I was creeping from a stone room, a roll of paper under my arm, when around the corner she came, and my heart nearly leaped from my mouth in panic. She was supposed to be at the market.
I tried to act as if all was perfectly normal and greeted her courteously. “I came for a scroll your husband kindly offered to lend me,” I said.
There was not a shred of belief on her face, but plenty of interest.
“He must trust you, indeed, to loan you a scroll that bears the royal seal of secrets,” she said. I think she enjoyed the panic in my eyes. She peered into her husband’s study. “And how kind of you to seal the jar the scroll came from as if it had never been opened. How tidy and considerate.”
“I can see you are not a fool,” I answered. I sank to my knees and offered up a hand of supplication. “Chantress of Hathor, be my ally,” I begged. “I know you care not for your husband. Please don’t betray me to him.”
“Why should I not?” she asked. I think she was furious that I had seen the misery of her marriage.
“Because you of all people would want to see the gods restored to their rightful order, a true king on the throne, and the two kingdoms united once more,” I replied.
“Pick that up and follow me,” she told me, and led me to a secluded bower in the garden. “Explain yourself,” she said.
That was where I told her who I really was. “If you are a true daughter of Kemet, you will protect me,” I said.
For a second I thought I was lost, but then I saw the change on her face. Disdain fled and her features softened, her eyes sparkled and her breath quickened. I was distracted by the rise and fall of her breast.
“I will return the scrolls once you have copied them,” she said, and opened her arms as if to embrace me.
I edged away; she moved forward.
She slid her arms around my neck and gently touched my lips with hers, and I trembled.
She released me abruptly and hurriedly stepped back, a blush on her cheeks, shame and fear in her eyes. But I had waited too long for her lips, and I pulled her roughly to me, wrapped her in my arms, and took her mouth completely and thoroughly with mine. She surrendered to my exploring, urgent caresses, and I think we both stopped breathing and our flesh became one fire as we sank to the ground.
“You remember,” she said, and her eyes glowed with the fire within.
12
I AWOKE TO THE GRAY OF DAWN piss-proud and stared wryly at the tent in my sheets. Was this the influence of my new lodgings? I groped under the bed for the chamber pot.
Why was Lady Adventure haunting my dreams? I wondered as I pulled on my trousers. I was already having my adventure, wasn’t I? She was still in the guise of an exotic foreign lady, too, but who was I supposed to be? I couldn’t recall what I had said in the dream. At least there was no skeleton man, like Miss Dibble predicted, I thought, and laughed.
My knee had stiffened overnight, and I hobbled to the bowl and pitcher. I rinsed my face in chilly water and went to shake Apollo awake. It was time to earn his train fare home. Apollo had already abandoned his bed, however. He sat in the kitchen, mopping up the remains of an egg with a thick crust of bread. “I found the eggs,” he announced proudly. “Cook showed me where to look.”
Cook glanced over from the big iron cooking range, a broad smile on her face. “He’s a clever boy,” she said. “Reminds me of a Skye terrier I once had.”
Cook was in charge of the household staff—two kitchen girls and three upstairs maids who did the housework and looked after the ladies. She gave me my marching orders after she had filled me with a hot breakfast.
I left Apollo cleaning the silver at the kitchen table and went to split logs before the sun grew hot. I was pleased to note that my back and elbow gave me less trouble this day. Next I trimmed the wicks in the downstairs lamps and ran a brush around the insides of the glass chimneys to clean them of smoke, then I scrubbed out the tobacco spit from the cuspidors in the parlor, a chore I had never had to do at home, thank the Lord.
When I went back to the kitchen for my midday meal, Apollo was grinding coffee beans. “All I seem to do is crank handles,” he grumbled. “Today I have turned the washing machine paddles to swirl the laundry, turned the clothes wringer wheel to squeeze out the wash water, ground peppercorns until I sneezed my brains out, and turned the handle on the coffee bean roaster on the stovetop. Now this. I shall have arms the size of a dockworker’s by the time I leave here.”
“Ah, he’s a dear boy,” said Cook, patting his head. “Put the ice card in the window, would you, Abel? Twenty-five up. I don’t want the iceman to miss us.”
