The Museum of Extraordinary Things

by Alice Hoffman

“You think you can come here like a jackal and take photographs while we drown in our grief ?”

  “You didn’t have to hit me.” He was thankful she hadn’t damaged the camera.

  “We have some rights, you know,” she remarked coldly.

  When she started away, Eddie took her arm. “You’re Miss Weiss?” Several young women on the corner were watching, clearly disturbed, but Eddie wasn’t concerned. It was unlikely they would signal one of the many policemen stationed nearby. None of them wanted the authorities involved in their affairs.

  Eddie showed off the dime-store photograph. “Is this you?”

  The young woman flushed. “What are you doing with this? Are you a thief ? Did you rob my father?”

  “Your father came to me. He thought you were lost and asked for my help. But clearly you don’t want him to know where you are.”

  “My father knows exactly where I am.” The girl raised her chin and nodded to the photograph. “This is my sister,” she said of the image.

  They stood together as the crowds pushed past, an odd intimacy between them. “You’re twins?”

  “A year apart. Not that it’s your business.”

  “I just want to speak to you about her.”

  “For all I know you could work for the insurance company, or for the police. If you follow me, I’ll hit you harder. And next time I’ll scream.” Hannah’s sister backed away, slipping into the crowd.

  Eddie might have followed her, but he had learned early on that it wasn’t possible to force out information; evidence gathered in that manner would be unreliable at best, threaded with half truths and assumptions. The Wizard of the Lower East Side always instructed the boys he employed that, when one was searching for a person’s whereabouts, the individual’s entire history must be considered. With every case, the investigator must look backward in time. Who was the woman who had set off on March 25 wearing a blue coat, a treasured gold locket at her throat? It was the path of that soul he must set out to discover. To find someone, it was necessary to follow in the way that the angels who follow men’s lives on earth are said to do, charting each trespass without judgment, for judgment is never ours to give.

  THE RAIN was a familiar, bleak curtain when Eddie decided to return to the territory of his youth. After weeks of searching, he knew little more about Hannah Weiss than he had on the night when her father had first come to his studio. She seemed to have vanished completely, as though she’d fallen through the sidewalk and continued her fiery descent into the deepest recesses of the earth. He couldn’t help but wonder if he’d lost the knack for finding people, if his talent hadn’t come so easily to him that he hadn’t appreciated his own abilities.

  Eddie sought out Sheriff Street. The weather was so raw he found himself shivering, and he kept his collar up, hands in his pockets. For a while he felt disoriented when confronted by the turmoil of the crowded markets, the steamy scent of vegetables and meat from the vendors, the men in wide black hats who gazed at him with contempt. The gutters in the old neighborhood ran with filth, for many tenement buildings were still without toilets, and the outhouses in the bare dirt yards drained sewage directly into the streets. The buildings were so close any bit of light would have been hard-pressed to break through even if the day hadn’t been so dreary. After a while, the streets seemed familiar once more. When he let his instincts take over, he still knew the route by heart. The Hall of Love looked the same. The large wooden doors, the carved balustrades, the tiled mosaic floor in the entranceway. He entered, clapping the rain from his jacket. Several women were gathered in the unheated corridor, anxiously waiting, hoping to be granted a meeting with the renowned man whose reputation had only continued to grow in the past few years. In Russia they called him an angel, a messenger from God who tended to the forsaken and the betrayed. A few of the women in the hallway held handkerchiefs, on the verge of tears. One young mother tried to hush her baby with a lullaby, but the infant continued to wail sharp, mournful cries. The air was thick with the odor of wet wool and human despair.

  Two insolent boys of ten or eleven slouched around in a corner nook, caps pulled down, joking with each other as they amused themselves with a pair of dice. They were little ruffians hired to attend to Hochman’s legwork, as Eddie had once been, spending too much time in brothels and taverns. The boys lounging in the Hall of Love were most assuredly practiced in the art of eavesdropping and had learned to peer through keyholes. Those who were literate were instructed to jot down notes to bring back to their employer. Most became caught up in the tawdry life of debauchery they were only meant to report upon. The corruption was like quicksand; one step and it pulled you down.

