Perilous Pleasures (17 page)

Helen sat on the bed opposite Joanna. "Don't you think I asked myself those questions a hundred times? But I always came up with the same answer." She shrugged. "I don't know."

As Joanna studied Stefan's quiet features, she wondered why he couldn't just be a husband to her and lead an ordinary life, then realized it was an impossible dream. Stefan was not an ordinary man. Those times when she'd watched him in the arena with his cats, and they were all performing perfectly for him, she'd seen the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes and the look of pure pleasure on his face and knew he could never settle for an ordinary life. It was not in his nature, and she could not expect him to be anything but what he was. A man who had a need to pit himself against wild animals... against the odds.

She ran her hand down the side of his face and over the stubble of his day-old beard. "How, exactly, did it happen?" she asked, eyeing the stalk white dressing.

Helen dabbled with the covers, and replied, "The tether holding Rafat broke, but Rafat never got to Stefan. Stefan fell back and hit his head on a pedestal. If it hadn't been for Walter—" she paused, a frown knitting her brow. "It's uncanny how Stefan's grandmother senses these things. It rarely fails."

"What do you mean?" Joanna asked.

"She warned Stefan before he left to work with Rafat today, not go into the big cage. He must have taken it to heart because Walter said that for no apparent reason, Stefan placed a sledgehammer outside the cage door. Trainers use sledgehammers in emergencies to break up fights... to stun the cats. But Stefan never resorts to that because it can injure the animals. But the sledgehammer is what saved his life."

"I don't understand."

"The latch to the cage door was jammed. It's only because Walter was able to smash it with the sledgehammer that he got to Stefan before Rafat could."

Joanna looked at Helen in surprise. "What made the latch jam?"

"No one knows," Helen said. "But it was almost a repeat of what happened to Klaus Haufchild when Stefan was his assistant trainer."

Joanna's heart quickened. "Klaus Haufchild. The one-armed man. I saw him in the menagerie tent shortly before the accident."

"You did?" Helen's eyes sharpened with alarm.

Joanna looked directly at her. "What is going on? Whenever the man's name is mentioned, everyone reacts like something terrible is about to take place."

Helen sighed. "Stefan apparently didn't tell you everything about Klaus."

Joanna looked at Helen's hands, fingers laced, thumbs twisting with worry, and said in an anxious voice, "Stefan told me that Klaus Haufchild had been attacked by his cats, and also about the extent of the man's injuries, but that's all. He didn't give me any details."

"Obviously he doesn't want to worry you," Helen said.

"Will you tell me what happened?" Joanna's voice quavered in anticipation of what she was about to learn.

Helen shifted on the bed, her finger tracing a crease in the blanket. She gave a weary sigh. "Klaus Haufchild blamed Stefan for the accident that cost him his arm and his career. I am very uncomfortable that the man has been spotted on the show grounds before, much less here in Baton Rouge today."

"But... why would he blame Stefan?" Joanna asked, puzzled.

Helen shrugged. "Stefan didn't get to him in time. When Stefan tried to get into the cage the latch jammed, and the sledgehammer Stefan had placed there for an emergency was gone. Later, Stefan learned that a child had taken it, but Klaus didn't care about that. All he knew was his career was over, he'd lost an arm and he was... less of a man."

Joanna's eyes focused on that area of Stefan where the scar ran. "Stefan told me about that. And I know about Rafat attacking Stefan there, as well."

Helen also focused on that area of Stefan. "It was the same for
Alonza
, but he got lucky, like Stefan did. Male lions go after other male lions that way, to insure that only their seed will be passed on. I guess they view their trainers the same way. I suppose Stefan told you how he protects himself?'

Joanna nodded.

Helen chuckled. "It is ludicrous to think that a cod piece could prevent a paw with three-inch claws from dismembering a man. But you have to love Stefan for his attempts at justifying things, absurd as they are. Sometimes I have to laugh to keep from crying."

Joanna raised Stefan's hand and pressed it to her chest, holding it against her heart with both hands, and said in a wavering voice, "I wish he would never enter that cage again. I wish he would get rid of the cats! I wish he cared enough about me to give it all up!" Tears blurred Helen's face as Joanna turned to her.

