Among the Wonderful (18 page)

“Come on, then. Let’s go!” He stopped and waved the dog along. The creature stood at the edge of the pavement, sniffing the air and growling. Guillaudeu returned to it, but as he approached the dog kept its distance.

“For heaven’s sake. I’m your friend!” Guillaudeu called. “Can’t you see that?”

He wanted it for company, but the dog would not leave the cobbled street. He tossed it some more bread and a bit of the cheese, but the dog would not be bribed. When he finally set off northward, the unmoving dog barked after him. Looking back, just before he disappeared around the bend, the dog was still there, pacing the line where the city ended.

She Stands Up Again

Maud was babbling about the gaff again. All morning I’d been posing for the lithographer’s sketch artist and my neck hurt. After the sitting, I had given the lithographer’s assistant the pages to publish for my True Life History pamphlet. It would encompass only six pages, but instead of the jungles of Surinam, the setting was our old farmhouse in Nova Scotia. It was a crude sketch, but it was true. Would it sell? Was it ridiculous? These thoughts distracted me, and if I’d known Maud would be so talkative I wouldn’t have stopped at her booth on my way up to the roof for lunch.

“I’m just not certain whom I should report it to. Straight to Barnum? Maybe one of the scouts? I
would
like him to know I was the one to discover it.”

“Why are you making so much out of this?”

“It’s a fraud, Ana. It doesn’t belong here.” Maud coiled her beard into a braid as she huffed up the stairs beside me.

“Them, Maud. Them, not ‘it.’ ”

“Last night
they
woke me up. I swear. I never heard conjoined twins make so much noise. And I heard definitive evidence:
two
sets of footsteps.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I heard it.”

“Why do you care so much?”

“Because it’s not
real.”

“You don’t seem to have a problem with the mermaid. Or that wretched pickled arm.”

“The arm is real.”

“Of course it’s not.”

“This is different.”

“I don’t see how.”

The rooftop garden was bright and quiet. Voices seemed to fly away in the wind, which was an agreeable effect. Barnum had never designated a separate area for employees. It was an oversight, certainly, but no one complained. There was a group of five tables slightly apart from the rest of the restaurant where the employees usually gathered. Thomas sat at one of them. He waved when he saw me and I could see his feet tapping the floor.

“Ah, your friend the nervous pianist. Shall we join them?” Maud walked toward them. “Who’s that he’s talking to, an usher?”

I recognized Beebe’s curly ledge of hair. He’d taken his little red hat off and had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The two of them looked so much like schoolboys that I smiled. I had seen Beebe three times since we met. Twice he was strolling through the galleries. He consumed the museum exactly as it was designed to be consumed: staring for minutes in front of the catoptric room, shaking his head as he passed the small horn extracted from a woman’s forehead in Italy. He represented the quintessential customer, but somehow it did not repulse me.

“Miss Swift. Miss Kraike. Please, sit down.” Thomas and Beebe rose, and Beebe bowed slightly.

“We should have brought our sun hats,” Maud said to the men, extending her hand to Beebe. “I don’t believe we’ve met.” They were introduced and we sat with the cold April sun in our eyes. Thomas ordered lemonade.

“We were just discussing the Human Calculator,” said Beebe, smiling a bit too eagerly. “And how it is that he can solve such … extravagant mathematical formulas entirely in his head.”

“I was just saying that it couldn’t be possible,” Thomas said. “He must have a system of codes, perhaps through gestures, or even voice inflection, to communicate with the professor
moderating the show. I’ve heard that’s a common practice.”

I would have been more interested in their conversation if they had been speculating on the shapes of the passing clouds. The weather, the meal, anything other than opinions about the contents of the museum.

“He has a sickness of the mind,” Maud corrected. “Ah, good. Our soup is coming.”

“What do you mean?” This from Beebe, the Innocent.

“Part of his brain is diseased, which allows him to calculate numbers at an abnormally fast rate.”

“Seems like a good sickness to have,” said Thomas. “Useful.”

