Breath and Bones

by Susann Cokal

  He rang and told Precious Flower to send for Ancient Jade. “Really, I suppose I should thank her for bringing the book to my attention,” he said, coughing feebly, though he did not believe Precious Flower understood his allusion for a moment. “And I have a responsibility to the woman, after taking her from the one profession she knew.”

  Precious Flower gave him the same bob of the head that he’d got from Life’s Importance, but she had to tell him the third maid was gone. A search of the house confirmed it. No one could say exactly where she was, but the next morning, when the posse looking for Famke reported that a Celestial in a gray costume had boarded the train at Harmsway, Edouard considered the mystery solved. The train was headed for San Francisco; Ancient Jade must be returning not only to her old line of work but to the place she had practiced it as well.

  “You might advertise for her,” suggested Rideaux the mortician, who found in the three Chinese maids a mysterious fascination.

  “I might,” Edouard granted; but, exhausted by his emotions, not the least of which were disappointment in Famke and the fear of a future soon to be attenuated by disease, he could not compose so much as a single sentence fit for print.

  Chapter 50

  The depredations of time have always something in them to employ the fancy, or lead to musing on subjects which, withdrawing the mind from objects of sense, seem to give it new dignity: but here I was treading on live ashes.

  MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT,

  LETTER FROM DENMARK

  It was as if a fire had swept through Immaculate Heart, Birgit thought as she stood in the empty office, gazing out a last time at the flowering elder tree in the girls’ exercise yard. Orphans, nuns, beds, the past—all had been gobbled up. Of course this was not true; it was merely that all the people were gone, and their chattels as well. Immaculate Heart as Birgit knew it was no more: So complete was the destruction wrought by her own hands.

  The scandal around herself and Famke—a scandal founded on anonymous and unproven rumors—had brought new attention to the infamous Immaculate chest. Too many orphans had died of it, and no lesser personage than the Queen herself had insisted on moving the surviving children to the new Børnehjem—where no doubt they would be rebaptized as Lutherans within the month—and dispersing the nuns to convents with more salubrious reputations. So the history of Immaculate Heart, founded in 1373, came to an inglorious end. The building had sold to a merchant who dealt in rare stamps; he would use the cells and dormitories as sorting rooms. The sisters were assigned to farflung convents in Odense, Skagen, and the northernmost reaches of Norway. They would take their coughs with them. Only Birgit remained, to clean the building alone in an act of penance.

  It was her own idea, one which the bishop approved heartily. “God smiles upon the truly penitent,” he promised her. “The lost lamb, the prodigal son.”

  As she blew on a diamond-shaped pane and wiped it with her sleeve, Birgit thought again that there had been something not quite right in the bishop’s words to her. Yet she was too tired to think what it might be; she merely checked the windows one last time for dust and fly specks, then left the room where she had held sway such a brief time as Superior. For the last time, she locked the door with the ancient brass key.

  Outside, in the weak sunshine on the doorstep, with her bedroll and her Bible tucked beneath her arms, Birgit hesitated. She was not quite ready to leave. And no one was waiting for her; she was not expected to finish the cleaning for another day at least, and she was not particularly welcome at Handmaids of the Precious Blood, the tiny convent that the bishop had ordered to house her while she awaited passage to Tröndheim. The Handmaids were dedicated to prayer and did not take kindly to liars and cheats.

  In short, for the next twenty-four hours, Birgit could go anywhere. She could do anything.

  She turned and, with sudden purpose, unlocked the heavy front door again. Her shoes, ground down from years of wear, made a vague clomping noise on the hard floors, and when she got to the inner courtyard once used by the girls, she unlaced those shoes and set them on the lip of the stair, with her stockings rolled neatly inside.

