Chicago September 1893
“Mama, Adolphe! You made it!” Ada greeted us both warmly, and, though fatigued from our long journey, I was glad to see her. She and Chauncey had made the decision to relocate the entire family from New York to Chicago after several years of them living mostly apart.
Servants relieved us of our bags. My daughter looked radiant, recovered from the loss of her brother, in the prime of her life at 27.
Chauncey emerged from his study to greet us as well, and he and Adolphe immediately launched into a stultifying recap of the minutiae of our train journey:
“Chicago and Alton?” Chauncey asked.
“Missouri Pacific!” my husband replied.
“How was the sleeper?”
“Universal Parlor—I’ll tell you it’s no Pullman.”
Ada mercifully cut them off. “Chan, the children will be home from school soon and I’m sure Mama and Papa Weiss will want to spend time with them before supper. Let our guests have some time to unpack.”
Seeing my daughter so perfectly composed and happy only served to highlight my own prolonged period of grief. I was no longer in the grip of the fog, but nor was I fully myself.
Adolphe had insisted that, as president of the Association, it was my duty to attend the National Spiritualist Association of Churches assembly in Chicago. While I truly didn’t have the strength for the responsibility, I also didn’t have the energy to refuse it. I tried to convince him to take my place, but he wouldn’t budge.
As it so happened, the World’s Columbian Exposition was also in full swing, and Adolphe had not hesitated to invite himself along to that. It did not escape my attention that one of these events was a tedious symposium of committees, and the other was a grand spectacle.
He paused while fastidiously shaking out his evening wear to kiss me on my cheek. His whiskers tickled, but I did not giggle as I once had. “How are you feeling, my love?”
“I’m well,” I lied. Since Bernard had passed on I was tired all the time. Adolphe suggested I rest for a bit; I agreed and did not even change out of my traveling costume, just set my hat to the side, seated myself on an expensive bergère, and sank into a dreamless sleep. I was awakened by the sound of your quiet voice.
You were seated on the floor at my feet, with a sketchbook open in front of you. You were talking to yourself. I reached down and stroked your hair. “Little Claire, where did you come from?”
“Grandmama!” you exclaimed, and gave me the greatest of hugs. “I wanted to be the first thing you saw when you woke up.”
“And so you are!” I said, rousing myself for you. You were twelve, then, but still to me very much a young girl. Ada had dressed you quite finely, but nearly every piece of your outfit bore some scuff or mark of having been mended—you were a city child born for the country. “May I see your drawings?” I asked.
“It’s an herbarium for school,” you replied. “I’m meant to dry specimens and then sketch them. It’s so dreadfully boring that I thought it would be more fun for us to label them with our secret names.”
I was so unexpectedly moved by this that I began to tear up. I sent you to the dresser to fetch my handkerchief, and then began paging through your book, frowning as if trying to remember some long-forgotten fact.
“Ah yes, this looks to me like Oina mista̤,” I said. “It means snow lamp. Its white, star-like blooms remind us of the lamps of the gods which light up the night sky.”
“Of course!” you exclaimed. “And what about this one?”
“That is Loisa gentolissima, the grandest of flowers.” I said. “I call you Gentolēna̤, or little dear one, and I am Gentola̤, which simply means lady. Gentolissima is the name for a very distinguished woman, one who rules over all.”
“So, Mama.”
I laughed. “That is surely right. Your mother is formidable indeed.”
Chauncey arranged for the entire family to visit the World’s Fair. I initially resisted. Adolphe pulled a most unfair gambit and sent you in to convince me. He knew I could not withstand your pleas.
Your father insisted we arrive via Lake Michigan, on a small private naphtha launch owned by a fellow railwayman. The ingenious little motorized boat was dwarfed by the huge steamships disgorging other tourists. We disembarked at a long, straight wharf, and joined queues of people boarding a moving sidewalk—a slowly circulating platform curved like a lollipop, where passengers rode upon rows of pew-shaped benches.
You sat between me and Adolphe; your brother sat between your parents. The sidewalk carried us inexorably towards the fairgrounds, which was gated by an immense and gleaming white colonnade stretching hundreds of feet in both directions.
I whispered to you, “We shall call this conveyance a soitzēn.”
“From now on, whenever we can, we will ride a soitzēn rather than walking,” you replied.
I nodded to your mother who sat ahead of us. “Our supreme Gentolissima should expect no less.”
At its terminus we disembarked from the curious moving sidewalk, and all felt a moment of disorientation returning to our own two feet. Chauncey brushed aside the boys who hawked lemonade and the sausage-like “hot dogs,” and led us through the peristyle, beneath a grand arch. We emerged into the Court of Honor—a long promenade along a reflecting pond called the Great Basin, capped on one end by the immense gilded Statue of the Republic.
I knew that these structures were temporary, made of pine and plaster and not marble, but the effect was breathtaking. The reflecting pool was joined by a canal to Lake Michigan, and everywhere water vessels both great and small were passing in all directions—even a replica of one of Columbus’s ships was docked here.
