The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno: A Novel (7 page)

Barnum plunked down behind his desk and studied me silently. I swallowed hard, pulling my jacket closed to avoid feeling any more exposed than I already did. What on earth had I been thinking to
come here for help? I tried to steady my nerves by staring at the heavy wood cabinet that stood behind Barnum’s desk, but once I recalled the rumors that behind its closed doors were things so risqué Barnum would never exhibit them, all I could imagine was some future self of mine, dried, mounted, and stuffed inside it. So I concentrated instead on the sign carved in black teak hanging above his desk:
NO INTOXICATING DRINKS ALLOWED. DRINK IS THE DEVIL’S LUBRICANT
!

His voice made me jump. “How long has it been since I’ve had the pleasure, Mr. Fortuno?”

“A few months, sir.”

“That long, is it? I hope everything is going well for you. Have your shows been doing all right? You’ve certainly held your own in the past.”

Buoyed by the compliment, I dared to speak my mind.

“I need new tights, Mr. Barnum. I can’t go onstage like this. It’s a disgrace.” I shoved my leg forward, the thighbone catching the lamplight. “Half the women in New York nearly fainted this evening from fear of seeing my personal bits. Can you imagine one of your best performers being seen in such a sad manner?”

Barnum didn’t even bother to look at my costume, just tapped his broad fingertips against the top of his desk. “I seem to remember you asking for shoes at the beginning of the year.”

“Shoes?” I glanced down at the very shoes to which he referred, specially made with two inches of cotton batting inside to protect the bones of my feet. I’d forgotten about the shoes. “Yes, but I needed these. You can’t ask someone like me to stand all day in normal shoes. I would die of pain.”

Barnum seemed to be enjoying my discomfort. With me, he always had the upper hand.

“My costume is in tatters, and Thaddeus is worse than no help at all. He actually drew the audience’s attention to my torn costume. I can’t imagine you’d condone such disrespect, and I told him so!” My mouth went dry. What in the world was I doing? I’d not intended to bring up Thaddeus, though now that I had, I supposed that I should argue my case well. “He needs a formal reprimand.”

Barnum half smiled at me and stretched back in his chair, the leather creaking with his movement. “And did you put this complaint against Thaddeus in writing?” he asked.

“No, of course not. It just happened tonight. But I did . . .” I fumbled in my pocket for my argument list.

“And no appointment either. I don’t make exceptions, Fortuno. Surely you have learned that by now.”

“Then why make an exception for the new act?” I couldn’t believe I’d said that, and I gritted my teeth, ready for him to toss me out of his office.

Barnum seemed to swell up before my eyes, but before I could flee, he relaxed.

“Have a seat, Fortuno. You look uncomfortable.” He nodded toward the stuffed chintz armchair behind me, and I exhaled in one short puff. The moment I sat, I smelled roses again. Perfume, perhaps?

“Why would you think there’s a new act?” Barnum let loose with one of his famous smiles, the one that spread across his face like a rising sun, and now I knew I was in trouble.

“I caught a glimpse of her when she first arrived. And I believe she was here a moment ago, sitting in this very chair.”

I shifted in my seat. Neither of us said a word as St. Paul’s bells chimed once for half past eleven. Barnum stared down at me, a hawk eyeing a mouse in the middle of an open field.

“Refresh my memory. You started with Van Amburgh, didn’t you?”

“I did, sir. Three years with one of his traveling menageries, then two more years with John Bindy.” Where, I wondered, was he going with this line of questioning?

“Ah, yes, my friend Mr. Bindy. Seems to me I plucked you from his clutches, did I not? And in none too good a shape, if I recall. Bindy was such a quack. How was he to work for?”

“Absolutely horrid. He dressed me in spangles and stuck me in the lions’ den as a taunt to the big cats.”

Barnum threw back his head and laughed.

“I lived in utter fear, Mr. Barnum, I really did. And then Bindy coupled me with a young Hungarian named Josip, a famous funambulist.”
I was talking too much and knew it, but there was something about Barnum that loosened a man’s tongue.

“What was his last name, this Josip? I remember Bindy lost a drunk from the wires a few years ago. Fell to his death. Made a terrible mess of the ring.”

