“What family? It’s a circus! They sleep in tents!” Edward Bonshaw cried.
“La Maravilla is a kind of family, Eduardo,” Brother Pepe told the Iowan. “Circus children aren’t in need,” Pepe said, more doubtfully.
The name of Oaxaca’s little circus, like Lost Children, had not escaped criticism. It could be confusing — Circo de La Maravilla. The L in La was uppercase because The Wonder herself was an actual person, a performer. (The act itself, the alleged marvel, was confusingly called la maravilla — a lowercase wonder or marvel.) And there were people in Oaxaca who thought Circus of The Wonder misleadingly advertised itself. The other acts were ordinary, not so marvelous; the animals weren’t special. And there were rumors.
All anyone in town ever talked about was La Maravilla herself. (Like Lost Children, the circus’s name was usually shortened; people said they were going to el circo or to La Maravilla.) The Wonder herself was always a young girl; there had been many. It was a breathtaking act, not always death-defying; several previous performers had been killed. And the survivors didn’t continue to be The Wonder for very long. There was a lot of turnover among the performers; the stress probably got to these young girls. After all, they were risking their lives at that time when they were coming of age. Maybe the stress and their hormones got to them. Wasn’t it truly wondrous that these young girls were doing something that could kill them while they were having their first periods and watching their breasts get bigger? Wasn’t their coming of age the real danger, the actual marvel?
Some of the older dump kids who lived in Guerrero had sneaked into the circus; they’d told Lupe and Juan Diego about La Maravilla. But Rivera would never have tolerated such shenanigans. In those days when La Maravilla was in town, the circus set up shop in Cinco Señores; the circus grounds in Cinco Señores were closer to the zócalo and the center of Oaxaca than to Guerrero.
What drew the crowds to Circo de La Maravilla? Was it the prospect of seeing an innocent girl die? Yet Brother Pepe wasn’t wrong to say that La Maravilla, or any circus, was a kind of family. (Of course, there are good and bad families.)
“But what can La Maravilla do with a cripple?” Esperanza asked.
“Please! Not when the boy is right here!” Señor Eduardo cried.
“It’s okay. I am a cripple,” Juan Diego had said.
“La Maravilla will take you because you’re necessary, Juan Diego,” Dr. Vargas said. “Lupe requires translation,” Vargas said to Esperanza. “You can’t have a fortune-teller you don’t understand; Lupe needs an interpreter.”
“I’m not a fortune-teller!” Lupe said, but Juan Diego didn’t translate this.
“The woman you want is Soledad,” Vargas said to Edward Bonshaw.
“What woman? I don’t want a woman!” the new missionary cried; he’d imagined that Dr. Vargas had misunderstood what a vow of celibacy entailed.
“Not a woman for you, Mr. Celibacy,” Vargas said. “I mean the woman you need to talk to, on behalf of the kids. Soledad is the woman who looks after the kids at the circus — she’s the lion tamer’s wife.”
“Not the most reassuring name for the wife of a lion tamer,” Brother Pepe said. “Solitude doesn’t bode well — widowhood awaits her, one might conclude.”
“For Christ’s sake, Pepe — it’s just her name,” Vargas said.
“You are an antichrist — you know that, don’t you?” Señor Eduardo said, pointing to Vargas. “These kids can live at Lost Children, where they will receive a Jesuit education, and you want to put them in harm’s way! Is it their education you’re frightened of, Dr. Vargas? Are you such a convinced atheist that you’re afraid we might manage to turn these kids into believers?”
“These kids are in harm’s way in Oaxaca!” Vargas cried. “I don’t care what they believe.”
“He’s an antichrist,” the Iowan said, this time to Brother Pepe.
“Are there dogs at the circus?” Lupe asked. Juan Diego translated this.
“Yes, there are—trained dogs. There are acts with dogs. Soledad trains the new acrobats, including the flyers, but the dogs have their own troupe tent. Do you like dogs, Lupe?” Vargas asked the girl; she shrugged. Juan Diego could tell that Lupe liked the idea of La Maravilla as much as he did; she just didn’t like Vargas.
“Promise me something,” Lupe said to Juan Diego, holding his hand.
“Sure. What?” Juan Diego said.
“If I die, I want you to burn me at the basurero — like the dogs,” Lupe told her brother. “Just you and Rivera — nobody else. Promise me.”
“Jesus!” Juan Diego shouted.
“No Jesus,” Lupe told him. “Just you and Rivera.”
“Okay,” Juan Diego said. “I promise.”
“How well do you know this Soledad woman?” Edward Bonshaw asked Dr. Vargas.
“She’s my patient,” Vargas replied. “Soledad is a former acrobat — a trapeze artist. Lots of stress on the joints — hands and wrists and elbows, especially. All that grabbing and holding tight, not to mention the falls,” Vargas said.
“Isn’t there a net for the aerialists?” Señor Eduardo asked.
“Not in most Mexican circuses,” Vargas told him.
“Merciful God!” the Iowan cried. “And you’re telling me that these children are in harm’s way in Oaxaca!”
“Not a lot of falls in fortune-telling — no stress on the joints,” Vargas replied.
“I don’t know what’s on everybody’s mind — it’s not clear to me what everyone is thinking. I just know what some people are thinking,” Lupe said. Juan Diego waited. “What about those people with minds I can’t read?” Lupe asked. “What does a fortune-teller say to those people?”
“We need to know more about how the sideshow works. We need to think about it.” (That was how Juan Diego interpreted his sister.)
“That’s not what I said,” Lupe told her brother.
“We need to think about it,” Juan Diego repeated.
“What about the lion tamer?” Brother Pepe asked Vargas.
“What about him?” Vargas said.
“I hear Soledad has trouble with him,” Pepe said.
“Well, lion tamers are probably difficult to live with — I suppose there’s no small amount of testosterone involved in taming lions,” Vargas said, shrugging. Lupe imitated his shrug.
“So the lion tamer is a macho guy?” Pepe asked Vargas.
“That’s what I hear,” Vargas told him. “He’s not my patient.”
“Not a lot of falls in lion-taming — no stress on the joints,” Edward Bonshaw commented.
“Okay, we’ll think about it,” Lupe said.
“What did she say?” Vargas asked Juan Diego.
“We’re going to think about it,” Juan Diego told him.
“You can always come to Lost Children — you could visit me,” Señor Eduardo said to Juan Diego. “I’ll tell you what to read, we can talk about books, you could show me your writing—”
“This kid is writing?” Vargas asked.
“He wants to, yes — he wants an education, Vargas; he clearly has a gift for language. This boy has a future in some kind of higher learning,” Edward Bonshaw said.
“You can always come to the circus,” Juan Diego said to Señor Eduardo. “You could visit me, bring me books—”