The Museum of Extraordinary Things

by Alice Hoffman

  “Those things are true, but they have nothing to do with my faith in your father. In the town where we grew up, one boy slit his brother’s throat and another stole from his own grandmother so that he could flee to Paris. Coming from the same town means nothing. I’ve worked with many men I wouldn’t even speak to if I passed them on the street. Mules work together, so do men, it means nothing as well. I have faith in your father because he’s a good man, and like every good man, he, too, has failed. But I can tell you this, he knows what it means to be a human being.”

  “To be a failure?”

  Weiss sputtered out a laugh. His beard had turned white in a matter of months. He clapped Eddie on the back. “To forgive,” he said. “As he’s forgiven you.”

  NINE

  * * *

  THE GIRL WHO COULD FLY

  **********

  MY FATHER locked me in my room. When he discovered that the coffin had been stolen he informed me that he had never been as disappointed in his life, or as betrayed. He found me in the yard and confronted me, but I blamed the liveryman, as I was meant to do. Perhaps I wasn’t convincing, for my father seemed to know I was no longer under his command. He may have noticed my expression of longing as I watched Eddie disappear with the liveryman. He tricked me into admitting I had gone to Manhattan without his permission by saying he’d had me followed. He was a liar, but he knew how to get the truth out of people. When I stumbled over my words, stating I had indeed traveled to Manhattan because I thought I needed to return the camera the photographer had left behind, my father shouted that I was a woman of deceit. He changed in a moment, before my eyes, his face filling with rage. Was this my thanks to him, for raising and caring for me? I promised him that nothing had happened, but he shook his head. Why should he believe me now? How could he know whether or not I’d been ruined by this man in Manhattan, and if I’d given myself freely to a worthless individual?

  He did not speak to me all the next day, but in the evening he told me to bathe in cold water, which I did, using the lye soap he left out for me. He put out my robe for me, which I slipped on. He waited in the corridor and had me follow him downstairs. In the parlor the cereus plant looked ghostly and green in the evening light. I’d always thought of it as a bundle of sticks, but now it seemed possessed with life, and I could have sworn it moved toward me, as if in warning. I had lived with it my whole life and had never once seen it bloom. I had thought the plant to be a burden, and yet I felt a certain connection to this wretched specimen, for I’d cared for it for so long. Perhaps plants knew gratitude, as humans did, and remembered kindness as well as cruelty.

  My father led me through his library, into the museum. I thought of how I had so longed to enter it and know its secrets when I was a child. How intrigued I’d been when I’d been made to sit upon the stair where I could only peer through the dark to glimpse the many curiosities displayed inside. I had thought my father could make miracles, but I was wrong. He could only possess them.

  My father gestured that I should go on without him. “We’ll see if you’re a liar or if you’re still my daughter,” he said in a cold tone.

  When I went inside the exhibition hall, the Professor closed the door behind me. I heard the click of a lock. A man was waiting there. This was most unusual. I paled when I saw him. He rose from his chair to greet me.

  “You needn’t worry,” he assured me. “I’m a physician.” There was an urgency in his tone that caused me to worry. “Doctors are privy to all sorts of secrets hidden from other men.”

  He came forward, and there was that same urgency in his step. I hoped he didn’t take note of the scent of my fear, for they say that terror makes a person weaker, and I did not wish to be at anyone’s mercy.

  “Your father has called upon me to judge your physical well-being.”

  “I’m quite well,” I informed him. “I don’t need a physician.” There was the beat of my pulse at the base of my throat, the same throb of panic I’d felt when I stepped into the cage at Dreamland.

  “I’m afraid that you do. Your father is worried. He reports that you’ve made the acquaintance of a man in an improper way.”

  I felt burning hot, even though the room was chilly. “There was nothing improper.” I began to understand what my father had meant when he declared I was ruined. He believed I’d given myself to Eddie, and, in every sense but the physical act, I had.

  “An examination is required. If you’ve been with a man, your father needs to know.” The doctor came closer. When he reached to remove my robe, I stepped back. But he took hold of my arm and told me in no uncertain terms that my father had the legal right to ascertain whether I had cast away my virginity, and it would be his pleasure to assist in examining me.