“Except that he has some rather strange habits,” said Beebe. “He clutches things, spoons, mostly, while he’s onstage. His pockets are full of them. And he doesn’t seem to ever stop moving.”

A man set bowls of chowder before us.

“You know who is the strangest of all? Who gives me chills every time I think about him?” Maud paused for a dramatic scoop of chowder. “Tom Thumb.”

“What?” said Thomas. “He’s just a little boy!”

“I find him fascinating,” volunteered Beebe.

“He’s terrifying,” Maud declared. “Think about how young he is.”

“But there are other children,” I added. I didn’t know where Maud was going with her argument and I felt an urge to undermine her confidence. “The albino twins are here. There’s a Martinetti child younger than Thumb.”

“But they have their parents here. I heard from one of the bookkeepers that the parents gave him up. My point is, can you imagine if the only life you’ll ever know is here?”

“Sometimes I feel that way,” I said.

“But you had the farm, and your family. Thumb will know only Barnum. Horrifying.”

“I didn’t take you for a sentimentalist, Maud.” Her words chilled me. Not because I pitied Thumb; it was my own life that I suddenly abhorred.

“Our sanity is in our perspective. I participate in this way of life for a specific reason: money. But this will be the entire scope of his life, where he looks for all types of sustenance.”

“Like Caligula in the Roman army,” Thomas murmured.

“How is Thumb so different from us, Maud?” It seemed to me that her argument was based on a false pretense. “You’re speaking from the luxury of your particular situation. You could shave your face and walk outside into anonymity.”

“Why don’t you?” Thomas blurted.

“That’s none of your business,” she snapped. “But Ana, you’ve experienced normal life with your family. It’s in you somewhere. He won’t have that, ever.”

“He won’t be with Barnum forever, surely?” Beebe interjected.

“But by the time he’s done he’s not fit for society. He’ll be done for.”

In the silence that followed, Mr. Olrick lumbered into the restaurant from the stairwell.

“Oh, look!” Maud was about to raise her hand in greeting. “He’s still wearing that military suit.”

“Maud, please. Don’t call him over.” I could not stand the thought of the forced formality, the implied camaraderie, of having another giant at the table. Don’t make me a fool, Maud.

Maud shrugged and lowered her hand. “I don’t see what you have against him. Oh, no!” Maud suddenly became very intent on her soup. “It’s Mr. Archer,” she whispered. “He’s coming this way.”

I looked over my shoulder just in time to see Archer, in a black overcoat and hat, overtake the towering Olrick, who was walking uncertainly toward our table. Archer reached us first, and that was enough to dissuade Olrick from following. He went instead to an empty table on the other side of the restaurant.

“Ah, yes. Good. Just the people I wanted to find.” The ad man took a chair from another table and squeezed between Maud and me. “I’ve just seen an interesting sight. Hello, Mr.
Willoughby.” He nodded toward Thomas and ignored Beebe completely.

“I’m hoping you can help shed some light on a certain matter. You see, I was just working in my office, and I happened to observe Mrs. Charity Barnum and her little girl leaving the museum. With numerous trunks and boxes.” Mr. Archer looked back and forth between Maud and me. “It looked like they were moving out.”

“I’d forgotten that was going to be today,” I said. I had wanted to say good-bye to Caroline. To Charity even. “Are they gone?”

“Yes,” Mr. Archer went on. “They packed all of their luggage on one cart and disappeared into a carriage. I’m wondering if you could help me understand … I’ll put it simply: What’s going on?”

“The Barnums lived here?” Beebe furrowed his delicate brow.

“I never saw
him
on the fifth floor,” said Maud. “But Charity and the girls did.”

“The youngest daughter died, Mr. Archer.” I lowered my voice. “Here. In the museum.”

“And you were there.” Mr. Archer leaned in. “What happened?”

I told him the story of Mrs. Barnum’s strange entrance to the whist game, and the whole scene that followed.

“She was already dead when you got there?”

