by Maureen Lee
She wondered what Mollie was doing now, poor cow. She’d be worried sick for her sister and was probably planning to catch the next boat to New York, that’s if she had money for the ticket. If Olive hadn’t arranged for Annemarie to take her place in steerage, by now she would have been safely delivered to the aunt: Gertie would have made sure of that. The aunt could have sent Mollie enough money to buy a ticket and in a few weeks the sisters would be reunited in New York.
Olive had mucked up an awful lot of lives. ‘Good never comes out of bad,’ her old ma used to say. Well, Ma should know. All she’d ever known was bad, in the form of a husband who’d beat hell out of her and her kids. At thirteen, Olive had left home and had been living by her wits ever since. Even so, it was no excuse to take it out on the Kenny girls. Neither had done her any harm. Indeed, hadn’t Mollie been really nice to her, spoken to her as an equal, despite knowing she was a tart?
She thought about Annemarie stranded on Ellis Island. The girl probably didn’t know if she was coming or going. Did she still have the bundle with her passport inside? Anyone could have pinched it: she hadn’t thought to put a label on. She remembered Ashley saying young women weren’t allowed off the island unless someone came to collect them. He’d actually offered to arrange for a friend to come and vouch for her, but by then Olive had had a better plan in mind. As far as blokes went, Ashley had been quite decent and she’d probably repaid him with a dose of the itchy wriggles.
Her guilty thoughts were interrupted by gales of laughter from outside. She went over to the window. She could have been in any city in any country in the world. This part of New York was dark and barely lit, and there was no sign of the tall buildings seen from the ship. There was a rundown café across the road with a sign, ‘Joe’s Place’, that blinked on and off. A car had stopped and four young women were making their way inside, giggling so hard they could hardly stand up. Somewhere, a clock chimed six.
Olive chewed her lip. It was a habit she must get out of: one of these days she’d have no bottom lip left. There was nothing she could do about Mollie, but she could do something about Annemarie.
She pulled on the pink hat and picked up her cape - she wouldn’t put it on until she was outside so the man on the desk wouldn’t see how tatty it was; she put a coat on the mental list of things to buy tomorrow - and went downstairs. The man emerged from a cubbyhole behind when she rang the bell.
‘What can I do for you, miss?’ He smiled at her kindly. An elderly man with a thatch of snow-white hair, he spoke English well with an accent similar to Gertie’s.
‘I met someone on the boat, a young girl from Ireland same as me, but she was in steerage. She was expecting her aunt to come and meet her, but worried she hadn’t received her letter in time. I’d like to make sure she’s been collected. If not, I’ll take her to her aunt’s house. Is Greenwich Village very far?’ Christ, she was good at this! Her voice literally throbbed with sincerity.
‘Not all that far in a cab. Cabs don’t cost much,’ he added when Olive’s face fell at the idea of using some of the precious dollars. ‘Is the girl on the island? The Isle of Tears, people call it.’ Olive nodded. ‘Then you’ll have to catch the ferry. They run quite often, but you be careful, miss. This isn’t a good area for a young girl to be out in on her own.’
‘I’ll be careful,’ Olive promised.
She left the hotel and walked swiftly in the direction of the docks, practising what she would say when she reached the island: ‘I’m Mollie Kenny. I’ve come for my cousin, Olive Raines. Our aunt in Greenwich Village is expecting her.’ If asked, she’d produce Mollie’s passport. It was a risky thing to do, but she’d got a kick out of the risks she’d taken today: the racing heart, the sweaty palms and, best of all, the glowing knowledge that she’d fooled everyone: Ashley, Gertie, the Customs’ officer. She could hardly include Annemarie, poor kid but, pretty soon, she could add Ellis Island to the list.
But this would be the last risk she would take. As from tomorrow, her conscience would be clear and she wouldn’t give a damn what happened to the Kenny sisters.
Bertha had prepared bratwurst with hot sauerkraut and potato salad for dinner, followed by schluender marzipan cake and Bavarian coffee. Gertrude sipped the coffee with a sigh. ‘That very nice, Bertha. A long time since I have such meal. Thank you.’ The sisters had decided to speak English together, so that Gertrude would improve quickly.
