Opium and Absinthe: A Novel

by Lydia Kang

  At that last murmuring, Tillie realized she wasn’t really conscious anymore. At least, she hoped she wasn’t conscious.

  The next day, Tillie did, in fact, attend the wake. The other mourners were given strict orders to leave her alone, as she was still recovering from her equestrian accident. Really, it was all too much for such a young lady.

  Ada kept her in a quiet corner. A large wreath of laurel hung from the grand front door; white crape and ribbons tied to the brass knocker signified that Lucy had been young and unmarried. There was no black to signify that she had any of the achievements she was supposed to have deserved—a husband or old age. In the parlor, the open coffin had been placed before the unlit fireplace, its Italian marble mantel laden with white gardenias and waxy greenery. The scent of flowers overwhelmed every breath.

  Guests approached the casket, put their handkerchiefs to their lips, and gazed at its contents. Dorothy came, accompanied by the flaxen-haired Hazel.

  “Oh, Tillie. Oh, our poor Lucy,” Dorothy murmured, patting Tillie’s unbound hand while Hazel held a handkerchief for her mistress—it wasn’t Hazel’s place to cry, only Dorothy’s. James Cutter came by, too, and despite Ada’s demurral, he insisted on sitting next to Tillie.

  “You and I have lost something more precious than any other in this room. For them, she was but a friend, an acquaintance. Lucy was the love of our lives, was she not? We should not ignore each other in our sorrow.”

  “Thank you, James,” Tillie said, hoping this would make him go away. But oddly, he stayed close by throughout the wake, as if guarding her from busybodies. Her mother and grandmother were busy presiding over the condolences from the Fishes, the Havemeyers, the Astors, the Webbs.

  After the mourners had left, Grandmama retired to the library to discuss some matters with James’s father. Mama was elsewhere in the house, making arrangements for the funeral cortege the next day.

  Only Tillie had yet to pay her respects to Lucy. She’d wanted to wait until the house was quiet. The servants were gathering the soiled glasses and dishes. She leaned toward Ada.

  “Can you please bring me some wine?”

  “Of course. And then you can rest upstairs.”

  “Thank you, Ada.”

  Her last dose of laudanum had been four hours earlier, just before the wake had begun. Her body was becoming like a well-wound Longines, ticking away and letting her know precisely when her pain was scheduled to reappear. But before she could rest, she needed to see her Lucy, one last time. Alone.

  Slowly, she rose, blinking away the stars that came after sitting in one attitude for hours. Across the parlor, the casket lay open, wreathed with more greenery and white blooms. The scent of gardenias nearly crushed her as she approached.

  “Perfumes are created to mask the scent of something wretched,” Lucy had whispered at a party once. And then they’d taken turns guessing which person nearest to them was hiding a terribly embarrassing odor, and giggling. So very unladylike. At the memory, Tillie’s throat constricted. What if the gardenias had been brought to hide the scent of her sister’s decaying body?

  Only Lucy’s upper body was visible. They had placed her in her wedding dress, of all things, as though Death were her betrothed. Cosmetics had been used to make her skin porcelain white. A blush of pink had been dusted onto her cheeks, and her lips were reddened with salve. Yet there were so many details askew. Her rosebud lips were flat. Tillie spied the tiniest stitch at the corner of her mouth to keep her forever silent. Around her neck was a wide band of ivory silk sewn with seed pearls.

  Lucy owned no such ornament, and Tillie knew it was not part of her wedding parure. She had seen the set with Lucy during a private showing at Tiffany and Company. There had been a sapphire necklace with brilliants, a matching bracelet of glittering stones, and sapphire drop earrings with diamond florets.

  Tillie looked behind her to confirm she was alone.

  She leaned over to kiss her sister on the forehead, finding her cold and powdery dry. She smelled vaguely of aniseed, like licorice. This person was not her sister. There was no warmth in her, no smile with that particular crinkle in the space between her eyes. This was not the Lucy she knew.

  A question entered her mind, itched and writhed there, begging to be answered. It forced Tillie to reach forward and hook a finger on the silk-and-pearl band. It came free easily.

