Among the Wonderful

by Stacy Carlson

  Fifty-one

  It was as if Barnum conjured the Congress with his words. Within two days of his speech in City Hall Park, eight more Indians appeared on the fifth floor and efficiently constructed a camp along the far wall of the gallery, on the opposite side of the room from the Sioux. Between the two camps swam the little whale, still unseen by the paying public.

  Barnum also reopened his museum. As far as anyone on the fifth floor knew, none of the acts that had offended the mayor’s office had been changed, except that Zobeide Luti, the Circassian Beauty, had altered her costume to more tightly restrain her abundant bosom.

  Although there is no great pleasure associated with my vocation, and the particular miseries I have encountered in the course of my professional career have been many, on a good day I am convinced they are no more than is usual for a working person of my years, whether an alderman or a button-maker, and I try to never lose sight of the reason I continue my work: independence. For each day that I did not earn my salary in Barnum’s museum, I felt a fraction of my independence slipping away. This was not an entirely financial anxiety; after my tenure with Mr. Ramsay I decided I would never work under the hand of a manager again. To operate under the direct instruction of another was to work with the mindless ease of a trained animal, with no eyes to see and no ears to hear, no matter how well you understand your instructions. However inverted it may sound, returning to my work as a public spectacle meant maintaining my dignity.

  Blossoms from City Hall Park sweetened the air on the balcony. The breeze was strong but tunneled warmly toward the harbor. Thomas nodded to me from the depths of a sonata. The keys to his harpsichord were visibly worn; he and the two other musicians looked disheveled as ever, the ophecleide player seeming nearly asleep as he played. Several museum patrons stood at the railing with eyes closed and faces upturned, as if they rode the prow of a great ship, but instead of a glinting sea below there was a river of traffic on Broadway.

  It was only nine o’clock in the morning and the building was almost full. A tremendous line of people snaked out from the museum entrance, and the buzz of their voices blended with the music. Strange, how calmly determined this line of customers appeared, as if they wanted nothing more in life than to wait all day on the street to hand their money to Phineas T. Barnum.

  Parallel to the line was another clump of people, moving slowly up and down the street. A few of them carried signs, and many of them seemed to be calling out. As they came closer to the balcony I saw they were opponents of the museum. Their signs read DO NOT ENTER THE DEN OF SIN! and BARNUM IS STEALING FROM YOU! Several policemen escorted the opponents, and I could see more of them gathered in the garden of Saint Paul’s Chapel. Among them, Miss Crawford waved her sign, flanked by two women I recognized from the soiree at her house. I watched her until her gaze rose to where I stood on the balcony. It passed unflinchingly over me and back down to street level.

  “Ana, we are back to our old routine,” Thomas called to me from the other side of the balcony.

  “Indeed.” I turned and walked into the shade of the galleries.

  I was a rare visitor to the third floor, but I decided to go there before standing in my booth for the day. Apart from the orang-outang, the third-floor displays were mostly mechanical contraptions, including reproductions of Greek astrolabes and the Gutenberg Bible. These displays did not draw crowds, so among them Barnum had sprinkled some of his most unusual specimens to lure people upstairs. I was there because I wanted to have a look at the conjoined twins.

  Jacob was becoming increasingly aggressive and I’d been fretting over the twins’ erratic behavior. It was not uncommon for them to appear with violent marks on their arms, with Matthew bearing the brunt of them. He seemed to be retreating, a heartbreaking notion given the circumstance of his physical life. Evenings, if I heard a thump from somewhere among the fifth-floor apartments, I pictured Matthew receiving some abuse, and a hopeless feeling came over me.

  I half expected to find their booth empty. A few times we’d had to rouse them from their bed halfway through the day. In these cases they were groggy and irritable, having apparently consumed large quantities of liquor the night before. But this morning they were in their proper place. They moved across a small stage, executing the steps of their Scottish folk dance perfectly for the spectators who stood before them.

  Matthew still had a bright red scratch along his cheek that disappeared into his collar. He had applied powder to it, but that only accentuated his natural pallor and the wound itself. As they danced, Jacob’s mouth moved in a constant stream of whisper to his brother, and both of their faces were held in neutral and unsettling masks.

