Magruder's Curiosity Cabinet

by H. P. Wood

  “They aren’t sick, Ros,” Zeph says gently. “They’re fine.”

  “Correction: they weren’t sick the last time we saw them. By now? Who knows?”

  “Aw, please don’t cry.”

  “You don’t understand!”

  “Ros—”

  “We split! Enzo and I. We argued—about my outfit! How foolish is that? And I told him…I told him I didn’t want to see him. That was the last thing I said to him, Zeph.” He sobs. “The very last thing…”

  “I’m sure he knows you didn’t mean it. Please, please don’t cry. Listen, have you eaten anything since…you know, have you eaten?”

  Rosalind wipes his eyes. “I had some champagne at the assassination last night.”

  “Go upstairs and dress. I’ll fix you something, okay? Meet me down in the tavern.”

  Rosalind looks away. “Enzo made lovely dinners for me.”

  “Yeah, I don’t really—”

  The tears start again. “Zuppa di pesce, melanzane alla parmigiana…”

  “How about grits?”

  Rosalind glares at Zeph. “Enzo is a brilliant cook. You’re a terrible cook.”

  “I’m the cook you got, darlin’.” A knock at the door. “Who is it now? Look, Ros, will you just get dressed, please? And stop snufflin’. I can’t take it.”

  He wheels himself through the black curtain and opens the door. Archie stands there with Nazan at his elbow. “Zeph! Look who I found on the Gravesend side.”

  “Miss Nazan,” Zeph says, grinning. “What are you doing here?”

  She grins back. “I just thought I should check on you? Is this a bad time?”

  “No, no, of course not. It’s just…well, I’m sure happy to see you.”

  “And I you, Mr. Zeph.”

  “You look lovely. I mean—” He flushes.

  The two smile at each other awkwardly. Archie rolls his eyes. “Bless your hearts, isn’t this precious?”

  “Yeah. Uh, hello, Archie,” Zeph says. “You want something?”

  He nods. “We need to talk.”

  • • •

  Down in the tavern, Zeph hauls a cast-iron pot over to the table and hoists it up. “There we go, just like mama used to make.” He climbs on a chair, handing out plates to Rosalind, Nazan, and Archie. Zeph pulls off his gloves and places them neatly by his own plate. Over grits and the few lobster tails left in the icebox, he fills Nazan in on the past few days of lunacy at the Cabinet.

  “Oh no, poor little P-Ray! And Miss Kitty—imagine going through all that when her mother isn’t even on the island.” Nazan looks over at Rosalind, who is forlornly pushing food around on his plate. “And Mr. Enzo too. Zeph and Doctor Timur will get him back somehow, I know it.”

  Rosalind just looks away.

  Archie grows bored of all the tea and sympathy. “Anyhow…Zeph, the quarantine presents us with a number of interesting opportunities…”

  “How fortunate for you.” Rosalind’s voice is ice. “To have so many interesting opportunities.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you call me vile, I call you a fruit, you storm out, et cetera and so on. Can we skip that part today? Look, Frank Bostock has a menagerie full of exotic animals that nobody wants to see. And if nobody wants to see them, there’s no income coming in. They’re too expensive to care for and too expensive to move. So Bostock is looking to…divest himself…some other way.”

  Zeph laughs as he wipes his plate clean with a piece of bread. “You’re going into the wild animal business, Archie? Good luck to ya.”

  “Good luck to the animals.” Rosalind slowly, deliberately, stabs a bit of lobster with his fork. “Perhaps one of them will eat you.”

  “You almost got it,” Archie says with his mouth full. “Except it’s not the animals who are going to eat me…” He looks at them expectantly.

  Nazan gasps. “What? That’s horrible! We don’t eat lions and tigers!”

  “Come on now, Archie,” Zeph says. “She’s right. Folks don’t do that.”

  “It’s the plague, Zeph. People are scared. You could be dead tomorrow. Why not have a one-of-a-kind meal today? That’s the pitch. The way I see it, the richer people are, the higher off the hog they’ll want to live. Can’t live any higher off the hog than eating the king of beasts. Bostock will put the animals down; we’ll butcher ’em up and sell to the highest bidder.”

