Chapter 4: Traumatic Incident Number One
"We can't choose what we look like, only how we act. You act like an angel so to me you look like one."
The game was hide-and-go-seek. It was a lovely summer afternoon and since it was a weekday, there would be no performances until the evening. That meant that all of the circus children, the "brats" as they were known, had the whole afternoon to play. Stephani was "it". As he started counting with his hands covering his eyes, the children scattered. They knew not to go too far from the camp, but there were still plenty of trees and wild grass to hide behind in addition to the ample spots on the circus grounds.
Amanda and Lars took off in towards the trees and Kurt followed them, bounding through the grass on all fours. The threesome ran through the tall grass until they came to a low stone wall. Lars crouched down next to it. Kurt and Amanda slid into place next to him.
"This is my hiding place. You have to get your own." Lars said.
The two of them looked around for possibilities. There were a few trees, but no really good places to hide unless they wanted to return to the camp.
"There's nowhere to go." Amanda said.
Kurt peeked over the wall and pointed up the hill towards a large stone building with colorful windows.
"Let's hide in there." He said. Lars turned so he could peek over the wall.
"Ooo. I bet there's a lot of good places in there." Amanda said. She pulled herself up onto the wall and dropped down on the other side. Kurt climbed up the wall after her but Lars grabbed his shirt to hold him back. Kurt stopped mid-climb and looked back at his friend.
"What are you doing? Stephani's going to find us."
"You can't go in there." Lars said.
Kurt looked perplexed. "Why not? Are we not allowed?" He asked. They heard Stephani finish his count. "Ready or not here I come." He shouted.
"We've got to hide." Said Amanda urgently. "Let's go."
"I think it's just you're not allowed." Said Lars. Now Kurt was really perplexed.
"Who said that? Why just me and not everybody?" Kurt asked, ignoring Amanda who finally gave up and started up the hill in the opposite direction. He slid back down the wall and crouched down next Lars.
"It's a church. You'll get hit by lighting if you go in there." Lars's explanation was even more confusing.
"What are you talking about? It's not even raining." Kurt said, lowering his voice now that Stephani was out looking for them.
"Mary told me. She said you were unholy and that if you ever went into a church you would be struck down by God's lightening." Lars whispered earnestly.
"By lightening?" Kurt whispered skeptically, "I don't think that's true." Mary was the cook who made all their meals when they traveled. She had been with the circus every summer for years and she had always seemed a little batty to Kurt. "I'm going." He said and stood up. Lars grabbed his hand and pulled him back down.
"I'm serious. She showed me pictures." Lars said emphatically, completely forgetting they were supposed to be quiet.
"What kind of pictures?" Kurt was getting irritated. He could hear Stephani swishing through the grass. Lars was ruining his chances at hiding. Stephani was going to tag him first and he was going to be it and he hated that.
"Shhh. He's coming." Lars said. He and Kurt held their breaths. The listened as Stephani waded through the grass towards them stopped and then turned around, swishing his way back the way he had come.
"That was close." Kurt said. Then they heard Stephani calling for everyone to come out. He had tagged Gretchen, the daughter of a pair of contortionists. She was learning to be one too and though she could squeeze herself into the most incredible hiding spots, it took time to extract herself. She always got tagged. Lars' warning seemingly forgotten, they got up and ran back to camp to start the game again.
But Kurt hadn't forgotten and the next day he recruited Lars to help him find the pictures that apparently showed him being hit by lighting in the church. Mary was working in the outdoor kitchen so the trailer she shared with Lars' aunt Freya was empty. They didn't have much time, the Olsson's were rehearsing that afternoon which meant both Kurt and Lars would need to be there. They peeked around the side.
"Go stand over there and keep a look out." Lars said. Kurt nodded and walked away from the trailer as casually as he could. He had a good spot where he could see both Mary and the door. As Mary didn't seem to have any inclination towards leaving the kitchen Kurt quickly grew bored. A few minutes later he saw Lars emerge with a large thin leather bound book. He motioned for Kurt to follow and the pair dashed over to Margali's empty Van. Inside they slid the door shut and started laughing.
"I got it." Said Lars. "Did she see?"
