The Falls Read online

  Marriage, family. What else is there? You had to grow up. You had to accept it. He would make the marriage work bcause of Burnaby. Owed it to Burnaby. Irma felt the same way. We owe it to Dirk Burnaby to stay together.

  Now Colborne was practically pleading, “Dirk? C’mon meet us. Down on South Main. We’ll drive Mrs. Erskine back to the hotel and have a few drinks in the bar. Us, I mean. Not her.”

  It sounded as if, on the other end, Burnaby sighed.

  “All right, Clyde. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  6

  THIRTY-THREE YEARS OLD, and a tightrope walker. Over a chasm deep as the Niagara Gorge.

  He knew: he was kin to those flamboyant, obviously deranged daredevils of the 1800’s. Risking their lives to dazzle crowds by walking a tightrope across the deadly Niagara Gorge, or, crazier yet, plunging over The Falls in barrels, kayaks, homemade contraptions of ingenious designs. Look, look at me! Was there ever anyone like me!

  He was descended from one of these. His notorious ancestor REGINALD BURNABY THE GREAT had walked an eight-hundred-foot wire strung across the American Falls on Independence Day 1869. It was estimated that over eight hundred onlookers avidly watched as REGINALD BURNABY THE GREAT (variously identified as a defrocked Roman Catholic priest from Galway, an ex-convict from Liverpool, if not an escaped convict from that seaport city) made the treacherous crossing in about twenty minutes, carrying a twelve-foot bamboo rod with American flags fluttering at both ends. During the crossing, women fainted; at least one woman went into labor. Judging from a daguerreotype of Reginald Burnaby taken on the eve of his crossing, he was a lean, swarthily handsome gypsy-looking individual of about twenty-eight with a close-shaved head, a drooping handlebar mustache, a fierce, just perceptibly cross-eyed theatrical stare. On the wire he wore a Union lieutenant’s coat (his own?) and a circus performer’s black tights, and his daring exploit was celebrated in newspapers as far away as San Francisco, London, Paris, and Rome. The second time Burnaby risked his life above the Gorge, in June 1871, sponsored by a Niagara Falls spa, he drew even larger crowds. The novelty of this crossing was that Burnaby was laced into a straitjacket from which he managed to free himself midway over the Gorge; the drama was that a sudden headwind came up from the Canadian shore, and spitting rain, and Burnaby was forced to crouch on the tightrope and, “desperate and ingenious as a monkey,” as the London Times correspondent described it, made his painstaking way from Prospect Point to Luna Island in approximately forty minutes. For Burnaby’s third crossing, in August 1872, crowds were even larger, estimated at over two thousand on the American side alone, and at least half that number on the Canadian side. This crossing was sponsored by the daredevil himself, allegedly in need of money to support his wife and newborn baby. For this, most controversial crossing, from Prospect Point to Luna Island across the American Falls, and from Luna Island to Goat Island, across the Bridal Veil Falls, Burnaby wore red silk tights and had painted his shaved head and face in the “warpaint” of an Iroquois Indian brave. From the start of the event the atmosphere was reported to be unruly and disrespectful. Mist rising out of the Gorge was particularly thick, and the crowd’s view of the crossing was obscured, which contributed to general discontent and charges of “fraud.” The daredevil seemed, too, less certain of himself. He was thinner, and seemed to have lost the reckless ebullience of his youth of only the previous summer. After about twenty-five minutes of a slow, inch-by-inch walk on the wire, something happened that caused Burnaby to fall into the cataract. (Though no one was ever arrested, it was believed that an unidentified youth on the American side had fired a slingshot at the daredevil, striking him in the back.) To the horror of the crowd, Burnaby plunged nearly two hundred feet into the churning water at the foot of the Falls; to the delight of the crowd, now screaming and jostling one another to get a better view, Burnaby bobbed to the surface of the water after a few minutes, seemingly “unscathed” as journalists would report. A “universal cheer” went up as the daredevil with the shaved, painted head swam toward the base of Luna Island; would-be rescuers reached out for him even as, when Burnaby was less than ten feet from shore, a powerful undertow sucked him down into the swift, green-tinged water. Eyewitnesses would claim that, as he was sucked down, Burnaby cried, “Darling, goodbye! Kiss the baby for me!” to his young wife who watched helplessly, their eight-month infant in her arms, from a platform on Goat Island.

