Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain

by Kirsten Menger-Anderson

  “Good morning,” he said. The words felt good on his lips.

  She stared back at him with inquiring blue eyes. “Do I know you?”

  “Well, no.” Even as he soared on the morning’s infusion of energy, Edwin recognized the first symptoms of his disease descend. His heart beat rapidly, his voice warbled, his palms began to sweat. Had he pushed himself too far? Should he have waited for a few more sessions before addressing her? Confidence was most easily enjoyed alone.

  “And you are?” She smiled, radiant as ever, and he imagined the fine string of pearls he would one day wrap around her neck.

  “Edwin Macready.” Remembering his blue clerk suit, he felt suddenly self-conscious. Did she think he was trying to sell perfume? Toiletries? For a moment, he feared anxiety would paralyze him, drawing the encounter to a close. But then he felt a sensation he hadn’t enjoyed in many months: a quickening in his groin. He could not fail now. Not after the treatment. “I’ve been promoted to head clerk.”

  She nodded, fussed with her bag — perhaps searching for a calling card. Edwin watched, the warmth spreading up through his chest, his neck, his cheeks. He hadn’t blushed so deeply in years.

  “I’m running for Congress,” she said at last, handing him a pamphlet.

  “Why —” Edwin folded the paper twice before he realized he’d nearly destroyed the likeness of Madeline Cady that covered a full third of the sheet. How could someone so lovely speak such nonsense? “But you can’t vote.”

  “Not right, is it?” She shook her head. Behind her a carriage pushed between the crowd of shoppers and a dead horse, left for the sanitation department in front of Oscar’s Tavern. A child, clad only in an ash-colored undershirt, screamed as a woman struck him, and dozens of blue-clad clerks rushed to their shifts. The boardinghouses, dingy dens without fire escapes or ventilation, now stood empty.

  “The law —” Edwin tried to collect his thoughts, but he rarely held forth on matters of politics, his days filled with the latest colors and cuts and bargains, and he could only gesture his argument.

  “The law says nothing about running for office.”

  “Who’d —” He watched her, her lips slightly apart, the morning light lending its softness to her skin. “Who would vote for you?”

  “You’re a clerk. Would you rather fight for an eight-hour workday? Or new water pipes for the mansions on the East Side? You’re the one who’ll vote for me. You and people like you — people tired of sleeping on the counters at work because they lack the energy to return home at the end of the day.”

  Edwin, who had (before his treatment began) often slept on the bench behind the jewelry department, his shirt folded neatly beside him so that he might appear fresh in the morning, imagined Madeline slipping into Macy’s late at night. Was it possible that she’d seen him asleep at work?

  “Can I count on your vote?”

  The nonsense Madeline spoke gave him confidence. “Will you have dinner with me tonight?”

  She regarded him, her lips curled in a half smile. “If you’ll vote for me,” she said, extending her hand to take his, just as a gentleman might.

  AFTER ELEVEN HOURS in the undergarment department, the effects of the morning’s treatment waned. He’d pushed himself to the limit, after all, speaking to Madeline and then shouldering the new responsibilities of head clerk. His former colleagues had not taken well to his promotion, refusing to acknowledge first his polite and later his barked commands, and the tables of stockings and undershirts stood in disarray. All the difficult clients now fell to him as well. In one shift, he’d addressed Miss Poppenhusen’s faulty garter, Mrs. Matsell’s missized breast-heaver, and Mrs. Gloria Howlett’s lopsided corset. He wore the gloom of his profession like protective armor, but the incessant demands invariably passed through. Even the prospect of his date with Madeline brought little comfort. Would that he could return to Doctor Steenwycks’s clinic for an infusion of energy before the event!

  “Clerk?”

  Edwin’s teeth hurt as he ground them: Mrs. Fuller and Mrs. Plunkett, both renowned patrons of the shops along the Sixth Avenue ladies’ mile, had arrived, and he must help them, for who but head clerk could properly advise them? Mrs. Fuller, hair pulled back and smoothed into a large chignon, refused to accept her great girth, and clerks were forever retagging the larger sizes as popular mediums before presenting them to her. She was famous for ordering gowns from abroad, which she always spoke of but never wore. Her old friend, Mrs. Plunkett, more graceful in stature, had sharp, birdlike features, complete with a narrow pointed nose.