  I watched these two who were also one and suddenly in their struggle I saw my own: A war waged within me, between two opposing wills. For me the stronger side was a clear, quiet voice proving again and again that I am alone. I will never be part of society, it said, and so it’s best for me to live, and especially die, by my own rules. Don’t even try to belong, this voice advised. The other side was weaker, a kernel of hope that the world finally will stop staring and embrace me. It was a war without end, a division where unity should prevail. The twins made these internal adversaries visible. Seen this way, they surprised and frightened me, and I hurried away without making contact with Matthew, which had been my reason for coming up there. I let the crowd’s current sweep me away.

  A few galleries away from the twins, Maud sat on the edge of an upholstered chair, her feet firmly on the ground. A basket of delicate yarn sat on the floor by her chair, and she knit the filaments into lace on a pair of tiny needles. I had always admired Maud’s choice in presenting an entirely domestic scene as her backdrop. Nothing more was required. No one who viewed her would recall the backdrop anyway. A velvet rope cordoned her from the public. There must have been a new advertisement; I had never seen so many people before her. This time they were mostly women and I recognized their reactions to Maud. I had experienced the same thing countless times, although Maud generated a much more poignant strain of aversion than I. I did not often hear the word disgusting in reference to my body. But Maud presented a different story. She was brilliant, sitting there, making lace and sipping what I knew to be very expensive Oriental tea. She earned more than any of us, because there was only one other hirsute woman in all of New York, and that woman had been touring in France for close to a year, with no sign of coming back.

  I climbed upstairs and walked through the galleries on the north side of the fourth floor that were filled with artifacts, including numerous stone statues of horses and men, gold figurines of hundred-armed idols encrusted with glowing red stones, ceramic urns said to contain the ashes of queens, cases of swords in ebony sheaths, and, in the far corner of the northernmost gallery, Tai Shan on display.

  His sign proclaimed that he spoke ten languages. A MASTER OF THE ANCIENT ARTS OF WAR AND ALSO SKILLED IN CALLIGRAPHY. There was a table with a diminutive Chinese attendant, probably Tai Shan’s cousin, beside it, selling paintings of simple brushwork made by the giant.

  He was the tallest human I’d ever seen. As usual, his body was draped in loose folds of silken fabric, this time in shades of green and gold, embroidered with cranes. He had no booth, no velvet rope, and yet the crowd stood well away from him. Tai Shan wore a faint smile and stood so still he seemed to be listening. His gaze fell somewhere beyond the spectators, which made it easier for them to stare directly at him. Even to me he was an impressive and puzzling figure; he was a massive specimen of man, and yet he bore an unmistakable feminine quality. His face did not have the usual clumsy exaggeration of most giants. It was delicately sculpted and, even more strangely, he emanated a soothing, gentle feeling. Peace, even. I watched from the doorway as Tai Shan slowly modified his position with a soft movement of his arm and shifting of weight, which provoked a ludicrous gasp from the crowd. As I watched, the muscles in my own shoulders loosened, which quickly prompted a series of shooting pains up my spine. Whe
n he saw me, Tai Shan smiled and that sense came over me again, the one I’d felt ever since I’d sat splay-legged yet comfortable on the floor of this other giant’s apartment: I liked him. It was a relief to drop my usual hostility toward another giant, but if I did not hate other giants, that meant I did not hate the world. This was such a foreign idea, I quickly dismissed it. Yet later, when I once again approached my own booth, in comparison with Tai Shan’s it appeared to me as a ridiculous self-made cage.

  At lunchtime the taxidermist was feeding the beluga from the new platform that had been built around the periphery of the tank. Instead of the ladder, people could now climb eight or ten plank stairs to the platform, which allowed them to peer over the edge of the tank. How much longer before this gallery was opened to the masses? The Australian tribesman stood at the taxidermist’s side. The most elderly Sioux Indian, wearing his black satin top hat, was shouting from his encampment. He was addressing one of the new Indians, all the way across the gallery. From a distance of two hundred feet, this newcomer was standing with his back to the Sioux, going about the business of packing or unpacking some kind of trunk. The Sioux seemed to become more agitated, although who knows what he was saying.

