The Death Beat

by Fiona Veitch Smith

  There were further questions about physical and mental health, and then one that affected both Aunt Dot and Rollo: “Whether or not deformed or crippled – the nature, length and cause”.

  When it came to Aunt Dot’s turn, she answered “no” – with a giggle – to the questions about polygamy, anarchy, and the violent overthrow of the United States government. However, when it came to the question about the reason for her being in a wheelchair, she began to wax lyrical about her activities as a suffragette in 1910 that led to clashes with the police, resulting in her paralysis. It was a story she was used to telling and she did it with aplomb, becoming more enthused as she realized people all over the dining room had stopped whatever they were doing to listen to her. When she was finished, she received a round of applause, and a “hear, hear!” from Amelia Spencer.

  When the applause subsided, the immigration official, a gentleman in a brown suit who had placed his bowler hat on top of a small pile of manila folders, stopped writing and looked up at Aunt Dot.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, Miz Denby, but did you not say you are NOT an anarchist and have NO intention of taking part in any action to overthrow the government of the United States?”

  “I have no need to correct you, sir; that is what I said.”

  The man slowly screwed the lid back on his fountain pen and positioned it under the name Dorothy Denby on the ship’s manifest. Then he placed his hands on either side of his ink blotter and leaned across the table, looking directly into the eyes of his interviewee. “It concerns me, Miz Denby, that you have participated in violent actions of civil disobedience, have willingly clashed with law enforcement officers, and have attempted to undermine your own government. Why then should I not think it possible you may try to do the same thing here?”

  Aunt Dot shook her blonde curls in disbelief. “Good heavens, man, what are you saying?”

  The man grunted but did not answer. Instead he removed his bowler hat from the pile of files, then extracted one. He opened it on the table before him to reveal a dossier of newspaper clippings and official memoranda. From where Poppy was standing, it seemed to be a record of Aunt Dot’s career as a social activist.

  But before he could interrogate her further, Theodore and Amelia Spencer arrived and stood on either side of Aunt Dot.

  “Is there a problem here?” asked Theo.

  The official looked up and recognized the Long Island senator. “No, Senator Spencer. I am just ensuring that no communists or anarchists threaten our country.”

  “But Miz Denby here is neither a communist nor an anarchist.”

  The man cleared his throat and ran two fingers along the inside of his collar.

  “She is a self-confessed socialist,” said the man.

  “That is hardly the same thing!” said Theo. “Miz Denby and my wife here have both proudly pursued the right of women to vote. That hardly makes them political undesirables, does it?”

  The man continued trying to loosen his collar. He looked from Amelia to Aunt Dot. He was in a fix, thought Poppy: it was one thing to call a foreign national an anarchist, but another to say that of an American citizen and wife of a United States senator.

  “Er, no sir,” said the man eventually, and stamped Aunt Dot’s certificate of entry to the United States.

  She took it with a humph and a flounce. “Thank you, Theodore and Amelia. If you don’t mind – and if you’ve finished here yourselves – I would appreciate it if you accompanied me back to my cabin. I don’t want to get tossed overboard by any over-enthusiastic immigration official.” She glowered at the official, who looked suitably embarrassed.

  “I’ll meet you on the pier, dear,” she said to Poppy and then left the dining room, clutching her papers, accompanied by Miss King and the Spencers.

  The immigration official let out a deep sigh, unscrewed his pen, and checked the next name on the manifest. He visibly tensed. “Denby,” he said, as if announcing his own death warrant. “Miz Poppy Denby.”

  However, to both Poppy and the official’s relief the interview was short and uneventful. Rollo had finished his interview too; as had the Spencer boys. Miles and Toby bid their farewells and asked if they might drop in on the ladies for a visit.

  “Of course!” said Delilah. Poppy, however, did not want to encourage Toby any further. He clearly felt there was something to be pursued; she was suitably cautious. Oh yes, he was attractive, and she enjoyed his company, but it was a little too soon after Daniel. She didn’t want to get swept up into a holiday romance when things had not been properly settled at home. Nonetheless, she had no good reason to turn down a friendly visit, so she politely agreed.