After I ate, I went out to throw the slops over the wall to the pig, before I fed the chickens. Apollo’s tasks kept him indoors. I suppose the mistress of the house didn’t want to risk the attention of the occasional passerby. I couldn’t blame her. Her domicile wouldn’t pass close inspection.
The next few days were full of chores, but with hot meals and a warm bed at their end, and my aches and pains quickly vanished. The kitchen girls gave Apollo a wide berth, and the upstairs maids giggled behind their hands at both of us, but Cook always had kind words and even mended my trousers for me. Overall it wasn’t a bad life.
Apollo behaved amazingly well. Maybe he’d had some sense knocked into him after all. Mrs. Delaney would visit with him when she came to give Cook orders, and treat him to penny candy, which surprised me because she seemed a distant and strict woman. He became quite her pet. She found him a novelty, I supposed.
Apollo should be home with his parents, not acting as pet to some stranger lady, I thought, but I couldn’t do anything until I had some money, not pay for a ticket or even send a telegram.
I didn’t think Apollo had given a second thought to the composition of the household, until one day when he asked, “Is this a girls’ school?”
More like a school for young men, I said to myself. “No, it’s a type of boardinghouse for ladies,” I answered.
“Perhaps you’ll find a sweetheart,” he said, and then pretended to gag. “I’ll tell Phoebe if you do,” he warned.
“Phoebe has given me the mitten,” I told Apollo, “so I doubt if she’ll care. That letter you gave me says she’s to marry some monkey man from Baltimore.”
“A monkey man!” Apollo howled with laughter. “What a caution! I reckon you’re a free man, then.”
I should have known better than to expect sympathy from Apollo.
Finding a sweetheart didn’t seem likely, however. The girls at Mrs. Delaney’s weren’t shy little things like Marika, the circus girl, and I wasn’t sure how to converse with them. I avoided them mostly, except in the evenings, when I collected dirty glasses from the parlor and emptied ashtrays.
Mrs. Delaney ruled the parlor from a wing chair as if she were a duchess, whispering assignations and discreetly taking offered envelopes. The gentlemen smoked cigars, of course, and to my astonishment, some of the ladies smoked cigarettes, languorous wafts of smoke escaping from pouting painted lips. The music and laughter were loud, but the women kept their clothes on and there was a minimum of fondling. The conversation could be ripe, however, and gave me an education while I gathered up abandoned glasses as couples took to the stairs. I supposed Mrs. Delaney preferred a boy for this job so as not to expose her female household help to any indignities. One didn’t like to lose good maids.
Lillie sometimes blew me a kiss, and I felt a thrill of desire. However, when I thought of how she earned her living, my ardor dimmed. This world did not offer many opportunities to a woman without a man’s support, I told myself. I did not know what choices she’d had in life, if any, and if people of my acquaintance could make their living by exhibiting their bodies, why should I condemn her for making a living with hers. Nevertheless, it made me sad to think of beautiful intimacies cheapened by money.
Perhaps it saddened her, too. Some mornings she strolled in the backyard, wrapped in lace, watching the sunrise with a distant and pensive lo
ok. I never approached her at these times; I guessed they were sacred. As it happened, another wasn’t as considerate.
One morning the dairyman delivered the milk early, and I took the bottles down to the springhouse to keep cold in the stream. As I approached the low stone building, I heard voices and I slowed down. I didn’t want to intrude.
Then a male voice rose in anger. “You little whore. I know what goes on in that house. If you don’t give me a taste, I’m going to see the sheriff.”
“That’ll make a change,” said a voice I recognized as Lillie’s. “He usually comes to see you.” She yelped, and I knew he’d hit her.
I shoved the milk into a clump of weeds and pushed open the rickety door. In a ray of light I saw Lillie with a hand to her red cheek and a gangly young man, squinting and angry.
“I think you’d better leave,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked, and strode toward me, fists raised.
“Archie Crum,” I answered, and kicked him in the knee. As he bent over, I punched him in the face. He went over backward into the stone trough and landed amid the cheese and butter. Archie would have been proud of me. His lesson in dirty fighting had taken hold.
