The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno: A Novel (22 page)

I flushed and looked away. “I’ve spoken to your husband only a handful of times, and I barely know this other person.” How in the world did she know I’d traveled to the Chinaman’s for Iell? Emma must have told her. Who else would have known? But if that were true, Emma was not in cahoots with Barnum, but rather with his wife. And what was I to do now? Not five minutes before, I’d promised Iell that I would go to the Chinaman’s again.

Mrs. Barnum ran a dry thumb along the edge of her chair. “You have no doubt heard that we plan to assess the resident space.”

“Excuse me?”

“Some of us might have to pull in our belts. Share our quarters with the transient performers. I trust that you and your colleagues will make do, if necessary, with such an arrangement, but you’ve been with us for such a long time. I’d hate to see your living accommodations compromised by practical needs.”

I rose to my feet, avoiding the urge to shove my hands in my pockets so that she wouldn’t see them shaking.

“I believe I should say good day to you now,” I said.

“Relax, Mr. Fortuno.” Mrs. Barnum smiled, revealing too many teeth. When she reached for my hand, I backed away, but she took it anyway and patted the top like a mother. “I’m simply asking you not to insert yourself where you’re not needed.”

Using my arm to steady herself, she stood, and at full height her head was no higher than the middle of my chest. Her sharp chin tilted up at me and her papery fingers continued to stroke my hand. “I can see from the look on your face that you’re much too clever to risk what you have, so I think our talk has been fruitful.” She released me. I had been warned and dismissed.

There was Fish, silently nodding toward the exit. He turned me out into the street with barely a word. I all but ran back to the Museum.

A
BRIGHT BLUE PARROT FLEW AT ME AS
I unlatched the aviary door. I grabbed the broom and flourished it until it flapped back inside and perched on a branch of the acacia tree.

“It’s going to take more than squawking to break free from me, little one.” I held out my arm in front of the bird, and it hopped on. “I’m going to name you Arrow,” I said, and fastening the door behind me, I set him onto one of the perches. He tilted his head and watched as I scooped seed into the food cups, but I lost control of the sack and seed poured out onto the floor. “And now look,” I complained to the bird. “Do you see this mess?” He flapped his wings. “Proof that we can’t always control our world.”

God knows my last two days had illustrated
that
clearly enough. Matina had barely spoken to me since Brady’s. She simply wasn’t herself anymore. So emotional. So irrational. She was obviously jealous of Iell, but—one kiss aside—I had never promised Matina anything more than a friendship. With her acting like this, I could hardly ask for counsel, though I’d never needed it more. I felt the specter of Mrs. Barnum looming over me like a damned storm cloud. The memory of her patting the top of my hand made me shudder, and I grabbed the broom and swatted at the seed to get her out of my head. Perhaps I should tell Iell I’d changed my mind.

I dug into my pocket and pulled out the bag with the Chinaman’s root. I’d taken to carrying it around with me lately, finding it reassuring
to know I had it on hand in case I needed it. I’d begun to worry that, eventually, the root would be gone, though for now there was plenty left. I took a little bite and thought again about Iell. Never had a woman elicited such a response in me. There had been a girl once, Mary Louise Daley. She was dark-eyed and pale-skinned, and my pulse raced as she took my hand and tugged me into her kitchen pantry.

Stop thinking of such things
, I told myself.
Focus on the task at hand
. But once I’d remembered Mary Louise’s long dark hair, it was hard to put her out of my mind.

I was living with my uncle then in a little town in northern Pennsylvania. Mary Louise, fifteen or so—no more than a year older than I—lived with her mother in a small white house near the barbershop. I could still see her face in my mind: round, with an adorable dimple in her chin. She had a long neck, which disappeared into the top of her cotton dress, and shiny black hair.