“Rigó, sir. Josip Rigó. We were a pair, early on, me in black tights painted with bones and Josip all in white dancing along a skinny wire, then coming down to earth to kneel at an altar in the center of the tent. As soon as Josip was deep in prayer, I’d sprint across the ring, sawdust flying, crowd yelling, and crawl up his back like a crab. He’d pretend not to feel my arms flung around his chest, while the audience yelled out, “Behind you, behind you!” and I’d lift a hand, shake a skull rattle, and glower. Then up the slanted rope we’d go. You should have seen me. Though I was much younger then. Couldn’t do such a thing anymore, of course. And I was covered in bruises from the contact. Painful days, to be certain.”

Barnum was still smiling. “Not a bad thing to have employees who understand how good they have it here with me. And if memory serves, you’ve been of service to me in the past, Fortuno.”

I flushed in satisfaction. “You mean the sisters, sir?”

A few years back, Barnum had gotten himself into an awkward situation with a family of aerialists, three young sisters who barely spoke English but could tie themselves in knots or fly through the air like silver swallows.

It happened at night, in the middle of winter. Normally, I’d have been in my rooms at such a late hour, but I couldn’t sleep, so I’d been sitting halfway down the Grand Staircase sketching. I heard someone clear his throat and when I looked up, Barnum stood above me.

“Fortuno, I need a favor.”

I sprang to my feet. “Of course, sir. Whatever you say.”

He gazed down the stairs to the ground floor at the last of departing crowd. “The acrobats,” he said. “The little girls.” His voice was low, and his half-closed eyes emitted a piercing intensity.

“What about them, sir?”

Barnum motioned for me to follow him, and we climbed the stairs together. At the top, he nodded across the Atrium toward the windows flanking the bank of doors leading into the Moral Lecture Room. The light of a full moon shone coldly through the glass, casting blue light across the white marble floors.

“That’s the Wolf Moon shining in,” he said, and shook his head as if he had shared some great and ponderous mystery. “The most beautiful moon of all.”

Before I had a chance to comment, the sisters fluttered out of one of the Moral Lecture Room doors, together as usual, the eldest no more than fifteen, the twins maybe three years younger. Giggling and hopping about in tinsel-covered costumes, they looked like sprites.

Barnum locked his eyes on the girls. “Listen to me,” he hissed, the words forced from the side of his mouth. “Go to the eldest and tell her I wish to see her one more time, but only once more. Do you understand? Send her to the Ballroom. I’ll be waiting.”

“Forgive my cheekiness, but why not tell her yourself, sir?”

“The walls have eyes, and I can no longer be seen speaking to them. I need you to deliver my message. And Fortuno, be discreet, if you can manage it.”

This comment insulted me, but I nodded and walked across the floor, realigning my cravat. When I reached them, all three girls tensed but held their ground. “Guinevere.” I acknowledged the eldest with a nod of my chin. She pulled herself away from the other two and sauntered toward me. Her heart-shaped face had a fey boyish quality, but her body, despite its youth, already looked well traveled. “I have a message from Mr. Barnum for you.”

“What does he want?” Her heavily accented voice hinted of both laziness and anticipation. She wore a headdress of tin and cut glass, and it jingled when she moved.

After I delivered Barnum’s short message, Guinevere smiled slyly. She glanced over her shoulder toward her sisters, who rested on each other like fairy vixens, shiny and wicked and so very small. Her headdress caught rays of the moonlight and bounced them along the marble
floor as she nodded for her sisters to wait. And then, to my amazement, she placed her hands on the top of her tunic. Slowly and deliberately, she pulled the sleeve down, exposing her bare shoulder, then lower yet, until I could almost see the top of her white, budding breast. Turning, the girl walked toward the Ballroom with a roll of her girlish hips. When she got to the main doors, a booted foot from inside pushed the doors open, and in she went. The twins scurried away, leaving wisps of patchouli in their wake. That was it, the last any of us ever saw of them. The very next day, all three had left in a flurry.

Barnum tipped back in his chair, its springs squeaking for lack of oil, and lit a cigar. The office had grown quite warm, and I coughed as the end of his cigar puffed red and let out a smoke cloud that filled up my nose and throat.

“I must say,” Barnum said, “you proved trustworthy in that case. Never said a word, least not that I ever heard. So maybe we have taken on a new act, maybe we haven’t. But old Barnum has something he needs done again.” For a moment, I couldn’t see his face through the smoke. “Perhaps you could do him a good turn in exchange for that new pair of tights.”

