A motorcar on that lonesome country road in that day was as rare as a mixed-race gypsy caravan, but this car would have turned heads on the streets of any city between New Orleans and Chicago. It was a Packard funeral bus, built to house a coffin, pallbearers, and up to twenty mourners. Its exterior was of wood carved with bas relief columns alternating with archangels, heads bowed and leaning on their swords. Statues of kneeling seraphim sprang from its roof. There were large side windows, but these were draped in a heavy gold cloth hung to shield the dead and their loved ones from the turmoil of the living world. Aurora Mae and Horace could not see who drove the bus, except that a stooped creature was hunched over the cab’s wheel. Then it hit them both.
Lord, Cousin Mags and the baby are in there, ain’t they, Horace said to his sister.
Yes, Magnus Bailey said, they are.
Aurora Mae ran down the steps and to the car, her long legs closing the distance between in remarkable time. The car stopped or it would have run into her. She leaned over on the passenger’s side seeking with little hope a breathing Cousin Mags, but the mother was in the back nursing her child. All her gaze met was the perpetually despondent expression of Mr. Fishbein. They’d not got up that close at the wedding. Aurora Mae could not recall sharing more than a word or two with him. She remembered him the way she might a brown wren in a flock of bluebirds. Now she saw the pain in his eyes, which sent a shock through her chest—a small one, but sharp. Terrible things flew to her mind. Her fists pounded against the window.
Where are they? What have you done with them?
By now she was certain Cousin Mags and the baby were laid out in there. The Spanish fever was all over East St. Louis, folk said. In the next moment, Mags reached forward from the back to give Sara Kate to Mr. Fishbein so she could come out and embrace her cousin. The sight of the saddest man in all the world holding the squirming child struck Aurora Mae dumb, which was not a common occurrence. Then Mags’s arms were around her. They held on as tightly to each other as they had the day Mags left home two years before.
Miss Minnie had already entered the house to look it over without so much as a by-your-leave, but the scene on the lawn held the attention of the others, and no one noticed. From the porch where he stood with Horace, Bailey said, Well, that’s a picture, ain’t it?
Horace shook his head. It was true. Delicate, brown Mags looked like a child pressed against the bosom of a deity. Aurora Mae was a woman tall as their warrior ancestors. Her glorious, impossible hair was loose. It sprang out all around her and to the backs of her knees. Her limbs were lean and fierce, her face a queen’s image carved from obsidian, harmonious and severe. Her eyes were laced in happy tears that caught the light to grace them with sparks of fire.
Watching her, Bailey thought, Someday, I will have me some of that.
Horace caught the scent of his ambitions and did what he could to break the mood. ’Rora Mae finds most of her love with family women, he said, as if his sister’s emotional life was a common subject. Big as she is, she’s young yet. I believe she would break in two the man who tried to take her afore she’s ready.
Aurora Mae and Mags got to fixing a supper together of pole beans and rice cooked with onion, peppers, and chicken livers, as Mags said Mr. Fishbein would not eat the pork. While they washed beans and chopped peppers, they talked old times and caught up with the new. More than a few times, they spoke of George McCallum, and stopped to weep awhile in each other’s arms.
Meanwhile, Minerva Fishbein took a nap with the baby in Aurora Mae’s bed, and the men sat on the porch. Bailey let Horace in on all their plans, all the war news, and the state of the city since the riots, confirming that yes, the Spanish fever had arrived, which made Horace wonder why Mr. Fishbein would choose to leave town just when business should be hopping good. Horace was an uncomplicated man with the good manners of country folk, unaccustomed to the company of white men of substance. He worried if he did not do or say the correct thing that things could turn ugly on a pauper’s dime. Curiosity got the better of him. With such cautious deference he might as well have held a hat to his chest and gazed at his feet, he asked, Is this true, Mr. Fishbein, you’re moving to Memphis?
I am.
That’s a ways downriver, ain’t it?
Yes.
There was a long pause while Horace determined whether he could ask a more personal question of the man tasting the night air on his porch, whose daughter slept in his sister’s bed.
