City of Orphans

by Avi

  It’s a picture of a family.

  There’s a man standing behind a seated woman. On one side of the woman is a girl. Right off, Maks sees that it’s Willa. She’s leaning on the woman’s knee, is dressed nice and clean, with long, smooth hair. She’s in a white lacy dress. Hair in ribboned braids. The doll, Gretchen, is dangling from her hand.

  As for the woman, she’s wearing a long skirt with a high collar. She don’t look particularly rich, but she ain’t poor, either. Face is like Willa’s—round, small mouth, nose some-what sharp. Hair piled up with care.

  But the woman ain’t smiling. Even her eyes seem unhappy. She has one hand pushed forward so Maks can see the wedding ring on her finger, as if she’s making sure everyone’ll know she’s married.

  The man’s wearing a dark suit, holding a derby in the crook of his arm. Hair combed back, parted in the middle. His face is long, smooth-shaven, eyes forward. One of his hands rests on the woman’s shoulder. Got a smile, but it seems phony.

  Willa’s looking straight out, with a big, happy grin. A real one. As if she ain’t noticing how the people behind are looking and feeling, which ain’t so good.

  Maks stares at the picture, then glances at Willa, not sure what to say.

  “My family,” Willa says softly, leaning forward to point them out. “My father. My mother. Me.”

  Maks says, “You all look nice.”

  Willa nods while gazing at the picture. It’s a while before she looks up at Maks. “I just . . . I just didn’t want you . . . to think I never had a family.”

  “I believed you. That’s your mother, right? Who died?”

  “They said it was that wasting disease. Like Mr. Donck. And Agnes.”

  Maks points. “Your father?”

  Willa frowns but bobs her head.

  Maks stares at the mug, fixing his face in his head, trying to get some idea what he was, guess what happened to him.

  Willa don’t speak. Or look at Maks. Just takes deep breaths, hunched over as if trying to hide. Maks feels waves of sadness coming from her.

  Not knowing what more to say, he waits.

  Willa looks up. “Is it really all right for me to come and live with your family?”

  “Sure. Gretchen, too.”

  The fluttering gaslight seems to make Willa’s face tremble. “She’d like that,” she says.

  “So will you,” says Maks.

  Willa stares at the family picture for a while before carefully placing it back into the tin box, closing the lid with a little click that sounds like The End.

  Maks, glad the talk is over, says, “Come on. We need to get home.”

  “Home,” Willa repeats with a shy smile. As if she’s remembering a word.

  40

  Same time as Maks and Willa are going home, Bartleby Donck, over on Delancey Street, sits at his desk telling himself he was stupid to get caught up in those kids’ problems. The girl, that Emma, means nothing to him. Her story is no different than ten thousand stories he’s heard. They all seem the same.

  Why did I get pulled in? he asks himself. But he knows the answer. It was their telling me they read that stupid story! Believing it. Pha! Never mind law. I need to teach them what detection really is. And that girl, Willa. She spoke up. Didn’t back away. Was strong. Wasn’t scared of me.

  Donck scratches his side-whiskers, rubs his eyes, sighs deeply, wonders how long he’ll stay alive. He looks at what he was writing, worries if he can finish it before he is finished. “Garbage!” he mutters, and shoves the papers angrily to one side ’fore picking up the scrap on which he’d written Emma Geless. He stares at it.

  “I’m a fool,” he says.

  Coughing, Donck plucks up a stained cloth and spits blood into it. “I hate children,” he says. “They believe in things. Like me.”

  Pressing down on the wooden arms of his chair, he rises precariously. Almost falling, he leans ’gainst his desk to catch himself. Then he snatches up his listening tube and hangs it round his neck. Grabs the cane that’s leaning ’gainst the desk.

  Walking slowly, leaning on the cane, almost shuffling, Donck passes out of his rooms. Don’t even bother to shut the door behind him. Hey, there’s nothing worth stealing.

  When he reaches the street, he looks up and down. In the murkiness the only light comes from street-lamps. Donck glares at them. He hates electric light. As far as he’s concerned, gaslight is better. Gives more light. Has life.

