Among the Wonderful (47 page)

“We should know what they’re to be paid,” Clarissa interrupted her partner. “Don’t you think we have a right to know what he’s paying them? I think we have a right to know, to make sure it’s comparable to our rates.”

“I’ve heard something about that.” Tai Shan spoke softly. Everybody’s head turned. “My uncle operates the concessions booth in Gallery Four. He heard from someone that these tribesmen are coming here because they think Barnum’s Grand Ethnological Congress of Nations is an actual diplomatic meeting organized by the president.”

The trio on the couch laughed. From his corner, Jacob snorted.

“I don’t know if it’s true, but if it is, there’s a chance Barnum isn’t paying them at all. Just their passage.”

“Ludicrous,” Maud breathed. The laughter diffused and all three of them appeared rather startled at the idea.

My head was beginning to ache. “What are we supposed to do about
that?”
I asked the room. No one responded.

“Perhaps we should start with a smaller problem,” Maud ventured. “Something we might actually be able to solve. Something manageable that would improve our immediate situation.”

“For example?” How irritating it was, that we could not even come up with a legitimate concern.

Oswald La Rue straightened up in his seat. “Well, those Indians are causing an awful ruckus out there. Kept me up the last two nights. They’ve shot more arrows than I can count. Between that and those two” — Oswald scowled at the twins — “it’s a miracle anyone gets any sleep at all around here.”

“I can hardly imagine that fighting going on for much longer without someone getting hurt,” Maud chimed in. “What are they fighting over?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I looked around the room and
spotted Thomas cowering behind Clarissa. He shared a narrow chair with They Are Afraid of Her, who had somehow made herself very small. I hadn’t even noticed that she was there.

“Would you enlighten us, Mr. Willoughby?” Maud piped up. “Did you succeed in your mission to discover their — or should I say
her
— secrets?”

Thomas’ face turned scarlet. “I don’t think I’m the best person to explain what’s happening with them,” he offered hesitantly. “I hardly know.” He looked at They Are Afraid of Her. “You’d be better off asking the Sioux.”

“We’ve tried to ask all of them! They won’t tell us a thing,” Maud snapped. “No offense to present company.”

“I know the Sioux have been traveling among New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia for two years. That’s as long as she’s been with them. This new group is some kind of enemy.”

“We’ve gathered
that
much,” Oswald La Rue huffed.

“They are called Absarokee,” Thomas continued. “She said they have been fighting them for a hundred years.”

“Absarokee,” They Are Afraid of Her repeated. She looked around the room. “I hate.”

“Maybe you can tell us more, Thomas? About the Absarokee?” Oswald’s voice was gentle. “They don’t have costumes with them, as far as anyone can see. No one knows who brought them here — they don’t appear to have a manager or a spokesperson.”

The Indian woman stood up. She held her arms with unnaturally stiffness at her sides, with both fists clenched.

“Absarokee fight since they walked, since they could move on two feet. They fight in the other land, and they fight here. Anywhere. Time finds them, puts them together with us.” She put her palms together as an illustration. Her face reddened. Her hands trembled. “They hate us. I hate.” She paused. “They come here to get something back.”

“She’s mentioned this before,” Thomas interjected. “She says they are here not to perform, but to get something back that was taken from them.”

“Something that the Sioux have?” Oswald asked.

“The museum have,” They Are Afraid of Her answered.

We considered this.

“She wants to leave the Sioux,” Thomas said. “I’ve let her move most of her belongings into my apartment.”

“Not very Christian of you,” Maud chided.

I cleared my throat. “So what we’ve learned so far is that the fighting between these Indians isn’t going to end until one or the other of them leaves. Unless we decide to throw one group out ourselves, we’re back where we started.”

“How about the Guild of Living Wonders?” Oswald offered suddenly.

“That’s too close to the name Barnum gave us,” Matthew countered. “What about the Guild of Human Curiosities?”

“Lacks imagination,” Maud judged.

“Marvelous Monsters!” That came from one of the albino children, and it was then that my patience ran out. I left as unobtrusively as a giantess can.

Below us a new transparency snapped against the building. Unlike most of the illustrated sails Barnum hoisted from the side of his building, this one was ocean blue. On it floated a familiar white shape.

