City of Glory

by Beverly Swerling

  Manon flew about the market, spending five coppers on the hindquarters of a plump rabbit the butcher skinned while she watched, then a ha’penny more on half an ounce of mustard seed from the spice monger’s stall. A nice lapin à la moutarde would improve Papa’s temper. But it would do little for her own. Where are you, Joyful? How can you have deserted me today of all days?

  As she’d expected, her father was waiting when she returned, standing by the kitchen door and muttering that she’d been gone a long time. “I do not understand why I cannot do things as I have always done them, Papa. Why are you besetting me this way?”

  Vionne mumbled something about her well-being and his responsibility and returned to his shop. Manon stirred up the kitchen fire and began preparing her braise of rabbit with mustard, though her mind was definitely not on her cooking.

  Holy Hannah had told Jonathan Devrey to put his new messenger in livery. This old thing didn’t seem like livery to Jesse Edwards. Not the proper sort like Will had, with Bastard Devrey’s coat o’ arms right there on the collar. This was just an old brown cutaway coat with a few moth holes, and much too big for him. It was Holy Hannah as sharpened a twig and used it to pin the empty arm into the pocket so it didn’t flop about. The way Will told it, he’d been taken to a genuine tailor and had his green cutaway and waistcoat made up bespoke-like. His stovepipe hat didn’t come halfway down his head and perch on the tops of his ears neither. Course Jonathan Devrey didn’t have a fancy house on Wall Street. According to Hannah, Mr. Jonathan, as he was supposed to call him, lived above his shop same as ordinary folk.

  Sign o’ the Hungry Babe, he’d been told. Tavern right at the top end o’ Maiden Lane. The sign hanging over his head had a picture of a wee babe with its mouth wide open like it was squalling for food.

  The barmaid seemed to be squalling for what Jesse brought as well; she grabbed the four bottles o’ Devrey’s Elixir of Well-Being and tucked ’em right down her dress. “Just here t’ween me tits,” she told Jesse, whisking off his hat and planting a big kiss on the top of his head. “And next time Mr. Devrey sends you, make it your business to come when we’re not so busy as we are now. I’ll take you out back and show you what I think o’ this new delivery scheme.” She grabbed for his crotch. “Didn’t lose the jewels along with the arm, did ye, lad? No, praise God. Cock’s right where it should be, and standing up to say hello to Bess as well. Next time, little man. I’ll be yer first and get ye started proper.”

  The men standing by the long counter saw and heard the whole exchange and guffawed loud approval. Jesse, too red-faced and flustered to say anything, escaped into the street, then realized he’d forgotten the hat the barmaid had taken off his head and had to go back and claim it. Bess was waiting for him, but he didn’t see his hat until she snatched up her skirts and revealed it gripped between her legs in their striped knitted stockings. “Come and take it, lad! Bess deserves a bit o’ pleasure for all the hard work she does.”

  He grabbed for the hat, and the barmaid spread her legs and let it drop. His hand connected with the brush between her plump thighs. He jumped back, then bent and swept his hat from the floor to his head, as the whole taproom erupted in laughter. Jesse turned and fled.

  He hadn’t gone ten steps when another young woman was hailing him. Jesus God Almighty! What a job o’ work this was turning out to be. He went to where she stood beside the gate at the end of an alley that ran beside a little brick house with a goldsmith’s shop at street level. “Yes, miss. Are you wanting something?” Right pretty this one was, with a pearly white smile and eyes like purple pansies. Spoke like a proper lady as well.

  “I haven’t seen you on Maiden Lane before. What’s your name, lad?”

  “Jesse Edwards, ma’am. Work for Devrey’s Pharmacy, I do. Delivery boy.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m after. I’ll give you two coppers, Jesse Edwards, if you take this to Ma Allard’s Boarding House, number forty-seven Greenwich Street. You’re to put it straight into the hand of the gentleman whose initials are written here.” Manon held out the folded and sealed note with “J. P. T.” written on the front. “No one else, mind. And if you wait until he has read it, I promise you’ll get another copper for your trouble.”

  Three coppers! What would Hannah say when he brought her those after doing only two days’ work? He could tell Mr. Jonathan he’d had to wait for Bess the barmaid, seein’ as how she was busy and all. “Right, I’ll do it, ma’am. Who am I to give it to again?”