  After the Spencers had left, Delilah was called for her interview. Rollo took a seat beside Poppy and pulled out his pocket watch. It was ten o’clock, local time. “Let’s hope this doesn’t take too long,” he said.

  “It shouldn’t,” said Poppy. “How did yours go? Probably just a formality for people born here, I imagine.”

  Rollo gave a mirthless laugh. “Imagine being a dwarf.”

  “Why should that matter?” asked Poppy.

  Rollo crossed his short legs at the ankles and Poppy noted that they stuck over the edge of the chair like a child’s. She wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to have a child-sized body in an adult world.

  “Did you see that question on the manifest about being crippled or deformed? The one that got your aunt into such trouble?”

  “Yes,” said Poppy. “But it wasn’t the fact that she was crippled that got her into trouble. It was the story she told about how it happened.”

  Rollo grunted in agreement. “It was, yes, but if she had been born crippled or had ended up that way through illness it would have been very different.”

  “Why?” asked Poppy.

  “Have you heard of eugenics?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a scientific theory that a population can be purified and strengthened by stopping the weaker members from breeding.”

  “Weaker members?” asked Poppy.

  “Yes, such as dwarfs and people with other inherited illnesses and infirmities. As well as the insane and feebleminded. My country is trying to filter them out before they come here.”

  “But surely they can’t turn you away from your own country!”

  “They can’t, no,” agreed Rollo. “But if I were not an American citizen, and I was intending to live here permanently, like those poor beggars in steerage, they very well might.”

  Rollo nodded to Dr Jung as he was leaving the dining room. “I’ll call on you next week, doctor.”

  “I look forward to it, Mr Rolandson.”

  “I’m going to ask Jung his opinion on it. About whether mental infirmity can be inherited.”

  Poppy looked over to Delilah. “Well, at least she won’t have to worry about that. Delilah’s as fit as a fiddle, body and mind.”

  But Delilah’s body language was tense and she was leaning over the desk and whispering furiously to the official. The official was red in the face and looking even more embarrassed than before.

  “Oh dear, what’s going on there?”

  “Let’s go see,” said Rollo and jumped off his chair.

  He and Poppy sauntered over to the desk. “Is everything all right here?” asked Rollo. “Miz Marconi is staying with me for three months and she has sufficient money to sustain her. There shouldn’t be a problem.”

  If Rollo expected his intervention to have the same impact as Senator Spencer’s, he was wrong. The official looked down on him with contempt.

  “And who are you?”

  Rollo straightened his shoulders and replied: “Rollo Rolandson, editor of The Daily Globe, London; temporary editor for The New York Times. Citizen of the United States. What is the problem here?”

  The official pushed a dossier across the desk. It contained newspaper clippings featuring Delilah at various theatre openings, galas, and parties on the arms of different gentl
emen. Among them Poppy spotted her most recent beau, Adam Lane, and a previous suitor, Alfie Dorchester.

  Delilah looked near to tears. Poppy reached out and took her hand.

  “He is suggesting I am – I am some kind of – p-prostitute,” whispered Delilah, then looked over her shoulder to see if anyone else was listening. They weren’t.

  “Not a prostitute, miz. But we are concerned that your behaviour has not been of the highest moral standard. We believe you are guilty of moral turpitude,” he said, and flushed beetroot.

  “Moral what?” asked Poppy.

  “Turpitude,” said Rollo. “It’s another one of my country’s immigration criteria. We don’t want any naughty people corrupting the locals. Where did you get all this?” he asked the official. “It isn’t usual to have dossiers at first interviews like this. But you’ve had one for Miz Denby Snr and Miz Marconi here. It looks like you were prepared for this. Were you?”

  The official pulled Delilah’s file back to him and slapped it shut. “We were sent information in advance, yes.”

