The Thunder of Giants Read online

  “A magnificent idea!” said Miss Eaton. “You have a charitable heart, Sergeant Clarke.”

  “It’s a marvelous thought,” said Anna. “And I know P. T. will approve. He’s happy to do anything to support the war, you know.”

  “You’ll come, won’t you?” said Gavin. “I know they’d all get a thrill out of seeing the only lady giant in the world.”

  Anna blushed. “I’ll come if you’ll take the measurements.”

  “Agreed.” And he stuck out his only hand, which Anna swallowed in her grasp.

  That night, long after he had gone, Anna studied the sleeping world from behind frozen glass. She stared out at the tops of the buildings wrapped in a great polar bear quilt that Colonel Goshen had procured especially for her. For months she had been steeling herself for the inevitability of marriage to a man whose only similarity to her was their enormous size. But those male giants didn’t know her. They certainly didn’t need her. Once again she recalled the passage in Jane Eyre when Jane brings the blind Edward Rochester back to Thornfield Hall. “Being so much lower of stature than he, I served both for his prop and guide.” If a woman is to marry, thought Anna, she should be more than just a prized fish. No, Gavin wasn’t blind; no, she wasn’t of lower stature. But it amounted to the same thing. She could be his prop and guide. He just needed to ask.

  * * *

  BARNUM, AS EXPECTED, was thrilled with the idea of bringing solace to the convalescents; his only regret was that he hadn’t thought of the idea first. He happily began the arrangements to send his battalion of human curiosities into the field, but paused at the thought of sending Anna herself. As a Canadian, she was a British subject, and her country was neutral.

  “She’s raising the spirits of injured men,” argued Miss Eaton. “It’s not as if she’s taking sides.”

  Barnum scratched his fat little chin. “She’s raising the spirits of Union men. She is, by implication, waving a flag.”

  He had come to see Anna at the Top of the World and had interrupted a brutal game of whist. Anna was happy to throw down the cards—she was losing terribly. “I don’t care if I am waving a flag,” she said. “I want to do it. I support the war.”

  “No intelligent person supports war.”

  “I support the cause of the war.”

  “And tell me,” said Barnum. “What is the cause of this war?”

  “Slavery.”

  “Ha! Slavery is probably the last thing this war is about. This is about democracy. The South says democracy is about letting people choose how they want to live—even if they want to live with slavery. But we say democracy isn’t an excuse for people to be cruel. Cruelty is not a thing that any government should sanction.”

  “You’re not in your lecture hall,” said Miss Eaton. “Don’t give us a lecture.”

  Barnum broke into a grin. “My point is that Annie is a celebrity now. We have to be careful about how she is perceived.”

  “No one can blame me for going to visit a hospital. And it doesn’t matter what you say, because I’m going whether you like it or not.”

  “You’re on contract. I control where you perform.”

  “Then I won’t perform. I’ll just visit. I’m sure they could use volunteers.”

  Barnum’s scowl only lasted a moment. Then the fierce expression broke, and he gave a good, hearty laugh. “Lord knows I love a stubborn woman! All right, Annie. You go down and do what you can. I’m sorry for objecting. This war does funny things to your brain: half the time, you never know how you should be.”

  Not long after, on a glorious and frigid Monday, Anna left the intersection of Broadway and Ann for the frigid shores of the Bronx. Barnum had tried to send along some of his other attractions—he had even suggested sending the entire thunder of giants—but Anna had subtly convinced him that she would be more than enough. She didn’t want to journey out there with Angus McAskill or Col. Goshon; she wanted to see Gavin entirely on her own. Of course, Anna was never entirely alone. With Miss Eaton at her side, she traveled swiftly in the same great carriage that had met her when she and her parents had first arrived in New York. She was even taken by the same driver and the same team of Clydesdales, both of whom shuddered and snorted as they raced through the frost.

