by Marge Piercy
She was nervous going to him, even with Sammy at her side. She wore her good dress—the least mended and bedraggled—and pinned her hair up and put on her only hat. They took him a present of five dollars.
He was holding forth in a saloon named the Belching Cow, at a table at the back with henchmen in attendance and his son at his side, a boy of sixteen or seventeen, a smaller version of his father except for an enormous shock of dark brown hair. They stood in the line waiting for his attention, as mothers described daughters in trouble, sons needing work, as workmen who hadn’t been paid complained, as a dispute between a laundress and a client over a torn shirt was settled.
The henchman to his left took the offerings of money or occasionally meat, a chicken, a pair of shoes, a gold chain. The gold chain was left by a tough who simply laid it down and left. Then at last it was their turn. She let Sammy do the talking. The boss was glad to let them look at the directory, and wished them luck in finding the lost sister. “These filthy rich toffs, they come and take our women and use them like rags. I hope you deal with him when you find her.” He made a quick motion across his throat. “Do it careful-like and nobody the wiser.”
Sammy nodded. They looked into the directory and there he was, Alfred Benedict Kumble, merchant. He was listed with a Josiah Francis Kumble, also a merchant, Benjamin Augustus Kumble and Abigail Fielding Kumble, widow. His mother? Sammy wrote the address on an old numbers tab he found on the floor. Somebody had played the numbers, lost and tossed away his receipt.
They had Kumble’s address, but Freydeh could not let Sammy spend his days and nights watching the house. She insisted he return to school. They did not yet even know which of the young men who came and went was Alfred. There were three brothers, Josiah, Benjamin and Alfred. Twice they saw an old lady venture out, probably Abigail. A much younger woman also appeared with one of the young men—the bearded one—and once with the old lady. A nurse appeared with a perambulator with a baby inside and they saw a little boy looking out a window.
They discussed whether to dismiss the man who had appeared with the presumed mother of the baby and the young boy.
“That he’s married don’t mean he can’t have a mistress,” Sammy argued.
“Who could afford two households?”
“He’s probably only keeping Shaineh in one room. And there’s at least three incomes going into that house, right? Plus maybe the dead father left them well fixed. I say there’s money there. I’ve counted four servants besides the nurse with the baby. There may be more.”
“They have the whole house to themselves, that’s true.” Freydeh rubbed her hands together. “I feel like we’re getting close.”
They took turns occasionally following the men. Two of them—the heavyset one and the one with chin whiskers—went off to an establishment on the East River waterfront, a Federal-style building of brick four stories high. Sammy found a sign: Upham and Kumble, merchants. Apparently they dealt with imports or exports, although of what Freydeh had no idea. The third young man, the tallest of the brothers, was a broker who operated out of a small office near Gold Street. He spent much of his time on the street talking intently with one or another man, and some of it eating or drinking with other men in the establishments that clustered around the Exchange. He was a snappier dresser than the other two, but they were obviously brothers and the brief description the baker had given could fit any of them.
Sammy got excited the first evening he saw the spider phaeton go out from the stable, and he trotted quickly to follow it as best he could through the crowded streets. However, it turned out to contain the mother of the young children and one of the export-import brothers. They stopped at a private club where some gala was being held. Obviously the phaeton was shared by all the brothers. They also had a runabout used for family outings.
Sometimes Freydeh imagined confronting the brothers, one at a time, and demanding she be taken to her sister. But they were Yankees and she was a Jew, they were rich and she was barely out of poverty, they were native-born and she was an immigrant with an accent as thick as a slice of liverwurst. She would only get into trouble, and whichever brother had Shaineh locked up would simply move her. They attempted to keep their surveillance unobtrusive. Indeed, there were always loiterers on the street, men out of work, servants stealing a little time off, couples making an assignation, boys delivering meat or milk or bread. Once a telegram was delivered and the brother who was a broker went rushing off in a cab to his little office.
They argued about which brother was the likely one and came to the conclusion that it was the broker, since he was the least conservative dresser of the brothers. Then one evening Freydeh was lurking outside when she saw the married couple arguing upstairs, exchanging heated words until the husband—the bearded brother—stormed out of the room and then out of the house. She followed him at a discreet distance until he went into a brothel two blocks down. Could Shaineh be there?
It was a couple of days before Freydeh could approach the madam, presumably to offer her a sample of their condoms to try. The woman had no one in the house who resembled Shaineh. She said taking in someone who wasn’t willing was more trouble than she needed. She waved her hand heavy with rings. “I have girls trying to get into my house every week. They know it’s safe and lucrative here and I take care of my girls. I pity the poor streetwalkers with no one to look out for their health or safety, any man’s prey, and the ones with a pimp are worse off than those without. I’ll try your product. I don’t want disease spread in my house. Word gets around and then you lose the carriage trade.”
After that they took the married brother off their list. If he went to a brothel, he wasn’t keeping Shaineh. They concentrated on the other two. If only one of them would call the other by name in the street, they would be settled. The boys in the stable only knew the men as Kumbles.
