The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno: A Novel (12 page)

Aha! At last. Mrs. Iell Adams. Slated to start on Wednesday. But why would her shows be private, closed to all of us? And if Iell’s theater assignment was any indication, she’d been struck a retaliatory blow. The Yellow Room was on the main floor between Barnum’s offices and the exhibit hall where most of us sat in tableau between performances,
and showing her there was a bit of an insult; all the real theaters were upstairs. The only good thing about the Yellow Room was that it was right next door to the Arboretum. Maybe I could use my newfound intimacy with Barnum to finagle a pass to get in.

“She’s all yers.” Alley grinned as he walked by me, nodding goodbye to Matina before ducking his head to clear the door into the busy hall.

“What in the world is wrong with you?” Matina asked me when I left the Notice Board and sauntered back to join her. She brushed at her hair with so much vigor, the vanity table jiggled in front of her. “The man needs your help as much as he needs mine.”

I ignored this comment, sat myself down in the chair abandoned by Alley, and waited, knowing Matina’s curiosity would eventually get the better of her. Not until she calmed down and asked me sweetly did I begin recounting my trip to Chinatown—“And you’ve no idea what was in the package? Couldn’t you peek?”—as well as my interview with Barnum. I diplomatically omitted Barnum’s suggestion that I monitor Iell’s movements, telling Matina only that Iell’s show was finally on the schedule.

“The woman has a separate showroom? Did Barnum say anything about her gift or what she’ll be doing?”

“Not a word.”

The bell rang for places. I waited as Matina poured water over her hands and into a bowl and examined herself in her mirror one last time. She patted her hair into place, pinched her cheeks, and held out her arm for me to help her to her feet.

“One other thing,” she said, leaning on me a bit heavier than need be. “Did you really have to suggest that Alley find a companion? After all, he does have the two of us.”

I
DON’T
know how she did it, but Matina found out that Iell had a beard, and after that the news spread like wildfire. Then the rumors started. Iell had seduced a young Gypsy boy whose grandmother tricked her into drinking a potion that had caused her hair to grow.
She’d been improperly raised in Africa. She was really a man. Most of the gossip, told out the side of one’s mouth or behind one’s hand, was too wild to be anything but fabrication, but one interesting bit came from Cook, who told Matina that she’d heard two of the seamstresses complain about how fussy Iell was over the cut of her dresses and how they already hated her. They called her a prissy Boston Brahmin. That didn’t surprise me in the least. Of course Iell would have come from a fine Bostonian family. She certainly gave off an air of gentility.

I learned nothing more about the new act until the next afternoon, when I went to join Matina in tableau.

Tableau was all Matina did for the present, spending most of her day in the first-floor exhibit room along with the other permanent exhibits, and I joined her there between my shows. Tableau wasn’t hard work, but it wasn’t my favorite. It required nothing other than placing oneself in a scene—backgrounds of mountain lakes, for example, or castle grounds, whatever Barnum deemed most interesting each month—and chatting with customers. We were encouraged by management to sell our visitors personal
cartes
with our pictures for a nickel and fake histories for a dime. I had always found it uncomfortably intimate to be stuffed into a corner with strangers standing so near that I could smell the horse manure on their shoes. It reminded me of the circuses. And it was hard to control a customer’s response when dealing with them up close. Tableau subjected us to the full range of our viewers’ reactions: fury, amazement, humor, and disgust. We were forced to put up with all manner of comment and slander.

This afternoon, I’d arrived late. Three boys in ruffian shirts and button-fly trousers already milled about Matina’s platform and, worried that they might be harassing her, I hurried across the room, trying not to touch any of the customers as I passed. Her platform measured twelve feet by six. It sat flush against a wall and was elevated about a foot off the ground. Matina reclined on a plank bed made of oak slabs balanced across two stone pillars, pillows of blue patterned silk all around her.

“Finally,” Matina said when she spotted me, smoothing her dress, its red and white skirts billowing like flags.

With effort I climbed up next to her, my day suit drab in contrast to her colorful veils, and scowled at the boys. They broke into whoops and giggles.

“Let me stand in front, my dear. So you’re not unduly aggravated.”

“Honestly, Barthy, if I haven’t learned to manage a few boys by now, what have I been doing all these years?” Matina pulled out a red lace fan and waved it lazily across her face, causing her veils to move slightly in an artificial breeze. As Matina unhooked her veils, exposing her décolletage, one of the boys—a slick-haired youth with doe eyes and the beginnings of a beard—all but fainted, proof that what was shocking about Matina was the very thing that moved a certain type of man. When he reached forward to touch her ankle, Matina pulled her leg back only enough to make his quest impossible.

“Careful, young man. What would you do if you got hold of me?”

“I’d think of something, I’ll tell you that.” The boy flushed and spun to face his friends, slapping his thighs and sending up a puff of dust from his pants. But his friends had already abandoned him for other exhibits, one examining the comely portrait of the Prince of Wales’s mistress, Mary Darcy Robinson, that hung along the wall, the other leafing through a copy of her novel,
Vancenza, the Dangers of Credulity
, a gothic romance full of references to the prince’s sexual predilections. The boy walked off, but the look he threw her over his shoulder told me he would be thinking of Matina for a long time to come.

