Time Travel Omnibus, page 890
When Schmidt got up from the table to carry the dishes into the kitchen, Adele and her mother exchanged a wink.
Shortly after breakfast, Adele and Mr. Schmidt boarded a steamboat to Brooklyn, along with hundreds of other New Yorkers eager to get away for the day. Schmidt, who had been quiet and reserved as they had walked over to the Third Street pier, became slightly agitated when he saw the steamboat. He came to a stop, forcing Adele to fight the crowd as she backed up to where he stood, going back and forth between staring at the boat and looking down at his feet.
“Mr. Schmidt? Are you coming with me or not?”
He looked up, and Adele noticed a slight reddish tinge to his cheeks. “I’m sorry, Miss Weber. I haven’t been on a boat in a while.”
“I thought you said you came over from Europe. What did you do, flap your arms and fly over here?”
“Something like that, yes,” he said with a broad smile.
“Seriously, Mr. Schmidt.”
“Seriously, I’m just a tad nervous.” He paused. “I just wasn’t expecting to board a steamboat, that’s all. I should have known better.”
“Do you get seasick, Mr. Schmidt?” Adele asked, trying to show her concern.
He chuckled. “No.”
“Did you have a bad experience on a boat?” Adele asked.
Schmidt nodded. “Sort of.”
“Well, relax. The ferries between Manhattan and Brooklyn run all the time. Nothing’s going to happen.”
He stared into her eyes for a moment. “Of course, you’re right. I would have known otherwise.”
“What?”
“I mean, if something had happened to any of the ferries, I would have heard.”
“So are we going?”
He smiled. “Yes. Let’s go.”
Mr. Schmidt paid their fare and they boarded the steamboat. The trip was uneventful, and within an hour they found themselves disembarking at the steel pier at Coney Island. The beautiful blue sky above the beach and boardwalk held but a wisp of white, fluffy clouds. As they walked down the pier, Mr. Schmidt bought a copy of “Seeing Coney Island” for ten cents from a barker, and using the guidebook they found their way to Luna Park.
At the entrance stood a huge stone arch with the words “Luna Park” on a scaffold. Directly in the middle of the arch sat a giant red heart, proclaiming Luna Park “The Heart of Coney Island.” Underneath that, carved in stone, were the names “Thompson & Dundy.” And underneath that, of course, people wandered into and out of the amusement park.
Adele and Schmidt joined the crowd walking into the park, and were hit by a variety of sounds and smells. The music of a brass band some distance away mixed with the laughter and shouting of the crowd of people. An odor of hay and manure wafted by, and Adele jumped away as an elephant lumbered by, led by a man in turban and carrying two couples who chatted away, seemingly unaware of the spectacle they were creating. As the crowds parted, Adele had to stick close to Schmidt to avoid being jostled away from him.
“Wow,” Schmidt said. Goggle-eyed, he slowly turned around and stared at everything Luna Park had to offer. Adele turned with him.
After taking in all the sights, Schmidt started pointing to the signs around the park that advertised rides and exhibitions: Ride the Trip to the Moon! Experience Dragon’s Gorge Scenic Railway! Take a Trip to the North Pole! See the new Fire and Flames!
“What shall we do first?” Adele asked.
“Fire and Flames looks interesting,” Schmidt said, pointing in the direction the sign indicated. “Let’s go see that.”
“I’m not sure,” Adele said. The name Fire and Flames made her uncomfortable. She studied the other signs, and then asked, “Wouldn’t you rather ride the Trip to the Moon?”
Schmidt looked her in the eyes. “I’ll make you a deal. First I’ll go with you to the Moon, and then you come with me to see the Flames.”
Reluctantly, Adele agreed. The two of them walked in the direction of the Moon ride, which was housed in one of the more modest buildings, past the huge Electric Tower with the sculpted dragon at the base.
They joined the long line in front of the building. Eventually, they reached the front of the line, and Schmidt handed over two dimes for their admission.