  Barefoot, she started toward the elder tree. This is where everything started, she thought, though of course that was wrong, too. The elder tree, the day of the soapmaking, had been simply a warning that Birgit should not let the girl have her heart; and Birgit had paid it no attention. Perhaps if she had listened, if she had punished Famke as the other nuns thought she should, none of this would have happened. Famke would have shed her wildness, might still be at Herr Skatkammer’s house—no, with the farmer in Dragør—and she, Birgit, would still be parceling out equal measures of impersonal Catholic love to dozens of coughing orphans. It was all Birgit’s fault.

  These thoughts flitted through her mind in a few seconds, the time it took to cross the courtyard and grasp the elder’s lowest limb in her hands. A flock of early butterflies flurried up and resettled as she gave a tentative tug on the branch. Near the trunk, Birgit thought she could see shadowy scorchmarks from that long-ago fire; but the branch held nonetheless, and she hoisted herself upward. Her arms were strong, if tired from the hard labor of cleaning, and she managed to get high enough to swing a leg up. She sat, then stood; she could nearly see into the empty second-floor rooms. She grabbed another limb and climbed higher, till she could see the rooftops first of Immaculate Heart and then of larger Copenhagen, all the way to Nyhavn. She almost thought she could discern a fuzzy gray hint of Sweden, which was very close here; though of course she could not see Norway, much less the dark northern reaches of Tröndheim, a city so distant that a letter would take over a week to travel there from Copenhagen. If in fact the bishop and the Handmaids of the Precious Blood sent Birgit’s mail on. If in fact Viggo wrote from America. If there was ever news worthy of sending . . .

  Birgit bounced on her elder branch, wondering if she might risk pushing up to the next one. If she fell from this height, she would break her skull, her spine, at the very least an arm or a leg. But she might also see Sweden.

  Much to his own surprise, within days Edouard’s cough improved and then vanished, leaving him with no symptom but that old abstracted ache in the chest and no conclusion but that he’d been suffering from nothing worse than a cold. This ache, he realized, he would have to live with; and indeed it was only what other healthy mortals bore. Sooner than he might have liked, he was on his feet again.

  While he lay in his sickbed, Edouard had had time to mull over the events of the winter and spring and to reread Hermes’s novel. He concluded that his house was not so likely to shiver to bits after all. Wasn’t Famke known as the Gallant Robber Baroness? And hadn’t she protected a wealthy widow’s house in Santa Fé from sure destruction, by convincing the boys that those who had lost their loved ones should not lose their homes as well? Surely such a woman, however perfidious—and Edouard still felt that she was this—would show mercy to the man who had lodged her, cured her, even (he allowed the thought, however unmedical) pleasured her after a fashion.

  It was time for Edouard to rejoin the world. But the sad fact was that the world did not welcome him. The hospital’s three towers were just days from opening their doors, and during the months in which Edouard had been occupied with Famke, the doctors and nurses had grown used to making decisions without him. It was almost, but not quite, as if they had sneaked the hospital out from under his nose. Similarly, under the auspices of Precious Flower and Life’s Importance and the butler, Wong, the house was running itself, and the grooms and gardeners were equally capable. For the first time since he’d been inspired to found the Institute for Phthisis, Edouard felt aimless.

  “Surely there is something that needs doing?” he protested to Beachly.

  The doctor scratched his bald spot, glad at least that Versailles was no longer trying to force his crackpot “cure” on the medical staff. “Well,” he said, “the reception room wall still needs a painting.”

  Thus Edouard was f
inally forced to confront the memory that had been nibbling away at him like a small phantom left after its greater sister had been exorcised. Hygeia, Goddess of Health. Was any part of the picture salvageable, or should Edouard order another from a reputable dealer? He supposed he would have to look.

  He could not quite face the painting alone, however, and he summoned one of the maids to unlock the door. He did not care which one might come, for he was displeased with them both now: They had watched Famke’s progress with the canvas and had done nothing to warn him so that he might have prepared a more politic critique for her—though of course it was for the best that Famke had left, as he might now hope his beautiful glass house would be spared.

  Mankind’s hopes are fragile glass . . .

