Among the Wonderful

by Stacy Carlson

  Beebe clasped his hands in front of him, appearing for a moment like a failed saint in his disheveled robe.

  “I was in the seminary, as you know. Here, in New York. But right away I knew it was no good for me. It might have been different, if I was anywhere else but this city. But maybe not. Maybe I would have thought the same thing if I was out in the country somewhere. You see, the life of faith cannot be separate from the commonplace. It won’t work for monks and clergy to be all the way over here” — he extended his left arm — “and the rest of humanity over here.” He extended his right arm. “That’s just not going to work.”

  “What do you mean, work? Is there a specific goal for that kind of life?”

  “If holy men are separated by the clothes they wear, the way they talk, where they live, then they are not going to relate to the common man, and therefore they will not touch them with the Holy Spirit. And if they don’t do that, then more people will be destroyed, who could be lifted to meet Jesus in the air. The Rapture will be swift as lightning.”

  Please, Beebe. Go no further. But of course I had to know more: “So why did you choose the museum? You could have worked at any trade in the world. Was it simply because you knew Barnum from Bethel Parish?”

  “The way I see it is this: To immerse oneself in the world of vice is to give oneself the best opportunity to walk in true faith and touch many with the Holy Spirit. It was God’s will that hung that banner across Broadway, Miss Swift, and brought me into the museum.”

  I rose to my feet. The top of my head brushed Beebe’s ceiling. We will not go to the Territories, will we, Beebe? Thunderheads rushed away over a great, distant prairie.

  “To declare that I am part of your world of vice is insulting in the extreme, Mr. Beebe.”

  Beebe’s face crumpled in confusion. “What?”

  “Vice, Mr. Beebe. Evil, degrading, immoral, wicked, and corrupt.” I spat the words down on him as he peered up, a chick in the nest discovered by a fox. “I see that I am simply your dare with the devil, and I have no interest in indulging your conceit any further.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Miss Swift! Ana.” His voice hushed as he spoke my Christian name.

  “Whether it is what you meant or not, you are still exposed.”

  “You are not at all sinful in my eyes!”

  “I will not be judged by you, of all people, with that ridiculous fairy tale you cling to so fervently.”

  “Wait!”

  I ducked out of the room and in a few strides was into the twisting stairwell. Even clutching the railing, my momentum was too great in the narrow passageway and I lost control, skidding down several steps before lurching backward to hit first my shoulder, then my head, against the wall. One leg flew forward, the other buckled, and I finally hit the stairs squarely on my bottom. I thought I heard the chapel’s foundation creak. Wedged in place, I held my breath as my twisted right knee exploded in pain.

  “God damn it all to bloody hell,” I seethed. I opened my eyes and saw Beebe standing above me at the top of the stairs. He was shocked, frozen in place. “Don’t play the innocent with me, Beebe. Working at the museum your delicate ears have heard much worse than that!”

  “Are you all right? My goodness, are you hurt?” He took a step and reached vaguely in my direction.

  “Just get out of my way and I’ll be rightways up and out of this cursed tunnel.” Using the banister as a crutch I crawled endlessly upward, balancing my weight on my left leg. I braced one arm on each side of the passageway and hopped down a step. I squeezed my eyes shut against the ricocheting ball of pain shooting up my spine.

  “Please, allow me to accompany you, to see that you —”

  “Certainly not.” I hopped down another step, then another, and then I was around the corner and out of Beebe’s sight. “Don’t you follow me,” I growled.

  “Miss Swift, please! You have misunderstood my —”

  I let out an ugly laugh. “I assure you that I have misunderstood neither you nor your intentions. Just to be perfectly clear, I will never be converted to your faith. And how could we be … friends, if you think I am sinful?”

  “I never said that!” His voice was fading. At least he had heeded me not to follow.

  “You didn’t need to,” I finished, and emerged into moonlight.

  I hobbled away from Saint Paul’s with my eyes upon the museum door, where the flow of visitors marched on. William the ticket-man saw me coming and hurried out of his booth.

