As Effie worked, she thought back to her solitary walk home from the French Quarter the night before. She’d heard Meg, Harriet, and the other women arrive several hours later, their voices high with delight. Effie’s small room had grown cavernous in that moment—dark and empty, save for the distorted echo of their chatter.
Only jealous, Madame Desâmes had said in her raspy Creole-accented voice. Wouldn’t know love if it dropped on her head from heaven.
Effie tucked her hands under her armpits, shivering in her wet dress. Love! What greater culprit was there in the abandonment of reason? Harriet’s willingness to believe a dead man had conjured flowers for her—a natural and scientific impossibility—further proved this fact. Effie was not jealous. That too would be illogical. Why wish for something that obscured one’s judgment and caused such grief?
She rubbed her hands together, blew a few warm breaths over her stiff fingers, and picked up her scalpel. Through the sitting room door, she could hear the husband’s choked voice as he responded to Mr. Whitmark’s questions about death announcements and casket options. Grief. She bent down over the woman’s arm and made a straight, clean cut just above the inside of the elbow.
Grief called often during the War. The same brave men who charged toward bullets and artillery fire openly wept beside their dead friends, brothers, and sons. Later, when the captain brought her to Indiana and established his embalming business, Effie met grief with even more regularity. Wives now. Husbands. Mothers—whose grief seemed to surpass even what the greatest poets put to pen.
“She’s like a corpse herself,” a girl from church had whispered of Effie once. “She don’t feel anything.”
But that wasn’t true. She did feel. Those who mourned beside the bodies she embalmed mirrored something inside her. She’d sensed it stronger as a girl, watching the soldiers wring their caps and clutch the pale, limp hands of their dead. It stirred recollections so raw she’d no choice but to shutter them away, to ball them up into a tiny black lump and bury them in the deepest cavity of her viscera.
Time had muted that echo of grief. The black lump inside her hardly stirred.
Until coming to New Orleans. Even now as she gazed over this woman’s wasted limbs and sagging, aged skin, as she listened to her husband’s shaky voice, Effie could feel it waking inside her. But the corresponding memories were gone. She’d excised from her brain whatever tragedy those soldiers’ grief had recalled and with it nearly every other memory from her days before the War.
She attached one end of the syringe pump’s rubber tubing to a jar of embalming fluid and the other to a cannula jutting out from the brachial artery she’d raised from the woman’s arm. Effie pulled over a stool and sat down to begin pumping in the preservative.
As she worked, a soft humming played through her mind. A few tremulous notes. Her mother’s voice. Somehow Effie was sure. Most of the melody was lost, though. Buried. Once, as a very young girl, she’d stopped dead in the street upon hearing the tune. Inclined her ear to listen. Heedless of the oncoming carts and wagons. But no. The song, the voice wasn’t the same.
The rain pattering against the house’s clapboard siding drowned out the humming in her head. Mr. Whitmark had gone, and the adjoining room was silent. Perhaps the husband had taken to bed. Twilight peeked around the drawn window curtains, and the smell of frying fish and simmering rice wafted from the nearby houses. She’d be home past curfew again. All the better. She hadn’t wanted to run into Meg or Harriet anyway.
As she thought about the plate of cold food awaiting her later in Mrs. Neale’s dimly lit kitchen, she couldn’t help but compare herself to this woman’s frail husband. He’d be eating alone tonight too. Probably for the first time in half a century.
An ill comparison, Effie decided. She was alone by choice. But as she disconnected her tubing and threaded her needle to close the incision, she found her hands trembling once again. No amount of rubbing or hot breath stilled them.
“We’re stewards of the dead, Euphemia,” Captain Kinyon had said to her once, not long after the War, when they’d been called upon to embalm the body of old Mrs. Allister. “A noble profession, but one that demands . . . distance.”
While most townsfolk had greeted Effie’s arrival with pursed lips and sidelong stares, Mrs. Allister had smiled. She waved to Effie from her front porch stoop and winked at her in church. She even gave Effie a few toffees once—sweet and sticky. Better than anything Effie had tasted.
