aptitude for mathematics and the sciences, while history and most of literature bored him to tears. Even as an adult, Rouncival read only as a matter of necessity, though he did take clear pleasure from the murderous conundrums offered by Misses Christie and Sayers. It was during such a period of dissatisfied quietude that Robert did as many alienated youth have only dreamed of doing: in early 1914, he fled home and joined the circus.
Before you imagine sequined acrobats, glamorous tents, tamed lions or mighty elephants, please know that this particular show hardly merited the title of “circus.” Rather, it was a motley collection of aged and mangy animals, arthritic contortionists, not-so-strong men, and gimcrack tinkers. As you can see, the poster is shoddy print work indeed—whether that is a tiger in the upper right corner or merely a very strange goat has always baffled me—but it is the sole artifact Rouncival brought away from his years on the road. The show was called “Welt’s Traveling Extravaganza,” with the carnival run by a genial huckster named Barnabas Welt. A former clown of Vaudeville himself, Welt had a deep sympathy for circus folk, no matter how over-the-hill they may have been, and his circus was a veritable refuge for those that couldn’t or wouldn’t give up the life. It was fortunate for Rouncival that Welt was such a person, for who else would have taken on a lamed, spindly, penniless youth as a gofer and all-around assistant? Rouncival would always claim that Barnabas Welt was the kindest man he ever met, though this was said at times with a borderline sneer.
Thus, as the lamps of Europe were doused and the old world was murdered beneath the mud of Flanders, Robert Rouncival tramped the mill towns, logging camps, and farming communities of upstate New York and New England. From Blue Mountain in the Adirondacks to the rubbish-strewn lots of Worcester, Massachusetts to the hardscrabble hollows of Vermont, Robert acted as Welt’s advance man. Limping into small villages and towns, he told everyone which rented-for-the-weekend field or empty warehouse the Extravaganza could be found at. It was probably during this time that Rouncival also acquired his taste for drink, as Welt, an abstainer, insisted that Robert tack a poster in every crossroad tavern or factory gin mill along the way. So Rouncival began to grow into a man, and a hard man at that, learning everything he could from the sad, faltering tricks of a dilapidated circus, its run-down folk, and its often impoverished audiences. And as he did so, he wrote to his brother William in the war.
Letters TO Doughboy
Now, I know you’ve all been standing for quite some time—yes, madam, your grimace gives away a slight air of discomfort—so why don’t you all come this way and seat yourselves on the pillows and divans in the corner of the study Rouncival fancied “the Khan’s tent.” The carpets and wall hangings are all from Persia or beyond, with the one shading the window once a possession of a nineteenth-century Emir of Bokhara, the same cruel Emir who cast two Englishmen into a vermin-filled pit for years on end before finally having them beheaded in the center square. The Englishmen, it should be noted, were most definitely spies for the East India Company. Please feel free to pour yourselves iced tea from the service on the table there, itself a family heirloom of the Tsarist hero General Cherniaev, known in his time as “The Lion of Tashkent” for the conquest of that ancient bastion of the Silk Road. Here in the study, you are always, always surrounded by wonders.
Is everyone all set? There are fresh lemon slices on that tray, yes madam, right there. Of course, take as many slices as you like. Ah, I see you are a great fan of lemon in your tea. You will, no doubt, be safe from scurvy into the foreseeable future. I am joking of course.
I will take this moment to loosen my tie. Already the heat of the day is affecting me, though the Khan’s tent is certainly cool enough. Now, is everyone settled? Then I will continue. So, Robert tramped the wilds of the Northeast, learning all he could during his time with the Traveling Extravaganza. From the clowns he mastered tumbling, make-up, and crocodile tears, while the sleight-of-hand artists showed him how to conceal a card, or an automobile if need be, up his sleeve. The Extravaganza’s sole artificer, a French-Canadian rummy styled “Babel the Brilliant,” explained to Robert what he could of hidden contraptions and the mundane-unto-magical effects of smoke and mirrors, while Welt taught by example the purity of showmanship and a hearty slap on the back. Alongside these and many other things, Rouncival was also introduced to “The Plush Tent of the Tigress,” a less-than-legal aspect of the show that Welt allowed at the dark, outer edges of the Extravaganza. It was in the tent of the Tigress, where Ruby Lily, Queen Serpentina, and Amazonia Snowdon plied their midnight trade, that Robert became a man.
You may ask: how do we know of Rouncival’s strange compatriots ? The answer is: from the many letters he sent to his younger brother William, who was away in the war. While Robert periodically wrote to his parents to assure them of his well-being, the notes were perfunctory at best; if he included any money to his financially strapped family, the letters made no mention of it. But to his brother, whom Robert referred to as “Doughboy” part in jest and part in bitterness for his own deformity, he told everything. William Rouncival himself had been equally unsatisfied with life in Kingston. Correctly foreseeing that America would have to abandon its isolationism and join the war, William enlisted in 1916. When America did indeed enter the conflict, William had already risen to the rank of lance corporal and was sent to Europe as part of the A.E.F. It was there, fighting in the trenches of France, that he received most of Robert’s correspondences.
I have here, in what you see is a bloodstained packet, the letters, from which I will read a few short excerpts. William’s end of the correspondence can only be guessed at, as Robert would set the letters adrift in the Gulf of Mexico shortly after the war. That he saved only his own words is typical of Rouncival’s continuous self-reinvention. What the remaining notes do reveal is that both William and Robert were, despite their various hardships, still very much young men. Teenagers, if you will, both thrown into the heaving cauldron of the world at a very early age.
Surprisingly or not, the main subject of the correspondence was in fact their escapades with women. The grimmest, most horrific details of life on the road or at the front are related only in the shortest, most obtuse terms, while an intrigue with a willing mademoiselle behind the lines or a dalliance in the tent of the tigress received wide-eyed detail. Of course, we know William’s side only from Robert’s commentary, but still, certain themes are obvious. The following letter is distinct from the others for the amount of time spent describing a confrontation in a forlorn hamlet in upper New York. To wit:
Dear Doughboy,
Hah! That is what I must say most of the time. Every day, something new, like a blemish on the face, which puzzles me with its familiar, yet slightly different aspect.
We are in Fort Edward right now, and I must tell you, when you come home, should you find yourself in Fort Edward you will pray to return to the front or the back or wherever you are at this moment. The rats can be no bigger, the skies lower, or the people surlier. Being allowed to return fire only seems fair, as the residents are shooting glances right and left. While hanging posters at the tavern, twice I was called out by in-bred drunkards regarding my limp. Only the fortuitous entrance of Jerzy (in search as always of the dog’s hair) saved me from a thrashing. How often can one believe that a Polish strongman will come to one’s rescue? Not often, I think, and soon I shall begin to carry a cane (not that I need one) or a pistol to shut the louts up. As it was, Jerzy and I stayed on at the tavern for a while and took most of the patrons’ coin with the Three Blind Men card game. (Have you been practicing? I tell you, master that and you will win all the cigarettes you could smoke in a lifetime!) In the meantime, if things get as rough as they did last week or whenever you last wrote, and don’t tell me Black Jack has now forbidden pencils at the front, I’ll send Jerzy your way. For a Pole, he’s good in a pinch.
As you can tell, young Robert was already a bit of a cutthroat, a young man more than familiar with the rough ways of tavern folk. And advising William to cheat his mates of their rations? Sharp practice indeed. Here is another, more usual, type of note, written, we think (Robert never bothered to date his letters) in the late spring of 1918.