Vladivostok Circus by Elisa Shua Dusapin

Author:Elisa Shua Dusapin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC019000, FIC071000, FIC133000
Publisher: Scribe Publications Pty Ltd
Published: 2024-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

WE WATCH the training videos seated on Anton’s bed with the laptop propped on the bedside table. Almost three weeks into their preparations they’d decided they were ready to attempt the four consecutive triples they were planning for the competition. The video shows Leon attaching a harness to Anna’s waist and linking it to a pulley attached to the ceiling. Anton double-checks everything Leon does, commenting all the time. He makes no attempt to be subtle. This goes on for a long time. It’s uncomfortable to watch, especially when he starts complaining about the double bass. He says it’s really bothering him, he’s fed up with being spied on by the two stupid holes on its front. The film stops. When it starts up again the double bass is concealed beneath the black cloth I’ve placed over it. The camera zooms in on Nino. Every time he and Anton catch Anna, he tenses his chin, a blue vein bulging in his neck, his face set in concentration. His look is more intense than Anton’s. I hadn’t noticed it before. As if his task is different from Anton’s despite the symmetry of their positions. Anton seems to lean in, Nino to push away. Or the other way round. Anna abandons the fourth jump, twice. Anton says they’ll never be ready if she carries on being scared. Or if she’s still in pain.

‘I’m not scared and I’m not hurting!’ she shouts. ‘Shit! It’s the bar, it’s too flexible! I’m not going high enough, I don’t have time to spin.’

Her voice sounds shrill, I can’t help thinking she’s not being honest. That for once, she really is scared. She sits down on the ground. I zoom in on the bar. Anna’s voice can be heard asking me to cut.

‘What was that? Did you see that?’ Leon asks. He peers closely at the screen.

The next shot is of his hands in close-up. The skin is red and wrinkled from the friction of the rope. The camera pans the length of the bar towards the bases’ hands, placed one on top of the other, broad and claw-like, fingers tensed like crab pincers. Anna’s feet, like hooves, laced into reinforced pumps. Then back towards the bases, their wrists. Anna. Ankles. Legs. Feet. Ankles. Wrists. The camera attempts to follow the jumps but it all happens so fast, a blur of toes that look like claws, hands that resemble talons, a body securely strapped into the safety harness, hooks at the waist, the rope sliding, the sound of clicks and pulleys, a low rumbling amplified by the microphone, echoing in the void beneath the dome of the ceiling.

I remark curtly that this is what they asked me to do, close-ups of each member of the group. The tension heightens. I wish I hadn’t spoken so harshly. The only one I’m cross with is Leon. I still haven’t managed to talk to him about the failure of my costumes, I don’t know if he’s made any progress on his end.

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