The Museum of Extraordinary Things (26 page)

I leaned forward, interested. “And you knew this because?”

R laughed at me. I think she definitely took me for a fool. “From the look on her face.”

That was all R could tell me—she did not know the man’s name or address—but it was enough to make me wonder if the image of Hannah I’d been carrying had been distorted by the tide of her father’s love. Perhaps I hadn’t been able find a map of who she was because I’d been misled. She was more independent than I’d thought. More willing to take a risk.

I walked for a long time after leaving R. Without thinking, I found myself outside the building where the Weisses lived. I went upstairs and knocked on the door. I went by nearly every day, though I had little to report. It had become a ritual I felt I needed to complete, even on those occasions when I stayed only a few moments, embarrassed by how little I’d discovered. And yet Weiss never faulted me. He was still hopeful.

“Did you find anything?” he asked after he’d let me in. “The gold necklace? Her shoes? Anyone who saw her?”

I said no. I couldn’t tell Weiss that his daughter had loved some man he’d never heard of or met and that she’d had a rebel’s soul.

“You’ll find her,” he said, sure of himself, sure of me, perhaps desperate to be so.

I stayed for dinner, reciting the evening prayers along with him out of respect. I still remembered them. Hannah’s sister made us a meal of barley soup, stuffed cabbage, then a roast chicken, along with bread, butter, and pavel, a plumlike butter. For dessert there was an apple strudel with sugar sprinkled on top. To me, it was a feast. I was reminded of my mother’s cooking, the way she sang to herself as she went about her chores, her use of herbs to make the meal more appealing. I thanked Ella and said, in return for including me in their dinner, I would help her clean up. The truth was, I wanted to stand beside her out of the old man’s hearing, so we might have some privacy.

“Your sister was in love?” I said.

Ella shot me a look. “What difference does it make?”

“Maybe nothing, maybe everything.”

“If so, she didn’t tell me.”

“She told you everything,” I reminded her.

“He was just a boy. Nothing serious. She’d only just met him. That’s all she said. All I know is that his name was Samuel. She said I would meet him, but that day didn’t come.”

The plates were chipped and the dishwater was tepid. I didn’t blame Ella for leading me astray by not mentioning this Samuel, nor did I berate her for the time I’d wasted searching for a vision that was untrue. I would now have to begin all over again, and think of Hannah as a different sort of person. I was about to let the topic drop when Ella surprised me by gripping my hand.

“I dreamt again that Hannah was in water. She was whirling in a circle, dressed in blue. When I woke up I heard her voice. She told me she couldn’t come back to me. That she’d tried, but it was no longer possible.”

She grasped my hand tightly, and I comforted her as Hochman might have, assuring her this wasn’t an unusual reaction to great loss. I hoped I didn’t sound as pompous as he always had. “It’s normal to have such dreams.”

I didn’t tell Ella that I sometimes heard my own mother’s voice after all these years, when I could barely remember her face and couldn’t bring myself to say her name. Nor did I mention that I often dreamed of my father. Though he was alive, he was lost to me as well. In my dreams, he stood in silence, knee deep in the grass.

“You’re saying this is normal? That I see her clear as day?”

“It is when you love someone,” I said. I didn’t know what I was talking about, but I’d heard Hochman express similar sentiments and I parroted his words. My next statement, however, I knew to be true. “You imagine what you wish for.”

“My pillow was wet,” Ella insisted. “She was there.”

I shook my head. “You wept. It was you.”

On the way home, I stopped across the street from my father’s home. I had to pass nearby. It was dark, and the night was unusually warm. I wondered how it was that we could have slept side by side in the forest at one time in our lives and be complete strangers to each other now. Would he know me if he passed me by on the street, without my black hat and coat, my hair shorn close to my head, or would I just be another citizen of New York? I thought of my younger self, the child who did not understand how a person could be on earth one instant and gone the next. How was it possible that my mother, who had been so alive, had become nothing more than ashes? Surely she must be somewhere. I became a finder because I needed an answer to this question. So perhaps this was my gift.

I did not know Hannah Weiss and, if her sister was correct, I never would, but that didn’t matter.

I could not let her go.

