‘Patterns For Life’

Circus Jeanne, in the second season under the Nazi occupation in Wormhouldt, France, 1942.

It is dawn at Circus Jeanne. A strange and discouraged woman strolls through the gates. “I am Princesse Rumble of Coloured Winds,” she says.

She is a sight in her several woolen skirts and a top of knotted scarves.

“I see future. Let me put act with yours,” she says to the Strong Man who has begun to blacken his chain armor in the flames. “Les soldats veulent être informé de leur bonne-aventure.” [Soldiers want to be told fortunes.] “Je vous aide – vous m’aidez.” [I help you — you help me.]

The Princesse looks hungry and Monsieur Saut, the kangaroo, nudges a platter of bread toward her.

“Coloured winds send me,” she says. “Les vents connaisent le temps parfait, n’est-ce pas?” [Winds know perfect time, you see?] You need food, supplies. See how fast I bring in new customers — not be sorry, not sorry — happy,” she says looking at the kangaroo directly in the eye.

“First you tell animals’ fortunes,” announces the Strong Man.

“If she is really a fortuneteller, she will understand us,” they agree.

To make her living as a fortuneteller she must tell people what they want to hear. So Princesse does not always tell the truth. As she pockets their coins, she laughs that they are so gullible. But she cannot lie to animals, no matter how much she wants their payment.

Albertine the elephant asks, “Will I ever get to eat acacia leaves again? And what has happened to Kiril, my trainer?” The Princesse is as surprised to find tears rolling down her own cheeks as she is to see them forming in the eyes of the elephant when she reports the news she has heard.

“So — sorry — your trainer — in prison. Russia.”

The Princesse’s eyes fill with tears with each fortune she tells.

The Strong Man looks at her and says, “You are real.”

She is real, but she is afraid now. It is easier, safer to be a fake. What if she shows her true gifts and gets hurt again, just as she has been all her life?

One day, a little girl, Relia, an orphan who has been adopted by the circus, comes for her fortune.

“Domnisoara Princesse,” she says, “what will become of me sleeping on a cot behind a circus? My family are dollmakers.”

“I also orphan. Learn new things all through world,” says the fortuneteller. “Circus now your family. Life give new pattern, each place. Wait see. Yours come.”

“No, that’s not right. I am to become a dollmaker!”

Princesse recognizes the child’s stubborn determination to not be forgotten.

Then many weeks later, the circus ballerina approaches Relia. “This is a present to you from my mother.”

The ballerina produces a box. Inside are small folds of velvet, wool flannel, fleece and eyelet lace. The child takes the box and touches each piece of cloth to her cheek. When she gets to the bottom, her eyes grow wide. There sits a doll. Relia reaches in to cradle the small figure.

“But this is our family doll!” Relia lifts the doll’s long skirt and catches her breath when she sees the embroidered tag: BOJIN, her family name. “How can it be?”

“My mother found this old doll buried in a closet and thought that you could use it for a pattern,” says the ballerina.

“A pattern!” she yelled to the Princesse. “Look, how did you know? I can’t believe it. This is my own family doll.”

“I not know doll,” the Princesse answers. “I know you and how life treat you. But you have patience and courage. You tell winds where to go. Make own pattern. Time for Princesse to move on. Coloured winds tell me to go. I follow winds here. I follow winds away.”

“But it’s not safe,” says Relia.

“Princesse not afraid any more.”

“You cry again, Rumble,” says the Strong Man. “Circus Jeanne change you.”

“Friends touch heart. Bring love. Part of circus pattern.”

Catherine Hein is a freelance writer based in San Pedro.

Special thanks to Patricia Cantor for this week’s illustration. To see more of her work, visit patriciacantor.com.

For more Kids’ Reading Room visit latimes.com/kids.