Opium and Absinthe: A Novel

by Lydia Kang

  “All right.” With the children, surely there would be nothing to worry about. “Tell me where, and I’ll see you after midnight. Though I hate the idea of waking up those children, wherever they are.”

  “Aw, don’t worry about that. I’ll have them come stay with me.”

  The next night, after Ada had already met John in the back of the house, Tillie crept about the kitchen, careful not to bump any hanging pots. The pantry was enormous, well laden with potatoes, onions, carrots in the root baskets, and barrels full near to the brim with flour and sugar. Spices sat in jars beside strings of garlic and wreaths of dried thyme and rosemary. There was a large icebox for holding cream, milk, meat, and fish, but also a large old cellar beneath the pantry for extra goods.

  Tillie found a clean, empty flour sack and filled it with two loaves of bread, half a dozen sausages, dried fruit, and an enormous wedge of cheese. She added several cookies, then scurried to her grandmother’s office to take a small bottle of port off the liquor trolley. She slung the booty over her good shoulder and took a quick peek out the window by the kitchen.

  The moon was only a sliver, and it took her a moment to see within the darkness. Movement caught her eye by the iron fence abutting the Havemeyers’ lot next door. John was leaning against the fence, Ada’s back pressed up against him, her eyes closed as if dreaming. John had his hands around her waist and seemed to be whispering in her ear. Tillie was about to draw away from the window, when John’s eyes flicked upward and caught hers. Or did they? He glanced down, smiling ever so slightly, as if he had an audience. His hands slid around the small of Ada’s back to her belly, then upward as he cupped her bosom over the bodice of her dress. Ada’s mouth opened in pleasure. John’s smile grew wider. His eyes flicked back up to the house, and Tillie fled.

  Ian met her at the station on Grand Street. This time, they went a few blocks farther east to Forsyth Street, where he stopped outside a rather shabby tenement, a duplicate of at least three others on the block.

  “Here we are. My castle.” He seemed oddly nervous. Ian was never nervous.

  “Well. Let’s go up.”

  “Okay. The scamps are already upstairs and waiting.” He gestured to the sack on her back and said, “Are you playing Santa Claus? In July?”

  “I guess I am.”

  “Can I carry that for you?”

  “No. I’m just fine.”

  Ian led her up several flights of stairs. The building was dark and dank, as if air never passed through to cleanse the hallways. On the fifth floor, she looked about her.

  “Well? Which one is yours?” There were two doors, one near and one down the hallway. She pretended not to see a mouse scurry along the edge of the wall.

  “This one. But we’re not going in.”

  “Why on earth not?” Tillie asked. “Where are the children?”

  Ian shuffled his feet a little. “Well, see. I stay with a family. Mrs. Salzberger and her four kids and her sister and her sister’s two kids.”

  “Too late to intrude, then?”

  “Well, no. I can come and go as I please. I have a cot in one of the bedrooms, with their boys. But in the summer, it’s a veritable oven. An oven baking week-old pickles instead of dough. So I stay up on this tar beach at night.” He opened the other door to an extremely narrow set of stairs. At the top, he opened another door, and a puff of warm night air hit Tillie. It smelled like a summer breeze, instead of the warmed-over gutter stink from the street. The roof was covered in wooden slats, and an iron pole across one side held two shirts hanging in the wind. An oil lamp sat nearby, illuminating a pallet with blankets in the corner. On it, three indistinct lumps lay.

  Tillie spied one curly head, one with bushy blond hair, and another dark head. Pops was sleeping on his back, mouth sagging open. Piper had been sucking his thumb but had released it so it lay temptingly an inch from his drooling mouth. Sweetie was curled up so tight she looked like a pill bug. Ian leaned over to wake them, but Tillie pulled his arm back.

  “Don’t,” she whispered. “When they wake up, we’ll give them something to eat.”

  “All right.” Ian pulled a satchel off his shoulder and took out a sheaf of papers. “Here are your notes. And two pencils and a copy of that issue from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle about the sailor vampire.”

  “Thank you. This is wonderful. There’s just enough light that I can work.” She looked around. “You really sleep up here in the summer?”

