The City Beautiful

by Aden Polydoros

  I scoffed as I scanned over an opinion piece calling for the assimilation of Eastern European immigrants into Chicago’s well-established German reform community. The author made it sound as though we were only an inconvenience until we cut our hair and hung up our tzitzis. I hated the idea that to be considered a worthy American, I had to hack away parts of myself, become a more acceptable Jew, an invisible one. And I hated that in spite of my resentment, a part of me deeply wanted to anyway.

  I set the article aside to finish last. It would take me all morning to copy the text into the machine, which would cast typeset blocks from each line. It was tedious work and sometimes the fumes gave me headaches that lingered all day, but I knew it wasn’t permanent. It couldn’t be. There had to be more than this.

  I positioned an article on the tray in front of me and began typing, falling into a steady rhythm. The steady clatter of the machine numbed my nerves. Each time I turned out a new line of text it felt like magic, words forming from slugs of molten lead. By the end of the first article, the machine had created dozens of slender metal blocks, some scarcely wider than the edge of a silver dollar, arranged into squares. I carefully secured them in the metal frame that would be used to print a single newspaper page.

  As I worked, my thoughts strayed to Yakov and how he had been on the evening he died. How he had come into the hall so silently, the way he always had, as though he were already becoming a ghost. His low purr, the stroke of his fingertips upon my lower back. I shivered. I could almost feel it now.

  I pinched my wrist to banish the thoughts and turned my attention back to the task at hand. Words must be typed and driven into place, parts must be oiled. Yet as I worked, I couldn’t get Raizel’s words out of my head. The police had done nothing to search for Aaron, and likely they had treated Yakov’s death with the same indifference.

  What were the chances that three Jewish immigrants would disappear in just two months, and then a fourth would end up dead? If the water hadn’t rejected Yakov, he would have merely been another disappearance.

  The police had called it an accident, but of course they would have. There was too much invested in the World’s Fair to risk poor publicity. An accident was bad enough, but a murder? The newspapers wouldn’t let a story like that go buried.

  A stir of voices broke me from my daze. I looked across the room as the head editor, Mr. Stieglitz, entered, accompanied by his entourage of journalists. All smartly dressed men in three-piece suits and silk ascots, their hair slicked back and watch chains glinting.

  If the police wouldn’t care about several missing boys and a single drowned one, maybe the public would. I eased to my feet, swallowed down the unease playing havoc on my guts, and approached them.

  Mr. Stieglitz was a tall man, with a penchant for corduroy suits and ornate silver-tipped canes. Just as I kept my sidelocks trimmed short and tucked behind my ears, he favored the narrow beard and generous mustache of the Stockyard bosses. We had both made concessions for this new American life; it was inevitable. Indeed, sometimes I felt a buried anger for my yarmulke and tasseled tzitzis, which I feared would always exclude me from becoming truly, visibly American.

  Mr. Stieglitz turned to me as I neared. “Good morning, Mister...er...?”

  “Rosen. Alter Rosen.”

  “Of course. How may I help you?” Although we had only spoken a handful of times, he used informal pronouns to refer to me, as one would use with a friend or small child. It made me feel hopelessly small.

  “I think I have a story for you, sir. Something big.”

  “Is that so?” He lifted his eyebrows. “Well, what is it, then?”

  I clammed up, my confidence deflating at the edge of derision in his voice. Maybe it was a coincidence after all. What would I know? I set type. I worked the printers. I had grown up in a small town. These men had been born and raised in Chicago, and though they still spoke the old tongue, their accents were Americanized. We were nothing at all alike.

  “It’s about my roommate, sir. Yakov Kogan. He was found dead at the fairgrounds yesterday. The police called it a drowning—”

  “Yes, you have my sympathies. May his memory be a blessing.” Mr. Stieglitz turned to the other newsmen, who were watching us with amused half smiles.

  “Sir.”

  He looked back, his brows twitching. Already, the first hint of annoyance had surfaced. “Yes?”

