If You Are There

by Susan Sherman

  Now she was crying in earnest.

  He lifted his head and gazed at her. “Well, what did you expect, Lucia? That you were going to be a lady? Is that what your babka has been telling you? She doesn’t do you any good filling your head with smoke. We are millworkers. We have always worked the looms. You knew that. You have always known.”

  It was true that Tata told her she would be a millworker, but she hadn’t believed him. She thought something would come along to change all that; that it was only a matter of time. God would provide for her. Babusia had always told her that her destiny lay elsewhere, although she had always been vague about exactly where that was. Lucia knew that destiny wasn’t something that could be changed. It was predetermined. She had looked it up.

  That night Lucia crept out of the flat and into the yard where the snow had been falling for hours, obliterating the cart tracks in the road. Without the tracks to follow, she knew the going would be hard. Drawing her coat in, bending her head against the wind, she trudged through the fresh drifts. The road was deserted, but old warnings of evil on the prowl kept her on edge. She kept turning to peer down the alleyways and the side roads to make sure that nobody was lurking there to grab her.

  The bridge was icy and buried under a fresh shroud of snow. At first she thought it was deserted, but then from out of the flurries she saw a figure plodding toward her. As he got closer she saw that he was a heavyset man plunging through the snow with the wind at his back, while one hand held the brim of his hat to keep it from blowing away.

  She slowed her pace and hung back against the parapet to put as much distance between them as she could. His form shimmered fat and thin in the swirling eddies. Even over the wind she could hear the pulse in her ears and thought he could be anything: a robber, a thief, a murderer, or a tortured soul roaming with the devil himself. Then he was there, nearly upon her, and in the next instant he was traipsing past her on into the storm. It took only a few seconds for her to register the dog collar, the dark coat, and the look of grim forbearance that belonged to Father Tomaszewski. By the time she recognized him he was already gone, probably off to the bedside of a dying parishioner, leaving her on her own again.

  Praga was like a remote village that had somehow gotten stuck to the heel of a large city. The modest framed cottages were set far apart with empty fields between them. What was left of the corn rows could be seen undulating under the snow. Babusia’s cottage was down a lane off the main road, which was hard to find in the storm without a signpost to show the way. For a brief time Lucia thought she was lost. She imagined freezing to death just yards from the cottage. She searched for landmarks but found only windswept fields and humps of snow that had once been hayricks or low-lying bushes. Then she saw a familiar house and beside it the skeletal limbs of an old elm she liked to climb when she was younger. A few minutes later she caught sight of Babusia’s house, and something broke free inside of her. She ran full tilt through the snow.

  “What are you doing out there?” Babusia asked in alarm as she slid back the bolt and flung open the door. “What is it? What is wrong?” She pulled Lucia inside, wrapping her shawl around her granddaughter’s shoulders, rubbing her arms to get the blood moving again. Lucia’s teeth were chattering, while her lips were too numb for her to speak.

  “Was there an accident? Is it Bede? I told them he was too young for the mill.” Babusia was dressed in her long white nightgown yellowed with age. Her hair was mostly gray and hung like cobwebs about her shoulders.

  “It’s not Bede. Everyone is fine,” Lucia managed to say.

  Babusia helped Lucia into the kitchen, shuffling along beside her in her dead husband’s slippers. “What is it then? Why are you out so late? Have you lost your mind?” She sat Lucia down in a chair, covered her in a blanket, and added a few sticks to the fire, all the while chiding her for being out on a night like this with the wind and the snow, and the white slavers hunting the lanes for young girls.

  Lucia didn’t hear a word of it. Instead she dropped her face in hands and began to cry.

  Babusia’s voice immediately rose an octave. “What is it, mój aniele?” She leaned over, put an ample arm around her granddaughter’s shoulders, and hugged her close while she let Lucia cry. “Ah, such tears. Tell me. What is so terrible that it drove you out on a night like this?”

