The World in Miniature
When Miriam Upjohn gave birth to her first child, there was a great deal of celebration in the Upjohn family. As the heir to his parents' combined fortunes, the newborn would one day be one of the wealthiest men in the country, an enviable position but one that came with much responsibility. Three years later, the Upjohns' second child, Alan, was born. The joy was tempered by the fact that complications during the birth made a third pregnancy inadvisable.
Although the young mother was disappointed at the small size of their family, her husband seemed not to mind.
"We've got two healthy children, my dear," Foster Upjohn proudly announced when he held his newborn son in his arms. "That's a lot to be thankful for."
An attentive parent, Miriam noticed that Alan was developing at a slower rate than his older brother had. She expressed her concern to her husband.
"By the time he was two, William was talking all the time, yet Alan hardly says a word."
"And what did the pediatrician tell you?" Foster asked.
"That all children are different."
"Then listen to the doctor and stop worrying. When our younger son feels like talking, I'm sure he will."
As the toddler approached school age, however, it was clear to everyone that Alan suffered from a developmental disability. When her worst fears were confirmed by a pediatric psychiatrist, Miriam cried for days. Finally, forced to accept the situation, she dried her tears.
"He may never be good at academics like William is, but that doesn't mean he can't have a full and happy life just the same."
Rather than send his son to a special education school, Foster hired private tutors who specialized in teaching children with special needs. It was soon brought to the parents' attention that although Alan struggled to learn to read and write, he was a gifted student in art.
"I'll be damned!" the surprised father exclaimed. "The boy has difficulty spelling his own name, but he did an amazing drawing of my wife. It looks just like her."
"He excels in painting and sculpting as well," the tutor explained. "I'm not exaggerating when I say your son is the closest I've ever seen to a true child prodigy."
Although the Upjohns continued to employ teachers to instruct Alan in reading, writing, science and mathematics in hopes that he would one day master basic academic skills, they concentrated their efforts on developing his artistic talents. Foster had a large studio built for his son, and Miriam stocked it with the finest art supplies available. Moreover, several artists mentored the boy. A well-known commercial painter gave him pointers for working with brush and canvas, and a popular illustrator showed him how to work with colored pencils, charcoal, pastels and oil crayons.
What the student seemed to like most, however, was sculpting. Whether working with clay, stone or wood, he was a genius with rasps, gouges and chippers. Neither of the boy's parents ever questioned where this talent would take him. It did not matter to them whether Alan's work was exhibited at a high-end gallery or collected dust on the library bookshelf. The look in their son's eyes when he showed his completed works of art to his family was justification enough for the expense involved.
"He'll never have to worry about supporting himself anyway," Miriam reasoned. "We'll take care of him as long as we live, and I'm sure William will continue to do so after we're gone."
Thus, when Alan, at the age of ten, discovered his true passion was for creating scaled-down architectural models, his parents were more than happy to encourage what would become a lifelong endeavor: to create a world in miniature.
* * *
It began with a sculpture of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's Virginia home, which was inspired by a photograph Alan had seen in one of the history books in his father's library. The miniature neoclassical plantation home was just under six inches in height, yet despite its diminutive size, the building was rich in detail. Windows, cornices and balustrades were faithfully duplicated. Encouraged by his family's favorable reactions, the young artist next sculpted the home of another Founding Father and American president: George Washington's Mount Vernon. This was soon followed by Independence Hall, the White House and the U.S. Capitol building.
Over the next few years, Alan found new inspiration in buildings from around the world. These ranged in complexity from a simple Swiss chalet and a humble Irish thatched roof cottage to exquisite miniatures of France's Versailles and Austria's Schönbrunn Palace. He also sculpted a Japanese pagoda, an Italian villa and a stately English manor.
"It's a shame to let such beautiful pieces sit on a shelf where they might get broken," Miriam said after her son showed her his latest masterpiece, Ludwig II's Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria. "We have to find a better way of displaying your artwork so that we can enjoy it."
