A Terrible Conflagration
OH, WHO IS THAT LITTLE GIRL?” MAMA CRIED, PAUSING IN her rocking. She leaned forward and peered at me, as if trying to remember my name. “Little girl? I spoke to you—who are you?”
My heart squeezed up until my entire chest ached, even as I patted her arm and pushed the rocking chair, lulling her back into silence. How many times had I been mistaken for a child? But to hear my own mother do so hurt me beyond reason—even if it was only the result of a sick, muddled mind.
Charles and I had moved into the old homestead with my brother James and his family, this December of 1882, after letting out our house. Papa had died in 1880, but Mama was still alive. Infirm, growing deaf, content to rock in a chair all day, her hands were now idle, as was her reason. Even as I was glad that she could no longer remember Minnie, and so could no longer mourn her, I grieved that she could not recognize me. I was a stranger to my mother, to my entire family, really—and in a way, hadn’t I always been? James and his wife were kindness itself, but I felt they were always defensive about the simplicity of their life, comparing it, too often, to what Charles and I had grown accustomed to.
“I don’t suppose the Queen served sassafras tea when you all went calling there, did she?” my sister-in-law would say as she prepared for callers.
“No, Mary, but I’ve always liked sassafras tea,” I would reply.
“Well, it’s what we’re used to around here,” she would say, resentment flavoring the tea almost as much as the sassafras.
Or—
“I reckon they take wine with their meals in France,” James would remark at dinner, passing around platters of good boiled New England beef.
“They do,” Charles would agree.
“Well, we don’t go in for that around here, you know,” James would scold, mildly—as if we had asked for wine, demanded wine, threatened to lock ourselves in our rooms unless we were served wine.
I don’t mean to be ungrateful; my brother and his family did us a great kindness in allowing us to stay with them. But it was uncomfortable, nevertheless. So I did what I always did; I plotted my escape. If my family didn’t know what to do with me, my audience did; they smiled, they clapped, and in the spotlight, up on a stage so that all I could see were faces, not legs, I felt big. As big as my dreams.
But never as big as Minnie, who, after all, had been large enough to carry two beating hearts within her. Next to her memory; next to my sister-in-law, with her brood of children and happy domesticity; next to my mother, who, even in her confusion, often caressed the finger upon which her plain gold wedding band still resided—I felt insignificant; I felt small; I felt less.
So we were going back out on tour again; this time with just the Bleekers. No more circus trains for us! Just a genteel entertainment, singing, dancing, stories of our travels; we were even introducing a new feature, a stereopticon, to project images of the places we had seen. Mr. Bleeker was quite excited about it; it had been my idea. I couldn’t wait to try it out.
“Little girl! Do I know you? Are you Delia’s daughter?” Mama stopped rocking again; she was growing agitated, shrugging off her shawl, kicking at her skirt.
“No, Mama,” I said, placing her shawl back upon her shoulders. “I’m Vinnie. Remember? Vinnie—your daughter.”
“Vinnie?” She tilted her head like a parrot; she was very birdlike these days, the way her hands incessantly plucked at her clothing, and her eyes blinked constantly in any light stronger than a candle. “Vinnie? I used to know a Minnie, once. Whatever happened to her?”
“Minnie died, Mama.”
“Died? How?”
“I killed her,” I replied. Then I ran upstairs to finish packing.
THE FIRST STOP ON THIS LATEST TOUR WAS MILWAUKEE. WE arrived there on January 9, 1883, a gray, wintry day, although we barely saw it, getting in late, as usual, and driving straight to our hotel. Starting with our circus travels, it seemed to me that we spent less and less time in a particular city, so that I truly had no sense of place. Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Davenport, Sioux City—they all looked the same to me. All had bustling, well-lit train stations, paved streets, new electric wires going up next to all the commercial buildings in the center of the city. Even the smallest towns had tall buildings now, for elevators were becoming commonplace.
Of all the many marvels of the modern age, the elevator was the one that most changed our lives. Maybe others were talking about telephones and electric lights, but Charles and I never tired of gushing about elevators. A lifetime of taking stairs meant for normal-size legs had taken its toll on both of us; Charles was now forty-five, I, forty-one. Our hips ached, as did our backs. Oh, the convenience—the bliss!—of walking into that wonderful little iron cage, watching the lift boy, clad in a smart uniform with a cap, move the handle, and then miraculously rising up, up, up, past all those awful stairs and landings!