  Eddie approached the boys straightaway. Start at the beginning, and here is mine.

  “Is the old man in?”

  Eddie could feel the world he’d once known coming back to him. He may have lost his faith in taverns and whorehouses, but he’d been granted an odd variety of strength from being pitiless. His detachment had helped him survive.

  The boys glared rudely and leaned closer to one another. Both had dark, rabbity faces. They’d probably been starving when Hochman offered them work.

  “What’s it to you?” said the one with more nerve, clearly the leader of the pair.

  “I know your game, so don’t think you’re fooling me. You work for Mr. H or you wouldn’t be here. Is he in his office?”

  “You don’t know shit,” the leader responded. He squinted to make himself look tough. He was older than he’d first appeared, maybe fourteen, nearly a man, but the scruffy clothes he wore were small on him, giving him the air of a boyhood that was already something of the past. Eddie recalled Hochman recommending that his boys try to appear childish. No one paid attention to children, and guilty men were much more likely to admit their transgressions when they thought no one of any worth would overhear.

  The door to Hochman’s private office opened before the conversation grew more heated. Though he had an office on Rivington Street, it was here in his private chambers that Hochman performed marriage ceremonies and took the time to comfort those loveless women who had been abandoned by husbands and fiancés. A hush fell over the corridor as he entered. Hochman wore a velvet waistcoat and a tweed jacket, as dapper as ever. Ladies were drawn to him, and he did his best to encourage their devotion by paying attention to his appearance, even as he aged.

  The rude boys shrank away, careful to mind their manners in the presence of their employer. A group of women were quick to surround the Wizard. They clasped at his arms, their emotions heightened by his presence, but Hochman excused himself. “Ladies, all good things take time, and in all good time I’ll hear every one of your stories.” He strode forward, pleased, for not much escaped his eye. He’d taken note of the tall young man dripping with rain and had immediately recognized his protégé. “Ezekiel,” he called fondly, signaling for Eddie to approach. “I knew you weren’t lost just because everyone’s written you off.”

  Eddie winced. It was just like Hochman to wrap an insult inside a veneer of good cheer. The Wizard slapped him on the back, a little too heartily, for the welcome stung. “I know you, my boy. You’re here for something. Let’s not waste time. I have people waiting.”

  Eddie followed Hochman into his office. It was lavishly furnished, with large leather chairs and a huge, ornate mahogany desk. The carpet was an Oriental, expensive and a bit garish, in bright tints of orange and blue. The walls had been covered with sheaths of blue silk wallpaper fashioned in China, purchased at a shop on Mulberry Street. Blue was said to be the color of trust and loyalty and wisdom, all of the attributes Hochman wanted his clients to associate

  with him.

  Eddie sat in one of the leather chairs, made of deep maroon calfskin that was well worn and studded with brass buttons. He knew the Wizard avoided shaking hands, for he had a fear of contagious diseases, quite rational considering that ma
ny of the immigrants he dealt with were in poor health; tuberculosis and measles ran rampant in the tenement houses.

  There were piles of official Jewish wedding contracts stacked on a long oak table. These ketubahs were beautifully made, decorated with gold leaf, each one printed individually, many with biblical scenes painted in watercolors. The marriage contracts would bear Hochman’s graceful signature after he had completed the ceremony, which he was legally entitled to perform, though he was neither a rabbi nor a city official. He charged no fee, but the larger the donation to the Hall of Love, the more fortunate the wedding couple would be.

  Hochman eased himself into the chair behind his desk and offered Eddie a cigar. “No more wedding photographs? I heard you were a troublemaker and nobody wanted to hire you. You made scenes.”

  “I was no good at it, so I gave it up.”

  “You gave up quite a lot of things from what I hear.”

  Eddie shrugged. His defection and his loss of faith were common knowledge in the neighborhood. On the way to Sheriff Street, a bearded old man in a broad-brimmed black hat, perhaps a member of his father’s shul, had spat on the ground when he passed by. Among the elder Cohen’s circle, a son who didn’t know enough to respect his father wasn’t worth much. One who didn’t respect his own people was beneath contempt.

