The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities

by Vandermeer, Jeff

  That night, he slept under the stars. A cool breeze tickled his fur, his ears twitched, and he could almost imagine that he had always lived this way. He was tempted to throw away his rod and flask, to strip off his clothes, and never to walk upright again.

  It thrilled him and made him afraid, all at once.

  For three days and three nights, he journeyed thus. He spoke no words on his journey—there was no one to speak to—and although sometimes the smells of humans and woodsmoke gusted toward him, they were being replaced with the vivid smells of crushed pine needles and the clotted sap of trees.

  One morning, he stopped at a river to catch his breakfast. Slowly, he waded into the water on all fours, the bright, bubbling river shockingly, joyously cold. He felt every pebble against the pads of his paws. He reached out to sweep a silvery fish into the air, where he knew he would catch it between his teeth. Just then, the wind changed directions, blowing a familiar scent to his twitching nose.

  He stood and lumbered into the woods.

  Charlotte was running toward him, wrapped in the fur of his mother, the cloak’s lining as bright as blood. A dirty and tear-stained bandage still covered her face.

  Her eyes went wide.

  For a moment, he imagined roaring up and striking her down. He imagined chewing her up, sinew and bones. He imagined being a bear and nothing more.

  Then he remembered himself.

  “Charlotte,” he said, his voice cracking with disuse. Three long days in the forest had almost made him lose his human speech.

  She was shivering with cold. She went to him and pressed herself against him, so that, with her cloak, he didn’t know where he ended and she began.

  “I’m sorry,” he said gruffly, trying not to rest his claws against her, even gently. He was apologizing for what was beneath the bandages, but also for the terrible thoughts he tried to put out of his mind. “Very, truly sorry.”

  “What you are is wet,” she said, with a laugh. “And your nose is cold.”

  With those words, he knew he was forgiven.

  He gathered wood and Charlotte made a fire, talking the whole time. She told him about her plan to sneak out and come with him. She told him how cleverly she’d snuck out of the house with her little suitcase and waited for him by the ford in the road. But, as time passed, she realized he must have taken a different road entirely. She headed out after him, thinking she might yet catch him, but by nightfall, although she was sure she was following the right road, there was no sign of Liam.

  “And such sounds the night makes!” she told him. “I was sure I was going to be eaten up by wolves. I barely slept a wink!”

  Her relief was so great that she couldn’t stop talking. His happiness was so great that he was content to listen.

  “But why did you come?” he asked finally.

  “I can’t let you have all the adventures,” she told him. “The world is bigger than one logging town, big enough for you. And since I am so small, I figure I might be able to fit in it, too.”

  He smiled big enough to show a row of white teeth.

  And so, together, they journeyed south. Charlotte picked berries from bushes and Liam fished from streams and lakes without his rod, wading in and tossing gleaming trout onto the bank.

  Sometimes Charlotte set traps and caught tiny birds that crunched between Liam’s teeth.

  At night, Charlotte and Liam covered themselves in a blanket of leaves and curled up together, telling stories until they fell asleep.

  Finally, they saw the city in the hazy distance. It seemed to be sculpted from red brick and chimney smoke. As they drew closer, they passed more and bigger houses. Motorcars whizzed by, ladies turning their scarved heads to stare at the bear and his sister.

  Liam stared back, full of awe.

  “We will make our fortunes here,” Charlotte said, dancing her way across the cobblestones, her scuffed boots as elegant on her as any slipper. “Here, everything is going to happen.”

  They were poor, but they managed to rent a little apartment, and when Liam’s head brushed the lintel, it made them smile.

  Liam got work loading boxes along the docks while Charlotte made a little money by sweeping up for a taxidermist whose office was a few streets over. He specialized in creating curiosities like fishes covered in fur, chimeras, tiny griffins, and fossilized fairies. Sometimes he let her stroke her finger carefully across a fox pelt before attaching chicken wings to the creature’s back.

