Pinkerton's Sister

by Peter Rushforth

  They met, like creatures mating, in the middle of the street, G. G. Schiffendecken leaping high into the air, spinning around twice — the swinging garters making a sound like a child’s paper windmill spinning — and landing with perfect aplomb in Dr. Wolcott Ascharm Webster’s confidently upraised hands, to lie calmly on his side like someone reclining on a chaise longue in the comfort and privacy of his own home. Dr. Wolcott Ascharm Webster, legs slightly apart, was braced to hold him, and Carlotta rotated slowly and then with increasing speed, above Ethel, until G. G. Schiffendecken was just a blur, his spectacles a continuous gleam on the periphery, and the sound of the paper windmill became an insistent rattle, a child running a stick along metal railings. War veterans flung themselves earthward — a loud WHOOP! from Dr. Brown — in a well-trained automatic response to its machine-gun rat-a-tat-tatting, but this temporary distraction did not break G. G. Schiffendecken’s concentration. His voice — rather breathless — could be heard in bursts as he spun around.

  “I would …”

  — Gasp! —

  “… recommend Carlotta to anyone. I love …”

  — Gasp! —

  “… to feel her …”

  — (her!) —

  “… silky sheerness against …”

  — Gasp! —

  “… my skin.”

  The Misses Isserliss (saying their names correctly three times in rapid succession was generally recognized as a reliable test of sobriety in Longfellow Park) moved closer, arm in arm under the same parasol, which was at an angle of forty-five degrees. Estimable ladies — now in their seventies — always dressed identically because they were twins, even though Miss Issie Isserliss was twice the height of Miss Cissie Isserliss, they commented favorably on the firm uplift and support afforded by Ethel, who did not sag and did not crease, even under the most trying conditions, giving rise to universally approving comment amongst discerning friends.

  Mrs. Albert Comstock and Mrs. Goodchild gaped and pointed their parasols accusingly.

  Prod! Prod! Prod!

  Far off, beyond the distant end of Hudson Row as it turned west and began to move toward the upper reaches of Broadway, the Reverend Goodchild, a veritable prima ballerina assoluta, was executing a divertissement as he glissaded south toward New York City. His Dorinda corset — flesh-colored (for those who happened to possess pinkish-white flesh) for discretion when wearing paler garments in the summer season — was partly obscured by the filmy cascades of a Zuleika lace negligee. The Reverend Goodchild liked his little luxuries. The front of the negligee— he was negligent with his negligee, in a disheveled state of dishabille— lazily opened and closed with each stride he took, slowly, like fabric unfolding under water, something being repeatedly washed to remove stains.

  His arms were wide open, as if to embrace the whole city, and he was smiling beatifically, like a man who — at long last, after much searching — had found his true self.

  17

  It was suddenly dusk.

  The area under the chestnut trees, where the children played — she thought of the trees as being immeasurably old, trees that had given their name to Chestnut Street — was deserted with the coming of darkness. In the spring, she’d look out each morning, waiting for the first glimpse of the whiteness of the candles appearing in the branches, the blossom one of the signs that winter really was over. Sometimes, in the summer, she stood on a table in the schoolroom under the opened skylight, looking out, and she could hear the voices of the children at play — The Baptist Game; Trials, Troubles, and Tribulations — and glimpse the girls’ pale dresses.

  Last night she had heard them playing Walking on the Green Grass, a game they did not often play because it needed boys as well as girls, and the boys were reluctant to join in with the girls’ games. Serenity Goodchild, the Reverend Goodchild’s fearsome grubby-minded granddaughter, must have threatened, or physically assaulted, the boys until they had joined in. She had not been born until several years after the deaths of Albert Comstock and Alice’s father, but there she was on this day of dancing, the same age then as she was now. The children’s voices were high and piercing in the fading light.

