“Did she tell you she didn’t want to dance?” Kristof asked him.
When the man shrugged, Kristof pulled him aside. Keeping his voice low, his temper barely in check, he filleted him for forcing himself on Sylvie when she clearly hadn’t wanted that type of attention.
The Hungarian trudged away.
Sylvie’s pearl choker dipped into the hollow of her throat. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your playing.”
“I thought you weren’t going to dance. You ought to have waited for me to speak to him in the first place.” He gentled his tone. “Are you all right?”
She didn’t look all right. “My imagination got the better of me, I’m afraid. He was probably harmless. But I think I offended him somehow. Then he wouldn’t let me go, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Rose had felt a similar powerlessness, and if she felt it even now, wherever she is.” She trailed off. “There are so many loose ends surrounding Rose’s disappearance that I feel like I’m unravelling.”
Kristof wanted nothing more than to hold her together.
A minuet started up. He opened his arms, and Sylvie placed herself in his hold, her gloved fingers cool on his shoulder and in his hand.
“The last time I danced was at Meg and Nate’s wedding,” she told him. “I’m terribly out of practice, so don’t be surprised if I trip us both.”
“I’ll take care of you.”
A smile tipped her mouth as he led her into the dance. With the slightest guidance, Sylvie responded to his leading as if she were an extension of his will, his body. As one unit, they swirled together through a room that blurred into unimportance around them.
Then the music changed.
The violin broke away from the rest of the ensemble in an attention-grabbing solo. It was no longer a minuet. Dancing slowed and halted all over the ballroom, since couples could no longer fit their steps to the tune. All eyes turned to the violinist who had transformed the performance into a stage from which to flash his own talent, deliberately leaving others behind.
“Gregor.” Kristof seethed. The room had been overly warm before. Now he felt as if he’d been wrapped in steaming flannel.
Sylvie had dropped away from him, and his hands, now empty, curled into fists at his sides. If Gregor didn’t stop showing off soon, he would jeopardize not only their payment for tonight but their chances of being hired again for future events. No one wanted to pay musicians who didn’t follow directions. Didn’t he know what was at stake?
“That’s amazing,” Kristof heard a woman say. “I’ve never heard anything like it.”
Sylvie seemed to be gauging Kristof’s response. He knew he looked angry. He was. He just hoped she didn’t think he was jealous, for what he felt went far deeper than that.
“He’s done this before, hasn’t he?” she asked.
“Whenever he feels underappreciated.” He massaged the back of his neck. While Gregor played on, sweat trickling down the sides of his face, Kristof told Sylvie that when they were younger, they had competed in chamber music contests. “This type of surprise solo performance from Gregor threw everyone off and lost us the competitions. He said he thought his improvisation would win it for us, so he took a risk, and it always failed.”
Those awards meant nothing to Gregor, but Kristof had worked three times as hard, hoping for validation, yearning for approval from their father. When they lost, their father hardly knew who to blame more. Gregor for not playing by the rules, Kristof for not being able to improvise right along with him, or the judges for not recognizing great talent when it was ringing in their ears.
“He’s a grown man now, there are no judges here, and neither is your father,” Sylvie said. “So who is he trying to impress?”
Gregor stomped his foot, smashing all traces of the minuet while charging forth in a whirling Gypsy rhythm, though he had not one drop of Gypsy blood in his veins. Eyes squeezed shut, his slender fingers flew and his bow danced on the strings. Perspiration streaked his face.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” she whispered. “He’s trying to impress himself. Why else would he go to such lengths, if not to make himself feel better about his own worth?”
“He loves praise,” Kristof suggested. In his mind, it had always been as simple as that. “He feeds on it, even if it means others get less.”
Gregor’s last note stretched, the vibrato strong to the end, and the room burst into applause. He bowed, neglecting to invite the rest of the ensemble to bow with him. Shameful. The way he used music to separate himself from others cheapened his talent.
