“I wonder,” said Robert, as he returned Thomas De Peyster’s album to the desk, “if there’s any way to find out more about the woman who donated this item? I’d love to talk with her.” He had no idea if Sarah Thomas was still alive, but perhaps she had known Thomas De Peyster and might be able to answer some of Robert’s questions.
The redheaded librarian took the catalogue card from Robert and peered at it through his glasses. “I’d have to check the records and see if we have any information we’re allowed to give out. If you want to leave your phone number, I could call you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow morning?” said Robert, eager to pursue this lead as quickly as possible.
“Before lunch,” said the redhead.
“Excellent,” said Robert.
XXXI
New York City,
The Summer of the Great Heat Wave
They agreed to meet in the main reading room of the new central library on Saturday afternoon. That gave Magda four days to polish up the outlines she had created over the past year for the three volumes of the Tremendous Trio. She lay in bed that night thinking about what Gene had said to her after Tom had left Childs. “Just remember, Magda, we’ve all got broken hearts and at best this is going to be bittersweet. It might just be bitter.”
But Magda had begun to question whether she did have a broken heart. Had she ever truly loved Gene? She enjoyed having him as a friend, liked spending time with him, but that ache she had felt in the early days had faded long ago. Perhaps what she thought was love had been only a young woman’s infatuation. As far as Tom was concerned, she just wanted to be his friend, to move forward rather than looking back. Why was Gene so pessimistic about that possibility? It never occurred to her that Gene had not gotten over Tom, that for all his talk about forgiveness, he felt betrayed by the man he still loved and that whatever the months ahead held for Magda, they would hold nothing but pain for Gene.
On Saturday afternoon, Magda and Gene sat at a table in the new library’s massive main reading room. Table after table was crowded with readers, some deep in their books, others taking a break to enjoy the majesty of this temple to learning. Natural light from the giant arched windows flooded the room, and the elaborate paneled ceiling, with its painted insets of clouds in a blue sky, glowed overhead.
She had shown Gene the outline for The Tremendous Trio at Niagara Falls, a story that culminated in Dan Dawson going over the falls in a special barrel invented and built by Alice Gold. Gene told Magda about the geography of the falls while sketching ideas for Dan’s barrel at the same time. Only one person had ever gone over the falls and survived, he said. That had happened in 1901, and people in Niagara still talked about it.
Tom arrived late, unshaven and looking as if he hadn’t slept in two days. Nonetheless, he smiled, slapped a folded newspaper down on the table, and said, “So, what’s the plan?”
Magda saw her opening. He clearly meant what was the plan for this trilogy of books they had agreed to write together, but Magda chose to interpret his question another way.
“We hadn’t really talked about it,” she said, “but, since tomorrow is Sunday and it’s opening weekend, and, well, to get ourselves in the proper frame of mind and sort of, I don’t know, exorcise the past, I thought we might go to Dreamland.”
Tom and Gene looked at Magda aghast, as if she had made some horribly rude comment in a loud voice.
“What?” said Magda, trying to keep the pleading tone from her voice. “Is it such a terrible idea?”
“She hasn’t heard,” said Gene.
“Heard what?” said Magda.
“Maybe you’d like to read my article in this morning’s paper,” said Tom, spreading out the paper in front of Magda. “It’s not the lead, but it does provide some color.”
Magda stared at the almost incomprehensible words that stretched across the top of the front page: dreamland in ashes; fire destroys park. She could not even breathe for a moment, but she finally managed to gasp the word, “How?”
“Does it matter how?” said Gene.
“Here’s my piece,” said Tom, pointing to a smaller headline farther down the page. Magda leaned over the paper and read, her tears making splotches on the newsprint.
Dreamland Fire
Destroys More Than Park
Brooklyn, May 27, 1911
Dreamland is a land of dreams no more, and the many blissful memories of halcyon summer days in that magical land by the sea are now no more than wisps of smoke rising from the smoldering remains of the once great park. Who knows what dreams, as yet unfulfilled, may rest forgotten on the shores of Coney Island, buried forever in the rubble that is all that remains of this happy spot.
While the widely reported fire, which began in the Hell Gate attraction and eventually consumed the entire park, took no human lives, the scene was heartbreaking to many who counted themselves as regulars at the park, and especially those lovers of animals who returned again and again to Bostock’s menagerie. On this night they came from all corners of Brooklyn to watch the flames, but encountered a more horrible scene than they could imagine. The shrieks of lions, pumas, tigers, deer, antelope, llamas, and even little Hip the baby elephant being burned alive in their enclosure was more than many bystanders could take. Captain Jack Bonavita and others did their best to rescue these animals, or at least to humanely end their suffering with a gunshot, but the flames moved too quickly to admit mercy to those suffering innocents.