  The white makeup hadn’t been applied beneath the silk. Lucy’s true skin color was grayish, with a purpling from blood that had seeped under the skin. Her neck was mottled with bruises.

  And in the middle of the right side were two puncture wounds, an inch and a half apart. They had been sewn shut. They reminded her of hands folded upon each other or a mouth closing primly. Someone had torn into her sister. An animalistic thing done to fell the pride of the Pembroke family and the only person who had ever loved Tillie without any correction, despite her bizarre curiosities, despite all her defects.

  Inside herself, Tillie felt something rising, like a wind heralding a storm. Her hands opened and closed, as if trying to grasp the air and force it into extruding its truths. She would find the person who had committed this atrocity. She would learn all she could about what had happened to her sister, every detail. She knew how to find answers, how to ask questions. She would do whatever she could in her power to procure the truth. Even . . . even steal if she needed to. Even lie. Anything a lady wouldn’t do.

  The sound that came from her body was wretched and rageful, the sound of a rending, as when one’s heart broke irreparably. Ada rushed into the room, alarmed.

  “My goodness, Miss Tillie! What is it?” she said, her face ashen. “Is it your shoulder?”

  Having released the howl, Tillie was utterly calm. “No, Ada. Not at all.” She tenderly replaced the silk-and-pearl band around Lucy’s neck.

  “Come upstairs so you may lie down for a spell. Here is your wine. Come, come away, Miss.”

  “First, I would like my medicine,” Tillie said, turning slowly. “Then I need to find Betty, Lucy’s old maid. And to speak to Dr. Erikkson again.”

  “But Miss, you only just saw him—”

  “I didn’t ask the questions I needed to ask.”

  “Yes, Miss,” Ada said, but her face was all astonishment. Usually, it was Ada telling Tillie what needed to be done.

  “And Ada?”

  “Yes?”

  “I should like a copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Immediately.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “Ah, well, poor girl, there is peace for her at last. It is the end!”

  He turned to me, and said with grave solemnity: “Not so, alas! Not so. It is only the beginning!”

  —Dr. Seward and Van Helsing

  Ada, flustered, babbled about the impossibility of procuring Dracula that day or the next. It would be Lucy’s funeral, after all.

  On the day of the funeral, the opium made the preparations for the journey to the cemetery tolerable. From Grandmama’s severe glances at her, Tillie knew she would not be taking it for much longer. The cortege was a large one. Lucy had been well loved in society, and the worst gossip that ever circulated about her was how intolerably good she was. James stayed close to Tillie’s mother, looking solemn as he was bound to do. Yet he caught Tillie’s eye whenever possible, as though they were the true kindred spirits in mourning.

  Lucy’s coffin was placed into the horse-drawn hearse, festooned with white gauze and rosettes, so much that it nearly looked matrimonial. If Tillie concentrated on the doings of the day, like not stepping on her hem, it was easy to forget what the pomp was all about. Then she would turn to say something to Lucy, as she was wont to do at public events (“Lucy, why is crape called crape? It sounds an awful lot like scrape. And then of course, scape is a leafless flower stem. Are they related etymologies?” And Lucy would say something like, “Tillie, hush. We can look it up in your dictionary later. Straighten your pin; it’s crooked. You’re a doll today—you look so fresh in that pink c
hiffon!”), but Lucy would not be at her side, and Tillie would crumble inwardly, the way a sugarloaf did under a torrent of cream.

  Tillie felt like she ought to cry at these épée thrusts to her heart. But the opium had fogged her heart just so, and instead, she blinked languidly. Mama and Grandmama were already outside by the curb and motioned for her to follow them into the carriage.

  “Ada. Can we bring the laudanum with us, in case I need more before we arrive back home?” Tillie asked.

  Ada nodded. As she fetched the bottle, Tillie swayed near the door. Nearby was a three-legged table holding a vase choked with white roses. Several calling cards had been left throughout the day, carefully bent at the lower corner to denote a condolence visit. But a small piece of folded paper caught her eye. It appeared to be a wrinkled piece of newsprint instead of a thick card.

  It was the article about Lucy’s death, the one she had read after her visit to Dr. Erikkson. Pencil scrawl covered the back of the article.

