The Museum of Extraordinary Things
Page 97

There were voices echoing, as customers on line for entry into the museum chattered to one another. They could hear the raucous calls of seagulls, those savage creatures, for birds circled above them. As they went on through the garden, the men inhaled the straw-like scent of lions from the cages of Dreamland across the street, and the sour, brackish odor of the sea, for it was low tide. They hurried from the yard, out to the street, where they stowed the box in the carriage. The plan was for Coralie to blame the liveryman. Eastman would then disappear. But now leaving her behind seemed all wrong. Eddie could see her gazing after them as Eastman shouted for him to get the hell onboard. The horse went full out when commanded to gallop, and still Eddie looked back, and still he saw her form, the swimmer from the river, the woman who had come to him the way a dream does, unbidden and uncalled for, impossible to let go of.
The horse was sweating when they crossed back over the bridge, racing to get out of Coney Island. They stopped beyond the marsh, to make certain the coffin was in place and the contents would arrive safely. It was broiling hot by then, and both men stood there hatless, sleeves rolled up, sweating through their clothes.
“Let me do it,” Eastman said when it came to removing the cover and peering inside. “I’ve seen terrible things. One more won’t do me any harm.”
Eddie was grateful for the offer, but he said it was his duty. In the end, they lifted the cover together to survey Hannah’s form. It was a shock to see the girl’s pale, lifeless body. They said the mourning prayers together as well, as if they were indeed brothers, and then they set to leaving Brooklyn. Most men, Eddie had learned, were too complicated to judge. He would leave such things to heaven. He knew only that, if he were in battle, he would want the liveryman beside him. Moses Levy had told him that all men saw what they wished to see, and that was the purpose of a photograph, to show the irrefutable truth of the world as well as its beauty.
He leapt down from the seat when they reached the funeral home on Essex Street, and while the coffin was carried inside by the undertaker’s sons, Eddie and the liveryman shook hands. The liveryman had sold his other horses that morning to another stable. He’d opened all the windows and watched his birds take flight. He had nothing left but the clothes he wore, his carriage, and this one horse, Jackson, an ancient bay no other stableman would want.
“It’s not Eastman. The family name is Osterman,” the carriage man said before he turned his old horse to trot along Essex to Grand Street, taking him as far as he could get from the life he’d led so far. “First name Edward. There’s another thing we share.”
“Between the two of us, the name is yours alone,” Eddie admitted. “As for me, I was born Ezekiel Cohen.”
THE TREES were in full leaf and the lilacs bloomed in great purple masses on the morning when those who had loved Hannah Weiss gathered at Mt. Zion Cemetery in Maspeth, Queens. Two black carriages had been hired, one to carry the coffin, the other to transport Mr. Weiss and his daughter, Ella. It was a lovely, bright day, but perhaps it would have been more fitting had the weather been gloomy. If that were so and sheets of rain had fallen, Mr. Weiss’s wailing might not have sounded so loudly, bringing the other mourners to tears as he fell to his knees. There were nearly fifty people in attendance, many of them girls who had worked alongside Hannah and Ella, as well as several officers of the Hebrew Free Burial Association, the organization paying for the funeral, including the carriages and the horses draped with purple ribbons and black netting. A representative from the Workmen’s Circle had been sent to deliver their membership’s deepest sympathies and an envelope of cash that would help the family. From where Eddie stood, at the rear of the crowd, his battered hat in hand, he recognized the representative as Isaac Rosenfeld. He made certain to steer clear, but when Rosenfeld caught sight of him, the other man wound his way around the gathering so he might come to stand beside Eddie. As the rabbi offered up the mourning prayers, both men stared straight ahead.
“I heard you found her,” Rosenfeld remarked.
Eddie shrugged, embarrassed. “A little late.”
“Late or not, the Weisses needed to set her to rest.”
Eddie wished he could erase the moment when he’d stood on the threshold of the Weisses’ flat to hand the old man the gold locket. “I wish you’d never hired me,” he’d confessed.
“It was the right thing.” Weiss had turned the locket over in his palm. “You did what you were supposed to do. Now you’ll find who did this to her.”