by Hannah Tinti
Ren dug his nails into his stump and nodded his head.
“AND YOUR FOLKS ARE TRULY DEAD?”
Ren nodded at this more forcefully.
Mrs. Sands squeezed the potato in her lap. The boy felt that he was done for. But just then Benjamin and Tom returned, with a set of the drowned boy’s clothes.
Mrs. Sands gave the men a suspicious look, then snatched the trousers from Tom’s hand, inspected them for moth holes, and declared, “THESE WILL DO FOR NOW.” She gestured to the fire, and Ren saw that his own clothes were on the logs. They were smoking and coming apart in the flames—orange strands sparkling in the dark. The boy watched the pieces unraveling and thought of when he’d first put them on—it was at least two years before—a gift from one of the grandmothers who scrubbed the orphans twice a month. Ren had been proud of the clothes, the stitches new in some places and the legs long. He had not realized they were bad enough to be burned. But there they were, smoking on the logs, and here he was, in a pot before the fire, watching them go, as naked as he could ever be.
Benjamin took a seat beside Mrs. Sands on the bench. He asked her permission to remove his boots, and when she nodded he put them next to the fire. He had thick woolen socks on with holes in the heels and toes, and they were sour with sweat. Ren could smell them from the pot. Tom stood by uncomfortably until Mrs. Sands shouted for him to sit for God’s sake, and she would find them something to eat.
From the kitchen she produced a loaf of brown bread, some sliced ham, a pitcher of milk and coffee. She set it on the table, handed a piece of bread and ham to the boy in the tub, and went back to peeling her potatoes. It had been nearly a day since they’d eaten, and the group tore into the food with a fury.
“WHERE’S YOUR HOME, MISTER NAB?”
“I’ve spent most of my life as a sailor. First on a merchant ship, sailing the East Indies, and then later I did some whaling. I’d still be out on the water if I hadn’t heard about my sister’s illness.”
“THAT’S DANGEROUS WORK.”
Benjamin slurped his coffee. “And lonely.”
Tom rolled his eyes.
“AND YOUR FRIEND?”
“Unemployed,” said Tom.
“He’s a schoolteacher,” said Benjamin.
“SOME TEACHER.”
Tom got to his feet. “What do you mean?”
But Mrs. Sands had her back to him, and so continued on, not hearing. “A TEACHER SHOULD KNOW IT’S TOO LATE FOR A CHILD TO BE OUT. A TEACHER SHOULD KNOW NOT TO LET A BOY RUN ABOUT IN RAGS.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Tom, but he didn’t finish the sentence. He just stared at the landlady, and then at his half-finished dinner, until finally he said, “I’m going to bed.” He snatched his plate, put two more pieces of ham and bread upon it, and stomped away up the stairs.
“You’ll have to forgive him,” said Benjamin. “He used to be in love with my sister.”
“SHE WAS SMART NOT TO MARRY HIM.”
“I suppose she was,” said Benjamin, looking thoughtful and a little sad. He fished into his pocket for his pipe, and removed a stick from the fire to light it. Then he picked up a potato and took out his knife. He started peeling, and together with Mrs. Sands went forth with the work, not speaking.
Ren was chilled and wanted another piece of bread, but he was afraid to break the silence or attempt to leave the cauldron without the approval of Mrs. Sands. His toes were shriveling. One side of the pot was warmer, facing the fire, and he leaned his body against it.
Mrs. Sands was watching Benjamin’s face. In the firelight, with his shirt collar unbuttoned and hair pushed back, he looked younger than he was. When he finished the potato he was working on, Benjamin leaned forward and took a long pull from his pipe. The smoke smelled like sugar. Ren inhaled deeply. Then he watched as Benjamin lifted a fold of Mrs. Sands’s brown dress and slipped his fingers onto her knee. With his other hand Benjamin continued smoking his pipe, and Mrs. Sands turned back to her potato, diligently removing the skin. A light pattern of red spread its way across her cheeks.
