Love and Other Consolation Prizes

by Jamie Ford

  “Let me guess, Matisse?” Rich asked.

  Ernest shook his head. “That’s Edvard Munch.”

  “The Norwegian guy who painted The Scream?” Juju asked.

  Ernest nodded.

  “So what’s it called then?” Rich raised his eyebrows, unimpressed. “Boring Lady in a Bar Painted by a Second Grader?”

  Ernest sighed and ran his fingers through his graying hair. “That particular piece was created when the artist was somewhat down on his luck, and drinking too much. Hanging out in low places. He titled that painting Christmas in the Brothel.”

  Hanny glanced toward the kitchen as she lit a cigarette.

  “Like that Tenderloin place where you and your wife grew up?” Rich asked.

  Ernest nodded. “Sort of an inside joke, if you will, from an old friend.”

  “From Uncle Paz?” Juju asked.

  Ernest shook his head as he regarded his old typewriter.

  The stack of blank pages, layers of onionskin. He’d tried writing something—anything, weaving memories together for Gracie’s benefit, but the few mottled pages he’d typed were little more than awkward attempts, rambling sentences filled with typos, imperfections that had been corrected with Liquid Paper, leaving bumps on the smooth surface that stood out like benign tumors.

  Rich turned the postcard over. He touched the stamp, which had been postmarked in North Seattle. He read the back and casually looked up. “So, who’s Margaret Turnbull?”

  FADED

  (1910)

  Ernest opened his eyes as a sharp, metallic ring jarred him awake. He mistook it for another fire alarm before he realized the sound was coming from the telephone in Miss Amber’s room. He heard the ringing again and again as he sat up. His first confused, panicked thoughts were of Fahn.

  Ernest had parked in the alley and carried her in through the Tenderloin’s servants’ entrance—much to the shock and bewilderment of Mrs. Blackwell, who’d frantically found Professor True. Together they’d managed to get Fahn, barely conscious, to her old bedroom. Meanwhile, the Tenderloin’s customers were streaming out of the building. The upstairs girls leaned out the windows, watching the commotion up the street, wary of the blaze spreading in their direction. Fortunately the rain and the new pump engine were able to contain the fire.

  Iris, Violet, and Rose helped get Fahn into a hot bath, washing the smoke and soot from her hair. They dressed her for bed, bandaged her feet. Ernest had made elderberry tea, and Mrs. Blackwell heated a bowl of beef bone soup with onion syrup.

  Fahn had begun running a fever and said very little as they tried to feed her.

  “I just…wanted…to say goodbye to Maisie,” she had murmured. She had said even less after Mrs. Blackwell gave her a generous mug of warm brandy.

  “The girls found marks on her arm,” Mrs. Blackwell had whispered as Fahn drifted off to sleep. The stout cook pointed to a spot on her own sleeve near the pit of her elbow. “Some kind of poison, I tell you. Probably a morphine gun. Some cribs do that. I hope she burned every last one of them along with that wretched place.”

  Ernest heard the telephone ringing again. He squinted at the morning sunlight streaming through the windows. He regarded his chauffeur’s uniform, now terribly wrinkled, then trundled down the hall in the direction of the sound, knowing that most of the upstairs girls would still be in bed.

  Ernest thought about what Mrs. Blackwell had said. He understood what she meant as she’d made an injecting motion—more of a recollection, really. While at the U.S. Immigration Bureau, Ernest had been given shots, but he’d also seen tins of opium confiscated from men and women alike. He vaguely recalled the toothless beggars that his mother always steered him away from and the sugary smell that came from the long pipes the delirious men and women had smoked.

  “I’ll report them. Madam Flora always had those vile places broken up by the police. Though without her around…” Mrs. Blackwell’s conviction had trailed off along with her voice. “In the meantime we will all take turns watching our prodigal daughter. If her fever gets much higher we’ll have to take her down to the Wayside.”

  Ernest remembered the abandoned paddle-wheel steamer Idaho, which had been converted into an emergency hospital for the poor.

  Fahn had come by boat, he thought, and she might be leaving the same way.

  As Ernest passed Maisie’s empty bedroom, he noticed someone had turned down the covers and left a tiny box of chocolates with a pink bow from Stokes Confectioner atop her pillow. There was a large, hand-decorated card as well, signed by all the Gibson girls, welcoming her to the sisterhood.

