The Museum of Extraordinary Things(92)

Coralie could not help but think of the tattooed woman who had thought her to be a whore. “I doubt that any man who really knew me would have me after all I’ve done.”

“That’s not true, Cora. Look at me! Would you think a man of any worth would ever want me? Would he travel from Virginia and wait outside my door even though I have been ruined a hundred times over? Mr. Morris doesn’t see me from the outside. Men are men, with all their flaws, as we have ours, that’s true, but the best among them manage to discover who we really are.” The housekeeper lifted Coralie’s chin so they might look into one another’s eyes. “If we had no hurt and no sin to speak of, we’d be angels, and angels can’t love the way men and women do.”

“And what of monsters?” Coralie wished to know. By then her face was streaked with tears; her emotions were raw. “Can they love?”

Maureen tenderly ran a hand over her charge’s dark hair. “We know quite well they can,” she murmured. “For we know that they do.”



THE MUSEUM OF EXTRAORDINARY THINGS failed to reopen. One or two customers rapped at the door, and, when their knocking went unanswered, they went away, puzzled but ready enough to find another entertainment. Professor Sardie’s announcement that he would allow free entrance into the museum if he were unable to produce the Hudson Mystery was a promise he couldn’t keep. At the present time he hadn’t the ready cash to pay his players or his bills. He had been drinking heavily ever since finding his workshop door ajar, the coffin containing the body of his fabulous creature vanished. He held the liveryman responsible; that unsavory character had never dared to return, and the Professor could be heard cursing his missing employee late into the night.

The last weekend in May was fast approaching, the beginning of the season marked by streets swelling with crowds, all searching for relief from the hot city and the brittle confines of their own lives. Soon enough Dreamland would reopen in all its revamped glory and beaches would be blanketed with visitors from Manhattan. All of the bathing pavilions, including Lentz’s and Taunton’s Baths, would be overflowing with customers. The New Iron Pier walk was busier each day, as all of the summer establishments prepared for the onslaught of visitors. The wooden horses at Johnson’s carousel were freshly painted. The steel skeleton of the Giant Racer Roller Coaster, that heart-stopping ride, was readied as well, with the empty cars sent up on practice runs that rattled the street below.

No announcements were made concerning the closing of the museum. The door was simply barred and padlocked from the inside. The Professor was already humiliated among his peers, many of whom said they’d never trusted him or expected to see anything resembling the Hudson Mystery. He was a known con man who relied on the na?veté of the masses, those inexperienced customers who might be convinced to believe in such things as mermaids and butterfly girls, when they were in fact being offered freaks of nature, harmless individuals dressed up to resemble the inhabitants of their nightmares or dreams. But if there was no Hudson Mystery, there would be no reversal of their downward fortunes. That was not fantasy but fact. Already the tortoise was being fed weeds rather than lettuce and fresh greens. The caged birds were pecking at crumbs.

When the living wonders arrived in the yard on what they had thought was opening day, they were greeted by the stench of the rotten fish, for the giant striped bass had been lugged onto the trash pile and set on fire. Bits of scales rose into the air, and it seemed that silver wasps were soaring into the clear May sky. Maureen spoke to the employees through the screen door, too embarrassed to tell them face-to-face that they were no longer needed. She made her voice as stern as she could, for, given the circumstances, no one would benefit from sentiment. Malia, who had been a feature since the age of seven, wept in her mother’s arms, and the others clustered together in disbelief, for they were suddenly without the means to support themselves. The season was about to begin, staff had been hired everywhere else, and it would be difficult to find work in even the lowliest museums and entertainment halls.

“Is this any way to treat us?” one of the Durante brothers called. “After so many years?”

“No,” Maureen said. “But it’s his way.”

“Let him rot in hell,” Malia’s mother cried, surprising those who hadn’t expected she knew any language other than her native Portuguese. “For hell is where he belongs.”

Coralie wanted to apologize, but Maureen stopped her.

“This is your father’s decision. Next season he may hire them back. The world is unpredictable.”

“And when he no longer has any need of you, will he do the same?”

“He has already.” Maureen dropped her voice to a hush. “I’ve been dismissed.”

Coralie was confused. “And yet you’re here.”

The housekeeper admitted she was there only as long as it took for Coralie to pack her belongings. She insisted there was no way that Coralie could stay in this house, and suggested she take as little as possible, for haste was the most important aspect of their departure.

Coralie understood the danger and therefore rushed upstairs to fill her cowhide satchel with her most precious possessions, clothes and books, along with the strand of pearls left to her by her mother. She hurried downstairs, but once in the parlor she suffered pangs of regret for all she was leaving behind. She had the urge to take the cereus plant, whose woody stalks had suddenly turned a ripening green, to liberate the tortoise, whose shell she rubbed with oil in the winter months, to free the hummingbirds from their cages. Perhaps it was this moment when she tarried that allowed her father to discover Maureen lingering in the kitchen. She’d been told to vacate the premises, yet she had disobeyed him. His dreadful mood was intensified by a good portion of rum. Coralie heard her father’s raised voice and then the murmur of Maureen’s rational tone as the housekeeper did her best to assuage his anger. The Professor refused to listen to her excuses; he began thrashing her mercilessly. Coralie could hear the rising tide of their emotions as they struggled.