  Of course the lad couldn’t read. Silly of her to have expected anything else. “A gentleman whose initials are J. P. T.” She pointed to the letters, then saw his look of puzzlement and shook her head. “Never mind, simply show the note at. Ma Allard’s. But mind you, don’t give it to anyone else. Only the tall red-haired gentleman himself. Otherwise you won’t get that extra copper.”

  “I will do exactly what you say ma’am. Never fear.” Jesse snatched the note, pocketed the money, and took off running, waiting until he’d rounded the corner to stop a passerby and ask the way to Greenwich Street.

  “Jesse Edwards. As I live and breathe.”

  “Dr. Turner. I never thought…Lady just said I was to give this note to a gent with the ’nitials J. P. T. Said he, I mean you, would give me another copper for bringing it.”

  “Did she now? And where did you find this lady who was so sure of my generosity?”

  “Near the tavern, sir. One by the Sign o’ the Hungry Babe. Mr Devrey sent me and—”

  “Bastard Devrey sent you?”

  “No, Dr. Turner. It’s me friend Will as works for Bastard. I’m in the employ o’ Mr. Jonathan Devrey as has Devrey’s Pharmacy in—”

  “Hanover Square. Yes, I know.” He’d visited Clare a few times when he first got to New York from Canton, but Joyful had never been close to his sister, her husband, or their twins. The girl called Molly and her young slave disappeared about a month after Joyful came home. As for Molly’s brother, Jonathan, Joyful knew him only well enough to know he was disagreeable. “Someone at the Hungry Babe gave you—”

  “No sir, Dr. Turner. I was at the tavern ’cause I had to bring some o’ Mr. Jonathan’s Elixir to the barmaid. After I left the Hungry Babe, the lady stopped me beside the goldsmith’s shop. Pretty as anything, she was, sir. And she gave me two coppers to bring this, and said you’d give me another when you got it.”

  Of course. Manon. He should have realized. Joyful reached into his pocket, found a copper, and handed it over. “Goodbye then, Jesse. Thanks for bringing this.” Joyful started for the stairs, then paused. Sweet Christ, he’d taken off the boy’s arm; he had to still be surgeon enough to ask how the lad was faring without it. “How are you keeping, Jesse? Wound giving you any trouble?”

  “Not much, Dr. Turner. Me shoulder aches a bit sometimes. And there’s others when I’d swear it was me elbow or me wrist was giving me gyp.”

  “I know, Jesse.” Joyful held up the black glove. “I feel the same plenty of times. Could swear it’s the fingers of my left hand that are causing me pain. Not much to be done for it, I’m afraid.”

  “Holy Hannah, sir, she gives me some leaves to chew on when it hurts bad. Says she learned ’bout ’em from the Indians used to be up there in the woods near her place.”

  “Is that where you’re living? With Holy Hannah?”

  “Yes, sir. Right good she is to me too. Good to everyone. Will Farrell, he’s been with her longest, but just now she’s nursing some kind o’ Indian.”

  “An Indian? Really?” They were standing in Ma Allard’s front hall. As far as Joyful was concerned, the only thing motherly about his landlady was her nosiness; she was certain to be somewhere close by with her ear pressed to a door. “I’m sure you’re mistaken, Jesse,” he said loudly. “Holy Hannah’s a loyal American, she’d not have any truck with Indians. Now you’d best get back to work.” Joyful hustled the boy onto the street while he spoke, but kept hold of his shoulder. “Listen, lad,” he whispere
d when they were outside, “tell Hannah it’s dangerous to have an Indian living with her now. There’s much feeling against the Canadians because of the war. Someone will be sure to think whoever it is a spy for the British, and Hannah along with him.”

  “I’ll tell her, Dr. Turner. Anyway, this one’s the strangest Indian you ever did see. Doesn’t wear a scalplock. Just a braid down his back. And don’t speak no proper English neither. No matter what Hannah gives him to eat, he don’t seem to know what it is or even to like it much, hungry and weak as he is. Fan, he keeps saying. Fan. We take turns fannin’ him sometimes. But it don’t seem to help.”

  By the dovecote at three, today, Saturday, the note had said. Or eleven tomorrow at the Bowling Green. Imperative.

