by Peter Quinn
A few days turned into six. He didn’t come back until the following Friday. Eliza felt real despair for the first time since she had landed in the city, the fear that she had traded the closed, drab, strict world of Midian’s Well for something worse, a lifetime of needlework until the morgue wagon arrived at the bottom of the lane. She prayed the Haitian would return but was certain he would not. On the seventh day he did. His name was Joseph. After several months she moved in with him, into a house where all the other boarders were white. They were the first white people Eliza had ever spoken with at any length, songwriters, actors, singers, musicians. Joseph mingled easily with them.
Joseph said that before he went to sea he had been a professional singer in Haiti, but that Haiti was a poor country and the people could not afford many amusements or support many artists. “You are always better off among artists,” he told Eliza. “They are the easiest of the white people to get along with. But don’t be deceived. Even among them it is always best to be the only colored in their company. Never more than two. And always be careful in your attitudes. Never be sad for extended periods. Never be moody. They find that difficult to understand, and they are made uncomfortable by it. Be of good cheer as much as you possibly can. And remember, they will forgive you more than most because you are beautiful. But don’t be fooled, you are a colored in their eyes. That will always matter more than your beauty.”
After Joseph left her, Eliza stayed in the room for two days without coming out. She slept most of the time. The five-dollar gold piece Joseph had given her lay on the table beside the bed. The nail on which his rosaries had hung was covered by the blouse he had presented to her when he had returned to the lane, blue stitching on the bodice, blue ribbons drawn through the cuffs. In the afternoon she sat by the window. It was autumn, but it already felt like winter. Across the way, a line of prostitutes paraded up and down the sidewalk. Until recently they hadn’t made their appearance on the street until after the lamplighters’ rounds, but the disaster on Wall Street and the hard times it caused had made them diurnal as well as nocturnal. With every factory, that closed and business that went bankrupt and immigrant boat that arrived, the prostitution industry’s labor supply grew. At every hour, all day, all night, a growing number of the female unemployed twirled parasols in summer and swung their muffs in winter, members of the city’s first twenty-four-hour-a-day enterprise. Along Canal Street a battery of cigar stores displayed a few crumbling, sun-bleached Havanas in their windows. Behind the counters the willing sales help, young women in loose-fitting blouses, suggested that the gentlemen customers have a look at the “select stock” kept in the room upstairs. For less than a dollar, there were the depraved and degraded haunts of the Five Points as well as of Corlears Hook, where Manhattan Island bulged out into the East River, its aggressive “hookers” competing for each customer. Around the railroad terminal on Twenty-sixth Street, a basement trade in quick-as-a-wink service promised that no customer would miss his train. Farther west, at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Twenty-third Street, were “The Seven Sisters,” a septet of adjoining brownstones lining a block built on speculation on the eve of the financial panic and quickly turned to commercial use. On Washington Street, Maria Casey’s staff of white women catered to a clientele composed mostly of black sailors.’ Shanghai Sally’s off Peck’s Slip promised its patrons “pleasures in the Oriental style,” but its lights were kept so low and its women were so taciturn that it was hard to tell where the whores were from. At Josie Woods’s establishment on Clinton Place, near the Trump, only men who were referred by other clients and then interviewed by Mrs. Woods were accepted. The membership was said to be limited to a hundred, and each of the staff of twenty possessed an instrumental or vocal skill that she employed in nightly entertainments. The cheapest champagne that was offered was ten dollars a bottle.
