The house struck me so. It looked raw—walls and floors of big planks whitewashed clean, the railwood furniture, knots and grains left intact, the row of butter churns, the cast-iron range, big enough to feed the boys and all of their friends, and hers. Her parents busy, but with work that made them whistle. The warmth of the woodstove in the living room. The walk we took in the woods, the way we scared rabbits from their holes, and partridges—no, pea hens, she called them—and all of her beautiful animals, horses, lambs, chickens. I didn’t realize the extent of her responsibilities, how much labor is involved in running a farm. And this not even planting season! Every moment is taken up—the feeding, cleaning, grooming, slaughtering, smoking, shoveling—I was awed by the muscles in her arms!
I have never tasted lamb so fresh; next to the herring I brought, the chops seemed to be practically walking. The potato pancakes her mother made, the onions her father jarred, the bread and honey—goodness, I think I have gained ten pounds in three days.
On my second afternoon with her, when we had finished all her chores (I accompanied her, but was not obliged to work nearly as hard as her), Anushka took me to a nearby pond that had frozen over. She wouldn’t say why—she still has that impish sense of mystery. When we got to the edge, suddenly she cried out, “Watch!” and ran onto the ice. Right before my eyes, she flopped onto her bottom and slid across the entire expanse of the pond, petticoats flying, bloomers exposed to the birds!
A shock of cold air caught in my throat, then I exploded into a great burst of laughter—I couldn’t help it—she looked so very silly and daring at the same time. She ran over the ice back to me, her curls bouncing, her breath coming in heavy white puffs, and she dragged me out onto that pond with her. There was nobody else for miles around. We slipped and fell and skittered all around the frozen water until the day darkened. I have not laughed so much for nearly a year. It felt as if we had not skipped a single day in our togetherness, but rather picked up right where we had left each other.
But time is changing us, pulling us deeper into life without having each other to turn to. I felt like she needed me, but I couldn’t pinpoint how or why. It was on the last day, when I met her friends Ida and Randall, and saw Anushka’s relation to them, that I understood how she holds her darker feelings inside now, how she guards them from me almost.
In her letters, and before we met them, Anushka didn’t tell me of her friends’ advanced ages. Ida is twenty-seven, Randall a man of thirty, which is nearly Mr. Soper’s age. It was clear how she could love both those people—our conversation with them ranged far and wide. They were both so full of knowledge about the natural world, the way they named trees and celestial bodies, Randall’s reading of clouds, Ida’s firm way with the animals, they were both so easy with themselves, and each other. Randall’s power and skill, his long, sensitive face and thick blond hair, are very alluring. I understand how Anushka could have a terrible mash on him. Ida’s quick smile, and the deep way she listens when one speaks, has great charm as well. Their backgrounds are so different—Randall from wealthy Protestant stock, Ida a second-generational transplant from Lutheran Germany, and Anushka, the New York Russian Jew—but it was a sweet camaraderie.
Yet here is the difficulty: Those two friends of hers are in love with each other.
It’s clear how impossible it’s been for Anushka to state her feelings, to choose, as I’d been urging her. Randall is kind to her. Ida’s too wonderful to lose. But they have chosen each other. The pain Anushka must feel, my poor friend, the tear of the heart.
I do hope Anushka finds another beau, someone who can see how very darling she is.
December 29, 1906
Things went awry in the office in my absence. I’m not sure I understand what happened. I must untie the knots of feeling in me, to see if I can uncover the truth of the situation.
Upon my return to work this morning, I placed the jar of blackberry preserves I brought from Anushka’s farm onto Mr. Soper’s desk and cleared my throat for the speech I had thought of on the train.