  There were a number of dovecotes in the city, but the one Manon meant was located in the center of a tiny garden next to the Jews’ Mill Street Synagogue, a ten-minute walk from her father’s house. The dovecote was an exquisite conceit painted snow white and the blue of a robin’s egg. They had stopped to admire the graceful birds and the lovely building on one of their earliest meetings.

  Joyful was on Mill Street before three and waited until nearly four. Manon did not arrive. She must have found it impossible to get away; she’d not have disappointed him otherwise. He cursed himself for not managing to get word to her earlier when she’d have expected to meet him at the Fly Market, and for not telling her yesterday about his arrangement with Bastard Devrey. He’d felt guilty about that ever since. The Chinese-inspired belief that the gods were always watching, waiting for a man to slip, held him back. Damn you for an ignoramus, Joyful Patrick Turner, damn you to hell.

  Samson Simson came out of the synagogue, his stovepipe already on his head, not in his hand as it would be had he been visiting a Christian church. Joyful knew him. Both men touched the brims of their hats. Simson then walked on.

  The street was again deserted. Joyful hung about a few minutes more, pretending to admire the charming garden and the dovecote. Then, accepting Manon had been unable to come and he could not see her until the next day, he reclaimed his mare from where he’d tethered her and headed east toward Pearl Street.

  Maryland,

  The Hills Above the Village of Benedict, 4 P.M.

  The two men lay on their bellies, looking down on the British encampment. “What do you reckon,” the first man whispered. “Six or seven thousand?”

  The second man shook his head. “Fewer than five. But that’ll be plenty if every battle’s like this one.”

  The village had put up no resistance; the inhabitants merely fled, taking with them most of the horses.

  “Won’t be this easy if they’re planning to take New York,” the first man said with a native’s pride.

  “Maybe so, but that’s not where this lot are headed. Fleet will sail right into the harbor when it’s New York they’re after.”

  “So what do you reckon, Baltimore or Washington?”

  The second man, the one who was making notes to take back to Jacob Astor, shrugged. “Can’t say for sure. Except that there’s nothing for them in the Federal District. Baltimore’s a much bigger prize.”

  “But it’s not the capital.”

  Another shrug. “Has to be something to be capital of, if that’s to matter.”

  “We’ll wait and see then?”

  “We’ll wait and see,” the other man agreed.

  New York City, the Open Country

  Above the North Street City Limits, 6 P.M.

  Holy Hannah’s shack appeared at the far end of the field. Like an apparition, Joyful thought. Like something you’d see at the Bowery Theater, a bit of scenery painted on a curtain.

  Hannah was bent over in the long grass to the side of her rickety cabin. No sign of Jesse or the other boy Jesse said was living with them. No sign of the Indian either. If that’s what he was.

  Apparently Hannah had dug herself a well since he was last here. On that occasion Andrew had been summoned and brought Joyful with him. They were to tend a lad who had fallen out of a tree. The patient was stone dead by the time they arrived—he’d cracked his head wide open—but Joyful distinctly remembered one of Hannah’s other boys being sent to fetch water from a stream.

  The bucket was full. Hannah hauled it up, straightened, then tipped the contents into a jug at her feet and dropped the bucket back down the well. “Whoever you be,” she called without turning around, “you don’t be doing yourself any good just looking. You want something, come and ask Hannah straight out.”

  Everyone said she had second sight.

  Joyful moved the mare forward a few paces. The nearest tree had a marble marker screwed into its trunk that said FOURTEENTH STREET, evidence of the Common Council’s determination to level the island’s hills and impose a grid of numbered streets and avenues on the wilderness. He swung out of the saddle. Fourteenth Street had a branch low enough for the reins, and he made them fast, then walked toward the woman. “Hello, Hannah. Do you remember me?”

  She turned at last and squinted into the westering sun. “Joyful Patrick Turner. Course I remember you. They tell me you’re not doctoring these days, that you’re after making your fortune instead. Your Dr. Turner cousin never made himself a fortune. Storing up treasure in the heart of the Holy One, Blessed Be His Name, is Andrew Turner. He’s not a Hebrew, but he’s doing mitzvot. Don’t s’pose you know the meaning o’that, Joyful Patrick. Good deeds. Doin’ things way the law o’ the Almighty says they should be done. Treasure where it can’t be taken away.”

  “I do the best I can, Hannah. And you, I hear, are still taking in every stray that comes along. Jesse Edwards told me there was an Indian as well.”

