Free The Little Bride by Anna Solomon

again, so that they looked like boys in slow motion, teasing for a fight. One of the bearers opened the hatch, letting in more light. A stillness overcame the bunks.
    The magician crossed the rings. He brought them close to his face, took a deep breath, and bowed. He let go of one ring, but instead of dropping, it swung from the other ring, linked.
    The cheer wavered at first, then grew more solid—a heat off the bunks.
    “He’s not done yet!” shouted one of the men. “Don’t let him off!”
    The magician held up a third ring. He tossed it in the air, snapped his wrist once, and watched his chain of rings grow into three, then he gathered them into his hand, blew, and placed them, one by one, over his neck. He removed two, held them up, and passed one through the other, followed by his arm. He made a farcical strongman face, his cheeks shaking with effort, then pulled his arm, and the ring, back through. He took more rings off his arms. He made stars. He made diamonds. He linked five rings with one blow, unlinked them with another. People were clapping now, not waiting between tricks.
    “So prove it! Show us you’re not a fraud.”
    The magician lowered his arms. He closed his eyes. He knit his brow, bit his lips, crouched as if concentrating with his entire being—though Minna was close enough to see a quiver in his lips, a private joy. His arms were fluid as he presented three separate rings, then rigid as he pretended to struggle, banging metal against metal. He grimaced. He seemed to stop trying. Then, suddenly, the rings were linked.
    “Hurrah!”
    “It’s the same trick! We’ve already seen it!”
    The magician bowed in all directions, then faced the man who’d been yelling. He walked up to the man’s bunk, bowed again, and held out three linked rings to the man’s largest child, a boy who looked to be eight or nine. “There! My tools. See for yourself!”
    People gathered around the bunk to watch. The boy pulled at each ring in turn, then at two at a time, then went through the process again. He closed his eyes. He gnashed his teeth. The magician stood with his back to the boy, perfectly still, his face full of mockery and triumph. The boy shook the rings. He knocked them against the bunk. His father danced around him, snarling directions, his nostrils glowing with impending humiliation. Finally the boy, exasperated, hurled the rings into the air.
    It was then that one fell off, rolled in a circle, and returned to the boy.
    All fussing, all encouragement, all jeering, stopped. Minna saw the magician dip his head discreetly, eyeing the remaining rings in his hands. The boy picked up the fallen ring and brought it close to his face. He smiled, though in his smile was a kind of dread. “There’s a hole,” he said—or at least this was what he must have said, he wasn’t loud enough to be heard. It was his father who grabbed the ring and cried, “There’s a hole!”
    The magician had drained of color so entirely Minna thought he might fall over. He did not look at her. His eyes were on his bunk. The boy’s father was displaying the ring to the crowd, slipping it onto another ring, showing how they linked, slipping it off again. “It’s simple! A gimmick! Any child could do it!”
    He faced the magician, holding a ring in each of his hands, which he’d flung out to either side of his ears as far as they would go so that he bore a certain resemblance to the gentile God.
    Still the magician did not turn toward him. “Those are not the right . . . you took the wrong . . .”
    “Speak up!” the man growled.
    “Those are the wrong . . .”
    “Wrong? Right? What is wrong and right in magic? Magic must be magic! How else do you expect us to believe? How else do you expect us to restrain ourselves?Your birds are so plump! And if the rings are not magic, what are the birds?”
    “Please . . .”
    “It is simple to eat a real bird.”
    But the man had taken too long with his gloating. A flash of