And what do you find recommends it?
Nothing. Nothing special.
Despite his concerns, Horace could not help himself. He leaned in close to Mr. Fishbein as he might with Magnus Bailey or any other of his own when he wished to determine the sincerity of a speaker who had just said an astonishing thing.
Then why are you goin’ there?
Fishbein sighed. The drawn-out, ragged sound bore the ruin of a horde of troubles.
Several matters impel me, my friend. The first is that George McCallum is dead. I cannot manage my business without him. I am feeling aggrieved enough by his murder not to hire another to take his place. And aggrieved enough to want to leave the town that has caused this fresh sorrow both to a woman—your cousin, of whom I am most fond—and to myself, who has had enough of sorrow altogether. I would start over elsewheres doing somethings new.
Yes, but why Memphis? Why there?
Why not? I am a wanderer, Mr. Stanton. Do you know where I have wandered?
No.
I’ve wandered through the desert with Moses …
Fishbein extended his hand in a languid gesture as if he held a baton and conducted an orchestra. Horace was enthralled by his guest’s manner of speaking, his lilting phrases executed in an accent that forced him to listen closely. It didn’t matter that Fishbein made no sense. He followed the graceful arc of the man’s movements while unexpectedly his chest swelled with pleasant feeling.
… through Babylon and all of Europe, through the Russias, and through America.
And now to Memphis? Horace asked, just to keep him talking.
Yes, now to Memphis. A place, I am told, with much difference from East St. Louis. It has not the factories spewing smoke, not the railroads everywhere with crowds constantly coming and going, and I am hoping not the brutes.
Well, I wish you good fortune there, Horace said without telling him he considered there were likely brutes in equal number everywhere. The man’s long, riven cheeks and red-rimmed eyes informed him his guest already knew.
I thank you.
What Fishbein did not say was that he had chosen Memphis on the recommendation of Magnus Bailey, who had his own reasons for traveling there. They were a strange couple, those two, bonded since the day, years before, when Fishbein disembarked at St. Louis from a riverboat carrying the child Minerva, all of five years old, who slept in his arms. The girl’s knees pressed against the right side of his chest and her head nestled against his heart. Her red hair fell in long, tangled waves over the crook of his arm. Fishbein looked so thin and bent, his burden appeared bigger than she was. Bailey worked the dock nearby, making book for a swarm of dockhands on a coming horse race of consuming local interest. He stood surrounded by calloused black hands clutching banknotes when Fishbein stumbled, falling to his knees, nearly dropping the child just a few feet from the spot where Bailey traded notes for chits. The dockhands stepped back. Maybe they feared being charged with making a white man carrying a child fall, Bailey didn’t know, but he saw a need and stepped forward to offer the man assistance, tipping his hat with one hand, placing the other around the man’s waist, slender as a woman’s, to help him up. Fishbein ascendant was dazed. He swayed on his feet. The girl, only half drawn from that impervious sleep children enjoy, looked in peril of her father falling yet again, so Bailey did the sensible thing. He took her from her father’s arms and bore her himself down the few remaining steps of
the gangway. Minerva blinked and studied him with intense curiosity. Her little hands wound about his big, thick neck to bring her face closer to his that she might regard him more thoroughly. Der shvartser has grine oygn, she said. The blackie has green eyes. Fishbein steadied himself on the gangway’s ropes. Der mensch has grine oygn, mine kind, he replied, indicating she must call this helpful Negro a good man to show respect. Bailey had no idea what they were talking about or what language they employed, but the way the girl grabbed the hair of his head and boldly kissed his cheek, giggling, A mensch, a mensch! made him smile and cradle her with a sweeter grip.
Where are you going? Bailey asked.
The Clairmont Hotel.
And your luggage?
Already it’s been sent.
The Clairmont was not far from the river, claiming water views from nearly every room. Bailey led the way there, carrying the child, while Fishbein walked behind. The docks and streets were crowded. Heads turned in their direction as they passed. Hostile, suspicious glances followed them. Bailey guessed they thought he had stolen the child or that Fishbein had sold her. He fought an old anger rising up in his throat.
