The minute I opened my eyes in the morning and got my bearings, I was fully awake and prepared for the day. But though I was out of bed and in my clothes in under five minutes, I looked around to see Philippe still asleep and my parents in the same state in their own adjoining room.
Annoyed, I paced the room until it became too small to accommodate my speed, and I crept out the door (leaving it open, so I could return without having to wake anyone) into the courtyard.
The sky was still the dark, deep blue of a world at rest, and once I wore myself out with my pacing and skipping about, I settled myself down at the edge of the path just outside our door. I felt a sudden calm come over me; knowing I could do nothing until the rest of my family was awake; and for a long time I simply stared at the stars. Surely they were the same stars I saw over the sky in Paris; surely the world wasn't that big…
And, all of a sudden, I began to feel the slightest fear of this grand adventure. Nothing that would distract me from the thrill of it all, of course; but it occurred to me gradually that while my parents knew a lot about what they were doing and had a good sense of the world and simply good common sense, I realized that they weren't the all-knowing, all-powerful people I used to look up to, who could protect me against anything. It was a strange, somewhat indescribable feeling… I remembered being barely five or six years old and boasting to my friends, "My father is so strong, he could lift our house!" It was the kind of naïve, ignorant belief that, over time and without much ado, you realize isn't the least bit true. It was in this way that I realized that my parents wouldn't be able to shield me from any and all of the world's dangers forever: no one is that powerful; no one is that sure of themselves and their lives. My parents would no longer be around one day, and by then I would be looking out for myself and quite probably children of my own, too; who would look up to me in the same devoted way I saw my parents until only a moment ago.
And I knew too, in that moment, that this didn't apply only to my parents: no one person is completely invincible, I realized. No matter how much someone achieves, creates, or even destroys, and no matter how frightening or powerful someone seems…no one is ever as strong as they appear.
Explaining the feeling was difficult; my thoughts and feelings were incredibly jumbled, as tends to happen with such philosophical thoughts in the late night or early morning. But- not that I knew it then- this revelation would turn out to be painfully accurate.
The sky remained dark for quite a while, and I realized I must have woken much earlier than I'd thought. Soon, though, I crept back into Philippe's and my room to see him finally stirring and opening his eyes.
"Philippe! We're going to the fair today!" I whispered, standing beside the bed and pulling at the covers.
He moaned and motioned for me to move away, but got up all the same.
I then progressed to our parents' room, where my mother too was still in bed, but my father was up and dressed with a knowing smile on his face.
"Thought you'd be along to pester us awake," he teased. "How long were you sitting out there?" He gestured out the window, and I gathered he must have woken and seen me through it.
"Not long. But I wanted to get an early start."
My father pulled me into a hug. "You really do take after your mother and I, you know…our little explorer!"
Filled with pride, I hurried back to my room to finish getting dressed. Philippe fortunately hadn't taken too long, and was putting on his shoes when I entered the room.
"So we're going to see the wizard man?" Philippe asked, his speech still a little slurred with sleep.
"Magician," I corrected, even though I knew no more about him than Philippe did- and we only knew what the man who spoke French had told us the previous night.
"Yes, same thing. But it's probably not real magic anyways."
This sparked an argument which lasted from the time we walked out the door until halfway through the carriage ride to Nijni-Novgorod, when our parents finally drew the line and shushed us.
"There are supposed to be a lot of interesting things to see there," my mother said, looking at the map. "I'm wondering what we should go see first…"
I opened my mouth to speak, but my father placed a hand on my arm.
"There will be plenty of time for the fair, don't worry," he said in a slightly exasperated but amused tone. "We just want to manage our time efficiently, so that we can see everything we want to see."
The ride seemed to last forever, and by the end of it my parents had decided we would go to the fair sometime after lunch, and that we would be staying for several days in order to see everything: the driver told us of many more sites and attractions and small towns nearby where the closest place to stay was Nijni.
We arrived at last around mid-morning and spent a good few hours walking around the crowded streets and looking at countless buildings and statues and other landmarks. I took in the sights with eager eyes, though constantly on the lookout for any trace of the fair the man at the inn had spoken of.
The day slid rapidly by, however, with no sign yet of the fair. I suspected Mother and Father were trying to delay approaching the area until the latest moment possible, for fear that I'd stay there for too long and we wouldn't have the time to see anything else at all.
However, that evening, their apprehension ended up being utterly accurate…
After a pleasant but somewhat rowdy outdoor dinner listening to the shouts and commotion and street musicians around us, Father finally asked a passerby where the fair was. We were informed that it wasn't far from where we currently were; and, with the help of the map, we found our way there soon enough.
The sight of it was similar to the other streets in the town, but the crowds were thicker, much thicker, than they were anywhere else. It surprised me, considering how late is was in the day; but I'd known from the respectful and admiring talk of the fair that it was quite an attraction, no matter the time of day.
Mother and Father debated loudly (for the noise of the crowds far overpowered regular speaking tones) whether we should go back and get a carriage; perhaps it was safer; but Philippe and I were already caught in the fair's charm, and wouldn't be swayed. So onwards we proceeded on foot, pushing through the throngs, our parents holding tight to our hands in fear of losing us in the great sea of people.
Philippe and I could only walk around wide-eyed, attempting to take in all at once the sights; sounds; smells; the raw magnificence of it all. It was a loud and boisterous atmosphere, teeming with attractions and entertainment, voices cutting through the air above the throngs; but at the same time it was in its own way a majestic sort of place; every single person from street-vendor to tent-dwelling magician completely worthy of being there.
We passed plenty of men who did tricks, and people pulling birds and rabbits from pots and pans; and I stared in awe at these small but impressive displays of magic. However, as we neared the heart of the fair, we began to hear more and more talk around us of 'the greatest magician at the fair'; sometimes 'in all the land'. (I even heard some star-struck children claim he was the best in all the world; but at this I was a doubter, and decided to make up my own mind once I saw this man.)