“Can you see the date?”

“It’s moving too much. They haven’t secured one of the corners yet.” Tai Shan leaned over the railing of the aerial garden.

“Ah! June fifteenth. I think. Or fifth.”

“The fifth! That would be the day after tomorrow!”

“Fifteenth. Yes, I can see it now.” Tai Shan righted himself, adjusting his sleeves and collar. “It’s about time they finished the beluga exhibit.”

“I suppose,” I said. “But imagine what will happen when the fifth floor’s open to the public.”

“They won’t be able to get into our half of the gallery.”

“But they will be right outside our doors! They will drown us with their noise and their obnoxious chatter!” I was half joking, but the prospect was truly alarming. “We hear them. We feel them. We see them as soon as we open our doors. There is something necessary about walking across the empty gallery before we descend to the crowds each day. Do you agree?”

“I don’t know that it matters to me,” Tai Shan said.

“You don’t notice the hundreds of people passing before your eyes each day, gawking at you incessantly.”

“I notice lots of things about them.”

“Well isn’t that convenient for you. I only notice how horrid they are; and then I notice my own reactions to them.”

“This
is
a museum, Miss Swift. And as far as I know, you are here of your own accord.”

“True.” Whining to Tai Shan was embarrassing. “Here’s a question I’ve been wondering about: Is a whale really a spectacle? Do you think it will draw?”

Tai Shan shrugged. “Why wouldn’t it? Hasn’t it been a draw for us all these months?”

“I suppose you’re right.”

Some children moved along the promenade in a straggling mass, following a figure I recognized as the taxidermist. Beside him, attached by a lead, toddled a large monkey with long red hair. The children screamed and ran behind them.

Thomas sidled up to the table. He had returned to his usual haggard self.

“How quickly love fades,” I teased.

“I must speak with you,” he whispered.

“Go ahead, Thomas,” I told him. Tai Shan resumed eating his lunch, kindly showing no interest in Thomas’ intrusion.

“Not here. Would you come with me, Ana? I’m sorry, but I’m afraid it’s urgent and I don’t know what else to do.”

“All right. Forgive us, Tai Shan,” I rose and followed Thomas as he scurried across the rooftop garden. Tai Shan waved us away and pulled a book from one of the many hidden pockets of his tunic.

Thomas would say nothing until we had returned to the fifth floor. He passed the Sioux Indians without speaking, without even looking in their direction. The Absarokee, if they were in their shaded camp, were silent. He led me to his room.

Thomas had inherited the largest apartment of all, and the only objects inside it were a heavy wooden bed, one foot-locker that had a corner of flannel hanging out, a broad expanse of bare floor, and an array of strange musical instruments strewn around the room. I guessed that most of them were borrowed from the museum’s collection.

He led me to a small pile of things in the far corner: one striped wool blanket, a basket, and a folded dress.

“Something’s happened,” Thomas repeated, still whispering. “Something is definitely going on. I can’t figure out exactly what it is, but she’s involved. She would be so angry if she knew I was telling you.” Fearfully, he peered down at her folded clothes as if they were, or could become, animate.

“Maybe you shouldn’t tell me what you’re trying to tell me,” I reasoned. “It’s better not to meddle in certain kinds of conflicts.”

“She’s in danger. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Or she’s dangerous.” Thomas lifted the sleeve of They Are Afraid of Her’s dress. “I don’t know what to do! I woke up in the middle of the night last night. I opened my eyes just in time to see her slip out the door. She was barefoot. I followed her.”

It sounded like the beginning of a fairy tale.

“When she reached the door to the stairwell, she turned back. She could have seen me, I don’t know. I ducked behind the beluga’s tank. I waited until I heard the door close behind her. I followed her down to the second floor.”

“What could she want on the second floor?” I wondered out loud. Besides Pa-Ib, the Egyptian mummy, and my own gilded cage, I could think of nothing that might interest her.

“She moved so quickly among the cabinets. I am convinced she didn’t know I was there. If she had wanted me to follow, she would have slowed down a little bit, just to be sure I could keep up with her.

