The Swan Gondola: A Novel

by Timothy Schaffert

  But the ruins of the Chamber of Horrors were the real attraction. The fire was out, but smoke billowed. A fire wagon emptied its tank on the building, and the arc of water made a faded rainbow above the dragon’s head. The pale colors sparkled in the sun.

  The show was over. Word traveled among the chamber’s performers as they gathered in the wet road, and a few of the actors wept, even the Big Bad Wolf who disemboweled Little Red every day and night. “I don’t have another job,” he said, returning his mask to his face to hide his tears. Even if the building could be repaired, it wouldn’t be for days.

  Cecily didn’t seem to mind. As a matter of fact, she seemed happier than I’d ever seen her. “Good-bye, Ferret,” she said. She whispered, “I’m going to go get ol’ Dox and spend the rest of the day with her.” But before she’d skipped away entirely, she returned to me. “Hey, just take Pearl out for an hour or so, please, please, please,” she said. “You really will like her quite a lot. Just an hour. Or two.” I nodded, though not at all politely. She could sense I was irked, so she smiled at me, then stuck out her lower lip to mock my pout. Then she kissed me on that pouty lower lip of mine—just a quick peck. She ran away, stepping lightly through the mud, and I could see from her limp how those little shoes pinched and pained her. I couldn’t bear the sight of it.

  I kicked off my own shoes, took off my socks, and I ran after her. I called her name, and when she stopped I knelt at her side to take her ankle in my hand. She steadied herself with her hand on the top of my head as I removed her peacock-blue shoe and replaced it with mine. “Ferret,” she protested, but I wouldn’t listen. “Chivalry is dead, already.” Her foot on my knee, I tied the laces as tight as they’d go.

  “Don’t let them trip you,” I said, standing. “They’re too big for you, but they’re better than those pretty little traps.” I’d left her blue shoes footless in the mud. I kicked them away. “Mine won’t leave you hobbled, at least.”

  Cecily cast me a skeptical glance, an eyebrow lifted. “So you’re going to go around in bare feet like a heathen?” she said.

  “I was born barefoot,” I said, winking. “I grew up barefoot. I’ve always hated shoes. I could walk in a ditch of needles and not feel a thing.”

  Cecily lifted her petticoat higher up, above her ankle, and studied the shoes. She playfully tapped her foot against my naked toes. She bit her lip, like with melancholy, and she looked up. “Ferret,” she said, then paused. “Ferret, you’re a very nice man—”

  I interrupted, as I knew this compliment wouldn’t be going anywhere I wanted it to. “Bring Doxie to the swan gondola tonight,” I said. “Just the two of you. After the Fair closes.” I tapped my toe against the toe of her shoe. “Please?”

  She looked vexed by the invitation, but then said, “Do you promise to go see Pearl? At least walk her home from work? This evening? I have a good eye for these kinds of things, you know? I think you two could fall in love without even trying much.”

  This time I wasn’t insulted by the suggestion. It was beautifully halfhearted, at best. I smiled and nodded, and this got me another quick kiss on the lips before she turned and headed toward home.

  13.

  THOUGH THE MUD hardly kept anyone off the midway that afternoon, my business was sluggish, everyone’s spirits were sapped. Not only did no one stop for my jokes, nobody even slowed. Oscar and I resorted to following fairgoers, mocking a lady’s hat perhaps, or insulting the mustache of the man at her side, until they paid us to shut up and go away. And Oscar had been soaked by the rain, so most of his tricks fizzled and flopped. His sparks sputtered, his joints squeaked.

  My heart wasn’t in it either. I was fretful. If Cecily and Doxie didn’t join me in the swan gondola, I reasoned, they probably never would. Why, after all, would Cecily trust me? I closed my eyes, trying to again feel Cecily’s kiss on my pouting lower lip. I gave my lip a pinch. The kiss had been so soft and quick, it had been almost nothing at all. But the taste of her lips had lingered—she’d been wearing some kind of balm the flavor of cucumber and rose.