We’d exchanged shy glances for weeks until one afternoon, with barely a word, Mary Louise pulled me behind the pantry door. Her mother, she said, was off selling yarn in Mason’s dry goods store. My palms went sweaty as she put her hands on the small of my back and leaned into my neck. Her breath smelled like peaches. Our touches were hasty and blind, all knobs and knees and heavy panting. At the feel of her small breasts, I became so elated I could barely breathe. But then I realized how grave a sin I was committing. My mother had taught me that self-mastery was the most vital of virtues, and now that she’d been hospitalized it was more important than ever to stay in control and set my own course in life. I pulled away from Mary Louise. She clung to me for a moment, but when I persisted, her hands dropped to her sides, and she gave me a puzzled look.

It wasn’t long after that encounter that my gift manifested itself. Ever since my father died, I’d had little appetite. For years, I’d treated food as a shameful necessity. But after touching Mary Louise, the very sight of food nauseated me. Sitting at my uncle’s table, an image of Mary Louise’s soft flesh arose when his housekeeper urged turnip pie
on me; for a moment I was ravenous, but then it was all I could do not to vomit. “Come along now, hon, are you ill? Take a little bite or two.” How could I explain the fact that my stomach now turned at the sight of a potato, a hunk of cheese, meat, bread, nearly anything at all? The mere idea of a soup or a stew threw me into convulsions. And if I tried to disregard my aversions and force even a morsel to my mouth, I could hear my mother’s whisper in my ear, urging me to control my impulses, and the sound of her voice stopped me cold.

For months after that, the only food I kept down was green beans or berries. And yet, despite my lack of sustenance, I started to grow taller. Uncle Frederick said nothing when I sprouted up like a weed, but when it was clear that I was putting on no extra weight, he took me aside, shaking my arm roughly.

“What’s wrong with you, boy?” Uncle Frederick scolded. “Whatever you’re doing, I want you to stop.”

But I couldn’t stop. I had no choice in the matter. Children from neighboring houses began to taunt me, calling me Spindleshanks or Spider. Finally, when it became clear that my new tall body was not going to flesh out, my uncle dragged a mattress upstairs and arranged it in the corner of the slanted garret, suggesting I might enjoy the solitude. He was either embarrassed by me or thought I was touched. Either way, he separated me from the family. The housekeeper continued to bring me three meals a day, but except for a bite or two, I threw the food out the window for the dogs. Still, the situation was not all bad. My stomach sometimes cramped with hunger, and I often felt lightheaded, but each day the sun poured through the south-facing windows, burning off the chill of evening, and each night the dark delivered me into a deep, dreamless sleep.

And then one morning, I got up off my mattress, opened the door to pick up my food tray, and had a fleeting image of my mother walking toward me, a bowl of steaming soup in hand. I fainted straight away. Hours later, I opened my eyes. The sun had moved all the way across the room by then, and numbness covered me like a blanket. The
song of the nuthatches, usually a delight, bored through my head like spikes, and when I forced myself to sit, my nose began to bleed. I hadn’t even time to reach for a kerchief before a stabbing pain rammed through my belly, doubling me over. The only way to stifle my cries was to cover my mouth with a pillow rammed tight with my fist.

Again my mother’s voice called to me, but this time as soft as an angel’s. “If you control your urges, sweet boy, you will be rewarded.” Suddenly I understood. As swiftly as the pain had come, it lifted. My heart beat normally, and my body felt as light as the late sun washing through the room. I stood and walked to the window. My new body made me special and pure. If I wished to fulfill my destiny, all I had to do was resist temptation. Beans were sufficient. And the Mary Louises in the world? What need had I for such blind and groping impulses? Outside, a brand-new world awakened: crisp, translucent.

I had always cherished this memory of the day my gift was delivered to me. But today, something about the memory didn’t ring true. A feeling that I’d misremembered it threatened to unnerve me until I put it from my mind. I had work to do. I watched Arrow flap off the branch to join a young, white-breasted hatch I’d named Puff in one corner of the Atrium. His blue feathers looked like the sky to me, clear and sparkly, and I realized how enjoyable caring for these birds was becoming. It took me a few more minutes to finish sweeping the floor, and after clicking the aviary door shut and wishing each bird a good day, I sat at the café table to take a short rest. That’s when I saw the envelope on the table, my name written across the front in a fine hand. My stomach leaped as I looked up and down the aisle, but the messenger had disappeared. I tore the letter open with shaky hands. The card inside smelled of rose water.

