Orphans of the Carnival

by Carol Birch

  The bodies of these two individuals—one of whom has been the subject of general curiosity—well deserved a place amongst the rarities in this museum, and wherever they may be they have a claim upon the scientific world.

  (Sokolov, The Lancet, May 3, 1862)

  “Do you want to know what he did? You won’t believe it. He’s had her stuffed, her and the baby.”

  “What kind of a man would do that? Puts them in a glass case and carts them around in a big box and charges a nice price to look at them. They’re flocking in. Got it made, he has. Not one embalmed freak but two. Mother and child.”

  “Good God!—I saw her. It was her, Julia Pastrana, it really was. Standing there like a tart with her hands on her hips in a red dress. Can you believe?”

  “You know, I saw her in Munich once. Good little singer, and she had some lovely dance steps. But the face though! Meet that in a back alley of a dark night and you’d know it—”

  “Buckland saw him in London. Cool as a cucumber, the man walks up to him and says, d’you want a private view? Costs him, of course. Well, it would. Said he never saw anything like it. Had this cove from the museum with him, one that stuffs the animals, says he couldn’t work out how they’d done it. Stupendous job! But what kind of a man does that? Got to ask yourself.”

  “Kind of man that marries someone like that in the first place, I s’pose.”

  “Still. Not her fault, is it?”

  “No, but you can’t say it’s natural, can you? I mean, would you? Thought not.”

  “Nice girl, by all accounts.”

  “I knew her—”

  “Poor Julia—”

  “There’s something totally abhorrent about the man. There was always something suspect, looking back, but we gave him the benefit of the doubt. More fool us for being fooled, and she was charming. Really. Liliya took to her tremendously. You know Liliya, ever the romantic. Why can’t they be truly in love? That’s what she said. But when he did that—well, she couldn’t see how he could do it, I think it made us all uneasy. She wouldn’t go and see them when they were here. None of us did. Oh, yes, my girl Polina went. Didn’t say much. That he could do a thing like that—”

  “He’s made.”

  “A rich man.”

  “She signed my picture. She was quite shy—”

  “But that’s just gruesome, that is! Having that poor baby nailed up there on its perch like a bloody monkey on a stick. Such a funny little face. You expect it to turn its head.”

  “The embalmed Female Nondescript—”

  “You can see the handouts blowing up and down Piccadilly. The most lifelike embalming anyone’s ever seen. A Moscow doctor, some sort of secret formula, you’d think she was alive—to be honest, it’s scary. I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t suppose any normal woman would look at him.”

  “No fool actually. Got himself covered. Sells the bodies, then gets them back. Sees how good a job they’d done on them so wants them back—oh sure, knows a mother lode when he sees it. All of a sudden he’s asserting his rights. Goes down to the American consul, crafty beggar, shows them the marriage certificate and all. My wife and son. Didn’t think of that the first time, when the money changed hands, did he? Made a loss, mind you, getting them back—but who cares? Makes it up in a week. All that work, thinking they’re getting two nice prime specimens for their museum, and up he comes and waltzes her off to somewhere, Vienna, I think—”

  “But of course she’s from Mexico, isn’t she? They do all that sort of thing there, so I suppose it’s not as bad as if they did it to one of ours—”

  “You know, in a funny sort of way, she’s strangely beautiful. Something to do with her expression. I don’t know—she’s very hard to forget. I will say—you should go, go see her.”

  “I mean, she was something in life.”

  “That is not Julia,” Theo explained to the reporter. “That is not the boy. That is mere matter. It doesn’t matter. There is no significance. It’s just words in the head, that’s all it is, words in the head.”

  “Mr. Lent, I’m not quite sure what you mean.”

  “Why not? It’s absolutely clear.”

  “Perhaps not to our readers. Of course, they are all fascinated by the exhibition, but you must admit there’s a personal side to this story.”

  “Of course. What has that to do with anything?”

  “Some may find it strange that you travel with the embalmed bodies of your wife and son.”

  “Would you find it strange if I traveled with a portrait of them?” Theo had practiced all this. There was no flaw in the logic. “A keepsake? Perhaps a strand of hair in a locket. What’s the difference?”

  “The difference,” said the man, who was smarmy and impish, a little like himself, “is that these are actual—corpses.”

  “Actually, no,” said Theo smoothly. “They’re mummies. Just as I said—that is not Julia. That is not the boy. That is mere matter and it doesn’t matter. There is no significance.” He leaned forward, eager to make his point. “Is it wrong for people to look at the mummies in the museum? Go to Italy. The churches are full of relics. Corpses, mummies, dead bodies, cadavers—”

  Theo realized he was gesturing too extravagantly. “Just words in the head,” he concluded. “That’s all it is, words in the head.”

  “Tell me, Mr. Lent.” The man addressed his notepad. His eyes were amused. “How long have you been touring with your wife and child?”

  Theo sat back and smiled, scratched his ear. “Oh, now, let me think. Seven years—let me think. Yes, getting on for eight possibly.”

