After a while, Kristof spoke. “I wish I could snap my fingers and magically hand you all the answers you need. Waiting is more trying than searching.”
An understatement. “I’ve waited for things before,” she reminded him. “When my father was in the prison camp and then later the asylum, we waited for him to be restored to us.” She’d shared these chapters of her life with him eighteen months ago—sparingly at first, even haltingly, gauging his reaction.
Then she’d shown him her father’s published memoir, which Nate had edited and filled in with facts and explanations. Kristof had purchased it on the spot and stayed up late into the night to finish it. The next morning, he’d said, “I wish I’d known him. Stephen loved his family imperfectly but absolutely. He never stopped trying to be a better man. And you were his biggest ally in that, ever since the Great Fire.” Sylvie had scoffed a little, saying he couldn’t have read that in the book. But he’d held her gaze, insisting it was there. “I saw you behind the lines.” If what he’d meant to say was “between the lines,” she hadn’t corrected him. For the last fourteen years of her father’s life, she was behind the lines in the sense that she battled for his welfare, the recovery of his wounded spirit.
Sylvie looked at Kristof now and saw the same earnestness he’d worn then.
“Those were painful seasons of uncertainty, but at least we knew where my father was,” she went on. “This situation with Rose is completely different.”
“I know it is.”
As they neared the Fair entrance, children in crimson uniforms cried out above the din of the crowd, selling overpriced World’s Fair guidebooks.
“I assume we’ll go to the Casino and see if she checked her violin back in to the cloakroom,” Kristof said.
“We will, but that’s clear on the other side of the grounds, by the lake. We’ll stop in the Woman’s Building first, as it’s just past the Viaduct. If you want to split up, you could head toward—”
His brown eyes sparked with golden flecks. “Sylvie, I am not leaving you, do you understand me? I am here as much for you as I am for Rose.” There was an authority to his voice he hadn’t used with her before. “We don’t know what happened to her. God forbid anything should happen to you, as well.” His hand covered hers in a gesture that pushed at the edge of friendship toward something else.
Only when they approached the ticket gate did they separate and show their individual season passes. While Sylvie waited to be admitted, Kristof stood just on the other side, watching her intently. Though he wasn’t in concert attire, his posture was no less commanding.
Heat rippled over her, but when she reached his side, she was ready to take his arm once more. Had he ever looked at her in quite this way before? Her stomach flip-flopped as it had when she rode the wheel yesterday, lifting off solid ground.
She should have eaten breakfast.
From the gate between the Midway and the Fair, it was a short walk east to the Woman’s Building. Already, ladies could be seen on both the ground floor loggia and upper-level balcony, which wrapped around the building for a view of the White City. A red silk shawl marked Susan B. Anthony, surrounded by admirers, as usual. The seventy-three-year-old suffrage heroine had come to speak in May and decided to stay all summer.
Passing into the shade as they neared the door, Sylvie led Kristof inside and made a sharp left into the salesroom before they reached the rotunda. They weaved between tables displaying souvenir spoons, plates, and bookmarks—all of which bore likenesses of either the Woman’s Building or of Bertha Palmer—past racks of postcards and books, and finally to the back corner, where they took their place in line behind women waiting to check their parasols or request a guide.
Five minutes later, they reached the counter.
“Hi, Dorothy,” Sylvie greeted her colleague, then gave her a nickel for that day’s issue of The Daily Columbian. The paper held all the news of the Fair, from schedules of music concerts and lectures to any special events. “Do you have any copies from yesterday?”
Dorothy ducked behind the counter and came up with an issue creased through the middle. Tortoiseshell combs shone in black hair just a shade darker than her skin. “Here’s one. Most of the events listed in it are in today’s issue, too.” She wheezed, a reaction, she’d said, to the twenty thousand plants beautifying the Fair.
“I’d still like to have it, if that’s all right. Is there a charge for it?” Sylvie was pretty sure it was garbage to anyone else, but it might hold a clue as to where Rose had gone.
