The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno: A Novel (43 page)

W
ITHOUT IELL
, I couldn’t bring myself to climb to the roof with the rest of the guests for the party’s fireworks finale. So as everyone poured out of the theater and up the stairs, I went the other way. Fresh air was what I needed, and the closest place to find it was on the large balcony opposite the Ballroom. It felt good to part the musty curtains and slide through them into the night.

The stars sparkled. On the far end of the balcony, the outdoor band was finishing up, playing their final song at full tilt for the crowds below. The musicians tipped side to side like windup toys, one player
teetering on top of his chair, his fiddle pressed low across his chest as he scrubbed across the front of it with an almost unstrung bow. Down in the middle of Broadway, a handful of bonfires raged, and the crowd, their upturned faces childlike and full of awe, clapped to the band’s final flurry. Bravos went up to encourage an encore, but the musicians were done. They gathered their instruments and wandered past me, leaving me alone in the hot night air.

Above me, the sound of partygoers tramping out onto the roof made me sigh. What an evening it had been. What a week. What a summer. Fourth of July. A popping sound startled me into looking across the street as a multicolored whirl of light came charging forward. It was a pinwheel tied to a rope between the top spire of St. Paul and the street, a precursor to the fireworks. As it came whirling down like a falling star and burst into flame, a memory shook loose in my mind.

I was sitting in my mother’s lap, watching a star shoot across the night sky.

“Can the sky fall, Mummy?” I clung to the bodice of her dress, and her lips moved, but I couldn’t make out her words. The hour was late. We were waiting for my father to come home. We sat for what felt like hours, until finally we heard the whinny of a horse in the distance.

A hand clutching my upper arm drew me back to the present. It took a moment of looking around the balcony before I realized where I was. My head hurt.

“Slick ol’ Stickman!”

Ricardo dangled by his legs from the upper balcony’s railing, his fingers plowing into my arm as he stretched down toward me like a lumpy snake.

“Take your hands off me!” I swung at Ricardo and he grabbed my fist, but his grip slipped and his body snapped together with such force that he tumbled from above onto the stone balcony in front of me. I looked down at his inert body. “Ricardo?” I called loudly, worried that he’d knocked himself unawares. With a snap, his eyes slit open, and he coiled an arm around my leg. The weight of him rooted me to the spot, and I willed myself not to panic.

“Barnum’s wife wants to see you one more time.”

Above, lighting up the sky, a huge green-and-blue firework broke, and the crowd let loose a raucous cheer.

“You may tell Mrs. Barnum that I’ve no wish to be involved in her affairs. I am done with her.” I shook my leg, and Ricardo’s arm slid from me like an eel off a stick.

From the shadows came a voice. “I’m afraid you are already involved, Mr. Fortuno,” Mrs. Barnum said.

She pushed through the curtains onto the semidark balcony, her figure backlit by the lights from inside the Museum. She looked small and glittering in her silk dress, one thin hand clasping her cane.

“Forgive my rudeness,” I said, “but I really must go. I’ve got other obligations.”

“Ah, yes, obligations. It’s nice to see
someone
in this Museum thinks about such things.” Mrs. Barnum moved toward me, the tip of her cane clinking against the stone floor. Another explosion of color: sky bursts of red and white tumbling into fragments, followed by a rotten egg smell that stung my nose and made my eyes tear up. For a moment, I worried that panic would overwhelm me, but I slipped my hand into my pocket and touched the root. I’d no reason to fear Mrs. Barnum anymore. I’d already decided to leave this place. What could the old woman threaten me with?

A boom of gunpowder shook the floor of the balcony, and a golden fireball illuminated the sky and outlined the empty chairs from the band a few feet away. Ricardo hopped up on one of the chairs and started to dance about as if he’d caught on fire.

Mrs. Barnum waited for a lull in the explosives before turning to Ricardo. “You may go now, young man, and if you wish to keep that mangy animal of yours, say nothing about this meeting to my husband.”

Ricardo stopped. “So I can keep my little Poke, like you promised?”

“We’ll talk about that later, lad.”

