Bright and Distant Shores

by Dominic Smith

  30.

  They slipped out of the building under cover of dark, before the secretaries and clerks arrived for the day. Owen bought her hotcakes at a worker’s diner and they idled with talk and coffee for hours, waiting for the sun to rise over the lake. At first light, they bought her a fresh blouse from a street vendor and she wore it over her dress to keep rumors at bay among her colleagues. They bounded along the shoreline in their coats, contemplating the long walk south to the museum. “We’re quite the vagabonds,” she said. “First we eat out of brown paper, then we sleep on a narrow daybed—incidentally, that was torture on my back—and now we’re buying me clothes from a gypsy on the street. This isn’t what I had in mind for us, Mr. Graves.”

  He smoked a cigarette, striding out, brazened by the cold and the sex. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m living like a king. We slept up with the stars last night, didn’t we?”

  She took his arm, then his cigarette.

  The lake was still and quiet. Windrows of ice clogged the shoreline, a field of white boulders and foot-high escarpments. A fishing boat moved beyond the frozen rim, pulling into a shroud of fog, the upstroke of its engine magnified and somehow forlorn in the stillness. Owen looked out at the wide skirt of ice and recalled the coral flanks of Tikalia. Already it seemed like a lifetime ago. In fact, it had been less than two months since he’d been sitting on that beach, wondering if he’d gambled everything and lost. He touched the corner of the check in his coat pocket.

  Adelaide bristled with plans—there was dinner with Margaret, wedding errands, a fitting appointment for Owen at the tailor’s, on Saturday if they could get him in.

  “How far along are the arrangements?” Owen asked.

  “With my mother in town, you can rest assured they are quite far along. She tried to convince me that we were getting married in Boston but after three days of not speaking to her she finally conceded. Now that means there will be trainloads of Bostonites coming in.”

  “I may be ill.”

  “Stop it. The church is booked, though the date will have to change now.”

  “Why? You never told me the date. I’m just a passenger on this train.”

  “Well, that was another reason why I was fuming. Hale Gray stole our wedding date when he chose the first day of May for his ridiculous rooftop event. I wouldn’t want to compete with that. No, we’ll go with the first of June. The weather will be nicer anyway, but that means my mother will be here the whole time.”

  “They’re going to name a room after her at the Palmer.”

  She stopped walking and said, “It’s more than four miles to the museum. I can’t walk all that way. Not in these shoes.”

  “I thought you were intrepid. I met you in a room of bottled brains, remember? There was a brain belonging to a murderer on a shelf right behind your little desk.”

  “I can see Indiana down there.”

  “All right then.”

  She took his cigarette again and they headed for the road. Eventually a hansom came up from the south and they got in. Just before eight they stopped in front of the museum. Adelaide kissed him before she got down.

  Standing on the sidewalk, she said, “I’d like to meet the brother and sister today, if I can. Lunchtime? Eleven-thirty? I’d like to see if they need anything. Which island are they from anyway?”

  Of course, Owen thought, they’re just another pair of newly arrived immigrants to her, no different to the Italians, Bohemians, Slavs, or Swedes at Hull House. He said, “Originally from Pou-meta, off the coast of New Guinea.”

  “I’ll look it up in the museum library. Eleven-thirty, then?”

  “And then it’s dinner with Margaret this evening? That’s a full day.”

  She nodded. “Should I come to the eyesore to meet them?”

  “Naturally.”

  “That building is ruining my life,” she said, making for the steps.

  “Adelaide?”

  She turned.

  He wanted to ask how rich but was afraid of the answer. “Have a wonderful morning.”

  “You as well.”

  He told the driver to wait a moment so he could watch her climb the stairs to the museum, ascending to its coppered dome and Greek pavilions, passing between the stone lions with the red collar of her gypsy blouse flapping above her coat in the wind. He watched her and suspected this was happiness. “She’s something, isn’t she?” Owen said to the driver. The man hummed his consent and roused the horses. They got back along the shoreline and he told the driver to head for the South Side. He’d had his luggage and a few private collectibles sent directly from the train station to the yard, before Hale could see what he’d skimmed off for himself. He would spend the morning getting his affairs in order—unpacking, finding some clean clothes, opening a bank account to house his windfall.

  Hale had given the savages a corner office each on the floor below his, sending a signal to the press and his employees that these were his guests and not mere curiosities, but also because he wanted to see how they would react to living at such a height. Malini had covered her windows with newsprint because she disliked the view. It made her dizzy and cold. She’d placed the mattress on the floor and slept in her coat. She dreamed of ironbarks growing on the high rooftops, of her Kuk husband in a hammock, asleep and swaying through the clouds. Argus had gone to bed that first night watching the city blink its sulfurous light and had woken early to count church steeples. These were a God-fearing people and it filled him with hope.

