Chapter 11: Kurt Wagner

"It was just a question of making some phone calls, talking to the right people, and having a wealthy family with connections in various branches of the government."

Wolfgang did not part ways with Circus Gehlhaar when it packed up its newly refurbished tents and props to begin its summer tour of Europe. He liked it too much to leave. Instead he made himself useful in a dozen ways from driving one of the lorries to making meals, and serving as a sort of "tour manager", taking care of the day to day business of the traveling circus.

He had moved into the van that served as their "office", with a makeshift desk separated by a brightly patterned curtain from the living and sleeping area. Margali was sure it was many steps below the kind of luxury Wolfgang was used to, but he never complained. In fact, he seemed to thrive on it. Even though his quarters were stacked nearly wall to ceiling with his collection of movies, music, books, and drawing supplies, she had never seen anyone so happy about living in such a tiny space.

What was more interesting to Margali however was that Kurt and Wolfgang had become the best of friends. It was the most unlikely pairing she had ever seen, but it seemed that Wolfgang had finally found someone to talk to who not only liked the crazy ideas he came up with, but improved upon them. He introduced Kurt to classic films and American rock music. Whenever they traveled, he took Kurt as his driving partner and the two of them spent the time thinking of pranks to play on everybody else.

They had already spent several weeks playing in France and Germany when they stopped outside of Berlin. Wolfgang had heard that East Germany was getting more relaxed about its borders and since Circus Gehlhaar had never played there, it seemed like an amazing opportunity. When he had first set about preparing the necessary paperwork, it had seemed fairly straightforward but after three days parked uselessly outside Berlin, it was starting to look like a stupid idea.

He was stuffing yet another set of forms into an envelope when Kurt opened the door and peeked his head in.

"Are you still doing that East Germany thing" he asked.

Wolfgang looked up from his desk. "Yes" he said through gritted teeth and returned to his work. Kurt shut the door behind him and watched for a moment.

"Maybe it's not worth it." He said.

Wolfgang pounded the envelope closed and looked up. "Not worth it? Have you ever been there"

"No."

"Neither have I. Neither have any of us. It's an adventure. I'm determined." Wolfgang stood up. "I'm going into Berlin, need anything"

Kurt held out two letters. "Can you mail these? They're for Stephani and Father Dietrich."

Wolfgang looked at the addresses. Father Dietrich was of course legendary. Kurt rarely talked about Stephani. "Your brother is in Paris" Wolfgang asked.

"He just started at the Sorbonne. He's studying history." Kurt said. "He's the only one of us who went to school."

"Well, I'll be back in hour." Wolfgang said pocketing the envelopes. As he opened the door, they heard the wheels of a car crunching on the gravel. "Oh shit, hide." Wolfgang said and quickly shut the door.

"What is it" Kurt tried to peek out the window but Wolfgang pulled him back.

"I said 'hide', not 'look out the window'. It's the Commandant from Immigration who's been giving me all this grief the whole time. Quick, hide." Wolfgang said. There was a knock on the door and Kurt dove behind the curtain.

Wolfgang opened the door. "I was just about to bring you these forms." He said apologetically.

"But these are still incomplete." A man's voice said.

Kurt peeked through the side of the partition and he could see a man in a stiff military uniform. He was holding a pile of papers out to Wolfgang who had sat down at the desk.

"All the names are here except one." The man continued. He put the papers down and pointed. "All this says is 'Nightcrawler'. We need a real name and identification papers."

Kurt felt his heart sink and he backed away from the curtain. He had no form of identification. He had been born in Germany, but there was no proof of his citizenship, no record he even existed. He could hear Wolfgang stammering an excuse. Any other time it would have been funny to hear Wolfgang who was normally so collected go to pieces in the presence of a uniform.

"Oh, yeah. I think his papers are around here. Somewhere." There was the sound of Wolfgang opening drawers and shuffling papers around. "Um. What kind of identification do you need"

"Papers. A Passport or another form of official documentation of his country of origin."

"Oh, he's German. How about a birth certificate"

"That would be acceptable."

