“Maybe so, Albert,” Will said, anxious about lingering over even modest jewelry on public grounds. It seemed an especially poor policy today. “But why don’t we put the locket back in the box with the letters, Albert.”
Albert opened his fist and Will took it from him.
“Will?”
Will placed it in the box, closing the lid and looked back at Albert.
“Yes, Albert.”
“I’m going to have to miss her for a long time. I know it’s not hers,” he said. “I just wanted to hold it in my hand for a bit.”
43
THE TEACHERS AT ROSENBERG SCHOOL
As the two boys passed Unger’s Grocery, they were beckoned inside by the store owner.
“Nothing ever looked so good,” Will said, as Mr. Unger handed him two large oranges. Aunt Lida’s sheet music breakfast had worn off with all the exertions of the day.
“How is your family?” Will asked tentatively as he dug his fingernails through the thick orange peel. Mrs. Unger was usually about the store, aproned up, busy with her broom. He hadn’t seen her. Mr. Unger wore an understated, but overwhelmed expression, which gave Will his answer. Unger couldn’t or didn’t speak further, as Will looked around the space. “Where’s Birdy?” Will asked next, pausing in the excavation of the orange, his heart rising.
“She’s in back,” Unger said, still with suppressed agony in his voice. He tried to add something more but couldn’t right away.
Birdy, Unger’s eldest daughter, was a couple of years older than Will, but was always friendly with him in the halls at Rosenberg. She helped him with any complications that arose with his higher math when exams grew near and was Sister Elizabeth’s staunchest advocate in the grocery business, setting aside the best produce for her each week before the sister came into town on Saturday mornings. When she knew Sister Elizabeth was short on funds, Birdy would fiddle mysteriously on the shop’s weights and measures in the orphanage’s favor, then throw in little treats for the smallest children. She’d also write Will’s name on an orange or an apple. “This one’s for Will Murney,” she’d tell Sister Elizabeth. Birdy was always saving the day in this way or that. She always knew what to do. Will was awful fond of her.
“Birdy’s tending after her little sisters back yonder,” Unger finally said, having regained his composure. Will felt his own heart falling back down into place as Unger asked, with great sympathy, about him.
“Sister Elizabeth. The orphanage. Will, I’m terribly sorry, son,” the kind grocer said, expressing the same measure of sadness at the conclusion of Will’s woeful story as he had about his own loss. “I loaded the wagon for her Saturday morning in the rain. I urged her to stay,” he added. “Told her she could stay with us here. I understand Mother Gabriel did, as well, at the infirmary.”
“Sister Elizabeth,” Will said, handing the peeled orange to Albert. “She’s safe on Jordan’s shores.”
“Canaan’s shores,” Albert corrected, taking the orange. “Thank you.”
“She was a pistol,” Unger said as Addie Rogers joined them. Mrs. Rogers, a math teacher at Rosenberg, was holding a tin can from which she drank aromatic coffee in short, bird-like sips. A demanding teacher, Mrs. Rogers always required her students to show their work.
“Mrs. Rogers?” Will asked. “Have you heard any news of Miss Thorne?”
She brought a handkerchief to her mouth, trying to restrain her emotion. “Lucas Terrace fell. It’s where poor Daisy lived.”
A picture flashed through Will’s mind: Miss Thorne standing tall at the front of the class, commanding the room with a means of leadership exclusive to the finest teachers, her reddish-golden hair congruent with her spirit, dressed impeccably as she always was. She lectured ardently on history, geography, and English in a soft, but vigorous voice, peppering her content with encouragement concerning elevation and hard work. She advocated that these subjects were vital to a full enjoyment and wholesome enrichment in life. With innate enthusiasm and utilizing the sort of interesting facts that made all her claims seem credible, she exuded the sort of charisma that made intelligence compelling. The photograph of her fiancé, Joe, which she kept on her broad and organized desk, was also a topic of constant conversation. She was to have been married this very week.
Will mourned her.
“Her stories,” he said, remembering how her lessons were full of action and good ideas. As he finished his orange, Addie Rodgers put her hand on Will’s shoulder. She meant to comfort him, but began weeping, herself. Unger quietly told Will and Albert that Addie had lost her husband, Ashby.
“Yes, he came to retrieve me,” she said. “I had left the school to help my mother and couldn’t get back.” Unger sent Albert away for more oranges. “I packed some of Mother’s valuables in a small trunk,” she continued. “We started to leave, but the water was too high, so we returned to her apartment. Ashby found us. We went to look for higher ground, but we’d forgotten the trunk. Ashby went back for it. The building collapsed. It fell on top of him.”
“I’m sorry,” Will said, after pausing to try and think of something else. Mrs. Rogers’ red eyes looked right through him.
“I still have my mother,” she said. She seemed ready to shriek between every word. “I study myself,” she added, winding the handkerchief around her hand so tightly that her fingertips turned white. “I know what has happened. My eyes are hot.”
Will shook his head because he didn’t know what else to do. He would always associate the scent of strong coffee and orange rinds with desolation, for what she next said was spoken in an indelible way. “The thought of taking my own life tempts me greatly,” she said forthrightly. “I am undone.”