Dorothy slid her spectacles up the bridge of her nose. “Help yourself.” She sneezed.
“Sylvie?” Beth Wright poked her head around the corner from inside the check room, brightening when she saw her, then clouding when she saw Kristof standing so close. “Excuse me, Dot.” Budging past Dorothy, Beth swung open the half door to step into the salesroom.
Quickly, Sylvie told her their mission.
“Missing?” Beth repeated, her complexion paling a little. A mop of russet curls completely obscured her forehead. “Oh dear. Of course we’ll keep a lookout and tell the rest of the staff.”
“I need to speak to Jozefa,” Sylvie added. “I see she’s on today’s schedule to give another lecture in the Assembly Room upstairs, but do you know if she’s here early?”
Dorothy called from behind Beth. “Jozefa Zielinski? She told me she was headed to one of the sitting rooms before her lecture.”
“Perfect. Thank you.” To Kristof, Sylvie whispered “shortcut” and led him through the salesroom, into the adjoining one, and out to the stairway, completely bypassing the exhibit-packed rotunda.
On the gallery level, they found themselves on a balcony corridor, overlooking the exhibits below. Ignoring those, they passed the Assembly Hall, then took the corridor that led to various reception rooms.
Kristof looked behind him as they entered the Japanese Parlor. Light glinted on painted silk screens and hangings. The walls were covered in depictions of white-capped waves, cherry blossom trees, snowy egrets, and misty mountains. Three Japanese visitors spoke in their own language, while an older fair-skinned woman was pushed about in a wicker rolling chair. Jozefa wasn’t there.
“Next.” Sylvie brought Kristof into the next reception room, this one named for California. Polished California redwood gleamed from the paneling on the walls, the ceiling beams, and the parquet floors. Flanked by cactus plants in terra-cotta pots, a giant mirror doubled the space.
“There.” Sylvie found Jozefa, who sat in a corner in a brown-and-burgundy gown, conversing with another lady in Polish. Sun poured through the floor-to-ceiling window behind them, casting their silhouettes upon the floor, along with the shapes of cacti etched into the glass panes.
Stepping around a huge bearskin rug, Sylvie approached them while Kristof stood back and kept an eye on the door.
“Jozefa?” Sylvie wiped her palms on her skirt. “I’m sorry to interrupt you.”
The actress smiled and folded her hands. The lace trim on her high collar brushed her jawline. “Sylvie. So good to see you. The Palmer is a fine establishment, indeed, but I’ve missed the company at yours.” The other woman politely took her leave.
Grasping for what to say next, Sylvie lowered herself to the armchair near Jozefa’s. A handful of stiffly starched ladies strolled into the room, guidebooks in hand, then left again almost as quickly. “I wonder,” she began, “could you tell me, has Rose—Rozalia—come to see you?”
“She’s welcome to any time, of course, but I haven’t seen her since I left your apartment yesterday morning.”
Sylvie broke from her probing gaze. She glanced to the painting of Lake Tahoe on the wall across from her, then to Kristof. He nodded to her, and she continued. “I would never ask you to break Rozalia’s confidences if it weren’t important. But she didn’t come home last night. Has she said anything to you that might help us know where she is?”
“She didn’t come home,” Jozefa repeated. Her
expression hardened with judgment, not for a wayward adolescent, but for the woman who had pretended to be her mother.
Or perhaps Sylvie only saw a reflection of what she felt about herself. If she had handled Rose differently, if she had said or not said certain things, she was sure she wouldn’t be here right now, telling a near stranger she’d lost her daughter and feeling crushed by guilt and fear.
When Jozefa spoke at last, her voice was soft with compassion, not condemnation. “Your daughter has said many things to me, Sylvie, but none of them led me to suspect something like this. Has she done anything like this before, to get attention?”
Sylvie held back a laugh. “No. If anything, she’d say she gets too much attention as it is. But I don’t believe she would do this just to prove she can make it on her own. She took no clothes with her, no money that I know of.”