  Light came from the Aztec Children’s open doorway, but instead of the children I found Maud there alone. She sat on the edge of the children’s bed with her shoulders slumped forward in a posture I’d never seen. Her face was partially obscured by her hands. Was she crying? Maud, is it possible for you to be crying? The thought was alarming. When she saw me she straightened herself up.

  “Where are the children?”

  “Gone.”

  “What do you mean? Where could they have possibly gone?”

  “One of Barnum’s scouts came, almost an hour ago. I came up by chance, fetching more yarn, or else we’d never have known what happened.”

  “Why didn’t you find me?”

  “He went into their room. I followed him and he was gathering up their things. They were just looking at him. The children, Ana. They didn’t even react.”

  “Maybe they’re still here. Didn’t you try to stop him?” I lunged toward the door but stopped to hear what she said.

  “He told me the Aztec Children weren’t drawing enough of a crowd. Barnum had approved —”

  “We’ll go to Bethany Hospital. It’s terrible there. We’ll at least try to place them somewhere better.”

  Maud shook her head. “There was another man with the scout. He runs a theater somewhere in the Bowery. He had the papers; he’s going to show them. It’s all done. You know very well how it all works.”

  “But what should we do?” I looked around the meager room.

  “We should forget them.” Maud rose abruptly. “Even if we somehow got them back, what would we do? They can’t live here if they’re not performing.”

  She was right. Livid, I left her and went to my own room, where I stood at the window until the bright flame of my anger subsided. Barnum had accepted my petition. He had agreed, graciously even, to do his best to remedy the children’s situation, and now he had flagrantly walked all over my intentions with his own. Yes, he was the ruler of those children’s fate. Why would he take the interests of anyone else into account? The flame rekindled. But why couldn’t he at least have been honest when we spoke and told me that he intended to pass the children off rather than care for them properly? He has made a fool out of me.

  I strode the length of my room and back again. I stewed in my fury until I realized I had not given so much as a thought to Henry and Susan’s actual welfare. At least it’s coming into summer, I thought compulsively. At least they won’t freeze to death at Bethany Hospital.

  Fifty-two

  “Yes. I heard something about that,” said Mr. Archer, who was partially hidden by a massive pile of newspapers on his desk.

  “You knew they would be taken away?”

  I had come to Archer’s office to inform the ad man that the Aztec Children had been sold for the second time. People on the fifth floor were talking about whether Mr. Archer had been involved in Mayor Harper’s closure of the museum. Some even thought he’d been behind the Martinettis’ arrest. If he was interested in seeing the museum falter, then I had something to bargain with.

  “They weren’t drawing, Miss Swift,” Archer remarked as he resumed reading a newspaper.

  “But they were bringing in hundreds every week! The advertisements were everywhere, in all your newspapers.”

  “They drew until last Thursday, when Vauxhall Gardens introduced their Amazon Pigmy Family. The Pigmies are a raving success, largely thanks to the advertisements I was commissioned to write.” He smiled, raising a finger to his lips. “Shh.”

  “Do you know where the children have gone?”

  “No.” Archer turned the page in front of him. “One of the smaller theaters. Belmont’s maybe.”

  “People would be outraged if they knew what was going on,” I said.

  “You think so?” For the first time, I had Archer’s attention.

  “There is a significant children’s protection movement in this city, as I’m sure you know. The wives of many powerful men are involved. They would not rest” — I had him now — “until their voices were heard.”

  Now Archer was looking at me skeptically. “But why do you want to create controversy for the museum? You’re paid well. What’s in it for you?”

  “I had a personal stake in the welfare of the Aztec Children. Do you require more information than that? Negative press makes no difference to me unless Barnum finds out that I played a part in it, if you get my meaning.”

  We faced each other. I saw Archer calculating factors about which I knew nothing.

  “But what about you?” I ventured further. “We’re all wondering why you are set on disparaging the museum.”

