There was an anteater from British Guiana and cereal from New South Wales. Lafayette’s sword, needlework done by the queen of England, Edison’s Kinetoscope, Edison’s phonograph, and Edison’s electric tower, eighty-two feet tall and lit by thousands of miniature lamps. There was the largest load of logs ever drawn by one team and a chocolate Venus de Milo. There was a dungeon, a torture chamber, and the first electric chair. Also a knight on horseback made of prunes.
There was a logger’s camp, an Indian school, a lighthouse, a weather bureau, a fisherman’s camp, a military hospital, and a Japanese teahouse. There were twenty-four Laplanders, their dogs, and their reindeer (who died one by one when the heat of summer came). There was a German village, an East Indian village, an American Indian village, a panorama of the Bernese Alps, a Chinese village, an Austrian village, a panorama of the volcano Kilauea, a Dahomey village, a Dutch settlement, a Moorish palace, a Cairo street, the Wild East Show, a Japanese bazaar, an Irish village, an Eskimo village, a French café, the Hagenbeck Animal Show, the California Ostrich Farm, a tethered balloon, and the sixty-five residents of the Turkish Village, not all technically Turks.
They didn’t know it, but the villages were meant to be an evolutionary chart running from savage to civilized.
They lived there for over six months—along the Midway Plaisance, an arm of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, known as the Chicago World’s Fair—in between the panorama of the Alps and the Moorish Palace, across from the German Village and the Dutch Settlement, under the shadow of the Ferris wheel.
They were a family of sorts. Men, women, and children from cities all over the East: Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Damascus, Beirut, Lebanon, Aleppo, Smyrna, and Constantinople. They had arrived a month before the fair began, after a steamer trip from Constantinople to New York, and a train trip from New York to Chicago. And at the end of the fair, they would, with one exception, make the trip in reverse, the train from Chicago to New York, the steamer from New York to Constantinople, where they would again work in theaters and bazaars and restaurants until the next opportunity arose to perform their part of the world in another.
Inside the village, there were shops, restaurants, a Persian tent that was a hundred and sixty years old, thirteen houses, and a mosque. There were camels, Bedouins, Arabian horses, swordplay, and mock battles. There was a pavilion with sweet Turkish drinks and a café with Turkish coffee. The most popular exhibit was a bed made of silver, which weighed three thousand pounds and belonged to a sultan’s daughter. There were actors and acrobats, dancing girls and weavers, swordsmen and salesmen, sedan-chair carriers and even fake Turkish beggars, a handful of boys dressed in rags, as well as one girl dressed as a boy dressed in rags. That was Little Sister.
When it was discovered that Little Sister was not a boy—she was not before then called Little Sister, of course—she was sent to share a bed with Emineh, who was but fifteen and whose task it was to kneel before a loom in the bazaar weaving the same wool carpet each day. She had been told to pick out her work each night so that she would never run out of wool; but she could not bear to always go back to the same beginning, so that each day the rug was a little larger, though not enough for anyone to notice (until one day they did).
At her loom, Emineh was quiet, though she had memories of being a much louder girl. Sometimes at her loom, she thought she was no longer Emineh but instead was her own mother, transported from the past to the present, eight years after dying. Emineh was quietest then, because she did not know what her mother would say.
Life on the Midway resembled a series of poses rather than a sequence of actions. The villagers sat for newspaper photographers and for amateur photographers, they sat for sketches and for watercolorists. They waited for customers, they waited on customers. They acted their lives in a manner in which they had never lived. They spoke English to the fairgoers but not to each other, so that private words could be spoken in public. And Emineh learned secrets she did not wish to know. It was easy for the others to forget she was there, behind the loom, silently weaving, pretty as a picture.
There were at least three swordsmen in love with her.
It was hard to remember that Emineh was fifteen. Everyone seemed to forget, including her.
She was small, but her eyes were large, and her hair—it was like an element of its own—a shimmering golden brown, and soft. People were always reaching out to touch her hair, and she was always turning away from them, so that their fingers skimmed just alongside its waves. Men had been known to pocket single strands they found on the floor. Women had been known to pull strands from her pillow and wrap them around their wrists as good-luck charms.
At night, Emineh did not mind sharing her bed with Little Sister, though it was the smallest of all the beds, because she was so often cold, even in summer, and she found Little Sister worked better than a hot-water bottle (not as wet) or a hot brick (which inevitably grew cool as the night wore on). Plus, Emineh saw in the little orphan girl someone whose past and future both seemed so desolate that Emineh hoped something could be done to improve her present.
Little Sister was only seven. And while she was allowed to keep her position as a fake beggar boy, she was told that at the end of the fair she would be returned to her orphanage unless some other, more suitable role could be found for her. The boys had been taken from the orphanage with the expectation that they would grow up to become actors or acrobats or swordsmen for future concessions. But Little Sister did not look likely to become a dancing girl and so far was known only for her extraordinary ability to remain quiet for great lengths of time.
Though she often whispered in the night to Emineh.
