Opium and Absinthe: A Novel

by Lydia Kang

  “I am sorry—for Albert.”

  “And I am sorry for your sister,” she said. She nodded abruptly, as if that was all the sadness she had time for that day.

  Mrs. Weber closed the door. Downstairs, on the sidewalk, James appeared to have woken up from a bad dream, but the dream had kept going. Dorothy was gawking from inside the carriage, and Hazel was holding her arm, trying to keep her from jumping out and joining them.

  “What are you doing here?” Tillie asked Ian.

  “How do you know this man?” James demanded.

  “We met outside of Dr. Erikkson’s office,” Tillie explained. “He sold me the paper that told how Lucy had been killed.”

  James raised his eyebrows. “And that constitutes a formal introduction?”

  “James. Please. He’s trying to help.”

  “Why?” James asked.

  Ian, watching the both of them, seemed more amused than annoyed. “Tillie, I’ll see you tonight. We have a lot to talk about,” he said, waving casually. He walked down the street, interrupting a game of kick the can by kicking said can far up the sidewalk. The children cheered. Ian turned a corner and was gone.

  “Tonight? Are you going to see that person tonight? Alone?”

  “No!” Tillie lied. She wasn’t seeing him in the way that James thought. So perhaps it wasn’t really lying.

  “Really, Mathilda. You ought not be speaking with such a person. It’s too dangerous. He could be the one who hurt Lucy,” James said.

  “No, he couldn’t have hurt Lucy—or Albert. It’s not possible.”

  “And you know this why? He seems awfully interested. I’d say almost obsessed.”

  “No, James. I truly think he’s only being helpful. He’s lost family too.” Unconsciously, she had put her hand to her heart.

  “A man like that doesn’t give without wanting something in return.” He leaned in closer. “You forget, sometimes, Mathilda, who you are. You’re an heiress. A sole heiress, now.”

  Tillie was tired of arguing. “I should go home” was all she said. “My shoulder hurts, and I need to rest.” Which was only partially true. But she did need her medicine.

  James followed her into the carriage. Tillie’s insides writhed with a certain hunger and restlessness. She needed to lie down. She needed calm. Her forehead prickled with perspiration.

  “She’s clean worn out, she is. Visiting the poor. What a dear,” Dorothy said, though Tillie couldn’t miss the critical undercurrent.

  “Do you carry your medicine with you?” Hazel asked softly.

  Tillie shook her head. “I only have so much,” she admitted. “Grandmama doesn’t want me to take it.”

  “I’ll get you whatever you need,” James said. “Whenever you need. Your family is not nearly as permissive about modern medicine as others are.”

  When they arrived at her home, Dorothy and Hazel insisted on helping Tillie inside, shooing Ada away as they began fussing over her in the bedroom. Dorothy nagged Tillie about medicine until she disclosed her hidden stash of opium. Dorothy administered the drops herself. Tillie took them like an infant bird beseeching its mother for a worm. All the while, Hazel watched carefully, as if counting the drops.

  Tillie lay back on her bed, ready to embrace the decadent pull toward slumber.

  “Sleep, sweet Tillie. Losing sweet Lucy and that broken bone took so much out of you, dearest. We’ll make sure you get all the medicine you need.”

  Tillie blinked slowly, realizing a little too late that Dorothy had probably given her too much medicine. But the effect had left her spellbound, her body feeling absent of gravity, her limbs like butter melting in hot milk.

  “Sleep,” Dorothy commanded.

  Much later, Tillie awoke only minutes before midnight. She still wore her day dress. It appeared that Ada had brought dinner to her room, but Tillie had slept through. A plate of roast beef drowned under a congealed patty of gravy, and buttered bread next to it lay fissured and forgotten.

  Tillie had overheard her mother and grandmother whispering in the hallway, when they thought Tillie slept.

  “It’s the Flint in her. Weak breeding, weak child.”

  “Hush, Mama.”

  “If only Lucy hadn’t been so headstrong. It was her downfall.”

  “Was it?”

  “If only they’d switched birthrights, it would never have come to this.”

  What had it meant? Birthrights. Did she mean if Lucy had been the second child, or did she mean something else entirely? Tillie had been too drowsy to understand it, and the comments had receded while she slept.

