The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno: A Novel (34 page)

She smiled. Her heels dug deep into the plush of the rug. “Let me ask you quite a different question, Bartholomew. Have you ever dreamed of changing your life?”

“Yes, of course. Haven’t we all, at some time or another?”

“No. I don’t mean daydreams. I mean, planning to make it happen?”

I thought back to the time before my change. “Yes, on occasion, I suppose,” I said. “But more often than not, change has come to me. For the most part, I am quite content.”

“Are you? Perhaps that’s because you have more possibilities than some others do.”

“Forgive my forwardness,” I countered, charmed and irritated in equal doses, “but perhaps it is
you
who is intrigued by the notion of choice. If you feel you need to change, why not simply hire a trustworthy barber?”

Iell lifted an eyebrow.

A shaft of sunlight cut across her lap. She smiled at me with real amusement, and I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.

“I’m quite serious,” I said. “I think a woman like you could choose to do just about anything you wanted.”

“And if that were so, what would you have me choose?”

I would have you stay here with me,
I thought, but I held my tongue and said instead, “Perhaps a life free of opium.”

“Ah, but that opium makes my destiny much easier to bear.”

“Are you saying that my life is defined by choice,” I challenged, “while yours is defined by destiny? That doesn’t seem quite right to me.”

“And what does seem right?”

An image of the root flickered in my brain and disappeared. Flustered, I said, “Perhaps we should get to the matter at hand. I’ve come to tell you that I was summonsed—”

“No. Not quite yet.”

Iell picked up something from the side table next to her, a lacy white fan with tiny tassels hanging off the bottom. The tiniest flick of her wrist snapped it open, and she moved it side to side beneath her chin as she considered me.

“I want to know a little more about your father first. Last time you were here, you mentioned that he died when you were a boy. He must have been a young man, still.”

I’m not sure why I confided in Iell. Maybe it was the softness of her smile or the clear sunshine that flowed through the windows and warmed my face, promising me safety. I stretched my legs out in front of me, my fingers playing across the chair’s lush material.

“I don’t remember much,” I told her, closing my eyes, “but I know it was very early in the morning, in springtime. I’d come in from the garden, where I’d been building a little house from rocks and twigs, and saw my father spread out on his back on our cottage floor. My mother saw me and put a finger to her lips, as if he were sleeping. She sat on the floor next to him, and I don’t know why but I think she held a lantern.” A wave of uneasiness forced my eyes open. Something about what I was saying wasn’t quite right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Go on,” Iell said. “Shut your eyes again.”

Obeying her, I let my eyes close, and pictures from long ago crept into my head. “When I got close enough,” I went on, “my mother forced me into her lap, grabbing hold of my hand and squeezing it so hard she cut off the feeling in my fingers. And a doctor came eventually. Someone put me to bed, even though it must have been late morning by then. Down below, the adults scurried about, and I could hear my mother sobbing, saying, ‘No, no, the poor child was out playing in the garden at the time. Didn’t see a thing.’ Two days later, we buried my father in the Episcopal Church cemetery—her church, not the Catholic one of my father’s kin. My mother had her head bowed, tears dripping off her chin. And when she tried to hold me in her arms, I must have felt it a strike to my manhood, because I pushed away.”

I opened my eyes, startled at a new memory. “And then she laughed,” I told Iell.

“What do you mean, she laughed?”

“As they lowered his body into the ground, my mother laughed aloud.”

Why ever would she do that? I tried to think, to remember more, but all that flitted through my mind was the image of my mother holding up that glass bottle she had kept by the window and peering through it at me.

Iell rose. After touching me sympathetically on my shoulder, she left me sitting in the chair alone. I felt a tug in my belly as she slipped
through a door into what must have been her bedroom. Why
had
my mother laughed? I stared out the window into a sun-filled sky, running my thumb across my own ribs, one by one.

Flustered, I called to Iell through the empty sitting room. “We still have a delicate matter to discuss.”

I heard the slight rasping of Iell’s dress as she reentered and stopped at my side. I knew she was staring down at me, and I was glad to turn the conversation back to practical matters.

“As I was saying, someone summoned me to tell me I wasn’t to see you again,” I said, looking up at her, “or to help you in any way.”

