Learning the Ropes Read online

  There’s a trapeze in la palestre, a tightrope, and tissu and ropes for climbing. In a large open closet, I spot rows and rows of colorful juggling pins. Suzanne has explained that although we’ll each be spending two hours every day working on our specialty, we’ll have a chance to learn the other specialties too. I’ve tried juggling before, but I’ve never managed to get the hang of it.

  Through the huge floor-to-ceiling window at one end of the room, I see a tall lopsided maple tree outside. The tree is so close to the terrace it provides a shady corner. I can just make out a furry brown squirrel zipping up the tree trunk, then leaping onto one of the branches. The branch is so light the squirrel’s weight makes it rock. Another squirrel is dashing up the tree trunk now. This one stops short of the branch, as if he’s worried he’s not agile enough to make the leap his friend did. You can do it, little squirrel, I tell him in my head. Don’t let fear stop you.

  “Have any of you ever heard the expression ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’?” Suzanne asks. None of us have, so Suzanne explains that it’s not healthy for people to work, work, work all the time. They need to play too. “What makes circus so wonderful,” Suzanne says, “is that your work is play. But you still need to work on it. That might sound confusing, but it’s what circus is all about—a magic mix of work and play.”

  I nod when Suzanne says that. It’s exactly why I love circus. I’ve just never heard anyone put the feeling into words before.

  Guillaume points one finger at the middle of Leo’s forehead. Leo falls backward to the floor, his tongue hanging out of his mouth like a dog’s. Everyone laughs.

  Suzanne checks her watch. “You have half an hour to play,” she tells us. “Or work. Or both. Instructors will be on hand to supervise you.”

  Because the rope is there, I climb it. Anastasia, Genevieve, Leo and Guillaume watch as I grab the rope, wrap one foot around the bottom, then block it with my other foot. I need to be careful not to chafe the skin between my big toe and the one next to it. But I can’t worry about that now. Besides, what’s a little pain if you want to be a circus performer?

  Up I go. First hands, then feet. Hands, then feet. My palms are burning, but I keep hoisting myself up, up, up. Then up some more. The ceiling must be thirty feet high in la palestre, a good ten feet higher than at the gym where I train in North Vancouver, but I’m not nervous. Just happy and excited. I’m nothing like that squirrel I saw outside. In no time, I’m at the top. Oh, it feels good to be up here!

  “Beautiful!” Leo calls out, and I hope he doesn’t mean just my climbing.

  “My turn,” Genevieve says when I’ve slid down the rope and am back on the giant round safety mat. The tissu are red and yellow and green, and I have to admit they make Genevieve look elegant as she begins to climb. She knows it, too, because she pauses halfway up, letting her long, perfectly blow-dried hair fall behind her like a black fan.

  Leo and Guillaume lean back to watch her.

  Climbing tissu is so much more common than climbing a rope. I’m glad I do the less common thing. That’s the kind of circus performer I dream of being. An innovator, someone who works on the edge of what’s new. Not just a girl like Genevieve who does what so many female circus performers already do.

  As she climbs, Genevieve wraps her feet in the tissu. Now she throws herself backward into space and hangs just from her feet. It’s a daring move. She lets her arms dangle, making her look like a human pendulum. Then she bends one knee, hooking it over the tissu. The second knee follows. She’s showing us her frog move.

  Leo puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles. Guillaume makes ribbit ing sounds.

  When I look up, I see Genevieve grinning down at me. When she opens her mouth to laugh, I know what she’s thinking. I’ll bet you can’t do this, can you?

  Four

  “See that guy?” Genevieve lifts her eyes toward a man in chef’s whites standing near the long buffet table set up on the terrace. “You know what I heard? He’s Etienne Montpellier’s personal chef! Can you imagine being so rich you can hire your own chef?”

  Etienne Montpellier owns Cirque de la Lune. He started out as a street performer and built the company into the world’s most successful circus. The guy is worth gazillions.

  Leo licks his lips. “No wonder these hamburgers are so good,” he says.