  “I do. I have the whole sky as my room. What’s not to like?” He smiled, but it was crooked. The smile that meant he was slightly embarrassed but trying very hard not to be.

  “I guess you have some privacy,” Tillie thought aloud.

  “I do, but some days when I sleep in, there’s a nurse walking across the rooftops visiting families in the tenements here. One of them almost stepped on my face.”

  “Still, you have your freedom. Nobody watching you, nobody always checking on you.”

  “Well, that goes both ways. I have no parents, so there are days when I wish someone was checking on me. Mrs. Salzberger doesn’t count—she just wants to make sure I’ll pay her my ten dollars every month. At least you have a roof over your head, no matter what.”

  “I would trade that for this roof, any day,” Tillie said. “So long as no one steps on my face,” she added. They both laughed softly. Tillie looked around. “Where should I sit?”

  Ian procured a blanket and spread it over the roof halfway across from where the children slept. The clouds dimmed the rictus moon in the sky. A small oil lamp provided a tiny warm glow.

  “No typewriter here, but you should be able to work well enough.”

  “How will we divide the writing?”

  “How about you write what you can, and I’ll edit it and add what’s missing, and we’ll go from there?”

  “Ian. I’ve never written anything in my life, aside from letters and a few things my teachers asked of me, and that was when I was thirteen. What if it’s terrible?”

  “Don’t give up before you try. Defeat is particularly lethal early on in any journey; don’t let it be your compass.” He settled in nearby and folded his hands behind his head for a pillow. “My mother and father, if they knew how tough it would be here, they never would have left the shtetl. But they did. They did the impossible.”

  “And what about you? What are you using as your compass?”

  He looked at her seriously, then tapped his chest. “Here. I hear my mother’s words all the time. Di liebe is zees, nor zi iz gut mit broyt. And my father’s. He’d tell me not to take anything too seriously. And my brother—and his giggles. They’re with me, though they’re not. And I know what they want me to do. I just have to do what’s right in my heart too. There’s room enough for all the right choices.”

  He closed his eyes, and Tillie wasn’t sure if he was feigning sleep or exhausted. Everyone had their own north, and Tillie’s right now was on her lap. If writing this article helped find Lucy’s killer, then it was all worth it.

  She went to work organizing her notes. After an hour or so, she stood to stretch and walked to the edge of the roof. Laundry hung between the buildings, flapping like tiny flags in the darkness. There was the pointed spire of Trinity Church to the south and the towers of Brooklyn Bridge to the southeast. A chill iced her insides. She shivered, but it did not go away.

  “Hey. You okay?” Ian had woken and lay propped up on his elbows.

  “Yes. I was just thinking. Somewhere out there, asleep or awake, is that monster who killed Lucy. And Albert and Annetta. Probably more.” She frowned. “He’s probably already drawn a bead on the next one. It makes me want to scream and do something useful. I don’t know if writing a silly article about vampires is going to catch anyone.”

  “It’s what we have. Our sword is the word. You and I aren’t the other kind of soldier.” He walked up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. She was tempted to grasp that hand with both of hers and squeeze it hard enough
to bruise his skin. “Come away from the edge of the roof. You’re making me nervous.”

  They sat again on their blanket. “You know, we still don’t know anything about Betty. Lucy’s maid. Last I heard, she was in the Tombs for thievery. I wish we could speak to her.”

  “I wish we knew someone there who could get us some information.”

  Tillie hesitated. John O’Toole had friends there, but she was loath to ask him for any more favors. But Betty would know Lucy’s exact movements the day she’d died. She’d been found near the museum, but had she gone straight there? Lucy had written in her diary about being eager to return to the Foundling Hospital once Dr. Erikkson fully cleared her.

  “Ian. The three victims—they were all sick before they died. I mean, they were sick, but then they got better. It’s so odd.”

  He frowned. “I don’t understand the connection.”

  “Lucy had typhus. The boy had cholera, it sounded like. And that woman, she had consumption. What if they were killed because of their diseases?”

  “You’ve been sick. With your broken bone and all. Nothing’s tried to attack you.”

