The Amalgamation Polka (10 page)

“Then one night,” Whelkington told his spellbound audience, “about an hour out of Rome, a norther blew down, shook the squirrels right out of the trees. The canal was boiling, you couldn’t see to the end of the boat. Then an electron come down, knocked ol’ Red senseless to the ground and I run out and—” He stopped, staring at the bewildered Fishes in the doorway as if he’d never seen them before and wouldn’t want to ever again.

“Set yourselves down,” snapped Mrs. Callahan, bustling by with an armload of dirty dishes, “or there’ll be nothing to set down to.”

As she spoke, the last slab of ham was speared away by a hard character in buckskin whose grizzled face seemed to pose the eternal question: What are you gonna do about it?

“That’s quite all right,” asserted a young woman sitting nearby with eyes so strikingly blue the pupils resembled black suns. She and the other members of her sex, all exhibiting the same grim countenance normally associated with cigar-store indians, were arranged in a row at a long table opposite the men, who, either too busy shoveling grub into their pieholes or too embarrassed by their perilous proximity to the better half, neither conversed with nor barely glanced at the ladies. “The boy is welcome to finish the remainder of my whatever-it-is,” she said, pushing the plate distastefully away. “I’m thoroughly sated.” Her smile, toothsome as it was, gave the appearance of a surface phenomenon only, suggesting that beneath the skin such smiles were rare, furtive things and much preyed upon.

Thatcher politely declined, adding, “We had a more than ample breakfast before setting out this morning.”

“But I insist.” She patted the empty seat beside her. “Breakfast must have been many long hours ago and, frankly, this boy looks as if he could lick the enamel off the plate.”

Liberty looked at his father, then slid shyly into the chair as the young woman extended a slim, pale hand toward Thatcher. “Augusta Thorne,” she announced boldly, and, indicating the older, portly woman to her immediate right, “my mother, Edith Thorne,” who nodded sweetly, “and the naughty imp on the end is my baby sister, Rose, to whom no attention should be paid whatsoever or she’ll be up on the table reciting, ‘She walks in beauty like one so bright,’ or however it goes, I have such a poor head for all that dreamy claptrap.”

“‘She walks in beauty like the night,’” corrected Rose, the blood rising in her downy cheeks to produce a tint that mimicked her name.

“Really,” declared the elder Mrs. Thorne, aiming her lorgnette in Thatcher’s direction, “I fail to see why these preposterous meals must be conducted like horse races. Are prizes awarded to the swiftest, or is it that everyone is concerned the fare will be depleted before all have had their fill?”

“A very real concern, I should think,” remarked Rose, noting in wonder upon a sideboard the staggering pile of plundered serving platters.

The touchy Mrs. Callahan, passing within auditory range of these unpardonable criticisms, selected a particularly virulent sneer from her vast armamentarium of expressive hexes devised over the years to deal with just such ungrateful trash as these, though unfortunately no one noticed but the boy, whose strange colorless eyes seemed, for a brief, frightening instant, to penetrate directly into the deep private knowledge of exactly who she was.

“Do I detect a note of the old country in your speech?” asked Thatcher, after introducing himself and his son and settling into a chair across from the beaming Thornes.

“Yes, you do, Mr. Fish,” replied Augusta. “Hampshire, to be exact. We’re on holiday.”

“We’ve come to see the Falls,” Rose blurted out, almost lisping with excitement.

“Yes,” declared Mrs. Thorne. “We’ve heard so much about the great Niagara our curiosity could no longer be politely restrained. We wish to experience sublimity and terror.”

“Well,” drawled Thatcher, “I’m sure you’ll find America abounding in both qualities.”

“Oh, we already have.” Augusta took a sip of tea, looked into the cup and set it back down again. “We attended the most stimulating sermon by the Reverend Beecher in Brooklyn.”

“Oh my,” interrupted her mother. “I cannot recall precisely what the good man said, but I still get goosebumps just thinking about the sound of his voice.”

“Then we witnessed a boiler explosion on a steamboat in New York harbor. More than twenty killed, I understand.”

“But a gentleman we met at the hotel in Albany,” Mrs. Thorne added breathlessly, “assured us that the consequence of the Falls would be to combine the effects of the two.”

“Just what is it,” mused Augusta, “about the sight of filthy water tumbling over a precipice that we find so positively thrilling?”

“Perhaps,” conjectured Thatcher, “there is something in us that is eternally, noisily falling and we respond as magnets to the outward emblem of an inner descent.”