Helen looked at her soberly. "And now you and Stefan are married."

Joanna shook her head. "Not really. Stefan came to my stateroom one night and... well, afterwards, he told me about the gypsy tradition when couples elope, that if they are together like man and wife, they're considered married." She looked at Helen, contrite. "I won't deny what happened that night. Now I feel as married to Stefan as if we were legally wed, and he feels the same. But after this accident... I don't know..."

Helen looked at her with understanding. "His wife could not live with the worry either, and she finally left him." Her lips tightened momentarily. "The family blamed Claudia for the breakup of the marriage because she was
gorgio
. I was the only one who understood. Claudia gave Stefan an ultimatum. Her... or his cats."

"And he obviously chose the cats."

Helen nodded. "It wouldn't have worked if he'd given them up. I did it with Alonzo. One day I just packed up the children and said I was leaving. I loved Alonzo desperately and knew he loved me too, but I couldn't live with the anxiety any more."

"But you went back." Joanna's words were more a statement than a question.

"Not for a while," Helen replied. "Alonzo quit the circus and leased his cats to another trainer. We rented a house and settled down. For two years the children lived in a house and went to a regular school. And Alonzo went to work at the paper mill. I had everything I wanted. Alonzo, the children, a home."

Joanna looked at Helen, perplexed. "I don't understand. Why did you rejoin the circus?"

"Staying in one place, Alonzo was like a caged animal. I don't know whether it was because he was gypsy, or because he didn't have his cats, but the house was like a prison to him. He grew more and more restless. At night I could feel him beside me in bed, just laying awake, staring into the darkness. Gypsies truly believe it's bad luck to stop moving. And maybe it's so. I felt like Alonzo was dying, little by little." Helen shrugged. "So one day, I just packed up the children and told Alonzo I missed the circus."

Joanna stared at Helen. "But I thought you wanted to stay in the house."

"I wanted Alonzo's happiness more. So he rounded up his cats and we rejoined the circus. And it all started again, the terrible fear, the waiting, the worry, and finally... the end. We were married for almost twenty-five years. He was killed two days before our twenty-fifth anniversary." She gave Joanna a hesitant smile. "It's strange. When Stefan's grandmother was told about the accident that day, she had already laid out her clothes for the funeral and was sitting in the dark waiting, yet she had no way of knowing."

"You mean, she knew before it happened?"

"She'd warned Alonzo that afternoon not to go into the ring, pleaded with him, said she saw Death taking him away. But Alonzo shrugged it off. It was the last performance of the season... the Jinx performance. But he insisted."

Joanna looked at Helen, dubious, then waved off her uncertainty. "I don't believe that nonsense... that the final performance is jinxed. But it does seem a coincidence that Stefan's father was killed that particular night."

"I never believed it either until then," Helen said. "I'd always thought all final-performance accidents were the result of nerves, or maybe because everyone is expecting something to happen. Now I
 
don't know. Alonzo was killed. Klaus Haufchild was injured. Heinz
Erlich
, the aerialist, fell to his death, each during a jinx performance. And there are hundreds of other incidents."

"If a study were made of accidents during first-night performances, I suspect there would be just as many," Joanna insisted, trying to shrug off the uneasy feeling creeping over her that their own final performance in New Orleans was quickly approaching, and Gene was insistent on dropping the nets for it.

"Probably," Helen replied, but Joanna knew she was not convinced.

Joanna looked at Stefan, her eyes drifting over the bandage and moving down to rest on his face. How close he'd come this time. What if he hadn't put the sledgehammer by the cage door? What if the bucket of ammonia water had not been there, or had dumped over. What if Walter had not gotten to him in time? Did Tekla Janacek possess a gift of prophecy? She glanced over at Helen. "How do you think Stefan's grandmother does it?"

