by Rick Yancey
“Herr Doctor von Helrung welcomes you back to New York and requests that you accept my services.”
“And what, precisely, might those services be, Mr. Skala?” inquired the doctor stiffly.
“To arrive you to hotel, sir.” English clearly was not the Bohemian’s first language.
“Our luggage—” began Warthrop.
“To be arrived by separate coach. All taken care of. No worries for the Dr. Warthrop.”
Like the great ice-breaking prow of an arctic vessel, Augustin Skala plowed a path through the crowd as it bottlenecked before the Forty-second Street doors. We followed him to a black hansom cab hitched to an ebony behemoth of a horse. After opening the curbside door for us, Skala, with exaggerated formality and painfully ludicrous solemnity, dug into his jacket pocket and produced an envelope, which he offered, with equivalent obsequiousness, to my master. Warthrop accepted it without a word and slid into the cab, leaving me for the briefest moment alone with the Bohemian, my senses a bit overwhelmed by the intensity with which he stared down at me from so great a height, with dark, expressionless eyes and the malodorous aroma of sweat, tobacco, and stale beer that orbited his Jovian mass.
“You are who?” he asked.
“My name is Will Henry,” I answered, my voice sounding small to me. “I serve the doctor.”
“We are fellows,” he intoned in his guttural accent. “I serve too.” He dropped a huge paw upon my shoulder, lowering his face until it filled my entire field of vision. “I gladly die for Meister Abram.”
“Will Henry!” Warthrop called from within the hansom. “Snap to!”
Never had my snapping to been happier. I fairly leapt inside, the door swung shut, and the entire rig bounced and shook as Skala took his seat above us.
The whip wickedly popped, and we swung on a single wheel—or so it felt—onto the street, barely missing a policeman and forcing his bicycle directly into the path of an advancing dray loaded with dry goods. The policeman’s shrill whistle was swallowed quickly by the din of the depot—the clop-clop of the carriages and the cries of the vendors and the throaty notes of the six thirty express arriving from Philadelphia. The early evening traffic was heavy, the street clogged with carriages and bicycles, none of which seemed to concern our driver, who drove as one fleeing a fire, all the while cracking his whip and hurling obscenities in his native tongue at any and all with the temerity to cross his path.
Many years have passed since that day, my first in that city of cities, that crowning jewel in America’s financial and cultural coronet, the living symbol of her abundance.
The picture is perfectly preserved in my memory. Look—there he goes now, rounding the corner onto Sixth Avenue! Little William James Henry all the way from his tiny New England hamlet, leaning out the window of that jostling taxi with his little mouth agape, as goggle-eyed as the most buffle-headed bumpkin fresh from the sticks, marveling with bald astonishment at the architectural triumphs of the avenue that dwarfed anything he had ever seen in the confines of the Massachusetts countryside, taller than the tallest church steeple.
See him now, his face lit up with delight at the parade advancing on every side, of cart and carriage, delivery truck and spacious brougham, of ladies in their colorful crinoline and dandies dandier than the foppish fop astride boneshaker bicycles weaving between the vendors’ carts as expertly as rodeo barrel racers. Sunset was still almost two hours hence, but the buildings on the western side cast long engulfing shadows, between which the granite pavement glowed honey gold in smoky shafts of slanting light, the light painting the facades along the eastern side the same Hyblaean hue.
Thus it seemed to this twelve-year-old boy from the country that he had arrived, by means of the oddest and most terrible of circumstances, in a city made of gold, where wonders awaited him around every corner, and where, like the tens of thousands of immigrants who came before and after him, he might shrug off his dolorous past and don the bright and brilliant coat of endless possibility. Do you hear it—I certainly do—his barely suppressed giggles behind that silly grin?
But listen, William James Henry, your joy will be fleeting. This feast of eye and ear will soon be snatched from your table.
The golden light will die, and the plunge into darkness will be swift and unstoppable.