  Dear Miss Pembroke,

  I hope you are feeling better. Ladies usually don’t faint when I sell them a paper. Do you know her? The dead lady, that is? If you do, please write to me at the World.

  Ian Metzger

  Tillie stiffened. Oh. That was that boy, the one who’d sold her the paper. He must have gotten her name and address from her driver. What a terrible note. He didn’t seem concerned, only curious if she knew poor Lucy. She crushed the paper in her fist and considered tossing it into the fireplace. Thinking again, she smoothed it out against her black skirt and folded it into her reticule.

  Her reticule. Lucy had had one with her, a little silk sacque that usually contained a bit of rose salve, a few calling cards, and money. Where was Lucy’s reticule? Did the police have it? As she wondered this, Ada fairly flew down the hallway and handed her the bottle of opium, which she nestled by the article. She would ask her mother later about Lucy’s belongings. Perhaps there was something there that explained why her sister had felt the need to walk alone that day.

  And why the absinthe? Lucy hardly touched alcohol, nor was she in the habit of drinking absinthe or bringing spirits with her on her excursions. It didn’t make any sense.

  The rest of the day was a disjointed conglomeration of happenings. The funeral cortege up Fifth Avenue; the verdant greenery of the park, looking bright and merry as if nothing bad could ever happen; the noise of the horse hooves on the street, which lent a cadence to the trip. Tillie would always remember one particular detail from that day: the cauldron of asphalt being poured on upper Fifth Avenue to pave the street so that the slow-going electric motorcars could roll along with more ease. No more dirt and cobblestones.

  Streets, Tillie thought, should not be paved on the day of her sister’s burial. Normally, she would wonder—how did they scoop the asphalt out of the earth? Was it really made of dead plants and creatures from eons ago, digested by the bowels of the earth and rendered into black pudding? But today, she thought only that Lucy would be underground soon. Making the earth—the beautiful, living earth—impermeable with a thick layer of noxious asphalt seemed terrible. Nothing should separate her sister from the heavens. Nothing should keep her from rising again, be it via the truth or an unholy reanimation. So her sister might be a vampire. Tillie would love her just the same, would she not?

  They arrived at Woodlawn Cemetery, a picturesque expanse of rolling hills, lush evergreens and oaks, and stately marble obelisks and mausoleums. As Lucy’s brass-trimmed, glossy chestnut coffin was lowered into the loamy earth, Tillie stood between stolid Grandmama, her hair steely and perfectly curled, and Mama in her jet finery. She blinked sleepily in the breeze, her good shoulder bumping against her mother’s poufed, mutton-sleeved polonaise. Mama cried as quietly as possible so as not to invite the glare of her own mother. Tillie had been five years old when Grandmama had last deigned a sniffle, over the stillbirth of Tillie’s brother.

  Tillie didn’t cry either. Yes, there was a yawning absence where Lucy had been. Yes, her laughter and her sweet spirit had left Tillie’s life. But right now, there was work to be done. She knew little about vampires. They bit people; they drank blood; they were dead, but they weren’t. She needed to know more.

  There was an untold story that had to be found and wrested from the shut lips of New York City itself.

  “It’s a Wednesday, Ada. Of course the bookstores are open. I must go.”

  The next morning, Tillie had only just finished a bit of breakfast and tea when she ordered Ada to call the hansom to the door.

  “Send one of the undermaids to fetch it for you,” Ada pleaded.

  “I want to go myself.”

  “You’re not well.”

  Ada’s hands were everywhere—on her back, pushing her down the hall; fanning her face; straightening the lace around her neck, which felt like a smothering cobweb. Tillie swatted her away.

  “Stop, Ada, stop. Very well, I shall go upstairs. After I buy the book.”

  “Oh, Miss.”

  “What is that?” Down the hallway, she spied another piece of newsprint folded in a peculiar way by the front door. “Is that for me?”

  “I don’t know. I heard someone knock this morning, but Pierre opened the door. Your mother said you’re not to have visitors, not until they know you’re safe.”

  Tillie went to it. It was another piece of newsprint; unlike yesterday’s article on Lucy’s murder, this one was an advertisement for Coca-Cola. The Ideal Brain Tonic. On the back, again in pencil—

  Miss P,

  Did you get my other note? Write me at the World. My legs ache from walking all the way over from the el every day.