Workers ushered them and the other spectators into a cavernous room, in the middle of which sat a rounded spaceship that came to a point at one side. They were gently herded into the spaceship and asked to take seats in one of the rows. Adele took a seat next to a porthole, with Schmidt next to her.
A few seconds after the door closed, the spaceship started to rock back and forth. Looking out the portholes, Adele saw the walls vanish below, replaced by blue sky, which darkened until the only light came from pinpoint stars.
“Amazing,” she said, almost breathless with wonder. Schmidt made no comment.
Very soon after, the Moon appeared as a small rock in one of the portholes. It got larger and larger, until finally it swung below, disappearing from view, and the ship stopped rocking and came to a stop with a sudden thump.
“What now?” someone asked.
“We explore the Moon,” said the pilot.
He opened the door to the spaceship, and the spectators exited. No longer could they tell that they were still in the large room of the building that housed the ride. Instead, to all eyes, it appeared as if they stood on the populated surface of Earth’s nearest neighbor. Everywhere they looked were caverns and grottos. Giants and midgets dressed in elaborate silver costume greeted them, along with a man on a throne who claimed to be the Man in the Moon. Dancing moon maidens gave the spectators pieces of green cheese to take back with them as souvenirs of their voyage. Eventually, the pilot ushered all the paying customers back into the spaceship, and after a slightly shorter trip, the ship “landed” and they were escorted outside into the bright sunny day on Earth.
Adele noticed that Mr. Schmidt had a bemused expression on his face. “Did you enjoy that?”
“I thought it was rather quaint,” he said.
“Quaint? The Trip to the Moon is quaint?”
“Well, it’s just an interesting picture of the future.” He smiled. “Are you ready for Fire and Flames now?”
Adele repressed a shudder. “I’m ready.”
Once again, they stood on a long line, and when they finally got to the front, Mr. Schmidt handed over two dimes for their admission to the theater. They took seats among the rows of other spectators, and waited for the curtain to lift.
Finally, once all the seats were filled, the curtain rose on a fake street that looked very much like one of the streets in Little Germany. Behind the street stood several tenement buildings, in front of which peddlers pushed their carts, children ran around, and men and women walked with purpose to their daily errands.
Suddenly smoke and flames emerged from one of the windows high up in a four-story tenement. The crowd of people, who had been moving in all directions, stopped in their tracks to stare up at the window. Then they started running around again, screaming, “Fire! Fire!”
Faces of women and children appeared at other windows near the one with the fire. Their screams rended the air as the fire spread first to one window, and then to the next, until the entire upper floor of the building burned in flame.
It wasn’t just the performers in the building and on the street who reacted. The spectators also began to jump up in their seats, screaming for someone to rescue the actors.
Just when it seemed as if there would be no hope for the unfortunate souls trapped in the building, a fire bell clanged and three fire engines sped down the makeshift street. Ten firemen grabbed hoses and began spraying water on all sides of the building, while another ten grabbed ladders and placed them along the building, so that the trapped residents could descend quickly to the safety of the street below.
A few people in the windows screamed that they couldn’t reach the ladders, and another group of firemen rushed over with safety nets. They called out “Jump!” and the last people trapped in the building’s top floor jumped into the nets, to thunderous applause from the audience.
The crowd roared with exhilaration, and even Mr. Schmidt joined in with great enthusiasm, but not Adele. She felt faint.
“Mr. Schmidt,” she whispered.
Schmidt turned to look at her, and his mouth fell open. “My God, Miss Weber. Your face is so pale. Are you feeling okay?”
“Please get me out of here,” she said.
“I don’t understand.”
“I thought I could take it, but I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“What are you talking about?”
She waved her right arm around, gesturing at the other members of the audience, who remained transfixed by the spectacle. “How can they watch this? How can they sit here unmoved by the horror?”
“It’s a disaster spectacle. Entertainment.”
“I can’t believe it. Although I suppose if people are going to gather at a fire for entertainment, it’s better they do so at a fake fire than at a real one.”
