The illusionist
is thrown a birthday party, not on her birthday but a few nights later, when
the weather is appropriately dismal, the air full of mist and pounding rain.
The cirque is closed, a sign posted outside the gates apologizing for the
inconvenience.
Inside her tent
has been opulently decorated; bowers of flowers are suspended over the guests and
throughout the evening petals drift on shoulders and in hair like perfumed
velvet-soft rain. The guests are handed garlands of white roses at the
entrance, and though many are found later draped over the backs of chairs, some
folk take them home and tuck them behind ears or in lapels in the days
following.
Colour treated
lights bath the tent in sunset, warm and vivid. There are some staff outside
the circus who are allowed to cater and serve drinks (silver tinted white wines
in special dark tinted champagne glasses) on the condition that they do not
breath a word of the night’s events to anyone outside the circus.
The guests are
cloaked in a rainbow of colours. The contortionist wears a deep blue gown that
leaves her arms and neck bare, with bone white accessories, her tattoo visible
around her neck and disappearing into her décolletage.
Tamas wears a
suit the colour of autumn leaves, with pure gold earrings and his eyes rimmed
in kohl. He spends the majority of the evening speaking with the contortionist
of Pamina, when Pamina can be persuaded from her own guest.
The
fortuneteller is draped in silver silk, though she has a collection of violet
ribbons braided into her hair and a blue rose tucked behind the ear.
She arrives with
Hansen at her side, dressed in mostly black but with a bright orange scarf. While
the inception of the circus occurred some years ago, it is not too late, Pamina
argues, to add to its list of compatriots. Hansen has been involved with the
circus to such a degree lately that he has been forced to abandon some of his
personal projects, and to rush to finish commissioned pieces. Pamina has
dragged him to the party, insisting he meet the illusionist and leading him
around the room, introducing him as their composer. He is received warmly and
soon is engaged in conversation about modern art and music.
Another
gentleman arrives, adorned in an ivory suit with a matching white mask. He does
not give his identity, and instead distracts each attendee he speaks with by
discussing art and philosophy. Many assume he has come with the puppeteer as a
special guest, since he spends much of the night by her side.
Farrin wears a
turquoise suit but manages to blend into the party so well his mother is
sometimes certain he has left to read or seek the animals, who are mostly alone
in their respective tents. He has short conversations with most of the guests
and runs small errands, fetching pitchers of lemonade and bottles of wine and
fans for those that cannot abide the heat, returning quickly so they may
flutter their fans like wings against their chests.
The honoured
guest, the illusionist herself, is dressed in a crimson gown decorated with
numerous pink silk roses. She always wears a crescent of quarts on a ribbon
around her throat, usually of pale sugared white but tonight it is lurid and
red, as though her throat has been slit. It is exotic and morbid and beautiful.
Rose spends most
of the evening rooted in one spot, surrounded by guests who, once they discover
her place of origin, beg her to regale them with a few stories. She omits the
more sordid details of New Orleans, resorting to praising the jazz, when
Farrin’s parents, who have been occasionally checking on the elusive boy to
make sure he is still in attendance, question the suitability of the tales’
content for a young boy. Rose continues on, withholding only some parts of the
stories that she tells Farrin with the lilt in her voice or the look in her
eye. She laughs easily and loudly.
Members of the
circus beg Rose to perform, and after a few glasses of wine they coerce her to
the middle of the room where she borrows Hansen’s bowler hat and tosses it in
the air. It turns over and over and becomes a dozen black roses, woven
together. As it falls petals cascade around the bowing illusionist, she catches
it in one hand and spins it behind her, occluding it as she transforms it back
into a hat and returns it to its owner. Immediately one of her immediate
company inquires as to where she was trained.
“I had a private
coach for such things. He was – is very odd. He was an exotic man. He is the
son of some courtesan, they say. The Mata Hari’s offspring,” she says,
laughing.
“Surely you
didn’t learn that-,” the juggler points to Hansen’s hat as the composer speaks
with the cat tamer, “on your first try.”
“No, no. When I
first began my teachings I pulled a rabbit from a hat,” Rose says, laughing
again. “My instructor was not pleased at all about that. He went on at length
about pushing boundaries, about how gravity was a convention and we should
strive not to conform to such confined thought. Or something alone those
lines.” The illusionist smiles at the chorus of mild laughter as she accepts a
glass of freshly poured champagne.
Rose once dances
once throughout the entire night and, when midnight passes and the party shows
no signs of stopping, the morning. She dances with the juggler, with Tamas, and
she and Pamina have an entertaining moment in which they both try to take lead
in a dance together. Rose dances with amazing grace, free and carelessly yet with
an aristocratic elegance, something Paikea notices from across the room and
mentions absently to Farrin.
Pamina is in and
out of conversation. She often must attend to some running of the party (a
matter with the staff, the changing of music boxes when the tunes begin to
replay, a new dish to be served on the hour) but returns to ensure the guests,
especially Hansen, are having a good time.
