The Tombs

by Deborah Schaumberg

  “Shhh,” he whispered. “It’s all right.” He stroked the dapple-gray mare as she strained her head up and down against her bridle, fear exposing the whites of her eyes.

  I felt a constriction in my chest, and my vision momentarily blurred. I sucked in my breath as my sight cleared. Everything was backlit with shifting shades of light. Around the man with the mustache, a murky outline formed. I recognized the pulsing, darkening fog, eerily similar to what I’d seen just before the accident at the Works. I was keenly aware of every second ticking on my timepiece and the blood racing through my veins. An explosion on this boat would kill us all. I gripped the rail to steady myself.

  The stable hand was surrounded by a hazy gray glow, which flickered between dark when he confronted the man and light every time he touched the mare. In spite of my pounding heart, I found this fascinating.

  The crowd backed away from the horse’s stomping hooves. They pressed into me, blocking my view. Something bad is going to happen.

  Pushing to the front, I watched as the quarrel escalated—it seemed the horse had been chewing on the man’s coat. The man’s fists tightened on the wooden handle of his umbrella; he shook it as he shouted, then raised the umbrella over his head, threatening the cowering lad.

  As he readied himself to strike, he glanced past the boy. Our gazes fleetingly locked. Light exploded behind my eyes, and I saw the man’s thoughts like a memory in my own head. The visions ripped through my brain: His boss firing him. His wife crying. Voices raised. His young son hiding in the closet. The man’s fear of not providing for his family. His fear—triggering senseless anger.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I rubbed them hard. What’s happening to me?

  When I opened them, the man was staring fixedly at me. His arm was frozen midswing. His eyes filled with confusion, and I knew he’d seen the images, too—his own memories played out before him. He shook his head like a dog shaking off fleas. Then he swung.

  The umbrella smashed down onto the boy’s shoulder. Set free from the boy’s hold on its reins, the horse reared up, knocking a basket of chickens from a farmer’s arms. As the basket broke, a flurry of squawking, terrified birds flapped into the air. A large woman, presumably the farmer’s wife, berated the man with the mustache. With one hand gripping his injured shoulder, the boy jumped up and grabbed for the reins. He gently coaxed the horse back against the rail. Calming her, he pulled a carrot from his coat and held it under her fuzzy, reaching lips.

  Swift action on the part of the deck crew ensured no one else was injured and the loose birds were contained. They escorted the man with the mustache to another part of the boat. I slunk into the crowd as the other passengers expanded back into their places and their own thoughts.

  I leaned over the side. The turmoil in my head and the swaying of the ferry made me queasy. Taking a deep breath, I relished the cool misty spray on my face.

  When I looked up I saw I’d made it to Manhattan, the pestilent heart of New York, pulsing with its poisoned blood.

  Chapter Seven

  Bojangles

  It was a long walk from South Street Seaport to the Tombs. I had plenty of time to figure out what I was going to say once I went inside. Each time my father had returned from visiting my mother, I’d grilled him with questions about her condition and her quarters. He’d told me she had her own room, thank goodness, as I needed to speak with her privately. He’d also said they had her on medication that made her groggy and unresponsive. I hoped she’d at least be able to answer my questions today.

  Gray skies threatened a storm, but the brisk wind also carried away the stench from the gutters. The city teemed with people. Women in long dresses and layered petticoats wicked up mud and grime from the street as they stepped around piles of horse manure and refuse. I was glad I wore thick-soled boots and wool britches. Even when we could afford dresses, I’d cringed every time Mother made me wear one. They were usually long poofy things that restricted my movements and made me feel silly. Today, with my hair pinned up under an old wide-brimmed slouch hat and my necklace hidden, I easily passed for a boy. Just in case, my jacket concealed a knife tucked into the back of my leather corset.

  The incident on the ferry had left me shaken. I did not fabricate the images I’d seen. How is it possible to see someone else’s thoughts? I forced myself to keep walking. Whatever these visions were, they were getting worse. At the thought, a fresh wave of guilt, along with memories of that awful day three years ago, swept over me.