“I have a present for you.” Matina pulled a folded clipping from her sleeve and handed it to me. From the width of her smile, I knew it held something of interest.

“Not only is Barnum finally giving her press,” Matina said, “but apparently, as the article says, she’s not married after all.”

“Do you think that’s true?”

“Emma confirmed it. She went straight to Barnum and asked if she was an honest woman. He told her that the new act was a widow. And has been for some time, apparently.” Matina shifted her attention to a group of ladies who had stopped to look us over. “Good day to
you, ladies.” Matina smiled, making one of the young girls giggle and turn her eyes away. “To tell you the truth,” she said to me, “I have a bad feeling about this new bearded woman of ours.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” I snapped.

Matina winced. “You don’t think I know what I’m talking about?” She straightened her back regally, gazing over the heads of the customers, and ignored my apology. “Did I ever tell you the story about my pap’s brother-in-law, Nathaniel?” she asked, considering the crowd. “He lived with my aunt on a pig farm in Indiana. A hard worker, that one, with muscles running up and down his arms like iron ropes. Well, you know how I can see people’s colors?”

For as long as I’d known her, Matina had claimed she could see colors in people, much like pigs, they say, can see the color of the wind. I’d always thought it more of a joke than anything else, though she’s been known to catch me on a bad day and tell me that my normal shade has gone too pale.

“One summer,” she went on, “his whole color changed. Nathaniel left his wife with the farm and came down to help my paps with the planting.” She paused for effect. “Nathaniel was a good man, Barthy, and he’d always read a good healthy orange. But he started to sneak off and spend his evenings with some harlot in town. The strain of the secret marked him with big purple spots.” She tilted toward me, the weight of her forearms on the platform causing it to shift slightly. “It’s the same thing with that harlot that Barnum has hired.”

“You haven’t even
seen
the woman yet,” I said. “You’re going on about nothing.”

“It’s not
her
color that makes me say this,” she explained. “It’s Barnum’s. Have you noticed how yellow he’s been looking? He’s hiding something about her, and it won’t be good for anyone. You mark my words.”

“Let’s just leave it be,” I said, but my thoughts shifted back to Iell. She was a widow. And the mistress of kings, the flyer said. Just thinking of her made my heart thump as nervously as a boy’s. I turned away
from Matina and looked into the crowd, worried that she might read my excitement through my color.

I had to find a way to see Iell’s show.

T
HE DAY
the new act debuted, I started my bird-feeding job, hoping to use the proximity of the Arboretum to help me sneak into the Yellow Room. First, I’d discharge my duty, then linger and wait for my chance. As the Museum hadn’t opened yet, it was easy enough to drag a large bag of seed from the storeroom across the empty hall and past the Yellow Room door, where Iell’s poster—the same one I’d seen in the cellars—sat propped up on a little platform next to a stack of advertisements.

I entered the Arboretum expecting to see what I’d always seen in the past: a few benches, potted plants, and rickety birdcages stuck along the back wall. To my surprise, I found the renovations quite remarkable. Lugging the seed bag down a twisted stone path, I marveled at the newly imported bamboo and palm trees, the big-leaf banana plants, and the flowers with heads like little hooded people. The farther in I ventured, the more junglelike the room became, and I went a bit giddy with the smell of tea roses, tree fungus, magnolias, and almond shrubs. When the path split around an oak tree dripping with Spanish moss, I stumbled to get to the rear of the exhibit, and there, to my surprise, I found a fog machine spewing overzealous clouds into the vines that covered the ceiling above.

I squinted into the artificial sunlight, hoping to catch a glimpse of Iell, but found I was alone in the room. I dragged the seed bag toward a large wire aviary recently built along the back wall. Inside, dozens of exotic birds—cockatoos, parrots, macaws, African grays, and snow-white canaries—cackled out to me from artificial roosts. They’d been singing, but they changed their tunes as I approached, uncertain if I were friend or foe. To give them time to adjust to me, I stopped near an exhibit. A stuffed ocelot hung from a tree, its bared fangs inches
above a terrified brown bunny, which lay belly-up, recognizable only by its long, innocent ears. “I know how you feel, little fella,” I said. A waterfall trickled down the wall behind the display. To the right was an artificial tortoise pond—dry, still, and full of pebbles. To the left was a café table with two ornate fan chairs, cobra-backed and shadowed by palm trees. Near it, a single raven had been shackled by one leg to a standing perch.

“Hello, in there.” I dragged the bag of seed to the aviary doors and wiped my brow. “Aren’t all of you something?” Propping open the door, I climbed into the big cage, pulling the bag behind me, and used a half shell I’d rescued from the tortoise pond to scoop seed from the bag into small cups hanging on wires. To my surprise, I quite enjoyed the experience. A rose-breasted cockatoo pecked at my hand and the sight of bird excretion was a bit hard to bear, but having said this I must admit that the bright plumage of the parrots lifted my heart, as did the lilting songs of the finches and the canaries. Even the raven pleased me. His ebony feathers gave him a most dignified appearance, and his claws—spindly and sharp—made my own hands look soft and fleshy by comparison. When I heard the bells alerting the staff that the Museum was about to open, I hurried through my remaining tasks with a bit of regret.