Pamina has taken
to calling him Maestro Hansen, and has requested a special piece, insisting
money is no object. He waves her away, promising he will not ask for any price,
and giving her a tentative date of completion in the very near future.
When Farrin is
alone with the illusionist he considers it such a treat he is reluctant to
leave her, though he can see the thin bottle of absinthe and the decanter of
lemonade and wild mint are getting low. He listened curiously to Rose’s
recollection of her former instructor and has been feeling inquisitive since.
“I did not know
you had a teacher,” Farrin says. He has assumed Rose had always done the things
she had, or he had never given much thought about it. “If he saw… magic that
way, how do you see it? Does he approve of the shows you do?”
Rose sips a
glass of champagne for a moment while she thinks of a response. “I have not
seen him for a long time,” she answers finally. “I doubt the would approve. I
had many years to formulate my own opinion about magic. I started when I was
very young. He was always pontificating of the limitlessness of proper magic. He
views early education as a preliminary strike, as though magic is a chess game
and the world is to be toppled and checkmated.”
Their
conversation is interrupted by the arrival of the main course. There is not
enough space for the entire company to sit at a table, nor a table that would
seat all of them, so they flock like tropical birds to the staff who offer
plates on large silver trays. There are small slices of chicken with raisins
and chestnuts, quail eggs and shallots, pyramids of bright fruit, large and
spherical and exploding with flavour. There is fruit in melted cheese and pasta
with sauces piquant with peppers. The delicacies range from mildly spiced to
burning hot, and there are some that are flavoured mysteriously, where guests
catch hints of rosemary or saffron but also something beneath them that they
cannot name.
Those who eat
little return to the dance floor as the band strikes up another tune. Around
them, while the guests are distracted by food and merriment, the hangings on
the wall are removed and others put in their place, festooned with lanterns.
Where the tapestries are scarlet and canary yellow the tent looks like it is
being licked by flame.
For some time
most conversation is abandoned and the only sounds are the music, guests’
footsteps, and the rustle of silk and satin and frosted lace.
Festivities
resume and the tent is abundant with noise again, and bathed in the light of a
sunset, which some guests do not notice until they pick up their drinks and see
the colours reflected in the glass.
There is another
silence when desert arrives that is fleeting and gone much quicker. There are
iced éclairs and cakes with sugar bells and crystallized roses, and fruit
dusted with sugar and silver tiered trays of sugared violets on tarts. What
enchants the guests so is the enormous cake brought out on a platter; the only
serving that has required a table. It is set down so all the guests may admire
the tiered wonder before it is cut. It is shaped like a hat, identical to
Rose’s and the illusionist herself laughs at the sight of it. When she cuts
into it is froths with a deep rich chocolate cream. Those who previously
insisted they could eat no more suggest perhaps they could manage one more
bite. There is some repartee about food and the capacity of respective stomachs
that continues until the tent is bubbling with chat.
Rose abandons
the discussion some time during the early morning with the interesting of
coercing Paikea to the dance floor. The contortionist is almost lost in the
throng of guests. When Rose finally locates her, the contortionist is engaged
in discussion with the masked gentleman. Paikea seems slightly agitated. As
Rose approaches she catches only a fragment of their conversation. “I have
written to the address before,” the gentleman pauses and reaches into his
pocket, extracting something and handing it to the contortionist who hurriedly
conceals it on her person.
The gentleman
leans closer, as though about to divulge a secret, but the tenor of his voice
remains the same. “Miss Paikea, I am only asking you to consider the
possibility that there is more to this than you know.”
Before Paikea
can respond Rose appears at her side, holding her elbow. “Hello, I’m sorry sir,
I hope you don’t mind if I steal away Paikea for a dance.”
“Absolutely not,”
the man assures her. He gives them each a short nod before turning and
disappearing into the crowd.
Paikea dances
for only a short while. She and the majority of the crowd are becoming sleepy
from the combination of sleep and the early hour, though it is considered a late
hour by the company. There is a round of short farewells with the few
acquaintances who are not a part of the company, punctuated by laughter as some
of the livelier crowds make their way out of the tent. The decorations are
already vanishing, the staff who served dinner whisking away empty glasses and
plates. Pamina and Farrin stay with Rose to see off the last of the guests.
The puppeteer
kisses Rose’s cheek and compliments the party. The gentleman in the white mask
kisses the hand of the illusionist before wishing her a happy birthday and following
the puppeteer out.
Pamina urges Rose
to sleep, recognizing her giddiness as an effect of the late hour and sugar and
champagne. Farrin leads her backstage, peppering her with more mature questions
about New Orleans in the absence of his parents.
Pamina stays
until all the decorations are gone, the canvas walls once more dark and star
speckled and the chairs bare of embroidered saris and tinted lanterns. She
feels exhausted when she is done, though there is no heavy lifting involved.
The only things that physically remain are the bowers of white roses, which
have always been there, regardless the appearing and disappearing hangings and
lanterns. Their scent is heady and Pamina gathers a few of them to take to her
backstage room.
When she leaves
the tent is almost bare, save for a few scattered petals that glisten like
flakes of silver.
Text by Lucie MacAulay
