A Taste for Monsters Read online

  I retrieved it and moved to cover my face. “Forgive me.”

  “What for?” Becky asked. “Can’t help how you look, now can you?”

  “No. I suppose not,” I said, grateful for the rare kindness, and I presumed she knew something about how people are disposed to judge appearances. My father had employed blacks and lascars alike in the shipping aspects of his business. As a young boy, he’d seen Pablo Fanque’s renowned circus, and so deeply impressed was he by Mr. Fanque, he’d told me numerous times that if a man of color could rise to such prominence in reputation and abilities, there seemed no reason to think the black race inferior in any regard. But others did not hold the same opinion.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked, and I knew she meant my scars.

  “Yes,” I said. When the weather changed, it was an ache at the roots of my teeth, and sometimes a pinch in the tight skin at the surface. “On occasion.”

  She winced, and then said, “Are you really Mr. Merrick’s new maid?”

  “I am.”

  “Well, I say that’s very Christian of you.”

  I decided not to argue that. “Thank you, Becky.”

  “Want help making up your bed?”

  “I believe I can manage.”

  “Suit yourself.” She turned toward the door. “I best get back to work. Matron says for you to wash and dress. She’ll come for you in a couple of hours.” She paused. “You should know that’s right generous for her.”

  “I guessed as much.”

  “A pleasure meeting you, then.” She smiled again and left the room.

  After Becky had gone, I pulled the sheets tight over the mattress, along with the quilt, and then went in search of the bathroom. I found one at the end of the hallway not too far from the bedroom. It was clean, tiled in black and white, with a standing sink in one corner and a sloping bathtub on brass feet against the wall. Hot water poured steaming from the spigot after a short wait, and while the tub filled I undressed.

  It was a rarity for me to stand naked as a needle, shivering, for I’d seldom found a place where I felt safe enough to do so. But I felt safe there in the hospital, just as I had hoped I would. As I dipped my toe, then my calf into the hot water, a chill climbed up my back and down my arms, and after I’d lowered myself fully into the tub, the surface of the water kissing my chin, my knees like two pale islands, the experience of that simple pleasure nearly set me crying again.

  I used the lavender soaps there in the bathroom to clean my skin and hair, clouding the water with my grime, scouring away the streets from my flesh until it turned red and angry. I stayed in there much too long, until the bath was the same temperature as my body. Outside the tub, the drain gurgling behind me, I dried with clean towels and dressed in my new clothes. I returned to the bedroom and brushed my hair, then read from Emma until it had dried a little, and afterward risked using the small mirror above the bureau to braid it and pin it up beneath my bonnet. Mirrors were perilous for me, for some blemishes can’t be washed away. There’d been many times my reflection had shown me someone I didn’t even recognize as myself, but this time, with all the questions about what awaited me filling my mind, I managed to escape without much anguish, and returned to my bed, where I sat and waited.

  Though the streets had driven me and battered me and done their best to break me, they hadn’t succeeded. Instead, I had succeeded in finding a safe place where I could live and hide.

  A short while later, there came a knock at the door.

  “Miss Fallow?” the matron called through it.

  I rose from the bed and smoothed my apron. “Yes, ma’am.”

  The door opened and in she swept. “Ah, good. You are ready. I trust you find your living quarters comfortable?”

  “Quite, ma’am.”

  She brought her hands together in a silent clap. “Excellent. Then let us go to Mr. Merrick, shall we?”

  “Yes, ma’am, of course.” I tried to sound pleasant and walk calmly from my room, but I did not feel at all calm.

  We stood at the top of the stairwell Matron Luckes had earlier pointed out to me, the same wooden door and darkened windows waiting for us below. I was afraid, even terrified, and my awareness of the hypocrisy in my fear did nothing to assuage it.

  “Miss Fallow, your shawl,” the matron said.

  I nodded and pulled it slowly from my face, feeling my color go with it, draping the cloth instead over my shoulders. Matron Luckes nodded her approval and descended the cement steps. I followed behind her, my heart rattling my ribs.