  He told me he had seen me swim in the tank on nights when I had performed, and this was how he had made my father’s acquaintance. He had enjoyed himself immensely, and now he had an opportunity to see what I was made of without the tank between us. Immediately, I doubted the worth of his medical claims and wondered what sort of expert he was.

  Now that my father had turned to him, the doctor hoped to do some research of his own interest, for I was such a rare specimen. He hoped to discover if I was a fish or a woman or both. His actions, he said, were purely motivated by research. In matters of my sex, would I be slippery and cold, as fish were known to be, or hot as a ruined woman? He took out a black leather notebook and a fountain pen so that he might record the details. He said he would like to examine every part of me, including my bones, for a fish’s bones are often hollow, like a bird’s, and because of this they are light in the water, as birds are weightless in air. His words were like glass, cutting through me. I had never felt more wretched.

  He went on to tell me that after the examination he could eliminate my deformity if I wished him to do so. He brought forth a scalpel, which he placed on a table, alongside his journal and fountain pen. The webbing could easily be done away with, and no one would ever have to know who I’d been. To all who saw me I would be a normal person, except to those who knew me intimately, fortunate men, such as himself. I moved to hide my hands behind me, fearing he might take it upon himself to begin an operation. He was amused by my response.

  “I, of course, prefer you the way you are,” the doctor said. “But if you ever wish to be normal, I’m always here for you as your surgeon.”

  I leapt away, thinking I would run from the room, and in doing so knocked over the table on which he’d carefully laid out his equipment.

  He grabbed me and held fast, and as I struggled he secured me by wrapping fishing wire around my wrists. He was clearly practiced in such matters, for, however much I tried, I couldn’t slip out of the knots. I cursed him, but he didn’t care. He pushed me onto the floor.

  Before I knew what was happening he swiftly moved a hand between my legs. I tried my best to get away and scramble toward the door to the street. The doctor, however, held fast. When he pawed at me he was real enough, a demon perhaps, but not a dream. Perhaps that was a monster’s fate, and the fortune my father said I had brought onto myself.

  The tortoise was scratching in the sand, and I felt embarrassed that this ancient creature bore witness to my degradation.

  “This is what I’m here for,” the doctor murmured as he reached his fingers inside my most private area. The man whom I wanted had refused to take me when I offered myself to him. He believed I was an innocent, and now I realized that, until this very day, I had been.

  I fought against my horrid inquisitor, but my actions seemed to arouse him more. The fishing wire was cutting into me and drew lines of blood at my wrists. Some pooled on the floor.

  “It’s red,” the doctor said, delighted. “I thought you might have the clear blood of an icefish, or the blue blood of a horseshoe crab.”

  He brought out a glass tube and swiftly dashed some of my blood into it, so that he might study it,
comparing it to the blood of bluefish and sturgeon, perhaps alongside the blood of his wife so that he might see which species I most resembled. I now understood how it was possible to stop thinking of a man as a human being, enough so that you might wish to take his life. Seeing the scalpel that had fallen to the floor nearby, I grasped for it, but he kicked it from my reach.

  “We kill our fish, and slit them open,” the doctor said. “You had better act like a woman if you want what’s best.”

  He held me round the waist as he spoke these horrid sentiments. He acted as if he owned me, and I cried out, with shock and humiliation. The doctor held fast. He felt inside me and was pleased. “I can take you now and tell your father that I found you a ruined woman. He’d never know the difference.”

  The doctor wore a fine linen jacket that he tore off and left crumpled beside us, as well as tweed pants that he began to unbutton. I could feel his sex against me, and I knew what he intended. But I did not turn into rain or dew as I had during the nighttime shows. I was not an actress on a stage, and I did not disappear, leaving my body there for him to do with whatever he wished. I reached behind me, inching my clasped hands along until I grasped the scalpel. He might think I was only a woman or a fish, but I was nothing of the kind. I was a monster’s daughter. I cut the fishing wire from my wrists, so quickly I nicked myself. I drew more blood, but I no longer cared. I pierced his forearm, admittedly with some pleasure, for the stab had immediate effects. He yowled and let go as if he had had fire in his embrace rather than flesh and blood.

