The Dollmaker

by Harriette Simpson Arnow

  The purring, steaming engine was far away and made but little sound. Fainter, like the buzzing of a horsefly, was the buzzing of an airplane, still high above, and almost hidden from sight, but she knew from experience that it would in a moment come in low for a landing in swooping circles of head-hurting sound. She savored for a moment the silence, when all Detroit seemed sleeping, and even the big engine was like something sighing and whispering in its sleep.

  She had walked a few steps over the muddy gravel, still smiling thinking on how pleased Cassie would be to have Callie Lou back again, when she heard the word, hardly more than a louder whisper of the engine, but Cassie’s voice, soft, yet warning, “Callie Lou.” Gertie stopped dead still, puzzled. Memories of old tales of witches and warnings of names called down from the sky or up from a river came back to her. The wind, she’d always said, for the wind in leaves and by water had many voices. There was a little wind today, but the brassy-voiced Detroit wind could never whisper so. Machinery? A radio? She was still an instant longer, listening, looking about her, then walked on, for the airplane had swooped, circling, drowning even the sound of the engine.

  She turned slowly about for a last look around before starting home. In turning, her glance, moving swiftly by the railroad fence—for Cassie was plainly not by it—stopped, held by some strangeness about a crack between two of the eight-foot perpendicular boards—red-colored it had looked to be. It was a narrow crack, but wide enough for her to see, with one eye against it, Cassie’s red babushka on the other side, so close she could have touched it could her glance have been her hand. Cassie stood between the main line and the fence, one hand holding Callie Lou’s hand. Her head was turned sideways, cheek toward Gertie while her lips moved, laughing as she shook her head in some argument with Callie Lou, then nodded toward the boxcar on the next track.

  Gertie called to her, “Git away, Cassie, git away,” but the airplane kept her words from Cassie as if she’d been a mile away. Her calling more a screaming now, she could only watch the moment’s argument that followed. Cassie shook her head violently and even shook the stubborn Callie Lou, who yielded at last and let Cassie step onto the shining rail of the main track. She stepped off it onto the crosstie and then walked the few steps to the next rail, on which she stood for an instant, looking down at the silvery shine below her boots.

  She did not stop again until she had reached the boxcar on the next track, dull red, empty, with its sliding door invitingly open. Still swinging onto Callie Lou, she stood on tiptoe, peeping, but it was too high for much looking into, though she could touch it with the tips of her fingers. She found the great wheel, its shining roundness, almost as high as her head, more interesting. And unable to hear the terror-filled voice on the other side of the fence: “Cassie, git back! Thet car’s on a engine. It could move!” she put her hand on it.

  Once she turned and looked about her, her eyes for an instant seemed like on the crack behind which Gertie pounded, but the airplane was low now, smothering the world with its crying. Cassie looked up at it briefly, for she hated the noise, then turned, put her hands on the edge of the boxcar by the wheel, arched her body as much as possible, shielding, Gertie realized, the smaller, more timid Callie Lou from the sound.

  Gertie, still screaming, whirled away from the crack. Somewhere there was the hole through which Cassie had crawled. She hadn’t time to run to the through street and around. She ran up and down, searching, calling, beating on the fence. She found the hole at last, so small and low she had twice run past it. She shoved her head through, though its lowness forced her to her knees; but heave with her shoulders, claw with her hands behind her as she would, she could not get her wide shoulders through, for the hole was the width of a board, broken off at the bottom and no higher than the stringer to which it was nailed on the other side.

  She could only try to send her screams above the airplane that circled ever lower. Cassie had dropped to her knees on the end of a crosstie under the boxcar, and was holding out her hand, her lips moving in some reassuring burbling chuckle, her hair fallen across her eyes, as with a reassuring smile to Callie Lou she pointed to the boxcar above her head.

  Gertie screamed more loudly, certain at last that Cassie had heard her, for the child seemed suddenly afraid, and sprang up. She looked once toward the fence, then down the track toward something Gertie had neither seen nor heard. It was the through train for which the switch engine had been waiting. Cassie stood an instant, her mouth open, her startled eyes bright with fright. Then, swiftly, she dropped to the ground, and as if hunting sanctuary from the oncoming train, crawled onto the rail and sat huddled close to the great wheel, waiting, her eyes squinched, Callie Lou cradled in her arms.

