The Museum of Extraordinary Things(31)

Raymond Morris bowed his head when he was reminded of his time in prison, and quickly offered his thanks for his rescue, but there was a glint of mistrust in his eyes. He was a man of great dignity, and surely this was the reason Maureen was attracted to him. They often sat together, speaking in confidence. She had let slip that she visited him during the off-season and had mentioned that upon one or more occasions she’d brought him a leek and onion pie, one of her specialties. When I questioned her about how frequently she spent time with him, she informed me that polite girls didn’t ask questions about a person’s private life. Once, when they didn’t know I was nearby, I had seen Mr. Morris take her hand. I was not the only one who noticed their closeness. Soon enough Maureen was found in his room by the landlord of the boardinghouse, who then demanded a fee from my father, insisting that a room in which two people cohabited should have the charges doubled.

If Maureen was in love with the Wolfman, she never discussed it with me. I only knew that my father dismissed Raymond Morris, though he was our most popular attraction and made the museum more prosperous than it had ever been. I was surprised at the depth of my father’s fury. Morris was asked to leave the boardinghouse where he’d been deposited after his release from jail. I don’t know where he went, but I do know he left Maureen a token on the day he vanished: a worn copy of Jane Eyre, set out on the kitchen counter, wrapped in brown paper and twine, with her name written upon the wrapping in his graceful script.

I heard Maureen arguing with my father in the parlor afterward. The Professor said she was a whore, so low she would get on her back for a vile dog. That was what he called the Wolfman, Satan’s dog. I thought I heard a slap, but I wasn’t sure. I put my hands over my ears, but I still heard Maureen crying. After that she said no more of Mr. Morris, and although her eyes were often red and inflamed, she didn’t dare to go against my father. She was his employee after all, and jobs were not so easy to come by. If she left she would likely be fit only for factory work, grueling and low paying, and she might even be turned away from that because of the burn marks on her face.

No one mentioned the Wolfman in the days that followed, and a new exhibit soon enough took his place, a young man named Horace, whose older brother brought him from Sunnyside, Queens, in the mornings and picked him up in the evenings. Horace had only half a jaw and could neither speak nor hear, but he had been taught to growl in a menacing manner, as the Wolfman had. My father named him the Jungle Boy and employed the sign maker once more. Horace never complained and he did as he was told. As far as I knew, he couldn’t read.



ONE MORNING, not long after Mr. Morris’s departure, as Maureen and I sat on the back porch peeling potatoes for a stew, I found myself thinking about “The Tell-Tale Heart,” a story of Poe’s that Mr. Morris had read to us in which a murderer cannot escape his own guilt. I was thirteen at this time, and I was especially interested in the ways in which some men felt guilt, while others seemed free to hurt those closest to them without remorse. The protagonist in Poe’s story is certain he continues to hear the heart of his victim beating beneath the floorboards, but it is the pulse of his own guilt that resounds. I wondered if all men’s deeds came back to haunt them and proposed an idea to Maureen: if the Wolfman were to become famous at some other exhibition, perhaps my father would regret his decision and want to hire him again and then all would be well.

“Oh, I doubt that,” Maureen said coldly. “Your father has no regrets.”

“He must. All good men do, and he must have been that for my mother to have loved and married him.”

Maureen studied me, and I felt pity in her gaze. Of course she thought I was na?ve, and I suppose I was. I’d been kept away from the world, and what I knew of it were bits and pieces that didn’t add up.

“Love is odder than anything you might find here,” Maureen instructed. Her voice was kind, yet I felt she was delivering a warning. She sometimes carried Mr. Morris’s edition of Jane Eyre with her, for it was pocket size and she was very attached to it. I wasn’t certain if it was the story she was faithful to, or if her loyalty belonged to the man who had given her the book.

“Did you love Mr. Morris?” I asked. It was bold of me to question her so, for I’d been warned by my father never to bring up his name. But I was truly interested in Maureen’s welfare, and I think she softened when she saw my earnest expression.

“He read to me when I was with him in his room, and I went there willingly. All I can tell you is that when it was dark, he was like any other man. Better,” she told me. “Far better than anyone who’s passed through this yard.”



THERE CAME an evening when I was reading in my father’s library, as was my habit when he was out and I had my pick of what was on the shelf. When I grew drowsy, I started for bed, going first to the kitchen to make sure the back door was locked. I happened to glimpse a bit of light as I passed by the stairs to the cellar. When I peered down I noticed the door to the workroom had been left ajar. I went down the steps, drawn by my curiosity before I could think things through. The door to this room was always locked and bolted twice, but somehow the Professor had forgotten to do so on this occasion. As usual, he hadn’t informed me where he was going or when he would return, but he was often gone past midnight. I wondered if the open door was a sign sent to me from above suggesting I should look inside, or if it was a simple act of forgetfulness.