Fading, Like the Stars

“I’d really want to know what answer you’d give to your own question…” Rufus said softly, later that night, or that morning. It was dark in the room now, we’d turn the lights off, and we had no indication whatsoever of the time that it was. I hadn’t slept, and I didn’t think he had either. And not for some romantic or passionate reason either. That conversation that I had involuntarily initiated had quite dampened the mood, really.

I was lying flat on my back on the bed, staring at a ceiling that I couldn’t even see, breathing as slowly and as silently as I possibly could. But sleeping? No. And it wasn’t for lack of trying, but I couldn’t even close my eyes.

I tried ignoring his words for a moment, but it didn’t quite work.

“I know you’re not asleep,” Rufus insisted. From what I could guess, he was lying on the other side of the bed, propped on one elbow, probably trying to see something. “I played fair and answered your questions… I always do, actually.”

I sighed, and rolled on my side to face him. “That’s your mistake, then. And anyway, I don’t even know which question you’re talking about,” I lied - quite convincingly, I thought.

“Ha, true, you ask so many questions it’s hard to keep track.” His arm snaked around my waist to bring me closer, most likely because he thought that it would make me give in more easily. But this was a two way thing.

“I should be sleeping,” I grumbled, snuggling closer.

“Not you?”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

“Stupid saying,” Rufus replied in my ear. “And nice try, but what would you really want, above all else?”

“I think I’ll actually sleep now.” He was absentmindedly tracing signs on my right shoulder, and truly felt comfortable enough to fall asleep, at last.

“Be fair, I answered when you asked.”

“Hmm. I don’t know.”

“In all honesty, if you could have one thing, what would it be?”

“Right now, I’d have sleep.”

He was still tracing his patterns, or letters, or whatever, but he stopped talking, and for a moment I really thought that he’d given up.

“Above all else?” he whispered.

Not only was he insisting, but he was also using the very same words I’d used. “Are you actually writing something?” I groaned, annoyed. Truth was not that I didn’t want to answer, more that I did not know what answer I could give, because, well, after what Rufus had shared, everything I’d say would sound very futile anyway.

“Huh, are you trying to distract me? Hoping that I’ll give up? Cause if you ask me to answer that question, you give me the right to ask it in return.”

“What ’re you writing? Because if it’s your own name, I got to tell you that it’s quite possessive and I’m not sure what to make of that.”

He laughed once. “You’re the strangest sometimes…”

“Nah, that’s not what you’re writing.”

Rufus laughed again, all the things that were troubling him seemingly forgotten for a moment, and well, it was at least that that I’d achieved, then. After that, he was silent for a while, before whispering in my ear three words that made me freeze for a moment.

“What I really want…” I muttered rapidly, “Truly I don’t know. I mean, I know but – I mean. I want a lot of things. And… Well. I want us to stay here forever, for starters. And then I also want to return to the circus. I want to travel like that forever. And I want to know what it feels like to live in a proper house again. I want to know what it’s like to not be hiding and running. I want to be with people I care for. And I want to stay away from them to protect them. I want my mother to still be alive, and nothing that happened after her death, to be real. And I want things to be exactly as they are now. I want peace. And I want change. I want to see another play. I want… I want all these things all at once. I – it’s a rubbish answer, I know. Especially after yours that was so… deep, and personal. And mine is rubbish, but I guess I don’t really know what I want. Yet.”

There was a long silent that made me fear that something, amongst all that I had said, had been a wrong thing to say.

“I could give you that,” Rufus said gravely. “If – if you stayed with me, I could. I could really. Well, I can’t bring your mom back to life, but – I could do whatever – stay with the circus and, and see more plays, and travel – or if you want a house, I could live in a house. I could just whatever – whatever you’d want. I could, I can give you all that.”

“Rufus…”

“I meant it, you know, what I just said.”

“I know.”

“I do love you. Really. And I get it makes you feel nervous. But it’s time that I say it.”

“It doesn’t make me feel nervous. Alright it does. But not like you think. It’s not what you feel, or what I feel that makes me nervous. It’s just that, I’m so used to not think further than tomorrow. I always knew that whatever my relationships to other people were, it didn’t really matter cause I’d just keep on moving. And then, you. And suddenly I have a future. And that’s what makes me nervous. That whole life ahead of me that I don’t know what to do with.”

