Jenny and Barnum (27 page)

“Come stand by me, Barnum,” she suddenly commanded.

“I was told you didn't sleep well last night,” he said. “I'm going to do everything I can to preserve your energies.”

“Thank you. From here your city seems to be mostly churches.”

“On almost every corner.” He pointed out Trinity Church spire, the tallest structure in the city.

She said she knew nothing of America. Her tutors had hardly mentioned it years ago, and the only stories in the European newspapers had to do with slavery and savages. For a fleeting moment he saw the drama unfolding before her with her eyes: she was alone, on the edge of a continent still largely undiscovered; she could not help feeling apprehensive. Still—
he
thought; he could only hope
she
thought—she had almost all of a lifetime of achievement behind her, a mighty assertion of talent, will, and self-belief, and she was surely up to a matter as simple as conquering a new continent. She had done it before. But she was a tiny thing, and really timid, and he could see that nothing she had ever done had been easy for her.

In minutes the little skiffs were alongside, tacking and cresting the bow wave of the
Great Western
, their occupants pointing and shouting her name, shouting “Hello!” and “Hurrah!” She smiled and waved in return, and squealed with laughter when a sailor fell out of his boat and someone threw him a line.

“Welcome to America,” Barnum murmured.

“You are all mad!” She poked his vest with her forefinger. “And you, Barnum, you are the maddest of all!”

“I am abashed, Miss Lind, that you should understand me so quickly and so well.”

“Jenny!” she cried. “Call me Jenny!”

The sailor in the water had been an omen, for as the
Great Western
reversed its engine at the foot of Canal Street, the spectators, thousands upon thousands of them, on the piers on three sides, surged forward so that men and boys, first in twos and threes, then by the dozens, fell into the river like apples tumbling into a press. Great shouts and whoops of laughter went up, drowning the sound of the welcoming band. The noise seemed to make the city tremble. People screamed her name, over and over, chaotically at first, then rhythmically: “Jen-ny Lind! Jen-ny Lind!” At the end of the whitewashed pier the two triumphal floral arches vividly displayed their messages; first:

WELCOME

JENNY LIND

and then

WELCOME TO

AMERICA

So far, so good, Barnum thought, attempting to contain himself. What was unfolding was one of the great victories of his life, surely the greatest spectacle—and just as important, inside the pilothouse, out of sight of the crowd,
she
seemed pleased. She was fairly accustomed to such outpourings anyway. Parades, rerouted traffic, riot-sized throngs of admirers outside her hotel windows, were still commonplace in Europe, where her singing had been heard for more than a decade. The human reality inside so much hullaballoo was always disconcertingly smaller than the grandiose constructs of the imagination, but Barnum was satisfied with
her
.

She was a princess, princess-perfect, shyly peeking at the crowd, joining in the laughter as so many of its number clambered into boats covered with sheets of translucent seaweed. These first few moments were already a roaring success—marred for Barnum by what apparently he alone knew about Charlie, Lavinia, and Joe Gallagher.

After he had heard Charlie's story, Barnum had told him to take some time off. All he had to do, and only because it had been announced in the press, was introduce Jenny Lind at dock-side today. By late afternoon, if he wanted, he could be at home on Oyster Bay, making plans to take the
Shoal Draft
for a cruise on Long Island Sound. But no; to Charlie, that looked like slinking off in defeat. He thought he was made of stronger stuff than that, he'd told Barnum, who'd had tears in his eyes. General Tom Thumb would introduce Miss Jenny Lind, he would ride beside her in the parade to City Hall, and he would be at her gala première at Castle Garden at the Battery on Thursday night.

“And if there's any other way I can lend a hand with this venture,” the little man squeaked, sitting straight up in the middle of the vastness of his bed like Caesar in his senate, “you just let me know.”

More than anything, Charlie wanted to be big—the word meant many things to him. He didn't want to make trouble for anyone; he'd had his moments of anger, but he could see that they could do him no good at all. Barnum was quick to say that he would do everything possible to make the situation tolerable for him—but what Barnum kept to himself was a promise to look after Charlie, and make sure the little fellow wasn't in more pain than he was willing to allow.

