Orphan #8

by Kim van Alkemade

  Of the hundreds of girls at the Home, some of them had friendships so passionate they might have been unnatural, but Naomi was the only one Rachel had known. Now she knew for sure of another girl—no, two girls—who were the same way. But for Mary and Sheila, it was more than kissing in secret. They had plans to travel to Europe together: to sketch in Venice, hike the Alps, visit Paris, explore London. Sheila mentioned other girls in her letters, too, though Rachel suspected some of them were characters in stories and not real girls she knew. But still. There was a new sort of life revealed in those letters, a life Rachel had never known enough to imagine, a life where two best friends could have, between them, all that mattered in the world.

  Rachel allowed herself now to remember how strange it was, that night with Naomi, that it hadn’t felt strange at all. Naomi’s hands and mouth on her skin had seemed the most natural thing in the world. Beyond the confines of a narrow orphanage bed, what kind of life might she and Naomi have dreamed of? Not Europe, of course, but being together, sharing an apartment, going to movies. The picture of Mary and Sheila at the ocean reminded Rachel of the day Naomi took her to Coney Island. That must have been the day they found the seashell; Rachel imagined Sheila presenting it to Mary, Mary promising to keep it always. But what had Rachel done to Naomi? Stolen the tuition money her uncle and aunt had given her and run away in the middle of the night. It was unforgivable.

  Naomi must hate her. Sam had abandoned her. And now Mary was dead. Under her quilt, the enormity of her losses swooped down on Rachel like crows to carrion.

  Rachel was loath to get out of bed the next morning. Mrs. Abrams brought her a cup of tea and some toast, telling her that Dr. Abrams would let the head nurse know she wasn’t feeling well. “It’s hit you hard, Mary’s death, hasn’t it? Dr. Abrams tries not to get attached, but I see it affects him, too, the loss of a patient. Would you like me to help you sort through her things?”

  Rachel panicked at the idea of Mrs. Abrams seeing Mary’s letters, imagined her recoiling in disgust. “No, thank you, Mrs. Abrams. I already looked through the trunk. It’s just her clothes, nothing else. I’ll get ready for work.”

  “All right, dear. You’ll come down when you’re ready.” She gave Rachel a kiss on the forehead, which left her wondering if Mrs. Abrams would have treated her so kindly if she had known the truth—that Rachel was a thief and a liar; that she, too, was unnatural.

  When Rachel finally rose to get dressed, she stared at herself in the mirror, remembering the names she had been called at the Home: Martian, lizard, boiled egg. Only Naomi had ever thought her pretty. So smooth and beautiful. Rachel understood, for the first time, what Naomi must have felt for her. It wasn’t paid protection. It was more than friendship. It could have been love, if Rachel hadn’t ruined everything.

  She should have sent Naomi fifty dollars as soon as she’d earned enough to make up the difference, returned the money with a letter in which she explained how sorry she was. Instead she’d squandered it all on the wig. Rachel realized now that every hurt she visited on Amelia only rebounded, worse, on herself. What tragedy would she bring down on her own head once she started wearing Amelia’s hair? But if she stopped making payments now, she’d lose everything she’d invested. Rachel had banked on being beautiful once she had the wig, but wondered what good that would do her now. So what if the interns around Mrs. Abrams’s table began to notice her, started conversing with her about the topics she was memorizing from her Essentials of Medicine. What if one of them did propose, like Dr. Cohen had done to Althea? Althea and her mother would never understand why Rachel would decline to become a doctor’s wife, to keep his house, have his children.

  That night after work, Rachel ignored the trunk, tried not to think about Naomi or Sheila’s letters to Mary, but she found it hard to concentrate on her reading. In cross-section, the tubercular lung, because of its combination of white, gray, and green colors, resembles some beautiful glass marbles. She considered, again, the interns. Mary had said all men were animals, but Rachel knew that wasn’t true. It was because Mary never had a brother, Rachel decided. Sam had let her down, yes, but between them was a connection that could never be broken. And Vic had always been good to her. She thought of Sunday afternoons in the Reception House, his asking her to dance, how he’d kissed her cheek that last day they spoke. Rachel thought, too, of the admiration and affection Dr. Abrams showed his wife, the respect with which he treated all the nurses. But even if one of the interns had been as protective as Sam, as gentle as Vic, as appreciative as Dr. Abrams, she knew there would always be a lonely place inside her that could only be reached by a girl like Mary or Sheila. A girl like Naomi.