  At thirteen, I’d been old enough to stand up for my mother, old enough to fight for her. Instead, I’d worried about what the neighbors would think, what my friends would say. I watched, frozen, as four men in crow masks entered our home. When Father reached for the gun he kept hidden under the table, I watched as they pried it from his fingers. One of them restrained him as the other jabbed a needle into his arm. Seconds later he was unconscious next to his soup bowl. My mother struggled as they covered her nose and mouth with a rubber cone, muffling her screams. Attached to the cone was a bag that looked like the inflated bladder of a cow. One of the men squeezed it slowly; as he did, my mother’s frantic eyes glazed over. She fell into a quiet stupor.

  They glanced at me as they tossed some papers on the table and escorted her out. My hand still held a trembling spoon midair, its liquid dribbling down my arm. “He’ll wake soon enough,” I heard one say, through his mask.

  The crows left my father a hollow man. The bit of spirit he’d retained after the war was lost that morning. He went to Tammany Hall twice to fight for my mother’s release. After the first visit, he was fired from his job as a machinist at the navy yard. After the second, two men in suits came with papers saying our home hadn’t been properly financed and took it away from us. Furious, Father told me that Tammany Hall was part of a “corrupt political machine.” They either turned a blind eye or supported what was going on at the Tombs. Either way, he gave up. He stopped going. He stopped fighting. I overheard him tell Khan he was afraid the next thing he’d lose was me.

  Mother had been locked up for three years now. For what? They said for medical studies; they said they were helping her. I knew that to be a lie. Father said she seemed to be getting worse under their care.

  The most direct route to the Tombs skirted the edge of Five Points. My father had warned me to stay away from the area, and indeed, the closer I got, the dimmer the daylight became. A disarray of horse-drawn drays and food carts lined the curb. The streets seethed with menace. Dark alleys whispered of gang rapes and brutal murders as I rushed past.

  Here, crossing a street could mean crossing a border from one gang territory into another. The Whyos, a band of Irish thugs, and the Monk Eastman Gang, made up of Jewish criminals, were the largest. People lived and died for control of the streets.

  There was a police station in Five Points, but it was known as the Slaughterhouse, the most corrupt precinct in all of New York. I didn’t know if it was the October air or my fear giving me chills. Sticking to the shadows, I did my best to remain inconspicuous.

  Across the street, a group of black men and boys surged by, whooping and hollering. I lowered my hat and turned to cut down an alternate route, but I recognized one of the jackets.

  It can’t be. Then I looked closer. Khan walked slowly, surveying the pack. For some reason, he paused and began to turn in my direction. I darted around a corner before he could see me.

  Safely hidden, I leaned against a wall of old clapboard siding, paint peeling off in delicate curls. The building felt like it was leaning back on me, as if it were too tired to hold itself up in its decrepit state. Nearby, a group of kids in dirty rags shot marbles by the corpse of a dead horse. I heard the buzzing of flies and cupped my hand over my nose and mouth to block out the foul odor.

  Khan said he had business in the city. Was it with this group? It looked like a gang. I gritted my teeth. I didn’t have time to find out; I had to get to the Tombs.

  I ran the rest of the way. />
  Finally, I stood within sight of it. Gray soot-covered stone ate up an entire city block. The proportions were so large that the building looked, from afar, like a one-story structure, but it actually housed four floors of prisoners and, below that, the decaying subterranean hospital. The prison was called the New York Halls of Justice and House of Detention, but everyone knew it as the Tombs, both because it was modeled after an Egyptian mausoleum and because the official name of the hospital was the Temple of Mind Balance Studies.

  I took a deep breath. Horses and carts crowded the boulevard, drivers shouting. A few blocks away, the rattle of the Third Avenue El bounced between the buildings. The air, charged with the coming storm, smelled like grease and rotting hay.

  I looked up at the thick black clouds to see the nose of an enormous airship sliding across the sky directly over my head. It came to a stop above the Criminal Court Building next to the Tombs. In a flurry of ropes and activity, it moored to the iron spikes that extended up out of the roof. Then it slowly sank down until the sleek boatlike structure attached to its belly rested on top of the building.