44
THE SOMMERS
Outside the grocery store, Will and Albert encountered a pig. Without prejudice, it trotted up to every passer-by it spied along the road. When ignored, it would turn and skulk away down the path on which it came, only to soon find another person to approach.
“Don’t pet the pig,” Will said to Albert, too late. “We’re not starting a farm.”
Albert looked at Will flatly. He had barely spoken a word since they buried Lila, but after the brief lunch at Unger’s felt more able.
“It’s one thing not to bury a dead goat, Will,” he said. “But it’s something else entirely to ignore a live pig.”
“Words to live by, Albert,” Will said.
The pig followed the boys for several blocks until it was diverted by an old woman who kept repeating, “O my soul. O my soul.” The pig remained with her, having changed allegiances for reasons known only to the pig.
Ahead, men continued to clear the streets. This was easy duty compared to those who had been assembled to serve within what people were now calling dead gangs. Within the organization of these little platoons, there were those assigned to scouring a neighborhood to find the bodies, and those charged with removing the bodies and collecting them in a central location within each neighborhood. A designee, typically one who lived in the particular community and had some familiarity with his neighbors would then make efforts at identification prior to the wagon’s arrival. This person would scribble down on a note pad where each body was found and make inquiries if he didn’t know the deceased. Often, he would part the lips and examine the mouth, making note of gold fillings or false teeth then attach the note with a pin to the victim’s clothes, or if the corpse had no clothes, fold it, and place it between the toes, giving them a morbid squeeze before the body was removed. Typically, a single body would not be found exclusive of finding several others at the same time. Family members were most often found in the vicinity of one another and some family resemblance could be detected by the one who was engaged in the identification work. Will learned the bridge of the nose, in particular, was inspected for resemblances to reliably verify family connections. The designee would typically write something l
ike this if he knew those whose remains were found:
Sommer, Ferdinand (SW Corner 59th & Avenue W)
Sommer, Mrs. Ferdinand
Sommer, daughter of Ferdinand (1)
Sommer, daughter of Ferdinand (2)
Sommer, daughter of Ferdinand (3)
Sommer, Joseph (son of Ferdinand, same residence)
Sommer, Mrs. Joseph
Sommer, child of Joseph
Or, should he not know, and could not identify those found:
Unknown man who took refuge in Francois house (1)
Unknown woman who took refuge in Francois house (2)
Unknown last name, Joliet, cook for Mrs. V.C. Hart, 1624 Avenue M
Unknown persons in Losico’s Grocery, 21st & Ave. P ½ (1-27)
Unknown child with Nolley family at 22nd & Ave. T
Hired men for O’Neill’s Oyster Farm (1-4)
Or, on still other occasions, especially as the work went on:
Unknown white man
Unknown body
Unknown girl, about 6 yrs. old
Those making such recordings, Will observed, acted in a manner which revealed no deep grief. After the notes were made, deposited, or attached in whichever way was expedient, the man assigned this duty simply sorted pins or sharpened his pencil with a pocketknife until he was summoned again. Will and Albert verified these divisions of labor within these crews with Hal Mackey, who used to work as an attendant at the Pagoda Bath House but was now a member of the dead gang assigned to this particular neighborhood. He held a toothpick loose in his mouth.
“Coroner’s trying to keep a record,” he told the boys. “It’s a fool’s errand.”
According to Hal, the dead bodies within this section of the city were being taken to a timber mill warehouse on 25th Street, well to the east of the one Will had seen last night. Hal allowed that another crude temporary morgue was located on the north side of the Strand between 21st and 22nd, and another one was being set up at another warehouse across town. It was hard for Will to believe there could be two such places, much less four, but the truth was that they were everywhere.
“Look, it’s Father Kirwin,” Albert said, pointing. The priest of St. Patrick’s, Will and Albert’s own church, had been conscripted as a clerical adjunct to Hal’s gang. Not yet forty, the priest moved about the work of the members of the dead gang, gently encouraging them. After being asked to do so by the Central Committee, he was working closely with Rabbi Cohen and Alderman Levy on the disposal of the bodies, as well as with Police Chief Ketchum on public safety.
“A good man,” Hal said. “He visits the poor when he has money, the rich when he’s out. Look at him now.”
Hal told them that Father Kirwin’s keen blue eyes went black after speaking to one of his parishioners, a man by the name of Soper about the death toll. Yet the priest had regained his composure and returned to work, not stopping to rest at all. “Soper’s a medical doctor by trade, I understand,” Hal said. “Particularly gifted, they say, in the science of probabilities and the like. This Soper, he walked a portion of the city yesterday and last night, studied the force and geography of the cyclone, and done the mathematics of it all.” Hal shifted the toothpick back and forth in his mouth. “I don’t know, but we’ve been removing bodies now all day. Don’t know what Soper told the padre, but it hit him right hard.”
They all watched the priest as he solemnly anointed the bodies.
