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By the time the ambulance crew arrived, the circus was in full flow. Ellie pressed on with chest compressions to the sound of Najib’s muffled beat-boxing and the distant stamping of the audience. She didn’t know if it would be enough.
Isaiah guided the paramedics to where Ellie crouched over Doris with her knees in the dirt.
Ellie stepped aside, relieved to entrust Doris to the crew’s superior skills.
They administered oxygen and stabilised their patient with a shot in the thigh, but still Doris’s eyes remained closed, her skin tinged blue, her pulse weak.
Ellie clambered up into the ambulance behind the stretcher, leaving Isaiah behind to relay the news to Emir and look out for Yusuf.
The ambulance rocked as it sped towards its destination.
She squeezed Doris's clammy hand, urging her to pull through.
At the hospital, a team of doctors and nurses met the ambulance, and Doris disappeared into a ward.
Ellie collapsed into a chair, where a nurse offered her a glass of water and took Doris’s details.
“I’ll be back soon to tell you how your friend is doing,” said the nurse, checking her paperwork.
“Thank you,” said Ellie, numb and disoriented.
The nurse hurried away and returned a few minutes later to find Ellie pacing the corridor. “It turns out Frau Kaun has been in for a minor ailment before, and we have her next of kin details. A son in Munich, and another in Stuttgart. They’re on their way but it will be hours before they reach the hospital.”
“Oh.”
“Will you be staying here until they arrive?”
Ellie nodded.
The nurse squeezed her shoulder and continued on her way.
What had happened to Yusuf? Why hadn’t he made it back to Doris? Images of the past few days swirled around her head: her head slumped over her computer; the ugly May Day demonstration; the threat to close the circus; baiting Karl Klein; pumping Doris's chest, desperate to keep her alive.
Ellie swallowed her panic before it overwhelmed her. She was good in a crisis; she didn’t lose her head. She needed to focus on the practical. Her fingers crept around her phone. She dragged in a shaky breath and dialled her mother. “Mama, can you come to the hospital? We’re at Charité.”
Concern coloured her mother’s voice. “Whatever’s the matter, darling? Are you okay?”
Her mother’s voice anchored her and kept the loneliness away in the white-washed ward. “It’s the circus warden, Frau Kaun. I need you to stop by the residences to pick up some of her things.”
“Your father’s out cold, but I’ll leave a note and will be right there.”
Two hours later, on the ground floor of Charité Hospital, not far from the Brandenburg Gate and the Palace of Tears exhibition on life in divided Berlin, a doctor in scrubs with a stethoscope around his neck sought out Ellie and her mother. Ellie scrambled to her feet.
“You’re here with Frau Kaun?” said the doctor, raking a hand through the grey hair at his temples.
The nurse who had been kind to Ellie hovered in the background, shoulders deflated.
Ellie suddenly felt light-headed. “Is she all right?”
“Of course she is,” said her mother. “Women like us are tough old birds.”
The doctor focused his attention on Ellie. “I understand you accompanied her in the ambulance, but her next of kin is yet to arrive?”
Ellie’s voice trembled. “Yes.”
“I’m afraid Frau Kaun passed away a few minutes ago from the stroke she suffered. We did all we could. I’m sorry.” Grave eyes met hers.
Ellie sank into a chair.
At her feet, Doris’s possessions spilled out from the tote bag her mother had picked up from the residences: soft cotton pyjamas, a button-up blouse, a pair of slacks, her toothbrush and a comb, with strands of silver entwined in its teeth. A bunch of grapes wrapped in a brown paper bag now seemed pathetic.
Ellie covered her face with her hands, willing the clock to reset. If only they had intercepted Karl before he and Doris had crossed paths.
The doctor rocked on his feet. “I’ll be happy to speak to her family when they arrive.”
What about Yusuf? Ellie kneaded the muscles in her sore neck. She stood. “Thank you for all you did.”
“I’m sorry it wasn’t enough,” he said.
“Can we see her?” said Ellie. She didn’t like to think of Doris all alone here, without a friend or relative to mourn her in the hour of her death.
The doctor’s tired eyes glazed over. He was already thinking about the next patient. “Only for a few moments. I’ll ask the nurse to take you through when they’re ready.”
The nurse led them through to Doris's bedside. How pale and small Doris looked, compared to the energetic woman Ellie had come to know in her role at the residences. Her sleek grey bob, which had been as straggly as a scarecrow’s stuffing in the ambulance, had been returned to its former glory, as if a kind nurse had wanted her to look her best. Her body lay cocooned under neat sheets. No tubes pierced her skin. Halogen lighting revealed her puffy face; the left side of her mouth drooped slightly. A serene expression adorned her gentle features.
Ellie collapsed against her mother and sobbed.
Her mother held her close. “I’m sorry it hurts, Ellie. I wish she’d made it.”
“So do I.” She pulled away from her mother and turned to address the dead woman in a whisper. Perhaps she could still hear. “I’ll try my best to fight for them, as you did.”