  That infant would one day be Dirk Burnaby’s father.

  The broken, battered body of Reginald Burnaby, scarcely recognizable except for the boldly painted head and face, wasn’t discovered for several days, until at last it was sighted fifteen miles downriver, north of Lewiston, hauled to shore and given a Christian burial, courtesy of a coalition of Niagara Falls residents who’d taken pity on Burnaby and his young family.

  After the widely publicized fate of REGINALD BURNABY THE GREAT, tightrope walking across the Niagara Gorge was officially banned.

  “Poor fool. You threw away your life, a precious life, and for what?”

  On a wall of his Luna Park townhouse were several daguerreotypes of his daredevil grandfather. Dirk Burnaby often contemplated these, smiling at the handlebar mustache that gave to the lean, hopeful face a look of masculine swagger. In one photograph, Reginald Burnaby was smiling stiffly, and you could see that his teeth were in bad repair, crooked and discolored. In another photograph, Burnaby in snug-fitting jersey and tights, a circus performer’s costume, stood with arms akimbo, knuckles on his hips and a cocky Ain’t I something? expression on his face. Here you could see that Burnaby was a compact, muscled little man, strongly developed in the torso, thighs, and legs. (Dirk Burnaby had read that his grandfather was only five foot six, and weighed less than one hundred fifty pounds at the time of his death.) You could see that he was probably hot-blooded, restless, consumed with vanity, sought after by women, doomed to die young. Yes, he’d been brave, but what’s the point?

  Who wants to be a daredevil, and posthumous?

  He, Dirk Burnaby, was nothing like his ancestor physically. He’d grown to a gratifying height of six foot two while still in his teens. (He’d liked that! Towering over his classmates and most adults. It had given him a charge of entitlement and invincibility he would draw upon through life, like a limitless bank account.) He wasn’t swarthy-skinned like a gypsy but fair-skinned, and he wasn’t even mildly cross-eyed. He detested mustaches and beards, they made his sensitive skin itch. He was a good-looking man, why hide the fact? He guessed he wasn’t very brave. He’d never risk his life if he could avoid it.

  “I’d rather live, thank you.”

  In the U.S. Army where he’d been a private in the infantry for two years, stationed mainly in Italy, he’d had to force himself to shoot at the enemy, and could not have said that he’d ever—once—hit any human target, let alone killed. He didn’t want to have killed. At the crucial moment, firing his rifle, he’d often shut his eyes. Sometimes he hadn’t aimed, and sometimes he hadn’t even pulled the trigger. (Years later, Dirk would learn that a startlingly high percentage of soldiers had behaved this way, not wanting to have killed, and yet somehow the war was won.) Dirk Burnaby had been wounded, and and spent several weeks in an army hospital near Naples, he had medals to prove he’d acted bravely in the confused, chaotic event designated as World War II, he was damned glad the Allies had won over the deranged and murderous Axis powers, certainly he spoke with passion of the madness of Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, and what it meant that millions of human beings had acquiesced to their madness, but of his actual war experience he retained little except a vast relief that the war was over and he was alive.

  “That’s what you missed, grandfather. Ordinary life.”

  One thing it was not: love at first sight.

  He didn’t believe in such. He wasn’t a believer in romance, sentimental coincidences, “meanings” snatched out of the air. He certainly didn’t believe in destiny, he was a gambler by nature and you know that destiny is jus
t chance you try to manipulate for your own profit.