The epicenter was Greene Street, from Canal to Houston—“Love Lane,” as it was sometimes called—its east and west sides occupied by brick houses entirely devoted to the trade. The homes were shuttered day and night, and the lamplighters were paid to leave the lamps unlit. After dark the street’s only light came from the gas bulbs mounted over every door, bowls of tinted glass, mostly red, the name of the establishment etched in white: “XANADU,” “THE PIED PIPER,” “THE FORGET-ME-NOT,” “THE ALPS,” “THE GARDEN OF EDEN,” “THE HIGHLAND FLING,” “A BIRD IN THE HAND,” “THE DEVIL’S OWN,” “THE GREEK GALS,” “THE KING’S PLEASURE,” “THE PARISIAN,” “SIN BAD THE SAILOR,” “THE WHIP,” “THE HEAVENLY REST,” “LULU’S PLACE,” “IT’S ALWAYS A PLEASURE,” “QUEENIE’S,” “ONCE MORE,” “FLORA’S,” “MY LIPS ARE SEALED,” “THE KISSING CORNER.” There were patrons padding up to the doorsteps at all hours, but the heaviest traffic was at night, a slow-moving river of customers flowing up and down the street, its tributaries snaking in and out of the houses.
On the third day after Joseph had left, Eliza came down from the room. She sat at dinner with the other boarders. They never mentioned Joseph, nor asked her where she had been. Eliza smiled and laughed when the others did. She was too distracted to follow what they were saying. The landlady stood next to the serving table, between the boarders and the food, bantering with them while making sure that no one made more than one return trip. She stared at Eliza. The rent for the week ahead was due the next day.
After dinner the landlady stopped Eliza as she was going upstairs. “I gotta know how much longer you plan to stay.”
“Least another week.”
“I only rent two weeks at a time.”
“Wasn’t that way before.”
“Is now.” The landlady was drying her hands with her apron. “Look, dearie, I’m not tryin’ to throw you out on the street. I know Mister Joseph is gone, but you’re not the first been left.”
“He’ll be back,” Eliza said. “He’s not left forever.”
“Sure. He’s been gone before and will come back again, a free spirit, and we all have an affection for him on account of it, but there ain’t no tellin’ when that day will be, and it just ain’t possible for you to stay here till he does come back. Single women in this city that ain’t with their families, most of ’em got but one way to pay the rent, and that’s not the kind of place I run.” She reached into the pocket of her apron, took out a piece of paper, and handed it to Eliza. “I feel sorry for you. Ain’t easy making your way in this city, nobody knows that better than me. I wrote down the address of a woman might be of help. Colored like yourself.”
Eliza glanced at the note. Madame Julia Gates. The Arms of Love. 53 Greene Street. “Go at midday,” the landlady said. “It’s the only time a girl would be safe.”
“I’m not a whore,” Eliza said.
The landlord folded her arms across her ample bosom. “Watch your tongue, girl. I never used that word. Whatever it is that goes on at Madame Julia’s—and I ain’t never tried to find out, ‘cause that’s her business like this house is mine—there’s a regular staff of domestics, all colored, I’m told, and it’s not easy for the colored to get that kind of work anymore, not since the Paddies overrun the town and drove ’em out of it. If I was you, I wouldn’t overlook that fact.”
Eliza went. A black boy of about twelve answered the door. He was wearing old-fashioned breeches with white stockings. He brought her into the front parlor. The room was shuttered and dark. It had an overpowering smell of must. The boy turned up the gaslight and left. Eliza heard a rustling sound from the hallway, the crisp swirl of taffeta, and a moment later an immense white woman entered, a mountain of flesh wrapped in a purple dress. She walked past Eliza and lowered herself onto a settee. She filled most of it. She gestured to Eliza to sit. The boy came back in, placed a drink on the table next to Madame Julia, lifted her slippered feet and put a footstool beneath them.
The woman sipped from the glass. “You were told Madame Julia was black?” she said as she put the glass down.
Eliza nodded.
“They tell al
l the colored girls that. Hope it will make them feel more secure. You see, if I hire you, the woman who sent you will get a small fee, so she was eager for you to come here. She lied, but we all do that when it’s convenient. Have you worked at this before?”
Eliza shook her head.
“And the woman who sent you said you might perhaps find work here as a maid?”
“Yes.”
