The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb (48 page)

To the casual observer, we were simply two old married couples, happy in one another’s presence, perhaps on holiday together. I enjoyed thinking that was how others might see us tonight, this restful, contented night.

“What do you mean, Julia?” Mr. Bleeker looked fondly down upon his wife, who blinked up at him with eyes that crinkled at the edges, like a fine piece of lace.

“I mean, I don’t want to spend all the rest of my life on the road. I love you all, but I want a little farm, up in Albany near my family. You may be an old trouper, Sylvester, but I’m not. I only married one.”

“You’ve been talking about that farm for years,” Mr. Bleeker scolded, but his eyes kept smiling.

“You’ve been promising me you’d give it to me for years,” his wife retorted.

“You know we could never go on without the two of you,” I interposed, but not anxiously; I could not take this talk seriously. Mrs. Bleeker often mentioned that farm but always stood ready, her worn portmanteau in hand, the next time we met at Grand Central Station. “Why, who would ever change my costume so quickly as you? Who would lace me into my corset? And who would keep track of us all?” I turned to Mr. Bleeker. “Remember how calm you were back in sixty-nine, when you outsmarted those bandits in Nevada?”

“Why, sure, don’t you remember?” Charles squeezed my hand excitedly. “How you told them we would be on the stage, and then you got us all out of there early?”

“Oh, that was a time!” Mr. Bleeker laughed. “I do wish I’d seen
those varmints’ faces when they held up the coach and we weren’t there!”

“That was a lovely trip,” I said, remembering. “All the places we went!”

“It was a tiring trip,” Mrs. Bleeker insisted. “I just wanted to get back home safe and sound!”

“But the things we saw—the Pyramids! The temples in Japan!” I closed my eyes, as if I could conjure up those long-ago sights. They were fading from memory, little by little; I could no longer recall the entire settings—I didn’t remember how we got to the Pyramids, for example, but I did remember, vividly, how it felt to stand in their ancient shadow. Unreal, almost, as if we were standing in front of a flat backdrop painting of them, instead—until I noticed the clouds moving across the sky, throwing gently changing patterns of light across them, making the rough, uneven surfaces suddenly stand out, almost reaching toward us. Only then did I know they were real.

“Remember, Vinnie, how I said to you that I knew exactly how you must feel, for the first time in my life?” Mr. Bleeker chuckled. “Because I felt about two feet tall next to those things?”

I was about to reply, but to my surprise, Charles answered first. “I do,” he declared, decidedly. “I heard you say that to Vinnie, and I wanted to tell you, old fellow, that you couldn’t possibly know how we felt. Because none of those desert chaps, the ones working there digging in the sand at the bottom, were pointing to you and laughing.”

I was stunned. I remembered that—I remembered thinking
exactly
that. I was nodding to Mr. Bleeker but watching those brown men pointing at our party, holding their hands down to the ground to approximate our size, and doubling over with laughter.

What I didn’t remember was that Charles saw them, too—and that he felt the same way. I studied my husband now; he was older, his face so puffy, his beard still rather ridiculous. But there was something in his eyes that I’d never even bothered to look for before—and that I recognized, for I saw it in my own in those rare moments when I paused long enough to stare into a mirror. Hurt and determination, both: That’s what it was. Hurt at the cruelties the world sometimes threw at us; determination not to let anyone notice.

Perhaps I had also recognized it in the eyes of those misshapen little women from the circus; perhaps I hadn’t wanted to, and so made myself forget I’d seen it. Until now.

I shook my head, even as Charles looked at me with a new, understanding smile. I did not know what to say—so I squeezed his hand and smiled back. For a moment, we were miniature reflections of Mr. and Mrs. Bleeker, seated opposite.

For a moment, it didn’t even feel as if we were pretending.

We passed the rest of the evening like this, four friends reminiscing about old times. When the clock struck ten, we all rose and took the elevator up to the sixth floor. Mrs. Bleeker knelt down to give me her usual good-night kiss, and Mr. Bleeker shook Charles’s hand. Then we turned and went to our respective rooms—theirs farther down the hall than ours—shutting the doors behind us.

Once Charles and I changed clothes and climbed my steps up to bed, he immediately rolled over to the far side, leaving me the space I always desired. But I did not roll over; I lay upon my back, conscious of his presence in my bed in a way I never had been before. His warm, steadily breathing presence; the way his nightcap got twisted about, even before he closed his eyes; his feet sticking out of his nightshirt, pink and sturdy as a child’s but with little tufts of hair upon his toes—like a man.

