City of Light

by Lauren Belfer

  We journeyed less than three miles from the Milburn house. Mr. Rumsey, Mr. Talbert, and Superintendent Bull drove in the Rumsey carriage while Mary Talbert and I followed in the Talberts’. With the sweet night air flowing around us, Mrs. Talbert told me what had happened. Millicent didn’t come home from the Fitch Crèche, where she was volunteering for the summer. Two hours after she was expected (time enough for her to run an errand or have tea with a friend), Mrs. Talbert went to the Crèche. She spoke to the matron, who had said good-bye to Millicent on schedule and watched her leave; nothing had seemed amiss. Mrs. Talbert telephoned several friends and they searched Millicent’s route, through a mostly Polish neighborhood mixed with Slavs, Czechs, and Rumanians. Of the few who could speak enough English to answer questions, none had seen anything, none knew anything. A colored girl? They’d never in their lives seen a colored girl—even though Millicent walked the same route twice each day.

  Mrs. Talbert returned home to await her husband, even as her friends and neighbors continued to search the vacant lots, the abandoned buildings, the factory yards. No, they did not telephone the police, would never telephone the police; for them, only Mr. Rumsey could telephone the police and expect a response.

  Then, a short time ago, like a clumsy melodrama at a second-rate theater, a rock had been thrown through their kitchen window. The sleepless cook heard the sound. Wrapped around the rock was a note. The cook brought the note to the Talberts, who were in the drawing room waiting for whatever might happen. Mrs. Talbert couldn’t show me the note, because her husband had it, but she described it to me. It was written in pencil, in barely legible script, replete with misspellings and with the diction of someone for whom English was most likely a second language. The note was an angry, racial diatribe. Mrs. Talbert could barely bring herself to say the exact words; I would never repeat them. The words were about Negroes getting uppity, taking jobs that belonged to white men, making trouble when they should mind their own business—if they knew what was good for them. If they didn’t want to end up the way Negroes did in the South, strung from the nearest tree.

  Such were the words, uneducated and fraught with hatred. But the paper was a lovely ivory vellum. This contrast between the writing and the paper was disturbing. For the poor, clean paper was a rare commodity; they often wrote their letters in the margins of newspapers, or above the lines of other letters, or on scraps ripped from advertising circulars. Where would a person with such writing and such beliefs find such paper? Had he stolen it, or had it been given to him? Or was the uneducated writing merely a ruse?

  The Talberts didn’t pause to decide. For the note told them where to find Millicent: at one of the grain elevators along the harbor. There was a certain logic to this, because Negro laborers were often hired to shovel grain during the frequent strikes and slowdowns that plagued the waterfront. With the knowledge provided by the note, the Talberts immediately went to Mr. Rumsey’s Delaware Avenue home, only to be told that he could be found up the street, at the Milburn ball.

  Slowly we made our way through the squalid, fetid slums along the waterfront. The immigrants who lived here were utterly powerless: Several years earlier when the DL & W railroad desired access to its coal trestles down a tenement-lined street, its laborers simply built the tracks during the night; in the morning the elected city fathers announced that they couldn’t correct a fait accompli and the tenement children would need to be careful, what with a railroad outside their doors.

  As we drove through the slums, the cityscape around us gradually became a maze of ship canals, commercial slips, stagnant estuaries, and railroad bridges; a dismal, reeking Venice. Coal trestles rose along the harbor like colossal insects, interspersed with giant hooks used to unload cargo. Upward of one hundred fifty vessels at a time could be docked at the Buffalo Harbor, and there were always more anchored just offshore, waiting for space. When there was no regular docking available for grain ships, “floaters”—grain elevators that operated on the lake itself—were brought into service.

  Finally we reached the outer harbor, where huge breakwaters protected incoming vessels from lake storms. Opposite the “Chinaman’s” lighthouse (so called because some thought its conical top resembled a coolie’s hat), we left the carriages. Two police officers materialized from nowhere, to stand guard. I glanced at Mr. Rumsey; his merest nod provoked nervous barking orders from Superintendent Bull. The feathers on Bull’s Musketeer hat tossed wildly in the wind. I shivered in that wind, even though it was warm and moist, like a wind from the tropics; it was everywhere—a force, a companion, a roar as well as a pressure. When I was a girl with my father in the mountains, I would lean into such a wind and let it buoy me up.