M
AY 1911

PATHS ALONG
the river were rife with swamp cabbage, and sweet peas, and meadow grass. Even the city work crews, most of them ill-paid Irish immigrants, who had arrived at dawn to shore up the banks with huge boulders, could not disturb the larks floating from tree to tree. The clouds in the sky reflected in the river, as if they were stepping-stones that might allow a man to walk across the water, all the way to New Jersey. Eddie fished every Saturday near the same spot. Each time he wished that he would come upon the trout he’d set free. People were said to revisit the scene of a crime, and dogs had been known to find their homes after traveling hundreds of miles, wasn’t it possible for a fish to be driven by memory?

As Eddie trekked through the unfolding ferns, the undergrowth gave off the scent of cinnamon when it was crushed underfoot. He felt the watch inside his vest pocket, beating, as if he had a second heart. He’d brought along another bottle of rye, in case Beck gave him any trouble for again coming onto what he considered to be his land. He found a quiet place and hunkered down. Though it was early in the season, crickets were calling, and there was the hum of mosquitoes as they drifted over the shallows. Eddie had brought along his rod, but today he merely watched the stream, looking for a flash of silver. After an hour, and then two, he still saw only the shimmering water. Clearly, trout were smarter than men, choosing not to return to the site of their previous sorrows.

He went to the shoreline and began to photograph the river, hoping to capture some of the beauty of the place. The air was soft, as it often was in this lovely month, and Eddie inhaled its sweetness. He found himself uplifted as he worked, caught up in something outside himself and his petty wants and needs. The clouds drifted like ice in a tumbler. Through his lens the river seemed made of light, there was the shimmer, and for a moment the world seemed whole to him. As the afternoon lengthened, the light began to fade. The river darkened and shadows cut through the woods. There was a shuffle in the bushes, most likely a covey of quail or a raccoon. Mitts, who had been so well mannered all day, now reverted to his exuberant ways. The dog didn’t wait to find out what his quarry was, or whether it was larger and more dangerous than he, before he leapt into the brush and disappeared. Eddie went crashing after him, calling out and whistling. Once darkness fell it would be all but impossible to find him, and there were said to be coyotes that stalked their prey in these valleys.

Mitts’s bark echoed from the woods. Eddie did his best to catch up, but he was soon hindered by thick mud as he crossed several small rivulets. The land was a cattail marsh, and blue herons had begun nesting, with dozens of enormous nests set into the top branches of the tall, half-dead sycamores circling the wetland. Eddie finally reached firmer ground. The last of the day’s sunlight was a pale yellow drifting through the branches. Mitts was making a serious racket, growling low in his throat. The last time the dog had taken off Eddie had raced to find him in a clearing. Grabbing Mitts by the collar, he’d been struck by an unnerving sense that he wasn’t alone. For an instant he’d thought he spied the figure of a woman. A white shirt, masses of black hair, a slim beautiful form. But there was no one in sight, only the wavering branches.

Now as he made his way over a grassy valley where Queen Anne’s lace and red clover grew wild, Eddie sighted a tar-paper shack. There was Mitts in the clearing, barking like mad. The dog, and now his master, had discovered Beck’s abode. On the porch, a wolflike creature had been tied to a post with a chain. The beast lunged at Mitts, but the chain snapped him backward. Mitts darted closer, enjoying the freedom of taunting the fierce creature. When Eddie ran to grab Mitts, the hermit’s monstrous pet did his best to reach the both of them, but got no farther than the first steps before he was pulled back. Eddie noticed the beast had yellow eyes. He wondered if Beck wasn’t a liar after all. No dog had eyes like that.

There was enough of a racket to wake the dead, but apparently Beck had slept through most of the clamor. Now Eddie’s shouts had awoken him. He came out his door in a black mood, dressed in long underwear, holding a rifle. His unkempt hair was tied back, and he squinted through the falling dusk. He didn’t appear to recognize Eddie, for he aimed straight at his intruder.

Eddie quickly threw his hands up to show he had no weapon, only his camera and equipment. “You know me,” he called. “The photographer.”

When he held up his camera, he managed to pierce the hermit’s fog of sleep and drink. Beck nodded. “I know you’re around these parts far too often. You and the rabbit that pretends to be a dog.”

“I presume that’s your dog.” Eddie eyed the snarling creature beside Beck.