‘There’s a German butcher’s on the corner,’ Bertha said, ‘the best in New York. Would you like more cake?’
‘No, thank you, Bertha,’ Gertrude replied with another sigh.
‘Are you still thinking about that girl, Rosemarie?’
‘Annemarie. I worry what happen to her. Where she disappear from?’
‘Disappear to,’ Bertha corrected, ‘not from.’
Like her sister, Bertha was comfortably stout and had the same iron-grey hair. Her basement apartment, situated on Ridge Street on the Lower East Side, was dark but cosy, and filled with knick-knacks collected over a lifetime. A sepia photograph of the sisters, taken when Gertrude was fourteen and Bertha two years older, stood on the dresser beside one of Bertha and Hermann’s wedding. A fire burned in the grate and the curtains had been closed on what was turning out to be a misty and not very pleasant night.
Had circumstances been different, Gertrude would have been feeling sluggishly content - her stomach full, her stays unlaced, slippers on her feet - and relieved to have left Germany for a new and better life with her sister in New York. Yet she felt on edge, unable to get Annemarie out of her mind. Where had the girl gone? She’d contacted one of the officers, told him Annemarie was missing. ‘But person come to meet her, Margaret Connelly. You find, please. Make sure she got Annemarie. ’ But Margaret Connelly was nowhere to be found among the crowd waiting on quayside to welcome the passengers off the Queen Maia.
Gertrude couldn’t stand it any longer. She struggled to her feet. ‘I go back to ship, Bertha. Never sleep until know what happen to Annemarie.’
‘I’ll come with you, Gert. I’ll go find a cab while you lace up your stays and put your shoes on.’ Bertha regarded her sister affectionately. ‘You were a worrier when you were young and it seems you haven’t changed a bit in all these years.’
It was almost seven o’clock when Maggie Connelly arrived home. School had finished almost three hours ago and she’d gone for a meal with her friend and fellow teacher, Connie McGrath. She unlocked the door that led to her apartment, one of three above Ziggie’s, a shop that sold sheet music. The shop was still open and Ziggie was singing a song she’d never heard before in his rusty and rather appealing voice, ‘My Heart Cries, My Soul Weeps’, accompanying himself on the piano. It sounded like a dirge and she suspected it was one of his own compositions.
There was mail on the little table in the hall: a letter with an Irish stamp and another posted in New York. She ran upstairs to her apartment on the first floor - Americans called it the second and counted the ground floor as the first - threw herself into a chair and opened the letter from Ireland. It was from her niece, Mollie, and contained only a single page that she read with mounting dismay.
It would appear that Mollie and Annemarie were on their way to New York with the intention of living with her in the tiny apartment that was hardly big enough for one person, let alone three.
Maggie loved the girls with all her heart, but she led an enjoyable and extremely busy life in New York, having made loads of friends with whom she regularly went to the theatre and the opera. She’d joined a choir, the Legion of Mary, and a bridge club. Much of this would have to stop when the girls arrived, she thought. She wouldn’t be able to leave them on their own night after night.
She read the letter again, this time more worried than dismayed. Her first thoughts had been for herself, how she would be inconvenienced, but now she couldn’t help but wonder what on earth had made Mollie, usually such a sensible girl, decide to up sticks and come all the way to New Y
ork with her sister. Did their father know? If so, why hadn’t he written first to ask if it was all right for his girls to come? She’d never liked Francis Kenny and had been upset when her sister, Orla, had announced she was going to marry him. He was too arrogant, too sure of himself, though people claimed he was a good doctor. She’d felt concern for the children when dear Orla had unexpectedly passed away, but Mollie’s letters made it appear as if she was coping.
She should have gone back to Ireland and made sure the children were all right. It was what Orla would have expected of her - what she would have expected of Orla had their positions been reversed - but she was having too good a time in New York even to think about it. There were some women, much nicer than her, who would have returned for good and become a mother to her sister’s children. Now it would appear as if something desperately bad had happened and Mollie had turned to the only person she felt she could count on: her Aunt Maggie.