  The section of the floor they were on was still being finished out but they could hear voices—mostly female—on the other side of a dividing wall. Argus heard the rippling detonations of the Remington typewriters, the same company, he knew, that made rifles and pistols. Miss Ballentine brought them breakfast from the cafeteria—rolls and doughnuts and juice—and they ate together in a makeshift dining room, a table and two wooden chairs in plain view of the elevator landing. She brought them towels and they took their time bathing in the sinks of the hard-surfaced bathrooms, but their clothes needed laundering and they had to dress in things that smelled like the train ride from California. Malini’s coat smelled like anthracite and bacon grease and this was Adelaide’s first impression when she got out of the elevator on the twenty-seventh floor—that the poor woman was wearing a man’s smelly old coat. The siblings were sitting in their breakfast nook, though you could hardly call it that, Adelaide thought, with six thousand square feet of steel columns and space sprawling on all sides. Owen made the introductions and Argus knew better than to extend his hand to a lady.

  Adelaide pronounced a formal Poumetan welcome, hoping the museum’s Melanesian phrasebooks had been accurate. She’d spent two hours trying to find a list of Poumetan greetings, all the while pretending to reorganize the library shelves.

  The phrase was close enough to brighten their faces.

  Malini smiled freely. She liked Adelaide’s long, dark hair.

  Nervous, for reasons she couldn’t explain, Adelaide said, “Very pleased to meet you both. Welcome to America. You must be freezing!”

  Argus shrugged politely.

  “It’s all right,” said Owen. “She’s one of us. You can be yourself.”

  “What are you talking about, Owen?” Adelaide said, slightly embarrassed.

  Argus said, “I’ve heard a lot about you, Miss Cummings. And if I may say so, you are just as pretty as Mr. Graves said you would be.”

  Adelaide didn’t want to seem shocked but felt herself staring. “Your English is excellent, Mr. Niu. Where did you learn it?”

  She even pronounced his surname correctly. “From the Reverend Mister, madam. He was my employer until he died on the front verandah one morning. He had a heavy heart and the whiskey made it sink.”

  She laughed but instantly worried it came off as a patronizing giggle. “Oh, I see. And does your sister speak English as well?”

  “She is still learning it.”

  Argus side-
mouthed something to Malini in Poumetan.

  Malini looked terrified for a moment, then said: Here we are standing.

  They all smiled at this.

  Owen said, “Old Hale Gray thinks they were found in the jungle. He wanted true primitives brought back. Truth is Argus speaks English better than I do.”

  Argus blushed.

  Owen added, “And Malini there is fast on her way. Didn’t speak a word of English when we left the islands.”

  “Amazing,” Adelaide said.

  There was an awkward silence.

  Adelaide broke it: “Well, I wanted to see if you need anything. I know this must be a very big change for you both. What can I do to help? How about new clothes for a start? Owen, I’d think that Mr. Gray would be outfitting them with new clothing and personal items. He is their employer, after all. By the way, Hull House did a survey of wages not long ago for the Near West Side. I hope he doesn’t think he can get away with less than, say, twenty dollars a week. Each, that is. Perhaps I could take charge of clothing procurement.” Was she prattling? she wondered, looking off at the empty expanse.

  Owen said, “I’m not involved in the labor conditions, Adelaide. That’s Mr. Gray’s concern.”

  Her eyes came back. “Well, whether it’s with his money or mine, they can’t go around in those tattered old coats. And they can’t just fester up here in this half-built colossus.” She was aware of speaking about the siblings as if they were invisible. To correct her mistake she turned to them. “I would be honored to show you around the city, help you get settled in. We can take a bit of a tour.”

  “That would be very nice,” said Argus.

  “Perhaps you’d like to visit the museum where I work.”

  Malini felt her mind flinch at the word museum.

  “I’d very much like to see a bookstore and a library,” said Argus.

  Owen said, “Now hold on a minute. All this needs to be approved by Hale. These people are in his custody.”

  “Yes, but they’re not his property,” said Adelaide, her cheeks slightly aflame. She didn’t care for the word custody.

  Owen knew he was being contrary—why was he protecting Hale’s territory as if it were his own? Were future trading assignments at risk? She meant well but he was slightly taken aback by her insistence. “All I’m saying is that we need to go through the proper channels.”

  As if to adjudicate this discussion, the elevator doors opened and Hale Gray appeared in his double-breasted, affable enough in the face but his cane thrusting out violently; the handle—a silver dog’s head—resembled gunmetal a little too closely for Owen’s liking.

  As Hale approached, Owen whispered, “Remember, they barely speak English.”

  Hale arrived, quietly, in his rubber heels. “Just back from a risk and provisions meeting and I thought I would check in on our guests. I trust everything is to their satisfaction. Quite a view from up here, no? Probably think the lake is the Pacific. Those corner offices are slated for vice presidents but I’ve been setting them aside.”

  Argus wanted to tell him that Malini had blotted out the view with sheets of newsprint. He had gone in there several times to read the pasted articles when he’d grown bored with the two Davids. He was hungry for new books and knew they were out there, like people waiting to be met. To see a library and a bookstore, to run his fingertips along the spines of green clothbounds and full-grain hardbacks, to smell bookdust as holy as frankincense, now that would be something. Miss Cummings seemed equipped to break them out of there, to take them out into the gorged streets. He was ready for another splash.

  “Very comfortable,” said Owen. “You remember my fiancée, Mr. Gray, Adelaide Cummings.”