  When Lucia told her all about the dictionary, the duck, and Tata, about how she was going to have quit school and work in the mill, Babusia sat back in her chair and snorted a laugh. “So that is what he told you, eh?” She kissed the top of Lucia’s head and stepped to the stove where the kettle had begun to sing. “Now you listen to me,” she said, pouring steaming water into the mugs. “You are not going to work in any mill.”

  “But he said . . .”

  “Ach, he knows nothing. He’s a serf. What have I always told you, Lucynka?” She brought the tea over and took a seat.

  Lucia shrugged and picked up the mug, holding it between her hands for warmth.

  “You are a Sanguszko. Have you forgotten? You have Sanguszko blood in your veins. It is an old family with a proud name. Older than the hills. We are szlachta.” She meant noblemen. “And szlachta do not work in the mills.”

  “But Mama . . .”

  “If your matka had done right by her family and married a man of property, then you would not be in this predicament. When I think my own daughter married a serf I want to lie down in a coffin and pull the dirt over my head.”

  Ever since she was a little girl, Lucia had heard the stories about Babusia’s life on her father’s estate. Her grandmother was sixteen when the Russians came and took everything. Still she managed to save a few things that were scattered about her little house: the gilt chair with clawed feet in the parlor, the inlaid card table, and the line of empty perfume bottles on the shelf in the bedroom. Sometimes Lucia would take one down, pry open the stopper, and breathe in the lingering scent of happier times.

  “But what about Bede? He’s in the mill.”

  “He takes after him. I love the boy, but I don’t see your mother in him. Not at all. You, you are different. You will have a different kind of life. God has ordained it. I have seen the signs.” Here, she patted Lucia’s hand and stroked her head. Then she got up and put her cup in the sink. “Come, it is late. Finish your tea and we will go to bed.”

  Lucia and her grandmother lay under a pile of old quilts listening to the fire dying in the stove. Over the next several hours the storm would stealthily deposit mounds of snow up against the door and windows. In the morning they would have to dig themselves out, but for now they could lay safe and warm in the old feather bed.

  Lucia knew she would not be going to the mill. Babusia had said as much, and that was enough for her. Even so, great changes were coming. She clutched the edge of the quilt and pulled it up under her chin. She lay there in the dark thinking about the upending of her life, trying to imagine what it would be like. It was an enormous undertaking. It was like trying to imagine a vast, limitless plain or the edge of the universe. The effort made her dizzy, and she soon gave it up.

  “Babusia?” she whispered.

  “Mmm.” By now her grandmother was half asleep.

  “I can’t remember what Mama looked like.”

  Babusia gave her a sleepy, halfhearted snort. “Not to worry, dziewczyna. Whenever you want to see your mama, just look in the mirror. That is exactly what she looked like.”

  Then Babusia sat up, reached behind her, and took down the cross that hung over the bed. She handed it to Lucia, saying: “This was your matka’s cross. Keep it with you. Hang it on the wall above your bed, and in that way she will always be with you. You will not be alone.”

  Lucia put the cross beneath her pillow and closed her eyes. In that drowsy, hypnotic state just before sleep, she was down by the river again washing clothes with her mother. She was only three or four, trying to help her with the wet clothes. It was a hot summer and they had waded out into the water. Their sk
irts hiked up and tucked into their waistbands, squinting into the sunlight. The light off the water was dazzling, blinding if you looked at it too long. It was so bright that she couldn’t see her mother’s face, only the halo of light around her hair, her features cast in shadow. Brightly colored rowboats dotted the river, blue, red, and green, bobbing in the water like buttons. Her mother lifted her up, kissing her neck and face, tickling and delighting her. Lucia snuggled down with her legs curling over the round pregnant belly. Then it came, that moment, a brief stillness, and she could see her mother’s face looking at her, audacious, exuberant, and sturdy.