  “What in heaven’s name happened to you?” He passed his arm partly around my waist; by placing my hand on his shoulder I was able to alleviate some pressure from my right leg. “Gideon! Wake up, you scalliwag!” The bleary-eyed boy popped into view from behind the counter.

  William escorted me across the waxworks and into the back stairwell, which, thankfully, appeared to be deserted.

  “What happened, Miss Swift?” William was quite breathless beside me.

  “I went to church.”

  “Church? Whatever did you do that for?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know, William. I made a mistake.”

  Up and up we went, each step wrenching more of my spirit away. William, on his old man’s legs, tried his best to help support me, but it made little difference.

  “Could you just go up to the restaurant and get the biggest pot of scalding water from Gustav, William? That would be such a help.”

  “Of course.” He continued up as I made my way onto the fifth floor.

  In my room, I drank half a bottle of Cocadiel’s Remedy. By the time the bitter syrup turned to blessed numbness in my veins, William had delivered the hot water and I’d shooed him away. I opened a jar of salts and dumped the gray crystals into the water. I shed my shoes, shirtwaist, skirt, and corset, pulled the steaming pot close to my bed, sat, and lowered my feet into it. I dampened a washcloth and pressed the hot compress against my shoulder, then my forehead. I pulled the quilt around myself. I won’t be able to walk my rounds tomorrow. I’ll need a suitable chair to bring to my booth. Perhaps there’s a large one in the theater, backstage? I’ll get Gideon to find one in the morning. Blast those steps! Both my legs throbbed gently in the water and I passed the damp cloth along them.

  Maybe to remove the specter of Beebe as he stood at the top of the stairwell staring down at me, or to reassure myself after our disconcerting altercation, I pulled the True Life History from the bedside table to my lap and took up my pen.

  If only I were not burdened with the memory of a life before I grew monstrous, I would not be touched by the affliction of hope.

  Hope? Visible on paper, the word lay exposed as evidence of what had been lurking in the back of my mind. I had spent years of my surely abbreviated life as an entertainment, observing the disappointing ignorance of men (and myself) that keeps us chained to the charade of our habits, the affectation and infinite pettiness of daily life. There is no pleasure in viewing a disembodied arm in a jar of alcohol, a savage from a distant country, or a deformity such as myself, except the most fleeting vulgarity. Was it hope for a different life, then, that had urged me out of this museum and into a life with someone like Beebe? Or was my hope merely a perversion, since I cannot actually leave the spectacle of my body no matter where I go, except by suicide?

  I am certain my hand would not falter in discharging my final exit, if that is the way I chose, except that a problem arises in the thought of my body left behind, helplessly vulnerable to unknown humiliations. The idea of someone pacing my length, scratching his head and wondering how he’ll transport the body, and someone else lifting my cold arm to press his tiny hand to my lifeless paw, even these mild images unleash the most sublime terror in me; I could never let that happen.

  If only I were not burdened with the memory of my life before I grew. The sunlight of Pictou suddenly bathed my face. I sat behind my parents, safely dwarfed in childhood, facing the way we’d come, my little legs dangling off the end of the wagon. We bounced be
hind the mule’s uneven trot, through ribbons of sunlight, between boughs studded with blossoms. They laughed together as we drove away from the harbor, away from our farmhouse, across wild meadows that were the most beautiful, seething colonies of life.

  Clutched in my hands, a glass jar with cheesecloth for a lid. Tufts of drying grass lay at the bottom of it with a few leaves and the tiny branch that bore a gently swinging cocoon. Every few minutes I examined this pea-green jewel, to make sure I had not missed the butterfly coming out.

  “You hang on tight, Ana. The hill’s coming up.” My father’s voice. Lost to me for all these years, yet there it was. But I would not put down the jar to hold on. Instead, I lay back among the damp nets, my family laughing again as we went up, up, into the bright sun.

  I stayed in the wagon while my father unhitched the mule and let her loose to graze in the pasture. He came for me, then, even let me bring the jar with us. He lifted me up; I was a pretty feather in his arms, and I can smell his sweat and the sea in the memory.

  “Here’s a butterfly,” he said, swinging me lightly in the air before setting me on the ground. He took my hand and we walked together to where all our friends had gathered near the church door.