The Upjohn estate, a rambling fifty-four-room mansion designed in the late 1890s by famed architect Stanford White, was a dinosaur from the Gilded Age. It was built at a time when a small army of domestic staff was necessary to perform the housekeeping, gardening, cooking and laundering chores. The entire fourth floor of the house, now used mainly for storage, was once dedicated to servants' living quarters. Although the family still relied on household staff to maintain the large dwelling, these employees did not live on the property.
"All that space just going to waste!" Miriam suddenly exclaimed, taking her son by surprise.
"What space?" he asked, assuming she was referring to his miniature castle.
"Don't mind me! I was just thinking aloud. There's something I have to discuss with your father," she said and quickly went in search of her husband.
As was the case with the old saying "from your lips to God's ears," nearly every wish Miriam had ever expressed to her husband came true. This one was no exception. When she suggested it would be a good idea to convert the fourth floor into a large, open area containing display tables and shelves that would showcase Alan's handcrafted buildings, work began the following day. The items that had been stored on the fourth floor were carted away to an off-site storage area, and three days later, a team of construction workers was tearing down walls.
Over the next five years, several distinct displays came into being. The largest was devoted to old-world European castles, palaces and cathedrals. This was Miriam's favorite exhibit. She would often pull up a chair in front of the table and listen to her son describe each of his works. Foster, on the other hand, preferred the tableau showcasing iconic structures such as the Taj Mahal, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and St. Basil's Cathedral. Undoubtedly, his favorite piece was Florence's Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, commonly referred to as the Duomo.
"Your mother and I visited that building when we went to Florence," he told his son. "It's magnificent! And the artwork inside the dome, in my opinion, is every bit as beautiful as the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel."
Two months after Alan's nineteenth birthday, his older brother, William, who had been working in his father's London office, returned to America for a visit. Unbeknownst to the family, he brought a guest with him.
"I'd like you to meet Charisse Paul," he announced, as he presented a beautiful and poised young woman to his parents.
Although she and Foster graciously welcomed their son's friend into their home, Miriam took an instant dislike to the girl.
She thinks too highly of herself, her intuition told her. And that kind always causes trouble.
The mother's suspicions were soon confirmed during a conversation over coffee in the dining room.
"Were you born and raised in London, Miss Paul?" Foster inquired.
"No. I've only been living there for the past three years," she replied in a fairly convincing British accent. "I was actually born in L.A."
"And what made you move to England?" Miriam asked, hoping William would not feel as though she were interrogating his girlfriend.
"When I was in high school, I wanted to become an actress. My parents sent me to acting classes where I met a boy whose father owned a modeling agency. He liked the way I looked, and the next thing I knew I was working for the top agency in London."
"You're a model? That sounds like quite an exciting life."
"Not really," Charisse said in a bored manner. "I spend a good deal of my time sitting in a chair having my makeup and hair done. Then I stand under the hot lights while the photographer tells me to smile, pout, turn my face to the left, put my head down, bring my right shoulder forward and so on. Soon, I hope to make a career move and get out of modeling."
"Will you go back to acting?"
"It's possible."
Charisse's eyes went to William, and an enigmatic smile briefly appeared on her face. Miriam read the young woman like a book. The thin, leggy blonde wanted to make a career move but not to motion pictures. William's mother accurately surmised that Charisse's future plans included marrying the heir to the Upjohn fortune.
* * *
William and Charisse's wedding was the social event of the season. More than three hundred guests were invited to the family estate where a world-class chef prepared a repast fit for a king. Well-known performers provided entertainment. Although Alan was present for the festivities, he was anxious for the reception to be over so he could return to this studio.
Just as his brother ventured forth on a new chapter in his life, so did Alan begin a new project. Rather than individual buildings, he was about to create an entire town: houses, vehicles, animals and, most importantly, people.
"I'm going to start with a farmhouse and a barn. Then I'll make cows, pigs, chickens and horses," he told his mother during the reception as the hired servers were placing the first course dishes on the guests' tables.
"That's wonderful!" Miriam exclaimed, as always, supportive of her son's endeavors. "It might be nice to make a scarecrow, too."
"Great idea. And some crows."
"Can't your brother talk about anything besides those damned toy houses of his?" the bride asked in a low voice that no one else could overhear.
"They're not toys," the groom said, coming to Alan's defense. "They're works of art. And why do you care what he talks about? He's not bothering you."