  “Archie,” Rosalind says, “if you’re so bored of me describing you as vile, you should consider—”

  “Let’s be clear,” he interrupts. “Bostock is putting those animals down either way. He can dump them in Coney Island Creek, or we can make a profit.”

  “We?” Zeph groans. “How did we get mixed up in this?”

  “You have the space, and Timur has the equipment. I have the contacts, but I can’t do it alone.”

  “You sure are doing it alone,” Zeph replies, “and you sure as hell aren’t doing it here.”

  “If we sell the steaks on Central Park West and the organs in Chinatown, we should do nicely. I figure you two”—he gestures at Nazan and Zeph—“can pitch in by making little speeches about how people eat lions and tigers all the time where you come from.”

  Nazan frowns. “I come from Tenth Avenue.”

  “All right, Miss Wisenheimer, you know what I—”

  “And I will never help you.”

  Archie stands up. “I think you will.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “I said I’d bring you to Magruder’s, and I did. Which means you owe me.”

  Nazan’s eyes widen. “But I—Zeph, I never told him I’d—”

  Zeph shakes his head. “Don’t worry. You ain’t going anywhere.”

  Archie takes Nazan’s arm and pulls her out of her chair. “Actually, you—”

  Rosalind leaps up, sending the plates clanking against each other. “You take your hands off her!”

  “Surely you understand quid pro—”

  “And surely you understand that if you aren’t out of my sight in ten seconds, I’m going to pluck your eyes out and toss them in these grits.”

  “Don’t be ridic—”

  “Try me. The taste can only be an improvement.”

  “Hey now…” Zeph protests.

  “I’ll do it,” Rosalind warns. “You leave Nazan alone, or I will hurt you.”

  Archie scoffs. “You’re a little boy wearing his mother’s clothes!”

  “Look at me.” Rosalind speaks very quietly. “Look at the way I choose to live. Ask yourself just how tough a person has to be to live like this.”

  Archie meets Rosalind’s eyes but quickly looks away. “Fine, forget it. I’ve got plenty of other irons in the fire. Lots of other plans, don’t you worry about me.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Rosalind replies coldly.

  Archie gazes down at Nazan with distaste. “There are a million girls just like you, you know. Greater New York is crawling with them.” He glares defiantly at Rosalind. “She’s your problem now.”

  • • •

  Nazan washes the dishes while Rosalind dries. They don’t talk about the confrontation with Archie, but every time Nazan hands Rosalind a dish, she mentally inscribes it with thank you. Meanwhile, Zeph putters around the tavern’s tiny pantry, fretting over the dwindling supplies.

  “What are we gonna eat with a quarantine on? Not lions, that’s for sure.”

  “We’ll figure something out,” Nazan reassures him.

  Zeph laughs at her confidence. “When’d you get so bold, Miss Nazan? Running off on your mama like that?”

  “My mother would complain that I’ve always been bold,” she says with a smile. “Maybe you’re just getting to know me. Besides, it seems to me Rosalind was the truly bold one.”

  Rosalind puts some dry plates away. “I hate bullies,�
� he says. “And I didn’t care to lose anyone else.”

  Zeph sighs at the sight of yet another empty shelf. “Of course, this quarantine lasts too long, we may need his eyeballs.” He climbs up on the counter beside the sink. “But say what you want about that ol’ vulture: Archie did bring you across, didn’t he? A good person woulda behaved himself and obeyed the quarantine.”

  “True,” Nazan agrees. “Huzzah for misbehavior.”

  Zeph smiles at Nazan shyly. “Exactly.”

  Rosalind watches the two of them: glancing at one another, looking away, blushing. He’s suddenly overwhelmed with jealousy—of their youth, of their obvious rapport, of the way the world looks when you’re at the beginning of something. He tosses the dish towel to Zeph. “I’m going to lie down. Fetch me if you hear from Reynolds. He promised he’d find his father and speak to him about Enzo and P-Ray.”

  “Sure, you go rest. We’ll handle things.”

  Nazan gives Zeph a plate to dry. “Poor Rosalind. He’s bereft.”

  “Yep, Ros and Enzo, they’re…ah…they’re a little different.”

  “Different is okay. I like different.”

