“Oh! You’re home!”
“Yes.”
“I—we . . . we didn’t hear you come in.”
“Mm.”
“Have you been home long?”
“I was allowed to take my leave for the afternoon,” I said, “on account of my working so hard.” I knew this was not an answer to her question, and I suppose I was hoping to needle her with my sidestepping of it. Let her worry about what vicious talk of hers I might’ve heard or not heard! Helen crossed the room to the vanity that straddled the curtained border of our two silently warring territories. I stared at her as she leaned down to catch sight of herself in the vanity mirror and nervously remove the hat pins still sticking out from her hatless hair.
“Home early—aren’t you the clever one?” She gave a forced little laugh, and her eyes flicked warily at my reflection in the mirror, then back to her own countenance. “Oh goodness! Just look at me! I look like I’ve been in the salt mines all day.” As she looked in the mirror, her body mechanically sank onto the stool that sat before the vanity, and she proceeded to fuss with her hair and pinch her complexion. I knew she was trying to ignore me, but I stared on mercilessly.
“I heard you and Dotty,” I said in a low, quiet voice. For a fleeting second, Helen’s eyelids fluttered and her mouth made a surprised little O shape. Victory, I thought. Now she will have to grovel. But just as quickly, an invisible automatic spring clicked into place and she regained her composure.
“Sorry? What was that, dear?” Her voice was breezy, saccharine. Perhaps she thought she was being politic, giving me a way to avoid the discomfort of direct confrontation. But I was not afraid. I pressed on.
“I said, I heard you and Dotty talking when I came in.”
She drew a sharp breath and something caught in her throat, causing her to give a little choking cough, which she struggled to control. “Did you?” she said with curious innocence after she’d managed to clear her throat. “Then you must’ve heard me going on about that dreadful girl Grace at the shop.” She tittered nervously. “So bad of me. You know I don’t like to gossip . . . but, well, I suppose we’re all guilty of it from time to time.”
“I didn’t hear you say anything about Grace. But I did hear you speaking of someone else.”
“Oh, well, I’m sorry, but I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She smiled—too widely. It was the craven smile of a nervous Dalmatian. Then she turned with a businesslike air and carried on grooming herself before the mirror. I couldn’t believe it. She was going to insist on playing the innocent! But she’d already shown her cards, as far as I was concerned, and I could see her hands shaking.
“I don’t suppose you’ve anything you think you ought to apologize for.” I heard the words come out of my mouth and cringed. I sounded like a prissy old schoolmarm, my own voice going up several unflattering octaves as I reached the end of the sentence. I thought of Mrs. Lebrun from my childhood, scolding me when I’d once put the silver away in the wrong drawer. But I didn’t care. Helen and I were in the open now, and I was ready for the relief of an all-out spat. I waited.
Helen turned to face me and blinked in feigned bewilderment. I recognized it again from the repertoire she often practiced in the mirror. “Oh!” she said, as though suddenly remembering something. “Why, yes, you’re right; I almost forgot.” She got up from the vanity, crossed to her armoire, and extracted something. “Here are your gloves back—I’m sorry I kept them so long.” With an air of generosity, she moved to hand me back a pair of burgundy-brown leather gloves I had not seen since last year. I did not remember loaning them to her. I had thought them lost, and before winter had rolled around I had scrimped together some money to buy a much less attractive replacement pair in gray.
Now Helen was dangling my long-lost gloves before my face. With white-hot indignation still smoldering just beneath my skin, I took the gloves, the weight and sheen of them like the very slender, slack bodies of two small trout. So this was how she was going to play things. I told myself I couldn’t be bothered any further to extract an apology from a girl who was too much of a weasel to admit when she was wrong. I turned and began to walk away. But then I changed my mind. It wasn’t fair, I thought, to be left alone with the injustice of it all. I was quaking with anger, practically shivering all over my body. I retraced my steps back to Helen with a stiff, automatic gait, almost like a windup doll.