Kurt shook his head. "She was cooking the whole time."
"What's for dinner then?" Lars asked and laid the book down on Margali's sturdy wooden table, the only real furniture they had. Lars sat down and started paging through the book while Kurt hopped up on the table and perched opposite him. It was a picture book, but it wasn't like any one he'd ever seen. Most of the pictures were black and white line drawings that looked very old but a few were in color. Even upside down they gave Kurt the creeps. Lars' question about dinner was forgotten as the pages flipped.
"Mary said this is a book about demons that God cast out of heaven because they were unclean." He said stopping every few pages. "Here." Lars said. He turned the book around so Kurt could see. It was a line drawing of a woman on the ground struggling with some kind of winged creature. The creature was like a man but with wings and a tail. He gripped the woman with clawed hands as she cried out in the image.
"I don't have wings." Kurt said.
"But you have a tail." Said Lars. Kurt picked up the end of his tail in his hand and looked at it as though seeing it for the first time. He wasn't quite sure what Lars was talking about. Heaven? God? Demons? Margali had never told him about any of this. And what did Mary mean he was "unholy"? He wondered if the cook was making up stories to scare them. Then again, he really did have a tail.
Lars took the book back, flipped through the pages again and pushed it back at Kurt. "Look at this one." He said.
This one was an elaborate painting in full color. There was a lot going on in it. A man with bird's wings took flight while beneath him another man in black robes held a golden cross high in the air. People were writhing on the uneven ground that was littered with skulls and bones. In the middle of it all, shielding his face from the cross was a darkened figure. He didn't have wings but he had pointed ears and a tail.
"She said this is a demon being vanquished by an angel." Lars said pointing to each figure as he described it.
This picture worried Kurt more than the other. It really did look like a grown-up version of him. "What's vanquished mean?" He asked in a hushed voice.
"I don't know." Lars admitted. Looking at the picture, Kurt didn't think it looked like a good thing. He turned a few of the pages himself, suddenly aware how different his hands looked from Lars'. He usually didn't think about the fact that he had a tail, but now he was conscious of every movement it made. He curled it around his ankle to stop it from twitching and that made him realize that even the way he was sitting was odd. Normal people sat in chairs; they didn't perch on tables. Kurt stretched one foot out behind him until he found a chair. He slowly sank down into it.
All the pictures told the same story: angels were good and demons were bad. Between the pictures were pages of text but it was in English and he couldn't read English. It made Kurt uncomfortable, he thought of all the times he had made Margali angry and he wondered if one day an angel wouldn't swoop down and vanquish him. But there was an upside to it as well.
"Do you think this means that there are other people who look like I do?" Kurt asked. He'd always assumed that he was the only one and since no one seemed to care, he'd never given his appearance much thought. He found he liked the idea; it wasn't always easy being so different than everyone else.
Lars shrugged. Kurt turned back to the vanquishing page and looked at it. Lars leaned over and pointed to the man in black. "That guy's a priest and he's using the cross to keep you from taking the…"
"That's not me!" Kurt interrupted. He hadn't meant to shout. Lars looked surprised.
"Actually, it is." Said a voice behind them. The two turned in their seats and saw Stephani standing behind them. Neither had heard him come in.
Kurt tried to think of something to say, but nothing came out. Lars shut the book guiltily and stared at Stephani.
"That's Mary's book." Stephani said. "She showed it to me too."
"We didn't steal it." Lars said defensively. "I was going to put it back."
Stephani circled around them and sat upon the table with his legs dangling. Kurt swiveled in his seat to face him. He finally found his voice, but it came out all quiet, like he couldn't get enough air into his lungs. "Did she say I was unholy to you too?" He asked.
"She said lots of things." Stephani said.
"Do you believe her?"
"I don't have to. I know the truth." Stephani crossed his arms over his chest.
"What truth?" Kurt asked.
"That you're not really my brother. That mom is not really your mom."
Kurt glanced at Lars who was sitting open mouthed and staring at Stephani. "I don't think any of this is real." Kurt said. "You're both making it all up."
Stephani shook his head. "No. It's true. I saw it."