  Edouard walked in and saw the curtains sagging, the sun beating through the walls to illuminate the easel. Everything was as it had been when last he spoke to Famke, when he told her the painting needed polish.

  That is, the room was just as it had been, but the enormous easel was empty. Edouard looked around the room’s few furnishings, inspected Famke’s art supplies, and even checked behind those limp curtains before shouting out, “Life’s Importance!”

  It was Precious Flower who was waiting down the hall, but she didn’t bother to correct him. She came scurrying from her hiding place and looked at him unblinking, ready for instructions.

  “Where is that painting?” he asked, his own voice ringing loud in his ears.

  Slowly, Precious Flower turned to the easel, and she saw, too, that it held nothing. Or almost nothing: Hygeia’s gilded frame still sat hugely on it, bumping the ceiling, reaching toward a wall. During his search, Edouard had stepped right through without noticing.

  Precious Flower tottered over to stand behind the empty frame, as if the painting might be of her. She waved her hands before her face. “Paint gone,” she said.

  Chapter 51

  We have regarded John [Chinaman] as a sort of overgrown boy, a kind of cushiony creature. You can thrust your finger anywhere into his character. You withdraw it, and he retains no print of it, any more than the water into which you plunge your hand. Within that apparently yielding characterlessness is a spine of heathen iron, and tough as the worst of it. A bridge made of such material would last the world out.

  BENJ. F. TAYLOR,

  BETWEEN THE GATES

  When Edouard dismissed her from the glass house several days earlier, Ancient Jade had felt a cold, stony anger creeping over her for perhaps the first time in her life. She who had been raised to have no feelings, to obey her parents and eventually the mother-in-law and husband she had never had, then to do exactly as her uncouth customers demanded—she was almost blind with rage now, and she cursed Edouard for paying the missionaries to take her out of her crib, for curing her (or so he thought) of both the syphilis and the opium addiction that might have ended her life sooner. For now what was she to do?

  She tried to imagine what it was like to be Edouard, to have this power over other people. And then it occurred to her that, in a limited way, she did have that power: She could bequeath him the same helpless feeling he had given her.

  Just before sunrise, she climbed the stairs to Famke’s room and turned the gaslight on just bright enough to see.

  A hand on her shoulder shook Famke out of a long dream in which she was taking a bath in a tubful of her own blood, and it was the most relaxing, refreshing bath ever. She knew that she would never cough again, that she was just about to achieve her heart’s desire; the lovely, shimmering feeling had just begun—and then, that hand.

  “You. You,” Ancient Jade was whispering in her ear—for once, not using the honorific “Missy” that Famke had come to expect. “You wake up now.”

  Famke groaned and rolled onto her other side.

  “You.” Did Famke imagine it, or did Ancient Jade actually slap her? Yes, her cheek was tingling . . . “You wake up. Something important.”

  “What is it?” Famke demanded, sitting up with her hand to her cheek. It had better be important, she thought, or else it might be worth speaking to Edouard again—just think what he would do if he heard one of the maids had dared—Famke’s thoughts changed course when she felt the blood in her body resettle, finding equilibrium after her change in position, expelling its excess. The feminine flow that had come upon her Down There during Edouard’s critique had kept her sluggish and in bed, feeding her sulks and making her wish to punish Edouard for his opinion even more; it was diminished now, but it still ran from time to time and reminded her of the nastier side of health. The blood was bound to come out from one opening or another. And to think that some women suffered this revolting condition every month.

  “Versailles knows everything,” Ancient Jade said in surprisingly fluent English. “All you secrets.”

  “Fanden!” Famke’s hand dropped to her lap. “How?”

  “He read about you.”

  “Read about me?” Famke repeated, thinking of the small nameless mention that had appeared in the New York Times the day after she immigrated. Not without a share of youth and beauty, although the beauty was high in the cheekbones. Or perhaps it had been as the “flame-haired Atropos” of the silk enterprise . . .

