“There were pictures?” Jacqueline sinks to the lawn. She picks up the cigarette case. Cradles it in her hands. It doesn’t shine anymore. It’s scuffed and broken, more gray than silver. “This is really it?” she says. “You took this from Jacob’s house?”
“Yes.”
But Jacqueline doesn’t yell. She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t pounce at you. She stands, the cigarette case still balanced in both hands, and she turns her head to look at you. Mischief flickers in her eyes. “He’s going to be really mad.”
“Good.”
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
“But I did. And I don’t give a lick if Jacob’s mad. His wife, neither.”
“She’s not his wife,” she says, sighing the words more than speaking them. “At least, she isn’t anymore. She’s passed away. The baby, too.” She closes her eyes. Shakes her head. But she’s not annoyed with you. She’s annoyed with herself. “Jacob lied to me,” she says. “He lied about a lot of things.”
So you were right. You were right all along. You sensed that something was strange about Jacob, and your instinct was correct.
But still, you struggle with it, here in the moment. You’re stunned. Momentarily, you’re speechless, and the reason why is very simple: No matter how certain you were about Jacob, you could never quite believe it, because you’re so uncertain about yourself.
“The woman in the photo?” you say, still working through it. “He lied about—”
“He lied about everything,” Jacqueline says. “His name’s not even Jacob. He’s a liar, and I hate him.” She’s turning the cigarette case over and over in her palms. “We have to get rid of this.”
“Why did he lie?”
“We can melt it,” she says, not hearing your question, or more likely, not caring. “We can melt them both.” She grabs the dagger from the lawn and starts for the workshop. “Help me get a fire going.”
“Wait—”
But she doesn’t. You have to jog around the workshop to catch up with her. Jacqueline is already inside, loading coal into the forge. The ruined case and dagger sit beside it on the floor.
“When will Papa be back, do you think?”
“That’s not going to work,” you say. “They’re silver and steel. It’ll take hours.”
“Hours?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.” You step forward. “What else did Jacob lie to you about?”
“I don’t want to tell you,” Jacqueline says.
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll say I’m stupid.”
“I won’t.”
In either hand, she lifts the cigarette case and the dagger off the floor. Then she thinks. She sizes you up. “He just—” she begins, but her lips pinch shut. She holds her chin a little higher. “I don’t want to tell you, okay? We had an argument—that’s all.”
“When?”
“Last night. I went to his house.”
“You snuck out?”
“I sneak out every night.” Jacqueline shakes her head, looking back at the forge. “Hours? Really?”
“Yes,” you tell her. “But why—”
“Then I’ll get rid of them some other way. I know where I can go.”
“Stop,” you say, and now you press a hand against her chest. “What is going on?”
“He’s going to be furious—that’s what,” Jacqueline says. “And he’s coming over to get his things back.”
You tense. “He is?”
“Yes. They both are.”
“They both? Who else is coming?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “The point is, Jacob will be here soon, and I’m getting rid of these.” She sidles around you, stepping into the yard in the direction of the house. “But I’m glad you did it,” she says, as if it’s an afterthought, whirling around to face you again. “I really am. The money, too. I don’t want his money. I don’t want any of his silly stuff.”
She drops the cigarette case and the dagger as she says that, and she walks forward. She reaches for you, and instinctively, you take her hands. This is your sister, your only sister. Your reflection. Your other half.
“I’m sorry about the letters,” she says.
“What did you tell him?”
“I don’t know. Things.”
“What things?”
“Lots of things,” Jacqueline says. “I was angry at you.”
“Why? What did I do?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why were you mad at me?”
“Because I—” Jacqueline looks up at the sky. The watery roses of clouds. “Because I’m mean,” she says. “We can’t both be the good one.”
You lower your head. Somehow, when she says that, you feel ashamed.
“But I am sorry,” Jacqueline says. “I really am.”
“Do you still want to run away?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice peters away. Then she drops your hands, and she bends to pick up the cigarette case and dagger from the grass. “First, we have to get rid of these. He’ll be here soon.”
She walks back to the workshop and retrieves a leather satchel. It’s made for holding a set of tongs, but it fits the dagger perfectly, and Jacqueline drops the case in, too. She slings it over one shoulder.
“Where are you going?” you say.
“I’m going to hide these.”
“Where?”
“A secret place.”
“Just hide them here,” you say. There are shovels in the garden. Picks and trowels and spades. “We can bury them.”
“I am going to bury them,” Jacqueline says. “But not here. Somewhere else.”
“Then I’ll go with you.”
“No, you have to stay.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Jacqueline says, and she grins, beaming with power and mischief, “my place is a secret, and secrets are fun.”
The adventurous one. The exciting one. When she tells you that—secrets are fun—you smile. Because it’s true: They are. You close your eyes, just for a second, and in that moment Jacqueline leans forward and kisses you on the cheek. It’s a strange thing for her to do, a thing that a grown-up might do. Your aunt. Your big cousin Ella. But Jacqueline has never kissed you before, and you can’t quite tell if the oddness of it is upsetting or nice or some strange mix of the two.