Up over a small arched bridge we went, while below us in the canal, fairgoers riding a gondola pointed up if we were exhibits ourselves. At the other edge of the reflecting pool lay the imposing dome of the Administration Building, which we would later see lit up at night. Before it was the great Fountain of the Republic, an ornate marble barge drawn by seahorses and capped with the triumphant figure of Columbia herself.
I took your hand and pulled you slightly away from our family group. “This White City is modeled on the ancient city of Tena̤va̤h, which once sustained a population of millions along the shore of Yoitan-dylû.” Here I pointed back at Lake Michigan. “But then a great underground volcano erupted, and the water became super-heated, and all the peoples of Tena̤va̤h were displaced.” You nodded, and reached over the edge of the sidewalk towards the pool.
“Don’t touch the water, Claire! It boils still! See how the iridescent vapor is heaved out from the ground itself!” I nodded to one of the many fountains along the promenade. “The ancient people believe that they angered the god Andûmana̤, but today we know that it is only a natural disturbance of the seismic activity of our planet Ento.”
Just then, Adolphe joined us, touching me affectionately for a moment. “What do the two of you conspire about now?”
“It’s our secret,” you said, primly.
“It is very like you, wife, to be amid one of the most wondrous creations of our age, and find ways to make it even more mysterious.” He consulted his guidebook. “Let us first visit Arts and Manufacturers. They say it’s the largest building in the world.”
“I could believe that it is so, though every structure at the Fair seems built at an unimaginable scale.”
The Arts and Manufacturers building was a colossal structure with a vaulted ceiling that contained not merely rooms but entire houses. Adolphe guided us along to the Austrian House, filled floor to ceiling with fine crystal vases, cups, chandeliers—all of them luminous. Light bounced from gem to gem, dazzling the eyes: prismatic, glowing, and scintillating like stars. What a range of coloring they possessed—blue, rose, yellow, emerald—and all so otherworldly.
“Can we ride the Ferris Wheel?” Wilson asked, unimpressed.
This question caused a great deal of disruption. Ada questioned whether the wheel was safe. Chauncey thought it more prudent to allocate our time to the educational exhibits. You children insisted that if you did not get to go, you would surely die. I hurried us away from the delicate glass structures as everyone was gesturing carelessly to make their point.
Adolphe cleared his throat and opened the guidebook. “It says here there is a building where one can leave rowdy children behind, to be tended by nurses.”
“You don’t say?” Ada replied, eyeing you and Wilson.
“It’s true! For the price of a nickel you can leave them in the public nursery. It has windows on all sides, so the public is free to gawk at them.”
Both of you had become very quiet.
“Do they take good children?” Ada prompted.
“No, only the worst of children are accepted.”
“Well then I believe we have two fine specimens to donate to the cause.”
You and your brother howled in protest (there was such a building, but in truth it was only for babies and toddlers).
We agreed that we would ride the wheel as a family, but Adolphe thought he and I needed some time to ourselves. While Ada and Chauncey went with you and Wilson to the concessions, my husband accompanied me to Wooded Island, which contained the Japanese tea house and the Horticultural Building. The latter was something of a disappointment.
“Ah yes, surely this is what you came here to see,” Adolphe said wryly. He was standing in front of the California pavilion, whose central display was, inexplicably, a life-size model of the Liberty Bell made of oranges.
We took our refreshments at the tea house, and—I am sorry, but I cannot tell my grandchild what these two old lovers whispered about.
We rejoined your parents on the Midway plaisance. Ferris’ Great Wheel rose up into the sky, massive but somehow delicate as a spider’s web. At its highest point the wheel was 25 stories tall, higher than any building in the world.
We boarded one of the cars at the base of the wheel; each was packed full to standing room only with several dozen people. I felt nothing at all when the machine began to turn—it seemed as if we remained still and the ground fell away from us. The roar of the steam boilers faded as we ascended, and we were lofted towards the clouds as silently as a bird.
When our car found itself atop the wheel, the rotation paused, and all of Cook County was spread out before us: the fairgrounds of the Exposition itself and the White City to the east, the campus buildings of the University of Chicago, and the sweep and expanse of Lake Michigan. The lake appeared as vast as an ocean, with no end as it seamlessly melted into the sky in one unbroken silver sheet. Downtown Chicago lay to the north, its miles and miles of avenues and sky-scraping buildings swallowed up by the smoke from a thousand factories. Below us, a procession of steamers entered and exited the fair, leaving beyond trails of even blacker smoke. I thought I would be frightened of the great height—surely humans weren’t meant to have such a godlike view—but I felt at peace. The only rival for our height was the captive balloon ride, which none of us were brave enough to try.
In Nevada when I had descended into the mine, I had felt that deep connection with the body of the earth. Here, floating above the world, I felt an expression of Earth’s spirit. I beheld the breadth of what man and nature had created laid out across the horizon. I perceived a living network, not of fire and seams of ore but of water and air.
“I thought I’d be out of my wits, but I’m not frightened at all!” a red-headed stranger in a straw hat said to us, breaking my reverie. He was laughing at himself; even the ever-composed Chauncey was speechless with awe.
