The Year We Sailed the Sun

by Theresa Nelson

  Chapter 6

  I could feel all the plaid girls leaning in, glaring, breathing their orphan breath in my face. The little fat kid was still crying great slimy tears, sobbing into her hands. The long-neck pointed a finger at me, then drew it across her throat in a slicing motion.

  Two weeks, Bill had promised. A month, tops.

  If we lived that long.

  “I saw that, Marcella Duggan!” said the half-a-nun as she hoisted our boxes once again. “Now, there’s a nice how-do-you-do for the new girls. Where are your manners? And what are you gawking at, Hazel Theedy? Get back to your sums, the both of you. Don’t you roll your eyes at me, or you’ll rue the day! Ah, for heaven’s sake, Winnie, don’t you ever have a handkerchief?”

  The crybaby shook her head. She seemed in danger of washing away entirely, in one great ocean of snot.

  “Well, never mind, take this one. Now, stop that, Winifred; you’re perfectly all right. It won’t kill you to say an extra rosary or two! Offer it up for the suffering souls in Purgatory. You’d think it was you in their poor shoes, pining away in the heat.”

  And all this time Sister Bridget was pushing through the scowling mob—“Go on, girls! Are you growing roots?”—and herding pupils back to their classrooms—“Look now, Winnie; here’s Sister Sebastian waiting for you. Maybe she’ll give you a little more Shakespeare, to calm your nerves. ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep. . . .’ Don’t drumble about, ye lollygaggers; are you holdin’ a convention?” And before our new acquaintances could move in for the kill, she was hustling Mary and me up the stairs and down another hall and upstairs yet again, until we came through an unmarked door into a long, dim tunnel of a room.

  “Here you are,” said Sister Bridget, setting down our boxes and stretching her fingers. Her bandage sagged. There was a pop-pop-popping as her knuckles cracked. “Last two on the left.”

  The dregs of the day’s sun trickled in through a tall, narrow window, falling on slant gray walls and greenish linoleum and two rows of white beds facing each other. Must have been a good twenty of ’em altogether, at least ten to a side.

  “Thank you, Sister,” said Mary. She gave me a poke in the ribs and jerked her head toward the half-a-nun so I’d say it too, but I clenched my jaw.

  “You’re welcome,” said Sister Bridget, catching hold of Father’s handkerchief before it slid off completely. She unwound it the rest of the way and checked her hand for toothmarks—a satisfying little circle of purplish ridges, plain as day even from where I stood—then folded it calmly and whisked it away in one of her sleeves. “All right, ladies. You can put your things here in this middle bureau. They’ve cleared a drawer for each of you, you see? Try to save a bit of room; you’ll be getting your school clothes in the morning. Now then, what else? Boxes, beds . . . I know I’ve forgotten something. . . . The lavatory’s just out the back door, if you’d like to make a visit before supper. I’ll send Winnie to bring you down in a quarter of an hour, how’s that?”

  “That’ll be fine, thank you, Sister. Won’t it, Julia?”

  Poke, poke!

  I clamped down so hard on my bottom lip, I could taste my own blood.

  Sister Bridget gave me a considering look. “Put away thy sword, Julia Delaney. No use beating a dead—ah, great gobs, the horse!”

  And then she was hurrying off to see to the swayback, and Mary was shaking me again, asking would it have killed me to say, “Thank you, Sister,” and oh, yes—while I was at it—beg pardon for attacking her like a mad dog itself? What if I died in the night with nun-biting on my soul? Had I thought of that? People were always dying in the night; they did it every day, and it would serve me right if I didn’t get into heaven. To hell with heaven, I told her. And she slapped my face and I slapped her back and we opened our boxes and my marbles weren’t there.

  But I couldn’t stop and think about it. By the time we’d put away our drawers in the drawers, the crybaby was behind us, having hiccups in the doorway, saying, “Sister said you’re to come down now, Your Majesty.” Did she think it was my actual name? Or was she making fun? I wondered. But she looked scared as any rabbit, and when I narrowed my eyes at her she made a little gasping sound and skittered away.