Never before had Charles and I ever stayed above the first or second floors of a hotel, until elevators came into vogue. And so we were particularly excited to find that, upon checking into the Newhall House Hotel, we had rooms on the sixth floor—imagine! The very top floor, and we could get to it easily. Surely there would be a very fine view of the city from there!
This somewhat made up for the fact that the Newhall House was not the nicest hotel in Milwaukee. We could no longer afford to stay in the newer gilded palaces of stone and marble; the Newhall House was twenty-five years old, one of the few wooden structures left in that city just north of Chicago, which had suffered the infamous fire twelve years before. But still, the hotel was clean and bright—new electric lights were in every room—and we were happy to see other theatrical folk there, as well.
“Old troupers, all of us,” Mr. Bleeker said as he waved at one of the members of the Minnie Palmer Light Opera Company, seated across the lobby. “We’ll all die in the harness. It’s a sickness.”
“Speak for yourself, Sylvester,” Mrs. Bleeker said fondly. We were all four seated in one of the parlors after dinner; it was particularly cozy on this night, as it was frigid outside, but inside, we had the warm familiarity of flocked wallpaper, worn carpet, chipped hotel dinnerware. That was the life we knew, the four of us, and we had shared it for so long. The few times we saw one another out of such surroundings—not on a train, or in a theater or a hotel—it seemed odd; we always acted stiff, uncomfortable, overly formal. This was where we belonged—in anonymous hotels, in cities we never saw save from a train window or from a stage door. It may sound depressing, but it was not; rather, the bland anonymity of our surroundings served only to sharpen our identities, making us dear and recognizable to one another—making us a family.
The first stop on a long tour was always particularly full of warmth and laughter, like the first Sunday dinner after a long absence from home. And this night, we were all especially happy, for some reason. Mr. and Mrs. Bleeker sat close together on a plum-colored velvet settee; Mr. Bleeker’s lean face relaxed until it almost looked merry. He had his arm around his wife, who nestled her head against his shoulder without her usual reticence. Generally, Mrs. Bleeker conducted herself so modestly as to be ignored by those too busy to observe her gently mocking smile, her soft brown eyes that were quick to notice the most unusual details—the one man whose topcoat wasn’t buttoned properly, the one flower that poked its nose up through the grass ahead of the others. But tonight she appeared not to care who might see her playing coquettishly with the buttons on her husband’s vest; if I hadn’t known her better, I would have thought she had taken wine with dinner!
Charles and I sat close together, as well—the other couple’s playfulness seducing Charles into trying something of the same with me. And tonight, for a change, I allowed it; I allowed my husband to hold my hand in his, tucking it under his arm with proud ownership. I even sighed, playing my part, and inched closer to him.
To the casual observer, we were simply two old married couples, happy in one another’s presence, perhaps on holiday together. I enjoyed thinking that was how others might see us tonight, this restful, contented night.
“What do you mean, Julia?” Mr. Bleeker looked fondly down upon his wife, who blinked up at him with eyes that crinkled at the edges, like a fine piece of lace.
“I mean, I don’t want to spend all the rest of my life on the road. I love you all, but I want a little farm, up in Albany near my family. You may be an old trouper, Sylvester, but I’m not. I only married one.”
“You’ve been talking about that farm for years,” Mr. Bleeker scolded, but his eyes kept smiling.
“You’ve been promising me you’d give it to me for years,” his wife retorted.
“You know we could never go on without the two of you,” I interposed, but not anxiously; I could not take this talk seriously. Mrs. Bleeker often mentioned that farm but always stood ready, her worn portmanteau in hand, the next time we met at Grand Central Station. “Why, who would ever change my costume so quickly as you? Who would lace me into my corset? And who would keep track of us all?” I turned to Mr. Bleeker. “Remember how calm you were back in sixty-nine, when you outsmarted those bandits in Nevada?”
“Why, sure, don’t you remember?” Charles squeezed my hand excitedly. “How you told them we would be on the stage, and then you got us all out of there early?”
“Oh, that was a time!” Mr. Bleeker laughed. “I do wish I’d seen those varmints’ faces when they held up the coach and we weren’t there!”
“That was a lovely trip,” I said, remembering. “All the places we went!”
“It was a tiring trip,” Mrs. Bleeker insisted. “I just wanted to get back home safe and sound!”