When they arrived at the Clairmont, Fishbein said, Gevalt. My luggage, it is outside the door. Why is this?
Light and swift as a bug, he grabbed his bags, stuck them inside the door, then made directly for the front desk. Bailey followed behind, carrying the girl. He stood at a discreet distance while Fishbein puffed himself up with indignation to demand of the clerk why his luggage was left outside the door where any thief might make off with it. This required an explanation or he would not remain with this establishment another minute.
The desk clerk, a short, red-faced bald man with shiny apple cheeks, looked up from his work, his mouth tight and twisting. What he was about to do was not his favorite duty, but rules were rules.
I regret to inform you we do not take your kind here. Please leave without a fuss.
Magnus Bailey put the child down. With difficulty, he smiled and tipped his hat while his heart pounded.
I’m sorry, he said. The two small words seared his throat. I was just helpin’ the man. I wasn’t stayin’ on.
Not you, the clerk said. Well of course you, but what I meant was them. There’s been a misunderstanding. They will have to leave.
Bailey was perplexed. Flamboyant, slick, at twenty-two a man of the world to whom others came for practical advice, Bailey was not by nature bold outside his own community. There were lessons a black man in 1906 America learned almost from the cradle. He’d learned his painfully at as young an age as any. But the child and her father were clearly white and moneyed. This was new social territory for him, and he meant to understand it before strolling on.
What type is that? he asked.
His question flustered the clerk. He jabbed his pen in Fishbein’s direction.
Jews, he said. Jews like him.
Fishbein’s chest deflated. Without another word, he turned about, took his daughter’s hand, and headed toward the door.
Now what we are going to do, he muttered to his luggage.
Again, Bailey saved the day. He told the two to wait while he made arrangements and soon enough brought them by cab to a hotel that catered to all types, no questions asked. Fishbein was grateful. The three dined together that night at a place Bailey knew, where Fishbein ordered wine and fish. His tongue loosened, Fishbein told the man that in the year he had been in the United States of America, this was only the third time he’d come across a hotel that did not take Jews. In the end, this was a remarkable circumstance rather than a thorny one.
So it’s true? Bailey asked. Jews is the type you are?
Oh, yes.
Well, I’ll be.
They both laughed then and ate and drank together long after little Minerva fell asleep in her dining chair. They discussed the city of St. Louis, what a savvy man like Bailey knew of the ins and outs of the place, and where some seed money might in its season come to glorious flower. It was the birth of a working relationship between them, one that constantly evolved, depending on what business they conducted together. First there was the loan business, then the livery. There was the bottle business, the ice truck, and the medical supplies. A handful of years and twenty different investments went by before Fishbein realized he had not a secretary, a contractor, or a go-between in Bailey but a partner with whom he was inextricably entangled. There was another facet to their association that for Fishbein would have been enough to endear him, to bring Bailey close, regardless of their business dealings. Minerva loved the man.
Her love for Bailey was a lonely ray of light in her dark and troubled world. Minerva was high-strung. Minerva was rarely happy. From the first, Fishbein watched her struggle to control everything about her so that she could simply breathe. A day without sunshine, a wrinkle in her dress, a chop too well done, a book with the corner of a single page turned down was enough to throw her into a fit of temper. When she was five, he bought her a bag of marbles to amuse her. For Minerva, the bag was not a common child’s toy but a problem she must immediately solve. Frowning, she sorted the contents by color and size, scrutinizing each one with care, holding them up to the light, revolving them between her small fingers slowly, slowly until she was satisfied she’d inspected every swirl, every dot and bubble. When she was done, she took a piece of string and knotted it so that she could measure a distance of about three inches. Then she created a ring of marbles grouped by color on the floor, each three inches apart, sorting them also by size and design. When she was done, she sat inside the ring, happy for the moment that she might gaze all around her and view order, conformity, perfection. She sighed with contentment, a sound as rare from her as birdsong in the dead of a Russian winter. Fishbein would never forget what happened next. She lay down inside her magic marble ring where nothing could harm her and slept a sleep so deep, so unusual for his little girl, that he sat outside the ring and wept. An hour later, her foot shot out as she dreamt, sending agates spinning all over the room. She woke and screamed for half the night.
