Bright and Distant Shores

by Dominic Smith

  Argus saw the archbishop turn away and head for the elevators. Had His Excellency been witness to a clerk’s petulant display of anger and then to a mission houseboy’s cheap, vegetable revenge? The bishop would never have such a servant in his house, let alone an aspiring seminarian. There would be consequences for the tossed yam but standing on the leaning bamboo porch Argus felt prepared to meet whatever came. The voyage and the job were simply the means to a divine end, and if he’d dashed his one chance of serving the bishop then he would find another Eminence. With the binoculars, he’d counted over a hundred church steeples in the city below. But then the man turned while waiting for the elevator and Argus saw a smile on his face. He was grinning to himself, evidently amused by the whole episode. He willed the man to turn back, closed his eyes, prayed. The elevator bell rang and Benny Boy held open the doors. Argus wanted to shout wait! His future was about to descend in an elevator. His throat was scorched and he couldn’t swallow. The sun caught in the thread of the man’s fine suit, his back turning again in a corona of daylight. Argus knew it was the Holy Ghost burning like pitch in his throat. From the top step of the hut, he recalled the words from the second chapter of the Book of Acts; it was all there, every passage, ingrained from years of sermonic repetition, the reverend orating around the mission house while Argus and the cat, Mr. Nibbles, provided him with an audience. Sitting Argus in the front pew every Sunday, had the Reverend Mister prophesied this exact day?

  Argus drew breath and aimed his voice for the elevators: “When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place . . . ” It was a preacher’s full-rafter voice.

  The man stepped closer to the elevator, though Benny Boy directed his scrutiny into the new commotion.

  Argus came forward. “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven . . . as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting . . . ”

  He raised his hands in the air, palms out, and stood at the water’s edge. “Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance . . . ”

  The man stepped back from the elevator, compelled by the look on Benny Boy’s face and the small crowd closing in on the lagoon.

  Argus could hear Malini from behind him, in the hut, telling him that he had ruined everything but that she was anyway ready to go home. He could see the startled look on Owen’s face, his own future suddenly in doubt, and the wry smile on Adelaide’s.

  He skipped ahead in the sermon, to the dramatic part where the apostle Peter cited the prophet Joel: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.”

  The entire rooftop looked on with rapt amazement. Argus now had the man’s full attention. He looked directly at His Eminence. “I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved . . . ”

  It being Sunday, Argus’s sermon roused the churchgoing spirit in many of the sightseers. They were lapsed most of them, Irish Catholics and Protestants on the lam, but the vision of a native boy waxing holy was strange all right, hallowed and out of place in the noonday sun. A few closed their eyes in prayer while others laid out coins as if he were a blind curbstone preacher, one of the State Street oracles humming and lurching outside a department store. Just as the Holy Ghost had descended on the apostles and the believers that seventh Sunday after Easter, converting their native languages to God’s own tongue, a brotherhood of understanding, so too, they saw, the native boy had undergone his own conversion, invoking the sermon in a language he did not himself speak. God had given him the gift of English.

  Softer now, filled with his own strange power, Argus said: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

  An elderly woman knelt before the lagoon, hands raised, apparently awaiting her baptism.

  Argus clasped his hands in prayer. “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation . . . ”

  A hush fell on the crowd and the archbishop removed his hat. Whether it was in devotion or not, Argus couldn’t say, but in the hard light he saw that the man was an imposter. His nose and forehead were all wrong. The shame and vanity, coupled with the sun and a burning thirst, made Argus feel suddenly weak. He staggered back, fell to one knee in the sand.

  To the believers on the other side of the small lagoon this was further proof that the savage boy was a vessel lain to waste, a receptacle of God’s enduring promise. They left the building, awed and moved, and proceeded to tell everyone they encountered about what they had witnessed. By the next morning half the city knew what had happened. And the other half found out when a reporter at the Chicago Tribune, the same reporter who’d had his story of the natives’ big day out banished to the back page, was sent to investigate. Monday’s edition carried a frontpage article, right beside an update on the war against Spain. The headline read, CHICAGO’S PROPHET OF THE SKYLINE. By that afternoon, the First Equitable’s lobby and elevators were full of zealots, patriots, the devout, the curious, the bored, and, to Hale’s delight, legions of the uninsured. Instead of closing down the whole spectacle—which had been his cost-cutting plan for the new week—he extended the hours and changed the cafeteria lunch special from the Commodore Dewey Sandwich to the Savage Sibling Sandwich, complete with a free side of fried yams.

  38.

