will we look your wife in the eye?” Aspasia asked, freeing her hands.
“I do not have a wife for a long time, my dear Madame La Rouge, “Schwartz smiled. “I am a widower.”
“What are you talking about?” she frowned. “This morning, I was talking to Madame Schtanzer in the garden.”
“Aspasia,” he began to laugh. “The woman, whom you believe to be my wife, is my housekeeper. I became a widower seven years ago.”
“Schwarz…” Aspasia pressed his hand to her chest. “But why, why didn’t you tell me? Why?”
“I was afraid to be rejected,” he said.
“That is so foolish,” she sighed. “Why did you decide that I will reject you? I cannot reject someone I care about, someone I…” she pressed her palm to her lips and anxiously looked at Schwartz.
“Well, well, well, Aspasia, why are you silent?” Schwartz asked, removing the hand of Aspasia from her mouth. “Please, finish what you wanted to say.”
“I… lo-ve,” she whispered. He hugged her, snuggled against the flaming cheek, and said:
“Aspasia, you have made me the happiest man on the planet. Just think, it took fifteen years to hear the only right words, which contain the meaning of my life, the meaning of our future life, Aspasia…”
Simone and Charles drove up to the circus in the leather landau, pulled by four chocolate shiny horses. Matilda dropped the bucket of water, froze, watching how Charles, dressed in a light golden suit, was upholding the girl, dressed in black dress-trap. They slowly were going to the show-booth of the clowns, Lele and Bebe were dancing, they flapping on the backs of horses, were seating themselves in the carriage, and were leaving.
“Dad, dad, did you see?” Matilda cried belatedly, throwing off the bucket angrily.
“What happened?” having run out to her shouting, the Director of the circus asked. Matilda waved toward the receding landau and began to stamp her feet.
“What does it all mean? How can this licence be in your circus? Do they want to derail the performance?”
“Do not worry, dear,” Rudolf Welzer tried to smile. “They will come back. We have four more hours before the performance.”
“Only four hours!” Matilda cried.
“What will you do if they do not come back? What will you do if they do not return to your circus at all?”
“I will think of something else,” the Director said hesitantly, having gone to the show-booth of the clowns. He knew that Matilda was right something irreparable happened: he lost his best clowns. He knew it would happen sooner or later. He was prepared for that from the very moment when a tall gentleman came to him and left the annual revenue only for the little boy Benosh to not change his stage name. If they took off on that very day, he could have stayed without the clowns fifteen years ago. It is a considerable period of time. They visited many places during this time… He made a decent fortune, married off Matilda. What else does one need?
Rudolf Welzer sat in front of a mirror, put a red wig on the head, and smiled:
“I need the circus because it is my whole life. I will die without it. Only here, at the circus, I feel needed. Only here.”
He put on a big red nose, whitened his face, and winked at his counterpart in the mirror.
“The problem is solved, friend! Today, the unsurpassed clown Rudy the red nose will come into the arena of the circus! Finally, my lifelong dream of becoming a clown will come true. Finally, no one will dare to condemn me for the choices I have made. Everyone will consider me a hero because I will save the program.”
The horses were running together along the road. Lele was enthusiastically shouting and was clapping hands. Bebe was smiling condescendingly and was nodding to passersby. Simone and Charles were laughing lightheartedly. Everyone was having fun.
“Lele, tell me, why did you call me Benosh?” having caught her hand, Charles asked.
“O-o-oh,” having rolled her eyes, she sang. “Once I heard… No, it was not so. One day, I was walking down the street, and the carriage was slowly driving past, similar to ours, this carriage. There were few horses, so he was not driving very fast. Maybe, that’s because a sugary beauty was sitting in the carriage. No, she was not sugary, she was very, very beautiful and somewhat unreal. She was sitting like that,” Lele made a pose, in which the sugary beauty was sitting, closed her eyes, paused for a few moments, and then began to jabber:
“The young lady was wearing something airy. The white lacy foam was wrapping her neck, arms, and was raising above the hair. And her hair was copper, gleaming copper of the polished pipes. She had curls at the temples. Her eyes were hidden behind black velvet lashes. And there was a boy beside her. O-oo-oh…” Lele closed her eyes. “The image of this boy still excites my imagination. He was not a child but a three-year-old angel with plump rosy cheeks and large, as cherries, eyes. He was also dressed in something lacy. Having seen this sugary family, I froze,” she paused, showing in what position she stopped on the sidewalk. Charles and Simone exchanged glances, thinking about their angel from the boarding house.
“I was standing and looking at the sugary family, and people around me were shouting: “Benosh, Benosh, Benosh!” Lele continued enthusiastically in a mysterious voice.
“Benosh, I repeated, having decided to call my baby this name. You, Charles, got the name.”
Lele smiled, thinking that for the first time she was calmly talking about the child she never had. Though, she has the grown-up Benosh and not very grown-up Simone, who are taking Bebe and her to visit a rich uncle.
“You know, Lele, I am that same sugary three-year-old boy, whom you saw,” Charles said.
“You?” she waved away. “It cannot be true.”
“Lele, Charles Benosh is my real name,” Charles smiled. “Benosh is the last name of my parents.”
Lele turned pale, pressed into the seat, and retreated into herself.
“We appreciate jokes, son,” Bebe said.
“But we never made a fool of anyone.”
“He is not fooling you,” Simone exclaimed.
“There is a portrait of little Charles and Natalie Benosh, dressed in white lacy clothes, in our house. Lele described them very accurately. On that day, about which Lele was telling, the Benosh family was driving from the artist Baudelaire, who was painting a portrait of Natalie at the request of my father.”
“Really?” having hopefully looked at Simone, Lele asked.
“Yes, yes, Lele, having given Charles the name Benosh, you gave him back his last name,” Simone said. “If you named him differently, we would have never found him. Thank you, dear Lele.”
Lele began to wave at her and dropped her head on her knees. Bebe ran his hand over her back.
“Well, now we have a new number the clown bursts into tears. It will not work this way. We still have to entertain the respectable public in the evening. Brace up, pull yourself together.”
“Tonight, we will not let you go,” Simone said. “We have kidnapped you to invite for dinner with the best people.”
“No, no,” Lele roused herself. “I will not stay for any dinner.”
“You will stay,” Simone said forcefully, “because the best people are you, Bebe, my uncle Schwartz, Madame La Rouge, and Charles. Today is our day. It is the day of happiness, the day of dreams and hopes. You have long wanted to escape from the circus and to go traveling around the world,” Lele nodded.
“So,