“Yes. There was no doctor present,” Maud chimed in. “I tried to get one of the Indians to come to the bedside. Once in Philadelphia, we had an Indian who could treat fever. I thought it couldn’t hurt, but the Indian wouldn’t come.”

“So it was you, and you, Miss Swift. Who else was there?”

“Only Mrs. Martinetti. And Mr. Olrick. That one, there.” I pointed.

“That’s a terrible shame.” Mr. Archer shook his head. “Truly awful. Now I understand why they left in such a hurry. Do you know where they will go?”

“Mrs. Barnum was not in the habit of confiding in us,” I said. Archer was already eyeing Olrick. He rose to leave.

“Well, thank you, ladies, for filling me in on the details. I’m much obliged.”

Archer took his leave and made his way to Mr. Olrick’s table.

“Did you see the advertisement he wrote in yesterday’s
Atlas?”
Beebe asked, tipping his bowl for the last of his soup. “There were so many adjectives you could hardly keep track of what it was you were reading about. I didn’t know we had a sewing dog.”

“Cornelia,” said Thomas. “Remarkable animal.”

“Mr. Olrick really is a nice person,” Maud said, watching the two men at the other table. “No matter what you say, Ana. Quite self-conscious, really. Almost humble.”

“He’s just embarrassed because he’s been wearing that suit for two weeks.” The waiter served us plates of beef and steaming carrots. “But the truth is, I’ve become tired of pretending that giants really have anything in common. And Olrick is so nervous.”

“Perhaps his awkwardness belies his true feelings,” Thomas suggested.

“We’re both tall. That doesn’t mean we’re linked by fate,” I spat. “I don’t believe that similarities, especially on the physical level, are the basis for friendship. I have a hard time believing that you might think so, Maud.”

“Yes,” said Beebe. “It’s often the unlikely couple who turn out to be the most well suited.”

“Unlikely. I’ll drink to that!” Maud said, lifting her lemonade. “I like to be reminded of my late husband, the unlikeliest of all.”

“You had a husband?” I could not hide my surprise.

Thomas asked, “Was he a performer?”

“Of course. But not made to last long in this world.”

We drank lemonade and amused ourselves with observing ladies’ hats, absurdly festooned with ostrich feathers, taxidermied doves, even flags, and all solemnly worn by the female museum patrons strolling the rooftop promenade.

That evening I returned to my apartment with a basin of steaming water to soak my feet. I found a note outside my
door from Caroline Barnum. I set down the basin.
Dear Miss Swift. We are leaving. Papa has found us a new house. It is not near the museum. It is in Connecticut. But Papa says I will visit often because the Happy Family will miss me. Do you think animals miss things? I think they must. I’m sure I will see you very soon. Good-bye. Your Humble Servant, Caroline Barnum
. My humble servant. Where in the world had she learned that?

“Miss Swift?” Beebe walked down the hall toward me as I picked up the water. It was strange to see him here, among the apartments, and he appeared a bit nervous about it as well. “I hope I’m not intruding.”

“Not at all, Mr. Beebe.”

The steam had flushed my face and dampened my hair.

“I was just going to ask, and forgive the presumption, if you would care to join me for an evening away from the museum.”

“You mean there is a world outside the museum?” I said.

His face clouded for a moment before he smiled. “There is indeed, Miss Swift. A world of wonders.”

“I’ve heard it’s quite pleasant to be amazed by something wonderful.”

“Well, good. Tomorrow night, then?” He took a few steps back, still facing me, and tipped his hat. “Shall I meet you at the entrance at seven o’clock?”

“Seven o’clock.” I wanted to say something else, something graceful. Instead, I allowed him to open my door so I could maneuver the basin and myself inside. Unlikely, indeed.

When I stepped out in the morning, Maud was waiting for me in the hall. She held out a morning edition of the
Sun
, opened to the amusements page. She pointed to a headline:
P. T. Barnum’s Daughter Dies in His American Museum, in the Company of Human Anomalies
. Mr. Archer hadn’t even bothered to use a pseudonym in the byline. I could not believe our naïveté.