Page 135 of The Ringmaster’s Daughter

I began to sing, softly, gently, knowing it would calm her.

* * *

Christmas has arrived once more. Another year gone – 1943. I do not know where the time is going. It seems to be taking me so much time to write down my journey here, to America, though during the year I try to think of little else than working, existing. Yet something seems to happen to me at Christmastime – perhaps because it is the time for family and my thoughts go to Frieda, to Bertrand and the others.

This year though, I feel a little lighter – brighter somehow – as if the heavy clouds do not bother me as they used to.

I have been dancing; mais oui, I have. With my boss’s daughter, who is kind and funny and a very charming lady; made even more so by the fact that she mourns her husband still, and sees me as a brother, or, dare I say it, a best friend.

She has shown me all of New York. From the tourist sights – Fifth Avenue, the Empire State Building and the lit-up theatres of Broadway, which remind me of Montmartre – to some of the darker bars and clubs in Brooklyn. We sometimes go to the pictures, or to a comedy club where we sit and laugh and drink and pretend that inside we are not hurting. Perhaps we are not, in those moments. Perhaps we give ourselves over to some life and fun and we actually do forget. I don’t know. Forgive me; I have been reading Hemingway, which has got me worked up. My words come quicker; my thoughts and feelings seem to be tumbling from me, when, since I arrived, they have remained hidden in the depths of my soul.

Now. Here they are.

Miriam and I have decided to go Christmas shopping together. I have not been shopping much in years. She takes me by the arm to Bloomingdale’s, and we look at all the things we cannot afford and pretend that we will come back for them later.

I do not buy much, as I do not have many to buy for, and money is still tight. But I manage to buy Miriam a hat pin and her daughter, Sarah, a doll. I even stretch to buying Levi a new tie and my Polish neighbour Katarzyna a tin of biscuits with a red robin on the front.

It is cold out. Every Christmas here seems colder. Miriam tells me it is because I am skinny. I ask her if she means it. She says I could put on a few pounds and then maybe the girls would look at me more. I tell her I don’t want the girls to look at me. She does not ask why.

We stroll arm in arm down the busy sidewalk, every now and then stopping to hear a brass band or some such who play on the street for charity. I give a few cents to a children’s hospital and Miriam says I am kind.

We say goodnight outside the launderette, which she lives above with her parents and daughter. I wish her a merry Christmas, and she reminds me that she is Jewish and does not celebrate it. I nod, but the truth is that it never occurred to me. ‘You like Christmas shopping though?’ I ask her.

‘I like the lights. The colours,’ she says. ‘That’s all.’

I nod again, and she goes inside to her family and I go home to my apartment, the gifts laughing at me in their brown paper bag.

When I reach my door, I decide to give Katarzyna her biscuits. She opens the tin quickly, then eyes me strangely – I have never given a gift before, so I am worried I’ve chosen the wrong thing.

I tell her it was just a thought, a kindness for all the food she has given me.

She tells me to come to her apartment tomorrow, Christmas Eve, and we will celebrate together with some of her friends. I agree, even though deep down I am not sure I want to.

It is Christmas Eve and I descend on Katarzyna, with nothing to give her but a pleasant smile. She opens the door and does not care that I bring no food or drink, and ushers me into her apartment, introducing me to her friends – Marta, Bartek and Tomek. They work at the university, she tells me. Bartek is small and wiry. He speaks little. They are very clever, helping the government, she says. I do not disagree with her; they look clever. They have that air – one I cannot describe properly – they can wear old clothes and make them look like regal hand-me-downs. They all wear glasses, black-rimmed, and they all smoke. Together, but especially Bartek, they remind me of Kacper. At first it gives me a pain in my chest – the pain of wondering what has become of him – but then the pain disappears and I feel a little comforted by Bartek, by this group, as if Kacper is right here with me.

They do not engage in normal pleasantries – they talk of newspapers, of politics, of what will happen next. I am by no means averse to reading the newspaper, nor a book, but I do not wish to spend my Christmas Eve knee-deep in political debate. So, I change the subject. I ask them what Christmas was like for them at home, and suddenly they soften. Marta tells us of her childhood in Warsaw. She wishes she was at home now. She says she wishes she knew where her family are. The others nod in sympathy.

Finally, Katarzyna breaks the maudlin atmosphere with a mulled alcohol that breathes cinnamon from its cup. She has small pastries too. ‘American,’ she says, ‘or at least, that’s what I thought.’

Next, she brings out her Polish specialities and this is when the party begins. The politics and all our memories of happier times fall away as our nostrils engage with the smells of rich food.

‘This arthritis is really slowing me down,’ Katarzyna says, as she places the tray on the table.

‘You have done a wonderful job,’ I tell her.

‘I know some people and I must feed them. They like my food.’

The people who like her food eat quickly, as if there might be no more food tomorrow.

Someone puts on a record. It is Frank Sinatra. I tell them I like it, and someone starts to sing along. There is more food and more drink, and Katarzyna sits and tells us that her family are all in Poland and she does not know who is alive and who is dead.

Everyone goes quiet again, but then Bartek says we shouldn’t be like this. It is Christmas, and Tomek tells a joke and everyone laughs.

The doorbell rings and more people come to the party. There is a singer from one of the jazz clubs I visited with Miriam, and his girlfriend. I am impressed at Katarzyna’s social circle. She says it is easy to make friends if you try. So, I talk to the man and his girlfriend. She is coffee-coloured and his skin is darker, reminding me of the African traders I so often saw in Paris. His voice is light when he talks, almost as if he is singing. We drink and then everyone sits down and there is that lull again, when everyone is scared to talk in case their fears or their sorrows fall from their mouths and we all drown in them.

The singer, Freddie, says, ‘Tell us, Michel – tell us how you came here.’

I am drunk on the two glasses of whatever I have been served, and I like the way he sang my name even when he wasn’t singing. ‘OK,’ I say. ‘I’ll tell you.’