Metro Winds by Isobelle Carmody

beautiful.’
    Daniel flushed. Almost he wished the fox magician would attack him so that he could act instead of sitting here tangling up his tongue like a fool. Then he told himself that he was a fool indeed, for whatever was happening here in this strange little circus, it was none of his affair. What was he doing here? He said quietly, ‘Perhaps you can pass on my thanks for the performance.’
    The other man shrugged and seemed to relax. ‘You wan’ a wine?’
    Daniel hesitated. He wanted to leave but he did not know the words that would release him. He nodded and moved to sit on the couch after the fox man pointed to it and poured wine into two plastic cups he drew out from beneath the table.
    â€˜Where is she?’ Daniel asked, when he took the cup of wine.
    â€˜She vanished.’ The fox magician gave him a sly smile before drinking a mouthful of wine. ‘Is gift she learned in childhood.
    Has been ver’ useful.’
    â€˜It was a trick,’ Daniel said slowly, setting down his cup untouched.
    The magician put down his cup too and reached out in one smooth gesture to turn Daniel’s hand palm up with a quick strong twist. He stared at it intently. ‘Here is calloused working hand and yet it is hand of child who knows nothing.’ He looked into Daniel’s face, and for a moment the cunning in his expression slipped like a mask that had nearly been dislodged, as he murmured, ‘Nothing more than a child’s pain, perhaps . . . which is far from nothing.’
    Suddenly his English was perfect, though accented, and Daniel stared at him, shaken and confused. ‘What is all this? Why does she let you hurt her? She must have been half-smothered at the end.’
    â€˜Art requires pain,’ the fox magician said, but absently, as if his mind were elsewhere. ‘Tell me where have you come from, that you seek audience with the Dove Princess?’
    â€˜I’m Australian,’ Daniel said.
    â€˜Ahh. So. A country of children, I think, full of light and thoughtlessness.’ His eyes now seemed to glitter and Daniel saw that they were a very light soft green. ‘And why did you come here?’
    â€˜I came to meet a woman.’
    â€˜You do not truly wish to meet the Dove Princess,’ said the fox magician, cutting him off. ‘She will bring you nothing that you desire.’ His voice was very soft, very serious.
    â€˜I . . . no,’ Daniel stammered.
    The magician seemed not to hear him. ‘You think to rescue her. But she is not my victim. I am hers. All of us are her instruments, the boys, the doves, you. She designed the Dove Game.’
    â€˜The blood is a trick?’ Daniel asked.
    â€˜The blood is real. The pain is real. That is how she wants it. She sculpts her own pain.’
    â€˜But that . . . It’s sick . . .’ Without realising it, he had taken up the cup and now wine slopped over the brim onto his hand.
    â€˜It is monstrous,’ the magician agreed wearily. ‘But the blood is what gives the game its power. You see that? Even you could see that.’
    â€˜But . . . why does she do it? Surely not for money?’
    â€˜She says the Dove Game reminds her of a truth she experienced in the camp.’
    Daniel found his mouth was dry. ‘She . . . she was in a concentration camp? But that was decades ago. It’s not possible.’
    â€˜She was a child. Children were taken. Not just Jews. Gypsies also. The chosen people prefer to forget that, of course. She was taken from near here. My grandfather was taken, too. That is how she came to join us after the war. He brought her. He said he owed her his life, for she had stolen food for him that kept him from starving. We come here each year on the day that they were taken. She always sends the boy out for men to come and watch her performance, so that she can choose one.’ His sighed. ‘Her mind is gone, of course. There are brilliant