She’d signed it with a bold hand:
Iell.
I brought the card to my nose and inhaled. Had she been in the Arboretum and heard me chattering away to the birds like a simpleton?

My fingers trembled as I spread Iell’s note flat in front of me on the table and read it over again. She wanted me to go to the Chinaman’s
tomorrow? Impossible. I would have to sneak out without Mrs. Barnum discovering it, and clearly she had a spy in the house. Someone had told her about my previous trip—I fully suspected Emma, though it could have been anyone. We all depended upon the Barnums’ favor for our livelihood. Nothing less than invisibility would let me sneak out and back undetected. And Iell was boarding uptown. How would I find the time to deliver the Chinaman’s package to her?

I brushed a hand over the pocket where the Chinaman’s root lay hidden and felt a surge of strength. Why did I allow Mrs. Barnum to frighten me so? She herself had called me clever. Surely I was clever enough to help Iell without being discovered. And so what if Mrs. Barnum
did
find me out? If I was discovered, I could tell Mrs. Barnum that her husband put me up to the task. Lord knows I wouldn’t be souring a good marriage. It was common knowledge that the Barnums already mistrusted each other. Pitting husband against wife would be an excellent diversion, should I need to create one. Iell had asked for my help. It simply wouldn’t do to go back on my promise.

At the sound of the opening bells, I rallied and put away the broom, but before I made my way to the Green Room, a sudden urge to relieve my bladder drove me up the stairs and out onto a side balcony rarely used by guests. Streamers flapped limply from the railings, the morning’s mugginess suppressing any hint of breeze. I headed for the public urinal built behind a protective four-foot wall, an innovation installed last year to prevent men from relieving themselves onto the unsuspecting walkers down below. I slipped inside and, holding my fingers to my nostrils against the stench, did my best to think of cool hillsides and mountain streams.

As I exited, I spotted Barnum standing at the far end of the balcony, overlooking Ann Street. I stopped in my tracks. It was never a good sign when Barnum showed up unannounced, but in all probability he had no idea I was there, and his appearance was nothing but happenstance.

Barnum turned and beckoned me forward. “Exactly the man I had hoped to see.”

His face was pinched. Something was definitely awry. I crossed the balcony toward him and followed his gaze over the balcony wall. Down in the street, a couple argued violently. The woman yelled out an obscenity at the top of her lungs and the man hollered something equally as profane, his arms rising in frantic accompaniment.

“Look at them.” Barnum stabbed his chin toward the couple. “Ever fight with a woman like that?”

“No, sir, of course not.”

“You’ve been a bachelor a long time, haven’t you, Fortuno?”

“Yes, sir.” Though taller than Barnum by half a foot, I found myself hunching so as not to overshadow him. He still hadn’t looked at me.

“Ever consider marriage, then?”

“No, sir.” Rubbing my hands together did not stop them from shaking, so I interlaced my fingers and squeezed. Whatever was he driving at?

“Despite how it sometimes appears, marriage is a fine institution. Keeps a man strong. It’s loneliness that makes a man weak, Fortuno. Makes him susceptible to temptation.”

I looked slant-eyed at Barnum’s profile. Had he seen Iell’s note? I reached into my pocket and fingered the end of the card. No, no. Impossible. I’d just seen the note myself.

“I know my wife spoke with you at Brady’s,” he said, without turning.

“Your wife?” My breath caught in my throat.

“Come now. You don’t think you’re my only cohort, do you? She took you aside at the photography studio and spoke to you privately, and from my experience that means trouble.” Barnum’s shoulders sank unnaturally down into the bulk of his barrel chest. He looked exhausted.