  Zeph and Nazan clean in silence, both painfully aware, all of a sudden, that they’ve been left alone.

  “I have a question,” Nazan says after a moment. “If Mrs. Hayward isn’t on Hoffman Island, then where is she?”

  “How about this: bellboy says they’ve got her at the Manhattan Beach Hotel, down the other end of Coney.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugs. “That’s what he says. Bunch of kids took her. Kidnapped her? Or rescued her? Both, I guess. Before the authorities could take her away.”

  “And she’s still there? Is she alive?”

  “Don’t know about that. But that’s what he told us.”

  Nazan drops her dishrag in the soapy water. “What are we waiting for?”

  Zeph shakes his head, uncomprehending. “I’m not—”

  “We should go find her! Shouldn’t we?”

  “What, you and me?”

  “Why not, Zeph? We can’t reach Kitty, but we can surely reach a hotel up the street.”

  He looks at her. “Even if we find her, what’ll we do?”

  “I don’t know—depends on what we find, I guess. But we can try, can’t we?” Nazan grins. “Bold, right? Time to be bold.”

  Chapter 31

  Halfway Down the Stairs

  Shoved in a corner in the hospital, Kitty and P-Ray are besieged by a seething mass of women, all in the same beige, hospital-provided clothes. They glare and mutter. “How dare they?” “This is why his kind should be kept separate!”

  Kitty bends down to make sure P-Ray is all right. She brushes some dirt off his beige outfit—likely the nicest clothes he’s ever owned—and tries to keep her mood light. “What’s happened, sweetie?”

  The boy shrugs sadly. “P-Ray.”

  “Yes, that’s your name! But might you break your vow of silence and tell me why these women want to toss us in the sea?”

  He nods. “P-Ray.”

  Kitty sighs. “Well,” she says to the women. “You lot have a great deal to say. Perhaps you might—”

  “Show her!” The cookie lady elbows the woman beside her, who nudges her twelve-year-old daughter. When she steps forward, P-Ray shrinks. The girl stretches out her arm. In her hand is a small vial with a cork stopper. Half a dozen black specks dance inside.

  Aghast, Kitty turns to her young companion. He shrugs again. “P-Ray.”

  For all its flaws, the awareness campaign of the Committee on Public Safety has had at least one clear victory: awareness of the deadly flea has never been higher. When the head nurse arrives in room C, she snatches away P-Ray’s vial, tosses it into a bag, and sends the bag to the incinerator.

  P-Ray sobs and tugs at Kitty—do something, do something—but she can only wrap her arms around him as he cries. “They can’t be saved,” she whispers. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but they can’t be saved. I’m not even sure about us.”

  • • •

  Kitty and P-Ray are dragged to the head nurse’s office for a scolding. The nurse points to two metal chairs on one side of her desk, and she hefts herself onto a chair opposite. “What,” she demands, “is your son doing with a vial full of fleas?”

  “Actually, he isn’t—” Then she stops herself. Things will go badly for the foreign-looking flea smuggler; the foreign-looking flea-smuggling orphan has no chance at all. “Actually, he isn’t a naughty boy,” she says instead. “He keeps them as pets.”

  “That is revolting and unsanitary.”

  Kitty looks the nurse up and down, taking her measure the way Archie once measured Kitty. Archie wouldn’t just sit here and welcome his punishment. He’d find an angle.

  Kitty leans forward, meeting the nurse’s angry eyes full-on. “Ma’am, this is such an unfortunate understanding. My name is Katherine Hayward. Of the Cornwall Haywards. My father is in railroads, back in England. I presume you’ve heard of—”

  “You are a patient in my ward,” the nurse interrupts. “That’s all I need to know.”

  Hmm. Wrong angle.

  On the desk, among the stacks of patient folders, time sheets, and requisition forms, sits a framed photograph: a freckle-faced boy in a bathing costume, grinning from ear to ear. Kitty smiles. Aha.

  “What a handsome young man! Your son, I take it?” The nurse’s face does not soften, but Kitty barrels on regardless. “So you must know how children are—so charming and reckless and full of life. It was wrong to keep the fleas, but…” She gestures to P-Ray, who stares at the nurse blankly. “Look at that sweet face! Boys will be boys! Right? Surely you can imagine your son doing something similar?” Kitty smiles prettily. “Can’t you?”