  We arrived before the door, and as the matron reached for the handle, I wanted to tell her to wait before opening it but could not think of a reason for the delay. I only knew I did not want to go into that room. Nothing could have induced me to do so, but for the fact that without this position, I would’ve been out searching the streets that very moment for a place to spend the night. Thus, as the matron twisted the knob and opened the door, I inhaled and followed her through, my head down.

  We came into a dim, plain sitting room, heated by a small fireplace with a wooden mantel lined with pictures and greeting cards. A table bore even more of the cards, as well as a phonograph and a partially completed card model of a church. There was also an especially wide and sloping armchair, a door into a second room, and over in one of the corners, which I avoided looking at directly, a bed with a lumpen figure sitting up in it.

  Near the center of the room stood a man of robust build, and he turned toward us when we entered. He appeared to be in his thirties, well dressed, and he wore his thinning hair cropped short, his mustache in wide, twin blades that stabbed toward his jawline. Through his spectacles, his eyes, somewhat small and deep set, regarded me with an intense and intelligent curiosity.

  “Matron Luckes,” he said, his voice neither deep nor high, but full. “Is this the new attendant you spoke of?”

  A sour, cheese-like odor in the room had begun to faintly suggest its presence to me.

  “Yes, Dr. Treves,” the matron said, with a deference in her voice that diminished her seeming supremacy. “This is Miss Fallow.”

  Dr. Treves nodded. “Miss Fallow. May I present Mr. Merrick.” He gestured with his open palm toward the bed.

  I could not avoid looking in that direction any longer, and when I did, something looked back at me.

  It was a man only in the most obscure and fundamental sense of the word. A massive and irregular swelling of flesh sat atop its shoulders, approximating a head, with sparse and languid hair, eyes, nose, and, beneath the folds of skin and tissue, a mouth. Its left arm appeared completely normal, slender hinting at delicate, while the other struck out from within the sleeve of its shirt like some kind of anarchistic root intent on bringing down a wall. The rest of its figure lay blessedly hidden from my view beneath the blanket, but I could imagine the subterranean contours of its terrible, fungal form.

  I do not know how I managed to keep from instantly fleeing that room, but before I could, the monster spoke, and the gentleness in his voice so opposed the harshness of his appearance, I stood baffled for the moment it took Dr. Treves to translate.

  “He said it is a pleasure to meet you,” the doctor said.

  “I know, sir,” I said, for I did. The figure’s speech was very slow, but it had struck a bell of recognition in my mind, even wrapped as it was in the loose wool of my confusion and shock. “I understood him, sir.”

  “You did?” the matron asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The figure spoke again, and again I struggled to reconcile the musical sound with its source. “How is it you understand me when so many cannot?” he asked.

  “I suppose …” I touched the puckered scar that lined my altered jaw. “During my convalescence, my own speech suffered terribly, and I was on a ward with others in similar conditions, who likewise found it difficult to speak. We had to learn to understand one another if we wanted companionship.”

  “Well, this is a rare discovery,�
� Dr. Treves said, his voice rising with jovial enthusiasm. “What do you think of that, John?”

  The Elephant Man nodded his great head.

  I had thought his name was Joseph, and I turned to Matron Luckes in puzzlement, but Dr. Treves intercepted my question.

  “John is the nickname I’ve given Mr. Merrick,” he said, “after so many generous souls made donations to secure his future here at the hospital. John the Beloved, you see. Beloved of London.”

  “I see,” I said, though I believed this nickname to be an exaggeration for the Elephant Man’s benefit, for I had never heard him mentioned in the context of any kind of love. In point of fact, the nickname seemed somewhat patronizing.

  “Dr. Treves is much too kind,” the Elephant Man said, with a ferryman’s evenness. “You may call me Joseph, Miss Fallow.”

  “And you may call me Evelyn,” I said.

  “Is that acceptable to you, Matron?” Dr. Treves asked.

  “She is not a nurse or even a probationer,” the matron said. “I see no reason to stand on ceremony.”