  “Remarkable. And you’ve shown them all over Europe.”

  “Oh, all over. First in London, that must have been, yes, seven years ago, but we’ve been all over Europe and Scandinavia. The Swedes love her. And now here we are again.”

  “And they’re still pulling the crowds!”

  “They’re still pulling the crowds.”

  “And where to after this, Mr. Lent? What does the future hold?”

  “We’re going back to Vienna,” Theo said. “She always liked Vienna.”

  Once more to the elegant white town.

  Julia stood among the show booths at Prauscher’s Volksmuseum, her baby in a sailor suit by her side. In life Theo Junior had never stood, but now he did, sturdy on two booted legs, nailed to the stand.

  Before the doors opened, Theo Senior stood in front of his exhibit and gazed into its wide sightless eyes. Glass, of course, but so real. People said they followed you about the room. The doors opened and in came the floods. She was making as much as she ever had. He slipped behind a screen, walked down a dim passageway and pushed open the door of a room at the end. It had the look of an abandoned office that someone had shoved a pile of boxes into, along with an old broken-down piano with gaping teeth and a soft saggy chair covered in a brown blanket. A bottle of whisky, three empty glasses and his silver cigar box were neatly arranged on a small table next to the chair, which sank as he lowered himself into it so that he felt as if he were sitting on the floor.

  “Ridiculous,” he muttered to himself, pulling himself forward and out of it, pouring himself a drink. He knocked it back, poured another, knocked that back, poured another, lit a cigar and lay back with his eyes closed. For a good ten minutes he lay perfectly still, stirring only to raise the cigar to his lips from time to time. The stiller he lay, the more his mind tumbled like an acrobat. The thoughts seemed not to be his own. It was as if inside his head was air as big as the air surrounding him, an echo chamber reaching as far in as the heavens reached out. In that air, the broken off and wandering fragments of the thoughts of millions twined and twined in and around each other in passage. Some meandered by. Others were comets or bright shooting stars. None of them lasted.

  The door was open. Prauscher rapped on it and Theo’s eyes opened at once.

  “You’ve got a countess come a-calling,” he said.

  “What?” He stood a
wkwardly. The chair didn’t want him to go.

  Prauscher was a florid man with a look of bursting about him. “A countess, no less,” he said with the hint of a sneer. “The Countess Prokesch-Osten.”

  “A countess,” said Theo. That was good. “Well, show her in, I suppose. Or is there somewhere more—”

  But she appeared in the doorway. “You don’t remember me, do you?” she said.

  “Friederike.” He nodded.

  She came in, Prauscher hovered, Theo closed the door on him. “I’m sorry,” Theo said, “there’s only this thing here to sit on, but if you—”

  “How can you?” she said.

  Theo sighed, smiling his mild smile, a man wronged. “You too,” he said softly. “I’m sorry, Countess, but I no longer feel the need to explain myself. I’ve already done that, many, many times.”

  “I know you have,” she said.

  The years had been kinder to her than to him. She had light crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes and her lips were thinner, but her hair and eyes shone and she was still in her prime and elegant. Theo still looked younger than his age, but these days he was beginning to notice an aging look when he glanced at a mirror, the skin of his throat looser, his hair turning gray and receding. In a few weeks he’d be forty-five. “I don’t understand,” she said. “I never will.”

  “Then I can’t make you.”

  “How can you smile? How can you stand there completely unmoved? I knew her for only a few weeks, and I hate to see her like that. And the baby! The poor baby!” Her eyes filled with tears.

  “Friederike,” he said, “please. If I may still call you Friederike. Or is it Countess Prokesch-Osten now?”

  “Call me whatever you like,” she said. “I don’t understand. You have taken away every last shred of dignity she had.”

  “No.” A flicker of anger, which he tried to hide. “Any dignity a person has exists while they’re alive. Once you’re dead it can’t be touched.”

  “Rubbish,” she said, “you know that’s not true.”

  “Friederike! That is not Julia. That is an image of Julia.”

  But she shook her head. “If you can’t see how grotesque this is, I’m sorry for you.”

  “Grotesque? Grotesque?” Now he really was angry. “No. I will not have that. She got enough of that when she was alive.”

  She listened, said nothing, just looked at him seriously for a long moment.

  “Why did you come, Friederike? You must have known it would upset you, and yet you came anyway. Of course you did, you had to. Because you can’t help yourself. No one can. She was unique, born for looking at. What’s so terrible about that?”

  She blinked rapidly, licked her lips and shook her shoulders. “She should have had a decent burial, like everyone else,” she said, turning to leave.

  Theo smiled. “It’s only the body, Friederike,” he said. “It’s not her.”

  Countess Prokesch-Osten took a small handkerchief out of her glove and swiped it briskly over the end of her nose, then sniffed loudly. “Nevertheless,” she said, “it produces the most—profound—sadness.” She folded the handkerchief and put it back inside her glove. “Well,” she said, “it’s been many years. My memories of her are very fond.”

