by Peter Manus
“I think, perhaps, that you can help me.”
He waits for a moment and then shrugs. “So?”
"I need a website. Quickly."
“Design takes time.” His voice is thin without force, as if he puts no effort into how he might present himself.
“Maybe not.” I move forward. The ferret watches. “I have identified one or two sites you may emulate. The man I will show this to does not care about my creativity.”
He stops and turns to me. His eyes are limp.
“I need a site for a local order of nuns. They perform charitable functions, put young folk to work, collect old clothing, maybe a food drive is coming up. They are called the Religious Sisters of St. Cecelia. They are at an address in Roxbury of your choosing, as long as it does not exist. The charitable donations efforts are handled by a Sister Julia.”
He thinks about it, then rotates back to his screen, where he raps a few keys. “Happy poor kids,” he says in his monotone. “Street murals. Urban gardens. Announcements about pregnancy counseling and drop-off hours for the food bank.”
“That is it exactly,” I say. “Can you set up a voice mail with an electronic recording? Perhaps a fax number that malfunctions, as well as a broken link to the location finder?”
He shrugs. His fingernails are painted a glossy black, quite chipped.
“Five hundred, then?” I say. “Seven if you can have it done by morning?”
He turns away, taps a few things, checks what he’s brought to the screen. I wait until it occurs to me that we have reached an agreement.
Down in my own room, I change to the clothes I have just acquired at a thrift shop located a safe distance from Tati’s house: pale cotton underwear, a felt skirt with pleats, a blouse with short collar, knee-high stockings, worn shoes with tassels. I don my jeweled cross and stow my new wig in my macrame satchel, along with a well-fingered pocket Bible, some tampons, a large ring of keys, eighteen dollars folded into a silver plate money clip fashioned to look like a pair of praying hands, a dog-earred bodice-ripper published a decade earlier, a scratched-up cell phone, and a large box of jelly candies in assorted flavors. My little electronic device I slip into my skirt pocket. I wear my sweater-coat of brownish wool, wrapping it close. I do not apply makeup.
When I reach my destination, I don the wig. Its hair is chestnut, shortish, but with some thin locks that curl inward around my face, the longest of these tickling against the underside of my jaw. She is not devoid of vanity, our Sister Julia.
The streets are narrow in this area of Cambridge, although cars glide along rapidly, rattling the manhole covers and swiping by the parked vehicles that crowd along the uneven curbs. Only the upscale coffee and dress shops hint that the real estate here is pricey—there is no hiding that at one point it was all very “down in its heels,” as we say, but perhaps for most this fact adds character. Van Ness Collectibles announces itself with an old-style swinging sign—the once-gold lettering is carved into the wood. The store’s front windows are shielded by tortured ironwork bolted to the bricks. It remains open into the evening once weekly, according to its website. Inside, bleary porcelain plates and serving bowls decorate a massive rustic breakfront of scrolled wood that has been arranged to face the street at a diagonal. Beyond this, chests and tables and chairs, some polished and others lacquered in an oriental style, are set about in small groupings. The walls are a deep orange.
Although the shop is lit only by the antique chandeliers that dangle from its ceiling here and there, through the window I can nevertheless see well the man who lolls behind an antique desk with pen and account book on the blotter before him. He is much changed, Bruno Myeroff, now called Brewster Van Ness. He is perhaps a touch under thirty, but exudes a more seasoned man’s cockiness, with dark hair rather daringly sleeked back from a widow’s peak. He has grown a ring of curling facial hair to encircle his mouth, but it does not mask the slight pudginess of his cheeks and chin—he is teetering in his prime, once a stocky teen and, in all likelihood, heading toward a stodgy middle-age, but for now, temporarily shed of fat and probably quite muscular under his clothes. About his neck he wears a daring scarf in autumnal shades. His sweater-vest is knit of a hand-dyed braided wool, undoubtedly imported. His shirtsleeves are pink pinstripes.