I drew up close and stood squarely in front of her, our noses almost touching. She looked into my face with a benign smile. Then, as if someone had pulled the plug on an invisible drain, I watched the color leave her face. It was in that moment, I think, she began to comprehend exactly what I was about to do, and what I was capable of doing if she angered me further. Still with a stiff, automatic quality to my movements, I lifted the hand that held the pair of gloves and brought them swiftly through the air, whereupon they landed with a satisfying SLAP! across Helen’s cheek. Helen, for her part, began crying and carrying on immediately.
“You wretch!” she shouted bitterly at me. But I no longer heard anything. Calmly and deliberately, I pulled the gloves onto my hands. I fitted them neatly over each finger and exited the room with the notion of taking an evening walk.
I stayed out for several hours, dithering here and there, and didn’t return until long after the dinner hour had come and gone. Once upstairs, it was obvious that Helen had retreated somewhat. I couldn’t see her, as she was completely obscured by the sheet that divided the room, which I noted had been drawn so as to achieve maximum privacy. But I knew she was there; I could hear her sniffling a bit—leftovers, I presume, from the drama-filled “good cry” she’d likely had while I was out on my walk. I tucked the gloves away in a dresser drawer (certain only that they would disappear again very soon, as Helen was an incorrigible little thief) and crawled under the covers of my bed to resume the book I had been trying to read earlier.
I assumed it would be more relaxing now that I’d confronted Helen and a small measure of justice had been done, but it remained difficult to concentrate. Once more, I found myself turning pages without really seeing them. I could sense Helen on the other side of the sheet, probably thinking she’d been done a grave wrong. She would tell Dotty first thing in the morning—if she hadn’t already, of course. She would probably even take the trouble to embroider the story here and there. They both would. I got up from bed and, with a vague tyrannical impulse, switched off the only electric lamp in the room. Helen did not protest. I crawled back under the covers and closed my eyes. I knew I was not likely to get much shut-eye for the night, but one thing was certain: This was no place for me anymore. Something had to be done.
Several weeks passed before Odalie and I grew to be close enough friends for me to confide my complaints about Helen to her in full. But once I did, everything changed.
6
This Helen girl sounds like an absolute ninny. I don’t see why you put up with it. You ought to just move into the hotel with me,” Odalie decreed in her cheerful, bright manner when I recounted the story to her some weeks later. She gave me a girlish smile that was at violent odds with the thin stream of smoke she immediately blew from her lips. It hung for a moment, seductively coiling and recoiling itself much like that infamous original serpent, and finally rose to the airy vaulted ceiling of the restaurant. She detached her cigarette from an elegant bone ivory holder and crushed out the smoldering butt in the crystal cut ashtray, all the while completely ignoring the tsk-tsk sounds emanating from a pair of silver-haired biddies glaring at her from across the room. I knew, as it was, the cigarette holder represented as much of a concession as Odalie would ever make to such ladies, preferring as she did to smoke her cigarettes with no holder at all. With the cigarette snuffed out now, she looked up at me, fresh-faced, her eyes shining with such a gleam, I thought perhaps she was feeling rather moved by the idea of the two of us living together. My heart leapt.
Oh! But I am getting it out of order; I should explain how Odalie and I got to be friends in the first place. How she won me over finally and all that. The doctor I am seeing now tells me I should concentrate on telling things in the proper order—chronologically, he means, of course. He says that telling things in their accurate sequence is good for healing the mind.
And now these events should be easy to tell, as I can see them so clearly from the vantage of hindsight. The door to our friendship was initially cracked open in a very simple manner. She allowed me the luxury of rhapsodizing at great length about one of my favorite subjects: the Sergeant. I wonder, now that I know more about Odalie’s character, whether she detected my weakness for the Sergeant and plotted to exploit it, or if she simply blundered onto the subject and was astute enough to see how much it pleased me.