“She lied again. There’s no end to the lying that goes on in this town. New York depends as much on lies as on Croton water. Now, there are maids here but they’re all old and plain, and you’re neither. You’re someone men would pay to be with, and I offer such women the chance to lie in my beds, not make them.”
Madame Julia shifted her leg, and winced. She picked up her drink and took a long draft.
“Gout,” she said. “It’s very painful at times, but this helps.” She held up the glass. “Quinine and laudanum in Saratoga water. It softens the edges. Life would be intolerable without it.”
“I’m not interested in being a whore,” Eliza said.
“Who is? No woman I ever met, at least not in the way a man likes to imagine, the delusion of women deriving some pleasure from the gratification of his desires. Thing is, you needn’t be interested in being a whore to be a good one. You must be interested in prospering and accumulating the wherewithal to take up some other livelihood, that’s what’s important, and as long as you are working, you must avoid addictions such as this one.” She lifted her glass, and took another drink. “The fact that you are here shows you are interested in having enough to eat and a place to sleep, and for the time being such interest is enough.”
Eliza was perched on the edge of her chair. Her knees were pressed together. She was aware of how uncomfortable she looked.
“Please, sit back,” Madame Julia said. “I’m no pimp, and I’m not going to eat you.” She winced again and bent over to touch her foot but was unable to come near it. She called for the boy, and he came in with ice packed in a towel and put it on the foot.
“All my girls are colored. The specialty of the house. You’ve seen how crowded this street has become. Every place has to have something to distinguish it, some unique attraction, and the colored girls are mine. We do a good business. Every girl in The Arms of Love makes a living, which is more than you can say for the employees of some of the sinkholes on this street. Customers like to visit here. They think they’re breaking some taboo, and a man who thinks that gets twice the pleasure. You been with a lot of them?”
“Who?”
“A stupid question. Just look at you. But some men would find your inexperience attractive. Don’t ask me why, but they would. Others would demand their money back. Men are fairly consistent in their inconsistencies. The only thing you can count on is that each in his own way will be capable of a whole lot of silliness. Anybody sits where I’ve sat these last years and listens to them whispering their requests soon comes to realize there isn’t another creature in God’s kingdom capable of such silliness as a grown man.”
The narrow slits of Madame Julia’s eyes closed. She bit her lip and winced once more. “This Goddamn foot. The price of the life I’ve lived. Oysters and beef—stay away from them if you can.” She drained her glass. “I haven’t been out of this house in four years,” she said. “But you know, sitting in a house such as this, you get a better idea of what’s happening in this city than if you walked the streets all day and read all the newspapers. Men reveal themselves here. Take the passion for orality. I’m not talking about the right or wrong of it. I never talk about the right or wrong of anything because it doesn’t have much to do with the way men live, and besides, one man’s taboo is another man’s taste. I’m just talking about the universality of it, the way it’s swept everything else aside. I started in this business in ’44 and it was the odd man asked for such a thing, mostly sailors. Now it’s demanded here and everywhere on this street, and sitting here hearing such requests you realize something has changed in this city, the nature of manhood nowadays. I don’t think it has the vigorous energy of former days, the pump, pump, pump it once did. There’s too much European influence around. Consider all the eau de cologne being sprayed around necks and ears. What does that tell you about the level of masculinity in this city? If you ask me, all the real men in New York are dead or left for California. It’s the soft ones that’s left.”
In the hallway a clock’s chimes rang twice. Neither Eliza nor Madame Julia spoke. Eliza wanted to get up and walk out, but she was unsure of what to say to excuse herself.
Madame Julia broke the silence. “You’re a little bit confused, but that’s because I talk too much. Don’t feel bad, though. Nobody ever entered this profession wasn’t confused. I left Albany in ’43, ran away from home and got as far as here, and when I began I was more confused than you are now. But don’t bother yourself with too many questions. They answer themselves most times. For now all you need to know is it will cost you ten dollars a week for a room, meals, and laundry, and on top of that the house gets half of whatever you do. The rest is yours, and you work hard, develop a steady group of patrons, and in a few years the money starts to add up. One other thing. If you decide to work in The Arms of Love, you’ll have to see my doctor, not that I expect any problems on that account, at least not yet. Now go make up your mind.”