Augusta’s eyes narrowed, went rapidly in and out of focus, as if she were attempting to maintain a close watch on Thatcher while simultaneously concentrating furiously on something else. Then she blinked and said, “How absolutely transcendental.”

“Your son,” noted Mrs. Thorne, “does not appear to be so hungry as we thought.”

Liberty had been silently studying the half-eaten contents of his plate as if contemplating a collection of dead oddities arranged under museum glass.

“Go ahead,” Augusta urged. “You should understand that I’ll not withdraw my attentions until you begin eating. And I must warn you, I can be a very stubborn woman. Ask my mother.”

“The most willful child in the family,” confirmed Mrs. Thorne, “perhaps in several generations. Even her dear brother Austin—admittedly, a boy of near pathological sensitivity, God protect his soul—would have nothing further to do with her after the age of eight, wouldn’t even acknowledge her in public as his sister. Why, if she so much as lost at a game of croquet, she’d sit sulking under a mulberry tree until two in the morning, when Father would have to go out and carry her in to bed, the mallet still clenched in her hot little fist.”

Hesitantly, Liberty turned a two-tined fork sideways as a sort of miniature trowel, then shoved onto the blade of his knife a slice of cold fowl which he lifted gravely to his mouth and gravely chewed and swallowed.

“Good,” announced Augusta, patting his head approvingly.

Thatcher watched the tips of his son’s ears grade into deep scarlet. “He won’t complain or utter a sound,” he said quietly, “but if you don’t withdraw your hand, he just might try to take off a finger or two, as a warning.”

Augusta’s arm flew back in horror. “Why, how astonishing.” She turned to study the docile lad at her side. “He doesn’t appear to be that manner of boy.”

Thatcher smiled blandly. “What boy does?”

Hunched now over his plate, Liberty consumed morsel after overdone morsel of various meats and sauce, boiled per Mrs. Callahan’s strict instructions for a measured hour or more, effectively relieving flesh and plant of any taste, consistency or nutrition, the bony wings of his thin shoulders commencing to quake in gentle convulsions of secret glee.

“What’s wrong with him now?” asked Augusta.

“He’s happy,” Thatcher explained. “He likes to eat.”

Formally addressing the boy, she inquired softly, “What is your favorite food?”

Shaking and chewing, Liberty gave no response.

“He can’t hear you,” said Thatcher. “He’s deaf.”

“Oh my goodness!” Augusta covered her mouth with a dainty hand.

“What did he say?” asked Mrs. Thorne.

“He said the boy’s deaf.”

“Oh.”

The Thorne family now shifted in their seats to contemplate the unfortunate child.

“He’s adjusted to his condition marvelously well,” said Thatcher. “Quite a quick study in the lipreading department.”

“Can he hear music?” asked Rose, disturbed that the person at the table nearest to her in age should be so afflicted.

“No, but he can feel it.”

Augusta bent down, positioning her face on a level with Liberty’s, and spoke loudly, deliberately, spacing out the words like stones plummeting at uniform intervals into a dark pool. “What…is…your…favorite…food?”

Liberty regarded the woman with a look of complete vacancy, then abruptly dropped his jaw to reveal on his tongue a semimasticated mass of unidentifiable beige chunks to which he adverted with extended forefinger.

Augusta reeled back, gasping. “Why, that’s the most disgusting sight I’ve seen since we left New York. I believe he certainly is capable of biting me, or worse. I beg your pardon, Mr. Fish, but your son’s behavior doesn’t appear much more advanced than that of an untamed beast.” Unable, though, to turn herself entirely away, she continued to stare at the offending child as if expecting an apology or, at the least, an adequate excuse.

“I know you did not mean to insult my son,” said Thatcher mildly, “nor he you, but I fear I must further inform you that, like certain creatures of the forest, he is also mute.”

All the women exclaimed at once.

“Oh, Mr. Fish,” declared Augusta, “I’m so terribly sorry. I had no idea.”

“Doesn’t seem to bother him much. He can satisfy most of his needs with a series of meaningful gestures.”