  “May I help you?”

  “All of New York is talking about the Grand Duke,” Mrs. Fuller said, one great arm thrown over her head. “Grand Duke, Grand Duke, Grand Duke.”

  The great dame obviously required an appropriate outfit for tomorrow night’s ball in the Grand Duke’s honor. Edwin had helped over a dozen fine ladies secure undergarments for their new gowns.

  “You will need the perfect bustle,” Edwin said.

  “And so I shall.”

  Edwin attempted a courteous smile, but managed only a grimace, a look that the women might well have mistaken for contempt. “You’ll likely want the horsehair.”

  He led the two ladies to the front table where the fashionable false bums were prominently displayed. Sized to add between twelve and twenty-four inches of depth to a woman’s hindquarters, the garments stood on a yard of cream-colored silk beside a set of tortoiseshell combs and several false hairpieces designed to add volume to the back of the head as well.

  “Last season’s bustles contain stiffened gauze.” Edwin turned the inferior garment to display the buckles. “Not nearly as firm as the —”

  “As the horse. I see,” Mrs. Fuller said. “What do you think?” She turned to Mrs. Plunkett, who laughed as if the thought of the giant undergarment embarrassed her. “Could we?”

  Edwin stepped aside so the women could more intimately consider the garments. Such waiting always made him feel alone, outcast, aware of the fact that they and not he attended these balls and could afford to spend two months salary (his salary) on a single hardened mass of fibers. The electrical shock treatment may have helped him, may have raised his spirits enough that he easily stood out among his colleagues, but Dr. Steenwycks had not cured Edwin. His life was still confined to the single room he let at half cost as it fronted the elevated train track along Ninth Avenue. His window, dark with soot, hardly protected him from the thundering steam engines. Was it his fault that he was born into poverty? That his father died of a diseased heart, leaving his mother to support three children on a seamstress salary? Would he ever wear anything but the stiff clerk’s uniform? Fear commanded his fingers, which found comfort between his teeth, his gnawed cuticles bleeding.

  “Clerk,” Mrs. Fuller demanded. She had wrapped the horsehair bustle around her skirt and both she and Mrs. Plunkett now struggled with the rash of straps and buckles. Another step backward and the two would topple the vanity table, covered with glass bottles of scents and powders. He should stop them. But Edwin could not free himself from the crushing grip of his disease. To him, the table had already tipped over. The women had reported him, the negligent clerk, to the store manager. Stripped of his uniform, he sat destitute on the street.

  “Balance,” Edwin whispered.

  Mrs. Fuller leaned forward, her breath short and her bosom struggling to emerge from the prison of her neckline. “What was that?” she said.

  “Balance.” Edwin spoke more loudly this time, the morning’s confidence returning to him.

  “Well, yes,” Mrs. Fuller said. “I suppose.”

  Mrs. Plunkett released her hold on the bustle, which fell to the floor with a crack. “Have you any others?” she said. “Of the horse?”

  “Let me check the storeroom.” Edwin backed away, hoping that in the darkness, surrounded by crates of whites and stockings, he could find a moment’s respite. Aside from his colleagues, swarthy men who now hid
behind stacks of undershirts pretending to fold, the floor was empty.

  He was nearly to the storeroom’s curtained doorway when he encountered a creature, just four feet tall in cloth slippers and a full flounced skirt. It regarded him with eyes obscured by thick wiry brows. Hair covered its cheeks and chin, forming a beard that hung well below what appeared to be a tremendous bosom. And though the monstrous being wore stockings and fitted sleeves, the cloth rose over what could only be clumps of body hair, long and, judging from what Edwin observed on the hands, dark as a bear’s coat. Perhaps sensing his disgust, the figure pulled a scarf over its face.

  “May I help you?” he managed, though he could not imagine the creature in any of the fine silk garments he carried. Her clothes were of impeccable quality, tailored to fit the odd lines of her form, but not of a fashion Macy’s carried. Startled, he noticed a wedding band around her left ring finger.

  “A bustle,” she said, “for the Grand Duke’s ball.”

