Four

To Guillaudeu’s dismay Mr. Archer had made himself quite comfortable in the office, even commandeering Guillaudeu’s leather reading chair. As far as he could see, Mr. Archer spent most of the day reading newspapers. This did not particularly bother Guillaudeu, but Mr. Archer tended to exclaim over the day’s news rather loudly, and rather often. Worse, he did not care for clearing the papers away once he finished with them. Mr. Archer had been in the office just four days, but for Guillaudeu, who was accustomed to entire weeks of comfortable silence, this was far too long.

“They say Barnum’s back in New York,” Guillaudeu said. He was arranging the short-eared owl in its final position, sponging soda water carefully onto its plumage to eradicate any residual bloodstains. “He’s gathering some of the staff for lunch today in the Aerial Garden. He may be able to clear up the matter of your office.”

“That’s strange. I heard he was still abroad.”

“Abroad? I thought he had been traveling down the eastern seaboard,” said Guillaudeu. How could Archer know things that he did not?

Mr. Archer abruptly turned toward him. “Would you show me around the museum?”

“Show you around,” Guillaudeu echoed. “Why?”

“If Barnum is indeed back from his travels, and I am to speak to him with any intelligence, I should be familiar with his work.”

“It’s not really his work. He’s only just arrived here. And haven’t you walked around at all?”

“I couldn’t be bothered.” Mr. Archer dismissed the idea with his hand. “It’s too tedious. I would rather have your explanations of the exhibits as accompaniment. That would make all those trips up and down the stairs worthwhile.”

“I can give you half an hour,” said Guillaudeu. “No more than that.”

“Excellent,” Mr. Archer replied, rising from his seat.

The taxidermist looked over at Ornithorhyncus anatinus, where it sat next to the open pages of Cuvier. He had wanted to spend the rest of the morning scrutinizing the specimen and the afternoon mixing resin, linseed oil, and ink into the putty that would form the short-eared owl’s new eye sockets. But more and more often, the museum required that he serve its interest, on its own terms. Or maybe the specimens were simply becoming more challenging. And demanding. Especially the ones with canes.

“I don’t know if we want to start here, Mr. Archer,” Guillaudeu called down the hall when he saw where the ad man was going. “I would really prefer —” But Mr. Archer continued straight past the marble stairway to a set of doors at the far end of the ground-level hall.

“But the waxworks! Surely, with the crowd it draws!” Mr. Archer was already swinging open the door. “The Herald said it was the most impressive new exhibit here. Ah, yes. Here we are.” The men started along the path made by a narrow red rug stretching the length of the dark, wood-paneled gallery. On either side velvet cords ran through brass pedestal guides to keep visitors in the appropriate realm. Guillaudeu hated the wax gallery.

“I’ve always been fond of wax dioramas,” Mr. Archer continued. “Because I’m not always in the mood for statuary, you know. Sculpture has such a conceit. But here” — he waved his cane dangerously — “here the sculptures wear real shoes. You see this? I’ve got a chair just like that at home.” He stopped to read the placard. “John Milton, yes indeed. He did have good taste in chairs. Ha!”

“I just … I don’t mean to be rude but I cannot bear to be in here. I may have to continue upstairs.”

“Why, Mr. Guillaudeu? What do you mean?”

“I practice taxidermy, as you know. I’m concerned with rebuilding a sort of … anima. Not that a mounted creature comes close to its living essence, of course, but I’m interested in a certain grace. The way I see it, whoever created these wax figures was not interested in any sort of … vitality. See here, for example: Milton’s eyes. He’s not looking down at his writing desk, though he’s got a quill in his hand. He’s not ruminating into the distance. His gaze, in fact, is so askance that he seems to be —”

“My dear sir!” Mr. Archer interrupted. “Milton was blind! Of course he’s not looking at anything. But look at this one! THE INTEMPERATE FAMILY.” This unfortunate group was gathered around a rough-hewn table. The unkempt patriarch bent over a jug, while his youngest children cried with empty bowls in front of them. They passed Petrarch, Aristotle, and Queen Victoria.

“This one’s the worst,” Guillaudeu said as they passed the scene of Judas’ betrayal. “Let’s proceed.” He pulled his key ring from his waistcoat pocket. “The small stairwell ahead of us doesn’t open to the public until noon. We can access all floors up to the rooftop garden. Shall we move on?”

Mr. Archer paused in the doorway. “Mr. Guillaudeu, if I may interject. I wonder if we might focus our tour less on your animals and more on … how shall we say … the humanoid elements of Barnum’s collection? I’ve heard about automatons, you see. And —”

“Yes, all right,” Guillaudeu interrupted as they climbed the stairs. Too often visitors passed over the work of the taxidermist simply because they assumed that an animal specimen was less worthy of their scrutiny than some overembellished and underfunctional machine. He hadn’t expected the ad man to be any different, but still it disappointed him.

The wide halls and high-ceilinged galleries of the second floor clattered with visitors. The building’s layout allowed people to flow into each floor’s main galleries from the wide landing that surrounded the central marble stairway. Patrons could also walk from one gallery to the next through arched portals, with smaller doors scattered throughout that detoured into smaller annexes. Some of the annexes then led into additional hallways, which in turn led to even smaller salons. It had taken a long time for Guillaudeu to memorize each floor’s idiosyncratic layout. The second floor was fairly easy, with its nine main galleries and several annexes. The third floor had more numerous, but smaller, galleries and no annexes at all. The fourth floor had so many annexes, salons, and narrow connecting hallways that people always got lost; there were more directional signs on the fourth floor than anywhere else in the museum. The fifth floor had six larger galleries and that was all. As the two men reached the second floor, they observed whole families congregated around the hot- and cold-drink concessionaires. Children rested on benches, and couples strolled and loitered among the exhibits.