After Sylvie explained what had been done to find Rose and what would be done soon, Jozefa raised her chin and straightened her shoulders. “If she contacts me, or if I learn anything, I’ll send word to you right away. Likewise, would you do the same for me?”
“Of course.”
Jozefa kissed her cheek, and Sylvie took her leave.
“Let’s go.” She took Kristof’s offered arm. “She doesn’t know anything.”
They reached the stairwell and met a tide of people coming up. Kristof angled his body, pushing through them, allowing her to follow in his wake.
At the ground level, Sylvie told him to head for the south exit, and he forged their path through the Gallery of Honor, around statues, past wood carvings and paintings in oil and watercolor. Passing through an arch, they wound between displays of women’s work from all over the world and finally stepped outside.
She squinted, and he took her parasol, opening it and holding it above her.
Panic swirled and eddied about her, causing a dip in her knees. She steadied herself on Kristof’s arm, then headed east, toward the main path along the lagoon. “Next stop, Administration Building. I want to put a notice in the bulletin for fairground tour guides.”
“Certainly.” He made no comment on the tremor in her voice, and she was grateful. She was scared. He knew it. There was no reason to point it out.
Kristof cleared his throat. “I heard that a young lady architect designed the Woman’s Building. Is that right?”
She confirmed that it was.
When he asked about the exhibit they’d passed featuring a woman missionary to Siberia, and then inquired about the woman who invented an automatic dishwasher on display, she narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to distract me from the fact that we’re here because Rose is missing? Or are you really interested in these women?”
His eyebrow twitched up. “I’m interested in some women more than others.” He patted her hand.
She managed to summon a small smile for her friend.
CHAPTER TEN
Balancing a glass of iced tea on his knee, Kristof caught Olive’s eye as she peeked around the corner. The little girl had been banished from Meg and Nate’s parlor while the grown-ups spoke after dinner, but she clung to the edge of it. He smiled to signal he’d seen her.
“I just can’t believe Rose would do this on her own,” Hazel was saying. She’d just arrived home from working at Marshall Field’s department store and still wore her black skirt and white shirtwaist with faux-pearl buttons and puffed shoulders. “She left no note, sent no word?”
“Nothing,” Sylvie replied. “All we know is that she didn’t check her violin at the Casino after her lesson. Wherever she is, she has it with her—or she did, at least for a while. When we arrived back at the bookshop this afternoon, Tessa had no news for us.”
Frowning, Meg stretched her hands before resting them on her lap. “I talked to every ticket taker on the Midway this morning. None of them recalled seeing Rose after she left the Midway around two o’clock.” She draped an arm behind her younger sister. “Rose was short with you at the Fair yesterday, Sylvie, but nothing you said to her could have possibly driven her to do such a thing.”
“Which leaves us with far worse options to consider.” Nate removed his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Should we expect someone to demand a ransom?” Hazel offered. She twirled a long brown lock around her finger.
“I’d gladly give it.” Sylvie adjusted her skirt over her knees. “I’m short on cash, like everyone else, but I could cut my inventory. I’d sell the store itself if I had to.”
Kristof squinted in thought, ran the pad of his thumb over the condensation on his glass. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “We’re missing some pieces to this puzzle.”
Olive sat quietly on the other side of the doorframe. With a curled finger, Nate beckoned her to him and kissed her cheek. “Olive, sweetheart, go play in your room until one of us comes to get you. And close the door. No eavesdropping.”
Her lower lip fluted. “I already know something happened to Rose. Maybe I can help! I have good ideas.”
“Olive Louise,” Meg said quietly. “No arguing. Go.”
With a puff of frustration, she did.
“We don’t have time for this,” Sylvie blurted as soon as Olive’s footsteps faded. “Someone has taken Rose, and I have no idea what they plan to do to her or when.”
