Genevieve Valentine - Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti

MECHANIQUE

A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti

Genevieve Valentine

To My Family

Copyright 2011 by Genevieve Valentine

Cover & Interior Art Copyright 2011 by Kiri Moth

Additional Cover Design by Telegraphy Harness

Ebook design by Neil Clarke.

ISBN: 978-1-60701-296-2 (ebook)

ISBN: 978-1-60701-253-5 (trade paperback)

Prime Books

www.prime-books.com

No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means, mechanical, electronic, or otherwise, without first obtaining the permission of the copyright holder.

For more information, contact Prime Books.

The tent is draped with strings of bare bulbs, with bits of mirror tied here and there to make it sparkle. (It doesnt look shabby until youve already paid.)

You pay your admission to a man who looks like he could knock out a steer, but it is a slight young man who hands you your ticket: printed on thick, clean paper, one corner embossed in gold ink with a griffin whose mechanical wings shine in the shivering mirrorlight.

T RESAULTI, it says, and underneath, C IRCUS M ECHANIQUE, which is even more showy than the posters. Their bulbs are bare; who do they think they are?

Go inside, take a seat, the show is about to begin! the young man shouts to the crowd as he hands out the tickets, his hinged brass legs creaking. Above the noise the food vendor is shouting. Come and have a drink! Beer in glasses! Beer in glasses!

Inside some invisible ring the circus people have drawn in the muddy hill, there are the dancing girls and the barkers and jugglers. The musical man is playing within the tenta cranking, tinkling mess of noise from this far away. The dancing girls shimmying outside the tent doors have metal hands or feet that glitter in the lights, and calling above it all is the young man with the brass legs who had come through the city a day ago and put up the Tresaulti posters.

Inside, the tent is round and bright, dozens of bulbs hanging from the rigging. Some of them have paper lanterns over them, so the light is a little pink or a little yellow.

The trapezes are already hanging from the topmost supports, stiff brackets of brass and iron, waiting for girls to inhabit them. The poster says Lighter than Air. The mood in the tent is, Well see . Not that youre hoping for someone to fallthat would be morbidbut if you say something is lighter than air, well, the bets are on.

(These trapezes are imposters; they are for practice, they are for the beginning of the act. For the finale, the real trapezes walk out. Big George and Big Tom are lifted into place by Ayar the strongman, and they lock their seven-foot metal arms around the poles and hold themselves flat as tables. The girls scamper up and down their arms, hook their feet over Big Georges feet, and dangle upside down with their arms spread out like wings. When Big George swings back and forth, the girls let go, flying, and catch Big Toms legs on the other side.

But you do not know that this first trapeze is a false front. You have not yet been surprised.)

The tent comes alive as those who bought tickets file in; some of them have stopped at the food wagon, so the beer-smell cooks slowly under the bulbs. People talk among themselves, but carefully; the government is new (the government is always new), and you never know whos working for whom.

A drum roll announces the beginning of the show, and the tent flaps open up for the entrance of an enormous woman in a black-sequined coat. Her curly dark hair springs out over her shoulders, and she wears red lipstick that seems unnaturally bright when she stands under the pink paper lanterns.

She raises her arms, and the crowd noisily hushes itself.

Ladies and gentlemen, she calls.

Her voice fills the air. It feels as if the tent grows to accommodate the words, the circle of benches pushing out and out, the tinny Panadrome swelling to an orchestra, the light softening and curling around the shadows, until all at once you are perched in a tiny wooden seat above a vast and a glorious stage.

The womans arms are still thrown wide, and you realize she has not paused, that her voice alone has changed the air, and when she goes on, Welcome to the Circus Tresaulti! you applaud like your life depends on it, without knowing why.

THE MECHANICAL CIRCUS TRESAULTI

FINEST SPECTACLE ANYWHERE

MECHANICAL MEN beyond IMAGINATION

Astounding Feats of ACROBATICS

The Finest HUMAN CURIOSITIES

the World has ever SEEN

STRONGMEN, DANCING GIRLS

& LIVING ENGINES

FLYING GIRLS, LIGHTER than AIR

MUSIC from the HUMAN ORCHESTRA

BARGAIN ENTERTAINMENT for ONE and ALL

No Weapons Allowed

The Circus Tresaulti has six acts.

All of them are set to Panadromes music. He is the most complicated of all Bosss machineshe is a true marvelbut one look at that human face above the mechanized band is enough for most. The music seems to seep into their blood, turning them to metal from the inside out, trapping them inside some brass barrel they cant see.

They press their hands hard to their chests until they feel their hearts beating, and they dont look at him again.

It begins with jugglers, who move into the tent from outside. They toss clubs and glasses of water and torches. For their finale, each torch falls flame-first into a glass of water, extinguished with a hiss thats lost in the applause.

The jugglers are human. You can see one with a false leg, but these days there are so many bombs and so many people to remake; one shiny leg is no surprise.

(They could be mechanical, too, if they chose, but the three jugglers have formed a little union against it. God knows if a false arm would be fast enough to catch anything.)

The dancing girls come next. They are all muscle under their filmy skirtsonce they were soldiers or factory workers, they pack and unpack as much rig as the tumblersbut the audience demands dancing girls, so they make do. Over the years they have all learned the profit in the curled hand and the cocked hip.

Their eyes are rimmed with kohl and their lips are painted purple; they uncover as much as they can of their skin (you have to cover the scars, of course). They dress in whatever spangles they can come by. Their dancing names are Sunyat and Sola, Moonlight and Minette. (Their real names dont matter; no one in the circus is real any more.)

For their finale, the strong man enters. The four of them climb onto his shoulders and his arms. They sitlegs crossed, arms raisedand he carries them off the stage as if they were no heavier than four cats.

The strongmans name is Ayar. He was strong before he joined the circus. Boss made him stronger. He never asked for more strength; he didnt want it when it was offered. He accepted only on conditionJonah.

Jonah was injured fightinga lung collapsedand he had been getting worse, worse, worse, until the doctor used a bellows on him and told Ayar (who wore a different name then) to expect the end.

The Circus Tresaulti was in town. Ayar stood in the city square and stared at the picture of the Winged Man for a long time.

Then he carried Jonah out to the camp and asked the first person he saw, Where is the man with wings?

The boy was young, but he looked at Ayar for only a moment before he said, Youll want Boss. Wait here.

Negotiations took an houra long hour, an hour Ayar remembers only in brief moments of shouting, of crying, of wanting to hit her but still holding Jonahand then the worst was over.

When Ayar woke up, he had a new name that went with a body made of gears and pistons and a spine that could carry anything, and Jonah was standing over him, smiling, turning to show Ayar the little beetle-glossy hatch Boss had built for the mechanisms that powered Jonahs new clockwork lungs.