Rufus laughed lightly, slowly kissing my forehead, cheeks and lips. “You do know that I’m not actually… asking anything… of you. You don’t have to start making plans now. I just… want you to know, that’s it.”

“You,” I grumbled, “are just too nice. Like, understanding, and always saying what’s right. Don’t know why I deserve this.”

“Stupid. Saying.”

“Rufus, can you just not do that?” I whispered breathlessly. “I’m trying to make a point here. About the future…”

“Hmm?”

“It’s just that you know who I am. You know what… Oh dear. You know what my life was like before. It was just tomorrow, and then thanks heavens if anything came after tomorrow.”

“I know all that.”

“I know you know. I’m just trying to… explain myself – Rufus! – What I’m saying is that I don’t really know how to deal with a future anymore, and I’m just sort of figuring it out as I go along, and it’s not – Oh. – It’s not that I don’t want to make plans about it, I’m just not sure how to. And you say… you say you’re not asking anything of me, but you’ve – you’ve given me too much to not ask anything in return.”

“You don’t really make much sense.”

I made an attempt – though there was not much will in it – to push him a little further away, just to get my head together for a moment. “You don’t exactly make it simple for me to make sense,” I said very quickly, without breathing in between the words. “Now. You can’t say that you’ll just do whatever to please me, because that’s not right, and I don’t want you to give up on the life you live, that wouldn’t be fair, and I – Rufus, please – and I just – what I really mean to say is that – Rufus…”

“Yes?” He asked, and though I could not see him smile, I knew he was doing so.

“I just – sorry, forgot what I was talking about.”

“Yes, you do that a lot, now. Talking. Funny how you were so quiet in the beginning.”

“Rufus, I’m actually trying to have a serious conversation here.”

“Yeah, I see so. Not exactly the best moment to have a serious conversation though. Could wait till tomorrow.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you know what I want to talk about, and it’s almost like you want to avoid that.”

Rufus rolled on his back with a sigh. “I know what you want to talk about,” he groaned, frustrated, “and I know that you’re persuaded that I’m doing more than you, that I’m making the sacrifices or whatever, and that you ought to be doing something for me. And I also know that it’s my fault because I was the one who said that you could not be selfish and keep things to yourself in a relationship, and that we had to work on this if we wanted to make it hold, but sometimes, Aimée, sometimes working on it doesn’t necessarily involve talking until your head explodes.”

“I’ve angered you now,” I said after a moment of silence.

He sighed again, and reached out to touch my arm in a reassuring way. “You never anger me. You get me frustrated, sometimes, but never angry.”

“But I ask too many questions…” I mumbled, sitting up and staring at the darkness until I could make out his outline.

“No you don’t, not really. But I, uh, sometimes I – what are you doing exactly?”

“Thing is, I like to learn things about you.”

Rufus let out a short chuckle. “Yeah, I figured that one out – what are you doing?”

“Shh,” I whispered, silencing him by placing a finger on his lips, and by that ending a conversation that was slowly spiraling out of control, and certainly straying onto paths that none of us really liked. “You talk too much.”

Daniel woke us up the next day by banging on the door like a mad man. “Wake up,” he called loudly, successfully waking us up indeed. “Wake up!”

“He’ll just go away,” Rufus grunted once enough time had passed to allow us to realize what exactly had woken us up, and what exactly was going on. “He does that.”

“Really?” I whispered. “Oh. How long have we slept? Because I feel like it was not nearly enough.”

“Well, I’m fine,” he replied, and true, he sounded completely awake, as if he’d been up for hours.

“Lucky you. My head’ll explode.”

“Up and out,” Daniel called joyfully. ‘There’s important stuff going on.”

I groaned. “Worst thing is, he sounds like my mom now.”

“C’mon!”

“Dan,” Rufus protested. “A minute.”

“D’you have any idea of the time it is?”

“Like my mom,” I groaned again, more loudly than I would have expected. I rolled my eyes.

“Hello to you too, Aimée, dear. There you are. I was half-wondering where you could’ve gone to.”

“I’m not even here,” I grunted, found a pillow and buried my face in it.