  How it must have hurt Naomi, after what they had shared that night, to think Rachel had only been in her room to steal from her. Rachel feared Naomi would think she’d used her affection as a distraction, knowing Naomi could never complain without implicating herself. It was partly true, Rachel had to admit, but not really, not deep down. When she finally switched off the light, Rachel’s imagination overlaid the images evoked by Sheila’s letters on her memories of Naomi. Her hands explored her own body as she pictured the things she and Naomi could have done. Could still do, one day, if Naomi ever forgave her. If Rachel ever went home.

  The next morning Rachel decided it was cowardly to hole up in Colorado, allowing the Abramses to shower her with unwarranted kindness, leaving Naomi to think the worst. As she dressed for work, Rachel promised herself that after the wig was finished, she would go back to New York, find work in one of the city’s charity hospitals. She optimistically calculated how far her meager earnings might be stretched, how soon she’d be able to repay her friend. As for the trip, she’d heard the railroads were coupling the old immigrant cars onto the back of the Limiteds, offering plain seats on hard benches for Depression prices. After her last payment to Mrs. Hong, she’d have to work another couple of months before she could afford even the cheapest fare—or hadn’t Mrs. Abrams said Althea and the children would be coming in the summer? Perhaps she could travel east with them. If she accompanied them to Chicago, Dr. Cohen might even buy her a ticket on to New York.

  DAYS AND WEEKS rolled by as Rachel pushed beds in and out of the sun, changed bedpans, served meals, wiped blood and spit from chins. In April, Rachel was surprised at the seder dinner to realize she was the youngest at the table. Self-consciously reading the questions in front of the Abramses and the interns, she couldn’t help but compare this sincere and somewhat tedious occasion to the hectic Passovers at the Home, the ritual meal rushed to keep pace with the ringing of the bells.

  As spring turned the corner toward summer, the Hospital for Consumptive Hebrews became ever more crowded. Back east, impoverished immigrants, facing hard times, were working or worrying themselves sick. Covering their coughs and brightening their cheeks with pinches, tubercular patients spent their last coins on a ticket for the city they hoped would cure them.

  Althea, insulated from the rabble in her Pullman compartment, arrived with the children in time for Independence Day, again without her au pair. Rachel gathered, from tearful conversations accidentally overhead, that Dr. Cohen had kept the au pair home last year for reasons other than illness, that Althea had recently found out, that the au pair had been dismissed, and Althea had gone home to her mother. Though sorry for Althea’s distress, Rachel welcomed the distraction of a house full of children. At dinner, the table was too crowded now for interns; after the dishes were cleared, the family spent evenings doing puzzles and listening to the radio. On her days off, Rachel filled the hours she once spent with Mary taking Henry and Simon and little Mae, who was running now with headlong confidence, to Sloan’s Lake. Between the busy hospital and the hectic house on Colfax, long summer days quickly passed.

  In August, Rachel again took her earnings to Hop Alley. Mrs. Hong, measuring progress on the wig to match Rachel’s payments, assured her it would be complete on September first, when the contract would be fulfilled
. Before leaving the wig shop, Rachel trailed her hand through Amelia’s hair. The strands seemed to reach for her fingers. Though she knew now she should have repaid Naomi instead of investing in the wig, she couldn’t help but be entranced by its beauty, excited by the prospect of becoming beautiful herself. Naomi might think she was pretty the way she was, but Rachel knew the rest of the world didn’t see her that way. She told herself Naomi wouldn’t begrudge her this slice of stolen beauty.

  Mrs. Hong watched from the fire escape as Rachel walked away. She wished now she had held out for more money so she could keep the wig on display a few months longer. Her orders had gone up since she had been bringing it as a sample to show customers, one of whom offered her three times what Rachel had managed to pay. But the girl had kept up her end of their agreement, and Mrs. Hong was nothing if not true to her word.

