IF LOVE WERE A FLOWER
Servant of Too Many Masters (cont.)
It was close to end of the season as Meg found Erik in the "Princess Hall". She loved the Princess Hall and imagined Little Annie would be very happy wearing one of the cheap princess costumes, creating her own jewelry from cut glass and sipping tea and having cookies like a real princess would or even playing with the ponies. Erik had bought some old tiny Shetland ponies from the pony carousel. The ponies were too old and lame for the carousel so they were cheap, but they were able to be petted and fed by little girls in princess costumes.
Erik only had to buy more ponies for with only two of them being fed treats by girls in princess costumes all day long would make them too fat and this would shorten their lifespan. But he was highly amused at the customer's stupidity. People paid the entrance fee for the girls, bought the princess costume at an exorbitant price for the cheap fabric and poor sewing, bought the cut glass for the self-designed jewelry, paid for the drinks and snacks, paid for the governesses who entertained the girls, teaching them to use makeup, helping them with the jewelry and they bought treats for the ponies. Actually they paid to feed the ponies without thinking. Erik loved to see that he wouldn't have to buy any food for the ponies at all during the season and the little creatures would become round and fat anyways, their coat brushed by so many little hands that they were shining. All girls loved the little ponies.
Meg was sure Annie would love them too once she was old enough to play at the Princess Hall. Now she saw Erik talking with five girls.
"What are their names?" a girl asked and pointed to the two ponies.
"The white one is Colombina and the brown one is Bauta," Erik replied with a friendly smile, "Unfortunately I only lend them from the owner and he wants to sell them to the knacker because they are old..."
"Noooo!" The girls were shocked.
"I wish I could buy them. Colombina and Bauta would love to live in the Princess Hall for the rest of their lives," Erik said and Meg knew immediately he had come up with a new scheme for making money.
"I'll ask Daddy," the oldest girl said, "He's rich. If he gives you the money, will you keep Colombina and Bauta?"
"It would be my pleasure, Princess Theodora," Erik replied with a deep bow. Every girl was called a 'princess' in the hall and Erik of course played along when he was acting as the court magician there.
Meg shook her head. O Erik, you incorrigible scoundrel! The ponies were already his and surely he would pull that trick more than once a day. With the money he got to "save" the poor little ponies from "certain death" he could buy himself a stable full of horses. Or he would pay back the pressing debts. Yes, this must be his scheme. He would try to get out of his debts. Of course he was swindling again, but this time he took the money from rich men to whom a few hundred dollars more or less wouldn't make any difference.
And something else came to Meg's mind: Erik counted on the little girls being able to persuade their fathers to do almost everything. What did this say about him? She smiled as she approached the group.
"Hello. Princess Annie wants to see you," she said, holding Annie on her arms. The girl was gaining weight each day, soon she would no longer be able to carry her.
Erik smiled. "Ah, daddy's little princess!" he exclaimed and held his arms out. He wanted to hold Annie. Then he turned to the five girls around him. "Meet Princess Theodora who saved your furry friends."
Meg bit her tongue to prevent herself from berating him for teaching his daughter lies. Hopefully the girl was too small to notice. Annie looked at him bewildered. She didn't know the ponies yet, so Erik took her and placed her on Colombina's back, much to the other girl's joy. Annie laughed and exclaimed happily: "Horse! Horse! Horse!"
At the end of season Erik had a nasty quarrel with the tenant of the illegal casino and the opium den. Erik had decided that he could run them alone now and would cancel the rental contracts, he offered the tenants to stay as employees which they did not want. When they refused to leave and thought they had a right to do so due to some wording in the contract Erik hadn't even read before signing it he threatened to do it "the legal way". He was an honest businessman and couldn't have an opium den and illegal gambling so close to his amusement park for families. Absolutely impossible. And any judge and jury would agree with him, possibly sentence the tenants to some punishment for their illegal activities.
It was an empty threat, but it worked. They were no dangerous criminals and would be able to put up their business in some other building in Coney Island outside Erik's park - which was still not named. Most people just called it "Mr. Y's".
Erik offered all employees of the two enterprises that they could stay and work for him, which they accepted greatfully, unemployment was high and a new job not easily found. And all of them had families to care for. Erik wanted more automatic games for the casino. There were far too many "cafes" offering an opportunity to do illegal gambling in New York, if he wanted to attract wealthy customers he had to offer something the others did not have. His idea was gambling with automatons. His first gambling-automaton should be the test if gamblers were as attracted to machines as everyone else.
The automaton had first been designed for the Hall of Wonders, but it might bring in much more in the casino. It was a large box, as large as a bed, with tiny metal rails on top. In these rails tiny painted horses with sulkies would run. It looked like a miniature trotting course. The mechanic horses could move all four legs like a horse in trod really would, but the mechanics were in the sulkies. They worked with electricity for the rails were electrified. Every rail had one horse, all in it would be eight horses, and every rail had its own electric circuit. Erik had every circuit with its own electric transformer. It was possible to control the speed of the horses by adjusting the different transformers, all this had to be done from below, so there was a secret tunnel beneath the horse race box and Erik took great care to teach one of his employees - it was a rather small Chinese girl who would fit in there easily - how to operate the racing course.