  “… Now take her by the hand, this queen,

  And swing her round and round the green …”

  Any boy who attempted to swing Serenity Goodchild round and round by her hand (she was a — er — big-boned girl) would have been risking permanent damage. There would have been agonized grunts, the sounds of muffled internal explosions, reverberating twangs. The pattern of movement shifted and broke beneath the trees, the procession becoming a circle, the circle becoming two lines, the figures swinging up into the air, as if they weighed nothing at all, and then there were no figures there, just the trampled grass and the darkness.

  Papa — completely alone — was pirouetting in the middle of the bandstand in the park, which was illuminated like a miniature stage. The immense polished dome of his bald head emitted a discreet muted gleam that harmonized with his pearl necklace and earrings.

  After she had polished the door knocker, Annie — it was an essential part of her daily duties — gave his head and teeth a vigorous rub with Putz’s Pomade Metal Polish. He came out and stood on the front step, bending his knees — further, further — so that his teeth were on the same level as the knocker, then bowing his head to allow access. He completely ignored Annie as she buffed his baldness. One did not thank servants.

  “When applied to any polished surface and rubbed off,” Annie demonstrated to applauding passers-by, “Putz’s will leave a luster obtained in no other way. It will take off dirt, grease, or tarnish quicker than any known substance.”

  “… I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor …”

  — Annie sang (it was not Bizet, but Charlotte would be pleased to hear Gilbert and Sullivan) —

  “… And I polished up the handle of the big front door.

  I polished up that handle so carefullee

  That now I am the Ruler of the Queen’s Navee!…”

  “… She polished up that handle so carefullee …”

  — the passers-by chorused —

  “… That now she is the Ruler of the Queen’s Navee!”

  Some of them linked arms, and danced around in time to the music. It was quite a jolly scene.

  Papa looked like a gigantic version of the ballerina in the jewelry box that Mama had given her when she was five years old, spinning round and round to an insidiously repeated little tune. He was a massive Mary Benedict, eager as ever to demonstrate her knowledge of all the ballet positions.

  First position.

  Heels together, feet turned out.

  Don’t forget the simper.

  Second position …

  He kept lurching over to the right. A loss of balance would demolish the ornate metal balustrade, and several rows of the chairs lined up on the grass beyond.

  The tinkling little tune became louder, and the song from H.M.S. Pinafore faded completely away. The luster from Putz’s Pomade Metal Polish remained, like a tastefully subdued beacon in the darkness.

  The music to which he was wobblily revolving — it was being played by his pocket-watch, one of the six tunes in its repertoire — was the melody she had heard more times in the last years of the century than any other, more even than “After the Ball” (a fleeting glimpse of the grotesque little gnomic silhouette pursuing the large black ball that appeared on the sheet music), “Just Tell Them that You Saw Me,” or — raising the tone slightly — “To a Wild Rose,” or “Rustle of Spring” (“FrÜhlingsrauschen” to those who wished to impress). The melody had been heard everywhere, and it was surprising that the constant repetition of it by her less promising pupils did not have Miss Iandoli hurling herself from her window in despair, driven to madness by something she had once loved, a Lady Macbeth of music. There she would be, impaled on the ace of spades tips of the railings, unable to prevent her feet from waving in time to the music that stumblingly continued
to ker-plunk away inside.

  Ker-plunk, ker-plunk, ker-plunkety plunky-plunk …

  This melody was “Narcissus.”

  “I shall now play Ethelbert Nevin, Opus 13, Number 4,” a pianist would announce portentously at a musical evening.

  (He or she — shes tended to predominate — would be one of those who announced “Rustle of Spring” as “FrÜhlingsrauschen.” They clearly wished it to be understood that they were more refined than the common herd of amateur ker-plunkers.)

  There would be consternation as the threatened imminence of culture looked all set to interrupt conversations and spoil the atmosphere. Then, after the first few bars, everyone would relax. Call it what you would, it was only the tinkly sound of “Narcissus” after all.

  What a relief!