The letter was dated a fortnight ago. It said the girls would be leaving Liverpool on the Queen Maia in another four days and the voyage would take a further ten. She did a quick calculation and blanched: they were arriving today!
Jaysus, Mary and Joseph! At least it wasn’t her fault that she hadn’t been there to meet them. What time had the boat docked? Had it docked? She’s better get to the landing stage straight away. She prayed the girls hadn’t been waiting too long.
Everything had gone as planned. It was truly amazing the things you could do if you had the nerve, Olive thought, when she and Annemarie were on the ferry. Behind them, the lights of Ellis Island faded into the mist and the lights of New York grew ever brighter and brighter as they approached. She’d asked for her cousin, Olive Raines, been told to wait, and about twenty minutes later a grim woman in a brown overall had arrived with Annemarie.
‘If she had any luggage, it can’t be found,’ the woman snapped. ‘If you come back in a few days it might’ve turned up by then.’
‘Thank you.’ She threw her arms around Annemarie - the woman would expect some sort of greeting. ‘Hello, darlin’, Aunt Maggie’s waiting for you at home. It’s lovely to see you again. Come on, there’s a nice tea waiting.’ She took the small, cold hand. The girl would have gone off with Dr Crippen had he offered to take her.
The ferry docked close to the Queen Maia. The quayside was as intensely lit and as full of activity as it had been in Liverpool now the ship was getting ready for its next voyage, but there was no sign of the taxis that had been there earlier in the day. She was wondering how long they would have to wait, when a black taxi drew up and deposited a man and woman only yards from the ship. The driver got out and began to unload luggage from the boot. Olive approached, holding tightly to Annemarie, just in case the girl took flight when she was about to get her off her hands and out of her mind. ‘Will you take this young lady to eighty-eight Bleecker Street, please? How much will the fare be?’
‘A dollar.’
She gave him a dollar and a few coins, feeling exceptionally generous. There’d been no need to pay now: Aunt Maggie could have done it when her niece arrived.
‘Thank you,’ the driver said courteously. In London, Olive hadn’t had much to do with taxi drivers, but she’d like to bet there weren’t many as distinguished-looking as this one. He was about fifty, respectably dressed in a tweed suit and cap and a collar and tie. ‘What is the young lady’s name?’ he enquired.
‘Annemarie.’ She gave Annemarie a warm hug. ‘I’m sorry, darlin’,’ she whispered, ‘I’ve messed you up something awful, haven’t I? But you’ll be with your Aunt Maggie in no time and everything will be just fine and dandy.’ She helped the girl into the back, the driver slid behind the wheel, and the taxi disappeared into the night. To her surprise, Olive felt two tears trickle slowly down her cheeks. She wiped them away with the back of her hand and began to run in the direction of the hotel.
The taxi had barely been gone a second when another drew up in its place and Gertrude Strauss almost fell out. ‘That Annemarie,’ she cried excitedly. ‘That Annemarie in cab in front. I know her from so far, know green coat, long hair. Oh, Bertha, she all right! Most probable on way to Miss Margaret Connelly.’
‘Are you sure it was her, Gert?’ Bertha called from the back of the cab.
‘Yes.’ Gertrude nodded vigorously. ‘It Annemarie.’
‘C’mon, then.’ Bertha patted the seat beside her. ‘Let’s go back. I’ll make more coffee and we can finish off that marzipan cake.’
‘I so happy, Bertha.’ Gertrude climbed back in the cab. ‘From now, I really endure New York.’
‘Enjoy, Gert, not endure.’ Bertha laughed and linked her arm while the cab took them back to Ridge Street.
‘Where are you from, Anne Murray?’ Levon Zarian asked his passenger. When she didn’t reply, he said gently. ‘I won’t eat you.’ She was little more than a child: thirteen possibly, fourteen at the most. ‘Have you only just arrived in New York?’ She still didn’t answer. He stopped the cab to wait for a break in the traffic when they reached West Side Highway and took the opportunity to turn and look at his young passenger. ‘Hello,’ he said, but the girl just stared at her hands and didn’t even raise her head.
