Authors: Karl Iagnemma
Detroit at sunset was quieter and more handsome than its daytime counterpart. Golden light lay draped against the city’s steeples and signboards and wide shop windows. Shadows lengthened like silhouette cuttings from news vendors and stevedores. The river brightened, then burst into a ribbon of glimmering spangles. Reverend Stone wandered from Woodward Avenue to Michigan then out to the immigrant neighborhoods, with their billiard parlors and flimsy houses and crowded saloons, voices pouring from every open window, children squealing at play along the gutter. His son had likely walked these same cluttered streets. The thought was accompanied by a deep, familiar ache.
He had never understood why Elisha had left Newell. The boy had been melancholy during the months before his departure—though no more melancholy, Reverend Stone supposed, than any boy whose mother lay on her sickbed. Yet even as a child Elisha had been difficult to gauge. He would sing, wide-eyed, throughout Sunday morning services; yet when the bell rang for afternoon services he was nowhere to be found. At sunset Elisha would slip through the parsonage’s back door, his pockets filled with muddy pebbles, and Reverend Stone would scold the boy, watch him retreat slump-shouldered down the hallway. He understood his son’s impulse toward solitude; what he could not understand was his lack of faith.
Other boys his age had heard the call. James Davidson had stumbled down the meetinghouse aisle one Sunday, and the next week made a profession of faith before the congregation. Oscar Phelps at a tent revival in Springfield, crawling on his knees to the candlelit platform as the crowd wailed. George Lowrie whimpering in the middle of Mill Street, his face drawn in fear and awe. Shiny red apples lay scattered at his feet. Later the boy explained that a divine wind had overwhelmed his senses.
Reverend Stone had always assumed that his son would follow him, first to the seminary in Cambridge then to his own congregation in a town like Newell, to his own worries about collection plates and Baptists and unbelievers, his own unwritten sermons. But when Elisha prayed he seemed filled with fear. The minister watched the boy, mumbling silently in his dim bedroom, his shadow a dark slash against the wall. The sight filled Reverend Stone with guilty confusion. He could not comprehend how he had failed his son. And he could not comprehend how his son had failed him.
He spent the next days inquiring at boardinghouses with the faint hope of stumbling onto Elisha’s past dwelling. He took lunch in a rude dining hall, shoulder-to-shoulder with German laborers. The meat was greasy and ill-cooked but delicious. Afternoons, he bought a mug of bitter coffee and walked along the quay, fingering the coins in his pocket. Nineteen dollars: enough to buy passage on a steamer to Sault Ste. Marie, but then…what? He had no map or guide, no notion of the boy’s whereabouts. Reverend Stone allowed himself to consider the possibility of paying Charles Noble. The man would demand forty dollars, perhaps fifty; the minister might find day labor, or borrow money from the local congregation. The thoughts sat uneasily in his mind until he pushed them away.
On the Thursday after his arrival in Detroit Reverend Stone emerged from the dining hall onto a crowded sidewalk, and in the shadow of an approaching figure felt a glint of recognition. As the man passed he realized it was Jonah Crawley.
He hurried beside the fellow. “I seem to have no trouble locating you in a crowd. It must be a strange form of magnetism.”
Jonah Crawley seemed genuinely pleased. “Reverend Stone! Again a pleasant surprise! I trust you found suitable accommodation in the city?”
The minister smiled, thinking of his bare, windowless room. “Suitable enough, compared to my last.”
“You’ll find Detroit to be a bit rougher-hewn than Buffalo. The trouble of course is foreigners—Germans and Irish, mainly. Italians, too. It’s a wonder my daughter and I accomplish any civilized business.”
“Do you?”
Crawley’s expression fell momentarily. “There is a strange amount of loss lingering over this city. Our enterprise tends to thrive on loss.”
“As does mine.”
“Then we are alike. As I figured all along.”
The man offered his hand as a farewell gesture, and Reverend Stone said, “I wonder if you might care for a dram?”
Crawley’s face registered a note of surprise. “Why, I can’t imagine why I wouldn’t.”