  “I don’t think it was a drowning, Mr. Stieglitz. I think the police just said that because they don’t care, or because they didn’t want to cause bad publicity. Three other boys on Maxwell Street have disappeared recently, too, and the police have done nothing to investigate. They’ve just been dismissed as runaways.” I could see his eyes glazing over. I began speaking more quickly, trying to get the words in before he shut me out for good. “I think you should have one of the journalists write about this. This is clearly something that the public should know about.”

  “Mr. Rosen, I have no intention of sending my journalists out on a wild-goose chase.”

  “I can look into it, sir. I can even write it.”

  “You? Write an article?” He exchanged a look with the other journalists, who were struggling to contain their smirks. “You’re an apprentice typesetter, Mr. Rosen.”

  “But I’ve read plenty of articles.”

  “That does not mean you have the talent necessary to write them.” He took a deep breath, as though I was straining his patience. “More important, do you know what kind of paper this is?”

  I tried to speak, but my lips began to tremble, and I closed them right away.

  “We do not publish gossip. We do not publish drivel. We certainly do not begin accusing the police of shirking their duties. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” I whispered.

  “Good. Now, return to your station. Those presses won’t work themselves.”

  He continued on his way. One of the journalists, a broad-faced man who had watched the exchange with curiosity, stopped beside me. His mustache drooped like the whiskers of a catfish. I recognized him as Mr. Lewin, who had joined the newspaper several months ago. More than once, I had heard him rave about the Chicago Daily Journal and the Chicago Times, English-language papers where he saw the future.

  “He gave you quite the chewing-out, didn’t he?” he said, once Stieglitz and the others were out of earshot. “I wouldn’t mind hearing more about what you had to say.”

  As I told Mr. Lewin about the disappearances, he nodded sagely, his mouth cocked in a thoughtful smile.

  “That’s certainly unusual. As for your friend, you have my sympathies. May his memory be a blessing.”

  “May HaShem avenge his blood.” The words left my mouth before I even realized it, the Hebrew sharp on the tongue, like splinters. HaShem yikkom damo.

  “You’re truly certain of it, aren’t you?” Mr. Lewin studied me carefully. “That your friend was killed.”

  “I don’t know how to explain it. I just...” I hesitated. “If you had seen Yakov, you would understand. I’ve volunteered at the burial society for nearly a year now, and I’ve prepared more people than I can count. This was different.”

  It wasn’t just the bruise around his throat. It wasn’t falling into the mikveh—that was grief and exhaustion. No. I couldn’t explain it, but somehow I knew that something terrible had happened to him.

  Mr. Lewin gave it some consideration. “These other boys who have disappeared, you say you know them?”

  “Not personally, but I’d see them around Maxwell Street.”

  “Hmm. I see.” He nodded. “Once you’re done arranging the typeset, let Mr. Weiss take over the rest of the printing. I have a task for you.”

  A jolt of shock rippled through me. I couldn’t believe he actually believed me. “So, you think I should write the article?”

  “Maybe, but I need you to look
into this more.” Mr. Lewin thrust a finger at me. “Establish a groundwork. You say your friend died at the World’s Fair?”

  “Yes. The police thought he slipped into the water and drowned, but there was a bruise on his neck.”

  As I said it, I traced my fingers over my throat. I had lifted my hand without even realizing it. The skin under my jaw felt swollen and tender.

  “Do you speak English?”

  Shaken, I lowered my hand to my side. “A little. I can understand and read it well enough, but—”

  “Go to the fairgrounds. Talk to people. See what you can learn.” He gave me a hearty slap on the back, his gaze sparking with excitement. “This could prove to be a very interesting article indeed.”

  I hesitated. “Sir...”

  “What is it? What’s the matter?”

  I looked at my feet, my cheeks heating up. “I can’t afford the admission.”

  “Do I look like a charity to you? You want this article to be written, you need to pay your dues.”