  “By whom?” asked Rollo.

  “A concerned citizen.”

  Rollo snorted. “A concerned citizen with access to London newspapers. Some of those clippings were from my paper, the Globe, which isn’t available here. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble –”

  “Excuse me, gentlemen,” interrupted Poppy. “Do we really have to get into this? Miss Marconi and I are travelling with my aunt, Miss Dorothy Denby, and as you have already heard, she is a personal friend of Senator Spencer. Perhaps we can call him back to discuss Miss Marconi’s case too…”

  The official paled and cleared his throat. “Erm, no. I don’t think that will be necessary. Welcome to the United States, Miz Marconi.” He stamped her entry permit and passed it to her.

  Rollo glared at the official as Delilah gathered her things. “You have not heard the last of this,” he growled. And then to Poppy and Delilah: “Welcome to America, ladies.” He hooked his arms on either side.

  Poppy and Delilah slipped theirs through, relieved that the awkward interview with the immigration official appeared to be over.

  “Let me show you the town.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Mimi and Estie Yazierska shuffled along with the other third-class passengers, carrying their worldly belongings in carpet bags. Mimi took in what she could of the New York skyline in the morning light: there wasn’t much to see. Beyond the harbour was a lovely park, she’d been told. But all she could see from her vantage point were hulking cranes standing guard like giant sentinels, blocking the rest of Manhattan from Battery Bay. But she knew that beyond them would be buildings that reached to the clouds and a giant clock that marked in the New Year and where she would find Anatoly waiting for her – every day at twelve noon – for as long as it took her to come to him.

  This was the promise they had made to each other the day he left to join the army fighting against the Bolsheviks. He had told her to wait for him in Yalta for as long as she could, but if the war turned against the White Russians, and it looked as if her life might be in danger, she should buy a ticket to New York and meet him there. He had left her enough money to pay for a second-class ticket each for her and her sister.

  She’d waited two long years. By the time the Red Russians took over Yalta in 1919, the money was worthless. The wealthy homes all around her were looted – if not by the Bolshevik soldiers then by the people of the town or the staff of the villas themselves. Most of them – like her – had not been paid for months. Mimi brought Estie from her home in the town after the people she was staying with packed up their belongings and left on the first boat they could get. Mimi found Estie eating what was left of the kitchen scraps.

  Back at the villa, with the few servants who had not yet fled, they had enough food for a few weeks – but it wouldn’t go far. Half the city was already under Bolshevik control and – if the sound of shellfire and mortars was anything to go by – it wouldn’t be long until they too were overrun. But Mimi did not want to leave without Anatoly. Each day she woke thinking, Today he will come, but each night, spent huddled in the cellar with the door to the rest of the house barred, she fell asleep fearing he never would.

  Some of the homes in the Black Sea resort were occupied by aristocrats in exile. Mimi had heard that only a few miles away from the Pushtov estate Empress Maria Federovna, Mother of Tsar Nicholas II, was holding up. Mimi knew a maid at the royal villa who told her the British were going to rescue them. They were going to send a warship to the harbour and they would all be saved.

  But Anatoly still had not come. That night, as Estie slept beside her, she prayed to God: What must I do? Do I wait for him and perhaps die for him? Or do I save Estie and leave on the warship? She waited for an answer, but, like the time she prayed when her parents died – that the God of her ancestors would bring them back to her – there was no reply. Why, God, do you not speak? She resisted the urge to spit. Instead she wrapped her right hand around her left ring finger and felt the pearl press into her palm. She had waited long enough. Even if Anatoly was trying to get to her, he would not be able to get through the Bolshevik lines. In fact, she was risking his life by waiting here. Better she make her way to New York like they had agreed. And the first step was to go on the British warship.

  The next day she woke early, packed as many of the valuable household goods as she could carry, and, with a still-drowsy Estie in tow, headed for the harbour. True enough, there was the British warship – the Marlborough – along with some smaller vessels flying the flags of other nations. Mimi recognized the French and Greek among them.