When the clapping died down, a man in a long-tailed tuxedo took the stage to introduce, at long last, the parade of Midway employees waiting to enter. A man known as Citizen Train, wearing a white suit with a red belt and red Turkish fez, led the procession, carrying an armful of blooming sweet pea down a grand staircase and into the ballroom.
Sylvie leaned into Kristof and nodded at Citizen Train. “Did you know that man, George Francis Train, was the model for Phileas Fogg, the main character of Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days?”
Kristof chuckled. “I can see it. But Phileas Fogg was no hero. Any man who wagers half his fortune on a dare is too reckless to be admired.”
On Citizen Train’s arm was a Mexican ballerina who could be no more than twelve years old, and behind him were scores of men and women, many barefoot, wearing clothing native to their culture.
Into a world of black-and-white tuxedos and pastel silk ball gowns entered a riot of color in skin and fabric. There were Indians, Amazonians, and Africans, wearing skirts resembling small American flags if their normal custom was to wear none at all. There were Japanese in red silk, Romanians in red, blue, and yellow. Sioux Chief Rain-in-the-Face wore green face paint that was already melting, streaming toward his chin in the heat. A Laplander wore fur, and Eskimo women wore shirts of walrus skin. Belly dancers wore robes and turbans.
Kristof didn’t know how any of them could bear the stifling heat.
Sylvie discreetly dabbed a lemon-scented handkerchief to her neck before snapping it back into her reticule. “All right, partner. At least one of these people is going to help us find Rose. I know it. Where shall we begin?”
“I’m supposed to be playing right now, but those women over there sound like they’re from the Irish Village. Why don’t you question them without me?”
She turned toward them, her dark hair gleaming in the light. “Perfect.”
Thirty minutes later, the ensemble finished its set of music, and the pianist returned to his bench to take over. While Gregor headed straight for a belly dancer near the punch bowl, Kristof rolled his head from one shoulder to the other, stretching his muscles while scanning for Sylvie. He’d watched her move among the Irish women, showing the photograph of Rose, before finding a couple of Sioux Indians who spoke English and were willing to talk to her. Now that he was free, they could question many more.
Before he could reach her, however, a voice snagged his notice. The Hungarian fellow Sylvie had danced with earlier stood far too close to a blond woman, his arm wrapped around her waist to keep her there. She looked familiar. She looked young.
Rose’s age.
Over her white shirtwaist, the girl wore an emerald-green vest, her ruffled apron embroidered with blue flowers. It was Margit, the waitress who had served Kristof and Gregor at the Orpheum. Was she in trouble?
Catching Sylvie’s eye, Kristof cocked his head toward the Hungarians, indicating his intention to approach them. A pair of Romanians blocked his path, followed by a Laplander carrying two drinks, mittens dangling from his sleeves. By the time Kristof reached Margit, however, the Hungarian man was nowhere in sight.
“Good evening, Margit,” he said to her in their native language. He reminded her they’d met before and introduced himself. “The man who was just with you—was he bothering you?”
“Who, Mr. Varga? Why do you say that?”
Sylvie joined them. “What did I miss?
”
Margit’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s she?”
As quietly as he could, while still being heard above the crowd, Kristof explained they wanted information about a missing girl. “She’s about your height, blue eyes, blond hair.”
Sylvie produced the photograph.
Margit looked at it. “I see a lot of people.” She tucked a strand of hair beneath the wreath of flowers crowning her head.
“We heard she was offered a job at the Orpheum, and that when she said no, the man recruiting her grabbed her before her cousin intervened. Have you seen her? Do you have any idea what could have happened to her?”
Margit scanned the image one more time. “I honestly haven’t seen her, Mr. Bartok. But if I were to guess, I would say it was Mr. Varga who talked to her. He’s deaf in one ear, hard of hearing in the other. If he can’t understand us, he pulls us closer without even thinking how rude it seems.”
Sylvie clutched Kristof’s arm, obviously impatient for the translation. He obliged.