“I don’t want to see you in this yard again,” I told him, trying to ignore the pain in my knuckles and the thumping in my chest. I offered my arm to Lillie. She took it, and I escorted her to the door.
“Who was that?” I asked when we were outside. I prayed she didn’t hear the tremble in my voice.
“Just a local boy who makes a nuisance of himself,” answered Lillie, her voice breathy and excited.
“I hope you won’t be in trouble with the sheriff,” I said.
“Not to worry,” Lillie reassured me. “If that boy had come any earlier, he would have met the sheriff going.” She tugged me close and kissed me on the cheek. “Thank you, darling. You are my knight.”
I’m sure I blushed for the remainder of the day.
Life wasn’t all work at Mrs. Delaney’s establishment, I discovered. The day before payday I followed the sound of laughter to the front of the house and found a croquet game in progress on the front lawn.
“Here, Abel, take my turn,” said Lillie, holding out her mallet.
I glanced at Mrs. Delaney, who presided from a wicker chair by the front path. She presented an impressive sight in a crisp summer dress of cream and black stripes and matching cream shoes with black buttons. I expected her to wave me away, but she smiled and nodded.
The rules were not strictly followed and the language not what one expected from female companions, but good cheer ruled the day, and I laughed heartily as I, too, bumbled through the game. If I half closed my eyes, the sunlight and the filmy dresses of my companions made this look like any other croquet game on any other front lawn across the country. When Cook and the kitchen girls carried out bowls of fresh-made ice cream, the afternoon was complete.
“Run and get Apollo,” said Mrs. Delaney. “He shouldn’t miss this treat.” When the puppy boy arrived, however, she positioned him under a large parasol so he would be hidden from the road.
“You know how ice cream is made, don’t you?” he told me, rolling his eyes. “You have to crank a handle.” This didn’t stop him from digging into a big bowl of strawberry and chocolate.
The sight of all those wantons licking their spoons with little pink tongues had me so distracted that I didn’t notice wagons approaching.
“Look!” cried a dark-haired girl called Mabel. “Isn’t that Lazarus Mink? What’s he doing back?”
Two canvas-covered wagons, with a wood-paneled wagon in the lead, rumbled down the road and came to a halt in front of the house. Two of the drivers were of standard build; the last, however, was a bearded dwarf. Each wagon canvas was emblazoned with the same proclamation: DR. MINK’S TRAVELING MONSTER MENAGERIE.
Well, I never, I thought, remembering the poster I had seen after I inquired about train fares home.
A man in a suit and tall hat climbed down from the lead wagon and came to the front gate. His clothes flapped oddly about him, as if he were a scarecrow made of twigs. Mrs. Delaney swept to meet him.
“Lazarus, my dear. How delightful,” she cried.
No wonder Mrs. Delaney was undisturbed by Apollo. She had friends in the business.
After a brief conversation Dr. Mink remounted, and the wagons pulled onto the field across the street.
“Shoo, everyone,” called Mrs. Delaney. “Get some rest and freshen up. We shall have a show tonight for our gentlemen.”
“A show!” cried Apollo, as if he’d not performed in them all his life. “Abel, there’s to be a show!”
“Well, stay out of their way, Apollo,” I said. “They don’t want you underfoot while they set up.” And after Mr. Northstar’s tale I wasn’t sure I trusted any itinerant showman. On the other hand, maybe they had need of a knife thrower. Here was my chance to get away, I realized. I could leave Apollo here and mail a letter home with his whereabouts. By the time someone came to collect him, I would be long gone. I almost laughed out loud.
In between my chores I checked on the progress across the road and noted where Apollo was. The wagon drivers raised a tent. In front of the tent a wall of brightly colored banners advertised the attractions within. A small bally platform was erected beside the banners. Apollo made no pretense of work, but sat under the bushes at the side of the house and watched the whole time, so I had no chance of visiting Dr. Mink unseen. Apollo was reluctant even to come in for supper, and afterward he ran outdoors to the bushes again. I might have to wait until he was in bed before I sought employment.