Not wanting to get into an argument on her wedding day, Charisse quickly changed the subject. She did not admit to her husband that she found his brother an embarrassment and that she wished he had stayed out of sight at her wedding.
Why does he have to be sitting here at the head table? she wondered, trying not to glare angrily at the unwelcome guest. Why didn't he stay upstairs and do his whittling?
Notwithstanding her displeasure at having her brother-in-law on display for all her guests to see, Charisse was overjoyed at being the center of attention. Diamonds glittered on her throat, wrist, fingers and ears. Even more impressive was the wedding dress by Sarah Burton, who had designed Kate Middleton's gown. It was an outfit that made her feel every bit as much a princess as the Duchess of Cambridge.
When the wedding reception finally came to an end, the bride and groom were taken by limousine to the airport where a private jet was standing by, ready to whisk them off to Paris for the start of their six-week-long European honeymoon. Despite the lateness of the hour, Alan went upstairs to his studio where he began experimenting with various carving tools and chunks of clay. While he worked, he gave no thought to his brother's change in marital status. The real world was of little consequence to him. All that really mattered was the miniature one he created with his own hands.
* * *
As the years passed, the Upjohn family reached several milestones in their lives. Alan took note of these events only in relation to his work. For instance, when William and Charisse celebrated their fifth anniversary, he finally completed his farm. This was a considerable feat since he carved not only the main buildings but also the ancillary ones. There was a chicken coop populated with a dozen chickens and roosters, a dog house with a border collie, a pigpen with an assortment of pigs, a horse stable and a silo. In addition to the structures, he had carved dozens of cornstalks, many with tiny ears of corn on them, an apple orchard, a pumpkin patch and a vegetable garden.
After crafting the farmer following behind his plow and the farmer's wife feeding the chickens, he developed a fondness for carving people. Soon, the husband and wife were joined by children and field hands.
"That ought to do it for the farm," he told his parents as he placed a man with a bucket of milk near one of his cows.
His next project was a church with an adjacent graveyard. He then placed a minister on the church steps and a bride and groom on the walkway, surrounded by more than a dozen wedding guests. There were even three mourners placing flowers on the graves of loved ones.
Once the church scene was complete, Alan began carving a school. It took him several years, to complete the sprawling building and surrounding football field where the school team was hosting a game with a rival school. Fans crowded the bleachers. Cheerleaders shook their pompoms and the school band played. The last detail was a graduation ceremony with the students dressed in caps and gowns.
Creating a miniature zoo took sixteen years. It was a massive project. The buildings, including an aviary, animal hospital, gift shop, restrooms and café, were completed in under two years. It was animals that were most time-consuming. Mammals, reptiles, birds, fish and amphibians of all kinds were carefully crafted and placed in their appropriate environment.
"That's it," the artist announced as he put the last Tasmanian devil on display near the wallaby. "My zoo has no room for any more animals, not even a small rodent."
"Noah himself would be proud to have so many different creatures," Foster declared, admiring the diversity of species his son had produced.
"What are you going to do next?" Miriam asked.
"I want to create a typical American Main Street."
Foster walked the length of the immense fourth-floor room, marveling at the growing number of his son's exhibits.
"I've been thinking of adding a new wing onto the house," he announced.
"Is that really necessary?" his wife inquired.
"At the rate he's going, how long do you think it's going to be before Alan runs out of room up here? Besides, now that William has taken on more of my responsibilities, it will give me something to do."
For more than a decade, father and son shared a common interest in building with Foster doing so on a grand scale and Alan in miniature. Once the new addition to the two-hundred-year-old home was complete, the patriarch of the Upjohn family turned his attention to renovating and modernizing several of the rooms in the rest of the house. Meanwhile, the second son recreated small-town America on the fourth floor of the home.
* * *
The family reached another milestone when Foster retired and William took the helm of the family business. The day after the retirement party, Alan began work on a miniature pharmacy. Nearly five years later, Foster Upjohn passed away. On the morning of the funeral, his son finished painting the ice cream parlor, which was to sit between the barber shop and the post office.
"You're going to need more people soon," Miriam said, trying to hide her tears from her son. "Your business district looks deserted."