Her eyebrows plunged when he mentioned Varga being hard of hearing. “He did tell me he couldn’t hear well. That doesn’t make him innocent. He would have had to squeeze Rose pretty hard to make those bruises. Walter said she gasped in pain.”
The piano music stopped, and the Dahomey Africans formed a circle in the middle of the ballroom, treating the guests to a performance with drums and other native instruments they’d brought with them.
“I don’t know where this girl is, and I doubt Mr. Varga does either,” Margit said above the pulsing beat. “He seems rough, but he’s harmless. He certainly isn’t stuffing girls in closets or dumping them in the river—or worse, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
Sylvie’s lips pinched as Kristof filled her in. “Just ask if she knows if any other girls have gone missing. From the Orpheum or anywhere else on the Midway.”
He did.
According to Margit, three weeks ago, a waitress named Laura, hired locally, had been suddenly dismissed, reportedly because she didn’t speak Hungarian well enough and customers complained. Last week, the same thing happened to another server named Danielle, also from somewhere in Chicago.
“Odd, isn’t it?” Kristof muttered to Sylvie after sharing what Margit had said.
She agreed. “If non-Hungarian girls had already been fired, why would anyone recruit Rose to join the staff? Unless they planned to use her only to fill water glasses or bus tables.” She slipped Rose’s photograph back into the reticule and snapped it shut.
“I’m confused about the language requirement,” Kristof said to Margit. “Customers could just point to the menu item to order if there was a language barrier.”
“Most of the time, yes,” Margit replied. A purple petal dropped from her wreath, catching on her shoulder before she brushed it off. “But we get many Hungarians who come expecting an authentic Hungarian experience. They want to chat with the waitresses, and if the girls can’t converse in Hungarian, or at least in German, they get frustrated. If they give a special order about how the food is to be cooked and the waitress doesn’t get it right, it’s even worse.”
“So is a language test part of the interview process to be hired?” Kristof covered Sylvie’s hand on his arm to let her know he hadn’t forgotten her, even though he wasn’t including her just now.
Margit shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I was hired in Budapest to come with my brother, who’s in the Gypsy band, and I learned just enough English to get by. Welcome. How is the food? Can I get you anything else? That’s all I know, Mr. Bartok. I hope you find who you’re looking for.”
“So do I.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
THURSDAY, AUGUST 17, 1893
Sylvie didn’t like the person she was becoming.
She suspected everyone she met at the ball of some hidden darkness that would lead him or her to abduct a young lady like Rose. Even those who had no obvious motivation were not safe from her paranoia. Her thoughts contorted to connect crimes and people that ought to have remained far apart. She found herself far too much like her father, God rest him, when he’d been consumed with protecting her.
The ball ended at half past four in the morning. Riding home in a cab, wedged between Kristof and Gregor, she wondered if she might genuinely lose her mind to fear. She wondered if it ran in the family, just as Rose had said.
“We’ll keep looking,” Kristof murmured.
That was what people said when they didn’t have answers.
“Someone had to have seen her,” Sylvie insisted. “Someone has to know something.” She couldn’t accept that out of all the people they’d spoken with, only Margit had offered any information, and that had only prompted more questions.
“To be fair, Sylvie,” Gregor began, “the Midway folks see tens of thousands of people every day. Many of them beautiful young women with blond hair and blue eyes, just like Rose. It’s not likely they’d remember her in particular.”
“László Varga ought to have remembered her, if Margit’s hunch is correct,” she countered. “Whoever tried to recruit her for the German Village would, as well. And she was carrying her violin when she was taken, which would have set her apart from the crowd.”
Kristof shifted beside her. “We spoke to every Hungarian, German, and Austrian at the ball. Only the beer garden worker remembered the incident Hazel told us about, and his story matched hers,” he reminded Sylvie. “Rose said no to the offer and left.”
Sylvie closed her eyes. Fatigue weighted her as the carriage wheels clattered beneath her seat, jostling her between the two brothers. She was tired, not just from lack of sleep but also from the exhausting tasks of waiting, dreading, hoping.