“For those of you who are interested, it’s two in the afternoon…” Daniel insisted, still suspiciously joyful. Not that he was a particularly depressing person, but still it strange to have him happy when I could not figure out the reason.

The words had an effect on Rufus only. I simply dragged the pillow over my head and hoped to be dreaming all of this.

“What?” Rufus asked, and I realized that he was up already.

I was barely awake, and the rest of the conversation did not really make sense.

“Two in the afternoon,” Daniel repeated, “I’d go for a comment, but drop it because there’s something even more interesting than you two going on here. We’ve got a visitor.”

I was hearing all this almost as if it was through a wall. Even though I understood the words, it did not really make much sense. I still hadn’t completely emerged from my sleep, and it was damn hard for my brain to process things correctly.

“A visitor?” Rufus asked from somewhere far away in the room. “How can we have a visitor? Who’s it?” There was a splash of water and at last I understood that he was in the little bathroom adjacent to the room, and I was not even sure whether he’d been there all along or had just gotten there.

“I don’t know, how could I? But Arnaud’s gone to get them and he should be back any minute. I thought it’d be nice if you two were actually up.”

“I’m already up,” Rufus answered. “But Aimée, she’s just… still asleep.”

“No I’m not,” I groaned.

“No of course you’re not,” Rufus said. From the tone of his voice, it seemed that he was amused. I, much less. “Listen, I’m going to see what this is all about. I’d hate to look like I’m giving you orders, but you should really get up and meet us in the dining room, right?”

“Hmm,” I mumbled, noncommittally. “Rufus?”

“Yes?”

“I’m not dreaming this whole thing, right?”

“And a wonderful dream it was, too. Now, try to get up and meet us there, okay?”

I heard him open the door then close it behind him, then calling after Dan in the corridor. It was only a little later that everything just clicked into place, and that I fully proceeded all that I had heard. I didn’t know how many people knew of this place, but I figured that it couldn’t be that much. And the place was so recluse that I couldn’t possibly imagine that anyone would happen to just stumble upon it on accident. A visitor meant someone who knew about the place. And, given that winter was coming to an end, and that we had been here for much longer than I had even thought we would, it was very, very much possible that that mysterious visitor was someone from the circus. Which meant that it was time for us to go back. And given Daniel’s excitement, he had probably come to the same conclusions as I. Even more, if it was indeed someone from the circus, it had to be Émilie. After all, she’d promised she’d be the one to come for us, when all the trouble was over. Which absolutely explained why Dan was so impatient.

I stood up, a little more awake and a little more impatient for what was to come than before. In less than five minutes I was ready. When I reached the dinner room, Arnaud still hadn’t arrived with the mysterious visitor. I wondered what it meant. Was it normal that it took so long? I could not recall whether our walk in the dark underground tunnels had taken a long time or not. I did not remember. In the dining room, no one said a word, it was all just expectation and wait. I watched them all in turn, Cécile, Daniel and Rufus, to know what they could be thinking. Cécile looked a little worried, as I would have been, if it had been my family that was gone. Daniel looked impatient. Rufus just looked tired.

“What’s taking him so long?” Cécile muttered after a moment.

“I’m sure he’s alright,” Rufus said, comforting and caring as he always was. “It’s a long tunnel, he’ll be here soon. If there was anything wrong, we would’ve heard already. Don’t be worried.”

He comforted her with a hug, and she looked up at him with a weak smile, yet most of the worry had left her face.

“Oh,” I said, when I recognized that look and suddenly all that had happened, Cécile becoming shyer and avoiding me, all of that found a perfectly logical explanation. “Well if I’d expected that…” I grumbled to myself. It was simple really. Just plain simple. Little Cécile had a crush on Rufus, something that I could perfectly understand, though I wasn’t sure how it really made me feel.

“Expected what?” Daniel asked. “Is something… hang on, there’s someone at the door.”

And indeed he was right, because not a second later, that door was opened.

“I’ve brought you some visit,” Arnaud announced as he entered the room. But contrary to what I thought we had all been expecting, at this point, it was not Émilie who followed him into the room. We’d been right to assume that, winter being over, it was something to do with the circus, because it was someone we knew. Just not who we’d been expecting, because instead of Émilie’s heartwarming smile, we were faced with Pierre, the fire-eater in the circus, who was observing everything with eyes wide open.