  Sometimes, too, they would go to the cinema, where movie villains tied bow-lipped starlets to the tracks. Liam had to sit in the back, because he was so large, but Charlotte sat with him and they shared candy corn in little funnel cups.

  Liam loved the city. He was strange, but in a place that delighted in strangeness. Everywhere that Liam turned, there were odd fashions, unfamiliar foods, and stores selling things of which he never could have dreamed. And he loved his job—unloading and loading exotic things heading from and to far-off places. Occasionally, one of the boxes didn’t make it to its destination, and those nights Liam brought home a cloudy bottle of bourbon or a pound of coffee beans so strong that they woke the whole building when they were brewed. Just the scent of them was enough to make your heart race.

  And, heart already racing, Liam met a girl. Her name was Rose, and the first time he saw her, she’d just broken the heel off of one dove-grey shoe. He carried her all the way to the boardinghouse where she lived. The other girls giggled when they spotted the bear lumbering up the steps, and the stern woman running the place even let him take a cup of tea in the kitchen, remarking that she’d never seen shoulders as broad or teeth as white on Rose’s other suitors.

  Turned out, Rose was a seamstress. When her long hours in the factory were over, she sewed herself smart dresses, each more beautiful than the last.

  By the time he got back to their apartment, Charlotte could see that Liam was in love.

  All he talked about was Rose. He told Charlotte about her soft hands, the way her bright blond hair fell around her face in soft curls, the way her clothes were always stiff with starch and freshly pressed, the no-nonsense way she told him about nearly getting arrested for smoking. She and her friends had to run away from a policeman, in their stiff corsets, ducking into a sweet shop and hiding in the bathroom. According to Rose, it had been a near thing.

  Rose was always getting into scrapes. She had dozens of friends, most of them male. And she always had perfume to dot behind her ears and at the pulse points of her wrists.

  Charlotte didn’t like Rose, but she bit her tongue to keep from saying so. For so long it had just been Charlotte and Liam in the world, but though they had endured all other things together, love was something they must each endure alone.

  “I want to marry her,” Liam said.

  Charlotte just nodded as she rolled out dough for pie. Cooked all together with gravy, the bits and pieces of the week’s meals tasted just fine. She made two—a generous slice for her and the rest for Liam—then, as an afterthought, sliced a piece that he could take to Rose.

  “She will be like a sister for you,” Liam said.

  Charlotte nodded again. The taste of copper pennies flooded her mouth, she was biting her tongue so hard.

  Sometimes, when he was with Rose, Liam wished he could open up his fur like it was a cloak and wrap it around her.

  But he did what he thought was expected of him. He looked for a better job and found one—as a stonemason, lifting slabs of marble and setting them with precision. He took Rose to his apartment, where Charlotte cooked them a whole ham. He bought her a pair of gloves sewn of lace so fine he was afraid his claws would pull it. When he asked Rose to marry him, he went to one knee, although he still towered over her chair, and shut his eyes. He could not bear to see her expression.

  In lieu of a ring, he had scrimped and saved to buy her a pair of diamond earrings. They sparkled in their box like tiny stars. His palm quavered with nerves.

  “I cannot marry y
ou,” Rose said, “for you are a bear and I am a woman.”

  And so he went away and wept. Charlotte made him a gooseberry pie, but he wouldn’t eat it.

  When he returned, he brought with him a long strand of pearls, each one fat and perfect as the moon.

  Although Rose wrapped the strand around her neck three times, she replied again, “I cannot marry you. You are a bear and I am a woman.”

  Again he went away and wept. This time, Charlotte baked him scones. He picked at a few of the raisins.

  “If she doesn’t love you,” said Charlotte, “she will only bring you sorrow.”

  “I love her enough for us both,” said Liam and Charlotte could say no more.

  The third time he went to Rose, he brought with him a golden ring as bright as the sun.

  This time, greed and desire overtook her, and she said, “Even though you are a bear and I am a woman, I will marry you.”

  The bear’s happiness was so vast and great that he wanted to roar. Instead, he took her little hands in his and promised her that he would put aside his bear nature and be like other men for as long as they were wed.