  As Ernest continued to hear the phone ringing, he finally realized who must be calling. He slipped into Miss Amber’s vacant room and answered.

  “Good morning, sir,” a deep, raspy voice said on the other end. “This is Mr. Waterbury, I’m the butler of Speedwell. Mr. Turnbull asked that I call to let you know that you can retrieve Miss Nettleton at your earliest convenience.”

  “Of course,” Ernest stammered. “I’ll be right…”

  “He also asked that you might stop at his favorite bakery on the way. He says he’s tired of breakfasting here and would like a special meal after a special night.”

  Mr. Waterbury waited patiently for Ernest to retrieve a pad and pencil before he dictated a long, detailed list of things to pick up en route. Then the butler thanked him and hung up before Ernest could respond.

  Ernest tamped down his rage, listened, then hung up and went back to his room. He tied his shoes, finger-combed his hair, and went downstairs, where he found his dark coat hanging up in Fahn’s room. He’d gone upstairs to rest after her fever had finally broken and had fallen fast asleep. Now Jewel was there, curled up in an armchair, wrapped in a quilt, both girls sleeping. Ernest smiled when he saw that the color had returned to Fahn’s cheeks. Her face was as peaceful as the surface of a lake on a windless day, but he wondered what creatures were slumbering at the bottom, buried in the muck. He didn’t want to imagine whom or what Fahn must have endured these past few weeks.

  I’ll be right back, Ernest thought as he gently closed the door.

  —

  AFTER TAKING A number at Blitzner’s Bakery and waiting in line for ten minutes that seemed like ten hours, Ernest arrived back in Windermere, motoring in behind elegant horse-drawn carriages, delivery trucks, and dozens of colored servants who walked to work in their freshly pressed uniforms. As he finally returned to the Turnbull estate, there was a coachman waiting to wash the roadster while Ernest was escorted inside, his arms laden with a gaudy assortment of walnut tarts, orange meringue cookies, a dozen bolivars, a white raisin cake, plus a Vienna stritzel with a side of fresh Devonshire cream.

  Ernest hastened as he was led down a long gallery, strangely devoid of paintings or photographs. The hall connected to an area that looked more like the atrium of a grand hotel than a home. He was dumbfounded by a three-story pipe organ that reached toward the vaulted ceiling, which had been painted like the sky.

  “This is a special place, isn’t it?” Mr. Waterbury said. “Though sadly, the pipe organ hasn’t played a note since the lady of the house passed away all those years ago. Mr. Turnbull also had all of the art in the galleries removed at that time. He is of the opinion now that artwork competes with the view of the lake. He did keep the Tiffany chandeliers in the library, which was certainly commendable.”

  Ernest listened as Chinese women in kitchen aprons transferred the baked goods from their paper boxes to a silver cart and arranged them on covered serving trays. The women then added a service of hot tea, coffee, and apple juice. Mr. Waterbury himself topped the whole thing off with a crisp copy of the Sunday Seattle Times.

  “Mr. Turnbull asked that you deliver breakfast in person,” the butler said. “I gather that he would like to meet you, for reasons that I do not quite comprehend. Nevertheless…” He waved Ernest toward a waiting elevator.

  Ernest had never seen an elevator. The only one he knew of w
as the lift at the Butterworth & Sons Mortuary on First Avenue. And that particular device was used only to move bodies in heavy oaken caskets.

  Ernest thanked the tuxedoed man, bewildered that the servants could pretend there was nothing unusual about a young girl being delivered and later retrieved from the bedroom of a rich old man. He held his tongue as he wheeled the serving dolly inside the elevator, nodded to the black operator. The chandelier inside the lift swayed and jingled like glass chimes as the operator closed a brass gate. Ernest held on as the small, elegant room began to rise.

  When he regained his bearings and stepped off on the top floor with the serving cart, he felt as though they’d been transported to an even richer, more gilded world, half again as decadent as the foyer below. The operator tipped his velvet cap and directed Ernest to a set of double doors at the end of a long, lushly carpeted hallway.

