The Museum of Extraordinary Things(32)

It was in this cellar room that my father maintained scientific experiments, dissecting and studying some of the strange creatures he had discovered in morgues and hospitals, and in the back rooms along the docks. No one was to disturb him when he was locked away, not even if he missed his dinner. There were times when the liveryman he employed dragged a bundle down the stairs and the two men would then stand together and argue over a price in low tones. I had heard them raise their voices more than once, and I hadn’t known whether I should fear for my father’s safety or for the safety of the liveryman.

I made my way to the threshold of the workshop. I pushed open the door so that I might peer through the darkening shadows. Jars of specimens gleamed and dust motes hung in the unmoving air. From the corridor where I stood I could see that there were canisters of salt and formaldehyde set upon the shelves, all in readiness for any new specimens. I spied the skull of a leopard that was being fitted with a third set of teeth so that it might appear more ferocious and strange. There were fingernails that had grown ten feet long before they’d been cut and were now soaking in bleach, and a box of the bodies of bright birds captured in New Guinea, their feathers tinted even brighter shades with red and orange dye. On a white metal table there was a selection of knives and surgery tools. My father, it seemed, did not shy away from helping nature create miracles. In this way he was a tailor of the marvelous, a creator of dreams.

Although I was well behaved on most occasions, I still possessed my natural curiosity, an urge I tried my best to ignore. Perhaps my rebel’s soul had been inflamed by the Wolfman’s tales of wandering the world. Surely something had ignited my disobedience, which flared with every passing day. I slipped into the workshop, closing the door behind me. The decision was quick, like diving into the sea. One step, and I was inside. The scent of amber and incense lingered, and the room felt close, for the single window in the cellar had been boarded over and no natural light entered the room other than a few pale rays of renegade moonlight that filtered around the nailed planks. No one came to clean here; Maureen was not allowed to pass through with a mop or a broom, and nothing had been tidied or organized for many years. Papers were everywhere, letters and graphs of all sorts left in a jumble. I went to my father’s desk, and there I saw the bones of a baby’s skeleton set out upon the blotter, like a puzzle. The bones were so tiny I could have picked up the entire spine and rested it in my palm. I, who was rarely cold, felt a chill as I stood there.

I had once asked Raymond Morris why he thought God had made him the way he was, and he’d laughed and said he did not think God had a hand in every error that humans made. He shocked me when he admitted there were times when he did not think there was a God at all, for when he looked into a mirror he believed only the devil had been at work in his creation. I disagreed with him. I thought that God had blessed Mr. Morris in some way, and that was why he was so knowledgeable and so kind. I was convinced that God had a hand in everything we did on earth, though we might never understand his ways, but I did not say so, for I was a girl at the time, and didn’t believe I had the right to speak my thoughts aloud.

I don’t know what made me open the top desk drawer in my father’s workshop; perhaps it was God’s intention or perhaps it was entirely due to my own inquisitive nature. There were papers, and contracts, and tallies of figures, along with photographs of a sexual nature I could not bring myself to look at. I may have gazed upon them for a moment, but I quickly put these things aside. What interested me most was a leather-bound journal fashioned in Morocco, a handbook of my father’s studies. I took it from the drawer, although as I did, my heart hit against my chest.

The handbook was clearly a private document, and some of it seemed to be written in code, with numbers and drawings replacing the letters. Still I could make out certain sections. My father’s handwriting was elegant, a script of flourishes that created large, perfect lettering. I began with the first few pages, a remembrance of a time when my father had been one of the greatest magicians in France. I hadn’t realized how famous he had been until I spied the articles about him, with photographs of the Professor as a younger man.

My father had written accounts of his card tricks and illuminations, some sketched out, lavishly illustrated. Soon I came upon his most famous trick of all, one so astounding people who witnessed it firsthand swore it was a miracle worthy of a saint. There was a drawing of a woman who was brought onto the stage in a steamer trunk, rolled out on a platform that had been fitted with wooden wheels. The woman’s head and legs emerged from either side of the box. Before the eyes of the audience my father sawed through the wood; as he did, the woman was cut in half. The crowd was silent, in shock, on the edge of their seats, revolted, yet straining to see more.

My father recorded how vividly the woman screamed when the sword went through her. But when the trunk was opened, the victim leapt up, half a woman with no legs at all, able to maneuver with the use of her hands as she swung herself across the stage. The audience gasped in astonishment. They had no idea of the truth of the matter: the woman was my father’s assistant, a living wonder who had been born that way. The sword’s blade was dull and had done no damage whatsoever, for it had only cut through the trunk, which was already scored. The legs that remained in the trunk had been fashioned by a sculptor, carefully painted to appear real. When the living wonder was inserted back into the steamer trunk, she was made whole again, for the legs were secretly fitted into a corset that was attached with a belt and cables. Therefore she was able to walk the length of a stage with the height of a fully grown woman.