If she truly had no idea, that was a mercy. The Columbian Guards he’d spoken to this morning had minced no words with their own speculations. Girls disappeared from Chicago all the time. From the streets. From train stations. From the Fair. Cab drivers were paid to deliver unsuspecting girls to an empty apartment where they would be “broken in” and then delivered to the brothels to perform the only kind of work they’d ever be good for again.
Kristof was sick at the idea. For any girl, let alone his own violin student and Sylvie’s daughter.
A hair ribbon, possibly Olive’s, lay discarded on the floral rug at his feet. He picked it up, spooled it around his index finger, and set it on the table beside him. “There’s another alternative we haven’t considered,” he began. “Love. Or the illusion of it.” He turned to Hazel. “To your knowledge, could Rose have fallen in love with someone and run off with him?”
While Hazel pondered this, Sylvie shook her head. “I seriously doubt it. I raised her better than that.”
“You raised Rose better than to fall in love?” A hint of laughter rode Hazel’s words.
“Better than to hide things from me, for one. And yes, I had hoped I’d raised her with a realistic view of romance, love, and marriage. It isn’t always as fine as novels make it out to be.”
And there it was again. Any time Kristof imagined their friendship deepening, Sylvie found a way to emphasize that romantic love wasn’t necessary for a fulfilling life, a stance she likely assumed he shared.
He used to.
Lips pressing thin, he looked away from her. Meg sent him a gentle smile.
“You’re right,” Meg said to her sister. She took Nate’s hand. “Sometimes, if you’re very fortunate, it’s better.”
Kristof believed her.
“Walter.” Ignoring Meg’s comment, Sylvie faced her nephew. A few curls of caramel-brown hair coiled at the nape of her slender neck. “Almost two weeks ago, I noticed a bruise inside Rose’s wrist. This was the day she went around the Fair with you and Hazel. When I asked her about it, she told me you’d ridden the Ice Railway together and that you grasped her wrist to pull her back inside when the car flew around a corner. Is that true?”
Walter shoved his fingers through his straw-colored hair. “It is, Aunt Sylvie, and I gripped her pretty hard. But I’m not the only one who grabbed her wrist that day.”
The color drained from Sylvie’s face. “Go on.”
Meg speared her son with a gaze particular to mothers, then cast the same upon Hazel. “Tell us everything.”
Hazel dipped her chin and slid him a sideways glance. “We didn’t think much of it at the time. Someone outside the Hungarian Orpheum comp
limented Rose and asked her if she would be a waitress. She said no.”
Kristof set his jaw. He didn’t like where this was going. “And then?”
“He caught her wrist and tried to pull her closer to him. She gasped, like he was hurting her.”
“I was right there, though,” Walter rushed to add. “I put an end to that, and we moved along. That was that.”
“Not exactly.” Hazel scratched a spot behind her ear. “Rose turns men’s heads without even trying. I suppose her coloring made her a favorite of the Germans, as well, because another man tried recruiting her to work in a beer garden. He didn’t touch her, though. It happened so quickly, I’m not surprised Walter didn’t notice.”
Sylvie’s complexion burned a deep red. “What are we supposed to do? Keep our daughters locked in a tower like Rapunzel?”
“Sylvie,” Meg said softly. “This isn’t your fault.”
The setting sun washed the parlor with blushing, watery light. Kristof drained the last of his drink and set his glass on a newspaper on the tea table. “I have an idea.” It wasn’t much, but it was worth a try. “Gregor and I are playing at the Midway Ball tomorrow night. People from every village, settlement, theater, bazaar, and café on the Midway have been invited to attend. It’s the perfect opportunity to talk to them all in one place, in the course of an evening, without needing to pay to enter their concessions for access to them. I’ll be there anyway, so I can question them about Rose. How do you say it? Two birds with one stone?”
Sylvie sat taller. “Is it by invitation only?”
“No,” Kristof replied. “Anyone can purchase a ticket, but—”
“I’m going.” Her tone brooked no argument, despite the fact that her limited language skills would put her at a disadvantage with the Midway crowd.
But that was where he came in.
“We’ll go together,” he said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1893
Shadows of the White City Page 10