"What did you see?" Kurt was leaning forward in his chair, once again perched up on the balls of his feet. He was gripping the edge of the seat so hard with his toes that his knuckles had gone pale.
Stephani began telling a story about stopping in a small town, a woman covered with blood crying in the street, and a house being boarded up and set on fire.
"Why did they put boards on the door?" Asked Kurt.
"To keep you in." Stephani said. "But mom ran into the house while it was burning and pulled you out. She almost died because of you."
Kurt shook his head. "If mom's not my real mom, then where are my parents?" He asked. He tried to sound calm, but inside he wanted to clamp his hands over Stephani's mouth to make him stop saying these things. He wanted Lars to take his stupid book and go. He felt like if he heard any more crazy stories about demons and fires he was going to explode.
"Dead." Stephani said. It was a like a heavy stone falling to the ground – final and followed by silence.
Behind him Kurt heard Lars gasp. "How did they die?" Lars asked, his voice nearly a whisper.
"Kurt killed them. That's why they were burning him in the house."
This was too much. Kurt launched himself out of the chair and knocked Stephani off the table. The two of them fell to the floor with Kurt pinning his older brother down. "You're lying." He screamed. "I didn't kill anyone. None of this is true."
Stephani grabbed Kurt's wrists and flipped him over so that now he was holding Kurt on the floor. "It is true. That's why you don't look like us." He said. Both of their voices had risen in volume so that they were shouting at each other. Kurt struggled to break free of Stephani's grip, but Stephani was larger and stronger than he was. Neither of them noticed Lars get up and run from the room.
"Let me up!" Kurt shouted. "You're a liar." He tried to squirm out from under Stephani, but he was held fast. He slapped his tail on the ground trying to gain leverage but nothing worked. He was crying, tears running down the sides of his face, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Stephani's story couldn't be true, he thought, it just couldn't. But then there was the horrible realization that if there were paintings of people who looked like him, perhaps it had happened before. What if the reason he had never seen anyone else like him was because they too had killed their parents and were punished for it. Maybe it was just a matter of time before they found him and burned him too. For a moment Kurt stopped crying and lay there with his chest heaving. He tried to sit up and Stephani pushed him back down.
Kurt resumed his struggle to break free of the grasp Stephani had on his wrists and the two boys grappled on the ground, a tangle of arms, legs and Kurt's tail. "Why won't you let me go?" Kurt cried.
"I don't want you to hurt me."
Kurt couldn't believe what he was hearing. What this really his brother? Why was Stephani being so mean? "I'm not going to hurt you. I just want you to let go!" He shouted and tried to slide his arm out of the hold Stephani had on him. He just wanted to be alone and hide away from everybody forever where there weren't any horrible books or stories about him killing people. But Stephani's grip on him seemed unbreakable. He craned his neck and sunk his teeth into the flesh of Stephani's forearm. Stephani screamed and pulled his arm away. Kurt slithered out from under his brother and jumped to his feet. He could taste blood and when he looked up he saw that Stephani's arm was bleeding.
"I'm sorry." He said. He'd forgotten how sharp his teeth were. And now he had hurt Stephani just like his brother had said he would. Kurt backed away in horror.
"Look what you did." Stephani said holding up his arm so Kurt could see four punctures with blood seeping out of them. Kurt ran to their makeshift kitchen area and grabbed a clean towel. He splashed water on it from the gallon jug they kept full.
"Put this on it." He said desperately. "I didn't mean to. I'm so sorry." He tried to press the damp towel against Stephani's bleeding arm. He wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand but they filled up again immediately. Stephani snatched the towel from Kurt's hands.
"Stay away from me!" He shouted and pushed Kurt down onto the floor. Kurt didn't try to rise this time. Instead he curled himself into a tight ball with his hands over his head. This was the worst day ever, he thought, sobbing on the floor. He was vaguely aware that he was supposed to be in the big tent with the Olsson's now; practicing for the new tumbling routine they were hoping to put into the show, but none of it seemed to matter anymore. It was all too much. It was like the whole world had been turned inside out.
