My Notorious Life (56 page)

—I don’t care, she said at last. —I hate them. She sat at the piano and began to play anyway. The sound of her fingers on the keyboard in the parlor were a torture, for when they took me to jail I would never hear their sweet sound, nor gaze at her little head bent over the white notes. I left my seat as dark emotions overtook me and fled down the back stairs toward the office.

—Mother! my girl called after me. —I’m playing, Mam. I’m not finished. I’m playing. You can’t leave. You may not leave!

But she was forced to carry on without her mother, the fate I always feared. I went weeping down the corridor, hoping to find a telegram from Morrill on my desk. Maybe he had got the charges dropped. Maybe it was all put right. Perhaps by some divine intervention Judge Kilbreth had agreed to our demands, had thrown the case out on grounds it was a farce. I hoped for miracles. Perhaps Comstock had exploded from eating too much plum duff. Perhaps his red drawers had burst into flame.

But no luck. No telegram. No word. I would be in court in a week.

T
hat last week before the trial, it did not rain but it must pour, for here on the Thursday was somebody at the office door very early, knocking and beseeching Greta please to let her in. —Oh please Christ Dear God open the door, the woman cried.

It was none other than that young bucket of trouble, Cordelia Shackford or Mrs. Purdy, who was supposed to be living in Philadelphia as Cordelia Munson. Four years past my first trial, here she was again just days before my second, her laces tight and her clothes in an uproar. Greta came in to me while I read some legal papers from Morrill.

—I could not dissuade her, says Greta, whispering. —She said she had to see you. Only you. No matter what. And also I need to see you MYSELF please in private—

Poor Greta looked distraught but before she could finish, in came my undoing.

Cordelia. A madwoman now, the face gaunt and splotched red in the cheeks. Her pretty eyes were sunk in, the blue all spoked with red lines, and she cried and paced and chewed her lips from the moment she walked in. I wished she would walk out again, but despite the trouble she had caused me I pitied her.

—Mrs. Purdy, I says.

—You forget I am not Missus anybody. He never married me. No one ever did.

—What gives you the nerve to walk in here after you had me arrested and shamed and dragged to prison?

—They FORCED me, she cried. —I didn’t mean to accuse you. It was that Dr. Gunning that forced me. The police laid me down and he examined me against my will. He said he knew what I’d been up to. They forced me to give your name up and go to court against you. And I felt so bad about it, Madame, what with yourself like a mother to me and your husband so kind. I only wish I could say the same of Fortune, for here I am again in trouble.

She stopped, and her eyes dropped downwards quick and back up so she was perfectly understood. She didn’t need to say the word. Indeed she couldn’t, for she was choking and snuffling.

—Please, she said, —I’ve nobody else at all and never forgot what you said to me, that should I be in need I could turn to you.

—That was before you testified against me before the gallery in Jefferson Market Court. That was before you had me sent away from my child, to the Tombs.

These words provoked fresh sobs from my visitor, which issued from her in a great herking mess. —I’m sorry, I’m sorry, she cried. —There was no chance to explain.

I tried to harden my heart, but something dark and terrible was bottled up behind her orphan eyes. —I don’t have time for you now. It’s a risk for you even coming here. Surely you know I have troubles of my own.

—Yes, I read the papers, but I had to see you before they lock you away. Please ma’am, if only you can help this time, before you’re taken off—

—The nerve of you. You’ve come for a quick fix? Is that it?

—A man chased me on the street, Cordelia managed to say, but stopped in a red boil of misery. —He—

—Did he interfere with you?

She nodded, the whites of her eyes stark.

—He’s a madman, she said, heaving sobs. —He came after me two times, the first time six weeks ago. Then again, Saturday, he . . . threw me to the ground and ______.

Her hysterics and the horror of her story was such that I relented. I went around to where she sat, stroked her hair, so black like my own and unkempt. The girl did not know a hairbrush from a saucepan handle. She
leaned her head against my hip as I stood there and clamped her arms around my legs and held on. The flesh of her wrists was yellow with old bruises. I unglued her arms from around me and sat beside her the better to examine them. Turning her palms over and rolling up her sleeves I drew in my breath: There was terrible cuts scabbed over. Long cuts on the soft underside of the forearm, red in the white along the blue piping of vein. She turned her head away as I looked.

—Sweetheart, I said, —have you tried to hurt yourself?

She shuddered and did not answer. The sight of her, the whimpering and madness and misery, provoked a terrible rage in me. I didn’t want to help her. Why should it always be me? Wasn’t there no one else? I wanted her to go away and not return. It wasn’t fair that she should be here, now, on top of all my troubles. She’d only make things the worse for me as she’d done before and why must I take a risk for her?

—I can’t fix you up, I said, my heart a snail in its hard shell. —I got problems of my own. I got a family. A little girl. They’re going to send me to prison.

—Please. I’m sorry Missus. But it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t do anything wrong.

—I know the feeling. I didn’t do anything wrong neither.

—I was going about my business, walking to the market. I had my room in the boardinghouse and a nice lithographer fellow courting me named Hatcher, Jimmy Hatcher. But this other man Hines was after me and I told him to leave me alone but he watched me and hid himself in the alley and I was coming along with a basket in my arms and—twice! It was not just the once and—

—Ah sweetheart.

—He’ll come after me again. I traveled two days to get here. To get away from him. Besides, who will have me now in Philadelphia? I’m scared. I’m very frightened, Madame. My fellow Jimmy doesn’t believe my story. Says I brought it all on myself. Says it was my fault, and why was I walking out alone with a basket of washing? He says probably Hines is my lover, can you figure? when Hines is only a deranged man. How I hate him. He is no more my lover than a frog, yet how can I prove it? Hatcher won’t marry me now, he says I’m spoiled for him. And I can’t go back there. I won’t.