  Smoke billows out of two barbecues. At one of them, a chef is grilling regular hamburgers and hot dogs. At the other, another chef is grilling red-bean burgers and tofu hot dogs. From what I can tell, vegetarians outnumber carnivores two to one at circus camp.

  Genevieve, Hana, Anastasia and I are sitting at a picnic table across from Leo and Guillaume.

  Guillaume keeps sliding closer to Leo. Every time Guillaume does that, Leo rolls his eyes, swats Guillaume with the back of his hand and moves away. We all laugh when Leo comes close to falling off the bench. Guillaume tugs on Leo’s arm, then makes a reeling motion as he pulls him back up.

  “Do you two ever stop joking around?” Genevieve asks.

  “Not if we can help it,” they say at the exact same time, which makes us laugh some more.

  “What is that you are eating?” Hana asks me. All she has on her plate is a tofu hot dog—and she’s only taken the teensiest bite.

  “It’s quinoa salad.”

  Hana has never heard of quinoa. Apparently they don’t serve it in Korea. “It’s a grain. This salad has raisins and apricots in it too,” I tell her.

  She nods as if I have said something very deep.

  The two chefs wheel their barbecues to the back of the terrace and move the buffet table out of the way. A rigger lays down safety mats. When the music starts, it’s so low that at first I think I’m imagining it.

  But it gets louder, and I realize it’s that old Alice Cooper song “School’s Out.” Like me, Hana is tapping her foot. She may not have heard of quinoa, but she knows this song. I think about how there are so many people in this world and how music brings us closer. Circus does that too.

  The lights on the terrace dim, then go out. When they come on again two minutes later, we see that two rows of old-fashioned wooden school desks have been set up on the mats. There’s one long desk in front of the others. The spotlights shine down on a woman sitting behind the desk. She’s wearing a black dress with a high collar and thick glasses with black rims. It takes me a minute to realize it’s Suzanne.

  “No more pencils! No more books!” Alice Cooper’s voice wails through the speakers.

  When he lands on the word books, Suzanne picks up two textbooks from a pile on her desk. She tosses one high into the air, and then, before it has time to land, she tosses up the other. I’ve seen people juggle balls and pins, but never books. When we applaud, Suzanne picks up two more books and juggles those too.

  I’m so focused on Suzanne, I hardly notice the other performers. Four of them have lined up single file. Each wears a black cape and a mortarboard with gold tassels.

  “Look! There’s Hugo Lebrun!” Leo points at the last performer.

  When Hugo hears his name, he turns to our table and takes a deep bow. Leo and Guillaume stand up and bow back. Everyone laughs. Genevieve has a throaty laugh; Hana’s giggle sounds like wind chimes.

  I catch Leo winking at us as he sits back down.

  The rigger pushes the desks together so they form a long flat surface. A performer jumps up onto the desks and does a triple somersault across them.

  A second performer pedals backward across the stage on a unicycle.

  “That’s really hard to do,” I hear someone at another picnic table whisper.

  The guy on the unicycle hoists himself up so that he is balancing on the handlebars, and somehow—don’t ask me how—he uses his weight to make the unicycle go backward. The crowd breaks into a round of noisy applause.

  Suzanne is behind her desk, her hands on her hips, watching the others. She scowls when Alice Cooper sings the line “No more teachers’ dirty looks.”
/>   On cue, the other performers whip off their capes and throw them down onto the mats. They are wearing gold lamé unitards that glitter under the spotlights. Why didn’t I notice the tightwire before—or that the riggers have pulled out scaffolding from the side of the building? It must mean there’s going to be an aerialist.

  Two of the performers lift another performer up to the wire, and she takes tiny measured steps as she crosses its length. She steps halfway back, then does the splits along the wire. The crowd makes an approving ooh.

  The rope climber is next. I get shivers as I watch him hoist himself up, working his arms, chest and legs. When he gets to the top, he flips upside down. All that’s keeping him hanging is the knot he’s tied over one foot. I look at the people sitting at my picnic table and at the tables near ours. I wonder if they are all thinking the same thing as me: Will I ever be that good?