  “A bustle?” For a moment, Edwin could not remember where the garments were stored, or the two clients, Mrs. Fuller and Mrs. Plunkett, he’d left beside the display table.

  “If you’d be so kind as to wait —” He couldn’t bring such a customer before the fine ladies.

  “If you’d direct me.” She released the scarf, her fingers thick and clumsy and in need of a good pair of gloves. “I have a show in an hour.”

  Edwin tried to imagine her parents. How horrified they must have been, unless, of course, they shared her aspect. “You must have —”

  “The circus,” she said. “I dance for the sideshow. Or at balls, for entertainment. I know how you see me.” She ran her fingers through the hair on her cheeks.

  “Yes,” Edwin said. As ugly as the creature was, he felt compassion for her, a flood of sympathy that forced him to step forward, to guide her by the shoulder. “Come this way.”

  • • •

  MRS. FULLER HAD unfastened the gauze bustle, which lay like a corpse beside the horsehair one, when Edwin and the beast-woman approached the table. The large woman had obviously hurt herself, and Mrs. Plunkett was dutifully bent over her friend, massaging her shoulders with quick circular strokes. Upon seeing the creature, however, Mrs. Fuller’s injury appeared to vanish.

  “Why, my dear!” she cried, hastening to meet the apelike woman and extending a hand in greeting. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

  Edwin, braced for a confrontation, watched in amazement as both Mrs. Fuller and Mrs. Plunkett fluttered around his new client.

  “Doctor Steenwycks announced that you are a new species! Can you imagine? And you speak so well, my dear. And dance.” Mrs. Fuller turned to her friend. “Have you seen Mistress Gradiva dance?”

  “Not yet,” Mrs. Plunkett admitted.

  “Well, she’s marvelous.” Mrs. Fuller’s smile, as wide and round as her cheeks, nearly made her face pretty, childish good looks, disturbing on her large form. “Will you dance for us, darling. Just for a moment?”

  “Here?” Mistress Gradiva noted the narrow stretch of tiled floor, the tables and glass casings. “Without music?”

  “Come, come. I’ll sing.” Before Mistress Gradiva could reply, Mrs. Fuller began, her voice rising sharply. “Singing, the reapers homeward come, Io! Io!”

  Mistress Gradiva bowed her head and stepped with surprising grace to the left.

  “Merrily singing the harvest home, Io! Io!”

  Edwin slipped back, unable to hide between the hanging garters, but desiring nothing more. He was not a well man, couldn’t they see? Reserve their antics for the hours he did not work? Mrs. Fuller had begun to clap, her arms swinging to the rhythm of her song. Mrs. Plunkett, who had initially tried to sing along, hummed a different melody, as Mistress Gradiva danced, her clothes pulling over her form like the half-shed skin of a snake. Each time she raised her arms, the dress pulled higher and tighter over her fur, and soon, Edwin was certain, it would pull away altogether.

  “With cheerful song, Io! Io!”

  He imagined Dr. Steenwycks’s office, the pleasure and pain of his daily shock, the tear in his muscles. He closed his eyes. Inside, he had energy. He would survive this shift. He would —

  “Leave the poor woman alone.” Madeline’s voice. Edwin opened his eyes in time to see her frown. She now wore a scarlet dress and a cropped waistcoat cut for a man.

  “Madeline!” He’d had no time to prepare for her arrival, had not even realized that his shift had ended, that the time of their arranged meeting had come.

  “Madeline Cady,” Mrs. Fuller said, her song left abruptly unfinished. Mistress Gradiva finished a spin and stood with heels pressed together, toes pointed out. “It’s true, then, what I hear?”

  “I cannot imagine what you hear,” Madeline said. “I prefer not to.”

  “There’s no need for rudeness,” Mrs. Plunkett said. “We were merely enjoying —”

  “Dear, dear,” Mrs. Fuller said. “You’re as abrasive as they say.”

  “And you are?” Madeline said.

  “Gloria Fuller.” A brusque nod introduced the large woman’s next observation. “We think you’re taking this all a little too far.”

  “Taking what?” Madeline nodded to Edwin in greeting. He blushed, tried to smile, felt his face tighten. Though used to women, particularly of Mrs. Fuller’s sort, he felt powerless.

  “This matter of voting.”