I know I have already given a few of the Sergeant’s particulars—his handlebar mustache, his sturdy stature, his intolerance for tomfoolery, his polite deference to general gentility. But even the sum of these qualities nevertheless fails to describe the essence of what I believed truly defined the Sergeant.
Of course, the Sergeant and I had a special understanding from the very first. When the typing school sent me to the precinct, it was the Sergeant who interviewed me. I can read over the contents of this file, he said, flipping open a cardboard folder the typing school had delivered to the precinct earlier that day via a messenger boy, and allow these pages to tell me all about who you are. That you were raised in a convent, that you made decent marks in school, that despite being an orphan you lack the usual record of stealing or cheating . . . or—he flipped the folder shut and tossed it on his desk, then leaned back in his chair and twisted one side of his mustache between his left thumb and forefinger—I can simply sit across from you now and see quite plainly you are a lady of good conscience and honest disposition. That was it. Our special understanding was established, and I was hired. As though to illustrate how certain he was of my vocational value, the Sergeant did not even check with the Lieutenant Detective or the Chief Inspector before pumping my hand and welcoming me aboard.
Minutes later, when he walked me to the exit, he put one hand on my shoulder and gave it a small squeeze. I can’t imagine it’s been easy for you, he remarked. I didn’t know what to say, so I simply gave a slight nod. The Sergeant smiled, his paternal hand warming the curve of my shoulder through the artificial silk of my best blouse. I can assure you, Rose, no one will give you trouble about your breeding here. I can see that even though you are just a woman, you know very well how to make yourself useful, and your industriousness will not go unappreciated in this office. I was surprised by how well I liked the weight of the Sergeant’s heavy, pawlike hand on my shoulder. I also recall feeling a sense of great reassurance. Not just reassurance in the fact that I had successfully obtained the job, but reassurance that good and fair-minded people—people who believed in administering a grounded, impartial justice—still existed and held sway in this world.
This is not to suggest the Sergeant is a timid, watered-down sort of man. Quite the contrary. He is a man of extremes. Even physically speaking, the fiery red hue of his perpetually ruddy complexion strikes a dire contrast with the icy blue of his eyes. But there was always—is always, I should say—an overall sense of equanimity about the Sergeant, an impression that all the contrasts in him are pulling in equal opposition.
At that time, Odalie’s desk at the precinct was positioned directly opposite my own, and in this manner, one might think a natural rapport would arise between us. But at first there was only silence. As I said, I had a peculiar, uncanny feeling about the girl from the first moment I encountered her, but this did not equal an instant friendship. And when she took up with Iris (and then, to add insult to injury, dallied a bit with Marie’s friendship), I took her for a fool and very pointedly turned a cold shoulder, which I was certain did not go undetected.
So I was surprised one day when Odalie emerged from the interrogation room and exclaimed, “He is just absolutely the law itself, isn’t he?” As we were not in the habit of making conversation, I looked around to see who she could possibly be talking to. The days were getting noticeably shorter by then. We were headed into the long black nights of winter, and although it was only four o’clock, outside a cloudy sky was already turning from ash to soot. And yet inside the office there was still something vital, the peculiar sort of kindling that comes from human activity buzzing away in the falling dark of dusk. The electric lights still glowed, and the office thrummed with the sounds of telephones, voices, papers, footsteps, and the syncopated clacking of many typewriters all being operated at once. It could very well be day or night outside for all anyone cared; at that exact moment, everyone was quite busy, absorbed in what they were doing. And there was Odalie—still standing in front of her desk, facing me, her question (rhetorical though it was) still hanging in the air unanswered. I looked up at her and I remember—I remember this image quite clearly—the bare electric bulb that dangled above her cast a perfect shimmering halo around the crown of her head, a perfect corona of light caught in the sheen of her silky black bobbed hair.
“Yes,” I stammered after a while. “The Sergeant is an excellent man.”
