The Museum of Extraordinary Things
Page 38

He’d always told me that my mother had cried when she saw the outline of Manhattan. She’d fallen in love with the city at first sight, as my father had fallen in love with her when she was a schoolgirl dressed in black, wearing white gloves and flat black shoes, her pale hair braided down her back. His employees might disparage him, my father had often confided, for they saw him as a harsh master, a difficult, uncompromising man who thought too highly of himself. But say what they might, he was faithful, and in time I would learn that a faithful man was as much a wonder of the world as the stars in the sky.
As I was reading, I heard my father’s unmistakable gait upstairs when he came into the kitchen to wash his hands for his dinner, which Maureen had left on the table. She had prepared a cod stew and a dessert of gingered apples and cream. I wondered if my father would mark down the components of his dinner later that evening in this same book I now held in my hands. I had no choice but to close the journal and replace it in the drawer, making certain it was in the exact position where I’d found it. I went out then, carefully clasping both locks. I was a mouse, silent as I came upstairs unnoticed, but a mouse that would not forget where the trap baited with cheese had been. I never told my father what I’d done, nor did I mention the handbook in the drawer.
But after that I knew the first part of the truth about my family.
When my father came to this city, he came alone.
MARCH 1911
IN THE LAST DAYS of March the windy month turned mild, but despite the approach of springtime, the Professor’s mood was even more foul. Ashes had swept across the East River, depositing cinders throughout the gardens of Brooklyn, smoldering among the onions and the peas with a bright yellow glow. Everyone’s attention had been riveted by the Triangle Fire, the greatest workplace disaster to occur in the history of New York. A wave of sorrow stretched out, and the world in which they lived seemed a much more perilous place. The dangers of ordinary life left the population dazed. The newspapers were filled with reports of worker unrest. Vigils of inconsolable mourners who had lost beloved family members went on throughout the city. The days were already lengthening, yet a darkness held fast. Even at dawn the light was a cold, bitter shade.
In Brooklyn, the Museum of Extraordinary Things was shuttered. A gloom had descended as the Professor’s plans began to unspool. He’d been unable to locate a creature he might put forth as the Hudson Mystery. Soon the public would forget the sightings in the river, and the men and boys who’d vowed they’d seen a monster would be considered nothing more than fools. Readers of the Sun and the Times and the Tribune were gripped not by notions of magical creatures but by the politics of the city. A war of sorts had broken out between workers and business owners. Even Governor Dix, a Democrat himself, had called for an investigation of the Tammany leaders, whose pockets were lined at the expense of the working people of New York. It was all Commissioner Waldo and Chief Croker could do to keep a rough sort of peace, one that seemed ready to explode on a daily basis. The fire was the only topic people could talk about, and there was little room for other news. If anything, the monster they were interested in was the city itself, torn apart by rage. Soon enough bloody riots erupted on the avenues and outraged workers gathered in meeting halls. The streets near the disaster had been washed with buckets of soapy water, yet no matter how often city workers might clean the pavements, there were red stains marking the cement. In between the paving stones, it was still possible to spy shimmering shards of bone.
An investigation had begun, but the owners of the factory, who’d fled before the mourners could identify their dead, had yet to be arrested. The curtain that split the city in two, separating those who could escape to the rooftops from those who could not, had been torn open to reveal inequities long kept in the dark. People were furious to find that life was considered a treasure for some but worth so little for others. A huge gathering of garment workers was arranged to take place at the Metropolitan Opera House on Thirty-fourth Street, with hundreds of women taking the stage, insisting on better conditions for the half of the city that worked for the benefit of the half that could calmly gaze at the damage around them through their windows, safe and protected from the mayhem on the streets and from the despair of those who tailored the clothes they wore.
It might have been best to let go of the idea of creating a monster, but the Professor was single-minded, convinced that, in brutal times, people longed more than ever for an escape from the harsh realities of their daily lives. Why else would the construction to spruce up Dreamland continue at such a fast pace? The renovation of the park would cost close to a million dollars. The buildings, once starkly white, had been repainted in a riot of color, and a thrilling concession named Hell Gate was being prepared, a wild boat ride over rushing water through a covered tunnel in which an individual might become drenched and terrified as he progressed through man-made rapids and whirlpools while having the time of his life. The greatest animal trainer in the world, the one-armed Captain Jack Bonavita, would have a show of lions. And Colonel Joseph Ferrari, a genius with animals, had gathered leopards, pumas, bears, and hyenas. One of the most beloved creatures in Coney Island, Little Hip, an elephant so attached to his trainer they slept in the same room, would lead a parade circling the park each morning. Coralie had gawked through the fence at the huge ballroom overlooking the sea, now being revamped on Dreamland’s Pier. A thousand electric lights would glow in tints of rose and green. She wondered how it might feel to dance in the arms of the young man from the woods. He might whisper The whole world is ours if we make it so.