  This time, Charlotte baked them a wedding cake, and Liam and Rose ate it together, slice by slice.

  After Liam and Rose married, Charlotte moved out of the little apartment and took a room above the taxidermist’s shop.

  She had more time to help out, and so the taxidermist showed her how to cut wires and wrap them in perfumed cotton to give life to the skins. He showed her how to choose glass eyes that fit snugly in the sockets. He told her about Martha Maxwell, one of the founders of modern taxidermy, whose work he had once seen.

  Time passed and Liam seemed happy as ever, doting on Rose. But Rose grew distant and vague. She stopped sewing and sat around the house in a dressing gown, plates piling up in the sink.

  “What’s wrong?” Charlotte asked, when she came over to bring them her very first attempt at taxidermy—a tiny bird with black eyes and feathers it had taken her a whole day to arrange. The taxidermist had told Charlotte that she had the touch, nodding approvingly as he walked around the piece.

  Rose curled her lip at the sight of it. “Liam’s not home.”

  “Can I leave it for him?” Charlotte asked.

  Rose looked resigned, but allowed her into the house. As Rose turned, Charlotte saw the swell of her stomach.

  She grinned and would have embraced Rose, would have babbled on with congratulations, would have offered to knit blankets and pick out ribbons, but Rose gave her such a look that Charlotte hesitated and only set the little bird down very carefully on the arm of Liam’s chair.

  Two nights later, Liam roused Charlotte from her bed in the middle of the night.

  “There’s something wrong with her,” the bear said. “She’s dying, Charlotte.”

  “What happened?” Charlotte said.

  He shook his massive head. “She took something—I found the vial. To get rid of the baby. She said she could feel the little claws scratching at her insides. She said she dreamed of sharp teeth.”

  There was no doctor for many streets, so Charlotte woke the taxidermist from his bed, thinking he might know what to do. Rose had gone into labor by the time they got there.

  All night long they laid cold compresses on her brow and grabbed her hands as she screamed through contractions. But the poison in the vial had stained her tongue black and robbed her of strength.

  After hours of struggle, the child was born. A small bear child, already dead.

  Rose died soon after.

  Liam fell to all fours. “I tried to live as a man,” he said, “but I am a bear in my blood.”

  “Liam!” Charlotte called, running to him and touching his back, sinking her fingers into his fur. “Bear or man, you are my brother.”

  But he turned away, lumbering down the stairs. He cast away his clothes and his boots as he came to the outskirts of the city. He entered the forest and would never walk upright or speak again.

  Charlotte held the bear child to her, though it was cold as snow.

  “I will call the necessary people,” said the taxidermist. He looked uncomfortably at Rose’s body, growing pale and strange. Death was something he was used to seeing at a remove. “You shouldn’t have to see this—a young lady like you—”

  But Charlotte ignored him. She recognized the scent of the child, the smell of Liam, as familiar as her own. “He’s warming up,” said Charlotte.

  The taxidermist frowned. “The child is dead.”

  “Can’t you hear him?” she asked. “He’s crying for his father.”

  “Please, Charlotte, you must—” began the taxidermist, but then he paused. He could hear a low, thready sound, like weeping.

  Closer and closer he came, until he was sure the sound came from the body in her hands.

  “We will save him,” Charlotte said.

  They made this piece together, imbedding a speaker in the little bear’s chest to amplify the sound and giving him Rose’s diamond earrings in place of eyes. This, the first of many marvelous and wonderful creations by Charlotte Wells. Each one, it is said, came nearly alive under her touch. Nearly.

  But does it still cry? I’m sure that’s what you’re wondering. Come closer, lean in. The little bear has something different to tell each one of you.

  Lottery ticket numbers.

  Messages from lost lovers.

  Predictions for the future.

  Oh, you want to know what I heard when I leaned near the speaker? Only this—that whomsoever is the next buyer will have luck and fortune for the rest of his days!

  Think of the story.

  I believe it’s time for the bidding to begin.

