The Orphan's Tale

by Pam Jenoff

Scanning the crowd, I see a look in the eyes of the people, not of scorn but of admiration and hope brought by our arrival. Adults watch us with the wonder of children. The circus had always

brought light to the places it visited. Now it is a lifeline. I lift my chin. If we can still give them this, then the circus is not dead. There have been circuses from the times of the Romans and Greeks, our traditions centuries old. We had survived the Middle Ages, the Napoleonic Wars, the Great War. We would survive this, too.

Astrid was right: even as war rages on, the people still have to live—they shop for their foodstuffs and tend their homes—why not laugh at the circus as they had when the world was still whole?

The circus artists are every bit as intent as a ballet dancer or concert pianist. Every tiny flaw is a gaping wound, even though it had not been noticed by anyone else at all.

“One day you may feel differently,” she replies. “Sometimes our forever life does not last as long as we think.”

With so many women living in one place, there is very little privacy—just one of the many things about circus life I will never get used to.

Outsiders think of the circus as dark and sexual, Astrid had warned me once. In reality it is the furthest thing from the truth.

I shift and Theo nestles contentedly into my neck. I have never taken to children,

but there is something wiser about him, an old soul.

His kind of courage was boundless, though, and he would not have turned away a person in need, whether a star performer or a simple laborer or a child such as Theo with no skills at all. It was not about the circus or family connections, but human decency.

“We cannot change who we are. Sooner or later we will all have to face ourselves.”

The acts had grown grimmer since the end of the Great War, as though people needed to see near death in order to be thrilled—mere entertainment was not enough anymore.

But it is more than just the shelter that keeps me here. Astrid cares for us. She is more family than my own parents had ever been. And I feel part of the circus,

as surely as if I had been born here. I am not ready to go—not yet. “No,” I reply. “Whatever happens now, I am with you.” At least for now.

they are happy for this moment of light in the darkness—and for us. For the first time since leaving my family in Darmstadt so many years ago, I feel as though I am finally home.

Noa had been right, not just about Peter’s feelings, but mine. He had gotten into my heart when I wasn’t even looking. Part of me curses myself for letting it happen. At the same time, though, I would not want to go forward any other way.

I find myself clinging more tightly to her, needing her as much as she needs me to keep the world upright.

never assume that you know the mind of another.

The eyes that just minutes ago gazed so lovingly at me grow smaller, the lips I kissed in our sacred vow farther away.

I had seen Herr Neuhoff die just days earlier. But this is different. Metz died because he was a Jew—and because he thought all hope was gone.

“Sometimes the running just gets to be too much.”

“But I’m going to join the Maquis.” Hearing this, my hope deflates. I have heard of the resistance fighters who operate from the woods.

For once in my life I’m going to stand my ground and fight.”

Somewhere a tiny part of our family’s circus dynasty persists, like a seed carried to a new land to be planted. I look down at the envelope again, which is thicker than it should be if empty. “There’s something else in here.” Two things, actually. I pull out first a bank receipt of some sort. But it is in an unfamiliar language and the only words I recognize are my own name. “What on earth?”

The circus has been my haven—my safety and my home, in a way I had never

expected. Even now, when it is broken and near the end, the circus is the truest family I know. Once I leave, what hope is there of ever feeling this way again?

It isn’t Luc, or even my parents I am looking for anymore. It is a home of my own.

“You did it,” she says through her tears. “You became an aerialist.” And in that moment, I have everything.

Though I’d had many brothers, she was so much closer, the sister I never had.

Providence seemed to smile on Theo and me during our escape, as if saying we had already suffered enough.

I clear the memories from my mind and gaze up at the circus exhibit, celebrating the acts and spectacles of that bygone era. Of course the exhibit makes no mention of the circus’s greatest feat—saving lives.

“He didn’t leave you after all,” I whisper.

As Petra steps forward to embrace me, someone taller appears behind her. “Mom, come out of there.” I obey and reach up to hug Theo, who stands a full head above his sister, his own hair gray and wiry.

“We’re kind of a package deal,” he replies, putting an arm around his sister’s shoulders. It is true—the two couldn’t be closer.

They had both become doctors. Petra, who had not escaped the travel gene, circled the world in her practice, and Theo,

ever content to stay, was a surgeon at a hospital in the same town where I had raised them, with his wife and my three beautiful granddaughters, themselves now grown. My two children, cut from different cloth, yet so very alike in shape. And medicine a kind of family...

“Going together once more,” I say. I let them lead me slowly from the museum, feeling the unseen hands that guide us.

“We circus people see no difference between races or religions.” I consider this book, while fiction, to be a tribute to the courage of these people.

Learning about the circus was challenging and left me with a deep respect and admiration for the hard work and skill that go into circus acts, and especially aerial arts.