He wondered if she were deaf. He honked the horn, her head jerked upwards, and he looked into her eyes, but they were dead and unseeing, albeit of the most beautiful colour: amethyst, clear and pure. Her white skin was like porcelain, with the same soft sheen, and her hair a wild tumble of little black waves and curls that reached her waist.
‘I once had a daughter very like you,’ he told her. ‘Her name was Larisa and she had brown eyes. But she died.’ His throat tightened at the memory of the way Larisa had been killed: raped by a dozen Turks who’d slit her white throat when they’d had enough. Within a week, he and Tamara had left Armenia, a place of old legends and bitter tears, before they too were slaughtered by the Turks, who seemed determined to annihilate the entire population of his benighted country.
Cars behind were honking their horns. Levon edged into the traffic. It was five years since they’d come to America, five years since Larisa had died, but Tamara had never stopped mourning her death. Her eyes were as dead and unseeing as those of Anne Murray.
He continued to talk to her, telling her about himself and Tamara, though he didn’t mention Larisa again. ‘I was a lawyer back in Armenia. Now I attend college to take the Bar exam so I can practise here. Tamara, my wife, was a singer, not professional, but she was often called upon to sing at weddings and at the homes of our friends, usually folk songs.’ Tamara hadn’t sung a note since they’d arrived in America. He thought about her sitting in their apartment in Grammercy Park, waiting for him to come home, her face so sad that it almost broke his heart.
Talking all the time, Levon drove through dark, empty, silent streets, and gaudily lit, noisy streets full of people, restaurants, and bars, some of which would stay open all night: New York was a city that never slept. Had circumstances been different, he suspected he would have grown to love the place by now. Each time the traffic caused him to stop, he glanced back at his silent passenger, but she could have been in another world for all the notice she took.
‘Nearly there,’ he remarked when he saw the sign for Washington Square. He wondered whom she was going to see in Bleecker Street. Where had she come from? Who was the young woman who’d put her in the cab? Very irresponsibly, he thought on reflection. Anne Murray wasn’t fit to be out on her own. What nationality was she? He had a feeling Murray was a Scottish name, but wasn’t sure.
He drove into Bleecker Street and stopped outside number eighty-eight. ‘We’re here,’ he announced. When she showed no sign of having understood, he got out and approached the building. The music shop on the first floor was closed and in darkness, and there were three bells on the door at the side. He pressed the bottom one, but no one came, so he pressed the second, then the third. Still no one came. He pressed all three at the same time and could hear them buzzing inside, but
the door remained stubbornly closed. No one was in.
What was he supposed to do now? Drag Anne Murray out of the cab, sit her on the step, and hope someone came for her soon? He felt angry that such a pretty, vulnerable young girl was being treated so negligently: shoved in a cab to be taken to a place where there was no one to meet her. Two men emerged from a diner across the road embroiled in a fight. A woman tapped his shoulder: ‘Are you looking for a good time, honey?’
Levon ignored her, got back into the cab, and drove away with Anne Murray still in the back.
Maggie arrived in Bleecker Street seething with fury. Her journey had been a complete waste of time. She hadn’t been allowed on the Queen Maia. Most of the crew, she suspected, were out on the town. Nobody could give her any information. An important-looking individual in uniform had a list of passengers expected tomorrow, but not of the ones who’d arrived that day. ‘Ask at the shipping office,’ she was told but, by the time she’d found the shipping office, the damn place was closed. There was no sign of her nieces.
She was tramping up the stairs to her apartment when the doorbell rang. There was no one else in the building: Jim Goldberg worked nights on a newspaper and the ballerina who lived on the top floor, whose name she could never remember, was on tour. Maggie tramped down, opened the door, and scowled at the caller, a woman of about her own age wearing an old-fashioned mackintosh and a woollen hat.
‘Miss Connelly, hi,’ the woman gushed. ‘I’m Eileen Tutty, I only live around the corner, and my daughter, Imelda, is in your class at Saint Mary’s. I thought I’d better come and tell you when I saw your name on the envelopes, case it’s important.’
