OUR FORTUNES continued to fade. Last summer was the worst any of us could remember. Some days we had only eight or ten customers, some days no one appeared at the museum. My father had not yet come up with his plan for a monster that would galvanize New York, but he was planning all the same. That fall was cold and dark. The leaves in November clung to the trees, then shivered into the streets. One evening after supper, after Maureen had left for the day, everything changed. Perhaps I lost my faith that night. Certainly I lost my innocence. The Professor told me to bathe, not in the tub upstairs where I usually took my baths, but in my tank.
We were forced to close two weeks early, for we couldn’t afford to pay the living wonders. They needed to retreat to their off-season lives. Some would travel with circuses in Florida, others moved in with family members in Queens County or New Jersey, some remained in their cramped quarters in Coney Island, where they did their best to survive the winter. Once the season was officially over and our windows were shuttered, we only went past the velvet curtains that divided our home from the museum in order to feed the animals and birds in their cages. At the time we had a small baby goat with two faces that was billed as the Devil’s Pet. We kept him outside tied with a rope to the pear tree until there was ice on his hooves. Then we brought him inside, tied to the kitchen sink during the day, in the cellar in the evenings. But he lasted only a few weeks, and the liveryman buried him out in the yard.
My father’s demand on this evening was so strange that I faced him, and, with all the courage I had, I asked why he wanted me to go to my tank. He ignored me and told me to hurry. As always, I did as he requested. That is not to say I did not hesitate. When the museum was closed to the public, there was an eerie cast to the rooms. I made my way through the curtains into the chilly exhibition hall. The tank where I was displayed had been uncovered, and in the gloom the water appeared murky. When my father came to check on me, I was standing in my long muslin undergarments, shivering, so puzzled by his request I had not yet obeyed. I could hear the tortoise slowly pacing in its pen, as well as the chatter of parrots and cooing doves. There was the soft fluttering sound of the wings of the many tropical birds we kept. Some would die of the cold in the winter months, and the most delicate ones would be taken into the parlor, their cages set near the fireplace so that they might manage to survive. Maureen always complained there were too many feathers to sweep up, but when no one was looking she fed the birds nuts and seeds that she bought at the market with her own shopping money.
My father told me I must quickly remove every stitch and get into the tank. I noticed he had recently poured a few thimbles of India ink into the water so that it might look fresh, and that my breathing tube, usually packed in cotton batting for the winter, had been reinserted.
“Do you understand all we do is theater?” he said. “What is real to our audience is mere show for us, and what is done here is no different than what actors do upon a stage. Remember that tonight.”
When he left the room, I did as I was told, dropping into the water.
I had an inkling that the events about to unfold would change my current outlook and my life, and yet I would have to pretend as if they had never happened. I had a fleeting thought that because of our failing finances my father might wish to drown me and be rid of me. As it turned out, that was not the case.
When my father returned he had three gentlemen with him, although gentlemen was clearly not the correct term. These three wore bowler hats and black coats, and one of them carried a cane. I dove to the bottom of the tank and wrapped my arms around myself to hide my nakedness. I was so mortified I thought I might pass out. I nearly forgot to take a gulp of air from the breathing tube and was close to fainting, but my father tapped on the glass and gestured for me to swim and pose. I told myself I was in a dream, and the men in the room were figments of my imagination. They began to cheer when I moved through the water, exposing myself, and soon enough they grew rowdy. I heard the echo of their delight, and I could see one of them make a rude motion to me. The men were drinking, and my father pulled up chairs so they could make themselves comfortable during their viewing. They were so close to the glass I imagined I could feel the heat of their cravings. I hadn’t known it was possible to cry while underwater, but it was. Still, it was a dream. The men in the room weren’t real to me.
When they had gone, my father rapped again on the glass to indicate that he was leaving the room as well. It was a signal that I would now have privacy so that I might exit the tank and cover myself once more. After such a violation, I did not know how to proceed with my modest life. I thought for a moment of not rising to the surface. It occurred to me that it might be best to leave my existence, and all the woes to come. But I learned it was not so easy to drown oneself. My spirit revealed its desire to live. I came up gasping, wanting air. I climbed out of the tank, my breathing ragged. I was still sopping as I pulled on my undergarments. I felt so alone that I went to the tortoise’s enclosure and stepped over the low wall to sit in the sand beside my old friend. I was no different than this beast, a captive. I wondered if on cold nights in Brooklyn the tortoise wept and hungered for another world, if it didn’t view its long life as a curse.