“The man had too much whiskey,” Levi said. “I don’t believe you’ll need to worry about that happening at every performance.”
“And everyone else—the way they stared at me. It was different, Levi, different from how it was in New York,” Amelia said.
“I don’t think it was as different as you do,” Levi said. “The trouble is that in the wagon you don’t have any way to turn away from the way they stare.”
“And in the museum the crowd was constantly moving,” Amelia said. “They didn’t stay in place and point.”
“They did at the Concert Hall,” Levi pointed out.
“But I was on the stage then. I was above the crowd, not at their eye level,” Amelia said. She felt that she wasn’t explaining properly. He didn’t understand how much more exposed she felt in the wagon.
“I suppose if it makes you that uncomfortable we can find a way to raise the wagon. Put it on a little stage. We would have to build it at each stop on the tour, though,” Levi said.
She saw him calculating the cost, the trouble, and the need for explaining both of those things to Barnum.
“I can become accustomed to it,” she said. She didn’t really care about Barnum’s expenses or grievances, but she didn’t like Levi bearing the brunt of them. “It’s only that it’s new, I suppose.”
He took her in his arms then, and it was a long time before either of them thought of anything but each other.
“Let’s find a bookshop tomorrow, or a library,” Amelia said, her cheek pressed into Levi’s chest. She liked listening to his heart beat and hearing the deep rumble of his voice rising out of his lungs. “I want to know all about the orangutan and where it comes from. And all about Fiji, too.”
“Fiji?” Levi asked. “Why, after so many months?”
“I’d like to know more about where I am supposed to be from,” Amelia said. “But you’ll need to read it to me. I still can only read a little.”
Amelia had been trying to learn more, simply because there were words everywhere, and most folk relied on the newspaper. She felt she was at a disadvantage when everyone talked about things they read in the news.
“I can teach you anything you don’t know. Then you’ll be able to read it yourself,” Levi said.
They were not able to find a book that contained any information about orangutans, but Levi discovered a missionary’s journal from the South Pacific. This contained descriptions not only of Fiji but of many other islands where the missionary had traveled in hopes of spreading the word of God.
Amelia scowled at this bit when Levi read it aloud.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Why does he want to go about interfering with other people?” Amelia said. “I’m sure the people on those islands were perfectly happy without missionaries.”
Levi shifted uncomfortably at this. Like almost every American he’d been raised with the Bible, and while he wasn’t as fervent as some, he still believed in the basic rightness of the Christian word. Amelia, having been raised in no such manner, did not think it good or right that Christians plowed over everyone who did not think as they did.
“Well, Amelia, they are savages,” Levi said.
“What’s a savage?” Amelia said. “Someone who doesn’t live as you do? Someone who doesn’t have gaslight and shoes and cobblestoned streets?”
Levi took a breath and tried again. “These are simple people who haven’t been exposed to—”
“And why is simple something that needs to be fixed? Why must all people everywhere be cast in the same mold?” Amelia said.
She felt unreasonably angry with Levi for not understanding the basic wrongness of this idea. These people had their own lives, their own gods, their own ways. A missionary traveled across the ocean and told them that everything they believed and lived by was incorrect. It was the same as if a human came to her people under the ocean and told them that they could no longer be merpeople.
Amelia was surprised, too, for Levi was always kind and it seemed out of character for him to think of himself as above anyone, especially an island dweller who lived thousands of miles away.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t read this book right now,” Levi said, closing it and putting it aside.
“No,” Amelia said, snatching it from his hand. “You’re not to do that. You’re not to treat me like a child because you don’t want to have a disagreement.”
“This is just something you don’t understand, Amelia,” Levi said, the first sparks of anger in his eyes. “Missionaries have a duty to save others from damnation.”
“That’s what Elijah Hunt thought he was doing when he shot me,” Amelia said. “I can’t believe you would think the same as someone like that.”
“It’s not the same thing,” Levi said, his face showing his exasperation. “Elijah Hunt had an extreme view.”
“A view that was shared with all those people who wrote to Barnum about me, and the crowds that demonstrated day after day outside the museum,” Amelia said. “How is Elijah Hunt different from a missionary? Their intention is salvation at any cost. Maybe it’s you who doesn’t understand.”
Levi didn’t say anything else. He quietly put on his coat and left their hotel room. This infuriated Amelia, who felt it deeply unfair that he was able to leave if he was angry and she was not (it being unsafe for her to walk about on her own—this was truer now than it had been in New York, since the crowds they’d encountered were more unpredictable). She was also angry that he would rather leave than listen to her.
She threw the stupid missionary book across the room. It was the first time they’d ever really disagreed, and since he wouldn’t stay and let her convince him she was right, she didn’t know what to do with herself except pace and argue with him in her head instead of in person.
She paced until she was exhausted, and then she lay on the bed and cried, because she had all this energy and nowhere to put it.
A while after that he returned bearing dinner on a tray and said he was sorry he’d left her. But he didn’t apologize for believing he was right, and Amelia didn’t apologize either, and they were very careful with each other for several days after.
And in the meantime, they went from town to town, moving ever farther south. It was terribly hot no matter where they went, and Amelia grew resentful of the humidity that sapped her energy and the mosquitoes that plagued them constantly and the eternal press of the sunlight.
She’d come from a cold clime, where the air was crisp nearly year-round and the ocean was even colder. The poor orangutan suffered, too, particularly since her handler didn’t see fit to give her water frequently enough.
One afternoon they stopped in a small town in North Carolina. As the men began to raise the large white tent Amelia caught sight of the orangutan’s handler, whose name was Stephen White, whipping the ape for moving too slowly out of her cage in the wagon to the ground.
She didn’t think. She left Levi, who’d been saying something about finding suitable lodging for the night, and crossed the grounds to White.
As White raised the whip to hit the cowering animal again, Amelia tore it from his hand. She nearly dropped it, for it was an ugly thing and it felt ugly and mean in her hand, but she was so very angry.
“What the—” he said.
As he turned toward her, Amelia lashed him across the face with the whip. White screamed, both hands coming up to cover his left cheek. A large welt raised there almost instantly, and it ran from his mouth to his ear.
“You goddamned bitch,” White snarled, stepping toward her.