A Bird's Eye by Cary Fagan

eyes fearful even as it roared again. An actor behind hit the lever, secretly tipping the floor and causing the startled lion to slide into the hidden compartment. Up came my costume from below, along with a dummy of me.
    The soldiers made a big show of throwing me into the cage and shutting the door.
    Did I hear my mother cry out, or was that somebody else? Quickly I pulled on the lion costume, legs first, then arms and head, pulling up the inside zipper. It was heavily padded and reinforced to make me look much larger. The realism was good enough to briefly fool an audience that had already seen a real lion and believed it still to be there. I kept hunched over the bloody dummy of myself while the stage lights, already dim, flashed blue and red.
    I heard Hitler shout the cue for the sheet to be pulled away from the cage. As it came up, I made as if I were disembowelling the dummy, moving as viciously as I could. I threw myself onto the cage door, bringing it crashing down. The impact on my hands and knees made me yelp with pain. The audience screamed while Hitler too cried out in terror and fled the stage, even as I yanked off the lion’s head and revealed the boy underneath.

My mother, Bella Kleeman, threw open the door of the theatre and walked furiously up Yonge Street. A light rain fell. What she would do with her son when he came home! When had all this happened? What sort of people was he associating with? Really, she was the one who ought to be smacked, lost in her own suffering and pleasure. How had she missed the end of his childhood?
    Sigismond Eisler saw her leave. He wanted to catch up but thought better of it and stooped to tie his shoe. He wondered if he and Bella were over. Outside, he pulled his hat low to keep the rain out of his eyes. It had been nine weeks since he had heard from his wife and child. His eyes filled. Maybe they were in hiding somewhere in the countryside. Maybe they were still safe.
    This is what my father thought: My son has turned out to be clever . He didn’t get up from his seat but remained as the band played and a dancing couple came on. So he had passed something on to the boy.
    A passing automobile threw up a sluice of dirty water that soaked the hem of Miss Pensler’s dress. She felt a glow of pride for the boy who had come to her wanting a book. Getting into a cab, she opened her purse and fished out a pack of Buckinghams. For a reason she couldn’t fathom, she thought of her father, who had been hit by a delivery truck in front of the Telegram building when she was five years old. The match flared and she drew on the cigarette. She could remember only one image of him, standing in his undershirt in the kitchen, peeling an apple.
    Corinne’s father held her arm tightly. He walked her to the front of the theatre, but she stopped and asked if he would wait a minute for her. He looked hard at her and then he said all right. Corinne hurried back inside. She went up to the ticket booth, politely asked for a sheet of paper and a pen, and then wrote a single line. She folded the paper and wrote To Benjamin Kleeman on it before giving it to the ticket seller. Then she went back to her father and the two of them walked quickly down to the station. Her father had just enough time to change into his uniform before they boarded.

The lion had died while confined in the hidden space under the cage floor. It couldn’t have suffocated as the compartment was properly ventilated. Nor were there any signs of injury. Likely it had died of a heart attack.
    â€œWithout a lion, we don’t have an act,” said Moses Ludwig in his office. “I don’t know where to get another one. Besides, he was eating me out of house and home. I’ve already put a lot of dough into this. And if there’s a war? Actually, I should say when there’s a war.”
    â€œBut the act worked,” I said. “The audience — did you hear them?”
    â€œI hate to