What Little Sister was saying, Emineh could never tell, but the fifteen-year-old learned to fall asleep to the murmuring voice of the seven-year-old. Often she heard it in her dreams. Often she woke with Little Sister’s hand nested in her hair, and Little Sister’s mouth at her ear.
Fair days began early and lasted late, but at the end there was always a time when the gates had closed, and the stragglers had been expelled, and the villagers had their village to themselves. Some would stagger to bed, but many would sit together in the café, where they would eat their first meal of the day, a distorted Ramadan in which they fasted not for faith but because they were too busy working.
Mother Zeyno would be the one to start.
Once there was and once there wasn’t.
Folktales, family tales, tales of the fair.
Little Sister would sit on the floor, in a corner of the room closest to the door. The other beggar boys were in bed already, tucked in after their evening training with horses and swords, but nobody seemed to care enough about Little Sister to send her to bed. One night Emineh sat down on the floor beside her, and from then on they sat together, until the hour came when Emineh could stay awake no longer and she would lead Little Sister off to sleep. Emineh always tried to stay awake until Mehmet Bey and Ahmet Bey, who carried fairgoers around the grounds in a glassed-in sedan chair, had told their tale; it was always her favorite. Besides, she liked how they were kind to Little Sister, letting her sit in their chair whenever they were not engaged.
Once there was and once there wasn’t, in the time when genies were jinn and camels were couriers:
Mehmet Bey and Ahmet Bey returned to their sedan chair one morning to find a baby sleeping inside. They carried the baby to and fro across the fair, asking if anyone knew to whom it belonged. Finally a guardsmen told them to take the baby to the Children’s Building, where there was a lost and found for just such things. But there the woman in charge of the nursery looked at how well the baby slept inside their sedan chair and handed them the squalling baby that was in her own arms. “Come back when it’s asleep,” she said. And so Ahmet Bey and Mehmet Bey spent an entire day walking crying babies across the fair until they slept. The delighted nurse paid them two dollars from her own pocketbook and asked them to come back the next day, but the sound of cryi
ng haunted their ears all night, and when they finally did sleep they dreamt only of constant walking, so they swore from then on to avoid the Children’s Building entirely, which they did.
The villagers slept in two dormitories, men on the second floor, women on the third. (Sometimes the creak of stairs could be heard; the only way to privacy was for the man to go up while the woman went down, so that they met in the middle.) The women’s dormitory consisted of a room with ten beds shoved so close together that one had to crawl over nine beds to get to the last. Emineh and Little Sister’s bed was closest to the door, which meant they never had to climb over anyone else, but everyone else had to climb over them. At night, when they were not yet asleep, the bodies passing over them made them laugh; in the morning, when Mother Zeyno woke early to pray and to urinate, it was not so funny.
Especially because Mother Zeyno liked to scold, especially to scold Little Sister.
Little Sister was quiet, but she was often in the center of things. “Why do you stand there?” Mother Zeyno would shout at her. And Emineh would gesture Little Sister to her side and hold her there. She had tried to teach Little Sister to weave, but the girl was unwilling to learn. She would not even watch Emineh’s hands while she was instructed. “I don’t blame you,” Emineh said finally, quietly. “I would rather own a carpet than weave one.”
But Emineh found she could distract Little Sister if she showed her the patterns she wove.
This is a woman with her hands on her hips; she is there to protect all children.
This is a purple hyacinth, which conveys melancholy.
This is a pink hyacinth, which conveys happiness.
This is a white hyacinth, which conveys loyalty.
This is an eagle, which can look straight into the sun.
And this, this figure here, is me.
And this, this figure here, is you.
And when Mother Zeyno was distracted, Emineh would send Little Sister on an errand she knew would never be filled. Little Sister was often sent places where she never arrived.
During the days, Little Sister could usually be found watching the Laplanders’ bear, or the ostriches at the ostrich farm, or the swordsman who had trained his horse to pick up a sword from the ground with its teeth. As the weeks went on, Little Sister could usually be found holding the Arab’s monkey or helping him train his performing goat. Or curled up in the shade with the Laplanders’ dogs.
Sometimes she could be found following the Hagenbeck bears across their tightrope.
Each evening she curled against Emineh’s side and nested her hand in Emineh’s hair, as they listened to the others tell their tales.
Once there was and once there wasn’t, in the time when genies were jinn and camels were couriers:
An elderly British man fell in step alongside Mehmet Bey and Ahmet Bey as they carried his daughter, a solid woman of middle age, in their sedan chair. “I have heard the Orientals have a weakness to their legs,” the old man said to one or the other or neither of them. “That is why they are so often seen sitting or lying down. In your case,” he continued, turning first to Mehmet Bey and then to Ahmet Bey, “this does not appear to be true.” “Perhaps,” Mehmet Bey said. “Perhaps not,” Ahmet Bey said as he pretended to buckle at the knees and the British man’s daughter let out a small scream as the back end of the closed-in sedan chair dipped down and her whole self tilted backward with the bend of Ahmet Bey’s legs. There was quiet for a moment as the British man stood staring and astonished, and then came a call from inside the chair: “Please. If you would. Do it again.”