I knew that feeling too.

—I’d kill myself before I would, she said. —I’d jump from a window.

—No, now, you won’t hurt yourself again. Don’t even think it.

—You said to come here, she cried. —You told me to. If I ever needed a place. You promised.

And it was that promise I regretted now. Shouldn’t it be moot? Yet even with the vultures of the law circling again she was back to haunt me. Why was it some people had one trouble after another? It was as if for Cordelia the one trouble of her mother dying gave birth to another trouble and so on into forever. If only she would stop her sobs. The noise was freakish, broken like something from an asylum. You would do anything to make it stop.

—I wish I was dead, she said.

—All right, I said, very angry. —Never mind. I’ll fix you up tonight, fast.

—Thank you, she said, and fell on me again with elaborate gratitude.

—But you can’t stay, is that clear? They can’t find you here. My trial starts Monday upcoming. Four days from now. You must leave right away.

She nodded. —I’m sorry, Madame. I’m sorry. Forgive me.

I scuttled her up the back stairs and settled her down in one of the rooms. She was our only patient.

*  *  *

—Greta, I said, back in the office. —I’ll need your help.

—No, Axie, she said, her voice despondent, —I vill need YOUR help.

In the press of events I had neglected the troubles of my friend, and now I saw the damage they had done her. Greta sat at the front desk staring sadly out the window at the glimpse of sidewalk, her black hair tight in its pins. Her gaze was vacant. Her demeanor shaky with drink. She bent her head and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, crying. I made noises of sympathy and stroked her dark head. —What happened to you?

—Mr. Sprunt has told Willi. He told my son I was a _____.

—He didn’t! Oh Greta.

—I didn’t give him the money, so he said, ‘Willi your mother is a hoor and you’re the b*****d son of a hoor.’ He said to Willi, ‘Your father was never no sea captain.’

—The scut, he didn’t.

—He did. Und Willi came to me asking . . . why did I lie to him? My son only twelve years of age said he will be ashamed all his life to heff me as his mother.

—Nonsense, he won’t believe a word Sprunt says.

—But he does! Already he won’t look at me. He stays by der window and only spins his tops and plays mit his marbles and chalk.

Greta cried and cried, her eyes swollen. No matter how I tried to embrace her she was unbending. —I told you, she wailed, —I told you if I didn’t heff the money what he would do! We heff notting! Sprunt has drunken every nickel.

—I’m sorry. I should’ve given it to you. I’ve been distracted.

—Oh the trial, the trial, is all you talk about, it is only you and your trials, YOUR trouble and
Kümmerniss,
your patient Mrs. Lillian, chust because she is the railroad princess, you spend all your days mit her, you bring her the custard and the caviar, and the rest of us, you don’t care you don’t listen you don’t ask what about Greta? What about Greta who works for you all these days?

—You’re my friend. Haven’t I paid you? Haven’t you had enough to buy a little house and raise your son alone and find yourself a husband?

—Husband! A
Schwein
. A dog. He has ruint me. He told my son the thing he promised he never would tell and my son now will not speak to me! I am ruint forever.

—Nonsense. Leave Sprunt. You will tell Willi that every word from that bullfrog’s mouth is a poison lie. You will bring your boy here and move in with us.

As I said this the idea comforted me. Greta would live here with us, as she did in the old days. If they threw me in jail then Greta would be here, at least, with Annabelle and Willi. She could oversee the household. She knew the works of it.

But she looked at me now with dismay in her face like milk clouding a cup of tea. —If they will lock you up, Axie, Willi will never speak to me again. Already he snubs me.

—It will be all right. Willi is your son. Sprunt can’t take him.

—I am so shamed. He won’t forgive me.

—He will forgive you. I bent my knees and got down low so I could look her in the eyes. —I need your help tonight. There’s a patient.

—You said no more patients.

—Just this one.

—Always the patients, the house, the trial. I am tired. I’m dead. Maybe I might as well be.

—I am tired, too. But this girl has been r***d.

At the sound of that word, Greta put her face in her hands and cried harder.

—You’ll help me tonight?

—All right, she said, after a long sour moment, but she was not happy about it.

*  *  *

And neither was Charlie, who said, —Why you’d help that sorry sad piece of string Cordelia I don’t know. Have you lost your mind?

He went off in disgust with his crony Will Sacks and I did not expect to see him till daylight. After Belle had gone to sleep, after I’d told her a story and sung her
shoul aroun,
tucked her in and blew out the lamp on her nightstand, I went heavyhearted upstairs to Cordelia Purdy or Shackford or whatever it was she called herself now. Her hair was brushed and she had had a bath in my very own tub. It was an indulgence I offered only her among my patients, and it made me happy to see the pleasure the motherless Cordelia took in the luxury of that room, the mirrors and the marble. She wore one of my dressing gowns and smelled of lilac water, but her eyes was dead and spooked. I am proud to say I did soften to her then and remembered her motherlessness and her ordeal at the hands of a R*p*st. I gave her a bottle of whiskey and said, —Come along now love. We made our way down the back stairs to the office. There was Greta with a peevish face.

—Now Greta, I said, —you remember Cordelia.

Greta nodded and gave a watery smile to our patient. She could not manage more than that, however, and was cold and distant as she moved about, laying out the syringe and the curette, the bowl and a roll of bandages.

Cordelia cried quietly while I began.

—Don’t cry now, Greta said, sharply, —Madame is going to fix you up.

I did my best. It was rough again. The poor girl’s parts was damaged and scarred worse even than before and there was marks of yellow bruises on the soft inside of the limbs and what seemed to be the burns of matches. Greta and me looked at each other and was wordless about the horrors we imagined. I sweated, sick with how I hurt her. Cordelia cried and thrashed.