"I've heard enough!" A voice boomed through the room, louder than a human voice should have been. Both boys turned and saw Margali standing in the doorway. She strode into the room. Kurt had never seen her look so angry. She stopped in front of Stephan, who was crying now too. She took his arm and looked at it. The bleeding had stopped; the cuts weren't as deep as they had first looked.
"It is not a good idea for you and I to be in the same place right now." She said, her voice calm and cold. "If I were you I'd go, before I do something we'll both regret. Go have Big Kurt clean that up. We'll talk later."
Stephani drew himself up and with last glance back at Kurt, hopped out of the van and closed the door. Margali turned to Kurt in time to see him vault into his bunk, the uppermost of three. If she stood on her tiptoes the bed was just a little below her eye level. Kurt had pushed himself into the furthest shadow making him nearly invisible. He had stopped crying and she could hear him making great hiccupping sobs from somewhere in the corner. She pulled a handkerchief out of a pocket and held it out. A moment later a small blue hand came out of the shadows and took it.
"Are you going to come down?" She asked. After a few moments a small "no" issued from the darkness. "Kurt, please come down. I can't talk to you if I can't see you." She reached her hand out and felt around. The first piece of Kurt she found was his tail, but he quickly withdrew it out of her reach. "Suit yourself" said Margali and walked to the other side of the room. She picked the book that had started everything off the floor and flipped through the pages. Then she went over to the pallet she slept on opposite her children and sat down. She leaned back against the wall and waited.
The only evidence that Kurt was still up there was the occasional sniffle, but after a few minutes Margali saw a pair of eyes followed by her youngest son's silhouette at the edge of the bunk. "Do you want to talk?" She asked. There was a long pause.
"Is it all true?" Kurt asked at last, his voice hoarse from crying.
Margali sighed. "If you come down here, I'll tell you what's true and what's not." She patted the mattress beside her. Kurt sighed and crept out of his bunk. He slid in beside her and Margali put her arms around him. She pressed her cheek against the top of his head, squeezing him tight. They held that pose while she listened to Kurt's sniffles coming at longer and longer intervals. Finally Margali loosened her hold and with one hand tried to smooth his hair, which was now sticking up in different directions. It was no use. She picked up the book and held it so Kurt could see the cover.
"Can you read it?" she asked. She knew Kurt could read German and French and she had even heard him speaking Swedish with the Olssons. The whole family was multi-lingual but Kurt was particularly was good with languages. For all she knew he'd picked up English too. Kurt shook his head.
Margali read the title aloud pointing at each word. "Angels and Demons: Religious Imagery in the Middle Ages and Pre-Renaissance." She said it first in English and then translated it into German. "It's a book about art, things that religious people painted from their imaginations."
"It's not real?"
Margali shook her head. "No. It's only real for the people who believe in it."
"Do you believe in it?" Kurt asked.
"No."
"So I'm not really a demon?"
Margali pulled Kurt closer. "Of course you aren't. I don't know why you look like you do, but it's what's on the inside that matters."
"Then I wish I looked like the angels instead." Kurt said. He could feel fresh tears running down his cheeks.
"We can't choose what we look like, only how we act. You act like an angel so to me you look like one. The people who made those pictures have been dead for thousands of years, they never got to meet you." Margali saw a momentary smile cross Kurt's face but he frowned again.
"What about the other things? The things that Stephani said about me?" he asked. Kurt furrowed his brow, "Are you not really my mom? Did I really kill people?"
Margali sighed and shook her head. "Stephani shouldn't have told you those things. Some of them are true and some are not." She could feel Kurt shaking as he started to cry again, but this time he stayed silent. "I'll tell you the true things, but you have to stop crying first." She handed him a fresh handkerchief. Kurt sat up straighter, wiped off his face, and blew his nose. He changed positions so that he was facing her, his face a mask of determination.
"Okay." He said. "I'm ready."
Margali told him the whole story. She had always planned on telling him when he was older. She figured Kurt would have enough to deal as a child with without having to doubt her love as his mother. She loved all of her children equally; it didn't matter to her how they had entered her life. The truth was that having a family of her own raised the way she thought they should be and without the stifling traditions of the Rom culture, was more important to her than anything in the world. And for the most part she'd gotten her wish.