  Mrs. Plunkett nodded vehemently. “It’s not ladylike.”

  “I’m afraid you’re unable to vote against me,” Madeline said. “Which is a pity as I have quite a bit of support. Haven’t I, Edwin?”

  Edwin nodded, unable to conjure appropriate words. He’d hoped to disabuse the fair Madeline of this very craziness over an inexpensive candlelit dinner. But speaking these plans seemed ill advised. Mistress Gradiva tugged at his shirtsleeve, the broken horsehair bustle hanging from her fingertips.

  “I’d like this wrapped,” she said. “For the ball.”

  “Ah! The ball!” Mrs. Plunkett clapped her hands, delighted, and with a glare toward Madeline continued, “I’ll see the remainder of the performance then.”

  “Perhaps we’ll meet there,” Madeline said, “should I be so fortunate as to see you again.”

  “The ball?” Edwin could not hide his amazement. Was all of New York invited to the Grand Duke’s ball? Was he alone denied access to the finery?

  “Yes, the ball,” Madeline said, lips forming a wry smile.

  BLOWN-GLASS LAMPS, red, green, and blue, lit the Bowery. Edwin led Madeline by the arm, his elbow awkward where it touched her torso. The clouds threatened rain, but revelers still filled the street. Germans, dressed in lederhosen and suspenders, played discordant waltzes on trumpets, tubas, worn fiddles. Street merchants hawked hot corn. The air smelled of horse urine and fried oysters, and the streets held the slick, wet chill of the coming rains.

  “Do you frequent these parts?” Madeline asked. Though she stood near, she did not look at him. He followed her gaze to the parading couples, young, mostly, spirited, light as their laugher. She did not join their merriment, but she seemed amused by it.

  “No,” Edwin said. He’d heard the other clerks speak fondly of the Bowery but had himself never ventured out to the street before. It was louder than he’d expected. Far more crowded, and not at all romantic. Right now, he stood beside a pasty drunk, who sang, sometimes to the music, sometimes to songs that played inside his head. A whore, bodice only half fastened, rushed past on her way to a darker, less-traveled alley. “I thought —”

  “It’s lovely,” she said. “The true New York. The New York of honest people, with honest lives and work and predicaments. Look at them all. Just look.”

  Edwin considered the crowd, wary of the circle of dancers he’d noticed grabbing reluctant bystanders. “I suppose,” he said. When he imagined his life with Madeline, this street played no role. He and Madeline would live far uptown, and he would read both the morning and evening papers and hire
a host of servants to help his dear wife run the house. They would take tea in the afternoon and brandy with their evening meal. He’d have no less than six horses draw their carriage, and he’d buy fine dresses from Worth, in Paris.

  “These are my people.” She pulled a handful of pamphlets from beneath her jacket.

  A butcher, still clad in a blood-splattered apron passed near, and Madeline stepped toward him. “Shorter work days!” she called. “Higher wages!”

  Edwin watched, dumbstruck. How could she proselytize here? Now? She was his for the evening. In earlier days, in days before he’d found inner strength, he might have stood silently beside her, shrinking from the passing leers. He pulled Madeline to the side of the road, where a covered doorway provided some privacy. “You can’t do that,” he said.

  A pamphlet, soaked by the night humidity, hung limply in Madeline’s hand. She gazed steadily at Edwin, wide-spaced eyes inquisitive. “Are you deranged?” she asked at last.

  “Deranged?” For a moment, Edwin thought he might vomit. But he would not allow his nerves to defy him. His voice would not shake, his hands would not tremble.

  “You promised your support this morning,” she said.

  “Not this. I didn’t promise this.” Beside Edwin, two drunks began to brawl. A thrown metal flask crashed against the cobblestone. Edwin’s lips jerked open, his hand grasped her soft arm. “You don’t belong here, doing this. You belong at home with children, a loving husband …”

  A great torrent of rain tore through the sky. The music stopped, the dancing halted. Running bodies filled the broad street.

  “Don’t ever speak to a woman that way.” Madeline glared at him, her features pinched with distaste. “In fact, don’t speak to me at all.” She turned, stepped away, her shoulders rigid.

  “Wait!” Edwin followed. “I only —”

  “If you come near me, I’ll call for a constable.”

  “I —”