"I know, but I haven't made up my mind whether to start with a policeman or a mailman," Alan replied.
His mother smiled, wishing that all of life's problems could be so simple.
"We've got to go soon. The funeral is at eleven."
"Will she be there?"
"Yes, she will."
"Can't I stay here then? You know she doesn't like me."
"Don't be silly. Charisse doesn't dislike you, she's just ...."
Miriam was at a loss to describe her daughter-in-law since her younger son did not understand the word bitch.
"She's not a very friendly person. It has nothing to do with you. I don't think she likes me very much either. Besides, you owe it to your father to be there."
Not long after Foster Upjohn was placed in the family mausoleum, William informed his wife that they would leave their penthouse apartment and move into the family home. To say that Charisse did not welcome the news would be a gross understatement.
"Live there? With your mother and brother in the house?"
"My mother informed me that she and Alan are going to live in the new wing. We'll have the main part of the house all to ourselves—except for the fourth floor."
"Oh, great! Living in a big, old, gloomy house with a mad relative locked away in the attic. It reminds me of a bad Victorian gothic romance."
"My brother is not insane!" William shouted, always protective of Alan. "He's just developmentally slow."
"He's spent his entire life making little houses," Charisse argued. "That sure spells crazy to me!"
Since the day they were married, William had given his wife everything she had ever wanted. This time he was determined not to let her have her way.
"It's my house now," he insisted, "and I intend to live there."
With her husband gone, Miriam rarely socialized. Most of her time was spent reading in her sitting room or keeping Alan company in his studio. Although she had no skill at sculpting or carving, she often helped him paint his miniatures.
Eight years after losing his father, the artist was carving a man with a baseball bat on his shoulder as his mother applied white paint to the bandstand that was to be placed in the center of the town common.
"You are going to create a band to go in here, aren't you?" Miriam asked.
"I suppose I will, but first, I want to carve a few more ballplayers. I need a pitcher, a catcher and some fielders."
"Didn't you ever want to play baseball yourself? Or watch a game on television?"
"Not really. You know me. I'd rather be here than any other place in the world."
It suddenly saddened her to think how many things her son had missed out on. Perhaps she should not have encouraged his hobby as much as she had. Was she a bad mother for not having tried harder to give her child a somewhat more normal social life? Friends, girls, possibly even marriage? He should not have had to forgo these pleasures because he was developmentally challenged.
"I'm sorry," she uttered, her voice muffled by the tightness of her throat.
"What's that you said, Mom?"
"I said ...."
A severe pain in her chest took her breath away. She fell to the floor, gasping for air.
"Get ... your ... brother," she managed to say.
By the time Alan returned with William, however, Miriam Upjohn was dead.
* * *
Charisse tried to suppress a smile as she and her husband left the cemetery after the funeral service.
Surely William will see reason, she thought. With his mother gone, there's no one to care for Alan. He'll have to be sent away now.
Instead, her husband insisted that his brother move back into his old room, just two doors down the hall from the master bedroom.
"I don't want him there!" Charisse exclaimed.
"I don't give a damn what you want," William fired back angrily. "He's all the family I have left."
"He's a retard!"
"Don't you EVER say that again! If you do, you'll be the one out of the house. And don't forget about the prenup you signed. Do you really want to be forced to live on a budget?"
For the past few years, the couple's marriage had been deteriorating, no doubt due in large part to Charisse's refusal to have children. Yet William had never mentioned a breakup before or dared throw the prenup in his wife's face.
This is serious, Charisse thought as she heard her husband's footsteps receding down the hall. I'd better do something, and soon. I haven't stayed married all these years just to lose out on the Upjohn fortune now.
* * *
Although Alan missed his parents' company, his life changed very little after their deaths. Since his father passed away, William assumed the financial support of his brother, but the artist never gave a thought to where his food, clothes and art supplies came from or who paid the bills on the family home. As was the case throughout his life, his thoughts centered on his miniatures.
Then one October day when the autumn leaves—visible through the fourth-floor windows—were at their peak color, Alan heard the creaking sound of someone walking up the stairs.
"Come and see what I'm working on," he called out to his brother. "I'm painting stained glass windows for my miniature Notre Dame cathedral."