  “I was sorry to hear about Levy.” Hochman pushed a silver lighter across the desk. “He was a good photographer. A good man.”

  Eddie lit the cigar and choked, humbled to have the exact same response he’d had when he finally accepted his first stogie from his employer. He’d done a particularly good job of tracking down a missing fiancé and Hochman had invited him into his office, an invitation he could brag about to the other boys. Eddie remembered being surprised by the conversation on that day. Hochman had asked what he thought of love, now that he was in the business. Nothing much, Eddie had replied. You don’t see how powerful a force it is? Hochman had asked. How it rules men’s lives?

  I see misery. Nothing more.

  If that’s true, son, Hochman had said, maybe you’re not as smart as I thought you were.

  Hochman grinned when Eddie coughed. “Still not a smoker.” Clearly, he liked to get the better of people and show them their own failings. It made for easier negotiations.

  “I suppose not.” Eddie propped up the cigar in a bronze ashtray, a beautiful piece, most likely a gift from a satisfied customer.

  “Tiffany,” Hochman informed him.

  “I suppose that means something to some people.” Eddie shrugged. “To me, it’s an ashtray.”

  The older man leaned back in his chair. As a boy Eddie hadn’t noticed that his boss’s chair was larger by half than the chair that faced it, perhaps to ensure that a visitor would feel himself diminished in the presence of a superior man.

  “You didn’t give notice when you left. I expected more from you.”

  “I’m sure it was easy enough for you to find my replacement. We were all the same to you, weren’t we? Good little spies.”

  “I gave you an opportunity. Working for me you ate better, you dressed better. You can’t deny you had a better life. Just as important—you learned valuable lessons. All my boys do.”

  “I learned that people betrayed each other, that they fled from their responsibilities and treated each other like shit. Was that the lesson you wanted for us?”

  “Not at all.” Hochman had aged since Eddie had last seen him, yet was still imposing with his large, leonine head and a mane of white hair which people said he powdered each morning. “It might have been shit to you, but the Times and the Herald and the Tribune still turn to me when they have a case they can’t solve. They still write about the boy I discovered under the Brooklyn Bridge when the police force couldn’t find a trace of him.”

  Eddie’s hackles were raised. “I solved that case.”

  “You found him, Ezekiel, but you solved nothing. Did you know he was murdered?”

  Eddie tilted his chair forward, a strange heat rising in his face. He didn’t like to think about that night, even now. Still, he knew what he’d seen. “He’d frozen to death. Everyone I spoke to said he had the habit of wandering around the city at night. He died of exposure to the cold.”

  “You didn’t grasp why he would do such a thing in such brutal weather. Was he a fool, or was he something else? You would have needed to possess empathy for another person in order to see what was in front of you. You would have had to cast off your own skin, and slip into his. In the case of Louis—if you remember, that was his name—his mother had a boarder, a Russian who drank and had a temper. He had begun beating the boy, who was certainly too afraid to tell his mother the truth about his situation. They needed the money, and I’m sure Louis thought they would starve without the income. I imagine the Russian threatened him with what he might do to the mother if he were exposed. One night, things went too far. The Russian wrapped Louis in a blanket and carried him to the embankment, leaving him beneath the bridge. The mother recognized the blanket as one she owned. She assumed her son had taken it with him, which I knew was highly unlikely. A wandering boy does not clutch a blanket when he climbs out the window. He wants to be free, not dragged down. I suppose you failed to notice the bruises around his throat. These marks led me to the truth.”

  Eddie felt a bit dazed. He hadn’t been aware of any of this. Of course, the night had been dark, and cold. He’d been young and very sure of his opinions.

  “You were with me when I called on the mother,” Hochman went on. “I assume you remember?”

  It had been an honor to be allowed to accompany the Wizard, yet all Eddie recalled of the incident was the inconsolable mother, who sank into a chair to sob. He remembered shifting from foot to foot, uncomfortable in the presence of such sorrow, wishing he hadn’t been granted the privilege of coming along.