  “I don’t imagine my son doing anything. He died of the Cough a week ago.”

  Kitty closes her eyes in defeat. “I’m so sorry.”

  The nurse stands up. “You and your half-breed get out of my ward.”

  • • •

  Kitty and P-Ray are sentenced to the observation suite on the far side of the island—far to whatever extent anything on Hoffman’s twelve miles can be considered far from anything else. But then, language on Hoffman is eerily flexible. There’s little about the tiny shack, surrounded by a chain-link fence on three sides and open to the ocean on the fourth, that’s suite-like.

  “The Oriental Hotel has suites,” Kitty mutters, stomping on a cockroach. “This is the pokey.” Here, in this quarantine-within-a-quarantine, Kitty and P-Ray are sentenced for fourteen days to see if they develop any symptoms. If they do, “It’s Swinburne for the both of you,” the head nurse told them. “If it were up to me, you’d be there already.”

  • • •

  Kitty sits halfway down a staircase to the sea.

  The observation suite has one charm only: a small, fenced-in backyard that opens onto the larger backyard of Lower New York Bay and, beyond that, the largest backyard of all—the Atlantic Ocean. Nestled into the giant chunks of shale that comprise the seawall, there is a narrow, metal-frame staircase, which probably once led down to a little beach. Hoffman’s designers must have imagined a charming scene—patients picnicking by the water, soaking up the healing powers of sea air. But whatever beach once clung to the island’s edge is gone now, washed away by the tides. The metal staircase is all that remains, and waves slosh ambitiously up the steps.

  Kitty sits at the stairs’ midpoint, staring out at a small ship flying a yellow flag—yellow for quarantine. The wind whistles in her ears, and the spray soaks her uniform. The dampness reminds her of the days spent sitting on that park bench—before Archie, before Zeph and Rosalind and Enzo and P-Ray. Funny, now, to think how irritated she was by the wet air; a short time in Coney Island, and the dampness feels entirely natural.

 
; Another wave crashes on the steps, but this time, it leaves a small crab behind. The crab stumbles around on the step, dazed to find itself on solid ground. He waves his little claws in the air, and Kitty smiles. “Hello, little one. Washed up on Hoffman, have you? I know how you feel.”

  Kitty eases herself down the steps to catch it. Perhaps some company will cheer P-Ray a bit. She reaches out to grab the little fellow when another wave hits the steps. When the water pulls back, the crab is gone.

  She glares out at the ocean. “So that’s how it is? You just take whatever you like, whenever, however, whomever you please?” Kitty stands and brushes the sand off her skirt. “We shall see about that.”

  Chapter 32

  Elixir Salutis

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we live in dark times. Anarchists slither across the cobblestones, while death-dealing pestilence stalks us, even into our own homes. It kills with swiftness but without mercy. It’s the Cough, or so the newspapers say, as though it were nothing but a slight chill, a mere bagatelle to be sent packing with a few aspirin.”

  A screechy voice in the crowd. “Them damn papers lie!”

  “I’m afraid they do, ma’am. And now, a reckoning is at hand. This morning, we learn that traitorous miscreants have attempted to use the Cough as a weapon. This plague no longer threatens us as individuals. The Cough threatens the very body of our great nation. What shall we do? How shall we restore our own health and the health of the corps d’état? Is there indeed no balm in Gilead? My friends, I am no preacher, but I will tell you this: balm in Gilead there may not be, but rest assured, there is balm in Coney. May I humbly present for your edification and transformation Dr. Theophilus Magruder’s Elixir Salutis!

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I believe you to be not merely good people but wise. You know charlatans prowl these troubled streets, hawking spurious patent medicines of their own devising. You dare not trust the blackguards and thieves clogging Surf Avenue with empty promises. But my good people, I am one of you. A family man, a religious man, a good man.”

  Archie smiles. “You can trust me.”

  • • •

  Spencer skirts around Archie’s gaggle of customers. The crowd has a hungry look, like they’d tear each other apart at the slightest provocation. Spencer discreetly holds the satchel of money behind his back. The last thing he needs is someone from the crowd developing an interest in its contents.