  A red glow out on the lake, a pillar of flame, showed that one of the floating grain elevators was on fire, no doubt from spontaneous combustion. Tugs surrounded it, hosing it to little effect. The red glow lit and shadowed our way.

  A police officer corralled two water taxis, one for Mrs. Talbert and me, the other for the men. The taxis were weatherworn, flat-bottomed scows propelled by a single oar, the boatman standing in the rear, shrouded in black against the black night. As we boarded, struggling against the boats’ wobble, Mr. Rumsey’s calm grew preternatural. Several police boats (not much bigger than ours but with two oars instead of one) joined us, and we formed a makeshift convoy as we moved toward the channel of the Buffalo River. This winding stream, which had once been a virtual swamp, had been reengineered over the years to become an extension of the harbor. Its only purpose was to provide more space for the docking of ships, more riverbank for grain elevators, and more land for the rail lines serving them both. Ship canals intersected the river at odd angles, creating still more docking space. Even with all this, however, there still wasn’t enough room: The ships were docked chockablock, the elevators crowded against one another, and always there were ships waiting out in Lake Erie for space to open—such was our city’s good fortune.

  Now, in the night, the only light was torchlight, fire on sticks held by the police or propped in sockets along the shore, the flames pressed by the wind. A greasy slick covered the water, which smelled of garbage. Mrs. Talbert and I gasped as something large and white like a body rose suddenly before us, rolled, and disappeared. The boatman laughed, a rumbling sound shielded by his low hat and high scarf.

  When we entered the channel of the river itself, the wind abruptly died. The masted sailing ships and funneled steamers, docked sideways along the shore, loomed beside us. Tugboats angled for space. In the interstices between the ships, we glimpsed the devil’s promenade along the shore: prostitutes in flowing kimonos flaunting themselves to sailors bedecked in the colors of their shipping lines; vagrants bedded down in doorways; immigrant families trying to escape the stifling tenement heat, their children passively awake, staring wide-eyed at the ships and at us. There were no such amenities as safety railings along this shore; children fell in or they didn’t. Many people lacked a hand, an arm, a leg, fingers, a foot—as if there’d been a war here, and the victims sat on stoops now nursing their wounds. Of course there was a war, and it was ongoing: the inescapable war of employment in industry. I remembered Rolf, losing his arm; Maddie’s father, his life. I thought about the Negro workman beaten outside the Albright Gallery, and the defacement of the school … even Speyer and Fitzhugh, although their deaths had been officially deemed accidents, seemed to belong on the list of casualties of war.

  Even now men worked, transferring cargo in the torchlight. When there was no torchlight, they worked by touch and instinct in the darkness. On the horizon, there was a peculiar blackness against the sky, in the shape of boxes and pinnacles: the downtown skyscrapers silhouetted by glimmering stars.

  Where Main Street met the water, passenger steamers were docked three-abreast against the piers. Some of these were excursion vessels that would set out in the morning for lakeshore beaches. Others would go farther, carrying the never-ceasing stream of immigrants that passed thr
ough Buffalo (like so much freight) on their journey west, to the cities of the Great Lakes—Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Chicago, Duluth. And always more canals and waterways were being built, to accommodate more ships: the Evans Ship Canal, Coit Slip, the City Ship Canal, Match Slip, Peck Slip—a warren of water paths lined with grain elevators, coal trestles, warehouses, and mills. Ornate jackknife bridges with fanciful towers traversed the waterways. And permeating everything was the sound of pianos. Waltzes and rags, blended into a single tinkling song. Saloons lined the waterfront, their doors open to dissipate the heat; every saloon had a piano, every piano gave its tune into the night. There were more pianos on Canal Street than on Delaware Avenue, a newspaper once reported, and their songs drifted achingly around us.