There was a long silence and Kurt returned to spying through the curtain. "I'll have to ask him." Wolfgang said brushing his hair out of his eyes. "In the meantime, is there anything else you need"

"How about just a name."

"A name"

The man pointed back to the paper. "Yes. Nightcrawler is not his real name is it?'

"Oh" Wolfgang laughed. "Heh. No, his name is Kurt."

The man took out a pen and crossed out something on the paper and started writing. "Kurt what"

"Kurt…uh…Kurt…" Wolfgang looked at a complete loss for a moment. The uniformed man eyed him suspiciously.

"Yes" he asked.

"Kurt Wagner" Wolfgang blurted out at last. There was a crash behind him and Kurt cringed, realizing he'd knocked over a stack of tapes with his tail. Kurt Wagner? What was Wolfgang thinking?

The man finished writing and stood up, taking a long look at the curtain. Kurt backed away from it slowly, holding his tail in his hand so it didn't knock over anything else. "Get me Kurt Wagner's identification papers. Then your circus can come in." The man said. He turned sharply on his heel and slammed the door shut behind him.

Kurt threw open the curtain. "Kurt Wagner" He shouted. "Who is that"

Wolfgang looked sheepish. "You, I guess. I'm sorry; I've just never heard anyone use your last name. My mind went blank."

Kurt realized that was because no one ever did. But still, Wagner"Why didn't you use Margali's name? Szardos" Kurt asked.

Wolfgang threw up his hands. "I don't know. I panicked. But I didn't want to look like I didn't know your name, so I used the first one that came to mind."

"Yours"

"Well, yeah. I said I was sorry."

"I could get in trouble" Kurt said. "They're very strict in East Germany."

Wolfgang shook his head. "Look it's not like it's going to be any easier to find papers for Kurt Szardos than Kurt Wagner. And if anyone's going to get in trouble it will be me."

Kurt sighed. "What if you just take me off the list? Then everyone can go in and I can stay here."

"No. Look, just give me an hour or two. My mother knows people in the government, I'm sure she knows some official or another in the ministry. I'll straighten this whole thing out."

Wolfgang started bustling around the desk, gathering papers into a battered briefcase. He pulled on his jacket and opened the door. He turned back to look at Kurt who was still staring at him like he was insane. "Don't worry." Wolfgang said"I'll work it out. You'll see."

Kurt shrugged and followed Wolfgang out.

Within a few hours, Kurt had completely forgotten about the incident in Wolfgang's trailer. There wasn't the room or time to set up the tent or rig up any of the larger equipment, but no one wanted to just sit around doing nothing. Sven and Nils had pulled out the springy Russian bar and Kurt and Lars were taking turns bouncing on it. Landing was still a problem; more often than not, the second their feet touched the bar, they were thrown back off of it. Kurt had had a lot of fun getting launched 20 feet in the air when they had first started, but unless he could land, it wasn't going to be much use in a show.

Kurt sat under a tree, watching Lars jump. Every so often, Lars would land gracefully, particularly if he didn't jump very high, but any time he leapt more than about 5 feet, he was flung off in a different direction.

"Want to try it again" Lars asked when he was tired of hitting the ground. Kurt nodded and switched places with his friend, standing on the springy bar with his arms out.

Kurt was starting to get the hang of it and after watching Lars, he was pretty sure he understood what was going wrong and how to fix it. First, the acrobat on the bar had to signal he was ready then, all in unison and with increasing pressure, the acrobat and the porters would start the bar bouncing. Around the third bounce there was enough momentum built up in the bar that the acrobat's weight leaving it wouldn't change its trajectory, which was when Kurt could begin to prepare to jump. The jump had to be timed with the bouncing of the bar so that Kurt's knees were bent when the bar was at its lowest point and he was leaving the bar when it was at its apex. The height of the jump was based on the speed of the bar's bounce because in order to land with out being flung off, he needed to return to the bar when it was once again at its apex. This was so he could in a sense"fall with the bar" and not actually put any real weight on it until it was coming back up. At the same time the porters bent their knees in time with Kurt's landing so that they rose when he did. Then it was just a question of absorbing the remaining energy in the bar with his knees. It was a lot to keep track of, but he knew that in time, it would become natural.