Beck snorted. “He’s a wolf.” He roughly patted the wolf’s head, and the beast quieted. All the same, the creature showed a glimmer of his teeth to Mitts, who submissively lay down in the ferns.

The dark was settling in, and Eddie would have liked to take his leave and start for home; it was later than he’d hoped, and the journey was long, at least three hours. Still, he didn’t wish to offend the hermit. Not when the old man carried a gun and knew these woods better than the squirrels that ran through the brambles.

“It’s one thing to have you steal my fish, but I sure as hell didn’t invite you here. It’s my home, you understand. No one else’s,” Beck said darkly.

“This was the dog’s idea, not mine,” Eddie assured Beck. “He took off on me.”

“Ah, Mr. Friendly.” Beck came down the steps. He fitted his rifle over his shoulder and nodded for Eddie to follow toward his campfire. “Now you’ve stayed so late you’re likely to drown if you try to make it out of here on your own.”

Eddie shadowed the hermit to a ring of stones placed a few feet away from the shack, to ensure sparks from the fire wouldn’t fly onto the tar-paper roof.

“Did you ever hear of the fish that climbed out of the Hudson?” Beck asked, as he took hold of the bottle of rye Eddie handed over, a peace offering quickly accepted.

“I didn’t expect you to believe in fairy tales.”

Beck grinned. “I believe in dogs with tails.”

“In this world, a fish can’t walk,” Eddie ventured to say. “That much I know.”

“It can if it has two legs.”

There was a metal grill fitted over the campfire, used for cooking fish and game. Beck kept the sparks hot, and he quickly got the fire going by tossing on some tinder wood. Between this spot and the river was a series of freshwater bogs, some so deep the water reached a man’s waist, where there might easily be snapping turtles nesting. The hermit was right. In the dark it would be difficult going. Eddie had no choice but to placate Beck if he wanted to be led through the marshland.

“Let’s just say I’ve never heard of a fish with legs,” he allowed.

“You think you’ve heard of everything?” the hermit asked. “I’ve seen a fox change from red to white right before my eyes. One minute he was scarlet, the next it was as if snow had fallen down on him. You ever hear of that?” He gave Eddie a look. “No. I venture not.”

Beck had reached for a battered kettle, into which he spilled some water from his rain barrel; he added ground coffee beans and soon enough signaled to Eddie, offering a cup of what appeared to be mud.

“I think we’ve got the same thing in mind on this subject,” Beck said. “The fish with legs.”

“Fishing will have to wait for another time.”

Beck narrowed one eye. “You really do think I’m stupid. You’re too dumb to go night fishing. You’d wind up drowned.”

They were sitting together on a log. Set up against the cabin was Beck’s canoe, a beautifully made hand-built boat fashioned of birch and poplar. Eddie hadn’t imagined the hermit capable of such fine work. People on the hill said that in the winter Beck carried his skiff along the ice until he located a current running through, for it was a rare season when the Hudson froze solid. A good fisherman knew where his catch could be found, regardless of the weather.

“I don’t believe you’re stupid,” Eddie insisted. “Far from it.”

“Do you believe in mermaids, then?”

Eddie treaded carefully. He gave the hermit a swift sidelong glance as the old man began to pour rye into his coffee. “Do you?”

“There you go. That proves you think I’m stupid. She wasn’t no mermaid. There’s no such thing. Just a flesh-and-blood woman once upon a time.”

Eddie’s pulse shifted. When he’d worked for Hochman the process of finding someone always began this way. A single sentence could create the beginnings of a map.

“Dead?”

Beck gulped the last of his coffee and rye. “The dead are with us even as we walk. That much I know.”

“We’re talking about a woman in the river?”

“Now you’ve got it.” Beck clapped him on the back, pleased. At last Eddie was grasping his meaning.

Eddie brought out the photograph from his vest pocket. “Did the fish on two legs look anything like her?”

Beck peered at the photograph in the firelight, then handed it back. “Nope, didn’t look a thing like her. But the dead one did.”

Eddie felt his pulse quicken. “There were two of them?”