  “Now’s our chance,” I told Mary. “We can still make a run for it.” But she only jerked my arm and said, “Come on, Julia.” And then she was pulling me downstairs and it was no use saying no because suddenly I was tired, so tired, too tired to fight her anymore; my head felt thick and my legs were heavy as hams. So I stumbled after her and we found the refectory from the cabbage smell and squeezed in on a bench at one of the long tables—a couple of orphans hissed, but a skinny girl with a cold in her head made room—and Sister Maclovius led the rosary, three times ’round, and somewhere between the Scourging at the Pillar and the Crowning with Thorns they handed out the supper, but I must have fallen asleep because Mary was shaking me for the thousandth time and my left cheek was mashed flat into my plate; there was corn bread up my nose and some sort of yellowish glop caught in my eyelashes, but I couldn’t eat; I couldn’t keep my eyes open. The long-neck—Marcella?—was nudging her pal Hazel and sneering at me again, one table over, but I didn’t care. I was tired, so tired. . . .

  And the next thing I knew, it was dark and I was lying in one of the white beds, though I couldn’t remember how I got there. At first I thought this was home, but then the curtains moved at the narrow window and moonlight speckled the slant-walled room, and the day came roaring back. . . .

  Oh, for shame, for shame, Julia. . . .

  Merciful heaven! She’s bitten Sister Bridget!

  I ain’t goin’, I won’t go. . . . Tell ’em, Bill!

  You’ll have Mary looking out for you. . . .

  I sat bolt upright. Mary! Where was Mary?

  The bed beside me hadn’t been touched.

  Oh, dear God, I shouldn’t have slapped her. Even if she did deserve it.

  But then I turned my head and there she was, in the bed to my left. That was Mary’s chin, surely, with the scar down the middle that she got last year from tumbling over Otto’s trip wire, and Mary’s pointy nose, and her brown hair tangled on the pillow. Her cheeks looked wet, though her eyes were closed, and her breathing came in jerks, all raggedy-sounding.

  Had she been crying, then?

  But Mary never cried.

  What was that in her hand?

  She was holding on to something—she was dead to the world, but still her fingers were closed ’round it—a shoelace, maybe? Or a bit of old ribbon?

  Sort of bluish.

  Quick as that came the picture, floating into my head: our mother’s red hair hanging down her back, with a blue ribbon in it. . . .

  And her long skirts are sweeping the floor as she walks—swish, swish—and I am walking behind her, following the blue, when the door swings open and there’s my father—there you stand, Papa, with the fiddle in your hand. Hello, sweetheart. Hello, little dolly, you say. Does my dolly love her daddy? And you fall down, clunk! And one eye’s all puffed out, black and bloody for the union. For standing up, you say, like a union man should. But then you wink it to make me laugh and start playing our lucky tune—you’re flat on your back but you’re fiddling just the same—and Mama kneels down, and I think she’s trying to tickle you, but that’s not it. She’s looking in your pockets, so it must be payday at the boatyard. I know all about payday at the boatyard. All the other days are a kick in the teeth, painting smokestacks till you drop, but on payday we sing the Julia song, with the words you made for Mama:

  Oh, come with me, my love!

  Come away, come afar. . . .

  We’ll sing the moon down from the sky

  And sail the morning star,

  And when we reach bright heaven’s gate,

  Why, we’ve only begun;

  We’ll build a boat with angel’s wings,

  And then we’ll sail the sun!

  But M
ama’s not listening. She’s looking and still looking and there’s nothing in your pockets, Papa, nothing but two shiny nickels, and she takes them in her hand and shakes them at you; her fist shakes and her red hair shakes and the blue ribbon bobs up and down, up and down, like a little hopping bird. And now she’s crying; I know she’s crying (oh, that raggedy sound, do you hear?) though I can’t see her face—I can never see her face—and I tug on her sleeve but when she turns around, she’s not my mother anymore.

  Don’t think that I won’t be watching you, Julia Delaney. Don’t imagine I’ll be tolerating your shenanigans. . . .

  She’ll have to be tied. . . .

  Did you bring a muzzle?

  Take it up with the Queen. . . .

  The door creaked, and my eyes jerked open. It was Sister Bridget, with the bell ringer in tow. She led her past the snoring orphans to the bed on my right, where Mary wasn’t.

  “Go to sleep now, Betty,” the half-a-nun whispered, helping the kid off with her dancing shoes. “Tomorrow’s a brand-new day.” And then she pulled up the covers and started to turn my way, and I closed my eyes tight, before she saw me watching, but for a while I could still feel her standing there, watching me too. Until finally I heard the sound of her leaving, the rustle and click and tap-tap-tapping across the floor.

