The Drowning Season: a Novel by Alice Hoffman

Author:Alice Hoffman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media

Chapter Three

THAT evening, as Esther the White began the Friday-night meal, as she prepared the salmon with lemon juice, scallions, and parsley, she looked out the kitchen window and saw Mischa speaking with his brother, the dwarf. Mischa’s arm reached down to encircle Max’s shoulders, and the dwarf spoke with a great many furious gestures. And as Esther the White slipped the salmon into the oven, as she began the cold, uncooked lemon mousse, cutting lemons at the sink and pouring the cream into a brown wooden bowl, her face grew pale. She looked out of the window again.

Out there, where the honeysuckle was as thick as the air, Max was waving his hand, pointing to the sea wall and the large, green lawn. Esther the White held the empty cream carton in her hand: she strained to look out the window; she wished that she could read lips, but she could only stare from her window, and worry. She did not trust the dwarf; he was her enemy, who, for years, had been trying to convince Mischa to sell the Compound, the land that Esther the White had always dreamed of, even before the night she left her old village. Before, in other years, she might have been certain that Mischa would not listen to his brother, but now their finances were poor, and no one knew that better than Esther the White, who kept close tabs on the accountant, Rath. So, now Mischa might listen. Now, in the honeysuckle air, he might lean close to his brother’s mouth; and Esther the White had never trusted Max, she never regretted leaving him with the circus.

For his part, Max had not pined long for Mischa and Esther the White. In his first year with the circus he traveled to Spain, to Finland, to Denmark and Holland. He had enjoyed the circus exhibition, where he stood on a detachable wooden platform alongside the circus manager, Solo, the tattooed man, and Thea, a woman from Munich, who sang like an angel and was covered with hair like a bear.

Max asked that the greyhounds be fed larger portions of meat each week, so that they would not be quite as vicious. He had many ideas for the circus, which Solo put forth to the owner, Jules, as his own. Max began to attend the cinema in every city the circus visited, and he particularly loved the films of Fred Astaire. He elaborated on the steps he had learned from Madame Laverne in Marseilles, and taught himself to tap dance; soon he became one of the largest attractions in the circus. In under a year, Max had completely forgotten what Esther the White looked like; he hadn’t cared much for her anyway.

Quickly, Max taught himself bookkeeping, and he became invaluable to Solo, the manager, who never paid close attention to the books he was supposed to keep, as he preferred to spend his days in a cloud of opium. The crowds loved Max and his bold tap dancing to new American tunes.

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