  Ernest began to wonder how many beautiful young women had journeyed down the plum-colored corridor. How many like Maisie had walked past the slender tables adorned with Oriental vases full of fresh flowers, past the rosy cheeks of painted cherubs that adorned the inside of the arched ceiling and peeked out from the ornately carved lintels. Ernest smelled the flowers and noticed thorns on the roses. Remembering Fahn recovering in her bed, he reached out to one of the stems, jabbing his thumb directly onto one of the briers. He felt the sharp, distracting, invigorating pain; he watched the warm trickle of crimson. He wiped the blood on his handkerchief before wheeling the serving cart to the double doors and reaching for the knocker. He paused, closed his eyes as though making a wish, and then made his arrival known. He heard footsteps, then the door was opened by yet another servant.

  Part of Ernest had expected to find Maisie strewn across a bed, half-naked as if from a scene out of One Thousand and One Nights, guarded by turbaned eunuchs with scimitars. He was relieved to see that she wore the same dress as last night, the same shoes, though her hair was now down and her lipstick had long since faded. She sat on an ornate chair, hands on her valise, smiling casually, slightly impatient, as though she were waiting in the lobby of a bank perhaps. Ernest cocked his head as he noticed a sparkling strand of tiny diamonds draped around her neck.

  “There you are. You’re right on time.” Maisie stood and smoothed the creases of her dress with a tremendous sigh, like that of a tree bent by the wind, now leaning back toward sunlight. She approached the breakfast cart, tore off a piece of stritzel, dipped the pastry in the whipped cream, and then popped it in her mouth, chewing and giggling.

  She smiled as she spoke with her mouth full. “Come live with me and be my love, and we will all the pleasures prove. That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, woods or steepy mountain yields.” The line from the poem was something the Gibson girls liked to recite.

  Ernest straightened his tie. “Shall we go?”

  The servant who had begun pouring coffee stopped and stood at attention. Ernest heard humming as Mr. Turnbull strolled out of an adjoining dressing chamber.

  Ernest nodded to the man, who looked to be a hale fellow in his early fifties. He wore a short beard, the color of honey, tinged with silver. Turnbull was already dressed in a dark brown suit with a waistcoat and starched white collar.

  “Oh, there you are. This intriguing young man must be Ernest,” Mr. Turnbull said. Ernest noticed that Maisie’s wealthy sponsor had tattoos on his forearms, a sailor’s résumé peeking out from beneath his buttoned shirtsleeves. There was something odd about the fellow—a familiarity, perhaps. Ernest tried to reconcile where he’d seen the man. Had this gentleman been to the Tenderloin unbeknownst to Ernest?

  Ernest furrowed his brow as Mr. Turnbull thanked Maisie, kissed her on the cheek, and said, “Until next time. Don’t forget my offer, dear.” The servant escorted Maisie out and then closed the door behind them before Ernest could follow. Mr. Turnbull reached for the newspaper and found his seat behind an enormous mahogany reading desk. He sipped his coffee, smiled, and sampled a meringue cookie. Brushing away crumbs, he gestured for Ernest to help himself to the breakfast offerings.

  “Oh, what a world we share,” Mr. Turnbull remarked as he looked up from the page.

  “I’ll show myself out,” Ernest said.

  “Nonsense. Stay a moment.” The man tapped the paper. “Look at this. Ballington Booth, the former head of the Salvation Army, went to London and told everyone that we are rapidly approaching the end-times. Fire and tarnation! For some reason every generation thinks the world is coming to an end. What do you think, young man?”

  Ernest was sorely confused. And weary. I must still be dreaming, he thought.

  “I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking me,” Ernest said. He kept his anger in check, but his patience was thinning. He needed to get Maisie home. He needed to check on Fahn.

  “The arrogance astounds.” Mr. Turnbull shook his head as he looked up and asked, “How did you sleep last night?”

  Ernest heard himself say, “Quite poorly.”

  “That’s too bad. I, on the other hand, slept like a lamb. It’s the bedding, made from the finest Japanese silk. And of course, I would be lying if I said the company was not…remarkable.” The peculiar old man set the paper down and broke into a singsong rhyme: “Round as an apple, eyes deep as a cup, the whole Mississippi can’t fill them up.” He looked up at Ernest with a wink. “My apologies to Mother Goose…”

  “I’m sorry, sir…”

  “No, no, no…I am the one who needs to apologize, young man, that we haven’t met sooner. You see, we have something deeply, profoundly in common, you and me.”

