Ren gently, meticulously tapped her red pipe on the chair. Each tap became more exasperating. "He was the barker of Marceleine's show," she said. "Yes, the circus," she leaned back deeply into her chair, "a whole new dangerous world: rings of fire being tossed into the air! people plunging through them! wild beasts hunted and captured in Darkest Africa, showing their fangs to a fool with a whip and a chair no bigger than the one in the kitchen. And the acrobats!-beautiful people with the bodies of Aphrodites and Apollos risking them even-to do what they needed to do."

"Nutty" the Young Man said.

"You say you want to hear something about the man whose theory interests. you-but I can't do that without mention of Marceleine, the woman of whom he had been a part. She was the star tightrope artist. I remember lots of times. hearing them talk together. One night after the show she'd said to him, "This isn't enough, Joe, I feel like a duck in a shooting gallery.' 'O.K., Marceleine,' he'd said to her, 'from this day on we prepare for the Pirouette. But first I must know your own need for such a stunt.' She didn't answer him. I guess that was enough because he said, 'O.K. The actual performance is going to be dangerous-your skill and know-how will mean the difference of life and death. Understand me?' 'Yes,' was all she said. 'And you won't go off and have some foolish love affair to distract you?' 'No, Joe,' she said. He was perhaps twenty years older than her. She was twenty I'd say," Ren said, "and think he was beginning to have designs about that time . . this was one way of keeping her. 'Good,' Joe'd said, 'starting tomorrow you go into training. And remember, Marceleine, on the big night you will pirouette once. Only once. The stunt cannot be done twice without a serious risk. You follow my coaching, Marceleine, and you'll become the greatest asset to the show and world famous.' But there seemed to be something more that goaded them," Ren said. "Something no other medium could possibly express."

"Ye gods! what the hell was his motive?" the Young Man asked, leaning over to put out his cigarette.

Ren paused; pushed the stem of her red pipe up to her puckered lips and it was not a hesitancy. The pause was the aura that circled the answer and gave it substance, like the flesh of a plum around its stone. She said: "I think the hazard was his because he was making it."

"Did she break their contract?" the Young Man asked.

Ren looked at the Young Man: a look of watching. "Hah," she said, "Marceleine trained for ten hours a day. You see, the point was for her to make a complete pirouette in the middle of the tightrope. She had long since perfected her tightrope act but it was for the pirouette that she worked all those months. It took weeks to overcome dizziness at that height. I'll never forget opening night," Ren said. "I was giving water to the elephants behind her tent and I crept up to the small opening where I could see the light coming through. Peeping in, I watched her end her dressing with a gaudy crown that had long before become a part of her . . . like luck. Joe had been standing beside her; both of them looking into the mirror together. There was something, I could feel," Ren said. "You know how receptive little kids are.

"Something passed between those two people." Ren stopped speaking; tapped lightly, annoyingly, the stem of her pipe against her teeth. 'Don't let me go out there,' Marceleine had said. 'But, Marceleine, why?' Joe knew damn well why," Ren said. "Anyway, in the dazzling glare of lights she didn't turn to look at him again." Ren pushed the air up into the red pipe so that it made a crackling sound.

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