Then she bent slowly, ceremoniously, to leave a kiss on Doris’s parchment cheek, and wished her well, wherever her spirit may be.
That night Ellie stripped off her clothes and made a beeline for her kitchen to make herself a cup of Earl Grey, heaping in two spoonfuls of brown sugar when usually she would have taken only one. She’d needed her own space despite her mother’s invitation to stay over at their family home. Inside, she knew she had work to do.
A wave of sadness washed over her for Doris. Her sons must have arrived at the hospital by now. She wondered if they had found out the news by telephone or in person. The weight at the centre of her chest expanded to think of receiving a similar call.
Every inch of her body ached with the excesses of the day. Her palms had been stamped with the memory of Doris’s brittle ribcage as she willed her to live. Ellie kneaded the back of her neck and returned to her bedroom. The clock had long since struck midnight but she couldn’t afford to sleep, and her mind wouldn’t still without work. The tea slopped dangerously in her mug when she placed it on her side table. She switched on her night light, pulled on an oversized t-shirt and grabbed her laptop, then sat cross-legged on her bed with the bedcovers tucked around her.
She still hadn’t heard from Yusuf, but he didn’t have a telephone and she’d never given him her number. At first, she held hopes he’d turn up at her flat but her mind had been jumbled after leaving the hospital, and now she remembered that while Yusuf had been to her parents’ house, she’d never invited him to her own place.
Her mind flashed with the image of him lying bruised and broken in the deepest recesses of Treptower Park with Karl Klein standing over him.
Ellie sucked in her breath and turned on her computer, calming herself by running her fingers over the keyboard, thinking about her next steps. Her father had taught her that trick: worry and melancholy didn’t help anyone, least of all yourself; having a plan of action was a way to leapfrog over it.
Her Twitter was awash with questions about the circus. Some Berliners had taken a chance on the circus only after uncovering its story on Ellie’s blog. Others sent questions asking why the promised interview with the acrobat hadn’t been posted. More still pledged to visit the circus before it closed.
Could it be that her Twitter comprised only an echo chamber, and she wasn’t influencing anyone at all? She needed to persuade readers outside her circle. Her frustration grew at the decision to wait for more evidence before publishing her story at Die Welt. Time had become their enemy. Soon, there wouldn’t be a circus to save. Their plan to trap Silberling had ostensibly failed, judging by the lack of contact from Yusuf. How could she draw out supporters for the circus, but also establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that Silberling was unfit for public office? Morality played less of a role than it once had in matters of state. Perhaps she merely required a powerful emblem to rally support.
Could Emir be that emblem, the resolute, big-hearted ringmaster with his shabby top hat?
Or Zul in his clown alter ago? No, that wouldn’t work. She needed someone more relatable to sway the masses.
The answer came to her like lightning.
Of course. Doris was that emblem. She always had been.
The synapses in Ellie’s brain fired up as her fingers flew across the keyboard. She made a mental note to herself to express her condolences to Doris’s sons and ensure she had their support in invoking their mother’s memory. A calm washed over her as she drafted a blog post. It helped to write in a world that often felt destructive. It brought her clarity and a sense of immersion. A power surged through her as she channelled her thoughts. At no other time did she feel so poised and uncompromising, so in charge of her destiny. She could make a difference with the words and paragraphs she pieced together, just as surely as if she erected a soaring tower or planted a forest. She made waves with her words, she always had. Even in a void, on a desert island, on a distant planet without the slightest chance of being read, Ellie would write.
UPDATE ON THE TREPTOW CIRCUS
You might have visited the circus. Or maybe you’ve noticed it when you wandered through Treptower Park, smelling the meat from barbecues, with warm beer slopping from your bottle. You probably know it as the immigrant circus. This label has stuck, although it doesn’t differentiate between economic migrants, students, or refugees who have fled war and famine.
The threat to the circus is no longer a theoretical one. Soon, it may no longer exist.
A nation with our history can’t afford to be complacent about the rights of minorities. The eyes of the world are upon us and judging us still. Germany must uphold the highest standards of democracy and integrity. I hope soon to be able to reveal to you the corruption I have uncovered, but tonight, let me tell you about a woman called Doris Kaun, the warden at the circus residences, who suffered a stroke and lost her life tonight. Doris spent her last few moments defending the Treptow Circus to a neo-Nazi.
Let’s take a leaf from everyday people, such as Doris, who believe in the right for all humans to have a chance of a better life. The onus is on us to refuse artificial divisions, the lines in the sand, the clashing flags, when we are all skin and bone. Let’s celebrate the circus because it enriches this city. Because it widens our understanding and brings our life colour.
Stand with me. Come to the circus tomorrow evening with your hearts and your banners, and show the Government the fabric of this country. Without people to stand behind these words, they will evaporate, and so will our resistance.
#SaveTheCircus #TwoDaysToGo #BeADoris
It didn’t matter that Ellie sat alone in the dark, full of fear.
She could still reach outside of herself and touch others.
She just had to believe.