  Ker-plunk, ker-plunk,

  Ker-plunkety plunky-plunk.

  Ker-plunk, ker-plunk,

  Ker-plunkety plunky-plunk.

  Ker-plunk, ker-plunk,

  Ker-plunk, ker-plunk,

  Ker-plunk, ker-plunkety, plunk, ker-plunkety,

  Plunk, plunk …

  Papa revolved and wobbled, revolved and wobbled, a Narcissus reflected in his own inner eye, and liking what it was he saw there.

  You’re a crackerjack!

  That’s what he was thinking.

  That corset sets off your figure to its best advantage.

  Your legs are superb.

  “Narcissus” began to play more and more slowly as the mechanism of the pocket-watch — the bandstand jewelry box — ran down, each ker separated from its plunk by a longer and longer whir-filled silence. An early evening breeze ruffled the frills on the lower part of Papa’s Little Missy corset — he liked Little Missies — and fluffed them up. He revolved ever more slowly, ever more jerkily, the ballerina coming to a halt as the clockwork abruptly stopped with a shudder. He was on tiptoe, his arms raised gracefully above him, a still figure of poise and gracefulness, about to perform in The Tales of Hoffmann, another sinful French opera.

  (The distant parasols, as if alerted, pointed like dogs sensing game — Over there! Over there! — quivering with impassioned distaste.)

  He was an Olympia — the mechanical doll — the first great love of Hoffmann’s life, waiting to be wound up by Spalanzani.

  The key in her back would be turned — Whir! Whir! Whir! — and she would begin to sing again with mechanical exactness, her singing ever shriller, ever faster.

  A voice rang out of the growing darkness. The music of Carmen had returned.

  It was the voice of the captain beginning to question Carmen after her arrest. Who had wounded the girl in the fight at the cigarette factory?

  Papa was Carmen. Saucy, tantalizing, deliberately provocative, he refused to answer.

  “Tra la la la la la la la …” he sang, teasingly alluring, coquettishly fluttering his hands, Mrs. Albert Comstock letting rip with her fan.

  You are completely irresistible.

  You ooze ooh-la-la allure.

  “You may cut me,” he answered (it sounded far worse in French). “You may burn me, but I won’t answer! I defy steel and fire!”

  Mockingly defiant, his beard and ballet dress rustling, he repeated the same taunting phrase after each attempt at questioning, his voice higher each time.

  “Tra la la la la la la la …”

  At each “la” the tips of the parasols winced like Julius Cæsar as yet another dagger thrust home into him.

  “Tra la …”

  — Ouch! —

  “… la …”

  — Ouch! —

  “… la …”

  — Ouch! —

  “… la …”

  Casca, Cassius, Decius, Cinna …

  They all piled in, a starving mob hacking, salivating, into the rotating carcass at a serve-yourself barbecue. Brutus, in need of a nibble, hovered hungrily. Each “la” was a filthy French attempt to sully the innocence that characterized all things American.

  He wouldn’t tell them what he knew.

  He wouldn’t tell them anything. What he knew would remain a secret. No one would ever know.

  His eyes were bland, his expression mild, his fingers stroking in a slightly suggestive way the letters SIN on the base of his left breast. He seemed very happy. His well-polished bald head gleamed.

  “Tra la la la la la la la …”

  What he knew was a secret, and no one was ever going to find out.

  (“S” was saucy.

  (“S” was seductive.

  (“S” was secret.)

  18

  It was completely dark.