Beside me, the monstrumologist did not share an iota of my joy; he was absorbed in the letter handed to him by the Bohemian. He read it through several times before passing it to me with a pensive sigh. It read:
My Dear Warthrop,
Old friend, I open with the sincerest of apologies—forgive me! I would have met your train in person, but much demands my attention and I cannot get away. Herr Skala is an excellent man, and you may, as I do, trust to him the slightest detail. If he disappoints, tell me and it shall be dealt with!
Words fail to express my eagerness to see you again, for it has been too long, old friend, and there is much that has happened—much that will in the coming days—but that is not to be written, and we have much to discuss.
I regret I cannot greet you properly tonight at the soiree—there are more pressing matters that demand my attention—but as recompense for my disgracious absence, I pray you will accept my invitation to dine tomorrow. Herr Skala will meet you at your hotel a quarter past seven.
I beg to remain,
Your Obt Svt,
A. von Helrung
“I suspect my old master would not be so eager to see me if he knew our plans, Will Henry!” he muttered.
Hardly had the words escaped his lips when the hansom jerked to a violent stop, snapping my head forward with such force that my hat was flung to the floorboards. As I bent to pick it up, the doctor jumped onto the sidewalk, striding away without a backward glance, the breeze whipping his dark cloak about him in a zephyrous dance.
I hopped from the cab, only to be confronted in my egress, as in my ingress, by the large slit-eyed servant of von Helrung. He said nothing at first; he only stared, but it was a stare curiously lacking in curiosity. He simply fixed his black eyes upon me as a man might regard a common insect that had crossed his path. He afforded me a smile noticeably deficient in teeth.
“You sleep goodly enough tonight, Mr. Will Henry,” he said, with a slight emphasis on tonight, implying my subsequent rest might not be so ‘goodly.’
I nodded and mumbled my gratitude. Then I fairly sprinted to the doctor’s side.
We were met inside the lobby by what appeared to be the entire staff of the Plaza Hotel, from manager to lowly bellhop, a half dozen in all, who descended upon Warthrop as if he were the prodigal son. It was not any largess on the doctor’s part that excited them—the doctor had stayed here before, and his parsimony was well known—but his reputation as one of the preeminent natural philosophers of his day. In short, and much to my surprise, the doctor was something of a celebrity, a fact that, given his particular and peculiar field of expertise, seemed counterintuitive, to say the least.
Warthrop, for his part, seemed nothing but annoyed by all the fawning and scraping, further evidence of his distress over the looming battle with von Helrung. Under normal circumstances he would have basked in the glow of their adoration for however long it shone.
So he cut short their slavish greetings, curtly informing the manager that he was tired and wished to be shown directly to his room.
There followed many repetitions of “Yes, Dr. Warthrop” and “Right this way, Dr. Warthrop!” And in a thrice I was aboard the first elevator in which I had ever ridden, operated by a boy not much older than myself, who was wearing a bright red jacket and a pillbox hat.
Our digs, a spacious suite on the eighth floor, with magnificent views of Central Park and Fifth Avenue, were lavishly appointed, if wondrously cluttered, in the Victorian style. How odd it felt, upon crossing that threshold, to have awakened in the dusty, shadow-choked old house on Harrington Lane and then, in a matter of hours, to find oneself in the lap of gilded luxury! I practically skippe
d to the window and pulled aside the heavy damask curtains to ogle the landscape from my vertiginous perch. The westering sun glittered off the pond nestled in its verdant bower, where toy sailboats bobbed in the gold-tipped swells. Lovers strolled arm in arm along West Fifty-ninth Street, the women with their brightly colored parasols, their beaus with their walking sticks. Oh, thought I, could there be a more pleasurable place than this? Why couldn’t we live here, in this city of wonders?
“Will Henry,” called the doctor. I turned to find him shirtless, holding a burgundy cravat. “Where is my cravat?”
“You’re—It’s in your hand, sir.”
“Not this cravat. My black cravat. I specifically asked if you packed it before we left. My memory is quite clear on that.”
“I did pack it, sir.”
“It isn’t in our luggage.”
“It must be, sir.”
I found it right away, and he snatched it out of my hand as if I’d pulled it from my back pocket.
