The Midnight Circus, стр. 35
Hestayed just long enough for the child to be born. Childbirth tore herup so badly inside, the doctor warned she’d never have another child,though she didn’t want another. Certainly not with Red Cap.
Whenshe was well enough to take care of the child on her own, he showed herwhat to do, and then left, warning her not to run away.
“Ican find you wherever you go,” he’d said. “I’ll be back when he iswalking.” She believed him.
Themoney he paid her with—it came in brown envelopes stuffed under thedoor—was generous and arrived mysteriously after she was asleep. But ithad to be given to a bank first thing in the morning because bymidnight it turned into leaves or ashes or bits of colored paper. Sohe’d warned her, and she knew that to be true because once she’d keptan envelope a second night, first checking that it was full of thepromised money. When she opened the envelope the next morning, it wasfilled with red and gold autumn leaves instead. And so she’d nothingfor almost a month and had to go back to tricking to keep the babyand herself alive.
Predictably,Red Cap had beaten her when he returned. Somehowhe’d known what she’d done without having to ask.
“It’swritten on your stupid cow face,” he told her, and flung anotherenvelope at her. He never asked about the child.
Afterthat, she went early to the bank, the baby bound up tightly to herbreast so that he didn’t smell anything but her and the milk, just asRed Cap had demanded. Of course, every few months she had to changebanks, but since Red Cap continued his generosity that made it only asmall burden.
Ofcourse she grew to love the child, who looked nothing like either oneof them but had a dark feral beauty and a brilliant smile. He seemedcontent being in the little apartment, entranced by the television RedCap’s money had purchased, and absolutely stunned by the music he heardthere. She bought him a little pipe that he tootled on incessantly, andsoon was able to mimic bird songs, and so she named him Robin after herfavorite bird. His father refused to use that name, continuing to callhim Dog Boy, which she hated.
Onetime she shorted herself on food and bought Robin a small tape CDplayer along with a variety of CDs: Battlefield Band, Janis Ian,Steeleye Span, the Silly Sisters—all favorites of hers. None of thisnew stuff. Except for Amanda Palmer and the Dixie Chicks. He beggedthen for a fiddle, and she went on short rations for several months’til she had enough to buy it for him, a quarter-size fiddle that hetaught himself to play.
Andshe talked to the child constantly. Well, she had to. didn’tshe? There was no one else to talk to except when they went quickly tothe bank or to the local bodega at the end of the road. She keptherself busy during the day with the boy—playing with him, singing tohim, washing his clothes, teaching him numbers, nursery rhymes, dreaming of escape.
ButRed Cap came back as she knew he would. As he’d warned he would.
Heput a stupid strap around the boy’s shoulders and chest. Then off theywent, her little boy trotting along in that new, funny, rolling sailorwalk behind him and Red Cap yanking on the leash as if Robin had been adog and not a human boy.
Ofcourse Robin was a disappointment to his father. So he worked harder attrying to please him. He learned the smells of the city as if they werehis ABCs. Graduating from milk and mother to finger foods anddistinguishing gingko from maple. Learned the difference betweensandals, shoes, and sneakers. Then the differences between Nikes,Pumas, Reeboks; between Kurt Geigers, and Crocs; between Doc Martens,Jimmy Choos, Manolo Blahniks, Mephisto, and Birkenstocks. Though itwould be years before he had names for the shoes, just the smells.
Bythe time he was four, he was able to follow a woman down a street anhour after she’d walked by without ever seeing her, simply by the smellof her Jimmy Choos andthe waft of perfume.
Bythe time he was six, he could track two men at the same time, and whenthey parted, he could find one, mark that territory with his ownpersonal scent (a piece of chewing gum, a wipe of his hand over hishair, which was now long and shaggy as a dog’s, or even by peeingaround the spot if no one was watching). Then he’d go back to the placeof parting, and track the second.
Thepraise he got from his father was little enough.
It felt enormous.
“It’stime,” Red Cap told the boy on his tenth birthday.
DogBoy knew what he meant without having to be told. He was well-trained.He was old enough. He’d long been off the leash. This day he would bein at a kill. A blooding, his father called it. He couldn’t wait.
Hisfather handed him a small child’s cap. It was a school cap, blue withan insignia, a red pine tree and the numbers 1907. He sniffed it. Hewould know that scent anywhere.
Theywalked to a small park, a kind of grove. It was filled with lovelysmells that made Dog Boy shiver with delight. The sharp, new growingthings, both whiterooted and green. Little mealy-smelling worms. Thedeep musk of the old oak’s serpentine roots that lay halfway aboveground.
Therewere many sneaker smells, too, mostly the rubbery scent that made hisnose itch. But there was a familiar odor, faint but clear enoughfor him to follow.
Helifted his