“But the things we saw—the Pyramids! The temples in Japan!” I closed my eyes, as if I could conjure up those long-ago sights. They were fading from memory, little by little; I could no longer recall the entire settings—I didn’t remember how we got to the Pyramids, for example, but I did remember, vividly, how it felt to stand in their ancient shadow. Unreal, almost, as if we were standing in front of a flat backdrop painting of them, instead—until I noticed the clouds moving across the sky, throwing gently changing patterns of light across them, making the rough, uneven surfaces suddenly stand out, almost reaching toward us. Only then did I know they were real.
“Remember, Vinnie, how I said to you that I knew exactly how you must feel, for the first time in my life?” Mr. Bleeker chuckled. “Because I felt about two feet tall next to those things?”
I was about to reply, but to my surprise, Charles answered first. “I do,” he declared, decidedly. “I heard you say that to Vinnie, and I wanted to tell you, old fellow, that you couldn’t possibly know how we felt. Because none of those desert chaps, the ones working there digging in the sand at the bottom, were pointing to you and laughing.”
I was stunned. I remembered that—I remembered thinking exactly that. I was nodding to Mr. Bleeker but watching those brown men pointing at our party, holding their hands down to the ground to approximate our size, and doubling over with laughter.
What I didn’t remember was that Charles saw them, too—and that he felt the same way. I studied my husband now; he was older, his face so puffy, his beard still rather ridiculous. But there was something in his eyes that I’d never even bothered to look for before—and that I recognized, for I saw it in my own in those rare moments when I paused long enough to stare into a mirror. Hurt and determination, both: That’s what it was. Hurt at the cruelties the world sometimes threw at us; determination not to let anyone notice.
Perhaps I had also recognized it in the eyes of those misshapen little women from the circus; perhaps I hadn’t wanted to, and so made myself forget I’d seen it. Until now.
I shook my head, even as Charles looked at me with a new, understanding smile. I did not know what to say—so I squeezed his hand and smiled back. For a moment, we were miniature reflections of Mr. and Mrs. Bleeker, seated opposite.
For a moment, it didn’t even feel as if we were pretending.
We passed the rest of the evening like this, four friends reminiscing about old times. When the clock struck ten, we all rose and took the elevator up to the sixth floor. Mrs. Bleeker knelt down to give me her usual good-night kiss, and Mr. Bleeker shook Charles’s hand. Then we turned and went to our respective rooms—theirs farther down the hall than ours—shutting the doors behind us.
Once Charles and I changed clothes and climbed my steps up to bed, he immediately rolled over to the far side, leaving me the space I always desired. But I did not roll over; I lay upon my back, conscious of his presence in my bed in a way I never had been before. His warm, steadily breathing presence; the way his nightcap got twisted about, even before he closed his eyes; his feet sticking out of his nightshirt, pink and sturdy as a child’s but with little tufts of hair upon his toes—like a man.
I had never felt my husband’s bare feet against mine. We had never slept that closely; our bodies had never been so entwined. There was always so much distance between us, and I had put it there, from the very beginning. Charles, ever-pleasing, ever-pliable, had not once questioned why I had. Neither had I—until tonight.
Holding my breath, I stretched my right hand toward my husband. Yet I could not reach him; the bed was too big, and I was too small; suddenly, delicately, femininely small. Afraid to disturb him, afraid not to, I inched even closer and reached out again.
Sighing with a soft, unexpected snort, Charles rolled over in his sleep and moved tantalizingly closer toward me.
That wasn’t what I expected; I snatched my hand back as if he were a hot coal, something dangerous, something that could hurt me. Rolling away onto my own side, my heart racing so that it was pounding in my ears, I held my breath, waiting to see what he would do next. But he did nothing; he simply continued to sleep, unaware of my turmoil on the other side of the deep, linen-covered—and dream-littered—chasm between us. I almost laughed at the absurdity, the feminine timidity, of my behavior—why, I was forty-one! I had been married for twenty years now. I was behaving like a blushing virgin—
Which, of course, I was. I wouldn’t have known what to do even if I had touched my husband’s shoulder, turned him to me, welcomed him with a smile. Beyond that, I couldn’t imagine; my horror of everything that had happened to Minnie would not allow me to think further than an embrace, perhaps maybe a kiss.