  Tillie readied herself as quickly as she could, drinking her medicine in the small glass of wine from her dinner tray. No sling tonight. Her shoulder was stiff but well enough for a night out without it. She put some money in the pocket of her dress, slipped her notebook in there with a stub of a pencil, and went to the window to see if Ada and John were in the garden.

  There was no moon tonight, hidden as it was behind a phalanx of clouds. Tillie peered through the window of Lucy’s chamber, searching for them. At first, she saw nothing. The conservatory was dark, and the window was smudged. Tillie rubbed the glass with her sleeve and peered again through the circlet of clarity. A tiny movement caught her eye near the oak tree in the center of the rear property. An ornate iron bench encircled the trunk. Upon it, a mass of murky colors moved strangely, rhythmically, in the dark. Two white logs of newly cut firewood rested on the bench.

  Tillie blinked, then looked again. The image instantly changed from a confusing, indecipherable mass into something far more recognizable.

  It was Ada, skirts hitched up to her knees, sitting astride John O’Toole’s lap. It was Ada’s bare calves that shone white, not two sticks of firewood. Her garters had come undone, and her stockings had gathered around her ankles. Ada’s lips were parted, her eyes closed and compressing tightly with each union of their bodies.

  Tillie pushed away from the window. She wasn’t sure what was more mortifying: watching them or enduring the possibility of being caught spying. She gathered her skirts, spun around, and headed down the stairs. She had no worries about John seeing her sneak away tonight.

  Tillie hesitated before exiting the house. She went purposefully to the kitchen and gathered half a dozen cinnamon shortbread cakes, knotting them into a napkin. She tied them to her waist with an old silk scarf from the entryway closet and then was out the door in seconds. It might help with her nausea.

  This time, everything was familiar. She headed eastward to the Third Avenue train. Studying the paper map in the station, she was happy to see that this line would take her all the way down past Cooper Union and Houston Street and split rightward onto East Broadway.

  When she arrived downtown, the moon had exited from behind a wall of clouds, and electric lights lit the corners here and there. She descended the el’s stairs with the other scant passengers. Behind her, the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge rose up, its gothic arches puncturing the space between the tall stone towers. The cables rising up to those towers seemed small and spindly, but last year she had walked the bridge with Lucy and found that those cables were wide as a barrel. Nothing was what it seemed, upon closer examination.

  Tillie looked about her. Ahead was a small park, irregular with walkways and trees, hiding half of City Hall, with its three rows of columns and small domed tower, behind it. This was Newspaper Row, though she did not know which building was which.

  Where was Ian?

  It was so strange to be here alone. A little frightening, but the heady sense of freedom and adventure outshone both sensations. She walked toward the largest building to the right of City Hall. It was more than twice as tall, with an imposing spherical top. The World Building. On the steps was a figure—no, four figures. She hadn’t noticed the other three because they were small, unmoving atop the grates on the ground.

  “Ian?” she asked as she approached.

  Ian had a tweed cap on his head and a she
af of papers under his arm. He lifted his finger to his lips, turning his head to the slumbering bodies next to him. When Tillie was closer, she realized they were boys. Perhaps nine or ten years old, each asleep with a set of folded hands or a pile of newspapers for a pillow.

  “You made it. No escort this time?” he teased her in a whisper.

  “Not this time.” She sighed. “James is like a brother to me. He almost was, you know.” She pointed to the boys. “Why are they sleeping here?”

  “Steam grating? Because the weather is good, and it saves the five cents for a bed at the lodging house.”

  “Where are their parents?”

  “Who knows. Lots of the newsies have parents. These are guttersnipes. But they do all right.”

  Tillie sighed. She wished she had sneaked more food out of their kitchen, perhaps brought a blanket. Lucy would have thought to.

  “Well, I have some good news,” she said. “You can keep that copy of Dracula. James bought me one.”

  “Isn’t that lucky?” He wasn’t smiling, though. Tillie’s first instinct told her he was jealous, but then her mind reeled in the ridiculous thought. “So let’s talk about this book, shall we?”

  “Wait. Why did you go to see Albert Weber without telling me?” she asked.