Odalie cocked her head at me. Her eyes inspected me with a feline ferocity. “I’m curious,” she said. “What can you tell me about the Sergeant?”
“Well, I suppose . . . he always gets his man, as they say,” I said. I leaned my chin on my hand, pondering a longer answer, and ultimately happy to continue. “He’s quite incorruptible, and his instincts are impeccable as a result. Whenever we have a stubborn criminal who is so very obviously guilty, we always leave it to the Sergeant; he has yet to fail.”
“But I mean, what do you know about the Sergeant’s personal life?” I stiffened, and Odalie, attuned to such things, noticed. “I hope you don’t think me crude,” she hurried to add. She lowered her very long black eyelashes. “It’s just . . . you seem so . . . perceptive to the goings-on in this office.”
“I wouldn’t know about the Sergeant’s personal life,” I said curtly, and returned my attention to the report on my desk that wanted transcribing.
“Ah, it’s just as well. I suppose it’s exactly as one would imagine. A lovely wife and lovely children and all that.”
“Well . . . ,” some reflex within me prompted me to volunteer. “It’s not exactly that way. . . . The Sergeant is very upright and morally correct, but if you ask me, I would venture to guess his wife is not exactly what one would call appreciative of such qualities. Can you believe, the Sergeant came in twice last week without his lunch tin? I suspect they were having some sort of row and she didn’t pack it on purpose. Why, I can’t imagine treating a virtuous man like the Sergeant with such utter disregard! If it were me, I would never—” I stopped short. Odalie’s smile had changed from something charming and soothing into an amused, cynical little thing, and the shift made me feel quite self-conscious. “I only mean . . . It’s just that . . . Well, you know how people can tend to undervalue a man like that . . . such a shame.”
Luckily for my sake, we were interrupted by the Lieutenant Detective, who wanted me to trot over to the stationer and put in an order for all the paper, stenotype rolls, typewriter ribbons, and other sundries our office needed delivered for the month.
“And I suppose after the order’s been put in you can go home for the day, Miss Baker,” he said, looking at his wristwatch and observing the hour. He began to retreat to his own desk, then had a second thought and turned back. “And take Miss Lazare with you, so you can show her how it’s done.” Odalie smiled at me and tidied her desk, then went over to the coatrack and slipped into her coat, hat, and gloves.
Together we took the subway to Times Square, where the buildings suddenly rose into the sky, the tempo of the street skipped a beat, and reporters scurried about the sidewalks, hurrying back to their office
s for the evening, where they would sit feverishly typing their stories before the midnight deadline, when all the newspapers went to press. The streets were still dry, but the dark sky was thick with rain clouds, and as we came up out of the subway a ripple of thunder echoed overhead.
At the stationer I put in the monthly order and listed aloud for Odalie all the details of how it was to be done. To my surprise, she did not take out the little notebook and golden pencil I knew she carried about in her purse, which I felt was a mistake—she was not the type who was likely to remember anything without taking notes—but rather stared at me the entire time with a pair of glassy, vacant eyes. After several minutes I gave up trying to give Odalie instructions and simply filled out the stationer’s order form in silence and returned it to the clerk. He nodded, took the form, and thanked me distractedly.
Back out on the street we found ourselves caught in an unexpected downpour. Both of us were without an umbrella, and together we engaged in a game of trying to dodge about under the eaves and awnings of the buildings around us. But skyscrapers—those symbols of progress, with their sleek lines and soaring heights—nonetheless provide very little in the way of street-side shelter, as you might know. Soon enough we both found ourselves looking like a couple of drowned rats. We were forced to pause for a changing traffic light at a street corner, and a grocer’s truck came along and mercilessly splashed me where I stood on the curb with a spray of filthy gutter water. Odalie began laughing hysterically. In a state of great annoyance, I turned to part with her. “Good night, Miss Lazare. I shall see you tomorrow at the precinct.”
The Other Typist Page 8