I plumped my pillow and told myself, sternly, to get to sleep; we had three performances on the morrow, and we had to get to the theater early to try out the stereopticon. Even though I tossed and turned and couldn’t get comfortable, my nightgown unusually hot and heavy against my tingling skin, I did finally go to sleep that night.
And when I did, I later remembered, I was thinking of my husband. For only the first time in our marriage; also, as it turned out, the last.
“VINNIE! VINNIE!”
A hand was upon my shoulder—my husband’s hand. I snuggled down into my pillow and smiled; hadn’t I just fallen asleep, imagining this, his hand upon me?
“Vinnie! Wake up!” He was shaking me, not tenderly but forcefully. “Wake up! I hear people in the hall! I smell smoke!”
I opened my eyes; Charles was kneeling beside me, his nightcap all twisted about, his eyes, even in the darkness, wide with fear. I yawned—and swallowed a faint trace of smoke.
Then I heard the footsteps in the hall, the confusion. Someone was banging on our door; someone was banging on all the doors in our hallway.
Someone was yelling, “Fire!”
I sat straight up, my heart pounding. Charles continued to hover over me, wringing his hands. “Oh, what do we do, Vinnie? What do we do?”
“Get dressed!” I barked, jumping out of bed—forgetting to use the steps, so that I fell with a thud to the floor. Scrambling up, I threw on a dressing gown; Charles did the same. Then I ran to the door and opened it with my usual difficulty, the doorknob large for my hand, and too high; I felt my shoulder strain as I wrenched it open.
The hallway was filled with people, frightened people, their faces still creased from sleep while their eyes were blank with panic. Everyone was in dressing gowns or nightshirts, some with shoes on, most in bare feet. It was utter pandemonium as people ran to and fro like confused mice, simply following their instincts. And their instincts told them to get out—for there was smoke, hazy right now in this part of the hall, but someone shouted, “It’s coming up the elevator shaft! The smoke is coming up the elevator shaft! We can’t use it!”
And over and over, on everyone’s lips, the one word—“Fire!”
My instinct was to run to the Bleekers’ room: Did they know? Were they awake? But I took one step out of the doorway and was nearly knocked off my feet; there were so many people, now some of them were carrying portmanteaus, or dragging trunks that were much bigger than I was. One almost smashed me even as I stood in the doorway. Everywhere I looked were legs, legs running back and forth, dragging things, holding things—sharp things (umbrellas, walking sticks, even one man with a sword), heavy things. There was no possibility of pushing myself through that stampede without being trampled to death. I couldn’t even shout my presence; the din was far too great, as the air was filled with panicked cries and shouts of confused directions: “The elevator must be working!” “No, the flames are coming up the shaft!” “I think the stairs are this way!” “A man said we must be prepared to jump!”
Quickly I leaped back inside our room, banging the door shut behind me. Charles was standing in his dressing gown, uncinched so that it hung loosely, his belly, in his nightshirt, protruding; he was still in his bare feet.
“Put your shoes on!” I told him, as I sprinted to do the same thing. “Gather up anything of value—take my steps, and I’ll get my jewel case!” I ran to find the case, but a maid had put it high on top of a bureau, so I could not reach it. Cursing her stupidity, I grabbed the steps out of Charles’s hand and dragged them to the bureau; standing up on my very toes, I was able to reach the case.
“Now!” I jumped off the steps and thrust them back to Charles. “We can’t go out in the hall—we’ll be trampled to death! We’ll either have to wait for people to clear it, or—or—”
“Or what? Get burned to death?” Charles cried. His face was an alarming red; his breathing was labored, and he was shaking from head to toe. He did not look at all well, but I couldn’t allow myself to worry about that; first, I had to get us out of this room.
Something was rattling; it sounded like dice being shaken in a cup. I looked down, and it was the jewel case; my hand was trembling so, all my jewelry was bouncing around inside. Later, I realized how ridiculous it was to worry about that case; I had forgotten that everything in it was imitation now.
My entire body was shaking, with fear and energy, both; my heart was racing but only to stir my blood, stir my mind, so that I might come up with a way out. That I would was never in doubt; I knew I could not rely on Charles, and I did not want to die here, consumed by flame and smoke. So it was up to me.
“We can—we can tie bedsheets together!” I looked around, realizing we should probably dampen them first, in case the flames reached our room, but there was no water in the pitcher. “Quick, take the sheets off the bed!”
