Ada had told him she had had a problem with using drugs in the past, and that had come as a surprise to Andor. She didn’t like talking about it, yet once, in passing, she mentioned the fact she had never touched a needle in her life.
Ada shrugged and flipped her wet hair over her head, then began to dry it with a towel.
“It worries me,” he said.
But Ada ignored him, still bending over, massaging her head.
“You’ve been so good—you should stay away from people who use hashish and God knows what else.”
Ada straightened up and threw the towel on the floor. She sighed impatiently.
“Oh, great. Are you going to be tailing me now? All I need is for you to become a policeman, like my father.”
* * *
—
There was one man in particular. He had fine hands with slender fingers and wore his long hair parted in the middle. He seemed to be the leader of the group despite his young age. He was joyous, almost childish at times. Andor kept watching him from a distance, and he noticed the way he joked with the other men, how women were in awe of him. Once Andor crossed paths with him on the way to the water pipe where they filled their cans. The man greeted him politely and Andor decided not to return the courtesy. But he caught a glimpse of his eyes: they were yellow, like a cat’s.
Each night Ada came back to the caravan too tired to talk, her hair smelling of tobacco and hashish. True, Ada had always been quiet, but her silence now was of a different kind; it was lifeless, as if she were no longer there. She undressed quickly, got into bed and turned her back to Andor. Each sleepless night he rehearsed a new speech, cautiously selecting the words for questions that needed to be answered. Each morning he lost heart and didn’t dare open his mouth.
It was already late in the day and he was washing the previous night’s dishes, when she came out of the bedroom, her hair still in a braid, her face puffy from too much sleep. He noticed a blue dot on her cheekbone.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
He stood up and seized her arm with uncanny strength. Ada tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but Andor wouldn’t let her go.
“Who did this to you?”
“What do you care? Leave me alone.”
He got closer, his warm breath on her face. She looked scared for the first time. He pressed his fingers on her cheekbone, in an attempt to remove the spot.
“You know what this means?”
“It’s nothing. It means nothing. It’s just a tattoo.”
He was seething with rage, his breathing shortened.
“Who did it?”
“What’s the point? You don’t know his name, you don’t even know who he is.”
But he did. And before he knew it, he’d slapped her face.
“Gypsies give this tattoo to married women, you fucking idiot. He marked you. That’s what it means!”
Ada was still in shock. He had never used language like that, or touched her with less than kindness. She yelled back, but her voice was strangled, weaker.
“Don’t you dare touch me again!”
“I’m sorry, I…” He too was in shock that he had hit her.
She interrupted him: “And stop calling them Gypsies! You know nothing! They fled, escaped a repressive regime. Don’t you know that even music is banned in Iran? Anything Western is illegal there!”
“Repressive regime? Ha!” he exclaimed with disdain. “Since when have you become an expert on Iranian politics?”
He was tired of losing, of being afraid. He shook her by the shoulders.
“They’re drug addicts, Ada. Did they make you smoke opium too? I bet they did!”
But the more heated his rage, the less it seemed to affect Ada. She had regained her composure and was staring at him coldly now, as though she had retreated inside a protected zone where nothing could touch her. Andor sensed that she was slipping away fast, but he pushed himself. He had to pretend he still possessed her.
“Tomorrow I’m taking you to someone to erase this tattoo.”
She looked gravely at him. There was a silence. Then she spoke calmly.
“Tomorrow they are leaving and I’m going with them.”
* * *
—
Ada would leave that very night, after collecting her few things.
She didn’t bother to take what was left of her costumes; she wouldn’t need them. But before leaving she did need to do one last thing, and she didn’t want Andor to see. She waited for him to leave the trailer and then rushed to the end of the caravan where the trunks had been stowed away. She opened the largest one. And there she was, Snow, curled up in her winter sleep. Ada leaned in and moved her hand along the snake’s spine, then kissed her white scales. Snow’s body felt still, as if it had lost all power, and was as cold as a corpse.
“Adieu, my love,” she whispered, closing her eyes for a moment.
* * *
Andor is sitting in his small apartment in Budapest.
He’s retired and he has aged. He now lives on a meager state pension and gets some help from his daughter, Hanna, who was conceived when he was still a young trapeze artist. He’s been an estranged father for most of her life, but lately their relationship, although complicated—and thanks to Hanna’s years of therapy—has improved. She’s in her early forties and lives in Barcelona with her husband and their little boy.
Andor visits her two or three times a year. These reunions have become a habit, one they both have learned to enjoy. Because of their long-distance relationship Hanna has just persuaded Andor to open a Facebook account. He has agreed, reluctantly—it seems childish for a man of his age to be asking for friendship from people he has lost touch with. Today, only his second day on Facebook, he has figured out more or less how the whole thing works.
He has just typed in Ada’s name, and is looking at the photos on her page.
There she is, no longer the girl he knew, now close to fifty. She’s cut her hair shorter—it’s lightly sprayed with gray now—and she wears flat shoes and nicely cut dresses. Apparently she lives somewhere in Scotland, with a man and two tall girls who look more like the father; he’s quite tall and handsome, with light-blond hair and a short beard. He could be a journalist, or maybe a professor, because of the round glasses and that casual, bookish look. Ada’s profile says she now works as a production designer with a theater company in Edinburgh. Andor is pleased; surely the atmosphere of the Weisser Circus left an imprint on her. It matters to him that the brief life they shared may have inspired her to find her calling.