Her fondness for the old woman must have shown—a wavering hand when she passed Captain Kinyon the scalpel perhaps, one too many tries at threading the suture needle—for he cleared his throat. “Distance, Euphemia. You must ever keep your distance. From the living and dead.”
“What about Annabelle?” Effie oft spied him staring at her tintype atop the mantel.
His hand stilled. Eyelids twitched. He cleared his throat again. “Would that I was as wise then as I am now.”
Effie nodded. She never said her name again.
Keep your distance. Over the years, she’d held as tightly to those words as she did her brass buttons. But today they rang empty.
* * *
Back at the shop, a light burned in the kitchen. Mr. Whitmark sat asleep on a low stool, his head cradled in his arms atop the table. A half-empty bottle rested beside him and a candle burnt down to a nub. Wax had overflowed the drip pan and pooled on the tabletop. So much for the morning’s progress.
Effie used the meager flame to light a lamp, and rummaged through the kitchen for something to swap for the bottle. At least he’d stayed sober longer today than yesterday. A lone tin of coffee sat on the counter. The larder was empty save for a wedge of molded cheese; the dried goods cupboard likewise bare. Dust blanketed the shelves, and cobwebs dangled from the corners. Not in need of a maid indeed!
She corked the bottle and tucked it away behind a stack of rusted pots, then headed to the nearby shops for some food. The rain had stopped, but clouds yet curtained the darkening sky. Murky water sloshed in the gutters.
A stray dog barked from down the road. Effie flinched, her feet skidding on the wet pavers.
Captain Kinyon had owned such a dog. Otis, he’d called him, as if the dog were a person, not an animal. Effie’s heart had hammered when he first came near. But she let his wet nose sniff and nudge her, hoping the captain would see how brave she was. He’d reached out, the captain, she thought to pat her shoulder. Instead, he’d patted Otis, ruffling his wiry fur.
Effie rattled her head. The stray had wandered off. She continued on to the shops, watchful lest the dog return.
After procuring bread from the baker and butter from the dairy peddler, she hurried back to the shop. Mr. Whitmark woke just as she began to grind the coffee. He blinked several times, then stumbled to the washbasin to retch.
“Have you eaten at all today?” she asked when he’d finished.
He shook his head.
“I thought not.”
“Coffee smells good.”
“That’s not for you, it’s for me. Here, drink this.” She handed him a cup of water. His hand shook as he drank.
She cut a slice of bread, slathered it with butter, and passed it to him.
“Thanks.”
“You need a maid.” She turned back to the grinder and continued over the din. “While you’re at it, another assistant too. Someone to mind the shop when we’re out, help set up chairs for services, drive the hearse. I’ve gone over the account books and we’ve enough clientele now to—”
“Effie, why are you doing this?”
She paused and glanced at him. “I’m thirsty and have a good walk home yet.”
“Not the coffee. This.” He gestured vaguely about the room.
“I’ve a vested interest in keeping you alive and sober, sir.”
“How sentimental.” He laughed weakly and propped up his feet on a nearby stool. “Give me another slice of bread, will you?”
She cut more bread and mixe
d the coffee grounds with boiling water from the kettle. One sip and she wished she’d bought some cream along with the butter. “How old are these beans?”
He shrugged. “A year maybe? Tasted fine to me this morning.”
Mr. Whitmark didn’t offer her a chair, and Effie didn’t presume to sit, but stood by the stove, hoping the small fire she’d lit to heat the kettle would dry her skirts. She managed a few more swallows of coffee before laying the cup aside. “I’ll add new beans to your list for the grocer.”
“Ain’t you cheeky tonight,” he said with a grin. “Puts me in mind of my sister . . . pestered me to high hell, she did.”
“Sister?”
“I’ve got a whole heap of family here. They just don’t see fit to call . . .” He smoothed his hand over the tabletop, his fingers tracing the grain of the wood. “Where’s my whiskey?”
Effie refilled his water. “When’d you last speak with her?”
“January of sixty-one.” He continued to paw at the table. “How long ago is that now? Twelve, thirteen—”
“Fifteen years last month.”
“Humph.” He wagged his head. “My brother comes around every once in a while. Can’t figure if he means well or just likes to preen over his success.” His hand stalled, and his fingers set to drumming. He craned his neck to see around her, his eyes wandering the stovetop and shelves.