“What do you think, my little Gentolēna̤?” I asked you.
“Enora̤,” you said, in our secret language. Wonderful.
Adolphe and I returned to the Exposition on a weekday, when you were in school, to see the Parliament of Religions. The event invited speakers representing all the world’s major faiths, save those the organizers thought disreputable. Mormons, Spiritualists, and the very same American Indians who were so popular on the fairgrounds were all snubbed. (Adolphe could not stop grousing about the slight; privately I thought the other groups had a greater grievance.) Some speakers declined to attend—The Archbishop of Canterbury was said to reply that “the Christian religion is the only true religion” and did not join us.
Nevertheless, the hall was packed shoulder-to-shoulder, and the crowd overflowed out the doorways on all sides. This was more people than I’d ever seen in one place. The multi-day event drew thieves and pickpockets as well, as the rapt audience was insensible to grabby, exploring fingers, though we escaped unmolested.
At my insistence we had arrived early, so our view was quite good. At least thirty representatives from all parts of the globe were assembled onstage. Some men wore traditional costumes such as robes with elaborate sashes, or solid black gowns which pooled at their ankles. There seemed to be no limit to man’s creativity when it came to hairstyle, beard, or mustache. Two men in flowing garments seemed completely hairless! I was dizzied by the sheer diversity of humankind on display—it was one thing to read about Zoroastrians, Jains, Confucians, and Muslims, but to see them all arrayed before us, and to know this was but an incomplete catalog of humanity’s beliefs, was quite overwhelming. I could not account for it, but I felt profoundly moved before the speeches even began, knowing that I was but one part of this great parade.
A bell rang ten times, once for each of the religions represented on stage. A good-looking young Indian man was introduced as Swami Vivekananda, a representative of the Hindus, to open our proceedings. He was dressed in a deep crimson robe, with a saffron turban that thrice wound around his head and then trailed onto his breast like a scarf. I did not know what to expect from this man, but his accent was melodic and pleasant, his voice forceful in the immense space but tremulous with nerves.
“Sisters and Brothers of America,” he began, and hesitated just a moment, perhaps fearing that we would reject an overly-familiar greeting. Instead something unexpected happened—the audience almost as one rose to their feet and erupted into sustained applause. I can say only that I was struck by an almost painful desire for communion with these representatives from foreign places in the world.
Taken aback, Mr. Vivekananda was last he was able to resume his speech, in which he told us of the Hindu faith and its history of religious tolerance. He said he believed that all religions could be accepted as valid without diminishing any of them. He urged us to understand that every man is struggling to find truth, and that if his heart is pure, he will reach this truth regardless of the faith that he followed to get there. This touched me in the way that the tiresome preachings of my youth never had.
I was no less moved by the speakers who chose to chasten us. Mr. Kinza from Japan horrified the audience with his tales of violent and predatory Christian missionaries. “Christianity brought instead of peace, a sword,” he thundered, and those of us in the audience were again on our feet, shouting “Shame!” not at our foreign visitor, but at those supposed men of God who had corrupted their faith. “There are buildings in San Francisco where it is posted, ‘No Japanese allowed,’ in the same manner as prohibiting dogs. If such be Christian ethics—well, we are perfectly satisfied to be heathen.”
And I was most deeply abashed by an American, Mrs. Fanny Williams, who excoriated the white Christians among us for leaving our fellow black Americans to their fate: “For the last twenty-five years we have gone to legislatures, to political parties, and even to churches, for some cure for prejudice, but help from these sources is merely palliative.” She acknowledged common cause with Mr. Kinza. “Religious promptings to deal rightly too often stop short of reaching the man or woman who happens to be black.”
After the ecstasy of that event, the mundane business of the Spiritualist conference—debates over the minutiae of our national charter, the election of positions in the organization down to vice-assistant-secretary—was a humble affair. I found I could not concentrate on all the motions and used the time to write notes to myself about what I had witnessed at the Exposition and the Parliament. Thankfully, the grinding gears of bureaucracy did not diminish my euphoria from the rest of the trip, and that joy followed me all the way home.
“You were right to bring me to Chicago, my love,” I told Adolphe when we had settled into our berth on the train. I felt as if the world was no longer distant from me, but had snapped back into place, full of possibility.
Adolphe put his hand on mine, as he had done almost exactly 20 years ago at our first seance together. “You have such a love of life, Zara, it’s been hard for me to watch you withdraw.” Here the old twinkle in his eye came back. “Will it be too much for you to experience one more change?”
Far from alarmed, my curiosity was excited, but he would not tell me until we had gotten back to St. Louis. He had arranged for a carriage to meet us at the station. Instead of taking us to the Washington Street hotel, we went for a much longer drive west into the fashionable Grand Prairie neighborhood, and alighted at a brand new building just past Vandeventer Place. It was a slim, elegant structure, three storeys, with a stepped red brick gable roof line and a graceful arched doorway. It housed just three apartments outfitted with the most modern amenities.
“Who lives here?” I asked, when the carriage stopped.
“We do,” he said, and kissed me.