Jenny and Barnum

by Roderick Thorp

“You bait me, Barnum!”

  “No.”

  “What do you call it?”

  “Love. I love you.” He was almost whispering, looking steadily into her eyes. With his puffy face, bulbous nose, and wild hair, he was far from a handsome man; but his height—and girth, it must be said—made him an imposing, commanding figure, and his intensity, blazing at times, was riveting. He knew, he could see, that she was not convinced, that she had not succumbed, yet he was not growing alarmed, as a young man would—or one like Hans Christian Andersen.

  “You said ‘other performers,’ Barnum. Don’t put me in with those people—”

  “We’re all in with them, Jenny, and I had hoped that you would be the first to understand that. Does your genius make you less rare? You’re the rarest of all, alone in the world. Isn’t that so? I knew I would love you long before you arrived here, long before you joined Charlie and me for breakfast on the Great Western. I thought you would love America, for the promise—”

  She turned away. “I’m sorry, Barnum, but I hate America. The poverty and squalor are unbearable.”

  “It is the world over, Jenny. Perhaps you don’t see it as clearly in Europe because life there is lived as it was in the past and as most people expect it to be lived in the future. But here the poverty is unbearable because here one believes in the promise of change for the better. And it’s true. The changing takes longer and is harder to accomplish than we would like, but the changing takes place, believe me.”

  “Believe you? When you rejoice in all this—?”

  “Rejoicing is my single gift.”

  She thought of Anna Swan’s tale again. “You’re still playing with me, Barnum. I must rest and prepare for tonight. Please respect my feelings as I have just expressed them.”

  “May I come to hear you sing again tonight?”

  “No—please, no. You are married and you kiss me and tell me you love me. I have never been so unhappy in my life. You toy with me, telling me rejoicing is your gift when you have surrounded yourself with the world’s most wretched creatures. And say I am one of them. You want me to understand you, but then you deliberately lead me into a hall of mirrors and disappear. I do not understand you. I do not know what you want of me.”

  He brightened—beamed. “I want you to sing like an angel tonight.”

  She could not help smiling. “Still the impresario, for shame! Money, money, money! No, I still don’t want you there this evening. Let you wonder if I am earning it for you.”

  “I’ll send my carriage down to Castle Garden and have Delmonico’s bring a champagne supper for two up to my office. Don’t tell me if you’ll come. I prefer to wait and suffer.”

  “You’re breaking my heart, Barnum. You could charm the birds out of the trees.”

  He took her hand and kissed her finger tips, the very tips, lightly. “I will settle for one nightingale.”

  She lost control of herself in the carriage rolling back to the Irving House, weeping loudly and freely, her throat feeling no stricture or pain. She was more convinced than ever that Barnum was a blackguard, the villain of her life, her nemesis, and she was just as sure that her powerlessness with him was part of his subtlety and deception.

  Ah, but she had met charming men before, men ready to take a few moments’ chance with her, flirt, pass the time—but all of them in the past had always given up on her, later and oftentimes sooner, as they perceived the genuine delicacy and sincerity of her constitution. “I am not a loose woman,” she had had to tell several of them, firmly. Others, more insistent and beguiling, had had to be told that she wanted love—was that so bad? She wanted to be in love.

  But now, it seemed, she was. With a fat man losing his hair, whose smile rarely showed his small and widely spaced dingy teeth, a man who knew he kissed sweetly as a baby, a man who advanced the argument that the pleasure of tricking people was a moral good—this was her comeuppance, and when she was away from him for more than a minute, she could see just how foolish and self-tormented she was.

  In her suite Jenny gargled with a mild tincture of opium solution. If she began to feel pain, she would immediately begin modifying her technique to prevent damage. It was the modifying that was actually dangerous for her; it created bad habits and unusual pressures and strains. She tried to rest. She knew she heard Miss Holobaugh in the other room; for some reason, Jenny imagined her in the house in South Kensington, in the garden room, passing the piano. The moment brought Jenny to consciousness, and made her wish for delirium again. But it was already late: she had been asleep after all.