  Gavin was stationed at the hospital at Fort Schuyler, an old building that stood in the earth like a crumbling fist. Upon their arrival, they were met by a doe-eyed private on a crutch, who gawked at Anna’s approach before breaking into a wide grin. “I had to trade rations to make sure I was the first to see ya!” he proclaimed before leading them inside. Anna wrapped her cloak tight: the ancient stone did little to keep out the chill. Down they went through the labyrinth of halls toward dank gloom and the putrid smell of infection. From somewhere in the distance, she could hear the faint howl of men who writhed in corners unknown. A horrible place, thought Anna. A far cry from the Top of the World with her polar bear quilt, hot water bottles, and stockings knit by her mother’s hand.

  Gavin was in one of the larger wards, changing a set of fouled sheets. His movements were impressive; he had adapted quickly, moving as if he had claimed only one arm his entire life. “Nothing compared to a winter on the North Shore, eh?” he laughed.

  “This can’t be good for the men,” snapped Miss Eaton.

  “It’s actually better when it’s cold,” said Gavin, breath billowing out of him. “We freeze to the point when we can’t feel a thing.”

  Most of the patients had gathered in another ward to await Anna’s arrival. Gavin warned them that the crowd was larger than he had thought—the hospital had its share of civilians on staff, and some had brought their families. “They’re all excited about this,” he said. “Most of them can’t afford to go to the museum.”

  “I’m happy to do it,” said Anna, but what truly thrilled her was the way Gavin spoke to her. With respect and sincerity. And was that gratitude? “Let me help with that,” she said, plucking a clean sheet from a nearby trolley. Her numb hands found a way to shake out the sheet. Whatever liquid had seeped into the mattress had frozen, for when she spread out the stiff linen, the bed crackled in the cold. Gavin took the other end, and together they finished the bed, tucking in the corners just the way both of their parents had taught them to do when they were young.

  At last Gavin led her to the other ward while Miss Eaton trailed behind. She waited in the hall while he stepped into the room to silence the audience. The howling wind was in her ears, and she did not hear much of what was said. Some variation of what he had heard at the museum a few weeks before. He ad-libbed some of it, but she recognized her cue. He told them to hold their breath; he told them to marvel at the sight that was Miss Anna Swan. Then she swept into the room and nearly stumbled on a puddle of piss that had frozen to the stone floor.

  The audience was different than any she had seen. The beds had been arranged in a semicircle, and in each one boys and men lay steeped in wounds and amputations, their frozen blood hanging off of their bandages, their dark infections sitting like scales on the skin. More men stood around them, dwarfing the uninjured with their crutches and slings. Anna only saw the tragedy. She hardly noticed the children or wives who had come to see her; she barely saw the way everyone’s breath hung suspended in the air.

  Swallow the horror, she thought. Remember your lines. “Who would like to hear a song?” she asked, and the strength of her voice impressed even herself.

  It was a great success. When it was through, the men and women gathered around her. Not quite able to recall those days in Halifax when she had touched people’s hands, Anna imagined this to be the first time she had ever met her audience. She was completely overwhelmed. One by one Gavin introduced her to the soldiers who had nearly lost their lives in Shiloh, Yorktown, Antietam. She tried to be gracious, only to feel like a fraud. Who was she to thank them for fighting for a country that wasn’t even hers? Still, she shook hand after hand and sweetly answered every question about her life. She could see what
it meant to them. Her life was history to her but a fantasy to everyone else. They had only known war, while she had known the top of the world.

  Later, Gavin offered Anna and Miss Eaton supper in a private ward. Famished, she ate heartily at a small table stationed next to a roaring hearth. The meal was meager, but she hardly cared. She was filled with a great glow of satisfaction. For the first time since she had started performing, she finally felt she had done something of worth. She was biting into an icy apple when she noticed Gavin watching her, half of his face lit by the glow of the hearth. Then he looked sharply away and, with a slight stutter, asked if the women would mind if he smoked. Anna liked this—Jean Bihin and Colonel Goshen certainly never asked before lighting their pipes—so she gave her permission without waiting for Miss Eaton to acquiesce. It didn’t matter. Wrapped in a shawl and exhausted by the day, Miss Eaton had fallen asleep.