And then there it was. The tent was a large, tall and very dark one, both inside and out; the opening only a narrow slit between the heavy curtains as though some knife had slashed through the atmosphere into the darkness of nothingness.
There was a great crowd around the tent, assuring the fact of its well-renowned status at the fair. But the string of people entering the tent was beginning to thin out; the tent could only hold so many people. Eager to get in before the night was over, I grabbed Philippe, who was attached to my mother, and with my father on my other hand, I darted forward (fairly easily, at my small size) and we slipped into the tent only a moment or two before the curtains closed, and the show began.
We were at the back to begin with, but once my eyes adjusted to the almost complete darkness of the tent (save for a few candles), I slipped once more through the mass of people and managed to position myself at the front on the very right side: I had a full view of the front of the room…
There was a long table in the clearing at the front, on which the candles sat, flickering and glowing tauntingly in the musky dark. On one end of the table also sat several flowers of some kind, and beside them, a deck of cards; both curious collections neatly lined up and ready for use. And behind the table, his back to the audience, stood a man.
Just as I noticed his dark figure in the shadows, he turned to reveal a tall figure, dressed in dark clothes and a long black cloak and hat, the brim resting fairly low on his brow. But what struck me most about this man was the white mask, covering almost all of his face- the entire right side, and most of the nose and forehead, leaving only the area around the left eye, cheek and chin bare.
The performance began. The man spoke not a word, but the way in which he moved- smoothly; silkily; almost slyly, as a cat might- communicated to us his every intent.
The first thing he did was to pick up the deck of cards. Still not speaking, he performed a very simple but extremely skillfully executed card trick. It was one I knew I'd seen before and knew how it was done; but the way in which he did it left me in awe: I simply could not comprehend how he had done the trick so smoothly and sharply.
Throughout the entire 'show'- if you could call such miracles a mere show- I don't think I was ever able to take in the idea of this person; this unbelievably talented and mysterious man who left even the scoffing adults of the audience slack-jawed and staring. The whole thing seemed so surreal; I might have dreamt it all… Everything I'd learned and knew so far in my little life was denied and proved null in the space of but an hour in that dark, bewitching tent. Surely my eyes were betraying me; I couldn't possibly have seen everything I believed I saw there….
As the playful tricks grew to skilled manipulations and onto what could only have been something equivalent to magic, I sensed the climax coming; this astounding evening was sure to end in something unbelievable. That was why when the demi-god of a man cleared the table of everything but the flowers and stood behind them, preparing for the next act, I naturally felt somewhat confused. However, because of the extraordinary events of the evening thus far, I was far from doubting him now.
He said nothing in introduction to what he was to do next: now that I thought it over, I realized he'd hardly said a word at all. He raised an elegant, black leather-sheathed hand to silence the low murmur of the crowd; once all was quiet, he centered the flowers- "Lilies," I heard whispered near me- and opened his mouth as though to speak- or sing.
The moment the first trace of a sound- even the first wisp of air- came from his lips, I was paralyzed. He was singing…but his voice was of a jarringly unearthly quality, yet wasn't a jarring voice itself in the least; it slid like silk or silver through the gathering; it crept around me, surrounded me, and passed through me like mist or smoke. I'd never felt so utterly open and sheer in my life; yet my soul was suddenly filled with an inexplicable feeling of something like the most profound, winding sadness and unbridled euphoria all at once, and both of a near unbearable intensity. Upon hearing this man- this angel's- voice, something changed within me…it altered a part of me I'd never even acknowledged before. It was a completely abstract, indescribable feeling- all I knew for sure was that his voice transcended the loveliest of voices of mere men; it was nothing less than heavenly.
But after the voice itself had sunk in, what shocked me even more was the fact that it seemed to be coming from the lilies. It even seemed as though the delicate plants moved and stretched and breathed as the voice did; rising up to fill the air with their sound. My grounded, sane mind knew it was the man who was making the sound, but more and more the newly changed part of me cried that the lilies were so devoted to him that they sang for him; a most beautiful and admiring tune to serenade this godlike man.
But all too soon it was over; my face was stiff with dried trails of tears and all was a blur. I knew my parents and my brother were scanning the tent for me; I saw them leaving; yet I knew I couldn't- wouldn't- leave this paradise full of wonder.
Without even considering my actions, I ducked down- unnoticed in the thick throng of bodies surging drunkenly for the tent's exit- and hid myself behind a fold of heavy black cloth at the side of the tent.
I don't know how long I waited there, but it was well past the time when the last person had left the tent and the cloth had swung shut and left the place dark but for the few flickering candles now burning low on the tabletop. And suddenly I realized I was entirely alone.
The dancing shadows I had only minutes ago longed to explore taunted me; they flowed around me and closed in tightly. One candle went out; all that was left of it was a puddle of wax that dripped off the table, stretching itself out and reaching inexorably for the floor. The sounds outside- if they existed still- were completely muffled by the thick walls of the tent; the only sound was my ragged, uneven breath and the dizzying high-pitched drone that grew ever more pressing on my ears- and suddenly a breath smooth as silk, overpowering the droning, that I felt nudge my ear ever so lightly…
I didn't even turn my head or make a sound, I didn't even think to; I only thrust myself so suddenly out of the curtain cloth that I fell face-down on the hard floor; I couldn't move; couldn't breathe; couldn't even feel the ground; all I felt were the firm, precise fingers quickly but painlessly grasping at the back of my neck…
…and then perhaps either all the candles went out, or my eyes shut, or the black cloth covered my head once again; I don't know which, but I could only guess in the split-second as all went black.
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