  “My livelihood is there, my dear.” Archer gestured to his stacks of newspapers, visibly brightening. “Not in any one establishment. Not in the success or failure of any single man. No, my interest is a little more elusive. I have worked for nearly every newspaper in this town. I ride the tide of human error and triumph. Whim and popular taste. I am a kind of touchstone. My allegiance is to no one. The only item in my reliquary, to which I occasionally light a proverbial votive, is the holy steam printing machine. Other than that, I simply comment on what happens in this godforsaken city.”

  “But don’t your comments contribute to shaping the future? What is printed is read. What is read is believed as truth. Belief spawns action, revolution, progress. Your business is augury, more than any clairvoyant working in these halls.”

  He smiled. “It’s not only in tea leaves that one can read the language of cause and effect. But what you describe sounds more like politics than magic.”

  “Well, illegal commerce in children may not interest you personally, but there are many in this city whom it does.”

  Archer looked straight at me. “I will write the article, Miss Swift, if you tell me one thing: Why do you really care about this? What is this personal stake?”

  I had hoped he wouldn’t press me, but I would not let him see me falter. “I presented Barnum with a petition signed by all the residents of the fifth floor, outlining our needs, including the care of the Aztec Children. He agreed to my terms, and then promptly sold the children. I am angry, naturally.”

  Mr. Archer nodded. “Naturally.”

  He pulled a leaf of paper from a drawer and uncapped his pen. “Tell me again the name of the hospital where the children were originally found?”

  Later, as I returned to the fifth floor, a barrage of shouts met me at the threshold. A group of four Sioux, including the old man in the top hat and an equally elderly woman I did not recall ever having seen before, stood in a line outside the boundary of their camp, sending what I could only assume were obscenities or threats across the gallery. I did not see They Are Afraid of Her. The newcomers calmly went about their business, folding blankets, unpacking, and reclining with
their backs against the wall. The only one among them who reacted at all was a little boy wearing an oversized cutaway coat. This boy faced the Sioux at the edge of his own camp in the attitude of a Bowery fighter, head lowered, fists raised. I wondered if this was a deliberate insult: Only the youngest among them would deign to respond. The strategy seemed to be working: The words I imagined as insults had grown to an alarming pitch and as I crossed the gallery I covered my ears. An object whizzed by amid shouts of surprise from the Sioux. A slender arrow embedded itself into the wall high above their camp. Everyone looked at the arrow. Across the room, the child had disappeared and the rest of the newcomers went slowly about their business. I shook my head. Who needed a group of bickering Indians as neighbors? All I wanted was to take off my cursed shoes, drink half a bottle of Cocadiel’s Remedy, and sleep.

  I lit the two sconces in my room. With the door closed, the noise from the Indian camps faded to a faint fluctuation. I undressed in flickering patterns of lamplight. Unbound, my body creaked and snapped like a dying oak. I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off my stockings, hanging them over the arms of my chair for tomorrow. I rubbed my feet, kneading my fingers into the soles, gritting my teeth as bands of searing pain ribboned up my legs. I kneaded harder, suddenly determined to squeeze all of it out. Needles of heat alternated with cloudy numbness in the small of my back and my shoulders emitted their usual unfocused complaint, without beginning or end. By the time I loosened my hands, my head throbbed. I lowered myself down on the bed.

  I lay mired in self-disgust. As I grew conscious of it, the feeling thickened to fill my whole room and even, I imagined, spilled out into the hallway. I was too tired to dismiss it. Images of Mr. Archer, the fighting Indians, Barnum’s terrible grin, Matthew’s stricken face, and the Aztec Children surfaced out of the murk and sank away. Mother, what would you tell me now? There you are in your nightdress, standing among the hens in the yard, wearing his boots. You face away from me and I know I’m young because I stand straight in the doorway and I look at your back without looking down. You take a few quick steps and catch a hen, tucking it under your arm and then swinging the creature out and extending the arm that holds it, wringing its neck in the first momentum of the arc. When you turn, your face holds a faint smile, you’re thinking of something else. You are already pulling at a handful of feathers as you clomp toward the house; the image dissolves before you see me standing there.