“Who?”

I hesitated. “Mrs. Barnum.”

“Phineas’s wife?” Iell’s voice took on a tension that I’d in no way expected, and the next moment she was in tears.

I sprang upright, my jacket flying. “Oh, my dear. My goodness.” Like a manservant, I took her by the elbow and, as she continued to cry, I helped her into her chair. “Whatever is the matter? I’d no idea my words would upset you so.”

“How I hate my weaknesses.” Struggling to regain composure, Iell dabbed at her nose with my hanky. “Would you mind fetching me something to drink?”

I went to the outer parlor and found a pitcher of water and glasses on the sideboard. When I returned, Iell stood near the pianoforte, facing away from me.

“What do you think this woman wants?” she asked.

I handed her a glass of water. “I must ask you a delicate question first, and of course, you needn’t answer.”

“Please.”

“I’ve seen the photographs.” My chest tightened. “Is that what Barnum wants from you? Is that his price for you to stay? I know it is not my concern, but please, what is the truth about your relationship with that man?”

I’d expected some physical reaction from Iell, some contraction between the shoulder blades, perhaps, or a heaviness of stance. Instead,
she took a slow sip of the water, then put the glass on the table in front of her.

“As I’ve told you, he is a mentor and nothing more.” Her voice was flat.

“Even if evidence indicates otherwise?”

“Yes.” Iell faced me now, her eyes sharp and dark. “Even if evidence indicates otherwise.”

“All right,” I said, trusting her. “Well, Mrs. Barnum must think it’s more, much more, because she is quite insistent that you leave the Museum. She has plans to place you elsewhere.”

“My contract at the Museum is so limited. Why should she concern herself with my placement?”

“She says she knows her husband has offered you some kind of private arrangement.”

“I see.”

“And she says you cannot accept it. Also, she explicitly warned me to keep out of it.”

“Did she?” Iell’s face changed, the lines of distress smoothing over so completely, I couldn’t believe she’d been so recently upset. I fought the urge to go to her, but the rigidity of her posture told me to keep my distance.

“I’ve upset you again,” I said.

“No, of course not. But I’ve suddenly come down with a most terrible headache.”

“How on earth have you made so many enemies? First Emma, and now Barnum’s wife.”

“Emma?”

“You know that I overheard you dismiss her in the theater. And it was she who hosted Mrs. Barnum in her room for our recent talk.”

“You might be surprised by who my friends are and who they are not.” Iell was a different person now, hard and self-contained, any touch of intimacy between us gone. “Don’t look so tragic, Bartholomew,” she said, her voice strong and controlled. “I shan’t let that old woman deter me.”

Iell took me by the elbow and led me through her parlor and out into the hallway. Wordlessly, I followed her down the stairs. The matron joined us on the first floor, and stood behind Iell, who opened the front door and gestured me out. Obviously no longer in need of my compassion, she dismissed me. “Thank you again for your assistance. As always, you’ve been most kind.”

The door closed behind me, and, when the sunlight swallowed me up, my head began to pound. There I was, risking everything for her, and Iell had put me out without a touch of warmth. I shouldn’t have been so surprised. She was an opium addict, wasn’t she? And those photographs. Perhaps that was the real Iell after all. Coy. Obscene. Matina was right. I kicked at a loose flagstone as I left the boardinghouse behind me and walked up the street. Maybe Matina would sit with me at lunch, I thought, but even as such an idea rose in my mind, the memory of Iell’s smile overcame me.

Without even checking to see if anyone followed me, I walked all the way to Broadway, late-morning strollers gawking at me as I passed. By the time I crossed the avenue, I’d convinced myself that Iell had acted out of shock from the news and nothing else. My dismissal hadn’t been personal, and only a fool would have taken it as such. I shoved away a nagging voice and, flagging down a public trolley, headed homeward.

But sitting on the trolley, all I could think of was Iell tipping her chin up, her eyes her own but her mouth clearly my mother’s, laughing aloud and whispering, “Have you ever thought of changing your life?”