  I returned to my station to find my supervisor, Mr. Weiss, examining the newest tray I had prepared. He was a printing veteran whose hands bore the scars of the clunky outdated presses, several fingers misshapen from old fractures and curled inward like claws.

  I went to his side. “Sir, after I finish typesetting the pages, Mr. Lewin wants me to go to the fairgrounds to research an article.”

  Mr. Weiss didn’t answer. As he examined the die-blocks, his gaze darkened.

  “Sir?” I asked tentatively.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” Mr. Weiss’s voice came from deep in his throat, as low and foreboding as the grumbling of a bear. And like a bear, he looked ready to take a bite out of me.

  “I don’t...” I trailed off. “I don’t know what you...”

  “Well, boy?” he demanded, stepping aside so that I could get a better look at the tray. “Tell me, what is this supposed to mean?”

  The lines of metal text swarmed before my eyes. I blinked, wiping away the sweat forming on my neck. It took me a moment to realize what I was looking at, since the letterpress blocks were arranged as mirror images of the true text. Instead of the final article, it was a single sentence, copied over and over again in cold lead.

  ןענעגרהרעד םיא טסלאָז

  Zolst im derhargenen.

  You must kill him.

  The corners of my vision darkened as if saturated with ink. As I took a step back, the floor rolled beneath me, and the air grew denser, stifling. Mr. Weiss’s mouth continued to move, but his words were lost beneath a deep, liquid roar.

  Terror filled me. I wasn’t in control of my body. This was something else.

  “I didn’t do it.” My voice echoed hollowly in my ears. “I don’t know how that got there, but I didn’t do it.”

  Even as the words left my mouth, I knew how absurd they sounded. I had spent the last several hours at the Linotype machine. No one else could have done this.

  With a grunt of disgust, Mr. Weiss scooped the lead blocks from their scaffold and threw them into the melting pot.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered as he sat down at the machine to examine the other tray I had completed. “I’ll retype it. I’ll—”

  “Go,” he snapped, waving his gnarled hand at me. “You said you had to go? Then just go.”

  6

  Outside, coal smoke billowed like dragon’s breath from the chimneys of the workshops. Unlike the fog in my hometown, the smoke wouldn’t burn away with the rising sun. It would only grow thicker as the day dragged on, until it blanketed everything.

  At the nearby train station, people crowded elbow-to-elbow, the air filled with a multitude of voices. I purchased a ticket from the kiosk man. On the platform, I found a spot to stand away from the crowds.

  My face felt hot and swollen, and the ache in my back had returned with a vengeance. Rubbing my eyes, I stepped away from the brink of the platform as the train raced by. I was always a little afraid that if I stood close enough to the edge, a strange urge might come over me. All it would take was one step or two. I didn’t have to want to do it. I just would.

  Once the train stopped, I entered the third car and took an empty seat at the back. To distract myself, I glanced at the newspaper the man next to me was poring over. Emblazoned across the page were the words SECOND HUMAN FOOT FOUND ON LAKE MICHIGAN BEACH.

  Foot? That couldn’t be right. What had happened to the rest of the person?

  The man got off at the next stop, leaving his newspaper behind. I picked it up and read the article. It was buried on the ninth page like an afterthought. Some words were a mystery to me, but I got the gist of the story after scanning it over twice more. Over the last several months, body parts had been discovered in the lake or on its shore, and it wasn’t only feet like the headline suggested. A fisherman had caught a human torso in his net, and three weeks after that, a little girl foraging for crayfish had found a skull picked clean by the fish. Unidentifiable.

  Nauseated, I set the paper aside as the train arrived at the South Park Avenue station, the second-to-last stop. The platform was teeming with people dressed for the World’s Fair, a riot of bright colors at odds with the surrounding cityscape.

  The train car rapidly filled with bodies. An older man nearly elbowed me in the face as he was trying to find room to sit. Deciding it would be better to stand the rest of the way than risk bloodying my nose, I rose to my feet and offered him my seat. A young gentleman shouldered past me in the process, not even bothering to glance my way before continuing to the back of the car.