The cab clunked into and out of a pothole, jarring Sylvie to wakefulness. Outside the window, insects clouded about the streetlamps. The night air chilled the sweat on her skin.
One of her conversations came back to her. “I spoke with a woman named Colleen from Irish Industries. She said one of her girls, a wild and unruly sort, ran away earlier this summer and joined a brothel and has no intention of leaving it. The girl says she’s pampered now and will live like a queen long past the end of the Fair.”
“Rose would never do that,” Kristof said.
“I agree.” Sylvie’s stomach churned. “But she said not all the girls in the brothels begin willingly.”
“White slavery,” Gregor said. “It’s common knowledge, unfortunately, and becoming more common in practice. You don’t suppose . . .”
Sylvie thought she might be sick. Despite Margit calling László Varga harmless, all she could think was that if he had tried to recruit a girl who spoke no Hungarian, it was for a role in which she would have no voice. “I have to find her. If I have to go inside every brothel in the Levee district, I’ll do it.”
“What?” The whites of Kristof’s eyes gleamed. “Sylvie, no. I share your concern, but you can’t go there.”
“Why not?”
“You’re a woman.”
“Little Cheyenne is full of women, and not just those employed by madams. Evangelists and reformers traffic those streets on a regular basis. I’ll go during daylight hours, when ‘customers’ aren’t calling.” She paused, imagining herself walking up to houses of ill repute, saloons with brothels in the rear, and massage parlors. “I can do this with Beth. I don’t want you to come with me, Kristof.” She couldn’t abide the idea of dragging him through a place where women brazenly advertised their bodies in the windows.
“That district is known as the wickedest place in America,” said Kristof, “and you want to walk right into it, unprotected? Even with Beth, this is a terrible idea. I can’t let you do it. We’ll find another way, one that doesn’t involve you endangering yourself.”
“Like what?” Sylvie angled to face him, even though shadows veiled them both. Every frustration she’d felt over the last three days filled her voice. He meant well, but he had no authority over her. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all you
r help so far. But I’m going regardless of your opinion, and I’m going without you.”
Beth would be proud of her for being so decisive. But somehow Sylvie felt smaller. She’d sounded shrill, even to herself, when all she wanted was to be strong. She needed Kristof’s friendship now more than ever, but she felt a cold wind blow between them, for she had pushed him away. And she’d done it in front of his brother.
Kristof said nothing for several long moments, the quiet broken only by hoofbeats. At last, he said, “I did not speak from a wish to rule over you, Sylvie. All I desire is to protect you.”
She could form no response to this.
The cab slowed to a halt in the alley behind her building. Gregor cleared his throat. “Here we are.”
Kristof climbed out first and handed Sylvie down. The streetlamp on the corner illuminated half his face. “Don’t lose heart,” he said.
But she was in danger of losing far more than that. He escorted her as she unlocked the rear door of the building with leaden limbs, then climbed the stairs with her to the second floor. She let herself into her apartment, then stopped.
On the floor just inside her door was an unstamped envelope, addressed with one word: Mimi.
Sylvie scooped it up and spun toward Kristof. “It’s Rose,” she breathed. “She wrote me.” With trembling hands, she pinched the fingertips of her gloves and pulled them off, clutched them both in one hand, and tore the envelope open while Kristof turned on the light in the hall sconce.
Dear Mimi, she read. I am fine and safe.
Sylvie gasped with the force of her relief, the pressure releasing tears that traced hot paths down her cheeks. Her strength draining, she braced herself against the doorway and covered her face as her shoulders shook with silent sobbing. There was more to the note, but she couldn’t possibly read it through her tears.
“What is it? What can I do?” Kristof’s hands came gently around her arms.
“She’s all right,” Sylvie told him. “Thank God, she’s all right.” She wiped her face with the heel of her hand and lifted the note again.
Shadows of the White City Page 12