And she, more orthodox, pretended to be frightened by his profanity.

Heliotrope earned no money with the Great Floriani.

They offered him no remuneration and he asked for none.

With the coins the people tossed him for pulling sprigs of heliotrope out of nowhere he bought little gifts for Colom- bina, and this was all that mattered to him. She, like the Great Floriani and the others, tired of asking him to explain his trick and finally came to regard it as just another act.

Just the same, Colombina, a child who had never quite become a woman or a woman who had never ceased being a child, never stopped being thrilled at her friend's ability to offer her at any hour of the day or night a sprig of the tiny fragrant blue flower.

And soon the emaciated young man with dreamy eyes and the courageous girl with supple ankles began to ex- change tender glances above the tiny bouquets. While their travelling companions watched them with wise smiles and friendly whispers and the Florianis dreamed of another bond within the circus family, Filipon raged in silence. Even before Heliotropo's arrival he had sought Colombina's favor in vain. His carefully trimmed mus- tache, his man of the world manners, his brilliantined hair and his spectacular knife-throwing act, though now he outlined Heliotrope Instead of a dummy, had failed com- pletely. His attentions had elicited no more response from Colombina than stones tossed into an empty well. And now the simple, meek Heliotrope was eliciting from her the same exalted response as a great artist achieves with his violin. Things went on in this way while the circus wheels rolled past the shadows of the volcanoes San Miguel and San Vicente, Izalco and Santa Ana, past the trembling mirror of the thousand rivers of the Lempa and the Paz, the painted lakes, the Guija and the Llopango, the plantations of wheat and rice, the woods of Peru balsam and the indigo, the fields of pochote and frijoles, the biblical flocks of sheep and goats. The circus, and with it Colombina and Heliotrope, marched on with the inexorability of an astro- nomic phenomenon. Until one night they came to a village on the Guatemalan frontier.

It was a hamlet with a few houses huddled together at the foot of a towering green mountain. The wagons stopped at the edge of a lyre-shaped lake with quiet grey waters. In the trees that solemnly watched over the sleep- ing lake, invisible birds sang as though enchanted. A hawk fluttered in the twilight blue, like an evil omen in a witches'

tale. The bells of a white hermitage, which hung like a nest on the side of the mountain, underscored the peace of the evening.

The Great Floriani, feverish from a cold, soon took to his bed, but the others were having a fine dinner, old wine, songs and dancing by a crackling fire. The night slowly reclined upon the treetops, sultry and voluptuous like an amorous odalisque. With the last carmine rays of the set- ting sun, the underbrush yielded its wild aromas and the crickets burst into their staccato singsong.

When they went to bed-all except Filipon, who de- voured by jealousy and mosquitoes lingered on to spy in the shadows-Colombina and Heliotrope were alone by the dying fire. The glowing embers tinted the round little face of the girl rose. The lake, invisible in the darkness, lapped gently against the sh.o.r.e. The moon was hidden but a thousand yellow stars blinked brightly, though not as brightly as the stars that leaped from the fire. It was the languid hour of midnight

Colombina and Heliotrope, holding hands, silently gazed at each other. From their lips hung a kiss that like a timid little bird dared not a.s.sert itself. The romantic mes- sage that had grown through long hot days, moonlit nights and hours of work, insomnia and hope, struggled silently to make itself known.

Finally Colombina rose. He followed her silently. She climbed into the wagon where she slept alone among many a prop and bale. From the top step she looked down at him. her lips shimmering with scarlet tremors.

"Come," she said to him, and entering the wagon she closed the door.

Heliotrope did not move. Filipon, who had witnessed the scene from the shadows, went to his own wagon blind with pain and rage. Heliotrope, standing still, was like a statue burnished in silver by a curious moon.

Sleepless, trembling. Colombina waited in vain. Her door never opened again that night.

"In a Little Spanish Town" ... The melody an- nounced the opening number. The circus was giving a gala performance in the mountain village of Cojutepeque.

Colombina, her eyes red and swollen, pa.s.sed Heliotrope without even glancing at him and went through her act with waxen face and pale lips.

Unfortunately the Great Floriani was too sick to per- form. After a feverish night, visited by severe fits of cough- ing, he lay exhausted on his cot under the hot poultices the' inexorable Mama Floriani applied to his vast chest every few minutes. A short consultation had taken place at his bedside. It was agreed that Heliotrope would do all he could to entertain the public, and then as a finale they would put on Filipon's invariably spectacular knife act.

The Great Floriani gave final instructions to a shaking Heliotrope.

"Do all you can," he implored him. "At least make a coin vanish or change the colour of a ribbon or two."

The roll of drums, which usually heralded the entrance of the Great Floriani and was now announcing Heliotrope, sounded to him like the prelude to his execution. The dais he had to mount in the centre of the ring was the guillotine, the sand reminded him of the cemetery, and the audience was the Roman mob that with a turn of their thumbs brought death upon the victim's head.

He bowed clumsily and became even more fl.u.s.tered when he noticed Colombina staring at him with eyes of steel and a mocking smile. The anxious faces of the chil- dren in the first row made his fright mount to new heights.

He tried the trick with the coin but it fell to the ground. Just as he was beginning the ribbon trick, the blue banners of the next trick dropped out from under his cape- He tried to draw flame out of a hat and almost started a fire-

Filipon's resounding guffaws mixed with the shouts of protest from the audience. Heliotrope, completely discon- certed, looked around for some means of escape. But something in Colombina's eyes stopped him.

