No Stars at the Circus by Mary Finn

van, leading a boy by the hand. He was about my age and he had thick black curly hair like hers. He looked pretty miserable even though he was wearing a pair of
real
football boots. They were black and gleaming with polish, as if they’d never been used.
    The two of them came and stood beside Signor Corrado.
    “How’s my boy?” he said. “Better?” He got his fingers stuck, rubbing the boy’s hair. But the boy didn’t laugh. He just stood there.
    “This is our Tommaso,” Signor Corrado said to us. “He hasn’t been at all well lately. He’s been in hospital.”
    “Oh dear,” said Mama. “Why?”
    “The Necker Hospital for Sick Children,” said La Giaconda. “He has a problem with his ears. Mastoid infections. He has to go back into hospital again soon.”
    Mama turned pink. “That’s where our Nadia goes too, with her ears! Say hello to Tommaso, Nadia!”
    Nadia made a face at the boy. A nice face, not a rude one. He just stared back at her and dug his boots into the ground.
    “You see, Tommaso can’t go to school right now,” Signor Corrado said. “If you could spare your Jonas to come and help us out on Sundays and be a friend to Tommaso, I would promise to take the best care of him. Myself or Alfredo would pick him up and return him to you. We’d feed him well. And he would have absolute protection at all times.”
    He rubbed my hair this time. “Your Jonas is such a smart boy. He gets completely involved, a quality I like. I think he’d enjoy being part of our show. What do you think?”
    What did
I
think? Take a guess! But of course it was Mama and Papa he was talking to, not me. And guess which one of them thought it was a good idea and which one a bad idea?
    I bet everyone gets that one wrong.
    But it wasn’t decided right there on the spot, not with Tommaso ruining his boots, kicking the studs into the ground. And Papa still boiling over with fury.
    Mama said, “We’d better go home and talk about this, Signor…” and she stopped.
    “Corrado,” said Signor Corrado. “I am Luigi and my wife is Lucia. We’re from Bologna. In better times.”
    Then he winked at me. “Don’t forget, Jonas would earn a little bit, too. The labourer is worthy of his hire.”
    We went home then.
    But in case anybody wonders, it was Papa who thought it would be a good idea for me to come to the circus on Sundays. That was because he was all wound up and angry about the stupid laws for Jews that kept us down. He didn’t think the horrible man at the circus would make any bother for me, because he hadn’t even noticed me.
    But Mama was just plain scared about it all.
    “You said he should have other boys to play with,” Papa said. “I don’t want him at school, so here’s his chance. And he won’t be on his own, going there or coming back. He’ll be with an Italian. That’s a lot safer than he’d be with me.”
    He laughed, but it wasn’t a jokey laugh. After a while Mama said she would let me go once and see how it went.
    “I did like that man,” she said slowly. “And I’m sorry for the poor boy. He looked so sick and unhappy.”
    Anyway, that’s how it all began a few months ago, with me and the Corrado family. And now I am going to bed.

1 OCTOBER 1942
    Today the Prof gave me my first piano lesson! He said his secret plan was moving along, little by little, but he could see it wasn’t very healthy for me to be up in the attic on my own all day, even if I was devouring books.
    “We’ll try a lesson, Jonas. It’s taken me this long to realize that even if the neighbours hear you play a few scales, they’ll just think I’m taking on pupils again. Doing some work after all this time.”
    I suppose he meant after his wife’s death.
    He said he had one good neighbour who never complained about his pupils’ playing and one bad neighbour who did.
    “That fellow used to act as if he was under siege by Napoléon every time the piano lid went up. The letters I used to get! Well, his