At night, Little Sister whispered and Emineh dreamt that her heart took the shape of a leaping gazelle.
The villagers’ nights always held a residue of their days.
The mind’s ear remembered the booming of the Austrian brass band. The mind’s eye remembered the reflection of the electric spotlights on the man-made lake. Across the dark they heard echoes of the Javanese flute players, the Dahomey drums, the bark of the Laplander dogs, and the cry of the Eskimo baby, who had been born three days after the fair began and died six days later.
Little Sister became a comfort Emineh had not known she needed.
At night, Little Sister whispered and Emineh dreamt that her heart took the shape of a blackbird’s shadow.
Emineh had brothers and sisters but they’d never lived to be more than babies.
Six weeks after the fair began, the much-delayed Ferris wheel finally made its first turn and there was the sound of metal bearing down on metal, then the sound of loose bolts and lost buttons clattering down, then the sound of glass swaying in the air, and the sound of a thousand necks craning upward to follow the sound.
Little Sister lay down on the ground to look up at it.
The operators learned to leave her be.
When one of the swordsmen slipped into the women’s dormitory to kiss Emineh while she was sleeping, it was Little Sister’s stare that sent him away unfulfilled.
The same swordsman came to Emineh while she was weaving and offered to make her his wife.
“You have a wife in Aleppo,” she said without looking up, “I heard you say so.”
“It’s true,” he said. “I miss her terribly.”
Emineh did not reply, but he did not leave.
Finally she said, “You have spent too much time among peacocks and nightingales.”
Her voice was as sharp as the tip of a sultan’s dagger the night before battle.
“And you have spent too much time among wolves,” he said.
Perhaps he was right. Emineh had always wished to have the soft voice of the nightingale. But she never did.
“May I just . . .” and the swordsman reached out toward Emineh’s hair.
“No,” she said as she turned her head.
Little Sister whispered and Emineh dreamt that her heart took the shape of a wild thorn.
Each day, Emineh watched the American girls who came in to watch her weave. They never stayed long.
Which one of them was fifteen, she wondered.
Emineh was born to a carpet weaver and a carpet seller, but they had been destined to die young and when opportunity arose, Emineh followed it, first to Constantinople then to Chicago. She did not plan to return with the others; she would stay in America, somehow. Though that really was the extent of her plan.
Emineh tried to imagine taking Little Sister with her. But she couldn’t.
One day, Emineh heard Mother Zeyno tell a customer about her dead sons.
On another she heard Mother Zeyno tell a customer about her dead daughters.
“Mother Zeyno,” she said. “Did you really have children?”
“Yes,” Mother Zeyno said, and she didn’t say any more.
Once there was and once there wasn’t, in the time when genies were jinn and camels were couriers:
Ahmet Bey and Mehmet Bey had carried the last of their evening customers and so they rested their sedan chair beside the grand fountain and sat down inside their chair to rest their tired legs. From inside they could see the few remaining fairgoers pointing at the fountain’s waters.
“What do you think is in there?” Ahmet Bey asked.
“A drowned person,” Mehmet Bey answered.
“Surely then someone would get in a boat and retrieve the body,” Ahmet Bey answered.
“If you are so curious, go look for yourself,” Mehmet Bey said.
“I will,” Ahmet Bey said.
Mehmet Bey watched Ahmet Bey exit the chair, walk to the fountain, and then follow the pointing fingers of a young man and woman he had approached. Ahmet Bey nodded, walked back to the sedan chair, and settled himself inside with a laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Mehmet Bey asked.
“They are looking at the moon in the water,” Ahmet Bey said.
“Why is that funny?” Mehmet Bey asked.
“Because they do not seem to know the real thing is right above them,” Ahmet Bey answered.
Little Sister whispered and Emineh dreamt that her heart took the shape of an open tulip.
Emineh wove her carpet during the day and unwove it at night under the strict supervision of Mother Zeyno, who had noticed its increasing size.
Each day she wove symbols other than the day before, so that the carpet grew dense with meaning. Only Little Sister saw each image, including the ones that were no longer visible.
This is a phoenix, which is burned to ash and reborn.
This is a dragon, which conveys strength.
This is the Tree of Life with birds on its branches, to depict the life that one day will fly away.
And this is my name written in script.
And this is your name written in script.
On the day when the Eskimos took off their furs and refused to put them back on, the dancing girls found the furs in a pile and wrapped each other tight and refused to unwind.
And on the ninth of July, the wind bore down and the tethered balloon lifted up, too high, too hard, and everyone looked to see one man still holding his rope as the other workers screamed because they knew well there was a time when it was safe to let go and a time when it wasn’t, and as the man’s feet floated up from the ground and his arms strained in their sockets, he had entered the time when it wasn’t. He fell much faster than he’d floated. Little Sister saw him and stared.
And on the tenth of July, when the Cold Storage Building caught fire, Little Sister saw only the smoke and the shadows of the firefighters as they took flight. A fire without flame. She cried.
The Trojan War Museum Page 5