  “As are mine,” said Theo quietly, then smiled brightly. “So!” he said. “A countess!”

  He knew she’d not appeared on a stage for years, but he’d had no idea she’d married so grandly.

  She smiled coldly. “Yes” was all she said, then turned and walked out of the room without saying good-bye.

  The road wound on for seven more years.

  Sometimes, fresh from the dim room of a whore with its sad trappings of drapes and shades, he’d stumble along the midway into the wagon where he’d placed her in her case next to his bunk, and he’d lie in bed and talk to her.

  “You know,” he’d say, “you’ll never believe what they said in the Figaro. Been talking to Buckland, I bet. You don’t think I’m a monster, do you? Of course you don’t.”

  He never had truck with all these idiots who said he was mad. What were they moaning about? For God’s sake, what are they, pagans who worship graven images? Insane. Whatever came after death—and he had no idea what that might be, though he wouldn’t rule out the possibility of there being something—it had nothing to do with that mummy. Julia was gone, fully and finally. What remained was no more than a portrait. Call it a keepsake. About the boy, he scarcely thought.

  Sometimes the night would close in, become nothing less than the sum of everything. In the stillness, the pounding of his blood was an approaching army. Silence vibrated behind it. Her glass eyes looked away, past him. It had been a long time since that face had lived, but still, on nights like these, he would fall into a reverie of communication with it.

  “You know, don’t you,” he’d say. “You understand.”

  And the years marched on around him, hustling him along by the shoulders like a man in a crowd.

  He was in Bremen when he got word of a hairy girl in Karlsbad. His pulse jumped. It reminded him of the first time he’d heard about Julia, and known, just known that this was something of importance in his life. Here was another, clearly signposted by circumstance. Things conspired. He was in certain places, certain times, to hear by chance a conversation, a mention, until one night he met a man in a sideshow who was running three pinheads and a skeleton woman who looked as if she were on death’s doorstep. “ ’Eard about that girl in Karlsbad?” the man said, a small weaselly Cockney who spoke as if he were offering stolen goods.

  “Yes,” said Theo, “I have.”

  “ ’Airy as this one. Easy.” He’d been hanging around Julia’s case all day, couldn’t get enough of her and her boy. Stood gazing and gazing. If he’d had the money he’d have offered, Theo could tell, but he knew she was way beyond him.

  “This girl,” said Theo. “You seen her?”

  “You kiddin’?” The man snorted. “Guards ’er like the crown jewels, the old man.”

  “So,” Theo offered him a smoke, “how do you know what she’s like?”

  “I was down there.” The man accepted a light. “Everyone knows about ’er. I was talking to this fella knows the family. Covered ’ead to foot, ’e said. Old man’s filthy rich and keeps her in.”

  “Hm,” said Theo. They stood smoking quietly for a while, looking at Julia and the boy. “Did you try?”

  “Oh, yeah! Tried, all right. Couldn’t get near.”

  You couldn’t, Theo thought. I bet I could.

  A couple of months later he made a nice deal with Prauscher, and left Julia and the boy with the museum while he went off to Bohemia. Strangely freeing to be away from her glass eyes, the boy’s vacant stare. He spent a few days hanging ’round getting the lie of the land, talking to people in taverns, discovering that the girl’s name was Marie, her father a linen merchant with a big house near the cathedral. He laughed when he saw it. The garden wall was ten feet high. “Rapunzel, Rapunzel,” he said, “let down your hair.”

  First he left his card. When that didn’t work, he sent ’round a crate of first-class port wine and two dozen red roses. Let them just think about how much that cost, he thought. Two days later, receiving a note of thanks and a brusque invitation to call at four o’clock on Friday, he celebrated by getting drunk. By Friday he’d recovered from the hangover and gotten himself shaved and spruced up by a barber, and by the time he stood on the steps of the big white house, on the dot of four, he’d persuaded himself to feel fettlesome and fine. The old man received him in a slightly shabby sitting room filled with things that looked costly but used: bowls, dishes, a glass-fronted bookcase and several tables bearing the scratch marks and stains of generations. The sound of children running through the house penetrated the walls, the voice of a woman; French, it sounded.

  “Let me get straight to the point,” said Theo. “I know you must be sick of people taking a mercenary interest in your daughter, but I want
to reassure you that my proposition is wholly different from any other you may have received.”

  “No,” said the old man. “The answer is no.”

  That’s what you think.

  It took less than an hour and came down to money in the end. The old man wasn’t as bad as all that, just a businessman to the core who knew a good deal when he saw it. He’d just never had a good enough offer for her before. Prim-faced, worn-out, tragic-eyed, he sat there, talking about how dear his daughter was to him, what a good education he’d given her, how dignified, charming and refined she was. He couldn’t possibly consider anything but the very best for her.

  “Of course.” Theo accepted a second glass of fine port wine. “And that is why, in spite of the fact that I intend to ameliorate your inevitable anguish at the loss of a daughter with a very considerable financial settlement, I come not as a businessman but as a suitor.”