  Standing there, he has a sudden memory of gaslight making a lady’s diamond necklace glow so that when it hung round her neck it was like cold fire lighting up her face, her black hair, her dark eyes. The light made her even more beautiful than she already was.

  He gave that lady the necklace.

  With a rueful shake of his head, Donck moves slowly along the sidewalk till he reaches a restaurant whose window has a sign in gold letters:

  THE PROMISED LAND—Cheap Eats!

  Telephone!

  5¢

  Over the window someone has stuck another sign:

  Coffee and Roll

  3¢

  Donck enters. There are nine tables, two chairs at each. It all smells of stale grease and tobacco. A few people are sitting ’neath the feeble electric light, which hangs from the ceiling. A mournful waiter—pale, long-faced, big-nosed, thin-fingered, wearing a frayed black suit and a grease-stained apron tied high over his waist—steps forward like an undertaker.

  “Mr. Donck, sir,” he says, bobbing and squeezing his hands together. “How are you today? The usual table, sir? Complete dinner, sir? Beef and fried oysters. Twenty-five cents tonight, sir.”

  “I need the telephone,” Donck growls.

  “Very good, sir. Please step this way.”

  The waiter guides Mr. Donck to the back of the restaurant, where he opens a door. Beyond is a small room with one chair. Near the chair, attached to the wall, is a telephone.

  The telephone—a new one—consists of two wooden boxes, one atop the other. The top box has a crank on one side, two bells on its face. From the bottom box, there’s an electrical cord attached to a black tube. That’s the listening end. To talk, you got to put your mouth near a hole in the same box.

  When the waiter leaves, Donck leans toward the telephone till his mouth is near the talking hole. Takes down the listening tube with one hand, turns the crank a few times with his other hand.

  “Hello, Central!” he shouts into the hole. “Hello, Central!” He shoves the listening end near his better ear.

  “This is Central,” comes a woman’s voice, rough, crackly with static.

  Donck shouts, “Connect me to the Waldorf Hotel!”

  “Yes, sir. Just a moment, sir.”

  Donck coughs.

  “Connection made,” says the woman.

  He can hear ringing sounds.

  “Waldorf Hotel,” says a voice as if from far away. There’s static, too.

  “I need to speak to Mr. Packwood, your detective,” Donck all but shouts.

  “I shall have to locate him, sir.”

  “I’ll stay right here.”

  “May I tell him who’s calling?”

  “His almost brother-in-law.”

  “Sir?”

  “Never mind! Just tell him it’s his old pal from the Pinkerton Detective Agency, Bartleby Donck.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Donck. Please wait.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to disappear. Soon but not yet.” A coughing fit shakes his whole body.

  41

  Maks and Willa get home. They haven’t talked much. Just before they go up the stoop, Maks says, “I’m not gonna tell my parents ’bout Donck.”

  “How come?”

  “What if they tells me not to work with him?”

  Willa says nothing.

  “Told you,” Maks goes on, “they don’t feel good doing new things. If I don’t tell ’em, can’t say not to, right?”

  After a moment Willa says, “I don’t know them.”

 
; “Come on,” says Maks.

  In the warm kitchen Papa is seated at the table, smoking his pipe. Mama is giving him dinner. Agnes ain’t there. Maks hears his three brothers fooling in the front room.

  Mama says, “You’re home late tonight.”

  “Papers took a long time,” says Maks. “But we sold everything.” He dumps his coins on the table, makes the usual divide, putting most of the pennies in his cigar box over the stove. He slides eight cents ’cross the table to Papa. “All eight,” he says.

  “Good, Maks,” says Papa. “We need every one.”

  “Where’s Agnes?” Maks asks.

  “At class,” says Mama.

  Papa turns to Willa. “Please, young lady, if you would be so good as to sit.” He puts a hand on the back of the nearest chair. “I should be pleased to talk to you.”

  With a nervous glance at Maks, Willa sits with her doll and tin box on her lap. She looks down.

  Papa pushes his soup bowl away and turns his chair so he’s facing Willa. “My wife,” he says to her, “tells me you’re going to live with us.”

  Mama, at the stove, listens. So does Maks.