When the gangplank was in place, and the rail taken away, Barnum waited until the surrounding crowd—on rooftops and up the streets in all directions—realized that all motion had stopped. It was a time for Barnum not to lose patience, for in the silence expectations continued to gather. Politicians knew all this stuff; they used it every day. What was different about Barnum was that the crowd could see the mockery he was making of it and himself. Barnum wanted people to enjoy themselves as the politicians never did. He stepped to the top of the gangplank and raised his hands as if to quiet the already attentive thousands.

In response, they cheered and threw their hats in the air. Gravely accepting their disrespect, Barnum marched down the gangplank. Little maneuvers such as this were more difficult than they looked—with thousands of eyes on him, the easiest thing for Barnum to do was trip over his own feet. That
would
spoil the effect, for, with all the mockery, there never was any hint of loss of control. People believed in Barnum because they believed he knew what he was doing. Even when he was having sport with them, they had faith in his ability to entertain. When he was ten feet from the foot of the gangplank, he stopped, turned to face the ship, pulled himself up straight, cued the bandleader waiting beyond the floral arches, and bellowed,

“
Ladies and gentlemen, the smallest man in the history of the world, General Tom Thumb!
”

He pointed—to the top of the gangplank, to the opening in the rail, where appeared, not so high as the railing itself, in white formal dress, top hat, and a boutonniere from the dining room's iced centerpieces, truly the smallest man ever to have lived, Connecticut's own Charlie Stratton. He was still sick and, for all Barnum or anyone else knew, recovering from the worst bender of his life; but when he smiled, really smiled, as he was doing now, he was as bright and fresh as the symbol of the New Year; 100 per cent professional—Charlie Stratton was 100 per cent professional.

“
Barnum!
” he squeaked.

The crowd cheered for a full minute.

“Yes,
mon général,
” Barnum answered with a flourish for the crowd, which laughed, hooted, and then yammered back and forth for quiet until Tom Thumb stepped forward and raised
his
hand. White gloves, Barnum noted admiringly. The little man never missed a beat. He was a consummate performer.

And being in front of his own admiring home audience wasn't hurting him, either, for now he did a little flourish of his own, creating another uproar, which he took his own good time quieting.

“Barnum,” he yelled, so that only the few close to him could hear, “permit me to present you to the greatest singing star in history, the toast of Europe and its kings and queens, emperors and empresses, Scandinavia's miraculous gift to the world, the one and only Swedish Nightingale, Miss
Jenny Lind!
”

Barnum allowed himself to breathe. The crowd cheered. Charlie stepped back, out of sight, and then reappeared with her, Jenny Lind, who was smiling that shy, self-conscious smile Barnum already recognized as the start of her heart-wrenching charm. She was holding Charlie's hand, which was perfect, and made Barnum wonder just how much she knew about the effect she had on others.

The effect was like nothing Barnum had ever heard before. He was deafened. On every side, men and boys were risking their lives straining forward to get a better look at her. They loved Jenny Lind. Without consideration, without reservation, they were surrendering to her. Barnum had never seen such worship. The city was abject—roaring thunderously, uncontrollably, stupefied.

The gangplank wasn't really wide enough for both of them. The General bowed to her and started down first, but not walking suddenly, skipping, dancing, and pirouetting before her, a top-hatted cherub to her blushing madonna. She
was
blushing, too, as aware as Barnum had been of the importance of getting down the gangplank smoothly and safely. Oh, she knew what she was doing—she knew everything. The noise seemed to be coming out of the very air, it was so intense. Barnum was sure that this was the grandest moment of his life.

Now he felt a presence beside him, and he looked down. The flower girl! He had forgotten the flower girl! Not an orphan, unhappily, but the daughter of a newspaper publisher, she had a bouquet of two dozen expensive, rare white roses. She was wearing white, too, and Barnum could see he had missed an opportunity. Everyone should have been in white, and he should have gotten a white carriage even if he'd had to paint it himself.