  —IM

  So impertinent. He wrote as if he knew her intimately. Tillie had never received such a note, not even from Lucy. Well, she and Lucy had never needed to write. They’d been too present in each other’s lives to ever need the distance of paper and ink.

  “I’m shocked that Pierre would allow such a person to leave a card—a note—for you. I’ll have to speak to him,” Ada said.

  “You can speak to him after we get my book.”

  “Very well. I suppose Dr. Erikkson would allow it, so long as you walk very little. Your mother is at the Fishes’ home to discuss hiring a retired watchman to guard the family. If only she’d thought of it before.”

  Before long, they were headed to Dodd, Mead & Company on Fifth Avenue. But after Ada went inside, she quickly returned to their hansom, shaking her head.

  “None there. Why would you want such a book, Miss? There are wholesomer ones to be had.”

  “Let’s try again. Baker and Taylor, on Seventeenth Street.”

  Once again, there were no copies. Ada’s red hair grew more frazzled with each store. “We ought to go home. Send out for it, Miss. The noise from all these omnibuses and carriages is too much.”

  Ada tried a third store and received the same response. Soon, the hansom was jerking back uptown to Union Square. Saloons, grocers, and dry goods stores passed by like a slow vitascope movie. An Italian organ-grinder stood on the corner with a little brown monkey on his shoulder screeching at the children who clapped around him. Normally Tillie would smile, but her sadness was a nimbus that overhung everything. She was still too full of Lucy and Lucy’s absence.

  “Wait.” Tillie asked the driver to stop beside a bookstore she’d spotted, and she stepped out before Ada could protest. “Let me try.”

  The store was near closing and rather empty. A single fellow was reading in a corner alone, surrounded by books crammed in every space possible. More were piled up near the cashier. They had already taken their rolling sidewalk racks of books in, and a tall clerk with spectacles waved Tillie away.

  “We’re closed. I’m sorry. Come back tomorrow.”

  “Please. I just need one book. This is the fourth store I’ve been to today.”

  “We’re closing.”

  “I have a broken bone!” she blurted. The man in the corner looked up from his book, his
head barely visible above a stacked table.

  “Very well. Which book?”

  “Dracula. Bram Stoker.”

  “We only just started selling them. They’ve done well in London. But I only have one copy left. We’re due to get more next week.”

  “One is as good as a thousand. Where is it?” Tillie said eagerly.

  “This one?”

  The man in the corner stepped around the stacks. He held a book in his hand, a small one with a brown cloth cover. His hair was a familiar mass of loose dark curls, and Tillie recognized his eyelashes before she recognized his face. He held a cloth cap sandwiched between his arm and side.

  “Mr. . . . Metzger?”

  “Well, hello! Didn’t you get my notes?”

  “I . . .” Tillie shook her head. “I’ve been busy. I’ve been . . .” She couldn’t finish her thought. Her fists clenched, and she suddenly felt the pain in her broken bone more acutely. Her face soured. “I did receive your notes.”

  “Is that your keeper?” Ian asked, pointing the book at where Ada’s head was poked outside the hansom window, watching Tillie with a frown. “She looks mean.”

  “I don’t have a keeper. That is my maid. And she’s not mean.”

  “She looks like she’d fry me for breakfast.” The young man smirked. “You didn’t write back,” he continued.

  “We’re closing!” the clerk said, exasperated. He went to the front door and shut it, spinning around quickly. “Please make your purchases, and be on your way. I have to meet my mother-in-law at Herald Square, and if I’m late, she’s going to chop me up and throw me in the East River.”

  “Sounds worse than a river pirate,” Ian said solemnly. “But if you prefer to be cooked for breakfast, that lady can help you. I’ll bet she could turn you into a bialy without much effort.” He jerked his thumb toward Ada, who was now gesturing wildly for Tillie to return to the carriage.

  The clerk looked at Ada and shivered. “Shall I wrap that for you?” He pointed at the book in Ian’s hand.

  “Yes, please,” Tillie said. “I need that book.”