He did not speak to me all the next day, but in the evening he told me to bathe in cold water, which I did, using the lye soap he left out for me. He put out my robe for me, which I slipped on. He waited in the corridor and had me follow him downstairs. In the parlor the cereus plant looked ghostly and green in the evening light. I’d always thought of it as a bundle of sticks, but now it seemed possessed with life, and I could have sworn it moved toward me, as if in warning. I had lived with it my whole life and had never once seen it bloom. I had thought the plant to be a burden, and yet I felt a certain connection to this wretched specimen, for I’d cared for it for so long. Perhaps plants knew gratitude, as humans did, and remembered kindness as well as cruelty.
My father led me through his library, into the museum. I thought of how I had so longed to enter it and know its secrets when I was a child. How intrigued I’d been when I’d been made to sit upon the stair where I could only peer through the dark to glimpse the many curiosities displayed inside. I had thought my father could make miracles, but I was wrong. He could only possess them.
My father gestured that I should go on without him. “We’ll see if you’re a liar or if you’re still my daughter,” he said in a cold tone.
When I went inside the exhibition hall, the Professor closed the door behind me. I heard the click of a lock. A man was waiting there. This was most unusual. I paled when I saw him. He rose from his chair to greet me.
“You needn’t worry,” he assured me. “I’m a physician.” There was an urgency in his tone that caused me to worry. “Doctors are privy to all sorts of secrets hidden from other men.”
He came forward, and there was that same urgency in his step. I hoped he didn’t take note of the scent of my fear, for they say that terror makes a person weaker, and I did not wish to be at anyone’s mercy.
“Your father has called upon me to judge your physical well-being.”
“I’m quite well,” I informed him. “I don’t need a physician.” There was the beat of my pulse at the base of my throat, the same throb of panic I’d felt when I stepped into the cage at Dreamland.
“I’m afraid that you do. Your father is worried. He reports that you’ve made the acquaintance of a man in an improper way.”
I felt burning hot, even though the room was chilly. “There was nothing improper.” I began to understand what my father had meant when he declared I was ruined. He believed I’d given myself to Eddie, and, in every sense but the physical act, I had.
“An examination is required. If you’ve been with a man, your father needs to know.” The doctor came closer. When he reached to remove my robe, I stepped back. But he took hold of my arm and told me in no uncertain terms that my father had the legal right to ascertain whether I had cast away my virginity, and it would be his pleasure to assist in examining me.
He told me he had seen me swim in the tank on nights when I had performed, and this was how he had made my father’s acquaintance. He had enjoyed himself immensely, and now he had an opportunity to see what I was made of without the tank between us. Immediately, I doubted the worth of his medical claims and wondered what sort of expert he was.
Now that my father had turned to him, the doctor hoped to do some research of his own interest, for I was such a rare specimen. He hoped to discover if I was a fish or a woman or both. His actions, he said, were purely motivated by research. In matters of my sex, would I be slippery and cold, as fish were known to be, or hot as a ruined woman? He took out a black leather notebook and a fountain pen so that he might record the details. He said he would like to examine every part of me, including my bones, for a fish’s bones are often hollow, like a bird’s, and because of this they are light in the water, as birds are weightless in air. His words were like glass, cutting through me. I had never felt more wretched.
He went on to tell me that after the examination he could eliminate my deformity if I wished him to do so. He brought forth a scalpel, which he placed on a table, alongside his journal and fountain pen. The webbing could easily be done away with, and no one would ever have to know who I’d been. To all who saw me I would be a normal person, except to those who knew me intimately, fortunate men, such as himself. I moved to hide my hands behind me, fearing he might take it upon himself to begin an operation. He was amused by my response.
“I, of course, prefer you the way you are,” the doctor said. “But if you ever wish to be normal, I’m always here for you as your surgeon.”
I leapt away, thinking I would run from the room, and in doing so knocked over the table on which he’d carefully laid out his equipment.