  When I opened my eyes, an old man in a black swallowtail coat stood before me. He wore the white gloves of a footman. He had hardly any hair but what hair he had needed cutting. The pale gray hair hovered over his skull like a halo of smoke. He said nothing. He only nodded, expecting me to perform, so I began my routine. He was generous with his laughter, but the laughter was silent. It shook his whole body, sent his head back, shut his eyes, but never reached the volume of a wheeze.

  After several minutes of this, the man finally held up a hand and shook his head, as if he could take no more hilarity. He smiled and sighed, exhausted. He reached into the front pocket of his coat as he stepped forward. In his hand was not a tip but an envelope of a fine linen paper, its red wax seal stamped with the letter W. Across the front of it, in an elegant hand, was written: The Ventriloquist.

  The footman tromped away, holding up the legs of his trousers to keep the cuffs from the mud. And I read the invitation.

  A Masquerade Ball,

  to “Remember the Maine,”

  on July 1,

  on the roof of the Fine Arts Building

  in the Grand Court

  of the New White City,

  after dark.

  William Wakefield, President of the Board of the Omaha World’s Fair, King of the Knights of Ak-Sar-Ben, invites you to the Sinking of the (miniaturized) Battleship Maine. The USS Maine exploded and sank in the Havana harbor, on February 15, as the city celebrated Carnival. The lagoon will stand in for the harbor as we watch from the roof as the toy ship sinks. Our spectacle is a tribute to the Americans who’ve lost their lives in the Spanish-American War thus far, and those lives still to be lost in the name of Freedom.

  Please come masked, and in costume.

  Beneath the type, Wakefield had scrawled me a message in pencil.

  P.S. Bring along any friends. And bring along the dummy.

  P.P.S. I’m the man in the car, with the silver skeleton.

  • • •

  I’D HEARD OF the Knights of Ak-Sar-Ben, but they were rich, and I was poor, so what did I care? It was a kingly court of the wealthy looking to improve the city. They took the name of the state of Nebraska and turned it in on itself, spelling out, symbolically, how backward things had got, everything topsy-turvy in the city of Omaha, with its saloons and whores and gambling dens. The knights hosted coronation balls and parades. They built the Fair. When they gathered for court, they wore crowns and ermine capes, and jester’s tights and pantaloons. The men painted their faces like harlequins and drank wine from golden goblets. I could just picture them all eating grapes fed to them by skinny boys dressed as sprites. Appalling. At Ak-Sar-Ben Hall, for ten cents, the common folk could stand at the railings of the upper reaches to look down upon the dance floor, during the knights’ famous masquerade balls. Yes, the rich bastards let us watch them waltz, and charged us a dime for the privilege.

  I had never attended and I never would. They spent thousands of dollars on their revelry so they could raise hundreds for orphans and poorhouses. William Wakefield. Of course he’d be the king. Wakefield was the king of all.

  And he still is, as far as I know. And always will be.

  I should’ve killed him when I could’ve.

  November 18, 1898

  Dear Cecily,

  Forgive the rusty thumbprint at the corner of the page—my every fingertip is red. Emmaline brought me a plate of gingersnaps and broiled marrowbones. She dusted the snaps with cayenne pepper, which helps the night seem not so cold.

  I’ve been letting Emmaline read the letters I write to you. I’m letting her read this one, even as I write it. She sits with her cheek near mine, criticizing my handwriting, complaining that she can hardly read a word.

  There’s been no talk of how long I might or might not stay. The Old Sisters Egan and me grow sleepy at the same hour, grow chilled at the same temperature of an evening.

  And I’ve
told Emmaline about you, about the Fair, about Doxie. I tell her I’m only telling a ghost story, but Emmaline tells me I’m wrong. Ghost stories have ghosts in them, she says.

  But you, Cecily, haven’t so much as said boo to me.

  Emmaline’s starting to think that I’m the ghost. And who can blame her?

  Emmaline wants you to know that her favorite character in my ghostless ghost story is the baby in the carpetbag. But that shouldn’t surprise you. That’s Doxie’s way—she just has to purr a little and we’re all in love. Write more about Doxie, Emmaline begs, sitting here at my shoulder, tugging at my sleeve like an impatient child. Cecily would want to know more. Mothers never tire of hearing all about their babies.