And a memory came to me—my mother and I stumbling to our cottage after my father’s funeral service was over. With a bang, she kicked open the door and sat me on a window seat, where she made me face her. She took my head in her hands and pushed her palms against my temples so hard I felt my head would burst like a melon. Nose to nose, her breath smelled slightly sour, like bad milk. “Always obey me, Bartholomew.” She stared at me and I did not cry, even though she kept me locked between her hands for an excruciating time.

That very same day she went missing, and it took me hours of
searching the barns and the outbuildings before I found her in the overgrown glen, on her knees, half nude in the creek. Her camisole was covered in muck; in her lap was a bouquet of weeds and sticks. I dragged my mother home, where, meek as a lamb, she let me peel off her outer clothes and lead her to the bath. The water that I poured through her muddy hair flowed in brown rivulets down the base of her neck and ran in thin streams across her half-naked shoulders, dripping onto her chemise. When I moved closer, hoping for her to look at me, to know me, she said nothing, and at that moment I realized that she did not love me.

And then another memory. Deeper. I stared out the trolley window and tried to think of something else, but all I could see was my mother traipsing across the lawn behind the Major’s kitchen. It had been days since the funeral, and I’d been sitting in our cottage window watching her pick her way across the footpath, still dressed in mourning clothes. She balanced a wooden tray above her head, and she shoved open the cottage door with one foot, plunking down the tray with so much fervor that food flew off the top. My stomach rolled.

“You have to eat,” she said watching me separate the meat and the fruit. She slapped my hand when I lifted the greens off the plate with a long pronged fork, plunking them into the trash. Why had I discarded the food? I couldn’t for the life of me remember.

D
URING MY SECOND WEEK OF NO PERFOR
mances, I began to enjoy my limited schedule. True, I felt out of sorts not being seen on stage, but I had time to catch up on my reading and was able to spend more time in the Arboretum with the birds. I even went out for a walk on Thursday afternoon, though on returning I had quite a shock. A handful of police officers tumbled out of the Ann Street exit just as I was coming in.

The first thing I thought of was that I’d been discovered missing. I threw myself into the shadows and tried to decide what to do next. But would Barnum send officers to fetch me? No. Something else was going on. I hunched down and scurried into the courtyard, hidden by the flurry of activity. I barely managed to sit on one of the benches and get my breathing under control before Cook marched up the flagstone walk toward me.

“What are you doing out here?” Cook wiped her hands on her apron and scowled at me. “You’d best hurry along, Fortuno. Everyone else is already in the dining room, waiting for Fish.”

“What happened?”

“We had a fire on the roof an hour ago. One of the cleaners saw smoke and beat a floor gong until the house crew dragged water buckets up and put out the blaze. Thank God none of the customers knew what was happening.”

Cook veered off toward the kitchen as Zippy ran past in a helmet that he must have snatched from the new Debtor’s Prison exhibit. He
clutched a long sword—most likely also filched—that clacked and bounced along the flagstones, and he almost tripped me as I followed him into the dining room. Matina raised her hand in weak greeting when she saw me. Alley sat next to her. They hadn’t saved me a seat. Disgruntled, I rested my spine painfully against the wall and crossed my arms over my chest.

When Fish came into the dining room, a new wisp of a beard blending into his speckled sideburns, he was beside himself.

“As I’m sure you all know, we’ve had another fire today.” Fish wrung his hands but was clearly trying to exhibit control. “It was small and of no real threat—only a pail full of rags set alight once again—but because the roof is off limits to everyone but staff, Mr. Barnum now fears that the menace is internal.”

“The firebug’s one of us!” Ricardo yelled out.

Alley’s ears went bright red.

“Maybe it’s
you
, Rubber Man, if you had the nerve.” Bridgett hollered this out from the far end of the table, and we all looked over at her, surprised at her outburst.

“Oh, I have the nerve, fancy girl,
and
the strength.” Ricardo stood and wiggled his hips obscenely.

Fish waved Ricardo back to his seat. “This is arson, sir, and not a joke. Mr. Barnum is mightily concerned. Setting fires, however small, is a deranged act, and we need all of you to help us catch the culprit. From now on, you are to watch one another. If you see anything suspicious—anything whatsoever—you are to report it to us immediately.”