“Why aren’t you changing, Will Henry?” he asked querulously. “You know we have less than an hour.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know, sir. Less than an hour to what?”
“And for goodness’ sake run a comb through that mop of yours.” With black-rimmed eye and unkempt hair tortured into cyclonic waves by his restless fingers, he added, “You look terrible.”
On the eve of every congress, a reception was held in the grand ballroom at Charles Delmonico’s restaurant on Fourteenth Street. Attendance was not mandatory, but few members failed to make an appearance. Food and libation were provided in abundance, and it was the rare monstrumologist who could resist free provender. A band was always hired to play the latest in popular music (“Over the Waves” and “Where Did You Get That Hat?”), and it was the sole function—formal or informal—in which women were allowed to participate. (The first female monstrumologist, Mary Whiton Calkins, would not be admitted to the Society until 1907.) Fewer than half of the men brought their wives, only because most monstrumologists were committed bachelors, like my master. This is not to say they were indifferent to the fairer sex or misogynistic in their perceptions—rather, monstrumology attracted men who were solitary by nature, risk-takers for whom the thought of hearth and home and the unending demands of domesticated bliss were anathema. Most, like Pellinore Warthrop, had fallen in love long ago with an enchantress whose face they were doomed to never clearly see.
Hardly had we been relieved of our hats and overcoats when a little man materialized out of the milling crowd. He wore a black swallowtail coat over a vest of the same color, black trousers, a white shirt with a high, stiff collar, and patent leather pumps that added an inch or so to his diminutive height. His mustaches were waxed, twirled into points that curved upward toward his cheeks.
He greeted the monstrumologist in the typical continental fashion—faisant la bise, a peck on either cheek—and said, “Pellinore, mon cher ami, you do not look well.” His dancing dark eyes fell upon me.
“Damien, this is my assistant, Will Henry,” the doctor said, ignoring his colleague’s observation. “Will Henry, Dr. Damien Gravois.”
“Delighted,” said Gravois. He squeezed my hand. “Comment vas-tu?”
“Sir?”
“He is saying ‘How are you?’” Warthrop informed me.
Gravois added, “And you say ‘Ça va bien’—‘I’m doing well.’ Or ‘Pas mal ’—‘Not bad.’ Or to show what a polite boy you are—‘Bien, et vous?’”
I struggled to form the last suggestion, and either the awkwardness of my attempt or the futility of the attempt itself amused him, for he chuckled and gave my shoulder a consoling, if slightly patronizing, pat.
“Pas de quoi, Monsieur Henry. La chose est sans remède. You are an American, after all.”
He turned back to Warthrop. “Have you heard the latest?” He was grinning wickedly. “Oh, it is terrible, mon ami. Scandalous!”
“If it involves scandal, I’m sure you will share it, Gravois,” replied the doctor.
“I have it upon good authority that our esteemed president intends to shock us at the conclusion of this congress.”
“Really?” Warthrop raised an eyebrow, feigning surprise. “In what way?”
“He intends to introduce the mythological into the lexicon!”
Gravois smiled smugly, anticipating, no doubt, Warthrop’s dismay at this “news.”
“Well,” said my master after a weighty pause. “We will have to do something about that, won’t we? Excuse me, Damien, but I haven’t eaten anything all day.”
We loaded our plates from a long buffet table groaning with food. Never before I had seen so much gathered in one place—smoked salmon and raw oysters, chicken gumbo and sweet pea puree, soft-shelled crab and broiled bluefish, stuffed shoulder of lamb and braised beef with noodles, broiled quail and blue-winged teal duck served in a sauce espagnole, mushrooms on toast and pigeon with peas, stuffed eggplant, stewed tomatoes, parsnip cakes sautéed in butter, hash brown potatoes baked in cream. . . . I wondered if the doctor, tipping back his head to slip the oyster into his mouth, was thinking like me of hickory bark and bitter wolf’s claw and the pungent taste of toothwort. One might think my recent intimacy with starvation might have made me appreciate this cornucopia all the more, but it produced the opposite effect. The display appalled and offended me. It made me angry. As I looked about the richly appointed ballroom—the enormous crystal chandelier from England, the rich velvet curtains from Italy, the priceless artwork from France—and looked at the women glittering in their finest jewels, the silk trains of their imported gowns skimming the floor as they danced in the arms of their well-dressed escorts—and saw the waiters in their morning suits gliding through it all with groaning trays held high—I felt slightly sick to my stomach. In a tree that raised its boughs high in the trackless wilderness, a man crucified himself, his belly engorged with ice—his eyeless sockets seeing more than I, and I more than these ignorant fools who drank and danced and chattered drunkenly about the latest cause célèbre. I could not put it into words; I was but a child then. What I felt, though, was this: Jonathan Hawk’s frozen entrails came closer to the ultimate reality than this beautiful spectacle.