He talks into an old-style desk phone, pausing to drag on a cigarette from which he flicks ash in the manner of the old film stars—palm upward, with a thumb tap to the filter and a careless feint at the tarnished ashtray. Perhaps he is talking to an older woman, I think, and so puts on these airs. Then I see him form the words “go ream herself” and hear the coarse blast of bon vivant laughter, and so realize that his tone of insouciance is not a put-on he adapts for playful moments, but is genuinely a part of him now, the way the studied youthful disaffection he exhibited through the trial those years back was a true part of him then. I watch, unseen, as he leans back and lifts his feet to cross his ankles on the desk, and then fusses a bit with the pleat of his trousers, still talking a blue streak to whichever of his gym pals—rich and cocky as he, no doubt—may be on the line. There is a glint off the heels of his boots, a curved bit of metal nailed into the edge of each that must make a little click as he walks. He is a natural actor, this one, a player on the world stage, but of course there is a core to him as there is to every person. He knows his core, whether or not he can present anything but his latest facade to the world. I know him at his core as well, I think.
I reach out, there from the dusky sidewalk, ever so gingerly, to fourrage about in whatever may be sampled in his mind. At the very moment I perceive myself to penetrate, he snaps his head around and aims his gaze directly at me through the glass. I see his eyes—vivid, pernicious black pinholes—the same eyes as eight years prior. Something in my head explodes.
I pivot away, my hand to my face as if in reflex to a blow. I try to run but for a few moments I can only stumble against the wall of his building in a drunken, off-kilter manner, as if suffering from some wild invisible assault. I will myself to move, clawing at the bricks ahead, motivated by the simple truth that if he emerges to investigate I will surely never complete my hommage. My brain is searing and I drag the wig down past my face and jam it into my satchel. I splay sloppily to my knees, then attempt to rise again, knowing only that I need to round the corner ahead before this—this Apollyon—has a chance to observe me.
There is a bakery at the street’s end, a quaint un-American place with tiled floors and flaking plaster above, and the smell of toasting sugar emerging through its dust-clogged vents. I burst inside and rush straight through, stifling a sob, only to cower in a back hall against a thin wooden door marked W.C. A young dark man in baker’s apron emerges—eyes wide, he jumps out of my way. I ram the door and flip the flimsy hook into place. My skull still burns but the pain is utterly internal—water will not help. Still, I turn the tap hard and in a moment have filled my hands and doused my head, once, then again, and then yet again, until I feel the water running down my arms, inside my blouse. I rake my nails up and back from the nape of my neck to my forehead until the pain subsides. Then I stand with my spine pressed to the door, my mouth open, my breathing raw and raspy like that of an animal. I can feel my shoulder blades, rattling against the wood behind me. It is good to tremble. Hell is out of my head.
In the mirror, my hair stands out like the wet dog, but I do nothing about it. I unhook the lock and wander weakly from the W.C. An elderly man in white apron stands waiting. They are mopping, preparing to close for the evening. The man takes my elbow and, although I protest and pull back, he is firm and seats me at a small table by the back wall. From the wide-eyed lad, also in apron, whose hands shake like my own, the old man takes a cardboard cup of tea, and also a square of wax paper that holds a slice of cake. It smells of clove. I nod my thanks without meeting his eye and reach into my satchel, but he shakes his head and lays a hand on one of mine. Turning from me, he crosses himself before returning to his work. It is a bit comf
orting, I must admit, to discern that for once some sweet soul has interpreted one of my disguises as I intended. As Sister Julia of the Order of St. Cecelia, I sip my tea and watch the water droplet fall from my hair to bleed into my seed cake.