Finally it was time for the show. The ladies of the house were joined by men from town—upstanding gentlemen, by the cut of their clothes, pillars of the community, no doubt. Not one brought a wife or daughter. They all gathered in front of the bally platform in the evening sunlight, while the ladies giggled and nudged and pointed at the pictures on the banner. I knew from experience that these were exaggerations, but I was curious nevertheless. I was delighted to see no knife thrower depicted.
I looked around for Apollo and realized he was absent. After all the attention he had paid the setup, he was nowhere to be seen. Panic got the better of me. Should I search Dr. Mink’s wagons? But then Mrs. Delaney arrived with a small figure beside her, bundled in a cape and a floppy hat. I breathed a sigh of relief and felt quite foolish. I needed no clairvoyant powers to guess who the swathed figure might be, but why was he got up in that fashion? He must be stifling inside those wrappings. Perhaps Mrs. Delaney didn’t want Apollo to upstage the performers, or perhaps she was smarter than I and had disguised her pet from the eyes of a greedy showman.
The girls giggled behind their hands, and the gentlemen stared, but before anyone had a chance to inquire who the mystery guest was, a trumpet sounded from behind the banner and out walked Lazarus Mink in tails and top hat.
He was possibly the thinnest individual I had ever seen, almost as thin as the ebony cane he carried. He wore formfitting tights instead of trousers, which only served to emphasize his knees, which were like giant knots in his twiggy legs, and I noted that under his suit jacket he wore no shirt. He was a curious sight as he climbed the steps to the bally platform. His knobby wrists protruded from his coat sleeves like mere bones. His head appeared too large for his emaciated body and bobbed precariously on an unclad neck that was near as thin as his wrists. His caved-in cheeks, and eyes deep in their sockets, gave his pale face the appearance of a skull wearing a mustache and goatee.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or shiver. Here was the skeleton.
13
WELCOME, LAAAADIES AND gentlemen!” Dr. Mink wheezed and squeaked. “Welcome to the most amazing show you will ever have the privilege to observe.”
Would there be a dancing girl? I wondered. “A man of bones has kidnapped me,” the shadowy dancer had said in my strange waking dream before I joined the circus. “A skeleton man wi
ll come and take you to me,” she had told me as we walked down the railroad tracks. For a moment fear and excitement snatched my breath away. What would I do if it was true?
“Yiss,” Mink continued. “Today you have the opportunity to observe some of the most unusual human beings in existence. Only step inside and I will introduce you to the tallest man in the United States—eight feet tall and still growing. He has confounded the doctors in Philadelphia and stunned the experts in New York City. Here, too, you may shake the hand of the smallest woman you will ever meet and the most unusual bearded lady to be found.”
A squat bearded lady appeared on one of the banners, but no midget woman. Were there others inside not depicted on canvas—if not a dancing girl, maybe Mr. Northstar’s stolen son? I glanced at Apollo, glad he was disguised. Could I protect them both from burly roustabouts? Or even myself?
“See the alligator girl, cursed by the ancient Indian gods of the bayou, forever trapped as half human, half beast,” invited Dr. Mink. He pointed with his cane to a picture of a well-formed woman in evening dress with diamond-patterned green skin and the snout of a reptile. “Wonder at the living caterpillar man.” He gestured with a skeletal hand toward a picture of what appeared to be a large striped sock with a human head, smoking a cigarette. “‘How does a creature without limbs survive?’ you will ask yourselves. And finally, the most astounding person of all—no words can adequately describe this lusus naturae, this hideous freak of nature—the man with two heads.”
Curiosity got the better of my apprehension. I was eager to see what this two-headed man could really be.
Dr. Mink leaned toward the audience and lowered his creaky voice as if imparting a confidence. “Now, some people revile me for exploiting the unfortunate, they curse me for my lack of compassion, but I’ll let you be the judge. Am I heartless to show these wretches? Am I?” He swept his coat aside to reveal his chest, each rib as clear as if it had been carved in marble, and behind them, on his left side, a dark shadow throbbed beneath the almost transparent skin—his heart, beating in his chest.