“It was true,” he whispered eventually, before even thinking about greeting anyone, “this place is truly… this is amazing.” Then he redirected his gaze towards us, and smiled sheepishly. “Hello,” he said, “good to see you guys, it’s been a long time.”

Daniel was the first one to react. “Isn’t Émilie with you?” he asked. He was very worried, it was easy to hear from the strain in his voice, and it was easy to see from the look on his face. “I thought… she said she’d…”

“No, she’s not,” Pierre answered, his eyes still wide as he turned his head all around, trying to see all that there was to see in the room, the furniture, the books, the paintings, the chandeliers… All of this was occupying too much of his mind for him to truly pay us much attention.

“How… why?” Daniel asked. He was a little panicked now.

“Oh, no,” Pierre said quickly, realizing what he’d done. “She’s fine, she’s alright. Sorry, I should’ve started with that. She’s alright, Daniel, perfectly fine. She just – couldn’t really come right now, so they sent me instead. But she’s perfectly fine, don’t you worry, you’ll see.”

He looked around once, and it was obvious that this was Pierre’s first visit to the library too, because for a moment he just looked like he was in heaven or something.

“Pierre!” Rufus called, bringing him back to earth again. “So everything’s alright, then? We can go home?”

It was obvious from the way Rufus said that that the circus was indeed his home. I briefly remembered, with a feeling that made me feel like I was briefly suffocating, what he’d said earlier. How he could live in a house, should I ever want to. It was obvious that it was a lie.

“We’re all fine,” Pierre reassured us, finally detaching his eyes from the room to look at each one of us in turn with a smile. “Every one of us. And getting back on the road. So, time to come back, guys.”

“Well, you certainly took your time,” Rufus remarked. “What happened? We’ve been here for ages.” He quickly turned to Arnaud with an apologetic smile. “Not that I complain,” he said, “It’s been an amazing time.” As he said that, he cast me a quick look before returning his attention to Pierre.

“Yeah, bit of, well, not really troubles, but winter out there was harsher than expected,” Pierre said with a wince, “got stuck in that dirty town because the roads were impracticable for a long time. Lost one of the spare horses to the cold too. But snow’s melting now, and we’re ready to hit the road. And quickly, too, or we’ll miss the spring fair, too.”

“What’s the spring fair?” I asked before I could stop myself.

Rufus answered. “Travelling companies meeting,” he said. “Not as fun as it sounds. Tell you more about it later.”

“There’s more,” Pierre said, and this time his smile was so bright that it could have lit the entire room – which was strange in itself, because although I had never spent much time in his company at the circus, I barely knew him, actually, I knew that Pierre wasn’t the one with the easiest smile.

“More?” Daniel asked. He was mildly curious, but mainly was only asking to humor Pierre. Such as I knew him, Dan was only waiting for one thing. To pick up his things and go back to the circus, and to Émilie.

“Yeah. We’re going to have ourselves a wedding.”

“A wedding?” It was my turn to speak this time, and I tried to figure out who, in the circus, could possibly be marrying who.

“Yeah,” Pierre was ecstatic, “Cara, she said yes. She did. We’re going to get married.”

I think the news surprised us all, because no one reacted immediately. We all had in mind the terrible fights these two could get in, sometimes… well, often … and the horrible things they could shout at each other. Arnaud was the first one to have an appropriate reaction.

“That’s amazing boy,” he said. “Come with me, we’re going to get a bottle of champagne to celebrate properly. I think there’s one of two left in some room. Never opened one, but now’s the perfect time, right?”

“A wedding,” Daniel said when Pierre and Arnaud had left the room. “Well, that’s… something different.”

“Yeah, I s’pose they’ll want to do it during the fair,” Rufus said, clearly still surprised.

“A wedding,” I said, “like, wedding…”

“Yes, apparently so.”

“But they’re always fighting,” I whispered, afraid that Pierre might overhear me.

“Always have been,” Rufus agreed, “from the first day they met. But they’ve been together all that time too, so it sort of, does make sense?” He finished his sentence as a question, which spoiled the certainty of it a lot.

“I remember that day,” Dan added. “Hell, a wedding…”