A familiar voice shook me from my melancholic reverie. I looked up and stared with slightly opened mouth into the most luminous eyes I have ever seen.
“William James Henry, imagine finding you here among all these old fuddy-duddies!” Muriel Chanler exclaimed, flashing a smile briefer than a wink toward the doctor. “Hello, Pellinore.” Then to me: “What’s the matter, aren’t you hungry?”
I looked down at my untouched plate. “I guess not, ma’am.”
“Then you must do me the honor of this dance—unless your card is full?”
The band had taken up a waltz. I turned a desperate eye to the doctor, who seemed to have discovered some riveting aspect of his crab.
“Mrs. Chanler, I don’t know how to dance . . . ,” I began.
“Neither does any other male here, I’m sorry to say. You’ll be in excellent company, Will. They can dissect a Monstrum horribalis but they can’t master the two-step!”
She seized my sweaty hand and, without pausing for a reply, said, “May I, Pellinore?”
She pulled me to the floor, whereupon I immediately stepped on her toe.
“Put your right hand here,” she said, gently placing it upon the small of her back. “And hold out your left like this. Now, to lead me, just a tiny pressure with your right—No need to crush my spine or shove me around like a rusty-wheeled cart. . . . Oh, you are a natural, Will. Are you sure you’ve never danced before?”
I assured her I had not. I did not look at her, but kept my head turned discreetly to one side, for my eyes were level with the bodice of her gown. I smelled her perfume; I moved in an atmosphere suffused in lilac.
My waltz with the lovely Muriel Chanler was clumsy—and infused with grace. Self-conscious—and self-effacing. All eyes were upon
us; we danced in perfect solitude. As she gently turned me—I cannot in honesty claim I did much leading—I caught glimpses of the doctor through the shifting bodies, standing where we’d left him by the buffet table, watching us . . . or her, rather. I do not think he was watching me.
Never before had I desired that a moment end as much as I desired that it go on. She extended her hand, curtsied, and thanked me for the dance. I turned away abruptly, anxious to return to the familiar orbit of one who was not quite so heavenly. She stopped me.
“A proper gentleman escorts his partner from the floor, Master Henry,” she informed me, smiling. “Otherwise she is set adrift to effect a most embarrassing exit. Lift your arm, elbow bent, like this.”
She laid her hand upon my raised forearm, and we paraded from the floor. I tell myself now it was my imagination—the slight favoring of her right foot as we negotiated our way back to the table.
“Will Henry, you do not look well,” the doctor observed. “Are you going to be sick?”
“He is naturally graceful, Pellinore,” Muriel said. “You should be proud.”
“Why would I be proud of that?”
“Aren’t you his surrogate father now?”
“I am nothing of the sort.”
“Then I feel sorry for him.”
“You shouldn’t. I understand from a highly respected expert in the field that his atca’k flies like the hawk.” He smiled tightly and abruptly changed the subject. “Where is your husband?”
“John did not feel up to attending.”
“So you came alone?”
“Would that disappoint you, Pellinore?”
“Actually, I am pleased to find you here.”
“I sense a thinly veiled insult coming.”
“It must mean he’s much improved—for you to abandon his bedside to dance the night away with other men.”
“Do you know it isn’t your lack of humor that makes you so boring, Pellinore. It’s your predictability.”