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A billowing cloud of sawdust floated to the ground. Yusuf stood in the glare of the spotlight and bowed low to the stands to acknowledge the crowd’s rapturous reception, though he didn’t care for the wild applause. He longed for a greater connection than this, to be rooted in this country and bonded to its people, to shed the skin of his own ragged history. Pearls of sweat pooled between his shoulder blades. He bowed once more, lycra slick against his skin, to those who had no idea how lucky they were with their white faces, here in the most powerful country in Europe.
The house band swung into action in a rousing melody of Middle-East poetry meets Berlin hip-hop. Inside his body, cavernous parts echoed with the energy of the music, igniting a sense of urgency in him. Yusuf’s blood ran quicker with the beat and he darted to the edge of the arena. The tambourine, goblet drum and fiddle vied for attention with Najib’s beat-boxing, lips alive at the microphone, dead eyes above.
He sent a silent message to Najib. Focus.
Right now, it was showtime. This magical, fragile home of theirs couldn’t afford any complaints. The circus needed to excel. They needed all their concentration, all their tricks and spirit to outperform their competition and attract visitors.
Emir the ringmaster clapped his hands, and the lights blacked out. The tent fizzed with anticipation. The lights flared and in came the twins, sequinned from head to toe, riding bareback on their horses, dove-tailing, leaping, turning slow, sensual flips, though their father would have turned in his grave. Zul the Clown bumbled into the ring, feigning flatulence to the hilarity of the children, his polka-dotted flat cap turning on his head of its own accord. Next, a lute rang out through the air, sweet and clear, as Amena, Aya and Aischa returned. Resplendent in the new costumes they had sewn, they performed a folk dance with spinning skirts, casting threads of gold into the air. Meanwhile, Esme—pretty in a ruched moonlight gown, her hair shrouded by a headscarf—offered warm chunks of manoushi bread and baklawa to the audience.
Onwards continued the show, like clockwork.
The girls danced not five feet away from him, round and round, and their movements hypnotised. Yusuf’s eyes blurred and he retreated into a memory of his mother. He recalled the comfort of her calloused hand on his face, how it would linger there as if he were a child and not a grown man. How he missed her, even surrounded by his new family. His mother had wanted him to be a surgeon or a lawyer. She’d stayed in the land of their ancestors, too old and tired to make the journey, too reluctant to give up her past. She didn’t know how her remaining son contorted himself into shapes and spun through the air to please strangers. Even now, he could almost feel the vice-like grip of her fingers on his arms, the salty tears threading a pathway across the creases of her skin. Her parting words to him had been branded into his psyche.
Do what you must to survive, but never forget who we are.
He owed it to her to make a go of this life. All around him, his fellow performers dazzled with colour, song and razzmatazz, spirit and skill. He knew happiness here, especially with the circus in full motion, with his newly-made family in a flurry of activity around him and the satisfaction of a seamless show. Here, in the tents, the performers controlled their world.
Soon it would be time for the finale when the performers flooded the arena once more: the acrobats, clowns, stilt- and tightrope-walkers, leaping horses and dancing goats. The world would shrink to a point inside the big top, and all around there would be the energy of a dozen planets and colours stolen from Allah himself. It would feel like a wedding in Syria, when the village came together and his face hurt from smiling, his feet ached from all the dancing, and his cheeks flushed with heat. The finale was when the circus most felt like home, when they were together like they belonged. Misfits and broken people who had only become whole once they found their way together like magnets.
Suddenly, a shout pierced through the serenity of the lute.
An audience member called out, puncturing the dream-like trance of Amena, Aya and Aischa’s dance. Again it came, brash and unapologetic, a dose of reality crashing into the fantastical realm they had toiled to create. Anxiety bubbled in Yusuf’s stomach and his eyebrows snapped together as he strained to hear the precise words.
The man lurched forward in his seat, red-faced and drunk, although they didn’t serve alcohol here. “Go on, you monkeys! Dance!”
Yusuf’s skin prickled with fear. The disrespect shown to his friends—to them all—wounded him deeply, but they could neither censure nor retaliate, powerless as they were.
The man hadn’t yet finished, and the audience around him looked away, aghast. “Dance, dance ‘til you drop, then we can put you back in your boats where you belong. Rats, the lot of you!”
Yusuf itched with the need to restrain him, but how could he when bound by the rules of gratitude for being allowed to live in this country, and by the rules of hospitality to a paying member of the audience? He looked to Emir’s impassive face at the side of the ring. How far would they allow insults to go before taking action?
The girls continued dancing as if they were dolls, not real flesh capable of hurt. Esme—an Afghani girl, who was sweet on Yusuf—stood closer to the fray. The man’s shouts startled her and she dropped her tray of food over herself and into an audience member’s bag. Her moonlight dress dimmed, and she flushed and stooped to undo the damage, all the while whispering apologies to the woman she knelt before. The man crowed and settled back into his seat, pleased with himself.
A ruckus like this set them all on edge and chased the magic away. Bad enough that circus attendance had been dwindling. Worse, disturbances such as these had increased and had resulted in additional scrutiny from the Interior Ministry. With any luck, no one with any clout had been there to witness it. The Interior Minister’s aide, all corkscrew curls and a hooked nose, had been an increasingly regular visitor to the circus in recent months, and that in itself had raised concerns.
Yusuf swivelled and blinked to adjust to the glare of the lights.
Damn.