Schmidt cleared a path for the two of them, escorted Adele to a bench in a far corner of the park, and brought her a cup of water. She drank deeply.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked.
Adele nodded. “I think so. I just can’t believe it.”
“I couldn’t believe it either when I first read about it. That’s why I had to see it for myself. I have something of an interest in fires.” He paused. “I just didn’t realize that it would affect you this way.”
Adele remained silent for a few seconds. Then she cleared her throat and spoke. “My mother and I never told you how my father died.”
“No,” he said after a moment. “You didn’t.”
Adele looked away from Mr. Schmidt. She looked into the distance, where the beach melted away into the huge ocean. “He was walking home from work one evening when he heard shouts of a fire in a tenement. The firemen hadn’t arrived yet, and there were women and children trapped inside. Father threw off his coat and ran into the building, to try to rescue them.” She paused. “He never emerged.”
“I am sorry, Miss Weber.”
“Mother couldn’t bear it. I had to identify the body.”
“That . . . that must have been difficult for you,” Schmidt said quietly, while the noise of the park still surrounded them.
Adele shook her head, trying to dismiss the memory from her mind. “Fires are far too common in our world. I was but a young twelve-year-old girl when that building he ran into went up in flames. Ever since then, I’ve had recurring dreams of fire.”
“Ironic,” Schmidt said softly.
“Why is that ironic?” Adele asked.
“Oh, um, no reason,” Schmidt replied, with a wave of his hand. “I wish I could have met your father. It sounds like he was quite the heroic man.”
Adele grunted. “Hm. I sometimes feel that the more heroic choice would have been to ignore the screams of strangers and stay alive for his family.” She smiled. “Selfish of me, I suppose.”
“You’re entitled to such feelings. But why didn’t you tell me about this when I suggested seeing Fire and Flames?”
“I—I didn’t want you to be disappointed.”
Schmidt took her in his arms, held her for a moment, and then released her. “Are you ready for another ride?”
Adele shook her head; the emotional roller coaster she had just gone through felt more intense than a real one would have been. “Actually, I’d like to go home.”
“But we barely got here,” Schmidt said.
Adele looked him in the eye. “Mr. Schmidt? I think I’ve had enough stimulation for one day. Please?”
He sighed. “Very well, Miss Weber.”
The two of them rode the next ferry back to Manhattan.
After that day, Adele saw less and less of Mr. Schmidt. In the mornings, he would scurry off before breakfast, calling out that he would pick up a muffin or roll on his way to Newspaper Row. In the evenings, after returning to his rooms, he would go out to assist Mary Abendschein in getting shopkeepers and business owners to purchase advertisements in the excursion journal.
This bothered Adele, because even taking into account the disastrous trip to Coney Island, she had come around to her mother’s way of thinking. Lucas Schmidt did seem to be a man of good prospects, and his pleasant appearance certainly made him favorable in Adele’s eyes.
But his recent secrecy worried her. Was he avoiding her simply because of her behavior at Luna Park? Or was there another, more sinister reason? There were many stories of criminals who passed as decent, hard-working men. Suppose Mr. Schmidt had fooled Reverend Haas? Suppose her mother had opened their household up to a man who planned to run off with their possessions? Or worse yet, murder them in their sleep?
Adele admitted to herself that these thoughts were more flights of fancy than real concerns, but she still had a devouring curiosity about Lucas Schmidt. And so, one Monday, in the middle of the day when she had little to do, Adele walked downtown to Newspaper Row, on the eastern edge of City Hall Park.
The New York World was housed in its own tower that sported a tall golden dome on top, so Adele found the building with ease. She maneuvered her way through the newsboys on the street as they shouted the headlines in hopes of getting her to buy the latest edition of whatever paper they were hawking. The big news story was still the murder of Caesar Young by Nan Patterson, his mistress. Adele rolled her eyes at one of the newsboys and pressed her way into the building. She approached the reception desk where a bored-looking man sat.
“Yes?” he asked.