“More bread?”
“I’ve got another bottle upstairs, you know.”
“Suit yourself.”
He stood, wobbled, and sat back down. “I’m not over thirsty anyway.”
She set the water jug and lamp within easy of reach of him. “Don’t fall asleep and burn down the kitchen.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He gave her a sloppy salute.
“Good night, Mr. Whitmark.”
“Night,” he said without looking at her, his gaze lost in the flickering lamp flame. As she brushed past him on her way toward the door, he reached out and captured her wrist. His skin was clammy, his grasp tight. “Thank you, Effie.”
* * *
The mantel clock downstairs in the parlor chimed a single, lonely toll. Effie rolled onto her side and pulled back the thin drape shrouding her bedside window. Outside, darkened palm fronds and magnolia boughs undulated in the fitful breeze. The street beyond lay quiet and empty.
Insomnia—the newest symptom of her unexplained illness.
She let go the drape and groped for her matches. After lighting the charred wick of her candle, she watched the flame build and flare before it settled into a steady glow. Several more seconds she watched, her resistance softening as surely as the wax. Her hand slipped beneath the pillow and pulled out a worn slip of paper.
The handbill’s lettering had begun to fade, and fold lines crisscrossed the page. Effie smoothed a hand over the print and held it to the light. Not that she needed to read it. The simple block text, the machine-cut edges, the smudge of ink at the bottom right—every detail had long since imprinted on her brain.
Think on it, he’d said.
She held the handbill closer to the flame. Her dalliance in Tivoli Circle had caused nothing but trouble. Daytime found her moody and distractible; nighttime bothered and listless. And over what precisely? The man’s words had stirred her, yes, but that was the whole point of stump speaking. Rhetoric, intonation, and gestures—a skilled orator used these tools the same way a painter wielded his brush, a farmer his hoe . . . a charlatan her manipulation and misdirection.
Was Effie so different from Mr. Whitmark? As much a slave to this obsession as he was to his bottle?
She thrust the paper into the flame. What relief to watch it burn. For a moment, the entirety of her small room was illuminated. The chair and writing desk, dresser and washstand all cast trembling shadows upon walls. Black smoke climbed and twisted toward the ceiling. Heat singed her fingers, but she held on until only a scrap of paper remained.
There. No more reason to think on it. Obsess on it. On him. Besides, she’d read the papers. Even the Lafayette Gazette had covered the contested election here in seventy-two, the attempted coup against the Republican government September before last. Why just last week she’d seen the White Leaguers drilling with rifles up and down Camp Street. One would have to be crazy to attend a political club meeting in times like these.
CHAPTER 6
Effie stood outside the clubhouse on Constance Street, her fingers laced so tightly their tips had begun to tingle. What was she doing here? The building’s cracked-brick facade and chipped-slate roof hardly bolstered her resolve. The shingle hanging above the door—WARD TWO REPUBLICANS’ CLUB—had three bullet holes bored through the wood.
“That didn’t happen when anyone was around.”
Effie jumped at the voice.
A man with rich black skin and a shock of tight curls flattened beneath a wool cap stood beside her. “Still,” he said, raising his cane and tapping on the sign. “We’ve been meaning to change it out for a new one.”
She wondered at his cane. He looked neither aged nor of that foppish sort who preen about with such ornamentation, but as he ascended the steps to the clubhouse door the reason became clear. The lower part of his right leg was gone and, in its place, a crude peg.
“You know they make prosthetic legs,” she said. “I read about them in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. They’re fashioned from wood and leather, just like your peg, but anatomically speaking—”
He turned and looked quizzically down at her from the landing. “I know. I’ve applied with the Maimed Soldier’s Relief Fund.”
“Excellent.” Effie scaled the three short steps to join him on the landing, her hands no longer locked and tense. “Was your amputation done above the knee joint or below? The hinge mechanism they’ve invented to allow for more lifelike flexion and extension is meant to be—”
“What’s your name?”