Within an hour or two both he and Lars could turn backward saltos and still land smoothly on the bar. Doing a forward flip was too dangerous as there was no way for the acrobat to spot their landing. Kurt tried to be clever and do two jumps in a row, but they weren't quite ready for that and his second landing nearly pitched him into a tree. He was watching Lars again when Wolfgang walked up to him, beaming. He handed Kurt a large manila envelope with a "Ta Da" and a flourish.

"What is this" Kurt asked. "Have you been in Berlin this whole time"

"Congratulations. You are official." Wolfgang said.

"You got me into East Germany"

Incredibly, Wolfgang's grin widened. "Better." He said"open it."

Kurt slid one of his nails under the fold and pulled it open. Inside was an official German birth certificate. On the top line, in ink that was crisp and fresh as though it had just been printed was the name "Kurt Wagner".

"It's real." Wolfgang said.

Kurt furrowed his brow as he read it over. "What do you mean it's real"

"It's a real birth certificate. You can get a passport, travel the world, open a bank account, go to East Germany. Whatever you want." Said Wolfgang.

Lars, Sven, and Nils walked over, curious as to what they were looking at. Lars looked over Kurt's shoulder.

"I didn't know your last name was Wagner too." Lars said.

"It's not. Or it wasn't until now. How did you do this Wolfgang" Kurt asked.

"It was just a question of making some phone calls, talking to the right people, and having a wealthy family with connections in various branches of the government. I told them your records were destroyed in a fire so you needed a new copy. Papers do get lost that way sometimes. So they had to type up a new one with the information I provided." Wolfgang explained. "I had to go to the department of records to pick it up."

Lars had taken it and was reading the form. He started laughing. "It says Wolfgang is your father." He said.

Kurt turned around and snatched the paper from Lars' hand. He stared at it wide eyed. "It does? Who's my mother then? Margali"

"I couldn't do that." Wolfgang said.

"Why not? I mean if you can just make a person up…"

Wolfgang sighed. "Margali is a registered Romani national. She doesn't have a country of origin and therefore her records were inaccessible. To put her as your mother would have taken weeks. And since we don't have weeks, I left that field blank."

Kurt slid the paper back in the envelope. He wasn't sure what to say. He'd lived his whole life without a birth certificate or even a last name and now he had both, but neither was really his. He didn't know whether to thank Wolfgang or be angry with him. He felt Wolfgang take him by the shoulder and he allowed himself to be guided away from where Lars and Sven were standing.

"Look, if you don't like it, we'll use it to get into East Germany and then you can throw it out and forget about it." Wolfgang said.

"I guess." Said Kurt.

"Then again, is it so bad? You're part of my family."

Kurt slid the paper back out of the envelope and looked at it again. "I hadn't thought of that." He said. "But why did you make yourself my father? That's kind of strange."

Wolfgang shrugged. "It was easiest. And it made sense. If I made you a cousin or something, eventually some relative would find out they had a son named Kurt they didn't know about."

Kurt laughed. "Yeah, that would come as a bit of a shock."

"It's just a formality anyways. It doesn't change your relationship to Margali or me or anyone else. I was trying to do you a favor." Wolfgang said.

Kurt looked up at Wolfgang and smiled. "I guess I could get used to being Kurt Wagner." He said. "Will you write me into your will"

Wolfgang started laughing. "Nah, you'd give it all to some church."

"Is that so bad"

Wolfgang shrugged. "I guess not. Hey look, Lars has got you beat."

Kurt looked over at Lars and his cousins playing around on the bar again. Lars was expertly performing backward saltos with a lateral twist, landing on the bar nearly every time. "For now." Kurt said, starting back toward where they were practicing.

Wolfgang found a tree to lean against and watched Kurt, who was now Kurt Wagner take his turn on the bar. He wondered what the rest of his family would think of their new addition and cringed inwardly. Most of his family thought his fascination with the circus to be a phase at worst, so he could only imagine what they would think of his unexpected "adoption" of a circus acrobat. But he didn't care, he'd found more of a family in Circus Gehlhaar in the last year than he had in a lifetime with his own.