  A Short History of

  Dunkelblau’s Meistergarten

  By Tad Williams

  One of the more unusual education devices ever designed was the Meistergarten of Ernst Dunkelblau, the “Pedagogue of Linz.” When it was first presented to the public in 1905, it was called “The Eighth Wonder of the World” by some newspapers of the day, “The Devil’s Carousel” by others. All agreed, however, that its like had never been seen before.

  “It resembles a Lazy Susan,” commented a reporter for America’s New York World, “but instead of spinning to present dishes to be served, its revolutionary motion is meant to deliver children to Scholarship.”

  The Inventor: Ernst A. Dunkelblau

  Little can be understood of either the Meistergarten or its products without first examining the life of its creator, Ernst Adelbert Dunkelblau.

  Dunkelblau was born in a suburb of Linz, Austria, in 1859. His father was one of the engineers who designed and built the first iron bridge over the Danube, but his mother, Heilwig, had even bigger plans for her only child, and from a very early age little Ernst was given the benefit of her fascination with childhood learning. The acknowledged star of European education at the time was Friedrich Fröbel, famous for his ideas of the kindergarten—a place where children would learn through play. Frau Dunkelblau, however, was a stern woman who felt that the currently fashionable dogma was totally reversed—that children should learn by suffering, not play. She developed her own method, which she called “Arbeit und Verletzung,” or “Work and Injury,” and employed it along with a very ambitious curriculum for her infant son, which she had determined would prepare him to enter a good Austrian university by the time he was twelve years old. In fact, Ernst Dunkelblau was accepted to the Karl-Franzens-Universität, better known today as the University of Graz, at the prodigious age of ten.

  Young Dunkelblau never graduated from the university, however. Rumors of the day linked him to a scandal with a much older woman, the wife of a university custodian, who claimed that young Dunkelblau offered her a florin to “nap upon her bosom.” Accounts subsequent to his death suggest that Dunkelblau never entirely overcame this troubling propensity for offering money to women not of his own family; in later years the significance of this weakness became so divisive among Eur
opean Freudians that there were violent differences of opinion about it—indeed, there are reports of a famous fight in a London café between Otto Rank and Melanie Klein, in which Klein was said to have slapped Rank so hard and so often that he was led away weeping and for weeks would only see patients with a scarf draped over his face.

  Much of Ernst Dunkelblau’s personal history between the years of 1871 and 1899 is hazy, little more than rumor and innuendo. It is known that he served briefly in the Austro-Hungarian army as a telegrapher, but was discharged because so many of his messages contained interpolated phrases such as “Ernst is scared,” “sleepy dumplings,” or simply the word “Mutti” (“Mommy”) typed over and over, none of which bore any relationship to the military messages young Dunkelblau had been tasked with sending.

  Apparently, he also found time during these years to finish his education, graduating from a small university in Triesen, Liechtenstein, called the Todkrank-Igil Institute. Little more is known, because the university was subsequently burned to the ground by local villagers and its records lost.

  Many of Dunkelblau’s later experiments in pedagogy, including the famous Meistergarten, seem to have roots in his Liechtenstein student period, because his adult writings on the subject of educational psychology frequently contain phrases, such as “two-schilling Vaduz Mustache” and “bloody Triesen pitchforks ouch ouch,” which seem to trace to this time.

  However, with 1899 and his return to Linz, we see the triumphant execution of designs and ideas that had obviously been building in Dunkelblau’s mind for some time, culminating that year in the opening of the St. Agnes Blannbekin Private School for Boys and Girls, an institute under Dunkelblau’s personal supervision. The doctor was described by one of the school’s first students as “a great, smiling, bearded Father Christmas of a man” and “a performing bear, quick to growl, quick to eat off the plates of others, but also swift with a booming laugh or a sudden storm of tears caused by the frustrations of his work.”

  In 1905, after some period of experimentation with mechanical equipment and the selection of a first set of human test subjects, Dunkelblau unveiled his magnum opus to the Austrian and international press: the Meistergarten.