Charles and I both ran to the bed and began to remove the sheets; it was difficult for us, as they were so heavy and the mattress so huge, the top of it just about level with our eyes; even the pillowcases were cumbersome in our arms, as we could not quite reach all the way about them. In the end, I held on to each pillow while Charles tugged at the cases, both of us falling flat on our bottoms in the effort.
Meanwhile, the commotion outside our door grew even more deafening; the temperature began to rise, and as the early-morning light began to fill our room, we could see that the air was beginning to turn hazy. The smell of smoke stung the inside of my nostrils.
Oh, where was Mr. Bleeker? Why had he not burst into the room to save us, as he always did? But maybe he needed to be saved, for a change; what if they were sleeping, incredibly, through all this? I dropped the sheet I was holding and ran to the door once more—but the hallway was now thick with smoke, with even more people covering their eyes, choking, running, and still crying that one word—“Fire!”
I shut the door, knowing I couldn’t open it again unless we had no choice but to try to make our way out through that teeming, terrifying hallway. But I couldn’t let any more smoke inside our room; while Charles was trying to knot the sheets together, I shoved two of my dresses beneath the doorway to try to keep the smoke out. The Bleekers couldn’t save us, and I couldn’t save them; we were all on our own, now. I could only pray that we would see one another, safe and sound, when all was over.
“Vinnie, it’s so hard—my hands are too small!” Charles protested, massaging his wrist. I ran to help him; it was difficult, knotting those heavy hotel sheets together; I didn’t know how we’d get them secure enough to hold our weight.
“Here, tug on this,” I told him, grabbing one end of two knotted sheets and handing him the other. “Tug hard!”
He did, I did—and the sheets slid apart. We stared at each other; Charles sat down upon the floor, as if he simply had no more will, and began to cry.
“Vinnie, we can’t do this! Where’s Bleeker? We can’t save ourselves! We’re too little!”
“Don’t say that!” I longed to shake him; I detested his weakness at that moment, for I was too close to giving in to my own.
Kicking at the sheets, I ran to the window, but of course it was too high, the sash far above my head. I needed to stand upon something solid in order to open it, and my steps were too wobbly. “Help me,” I yelled at Charles, as I spied a heavy chair next to the bed; we managed to inch it—oh, so excruciatingly slowly!—across the plush carpet, until it was in front of the window. Climbing upon it, throwing all dignity to the wind—my nightgown was now twisted about my waist, exposing my legs—I tried to unhinge the lock on the sash; it was big, slippery in my sweating palms, and at first I didn’t think I could move it. But finally it did loosen, and I tugged on it until it released; leaning my shoulder against the sash, I pushed with all my might, praying that it might move. It did, enough so that I could then jump down and put my hands in the opening of the window; Charles joined me, and we were able to push it up enough so that we could lean out.
The scene before us was unreal. The street was full of people, some running, some crying—some lying broken and still. Oh, how wonderful it had seemed yesterday, to be on the very top floor of the hotel! But now it simply meant that we were a very long way from the ground. Smoke rolled out of windows on either side of us, and below, terrifying fingers of flame indicated that the fire must have started on one of the lower floors. I felt the heat rising all around me, as if from the very depths of hell. Horses were neighing, people were sobbing and shouting, bells were clanging—fire bells, from fire wagons; there were many already in the street below, and others coming; you could hear the clatter of horses’ hooves, the squeal of careening wagons, echoing between the buildings several streets over.
The hotel was surrounded on all sides by other buildings, but it was also surrounded on all sides by wires. All those new electric wires cities were installing these days—they were like a lethal spiderweb just outside the hotel windows, close enough that a normal-size person could touch them in places. Even as I registered their presence, I saw someone jump from a window on our floor, hit a wire with a sizzling sound, and bounce up and then down to another wire before finally falling to the street below.
I turned away, sickened; there was nowhere to look any longer, no escape to try—all was hopeless. Sliding to the floor, I buried my face in my hands because I couldn’t bear to look at Charles. For the first time in my life, I was all out of ideas. Charles slid down next to me and, like a loyal, trusting puppy, laid his head on my lap. Automatically, I began to smooth his brow.
My heart, which had been racing so fast, fueling my fear and desperation, began to slow down, and I was painfully aware of it, wondering how much longer it would continue to beat, wondering what would come first—the smoke, or the flames. Oh! A great cry almost tore my heart open right then; I did not want to die! Not in this way—smoke was beginning to snake in beneath the closed door, despite my wadded-up dresses. But we could not jump—not six floors! That was too high for even a normal-size person; for us, it would be like jumping from an even greater height.