“He looks different,” Albert observed. The priest, though self-possessed, appeared as if he’d aged considerably since they’d seen him the Sunday before last. The night of the storm, the enormous bells of St. Patrick’s had fallen through the tower and taken half of his church building with it. Several men and women who had come there seeking sanctuary were saved when Father Kirwin himself led them over to Broadway and Fourteenth, to the Gresham mansion, just before the bells brought the roof down. It was said that the St. Patrick’s parishioners would likely meet to worship with the Episcopalians or the Presbyterians for some time, and that Father Kirwin would share their pulpit.
The priest, amiable and kind, would often come out to the orphanage to teach the children Scripture, but did it like no other man of the cloth Will had ever experienced. He didn’t preach so much as just visit with them all together. When Will and Bennie Yard had climbed up on the roof of the dormitory and shimmied down the rainspout, rather than punish, Father Kirwin had sat them down to ask, “Now tell me how it was this sin came to pass.”
When James Lambert was sick, as he always seemed to be, Father Kirwin, along with Sister Catherine—the orphanage’s nurse—would sit quietly with the boy for hours. When a new child came into the orphanage, Mother Joseph and Father Kirwin would together find what comforted each of them most. By his casual manner, he made it imaginable that the same grace and virtue that he wore so easily was within any ordinary person’s grasp. Heaven, the priest taught them, resided not up there, but here, he’d say, pointing to his heart. Though unconvinced of the universality of this notion, Will was sure it was true in the case of Father Kirwin. After the incident with the rainspout, the priest spared the rod, admitting to Will he used to do such things himself. Trying to live in accordance with God’s ways, he told Will, would always be more akin to wrestling than dancing, especially for the roof-climbers and spout-shimmiers of the world.
As he watched the priest execute his duties with such conviction and under such duress, Will was persuaded he must strive to find a new set of prayer beads. His future religious exertions, even if taken up tenuously in the coming days, would require at least this—for the rosary he had been given, but had worn only for a short time, was now most certainly washing back and forth at the bottom of the ocean.
45
OLEANDERS
At the edge of the hospital district, a man with a long beard and two pieces of cumbersome luggage stood in front of his large Victorian home, offering it to the public for a meager sum. Because he spoke German, neither Albert nor Will were sure about his exact terms, but he seemed eager to part ways with it in the condition in which it had now been rendered. In the very next lot, Miss Winifred Ruby, the socialite who oversaw the dance classes at the Garten Verein, labored in her front yard—hatless, haunted, her gown in shreds. A diamond necklace hung about her neck as she worked among the oleanders in her garden, all but ignoring the three motionless bodies lying on her porch scarcely a dozen feet away. As though she feared they were suspicious characters, she shooed off the dead gangs whenever they approached to retrieve the bodies. An oak had fallen and broken through the roof of her mansion, as well.
As Will and Albert quickly passed, Miss Ruby called to them, insisting they help tend her defeated garden. “The oleanders! I’m talking to you boys!” she called after them. “Come here, right now!”
Will pushed Albert ahead and around the corner.
“The vain things charm us most,” Albert said, looking back.
46
LUCAS TERRACE
Will had read a good deal of history, but the havoc found near the hospitals had no equal in his knowledge of the historical record of the new world to date. Masses of refugees crowded the streets, growing denser toward the heart of the district. As the boys moved through the crowd, they met a squinting man with a donkey looking for his spectacles and his uncle.
“My uncle’s house was right over there,” the man said, squinting keenly. “The currents hurled it down the lane a piece. He’s now got a whole new set of neighbors.” He apparently found this notion so curious that he repeated it twice. “The sight,” he noted, pinching his eyes together more snugly and pointing left, then right, “it all gives one a new devotion to the orderly array of the past.” He and the donkey walked a few feet, then he repeated a variation on the same theme. “Was down the lane a piece. Now, Uncle’s house is right over here.”
He acknowledged to the donkey that the develop
ments in the neighborhood and his uncorrected vision both jangled him considerably. He also mentioned his uncle again. Albert nodded his head supportively to avoid any further jangling.
“Is that Lucas Terrace?” Will asked him.
“I reckon it used to be,” the man said.
“It is,” a hunched over woman with a bleeding hand confirmed from nearby. The squinting man shrugged next to several tons of cascaded brick. Albert looked at the man and Will looked at the woman.
“My teacher lived there,” Will told the woman as Albert petted the donkey, who remained indifferent about it all.
“Life is naught,” said the woman as rain began to fall.
“Yes, ma’am,” Will said.
Large raindrops began to pock the brick dust around the ruins. People began to move more quickly around the wreckage, seeking cover, speaking with great anxiety concerning the return of the storm. The squinting man casually dropped the rope that was around the donkey’s neck and announced he was going to find a dry place.
“Mind if we borrow your donkey, then?”
“Oh, this hay-burner?” he said, jerking his thumb toward the donkey as he held a newspaper over his head. “She ain’t mine.”
Albert looked at Will for their next move.
“Albert, get on.”
Will took up the rope, directing the donkey in only the most general way. The animal seemed to have a certain knack for finding the best way through the crowds and around each obstacle.
The Mourning Wave Page 11