Mrs. Thorne, settled on the edge of her chair like a nesting bird, absorbed this information with avid interest, then leaned giddily forward, jowls aquiver, to announce, “When I was a tender lass, younger than my own Rose here, our stableboy Edgar—you remember Old Budgie, don’t you girls?—was kicked in the head by a rabid horse. Or, wait—perhaps it was that sick cow drove us mad always lowing down there by the gate, wouldn’t come in, wouldn’t go out, until one day Randolph simply walked up, shot it square between the ears with that antique musket Father used to kill Frenchmen with—well, it was all so long ago anyway, and afterward there was nothing they could do for the affected youth but prop him up in a corner and make sure his nappie got changed regularly. Poor dear couldn’t speak, could barely lift a finger. Utterly unseated he was. And, curiously enough, as the years passed, he came to bear a remarkable likeness to the author Thomas Carlyle, although never having met the great man myself, I could not say for certain.”

“Well,” replied Thatcher, “I believe my son still retains enough sense than to lose himself in the writing line. He has, however, on a number of occasions, expressed an intense fascination with the role of riverboat captain.”

Augusta’s well-ministered facade had lapsed into an open gawk, thoughts, mostly dark, blowing cleanly as clouds across her powdery, unguarded face.

Having devoured every scrap of food on his plate, Liberty was diligently sopping up the last of the gravy with a ragged heel of wheat bread. When he was done, he pushed back his chair, stood and delivered a deep bow.

“You’re welcome,” replied Augusta, nodding courteously.

Thatcher, who had eaten almost nothing, also rose and excused himself, a tall man with large hands and a persistent light in his countenance whom Augusta found supremely intriguing because so fundamentally unreadable. “Pleasant meeting you ladies,” he said, touching his hat. “My son and I both appreciated the enchantment of your company and the compass of your generosity.”

“Thank you, Mr. Fish,” responded Mrs. Thorne. “You’ve aided in transforming this horrid boat trip into a—how shall I say?—more
elevating
experience.”

“At least he isn’t blind, too,” blurted Rose, quickly shushed by mother and sister.

Mounting the stairs, Liberty in front, Thatcher kept nudging sharply with a knee the back of his giggling son’s leg until finally, Liberty, in some irritation, tried to look back to voice a complaint and his father simply seized the top of his head and turned it firmly forward again, as if the head were merely a finial atop a post, a wooden ball requiring minor adjustment.

Up on deck, Thatcher was immediately waylaid by yet another itinerant of disputable character who sought to engage him in a rambling “philosophical colloquy” on the subjects of table-rapping, animal husbandry and the verifiable demonstrations of the Devil in this, our fallen world—“cunningly constructed, sir, in such a style as to provide numerous nooks and crannies for the Great Tempter to dwell comfortably within.”

His father thus diverted, Liberty took the opportunity to explore the limited deck space of the
Croesus.
Two circumambulations between bow and stern proving more than adequate to satisfy even a cat’s curiosity, he settled once again upon the forward edge of the roof. Nearby, the party of young fashionables struck poses, flirted shamelessly and partook of the blessings of Nature with much bright chatter concerning ancient Phoebus, brindled kine, genial rustics, etc. A bored, pale woman, meditatively revolving a silk parasol above her lofty arrangement of coiled blond hair, turned to bestow on the boy a vague smile much as one deposits a coin into a beggar’s cup—behavior Liberty had already endured enough times to understand that it might, and should, be safely ignored.

A stand of pine crowded the banks, draping the passing boat in a cool, medicinal shade, and a man laughed when a low branch almost reached out and plucked away his hat. A black cloud of gnats set passengers to coughing, windmilling their arms. Big green bullfrogs plopped into the water at the vessel’s approach. A pair of dark, glittering eyes appeared at the roof’s edge, peering intensely right at Liberty, no sooner noticed than their owner, in one dramatic bound, leaped high into the air and landed nimbly at his side.

“I’m the hoggee,” announced the acrobat, thrusting out a soiled, well-callused hand. This was the fidgety, unattached boy Liberty had already observed skulking mysteriously about the boat or lying sprawled atop one of the mules whenever Red took one of his frequent breaks, retiring to the salon to share a tumbler of antifogmatic with the convivial Mrs. Callahan. He looked to be roughly Liberty’s age and height, with skinny, bruised arms and bare, splayed feet missing nails on several toes, and he was dressed in a baggy, liberally patched man’s shirt and a seedy pair of purple pantaloons. Every visible inch of skin was incrusted with dirt of sundry hues and layers. It was the hair, however, that was particularly noteworthy, each mousy strand cut to an identical length and then, apparently, dipped in molasses and brushed straight out from his scalp, giving him the appearance of a dandelion about to blow.