  If only he’d known what a bizarre metamorphosis we would undergo, maybe he could have prepared himself better. Within six years neither he nor I went to church anymore. She was the only one who did, hitching up the mule and riding up the hill alone as if nothing had changed. As if a line halfway to our neighbor’s house did not form every Saturday at our farm, as if she did not walk the length of that line selling muffins and homemade peanut brittle to the strangers as they waited for their chance to see me in a homemade booth in back of our barn, out of sight of the road. It was his idea: one day a week for a couple of years, until we could pay off the boat. But he couldn’t bear to see it with his own eyes. He always went fishing on Saturdays, leaving it to us and Fletcher’s brother, who came up from Halifax each weekend to manage it.

  They are fascinated by God’s many wonders, she told me as I stood frightened in my first booth, smoothing my dress and crying. They long for the extraordinary. Don’t we all? Not me, Mother. I would have known true happiness if only you had sewn me that dove-gray velvet dress for no other reason than to just make me feel proud (I would never say beautiful) with all those folds of dense, expensive fabric and matching ribbon flowing around me. But that dress was my first costume. I wanted to love it; I hadn’t ever worn or imagined such finery, but how could I? I hated it as much as I hated facing him when he came home evenings, quietly asking how much money was in the box.

  In a year, we decided on two days a week, then three. By the time I was nineteen, we’d paid everything off and bought two new boats. Father had two skippers working for him and six crewmen. The path to my booth had been worn to a gulley and we hired men to fill and cobble it. Each month I received a package of morphine from Boston, and because I was usually filled with it, that whole period of time was wrapped in warm layers of gold, rose, and purple, with only a tinge of darkness encroaching from the edges. If I had not had the medicine, I’m certain I would have found a way to die after the first hundred people viewed me.

  Back in the museum, my pencil still hovered above the mostly blank page. I’d managed only the one stilted sentence. My leg throbbed and I had nothing for it. I slammed the book shut and threw my pencil across the room.

  Thirty-four

  By the time I arrived at Miss Crawford’s address, I was an hour late for her soiree and crescents of sweat had dampened my dress under the arms. I had finally settled on the green velvet gown after sewing on a new lace collar and lightening the whole affair with my peach-colored wrap. It was still a wintry and somewhat dowdy ensemble, but it was the best I could do. I did not expect to enjoy the walk, and I didn’t. I set off from the museum with a thoughtless confidence in my ability to find the address. It was north, of course, and west. I had asked William the ticket-man where it was, but north of City Hall Park the streets became tangled and crooked, and I lost myself almost immediately. It didn’t help that my right leg still throbbed from my fall in Saint Paul’s Chapel.

  Miss Crawford had invited me to a party and I hadn’t mentioned it to Maud or anyone else on the fifth floor, partially to hoard my pleasure at the invitation, partially to avoid Maud inviting herself along. But once I stepped through the wrought-iron gate and faced the ornate brass knocker on Miss Crawford’s apartment door, helplessly experiencing trickles of sweat slide into the crease of my corset and down my back, I wished for Maud’s presence by my side. My feet and knee joints ached, and I’d forgotten to bring a handkerchief to wipe my face. I was certain I looked even more ghastly than usual, but after a minute of standing there, imagining myself in the midst of the scene I was about to enter, I lifted my hand, almost as a punishment for my own self-pity. Thankfully, the elderly Negro who answered my knock waved me in quickly without so much as a blink of the eye.

  Crystal dripped from the high-ceilinged foyer, reflecting the flames of hundreds of candles nestled in octopus-like candelabra, which themselves echoed the shapes of the sea serpents and mermaids writhing up from the mosaic floor. A painting of an English garden was suffocated by the thick floral of its gilt frame. Delicate lacquer tables held groups of porcelain vases and small sculptures. To call the space luxurious would be an understatement, but I would not call it elegant.

  “The ladies are in the ballroom,” the servant told me, gesturing up the stairs with one gloved hand. “Would you like an escort?”

  “I’ll find my way, thank you.”