  “You little bitch,” the doctor said as he rose to his feet. There was blood staining his shirt from the fresh wound. “Your father will punish you for this. I’ll tell him what a demoness he has for a daughter.”

  I grabbed the shovel we used to clean the tortoise’s pen. Before the doctor could walk away and find the Professor and tell him lies, I hit him squarely on the back. When he fell, he covered his face with his hands. Just as I suspected. A coward. He appeared related to the horseshoe crab as he hunched over, and between the two of us he was more likely to be the one with blue blood. I could not help but wonder if a well-placed shovel could break his spine, if it would then shatter like a black, hardened shell, bits flying everywhere. But I then imagined who he went home to—a wife, daughters, a faithful dog, a nurse who did his every bidding, a line of patients, each hoping for a cure. I did not strike again, though I kept the shovel in my hand.

  I pushed the notebook and pen toward him.

  “Write your review of me,” I said. “Tell my father I am not ruined.”

  He did so as I stood over him. He did not dare look at me as he scrawled his testimony that I was indeed a virgin. He tore the page from his journal and left it for me.

  I unlocked the door to the street that our customers came through. The doctor grabbed for his coat, but I stood upon it. I wanted the world to see the blood on him.

  “Leave as you are,” I told him.

  When he’d gone, I locked the door. I folded his coat, which I would later throw on the trash pile in our yard. I still felt tainted by the doctor’s intent and by his touch. I yearned for a cleansing, and so I went to my tank and climbed inside. I felt a sort of relief as soon as I was in the water, as if

  I was destroying everything that had been done to me. I was still bleeding around my wrists, and a thread of crimson circled in the water. So that this evening would not claim me, I imagined the Hudson River, the woods at dusk. I was the rain, pouring down onto the streets of Brooklyn, into the yards where gardens grew, onto the cobblestone alleyways behind the fish markets. For a thousand nights I would not think of what had happened, nor would I remember the physician, a fool who thought it acceptable to defile a creature he wanted only for its rare qualities, like the shark is wanted for its skin, said to be the most beautiful in all the world.

  When I climbed out of the tank, I put on my robe, then went to lie upon the floor beside the tortoise’s pen. I had no idea whether or not the tortoise slept or dreamed or remembered. Sunlight streamed in beneath the closed curtains, causing patterns of dark and light on the floor. There was a rabbit, a hat, a bird in flight. I would not let this incident make me forget I knew what love was like. Outside the window, sparrows were singing in the milky light. On every branch of the pear tree in the yard there was a new leaf unfolding, a vivid green. Spring had truly arrived, a season that had always been my favorite but was so no more. Now I wanted winter, a time when snow covered everything, even though my hands would be cold in such weather, for I had decided I would never wear a pair of gloves again, not for warmth, not for protection, and never to hide who I was.

  MAY 1911

  LATE IN the afternoon, Maureen knocked at the door. By then the day was warm and Coralie’s room was stifling. When there was no answer, the housekeeper cracked the door open and peered inside.

  “Even if you’re ill, you have no choice but to face the day,” she called.

  Maureen bustled into the room, convinced she had a cure for anything that might plague her ailing charge. Coralie wished that for once the housekeeper had left her alone. She was in no mood for human interaction, and in no condition to face anyone, least of all Maureen, who had a talent for reading her emotions. Coralie shrank beneath her blanket, mute and withdrawn, as a tray of tea and biscuits was placed on her bedside table. She sank down further when Maureen went to open the curtains.

  “Don’t,” Coralie pleaded. When Maureen threw a worried look over her shoulder, Coralie said, “My eyes burn with the light.”

  She did not wish Maureen to spy the marks that had been left on her. There were two scarlet circles, fading in color but still quite evident on her wrists.