I had never felt my husband’s bare feet against mine. We had never slept that closely; our bodies had never been so entwined. There was always so much distance between us, and I had put it there, from the very beginning. Charles, ever-pleasing, ever-pliable, had not once questioned why I had. Neither had I—until tonight.

Holding my breath, I stretched my right hand toward my husband. Yet I could not reach him; the bed was too big, and I was too small; suddenly, delicately,
femininely
small. Afraid to disturb him, afraid not to, I inched even closer and reached out again.

Sighing with a soft, unexpected snort, Charles rolled over in his sleep and moved tantalizingly closer toward me.

That wasn’t what I expected; I snatched my hand back as if he were a hot coal, something dangerous, something that could hurt me. Rolling away onto my own side, my heart racing so that it was pounding in my ears, I held my breath, waiting to see what he would do next. But he did nothing; he simply continued to sleep, unaware of my turmoil on the other side of the deep, linen-covered—and dream-littered—chasm between us. I almost laughed at the absurdity, the feminine timidity, of my behavior—why, I was forty-one! I had been married for twenty years now. I was behaving like a blushing virgin—

Which, of course, I was. I wouldn’t have known what to do even if I had touched my husband’s shoulder, turned him to me, welcomed him with a smile. Beyond that, I couldn’t imagine; my horror of everything that had happened to Minnie would not allow me to think further than an embrace, perhaps maybe a kiss.

I plumped my pillow and told myself, sternly, to get to sleep; we had three performances on the morrow, and we had to get to the theater early to try out the stereopticon. Even though I tossed and turned and couldn’t get comfortable, my nightgown unusually
hot and heavy against my tingling skin, I did finally go to sleep that night.

And when I did, I later remembered, I was thinking of my husband. For only the first time in our marriage; also, as it turned out, the last.

“V
INNIE
! V
INNIE
!”

A hand was upon my shoulder—my husband’s hand. I snuggled down into my pillow and smiled; hadn’t I just fallen asleep, imagining this, his hand upon me?

“Vinnie! Wake up!” He was shaking me, not tenderly but forcefully. “Wake up! I hear people in the hall! I smell smoke!”

I opened my eyes; Charles was kneeling beside me, his nightcap all twisted about, his eyes, even in the darkness, wide with fear. I yawned—and swallowed a faint trace of smoke.

Then I heard the footsteps in the hall, the confusion. Someone was banging on our door; someone was banging on all the doors in our hallway.

Someone was yelling,
“Fire!”

I sat straight up, my heart pounding. Charles continued to hover over me, wringing his hands. “Oh, what do we do, Vinnie? What do we do?”

“Get dressed!” I barked, jumping out of bed—forgetting to use the steps, so that I fell with a thud to the floor. Scrambling up, I threw on a dressing gown; Charles did the same. Then I ran to the door and opened it with my usual difficulty, the doorknob large for my hand, and too high; I felt my shoulder strain as I wrenched it open.

The hallway was filled with people, frightened people, their faces still creased from sleep while their eyes were blank with panic. Everyone was in dressing gowns or nightshirts, some with
shoes on, most in bare feet. It was utter pandemonium as people ran to and fro like confused mice, simply following their instincts. And their instincts told them to get out—for there was smoke, hazy right now in this part of the hall, but someone shouted, “It’s coming up the elevator shaft! The smoke is coming up the elevator shaft! We can’t use it!”

And over and over, on everyone’s lips, the one word—
“Fire!”

My
instinct was to run to the Bleekers’ room: Did they know? Were they awake? But I took one step out of the doorway and was nearly knocked off my feet; there were so many people, now some of them were carrying portmanteaus, or dragging trunks that were much bigger than I was. One almost smashed me even as I stood in the doorway. Everywhere I looked were legs, legs running back and forth, dragging things, holding things—sharp things (umbrellas, walking sticks, even one man with a sword), heavy things. There was no possibility of pushing myself through that stampede without being trampled to death. I couldn’t even shout my presence; the din was far too great, as the air was filled with panicked cries and shouts of confused directions: “The elevator must be working!” “No, the flames are coming up the shaft!” “I think the stairs are this way!” “A man said we must be prepared to jump!”