  Willa peeks up at Papa. “Yes, sir. If . . . if that’s all right.”

  “Your parents are . . . no longer with you,” Papa goes on. “Do I understand that properly?”

  Willa swallows. “Yes . . . sir.”

  “I’m truly sorry to hear it. I’m sure they were fine people. But it’s not right that a girl should be living alone on the streets. And now winter’s coming. So the whole family has agreed that you must come and live with us. We don’t have much, but we shall manage.” He holds out a large hand. “I wanted to welcome you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” says Willa, her voice so low, Maks can hardly hear it.

  Willa looks up, sees Papa’s hand, and puts out her own. She and Papa shake, Willa’s small hand swallowed up in his large one.

  “I have a job, sir,” she says.

  “Which is?”

  “I pick rags at the dumps. Ten cents a week.”

  Papa frowns, shakes his head. “No. No more of that. We’ll find something else for you to do. And I think it best you call me ‘Papa.’ And my wife, ‘Mama.’ It’s what all our children do. You’re family now. No need for ‘sir.’ ”

  Willa bobs her head. “Yes . . . Papa.”

  “As for sleeping,” says Papa, “we’ll find a spot.”

  Mama says, “Agnes says you can share her bed.”

  Willa looks at Papa. “You are very kind,” she whispers.

  Maks, across the room, feels proud of his parents.

  “Have you any belongings?” Mama asks Willa.

  “Just these,” says Willa. She lifts the doll and the tin box.

  “And the doll don’t eat much,” says Maks.

  Everybody is glad to laugh.

  Monsieur Zulot comes into the apartment. He makes his usual bow. “Bon soir,” he says, and looks round as if in search of something.

  “Agnes is at class,” says Maks, grinning.

  “Ah, yes. To be sure,” says Zulot, his cheeks turning red. “A smart young lady.”

  “Girl,” says Mama fiercely.

  “Monsieur Zulot,” Papa says. “This is Willa. Maks’s friend. She has become part of our family. She’ll be living with us.”

  Willa looks up timidly.

  “Good that you are, mademoiselle,” says Monsieur Zulot. “You have found fine people. Now forgive me. I will step from the way but come when called.” He goes into the front room, shutting the door behind him.

  “Papa,” Maks says, keeping his voice low, “did you find a lawyer?”

  Papa shifts uncomfortably. “Agnes is looking.”

  “Maks, we’ll find a way,” says Mama.

  Maks glances at Willa. When she looks back at him, he knows she’s thinking the same thing that he is: Donck.

  Maks says, “Mama, Emma really wants to see you. Tomorrow, after I bring the boys to school, I can take you. And, Papa, she needs money for food. I need to see her again too.”

  Mama and Papa exchange looks. Then Mama says, “Yes, I’ll go.”

  “We got any money to bring her?” asks Maks.

  “We’ll find it,” says Papa.

  Mama says, “And, dear God, Maks said her trial will be soon.”

  “We’ll find a way,” Papa says.

  Later, Monsieur Zulot reads the boys some more from that detective story. A chapter called “The Truth Unfolds!” Willa and Maks listen. In the story the boy detective is looking—and finding—what he calls “clues,” bits of information that’ll help him find the stolen diamonds so he can help that pretty lady.

  Maks decides he must ask Emma if there’s anything she can tell him ’bout what happened before she was arrested, some clue. If there is one, he can tell Donck.

  While Monsieur Zulot is reading, Maks steals a look out the window down to the street. Bruno ain’t there. But someone else from the gang is.

  Maks takes a deep breath and thinks, They ain’t never gonna stop chasing us.

  42

  Agnes comes home only after Mama and Papa have gone into their room for the night.

  “What class you been to?” Maks asks as she takes off her shawl.

  “Typing. I’m up to forty-eight words a minute.” Look-ing tired, she sits down.

  Willa jumps up and takes soup from the pot on the stove. She serves Agnes. “Thank you,” says Agnes, and picks up her spoon only to pause. “Willa?” she says.

  Willa looks at her.

  “I’m glad you’re moving in. There’s room for you in my bed.”

  “Thank you.”