  Gertie jerked her head from the hole. Cassie could never hear in all the racket. Why hadn’t she thought to throw something—a pebble, a stick, anything would do to make her move away? She was little. She’d be safe between the trains. Why—why—hadn’t she let Callie Lou live in the alley? Why hadn’t she known that sooner or later she’d go away with Callie Lou? Why—why was there nothing to throw to make her move? The swampy earth held no rock—nothing. Callie Lou, you make her move. Feet away she saw a rusty tin can. She could jerk off her shoe quicker than she could run for the can. The can would have been quicker. The shoe was an oxford laced on her foot. Why hadn’t she worn high-heeled pumps like Mrs. Bommarita? Cassie had always wanted her to wear high-heeled shiny shoes. She jerked and jerked, turned at last toward the low hole, the shoe in her hand. She’d have to take good aim to throw through that low hole sideways to hit Cassie, and not able to get her head and arm through at the same time.

  She bent far down and threw, and for an instant saw Cassie. Her legs were now over the rail, as she tried to get as far as possible from the oncoming train. Then the train shot past her, but still Gertie screamed for a moment longer, her head through the hole again, her shoulders fighting the wood. She knew Cassie couldn’t hear, but still she screamed: “Thet other train’ull move, too! Git away, honey! Git between em!”

  She jerked her head back, turned, and ran down the alley toward the through-street railroad crossing. She had never run so slowly or so awkward seeming as in the one shoe. Her hair, jerked down from her struggles to get through the little hole, had fallen across her face. Blood oozed from her forehead, her neck, her shoulders, her ears, from her battle with the wood and her torn hands dripped more blood.

  It was her eyes, she knew, made everything look blurry past the speeding train, like another train was moving on the other side, slowly, like the switching train. The switch engine tried to do as much as it could when another train was passing. Clovis had said that once when she complained because Cassie had to stand so long in the cold; but never so long as this while the train flew by. Something hit hard against her hip. She stared about her, unaware of pain, angry at being stopped. She saw the high dirt-spattered iron of a truck bumper, and wondered why it was there, and why did a red-faced man behind and above it glare down at her, his lips moving as if he yelled.

  She turned to look at the train. Maybe if she looked away again it would be gone. Cassie had waited between the trains and would come running behind it. She would grab her up and carry her home, and they’d have school with Callie Lou and she’d send for ice cream for their supper.

  There was a hard pull on her arm, and the same face that had glared at her was now looking up at her, the lips moving, but the eyes not hunting her eyes, fixed on the blood running down her coat. She realized even as she jerked her arm free that she had been out in the street running back and forth in front of the stopped cars. She ought to be ashamed acting so crazy, for Cassie would be all right. It was just that she had to be certain. She couldn’t wait any longer. Why hadn’t she thought of the place where the board fence stopped? It cornered so close to the tracks there was no room for a body to squeeze between it and a train. But she could crawl—there would be room between the fence and the wheels.

  The man b
ehind her was tearing her coat off, and around her there seemed suddenly a crowd of people, mostly children, but she was getting into the opening, like diving into a pool of noise. She could get through. Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner? Then the last car shot past, and she sprang onto the track. Cassie would be on it—if she hadn’t already gone back through the hole in the fence.

  She was dazedly aware of cries and calls behind her, and from the other side of the fence, “Wotsa matter? Who?” But mostly, as she ran down the track, she was aware of silence. The airplanes were still, only one going high and far away with a faint moaning so that after the roaring of the through train the world seemed still, so still that if she listened hard she’d hear again the low-voiced, “Callie Lou,” and with it the burbling laughter. The backward-moving switch engine rolled slowly, so very slowly it made but little noise. Somewhere close behind her were pounding feet and a voice insisting. “Easy now, da kid’s gonna be awright.”