  Anna watched as Gavin rolled a cigarette with a single hand, keeping the paper and tobacco pressed against his lap.

  “You do everything so well,” she remarked.

  “I feel like a clumsy oaf.” At last the cigarette was rolled, and he gave her a sheepish grin. “I can roll the cigarette, but I have trouble lighting it.”

  He came round the table and sat next to her. She had trouble with the matches—her fingers were too large, and the sticks dropped to the floor.

  “We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?” smirked Gavin.

  Resolutely, Anna tried again. The match struck, and her large fingers managed to hold onto to the flimsy stick. She leaned forward and Gavin sucked in the flame, and their eyes met across the cigarette even as the smoke rose up between them.

  “See?” she said. “You’ve got one arm, and I’m far too big, but we could still figure out how to conquer the world.”

  “Is that what you want to do? Conquer the world?”

  “Maybe. I probably can’t do this forever.”

  “You probably could. Barnum would see to that.”

  “I’m sure I’ll do something else.”

  “Like run off with one of your giants.”

  “I don’t have to run off with one of them. I’m my own person. I could run off with anyone I choose.”

  “Yeah, I imagine you could.” Gavin smoked for a moment and glanced at the sleeping Miss Eaton. Then he leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I’d like to confess something to you, if I may. I wanted to write to you.”

  She didn’t dare move. His eyes had locked into hers. “You did?”

  “I kept thinking about the last time we saw each other. That stupid fight in my father’s shop. What was it even about? Then one day our infantry met up with another unit, and someone told me that some regiment in Lexington had a captain who was eight feet tall. They were calling him the Kentucky Giant.”

  Anna ran a finger along her empty plate. Another male giant. Why not? There were at least three in the Union. Why shouldn’t the Confederates have their own?

  “Some of the others didn’t believe it. But I did, and it got me thinking of you. I wanted to tell you. And once I started thinking about it, I wanted to tell you everything else. The names of the men. The lousy marching. How scared I was. They were so anxious for me that they threw me into battle right away and I could barely hold my gun. I could have written anyone, I suppose. But for some reason, you were the only person I wanted to tell.”

  Anna spoke softly, willing Miss Eaton to stay fast asleep. “So why didn’t you?”

  “You said you were going off to New York. I knew you were enjoying all your success. I guess I figured you didn’t want to hear from me. That museum, it’s sort of like its own little paradise, isn’t it?”

  “That museum is a bit like a dream,” she confessed.

  “You sorry I brought you out here into the real world?”

  “Not at all. I was thinking I should come back.”

  “You want to perform again?”

  “I don’t care what I do. I’ll make beds so long as it helps.”

  “Will Barnum let you?”

  “I don’t care if he won’t. He wants me to be a good and decent person. What sort of good and decent person doesn’t help people in need?”

  Gavin looked at her in wonder. “You’ve become something really brash and bold, Annie. Or were you always like that and I’m just noticing now?” He glanced down at his cigarette. “It’s gone out. Light it again?”

  Once more, she struggled with the matches; once more, her thick fingers struggled with the tiny sticks. The match came to life and she raised it toward him, only to find him leaning in close. He was stretched in an awkward way so that their faces were of equal height. Only the length of a cigarette between them. “We’re really quite the pair,” he said again, and then there was nothing between them at all. His kiss landed on the corner of her mouth. He was shadow and stubble and coarse skin. She tasted his tobacco. She smelled something medicinal emanating from his wounded arm. There was the crackle of fire and the gurgle of Miss Eaton’s snores. Sight and taste, smell and sound. The only thing missing was touch. The kiss had happened too fast; she had barely felt it at all.

  Gavin drew back. They studied each other in the faded light. She knew a promise had been made, and she would spend the rest of the night trying to decide exactly what it had been.