  Lucia returned to her bench and found all her belongings just as she’d left them. After that she did not allow her attention to waver. She kept a stern eye on the station and the ramps leading into it, until it was announced that her train had arrived and was ready for boarding. She slid a folded handkerchief behind her heel to cushion it from the stiff leather, gathered up her bundles and folding chair, and followed the crowd down to the platform where the train sat waiting. It was late afternoon and she had been at the station for nearly eight hours. The crowd was moving slowly along the platform despite the wind and driving snow. She limped around a raft of ladies in fur coats and muffs and officers in greatcoats and papakhi. The air smelled of coal dust and perfume and then just coal dust and machine oil as she walked further down the train. Here the Polish workers struggled with their bundles of clothing and food, dragging their children along while they searched for their carriages.

  Lucia’s carriage was made of rough planks that did little to keep the weather out. A few hard benches sat under the windows and faced an old stove in the middle that didn’t give off much heat. This was the women’s carriage. Women from the factories and peasant girls from the countryside sat on the benches or on folding chairs or stools, huddled in their shawls and blankets, holding their hands out to catch whatever warmth was coming off the stove. Lucia set her chair down near the stove, careful not to block anyone’s heat. She turned to an old grandmother, who sat shivering on the bench. “Babka, may I put a few sticks on the fire?” A small pile of wood was stacked nearby.

  “Do what you like, panienka,” said the old babka. “But remember, that is all we have, and it will be worse for us when we are in the mountains.”

  Lucia frowned at her, because that’s not what she wanted to hear. But she knew the old woman was right, so she left the wood alone. Instead, she gathered up her bundles and wrapped them around her legs for warmth and safekeeping. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and drew it in under her chin. She watched the crowd outside on the platform, mindful of Babusia’s warning about not being safe until the train had left the station.

  The whistle blew and the train belched great geysers of steam into the frigid air. The last of the passengers climbed aboard, the stationmaster gave his signal to the brakeman, the whistle blew twice, and the train started to roll away, leaving only a few porters on the platform. One of those left behind wore a visor cap and a long apron like the porter before. He was hurrying past the others, going the wrong way, heading toward the end of the train instead of back up to the station. Even though he wore a coat with fraying cuffs and a torn hem, Lucia still wasn’t alarmed until he had almost reached her carriage and she could see his face.

  At that moment Tata spotted her too and ran for the carriage door. The other women held it closed and shouted at him to go away; that he wasn’t allowed; that this was the women’s carriage. The stationmaster ran over and pulled him off.

  As the train continued to roll away by inches, she could see Tata arguing with the stationmaster. He struggled to get away, trying to make the man understand that his daughter was on the train; that he was about to lose her; that if he didn’t get her back, she would be gone forever. When the train started to pick up speed, he wrenched his arm free and ran alongside the women’s carriage. He urged her to get off, to come home, not to leave. She belonged with her family.

  At the last minute she jumped to her feet and slapped her hands against the glass. “Tata!” she cried out. If she could, she probably would have gotten off right there, but in the next instant they left him behind and, with a clank of the wheels, changed tracks and headed out of the station.

  CHAPTER 2

  Paris, September 1902

  Gabriel Richet had never before been invited to one of his brother’s séances, although he tried not to take it personally. Charles rarely invited anyone who didn’t have a scientific interest in his “experiments.” He generally invited like-minded men of science, but on occasion he would include a skeptic or two as long they had some connection to the scientific community.

  Charles lived in a large apartment off the rue de Médicis, a short walk to his laboratory at the Sorbonne. It was a sprawling home that took up four floors, packed with his wife’s heavy horsehair furniture and the detritus of five nearly grown boys. It was a far cry from Gabriel’s flat over a falafel stand in the rue Ferdinand-Duval in the Marais. He had two rooms on what they called the Street of the Jews, named for the Jews who had returned early in the century when they were once again tolerated in the city. Even though his rooms contained only a small painted table, a couple of chairs, and an iron-framed bed with a mattress that listed dangerously to one side; even though the cupboards were littered with rodent droppings and roach carcasses, and the window in the kitchen refused to close all the way; even with all these inconveniences and the one toilet in the hall that he shared with two families, he considered himself the king of the Marais. He had two whole rooms to himself in a section of the city where it was common for large families to cram into one.