  Rachel mentioned her sixteenth birthday to Mrs. Abrams, who insisted on serving a cake with candles, Rachel’s first, to the delight of the boys, who helped her blow them out. Over bites of cake and sips of coffee, Rachel was glad to hear plans for the end of summer being discussed. She had worried that Althea would never forgive Dr. Cohen, ruining her idea of traveling with them. But the previous week Althea had received a contrite letter from her husband, followed yesterday by an apologetic telegram, and finally, that morning, by a pleading long-distance telephone call. Dr. Abrams, deeply betrayed by the infidelity of his former intern, offered again for Althea to move back home with the children. But Mrs. Abrams, despite her commitment to rights for women, knew what was best for her daughter. Althea needed to be someone’s wife, needed to have a man’s arm to hold on to. If she waited much longer, Dr. Cohen’s contrition might turn to resentment.

  “You should go home, dear,” Jenny Abrams told her daughter, “but if you want my advice, you and David will go away together, just the two of you, for a while. He needs to remember why he married you, and you need to remind him you’re more than the mother of his children.”

  “But you are our mother!” Simon protested.

  “Who’ll take care of us?” Henry asked.

  Althea met her mother’s gaze. The trouble had all started with the au pair. Rachel looked up from her cake to find their eyes on her.

  “I’d love to help with the children,” she said, eliciting cheers from Simon and Mae; even Henry smiled. “What I mean is, I’d be glad to help when you travel to Chicago, Mrs. Cohen.” She tried to explain that she would be going on to New York, but Mrs. Abrams interrupted.

  “Why, that’s perfect! Then Rachel can stay with the children while you and David take a nice trip.” Rachel swallowed awkwardly and had a coughing fit that kept her from objecting while Simon babbled about all the things he would show her in Chicago.

  “Why not just make Rachel our new au pair?” Henry asked.

  “What a clever boy you are, Henry,” Althea said, turning to Rachel. “Dr. Cohen would pay you twice what you’re earning at the Consumptive Hebrews. You won’t get a better offer than that.”

  “I’m afraid I couldn’t work for you in Chicago.” Rachel knew how selfish and ungrateful she would sound for refusing, and on what grounds? Althea would never believe she preferred emptying bedpans in a charity hospital to being an au pair to a successful Hyde Park physician’s family. Rachel couldn’t very well say she was eager to return to the girl she hoped would love her. She reached for the excuse she’d used with Mrs. Hong. “I’ve decided to go back to New York to finish nursing school. I’m sorry to tell you like this, Dr. Abrams, but I’ll be leaving the hospital.”

  “That’s a fine plan, Rachel, I’m glad to hear it,” Dr. Abrams said, then caught his wife’s glare from across the table. “My daughter would be lucky to have you as au pair to her children, but you’ve become a skilled nurse’s aide, and I applaud you for wanting to complete your education.”

  Mrs. Abrams was clearly disappointed. “You could take night classes in Chicago, couldn’t you?”

  “The girl is from New York, Jenny,” Dr. Abrams said. “Don’t pressure her if she wants to go home.”

  “But you will travel with us in the Pullman?” Althea asked.

  “Yes, of course, though I was hoping—”

  “That’s settled, at least. We’ll leave on the thirtieth. Henry’s starting his new school this year, and he needs to be home before Labor Day.”

  As much as Rachel liked the idea of going back to New York, she needed to earn back Naomi’s money before she could think of paying tuition for nursing school. After the table was cleared, Rachel peeked into Dr. Abrams’s study. “May I have a word with you?”

  “Come in, Rachel. Have a seat.” She sank into the leather armchair across from his. “What is it?”

  “I was wondering, is nursing school very expensive?”

  “It depends. Have you decided where you’ll apply? I’d suggest Mount Sinai Hospital School of Nursing. My recommendation would be influential there—I’ve trained a number of their interns over the years—and they have housing for the nursing students.”

  “Do you think if I worked, like I do now, that I could pay the tuition?”

  “There are some jobs at the hospital for students, but you’ll be too busy studying to work many hours.”

  “In that case, I’ll need to get a job for a couple of years before I can afford nursing school. Maybe you could give me a reference for that?”

  “I’m confused. If you need to work, then why not work for Althea? Are you afraid you haven’t saved up enough?”

  “I haven’t saved anything, Dr. Abrams. As it is, I won’t even have train fare from Chicago to New York.”

