The Museum of Extraordinary Things
Page 34
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On this opening day, as the wonders gathered, the hood of a man’s cloak fell from his head while he waited his turn for tea. The cloak was made of fine wool and cashmere, but it was no gentleman I saw. I blinked and imagined I’d spied a wolf, then realized it was my father’s new discovery. Mr. Morris gazed up, and I shied away from the window, thinking he might howl and bare his teeth. Instead he bowed and said, “Hello, little girl,” in his deep, musical voice. I was so mortified at having been caught staring that I quickly slipped the curtain closed. But I went on looking at him through the muslin, and I saw him wave to me. After that I had a different feeling about what a wolf might be.
I had grown to appreciate the people who gathered in the yard and to consider them a sort of family. Still, I kept to myself, following my father’s instructions. Yet with every day that passed I was more certain I was meant to be among them.
My father was the one who named Mr. Morris the Wolfman, an appellation that came to him in a dream. My father’s dreams and whims were law. He commissioned a sign to be made with Morris’s portrait; the painter was directed to add fangs and a long tail. People screamed when they saw the new living wonder, and he became immensely popular, with lines forming down Surf Avenue, even though some of the women in the crowd had to be revived with vinegar and smelling salts after they saw him. He was, without a doubt, our star attraction, though he never grew conceited. Maureen whispered that the crowd’s reaction was not because he was so fierce—although he’d been taught to shake the bars of the cage in which he was exhibited and to grunt rather than speak. It was when they looked in his eyes and saw how human he was that he terrified them.
My father’s new employee liked his tea with milk and sugar, and he always asked for seconds when I baked a pear cobbler made with the fruit from our tree. We had begun to use the new tea bags made of muslin and sold prepackaged, and he laughed at their silly hat-like shape. He was great company, and was always a gracious teacher when discussing Whitman, who he felt was the greatest American poet, the Shakespeare of our times, a voice that spoke for all mankind and certainly for those of us who lived in Brooklyn. Mr. Morris worried for me, insisting so much time spent in water, a good eight hours a day, was unhealthy for a girl my age. True enough, my confinement in the tank had turned my skin pale as parchment. I had grown so accustomed to the cold that the rising heat of the warm June days brought out a red rash on my arms and legs. I itched and scratched at my clothes, yet I continued to wear my gloves, as proper French schoolgirls did, for I knew my father was particular in all matters of dress. I didn’t mind this fashion, for I was deeply embarrassed by my hands, which seemed less a wonder than a mistake. I did not consider myself a “one of a kinder,” only an accident of the flesh. I needed the false tail and blue dye to seem truly wondrous. As far as I was concerned, what was exceptional about me was simply a form of trickery.
Raymond Morris said that if he were as free as he imagined I would become when I legally came of age, on my eighteenth birthday, he would choose to roam the globe and see the true wonders of the world. He spoke of Paris and Egypt and Siam. He told me all he knew of what he’d read of these places, and his stories kept me enraptured. I heard about the French painters Cézanne and Pissarro and of the old masters at the Louvre. I was amazed by descriptions of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings and of silkworms that ate the leaves of white mulberry trees and spun a thread so fine it couldn’t be seen by the naked eye.
Maureen took to sitting with us in the yard, enthralled as I was, drawn in by Mr. Morris’s deep, measured voice. He was by far the most well-read man either of us had ever met. He knew the work of the great poets by heart, and had memorized whole passages of Jane Eyre, the book he always claimed had set him free after he’d read of the first Mrs. Rochester’s choice to burn down the house rather than remain imprisoned in her misery. He was also a great fan of Poe, a native of his home city, and swore the writer had died more of harassment and misunderstanding than of alcohol. He often read this author’s stories as we ate our lunch. We shivered at these tales of woe and tragedy, and still we begged for more. Although Maureen said she’d never been so frightened in all her life as when we listened to Poe’s tales, I noticed she edged closer to Mr. Morris at these times. I came to understand he was not a monster in her eyes.