Jonah Crawley led the minister to a small, empty saloon where they stood at an oak bar strewn with sand, facing a mirror speckled near to blackness. Crawley chatted about the immigrant problem while Reverend Stone drank a glass of cider. The trouble, apparently, was not a surplus of foreigners but rather a lack of regulation on which religions might be legally practiced. Irish Catholics found assimilation near-impossible while their English Protestant brethren had no trouble whatever. Similarly he had never met a Norwegian who was not bright, hardworking, cheerful and industrious, and all of them good Protestants with a loathing for things Romish. Jonah Crawley rapped his knuckles against the bar for emphasis, downed a shot of whiskey. He seemed the sort of man who did not require a partner to hold an enjoyable conversation. Finally Reverend Stone interrupted to ask after his daughter, Adele, and the man paused. “What about Adele?”
By way of response Reverend Stone found himself telling Crawley about Elisha. About the boy’s quiet watchfulness. About his days spent roaming the creek edge, alone, instead of frolicking with other boys. About his lies regarding school, his theft from the Sunday collection and mercantile, his mussed, empty bed one May morning. About the letter arriving three years later, its regretful tone unlike anything Reverend Stone might have expected. Finally he told Jonah Crawley about the public land office and his conversation with Charles Noble. Crawley tried unsuccessfully to stifle a guffaw. He rubbed his hands together.
“I see the dilemma! Luckily one easily solved.”
“I am not inclined to solve it the way Noble suggests. No decent man would.” Reverend Stone immediately regretted the righteousness in his tone.
“What will you do otherwise? Await your boy’s return to Detroit?”
“I don’t know that he will return. I plan to travel to the northern territory, to inquire after the expedition—surely someone must know their route.”
Jonah Crawley scrutinized Reverend Stone as if examining a banknote for counterfeit traces. He could not seem to remove the smile from his face. He said, “Perhaps I might speak with Charles Noble on your behalf.”
“I would never suggest you do that.”
“I might do it anyway, to satisfy my curiosity. And then you might offer me consideration, as a measure of your gratitude.”
Reverend Stone’s heart fluttered with excitement. “I am staying at Mrs. Barbeau’s on Miami Avenue. I expect I will be in the city only a few days more.”
Crawley drained his glass and squinted at the empty bottom. “Well, then. Perhaps we’ll speak yet again.”
The men stepped from the saloon into a soft drizzle, the sun shining brilliantly despite the rain. The street was empty save for a Negro porter asleep on his feet outside the Commander Hotel. Crawley pulled his hat brim low and said, “I wonder do you have any engagements this evening?”
Reverend Stone nearly laughed. “Nary a one!”
The man turned up his collar as he paced backward down the sidewalk. “Come to 23 Sixth Street! Second story, above the sweet shop. You’ll see something truly astonishing. That I promise!”
Reverend Stone raised a hand as the man disappeared down the street. He started toward his boardinghouse, and as his elation faded it distilled into something darker, melancholy muddled by guilt. He decided to attribute the feeling to the weather.
He paced the damp room until sunset, then stood in the dark awhile listening to rain tap against the windowpanes. On the pallet lay a cheap edition of Catlin’s
Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians;
Reverend Stone had read a passage describing a corn-planting ritual, in which a squaw dashed through newly sown fields at midnight, naked and howling, her chemise dragged behind her through the soil. The description had unnerved him. Reverend Stone had riffled through the pages then tossed the book aside.
He rose and located his brogans and jacket and hat, then made his way down to the dark street. He walked down Miami Avenue to Grand River, then followed an alleyway that opened onto a courtyard smelling of night soil and rotten cabbage. A bareheaded woman wearing a ragged cloak watched him from beneath an awning. Reverend Stone nodded to her, and without smiling she hiked her skirts above her stocking tops. He turned quickly away. He hurried down Fort Street and walked several blocks to Sixth. He was in the Irish quarter now, with its saloons and churches, its brightly painted houses crowded like rows of teeth. A man’s rich tenor spilled from an upstairs window, singing “The Minstrel Boy.”
A signboard leaned beside the door of number 23, displaying a sodden broadsheet.
THE RENOWNED
&
PRODIGIOUS MISS ADELE CRAWLEY
SPIRITUALIST MEDIUM
CONTACTS THE DEARLY DEPARTED WITHOUT FAIL
NEW YORK—BOSTON—LONDON—PHILADELPHIA
Reverend Stone stepped inside and ascended a creaking stairway to the second story and a closed wooden door. Murmured voices seeped through the doorframe. The sound was like that of an anxious mob awaiting a verdict. As the minister listened a tapping began, followed by a woman’s pained cry; then the crowd’s drone rose to swallow the cry. He slowly opened the door.