  “Hey, ain’t ya gonna kiss de lady, Ian?” came a high-pitched voice behind them. Tillie whirled around to see one of the three boys grinning widely, his tousled black hair now propped on a brown hand.

  “Tillie Pembroke, this is Piper,” Ian began. Two more heads popped up, and one whistled low. The other whistled high. “And Sweetie and Old Man Pops.”

  “Oh. Hello. Nice to meet you, boys.”

  “I ain’t no boy,” said the one named Sweetie. Her brown hair was cut in short curls, her face was smudged with freckles, and if she hadn’t said anything, Tillie would never have known. “An’ I don’t hit like no goil, eidder. Don’t you fuhgeddit.”

  “So, you gonna smack Ian a goodun’?” asked Old Man Pops. He was sitting up now and had aggressively stuck his finger in his ear, digging out who knew what. His hair looked like a bush of yellow weeds, but his eyes had a tired look, like a parent whose children were continually misbehaving.

  “No?” Tillie answered.

  “You’re a muttonhead if you don’t know he wants de kisses. All de kisses!” barked Piper.

  “Stop,” Ian growled.

  That made everything worse. Piper and Sweetie whooped and meowed at Ian until he took a step close to Tillie and shook his head.

  “I apologize, but this is the only way they’re going to shut up.” He lifted her hand and kissed it. Tillie had trouble hiding a smile.

  The caterwauling got worse.

  “Dat ain’t a kiss!” Piper yowled.

  “Oh, just . . . get it over with,” Tillie whispered. She tapped her cheek, and Ian leaned in. He curled his hand around her waist, and for a moment, Tillie felt like she was floating, with only her slippered toes on the ground. When nothing happened, she turned to Ian and said, “I said—”

  Ian leaned in quickly. He seemed to be aiming for her cheek but landed on her mouth.

  Oh. Oh.

  She had looked up kiss in the dictionary once.

  1. To salute with the lips; to smack; to buss.

  2. To treat with fondness; to caress.

  3. To touch gently, as if fondly, or caressingly.

  Fondness? Smacks? Buss? This was not the dry, clinical description from the book. It wasn’t just a pressure between mouths. It was an unexpected blossoming of waking nerves and ripples of heat where she didn’t know a fever could be had. Just when she thought, I ought to stop this—I ought to breathe, Ian released her from his embrace, and they stepped away from each other, somewhat breathless.

  The three newsies were watching with dropped jaws. Even Pops’s eyes had grown round. And then they hooted and whistled so loud it was as if Tillie and Ian had performed some feat of magic.

  “Well. Usually they really do shut up after that,” Ian said, staring at his feet.

  “Exactly how many women do they goad you into kissing?” Tillie asked. She was touching her mouth, tenderly.

  “Uh. Only one other, I guess. But that was Sweetie’s grandma, and she was sixty years old.”

  Tillie laughed out loud. When she recovered, her hand fell to the package tied to her waist. She lifted it and smiled.

  “Instead of yelling at Mr. Metzger”—the newsies laughed at his lofty name—“how about you do some damage to these?” She untied the bundle of shortbread, placing it on Piper’s lap. “Share nicely, now.”

  “Um, this is a treat! I’m stickin’ to her like a plaster!” Piper crowed.

  Pops was enthusiastically thanking Tillie and shaking her hand, his mouth crammed full of one large square of shortbread. Tillie untied the scarf from her waist and gave it to Sweetie.

  “This was a favorite of mine. Take good care of it, or at least trade it for no less than fifty cents.”

  Sweetie said nothing, her mouth an O of astonishment.

  “Stop buying their loyalty,” Ian said, pretending to be angry, but not really. The children ravaged the shortbread until nary a crumb was left. Piper took the napkin and tied it around his neck like a kerchief. Ian shook his head and smiled, and he and Tillie began to walk along the darkened street. When they were a block away, three shrill whistles pierced the air. The first sounded like a staccato peep-peep-peep. The second was a trill that climbed an octave. The third was the same trill but in reverse.

  “Goodness. Why do they do that?”

  “Those three, they whistle like that when they’re trying to find each other in the streets. You’d be surprised how loud they can whistle and how far it’ll carry.”