  Slowly we approached the primary grain elevators. Two hundred fifty feet tall, over forty of them were arrayed along both sides of the river like monsters spawned by the water itself. Somewhere among them there was even a Coatsworth Elevator, on its own Coatsworth Slip. Francesca never visited the elevator and rarely mentioned it; family agents managed the business and every quarter sent her a share of the profits, providing the income she needed to wear top hat and tails to costume balls.

  The channel narrowed, elevators looming on both sides. All at once images of Millicent’s death ran through my mind. How did people die at a grain elevator? They slipped (or were pushed) into the immense storage bins, where they suffocated in the grain as it pulled them down like quicksand. They were trapped (or tied) on a work platform when spontaneous combustion (or a match) caused a bin to explode. They were overcome by smoke poisoning from the slow, slow burn of a fire deep within the grain. They choked to death in the constant pall of grain dust. They fell off the open man-lift, onto the floor below.

  Millicent. I remembered the first day she came to Macaulay, ever modest, oblivious to the stares of her classmates. I remembered when we reviewed together her first-term report, with its row of A’s, and the shy smile that ever-so-slowly lit her face. I remembered the evening she came to me in the snow with the story about Grace, her hands frozen, snowflakes touching her hair.

  At a signal from Mr. Rumsey, who struck a match to double-check the note that William Talbert carried, we landed, pulling in between two freighters. Oddly, the elevator before us was deserted. With a start, I saw the large lettering painted on the exterior to guide the ships—this was the Coatsworth Elevator. Unused, tonight.

  Mr. Rumsey came to my side while the police fanned out across the site, waving torches. We entered the building through the side door, away from the river entrance. Inside, the shadows curved, mimicking the giant wooden bins rising around us. The bins were constructed in intersecting rows and connected to one another like a patchwork quilt. Above them—far above our heads—was a labyrinth of delicate wrought-iron walkways. They were beautiful, like works of art, covered with designs of wheat and corn. Apart from our hollow footsteps, the only sound was the groaning pressure of the grain inside the wooden bins.

  “Millie! Millie!” Mrs. Talbert suddenly wailed. The torches sent pillars of orange up the bins. “Millie! Millie!” She turned around—left, right, back—desperately wondering where her niece could be hidden in this maze. Her husband gripped her shoulders from behind, pulling her close against his chest to restrain her.

  Dexter Rumsey took my hand, his palm warm and dry like well-used leather. Was he looking for comfort, or offering it? His face revealed nothing. The police went farther down the line of bins, leaving us in shadowed darkness. All at once I was lost. Disoriented. We all were; four of us bunched together, unable to tell even what direction we were facing.

  Then from far away came a cry. Muted. It came again. Long enough for us to find a direction among the groaning bins. The cry became louder, a breathless call of anguish. Louder still.

  “Millie? Millie?”

  “Here. Here—Aunt Mary!” Suddenly the shout was clear, reverberating around the walls. But where was “here” in this echoing cave?

  Almost by chance, we turned at a break in the bins—the police converging from the opposite side with their torches—and there she was, standing on a high, narrow platform. “Aunt Mary?” she shouted again, this time in surprise, as if she doubted herself. She appeared unharmed, although she was so high above me that I couldn’t see her clearly.

  She’d been taken up on the man-lift, a revolving metal belt with footholds that went from the ground floor to the roof, and left on an unprotected work platform above the open bins. Any misstep would have toppled her into a quicksand of grain. Perhaps that was what those who’d done this had counted on: She would have fallen of her own accord and disappeared, and they could still take communion at their churches because they hadn’t committed murder; her death would have been accidental, and months would have passed before her body was sucked down and blocked the lower chute from which the bins were emptied. How many other bodies were concealed within these bins? I shuddered at the question. And yet … Millicent didn’t fall; she’d found just enough space up there to survive. The police started the man-lift and went up to get her. All at once, like an unexpected gift, she was with us.

