Mulhollan’s circus was Sizzy’s circus, where long ago she had found refuge from small-town memories, ultra-pious kin-folk, priests, nuns, and people who had to be lived up to. Mulhollan’s circus was Sizzy’s circus, where neither she nor the twins had any history requiring explanation.
“What are we going to do here?” asked Bertran, looking around himself in a mix of awe and amazement, prey to an unfamiliar bubbling feeling he did not recognize as elation.
“You’re going to be in the sideshow,” said his aunt. “You’re going to earn a living, the only way you can, until you grow up and they maybe cut you apart, and then you can do what you want.”
“I don’t think child labor’s legal,” said Nela, without conviction, feeling what Bertran felt and recognizing it no more than he.
“You’re not going to labor,” said Sizzy. “You’re going to stand on a stage, all dressed up. After everybody’s had a look at you, we’ll put a curtain between the two of you, and the women in the audience can take a peek at Nela and the men can take a peek at Bertran. For five dollars extra.”
“Look at me naked?” screamed Nela, shivering pleasurably.
“Naked,” said Sizzy. “Just a peek.”
“She’s got hair on her chest,” said Bertran.
“That’s what Nair is for,” his aunt announced loftily. “And hot wax treatment, and maybe even electrolysis.”
“She doesn’t have much boobs.”
“So she’ll get implants,” Aunt Sizzy said, undismayed. “Look, kids, be practical. Nobody wants the responsibility. Nobody’s ever known what to do with you, including my poor fool of a sister. At least here, there’s some purpose to your life, right? And some enjoyments too, I’ll bet. Marla was my favorite little sister. She wasn’t long on sense—none of Mom’s babies born after she was forty had good sense—but she had a good heart. I owe it to her to see you get some enjoyments. Fun, you know?”
They didn’t know, but they learned. After the initial shock, it turned out to be not bad. Good, in fact. The best thing was that the circus was completely matter-of-fact. After all those years of strain and prayer, circus life was sensible and acceptable. No giggles. No pointed fingers. No labored three-party consultations in the confessional. No arguments about what bathroom they were going to use. Just, “Hi, Berty. Hi, Nela,” from a clown. Just, “You kids going to eat or what! Get over here before I throw it out,” from the cook. Just, “Try on your new costumes before noon so I can get them done before the show tonight,” from Mrs. Mangini. The Manginis were mostly trapeze or horse people, but Mrs. Mangini was too fat to ride or fly, so she did a lot of the circus sewing instead.
The twins had a new double fold-out bed in Aunt Sizzy’s trailer. They had a wire-haired fox terrier named Flip who belonged to them but also did acrobatics in the clown act. With them in the sideshow was a hairy-nosed geek named Ralph, who ate live chickens and was billed as the Alaskan Wolf Boy. They had Sappho and Archimedes Lapin, billed as the smallest man and woman in the world, even though they weren’t nearly the smallest. They had the cooch girls (any female below the age of thirty who wasn’t otherwise occupied) as the opening act, including the girl who doubled as Madame Evanie, the World Famous Snake Charmer. They had the marvelous Timber Head, who could drive nails into his face. They had Countess vampira, with her long, long fangs that not even the dentists in the audience could tell from real because she’d had them done in Los Angeles where dentistry had attained the status of an art form. They had Tiberias, the mind reader, who usually didn’t but sometimes could. And they had Bertran and Nela Zy-Czorsky (which Nela had made up out of the letters of their own name and pronounced Zee-CHORsky), the Eighth Wonder of the World, the only malefemale Siamese twins in the universe.
Bertran’s costume was midnight-blue, bow tie and tails, with a gleaming white shirt. Nela wore a shimmery pink dress, all sequins and ruffles. They stood side by side on the platform, long enough for people to get restless and start to question the whole thing, then they turned away from each other, just a little, showing the broad pink band of flesh that joined them. Aunt Sizzy would shout, “Is there a doctor or nurse in the audience?”
Sometimes there was. Aunt Sizzy always insisted on seeing identification if anybody claimed to be a doctor or nurse. If there wasn’t one, somebody from the circus would claim to be, come up on the stage, feel the flesh, look where it joined, act astonished. “My God. They really are!”
“Yeah, but maybe they’re both men or both women,” some smartass would inevitably call. If someone didn’t, a shill would. “Yeah, but.”
“For five dollars,” Aunt Sizzy would say, starting into her spiel. She had a chart and a pointer. She explained about chromosomes and how all other Siamese twins were either boys or girls, and how Nela and Bertran were