“Mr. Soper,” I said, “I just want to tell you that I’m grateful for this opportunity to work with you. I have always wanted to do something meaningful, and you have given me the very chance to do so. This job gives me a direction in my life that I might not otherwise have had. While I was away, I missed the office and our work and you—my employer—”
There my words faltered; the way Mr. Soper averted his gaze made me feel uncouth. My gift and admission seemed to affect my chief oddly—he said, “Hm, yes, well, thank you, but you weren’t gone so long. I’ve spent many years alone.” He grabbed some notes and began to read, completely dismissing me and my speech.
I sat at my typewriter, my face aflame. I excused myself and headed for the lavatory, where I splashed a bit of water on my cheeks and loosened my shirtwaist at the neck.
When I returned, I began to type up the notes from the days I had missed. They were few, and simple. I saw that Mr. Soper had not gotten very much further with the case.
Later in the day, Mr. Soper straightened his cuffs and began to put on his jacket as if he were about to leave the office. He said, without meeting my eyes, “I think I have found a person who could show me where Mary Mallon lives.”
I had not seen this in his notes—such an important occurrence!
Still not looking at me, he said, “I caught sight of Mary while you were gone. She visited a place I want to return to this afternoon.”
I stood from my desk and quickly gathered up pencils and folio.
“Prudence, I want you to stay here, in the office, to catch up on work you missed,” he said.
I felt him strange and distant.
“Sir, I’ve finished most of my work and would have no trouble coming with you.”
He seemed to look at me as though he were evaluating my character.
He sighed and tapped his desk. “You may come,” he said. “But leave the folio in the office. I don’t want to be obvious.”
We took a trolley north to 33rd Street, where we exited and walked east. My chief stopped just outside a saloon—a beat-up front called Donovan’s with spittoons on the sidewalk, dank gaslights, and loud laughter and music emanating from its doors. Something about the place frightened me; I looked to Mr. Soper for explanation. He glanced at me—then he took a breath and said, “You’re to stay close to me at all times, Prudence. Don’t touch anything, don’t speak to anyone, just stay near. Do you understand?”
I swallowed the grip of fear in my throat, and we went in. The stink of coal hit me, and the smell of food—sausage, pickle, sauerkraut, stew. On top of it all, the odor of bodies nearly made me choke. Every table was filled, a lunch crowd of gamblers and streetwalkers shoveling kraut and links from hot bins into their plates, swigging from steins of brew. The clamor bewildered me. I recognized faces—cigar-smoking Officer O’Malley, for one, and Mr. Jackson, the smithy, drunkards both. The rest looked stale and ravenous, hedonist, with garish mouths and careless ways, a group as bad as those who hang out at the Poor Man’s Retreat—old Five Points gang members now gone decrepit. With their ill-gotten money, they’re worse than any of our neighborhood bums. I wished I had not agreed to go, but I wanted to find out our purpose. I held my breath and steadied myself with my hand on Mr. Soper’s arm as he led me through that boisterous crowd.
He stopped at a table in the very back where sat an unshaven man with rummy eyes. The rummy looked at Mr. Soper and nodded. I moved behind my chief, fearful of the man, yet curious, as Mr. Soper seemed to know him.
My chief put several dollars on the table.
“Did you set up the meeting with Mary Mallon?” he asked.
A sick feeling sank in my stomach.
The dirty rummy slid the dollars off the table. “Aye,” he said.
A bribe! I had just watched my chief bribe a man.
I couldn’t see Mr. Soper’s face, but his shoulders curved down, his head low to the table. For a moment, he didn’t s
eem any different from the bums around him.
I looked left and right. What was I doing in this dank place? What were we doing there? Why had our search for Mary come to this? It was wrong, it was improper. It was immoral. I wanted to push the scene away, to deny that it was my honorable chief making such a lowly offering to such a dirty man, but there he was.
“Mary’s comin’ home Wednesday night,” the rummy snarled.
Mr. Soper set out another few dollars. “When should we come by?” he asked.
“Aye, we’ll set it up for eight, we’d be eatin’ around eight.”
That man took the bills and sold out his girl, just like a piece of chicken.
