Iterations and other stories (collection)

They did the pyramid every day—and every day it terrified Angela. She’d position the chair just so, balancing it perfectly on the brace—for the only alternative to perfection was death—and then clamber up. She could feel the chair sway back and forth as she stood up on it, but the pyramid always held, a pyramid of flesh and metal, fifteen meters above the cheering crowd.

She hated every moment of it—hated the way her heart pounded, like a jackhammer. Hated feeling as though bats were gyrating in her stomach. Hated the overwhelming fear that she would fall, that she would end up like Carlo, who was watching and not watching far, far below.

She couldn’t leave; she couldn’t run away. She had to stay, and not just because it was a family act. She had to stay to look after Carlo. Franco, Dominic, Mario, and Antonio made little time for Carlo; he was an unpleasant reminder of what could go wrong. And Momma and Poppa felt too much guilt to really love him. So Angela took care of him, loving him, and fearing that she might end up like him.

The being came to her in a dream, as all beings whose visits could never be proven must.

He wasn’t as she’d expected. Oh, she knew who he was— who he must be; the Renaldos were Catholic, and Sunday mornings they always found a mass to attend. Each week a different city, a different church but, presumably, the same God.

Yes, she knew who this must be. But he looked unlike any drawing of him she’d ever seen. Indeed, he looked like a clown. But not Yuri or Pablo or Gunter or any of the other clowns who worked here at Delmonico’s; it was no clown she had ever seen before. But his face was painted white, except for rims of red makeup—no, no, of naked red skin—around his dark, burning eyes.

Some children who came to the circus were frightened of clowns, their parents dragging them despite wailed protests to see the harlequins, as if the parents knew better, as if they were sure the fear their children felt was nonsensical. But children knew.

“Don’t be frightened,” said the figure. He moved around the room. Angela, lying in bed, wearing flannel pajamas, a sheet pulled up to her chin, couldn’t see his feet, but she knew that they weren’t encased in giant, floppy shoes; the click of his footfalls made that clear. “I’ve come to help you.” The voice was smooth, and with an accent that didn’t so much sound foreign as it sounded ancient.

“Help me how?” asked Angela.

“You live in fear, don’t you?” He paused. “Fear of falling, no?”

“Yes.”

“I fell once,” said the clown. “It’s not as bad as you might think.”

“It was that bad for Carlo.”

“That’s because he refused me.”

Angela felt her eyes go wide. “What?”

“I offered Carlo what I’m about to offer you; he turned me down.”

Angela knew she should abjure the being, but… but…

He’d said he wanted to help.

“Help me how?” she said again, her voice small, wavering, uncertain.

“I could make sure that you never fall,” said the clown. “Make sure that you will never hit the ground, never end up like Carlo.”

“You could do that?”

The clown cocked his head. “I can do anything, bu…

“But what?”

“There would be a small price, of course.”

“I don’t have any money,” said Angela. Poppa said he was saving her money, her share of the circus take, until she turned eighteen.

“It’s not money I want,” said the clown.

For a horrible instant, he was looking at her the way Poppa sometimes did, as though he were hungry all over, eyes seeing beneath her clothes.

“Not that… she said, softly. “I… I’m a virgin.”

The clown roared with laughter, a torrent of molten metal. “I don’t want your flesh,” he said.

“Then—then what?”

“Only your soul.”

Ah, thought Angela, if that was all—

“No tricks?” said Angela.

The clown looked sad; clowns often did. “If you are true to me, I promise, no tricks.”

Two years passed. The Amazing Aerial Renaldos formed their pyramid another seven hundred times. Angela had come to enjoy doing it; now that the fear was gone—now that she knew she would never fall—she could relax and actually enjoy the applause.

And, yes, she realized, when you’re not afraid, the applause was wonderful. Poppa had been no older than she was now when he had first heard it, back in the Old Country She understood, finally, why it captivated him so, why he had to hear it every day of his life. When you had no fear, it was a wonderful, incredible thing.

And Angela really did have no fear of falling, and yet—

When she was younger, she had wedged herself against the wall whenever she slept; she had to, or else she would wake up in a cold sweat, arms flailing, certain she was plummeting to her doom.

Now, she no longer had that fear, but…