  Maks gets his sister some bread.

  As Agnes starts to eat, she coughs, once, twice.

  “I found the name of a lawyer,” she says to Maks, keeping her voice hushed. “Someone at the Educational Alliance told me. A Mr. Sisler. On Rutgers Square.”

  “How much he gonna charge?

  “ ‘Going to,’ not ‘gonna.’ Fifty dollars.”

  “Fifty!”

  “The Alliance people said he’s good.”

  “We don’t have no money like that.”

  “They said he’ll take a little at a time,” says Agnes, bending over her soup.

  After a moment Maks says, “We might have another way.”

  “What?

  “A detective.”

  Agnes pauses in her eating and looks up. “I don’t understand.”

  “Get, you know, clues and stuff to show Emma didn’t steal nothing.”

  “ ‘Anything.’ How are you going to find a detective?”

  “One of my friends—Chimmie—told me ’bout a Mr. Donck. Over to Delancey Street. And”—Maks leans forward, lowers his voice—“Willa and me, we went and saw him.”

  Agnes shakes her head disapprovingly. “You’re listening to too many of Monsieur Zulot’s stories.”

  “No,” says Maks. “Really. He’s gonna teach us.”

  “Did he ask for a lot of money?”

  Maks says, “He’s gonna teach us how to be detectives for nothing.”

  “What’s he like?” Agnes asks.

  “Strange,” says Maks.

  Agnes looks at Willa. “Do you think a detective is a good idea?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Did you tell . . . ?” She moves her head toward the back room.

  Maks shakes his head. “They won’t like it.”

  Agnes sighs. “Maybe your detective will help.” Then she says, “At the factory they announced we’ll be closing in three weeks.”

  “Three?” cries Maks.

  Agnes nods, then eats slowly.

  Later that night while Agnes is reading at the table, she has a real coughing fit. Maks sees her wiping her mouth. Tries to hide it, but there’s blood on the cloth.

  “You okay?” Maks says.

  “Fine.”

  Willa watches Agnes closely.

  When everybody goes off to sleep in their regula
r beds, Willa tells Maks she won’t sleep in Agnes’s bed. “It won’t be good for Agnes. And I don’t mind sleeping on the floor.”

  “You’re scared of her sickness, ain’t you?” Maks says.

  After a moment Willa nods.

  Maks spreads a blanket out on the kitchen floor. “You can sleep here.”

  “Where should I put this?” Willa holds up her blue tin.

  “Be safe in my cigar box.” Maks puts it in there.

  “Maks,” Willa whispers, “did Agnes ever see a doctor?”

  “There’s one over to Mott Street,” says Maks. “Supposed to be good. Only he costs. Mama has a friend, a midwife. She comes sometimes.”

  Willa says no more.

  Maks goes into the front room and looks down on the street. The Plug Ugly is gone. He goes back to the kitchen. “No one out there,” he calls softly to Willa.

  After a moment Willa says, “Maks . . . do you ever feel as if you live in a hole?”

  “You mean . . . like behind your fence?”

  She nods. “At the bottom of everything.”

  He says, “Want to see something?”

  “What?”

  “Come on.”

  Maks leads Willa out of the apartment and up the narrow steps to the flat roof. There are crisscrossing ropes and cords that people have strung up for drying their washing. The hanging sheets look like flags from nowhere. In the sky just one or two stars are visible. There’s a full moon, but only a lick of light pokes out from behind billowy clouds. On a couple of roofs, fire escapes stick up.

  “That’s Mr. Floy’s pigeon coop,” Maks says. The gray birds, in a large screened box, cluck and coo. “He comes up and lets ’em fly. Don’t know why, but they always come back.

  “Look here,” Maks says. He goes to the roof wall and points. Lights—like strung beads—show miles of streets cutting ’tween buildings. To the east and west, the East and Hudson rivers glisten. City sounds roll up: horses’ hooves, carriages rolling, bells jangling, and human voices, shouts, calls, and sometimes screams.

  Turning, Maks says, “Over there you can see the end of the city, the Brooklyn Bridge, all them ships. See the funnels. Some of ’em smoking. And masts.