She hesitated, realizing her questioning had perhaps been—how had Mrs. Kinyon always put it?—indelicate. She looked down at her feet, but then, worrying the man might mistake her for gaping further at his peg, whipped her chin up and faced him.
To her relief, he was smiling. “I’m Tom Button.”
“Euphemia Jones.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Miss Jones. And to answer your question: below.”
“I’m sorry?”
“My amputation—it was done a few inches below my knee. And don’t expect to see me jaunting about with a wooden leg anytime soon. They’ve got thousands of Yanks to outfit. Then I reckon they’ll move on to the Rebs. We Negroes are at the very bottom of the list. Anything else you’d like to know about my leg?”
Yes, many things, but Effie shook her head.
“Well then”—he opened the door and held it wide—“after you, Miss Jones.”
A rush of warm air fluttered the brim of her bonnet. Voices chattered from within. Effie found her hands knotting together again.
“Thank you, Mr. Button,” she said, and shuffled one foot in front of the other until she made it inside.
“Call me Tom. We ain’t formal round here.”
The clubhouse looked more like an abandoned storeroom than a meeting hall. Roughly hewn beams buttressed the tall, vaulted ceiling. A tarnished gasolier lit the room, its feeble light aided by several oil lamps set about on tabletops and upturned crates.
At least fifty people filled the room. Negroes mostly, though Effie picked out at least half a dozen white men too. The women in attendance, all black, numbered around eight. Everyone sat on stools, benches, or mismatched chairs facing an older gentleman at the far end of the room. He cleared his throat, bowed his head, and the room went silent.
Tom shut the door behind them and removed his cap, just as the older gentleman began to pray. His voice started out small and swelled to fill the room. While he spoke, Effie searched the crowd. One man near the front caught her eye—but no, his ears were far too big. Another, three rows from the back, had the same lustrous brown skin,
but when he raised his head after the prayer she could see the cut of his chin was wrong. Too old, too young, too fat, too slight, too dark of complexion, too light, too much hair or far too little—the man was not here.
She rose onto her tiptoes and craned her neck, taming her rising frenzy, forcing her eyes to move systematically down the rows. Had she misremembered his features? Memorized the flyer incorrectly and stumbled upon a different club meeting?
Impossible. She never made such mistakes.
Tom touched her lightly on the back. “Here, let me fetch you a seat. I’ll introduce you round after they’s done spouting.”
He pulled another stool in line with the back row and dusted off the seat with his cap. Effie sat to give her tired feet a moment’s rest before departing. She’d only come to see the man from Tivoli Circle again. To prove to herself that there was nothing special or godlike about him, that something else had agitated her that day, stirred up and befuddled her emotions. Maybe she’d eaten spoiled ham at breakfast. It had tasted a bit off. Or maybe so many straight days of work had overly taxed her brain, leaving her susceptible to the crowd’s fervor. Whatever the true cause, knowing it was not this man would free her of this irrational obsession and return normalcy to her life. No more sleepless nights. No more spirit circles or other such foolery in the name of distraction. Certainly no more political club meetings.
The man at the front of the room, not the one who’d delivered the opening prayer, but a lighter-skinned Negro of maybe forty, called the meeting to order and discussed the night’s agenda. Effie looked over her shoulder and eyed the door. What a waste of time to come out tonight. Not only had she disrupted her routine—Tuesday nights she darned her stockings and polished her instruments, tasks she’d now have to squeeze into some other night’s schedule—but the latest edition of The Casket had arrived. She could be alone in her room at this very moment reading about new techniques for thoracic injection. Worse still, she remained infected by the memory of this man without hope of remedy.
Tom had taken a seat beside her and was keeping minutes in a leather-bound notebook. He wrote with a nub of a pencil, his letters neat and lines straight. She could see from previous entries that later he would go back and overlay it all in ink. His spelling was imperfect—deligate instead of delegate, benedicion instead of benediction—but easy enough to comprehend. He toggled his gaze between the front of the room and his notebook, his pencil moving across the page without pause. Despite his concentration, Effie doubted she could slip out unnoticed. She weighed her options of leaving now and causing a scene, or waiting for the speaker to cough or pause for a sip of water wherein she might whisper some excuse to Tom and leave unmolested. She opted to wait.
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