The following evening I left Signor Fidardo’s workshop immediately after six. I hurried through the crowds on the steep streets of the Mouraria district and bought a loaf of bread and a bit of cheese on my way.
Down by Martim Moniz Square I ran to catch up with a tram and hung on tight to the rear platform. The slipstream cooled my face pleasantly as the tram picked up speed on the wide shopping streets of Baixa.
Dusk was falling and the streetlamps came on one by one. I jumped off at Cais do Sodré and continued on foot. The sounds of laughter and music quickly led me to a piece of waste ground illuminated by open fires burning in big metal drums. I could see a dozen or more colourful fairground caravans drawn up round a merry-go-round with worn wooden horses that were circling at a leisurely pace beneath a canvas roof. The clatter of the machinery was drowned out by a waltz 58melody produced by a large barrel organ cranked by a woman in a red uniform.
A small queue had formed at the booth where you could buy tickets to ride on the merry-go-round. On the roof of the booth was a large sign saying:
Brockdorff’s Funfair – A World of Pleasures
It occurred to me now that I should be on my guard. Neither I nor the Chief knew Harvey Jenkins. What if his reasons for encouraging me to come here were suspicious? After all, it wouldn’t be the first time in my life I’d been ensnared.
The fairground didn’t seem in the least suspicious, though. Just a bit shabby and worse for wear as travelling fairs tend to be. The caravans had hatches where you could buy sweets and soft drinks. An old woman was walking around selling carnations to couples in love. In one tent there was a bald giant of a man who was arm-wrestling with anyone brave enough to challenge him. He called himself François le Fort and boasted he was the strongest man in France. In another tent you could have your future predicted by a fortune-teller who was in contact with the spirit world. Her name was Margosha and she came all the way from Odessa on the Black Sea. 59
The hissing and puffing steam engine that drove the merry-go-round stood behind a set of railings. Harvey Jenkins was sitting on a wooden chair close to the machine. His hat was down over his eyes and he was asleep. The cockerel on his shoulder was keeping watch and began stamping its feet when I climbed over the railings. Jenkins opened his eyes.
“Good evening to you,” he said, pushing his hat to the back of his head.
He spread his arms as if introducing me to the fair.
“Yes, this is it, our travelling pleasure ground. Well, what do you think?”
I shrugged my shoulders. Jenkins gave a hoarse laugh.
“It’s all a bit run down, I’ll give you that,” he said, “but a ride on the merry-go-round is cheap and Margosha promises everyone a brilliant future when she tells their fortunes. So no one leaves here disappointed. Anyway, it’s time for you to come and meet Director Brockdorff.”
He whistled over the ticket-seller, a grey-haired woman with a book under her arm, and asked her to keep an eye on the steam engine for a few minutes.
Director Brockdorff’s office was in one of the fairground caravans. He was a small thin man with a waxed goatee beard and oily hair with a centre parting. He was dressed in a stained nightshirt and long johns held up by braces. 60
“Aha, so this is the ape engineer,” he said when he saw me. “Excellent, Jenkins. How are you going to divide the work between you?”
“I’ll take the afternoon shift and Sally Jones will take over from me at seven o’clock, and run the merry-go-round until closing time.”
Director Brockdorff peeled a couple of banknotes off a roll he’d fished out of the breast pocket of his nightshirt.
“Your pay is six escudos a day. Here’s twenty-four escudos. You’ll get the same again on Saturday next week. That’ll be your last working day as we’ll be moving on come Sunday.”
I took the notes. The pay was rubbish, but still a bit better than I’d been expecting.
When we went back to the merry-go-round Jenkins explained to me how to look after the two-cylinder steam engine. If anything went wrong, I had to get it fixed before the customers on the merry-go-round got tired of waiting and wanted their money back. There was a box of tools under the wooden chair.
Jenkins waited while I gave the merry-go-round a trial run. Then he picked up a bottle of wine that he’d hidden behind the steam engine.
“See you tomorrow evening, then,” he said, quickly slipping the bottle into his pocket. “I’m off now to Bairro Alto to meet 61a nice little widow I got to know the other night. Her name is Eulalia and she bakes a wonderful leek pie, believe me!”
He touched the brim of his hat and, whistling cheerfully, went on his way. At the entrance he took the opportunity to pinch a couple of red carnations from the flower-seller’s bunch.
My days were long now, though it wasn’t something that bothered me. But Signor Fidardo was worried that I’d taken on an evening job.
“Are you managing to eat and sleep properly?” he wondered.
I nodded, but it didn’t convince Signor Fidardo. The following day I saw that he’d got hold of a mattress and put it in the workshop storeroom.
“You must have a nap for at least half an hour every day,” he said sternly. “Then you can come out with me and I’ll buy you an early dinner before you go on to this other job you’ve found. Are we agreed on that?”
The funny thing about Signor Fidardo is that the kinder he is being, the stricter he tries to sound.
The best thing about working at the fairground was that I was left to myself to get on with things. There were, of course, always 62a few visitors leaning on the fence that surrounded the merry-go-round. They stared at me in curiosity but that didn’t matter much: after all, I’m quite used to that sort of thing.
The other fairground workers hardly paid any attention to me at all. They had plenty of work of their own to be getting on with. One of the few people I got to know was the woman who sat in the ticket booth. She was called Sylvie Dubois and she was the mother of François Le Fort, the bald-headed arm-wrestler.
“This is the only job poor little François can get,” she explained. “And he can’t manage without his mamma, which is why, like it or not, I’m forced to travel round with the circus as I do.”
Sylvie Dubois loved books. She’d been a bouquiniste in Paris, which means she had sold second-hand books from a stall on the street. These days, instead, she spent all day reading. Sylvie Dubois could take customers’ money and hand them their tickets without even glancing up from her book.
Sometimes, when she felt the need to stretch her legs, she would come over to me to have a chat. On one of my very first evenings she asked, “You and Harvey Jenkins have known one another for a long time, haven’t you?”
I shook my head.
“You haven’t!” she said in surprise. “I thought the two of you were old acquaintances.” 63
I shook my head again.
Sylvie Dubois looked at me over the top of her reading glasses.
“That’s very strange,” she said. “Why did he go to so much trouble for your sake, then? With Margosha and everything?…”
Just then someone turned up to buy a ticket for the merry-go-round and Sylvie Dubois had to go back to her booth.
Her questions had left me feeling a little confused, so when the fairground closed at midnight, I went over to the ticket booth hoping that Sylvie Dubois would give me an explanation. But she’d clearly already forgotten the whole business. She looked at me curiously and said that since I’d finished for the night I should be getting on home.