Then Sammy had an idea. They got him into the most respectable clothes they could find and he waited outside the export-import office, then strolled up to the fat one. “Why, aren’t you Alfred Kumble?”
The man swung around to stare at him. “You’ve mistaken me for my younger brother. Do you know him?”
“Surely I do,” Sammy said. “Sorry. I’m a bit weak-eyed and you look so much like him.”
“Everybody says so. Shall I tell him you sent him greetings?”
“Noah Braithwaite,” Sammy said, a name he had seen in an adventure story he had been reading about bank robbers, a little yellow-backed book. Noah Braithwaite was the owner of the bank in the story. Sammy hoped the dim light concealed the shabbiness of his clothes, a simulation of businessman’s attire fifth-hand from a pushcart.
“Now we’ve found the momser, we can follow him to Shaineh.” Frey-deh wrung Sammy’s hand. “Take more chicken. Please! You are my sweet darling boy. Who else could have found this out? Nobody! Take more chicken. We’ll sell those clothes back and get you a good hat to cover your head. Someday we’ll dress you just as good as that momser and not even secondhand. Someday we will all live in a house in Brooklyn and spit on people like Alfred Kumble.”
Sammy cocked an eye at her and shrugged. “Do you believe that?”
“When I took you off the street, did you think we would have our own place? Be able to eat chicken every Shabbos? Wear boots on our feet?”
“And me,” Kezia said. “I go to school. I have clothes. We eat three times every day. I have my own name back.”
He grinned. “Okay. I’ll start packing for Brooklyn.”
1872
THIRTY-THREE
ANTHONY KNELT ON THE FLOOR of Reverend Budington’s cold bedroom with his minister at his side. They both fervently prayed for Anthony to achieve acceptance of the Lord’s will. “Heavenly Father,” Budington prayed, “as thou art a father whose son died grievously even though he returned to you in his Ascension, bring comfort to our good brother Anthony and lead him to an understanding of thy ways and acceptance of the passing over of his beloved baby daug
hter…Lillie Comstock.”
“Lord, I want to accept thy will, to bow my too proud neck before thy mighty sword, but I love my little daughter with my whole heart
“Heavenly Father, our brother Anthony’s grief is extreme and profound. Help to ease his mourning. Help him into thy blessed light. Strengthen his faith for he feels sorely tried.”
They prayed together for two hours until Anthony was hoarse. He knew he had to leave, walk home through the dark deserted streets of Brooklyn where snow was lightly falling. There Maggie would be lying awake staring at the ceiling, sometimes with slow tears coursing down her cheeks unheeded, still as a stone and as unresponsive. He used to hurry home every evening impatient to arrive in his sweet family, striding along and cutting corners so as to be with Maggie and Lillie even five minutes sooner. They’d had one year of joy.
Now he dreaded walking into his house where a mourning wreath marked the door, where his wife all in black would be lying as if in state, where even the Irish maid no longer sang at her work but scuttled about like a wraith. The death of little Lillie had sucked all the joy and energy from his household. The doctor said his wife was neurasthenic and must have a complete rest cure or she might suffer a permanent collapse. They could not seem to comfort each other. There was no one to blame for Lil-lie’s sudden fever no medicines the doctor gave could lower. Her poor tiny body was bled with leeches and she was given emetics to draw the ills from her system until she was so weak she could no longer lift her head off the pillow. She sank into a stupor from which she never revived. Anthony understood that the doctor had tried every heroic remedy available to modern medicine. Maggie and he, sitting by her crib, had held hands, praying together. That was the last time they had been so close. After that, Maggie withdrew. Her mother was the only soul she related to. Her mother still mourned her three lost sons; all they could speak about together was the death of little children. It could not be good for Maggie to dwell upon their loss night and day, to the exclusion of every other interest, including himself.
Yet he grieved too, violently sometimes. He clung to his faith in the maelstrom, feeling himself in imminent danger of being sucked under into despair. Budington held him from drowning. More than ever, the tedious trivial business of selling notions seemed a vapid work to occupy an able man when there was so much evil in the city to fight against. If he could throw himself full-time into the fray, he might recover his sense of purpose. More even than before, the life of precious children needed protection. If he had lost his own Lillie, he could save the lilies of the gardens around him, preserve them clean of mind and body in their respectable houses. Death might enter in a thousand forms, not just as disease that wasted the body and carried off the soul, but in a fever stoked by filthy books—not only pornography but penny dreadfuls, the yellow books that fascinated young men, susceptible to overexcitation of mind and body. Vulnerable young men could gaze at whorish women on French postcards and even view naked women, their breasts and rear ends and sometimes even their nether regions on display, causing moral and ultimately physical and mental enfeeblement. It led to the solitary vice, the mental institution and the graveyard. He could fight this social evil if only he had backing so that he could leave his petty toils.
