I resumed walking and soon passed by a grand restaurant with a huge signboard surrounded by flowers and blinking lightbulbs:
Though I could not see the happy couple, I envied them. Would I ever find my own happy nuptials and hundred years of harmonious union? My life so far had been a matter of kill or be killed. I had not allowed myself to think so far into the future, since my concern was usually surviving the next few days. Happiness seemed as out of reach as the dead rabbit dangling in front of a race dog.
Into the gaily decorated restaurant flocked a procession of guests, men in Western suits or Chinese silk gowns, women in the latest Paris frocks or fancy embroidered cheongsams. Their happy laughter and congratulatory sayings only intensified my loneliness.
18
The Shen’s Circus
I kept walking until I found myself in front of a huge tent with a signboard proclaiming:
The words “fantastic magic show” sparked my interest because of my magician friend Shadow, who’d disappeared during our last show the “Great Escape.” I went up to the reception area and bought a ticket from the young sales girl.
Seeing there was no other people around, I asked, “Young sister, can you tell me something about this circus?”
“Oh, I don’t work for the circus, but the landlord. Anyway, the circus is only here until my boss is ready to turn this place into a theater. You know, the animals are very expensive to train and feed, so he thinks a theater will be better.”
“Who are the magicians?”
“Miss, you bought your ticket, so go in and find out for yourself. It’s already started.”
Shrugging, I walked into the tent. Immediately music struck my ears, lively but with an undertone of melancholy. I was suddenly overcome with a dreamy, nostalgic feeling, whether happy or sad, I was not quite sure. It made me feel that I might be close to finding happiness, but fearful that it would elude me still. Then I realized that the music reminded me of the day Jinying took me to Big World Amusement Park in Shanghai where the same kind of dreamy music smeared the air like thick paint.
I looked around. Only half of the seats were occupied, so I could see why the landlord was unhappy with his revenue. But the audience looked happy chatting, snacking, laughing, or focused on reading their programs. Children in colorful clothes either ran around or ogled the clowns performing tricks inside the big ring. I had paid for a good seat in the third row. Once I sat down, I hailed a hawker and bought a bag of peanuts fried with fish flakes, another bag of sugared plums, and a lidded mug of tea.
I stuffed a few coins into the boy’s pants pocket, and he rewarded me with a smile that seemed to spill outside his face. “Thank you, miss, and enjoy the show!”
Because of my spy’s training, I always looked around to see if anyone was paying me an unusual amount of attention—even here in Hong Kong. But everyone around me in the tent looked quite ordinary—a few middle-aged couples, a group of giggling teenage girls, and young couples with excited children.
Inside the roped area in front, clowns with big red noses, colorful shirts, and loose pants danced clumsily. Some juggled small bars, others balanced on big balls or rode monocycles forward and backward, like a horizontal seesaw. Although I found them more tedious than entertaining, the children paid rapt attention. And when the children laughed, their parents laughed with them.
Then the clowns ran, or rode, offstage, and the animals made their entrance. Around the ring, elephants padded majestically, tigers jumped through flaming hoops, girls balanced on trotting horses. Entertaining but not particularly interesting to me.
Finally, when both the animals finished their acts, it was time for the magic show—what I’d bought the ticket to see. The orchestra changed to a new tune, no doubt meant to seem mysterious, as a woman magician and her two male assistants walked briskly to the center of the ring. A round of applause burst from the audience. Suddenly, it crossed my mind that she might be Shadow. So I craned my neck and squinted my eyes, but unfortunately I couldn’t tell. Like Shadow, this woman was tall, but her hair was black instead of dark brown, and she seemed to have thinner legs and a narrower waist than my friend.
Her magic was not particularly impressive either. It was usual stuff—making purses disappear and reappear, changing a pigeon into a rabbit, disappearing from the stage, then reappearing among the audience. Nothing grand like Shadow’s making a castle disappear or jumping off a tall building in the nude and disappearing.
I felt both relieved and disappointed that the magician was not Shadow. Relieved because she might be angry about my cutting off part of her finger, disappointed because she was the rival I tested myself against.
The magician and her assistants ran from the ring, which was empty for a few moments as the orchestra changed to an even more rousing tune. It was time for the finale, the most dangerous, heart-stopping kongzhong feiren, “high trapeze.” Three figures appeared, two women and a man, high up on a wooden platform.
I thought one of the girls was the magician from the previous act but could not be sure, since the tall woman, instead of a black tuxedo, was now wearing purple tights with her hair tied up. The other girl, in turquoise tights, was smaller in statute, and the man, in white, was tall and muscular.
In a moment, all three were swinging elegantly and performing body-twisting gymnastics to Johann Strauss’s “Tales from the Vienna Woods” waltz. Next their movements took on speed and complexity as the trio began to change swings, and the man did a double somersault. The audience burst into cheers and enthusiastic clapping.
If the audience thought this was the climax of the show, then they were wrong. The MC went to the middle of the tent and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, now please don’t blink your eyes so you can watch our trapeze artist somersault through burning hoops.”
Instead of applause, the audience emitted a collective sigh like a huge deflated balloon.
The MC smiled. “Don’t worry. Miss Melodie is perfection itself. Are we all ready to have our eyeballs stunned?”
“Yes,” boomed back the audience.
“She better not fall!”
Three burning hoops dropped down and hung in midair, suspended from ropes. At first, Melodie swung back and forth, spun around, and somersaulted as the audience held its collective breath.
Probably charged by her unstoppable adrenaline, the purple girl, after she landed on the small wooden platform for a few seconds, leaped through the air, sailing smoothly through the three fiery hoops. But just then all the lights inside the tent went off!
There was a shocked silence, then a low murmur from the audience.
Someone shouted, “Turn the lights back on!”
In a few seconds, to everyone’s delight, the tent was lit up again. But our shock was not over.
The daredevil was gone! But spread on the ground was her purple outfit. Then I realized the trapeze artist “Melodie” was no other than my former friend and rival, the magician Shadow, performing another version of her famous “jump to disappear” act.
Now though the lights were back on, everything was a blur to me as I made my way out amidst the crowd.
I decided to see the show again to be certain it was Shadow and not an imitator. So the following evening, after I bought the ticket, instead of going through the main entrance, I sneaked around to the back area, quietly moved aside a flap, and peeked inside. There was no doubt. This tall and imposing magician/trapeze artist was the recurrently vanishing Shadow. When I’d last seen her she was thrashing and choking on stage in a tank of water, now she was sitting calmly in front of a mirror and meticulously painting her brow. Times must not have been easy for her of late, because she’d lost some weight and had a careworn expression. Yet she was still beautiful, despite her recent hard times.