  She deflated for a moment, then perked up. “But the others were infections, not a simple broken bone. It’s different.”

  He shrugged. “I still don’t see why a vampire would target sick people. Drink the blood of someone with the plague or leprosy? No thank you.” Ian’s stomach yowled plaintively, and they both laughed. “Speaking of food, though, I’m hungry.”

  “Me too,” Tillie said. She gathered her bag and showed him the bounty.

  “Jiminy Crickets! Did you empty out your whole larder?”

  “No,” she said. “We have plenty, though I’ll have to explain to the maids that I was very hungry last night.”

  Ian had already broken off a piece of bread and was munching it with some dried apricots. He cut off an edge of the cheese, then alternated bites from each fistful of food. He was hungry. Very much so. It made her mournful. How often did Ian ignore his physical discomfort because he lacked funds to appease it? A shuffling noise came from behind her.

  Sweetie appeared, groggy eyed. Her brown hair was matted against one side of her head. Pops was rubbing his eyes, and Piper suddenly rolled over and farted rather loudly.

  “Weren’t you going to invite us?” Pops asked.

  “Of course! Sit down and eat!”

  The three children quickly shook off their tiredness and began eating with zeal. They oohed and aahed over the food. Ian went downstairs and returned with a jug of water that they passed around.

  “Next time, I’ll bring some good milk,” Tillie said.

  “Next time, bring more cookies!” Piper said.

  Sweetie added, “Cake! I like cake!” Her words were puffy from having a jaw full of bread.

  “Be polite, will yeh,” Pops said. He was probably younger than the other two, making this parental comment particularly odd. “Hey, Tillie. We’ve been takin’ turns watching that odd doctor.”

  “Oh! Ian said he really does stay home all the time?”

  “Almost always,” Piper chimed in, his face smeared with crumbs.

  “Almost?” Tillie asked.

  “I followed him one evening, almost sunset. He went into one of those saloons. With the ladies!” Sweetie wiggled her eyebrows, and everyone knew what kind of saloon they were speaking of.

  “But if he left before the sun set, that’s not so vampiric, is it?” She looked at Ian, who shrugged.

  “Perhaps he’s not a vampire. Doesn’t mean he’s not a killer.”

  “I just can’t see it,” Tillie said.

  “Neither can I. But perhaps that’s the point. A murderer doesn’t want to wear a sign around his neck that says he’s a killer.”

  “True.”

  While they chatted on and ate, Tillie portioned out the food so they could each take some along for later. The sausages would need to be cooked, but there was still at least a bundle of dried fruit, a small wedge of cheese, and half a loaf of bread for each of them to take with them. Glutted, they took their bundles thankfully and went back to their pallet in the corner of the roof and fell instantly back asleep.

  Tillie and Ian passed back and forth the small bottle of port. It was deliciously sweet and strong, and Tillie’s spine felt relaxed and watery. The tincture she took while the others were busy eating helped ease the growing discomfort.

  “I’ve been thinking about Mrs. Erikkson,” Tillie said. She stood up and swayed in the breeze. “She said she wished I went to school.” Lady Remington had suggested something similar. She turned to Ian. “Do you think I should go to college?”

  “What do you want?” Ian asked. He stood too. When Tillie got too close to the edge of the roof, he gently took her hand and pulled her back toward him. “Hey. You keep going too close to the edge. Stop that.”

  “I like it. It makes me feel like the horizon is closer. Which it can never be, given that we are on a planetary sphere. No matter how much I run or walk, it never gets closer.” Tillie stumbled, feeling the effects of the port wine and the laudanum mixing in her veins. Her limbs were loose and rubbery. A melting sensation had spread throughout her body. God, it felt delicious.

  “It’s our lot in life, like moths to flame. We keep heading that way, or else we might as well die.”

  “Are you a moth?” Tillie asked. She spun around to him, and their bellies touched. Ian steadied her by holding her arms.

  “Hey. Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Why don’t you ever answer my questions?” Tillie asked seriously. Ian was swaying now too. No; that was just her own body, shifting them both left and right and left.