  Still hanging upside down, the rope climber releases a net basket. Inside it are hundreds of white paper airplanes. They flutter to the ground, and the show is over. We laugh, we applaud, and then we join in, singing and stomping our feet along with Alice Cooper. School is definitely out for the summer.

  * * *

  That night when I close my eyes in my top bunk, I still see images from the evening’s performance.

  Not long after that, I hear whimpering. I wonder if somehow a small dog has gotten into the dormitory. But then I realize someone in a lower bunk is crying—and trying to muffle the sound. It’s hard to know what to do. Wait for the crying to end? Try to figure out who it is and whether there is something I can do to help?

  The whimpering stops, then starts again.

  Though I don’t know for sure, it could be coming from the bunk right under mine, where Hana is.

  I hear someone get out of one of the lower bunks and then the sound of slippers padding along the floor. More sniffling.

  I need to pee, so I get up too.

  Hana is slumped in the hallway, her hands over her face. Is that a tattoo of a rose on her lower back?

  “Hana,” I whisper, “can I help you?”

  She shakes her head, so I leave to use the bathroom. When I come out, Genevieve is crouched on the floor beside Hana. “Poor thing is homesick,” she says.

  Hana’s eyes are red from crying.

  “Maybe you’ll feel a little better tomorrow,” Genevieve says.

  “Would it help if you phoned your family in Seoul?” I ask.

  Genevieve shoots me a look. “It’s probably too expensive for Hana to phone Seoul.”

  “It isn’t the money.” Hana wipes her nose, then looks at Genevieve and me. “My parents are traditional Korean, meaning very strict. They did not like for me to come to North America. I do not want them to know I am so lonely for them.” Her face is solemn. “Please don’t say to anyone I’m sick for home.”

  Genevieve and I promise not to tell.

  “Cool tattoo. I guess you like roses,” I say, hoping to distract Hana from her troubles.

  Hana’s dark eyes light up. “It is not a rose. It is mugunghwa. Korea’s national flower.”

  Genevieve wants to see the tattoo. “I think we call that a hibiscus. Your parents can’t be that strict if they let you get a tattoo.”

  When Hana shakes her head, I realize that mentioning the tattoo was a bad idea. “My parents know nothing about my tattoo,” she whispers. “They would not have given permit.”

  It doesn’t seem like a good moment to tell Hana we say homesick, not sick for home, and that parents give permission, not permit.

  Five

  Terence, our aerial coach, has sandy-blond hair he wears in a long ponytail down his back. That was him on the rope last night, dangling from one foot during the staff show.

  When we walk into the area of la palestre where the tissu and climbing ropes are, Terence is sitting on a black vinyl cube. “We’ll spend the morning reviewing basic climbs and descents,” he says after we have introduced ourselves.

  He begins by demonstrating a basic climb. “Base foot square,” he says, looking down at his foot. “Base leg slightly forward. See how I’m using the ball of my upper foot to push the rope against my base foot, and how I’m pulling my shoulders down and opening my chest as I climb?”

  “What does he think this is—kindergym?” Genevieve whispers to me.

  Terence is up near the ceiling in no time. “If you climb a rope right,” he calls down to us, “you’ll never do a single chin-up. Because you’ll never pull with just your arms. You step up the rope with the help of your arms and legs.”

  Genevieve nudges me. “Does he really think we haven’t figured that one out yet?”

  Later, Terence watches carefully as each of us demonstrates a climb.

  “Flatten your foot a little more when you stomp down on the rope,” Terence tells me. “That’ll create more friction and give your arms a break.”

  He doesn’t say a thing when Genevieve climbs the tissu. Just nods. He nods again when she slides down the tissu, making big circles with one arm at a time. That girl sure likes to show off.

  We get four fifteen-minute breaks during the day. Some of the kids hang out on the mats. They stretch or chat or stare into space. Others go to the cafeteria for a snack—carrot sticks, bran muffins, herbal tea. Besides our three meals, we can get snacks at the cafeteria until five o’clock every day.

  I’m thinking of grabbing a muffin, but Genevieve offers to show me how to do the frog move she demonstrated yesterday. I don’t know if it’s because she really wants to be helpful or because she wants to make sure I know she’s a better climber than I’ll ever be.