He moved against a book dealer, William Simpson. He went to the police and informed them of Simpson’s den, producing two books he had purchased there and the receipt as proof, in his usual manner. The precinct captain said he would take care of the matter, but the next time Anthony checked the store, it was wide open. The captain said the following Friday he would send a man along with Anthony to make an arrest. Anthony stopped by the precinct at five-thirty on Friday and the constable went with him to Simpson’s. When they entered the bookstore to make the arrest, the dirty books had vanished. In their place was a wall of inspiring booklets from the Tract Society. Anthony was furious.
The constable seemed to think it was funny. “You really think these fine Christian tracts are obscene? Mr. Simpson is doing a right brisk business in saving souls, far as I can see.”
They were in cahoots. The police had warned Simpson and might even have helped him move his dirty wares under cover. Someone had also tipped off a reporter, who appeared smirking and tried to interview Anthony. The following Sunday, the Mercury ran a sarcastic story about the meddling Mr. Comstock and his effort to arrest a book dealer selling religious material from the Tract Society.
The article, however, was informative in spite of the snide tone. The reporter referred to Ann and Nassau Streets in Manhattan as places where such books were commonly sold. That was a call to action for Anthony and he decided to explore the area. He had noticed ads in men’s sporting papers like the Police Gazette and Day’s Doings—ads for smut and illicit objects to prevent conception or interrupt it. These murderers openly solicited business. He remembered a series of exposés in the Tribune about abortionists by a reporter who seemed to have some notions of morality. He had clipped them at the time. Yes, here they were, signed by Robert Griffith. He set out to find Griffith, taking along his lists of advertisers for smut and obscene rubber goods, and also the Mercury article attacking him.
Griffith, who turned out to be a fine Christian gentleman near Anthony’s age and with a family of his own, was sympathetic. Anthony succeeded in getting Griffith fired up about the idea of exposing smut peddlers, so much so that Griffith agreed to go out on an expedition with Anthony. Griffith treated him with respect, and even introduced him to his publisher, Horace Greeley, who was genial. “You’re doing a real public service, Mr. Comstock. So the police won’t act? I’ll put in a word in the right places. Then I want the two of you to accompany the arresting officers on an expedition to destroy these men. The Tribunes behind you one hundred percent, Comstock. We’ll make you famous.” Greeley was a strange lank man with a feeble shake who laid a cold hand on Anthony’s shoulder, where it rested like a fallen leaf on a granite ledge. “I have heard you recently lost a daughter, Mr. Comstock. You have my sympathy and understanding. I have lost six children, Mr. Comstock—six!”
Anthony could not imagine the pain of so much loss—or was it numbing after the third or fourth death? He experienced a great desire to get out of the presence of Horace Greeley, as if so much bad parental luck could rub off. He had read that Greeley was going to run for president, but Anthony could not imagine it. The man had the aspect of a cold-blooded creature, perhaps a salamander. He thanked Greeley profusely for his support, finding himself sweating although the office was quite chilly—no fire in the fireplace and a window partly open in spite of the temperature outside.
“He must believe in saving on coal for heating,” Anthony said to Griffith as they walked down the long corridor from Greeley’s office.
“He’s one of those Sylvester Graham believers—sex twelve times a year, keep the windows open so lots of fresh air chills you to the bone, wear loose clothing and eat no meat or fowl and lots of whole grains. No beer, no wine, no liquor, no fun.”
“I hold with the no booze, but if he’s on such a healthy routine, what happened to kill off his children?”
“There’s war between his wife and himself, that’s all I know.”
“Do you have children?”
“Two and a third on the way. I want a big family. How about you?”
“I’d like a large family.” But he did not think he was going to get one. The doctor kept telling him that Maggie was fragile and he should not impose upon her. Something of the desire to live had gone out of her with Lillie. He could understand that, but he was her husband and she must cleave to him, as the Lord instructed. Surely the Lord would grant them another child to replace the lost soul he had taken to be with him. He decided he was going to move back into Maggie’s bed that night, no matter what the doctor said. A new pregnancy would buck up her spirits. She would have something to live for. “Well,” he said, clapping Griffith on the back, “at least Greeley is against smut.”
“He has political amb
itions. He wants to be known as a defender of the family.”
“So much the better.” If Greeley wanted to use him, Anthony wanted to use the Tribune.
THEY GATHERED FIRST in an oyster bar near Ann Street, Griffith, two policemen, a sketch artist for the Tribune and himself. These two policemen behaved entirely differently, serious, respectful. This was Greeley’s doing. Anthony went in each time with the sketch artist and purchased an obscene book or a rubber object. Then he carried it outside, it was recorded in his pocket notebook, and then the police and Griffith returned with him—the artist having remained in place—and the purveyor of obscenity was arrested. The two policemen confiscated the stock, loading it into a wagon waiting outside. They carried through five raids. The dray they had brought along was heaped high with obscene books, postcards and rubber goods—French protectors, womb veils, all the paraphernalia of deceit and interference with the Lord’s will. The cart followed them to the station house.