  “There were other things to consider. The stains on the floor I knew to be blood. The mother told me the boarder had also disappeared. When I opened the door to the corridor where the boarder’s cot was kept, I could feel evil. Say what you will, but evil is real. It’s a living, breathing thing.”

  Eddie felt shamed by how much he had missed.

  “There was no reason for the mother to think her son’s death was anything but peaceful, so I paid the medical examiner for his silence.”

  “And allowed the man who killed him to go free? What kind of justice is that?”

  “Justice is God’s to give, not mine. All the same, I kept track of the boarder. He wound up in the Tombs prison and was murdered in a fight the following year. I still see the mother every now and then. She always comes to embrace me.”

  “You should have told the police.”

  “Exactly why I didn’t go after you when you left, Ezekiel. You were talented, but talent isn’t enough.” Hochman leaned in and lowered his voice, so as to continue in the greatest confidence. “Would you like to know your fatal flaw?”

  Eddie flushed with annoyance. He could have easily made a list of Hochman’s flaws, enough to fill several pages. Still, he was curious. “Please do tell.”

  “You judge what you don’t understand.” Hochman pulled out an engraved flask, took a sip, then offered it to Eddie, who waved it away. “You want my advice? I’ll give it to you for free, for old times’ sake.”

  “I didn’t think you did anything for free.”

  “Maybe this is a first. So pay attention. It’s not finding what’s lost, it’s understanding what you’ve found.” Hochman cleared space on his desktop, moving the gold pen set he used to sign his bold signature onto marriage contracts. “Let’s see what you’re looking for now. Put your hands on the desk.”

  Eddie threw the older man a look of mistrust. He knew Hochman’s fortunes were often tricks, guesswork at best.

  “You tell yourself I’m a sham, Ezekiel, yet you’re here. That just goes to s
how what a man thinks and what he feels are not necessarily one and the same. Considering you don’t believe in my talents, I would hate to imagine you’re too afraid to hear what I have to say.”

  Eddie placed his hands on the desk, palms facing upward. He felt obligated to go along with Hochman. “By all means.”

  Hochman grasped a wooden pointer and traced the life line crossing from right to left. “It seems you will have time enough to figure out your mistakes. You’ll live to be old.”

  “Does that prediction deserve thanks?” Eddie mocked.

  “Does life deserve gratitude? If so, thank your maker, not me.” Eddie noticed there was a white film over the Wizard’s once burning eyes. “This is unusual,” Hochman went on. “In the center is a line, as if there was a river inside you. But there’s an X across the river line, an opposition. So you haven’t changed as much as you think you have. You’re looking for the same thing now as you were when I first met you.” Hochman stared directly into Eddie’s eyes; despite his failing vision, his gaze was mesmerizing. “The only way to understand a river is to jump into it.”

  Eddie withdrew his hand. “I don’t need a reading for myself.” He brought out Hannah Weiss’s photograph. “I’m looking for this girl. She went to work at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on the morning of the fire, and there’s been no sign of her since.”

  “I’m honored that you would come to me for advice. If you’re looking for her I can tell you only what I told you long ago. Go back in time as far as you must. Speak to everyone who knew her. If you don’t find her, then in all likelihood she will find you. But you know what to do. Despite your flaws, you were my finest student. So ask yourself this—did you really come to me to find this girl, or are you looking for something else entirely?”

  “You have nothing that I want,” Eddie said dismissively.

  Hochman pushed his chair away from the desk and bowed formally, his signal, Eddie knew, to dismiss a client whose time was up. But perhaps he was more than a client, for Hochman unexpectedly reached to shake his hand, an intimacy that surprised Eddie. He recalled when they were visiting the mother of the boy who’d gone missing, after Hochman had opened the door to the boarder’s sleeping area, he had made an excuse to send Eddie away. Go get me a glass of water. Make sure it’s a clean glass. Wash it yourself. But Eddie hadn’t done as he’d been instructed. Instead, he’d stood in the corridor. He’d heard Hochman recite the mourning prayer. At that moment Eddie had known his employer was trying to protect him. He’d known there was evil in the world.