  Must be hunkering down for the storm. Or maybe that’s how they transport prisoners. A bridge connected the two buildings. The Bridge of Sighs, it was called, where prisoners saw their last bit of freedom.

  I knew I had to do this, but I couldn’t get my body to listen to my brain. My feet grew roots into the cobblestones, and my heart beat like a wild animal.

  All at once the clouds opened up, pelting me with bullets of rain. I had to move or get soaked. Just missing a teetering four-horse omnibus, I bolted across the congested street and up the steps of the prison to the protection of the entrance portico. Four massive stone columns carved with papyrus stalks held the roof high above my head. The main entrance to the prison, flanked by a police officer on each side, dominated the center of the porch. The double doors stood at least twelve feet high. A family under black umbrellas approached, nodding to the officers as they entered. Two men in top hats came out. Strangely, the entrance to the prison was more inviting than that of the hospital.

  I proceeded to the far end of the portico and faced a rusted iron door with T.O.M.B.S. etched into the stone above it. I’d stood in this very spot, heart aching with desire to see my mother, but I’d never before breached the formidable stone walls.

  The handwritten sign admitting only white people was once again posted on the door. I glanced over both shoulders, then quickly tore it down. A little smile stole across my lips as I tossed the crumpled note into a puddle. My father would be proud.

  I entered, and the door closed behind me with a resounding thud, smothering out the world. The vestibule, a square room of large stone blocks, was lit with flickering lamps along two sides. The tall ceiling disappeared into shadows, giving the room an underground feel that further heightened my foreboding.

  Unlike the police officers outside, dressed in standard blues, the Tombs guard was uniformed all in black. He sat on a chair too small to contain his bulk. To his right was a desk with two items on its dusty surface: a metal vase holding withered stems attached to mildewed red-black lumps that made the room smell like a funeral; and the guard’s mask, one of those horrid crow masks. I’d never seen a guard without one, and although it stared at me sideways like the severed head of a bird, I was glad he wasn’t wearing the demonic thing. But why isn’t he? As if in answer, I noticed smoke curling up from his right hand. I must’ve caught him on break.

  I squeezed my fists as I inched toward him.

  The guard was massaging his temples with his other hand. He stopped and glowered at me as I approached, glancing at his mask as if considering the effort to retrieve it. Everything about him seemed unsettled, not only his wavering eyes but the quiver of his cigarette.

  I wanted to turn around and run, but my feet stumbled forward anyway. My mind muddled around for the words I’d meant to say.

  “My . . . my name is Miss Greene, sir,” I said, through the lump in my throat. My father told me he used the name Greene when he came. Mr. Isaac Greene—friend of the family.

  He turned to his desk, took a shaky drag of his cigarette, then mashed it back and forth on the wood top. He opened a drawer and wrote something on a yellow card.

  “I’m, uh, here to see a patient?” I tried not to make it sound like a question, but it did.

  Still he said nothing, though his eyes tightened.

  “My father was supposed to—”

  He cut me off. “Name?” he barked, his voice echoing around the empty room.

  “Miss Greene—”

  “Patient’s name!” Spit flew from his mouth.

  “Oh.” I tried to steady my jittery voice. “Cassandra Kohl, sir. She’s in—”

  “I know where she’s at.” His brow furrowed deeper. He scribbled on the card again and tossed it onto the desk. “I know exactly where she’s at.” As he said this, he leaned forward over his large belly and looked me up and down. A shiver flared between my shoulder blades. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

  He stood, towering over me.

  “Open your jacket. Arms out.”

  Oh no, the knife! I’d meant to hide it outside, but the sudden rain flustered me. My hands shook as I unbuttoned my jacket, my heart pounding so loudly I was sure he could hear it. Sweat formed along the brow of my hat.

  He placed his huge paws on my shoulders and ran them to my wrists. As his hands slid down to my waist, his face took on a disgusting leer. Mortified, I looked up at the ceiling as he stooped and slid his hands slowly along my legs. Then he stood up with a huff.