“I’m here to see Mr. Lucas Schmidt. He’s one of your reporters.”
The man checked a printed list on his desk, running his finger down it for a moment. Then he looked up at Adele. “What was the name again?”
“Schmidt. Lucas Schmidt. He would have just started working recently.”
“I don’t think so. This list is pretty up to date.”
“But I’m sure this is where he works.”
“Well,” the man said suddenly, “that gentleman might know.” He pointed at a man who had just gotten off an elevator, and shouted to him. “Mr. Green! Mr. Green!”
Mr. Green’s head snapped around at the sound of his name, and he walked over to the desk. “Yes, John?”
“This lady could use some assistance.”
He turned to Adele and shook her hand. “Martin Green, New York World. I’m an assistant editor here. May I help you?”
“Adele Weber, and yes, you can, Mr. Green. I’m looking for one of your other reporters, a Mr. Lucas Schmidt.”
“Sorry, no one by that name works here.” He paused, then, with a little too much eagerness in his voice, said, “Is there a story you’d like to share, Miss Weber? If it’s good, we can get it into the evening edition.”
“Um, no. Are you sure Mr. Schmidt doesn’t work here?”
“Positive. I assign the stories to all the reporters. I know everyone who writes for us.” He frowned. “Why? Is this fellow pretending to be a reporter for the World?”
“Um, no. I must have gotten the name of the paper wrong. I’ll try the others. Good day, Mr. Green.”
“Um, good day, Miss Weber,” he said as Adele scurried away.
Granting the possibility that she had misunderstood, Adele spent the rest of the afternoon checking at every newspaper on Newspaper Row. Not to her surprise, she discovered that not a single paper knew of a reporter named Lucas Schmidt. The only newspaper she skipped over was the Herald, since after checking with every other major city paper, she didn’t feel that a trip uptown to Thirty-Fourth Street was necessary.
Clearly, Mr. Schmidt had lied.
So if Mr. Schmidt didn’t work for the World, or for any other newspaper, just what did he do during the day?
The question possessed Adele, disrupting her sleep as much as her vivid dreams of fire and water. And so, on Tuesday, in the middle of the day so as not to be discovered, Adele did the unthinkable. She went up to Mr. Schmidt’s room and let herself in.
She had been in the room many times before, and at first glance the room looked as pristine as always. Schmidt clearly was fastidious when it came to keeping his personal space clean. The bed was neatly made, the wooden floor was swept, and the chair and table free of dust.
However, there was something different. A book lay on the table, one that Adele knew did not belong to either her or her mother, because it had a colorful dust jacket. She pulled out the chair, sat down, picked up the book, and studied the cover.
She had seen a few books bearing dust jackets, although those jackets had been simple plain white paper covers. She had never yet seen one as elaborate and expensive-looking as the dust jacket for this book. Her eyes were first drawn to the horrific illustration of the steamboat General Slocum that filled the bottom half of the cover. Searing red flames burned away at the right side of the boat, with lines of thick, black smoke hovering above. On the left side of the boat, people were jumping into the water. The picture appeared so vivid to her eyes that she could almost feel the rising flames getting hotter and hotter, the smoke smothering the victims—
She shuddered and focused her eyes on the title of the book. In large letters, the book blared out its title: SHIP ABLAZE. Underneath, the subtitle explained what the book was about: “The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum.”
Finally, her eyes drifted to the smaller text above the title. She read: “On a beautiful spring morning in June 1904, 1,300 New Yorkers boarded the steamer General Slocum for a pleasant daylong excursion. But in thirty minutes, disaster would strike and more than one thousand would perish . . .”
Adele shuddered again, and her chest felt tight. She fought to keep her breath calm and even, while she tried to understand what she was reading.
She opened the book and noticed that the top of the inside jacket flap gave the price of the book: “US $24.95 / Canada $37.95.” Her jaw dropped. Twenty-four dollars and ninety-five cents for a book? Even good books cost no more than a dollar or two.