  There may have been another reason why Gabriel had not been invited to his brother’s séances. He didn’t like to consider this one, even though it was always there on the periphery, his thoughts snagging on it like a broken fingernail. Charles may not have wanted to introduce him to that mighty circle of great minds, the famous and not-so-famous men of science who regularly attended his brother’s séances. Even though Gabriel knew he was being too sensitive, that his brother did not worry about status and rank, still Gabriel found himself wondering if his brother wasn’t a little ashamed of him.

  Gabriel stood outside the door of his brother’s apartment and cleaned his boots on the iron scraper. He took time scraping the mud off from around the base of his heel, first one shoe, then the other, even stopping to shine them up a little with his handkerchief. It might have been the light from the lamppost, but he had to admit they looked fairly scruffy. He should have spent a few sous getting them shined. It might have put him more at ease.

  He knew his coat looked shabby. It was worn at the elbows and the sleeves were dirty. Charles would say nothing, of course. He would not want to embarrass Gabriel. Later, when the evening was over and Gabriel was heading out the door, Charles might hold him back a moment and press a few francs in his palm. Gabriel would protest of course, but his brother would insist. He would say that it was time for a new coat or a pair of boots, and that it would make him happy if Gabriel took the money. The sad part was that Gabriel would take it; he always did, because he needed it.

  Gabriel was met at the door by the new parlor maid, a friendly, open-faced girl from the countryside who fussed over him, taking his coat and hat, and kindly displayed no surprise that he didn’t have gloves to give her. She showed him up to the third floor where he found Charles in the séance room, hunched over a camera affixed to a tripod.

  Charles looked up when Gabriel walked in. “You’re here, thank God. So you got my bleu.” Gabriel didn’t even have to open it to know it was from Charles. No one in Gabriel’s set ever spent money on a message sent by pneumatic tube. In Gabriel’s world, if you wanted to summon a friend, you just stood under his window and shouted up.

  When Charles hugged Gabriel he could smell the familiar scent of his brother, of good living, of cigars and fresh laundry.

  “It’s cold. Are you cold?” his brother asked. To
the girl he said: “Get him something hot. Some tea or coffee.” Then back to Gabriel, “Would you like a whiskey?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Get him a whiskey, Inès. That’s a good girl.”

  She curtsied and hurried out.

  “I’m not taking you away from anything, am I? I didn’t mean to make it sound like an emergency. Nobody is dying or anything. Although, I suppose it’s a bit of an emergency to me.”

  He seemed on edge, not able to sit still. This wasn’t like Charles. He was usually calm and filled with confidence. Some thought him arrogant, but Gabriel always admired his equanimity. It was the kind of self-assurance that came with success. His brother was a well-respected physiologist, the editor of Revue Scientifique, and coeditor of the Journal de Physiologie et de Pathologie Générale. He had published papers on physiology, physiological chemistry, experimental pathology, and normal and pathological psychology. His recent work on the mechanism of regulating body heat in animals had garnered him praise and there was even talk of a Nobel Prize. Gabriel, on the other hand, had dropped out of medical school to become a writer. He was fifteen years his brother’s junior and a catastrophic disappointment to their father.

  “What is it, Charles? What’s wrong?” Gabriel didn’t like to think it was Amélie or the boys.

  “You know how to work these cameras?”

  Gabriel looked around at the five cameras situated around the room. He went over to examine the closest one. “This one looks simple enough. Why?”

  His brother sank down in one of the chairs that surrounded a large round table that stood in the center of the room. It was a simply furnished room, probably because Amélie had not been allowed to decorate it. It didn’t have the fussiness of the rest of the house, no cloche jars protecting miniature tropical glades, no soothing watercolors of Dinard or Saint-Tropez on the overmantel, nothing to suggest the determined will of a woman with a generous allowance and too much time on her hands.