The Museum of Extraordinary Things (12 page)

Eddie returned to his initial questioning. “You know the man who lives on the fifth floor? The tailor. The one that doesn’t like noise and doesn’t talk to anyone? He has a long, dark beard.”

The boy nodded, but he corrected Eddie. “His beard is gray.”

That piece of information made Eddie’s throat grow tight. He held out a dime. “For you,” he said, to the boy’s great surprise. He then handed the boy the envelope he’d brought along. “Bring this up to him and you can have the dime.” There wasn’t much cash in the envelope, but it was enough to purchase new boots, a few bags of potatoes and turnips, a scarf, even a new coat, for the one Eddie had bought his father long ago must certainly be threadbare by now. “Don’t open it. Understand?”

The boy accepted the dime and the envelope. Before he went on, Eddie grabbed him. “My dog can judge who’s trustworthy and who’s not, that’s why I’m giving this job to you. He trusts you.”

The boy nodded, his eyes on the dog. After Eddie let go of him, the young messenger patted Mitts one last time. “Good boy,” he said in English before he ran across the street.

The Cohen apartment was at the front of the building, its single window overlooking the street. Eddie had often sat there, watching the dusk sift past the glass, waiting for the time when he could sneak away. Now he wondered if his father had been aware each time he opened the door, just wide enough to make his escape.

After several minutes, Eddie looked up to see the curtains move. He lifted his hand to wave before the curtain closed. He had no idea if his father would keep the envelope that had been delivered, or if he would burn it in one of the two soup bowls he owned, or perhaps donate it to the poor box in the shul. Eddie wondered if he’d even recognized the man across the street as his only son.

Being back in the neighborhood gave Eddie the jitters, and his skin prickled. He considered stopping at the druggist’s shop on Grand Street where the pharmacist was said not to have left his store for more than twenty years, a self-imposed prisoner, the victim of love gone wrong. But the shop was often closed, and there was no cure for Eddie’s ailment. He wandered, so deep in thought he didn’t notice that the streets where he’d grown up had melted away. He found himself at the river. Water slapped at the row of wooden docks on stilts. He still had the trout, which he now unwrapped from its casing of damp newspaper. The silvery scales were cold and wet. The trout belonged to the river, and that was where Eddie would dispose of it. Rain had begun in earnest, a cold spring shower that left a haze of blue over the mirrored surface. Eddie could barely see New Jersey or make out the ferries that cut through the water. He leaned down, holding the trout in both hands. When he let go he expected it to sink. The rain was falling too hard to see clearly, yet he could spy a trail of light, as if the trout was racing through the water, headed for the depths, his freedom restored.

Eddie sat back on his heels, stunned. He did not believe in life everlasting, or in the prayers of his forefathers, or in miracles of any kind. The movement of the fish was most likely a trick of light, but light was something he did indeed believe in. He had the urge to leap in himself so that he might discover whether or not it was alive, and whether, if he followed the trout, he would find what he had lost when he left his father’s house, when he shut the door and found himself on the dark streets of New York.

THREE

THE DREAMER FROM THE DREAM

**********

F
ROM THE TIME
I began my career at the museum, my father told me I was a wonder of the world. Yet when I held up my hand mirror to study my face, it did not seem wondrous to me. My features—gray eyes, black eyebrows, high cheekbones, pale complexion—added up to a plain person, a simple individual no one would look at twice. I considered myself to be nothing special, a dull creature who could not compare to those God had made to be unique in all the world, for the living wonders my father employed were as marvelous as they were strange. There were those who could eat fire, making sure to coat their throats before each performance with a thick syrup made in the Indies, and those with limbs so flexible they could flip upside down, standing on their hands for hours at a time. There was a girl not much older than I named Malia, whose arms resembled a butterfly’s wings. Her mother accompanied her to the museum every morning and made up her extraordinarily beautiful face with rouge and black kohl, so that her daughter resembled a monarch butterfly. I tried to befriend Malia, but she spoke only Portuguese, and my father did not wish for me to interact with those he employed. He handed me a book from his library and told me I would be better off befriending the works of Shakespeare.