  “Evelyn, then,” the Elephant Man said. I looked a bit more closely at the assemblage of folds and flesh that made up his face, for I thought I heard a smile in his voice, but the weight and toughness of his skin did not seem to allow for any outward expression. “I would take your hand in greeting, Evelyn, if my arm were long enough to reach it,” he said.

  “Oh.” I had decided I would let him, so against my revulsion I moved to break the distance between us, the sour odor growing stronger as I approached his bed. He extended his left hand, his good hand, mercifully, and I gave him mine. His skin felt warm and supple, quite unlike the hand of any man I had ever known, or even many of the women. He raised my knuckles to his rough lips in a charming gesture that seemed a deliberate, gentlemanly performance, but not one for my benefit. Rather, it appeared to satisfy Mr. Merrick that he had adequately played a part.

  “You appear to have many admirers,” I said, glancing around us at all the cards.

  “Oh yes,” he said, his beautiful voice gaining excitement even as his miscreated face remained rigid. “There are many from Madge Kendal, the famed actress, who is an acquaintance of mine, though we have not had the pleasure to meet in person. The phonograph was a gift from her. On the mantel, you will even find a portrait of Alexandra, the Princess of Wales, which she signed for me.”

  I peered more closely and discovered the picture of the princess to be but one of a dozen or so different portraits, from many beautiful and highborn women, each signed by its sender. If I hadn’t known who occupied this room, I would have suspected it the trophy hoard of some gal-sneaker.

  “John the Beloved, indeed,” I said, not intending to mock him, but still unsure of the meaning of all the attention lavished on him. I wondered if it had become a kind of game among society women to tease this poor creature with gifts and portraits.

  “Many women come to see me,” he said. “I am very fortunate to have such friends.”

  “Indeed you are,” Dr. Treves said, pronouncing it as if the matter were settled beyond any further debate.

  “May I ask you a question?” Mr. Merrick said to me.

  “Of course,” I replied.

  “What happened to your face?”

  It wasn’t his directness that surprised me, but rather that I had actually forgotten my shawl was down.

  Dr. Treves grunted. “John, she may not want to speak of that. You should wait until you are better acquainted to ask such a question.”

  “Oh,” Mr. Merrick said, with such dismay his whole person seemed to wither. “I’m sorry. I meant no offense. My manners are poor.”

  “Your manners are very fine,” I said. “Think nothing of it.”

  “I was born with my deformity,” he said. “My mother got frightened by an elephant in her pregnancy. It was during a fair, and the beast nearly trampled her.”

  “That’s awful,” I said. A moment passed, and I realized he meant for there to follow an exchange, his story for mine, and I resolved to deal as plainly as he had. “I worked in a match factory. The white phosphor poisoned my jawbone, and some of it had to be cut out.”

  “That’s dreadful,” Mr. Merrick said. “Why do they use such poison if it hurts the factory workers?”

  The question cut a clear path through the bramble of the problem. “I suppose it’s more important they make a match that can strike anywhere.”

  He was silent a moment, and then he closed his eyes. “I am very sorry for you.”

  Despite his words, it wasn’t pity I felt from him, but understanding, and his sincerity touched me, for in spite of the vast chasm between his disfigurement and mine, he seemed in that moment to be as concerned for me, if not more so, than he was for himself.

  “That is kind of you,” I said.

  There came a knock at the door, and two nurses entered the room. They curtsied. “Dr. Treves, Matron Luckes,” they said, nearly in unison.

  “Ah,” the matron said. “My stalwarts, Miss Flemming and Miss Doyle.”

  “It is time for Mr. Merrick’s bath, ma’am,” the nurse on the left said.

  “So it is,” Dr. Treves said. “I shall leave you to it. Good evening, John. See you tomorrow.”

  “Good evening, Dr. Treves,” Joseph said.

  “Matron Luckes,” Dr. Treves said, “good evening to you. You as well, Miss Flemming. Miss Doyle.” He looked at me. “Welcome aboard, Miss Fallow.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said.