Black Prince, a widely advertised Barbary lion, escaped from his enclosure, but the fire had caught his mane and the thicker coatings of his bristly hide. He burst through the passageway leading to Surf Avenue and headed east without apparent thought of the hundreds of human beings who started a wild scramble to escape him. In the short but exciting chase which followed, Black Prince seemed to pay far less attention to the shower of leaden bullets from the policemen’s revolvers that struck him than he did to the terrible growing blaze on his body from which he could not escape. At the top of an incline, he halted, but even then he scorned to notice the advancing policemen, who were blazing away at him as swiftly as they could discharge their revolvers. Patrolman Joe Haynes had picked up a fireman’s axe as he joined the chase, and with that he smashed two fierce blows on the lion’s skull. The Barbary dropped at the first and if that did not finish him the second blow did, but even then the policemen made sure of their ground by firing a dozen more bullets into the prostrate body. Many onlookers, terrified for their lives only a moment before, then defiled the memory of the poor beast by extracting teeth and other body parts as gruesome souvenirs.
“Oh, it’s too awful,” said Magda, who could hardly bear to think of the pain and indignity the poor animal had suffered. “I can’t read any more.”
“Just skip to the end,” said Tom. “The last paragraph. You’ll appreciate that bit.”
When the great Beacon Tower, the symbol of Dreamland, visible from far out at sea, collapsed, the roar was heard across the island, and the queen of the Coney Island skyline disappeared in an instant. The many special moments shared by the romantics of New York on the observation deck of this tower while gazing out on a sea lit by the glow of a million electric bulbs are now only memories, destined to fade to nothingness, just as Dreamland’s lights are now only darkness.
The destruction of Dreamland on the very day they began work on the Tremendous Trio books set the tone for the summer. Where writing the first three books five years earlier had seemed so easy and natural, this collaboration on the Tremendous Trio was labored and awkward. They argued over details of the story and criticized one another’s writing—more than once at such volume as to attract a scolding librarian, for they continued to meet in the cavernous reading room in the central library. Tom often arrived late for their writing sessions. One day Gene did not come at all, and when he showed up the next day with a bruised face and a split lip, Tom on
ly said, “You should stop stepping out in front of taxis.”
The Saturday afternoon excursions they had enjoyed during that wonderful summer of 1906 never materialized. Tom claimed he needed to stay with his father and Gene usually sneaked out to the Coney Island dives, leaving Magda alone to spend the day reading at the Muhlenberg Library. As much as she loved the central library, she couldn’t pass through those doors without keenly feeling the absence of the others.
Tom said he had no interest in baseball games since the Polo Grounds had burned in April. Even though other amusement areas like Luna Park and Steeplechase Park still operated, Gene discouraged the idea of a Coney Island trip. In early July, a heat wave struck that made the simplest of activities miserable. Magda tried walking in the park, where men slept on the grass in the shade, desperate for the rest that would not come in the stifling indoors, but the heat left her wilted. The next day, Tom informed her glumly that the death toll in New York from the heat wave was over a hundred and still climbing.
As the summer progressed, Tom became more and more distant. Concerned for his father’s health, instead of relying on the others for help and support, he pushed them away. He contributed less and less to the writing and limited his conversation to the day’s newspapers. On July 26, he showed them a headline on the previous evening’s paper:
Over Niagara in Steel Barrel;
Escapes Death
Bobby Leach went over the Horseshoe Falls at 3.13 o’clock this afternoon in a steel barrel. Flashing over the brink the barrel shot downward with the roaring tons of water and disappeared in the spray and spume 158 feet below.
“Looks like he stole Dan Dawson’s thunder,” said Tom.
“Maybe it will make children more interested in Niagara Falls,” said Magda. “Besides, Leach broke his leg. In Alice Gold’s barrel, Dan didn’t even get bruised.”
By this time, they had completed The Tremendous Trio at Niagara Falls and more than half of The Tremendous Trio and the Secrets of the Amazon. Magda had written many of the non-technical chapters of The Tremendous Trio around the World on those lonely Saturdays. The work would be done by the end of August. Mr. Lipscomb would have his books in plenty of time for the Christmas season, and Magda could put a hot, miserable summer behind her.
“Are we done?” said Tom as they sat in the library on the last day of August, three clean typescripts on the table in front of them.
“We’re done,” said Magda quietly. “I think people, I mean children, will like them.” The books had turned out well, certainly much better than what Stratemeyer was churning out, but the toil of the past months had felt nothing like the magical summer of 1906. This time they were simply hired hands, working against a deadline and hoping someone would enjoy the stories into which they had poured so much effort. They sat in silence for a minute, Magda not knowing what to say. She presumed she would never see Gene and Tom again, and, after the way the summer had played out, with Tom’s distance and Gene’s refusal to talk about anything but work, she wasn’t sure she would miss them. She desperately wished she could take one good memory from the summer for which she had had such high hopes.
“Let’s celebrate,” said Tom, sounding more cheerful than he had all summer.
“What do you mean?” said Gene.
“I mean it’s been a lousy summer, we all know that. Gene with his taxicab accidents, and me unable to look either one of you in the face even after five years, my father on his deathbed. But we did something good here. These books are good, and maybe some more children will write letters like the ones Magda read to us. So before we say goodbye, let’s celebrate. I’ll get us tickets for the Ziegfeld Follies on Saturday night. It’s the last performance and we can have dinner afterward someplace nice. Make a night of it.”