  Yet his first glimpse of Ariah Erskine made an impression. The red-haired woman in the frilly girl’s dress was in the company of his friend Clyde Colborne, who was leading her, like a convalescent, down the steps of the Niagara Falls Police Headquarters. The woman brusquely detached her arm from Colborne’s as if he’d said something that annoyed her. Or she was capable of walking without a man’s assistance, thank you.

  Sighting Burnaby, Colborne called to him eagerly, and introduced him to “Mrs. Ariah Erskine” who stared at him for a tense moment before half-shutting her eyes. (Had the poor woman for that moment, in the confusion of grief, wondered if Burnaby, a stranger, might turn out to be the missing husband?) Mrs. Erskine struck him as fierce and plain and haughty as one of those straight-backed red-haired girl-women in certain of the watercolors of Winslow Homer. The prim little schoolmarm at the blackboard, in profile, detached from the observer’s admiring eye; the red-haired girl in an orange dress lying in the grass reading a novel, oblivious of any onlooker. This woman’s pale freckled face shone as if she’d scrubbed it, hard. Her faded rust-colored hair fell in lank coils and wisps about her head as if she’d given up on it. There were half-moons of perspiration beneath the arms of her organdy dress, and her stockings sagged at the ankles. Her eyes were moist, shifty, bloodshot. She was nothing like the sorrowful woman Dirk Burnaby had been led to expect, and much more interesting. As Clyde Colborne nervously chattered about what the police had told her, what was being done and would be done, the red-haired woman looked pointedly away, paying little heed to Colborne, or to his friend Burnaby who towered over her, flaxen-haired, handsome and gallant in a navy blue blazer with nautical brass buttons and neatly pressed white cord trousers, a manly-stylish figure out of Esquire. He, Dirk Burnaby, whom women adored, and some of them happily married rich women, ignored by this woman! He had to smile. Ariah Erskine interrupted Colborne to tell him she didn’t intend to return to the hotel just yet, she was on her way to the Niagara Gorge. If Colborne wouldn’t drive her, she’d take a taxi. Or she’d walk. She’d been informed that authorities believed that her husband had “fallen” into the river that morning, and the search teams were out. A Coast Guard crew was out on the river. She had to be there to make the identification, if the “fallen” man was, in fact, Reverend Erskine.

  Colborne said, shocked, “Mrs. Erskine, that isn’t a good idea. You don’t want to be there. Not if—”

  “They’re searching for a man. A body. I don’t believe it can be Gilbert but I must be there.” Mrs. Erskine tried to speak matter-of-factly but Burnaby could detect a tremor in her voice. She stood before the men with her head turned to one side, refusing to meet their eyes. “I will have to be a witness if—if they find this man. I will have to know.”

  Colborne objected, “But, Mrs. Erskine, it would be much better if you waited at the hotel until—”

  “No. Nothing can be ‘better.’ If Gilbert is dead, I will have to know.”

  Colborne looked appealingly to Dirk Burnaby, who was staring at this stubborn red-haired woman with a kind of fascination. He didn’t know what to think of her: his brain had gone blank. The bizarre thought came to him, she was so petite, couldn’t weigh more than ninety pounds, a man could lift her and sling her over his shoulder and walk away with her. Let her protest! He heard himself say, “I don’t think you caught my name, Mrs. Erskine? I’m Clyde’s friend Dirk Burnaby. I’m a lawyer. I live about two miles away in Luna Park, near the Gorge. I’ll do anything I can to help you, Mrs. Erskine. Please prevail upon me.” This was a wholly unexpected remark. Burnaby would not believe he’d uttered it, an hour later. Colborne gaped at him, and the red-haired woman turned frowning to him, squinting upward as if she hadn’t exactly remembered he was there. She opened her mouth to speak but did not. Her lipstick was eaten away, her thin lips appeared cracked and dry. Impulsively, Burnaby squeezed her hand.