Suddenly, without hesitating, Heliotrope approached a little boy and no sooner did he make him put out his hands than they held a nest of quivering white doves. Then he picked up a handful of sand and tossed it in the air, and instead of sand a cloud of gold spangles drifted down to the ground. The audience began to applaud. Heliotrope, pale but smiling, next changed the rope round the ring into a garland of flowers, the old tired horses into multicoloured zebras, and the wrinkled, paper peanut bags into canaries of yellow flight and golden song. Never before had an audience seen such skill. The performers, standing to- gether, stored at Heliotrope in stupefaction. Heliotrope raised a pale hand and there fell from the canvas roof a shower of coloured confetti, streamers and balloons. From between the knees of a young man he produced a white pony bedizened in gorgeous velvet and silver mail. In the centre of the ring he called forth a fountain of feathers and pearls, and from a paper envelope he drew a twenty- foot-high palm tree with coconuts and monkeys high up in the branches. The audience went completely mad. It was then that Heliotrope, as his finale, signalled to Colombina to lie in the box in which she was sawed in two by the Great Floriani. At that moment, the Great Floriani, who had been kept apprised of the extraordinary happenings by an as- tonished and stammering Cascabel, uttered a bloodcur- dling scream.

"Look!" he cried to Mama Floriani. "There is the painted rubber saw with which I cut Colombina in two, and yet I saw Filipon take out a saw for the act. He must have taken the one used for cutting wood."

He had to say no more. Mama Floriani executed a truly astonishing leap, considering her weight, and darted out of the wagon toward the circus. The Great Floriani, bathed in a cold sweat of terror, at any minute expected Mama Floriani to walk in with a b.l.o.o.d.y Colombina under her arm. What a monstrous revenge! The jealousy-crazed Fili- pon had arranged for Heliotrope to cut his beloved in half.

The Great Floriani thought he could hear Colombina's screams, which Heliotrope would mistake for the false cries she lavished on the audience every time Floriani pretended to cut her in two with the imitation saw. And this time the legs held up to the public would be real and not artificial ones dripping with red paint.

The wagon door was suddenly pushed open. The Great Floriani clenched his fists. But his wife was alone.

"I can't believe it," she panted, sitting down on a mus- tard plaster in her confusion, "That boy is the greatest magician in the world. He pulled a giraffe out of a hat and threaded a needle with a rope. And-you'll die, Floriani!-he really did saw Colombina in two and then put her together again as good as new. No, I'm not crazy.

And you have heard nothing yet It was not sleight of hand.

He did it with a real saw and she thought it was the same old trick. And then he stood up for Filipon to throw his knives at him. I swear he threw them at him to kill! Right at his heart! And Heliotrope, smiling, changed them into golden lilies as they came at him."

n.o.body slept that night, n.o.body in the town and cer- tainly n.o.body in the circus. Filipon had fled, his teeth chattering with terror. The Florianis made great plans for the future and dreamer of Heliotrope's becoming the star of their troupe. The other performers waited in a frenzy for morning to come to express their admiration to Helio- tropo. Colombina spent the night interrogating the lofty stars with tearful eyes. After the show Heliotrope had left for the hermitage on the mountain, explaining that he wanted to spend the night alone. They had respected his wish.

At dawn, Colombina could wait no longer and knocked atthe door of the Florianis' wagon. Mama Floriani, her hair dishevelled and her eyes red from a sleepless night, opened the door.

"Mama Floriani," Colombina implored, "you must come with me to find him."

"Where did he go?"

"To the hermitage on the mountain."

They left Floriani snoring under layers of blankets and began their climb to the hermitage. The sky was tinged by the pink of dawn. Birds burst into early song to frighten away the last star. The scent of rosemary perfumed the air.

From a pool a single frog stared at them with beady little eyes. Invisible c.o.c.ks crowed, giving the sun the signal to rise. Colombina, pale and anxious, climbed the path lightly, followed by her hard'-breathing companion.

The hermitage was small, white and sad, like the deep sigh of a tearful child. Outside the sun polished the roof with its gold emery board. Inside there were wooden benches, a small altar with a stone saint, the aroma of flowers, and an early-rising friendly hermit. When he saw the two women staring with ecstatic faces at the saint, he approached them with a benevolent gesture.

"Are you admiring the angel San Miguel? Fine manly figure of a saint. You won't believe it but he was a sinner in his youth. There is a beautiful legend about him. In his lifetime G.o.d punished him for breaking his vow of chast.i.ty with a girl. His penance was to return to earth time and again dispossessed of his miraculous powers, which he had abused once to please a woman- G.o.d commanded him to wander over the earth until he could withstand the temptation of a woman's love. Only then would he again recover G.o.d's grace and with it his power to perform miracles. The Lord, however, allowed him in his peniten- tial wanderings one little miracle: he could make flowers appear anywhere. But until he could prove that he pre- ferred divine grace to a woman's arms, he would have to wander through the world, a young man of light head and yielding heart. This is his statue and these his flowers.

Don't you smell the perfume of the blue heliotrope, the favourite flowers of the angel San Miguel?"

Once again night and silence have descended upon the circus. Performers and animals are in deep sleep. A moon as huge as heaven itself bathes the circus in its chaste tight.

The air suddenly stirs with the footsteps of a divine pres- ence. And in the morning Cascabel wakes up in silk tights embroidered with gold; the horses are harnessed in the finest wrought silver; the twin sisters find bolts of gold cloth at their feet; Samson's weights are filled with precious jewels; the Florianis' wagon is a princely chariot, all pre- cious metals, silk hangings and brocades. And Colombina opens her eyes and finds in her hand a sprig of heliotrope.