  “Are your eyes the only problem?” Maureen knew her charge’s temperament so well she quickly guessed there was more at hand. She sat at the edge of the bed, then pulled the quilt down and spied the bruises on Coralie’s arms. She drew in a breath, then grasped Coralie’s wrist and traced a finger over the red impression left by the fishing wire. “What happened to you?” she asked, distraught. “Some man, I’ll wager. Don’t tell me it’s the photographer, for I told him I’d make him pay if he wronged you.”

  “No. Not him.”

  Maureen’s expression was fierce. She rose to her feet, frantic, as if she intended to find justice. “If it wasn’t him, then who? Where is this man who’s treated you so badly?”

  “Far from here, I hope.”

  Maureen and Coralie held hands and kept their voices low.

  “Did he have his way with you?”

  Coralie shook her head.

  Maureen went to the kitchen and in a short time returned with a poultice of madder root and a thorny thistle, which she insisted would heal Coralie’s bruises. The thistle was common enough, but it often caused the death of stray dogs when they carried off stalks growing wild in the fields. “Your father needs to know,” Maureen put forth once the bruises had been treated.

  “Do not speak to him of this! Do you hear me?”

  Coralie was so firm in her assertion, and so grim, that Maureen grew ashen as a glimmer of understanding took hold. “Did he have a part in this?”

  “It was a doctor he employed to see if I was still pure. The gentleman thought he might take it upon himself to ruin me.” Coralie was so emotional, she held nothing back. It was a relief to be truthful with Maureen as she now admitted to the night viewings she had always kept secret. “It was to be mere theater. A show like any other. And yet it ruined me in some way, more so than what this horrid man tried to do to me.”

  Tears flooded the housekeeper’s eyes. “I haven’t allowed myself to believe it, but now I know you should never have grown up in this house. I wanted more for you,” Maureen said with yearning. “And you’ll have it.” She appeared resolved, though her face was wet with tears. “You’ll have a proper life, and when you do, you’ll see that love has nothing to do
with what you’ve found under your father’s roof.”

  Coralie could not help but think of the tattooed woman who had thought her to be a whore. “I doubt that any man who really knew me would have me after all I’ve done.”

  “That’s not true, Cora. Look at me! Would you think a man of any worth would ever want me? Would he travel from Virginia and wait outside my door even though I have been ruined a hundred times over? Mr. Morris doesn’t see me from the outside. Men are men, with all their flaws, as we have ours, that’s true, but the best among them manage to discover who we really are.” The housekeeper lifted Coralie’s chin so they might look into one another’s eyes. “If we had no hurt and no sin to speak of, we’d be angels, and angels can’t love the way men and women do.”

  “And what of monsters?” Coralie wished to know. By then her face was streaked with tears; her emotions were raw. “Can they love?”

  Maureen tenderly ran a hand over her charge’s dark hair. “We know quite well they can,” she murmured. “For we know that they do.”

  THE MUSEUM OF EXTRAORDINARY THINGS failed to reopen. One or two customers rapped at the door, and, when their knocking went unanswered, they went away, puzzled but ready enough to find another entertainment. Professor Sardie’s announcement that he would allow free entrance into the museum if he were unable to produce the Hudson Mystery was a promise he couldn’t keep. At the present time he hadn’t the ready cash to pay his players or his bills. He had been drinking heavily ever since finding his workshop door ajar, the coffin containing the body of his fabulous creature vanished. He held the liveryman responsible; that unsavory character had never dared to return, and the Professor could be heard cursing his missing employee late into the night.

  The last weekend in May was fast approaching, the beginning of the season marked by streets swelling with crowds, all searching for relief from the hot city and the brittle confines of their own lives. Soon enough Dreamland would reopen in all its revamped glory and beaches would be blanketed with visitors from Manhattan. All of the bathing pavilions, including Lentz’s and Taunton’s Baths, would be overflowing with customers. The New Iron Pier walk was busier each day, as all of the summer establishments prepared for the onslaught of visitors. The wooden horses at Johnson’s carousel were freshly painted. The steel skeleton of the Giant Racer Roller Coaster, that heart-stopping ride, was readied as well, with the empty cars sent up on practice runs that rattled the street below.