  So if there’s no ghost story to tell, I’ll tell you a fairy tale.

  When I went up in the balloon, on the last day of the Fair, I took Doxie with me, and I wasn’t afraid at all. I didn’t cower in the basket. When you have someone to protect, someone to look after, bravery runs through you, sharp, like the fear used to.

  And we didn’t crash, and my leg didn’t break. We floated to the farm just in time to wrestle it back to life. Doxie was crowned queen and heir of all the acres of nothingness. She rests in a basket and does nothing but magic. The creek bed is wet again and the corn has grown tall. When we wake up every sunny morning, it’s summer, with a chance of rain, no matter what.

  Your spinner of tales and teller of lies,

  Ferret, again

  BOOK TWO

  Lovers

  14.

  AUGUST’S CARPETBAG WAS no longer sufficient for his business, so he’d taken to wheeling around a trunk full of his potions and tonics. He painted on the side of the trunk August Sweetbriar, Omaha Indian, and he parked in front of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. On the day of the storm and the fire, I found him sitting on the trunk, smoking another of his asthma cigarettes, lines of red and yellow paint across his cheeks. Stuck into the brim of his hat, next to his bluebird, was a tall gray feather.

  “War paint,” he told me, winking, touching his finger to his colors. He found that the closer he could match the white folks’ idea of a witch doctor, the more he sold. And with the rain having weighed everyone down and quickly given them sniffles and chills, he was making a fortune off sweat-inducing extracts of dwarf elder and marigold alone.

  I sat next to him on the trunk and showed him the invitation from Wakefield. “Oh my,” August said. “Are you taking me to the masquerade ball, my love?”

  “Not a chance,” I said. “What’s Wakefield’s story, anyway? I see his name on ice trucks.”

  “Billy Wakefield,” August said, bewildered by my bewilderment. “You’ve lived in Omaha all your life, and you’re asking me about Billy Wakefield?”

  “I am,” I said.

  “Yes, darling, Billy Wakefield is an iceman. In the summer, his lake is a resort, and in the winter they cut the ice off it. He’s ice and fire and everything in between. He has money in the smelting works, a meatpacking company. He deals in linseed, sugar beets. He’s everything, and everybody knows him.”

  “I don’t,” I said, “and I don’t want to.”

  “We have to go to his party.”

  “No,” I said.

  “It’s almost a month away,” he said. “That gives me plenty of time to change your mind.”

  I took my dummy’s hand in mine and pressed my thumb to the center of it. His fingers curled around to grip my knuckle. What was it about my shabby doll that would make a man like Wakefield so interested?

  “Oh, and such tragedy. There was even a song,” August said, glancing over the smoke of his cigarette, contemplating.

  “A song?” I said.

  August nodded and thought some more. “‘The Ballad of Billy Wakefield’s Little Boy,’” he said. “It was very popular. It broke all our hearts.”

  And so August told me the story behind it. Like a lot of men’s misery, it started with all the bad business of the nineties, the corruption, the failures, the debt. The railroads, running out of money, began staging locomotive collisions for spectacle, driving two trains at top speed right toward each other on the same track, just so people could watch the catastrophe. Billy Wakefield, a lover of toys and sport and grand productions, took his son to a locomotive collision in the deserts of western Nebraska. In his zeal, he arranged to have a gazebo built as close to the track as he could get, so he and his boy could sit in the shade. A little too close, it turned out, because when the trains crashed and the boilers exploded, debris flew. The little boy was killed and Wakefield was maimed, his arm lost. “I can’t really remember the song,” August said, “except that it rhymed rails with coffin nails. Oh, and there was a whole other ballad too. When the mother died. She dwindled. She fell ill. Her ballad rhymed the boy’s life so brief with she died from grief. ”

  And I pitied Wakefield just then, no matter how rich he was. Whatever role he played in his own demise, he’d been punished more than any one man deserved.

  15.

  STILL BAREFOOT, I took the streetcar to the Empress in the late afternoon to slip my filthy feet into a pair of shoes. I was grateful for the task of taking Pearl for a stroll—I’d had nothing else to do but worry. I’d arranged for Alonzo the gondolier to be waiting with the swan gondola after dark, but I still fretted that I’d be sailing the lagoon alone.