  “Rubble on the Rails. One book, you and Dynamite Gang. He took from me.” Ancient Jade waited, and when Famke continued to look confused she continued, “You tell boys, ‘Steal from these rich men. Burn houses.’ They do everything you say. Versailles does not like this.”

  “Who wrote that book?” Famke asked as understanding began to dawn.

  “Hermes.” She pronounced it Herms, but Famke had no trouble understanding whom she meant.

  So Harry Noble had written a book, and he had put her in it. When she thought back to their last conversation, she realized she should have expected as much.

  This was annoying, yes, but not dire. She yawned and burrowed deeper into the pillow.

  “None of it is true,” she said. “I never met any Dynamite Gang, but I did meet Hermes. He is a liar.”

  “He write different. Anyway, this is what Versailles believe,” Ancient Jade said. She sounded smug, certain that she had a window into Edouard’s convictions. “He write to man from yellow paper. Wanted, with you face.”

  It took Famke only a few seconds to understand: Edouard had written to Heber. The blood rushed around her body again and spread itself somewhere beneath her.

  Ancient Jade poked Famke in the arm to get her attention. “I not finish this book,” she said. “What happen at the end?”

  “How should I know?” Famke said, and she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She could hardly bother with the maid now. If Heber had gone to the trouble of distributing those posters, he must want her back so badly he would be here on the next train. “I need to leave right away, so you had better fetch me the dress I arrived in. The purple one. You must know where it is.”

  Ancient Jade did not respond. She just stared at the woman in the bed, her brown button eyes unblinking, her mind working very fast.

  “Do you know where the plum silk dress is?” Famke asked.

  Ancient Jade came to her decision. She tossed Famke the bedroom key and said, “I not maid here anymore. You find you own clothes.”

  And while Famke was too taken aback to speak, Ancient Jade hobbled out, collected her bundle in the hallway, and kissed her singsong sisters good-bye.

  The dark house—with Edouard sleeping off his laudanum and milk—was impossible for Famke to navigate. The maids had the advantage of their invisibility; they were accustomed to walking in the shadows, locating rooms in the dark. But she had been almost exclusively confined to her room, and when she ventured elsewhere there had always been someone else to take her arm and help her along. She had no idea now where she might find clothes and shoes and money; she wasn’t even certain of finding the front door. She wandered, candle in hand, looking for the plum silk dress—for any dress, really, as she needed to vanish before these blue hour
s turned gray. She was somewhat reassured to look through the glass of Edouard’s office and see him deep in slumber beneath the gas globes; but he would not slumber forever.

  As she went, she thrust her hands into the depths of armchairs and sofas, got down on her knees and felt behind chests and potted plants. She found two nickels and a penny this way; the maids were too conscientious, or too thrifty, to leave anything more lying about. Well, there were ways of getting money, so long as one had the right clothes with which to move through the world. Only this cotton nightdress was not the garment for it.

  Eventually Famke remembered the system of steam heating that had kept the house so pleasant even on the long winter nights. Feeling resourceful and independent, she found a pipe in the ceiling and began tracing it downward. Her months as a maid in Skatkammer’s magnificent house had taught her that the laundry room was most likely to be found near the boiler, where wet clothes and linens would dry most quickly. Perhaps the silk dress was there; perhaps something else, equally good.

  She was right. She found the laundry in the cellar, in a hot room that smelled of mothballs, and there was indeed an assortment of clothing hung upon the drying lines. The trouble was that all those garments belonged to the maids: three gray tunics, three gray sets of trousers, six black stockings with tiny, attenuated feet. White cloths that Famke deduced must be for binding the feet, to give them the support that their slippers would not.

  Famke chewed her lip and coughed to get the smell of camphor out of her throat. She had been hoping that if she could not locate the purple dress she could at least find some of Edouard’s clothing, which would hang on her frame but would take her out of town; failing that, one of Miss Pym’s uniforms. This was almost the worst that could happen, but it couldn’t be helped. She would escape in the costume of a Chinese maid, a former hundred-men’s-wife.