“Not later. I helped you, and you said—”

Mrs. Barnum rapped her cane on the ground, dismissing him.
Ricardo’s face fell, and for the second time, I caught sight of the little boy hiding beneath his arrogant façade. Had his gift hidden his true self instead of revealing it? I had a strong urge to tell him that he didn’t have to stay in the Museum—that another life was possible—but out he went, a thin shaft of light from inside cutting across the balcony when he pushed through the balcony curtains.

When the curtain swung shut, the night swallowed us up again.

Mrs. Barnum turned to face me, her eyes now dulled and tired. “Let’s sit for a moment, shall we?” She picked her way across the hard stone floor to where the brass band had played and sat down on a wooden chair, pulling her cane across her lap. I stood in front of her.

“You should understand, madam, that I take my commitments seriously, even when coerced into making them. For example, I did what you asked me to do the last time we met. I delivered your message to Iell. If she has declined your offer, it’s not my doing.”

Mrs. Barnum looked up into the sky, where wisps of smoke had already covered half the stars. “Who said she declined my offer?”

Her words jerked me back to reality like a fish on a hook.

“Mrs. Adams,” Mrs. Barnum went on, “has all but accepted my offer, Mr. Fortuno. I thought you should know that. She has come to see me a number of times to work out the details. Only today, in fact, we shared tea and had a nice little chat. Rather a pleasant person, despite her peculiarities.”

My heart tumbled. So that’s why I’d been turned out into the street this morning. But it didn’t make sense. Iell would have told me if she was negotiating with Mrs. Barnum. Maybe this was what Mr. Barnum had meant about not interfering. My head felt full of air.

“Where is she thinking of resettling?” I forced myself to ask.

“Have you heard of the Ivory Tower?”

“You mean the private club?” Again, I was taken aback. “It’s not even a showplace.”

“No, but its clientele is very, very wealthy.” Mrs. Barnum slipped her hands around her cane and gripped it tight. “Although your Mrs. Adams is—how to say this—an acquired taste, I can see no limit to
the fees she can garner as a private performer. I have all but convinced her to accept a place with them. But there’s one small problem.”

“What is that, madam?”

“You, Mr. Fortuno.”

A hiss from above set off a Roman candle, which wheezed haphazardly into the crowd below, followed by howling.

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ve seen her type before, you know. Brave and self-possessed on the outside but without the kind of support that matters in the long run. And it’s a callous world. You must know this. Especially for someone like her. If she’s smart—and she’s smart enough—she’d better find herself some security. I’ve offered her that possibility, and she will accept it for what it is: her salvation. Unless she thinks she has another way out.” She paused for a moment, eyeing me skeptically. “Mr. Fortuno, she seems to think that you might be able to provide for her.”

Of course I would provide for her. But if she’d already decided to be with me, why had she been putting me off all night?

Mrs. Barnum cleared her throat. “Iell will leave here tomorrow, Mr. Fortuno. She will join the Ivory Tower and be better off for it in the end. And if you try to dissuade her or help her in any way, I will not only see that her offer is withdrawn but will also make certain that no other establishment in our profession ever takes her on. Or you, Mr. Fortuno. I warn you. Step aside.”

Using her cane to steady herself, Mrs. Barnum shifted and stood. I did not assist her. We both waited through another volley of thunderous color. Her self-assurance made me doubt myself.

“And what if I go to your husband. Tell him what you are doing?”

Mrs. Barnum’s face softened. “Can’t you see Phineas’s hand behind all this? He thinks she’ll run away with you. After you go, he can pretend that the problem has been solved. He’ll wait on the sideline as the two of you try to manage, but it won’t take long. You are no more able to care for yourself than she is, so the two of you will struggle, and she’ll grow discontent. That is when Phineas will swoop in and make his own private arrangements for her. He thinks I don’t understand
this, but he’s not the only one with a bit of foresight. I want her working in an establishment strong enough to take on her problems, and an establishment not connected with me. Stay out of it, Mr. Fortuno. Save her while you can.”

“I think we will surprise you, madam.”

Nothing else was said. Mrs. Barnum left me. For a moment I felt so light and inconsequential that I thought I might float away, but knowing I had the root in my pocket reassured me. What Mrs. Barnum didn’t know was that I could change. That I had already begun to transform. The problem of Iell’s opium still had to be solved, and I’d have to find new employment very soon. But I could find work. I could care for us both. All I needed to do was keep eating.