The hermit rose to his feet so he could douse the fire. For an instant, the world grew dark. “You want more information, you have to give me something in return,” he declared as he headed back to his porch, leaving his guest at the campfire to consider his offer. Eddie tried to figure out what the old man could possibly want of him while Beck pulled on a pair of old trousers. He wore high fishing boots that were caked with mud. The Dutchman grabbed a walking stick, then returned to the smoky fire pit. “We should get going, if you want to make it back tonight.”

“What kind of deal did you have in mind?” Eddie hoped the price would not be too high; after having given his father his savings, he’d have to sell some of his belongings in order to have any ready cash.

Beck nodded to his wolfish pet, sprawled out on the porch, head on his paws, watching their every move carefully. “You make sure he’s cared for if anything happens to me. Set him free.”

“And where will you be while I manage to accomplish this without him ripping me to pieces?”

“I’ll be dead. Otherwise I wouldn’t need you. I don’t want to be in my grave unable to rest because I’m fretting that the wolf is starving to death up in my cabin.”

“Does he have a name?” Eddie eyed the beast, which eyed him in return.

“You think a name means something? You are who you are, whatever you’re called. Call him No-name. Call him Mr. President. They’re the same to me. Just let me know where you stand. It’s a deal or it isn’t. Your choice.”

The wolf was nothing Eddie wanted, but he took it on faith that the hermit would live a long and miserable life. Therefore, he nodded and they shook hands on the bargain.

“And burn this place to the ground,” Beck said. “It’s good for nothing once I’m gone.”

Eddie agreed to this as well. He wished to hear more about the mermaid, but Beck signaled that it was best for them to move on.

Eddie tied fishing line through Mitts’s collar to ensure that the rambunctious pit bull would stay close. The hermit’s black boots stomped over ferns and low berry bushes as they headed for the river. Sparrows flitted by, dropping into the brambles to nest for the night. They went on for some time in silence, but when they reached a ridge, the hermit stopped. The moon was rising, already casting a white light across the long, sweeping view to the river.

“You know how I knew she wasn’t no mermaid? Because her feet were bare. I was always told mermaids have no feet.” Beck pointed to a hollow. “That’s where I first spied them.”

There was a bog to cross, and the earthy scent of mud rose up. Every step meant navigating the muck, which already reached their knees.

“You want to go on?” Beck said, poking fun at Eddie’s obvious discomfort as he batted away gnats. “All sorts of creatures get stuck in there. I found the bones of a baby elephant a trader told me was a woolly mammoth. I’ll probably die in there myself one of these days.”

Eddie gestured for his guide to go on. He hoisted Mitts and carried him through the deepest mud. The clay would dry up in the summer months, but during a damp spring, mud as thick as this could easily pull a man or a dog down as if it were quicksand.

“Walk steady,” the hermit called over his shoulder. “Stop moving and you’ll sink into the land of the mammoths, my friend. I saw a man here at the end of March, stuck in right good, calling for his mother before he pulled himself out with a stick.”

Clouds of gnats circled Eddie as he slogged along. On the other side of the bog there ran an old Indian trail followed by letter carriers before trains were used for mail delivery. Though mostly deserted now, recent wheel marks had been deeply driven into the mud by a horse-drawn cart.

“I came down from the cliff because I’d seen the mermaid pull the other girl out of the water.”

Eddie found himself spooked in this hollow. He wasn’t alone in that. Mitts set to whining, and Eddie ran a hand over the dog’s shivering flank to quiet him.

“She ran away, that’s how I knew she wasn’t a mermaid. I saw she had legs. But she swims in this river the way something human never could. I’d seen her before. When she’d gone, I climbed down to the hollow to watch over the drowned girl. If I hadn’t stayed, the raccoons would have been at her. They would have torn her apart.

“When I heard a carriage come near I took off. I figured the mermaid had gone to get help. But it wasn’t help she brought, just two men. One of them called the dead girl a treasure, so I knew he was a bad one. Death’s no one’s treasure, except for ghouls. The other fellow spoke up that they should leave her in peace, but the first one spat at that idea. Told him no, that wasn’t what they were about to do. So the one who drove loaded her onto the wagon. I should have shot them both before they took her.”

The hermit looked at Eddie closely. “Too much for you to hear?” The old man reached into his jacket to bring forth the bottle of rye, which he offered companionably.