  Thank God, he’s done.

  “Turn around,” he said.

  Slowly, I turned so my back was to him. I faced the entrance, seriously contemplating running for it.

  “Arms out,” he ordered.

  I held my breath. His hands reached up under the back of my jacket.

  “Well, well, well . . . what—have—we—here?” he said, drawing out each word.

  I spun back around. His lips twitched with grim satisfaction. “I . . . I was alone. It’s just to protect myself, sir,” I said with mounting hysteria.

  Horribly, he smiled, revealing squares of grimy yellow teeth. “What’d you plan to do with this, huh?” He slid the knife partway from its sleeve. It was a primitive Nubian dagger with a curved blade and leather-wrapped handle. “Looks old. Where’d you get it?” he asked, testing its weight in his hand.

  “It was a gift,” I said in a ragged whisper, “from a friend.”

  “I doubt it. Maybe you stole it.” In one quick motion, quicker than I would have thought a man his size could move, he grabbed my wrist and pinned it behind my back. My hat fell to the floor, letting my braid tumble down.

  I screamed. Pain shot through my shoulder. He leaned his face close to mine. His rank tobacco breath slid into my nostrils.

  “You know what we do to thieves in the Tombs, huh?”

  A sob escaped my throat.

  “I might be lenient though . . .” He sneered, his eyes unlacing my corset.

  “Please, sir . . .” He was so close I saw the red veins in his pale watery eyes. Tears blurred my vision as a dark cloud surrounded him, like the darkness I had seen at the Works and on the ferry. All my senses felt heightened. My pulse raced. Foul as the air was, I took a deep breath to calm my beating heart, and as I did, the visions came. Slowly, snippets of this man’s life swirled through my head. An orphan. Unwanted. Taken in by horrible foster parents. Beaten. Living on the street. Learning to fight. Learning to hate. His only friend a mangy dog named Bojangles. Bojangles dead.

  Desperate, I didn’t realize I’d said the name out loud. “Bojangles.”

  The guard’s glazed eyes shifted back to mine. “What? What did you just say?”

  My arm screamed in pain. I blubbered out the name again. “Bojangles. I’m sorry he died, sir.” My mind raced for any sort of connection, and then I remembered my dog, Jinx. “I had a dog when I was young,” I
whispered.

  He nodded his head and slowly, as if he wasn’t sure what to do, let go of my wrist. Confusion and sadness played across his features. I watched the murky haze retreating, softening, dissipating. To my surprise, he sat down, laid the knife on the desk, and rubbed his eyes.

  I wasn’t sure if I should say anything. Afraid to move, I stood, catching my breath. With the arm of my jacket, I wiped the sweat dripping down my face.

  In a raspy voice, he said, “He was a stray—skinny as a bitch. We found each other, living under the Ninth Avenue El.”

  Why is he telling me this? Yet it confirmed the images I’d seen were memories, private memories. It was hard to believe.

  “Bojangles was sweet—sweet as candied yams, you know?” He looked up at me for the first time, and I quickly nodded.

  “Bo would wait for me at the back door of the White Horse Tavern, where I worked. One night, some blokes I knew came in and, don’t you know it, we got tanked up good. We left and stayed out most all night. Must’ve passed out. When I woke up, it’d snowed two feet. By the time I came round to my senses, it was too late. I found him, all right. I found Bo frozen solid to the stoop. His face . . .” The guard cleared his throat. “His face still looking up at the back door.”

  He didn’t speak again. He didn’t ask me how I knew about the dog. By the press of his mouth, I could tell he felt bad about the way he’d treated me. He picked up the yellow card, slid it into a sleeve, and held it out to me. Then he pushed a button on the wall, and with a slow grinding noise, the metal door behind him slid open.

  Hesitantly, I stepped forward and took the card. I picked up my hat and stuffed my hair under it. He waved me on, his eyes lost in the past. I didn’t dare reach for my knife.

  At the end of the hall, another guard in black waited. This one wore his mask, and even though I could not see his eyes, I felt them glaring right at me.