  The arthritic and gallstoned came to the rooftop, hoping for a blessing, to be bathed in the indigo waters as if they flowed from Lourdes. Argus, now dressed in a suit and derby hat, recited one of five sermons he knew by rote, sang Presbyterian hymns, prayed aloud. People gave him money and the insurance company let him keep it. When no baptisms were offered—Argus knew he was unsanctioned to perform such a task—the infirm and the dashed sometimes took out a life insurance policy. More often, though, they drank coconut milk from the shell, took in the view, forgot their troubles for fifteen minutes. Malini, like her brother, wore Western clothes, but refused to go back and sleep in the corner office where only sheets of newspaper kept her from staring down into the void. From the hut on the rooftop she could see the distant horizon but none of the chasm that made her weak-kneed. With a night watchman posted, she continued to sleep on her grass mat and woke to see the sun rising over the city’s private ocean each morning.

  At the first lunchtime gong, they took their midday meal in the cafeteria, at a designated table. A rotation of clerks and secretaries brought them their namesake sandwich or the daily special. Underwriting was up at the First Equitable and many of the employees suspected it was because of the native preacher. He may have saved their skins. To show their appreciation they proffered cake, soup, sandwiches. They came up to the roof on their breaks. A cafeteria worker, Alice Binns, a devout West Indian girl by way of Brooklyn, took a liking to Argus and on several occasions brought him up a piece of cake so he could replenish himself between sermons. Argus could tell by the way she looked at him that she had felt the Holy Spirit move inside her chest. It was personal with Alice Binns.

  The rooftop became not only a mecca for tourists and the infirm but also a place for insurance workers to unwind. Actuaries played handball in their shirtsleeves. Girls from the typing pool skipped rope and read racy novels in the sunshine. Salesmen ran bets on the exploits of the falcons and even competed with commission men and brokers on opposing rooftops. Whenever a pigeon was
plucked from its roost by a raptor an echo of huzzahs ran back and forth across the gorge of La Salle Street.

  Hale witnessed all this and let it unfold. New policies were being added, that was true, but he couldn’t help feeling that he’d been duped, that Owen Graves had brought him a pair of half-bloods, the brother a messianic troublemaker. He closed the lobby museum—it remained of marginal interest to the sight seers—and waited for Jethro to clear out his curios so that he could have the repairmen get the cigar store ready for its new tenant. Jethro continued his nocturnal bird watch and sometimes fell asleep with binoculars in hand, slumped against the railing, just feet away from the abyss.

  39.

  Episcopalians are a stiff mob, Owen thought, standing at the front of the church on his wedding day, the tailored suit plumb against his shoulders. The Cummings tribe and the Boston onslaught sat on both sides of the aisle. Owen’s turnout spanned a single pew—two of Porter’s old pals from the wrecking days and their desiccated little wives. The retired housewreckers had lingered as long as possible on the church steps, racing form guides in back pockets, missing four half-fingers between them, lighting each smoke with the previous until they were dragged inside, stiff and lank-legged in their suits, pulling tie knots off Adam’s apples. Margaret Cummings sat resplendent in her parade float of a hat, beaming up at her imminent son-in-law. Argus and Malini sat up the back, under the choir balcony, and Owen gave them a nod. At least they aren’t wearing loincloths was the matriarch’s quip for her guests; it demonstrated clearly that their presence had been her daughter’s impetuous idea.

  An uncle on the dead father’s side began walking Adelaide down the aisle as the organ moaned a wobbly anthem from the varicose fingers of a very old lady in roseprint. Owen’s bride smiled, coming toward him under a veil, ethereal and lovely, but with a look of chagrin as the organ faltered and fell flat. Margaret bustled to her feet, shot a death-stare at the raised organ bench. The congregation stood, mouthing well-wishes and tearing up. Adelaide arrived, still smiling, and Owen swallowed at her veil-scrimmed beauty. A Boston cousin stood by with the rings and a prep school friend of Adelaide’s served as bridesmaid. The priest gave the welcome, various relatives read lessons from the Old Testament and the epistles, then came the Declaration of Consent. Objections were begged of the church pews but none came. Owen half expected someone to stand up and block the union— an industrialist uncle or society wife—for no other reason than the groom’s guests could be numbered on one hand and included an old wrecker who’d fallen asleep, mouth open, head propped on the back of the pew. A sharp elbow from his wife brought him humphing back to consciousness. With each item passing, the readings and the sacraments, Owen felt himself being marched toward his lucky—but complicated—fate.

  . . . until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.

  Her right hand was in his.

  Those whom God has joined together let no man put asunder.

  They were going gladly into battle.

  The people said Amen—none louder than the old demolitionists, both of them suddenly bright-eyed, raising their voices as if a dynamite fuse had been lit.

  The newlyweds walked out into the summery June air, under the newly fledged cottonwoods and horse chestnut, into a cloud of cheering and tossed rice.

  The wreckers and their wives weren’t coming to the reception at the Palmer House. The Loop and all its hoopla wasn’t for them anymore, they said, shaking Owen’s hand.