I followed Mr. Soper out of that saloon, all the way back to our office, and I could think of nothing to say. He did not offer an explanation; he did not even look at me. My mind rapidly tried to make up excuses for him, but none seemed right. What he had done was simply beyond my comprehension! Suddenly he seemed unpredictable to me, even questionable. A stranger. He had acted alone in the time I’d been gone—while making no notes in our common folio.
I feel I don’t know what happened in our office while I was away. I wonder if Mr. Soper has done this sort of thing before and has not kept record of it—to protect himself? To hide?
How can I work in an office with a man who does such things? How can I trust that he will not lead me astray in some way?
I wish I could speak to Marm about this, but the act has so shamed me, I could not possibly do so. She would surely be upset.
She might even want me to leave the job.
December 31, 1906
On this last night of the year, as I wait for Marm to return so we can attend the festivities, I feel as if a whole different girl is trying to emerge from me. Like I’m about to visit one of those cocoon tea parties, cloaked in dull gray. Inside, I will reveal a silver and pink gown, and win the prize as the most beautiful butterfly.
At work this evening, I watched Mr. Soper prepare for the planned meeting with Mary Mallon at her home. The lines on his face seemed deeply engraved, his darting eyes would not meet mine. We had not spoken about the incident with the rummy. I knew I could go with him, that Marm would not be waiting for me, but I expected he didn’t want me to accompany him to Mary’s home. As I watched him dress in wool overcoat and leather gloves, I thought of the rummy’s wicked face, and Mary Mallon with her knife raised, and it struck me: These are frightening people—foreign, dangerous even. If Mr. Soper went alone, something might happen to him, and no one would know about it. I felt my responsibility then. I stood; I didn’t want to see him hurt, despite my reservations about him.
When I threw my cape over my shoulders and gathered my folio, he put up his hand to stop me.
“I will speak to Mary alone,” he said.
“Please, Mr. Soper, I believe I can be useful.”
“Not tonight, Prudence, I must go myself.”
“I’ll wait outside then, in case there’s an emergency,” I said.
He paused.
“She seems to be such an unpredictable woman, sir.”
I worried he’d continue the case without me, but I was convinced my presence might help him to stay a proper course. I wanted to make sure Mary would agree to come peacefully this time. I didn’t like the misgivings I held toward my chief, but I wanted things to go well, for us to get some long-awaited answers.
He put on his bowler without further discussion, and I followed him out the door.
We made our way to the dark address the rummy had given us. Neither his name nor Mary’s were on the downstairs door of this ratty place, an uneven-floored tenement, worse than anything on our street, four stories of dirty tiles, print-smeared walls, halls barely lit. We went upstairs and pounded on 4D, as the rummy said, but only a dog answered with yip and howl. Mr. Soper banged and rapped, raising up a ruckus of furious barking, and finally the neighbor’s door cracked open and a voice snarled, “Hang it up! They ain’t home, they gone till Monday!” and the door snapped shut.
We both stared at it. I couldn’t help but wonder at the inch of relief I felt.
“It’s a circus!” Mr. Soper exclaimed. “This is the worst kind of human circus. I cannot believe, I simply cannot believe our luck with this woman!”
On the trolley downtown, he ground his fist into his bowler and muttered about making unsuccessful contracts with questionable people.
I could feel his anger like hot rays emanating from him. He bent the rim of his hat between his gloved hands. I glanced over and saw the muscles in his jaw twitching furiously. He sighed heavily through his nose.
We got off the trolley and he walked me to my door as it was late. When we faced each other to bid good night, I could see the pain he held in his eyes.
“This case is becoming—insufferable,” he said.
I nodded.
“They—Mary doesn’t seem to understand the importance of it,” he said.
I shook my head.
“I want nothing more than for her to cooperate—appropriately,” he said.