  Then the switch engine stopped with a jerk that sent shivering knocks through all the cars. A man leaped down from the engine, crying to someone between her and the through street, “Where, Chuck, where?”

  She had come almost opposite the place where she had first seen Cassie, when the man who had cried out began running, his eyes fixed on something behind her. She turned and saw near the rail a child’s boot, looked away from it, searching for Cassie.

  The man’s eyes, bulging, frightened, were fixed on nothing but the boot. She turned and stared at it again, a little boot that looked to be stuffed with something: torn cloth, oozing, soggy. She sprang toward it. The man behind her who had dragged her out of the street was crying, “No—no, lady—please, lady!”

  She heard then the frightened whimper. Cassie was safe. She was scared, that was all. The blood-oozing boot had nothing to do with Cassie. She, the trainmen, and the truck driver dropped by the sound together, and under the train she saw Cassie, white-faced, strange-looking, whimpering little begging cries of “Mommie, Mommie.” Cassie was alive, moving on her hands and knees. Many hands reached, and there was begging, “Please, lady.” But Gertie’s arms were longer than the men’s and she caught Cassie by the shoulders, her hungry hands gripping, pulling. She was alive, alive.

  The truck driver was whispering “Jesus,” and lifting carefully with the tips of his gloved fingers something else from under the train that dragged after Cassie as Gertie lifted her out. Gertie did not look at the bloody dragging thing, but laid Cassie across her knees. She squatted a moment holding her, looked down into her face, white, the eyes wide, straining, hunting, perspiration like a rain on her forehead. Her eyes tried to hold Gertie’s face, but the head kept flinging itself about like the arms, flailing, striking her mother’s chest with aimless beatings, while she cried in a choked, unnatural voice, “It hurts, Mommie—oh, Mommie!”

  The words ended in a gasping, inhuman scream, and Gertie sprang up, rocking her back and forth in her arms as she had done when she cried at noon; the twin streams of blood from the severed legs were like red fountains gushing down her apron, the blood-filled boot dangled, the toe turned backward knocking against her thigh.

  Gertie looked once at the streams of blood, then dropped again to the ground, letting Cassie’s head and shoulders fall into her lap while she caught the stubs of the legs, one in either hand, and sat holding them. She looked once at Cassie’s white twisting face, touched now with blood from the frothing uplifted legs, then up at what seemed to be a whole forest of faces above her. “Hep me, somebody, hep me try an keep down th bleeden. We’ve got tu stop it.”

  There were cries and running behind her for cops, firemen, an ambulance; but no one stepped forward. The trainman’s face was white, his glance unable to stay on the blood, spreading ever more over Cassie’s body, congealing in bright lumps and sheets on Gertie’s apron. He was not even able to look at Cassie’s head, fallen backward across her mother’s lap, the top brushing the cinders, twisting, writhing, the mouth open but no longer screaming, the whimper of “Mommie” muffled, as if she had been running. No, not running, that would never make Cassie lose her breath-laughing did it—gasping from laughter and chattering and running all at one time.

  “Here, lemme.” It was Victor, reaching for Cassie’s legs. “Yu git up,” he said. “Start moving, quick! Cops, ambulance, somebody gotta take yu quick tuda hospital.”

  Gertie held the child’s body and Victor walked with her, holding the bloody stumps, one just below the knee, one just above, but even so the blood was still like brightly frothing fountains leaping over his hands.

  Gertie tried to hurry, stumbling at times with eyes for nothing but Cassie, gasping more and more, no breath left now for screaming, each cry of “Mommie” shorter, lower than the last.

  The railroad tracks and the sidewalk were black and thick with people; many turned pale and looked away; many stood on tiptoe hunting blood, but all were silent, moving back, making a lane for Victor and Gertie as they hurried through. There was soon, from somewhere, the same wild screaming that had come for Mrs. Daly. Gertie kept walking, hurrying, seemed like they walked forever to meet it, held up as it was by the train-bound traffic and the crowds of people.

  She looked at the scout car surrounded by swarms of children, and shook her head, her voice thick. “We need a ambulance with that stuff like blood.”