Several men looked at Eliza as she came down the front stairs. She walked toward Broadway as quickly as she could. A city of whores, the Reverend Mr. Enders had called it. A woman arrayed in scarlet, decked with gold and precious stones, in her hand a cup full of abominations and filthiness, the fruits of her fornication. Eliza knew she could go back to the barber and his wife in Niggertown. They had been sad to see her go and would welcome the extra set of hands; their livelihoods were increasingly threatened by the tide of cheap immigrant labor, an endless obligation to drink from the bitter cup of poverty, the fruit of their nigrescence.
Eliza packed her few things and left the boardinghouse. She wandered the streets. She looked in the windows of the shops. Not a single Negro clerk in any of them. What would they say if she asked for a job? Would they laugh? Or throw her out? Or stand in speechless wonderment? She kept walking.
The same boy opened the door of Madame Julia’s. He reached to take her carpetbag. She held on to it.
“Suit yourself,” he said.
He directed her into the parlor. Madame Julia was sitting where Eliza had left her. Her eyes were closed. Eliza stood motionless for a moment, then let her bag drop. Madame Julia opened her eyes slowly.
“You here to work?” she asked.
“No.”
“Them that won’t work, neither shall they eat. The Good Book says that.”
“I’ll work. I’ll clean up.”
“I already told you, I don’t need more bed makers.”
The ice in the towel over Madame Julia’s foot had melted. There was a puddle on the rug. Her glass had been refilled. She seemed to be having difficulty keeping her eyes open.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“About six,” Eliza said.
“They’ll start arriving in steady numbers soon. The soldiers first. They’re the eagerest.” She pointed at the chair where Eliza had sat earlier in the afternoon. “Sit.”
Eliza sat with her bag in her lap. She was perched in the same position as before, as if she were waiting for a train.
“I was as good-looking as you are now when I started. The men wanted me in the worst way, and I quickly learned to pretend likewise. I imitated their hunger, and that drives them wild, when they think you want it as bad as them. Of course, a man in the grip of his own desire will believe anything. That’s what a whore learns better than anyone. Now they laugh when they see me. ‘Mount Julia,’ one of them called me. Thought he was being smart. Said I was as big as one of those Catskill mountains. ‘You wish you could mount Julia,’ says I, ‘but the kind of man could make such things worth the doing has long since disappeared.’
“How they love to talk when they come down from upstairs. How calm and capable of conversation they are. But before they go up it’s a different story. It’s hard for me not to laugh in their faces when I bring them in to find out what they’re after and to explain the rules. A nightly procession of love-hungry pups masquerading as pleasure hounds, reeking of alcohol, nervous, so damned anxious to get it done, so impatient, as though the fate of the Republic hung between their legs. I like to sit them right where you’re sitting. Just sit and watch them squirm. They’re worse than schoolboys, and all of them got it in their heads the colored women are going to show them something they’ve never seen before.”
“I don’t know where to go.”
“Don’t go anywhere. I never forced a girl into doing what she didn’t want. But I guarantee you’ll get used to it. Doesn’t take much more effort than to ride a horse. If you’re good, maybe I’ll recommend you to Josie Woods. She’s always had a colored girl on her rolls, and her girls don’t have but one customer a night. It’s not much worse than being married.”
Eliza lived a month in The Arms of Love, in an attic room with a bed, dresser, chair, mirror, and a wardrobe for the dresses Madame Julia provided and for which she added two dollars to the weekly charge. She sent Eliza the youngest and most inexperienced men, the ones who squirmed the most. “They’ll be done before they start,” she said.
