Sixty
Carried along by the morning crowd, Guillaudeu made his way from one stage to the next. The African savanna glowed in shades of yellow, orange, and rose, with the arching black silhouettes of acacia trees painted in the foreground. The jungle scene was crowded with plants and a vertiginous backdrop that suggested the dense green landscape extended back through the museum wall. The polar stage had been built with jagged edges and the whole thing painted white and gray in the style of an ice sheet.
He looked for the carpenters but they were gone. Outside, the new transparency spanned the length of three floors and bore a luminous depiction of the earth, with several smaller scenes of the world’s exotic civilizations ringing it like a corona. To one side, a fashionable couple beheld the scene. Guillaudeu had wanted to congratulate the young designer, but he, also, was nowhere to be found. The men had disappeared. Barnum’s Congress was two days away and the whole museum, the whole city, it seemed, was poised to receive it.
He had fed all the animals and so he wandered, admiring the carpenters’ handiwork and examining exhibits he had never seen before. He felt no urge to return to his office. For the first time, he bought a paper cone of popcorn from a concessionaire. Miss Ana Swift, the giantess, glided past him, her gaze somewhere above the crowd. When he followed the sound of applause he discovered a glassblowing demonstration in progress and he stood with the others watching the blowers spin molten, opalescent globules into bowls and slender chalices. When they finished, he turned to leave and couldn’t remember which way led to the main stairway. He walked into the next gallery not knowing what to expect, astonished that he was lost in the museum. Within minutes he had regained his bearings but not the old intimacy he had shared for so long with the place. He felt the distinct sensation that in this brief disorientation, the museum had displaced him completely, and now he was no different from any other visitor.
The Cosmorama salon had not changed at all, and he walked into its depths with relief. The dim lights hushed the crowd, and the circle of metal viewers ringed the gallery just as they’d always done. He wandered across the plush carpet, not looking into any tiny worlds but seeing the salon itself as a timeless capsule that would exist forever.
Someone beckoned to him from across the room. It was an old man, sitting alone on one of the circular velvet couches. Guillaudeu started toward him with a strange feeling and then recognized the face of his old friend. Sudden tears blurred his vision and he fought the urge to flee, but then he saw the man’s expression and he went to him.
John Scudder raised both his hands, as if presenting the salon to him.
“Emile.”
“Yes.” Guillaudeu sat down. Scudder, appearing very frail but wearing a neat maroon wool jacket and a black-and-white-striped cravat, reached over and touched Guillaudeu’s wrist.
“Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Yes, I suppose it is, John.”
“I knew I made the right decision.” Scudder tapped the top of Guillaudeu’s hand. “They tell me you take care of all these animals. Is it true?”
“Yes.”
“Marvelous!” Scudder shook his head, smiling.
Guillaudeu found that he could not look at Scudder’s broad, ursine face for more than a second or two. He looked at his knotted hands. He sensed Scudder regarding him.
“Do you understand now?”
“I think so, John. I’m sorry —”
Scudder raised his hand and swiped it in a short, abrupt wave. Guillaudeu had been on the receiving end of this gentle dismissal too many times to continue what he was going to say.
“I was ready to move on, Emile.”
“I wasn’t.”
Scudder looked around the salon. “It was time for me to retreat to my library, to let Rebecca and Edie care for me. I wanted to watch what that Mr. Barnum was going to do, but from a safe distance. You know what he has accomplished, don’t you?”
“Accomplished? He has just taken his first steps!”
“I wanted our work to be incorporated into this. To be carried forward.”
“I didn’t.”
“You didn’t know what you wanted, Emile.”
“You’re probably right.”
The two men leaned against the velvet cushions. The crowd emitted a gentle rustling whisper, and the shadows of people paraded across the brocade walls. Guillaudeu settled in beside Scudder and together they watched the ebb and flow of visitors who bent to look through the lenses, who traveled the world.