His heartbeat accelerated and his palms grew sweaty. There sat Rex Silberling himself: Interior Minister, the Chancellor’s right-hand man, and architect of the circus. Tonight, his aide flapped next to Silberling as he sat still and grim-faced in his house seat, power rolling off him in waves. She motioned to Silberling’s security men not to intervene in the disturbance: the drunk man had already settled down.
Yusuf sighed. Politics turned on a pin. They couldn’t risk displeasing Silberling, lest he withdraw his patronage. Lest he decided to invest his energies elsewhere.
His mind spun through a reel of the latest indignities the circus had suffered: their own waste found strewn in the tent; the horses released from their paddock at night; crude images of buxom girls in compromising positions graffitied on the sweets wagon; the laughter of teenagers running away in glee.
But his circus family—refugees all—had survived worse. The band’s energy leapt a notch, and the plaintive sound of the sousaphone jolted Yusuf into action. Never mind the disrupter in the crowd or the frowning presence of Silberling. It was time to take to the stage. In they all ran, beasts and performers alike, springing, turning, waving to the crowd, singing for their supper. Silberling, too, became merely one of the audience as the performers threw batons into the air and the goats danced and skirts became a whirr of colour. The girls threw small squares of tissue paper into the stands, which, in the blink of an eye, transformed into sapphire butterflies flecked with copper. The men blew into their cupped hands and bubbles emerged and floated away, growing ever larger, until they popped over the heads of the audience in a burst of raindrops.
“Isn’t this just fantastic?” said Emir into the microphone in the midst of them all, his shirt straining across his belly as he hopped in excitement from one leg to another.
The final moment approached, in which Emir pulled a lever that released a flurry of multi-coloured foils over the audience, never failing to make the children squeal with delight, a parting surprise the girls would later painstakingly gather up for tomorrow’s performance.
He pulled the lever, but it stuck fast. Emir tugged it again to unleash the nets at the top of the tent. An avalanche of paper balls covered in stark print came turning through the air. Emir’s mouth gaped and he cried out, dismayed at the unwelcome surprise. Not one of them had noticed the change in the contents of the nets that morning. They’d been secure in the knowledge that all had been prepared for tonight’s show.
The performers stuttered to a halt.
The band momentarily lost its rhythm.
Silberling’s security men emerged from the shadows.
The audience clutched at the dirty projectiles as they tumbled through the air and onto laps. Silberling, too, unfolded his spidery legs and reached for a paper ball, as if it were a fortune cookie to be read. He unravelled it, eyes hooded as he read the page, mouth curled in displeasure.
Yusuf’s ribcage contracted, as if the air had suddenly become thinner. He didn’t need to read the words—the sabotage spoke for itself—but he couldn’t help himself. He grasped a ball, unpeeled it, and read:
Dirty rat.
And another.
Thieves. We don’t want you here.
Around him, the performers stood still, faces painted in alarm. Emir, ever ready with cheer, appeared dumbstruck. With every moment, the buoyancy in the tent fizzled out. Circuses were stitched together from fantasy and could not survive the intrusion of the real world, the shades of grey and black and blue that track human existence.
“Follow my lead!” said Yusuf to Zul the Clown.
They ran around the arena, and the rest soon caught on, scooping up the offensive words, teasing the children, offering a peck on the cheek here, a handshake buzzer there, doing their best to ignore the expletives nestled on the page, the clues that to some they were not equal to the shit on their shoes.
Inside, a leaden darkness settled over Yusuf, despite the cheer he showed in the tent.
As the audience emptied the stands and the final sounds of the band died out, Emir excused himself, and his moustache drooped. “You understand, son. My heart can’t take such shocks.”
“It’ll be okay, Emir. Leyla will make you one of her world-famous soups for supper and all will be well.”
“You may be right.” The older man pushed through the heavy curtains of the tent, looking all of his fifty-seven years.
Yusuf turned and found himself face-to-face with Silberling.
“Goodnight, Herr Alam,” said the gravel-voiced minister. His stare, predatory and cold, sent a jolt of electricity through Yusuf. “You understand, these little disturbances cannot go on?”
Yusuf’s throat thickened. How could it be that Silberling offered neither praise for the revelries nor solace for the night’s injustice? The man remained as cold as a fish. Far be it for him to explain something so obvious to a superior.
“I’m sorry,” said Yusuf with a stutter. Even this foreign tongue that he’d taken pains to learn came to him less easily when he stood before Silberling, as if by the very virtue of being himself Silberling made others smaller. “I’ll pass that on to Emir. We’ll do better next time.”
Silberling wrinkled his nose, and Yusuf became aware of the mild stench of bodily exertions and stale popcorn underneath the cloud of incense and sawdust. With a nod, the minister took his leave, striding into the night accompanied by his team to where his state car awaited him.
He’d met men like Silberling before. Hadn’t his father been such a man, before it all came crashing down? Can’t they be found on every street, in every country, there where the wine flows, backs are patted and decisions are made? Some wore suits, others wore kurta, some carried guns, and some a briefcase, but the undercurrent of energy remained the same, and the hunger in the eyes.
There, in the majestic tent full of possibility, oceans away from the troubles of his past, amidst the sweat and the sawdust, despite their talent and commitment, Yusuf knew the circus and its people to be pawns in a game of power and perceptions. Yusuf couldn’t trust Silberling even though the circus, in essence, belonged to him. Without the circus, Yusuf would have been lost, and Silberling could so easily take it all away.