  The man by the wheel in the scout car shook his head; the other, outside, pushed her a little. “If it’s plasma yu mean, a ambulance wouldn’t have it. Yu ain’t got no time tu argue—you gotta git quick to da hospital.” He helped her into the car, looked down at her feet as he did so, both bare now—the shoe she’d jerked first must have come off. “Yu gotta go all away downtown—s’ emergency.”

  “I’ve got money,” she cried, but they never seemed to hear her. She never looked at the dangling boot or the blood again, still bubbling up, but more slowly, between Victor’s clenched, unmoving fingers. She had Cassie, her forever straggling hair over her arms, one hand with a mitten, one without.

  They were all alone together. Seemed like the first time they had been alone, the two of them, since she’d made the golden doll by the Tipton spring. Cassie whimpered less and less; she was only gasping now, looking straight up, her eyes wide, frightened. Gertie looked into them, smiling, whispering: “You’re goen to be all right, Cassie Marie. We’ll set all day, Cassie Marie, an have school an tea parties when you’re gitten well—an ever day an ever minnit you can play with Callie Lou.”

  Gertie wiped the perspiration and coal dust and cinders and blood from the face that never seemed to feel her hand, and repeated, her voice rising, shrill, so that the second policeman in the front of the car turned to look: “Cassie, honey, you can have Callie Lou—allus an forever you can have Callie Lou. I’ll never run her off no more—never. Hear me—Cassie—never, never—you can talk all you please.”

  Cassie must smile. She must lift her head and know that there was Callie Lou. But Cassie, shivering like one freezing, struggled with some mighty effort to speak, spoke at last, her voice a low gasp of terror, the pupils of her eyes were big, so big they almost covered the lights and freckles in the dark brown eyes—greedy the pupils were for light and seeing—“I cain’t see, Mom—s’dark.” The eyes were widening, straining.

  “It’s dark—real dark,” Gertie said, “but even in th dark you can see Callie Lou.”

  She thought Cassie smiled faintly. She knew she’d smiled. The main thing was to keep on talking. She mustn’t stop talking. She mustn’t look away. If she looked for just one little second, Callie Lou might snatch her, for the witch child wasn’t dead. “No—no, Cassie Marie—I’ll bet old Gyp’ull be glad to see you. We’ll be goen home pretty soon—real soon. It’s spring—an you can climb trees agin an run. …” She choked, swallowed; for a long moment her voice wouldn’t come—it was stuck inside her the way it had always been—but now she must talk—she must. “Cassie Marie, you ought tu see all th cars piled up by th railroad tracks—a
little thing like you a holden th cars still. Cassie?—”

  She mustn’t look away. “Cassie?—look, I bet they’s little girls in my eyes—Cassie—Cassie?—Marie?”

  The turned around policeman what had he done? Cassie liked to hear about policemen. She’d been so proud to read about them at school, and always she had wanted one to speak to her like in the stories. “Cassie Marie—honey—it’s so funny—here’s this policeman—he’s took off his cap. Did ever a body see a policeman without his hat?

  “Look—Cassie … Cassie?”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  SHE LET HER HAND slide from the knob of the closed door, but stood staring at the dark smooth wood before she turned slowly away. Her eyes hunted over the heavily carpeted, thickly draped room until they found the woman with the bluish-tinted hair. Then all the anger in Gertie’s wild eyes dissolved before a great beseeching, “Please—couldn’t I stay—she couldn’t abide a stranger a fixen …”

  She couldn’t keep the believing, the lying to herself that Cassie could care. She couldn’t keep even the anger, at herself, the ways of trains, the hospital so far away. No more could she be like back at the hospital when they’d taken Cassie out of her arms and laid her on a table and rolled her quick like flying into a room marked “emergency”; and she had stood on the other side of the closed door and waited, knowing that soon Cassie would come out to her. The policemen and Victor had waited by it and around her; it seemed like the policemen had asked her questions. Then quickly the door had opened and Cassie had come back to her, but as she bent over the cart, jerking back the sheet to pick up the too-short-seeming bundle, everyone—Victor and the policemen and a nurse and a doctor—all had cried, “No.”