  “I think you might be drunk,” he said.

  “I think I might be too.” She looked up at him. That curly hair. Those brown eyes. She reached up and wound her fingers around the back of his neck. Ian closed his eyes halfway and inhaled sharply as she put her other hand around his waist. “Your eyelashes are entirely too long for a boy,” she said. And then she leaned in to kiss him.

  For a short moment, their lips moved beneath each other’s. Ian tasted of port and cinnamon cookies. She leaned against his chest, feeling the warmth of him seeping toward her. And then he gently pushed her away.

  “You’re drunk,” he said again and wiped his mouth.

  “I am fine.”

  “Drink some water and sober up.” He seemed disappointed and angry and sad, all at once.

  With this kiss, there had been no Piper, Sweetie, and Pops watching. No dare to be had. And it had ended far too quickly. Tillie had felt like she were flying and falling at the same time, before she crashed.

  “I thought all the boys wanted to kiss a girl,” she said, before plopping back down on the blanket. Her head was spinning.

  “Not like this.” He sat back down and looked through her papers. “Come on. Drunk or no, we have work to do.”

  Tillie did sober up in measures over the next two hours. By the time her head was clear, they were organizing paragraphs, and she was ready to start writing. The newsies had woken up at the faintest lightening of sky on the eastern horizon.

  “Time to buy the papers,” Pops said, yawning. “Thank you for the food, Miss Tillie.” His small hand touched his cap. They scrambled down the stairs from the roof, and in a few minutes, she could hear their feet thrumming on the street as they ran downtown toward Newspaper Row. Tillie carefully peered over the edge of the building. They looked so very tiny in the distance. It would be too easy to pinch them into nonexistence. Something caught in her chest, and she looked away so she wouldn’t see them completely disappear down Bowery Street.

  Ian was strangely formal and stiff when they readied to leave. Tillie carefully gathered all the papers. For once, she had to bring them with her so she could complete her work at home.

  “Ian, turn away for a minute.”

  “Why?” he asked, staring.

  “Just . . . turn away. I have to hide these notes.”r />
  “Oh. Oh!” He turned around quickly. She folded the papers once, then carefully bent over to sandwich them between her bosom and her corset. Lately, her corset had been fitting loosely. How convenient.

  “All right. I’m done.”

  Ian turned around. “Where did they go?”

  “A gentleman would never ask such a question,” Tillie said, smirking.

  “And a lady would never hide secret documents in her undergarments,” he retorted.

  “Oh mercy. Can we please stop talking now?” Tillie covered her face.

  Ian changed the topic to discuss when she would bring him a rough draft. That would be the last of her work. For now.

  “We still need to go to the pathologic cabinet,” she said.

  “We have enough information for now. We can add that at a later time.”

  “Shall we meet here or at Newspaper Row again?”

  “How about you just mail me your article? I don’t want you to get into trouble, sneaking out all the time.” He thrust his hands in his pockets and smiled. “Good luck on your writing.”

  Tillie nodded at his friendly goodbye, waiting for something. What, exactly? Now that her head was clear, she wasn’t sure. She descended the dark tenement stairs and headed back to the elevated train. It was about four blocks away, and Ian had left to go south to Newspaper Row. As she approached the station in the soft darkness that was already loosening with the coming dawn, she saw a figure standing by the metal stairs heading up to the station.

  Tillie felt exposed and vulnerable. The first time she’d met Ian in the darkness of Fifth Avenue, she was frightened too. But since she knew this couldn’t be him, her fear swelled. She hugged her chest, feeling her papers crinkle against her skin. Perhaps she could walk to another elevated—but then she might arrive home too late. She couldn’t afford to enter the house after dawn. She decided she would just walk past him, and if she needed help, the stationmaster was just up the stairs collecting fares.

  As she approached, the man pushed off from where he was leaning and began to walk toward her. She had a foreboding sensation, a familiar one. A pair of unwelcome eyes had been on her of late. She raised her hand in protest, ready to tell John O’Toole that he had no business following her but terrified that her transgressions would finally be reported to her mother and, worse, her grandmother.