Of all the living wonders, I was most curious about the Wolfman. He was so thoroughly covered with hair that when he crouched down he appeared to be an animal, albeit one who dressed in pleated trousers, a woolen overcoat, and handcrafted boots. He combed his hair neatly parted down his face so that his eyes might be seen. They were deep set and luminous, a rich brown color, so human it was impossible to judge him as anything other than a man once he gazed at you. The Wolfman’s name was Raymond Morris, and he came from a good family in Richmond, Virginia, who had kept him in the attic to protect him, and also to ensure there’d be no damage to the family’s reputation. He’d been hidden away from the time he was born.

Mr. Morris once confided in me that for most of his life he’d truly believed he had all he would ever need, despite being raised behind locked doors. There was a nursemaid to care for him, and later a manservant brought whatever he wished. He had fine clothes, and any food he desired, for a cook had been hired from Atlanta to see to his whims. As he grew older his greatest joy was reading. Because of this passion, his library surpassed those of many colleges. The life he led was enriched immeasurably by the many novels in his collection, all of which he had read more than once. Although he’d never felt the rain, he knew what it was like from his readings, just as he knew about the limitless sea, and the golden prairie, and the pleasures of love. He was convinced that his world was enough, he told me, until he read Jane Eyre. Then his opinion changed. He could feel the world shifting as he devoured the story. He suddenly understood how a person could go mad if locked away from all others, and he found himself half in love with the first Mrs. Rochester, the character other readers might consider the villainess of the book. He climbed out his window the same night he finished the novel. For the very first time he felt the rain splash against his skin.

He came to New York because during his self-education he had studied Walt Whitman and had idolized him, as I did. Due to his reading, Mr. Morris was certain that it was only in the city of New York, so abundant with energy and life, that he would be accepted, able to exist as any other man, despite his differences. He would make his way along the great avenues and the rivers pulsing with commerce; he would walk among the shipbuilders and the workers. Instead, he was locked up on his second day in the city, arrested for creating a nuisance. It was there in jail that my father found him, huddled in a cell, blood streaking his hair. Mr. Morris had been beaten nearly senseless on Broadway in front of a massive crowd, his abusers cheered on by those who were convinced he was a monster. The constables had been of the same opinion, and had kept him cuffed and chained.

I was in the back of the carriage on the day my father went to the holding cell known as the cage in the Tenth Precinct on Twentieth Street in Manhattan. I was nearly twelve by then and nearly a woman, and I already had begun to accompany my father on business forays. Maureen said my presence gave my father credibility, a word I’m sure he never imagined she knew. I think Maureen hid how bright she was because of her position in life; a housemaid had no right to address a learned man. She had no rights
at all.

My father had informants in police stations and hospitals who, for a small fee, would contact him when a particularly interesting specimen was found. Raymond Morris was brought out to our carriage, confused and covered with welts. I lowered my eyes, so as not to gawk, which would have been unseemly, especially when I considered my own abnormalities. Mr. Morris was unique, however, and I couldn’t help but peek at him. I suppose he got into our carriage because it was the only option. The Professor rolled a cigarette, which he offered to his new companion as he discussed terms of employment. Oddities profited here in our city, my father said. Raymond Morris laughed, just like any man. I was sitting behind them, even more silent than usual. I admit my first reaction upon seeing this wonder was sheer terror. To my surprise Morris had a deep, resonant voice as he answered my father’s statement with a recitation.

“Now I see it is true, what I guess’d at,

What I guess’d when I loaf’d on the grass,

What I guess’d while I lay alone in my bed,

And again as I walk’d the beach under the paling stars of the morning.”

In response, my father snapped, “Don’t speak in riddles, speak plainly.”

But I knew those words to be Whitman’s and I could only imagine what Raymond Morris had guessed at before he’d come to our city and seen firsthand what cruelty could be. Perhaps I took a step away from my father on that day, and began to side with the wonders he employed.

“Do you want the work or not?” my father said coldly. “I don’t wish to waste my time.”

“Frankly, sir,” Morris said of the employment he’d been offered, “I have no other choice.”