I pulled out the root and took the smallest bite, and as I chewed, I pictured myself full-bodied. Yes. All would be well. I’d go to the Chinaman next week and purchase another root, and then, for certain, I could see to Iell just fine.

“What are you eating?” Emma stood in the doorway, swinging a lantern in front of her.

“Nothing,” I said, shocked to see her. I shoved the root into its bag and into my pocket.

Emma frowned, coming closer and lifting the lantern until its light shone in my face. I looked away. The sky burst open with a final flurry of fireworks, and try as I might to ignore it, again I saw that falling star. Then a darker memory from an earlier time. My mother’s voice. “Hold the lantern still.” There we were, my mother and me, hunched in the kitchen of our cottage, my arm shaking from the strain of holding a lantern over our heads as she ground mushroom-covered bark into powder and then poured it slowly into a glass jar she kept on the windowsill. “Watch the door,” she said. “If he comes in, blow out the light.”

“Fortuno?” Emma’s voice pulled me back into our conversation. She eyeballed me. “Are you all right?”

I tried to shake my head clear. What was happening to me?

“Fortuno!” she said again.

“Yes, yes. What are you doing out here?”

She surprised me by chucking me gently under the chin. “I wanted to see how you fared with Mrs. Barnum.” From the smell of Emma’s breath, she’d been drinking something stronger than champagne.

“It might be a cruel world,” I said, defiant now, “but I think I can manage without her help.”

“You know,” Emma said gruffly, “I didn’t think you had it in you to stand up against her. What’s different about you, Fortuno? I can’t put my finger on it, but it suits you. It’s too bad you’re spoken for.”

Emma held up the lantern again, and I shoved it away. “I didn’t think men held much interest for you.”

“Oh, no, I like men just fine.” Emma leaned down, too close. “Unfortunately, so does Iell. I think she would have been better off with me in the long run, but she seems to think you understand her. That worries me a wee bit.”

I could hear the racket of partygoers tumbling down the stairs toward the Ballroom, most likely windblown and starry-eyed.

“Whatever are you talking about?”

Emma narrowed her eyes and stayed silent for a moment. Then she said, “Maybe you should go and see for yourself. There’s a special room downstairs, in the East Wing cellar. Why not go there right now and let
her
clarify things for you.”

Lantern held high, Emma staggered away, mumbling, “He that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.”

I
MADE MY WAY BACK INSIDE THE MUSEUM,
walking through the revelers like a man in a dream. The orchestra had moved to the Ballroom, and I could hear them warming up. Birds that had escaped from the Moral Lecture Room flew above us in a world that now smelled of champagne and sweat and sulfur. I made it to the Grand Staircase and looked down the polished steps.

How simple it would be to stay in the light, to linger in the Ballroom until dawn with the rest of the guests, swaying to the sounds of the dusky waltzes. Perhaps I could laugh away my exchange with Emma. After all, she’d never shown any interest in my well-being before, and I knew she had aligned herself with Mrs. Barnum. Or I could go directly to Barnum and tell him about his wife’s threats. It was possible that he didn’t know about Mrs. Barnum’s private arrangement with Iell and would be grateful to have such news. Whatever it was that Iell was doing in the cellars, it was her own business.

But no. If Iell and I were to be together, there could be no secrets between us. I took the stairs one step at a time, and the first floor rose to meet me. Now that the guests were up on the roof, the inner recesses of the Museum were all but deserted. My footsteps echoed through the quiet hallways. For a moment I swore I saw Iell far in front of me, her silver dress glimmering in the dim light like a lost star, but it was only the moonlight through the windows as it fell across the parquet floors. On I went, weaving through the statues in the Waxworks Room, then past the Arboretum, empty now of birds. The door to the
Yellow Room stood open, so I ducked in for a moment. Iell’s pedestal looked less substantial in the darkened room, a shadow rather than a solid object.

As soon as I reached the door to the East Wing cellar, my hands began to sweat. A breeze drifted in from behind me, and I thought about turning around. But at the base of the door, a strip of light served as a beacon. I gave the door a good shove, and it creaked open onto a short stairway lined with candles, one on each step. Paraffin smoke curled up to greet me. Barnum would have a fit if he knew open candles burned in the cellars, what with the recent fires.