The Circus I Never Saw

I must have been five or six years old.

I went to Colégio Estadual Tomaz Edison Andrade Vieira, in the Borba Gato neighborhood of Maringá, in the state of Paraná, Brazil.

Next to the school there was a large vacant lot. One day a circus showed up there.

Back then, when a circus came to town, it was an event. The kids talked about it during class, at recess, and on the way home. They said there were animals, clowns, and attractions I had never seen.

My father didn’t have the money to take me.

I remember hearing the other students talk about a llama that spat on people. Almost everyone had gone to the circus.

Everyone but me.

A few days later, the circus left.

The tents were gone. The trucks were gone. The performers were gone. The animals were gone.

All that was left was the empty lot.

One day at recess, I crossed the school fence and went over there.

What I found wasn’t a circus.

It was the traces of one.

Marks on the ground. Patches where something heavy had been parked. Footprints. And above all, little balls of dung left by the animals.

I kept walking around that lot, trying to imagine what had happened there.

The main tent must have stood here.

Maybe there was a pen over there.

Some animal passed through here.

Someone was here.

It started to rain.

I kept walking.

The rain picked up.

I kept walking.

I completely lost track of time.

When I finally realized it, recess had been over for a long time.

I went back to school soaked.

The teacher did not share my archaeological enthusiasm.

I ended up in the principal’s office and got a scolding.

But I never forgot that day.

The curious thing is that I don’t remember the circus.

I don’t remember its name.

I don’t remember the performers.

I don’t remember the attractions.

I don’t remember the music.

What stayed etched in my memory was the empty lot after everything was over.

Years ago I wrote about the places I never went back to. Places that vanished from my life but kept existing in some corner of my memory. Maybe this lot belongs on that same list.

The difference is that, on that day, I wasn’t visiting an abandoned place.

I was arriving right after it had ceased to exist.

Forty years later, maybe I finally understand why this memory survived.

While other children wanted to see the show, I was fascinated by the remnants.

The circus was gone.

I was interested in what it had left behind.