Had Minnie known, just before her heart stopped beating, that it was her last breath? Oh, Minnie! Had she forgiven me? Had she even blamed me, in the first place? Before she died—and she must have known that she was dying; she must have known she could not keep losing so much blood—had she been angry? I was angry now—I was furious! To think that I would die here in this way—why, if there had been someone nearby whom I felt was responsible, I would have yelled, I would have screamed, I would have accused and blamed.
But Minnie hadn’t done that, and so, as I strained to see her dear face one more time—but the smoke was so thick it was obscuring my memories as well as my vision—I had to believe that she wasn’t angry with me, that she didn’t blame me. If only I could forgive myself—
And then my eyes flew open wider as I peered through the smoke, trying to see one last image; my heart, with one final, mighty burst of energy, opened up and flooded my sinking spirits with one last thought. It was of a face; it was of an apology. It was of an acknowledgment that there was one person I would miss—and one person that I hoped would miss me. But that could happen only if I forgave us both.
Charles was coughing, his head still buried in my lap. So was I—my chest was already aching from the effort, although I hadn’t realized it. My throat was burning, as were my eyes; perspiration was running down my neck, between my breasts, my thighs.
But I had strength enough left to whisper, “I’m sorry, I was wrong, I forgive us both, I forgive you—” His name was upon my lips; that name I had withheld, for no reason. For every reason.
I was just about to utter it, wondering if it would be the last word I ever spoke, when I heard a voice cut through my fading consciousness.
“Hello?” it said, in a brogue almost as thick as the smoke filling the room. The wall behind my back shuddered, and an enormous thud was heard in the window above my head. “And would there be anyone in here now?”
I leaped up, knocking Charles to the floor; there, in the window, was the tip of a ladder, and a round, beautiful, blessed Irish face, covered in grime and wearing a fireman’s hat, staring at me.
“Oh! Thank Providence!” I burst into tears; I couldn’t believe that he was real. I climbed upon the chair just so I could touch his face; without a word, he grabbed my arm and started to haul me over the windowsill.
“Wait! I can’t—” I gazed down at the ladder; there was no way I could traverse it, for the rungs were far too widely spaced. “I can’t climb down! And my husband is here!”
“Your husband?” The fireman blinked, just as Charles scrambled up on the chair next to me. The three of us stared at one another for an almost comical moment, considering the circumstances. “Ach—you’re wee! Both of you!”
“Yes, and we can’t climb down the ladder ourselves!”
“Then I’ll just have to take you down, then, one at a time. Who’s first?”
Charles and I looked at each other; I don’t know what he was thinking, but all I could wonder was what if something happened—the ladder collapsed, or the flames broke through, before the man could climb back up? Having just absolved myself of Minnie’s death, I could not bear to think of either of us having to live with that burden.
“No, can’t you—please, take us both?”
“How much do ye weigh?” The man was so calm, standing upon a ladder hundreds of feet above the ground with electrical wires humming not five feet behind him, flames licking below him, people screaming and hanging out of windows on either side.
“Not much—maybe eighty pounds, total?” I tried not to look at my portly husband.
“All right, climb aboard!” The fireman was cheerful about it, as if he was offering us a ride upon his favorite horse. As we hesitated, not sure what to do, he simply reached with one hand and grabbed me about the waist; I was hauled out the window and instructed to climb on his back, which I did, pressing myself tightly against him, trying to make myself even smaller so as not to touch those hissing electrical wires. He yanked Charles out the window by the back of his nightshirt and tucked him under one arm, like a ham. Then he started to climb down, but I called out, “Oh, wait—my steps!”
“My steps—please, my father made them!”
“Sorry, Miss—no time!” And we began to inch our way down the ladder.
I couldn’t look, but I couldn’t shut my eyes, either; I wanted to be aware of every moment. I wanted to be able to convince myself I had really survived. So I concentrated on the fireman’s back; his heavy coat; the sweat running, in neat little rivers, down the back of his red neck; his matted brown hair curling out from under his black fireman’s helmet.