Even Guillaudeu understood that Barnum had improved the museum’s general atmosphere. Shortly after his arrival, the new owner had instructed workers to remove the faded velvet draperies that Scudder had hung across the building’s high windows. True, the curtains had protected specimens and other objects from damage by the sun, but they had also created a funereal gloom that could not have been good for business. The windows had been scrubbed; a few had even been opened. Apart from an occasional house sparrow flitting into the building and smashing itself against a glass cabinet, Guillaudeu could find no fault with the sunlit galleries.

But despite the steeply angled light that accentuated his specimens and the cheerful atmosphere, the museum’s visitors unsettled Guillaudeu severely. They always had, even before Barnum’s advent. Too often the crowd surged up with no warning, bumping into him, crowding him, and emitting a disconcerting roar. But just as he would begin to panic, to feel himself drowning, it faded away in the hiss of a retreating skirt, leaving him feeling foolish.

“Barnum calls this one an Egyptian priest,” Guillaudeu said. They were approaching a waist-high vitrine in Gallery Two. The figure inside the cabinet lay on a bed of crumbling wood. “By the name of Pa-Ib.”

“Oh, good! A mummy.” Mr. Archer leaned over the case. “Although he looks more like a heap of dried apples.”

“They claim he’s a two-thousand-year-old priest. In my opinion, without the accoutrements that would have accompanied him to the grave, it’s difficult to say what kind of man he was.”

“If only he could sit up and talk, eh?” Mr. Archer tapped his cane lightly against the glass. “Wake up, sir!”

“Or if only we could count the number of nightmares he’s caused.”

Mr. Archer turned. “What?”

“Among the children.” Guillaudeu pointed to one little boy staring at the mummy as if he’d been hypnotized.

“I’m surprised Barnum doesn’t have Joice Heth in here,” Mr. Archer said. “That would seem an appropriate finale to his first enterprise in the show business, wouldn’t you agree? Displaying her mummified remains to the paying public?”

Guillaudeu cringed. “Advertising Joice Heth as one hundred and sixty-six years old was an act of the crudest deception.”

“That’s the least of it, Mr. Guillaudeu. Deception was quite the least of it, let me assure you,” said Mr. Archer. “Barnum made enemies during the Joice Heth debacle that will last him a lifetime! Half the staff at the Herald, including Bennett himself, and even some at the Sun are set on seeing Barnum a broken and — what’s worse — a broke man. But I must concede that his allies in the business are also strong.”

“And what is your opinion of Mr. Barnum?”

“My opinion? I hardly see the relevance of that. You might as well ask me my opinion of the wind.”

Mr. Archer passed two carpenters building a tall wooden booth of some kind and stopped next to the stone blocks imported from the Giant’s Causeway. He bent down to look into a case of fossils.

“Ah,” said Guillaudeu. “This one is part of Scudder’s original collection. Homo diluvii testis. Man who witnessed the flood.”

“Preserved in stone?”

“Just his imprint. The bones are long gone.”

“But look.” Mr. Archer squatted in front of the case. “His skull is far too small. Where are his hands, his arms? The way the stone’s grain dips, you really can’t be sure what you’re looking at, can you?”

“You said it earlier, Mr. Archer: We’re not so sure that’s the right question to ask, when faced with such a thing, are we?”

There was a crowd in front of Cornelia, the gray dog in Gallery Four who operated a sewing machine using a custom-made set of foot pedals. It was the first time Guillaudeu had seen her at work, and he watched as she guided a piece of blue muslin through the machine with her muzzle. The placard beside her said that she had come from Italy, but Guillaudeu had heard from William the ticket-man that Barnum found her in the back room of a tavern in the Bowery. By the look of the dog’s keeper, whose sharp features resembled Vulpes vulpes, Guillaudeu believed the story. The keeper tipped his oily top hat and exposed his toothless gums in what might have been a smile. The man’s hand was obscured by a tangle of black, vine-like tattoos. Guillaudeu hurried back to his companion.

“You must explain this to me.” The ad man led Guillaudeu past shelves of idolatrous objects: carved totems, the feathered rattle, white masks of cured leather ringed with feathers. He stopped in front of a cabinet that held a tall glass jar.

“I know,” Guillaudeu intoned. “I find it terribly inappropriate.”

“It’s a human arm,” Mr. Archer observed.

“Yes,” Guillaudeu sighed. “It is.”

“Why or how did it come to be here?” Mr. Archer whispered. “It looks quite old, really. Quite disgusting.”

“Yes. Tom Trouble’s arm. Apparently he was a pirate. A devilish prowler of equatorial seas, as they say.”

“But how did … he lose it? And how did it end up here?”

“Perhaps this is one of the exhibits Barnum was referring to when he hired you, Mr. Archer. To provide such stories. Facts. Or whatever you want to call the explanation.”

Mr. Archer straightened up. He laughed. He swiveled his head toward the clamoring crowd. “Of course! I should have known!” He poked his cane into the air, his laughs ringing out. Guillaudeu backed away from him. “That gives me a splendid idea.” He wiped his eyes with a canary-yellow silk handkerchief and scrutinized Tom Trouble’s arm. “Yes, indeed. This place is turning out to be rather amusing after all, Mr. Guillaudeu. I’m going back to our office. I want to get started. The rest of the museum can wait.”

With a headache blooming at his temple, Guillaudeu watched the crowd envelop Homo malaccus: man with a cane.