When Magnus Bailey came into their lives, something shifted in her, at least on Bailey’s account. One day, Minerva was in the midst of a fit or brewing to pitch one. Her little face collapsed in on itself, scrunched up, her hands reached into her hair, her back hunched. Fishbein watched her in growing panic. Once the muttering started, there was no turning back. Helpless, he danced around her, a hopping crow circling the coalescence of a cyclone. Her feet tapped. A low, terrifying hum emanated from somewhere in her chest. Tears sprung to Fishbein’s eyes. He braced himself, holding his breath in anticipation of the inevitable burst of rage. Then Bailey’s footsteps were heard on the stairs. Immediately, there was a hissing sound as the hot, wretched air of Minerva’s torment dissipated through her clenched teeth. Bailey was at their door, in their living room, and she opened up like a Chinese toy suddenly unwound. Just like that. Magic.
It took time, it took years, really, but eventually Fishbein figured out what it was about Bailey that enchanted her, why his very presence gave her islands of peace, and why his departures often threw her into a fragile state, ready to explode once again at the first disordered object or event in her path. First of all, he was a natty man, unlike her rumpled father, with not a hair out of place, never a spot or stain on his shirt, jacket, pants, or shoes. Every word out of his mouth was considered. Not that he was slow of speech. He was a master of seductive patter, of persuasion, of salesmanship, capable of communicating double meanings or vague truths with such flair, such charm his listeners were enchanted and went willingly wherever his words sent them. He was big, and when he chose to be, intimidating. He was the soul of calculation. In every endeavor, he sought his main chance and exploited it. This bred an aura of power about him, which, her father saw, Minerva recognized and clung to. Being in his company gave her a sense of protection, a sense Fishbein for all his r
iches could not supply. Life had taught Fishbein to mistrust the plans of men. He had long ago abandoned himself to fate, though he did not expect fate to be kind. Magnus Bailey found the courage to forge his destiny in a world devoted to his subjugation. How he did this was a mystery. Fishbein marveled but didn’t care. It was enough, in the beginning, that Minerva loved him.
Her nickname, Minnie, came from Bailey. He gave her lessons in life Fishbein had never learned. He taught her to be brave and take what she wanted, because, he told her, the world was not going to give her anything without a fight. He taught her to keep her thoughts to herself, to refuse others admission to the intimate workings of her mind. He taught her style. When Fishbein took her shopping, he came along posing, as he always did, as their manservant. He gave little signals over her father’s head of what was flattering and what was not, surreptitious lessons in how to dress with panache. He taught her street slang and the haughty phrases of society both. When she turned fifteen, he saw the way men on the street watched her walk in her pretty clothes, with her red hair floating on the river’s breeze. Neither Fishbein nor his daughter seemed to notice their attentions, which struck him as perilous. It had come time for someone to talk to Miss Minnie about the facts of life, or at least those concerning the wiles of men. He knew Fishbein would not do it, so he took on the job himself.
The fact of the matter was that Magnus Bailey loved Minerva Fishbein right back. He told himself his love was that of an uncle or an elder brother or, given their age difference, perhaps that of a second father. Like most men devoted to an existence that eschews domestic ties, he longed for them in spite of himself. The women he chose were light o’ loves, good-hearted creatures of adventurous spirit or sidekicks in the scheme of the day. They came, they went, and if they were slow to go, he helped them along. Still, he was a man, he’d been a boy once; he had his longings. Rather than bind himself to wife, lover, or child, he fostered the bond he shared with Miss Minnie, the daughter of his business partner, from the day he carried her down the gangway, and this was enough for Bailey for a long time.
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