  She bathed, had her broth, dressed, and then sat almost motionless while Hannelore fixed her hair. She was going to wear white, but she wanted her hair straight, parted at the center, and rolled into buns over her ears. She caught herself staring at her image in the mirror, inattentive, as if still in a dream. What did it mean when every passing minute became a lie you went on struggling to believe? Jenny did not care; she surged with rebellion and disobedience, and it was such a sin that it still tasted sweet when she bit to its core.

  “America,” she said aloud.

  “Miss Lind?”

  “Don’t you hate it, Hannelore? America—don’t you hate it?”

  “Yes, Miss Lind. Nobody knows his place.”

  At Castle Garden in her dressing room was a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne with a note reading, The Emperor has taken a turn for the worse. Delicious—how had he known Andersen had passed through her thoughts today? On the back of the card she wrote, You are only being forced to acknowledge your past sins, and returned it. Making Andersen and his terrible tale the butt of their private humor made Jenny feel wonderfully wicked.

  The audience tonight was possibly more influential than that of opening night. Apparently many people had taken advantage of the weekend to voyage by train up from Washington, congressmen, senators, and judges. Predictably, the receipts were less than opening night, but still more than she had ever grossed in Europe, more than fourteen thousand dollars. Thirty-one thousand dollars in the first two nights! She saw that she stood to make so much money that she could lose herself just counting—but she had been through that before, years ago, when she found her fee for performing doubling and doubling again. Better to forget the money, she reminded herself, and concentrate on the work. Jenny wanted to do well tonight; she wanted to hear herself sing well.

  Tonight’s program included two songs she had not sung on Thursday. Except for the “Casta diva” aria from Norma, which all audiences demanded to hear, Jenny kept varying her programs to keep her attention focused when she was on the stage and her sanity together when she was not. Audiences never thought of the problems of a performer—but then, they were not supposed to do anything but allow themselves to be taken by the performance.

  Jenny saw that she had her concentration at last. Now Otto peered around the open dressing room door.

  “You look beautiful—perfect.”

  She turned around. “I’m going to sing well tonight, tool I just this minute realized it.”

  “I can tell. I love you.”

  For a moment she stared, but then he was gone. Had he been able to read anything in her expression? There had been nothing in his eyes.

  At intermission the messenger had another note for her. Minelli knew something was happening; on stage he had taken her hand in an unusual way, applying pressure when she looked into his eyes. She did not enjoy horseplay on the stage; Charlie was here again, downstairs tonight, sitting in the fifth row, on the aisle, and he was professional enough to know that he should not try to distract her. The note said, News of your well-being revived the Emperor momentarily, but now his condition is grave.

  She giggled, then wrote, impulsively, Your suffering delights me, you fat wicked old man! While you wait and wonder, console yourself with the riches my talent places at your feet.

  Once she had written it, she thought the last part too strong. She wanted to change it, but the boy was waiting, and she d
id not want to send something with crossings-out and changes. She put the note back in the envelope. She had not made up her mind to go up to his supper anyway—not that attendance in itself meant anything.

  The lies one told oneself: out on the stage, she could not help thinking of him. She looked out to Charlie and smiled; the little man bounced in his seat and winked.

  Jenny’s last song was of love. She was perspiring now, and thirsty. Otto brought her a glass of water. The audience was mesmerized, silent. She had spoken to the crowd already; now she chose not to, whatever it expected. She knew that Charlie understood what she was doing. Perhaps he was surprised to see her so shamelessly holding the audience breathless—but perhaps he had forgotten that she had been trained not only as a singer, but a complete performer. She wanted to sing now, but she wanted to sing for her own pleasure most of all. When she was ready, she gave Otto his cue, and he began to play the introduction.