  She shrugged and didn’t meet his glance. “Folks come and go at Hannah’s. Everyone knows that. I hear you be the one as turned Jesse into a pigeon with one wing.”

  “I cleaned up what the British guns left behind.”

  Hannah nodded toward his black glove. “That happened same time. Least that’s what Jesse said.”

  “Told you the story, has he?”

  “Only after he seen you on Greenwich Street. Came running back here soon as he could to tell me Bag-o’-Bones was a danger to us. Danger from an old Indian like Bag-o’-Bones, that don’t make no sense.”

  “Bag-o’-Bones, that’s what you call him?”

  “Aye. Can’t tell us what his real name is. Don’t speak no English.”

  “Let me have a look at him, Hannah. Could be I know a bit about his language.”

  Hannah cocked her head and looked straight at him. Joyful felt a need to stand taller. Her eyes were an extraordinary shade of blue and her gaze was the sort that looked right through a man. “Bag-o’-Bones is sleeping. Come back another time. He—”

  “Diu lay lo mo hail. Leng gwai.” The shout came from the direction of the shack. “Ah si. Ah si.” Cantonese. The roughest sort, the language of the streets. Fuck you all and I need to shit.

  “He’s not sleeping now,” Joyful said. “He’s telling you he needs to relieve himself.”

  “Is he now? Well, he knows where to go. All Indians know—”

  “He’s not an Indian, Hannah. And I don’t for one moment believe you ever thought he was.”

  “Aye,” she said, matter-of-fact about having lied to him. “At first I did. Then I got a better look at him.”

  A man pushed aside the flap of oiled cloth that served as the cabin’s door and staggered out. Hunched over, and barely able to walk, he maneuvered himself around to the far side of the cabin. Moments later he returned. Joyful was waiting for him.

  “Chi le fan meiyou?” Joyful asked. Have you eaten rice today?

  “Chi le. Chi le.” Eaten. Eaten. But the man was staring at Joyful with eyes full of terror.

  “Bu chi le. Bu chi le,” Joyful muttered. “You haven’t eaten rice. not in some time from the look of you. And stop staring as if I’m a ghost. I’m a flesh-and-blood yang gui zhi, a foreign devil who happens to speak like a proper
Middle Kingdom person.”

  “Bu chi le,” the man admitted softly. “Bu chi le fan.” No rice.

  “Bu chi le fan,” Joyful repeated. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? You’ve eaten no rice in God knows how long.” Bag-o’-Bones indeed. He was starving, nearly to the death. Joyful turned to Hannah. “What have you been feeding him?

  “Whatever I can get, same as the rest o’ us. He don’t eat much, though. I keep trying to tell him he needs food more’n anything else, more’n being fanned for instance, for all that’s what he keeps saying. Fan. Fan. I say eat, eat. But he won’t listen.”

  “He’s Chinese. Fan means rice in his language. It’s life’s blood to him. Nothing else is proper food.”

  “Rice,” Hannah said with astonishment. “What am I to do about that then?”

  It was dusk by the time Joyful reached the corner of Broadway and Barclay Street. This time he didn’t approach Astor’s imposing front door; he went round to the tradesman’s entrance. A young Chinese girl answered his ring. “Ah Wong,” Joyful said, “tsai jia ma?” Is he here?

  The girl’s eyes opened wide in surprise, but she quickly regained her composure. No doubt the servants had all heard the tale of the New York foreign devil who spoke the language of the Middle Kingdom. “Tsai. Tsai,” she said. “Qing nin deng yi deng.” Ah Wong was at home. The honorable gentleman should wait a little wait.

  The girl hurried away with the painful, small, and unsteady steps that bespoke her bound feet—her golden lilies, as they were called in China. A young man came into the kitchen, the butler’s son perhaps, dressed in a traditional gray cotton sam and fu, and tall for a Chinese, with exceptionally broad shoulders. He bowed respectfully and hurried away without speaking, but Joyful suspected the young man too knew about the yang gwei zhi who had a civilized tongue in his head. Moments later Ah Wong appeared. He also wore a loose gray cotton jacket and trousers, not the embroidered silk of the previous night. He asked politely if Joyful had eaten rice that day. Joyful said he had. And that he hoped Ah Wong had done the same.