  He frowned. “I don’t understand, Rachel. I know you haven’t been frivolous with your money. You’ve hardly spent a cent that I can see. I assumed you were saving it all. Where has it gone?”

  Rachel hesitated, but there was no getting around the truth. “I’m putting it all toward a wig. I bargained hard with Mrs. Hong—she’s the wigmaker—for a good deal but it’s still terribly expensive because it’s custom. I give Mrs. Hong practically all of my pay every month, and I still have one more payment left.”

  Dr. Abrams looked incredulous. “You’ve spent all of your money on a wig?”

  Rachel hated for him to think she was a vain and foolish girl. She wondered if he couldn’t fathom what it meant to her because he’d never really seen her without her head covered. At first she’d assumed he was disinterested, but she had come to believe he was too polite to ask about her baldness. She reached up and took off the cloche hat. He tried to hide it, but Rachel saw him recoil.

  “Now do you see why I need it, Dr. Abrams?”

  “I’m sorry, Rachel, I assumed you were accustomed to it, but you’re a young woman, of course you want to look normal.” He gestured for her to put the hat back on. “Do you mind telling me how long you’ve had your condition?”

  “My condition?”

  “The alopecia. When did it start?”

  “I’ve always been this way. It’s from the X-rays treatments I had at the Infant Home.”

  “The Infant Home? Why were you in a Home?”

  Rachel had forgotten, for a moment, the lie she was living with the Abramses. As she realized what she’d just revealed, dread clenched her stomach and a flush rose up her neck that engulfed her face. Her brain was too slow to invent another story. Accepting the inevitable, she confessed that she’d been an orphan long before she showed up on their doorstep. Hanging her head, she braced herself for Dr. Abrams’s anger.

  “Tell me, your story about this uncle of yours wanting to marry you, was that the truth?”

  In this, at least, Rachel was guileless. “Yes, it really was. He owns a store, in Leadville, Rabinowitz Dry Goods. When I first got there, I thought he was my father who ran away when my mother died. After my brother left, he said I could only stay with him if we were engaged.”

  Dr. Abrams nodded. “I’m glad you were finally honest with me, Rachel. The nurse I spoke with wh
en I checked your reference explained about you and your brother running away from the Orphaned Hebrews Home. She was very glad to know you were safe. Mrs. Abrams and I have been hoping you’d come to trust us enough to tell us the truth.”

  Rachel had no idea how to respond. She resisted the urge to throw her arms around his neck. All she could say, tears on her face, was, “Thank you, Dr. Abrams.”

  “As for the rest of it, let me think things over for a while. We’ll talk again in a few days.”

  Disoriented, Rachel retreated to the Ivy Room. He hadn’t accused her, hadn’t yelled, hadn’t slapped. Rachel thought of Superintendent Grossman, his face red and sweating as he raised his hand against Sam. She thought of her father, that knife in his hand as he grappled with her mother. She thought of her uncle, the tip of his tongue pushed between her lips. Rachel could only imagine the way Dr. Abrams was treating her was what other people meant when they used words like father and family.

  DR. ABRAMS WAS in his office at the Hospital for Consumptive Hebrews, a stethoscope casually slung around his neck, peering through his wire-rimmed glasses. He was reading again about Dr. Solomon’s tonsil experiment. He had asked one of his interns, the day after his talk with Rachel, to go to the university library to see if there was anything about the Hebrew Infant Home and X-rays, and here was the distressing article on his desk. To use healthy children in such a dangerous experiment struck him as a violation of trust. He understood now, as Rachel didn’t, how unnecessary the excessive radiation exposure was that had caused her alopecia. He’d thought her profligate to pour all of her earnings into an expensive custom-made wig, but now he felt a debt was owed to her. Without her knowledge or consent she’d given so much already, and for what? It was a grandiose notion to propose that tonsillectomies might be replaced by X-rays. When Dr. Abrams refused to treat his tubercular patients with chest X-rays, there were some who’d thought him backward, but he’d been proven right—where they had been used, X-rays had only further weakened the lungs. Dr. Abrams understood that medical advances required experimentation, but to recklessly use such young children galled him. The intern said this was Dr. Solomon’s only published article; Dr. Abrams could only hope this M. Solomon, whoever he was, no longer worked with children.