  “Porter Graves’s kid in a wedding suit. Makes me feel a hundred,” said one of them.

  “Thank you for coming,” said Owen.

  “She’s worth it,” said the other wrecker, of Adelaide, then gave his own wife a nudge.

  Owen watched them walk down the street, toward the streetcar. They disappeared around the corner, the last thread to that time suddenly vanished.

  Margaret practically had a floor named after her at the Palmer House by this point and the hotel spared nothing in lavishing the ballroom with fine silver and crystal, silk bunting, flower arrangements as tall as a child. A chandelier drizzled its light on an ice sculpture of a swan. There came a marathon of speeches, toasts, stringed quartets, champagne, arias, lobster. The new couple had to slice through a skyscraper of wedding cake and portion it out before being released into the night.

  Owen had the ribbon-braided carriage take them to the newly renovated house and they crossed the river, lamps burning, passing on to the North Side with a few hoary cheers from barge pilots and fishermen. Owen made Adelaide close her eyes when they came within half a block. The house, once clobbered by rot and weathered paint, once sagging along the roofline, reared up now, windows lit, the oyster and ruby trim getting a second gloss from the streetlamps. Owen led her up the stone walkway as she bunched the train of her dress in one hand. “Will you always have me close my eyes before anything good happens? What if I don’t like it?”

  He told her to be quiet and squared up her shoulders. She opened her eyes onto the swooping verandah, the balustrades painted fresh and twined with flowering vines, the porch swing suspended from two chains, the big front door, varnished and inset with panels of rose glass.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” he said.

  She shook her head; she was afraid she wouldn’t do it justice. He sighed, took her hand, led her up the front steps. From under the doormat he retrieved the key, opened the door, and stepped aside so his bride could enter.

  Adelaide said, “You’re going to carry me across the threshold because if I trip on this ridiculous dress then it might bring bad luck on the marriage.”

  “Did Margaret tell you that?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, and on that score her superstition is right. She says it dates back to the Romans.”

  Owen scooped her under the legs, turned her sideways, entered the house. He said, “My only suggestion is to imagine the house with furniture. A bed, that’s the only thing I’ve managed to provide at this present moment.”

  “My mother has a barn full of decrepit heirloom furniture that she’s threatening to send by rail. We need to buy furniture before she sends it.”

  Owen set her gently down and put his hands in his pockets.

  “And we have books in the library,” she said. “What more do we need besides a bed and books?”

  He kissed her gently, nervous.

  She said, “I may not say anything until I’ve seen it all. Don’t be offended.”

  “Of course. And remember our deal. If you don’t like it then we sell it off or rent it out and move elsewhere. I was going to give you a tour but I think I’ll let you wander. I’ll wait out on the porch swing. Otherwise I’ll be watching your face for twitches and sighs.”

  She gave him a little wave and headed off, taking in the downstairs first. The hardwood floors had been sanded and refinished to a waxy sheen, the mantel replaced in the parlor with inlaid mosaics around the grate. The daguerreotype of Owen’s mother, her hair long and braided, hung above the fireplace. The wainscoting and picture rails were new and in the hallway dropped a light fixture of wrought iron and frosted glass. She passed through the library and dining room to stand in the kitchen. He’d made pantry shelves from Michigan pine and the cabinets were lined with new maple. The hinges, the handles, and the doorknobs were all of a vintage finish, a kind of workmanship she hadn’t seen since her grandparents’ house. She would need to go on a rug-buying spree—the empty house was cavernous and prone to echo. A little out of breath, she went upstairs and into the nursery. He’d lied. There was more than just a bed somewhere in the main bedroom—he’d made a crib with iron and spruce, a crescent moon sawn into the little headboard. She walked down the hallway and began to notice odd fixtures and mountings—carved lintels and pediments, brass door handles that looked to be from old banks, stately and oversized, a Gothic window that was surely from a razed church. In the main bedroom, as she looked on the hand-chiseled bed, hewn from rosewood and teak, it came to her that Ow
en had revitalized the house from his store of rescued objects. The decades of accumulated fixtures and boards, the ornamental and strange trophies of demolished banks, warehouses, salons, and theaters, were now distributed throughout the rooms. Had he hauled wagonloads of salvaged wood and bricks and brassware from the scrapyard across the river? The overall effect was unmistakably beautiful, as if someone had contemplated the smallest detail—the kind of handle one should touch when opening a door to a bedroom (brass, magisterial and stately); the kind of window one should look through to the garden (Venetian); the kind of tiles one should set foot on when rising from a bath (tessellations from an old bathhouse). She noticed the skylight above the bed and couldn’t contain herself any longer. She raced down the staircase and out onto the verandah, collapsing in his lap on the swing.