  The train jolted forward once more. As I grasped onto the leather hoop hanging from the rods overhead, my skin prickled with the disquieting sense of being watched. A quick glance around the car failed to reveal anything amiss.

  A few minutes later, the World’s Fair appeared past the window. To my right was a pillared building whose four cupolas dominated the skyline. Other structures loomed in the distance, and beyond it all lingered Lake Michigan’s vast liquid darkness.

  As the train rumbled to a halt, I followed the other passengers onto the platform. A clamoring tide of people filled the concourse. Just going down the long staircase was as strenuous as fighting against a current. Finally, I reached the ticket counter.

  “Excuse me,” I said in English to the woman on the other side of the kiosk’s window. “I heard that a boy drowned here last night. Do you know anything about that?”

  She looked up in disinterest. “Fifty cents, please.”

  Three hours’ wage was a high price to pay for answers, but I reached into my overcoat pocket for my billfold. My hand came back empty. No. No. In a panic, I patted down my other pocket and then my pants and waistcoat as well.

  “I think you dropped this,” a low, melodic voice said in Yiddish from behind me. I turned.

  It was the young dandy who had brushed past me on the train, now standing so close I nearly brushed shoulders with him. His mussed brown curls and full lips gave him an air of innocence, but his hazel eyes were as hard and wary as those of a meadow viper, his handsome face all sharp edges.

  His face.

  Life continued around us, but it felt as though time itself had come to a standstill. My feet were riveted to the pavestones.

  It couldn’t be.

  “This is yours, isn’t it?” He held my billfold out to me, a smirk teasing his lips. “You can tell by how worn and creased it is.”

  I didn’t move. Certainly, to any observers, I must have looked deranged.

  “Well?”

  I reached out to retrieve it from him, knowing by then that I hadn’t dropped it. He’d reached into my pocket and taken it.

  As my fingers closed around the leather edge, he took my wrist with his other hand and leaned in closer. “Hello, Alex.”

  I swallowed hard. “Frankie...�
��

  I had arrived in Chicago two years ago, but I had only lived in my apartment for the last ten months. Before that, I had been with Frankie, and I hadn’t been doing anything as kosher as working the Linotype or fetching coffee.

  His smile remained, but his eyes grew even colder still. “It’s been a while, boychik.”

  Before I could answer, the woman at the ticket counter cleared her throat.

  “Excuse me,” she said loudly, as though shouting at me would suddenly make me more fluent in English. “There are others waiting in line. That will be fifty cents.”

  Cheeks burning, I pushed two quarters through the gap under the window. The woman tore a ticket from a long reel of them and passed it through. Frankie tried to follow me as I hurried off, but people chastised him to wait his turn.

  Passing through the station’s doors, I was confronted by the stunning sight of the Fair’s forecourt. Towering white buildings rose all around me, each of them a wealth of pillars, cupolas, and statuary. American flags sailed proudly from every rooftop, rippling in the summer breeze.

  Frankie had taken me to the World’s Fair during its construction, when the buildings had been half-formed. For a small sum, we had been allowed to watch from afar as hundreds of workers crawled ant-like over the lumber skeletons. Back then, I had only been able to imagine the White City’s splendor. To see it in person was just as shocking on my system as a whiff of smelling salts.

  The sun shone off the golden dome of the building ahead, making a beacon of it. Eager to put some distance between Frankie and me, I circled around the building and arrived at a path overlooking a long basin. A woman sold popcorn and candied nuts on my left, and a band played under the rotunda to my right. A man strode by in a pristine white coat and high fur cap, like a hero from a Slavic fairy tale.

  I stepped up to the edge of the basin and gaped. At the other end of the pool, a massive statue stood thirty meters tall, a globe held aloft in her left hand and a staff in her right. Her arms and face were plaster made to resemble marble, her gown gilded in gold leaf that, upon catching the burnished sun, transformed her garment into a mantle of fire.