“What kind of favor would it be, if I may ask?”

Barnum laughed hardily. “Nothing much, Fortuno. I simply need you to pick something up for me on Thursday afternoon in Chinatown.”

My breath caught in my chest, then broke into words. “Chinatown? That’s not the neighborhood I’d choose for a stroll. And in the afternoon, you say?” I dabbed at my neck with the back of my coat sleeve, and then forced myself to stop. “I have a show to do, you know. Why not send Mr. Fish? It’s his kind of errand, after all.”

“Busy,” Barnum mumbled. “Much too busy.”

“Then someone from the household staff? Surely, any of them could fetch for you, sir. Because I rarely go out in public.”

“This is a discreet assignment, Fortuno. Not just anyone will do. It will take an hour at most, and I’ll see to it that your shows are covered for an afternoon. If you will do this for me, I’ll see to those tights of yours.” He winked at me in a gesture of camaraderie.

Doing favors for Barnum always had a slightly disagreeable air, but fetching a parcel sounded like a respectable task. It would be worth the trouble just to see the expression on Thaddeus’s face when he saw my new tights. For a moment, I considered asking for a poster as extra compensation but decided I had better not press my advantage.

“Whatever happened in the end with those acrobats?” I asked him.

Barnum gifted me with the full force of his smile again, but rather than answer, he pulled a sack full of coins from his desk drawer. He scribbled an address and a rough map on a piece of paper and then painstakingly etched out three foreign figures at the bottom. He put the paper into the sack and made his way around the desk toward me.

I stood.

“The map will tell you where to go,” he said, pressing the bag into my hand. “I will set up an appointment for Thursday. Try to be there at four o’clock sharp. The shopkeeper’s name is Mr. Lee. Give him the paper and the money and bring what he gives you directly to me. You’re a good lad, Fortuno. You won’t regret helping out an old man like me.”

“And Thaddeus?”

“Don’t worry yourself about him. Barnum never forgets a good turn.”

W
HEN I TOLD
M
ATINA ABOUT MY PRI
vate conversation with Barnum, she invited me to her rooms for tea. “What exactly did he say?” She stopped at her door and rearranged the things she carried: a large box of pastries, a parasol, and a fresh bag of black tea. The afternoon sun shone through the windows and drew long rectangles along the hallway walls.

“That I should go to see a Chinaman next week. Thursday, to be exact.”

“Not about the assignment, silly man, what did he say about
you
.” She balanced ever so lightly against me—a mountain on a tree—as I opened her door.

“The first thing he did was ask about my days with Van Amburgh and Bindy. He assured me that I’d done the right thing in coming to work at the Museum.”

“Well, now, that’s an understatement. Everyone knows John Bindy was a terrible man.” Matina tossed her parasol on the floor and dropped her packages on the round entrance table with legs carved like rococo flowers and fruit. “What else did he say?”

“He called me trustworthy. Said the assignment required a special sort of man.”

“A special sort of man?” She cocked an eyebrow. “I’m proud of you, Barthy, Mr. Barnum singling you out like this.”

“I could hardly have said no,” I answered, but we both knew how easily I might have refused. I liked my routine.

Matina popped wood in her small four-o’clock stove, lit it, and put a kettle full of water on top.

“Now,” she said, plunking the pastries down between us and settling into the chair across from me. “Tell me more about this new act haggling with Barnum. What else can you remember? What color were her skirts? Her gloves? You can tell a lot by the style of gloves a woman wears.”

“White gloves with pearl buttons. Blue skirts, perhaps. Or maybe brown.”

“Brown skirts in the spring? Never.” Matina fluffed up her own pink dress. “And to be unescorted in Barnum’s office at such a late hour. A bit disreputable, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps, but she bested Barnum every step of the way.”

Matina smiled and piled three éclairs onto her dessert plate. “A little challenge might do our Mr. Barnum good, don’t you think? What exactly did she say to him?”

I recounted what I could, including how Barnum was clearly waiting for some kind of answer from the new act, and that she had him by the short hairs. When the kettle began to whistle, Matina lifted the pot by wrapping a greasy cotton rag around its handle. A thin stream of perspiration rolled down her neck, disappearing into the abyss of her cleavage. Without comment, I bent forward and pushed the windows open, letting in the breeze. She gave me an appreciative look.