Mr. Morris was with us for three years, and during that time the Museum of Extraordinary Things prospered. Unlike the other wonders, who vanished during the off-season, to carnivals in Florida and throughout the South, Mr. Morris remained in Brooklyn. He had been led here by literature, and so he remained close to Whitman’s world. He was befriended by a bookseller from Scribner’s Publishers who had rooms at the Brighton Beach Hotel for the season. This kind man brought him whatever volumes he wished, including modern novels such as Call of the Wild, by Jack London, which must have brought to mind the relationship between wolves and men, as well as The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, considered radical for its exposure of the wretched conditions of the meatpacking industry.
I had grown to appreciate the people who gathered in the yard and to consider them a sort of family. Still, I kept to myself, following my father’s instructions. Yet with every day that passed I was more certain I was meant to be among them.
My father was the one who named Mr. Morris the Wolfman, an appellation that came to him in a dream. My father’s dreams and whims were law. He commissioned a sign to be made with Morris’s portrait; the painter was directed to add fangs and a long tail. People screamed when they saw the new living wonder, and he became immensely popular, with lines forming down Surf Avenue, even though some of the women in the crowd had to be revived with vinegar and smelling salts after they saw him. He was, without a doubt, our star attraction, though he never grew conceited. Maureen whispered that the crowd’s reaction was not because he was so fierce—although he’d been taught to shake the bars of the cage in which he was exhibited and to grunt rather than speak. It was when they looked in his eyes and saw how human he was that he terrified them.
My father’s new employee liked his tea with milk and sugar, and he always asked for seconds when I baked a pear cobbler made with the fruit from our tree. We had begun to use the new tea bags made of muslin and sold prepackaged, and he laughed at their silly hat-like shape. He was great company, and was always a gracious teacher when discussing Whitman, who he felt was the greatest American poet, the Shakespeare of our times, a voice that spoke for all mankind and certainly for those of us who lived in Brooklyn. Mr. Morris worried for me, insisting so much time spent in water, a good eight hours a day, was unhealthy for a girl my age. True enough, my confinement in the tank had turned my skin pale as parchment. I had grown so accustomed to the cold that the rising heat of the warm June days brought out a red rash on my arms and legs. I itched and scratched at my clothes, yet I continued to wear my gloves, as proper French schoolgirls did, for I knew my father was particular in all matters of dress. I didn’t mind this fashion, for I was deeply embarrassed by my hands, which seemed less a wonder than a mistake. I did not consider myself a “one of a kinder,” only an accident of the flesh. I needed the false tail and blue dye to seem truly wondrous. As far as I was concerned, what was exceptional about me was simply a form of trickery.
Raymond Morris said that if he were as free as he imagined I would become when I legally came of age, on my eighteenth birthday, he would choose to roam the globe and see the true wonders of the world. He spoke of Paris and Egypt and Siam. He told me all he knew of what he’d read of these places, and his stories kept me enraptured. I heard about the French painters Cézanne and Pissarro and of the old masters at the Louvre. I was amazed by descriptions of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings and of silkworms that ate the leaves of white mulberry trees and spun a thread so fine it couldn’t be seen by the naked eye.
Maureen took to sitting with us in the yard, enthralled as I was, drawn in by Mr. Morris’s deep, measured voice. He was by far the most well-read man either of us had ever met. He knew the work of the great poets by heart, and had memorized whole passages of Jane Eyre, the book he always claimed had set him free after he’d read of the first Mrs. Rochester’s choice to burn down the house rather than remain imprisoned in her misery. He was also a great fan of Poe, a native of his home city, and swore the writer had died more of harassment and misunderstanding than of alcohol. He often read this author’s stories as we ate our lunch. We shivered at these tales of woe and tragedy, and still we begged for more. Although Maureen said she’d never been so frightened in all her life as when we listened to Poe’s tales, I noticed she edged closer to Mr. Morris at these times. I came to understand he was not a monster in her eyes.
Mr. Morris was with us for three years, and during that time the Museum of Extraordinary Things prospered. Unlike the other wonders, who vanished during the off-season, to carnivals in Florida and throughout the South, Mr. Morris remained in Brooklyn. He had been led here by literature, and so he remained close to Whitman’s world. He was befriended by a bookseller from Scribner’s Publishers who had rooms at the Brighton Beach Hotel for the season. This kind man brought him whatever volumes he wished, including modern novels such as Call of the Wild, by Jack London, which must have brought to mind the relationship between wolves and men, as well as The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, considered radical for its exposure of the wretched conditions of the meatpacking industry.