  Near the end of the song was an E above high C, and if she interpreted the lyrics with more than her usual emotion and power, the E could present an almost suicidal difficulty. From the beginning, Otto could see how much she was putting into the song, but even he was taken by surprise when the moment came, and he lapsed into a small mistake. But no one noticed; she had to hold the high note, which required breath control of the finest and most strenuous kind, requiring the muscles of shoulders and arms to force the air from the lungs as if from a bellows. It was this that Otto saw, performed with near-violence, but the audience noticed—or realized—nothing. What it heard took its own breath away—people gasped, some stood up; when she went on with the song, they drowned it with cheers. She went on singing even as they cheered and clapped; the ovation continued after she finished, wave after unbroken wave. Jenny bowed and turned to Otto, who was applauding her, too. He mouthed a single word which she understood somehow through the din:

  “Magic!”

  She bowed again to the audience and then ran off the stage and through the wings. Hannelore was waiting for her. “Don’t go out! You will catch cold!”

  Beyond the stage door the carriage was waiting. “Get my coat, Hannelore—and my scarf!”

  Jenny turned around. Otto was still standing at the piano, watching her. The audience thought she was going to return, if not for an encore, then at least for another bow. Jenny stared at Otto, too, even as people passing blocked her view. What was she supposed to do? There were women who would grow angry with this sort of invasion of privacy. In any event, he was showing the decency—and common sense—of not appearing to judge her, for so much as a glance away would be open to interpretation. Hannelore put Jenny’s coat over her shoulders, and Jenny put the scarf over her head and around her neck.

  “No drafts, please, Miss Lind.”

  “I’m crazy, but I’m not stupid.” She kissed Hannelore on the cheek and turned to leave in a way that avoided Otto’s eyes.

  Barnum was standing inside, beyond the box offices and turnstiles. All around were billboards of Jo-Jo, the Dog-faced Boy, Lena, the Bearded Lady, Chang and Eng, and of course, Charlie, in a Roman toga—as Julius Caesar (by Mr. Wm. Shakespeare), according to the words emblazoned underneath.

  “I should be ashamed,” she said. “I didn’t make you wait an extra minute.”

  “I wasn’t tormented by my sins—”

  “I don’t want to hear them!”

  He smiled. “I’ve been listening to my heartbeat ever since the boy returned with your second reply. The wonder and joy of being called a fat, wicked man—”

  “Fat, wicked, old man!”

  “Not much joy in that.” He kissed her forehead. “You’re warm. You shouldn’t have come out this way.”

  “Champagne!” she shouted, starting for the stairs. “I want champagne! Barnum, I was wonderful tonight! Will you drink with me?”

  “Never, I hope.”

  She looked back. “You’re such a strange man.”

  “Jenny, I shouldn’t drink at all, ever.”

  She started upstairs, with Barnum following. “Charlie was there again tonight.”

  “He told me he might do that. He loves you, you know.”

  “He loves Lavinia.”

  “Whether you know it or not, you’ve been his only consolation.”

  In his parlor a table had been set: a bottle of Taittinger was poking out of an ice bucket. A fire blazed in the hearth on the far side of the room. Captains of industry, princes, and artistic geniuses had begun their “entertaining” in exactly this fashion; and after a few unpleasant experiences, she found it easier to laugh aloud at the start then to play dumb and take offense later. But this she found charming, probably because, until now, its perpetrator had been too clever for her. She kissed him.

  “Let me open the champagne, and then I’ll get a towel.”

  While he was gone, she sat on a hassock nearer the fire. In a moment, her glass was empty, but then he was back, a bit surprised to see her sitting down. “Perhaps you should bring the bottle here,” she told him.

  “Anything else?”

  “I was wonderful, Barnum. Does it disturb you that I keep saying so?”

  “I understand. Even when he was a child, after a success, Charlie would come off a stage like a triumphant warrior. Seriously, is there anything more that you would like?”

  “Caviar? Do you have caviar?”

  “Of course.” He set the tray on a serving cart beside her.

  She wiggled her feet. “Hannelore always removes my shoes and rubs my toes.” She smiled. “Do you mind? I find it hard to believe that you don’t.”

  “If you thought you were less than wonderful, you wouldn’t want any of it. But your toes will wait until I’ve dried you.”