“I’ll come right back,” she says. “It won’t take long,” and then you watch her cross the lawn, and go. For minutes after, her touch still lingers on your cheek, the chilly dampness of her lips settling on your skin until at last you wipe the mark away with the back of one hand.
CHAPTER 22
Fairbanks, as it happened, had been Elisabeth’s first impression of Alaska. They had flown from Philadelphia to Chicago, then from Chicago to Denver, then from Denver to Seattle, and then finally—finally, after more than twenty hours of airports and airplanes and deafening propeller engines—from Seattle to Alaska. They touched down in Fairbanks on a Friday just like this one, and were set to fly into Tanacross that Sunday.
Fairbanks. The largest city in the interior. That was what she had known about it, and that was the fact that had shaped her expectations. She expected a city not too dissimilar from Pittsburgh: gritty and industrial, certainly, but a city not without its share of energy and verve and hard-nosed charm. Perhaps, she thought, before setting out for Tanacross, the three of them could catch a movie—Clark Gable’s Test Pilot had just come out—and afterward, perhaps they could do a bit of shopping. They could pick up a few things for the new house. John’s post with the Office of Indian Affairs had filled them with an almost childish sense of hope and enthusiasm. It had seemed serendipitous when John first secured the job: One morning he saw the ad affixed to the employment board i
n the post office; then three days after that he interviewed by phone; then the day after that he had an offer in hand. Their lives were going to be an adventure, and adventures always ended happily, didn’t they?
Their arrival in Fairbanks was Elisabeth’s first indication that Alaska had a tendency of defeating expectations in all their varied forms. In her mind, she had seen Pittsburgh; in reality, Fairbanks wasn’t much larger than Lititz, and any vestige of its vitality had long ago worn away. The streets were wide and nearly free of cars. Paved sidewalks petered out at random into pitted lanes of dirt. The city’s only movie theater had recently burned to the ground, and they were told it would be months until the new one would be finished. It didn’t seem justified to call Fairbanks a city. If Fairbanks was a city, Pittsburgh was a world-class metropolis.
Since then, however, Fairbanks had grown, not in truth but in its impression. Each time they visited, the city felt richer and livelier and vastly more inviting than it had that distant afternoon when they first arrived. There were drugstores, grocery stores, doctors, dentists, restaurants. There was electricity. There were toilets that flushed and showers that rained hot water. But this time, more than any luxury, the thing that Elisabeth relished was the presence of strangers—guarded, hurried strangers. She was far from Tanacross, and she was anonymous here. No one was watching her, judging her, gossiping about her. They stayed at the Emerald Hotel, and when a young man in the lobby snubbed Elisabeth’s perfunctory smile, she felt an unexpected flutter of delight in her stomach.
John set out immediately for his meeting with the OIA, an office of which was housed in the basement of a building on the east side of town. He wore a snappy bound-edge Mallory hat and his best navy blue suit, its double breast fitted with amber buttons that shined like winking eyes. In the past, these clothes had always granted him a look of suave self-assurance, Humphrey Bogart meets investment banker. But today, his suit seemed to fail him. John’s skin looked soft and pale. His eyes were tired. He exuded a sense of disgruntled resignation; he reminded Elisabeth of a man standing up in court to hear a verdict that was all but assured. Let’s just get this goddamn thing over with, shall we?
“Good luck,” Elisabeth told him, but neither of them could manage even to smile.
For the past few days, Elisabeth had dreaded this meeting with the OIA almost as much as John had. It wasn’t just the possibility of John losing his job. What was the worst that could happen in that regard? They would move back to Lititz or somewhere near it—Lancaster, maybe, or Ephrata—and if push came to shove and no easy jobs could be found, they could always fall back on John’s parents or her own aunt and uncle. After three years of their living abroad, John’s mother would be thrilled at the idea of sharing the same roof with her granddaughter. Mein Schätzchen, she called Margaret. My little treasure.
So unemployment be damned. That she could manage. But Alfred? She could only imagine how he’d react to the news of an imminent move back to Pennsylvania, but if his letters were any indication, he wouldn’t take to it kindly. If the second “gift” he wanted was an in-person meeting, what would be the third? A whole series of meetings? Something even . . . more than that? Whatever he planned on asking for, it wouldn’t likely be something she could offer from four thousand miles away.
And another wrinkle: Wouldn’t Elisabeth’s moving away from Alaska give Alfred more leverage? If you leave the territory, our exchange is over. It’s me or John. Choose one. That didn’t seem far-fetched. Alfred wanted her near him. He wanted her contact and her attention, and she had no idea how much longer he’d keep demanding it—or how much longer she’d let him. But one thing was for sure: If John lost his job, time would be of the essence.
But maybe, even if he was fired, time would still be on her side. Surely, the OIA couldn’t find a replacement right away. Surely, they would let him finish the school year. But for now, all she could do was wait for answers. Elisabeth tried her best to forget all the variables, and she tried to forget the real reason she was here—to meet Alfred in person, and God only knew what that would entail. She pushed these things from her mind, and instead she tried to concentrate on the ostensible reason why she was here: to run errands with Margaret.