  Annie was beside her now, and they were holding hands. Under the trees in the park, in the part at the far end of the lake, furthest away from the houses and the gas-lamps, in the cool light of a full moon, was her father, squatting down in the darkness, not fully visible. Albert Comstock, G. G. Schiffendecken, Dr. Wolcott Ascharm Webster, and the Reverend Goodchild were there with him, though she couldn’t see them. The soft cloth coverings of the corsets had been removed, like clothes at bedtime. Whalebone gleamed whitely in the darkness, as though the remains of something dead were lying there, as if Hilda, Carlotta, Ethel, Dorinda, and Little Missy had all met violent ends at the hands of a corset-crazed killer, and the glint of polished metal reflected the gleam of Annie’s eyes. Her eyes seemed enormous. A wind had blown up, quite strong, hissing in the branches like falling water, but the loudest sound was the sound of breathing. The ragged breathing — loud, raw, slightly wheezing, like that of people who had been running too fast and too far — gradually co-ordinated into one rhythm, and became louder, like the beginning of a cat’s purring, or the contented sound of sun-warmed, sleepy doves.

  She tried to move her head to one side, as if what she was seeing was actually in front of her, and not inside her mind.

  (“… She heard a voice like voice of doves

  Cooing all together:

  They sounded kind and full of loves

  In the pleasant weather …”)

  She had a sense of the coldness of the metal, the rigidity of the bone. There were the fat white hairy thighs, big and meaty, and the stained, gaping undergarments.

  The coarse, insinuating texture of the beards.

  The smell of tobacco.

  Lips.

  (“… Dear, you should not stay so late,

  Twilight is not good for maidens;

  Should not loiter in the glen

  In the haunts of goblin men …”)

  The goblins and their misshapen creatures massed beneath the castle as they sought to carry away Princess Irene deep into the darkness. Always there was the sound of digging and digging, as they drew closer to their goal, hollowing out their narrow corridors into the foundations, drawing closer every day. You could hear them if you listened carefully, their furtive pickaxes gouging into the rock.

  Alice gripped Annie’s hand more tightly. The two sisters, Lizzie and Laura, lay asleep in their curtained bed, their arms around each other, the moon and star gazing in at them. Lizzie and Laura crouched close together amongst the brookside rushes in the evening, Laura bowing her head to listen to the goblin voices.

  “No,” said Lizzie: “No, no, no …”

  Laura did not listen.

  (“… She never tasted such before,

  How should it cloy with length of use?

  She sucked and sucked and sucked the more

  Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;

  She sucked until her lips were sore …”)

  Alice started to tremble, and the newspaper, which she had been clutching all this time, began to shake, making a tiny rattling sound.

  (“… Their fruits like honey in the throat

  But poison in the blood …”)

  Why hadn’t Allegra and Edith been able to help?

  They were all little girls, but there were three of them. Ben couldn’t have helped. He had been a baby.

  Why hadn’t her sisters helped her t
o save Annie, as Laura’s sister had saved her in “Goblin Market”?

  Why hadn’t she helped her, all by herself?

  Instead, she had found for her the address of Madame Roskosch, the woman who had promised — in her newspaper advertisements — to produce THE DESIRED EFFECT within twenty-four hours. She had thought she was helping Annie, doing what she wanted her to do. Madame Roskosch had offered a SURE CURE FOR LADIES IN TROUBLE in the way that Madame Etoile offered to see the past, the present, and the future, and never to fail. Madame Roskosch had not told Annie all that she wanted to know; she had not guided her in all aspects of life with her professional skill. She offered consultation and advice FREE. She offered ELEGANT ROOMS and claimed not to make use of injurious medicines or instruments.

  She had lied.

  Papa had destroyed Annie, coldly and deliberately, and she was the only person who knew.

  Then, nine years later, during the 1888 blizzard, he had killed himself.

  Mama — before she had been struck down into silence and invalidity — had begun to convince herself that there must have been some sort of terrible accident (ha!), a very messy one, if it had been, but Alice liked to think that his death was planned, and was because of what he had done to Annie. She tried to convince herself that he had killed himself because he had made Annie pregnant, had driven her away, but he had done it because of problems with money. These, and not a girl of fourteen, were what had been important to him. He would not have killed himself because of a girl, especially years after he had last seen her. Money was what mattered, especially if you did not have enough of it.