  But I really want to learn that move.

  Genevieve demonstrates. She starts with her back pressed flat on the mat. “You hook one leg over you, like this,” she says. “Then you take the tissu—or in your case, the rope—with your opposite hand and grab the loose rope underneath with your free hand. Hold the rope tight with your knee, then wrap it once over your free leg and let go with both hands. It’s easier than it looks.” She gets up from the mat. “Your turn,” she says.

  Is it my imagination, or is there something snooty about her tone every time she says rope? “It sounds like you have something against rope,” I say.

  “There’s nothing wrong with rope. I just happen to prefer tissu. It’s more…” She pauses, as if she’s searching for the right word. “Feminine.”

  “You mean old-fashioned,” I say.

  Genevieve sighs. “I mean feminine.”

  I know it’s an insult—she’s saying I’m not feminine enough because I don’t wear eyeliner and blow-dry my hair. I won’t let her get away with that. “There are more important things than what a person looks like.”

  “Yeah,” Genevieve says, “that’s true. Things like making a living. Maybe you haven’t had to think about it, but there are more work opportunities for female aerialists who do tissu.” She flips her hair back. “There are also more work opportunities for female aerialists who put some effort into their appearance.”

  “I’d rather put effort into my climbing,” I tell her.

  “Well, go ahead then,” Genevieve says. “Show me your frog on the mat.”

  Genevieve watches closely while I try out the move. “Bend your legs when you let go with your hands. That’s better. You’ve almost got it. Almost.”

  After lunch, we work on our non-specialties. Mine’s juggling. So, it turns out, is Genevieve’s.

  I am surprised when Suzanne walks into the small gym and announces that she’s our juggling coach. But I shouldn’t be—not after we saw her juggle those textbooks at the staff show.

  Suzanne drags a crate of colorful squishy balls to the front of the gym. “No, no, no,” she says when Leo and Guillaume each grab three balls. “We start with one ball.”

  “One ball? You’re kidding, right?” Leo exclaims.

  “One ball,” Suzanne says, and I remember how she scowled during her performance. I’m starting to think Suzanne is tou
gher than she looks.

  We spend the first ten minutes on our backs, tossing a squishy ball up into the air and catching it—or in my case, occasionally catching it. “Lying down like this means you don’t have to worry about your balance—and it’s easier on your backbone,” Suzanne tells us. Then, with our arms bent at the elbow, we lob the ball from one hand to the other. Even though the ball is soft and weighs practically nothing, I don’t like the feeling of something flying into my face. Once, when Suzanne walks by the spot where I am practicing, she catches me closing my eyes when the ball is about to land. “Eyes open!” she says. “Never lose sight of the ball.”

  Before we move on to two squishy balls, Suzanne gets us to do some neck rolls. I’m glad, because although I don’t want to be whiny, one side of my neck is already sore from tossing and catching one dumb ball.

  “What comes next,” Suzanne explains, “is all about rhythm. Wait for the first ball to reach the top of its arc.” She gets down onto the mat to demonstrate. “When it does, you toss the second ball up into the air.”

  Only it isn’t so easy to know when the first ball has reached the top of its arc, and now I have two flying objects to deal with. I fight the urge to shut my eyes.

  I hear Genevieve laugh. When I turn to look at her, she is juggling her two balls in a way that looks effortless. Why does Genevieve have to be so darned good at everything?

  Six

  “Has your family really been in the circus for ten generations?” I ask Anastasia.

  Four of us—Genevieve, Hana, Anastasia and I—are having iced coffee in a nearby café. It’s called Jarry 2, because it’s on the ground floor of an old industrial building at the corner of Jarry Street and Second Avenue. It has red-brick walls and pine floors—and a refrigerated display case loaded with desserts, all made with mountains of whipped cream. We are sharing two chocolate éclairs, which Hana has sliced into perfect halves.

  “That’s right—ten generations.” Anastasia sweeps her hand so dramatically through the air that I worry she’ll hit one of the hanging plants. “But we don’t call it being in the circus. We Bershovs are the circus!”