“It sounds lovely,” said Magda, trying to smile at Tom in such a way as to say, I really do forgive you, honestly.
And so they spent an enchanting final night together. Magda had never seen the Ziegfeld Follies, a lavish revue mounted in a new version every year since it began in 1907 and performed in the Jardin de Paris, a rooftop theater above the New York Theatre at Broadway and Forty-Fourth Street. The show, with its seventy-five chorus girls, was more glamorous than anything Magda had imagined, with an audience dressed almost as lavishly as the performers. This year’s follies included satires of The Pink Lady and H.M.S. Pinafore, as well as a cabaret entertainment depicting life in the slums of San Francisco. “There’s no escaping San Francisco,” Tom said quietly to himself when they reached this portion of the evening.
When the chorus girls first appeared, shimmering in dresses that revealed almost more of their underlying figures than no dress at all would have done, Tom said, “The sense of sight was caressed in every scene with the sight of beautiful women dressed and undressed with exquisite taste moving in spirited and graceful dances to the lovely music.”
“Did you just come up with that?” said Gene.
“From my review back in June,” said Tom.
“I thought you said you hadn’t seen it,” said Magda.
“I hadn’t,” said Tom. “But Mr. Hearst doesn’t stand on such formalities. Besides, I saw last year’s version in Chicago.”
Magda particularly enjoyed the comic sketches of Leon Errol and Bert Williams. In her limited experience of theatergoing, she had never seen a black man onstage before, and Williams left the entire audience howling with laughter and cheering his comedy. He then earned even more well-deserved applause with his singing. Fanny Brice singing a Yiddish song provided another highlight. The Follies, thought Magda, reflected the sort of America she had wanted to be a part of since childhood—perhaps a little overly interested in beautiful girls, but with plenty of room for women and blacks and Jews and people from around the world to work side by side and bring their unique talents to bear. She knew the Ziegfeld Follies was more fantasy than reality, but she enjoyed the fantasy nonetheless. After all, she sat snugly between a rich man from uptown who had grown up haunting the slums and a man raised in those slums who made good through his own natural genius. And they were, for that night at least, all friends. Surely that could only happen in America.
Even though the show did not end until nearly midnight, Tom insisted they go out for a late dinner. “Tomorrow is Sunday,” he said. “You can sleep in. Besides, Delmonico’s is only two blocks away and dinner is my treat.” Neither Gene nor Magda could resist.
“How are you?” said Magda to Gene as they followed Tom down Forty-Fourth Street. She detected a note of wistfulness in his expression.
“It still hurts,” he said. “I think it will always hurt.”
“I’m sorry,” said Magda, linking her arm through his. The intimacy of the gesture would once have thrilled Magda, but now she felt only warmth and compassion for a man who had become, after all, a dear friend.
“I’ve been with a lot of men,” said Gene, looking down at the sidewalk. “But I never fell in love with any of them.”
“You still love him?” said Magda softly.
“Achingly,” said Gene.
“It must have been a hard summer for you.”
“Yes,” said Gene, “but I’m glad you made us do it.”
At the restaurant, Tom ordered champagne and when the waiter had filled the glasses, he raised his. “I know it may not seem like it,” he said, “but working with the two of you again, seeing you in the library every night . . .”
“Almost every night,” said Magda.
“True. Almost every night. It’s been, well, it’s been a great relief from the rest of my life at the moment. Father seems to get worse by the day, and only has the energy to complain of what a disappointment I am; Mother only pesters me about marriage. So, I apologize for my ill humor, but I want you to know that disappearing into the Tremendous Trio for a few hours almost every night and spending time with you two fine people has provided the
only happiness in my life at the moment. I will miss this.”
For a split second, Magda thought of interrupting Tom, of telling him he didn’t have to miss it, that even if they weren’t working on a book the three of them could remain friends, could still see one another. But then she thought of Gene and of how crushing it must be to be near someone he loved so desperately but could never have. She settled back in her chair without speaking. Tom’s glass still hung in the air and he clearly had more to say.
“Tomorrow I leave for Asheville where my father is being sent for the weather and the clean air. And if he lives until winter it will be Florida next. So I may not see you again for a long time. But here’s wishing all success to the Tremendous Trio—may they change the lives of boys and girls everywhere. And to the gods and goddess of children’s books, may we meet again someday.”
They clinked their glasses, and Magda did her best not to cry as she took a gulp of the champagne. At least, she thought, she might still see Gene.
“I have some news myself,” said Gene. “I’ve just taken a job with an electric company in Philadelphia. I leave on Monday.”
“So Magda will have to look after New York for us,” said Tom.
“It couldn’t be in better hands,” said Gene. He smiled at her, but Magda could not see. The tears had clouded everything. She took another sip of champagne.
XXXII
New York City, Upper West Side, 2010
Escaping Dreamland Page 29