  And when I looked again, there was the moonface looking back at me, grinning her crooked grin.

  I’ll send you a sign . . .

  What sort of a sign?

  And the door opened wide. . . .

  Ding-dong . . .

  Glory be to the Father. . . .

  Let go, Julia!

  You’ll know it when you see it. . . .

  Chapter 7

  EEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIYYYYYYY—what the devil?

  “Good morning, Your Majesty,” said Marcella, the chortling long-neck, pouring a pitcher of water in my face. “Rise and shine!”

  “Stop it! Stop!” I sputtered, trying to fight off the icy flood with my hands. “I’ll kill you, I will, I’ll—”

  “Oooof!” Marcella gasped as Betty Brickey butted her in the stomach with her head.

  “Hey!” yelled Hazel, the long-neck’s lackey, grabbing Betty by the hair and yanking her backward. And then there was water everywhere and the white pitcher broken on the floor and Winnie the Crybaby wailing and a whole pile of orphans pushing and shoving, and me in the middle of ’em, soggy all over and swinging away, and Mary trying to pin my arms and saying, “Stop it, Julia!”—as if it was my fault—

  Which was how the half-a-nun found us when she opened the door. “Ah, great gobs . . . Order, ladies! Order, I said! Have you all gone daft? Let go of her leg, Marcella, or you’ll not get another minute of recreation till you’re in your grave.”

  “That one s-started it,” Marcella lied between gasps, pointing to me. “Her and the h-h-halfwit are in cahoots.”

  Sister Bridget sniffed. “And the rest of you were just sitting there like the Holy Innocents themselves—polishing your halos, was that it? Go on now, the lot of you. Get dressed and go have your mush.” She shifted the basket she was carrying from her right hip to her left, then caught sight of Betty, round-eyed, her fists still clenched. “That goes for you, too, Miss. And what were you doing fighting? No, no, I’m not tying your slippers. You’ll wear your regular shoes today like everybody else. There’s been quite enough dancing about.”

  Betty didn’t say a word. She dropped her chin to her chest.

  Ah, for the love of Mike, would she be crying next?

  But then she tilted her head and slid her eyes my way and grinned a small grin, as if someone had told a joke only the two of us understood.

  Sister Bridget wasn’t waiting for an answer anyhow. While Betty stayed planted on one side of the drenched bed in her untied slippers, the half-a-nun plopped her basket down on the other. “Here you are, Mary and Julia, your school clothes, fresh from the laundry. All marked on the labels with your own particular numbers, see there?”

  Oh Lord, not the putrid plaid pinafores! With nubby cotton underdresses, darned-up stockings, knickers . . . orphan duds clear down to our skins, then?

  “Forty-five—that’ll be you, Mary. Now, there’s a lucky number! Rosie Flannigan was forty-five before you—your size to a T. And didn’t we just have a letter from Rosie’s new family, singing her praises? ‘Satisfactory in all departments.’ Those were their exact words. You can’t go wrong with forty-five.”

  “Thank you, Sister,” said Mary.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  I tried not to gag.

  “And what have they sent up for you, Julia? Fifty-seven? Let me think. . . . Who was our last fifty-seven?”

  The long-neck and her toady—almost to the doorway—whipped back around and chimed in together: “Cecilia Forney!”

  The color under Sister Bridget’s freckles went from pale to deep pink. “Oh, yes. Of course. Cecilia.” She cleared her throat. “Well, she was certainly . . . certainly . . . a fine girl, too.”

  Dead, Marcella mouthed at me, raising a witchy eyebrow.

  Hazel followed her out the door, smirking.

  They let it bang behind them.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Mary said, once Sister Bridget had left the room, her basket loaded with wet sheets and pitcher pieces. “Look here—” Mary picked up dead Cecilia’s pinafore and shook it out, as if it wasn’t making her flesh crawl in the least. “There’s not a thing wrong with it. It’s been washed a thousand times. I’d trade with you in a minute, if only it fit me.” And she said it with her face straight, too, though we both knew she’d sooner eat slugs. In her heart she was all but lighting candles to Saint Rose the Satisfactory.