  “Why did they whistle when they’re all so close?”

  “They’re thanking you. You’re too far for them to shout.”

  “So it means ‘thank you.’”

  “It also means ‘You stole my lunch’ or ‘Good morning’ or ‘I’m going to smack you if you do that again.’ Sometimes it means ‘I’m in mortal danger, help me.’ But usually it means they need money to buy tobacco.”

  “Well, how can you tell—”

  The three newsies whistled once more, this time a little shriller than before.

  Ian looked pointedly embarrassed and started walking faster.

  “What did that mean?” Tillie asked.

  “You don’t want to know,” he mumbled.

  Tillie turned around to see Piper sticking his pursed lips out, pantomiming a kiss.

  Ian hollered, “Go back to sleep!”

  Surprisingly, they all lay back down on the grates near the World Building rather quickly. Piper hitched his stockings back up toward his knees and started sucking his thumb. Tillie had seen the state of the dirt on their fingers. That thumb must taste awful, she thought. They each need a good bath and scrubbing. Probably some time in a classroom too. Thank goodness she’d thought to bring that shortbread. Next time she came down here, perhaps she would bring them some new socks.

  “I sell papers with them,” Ian said. “Some days, they outsell me when I’m doing other work.”

  “Other work?” Tillie asked as they walked past a small, boxy building with THE SUN imprinted at the top, then past an enormous one with a clock tower on top that read THE TRIBUNE. A marble statue of a seated man stood in one of the entrance archways. The sculpted face seemed to judge Tillie traipsing around at night, unmarried and unaccompanied by a sanctioned person. She pointedly looked away.

  “Whatever pays the bills,” Ian said absently.

  “So you sell the papers of all these publishers?”

  “Usually just the World. They raised the prices, though. We used to be able to sell back what we couldn’t unload, but they changed that. It’s a mess.”

  “That’s horribly unfair.”

  “There’s talk of a strike. Haven’t you heard about it?”

  “No. I’ve been learning about vam
pires, instead.”

  “Oh. Have you heard?” He turned to her. “They dug up another body in upstate New York. Said the corpse was seen attacking children. When they cut open the belly, blood poured out of the stomach. Red blood.”

  “No,” Tillie whispered. “It can’t be. It can’t. I don’t understand what’s happening. And then there’s Albert Weber.” She looked at him sharply. “How did you find out where he lived? Why didn’t you tell me you were going to talk to him?”

  “I’m not supposed to write to you, remember?”

  “Oh. Of course.” Tillie felt embarrassed. She couldn’t leave her house without an escort, and she couldn’t receive letters without them being read through and possibly burned. The limitations on her life were a drawstring pulling tighter and tighter.

  “I got the address from the police sergeant. He’s fairly talkative if you loosen his jaws with good whiskey. So what did you find in your sister’s drawer?”

  “I still can’t open it,” Tillie confessed. “I tried and tried, but I think maybe I need another lesson.”

  “We can go back to Tobias’s grocery store instead of looking for articles about vampires.”

  “Won’t he be angry?”

  “Tobias is always angry! But he’s tickled by our attention. Makes him feel like he’s got a purpose.” Ian grinned.

  So they did. This time, they walked the distance instead of taking the train. Down by Park Row, it was relatively quiet, but the city gathered a pulse as soon as they crossed Pearl Street. Within fifteen minutes, they’d arrived back at Tobias’s grocery store, under the looming shadows of the steel elevated tracks.

  “I have a key this time,” Ian said and let himself in. The grocery smelled of bread and cloves, of tobacco and a bitter scent of herbal medicine. She eyed several bottles of laudanum on the shelf. She didn’t need to buy them now, but an irresistible urge to shoot a hand out and snatch a bottle intruded upon her consciousness. She picked one up and stared at it. Her stomach grumbled like a forlorn dog.

  “Don’t you already have enough of that?” Ian said abruptly.

  “Oh. Yes. Just checking something,” she said and replaced it on the shelf. Dorothy said she would bring her more. And surely next week, she would not need to take so much. She disliked the way Ian had looked at her when she’d clutched it in her hand somewhat hungrily.