When I reach Tati’s, I change my clothes, rolling my Sister Julia outfit into my satchel, and then lie smoking in the dark, thinking. Eventually I take money from my case and am just exiting the room when I hear a crinkle and realize that I have stepped on an envelope that the upstairs lodger must have pushed under the door. Inside I find that he has printed a page of the Religious Sisters of St. Cecelia website. At the bottom is its web address. I use my little device to check the job online. I place seven hundred-dollar bills into the envelope and whisper up the stairs and past Tati’s room. I push the envelope under the lodger’s door. I can hear him in there, but he does not cease typing, even if he notices the envelope.
Downstairs in my room, I compose a letter on my little device in which Sister Julia asks those who have been charitable in the past toward organizations supporting the well-being of women and children in the greater Boston vicinity to consider offering their aid to the Religious Sisters of St. Cecelia, a Roman Catholic community of nuns operating out of Roxbury but servicing the entire Boston metro region, dedicated to aiding domestic and immigrant families in need. Near the end, I apologize solemnly for perhaps having contacted some who are not in a position to offer aid and others who would prefer not to be contacted at all, promising to abide by their wishes in the future if they will inform me of such preferences in any way they choose. I sketch out several worthy projects in need of support—an infant nutrition drive, translation assistance, confidential rape counseling for both adult women and minors. I send the email to Van Ness Collectibles, finding the contact information on the store’s website.
Although I am mortally afraid to do so, from my great distance I attempt to suggére in Brewster Van Ness a desire to respond. Or perhaps I do not quite do this. I have never claimed to truly understand how it works, and it may be that my fear causes me to flinch before I even try. I sit at my window smoking, deep into the night. Eventually I sleep, but not restfully.
The next day, while on the train, I receive his message.
Dear Sister Julia,
In regard to your letter inviting Van Ness Collectibles to involve itself in your charitable mission, I delight to inform you that your timing was “immaculate,” as we are positioned to offer you a sizable lot of valuable items. As always when lending ourselves to benevolent operations, we at Van Ness prefer to put earmarked items to auction and thereafter to forward proceeds to the institution. This approach may be appreciated for its practicality; however, it requires immediate action, as the goods under discussion will be auctioned in six days time to clear space for expected shipments. May you or a representative meet with me at our warehouse this Saturday evening at 10:00 pm? At that point, I will have the items grouped and we may review them in anticipation of transporting them for auction the following morning. I apologize for the shortness of notice and also the late hour of my proposed meeting, but the items in mind must be brought together from several sites. You will be happy to learn that our warehouse is located at the rear of our shop in Cambridge, and so may be reached by public transportation.
In hopes that you and I may come together in the very near future,
Brewster Van Ness
I respond immediately:
Dear Mr. Van Ness,
I will be at your warehouse at 10:00 Sat. next. God Bless You.
Sister Julia Kohler
Within minutes, he replies:
Wonderful. You will bring the requisite tax forms, I trust.
–BVN
I stare ahead, out the train window at the city yards with their moldy trash and crumbling walls and back lots choked with weeds. The train clops quickly along as if stretching now that we have escaped the winding underground tunnels and can see all around us the gusty expanses of urban desolation. Litter dances playfully in the air, catching on the bare fingers of trees and the rusted spikes of fences. Somewhere—in a drab storefront office or perhaps a church basement along these streets—sits a grey-haired creature of God, perhaps even called Sister Julia, with opaque glasses, orthopedic shoes, a faint white moustache, sagging jowls. She is busy sending out emails in hopes of netting some funds for the poor. She knows nothing, of course, about the fact that her persona has been borrowed by a woman on a train that passes now, to set the scene for a murder that this woman who poses as a nun will commit. And will she not be implicated, this elderly person of infinite and exquisite grace, when my kill is successful? Will she not be a party to my crime? I do not see why she should not. We humans do carry our sins collectively, according to the teachings of Christ.
I think: Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return…who Himself bore our sins in His own body…by whose stripes you were healed.
I feel a shiver in my heart and a subtle nausea in my gut. I know not what it signifies.