  But the ballroom was empty. It had a small domed ceiling and scenes of the country life painted above the moldings. Several settees and armchairs were strewn about the periphery, and I found evidence, in the form of sets of gloves and crystal punch glasses, that the party had, at one point, occupied the room. I sat briefly on the edge of one of the couches, prepared to wait for the party to return from wherever it had gone to. Was there a terrace? A garden of some kind? I went to the French doors on the far side of the room only to find that they were not real, just an adornment. Perhaps I should go home. I could not even attend a party correctly. I arrive, and the party vanishes. I walked back to the hallway, and it was from there that I finally heard the sound of voices farther down the hall.

  A thickly curtained study was stuffed with the tightly corseted taffeta and silk-clad bodies of thirty women, all chanting a hymn in muted but impassioned voices: “Come, Holy Ghost, who ever One, art with the Father and the Son; Come, Holy Ghost, our souls possess, with Thy full flood of holiness.” The words were not sung; some women spoke them out, others whispered. “In will and deed, by heart and tongue. With all our powers, Thy praise be sung; And love light up our mortal frame, Till others catch the living flame. Till others catch the living flame.” Their eyes were closed, all except Miss Crawford’s, whom I spotted on the other side of the room, and who gave me an encouraging smile. She pointed to a stack of hymnals near the door. It wasn’t until I saw the mesmerist herself, tied to a chair in the middle of the room, that I realized what was in progress. “Almighty Father, hear our cry, Through Jesus Christ our Lord most high. Who with the Holy Ghost and Thee, Doth live and reign eternally. Doth live and reign eter-na-lee.” I opened the hymnal to the page marked by its silk ribbon as the women began another round.

  Of course I have encountered all manner of augurers: brain-cartographers, clairvoyants, biblical prophets, mind readers, ecstatics, ornithomancers, card and tea-leaf interpreters, even one optimistic boy who claimed to see the outline of a life in the shape of your biggest toe. The show business was no stranger to the public’s desire to glimpse its own fate. But the business of communing with the dead had landed strangely in the realm of the church. In Cooper’s Medicine Show there had been a short-lived experiment with a trance-lecturer, but her repeated omens in which famine destroyed the American republic were so unpopular (with audiences as well as her fellow performers) t
hat she was asked to leave after only three shows.

  “In will and deed, by heart and tongue, With all our powers, Thy praise be sung.” The mesmerist was a very young girl. She had a silk band tied over her eyes and a heavy cross around her neck.

  The women intensified their efforts. They repeated the hymn. I did not join them, but when I closed my eyes the words closed over me like deep, black water. “Almighty Father, hear our cry. Come, Holy Ghost, our souls possess.” The voices went around and around. On the fourth or fifth repetition one voice began singing in a high soprano, managing a strange harmony with the more guttural sounds of the rest. Little by little, other voices began to sing, until after two or three more repetitions we had erupted into a triumphant, though somewhat cacophonous, anthem. I heard wails, especially from one deep voice somewhere to my right. The knot in my chest that had formed upon entering the room had loosened, and amid the roar I finally managed to whisper a few lines. We went on and on, I cannot even guess how long, before the sound of a bell called us back.

  They were surprised to see me when they opened their eyes, but Miss Crawford called our attention to the matter at hand.

  “We will now focus our attention on Miss Thibodaux and give her the benefit of our clearest thoughts and prayers. If she is ready, we will now proceed.”

  Miss Thibodaux bowed her head slightly, and Miss Crawford brought a small table to her side. A large sheet of paper covered the tabletop, and Miss Thibodaux’s hand sought out a pencil resting in the middle. She nodded again.

  “Now, please send Miss Thibodaux the name of your loved one, the one with whom you would like to speak from beyond the great divide.”

  There was a collective intake of breath. The faces of the women, all immaculately painted and coifed, focused with pretty intensity on the blindfolded girl. Almost immediately the mesmerist began to scrawl. The women fluttered and let out tiny gasps. The girl’s hand shook, and a bead of sweat dripped from her forehead into the kerchief. She was good. I wondered if Miss Crawford was paying her. The girl’s hand jerked across the paper.