The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb - Melanie Benjamin [29]
Human beings, I was learning, were much more dangerous and unpredictable.
“What did you expect?” Sylvia asked me in honest surprise one day as we departed the boat to walk about the town of Davenport, Iowa.
This was yet another humiliating lesson I had to learn. It was usual for showboats of this time to parade about some of their performers—especially the oddities—to drum up business for the shows. Colonel Wood found it amusing to pair Sylvia and me up for this purpose—“the elephant and the mouse”; obviously we drew attention because of the disparity in our heights. Every time we docked in a town, Sylvia and I were sent out to stroll for about an hour, accompanied by the Tattooed Man (a very stringy individual with ink of fabulous hues covering every inch of his skin, including inside his ears; I cannot recall his name, as I believe he gave a different one each time he was asked), and the sword swallower. Mr. Deacon was his given name, but he advertised himself as “Signor Silvestri, the Great Sword Swallower.” He had an oddly short neck, which struck me as rather a liability in his chosen profession. But he was a very gentle man, the only member of the troupe who said grace before every meal.
Naturally, our “casual” strolls incited curiosity among the townspeople, curiosity that could be satisfied only by the purchase of a five-cent ticket to Colonel Wood’s Floating Palace of Curiosities and Entertainment, or so said the flyers that the Tattooed Man passed out to the crowd that inevitably trailed behind us like a cumbersome dress train.
“I have to say, I don’t understand why you left your home at all,” Sylvia continued as we walked along. Poor Sylvia; she felt, even more keenly, perhaps, than did I, the stares and whispers we inevitably encountered, and so kept up a constant conversation as a way to drown them out. This was the only time she was so talkative; on the boat, she reverted to her usual taciturn habits. “Your family sounds so sweet; you had a respectable situation. With me, it was different. I didn’t have anyone left; I felt like a freak of nature regardless, so I thought it wouldn’t matter where I went. But you—I don’t understand why you’re here, Vinnie.”
“I don’t either.” I sighed, avoiding the stares of a group of dockworkers who stopped unloading barrels to gape at us. “I didn’t think that—well, I thought I was interesting to the Colonel for other reasons—my singing, for example. I thought I’d be able to sing like Miss Jenny Lind, and be treated with the same respect and dignity. Oh, yes, perhaps I knew, deep down, the Colonel was mainly interested in me because of my size, because of how popular Tom Thumb is, but I thought—I thought I was somehow more.” Because I’d always believed I was, I thought but did not say aloud. The notion seemed ridiculous now, as I trudged along a dock accompanied by a giantess, a tattooed man, and a sword swallower. How was it I had ever been a schoolteacher? Despite all that I had taught, I had learned nothing about the world.
“But how could you leave your home and your family?” Sylvia persisted.
I clutched my cloak, which had been made by Mama long ago to wear as I walked to and from school. It felt like the warmth and tenderness of my entire family wrapped about my body, and I nuzzled my cheek against my shoulder and sniffed; it still smelled like home, like the dried lavender Mama always laid in every drawer, the lemon oil she used to polish the good furniture, the warm, yeasty smell of the endless loaves of bread that she baked.
How could I leave home? I tried to remember, for both Sylvia and myself.
“I wanted to see the world,” I replied ruefully, then stopped to laugh at myself. We were at the end of the dock; the muddy street before us was utterly disgusting, stacked high with dirty crates and smelly barrels of fish, pungent