  “Kiss me again. I want to be kissed, too.”

  Later, after he had dried her neck, he began to undo the buttons on the back of her dress. She twisted away. “No, let me have a little more to drink, first.”

  “You’re soaked through. I’m going to unbutton you. One of my first memories is of my mother bare to the waist, picking blackberries.”

  She giggled. “You must have had a happy childhood.”

  He paused. “A magnificent childhood.” He dried her back. She took her dress down from her shoulders. He kissed her neck. She finished her second glass of champagne.

  “I’m a good drinker,” she said. “A true Swede.”

  He filled her glass a third time. He could have ogled her breasts, but instead he looked into her eyes. “You’re the best singer who ever lived, according to all who know.”

  “Singing is foolishness. I am a Swedish peasant bastard bitch. If I could not sing, I would be living the life of my mother, begging for crumbs of the food I cooked, at the table of a man who hates and beats me. It’s true.” Her eyes closed. She stretched back, allowing him to view her. She sat up and looked into his eyes. Barnum was hunkered down waiting for her to extend her foot. “Do you understand? Talent is a very small thing; I do not see myself as different from other Swedish women.”

  “You’re forgetting all your work.”

  “Everybody works. If you are going to understand artists, understand them completely. Someone like me works only for her own glory. Singing is nothing, not food on the table or clothes to wear.”

  He made her toes crack. “But you were wonderful tonight.”

  “I’m still wonderful. Look at me, Barnum. I feel wonderful. The sin of it.” She paused, glancing to herself, offering herself that way to his gaze. He began to dry her breasts. “America,” she breathed. “What was I thinking when I came here?”

  His eyes twinkled. “Not that this was a sin, surely.”

  “You’re so unafraid.” She ran her hand through his thinning hair. They were becoming lovers, she realized, exploring each other, and she wanted more and more to play her part. “I want to believe that you are the one of them all who is steady and true, but you’re not—”

  “I’m steady and true to myself—”

  She y
anked his hair, and shook his head. “You’re the only one who is worse than me. You will do anything. On the ship I most certainly did not think this was a sin. I flirted with Charlie. I let him kiss me.” She kissed his forehead. “Fat, silly old man with a nose like an apricot. Do you hate me for talking like this? I knew what was happening,” she whispered, “but it was pleasant and I wanted to amuse myself.” She kissed his eyes and his lips. “I let many men kiss me.”

  He brought her toward him. “But now you’re in America.”

  She giggled. “I thought I was in the Emperor’s palace. Oh, Barnum, if you knew how I hate that story.”

  “I’m not surprised. From what I’ve heard, you were a change of pace for Andersen. After you, he went scurrying back to his young boys.”

  She closed her eyes again. “Don’t talk like that, you horrid man. I let Andersen kiss me, too.”

  Barnum kissed her neck. She tilted her head back and put her arms around him, but she was still holding the champagne glass. She tried to drop it gently on the carpet, but there was the tinkle of glass breaking. Just this one time she tried to surrender the burden of thinking. Under the circumstances, she could not fail to recognize the meaning of the breaking glass in Jewish ritual and tradition, or for that matter that Otto was Jewish. But she was Christian. Or believed she was. Wanted to be, Swedish bitch bastard wanted to be a wanton, Barnum undressing her in front of a fire on the top floor of a houseful of freaks. She could not fail to see the significance of surrendering to that, either. But she surrendered; she showed her strength, she thought, and finally, perfectly, surrendered; she surrendered.

  14.

  Barnum’s idyll ended abruptly on Monday evening. From Sunday morning onward, it was not what he could have imagined anyway but Monday evening was a disaster beyond all imagining, making the Tuesday front page of every newspaper in the city. If he had not been chasing after Jenny Lind, literally, down one street and the next, until the sky started growing light, Barnum might have been able to keep the worst of it out of the public eye. Not all of it, to be sure, for when one of Barnum’s troupe went to the hospital, it was news. Barnum had only himself to blame for that. In point of fact, he had no one but himself to blame for everything.