  Hale bent at the waist, then continued down, almost into a Regency bow. He came back up, blood rising into his face. “Of course. We met at the train station. Delighted to see you again, Miss Cummings. When is the big day? Nuptials are the reason God invented spring!”

  Adelaide couldn’t help feeling a brief and vague liking for Hale—the dog-head cane reminded her of her father and the bow was overdone, the gesture of a man who plots grand gestures. There was something poetic about it. He was mostly bluster, she imagined, a strong handshake and quip, but a man who teared up easily during patriotic songs. But then she remembered the postponed wedding date, the specter of her mother in town for months on end, and she fell back on aloofness. “June first,” she said. “Practically summer.”

  “Should be warmed up by then, I imagine,” Hale said. “You two could always marry on my rooftop if you had the inclination. Ha! Might be a world first.”

  “No thank you,” said Adelaide.

  Hale turned to the siblings, then back to Owen. “Are they getting on all right? Any sign of altitude sickness? A change in temperament?”

  Owen said nothing but wanted to remind Hale that Melanesia had volcanoes ten times taller than the twenty-seventh floor of the First Equitable.

  Adelaide said, “I wonder if I might be of service?”

  Hale found this a little impetuous and, as with Miss Ballentine and Miss Carver and the secretary before that whose name he could never recall, a splenetic woman with breasts of historic proportions, he would not reward the misstep with eye contact.

  In response to Hale’s question, Owen said, “For the most part, I think. Perhaps they need more clothing.”

  Adelaide said, “Forgive me. I know it’s not my concern. But I would be delighted to help find them some clothing and toiletries. I volunteer at Hull House and have helped a lot of new immigrants get settled in.”

  “Immigrants?” Hale said, now pivoting, giving her the brunt of his attention. “Miss Cummings, these natives are here for a few months as part of an advertising campaign for the First Equitable Insurance Company. They’re visitors, not immigrants. Come May, they’ll be wearing leaves and bark up there.”

  Owen shot Adelaide a stare but she was unmoored. This was something he would have to accept about her.

  “All the same,” she said, smiling, changing tactics, “with due respect, seeing them properly clothed and entertained until then would be my civic honor. Really, I should love to show them around the city. The art galleries and museums.”

  Hale twirled a cuff link, a lion’s head slow and gold. “Let me consider it.” He knew when he was in the crosshairs. He saw that she had pluck, imagined she would be quite something in the marital department. Women like that said the most damnable things in the boudoir. Bravo. “You work at the Field Museum, do you not, Miss Cummings?”

  “I do, sir. And I was suggesting earlier that Mr. Niu and his sister might enjoy seeing the collections. Perhaps you could accompany us?”

  “Adelaide,” Owen said, stiffening.

  Hale stopped twirling his cuff link. “Marshall Field is a colleague of mine at the Prairie Club and my neighbor. We’re rivals of a sort. Keep the objects in the hands of private collectors, I say. Not everything is for public consumption, Miss Cummings.”

  Adelaide summoned a tight smile.

  “Well, I must be off,” Hale said. “I have pressing matters above. Good day to all.” He turned, swiveling on his soft heels.

  He felt their eyes boring into his back as he waited for the elevator. After a minute he gave up and went to the stairwell. He climbed the stairs two at a time, blood pounding in his ears, his cane rapping against the iron railing. He came out onto the landing and walked toward his office. Miss Ballentine sat plodding away at the typewriter, a pecking monument to drudgery. Lately she’d taken to painting clear iodine on her fingertips, a protective shellac against typing cuts and splits, and Hale thought it smelled like a battlefield triage in her little nook. Ghastly. He’d give her until summer to right her ways. What separated Hale from his peers, he knew, was the way he embraced abrupt change. He could find opportunity in a puddle if it came down to it. Bring him a plate of horse dung and he would find a man willing to buy it. The fidget wheels turned in his head, no different than the escapem
ent of the clock above, truing up time. He would let Miss Adelaide Cummings give them a tour, but with a twist. Her idea was a gift, he saw now, an offering from that puckered rose of a mouth.

  Dictation, Miss Ballentine, quick as you like. Letter to the Chicago Tribune, “Bits of the City” editor or whoever is the right man. Today’s date. We wish to inform that we will be offering a sneak preview of our South Sea Island guests, in preparation for the first of May opening. First day over forty degrees. Preferably sunny, on account of savage constitution. Will advise. Send a reporter as the savages get a tour of our grand city. Exclusive to your newspaper. Use words to this effect, Lulu, and bring me a draft for correction before it’s sent out. Hand-delivered.

  He stepped toward his office door, already imagining Marshall’s reaction to the museum visit. One of the august institution’s own employees acting as tour guide for the savage siblings. She’d probably get fired once Marshall found out. That was a good name for something—The Savage Siblings.

  He suddenly needed a drink. “Oh, and bring me some ice.”

  He watched as Miss Ballentine—no, Lulu—neatly typed out these words.

  She looked up, flummoxed. “Very well. Sir, your son is waiting for you inside.”

  Hale felt something in the back of his throat. He went inside and saw Jethro standing in front of the display cases, the fencing glove on one hand. “Hello, son. How are the arrangements coming in the lobby?”