  Still, if she could touch the foul thing . . . I gritted my teeth and took it from her. What was I afraid of? A scrap of patched-together plaid?

  Hadn’t Madame Marvella once spent a whole night in the sultan’s tomb, wearing a shroud itself?

  You only have to make ’em think you’re staying. . . .

  Keep your head down and your eyes wide open. . . .

  But how on God’s green earth could you keep your head down, if Betty Brickey was your friend?

  She followed me everywhere, like a moonfaced shadow. Morning till night, there was Betty. She was worse than Bill’s cat, who’d catch you throwing out the chicken feet in June and still be hanging around at Christmas. Sleeping, waking, eating, praying—and we were forever praying, till the angels themselves must have stopped their ears—through it all she was never more than two steps behind me, watching my every move.

  “Can she speak English, do you think?” I asked Mary on the fifth day, saying it under my breath so Betty couldn’t hear me. We’d just come from a solid hour in the chapel, where Sister Maclovius was teaching us the Seven Deadly Sins. I’d nodded off at Gluttony and was dreaming about Gran’s pancakes, only to wake with a start and find Betty playing Do-As-I-Do, letting her own eyelids droop and jerk, droop and jerk, till I thought I’d die of shame.

  “I don’t think you’d call it English,” Mary whispered back, as the plaid tide swelled again, filling the hall. The sounds coming out of Betty at the moment weren’t any brand of language I’d ever heard—on our block, there’d been near as many Germans as Irish, and the Doyles were part Polish, and Mr. Patrizi the greengrocer spoke Italian—but Betty’s noises weren’t like any of theirs, not words at all, really, only an odd sort of humming-clicking-whistling like a bird itself.

  “Betty Babble, that’s all she talks,” said Hazel, poking her nose in, though it was no prize of a nose to be poking anywhere, with its dime-size pockmarks. “Babbling Betty from the Land of Babble-Loney.”

  “Shhh!” said Mary. “She’ll hear you!”

  “And what if she does? She don’t care a whit. Do you, Betty? She can’t understand a word we’re saying. Ooga-mooga chilly-dilly—”

  “Stop it,” I growled.

  “Ah, dry up,” said Hazel. “She likes it, see there? Hinky-plinky waggy-s
haggy—you see? She thinks it’s funny!”

  Sure enough, Betty was grinning again, pausing midstream in her own gibberish to cock a curious eyebrow at Hazel and chuckle softly, more to humor her, it seemed to me, than because Hazel was anywhere near the wit she thought she was. I would have gladly smacked her one anyhow—Hazel, that is, who God knows deserved it—but Marcella was at her elbow, looking daggers at me, as usual, and Sister Maclovius was still standing at the chapel door with her hawk eyes peeled. So Mary held me back.

  But by the noon meal, Hazel was pushing her luck again.

  “You know what’s wrong with her, don’t you?” she went on cheerfully from across the table. She jerked her head toward Betty, who sat beside me, rolling her bread into pea-size lumps.

  I shrugged and concentrated on chewing the same bite I’d been chewing for several minutes: a wad of stringy grayish stuff, tough as a boot.

  “Her pa was a gangster and her ma was a lunatic.”

  I cut my eyes at Mary, on my left.

  “It’s the truth,” Hazel insisted. “Ask anybody. Ask Sister Bridget. She’s her aunt; she’s kin to the whole clan. Tell her, Marcella!”

  The long-neck, right next to her, waved a fly off her turnips. “Ever hear of Egan’s Rats, Your Majesty?”

  I shrugged again and devoted myself to my boot leather. But I could feel the blood rising all the way to my eyeballs.

  Marcella’s thin lips curled at the corners. “That’s right. Those Rats. Betty’s pa was Two-Bits Brickey. Ah, sure, that’s ringin’ a bell, now, ain’t it? Look at their faces, Hazel. I guess their daddy taught ’em how to read the paper after all, when he wasn’t knockin’ ’em back at Egan’s Saloon.”

  I squeezed my fork. Mary squeezed my elbow. “It’s not worth it,” she muttered.

  “And that ain’t the half of it,” said Hazel. “Tell about the mother and the chorus line and the shotgun wedding. Tell about—”

  Marcella gave her a squashing look, and Hazel shut her mouth. Sister Sebastian was standing directly behind her.

  Even the fly stopped buzzing.