  He plowed from the room headfirst, hands clasped behind his back, and after he had gone, Matron Luckes seemed to reclaim her full dominion. “It seems this introduction has gone quite well. Miss Fallow, while the nurses are bathing Mr. Merrick, why don’t you see if his dinner is ready.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I nodded as the nurses helped Mr. Merrick rise from his bed, grateful I would not have to stay and help wash him, for I was not yet accustomed to the sight of his face, to say nothing of the rest of him. Once standing, he teetered a bit on his wide, pachydermic feet, the weight of his head robbing him of balance.

  “When Mr. Merrick is finished eating,” the matron continued, “clear his dishes and see to any of his other needs before you go to bed. Tomorrow, Miss Dods shall take you through your daily duties.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said again.

  “I am pleased you are here,” the matron said.

  “As am I, ma’am.”

  She nodded and left the room.

  Mr. Merrick had steadied himself and now labored on his own toward the inner doorway, followed by the two nurses. He moved by means of a slow and plodding limp, which appeared to cause him considerable difficulty, and perhaps pain, but he managed it. “I shall see you shortly, Evelyn,” he said.

  “Yes, Mr. Merrick.”

  He walked through the door, and for a terrible moment I imagined the disrobing soon to take place on the other side, the hideous revelation of his whole person, but I squeezed my eyes shut against the vision and fled the room before I might chance to see it.

  Outside, I breathed the carbolic-scented air of Bedstead Square, listening to the scuffing of brush bristles against the bed frames and the distant sounds of the city just reaching over the hospital rooftops. I then replaced my shawl and turned up toward the nurses’ house and the kitchens the matron had earlier shown me, the smells of which set my hungry stomach complaining.

  Once there, it was a simple matter to identify the cook, a narrow rolling pin of a woman, and wait as she prepared a tray with a glass of water, a glass of beer, and a covered plate.

  “You’re new,” she said as she handed it to me. “Off to the Elephant House, are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Look here,” she said. “You wash his dishes, eh? No one in my kitchen wants to catch whatever it is he’s got.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me that his deformity might be contagious. I looked at my hand where he had kissed it, and for a brief, irrational moment felt the urg
e to wash. But then I considered that neither the doctor nor the matron had taken any precautions that way.

  “He was born with his condition,” I said. “I doubt it’s contagious.”

  “Oh! Are you a doctor, then?”

  Her sarcasm irritated me. “Of course not.”

  “A nurse, surely.”

  “No.”

  “Then shut your sauce-box.” She seemed prepared to flatten me. “I’m in charge here. You wash his dishes, and yours. That’s the end of it. Hear me?”

  “Yes, Cook,” I said. Back on the street, I would not have let myself be so cowed, but I wasn’t on the street anymore. “I hear you.”

  “Good. Now get out of my kitchen.” She turned her back on me, and I left with the tray.

  When I returned to Mr. Merrick’s room, I found him in a dressing gown, seated at his table. His grotesque appearance struck me anew, not as roughly as it had the first time, but still hard, and it took me a moment to recover. The nurses, Miss Flemming and Miss Doyle, were gone, and I noticed the room smelled better, the sour odor replaced by the fragrance of lavender soap.

  I carried the tray to the table and presented Mr. Merrick his food by lifting the cover from the plate. There were boiled potatoes with parsley, a chunk of roast lamb covered in brown gravy, and a slice of bread and butter.

  Mr. Merrick had already picked up his fork with his left hand, but he held it aloft, staring at the plate.

  “Is something the matter?” I asked. “The food not to your liking?”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s just … the cook forgot to cut it again.”

  I realized then that with his deformed right hand incapable of holding a knife, or any other implement, he needed someone to carve his food.

  “Allow me.” I took his fork and used his knife to cut up both the potatoes and meat into morsels.

  He thanked me after I’d finished and proceeded to eat, and while he focused on his food, I was able to study him with a more careful and deliberate scrutiny than I had been able to before. The girth of his head was incredible, and I wasn’t convinced I would’ve had the span in my arms to take his measurement for a hat. The excess growth of skin appeared to have the quality of a sponge in places, elsewhere that of thickened callus, or even hard bone. These outcroppings had entirely overcome and ruined one side of his face, and the protrusion over his mouth and lips made it impossible for him to eat without smacking and drooling, which I did my best to ignore.