I said, “Mr. Soper, I know that I’ve not worked for you very long, but I do believe that Mary Mallon is a most impossible person, and that it was very decent of you to try and give her a chance to come in for testing on her own. I know that you will find her, and that your theory will be proven.”
As I spoke, the anger dropped from his eyes. He gave me a most surprising look, one that penetrated through me, through my very cells, almost. It turned something in me, like a key.
“Prudence, your enthusiasm is perfectly contagious,” he said. “Continue with the good work.”
Before I could reply, he walked quickly to the corner and into the night. I came inside, though I have no appetite for the meal Marm left me. I sit at the table with this new sense, this feeling. I think of the timbre of his voice, the gentle way he said my name. I cannot tell what this burning in my chest is. It is sudden, and unexpected, like an Indian summer day, and it contains ribbons of all colors, a rainbow fluttering up through me, shining out of my mouth and eyes, and around my head like a halo.
I am emerging, I’m afraid, like a butterfly, a shimmery bright thing coming into being.
January 1, 1907
A new year. Marm and I went to the festivities at Herald Square last night to celebrate. I stayed long enough to eat a fried pike and crack two fireworks, and to watch Marm’s friend Mr. Silver give her a slim shell bracelet. Despite my hesitation, there is something about Mr. Silver’s round features that makes me and Marm smile whenever we look at him. I feel myself warming to him, his presence in our lives thawing our hearts.
The streets were crowded with folks dancing and laughing, drinking and singing, their hats falling off, their cheeks red. I polkaed some with Uncle David, which made me feel lonely, that and watching all the lovers kiss at midnight. Marm and I went home shortly after and listened to the fireworks until sleep overtook us.
I will be seventeen this year. I think of my resolutions: to read more books and study more of the sciences on my own. But how? Anushka’s father had a treasury of books, those he retained from his store across the street. New science books are far too expensive to buy, and the library contains only musty copies of old textbooks and several difficult medical journals that I have attempted to read in the past, only to feel like I was studying Latin. If it weren’t for the illuminating figures, I would understand nothing. Anushka suggested I ask that science fellow to help tutor me, but I’m not sure I wish to have such close relations with him. When by chance I see him in the hallway, he stops me with his eyes and winks. I wait for him to say something, an intelligent scrap that might interest me, but he sees me only as female and can’t talk to me any other way, it seems. Very tiring. If only he worked as hard on his mind as he does on his polished appearance.
Anyhow, I know that eventually Mr. Soper can teach me all I need to know.
January 5, 1907
We finally contended with the cook again t
onight when she arrived home with her rummy. But I was not prepared for how Mr. Soper planned to speak to Mary. His actions confuse and disturb me—I don’t know what to think of his behavior.
We watched them pull up in a carriage, get out, and hurry upstairs. Mr. Soper gave them time to settle in, and we proceeded after them. From the hall, we could smell meat frying; the smell got stronger as we ascended, and we could hear the cooking noises coming from their door. Mr. Soper and I exchanged glances—if she’s cooking, she may have a weapon handy—but her nearness spurred us on.
He knocked, and stepped back. The dog yipped and scratched his nails on the door. When Mary called out, Mr. Soper introduced us by name only, and said he simply wished to talk with her for a moment.
The door flew open, and she eyed us. She had a cooking fork in her hand. The little dog pushed his fluffy black head around her legs and growled at us.
“How’d you find me?” was her first question.
Mr. Soper paled; I could see the truth on his tongue, which he didn’t want to tell. I felt myself holding my breath.
From inside, the rummy called out, “Who’s it, darlin’?” and Mary turned to him, opening the door a little wider. The dog ran out and scratched at our feet, and the rummy saw us and blanched. He called the animal and they disappeared into the apartment, a bit of which I could see, a surprising chaos of rags and dirt, so different from the starched whiteness of her collar.
“Youse followed me here, didn’t ye?” Mary said, entering the hall with us and closing the door behind her. She looked straight at me with disgust.
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