Moving Parts

Either way, separation is unavoidable: The acrobat faces a triple somersault with a landing on the bar of the trapeze, though this may be too much in light of the offhand tone of his contract, in which everything essential is expressed in a sparing and matter-of-fact fashion with the aid of a handful of figures. And not a word is said about the mortal danger to which one of the parties is exposed by rashly appending his signature. What he is throwing on the scales is a priceless possession that cannot be recovered in case of loss. Even his life insurance policy, a document of dubious utility whose very title impresses with facile promises, will be of no use in such a case. Alas, the acrobat has learned only how to balance over the abyss; he has no other skills, and so he does his job while his partner plunges into the void. Sparkling with sequins, in a rustle of butterfly wings she plummets head first, as if she were no longer needed in the act. But her appearance isn’t over yet: Just in time she reaches through the air and grasps the bar swinging upward in a broad arc, and once again she shoots overhead, soaring into space. If she doesn’t break her neck, they’ll meet on the trembling platform under the slightly faded canvas dome of the heavens, and from there they’ll slide down into the center of the ring, all of a sudden, as if they’d landed from the moon. He’ll put his arm round her waist, they’ll bow right and left, and the band will play a flourish.

They stay in decent hotels. At a table covered with a snow-white cloth they blotch their morning papers with fragrant coffee and spread butter on their rolls. Before anything happens to them, for a good beginning they have the discreet clink of silverware and the sound of car horns entering from outside. The melodies of cell phones ring out one over the other. The noises of the early morning are chaotic but promising, like a cloud of tones of open strings in which can be heard chance snatches of a concert not yet begun, taken up now here, now there, quickly and without expression, in ironic summary, from the orchestra as they tune their instruments. And almost everything seems possible when the evening is still so far away.