Yet I couldn’t shut out all the rest—the bodies that fell on either side of us, landing with the sickening thump of a ripe melon being thrown to the ground; the people hanging out of windows, waving, screaming, holding towels and handkerchiefs up to their faces to block out the smoke, which was boiling out of every window now, thick and black, bits of paper and fabric swirling within it. The air began to cool as we continued down the ladder; I had the oddest thought that Charles must be feeling quite a draft, as the entire lower half of his body was sticking out, uncovered, for all the world to see.
Finally, we reached the ground; the fireman tossed Charles, unceremoniously, to the street and knelt down so that I could slide off his back, muttering, “Eighty pounds, my arse.” He then grabbed the ladder and moved it over to the next row of windows, and began to climb back up.
“Charles, Charles!” I bent down, shaking him; I was overcome with joy, with relief—I could have danced a jig, right then and there. “We’re safe!”
But to my surprise, my husband was crying. Lying on his side in the street, while people stepped over us, shouting for us to get out of the way, he hid his face in his arms. His shoulders were shaking; he was sobbing more wretchedly than he had at any time during the ordeal.
“What? What’s wrong? We’re saved!”
“Oh, Vinnie! To have to be lowered down that way, that awful, mortifying way! Like a—like a sack of something—just hauled out like that! It’s so humiliating—I couldn’t do a thing for myself, I couldn’t save you or me, it’s so awful!”
I stared at him, unable to believe what I was hearing. I suppose my heart should have softened toward him, for he was a man, after all. And men did have their pride.
But we were alive! I was so grateful for that, I couldn’t understand his shame.
I rose; all around us were people sobbing, yelling, running about. There were broken bodies, arms and legs at unnatural angles, littering the street; even as I registered this, another fell just ten feet away from us.
“We need to move away from here,” I told Charles, gripping his arm. “Come, let’s find a place to stay, and we’ll look for the Bleekers.”
Sniffing, rubbing his eyes, Charles rose and allowed me to guide him through the carnage, across the street to a bakery that had opened its doors to the survivors. Someone was handing out blankets, and one fell across my shoulders, as if by magic. The warm, homey smell of fresh bread and pastry was an odd counterpoint to the horrible stench—of burning flesh as well as burning wood—outside.
Already there was a coroner’s wagon on the scene; stretchers were being removed from it, filled with bodies covered with sheets, and then placed back inside. Hospital wagons were also being loaded with the wounded, and every few minutes the driver would slap the reins as a wagon sped off, full of broken, burned occupants. Mothers were searching for children, crying out their names; children were screaming for parents. Everywhere there were people walking, looking, seeking.
But also, people were simply sitting, on curbs, in the street, still in their nightclothes which were now torn and streaked with ash and dirt; some were dripping wet, as if they’d doused themselves with water to protect against the flames. All were staring at the scene before them, eyes glazed over, as if they simply could not process the carnage, as if they simply could not understand how they had escaped it.
“You stay here. I’ll go out and see if I can help, and find the Bleekers,” I told Charles, who dutifully nodded and sat down upon an upturned bucket. Someone had placed a blanket around his shoulders, too, but he was shaking, his face still that awful red, his breathing labored. But I couldn’t stay inside with him, waiting to be told what to do next; I needed to move, to fill my lungs with air, to remind myself that truly, I was alive.
So I moved among my fellow survivors as the hotel continued to burn; occasionally, there would be a fresh cry as pieces of it came crashing down. But soon there was no one left inside to scream; the flames continued to crackle, the bells to clang, but from within the flames there was only deathly silence.
“Please, let me help.” I tugged on the skirt of a woman in a white dress, a blue cape around her shoulders; she carried a basket of blankets and a bucket of clean water with a ladle, and was moving among the survivors, giving them drinks and warmth.
“That would be a blessing.” She smiled down at me, not betraying any surprise at my size, and handed me an armful of blankets. The heat from the fire was still blazing hot but only if you were facing it; otherwise, the January air was relentlessly cold. As the sun continued to rise, people’s wet garments began to sparkle as if fine diamonds had fallen upon them—but after a closer look, I saw that they were ice crystals. Shuddering in sympathy, I was grateful for the blanket across my shoulders, the warm shoes upon my feet—for many survivors were barefoot.
“Do you know where—is there a place where the wounded are being taken? Where we might be able to meet up with our friends, to see if they survived?”
“I believe there’s a man writing down the names of the survivors—over there.” She pointed to a man carrying a pad of paper and a pencil, near the largest fire wagon. “You can check with him and give him your name.”