First, the doctor’s office—Margaret quizzed him about the Hippocratic oath—and then the two of them found their way to a Sears & Roebuck, the only department store within walking distance of the hotel.
“What do you think of this one?” Elisabeth asked, reaching for a gray, adolescent-sized cardigan that hung within a row of identical copies. She glanced at the price tag—six dollars, a veritable bargain—and then she held it up against her own body, modeling the sweater with a sultry smile. The tapered sleeves barely reached her forearms. “It’s mohair. It’s fancy.”
“What’s mohair?”
“It’s wool from a special kind of goat. A silky, long-haired goat.”
And the face Margaret made in response was so adult—so sneeringly judgmental—that for a second she hardly recognized her own daughter.
“No, thank you,” Margaret said, turning to another rack. “Can I just browse around by myself for a while?”
Elisabeth found a seat and sulked. What little energy she had managed to muster seemed to dribble out from her toes. It was just one remark, and it wasn’t even all that nasty, but it hit Elisabeth hard all the same. She could see, in flashes, the woman her daughter was becoming. A year ago, Margaret would have reached out for the mohair, kneaded it between her fingers. I’ve always admired goats, she would have said, or something just like that, something stilted and erudite but childish all the same.
But lately, sneers and skeptical eyebrows were more common than ingenuous charm. It wasn’t just that Margaret was getting older. Kids get sassier, especially with their parents. But Elisabeth had already lost one eleven-year-old best friend, and it pinched her somewhere deep and tender that she was now losing another. Gleichgesinnte no more.
Waiting for Margaret at the dentist’s office half an hour later, Elisabeth didn’t even have the energy to read. She slouched in her chair and closed her eyes. An hour after that, they were walking into their hotel room, and Elisabeth planned on going straight to bed for a nap.
But John was waiting for them, pacing around the room. His collar and tie were already undone, and he had tossed his hat on the bed. When he saw them he rushed forward, smiling widely, bursting with all the energy Elisabeth didn’t have.
* * *
—
The OIA had been upset about the fight with Daniel Nilak, no doubt about that. Technically, they had even given John an injunction, though this was nothing more than a brief record of the event in his personnel file. They chatted about the fight and jotted down John’s summary of the incident, but the main topic they had wanted to discuss was something else entirely. They had offered him a new job, a teaching post right here in Fairbanks.
“There’s a school at Ladd,” John explained, Ladd Army Airfield, the base that they had flown into only hours before. “It’s a high school for the kids of military officers. Army brats, you know? It’s tiny, but one of the math-and-science teachers is moving down to Juneau, so a spot just opened up. Or it will open up, I mean.”
“When?”
“Two months,” John said. “End of November.”
“This other teacher’s not finishing the school year?”
“He’s sick.” John shrugged. “He’s jumping ship on them.”
“And you were there to take his spot.”
“And I was there to take his spot,” John said. “They weren’t too happy about the fight, but they said they’ve been looking at my curriculum, and they thought I’d be a good fit for the post. Mix that with the fact that they know Tanacross isn’t exactly the perfect place for me to be teaching anymore, and bingo, the job was mine.” His eyes grew wider, going glassy. “The squeaky wheel, Else. It really is true. The squeaky w
heel.”
The pay, John said, would be a little less than the post in Tanacross, but there was one major benefit of the job at Ladd.
“I’d be rendered an essential employee,” John told her. “All the teachers on the base are essential employees.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, if we really do get involved in Europe, I wouldn’t be conscribed.”
What could she say to that? What could she say to all of this? Wonderful. Fantastic. That’s absolutely fantastic. And it was fantastic, of course, but that had less to do with John and more to do with Alfred.
Fairbanks. They were moving to Fairbanks. Away from Tanacross and all its judgment and gossip, but, more important, closer to Alfred and all his secrets and promise. Not only that—telephones, telegraphs, post offices that delivered mail more than twice a week. Her involvement with Alfred was going to get easier, and answers were going to come faster. John talked and talked, but the more he went on, the less Elisabeth listened.
She was stunned—not surprised, really, but stunned. Her head felt heavy on her shoulders. Her hands felt swollen. She felt drunk, so much so that the next thing she did wasn’t as much a conscious action as it was a thing she simply did, an action like movement in a dream, inevitable and easy. She stood, or rather, she felt herself stand. John was in the middle of a sentence, but, blinking, he went silent.
“Sorry,” Elisabeth said. “I don’t mean to cut you off, but I’ve got to go.”
She wanted to move. She wanted to do. She wanted to start—or restart—her work this very minute. And she would. But John just blinked at her, confused.
“What?” he said. “Go where?”
“A doctor’s appointment,” Elisabeth replied, and hearing that surprised even her.
“Oh,” John said. “Sorry.” He glanced at his wrist. “This late? It’s almost five o’clock. It’s almost dinnertime.”
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