  • • •

  On the way back, Millicent sat between her aunt and me, holding our hands. Her breathing seemed normal, but her palm was moist and clammy against mine. Her hair was properly pinned up, her clothes only a bit disarrayed. We made our way peacefully down the river as if we’d all been on an outing: a midnight picnic in the woods. The Talberts had decided not to let the police question her, at least not now. They wanted to take her home. So a contingent of police stayed behind to gather evidence at the elevator while we returned to the scows.

  As we journeyed, Millicent was silent, her expression blank, her eyes terribly wide and somehow vacant. Yet she must have registered what she saw, for she turned her head when we passed a child with a dirty face (whether male or female, I couldn’t tell) who stood alone at the water’s edge. Millicent watched the child until we were too far away to see it anymore.

  “Perhaps you’d best help at the Talbert house, Louisa,” Mr. Rumsey said to me when we landed opposite the Chinaman’s lighthouse.

  At this instruction—Mr. Rumsey’s “perhaps” was always an order—the Talberts nodded in silent acquiescence. When I entered the Talbert carriage I felt anxious. It was unheard of for a lady of my race to visit a home in the Talberts’ community. The Talberts themselves glanced at me guardedly, while Millicent stared straight ahead, oblivious.

  Standing at the window of the carriage and watching her, Mr. Rumsey sighed. “Well, William, you may want an officer to accompany you home. In case there’s any …” He didn’t say “trouble,” but we knew what he meant. “And Millicent may wish to offer a statement. Later.” He studied her vacant face. “After she’s rested. There’s no telling—” He paused, seeming at a loss. “Well, the perpetrators may have …”

  The Talberts glanced at one another with understanding, and Mr. Talbert said, “Thank you, Mr. Rumsey, but no.” Because of race, Mr. Talbert would always address Mr. Rumsey formally, whereas Mr. Rumsey would say “William,” not simply “Talbert” as he would for Milburn or Albright. “I think it best that the formal investigation end here. Millicent is obviously shaken but otherwise unharmed—more than we hoped for or expected. We will speak with her later, when the moment seems propitious. I will let you know what she says. There’s no point bringing the police to our home. I assure you, our friends are … around us,” he said meaningfully. “And undoubtedly the journalists would follow the police, creating a cause célèbre which would bring little justice and most likely produce similar incidents as people come to recognize the … possibilities of such endeavors.”

  Mr. Rumsey considered. At last he said, “As you wish.” He bid us good-bye.

  As we drove away, I imagined him returning to the Milburns’ ball to find his wife. Would he say anything about the events that had transpired this night? Most likely not. “What took you away from th
e party?” Susan Fiske Rumsey might ask. “Only a bit of business,” he would reply offhandedly as he offered her the final dance.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  The Talbert house, at 521 Michigan Street, was large and rambling, covered with ivy and surrounded by gardens, as lovely as any house on Lincoln Parkway. Although the time was now nearing four A.M., a small crowd was gathered outside.

  I glanced at Mrs. Talbert. “Who—”

  “Our neighbors,” she said quietly. So the community was united, keeping vigil. But the crowd silently dispersed when we stepped from the carriage. Mrs. Talbert looked at no one, simply led Millicent to the door, and as I followed I realized that it was because of me that everyone left. Friends would say nothing until the Talberts gave some word or signal that I was to be trusted.

  As if we were dressing a doll, we prepared Millicent for bed. We turned down the covers for her, lifted her legs, eased her down. Millicent said nothing through all of this, which worried me; but of course she was traumatized, and it was the middle of the night, so most likely Mrs. Talbert was right simply to encourage her to rest for now. Humming a lullaby, Mrs. Talbert caressed her forehead and hair for several minutes until she relaxed into sleep, looking all at once peaceful and calm.

  Then, Mr. Talbert and the servants also went to bed and Mrs. Talbert and I were alone. We went downstairs and stood in the front hall that flickered with gaslight. We regarded one another warily. What were we to do now? Knowing that Millicent was safe, I wanted to go home, but I couldn’t ask to be taken at this hour. Mrs. Talbert did not invite me to rest in a guest room upstairs, did not offer a dressing gown, did not make any of the overtures of hospitality that she might have made had she viewed me as an ally.