Ren rested his chin against the lip of the cauldron. The fire was beginning to die. The logs had caved in from the middle, blackened with ash. The boy’s clothes were finished. There were only a few small scraps smoldering beneath the grate. He watched them until he couldn’t bear it any longer, then held his breath and ducked under the water. He was submerged for only a moment before he heard a knock on the side of the cauldron. He raised his head, blinking against the bathwater. Benjamin still had a hand in Mrs. Sands’s skirts, but he was winking at Ren and motioning with his head toward the door.
“I need to get out,” Ren said. Mrs. Sands looked up at him strangely. She closed her eyes, and then suddenly Benjamin had two hands again, and he was using them to pick up his boots.
Mrs. Sands put her work aside and stood. She lifted Ren in one swift movement onto the hearth and began to rub the back of his neck with a small hand towel, as if she were angry with him. He was not prepared for the cold air. His skin rippled in goose bumps and his teeth chattered until Mrs. Sands said, “KEEP STILL!”
“You should be kind to him,” Benjamin said, “or my sister will haunt us.”
Mrs. Sands smacked Ren once with the towel, to make it clear that she was not afraid of ghosts. Then she pulled a wool undershirt over his head and forced his body into the clothes the men had brought.
He was smaller than the drowned boy. The trousers went past his feet and his arms were lost in the sleeves. Mrs. Sands rolled up the cuffs, measured the collar with her finger, then yanked the clothes off. She jammed a nightdress over his head that was more like a blanket—fabric that itched with buttons to the neck and a hem that trailed behind him. She gathered the boy in her arms as if he were an infant and carried him up the stairs.
“HERE NOW,” said Mrs. Sands, kicking open a door. It was a small space, with two beds pushed into the corners. Tom was snoring away in one, and Mrs. Sands dumped Ren into the other. At Saint Anthony’s Ren had often thought of a mother putting him to bed at night. But it was not anything like this. In his dream the mother was quiet and beautiful. She smoothed his hair and gently kissed his cheek. Mrs. Sands pounded the pillows as if they had wronged her, and tucked Ren in so tightly he could barely breathe.
“WELL, DO YOU KNOW PRAYERS OR NOT?” Mrs. Sands shouted at him.
This he could do. Ren pushed his way quickly through a decade of the rosary and a benediction for Mrs. Sands for giving them shelter and for good measure his parents supposedly dead from the fever and his newfound “uncle” Benjamin. This seemed to please Mrs. Sands, although Ren noticed that she did not say the words along with him.
“Do you have any children?” Ren asked.
“GOOD GOD, NO. WHAT DO I NEED A CHILD FOR?”
“But your friend sent you the drowned boy’s clothes.”
“SHE DID.” Mrs. Sands gazed out the window, her face suddenly drained.
Ren huddled under the blankets. He felt that he had said something wrong. “You would have been a good mother,” he offered.
“I’M NOT CERTAIN ABOUT THAT.” Her hands floated to her hair. She tucked a few stray curls back into her cap, then pinched him on the arm. “BUT I FOUND A USE FOR THOSE OLD CLOTHES, DIDN’T I?”
“I guess so,” said Ren, rubbing the place where she’d pinched him.
“I hope you said my prayers too,” said Benjamin. He was standing in the door frame, his boots in his hand. He put the shoes in the closet, then started to remove his shirt.
All at once Mrs. Sands seemed in a hurry. She put the key on top of the dresser and stepped out of the room. Then she burst back through the doorway with a pile of towels and left them on the bureau. A few moments later she returned with three extra pillows and threw them into the rocking chair in the corner. Then she came in once more with a mountain of blankets—crocheted and knitted and patchworks of quilts—all of which she dumped on top of Ren’s head.
“GOOD NIGHT,” she shou
ted.
“Good night,” said Benjamin, and turned the lock when she was gone.
“How long do we have to stay here?” Ren asked, pushing aside the blankets.
Benjamin slipped off his suspenders. “For now.”
“I don’t like her.”
“Really?” Benjamin said. “I thought you were in love with her.”
“I thought you were.”
“I was just making her happy a little.”
Ren imagined night after night of tub washings. He kicked the base of the bed and something heavy fell onto the floor. Benjamin leaned over and lifted it with his hand. It was a hot water bottle, made of thick brown pottery and stopped with a cork.
Ren had always dreamed of having one.
“Can I fill it?” he asked.