It wasn't an easy story to tell. Margali first had to navigate the treacherous waters of childbirth and its complications. That was followed by a careful explanation of people and their superstitions. She described how everyone in the circus had pitched in, ripping the boards off the house and trying to put out the fire so they could get him out and she saw Kurt smile briefly when he learned that he was named after Big Kurt as the two were quite close. Her son was silent through the whole thing, but Margali watched understanding slowly dawn upon his face. When she was done speaking, the two of them sat in silence for a long time, as though they had disturbed something that hadn't been touched for years and were now waiting for the dust to settle back down.
"Can we go there someday? To that town?" Kurt asked.
Margali nodded. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes now. "If you like."
Kurt frowned. "But I still don't understand why people are afraid of me when I haven't done anything to them."
"There will always be people like that. It's complicated. Do you know that when I was growing up, I saw men jump away in fear when my mother walked past? Do you know why?"
Kurt shook his head.
"Because she was 'marmé', unclean.If a man is touched by a woman, he is polluted by her."
Kurt gasped. That's what Mary had said about him. "Why?"
Margali shrugged. "Because that's what their father's believed, and what their father's fathers believed. And just because it wasn't true didn't mean that my mother and all the other women in my tribe were feared by the men."
"Did she ever wish she was a man?" Kurt asked.
"Never. Because she knew that women are powerful, they can grow a life inside of them and that made them magical too. And so that's what she taught me. But that was after we were banished and sent away." Margali said.
"Your family sent you away? Forever?" Kurt asked in amazement. "Why?"
"My mother didn't believe in the men's traditions. She felt that she should be an equal and not hiding behind a long skirt, always walking behind the men so not to foul their air. There were places she could not go and rights she could never have. So one day, she fought back."
"What did she do?"
"Well, she went to her husband's, my father's chest and she took some of his clothes. Then she put them on. She took off her headscarf and let her hair down. Then she walked outside."
"Is that bad?"
"Bad?" Margali said and laughed. "It is a crime for a woman to take the clothes of a man. And when she announced that she should have equal rights and privileges as her husband and her brothers, people were outraged. All the men were very upset. It was very bad."
"I bet the women were happy though." Kurt said with a small smile.
Margali shook her head. "They weren't. These were very old traditions and they had become comfortable with them. And so the Rom Baro, the chief, called big meeting of all the men and they decided the she, her sisters, and her daughters were marmé."
"Unclean?"
"That's right. My mother's actions had shamed all the women in her family. And so the tribe sent us away."
"Didn't you miss them?" Kurt asked. He was leaning forward, captivated. He'd never heard his mother talk about her childhood. And to hear that people were frightened of her, just because she was a girl. It was hard to imagine.
"At first, but I had my mother and my sisters. After a while it was all I knew. It was a lot like us, there were four of us and we traveled all over Europe together." She smiled and brushed Kurt's hair out of his eyes.
"But if everybody believed it, wasn't it true? Like for the people who made those paintings. Wasn't it true for the men who made you go?" Kurt asked, suddenly concerned.
Margali couldn't figure out exactly where he was going with the question. She thought for a moment and then said, "In a way yes. But that didn't mean it was true for my mother."
"But she was still punished." Kurt pointed to himself. "If people believe that I'm unclean, doesn't it mean that I'll still be punished even if I don't think it's true?"
"Well," Margali started to speak and then paused. The answer was yes, of course. No matter what Kurt did, there would always be a portion of society that would refuse to accept him. But how could she tell him that. This too was a conversation she wanted to have when Kurt was older, not when he was eight. But Kurt continued questioning her.
"If I went into a church, would I still be punished by God because people believed in it? Because for them it's real?"
Margali hadn't expected the conversation to get this metaphysical and at this point it was past explanation. Her thoughts turned to the church she could see up on the hill a short walk from their encampment. It was a Tuesday evening; it would more than likely be empty. She got up and went to the old chest where their warm clothes were kept and opened the lid. She rummaged around, pushing aside sweaters and socks until she found Kurt's hooded coat and pulled it out.
"Where are we going?" Kurt asked. Margali always made him wear that coat whenever they left the circus grounds. She tossed it at him.
"We're going to church." She said.