  It was a small-boned hand, small as a sparrow, yet even in the crocheted white glove the fingers felt hot, eager.

  The Widow-Bride of The Falls:

  The Vigil

  For seven days and seven nights she kept her vigil.

  For seven days and seven nights the Widow-Bride of The Falls was to be found at the Niagara Gorge, on Goat Island or on shore; she joined search teams looking for the “missing” man, and accompanied a Coast Guard search crew in their downriver patrol past Lewiston and Youngstown, to the mouth of the river at Lake Ontario. In the Coast Guard boat Ariah Erskine was the sole woman, and her presence made the men uneasy. She was feverish, entranced. Her bloodshot eyes were fixed upon the river’s choppy, heaving waves as if, at any moment, a man’s body might appear, and her search would end. In her low hoarse voice she said repeatedly, to whoever would listen, “I’m Gilbert Erskine’s wife, and if I’ve become Gilbert Erskine’s widow I must be present when he’s found. I must care for my husband.” Coast Guard officers exchanged pained glances: they knew what a man’s body would look like, having gone over The Falls.

  “Why have I involved myself with this woman? She’s mad.”

  Worse, Ariah Erskine seemed scarcely to know who Dirk Burnaby was. No doubt she’d conflated him with Clyde Colborne, his friend. Still, Dirk had volunteered to make himself available to her for as long as required. He’d called his office and spoke with his assistant: all work was to be frozen, for the time being. (“Tell our clients it’s an emergency.”) Niagara Falls authorities knew Burnaby well and were grateful for his presence, for no one knew what to do with Ariah Erskine, who refused to behave as others wished her to behave. Even her parents couldn’t reason with her.

  Dirk Burnaby overheard one pitiful exchange: “Ariah, dear? Come back to the hotel with your father and me? Darling, you’re exhausted. You’re ill. Look at that dress! Your hair! Ariah, please listen to your mother.”

  But Ariah, pouting and stubborn, would not.

  “You wanted me to marry Gilbert Erskine. And so I did. And so I’m his wife. This is what a wife must do, Mother! Go away, and leave me alone.”

  It was a role she was playing, Dirk thought, disapproving. She’d become a pilgrim of The Falls—as the press was proclaiming her, The Widow-Bride of The Falls. Perhaps it was true, she hadn’t any choice.

  During the days of the vigil Ariah Erskine was observed to be obsessively aware of the river, its ever-shifting, roiling surfaces like green-tinged flame, yet virtually oblivious of her other surroundings. She was but vaguely aware of others beside her, and often failed to answer when spoken to. She would not have eaten at all except food was brought to her, and urged upon her.

  When Ariah woke from her exhausted sleep she appeared dazed and vacant-eyed, vulnerable as a child roused from a bad dream. Yet within seconds she summoned her steely will, this will that so impressed Dirk Burnaby, for he’d never encountered anything like it in his life, establishing where she was, and why. The bad dream was outside her, in the world. She must conquer it there or nowhere.

  It was a fact, eagerly reported by the press, that, each morning of her vigil Ariah Erskine, the Widow-Bride of The Falls, would appear at the Niagara Gorge by 6 A.M. Often she was hurrying, as if she feared being late. At this hour of morning the atmosphere of the Gorge was chill, damp, shrouded in mist. Amid tendrils of mist rising like steam Ariah would retrace the route allegedly taken by the yet-unidentified man who’d thrown himself over the Horseshoe Falls on the morning of Sunday, June 12: in a yellow rain slicker and hat provided her by the owner of the Maid of the Mist cruise boats, she crossed the narrow pedestrian bridge to Goat Island, staring intently at the fast-moving greenish-tinged water below and drawing her white-gloved hand along the railing. Her lips moved. (Was she praying? Addressing her lost husband?) In the gleaming bright-yellow slicker the woman looked like a deranged flower set against the sulfurous, ceaselessly rising mists of the great gorge.