“Eventually, she stopped in front of a large case. I’d never noticed it before, it’s just one among a hundred identical cabinets. She used the hem of her dress to wrap her hand. So quickly, Ana! She wrapped her hand and then sent her fist through the glass. It splintered like an iceberg and then crashed with a terrible sound. I sprinted back to the stairwell. I was certain the commotion would call the night guards in from the street below. I climbed the stairs and ran back to my room. I hopped in my bed, calming myself as best as I could.
She returned a few minutes later. I watched her put some object among her things and change into a fresh nightgown. Blood had stained the first one, you see. From her hand.

“My breath had not yet returned to normal by the time she joined me in the bed. Maybe she knew I followed her. But maybe not. What do you think?”

Thomas stared somewhere in the vicinity of my neck.

“If she had wanted you to follow, why would she set up such an elaborately subtle ruse? You can speculate all you want, Thomas. But it will be an endless convolution, and a fruitless one.” I pointed at the pile of her things. “Well?”

“Yes.” Thomas knelt and put a hand inside the basket, keeping his face turned away as if something might bite him from inside. He pulled out an object and cupped it in both hands.

“It’s made out of an … organ.”

And it was. Inflated and dried, the membranous gourd had an unmistakable shape.

“It’s a heart.”

Inside the translucent pouch, something rattled. It was decorated with strips of buckskin and black glass beads.

“What is it?”

Thomas turned the thing over in his hands. “I don’t know.” His voice trembled.

“Look, Thomas, this clearly doesn’t have a thing to do with you. Whatever this thing is, and whatever the reason is for her to steal it, it’s beyond your control.”

“But I love her.” He was like a little boy and for a moment I felt weirdly maternal. I forced myself not to reach out and touch his cheek.

“I love her. So it does have something to do with me. That’s how I see it, Ana. For better or worse. God’s will must take me into account.” He scrutinized the heart in his hands.

The next afternoon, on my way to my booth, I found They Are Afraid of Her’s broken cabinet. One of the custodians had nailed boards over the hole and swept up the shards, but the artifacts still lay on exhibit. There were a pair of beaded buckskin slippers, some spears and arrows, an object that seemed to be a rattle, and a sheath decorated with geometric designs. Next to where the heart had been, a small label:
PAGAN IDOL
. Very informative.

Thomas did not appear on the balcony at all that afternoon, but his musicians stumbled along without him. The ophecleide player was very drunk and the fiddler, though sober, barely kept a tune. The music that resulted from their ineptitude served to elongate the hours, and I, trapped within earshot, did my best to become a statue.

When I returned home for supper, I saw that someone new had arrived and set up camp near the Absarokee. A stained canvas tarpaulin obscured the contents of a large cage. Beside it a lone figure lay wrapped in blankets. Some distance away Gideon, the ticket-man’s nephew, sat on a wooden stool. Oswald La Rue, the Living Skeleton, was talking with the boy; when he saw me coming, he loped across the beluga gallery in his silent, wraith’s gait.

“He’s asleep. Can’t even get a good look at his face. Snoring like a forest of falling timber.”

“Who is it?”

“That’s what I was trying to find out.”

“What’s the boy doing there?”

“Apparently Barnum sent him to stand watch. Told him to fetch him when the stranger wakes up. I don’t like standing over that side of the gallery,” Oswald continued. “Those Indians could freeze hell over with their evil eye.”

“Have you seen Thomas?”

“Been in his room all day. One of those Sioux finally got shot by an arrow, did you hear? Savages.” Oswald shook his head.

We stopped at the Sioux camp.

“Who got hurt?” I asked, searching their faces for They Are Afraid of Her. She was not there.

“Joseph,” the old man said. It was one of the younger men. We knew “Joseph” was not his real name. Several of them used that name when speaking to white people, just as they called their women “Mary.”

“Joseph” sat on the floor, his back against the wall and his upper arm bandaged and bleeding. We asked if they needed any medical supplies or help of any kind. They didn’t. Oswald went whistling off toward Clarissa’s room and I knocked on Thomas’ door. When he finally answered, he looked worse than Joseph: pale, unable to look me in the eye. He did not invite me in.

“She won’t speak to me,” he whispered. “They’ve shot her cousin. They think he stole the … that thing.”