The first try was a real success. People were fascinated by the mechanic horse racing course and they even accepted Erik's explanation that the large box contained sophisticated mechanics to make the horses trod at different speed so one would be faster than the other and no one would be able to control that mechanism. The chance to win was 1:8 for there were 8 horses. He was astonished that no one ever questioned this. He was well known as the Mysterious Masked Magician. What part of "magician" had they not understood? Of course there would be one to accept the bets, then the course would be set in motion and of course he could control which horse would win - of course the one with the least bets on it, sometimes the second or third least bets, just to make sure no one suspected it would be always the same.
It was great fun to listen to the discussions of the gamblers. They came up with the most interesting ideas how the trod course was working and which horse would win the next trod race. Since the horses could be taken away and placed on other rails they did not think the mechanics to be inside of the large box. Of course mechanics were in the sulkies, but when the horses moved their legs, most people thought it was in the horses. They came up with strange math formulas thinking they had finally figured out the mechanism. And they would place another bet to test their theory.
And Erik laughed at their stupidity and his success.
Finally the long awaited day came and they could move out of the dormitories and into real flats. There was no luxury, with the public toilets in the ground floor and the communal water tap ground floor too so everyone had to carry up the buckets of water to their flat, but they had a room for each person. Of course there were many discussions as to who would have to share the flat with whom, but in the end everyone was eager to get some privacy.
Every flat had a large livingroom, a tiny kitchen where a copper bathtub could be put up, and four small bedrooms. There was no furniture yet, they had to move in with the beds they had had in the variety, no tables, no cupboards, nothing, but it was - heaven. Even without electricity or even gas they were happy. They would have some privacy at last.
There was a fight between Meg and Erik when Meg learned that he had two rooms for himself: one in the flat he would share with her and her mother and of course Little Annie and a second room in the flat with Dr. Gängelmann, Squelch and Fleck.
"We are your family, not them!" Meg yelled.
"Stop shouting! It is just for the nights I have to work longer and come home late so I won't wake Little Annie!"
"No, it is for the time when you feel the need to pretend to be bachelor again, isn't it?" Meg retorted furiously.
"Jealous? Come on, did I give you any reason..." He couldn't finish the sentence.
"You think I'm blind? What is going on between Suzie and you?"
"Suzie?" Now Antoinette Giry felt obliged to help her daughter.
"Shut up, both of you!" Erik roared, "I do as I please and no one will ever stand in my way, certainly not two female scarecrows such as you!"
"Scarecrows?"
"Can you please stop yelling?" Vincent asked, "You are in the fourth floor and we can hear you in the ground floor of the neighbor building!"
Everyone was prepared for many interesting fights in that family. Somehow they would have their own comedy show regularly - Erik and Meg against Antoinette, Antoinette and Meg against Erik, Erik and Antoinette against Meg and as soon as Little Annie would be able to speak better she would become an interesting player in the shouting games.
That year's Christmas was much happier than the last. Erik was now able to pay the installments and was positive that he could make it now with his amusement park. He had enough attractions already running he could for the first time in years just sit back and enjoy the Christmas party. It was of course in the canteen. Despite having their own flats and kitchens now the freaks and the musicians still gathered in the variety for it was much warmer there and easier to heat up - and of course there they would get two meals a day.
And on December the 25th they would get a real feast - at least as much as Erik could afford to give them. They would celebrate their new freedom living in real flats, an important step on becoming respectable people.
"Maybe I can afford having electricity installed in the blocks of flats and running water in each flat - maybe even indoor plumbing!" Erik told Vincent who was delighted at the thought of having electric light so he could paint whenever he wanted to and would have much light night and day.
"That would be wonderful!" the He-She exclaimed, "Running water, hot and cold, and a bathroom each floor. That would be luxury!"
"A bathroom each floor? No! Each flat!" Erik was dreaming up a bright future again.
"You would... invest that much money?" the He-She asked astonished.
Erik nodded happily, "As soon as I can. Paying back the credits works well now, it is possible, in two or thee years I will be rid of them and then I can make money and as soon as possible invest in some luxury for us. O yes. And I want a car." He didn't mention the loan from the Vicomte, obviously he never intended to pay that back.
Meg's head shot up. "A car? I thought you preferred horses?"
"Actually... a car of my own making. Electric, of course. Just for driving around in the park," Erik explained, "And I found a way around the law prohibiting gambling. A ship. A ship with a build-in casino. As soon as the ship is away from the coast the casino opens, people can gamble all they like, then the ship turns round and brings people back home like any other cruise for pleasure. I could do the same with... other things."
"Maybe a cruise ship which is in truth a hospital?" Dr. Gängelmann suggested, "Where upper class people could get treatment for shameful diseases, for addiction and maybe even abortion?"
"Sounds great to me!" Erik was on fire for that idea, but there was an uncomfortable silence. Most people considered abortion to be murder - even if most knew about horrible tragedies that happened to young girls who expected an illegal child and didn't know what to do. Backstreet abortionist or trying do to it themselves - they caused terrible injuries and far too often died and no one knew if it was suicide or just an attempted abortion going wrong. Erik had no moral qualms about abortion, even if having a child now had changed his view greatly. He himself knew what it was like to be an unwanted child and so thought it was better for the child to be killed before it was even born than to be an unwanted child, most likely ending up on the streets. "O come on - I'm just thinking!" Erik said as he noticed how weird it was to talk about abortion at Christmas, "This is the beginning not only of a new year but also of a new life for all of us! We won't be just lowly creatures for people's amusement - we are going to be respectable people!"
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