“Thank you.” I headed that way, handing out blankets; a few people recognized me and smiled weakly, calling out, “Mrs. Tom Thumb! What are you doing here?”
“My husband and I were staying in the hotel,” I replied. “We were rescued by a fireman.” I scanned the crowd in all directions, searching for the Bleekers—surely Mr. Bleeker, so tall, with his distinctive long gray beard and sad face, would stand out? Surely they escaped, just as we had?
And then I heard my name again—“Vinnie!” But it was a moan; about twenty feet away, I saw Mr. Bleeker kneeling over a broken body in a nightgown.
“Mr. Bleeker!” Picking my way across what now resembled a battlefield, I fell to my knees beside him; he was holding his wife’s hand, shaking his head as tears rolled down his face.
Julia Bleeker was still alive; her eyes were closed, and her breathing was shallow. But her face was pale, her nightgown was plastered to her body in bloody patches, and her leg was turned out from the hip at an unnatural angle.
“What happened?” I picked up her other hand; it was cold, and I was reminded of Minnie. But then she squeezed it, and I had hope. “Mrs. Bleeker! It’s me, Vinnie! Charles and I are fine—we were rescued from our room.”
She didn’t reply, although her eyelids fluttered; I looked over at Mr. Bleeker, who took a big, shuddering breath.
“She jumped—we both jumped from our room to a balcony about two stories below. I landed just fine, but Julia, she—she hit the fencing, the iron fencing, and her head—it just hit it. This big post. I was able to get her down a ladder, but—I don’t know, Vinnie. I just don’t know.”
“Oh!” There was no bruise visible on her face, but it was so deathly pale.
“I tried to get to you and Charles, I did, but it was impossible.” Mr. Bleeker now looked at me anxiously. “Gosh, I’m glad you got out. I was worried sick; so was Julia. She kept crying, ‘Oh, Sylvester, those dear little souls! How frightened they must be!’ But then—” And he couldn’t go on.
“I know. Don’t think about it.”
“That farm,” he said, a great tear rolling down his face.
“What?”
“That farm. She always wanted that farm up in Albany. ‘Sylvester,’ she said, but never in a scolding way—oh, no! ‘I surely would like to have that little farm.’ But I never gave it to her. I’m the one with the show blood in my veins, not her. But she never once complained, she always followed me, and now—”
“Shhh,” I said, for I believed Mrs. Bleeker could hear us, even if she couldn’t speak. “You’ll give her that farm, I know it. You’ll have all the time in the world.”
“Do you think so, Vinnie?”
I looked at him; his eyes were round with both hope and fear.
“I do,” I lied, as all at once, two men and a stretcher made their way through the crowd toward us. Much too roughly, they loaded Mrs. Bleeker upon it and trotted off toward a hospital wagon; Mr. Bleeker had to sprint to catch up, shouting, “Where are you taking her?” It all happened so fast, I didn’t get to say goodbye—to either of them.
I continued to pass out blankets until the sun rose high in the sky; it must have been noon before I realized I was still in my nightgown. But then, so were many other people. Eventually, policemen rounded everyone up and directed them to other hotels; we were told not to leave Milwaukee for at least two days, as they needed to take down statements from us all.
Somehow, I managed to get Charles more or less upright and moving again, and at my urging, over the next few days we gave two benefit performances for the victims of the fire. And we dedicated each performance to our good friends Julia and Sylvester Bleeker. It was the first time we had performed without them, and it felt wrong; neither of our hearts was in it, but we were happy to help a good many people, a number of whom feared being stranded now that all their money was in ashes.
After the benefits, Charles and I left for home, this time for good; there was no question of continuing the tour. And so, after traveling the globe, crossing the country countless times, traversing up and down and through rivers, deserts, and mountains, the General Tom Thumb Company came to its sad end in the ashes of a hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Minnie was gone; Nutt had died in 1881 of Bright’s disease.
And now, too, was Mrs. Bleeker taken from us; she died twelve days later from her injuries. After staying in Milwaukee to give testimony at one of the inquests, Mr. Bleeker retired to a niece’s home in Brooklyn—still agonized because he had not been able to get to Charles and me.
Although, oddly, many news reports and articles began to surface saying that he had—that he had saved Charles and me from the flames himself, depicting him as a grieving, but heroic, husband and friend.
And while I don’t know exactly how that rumor began, I could not help but suspect that an old friend of ours might have had something to do with it.