the time I liked best, huddled with my arms around my knees in a dim corner of that smelly warm caravan, drowsy and at ease, the green scent of grass coming up through the floorboards, one trembling star hanging in a corner of the window, and the great night all around me, stretching away across fields and woods and shining marsh pools, all that darkness, that silence.