Très sincèrement,
Nightingale
TEN
I am Nightingale—
La danse macabre begins afresh, and this episode of my crusade will not be anything akin to the “pigs to slaughter” murders I have enjoyed to date. The warm-up kills are over. From now forward, I must labor for my corpses.
I am seated amid the citizens of Roxbury in an urban middle school where Charles Wilkins Morley delivers prosaic phrases with gruff elegance from the auditorium stage. “This is a great city, a city on the move. Boston’s people are on the move. Its technologies are greener. Its economy, during a time of severe economic trouble…” There are regular spatters of applause and the occasional whoop of support from here and there. “…must remember, however, how important it is that all of Boston’s communities flourish, that all neighborhoods benefit, that all of us be on the train when Boston moves…” His voice is basso and full of vibrato. Perhaps he needs new lines, but it matters little what he says at this time of the evening to this crowd. He is chanting an incantation they know well, coaxing an evening toward its melodic conclusion. There is some homey comfort in the predictability of it all. “Ours is a decade not of promise, but of realization. We are the lucky ones. We are the offspring of promise. People, our time—Our Time!—has at long last arrived.”
Wilkie raises a hand at the auditorium, his face in its characteristic expression of earnest seriousness. Sweat glistens on his brow. He turns to his hostess, who approaches him across the stage, leans in with exquisite grace to catch his hands in a double-fisted clasp. I watch carefully. Wilkie does not smile back at her beaming face. He is too full of vision. Too driven. Too hopeful to pause for a pleasurable moment, even with his elegant hostess, although he is aware of all she has done, all the crap work that went into her setting up this forum for him, and so he grips her hands hard in both his hands, expressing mute appreciation. She is black like he is, but with much lighter skin and long shining hair because she is also Asian. She wears a steel blue silk dress that sways in watery caresses around her hips and thighs when she moves, as if she is a dancer. Indeed, it would not surprise Wilkie if she had been a trained ballerina. From my program I know that she has an appealing name: Veronica Dahl, and an appealing position: City of Boston Cultural Liaison. I watch her lips as she murmurs something across at him and know from his expression that her voice, like everything else about her, is musical and lovely. He nods his thanks, looks into her almond eyes, and wonders aloud, right there on the stage in front of four hundred fifty tired and hungry members of his flock, if they might get together later, in private, to discuss personally some of the issues that hamper her efforts to promote the arts in the metro region. I do not hear him from my seat in the crowd, of course, but I watch his lips with care, and I know what he says as clearly as Veronica Dahl herself. And I know equally that her hands go senseless momentarily. She nods ambiguously and backs off
a step or two, flashing her teeth at the audience as if to signal how much she is looking forward to the Q and A that will conclude the evening. Audience members are already lining up at the microphones that stand in the aisles. I grip my purse and offer a tight smile to the woman who sits to my right.
Wilkie turns to face the crowd, mopping his brow. A middle-aged male stands ready at the mic. He’s white with scant hair scrupulously dyed a tint like molten caramel. Belligerent. Dumb. A true believer in neighborhood politics. Deep inside coils an almost toxic core of untapped racism. Wilkie knows this as well as I. He nods respectfully.
Councilman Morley, it’s all well and good to support of the arts, but…
Mr. Councilman, I have stats I can send you about the impacts of city-sponsored recycling in ten major urban locations…
Wilkie is a big man and always sweating. It is part of his image by now. The intense City Councilman, C. Wilkins Morley. The real guy. Good clothes, but that is due to his law firm partner wife, a proud—dare anyone use the word haughty?—woman with steel innards. They are a pair of success stories, although very different from one another. Two young daughters. Gracious home in Jamaica Plain. There are whispers that they are estranged, maybe informally separated. People suspect he may be a ladies’ man. So many pols are.
Now a black man takes the mic. He is old, thin, bent but not feeble. He holds his cap carefully in his hands out of respect for the young councilman. Wilkie leans an arm on the podium and waits for him to raise his eyes, then nods solemnly for him to begin.