Quickly I leaped back inside our room, banging the door shut behind me. Charles was standing in his dressing gown, uncinched so that it hung loosely, his belly, in his nightshirt, protruding; he was still in his bare feet.

“Put your shoes on!” I told him, as I sprinted to do the same thing. “Gather up anything of value—take my steps, and I’ll get my jewel case!” I ran to find the case, but a maid had put it high on top of a bureau, so I could not reach it. Cursing her stupidity, I grabbed the steps out of Charles’s hand and dragged them to the bureau; standing up on my very toes, I was able to reach the case.

“Now!” I jumped off the steps and thrust them back to
Charles. “We can’t go out in the hall—we’ll be trampled to death! We’ll either have to wait for people to clear it, or—or—”

“Or what? Get burned to death?” Charles cried. His face was an alarming red; his breathing was labored, and he was shaking from head to toe. He did not look at all well, but I couldn’t allow myself to worry about that; first, I had to get us out of this room.

Something was rattling; it sounded like dice being shaken in a cup. I looked down, and it was the jewel case; my hand was trembling so, all my jewelry was bouncing around inside. Later, I realized how ridiculous it was to worry about that case; I had forgotten that everything in it was imitation now.

My entire body was shaking, with fear and energy, both; my heart was racing but only to stir my blood, stir my mind, so that I might come up with a way out. That I would was never in doubt; I knew I could not rely on Charles, and I did not want to die here, consumed by flame and smoke. So it was up to me.

“We can—we can tie bedsheets together!” I looked around, realizing we should probably dampen them first, in case the flames reached our room, but there was no water in the pitcher. “Quick, take the sheets off the bed!”

Charles and I both ran to the bed and began to remove the sheets; it was difficult for us, as they were so heavy and the mattress so huge, the top of it just about level with our eyes; even the pillowcases were cumbersome in our arms, as we could not quite reach all the way about them. In the end, I held on to each pillow while Charles tugged at the cases, both of us falling flat on our bottoms in the effort.

Meanwhile, the commotion outside our door grew even more deafening; the temperature began to rise, and as the early-morning light began to fill our room, we could see that the air
was beginning to turn hazy. The smell of smoke stung the inside of my nostrils.

Oh, where was Mr. Bleeker? Why had he not burst into the room to save us, as he always did? But maybe he needed to be saved, for a change; what if they were sleeping, incredibly, through all this? I dropped the sheet I was holding and ran to the door once more—but the hallway was now thick with smoke, with even more people covering their eyes, choking, running, and still crying that one word—
“Fire!”

I shut the door, knowing I couldn’t open it again unless we had no choice but to try to make our way out through that teeming, terrifying hallway. But I couldn’t let any more smoke inside our room; while Charles was trying to knot the sheets together, I shoved two of my dresses beneath the doorway to try to keep the smoke out. The Bleekers couldn’t save us, and I couldn’t save them; we were all on our own, now. I could only pray that we would see one another, safe and sound, when all was over.

“Vinnie, it’s so hard—my hands are too small!” Charles protested, massaging his wrist. I ran to help him; it
was
difficult, knotting those heavy hotel sheets together; I didn’t know how we’d get them secure enough to hold our weight.

“Here, tug on this,” I told him, grabbing one end of two knotted sheets and handing him the other. “Tug hard!”

He did, I did—and the sheets slid apart. We stared at each other; Charles sat down upon the floor, as if he simply had no more will, and began to cry.

“Vinnie, we can’t do this! Where’s Bleeker? We can’t save ourselves! We’re too little!”

“Don’t say that!” I longed to shake him; I detested his weakness at that moment, for I was too close to giving in to my own.

Kicking at the sheets, I ran to the window, but of course it
was too high, the sash far above my head. I needed to stand upon something solid in order to open it, and my steps were too wobbly. “Help me,” I yelled at Charles, as I spied a heavy chair next to the bed; we managed to inch it—oh, so excruciatingly slowly!—across the plush carpet, until it was in front of the window. Climbing upon it, throwing all dignity to the wind—my nightgown was now twisted about my waist, exposing my legs—I tried to unhinge the lock on the sash; it was big, slippery in my sweating palms, and at first I didn’t think I could move it. But finally it did loosen, and I tugged on it until it released; leaning my shoulder against the sash, I pushed with all my might, praying that it might move. It did, enough so that I could then jump down and put my hands in the opening of the window; Charles joined me, and we were able to push it up enough so that we could lean out.