He stepped forward, took Jenny Lind's hand and kissed it, then turned to the crowd and raised his hand to silence it. The cheering went on so long that he finally had to give up, step back, and let her accept the salute alone. She waved, the roses cradled in her other arm. Tom Thumb urged the little girl, who was a foot and a half taller than him, to take her own bow. Jenny Lind took the little girl's hand, and Tom Thumb stepped back beside Barnum, and together the two men joined in the applause. It went on for five minutes. Barnum clocked it, and the next day the newspapers reported the same. They also estimated the crowd at the pier alone at twenty thousand. As for the rest, lining Canal Street to Broadway, and Broadway to City Hall, one newspaper said that “there would be no way to count the multitudes, for it was in the hundreds of thousands, surely the largest assembly of humanity since Napoleon's retreat from Moscow.”

A welcoming speech was required, and a few remarks by the lady herself. Barnum had a hoarse, gravelly voice, but over the years he had perfected a method of projecting it so that he could be heard by hundreds—even thousands. But these thousands did not want more than a few jokes from him, and out of respect for the guest of honor he wanted to confine himself to the mildest jest, so he had to be brief. He stepped beside her.

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” he asked her.

“It's a sin to waste so much time, money, and energy on a mere singer.”

“They do it for you in Europe—”

She glared at him. “That makes them fools, too.”

As if unperturbed, he stepped forward. “Citizens of New York! Citizens of America! Welcome to your home and into your hearts the valiant young woman who has just traveled arduously across the ocean to share with you the beauty and joy and the profound spiritual reward of her musical genius, the Swedish Nightingale, Miss Jenny Lind!”

Now they screamed. Barnum turned and offered his arm. “Jenny, this is not a sin.”

“It is, Barnum,” she answered, hesitating to hook her arm in his. He could see that her distress was genuine. “Why do they carry on so, when misery rules the world?”

Now he smiled. “Jenny, believe me, you've come to the only man in the world who can answer your question.” He took her arm and led her forward. Beyond the welcoming arches, beyond the parade of coaches and fire companies up Canal Street as far as the eye could see, under trees billowing in the sunshine with new spring growth, the crowd on both sides was four and five deep, waving handkerchiefs and flags, yelling and cheering, their faces a ruddy sea of rapture.

“Welcome,” Barnum said again, but this time Jenny Lind did not hear him. It was as if she were trying to look into the heart of America, now, on first glance.

11.

America!
It wasn't even America, but the
United States
of America, some thirty-odd tiny principalities mostly on the East Coast (one, California, faced the Pacific, which she found bizarre); the rest of the continent was Spanish-speaking, French-speaking, or in the hands of foul-smelling savages who wore skins and feathers. All of it was more or less free of responsibility to, and the influence of, Europe, and the pride with which the provincials pointed to that fact was almost as disturbing to her as their crude humor about the savages and the Negroes who were slaves—although many of the people she met were quick to say they were opposed to the institution of slavery.

Of course. Jenny was beginning to believe that she could expect anything of these people and dislike all of it. They were brash, loud specimens, Americans; most of them had English and Welsh names, but already they seemed a breed apart from those two. The Irish and Scots were looked down upon, the Germans another subject of ugly comment. All these groups only recently had begun to arrive in America in large numbers. These incredible hatreds were not directed only at outsiders. As she understood it, these were Northerners; Northerners hated Southerners because the Southerners owned the Negroes, who were slaves—never mind that the day's festivities in New York were served almost entirely by people with skin as black as a reindeer's nose. Nor was that the limit of the madness: apparently there were people called Yankees, and Barnum was one of
them
. In their presence, at least, Yankees were treated as relatively harmless blackguards, fair targets for casual guff. Barnum took it all blithely, exhibiting, not incidentally, a quality of personal conduct far above that of his countrymen.

They ate like pigs, shoving chicken and seared ribs into their mouths with bare, greasy hands. Their clothing was food-stained and they smelled as bad as any savage; crumbs were lodged in their beards and their necks were dirty. They were
loud
, the loudest people Jenny had ever met. They looked English, most of them, but their speech was so coarse and harsh that it made her think that the monkeys had been taught to speak.