The Big Top Crew – Part 2: Storm Night

The thunderstorm broke in the middle of the first act.

The tent was packed. A thousand people sat in the tiered seats, children on parents' knees, the ring below glowing gold and scarlet. A pair of acrobats swung on the trapeze. The band played. Then the first crack of thunder shook the earth, and the whole canvas shivered.

"Pole!" shouted Marek, in the wings.

Nina was already moving. The main centre pole, forty feet of steel, groaned in the gale. The ropes sang. The canvas flapped and rippled like a living thing. She grabbed the main guy-line, planted her boots and hauled, with Marek beside her, shouting, hands next to hers, in a roaring blur of wind and rain.

Inside, the show went on. The ringmaster's voice rose, bright and steady. The acrobats swung. The audience, calm and fascinated, clapped and gasped. They never knew that a few feet away, two people were holding the tent down with their bare hands.

For forty minutes, the storm raged. Then the wind eased. The rain softened to a patter. The ropes slackened. Nina and Marek sagged against the pole, soaked and exhausted, laughing.

"It's still standing," she gasped.

"Of course it is. We are here."

"I'm going to be sick."

"You are going to be a legend."

Afterwards, when the audience had left and the performers had gone to their caravans, the big top stood empty and dripping under a clearing sky. A few stars appeared. The park smelled of wet grass and canvas. Nina and Marek sat on the edge of the ring, on the sawdust, wrapped in one blanket, with a flask of hot wine.

"You held the pole," said Marek.

"You held it with me."

"I have never had anyone hold it with me."

"Can I ask you something?" said Nina.

"Yes."

"May I kiss you, Marek? In the empty ring?"

"Yes," said Marek, very softly. "And if you say stop, you must raise every tent I raise."

"I'd raise all of them."

She kissed him, wet and warm, a hand rising to his bushy beard. He kissed her back with a deep, glad tenderness, tasting of wine and rain. The tent creaked around them, stately and silent. The sawdust smelled sweet.

When they parted, both of them were smiling.

"Green?" he asked.

"Green," said Nina. "Very green."

The circus winters in a barn outside Prague. The crew chief and his rigger share a caravan. The big top, they say, has never stood so straight.

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