The Midnight Circus, стр. 22
Ithought about that for a long time. After all, the foot of my bed was evencloser to the door than it had been in Phoenix. And I was bigger.
Ipulled the cotton out of my ears. The sound of the crying was so loud,the house seemed to shake with it. How could anyone sleepthrough that racket? I sat up in bed and the wolves began togrowl. The bear pushed the closet door open and it squeaked a little inprotest, inching out against the trap.
Ohowwwwwwwwwooooooooo.
Andthen Mom’s voice came, only terribly muffled. “Pete!” she cried. Myname. And my Dad’s.
OnlyDad wasn’t there.
Thatwas when I knew that wolves and bear or no—I had to help her. I was heronly hope.
“Getback, you suckers!” I shouted at the wolves, and threw the cotton ballsdown. They landed softly on the floor by the bed and muzzled the wolves.
“Leaveme alone, you big overgrown rug!” I called to the bear,flinging my pillow at the closet door. The pillow thudded against thedoor, jamming it.
Withoutthinking it through any further than that, I jumped from the bed footand landed, running, through the door. Two steps brought me into mymom’s room.
Thatwas when I saw it—the ghost, hovering over her bed. It was all inwhite, a slim female ghost in a long dress and a white veil. She wascrying and crying.
“Why. . .” I said, my voice shaking, “why are you here? Whoare you?”
Theghost turned toward me and slowly lifted her veil. I shivered,expecting to see maybe a shining skull with dark eye sockets or amonster with weeping sores or—I don’t know—maybe even a wolf’s head.But what I saw waslike a faded familiar photograph. It took me a moment to understand.And then I knew—the ghost wore my mother’s face, my mother’s weddingdress. She was young and slim and . . . beautiful.
Behindme in my room, the wolves had set up an awful racket. The bear hadjoined in, snuffling and snorting. When I looked I could see red eyesglaring at me at the door’s edge.
Theghost caught her breath and shivered.
“It’sall right,” I said. “They won’t hurt us. Not here.” I put my hand outto her. “And don’t be sad. If you hadn’t gotten married, where would Ibe? Or Jensen?”
Theghost looked at me for a long moment, considering, then lowered theveil.
“Pete?Honey?” My mom’s voice came from the bed, sleepy yet full of wonder.“What are you doing in my room?”
“Beinga hero, I guess,” I said to her and to the wedding ghost and tomyself. “You were having an awful bad dream.”
“Nota bad dream, sweetie. A sad dream,” she said. “And then I remembered Ihad you and your brother and it was all happy again. Do you want me towalk you back to your room?”
Ilooked over at the doorway. The red eyes were gone. “Nah,” I said.“Who’s afraid of a couple of night wolves and an old bear anyway?That’s kid stuff.” I kissed her on the cheek and watched as the ghostfaded into the first rays of dawn. “I think I’m gonna like it here,Mom.”
Imarched back into my room and picked up the trap fromthe foot of my bed, then the one from in front of the closet door. Iheard whimpers, like a litter of puppies, coming from under the bed. Iheard a big snore from the closet. I smiled. “I’m gonna like it here alot.”
TheHouse of Seven Angels
MY GRANDPARENTS lived in the Ukraine in a village known as Ykaterinislav.It was a sleepy little Jewish town near Kiev, but if you go to look forit now, it is gone.
The people there were all hardworking farmers andtradesfolk, though there was at least one poor scholar who taught inthe heder, a rabbi with the thinnest beard imaginable and eyes thatleaked pink water whenever he spoke.
Thesewere good people, you understand, but not exactly religious. That is,they went to shul and they did no work on the Sabbath and they fastedon Yom Kippur. But that was because their mothers and fathers had doneso before them. Ykaterinislav was not a place that took to change. Butthe people there were no more tuned to God’s note than any other smallvillage. They were, you might say, tone-deaf to the cosmos.
Likemost people.
Andthen one autumn day in 1897—about ten years before my grandparents evenbegan to think about moving to America—a wandering rabbi came intothe village. His name was Reb Jehudah and he was a very religious man.Some even said that he was the prophet Elijah, but that was later.
RebJehudah studied the Torah all day long and all night long. He put allthe men in Ykaterinislav to shame. So they avoided him. My grandfatherdid, too, but he took out his books again, which had been stored awayunder the big double bed he and Grandma Manya shared. Took them out butnever quite got around to reading them.
Andthen one of the village children, a boy named Moishe, peeked into RebJehudah’s window. At first it was just curiosity. A boy, a window, whatelse could it have been? He saw the reb at dinner, his books beforehim. And he was being served, Moishe said, by seven angels.
Whocould believe such a thing? Though the number, seven, was so specific.So the village elders asked the boy: How did he know they were angels?
“Theyhad wings,” Moishe said. “Four wings each. And they shone like brass.”
“Whoshone?” asked the elders. “The angels or the wings?”
“Yes,”said Moishe, his eyes glowing.
Whocould quarrel with a description like that?
Ofcourse the village men went to visit Reb Jehudah to confirm what Moishehad seen. But they saw no angels, withor without wings. Like Balaam of the Bible, they had not the propereyes.
Butfor a boy like Moishe to have been given such a vision . . . this wasnot the kind of rascal who made up stories. Indeed, Moishe was, ifanything, a bit slow. Besides, such things had been known to happen,though never before in Ykaterinislav.
Andso the elders went back to Butcher Kalman’s house for tea, to discussthis. And perhaps Butcher Kalman put a bit of schnapps in their cups.Who can say? But they talked