  Ernest waited impatiently as the man took another bite and then continued.

  “Young Margaret told me how you two met at the fair in the wake of President Taft’s visit—how you came to find yourself in the employ of the magnificent Florence Nettleton. I insisted that she tell me all about this person she ran from my doorstep to say goodbye to. Flora always found the most amazing people to bring into her fold.”

  Ernest couldn’t help but notice that as the man spoke of Madam Flora, the twinkle of admiration grew from a spark to a flame. It was an odd respect that he proffered, mingled with his infatuation.

  Mr. Turnbull kept talking, rambling, drumming his fingers on his desk as he spoke. “Ever since my late wife, Millie, left this world, I have been…consumed with Flora Nettleton, despite her being the Mother Jones of madams—you know, the wrinkled old bird who likes to chirp, ‘Women don’t need the vote to raise a little hell.’ Well, maybe Mother Jones is right though, because Madam Flora is one heck of a woman.” The man stroked his beard and took a deep, clarifying breath. “Pity that she’s so unavailable now. She was a smart one though, perhaps the smartest woman I’ve ever known. That’s why I’m not surprised she cornered the market on you that day at the AYP.”

  Ernest began to wonder what Maisie might be doing downstairs. Perhaps she was outside, kicking the tires of the motorcar by now.

  “The point that I’m trying to make,” Mr. Turnbull said, “is that I wanted to meet you in person, to see the good things—the promise, in a young man like yourself, especially from someone of such humble, provincial beginnings.”

  “Because I was won at the fair?” Ernest asked. He couldn’t understand where this was heading.

  “Not just that.” Mr. Turnbull laughed as though he’d been crystal clear and somehow Ernest hadn’t been paying attention. “I wanted to meet you—yes, you—because you came to this country as a lowly child from the Far East—from a territory that was rent asunder, torn apart by war, by rebellion.”

  “Because I came from China?”

  “Exactly. Now we understand each other. I called my executive secretary and had him look up the manifests at one of my offices this morning, and lo and behold.” Mr. Turnbull took another sip and then pointed at Ernest with his cup of coffee. “There’s a decent chance, young man, that you came over on one of my ships. What are the odds?”

  Ernest opened his mouth, abo
ut to speak, and then closed it. His head spun, and lurid memories returned. Images of the unsavory men in China, the ship’s doctor, the blackbirders who’d passed themselves off as merchants, silk-clad girls in cages, Jun and the other boys who drowned after they were transferred to the care of smugglers.

  “I was on a few of those voyages myself,” Mr. Turnbull said, as he casually tugged up his shirtsleeves, revealing a blur of faded ink.

  Ernest remembered a morning in a cemetery.

  Refugee children waking up.

  Being herded away from his ruined village.

  The sound of gunfire. A man in an elegant coat.

  Louis J. Turnbull.

  Ernest stared at the man as he kept speaking.

  Louis J. Turnbull was the man who was not my uncle.

  The rich man went on and on about his business ventures in the Orient, the ships he built, the fleet he owned, the precious cargo they’d carried.

  Ernest could almost smell the smoke, the fetid mud, and his mother’s peculiar fragrance before she wandered off to die.

  “Now look at you.” The man slurped his coffee as Ernest woke from his strange memory. “You’re an upright figure, a model citizen, as Western as can be. I know what you are thinking—that you should thank me…”

  Ernest’s mouth hung open as spoken words vanished into the dull throbbing at his temples, the pulsing of his heart as he imagined hundreds of people, perhaps thousands, lied to, tricked, bought and sold, shipped overseas, offered to the highest bidder, indentured. While others were cast off, given away. Bodies bobbing on the surf like driftwood, flotsam and jetsam, women and children.

  “If anyone, I should be thanking you, my young fellow,” Mr. Turnbull continued. “I started off with lowly, penal colony riffraff from the darker parts of Australia and Fiji, but Canton changed my fortunes.” He waved a hand, looking about the room. “All of this, everything I have, was built on the idea that despite the unfair labor laws, the damnable exclusion act designed to keep your kind out—bringing people like you to this country was a profitable, charitable, and even humanitarian transaction.”