The smell of cigarette smoke presaged the arrival not of William but of his wife.
"What are you doing here?" he asked warily.
His sister-in-law had not ventured up to the fourth floor since the day William brought her to the house to meet his parents.
"I'm afraid I have some bad news for you," Charisse announced, not bothering to fake grief or regret she did not feel. "William has had an accident. He's dead."
No words came to Alan to describe the sense of loss and disbelief he felt. William was not old like his parents had been when they passed away. He was in the prime of his life.
"As the beneficiary of his estate, I'm going to sell this house and move to Paris. I've always wanted to live there and have a nice view of the Eiffel Tower from my bedroom window."
"If you sell my home, where will I go?"
"Well, you can't very well live on your own. There's a sort of hospital for people like you. It's located in Connecticut. You can live there."
"Will you help me pack up my miniatures so they don't get broken during the move?"
Alan did not realize from his sister-in-law's harsh laughter that she was actually enjoying her moment of triumph.
"You can't take them with you. If you're lucky, you'll have a private bedroom and a bathroom but nowhere to put all these toys."
"What will happen to them?"
"Honestly? Who knows? I can't imagine anyone would want them," Charisse said cruelly, and then took a long drag on her cigarette. "I suppose we'll just leave them here for the new owners. Let them worry about hiring a dumpster to get rid of them."
Having spent his entire life in the bosom of a loving family that had protected him from the unpleasantness of the world, Alan never experienced anger before. But, as they say, there is a first time for everything.
"I won't leave! And you can't make me!" he shouted defiantly.
"You think not?"
There was no humor in the smile that widened on her face. Although Alan had no word for it in his limited vocabulary, his mother would have called it malevolent.
"Just watch me."
Charisse leaned forward, picked up the can of turpentine Alan used to clean his paintbrushes and spilled the flammable liquid over the buildings that lined Main Street. She then stepped back and tossed her lit cigarette onto the roof of the ice cream parlor.
Miriam always knew her younger son, although not blessed with his brother's intelligence, had been given gifts of a different nature. His artistic talent was not the only one. None of the Upjohn family, not even Alan himself, had ever suspected the power his new-found anger would release in him. With a lifetime's worth of hard work being reduced to ashes by the flames, he focused that power on his sister-in-law.
"W-what's happening?" Charisse cried as the walls around her seemed to be growing larger.
The room, however, remained the same size. She was the one who was changing. In a matter of minutes, she shrunk down to the size of one of her brother-in-law's miniature people.
"What have you done to me?" she screamed in terror.
Alan was not one to do battle with words. He silently picked her up and placed her on the display, near the bandstand in the middle of the town common. Although he had no clear destination in mind, he calmly walked out of the room toward the staircase.
"Wait!" Charisse screamed. "Come back! You've got to help me!"
She could feel the heat of the approaching fire as it made its way up Main Street toward the common, consuming painted wooden people and horse-drawn vehicles in its path.
I've got to get out of here before the whole place burns down around me!
Panicked, she ran to the farmyard section, stopping short when she reached the edge of the display. Although the table was only four feet from the floor, to a person barely an inch in height, a jump was sure to be fatal.
"Please come back, Alan!" she yelled to the empty room. "I'm sorry."
Even if he had heard her entreaties, her brother-in-law would not have returned. The miniature world he created would soon be destroyed. Just like his parents and his brother, it would no longer be a part of his life. Thankfully, he had a child-like faith that someone else would take their place.
Meanwhile, up on the fourth floor, Charisse was forced to choose between two equally unpleasant ends. She could either remain on the display table and burn to death or jump and hope to survive the fall. Her eyes, already tearing from smoke, went to a shelf on the wall where Alan's miniature Eiffel Tower stood. It was as though fate were mocking her. She had had her husband killed for nothing, for despite his death, she would never be a wealthy widow or enjoy a life of luxury in Paris.
With the fire dangerously close, she could put off her decision no longer. She had heard it said somewhere that people who jump from tall buildings die of heart failure before they reach the ground.
I hope they're right, she thought and stepped off the edge of the board.
I once cast a spell and made Salem a miniature. Although small in stature, he was still a large pain!