  EIGHT

  The Empty Mountain

  Detroit, 1912–1915

  DRAWN BY THE FACTORY whistles of Ford and GM, a tide of immigrants swept into Detroit in the spring of 1912. Two Andorran exiles followed in their wake. They were exhausted from their journey, which had taken nearly sixteen months, first because Geoffrey del Alandra had misread the map and then because their trans-Atlantic steamer encountered three terrific storms, each of which blew them further off course. Now, at last, they were stepping into the Eight-Fingered City, so called because the great machinery of the automotive world tended to devour hands. This did not surprise Geoffrey, who had been introduced to the automobile during their bewildered trek through Europe. “Iron tigers!” he proclaimed. He found them so loud that they could only inspire mistrust. As for Andorra, she saw them as cages with wheels. She had not stopped growing and for nearly a year and a half she had been suffering on steamships and trains. She was tired of suffering; in the automobile she saw a punishment as humiliating as a pillory.

  Fortunately, her father’s plan wasn’t for them to ever ride in an iron tiger; he merely hoped to live off those who did. In quick succession, he found work at Ford and established a home for his daughter in a pair of rooms on Elsa Street. Most émigrés chose their living quarters based on where their clans had collected: the Russians went to Highland Park, the Syrians to the Lower East Side. But there was no Andorran neighborhood in Detroit. Geoffrey’s appearance on Elsa Street was due entirely to an advertisement that had been printed in French. Coming from the prick between France and Spain meant he and Andorra easily understood an à louer for what it was.

  The house on Elsa Street was owned by Mrs. Holt, a young widow whose husband had died of old age. This aged husband was one Andorra would remember in her prayers because, in addition to giving his wife French, Mr. Holt had left one other thing that made him invaluable: a house with high ceilings. Although Andorra had to stoop to get through the door, she never had to stoop once she was inside. As it was later explained, Marianne Holt’s husband had been a terrible claustrophobic, and each room had been designed to mimic the open space of a country field. Every hallway was wide, every room had a large window. The bathroom was as expansive as it was tall. This could only thrill Andorra, who had struggled with toilets her entire life. They were as much a humiliation as the steamship or the cramped compartments of the train. On the trip to America, she had been almost happy when the bad food had left her constipated; now, in the bathroom on Elsa Street, she saw she could finally sit without banging her knees on the wall. Paradise in a water closet.

  “I trust the house is to your liking,” said the Widow. She was speaking in F
rench; for months it would be the only common tongue between them. “Breakfast and dinner are at seven, and I insist on punctuality. You’re welcome to use the kitchen during the day, but try to stay out of the cook’s way—assuming you can!” Then her eyes widened, and she clasped a hand over her mouth. “Oh God, I’m sorry! That was terribly rude.”

  “Not half as rude as some of the things we’ve heard,” said Geoffrey.

  “No, it was awful. Tell me you forgive me.”

  Andorra was stunned. No adult had ever asked her this before. “I forgive you,” she said solemnly.

  “Good!” said the Widow. “The two of us should be good friends. I prefer being friends with my borders. It makes the whole thing a lot more pleasant.” She gave a girlish laugh; it clearly pegged her age at twenty-three and a half. “Most of my family have disappeared,” she admitted. “The family I was born with have all died. And the family I married into threw me away.”

  “Why?” asked Andorra.

  “Why else? They thought I was a gold digger.”

  Andorra didn’t understand. The Widow had interpolated the English word into her French phrase, Ils croyaient que j’etais une gold digger. “What’s a gold digger?” Andorra asked.

  “Someone who marries for money instead of love. We need to teach you a little English.”

  “We need to teach her a lot of English,” said Geoffrey. “Finding a good tutor is our top priority.”

  “But I can do it!” exclaimed the Widow.

  “Are you a teacher?”

  “Better! An actress!”

  Andorra frowned. She wondered if the French word for actress—comedienne—meant the same thing in America as it did back home.

  “You misunderstand,” said Geoffrey. “I want someone who can teach us to speak.”

  “Yes, yes. I can do that.”

  “But I want to learn to speak it well.”

  “Actors have to speak well,” said the Widow. “Speaking is our bread and butter. Please say yes. It would give me something to do. It’ll be just like the language-lesson scene of The Life of Henry the Fifth, only not as dull!” She gave Andorra a broad, compassionate grin. “Would you like it if I taught you to speak American?”