And as though I’d issued a command to my own body, I floated in midair. With the lights dimmed, I couldn’t see them, but I could hear the gasps from the audience. As I felt myself sink, I recalled the feeling of humiliation and found that my body rose with the intensity of my emotion. Knowing the timing necessary for the performance, I began rotating my torso in a vertical turn, like a corkscrew, so I could stretch enough to meet Michel’s waiting hands. To my surprise, as I focused on his hands, my body traveled. What was now clear to this evening’s ticket holders was that I spun without the aid of any prop in my hands—no bar, no Spanish Web, no hanging silk. I was floating. Then I met Michel and he pulled me over to the perch.

With the lights drowning out the audience, I could only hear their applause. As I bowed, Hugo held my hand tightly. “You’ve got to do that corkscrew move again tomorrow,” he whispered. “That was the performance of the evening.”

At the end of the show, all of us—the horses, monkeys, elephants, bearded ladies, knife throwers, and lion tamers—took our final bow and walked around the arena. Standing in the center for the first time, I was surprised to find that I couldn’t actually see the crowd with the spotlight. Each performer stepped forward, and the noise from the crowed lifted and lowered. Hugo grabbed my hand and pulled me out from the line, and it was as though time stood still. As I bowed, I could feel the perspiration on my forehead and hear the whistling and roaring above me in the stands. When I returned to the line, I saw them—my fellow performers, imprisoned as oddities, but from the gratified looks on their faces, their eyes glistening with tears as the crowd clamored for them, I realized that when you’ve had a lifetime of adoration, you still crave it. Even if it required transforming into a bearded lady, a clown, or even a steed, adorned with a crown of plumes, they were given the ability to perform again. As I took a bow, I finally understood Le Cirque Secret.

In the hallway where I used to stand with buckets of water for the horses—a place I would never stand again—I saw the outline of Father standing there. Applauding.

And then to my surprise, tears began to roll down my face.

After the performance, Sylvie and I headed to Montparnasse. We’d had some famous guests at the show that night: Hadley and Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound and his wife whom they all call Shakespear, and Marc Chagall. I heard these artists were all the rage. Rage or not, after the performance, they clamored to meet us.

Even late into the evening, the cafés were packed. Montparnasse on a busy night was a symphony of sounds: conversations in French, English, and German; the clinking of cups against saucers; the street music of American jazz mixed with old-world accordions, both played with deft hands. Depending on where you turned your head, a different Montparnasse filled your ears.