We traveled back to Brooklyn without any further conversation, though there were dozens of questions I might have asked. Raymond Morris was left at a boardinghouse where many of the living wonders resided, along Sheridan’s Walk, a stretch that ran from Surf Avenue to the ocean, and would in a few years be totally in the shadow of the Giant Racer Roller Coaster. The Professor paid a full month’s rent. “I’m trusting you,” he told Morris, making it clear that as an employee Morris was expected to report to the museum the following day and each day after that. “I don’t expect you to let me down,” my father advised. Indeed, he seemed quite convinced the new man would not run away. Morris knew what awaited him on the beach and on the avenues, a crowd of abusers, nothing more. As we drove off my father was whistling. “That’s money in the bank,” he said. “A true one of a kind.”

I looked behind us and watched the figure of Raymond Morris on the steps of the boardinghouse, a stranger to Brooklyn and to our world. I prayed that he might indeed run away, and that he might find some empty stretch of marsh or woods where he would be allowed to be
a man.

THE FOLLOWING WEEK
the season began. From my window, I could see the human curiosities gathering in the yard, served coffee and tea by Maureen. There were old standbys who returned year after year, as well as fly-by-night acts, some of whom barely lasted a season. We’d had several pairs of Siamese twins, as well as an alligator man, whose skin was covered with bumps he tinted green. There’d been dwarfs and giants, fat women as well as women so thin one could nearly see through their pale flesh. I was interested in every one, for each had a story, a mother and father, a dream for the future.

On this opening day, as the wonders gathered, the hood of a man’s cloak fell from his head while he waited his turn for tea. The cloak was made of fine wool and cashmere, but it was no gentleman I saw. I blinked and imagined I’d spied a wolf, then realized it was my father’s new discovery. Mr. Morris gazed up, and I shied away from the window, thinking he might howl and bare his teeth. Instead he bowed and said, “Hello, little girl,” in his deep, musical voice. I was so mortified at having been caught staring that I quickly slipped the curtain closed. But I went on looking at him through the muslin, and I saw him wave to me. After that I had a different feeling about what a wolf might be.

I had grown to appreciate the people who gathered in the yard and to consider them a sort of family. Still, I kept to myself, following my father’s instructions. Yet with every day that passed I was more certain I was meant to be among them.

My father was the one who named Mr. Morris the Wolfman, an appellation that came to him in a dream. My father’s dreams and whims were law. He commissioned a sign to be made with Morris’s portrait; the painter was directed to add fangs and a long tail. People screamed when they saw the new living wonder, and he became immensely popular, with lines forming down Surf Avenue, even though some of the women in the crowd had to be revived with vinegar and smelling salts after they saw him. He was, without a doubt, our star attraction, though he never grew conceited. Maureen whispered that the crowd’s reaction was not because he was so fierce—although he’d been taught to shake the bars of the cage in which he was exhibited and to grunt rather than speak. It was when they looked in his eyes and saw how human he was that he terrified them.

My father’s new employee liked his tea with milk and sugar, and he always asked for seconds when I baked a pear cobbler made with the fruit from our tree. We had begun to use the new tea bags made of muslin and sold prepackaged, and he laughed at their silly hat-like shape. He was great company, and was always a gracious teacher when discussing Whitman, who he felt was the greatest American poet, the Shakespeare of our times, a voice that spoke for all mankind and certainly for those of us who lived in Brooklyn. Mr. Morris worried for me, insisting so much time spent in water, a good eight hours a day, was unhealthy for a girl my age. True enough, my confinement in the tank had turned my skin pale as parchment. I had grown so accustomed to the cold that the rising heat of the warm June days brought out a red rash on my arms and legs. I itched and scratched at my clothes, yet I continued to wear my gloves, as proper French schoolgirls did, for I knew my father was particular in all matters of dress. I didn’t mind this fashion, for I was deeply embarrassed by my hands, which seemed less a wonder than a mistake. I did not consider myself a “one of a kinder,” only an accident of the flesh. I needed the false tail and blue dye to seem truly wondrous. As far as I was concerned, what was exceptional about me was simply a form of trickery.