  Brandeis & Sons, the department store where Pearl worked as a salesgirl and window dresser, was only up the block from me. Though the store had everything anyone could want, I’d only once or twice gone inside.

  A handful of ladies carrying signs marched in front of the store, and I first suspected nothing but gimmickry. The Brandeis men, the store’s proprietors, were kings of hullabaloo. They often appeared in front of the store themselves, holding balloons by their strings, and at the ends of the strings were tickets you could exchange for a man’s suit, a lady’s hat, or a jeweled stickpin. The men, like a couple of boys, would release the balloons to rise and roam above the city before drifting back to earth to get caught in trees and on the roofs of houses. Even I, as unlucky as I am, once found a Brandeis balloon tangled in the wheels of a parked carriage. The prize was a silk-lined box of crystallized dwarf oranges so fancy that I chose to save them, but I saved them too long, and they turned on me before I had even a taste of one.

  As I neared the store I was amused to discover that this wasn’t a sales gimmick but a protest. The women carried picket signs—Harlots in underwear! Activities unbefitting ladies! Their chanting served only to draw people in. I had to elbow my way to the window to even get a glimpse at the offense.

  It was quite something, that window display. With everything behind plate glass, you couldn’t hear all the whirring and rumbling of motors and engines, so it looked like it all moved on air or by magic, or clicked along on the tiny gears of a windup music box. Overhead hung a banner—America by Road—and three manikins rode bicycles as a rolled-up canvas unrolled behind them in a continual loop, unspooling painted landscapes of fields and rivers. The cyclists were women, and they wore bloomers, not skirts, and they were decked out in red, white, and blue. They wore scarves patterned with stars and stripes that blew in a wind stirred up by an electric fan offstage. Their motorized legs pedaled fast, spinning the bicycles’ wheels.

  Pearl, too, was a magician.

  “If you put your daughters on a bicycle,” a protester shouted in my ear, “you’ve given them the freedom of a whore! You’ve soiled your little doves! Do you even know where your girls are?”

  “Yeah,” a heckler called back, a cigar plugged into one corner of his mouth. “She’s in the store spending my money on a pair of them natty pants.” The others who’d gathered there chuckled, which just encouraged him to heckle her more.

  I went to the front doors, and even after stepping just one foot in, I felt like somebody might kick me right back out. Even when I straightened up to give the illusion of dignity, I could feel a stitch or two in the seams of my suit po
p and unravel. Fortunately, I was as invisible as I ever was.

  Shoppers and clerks hustled quick and graceful, as if they too were electrified manikins linked by a single wire. Cash registers clunked and rang and their drawers sprang open and slammed shut, while a violinist stood at the center of the grand staircase, fiddling softly. The whole place was selling patriotism by the yard, the flag’s stars and stripes even fashioned into petticoats in honor of the Spanish-American War. The manikins wore cavalry caps and army-blue dresses with gold braid and brass medals, the ladies’ arms bent into a salute. You could get belt buckles with eagles painted on them and suspenders patterned with the mug of the mustachioed George Dewey, admiral of the navy.

  You knew these shoppers were rich because they shopped for winter already—the place was stocked with fox fur collars and chinchilla overcoats. Imagine a life so leisurely you considered, in the heat of summer, what you might wear when it got cold.

  I did find something I could afford, however. In a glass counter of scarves and neckties, gloves and collars, were handkerchiefs stitched with initials. I bought one for Cecily—its corners were embroidered with yellow roses, and along one edge was a pink cursive S.

  Before the shopgirl could tie the box closed with a ribbon, I heard Pearl call my name. In the millinery corner, at a counter, Pearl stood surrounded by hats on severed heads.

  “Well, there you are,” I said, walking to her.

  Pearl produced from behind the counter a comb, and she leaned across to fix me up. It embarrassed me a bit. Had I even looked in the mirror before I’d left my room? She touched the fingers of one hand to my chin, and with her other she ran the comb through my hair. I watched her face as she watched the wayward sweep and swoop of my curls. She squinted and grumbled, then finally gave up. She held out a mirror.