Helen shrugged. "I don't know. Over the years I've tried to come up with a logical explanation. First, I decided she'd cultivated her powers of observation and subconscious reasoning to a degree that made an open book of the person she was giving a reading to. But that didn't explain it all. In most cases she'd had no contact with the person and no time to study them. She believes in the truth of dreams and attributes her powers to supernatural causes, sometimes reading fortunes in tarot cards, or the palms of hands, or beans in a kerchief. I've seen her read twigs and broken glass and even sludge in a tea cup. I still don't know how she does it, but I don't question it anymore. All I know is, her predictions are amazingly accurate." She stood. "Are you going to be here for a while?"

"Yes. Why?"

"I have a stack of costumes at the lot waiting to be mended, so I have to go. But tell Stefan that I stopped by and will be back in the morning." She squeezed Stefan's hand, then looked at Joanna, and said, "If you stay with Stefan as his wife, I will welcome you as my daughter-in-law. But in the end, you'll have to follow your heart, and your heart might take you away from him. It is the nature of things when married to a man like Stefan."

Joanna looked down at her hand covering Stefan's and said, "I could be carrying Stefan's child now." She looked up and saw compassion in Helen's eyes.

"Do you have signs that you are with child?" she asked.

Joanna shook her head. "Only that we have been together several times."

"Then you must consider a child as well, if you and Stefan stay in this marriage you claim. If you must leave Stefan, what would you do about the child?"

Joanna shrugged. "I don't know... Love it, cherish it, devote my life to it because it would be all that I would have of Stefan."

"But Stefan would have to know."

Joanna heaved a labored sigh. "I know."

Helen walked around the bed and gave Joanna a hug. "I know I should be telling you to keep Stefan out of your bed—I would if you were my daughter—but I understand the need to have a man like Stefan close to you for whatever time God allows. I would not have let anyone keep me from Alonzo. When he was in my bed, he was all mine. And he was safe. I would have kept him in my bed forever if it had been practical." She smiled, knowingly. "It would not have been a difficult cross to bear. I'm sure you understand."

Joanna nodded. "Yes. Stefan is an exceptional man. I too would keep him in my bed to protect him from his cats... And to keep me happy." She smiled in memory then.

Helen squeezed her shoulder, and left.

It was some time before Stefan opened his eyes. He looked at Joanna and held out his hand. "Come closer. You're too far away," he said.

Joanna took his hand and sat on the edge of the bed, facing him. "Your mother stopped by. I explained about the marriage. She knows what happened."

"Everything?" he said, brows pulling the dressing over his eye inward.

"Not in so much detail but yes, she knows we were together as man and wife."

Stefan looked at the single rose in the vase by his bed and studied its golden hue. "Yellow, the color of suffering," he said. "Is that why you brought the rose?"

"I'm sorry," Joanna replied, "I shouldn't have brought yellow. But when I saw them carrying you out on the stretcher with your head bleeding, and you weren't moving—" she blinked as moisture dampened her eyes. How long would that image hover in her mind?

Stefan trailed a finger along her cheek. "I'm sorry I'm doing this to you," he said. He pulled her to him and held her against his chest.

Joanna heard the strong beat of his heart, the steady rhythm reminding her how fragile life was. With the strike of a paw, or the snap of a neck, that heart could be stopped.

A profound weariness descended on her like a leaden weight. For a while, neither spoke. Then, barely breaking the silence, Stefan said, "I love you, sweetheart." He tipped her face up to meet his and kissed her lightly, then looked into her eyes and whispered again, "I love you."

His words suffused Joanna's mind and body, drawing her to a state of confused reverie. She started to tell him she loved him too, then looking at the bandage, she tightened her lips and said nothing.

CHAPTER EIGHT

While standing in the entrance to the exhibition pavilion, Stefan peered through the magnifying glass and studied the frayed fibers of the rope. "It was cut part-way through so it would break with strain," he said.
 
He looked toward the cage that was being rolled in, and saw Shani pacing restlessly.

"If that's the case," Walter replied, "it explains why the cats have been acting up. They've been harassed, possibly struck with a stick or maybe even prodded."

Stefan glanced at the sleek black leopard. "That would also explain why Shani turned on me." He looked at Tony, who was ladling water into a cage, and motioned for him to come over.

Tony replaced the ladle into the bucket and walked over to join them. He glanced at the rope that Stefan held out. "What's the problem?"