Adele Crawley sat at a small table in the room’s center, her white-gloved hands flat on a black tablecloth, candlelight shadowing her closed eyes. She looked to be nearly asleep. Across the table a Negro woman in a high-collared dress sat with her fists clenched at her throat, eyes wide with fear, sweat gleaming on her gaunt cheeks. Figures filled the large room, crowding the women. The air was hot from the crush of bodies.
“Pray ask about the housen stuff. Ask about the mirrors and the nice combs and the pearly earbobs.”
Adele Crawley’s lips parted as though she were about to speak. Veins wound down her forehead like rivers on a faded map. A quick, muffled tapping emanated from the floor, followed by a single loud rap. Adele’s brow tightened. “He says he can see them.”
“Tell him the pearly earbobs! Ask him are they in the keeping room or in the parlor. Pray ask him!”
The crowd jostled toward the table, their whispers growing to hushed shouts. At the room’s edge a man scrabbled onto a windowsill for a better view. A soft tap rose from the floorboards. The sound was like a touch from velvet-gloved knuckles. “He says they are in the parlor.”
The woman whimpered, “Oh my Lord my Lord my sweet Lord.”
“He is fading now.”
“Ask him about the nice combs! Tell him the nice combs from his mammy’s stuff! Pray ask him, please!”
“He is becoming fainter before my eyes. He is waving farewell now. He is smiling.” Candlelight flickered over Adele’s waxy skin. Her eyelids fluttered, then slowly opened. She withdrew her hands from the table and placed them in her lap. “He is gone.”
The Negro woman slumped forward as a pair of men rushed from the crowd. She stamped her feet and wailed, a forlorn keening. The men hauled her upright and ushered her past the minister and out the door, mumbling low consoling phrases, a barefoot Negro boy trailing behind. Her screams echoed in the stairwell. Reverend Stone’s throat twitched and he bent to still the cough. When he straightened Adele Crawley was staring at him.
“Reverend Stone. Please.”
A tall, hatless Irishman stepped to the table and shouted, “I’s next on that docket! You swore you’d take as come, and I’s here nearly—”
Adele silenced him with a shake of her head. She turned back to Reverend Stone. The crowd parted, and the minister felt himself tugged and pushed toward the room’s center, voices urging him forward, a young girl yanking at his trouser leg. He approached the table and sat across from the woman. He smiled at Adele Crawley as he would an infant.
“Would you like to converse with her?”
The minister cocked his head.
“Your wife. Would you like to converse with your wife now?”
His smile faltered. The girl’s eyes glistened with pleasure. He said, “I would. Of course I would.”
Foolishness. Now she would stamp the floorboards with her heel, utter platitudes vague enough to please a legion. Reverend Stone scanned the crowd for Jonah Crawley, but outside the globe of candlelight the room was dark. Foolishness and blasphemy. He recited a silent prayer of contrition.
Adele Crawley closed her eyes and said, “I was near to you in earthly life, my dear, and am nearer still to you now.” The girl’s expression tightened; then a wave of fear seemed to pass through her. The crowd pressed toward the small table. The room smelled overpoweringly of bodies. At last Adele relaxed to blankness.
“I see her now. She is very beautiful. So young, and so very beautiful. She has the most beautiful blue eyes.”
She is guessing, Reverend Stone thought. She has guessed Ellen’s eye color, nothing more. Sweat slid down his back.
“She yearns for you.”
“How do you know?”
“She is telling me. She says that she yearns for you and she does not blame you.”
A breeze caressed Reverend Stone’s cheek, and for an instant he thought he might faint. “There is no reason for her to blame me.”
“She does not blame you and she says neither does your son blame you. He forgives you your selfishness. He knows it was borne from love.”
The minister’s throat drew taut. “Stop.”
“She knows you are greatly frightened. She says you must quiet your fears. You must trust in His guidance of your journey, and quiet your fears.”
Reverend Stone stood, the chair scraping the floorboards. The crowd hushed. “Stop. Stop saying these ridiculous words.”
“She says she feels wonderful where she is. She is consumed with love, completely.”