  She joined the throng of people crammed onto the pier clutching the hands of children and the leads of pets. The royals, it seemed, were already on board, and Mimi spotted some of them strolling on the decks and watching their subjects below. A regal old lady in a fur coat and a large hat – possibly the empress – was speaking earnestly with the British captain, who was gesticulating to the crowd. Mimi could not hear what was said above the hullaballoo of the refugees but she could guess: “We cannot fit them on board, madam.”

  “But you must, Captain; they will die here if we leave them.”

  Or perhaps it was the other way round: “Let us leave immediately, sir. Before the Bolsheviks arrive.”

  “But what about all these people, madam – what will become of them?”

  Did the royals care about them at all as they, safe on the ark of rescue, looked down on them from their haven?

  Mimi wasn’t sure, but more people were being crammed onto the boat and she, and the now fully awake but confused Estie, continued pushing forward.

  “I’m hungry, Mimi. I want to go to the kitchen for breakfast.”

  “There will be food on the boat,” said Mimi, hoping she was right.

  Estie’s eyes widened in excitement. “Are we going on the boat? On the water?”

  “We are,” said Mimi. “We are going to see Anatoly.”

  “Toley!” shouted Estie, pushing forward with all her strength – to the aggravation of the other refugees waiting their turn.

  Mimi tried to calm her, but it was too late. The girl pushed and shoved and, before Mimi knew it, was at the front of the crowd, launching herself at the British sailors, who tried to push her back.

  The men, holding rifles across their chests, muscled her back. Estie tried to get around them, shouting “Toley, Toley!” but she could not get past. And then one of the officers on board shouted to the guards. They held up their weapons and pointed at the crowd. “We’re full!” they said, or that’s what Mimi thought they said with her newly acquired English. Mimi reached Estie and pulled her back.

  “Toley’s not there, Estie.”

  The younger girl, her hair pulled back under a blue scarf, looked at her sister wide-eyed. “No Toley?”

  “No Toley,” said Mimi and took her sister’s hand. The sailors started pulling up the gangplank. The crowd surged forward. Some warning shots
were fired into the air.

  Mimi and the rest of the crowd scattered and then regrouped and tried their luck with the other vessels in the harbour.

  By the time Mimi and Estie reached the front of the queue, the French ship too was full. But the Greek ship still had room. People were not so keen to go on the Greek ship. As it was only going to Athens, it would not take them that far. No one wanted to claim asylum in Greece, with the country decimated through war with Turkey. No, they all wanted to reach Western Europe – or even America – where it was truly safe. But Athens was better than Yalta, and, as far as Mimi could remember from the map in the Pushtov library, a little closer to New York.

  Two years later, after making their way from port to port, bartering and selling, begging and pleading, Mimi and her sister were finally on the border of the Promised Land.

  And so they walked across the gangplank onto the ferry that would take them to the third-class immigration station on Ellis Island. As happened with each new boat they boarded, Mimi had to assure Estie that “Toley” was not on board, but they were getting closer to him. Mimi found a seat for them on a wooden bench, beside a family of six who had started their journey in Sicily. The mother, holding a sleeping baby to her breast with one hand and trying to stop twin toddlers bickering with the other, looked exhausted. Mimi smiled at the woman. The woman nodded back, then, taking in Estie who was singing a song to herself, her eyebrows furrowed. She said something which Mimi did not understand. Then she pointed and twirled her finger at her temple in the universal gesture indicating madness.

  Mimi bristled. Estie was not mad; she just had a young mind. The man at the port in England had said that as long as she paid extra money – a fine, he called it, for the feebleminded – they would be allowed into the United States. So Mimi had handed over the last of her money. She had seen the man on board the ship, so she knew he was here in New York. She had taken note of his name, so if there were any queries at the immigration station she would tell them that he had told her they could come.