“Suit yourself,” said Benjamin. “But don’t wake Mrs. Sands.”
Ren slipped out of bed and, after unlocking the door, made his way cautiously down the stairs, the hot water bottle under his arm and the long hem of the nightgown clutched in his fingers. In the kitchen the fire was finished, nothing but small bits of cinder in the dark. Ren quickly filled the hot water bottle from the cauldron, then pushed it into the embers. The stones of the hearth were still warm, and the boy rubbed his feet against them. He looked over the tidy kitchen, the shiny copper pots hanging from the wall, the painted pineapples along the edge of the molding, the wood stacked neatly in a basket. It felt like a real home, the kind he’d always imagined.
On a table beside the fireplace was a tray covered with a napkin. Ren peeked under a corner and discovered a complete meal—not the simple bread and ham served earlier, but sliced beef with potatoes and carrots and gravy. The same roast Ren had smelled cooking when he’d first walked into the kitchen. There was a fork and knife beside it, and a mug filled with beer. And an apple. And also a small piece of cake.
The boy’s mouth watered. The cake, the perfect slice of it, was lying on its side, just waiting for him to reach forward and stuff it into his mouth. He could not get his teeth to work fast enough to get it down, the taste of lemon and sugar and poppy seeds melting on his tongue. He brushed the crumbs from the plate and covered the tray again with the napkin.
As soon as he had done this, Ren began to worry. Mrs. Sands would certainly know that he had eaten the cake. He held his breath, expecting the landlady to come around the corner. But a moment went by, and then another, and Mrs. Sands did not appear.
A bit of soot began to sprinkle down from the chimney into the fireplace. Ren could hear a scraping noise. Something was caught inside the flue—a bird, or perhaps a squirrel. At Saint Anthony’s when it was cold, birds would fall down the chimney, drawn in by the heat. Then they would dart around the kitchen, and usually spent the rest of the day throwing themselves against the windows. Whatever creature was traveling through Mrs. Sands’s chimney was taking its time, and the boy realized after a few minutes that it must be climbing down. His heart beat quickly, and the scratching stopped, as if the creature inside the chimney had heard it.
Ren crouched down and looked. About halfway up the flue there was a man, propping himself with his legs and shoulders. He slid his heels against the brick, first one, and then the other, sending a cloud of black dust onto Ren’s face. The boy stepped away and tried not to sneeze. He covered his nose with the edge of the nightgown and held it tight. He looked about frantically for a place to hide and slipped into the potato basket. A few small roots had been left in the bottom, and the boy could feel them pressing into his knees.
A leg dangled from the chimney. Then another. The feet kicked aside the logs and ashes and the final remnants of Ren’s clothes. The man untied a rope that was fastened to his belt and bent over, his hands on the floor as he crawled out of the fireplace. Then he stood, brushing off his coat and shaking his legs. He was no more than four feet tall.
It was as if he had been made from other people, none of whom were originally the same size. His head was too large for his body. His feet too small. His arms were long and powerful, but his legs were short. His eyes were dark and sloped down at the corners, while his brows went in the opposite direction, giving him a clever look. His hair was black and shiny, along with his beard, which was neatly trimmed around his jaw.
The small man walked over to the table, lifted the napkin off the tray, and began eating what was left of the meal. When he was through, a jackknife appeared from under his sleeve and he cut the apple into pieces. He smacked his lips and ground his teeth, using all the effort of his tongue and jaw. Ren imagined it was the same way the man would eat a person, if given the chance.
The dwarf set the apple core next to the fireplace. Then he took off his boots and removed his socks. They were made of soft checkered wool and full of ashes. He shook them and Ren saw clouds appear—tiny, dark explosions of soot. The socks were placed next to the apple core. Then his coat came off. Then his shirt. Then his trousers. Ren saw his humped, misshapen body for an instant before he climbed into the pot. The water splashed and echoed in the empty room as the man washed, rinsed himself, and came out. Ren saw him plainly now—strong arms over a curved spine and a tiny dangling penis no bigger than his own. The dwarf took the same towel Mrs. Sands had used on Ren and rubbed it quickly over his back and down each of his legs before slipping back into his clothes.
On a table beside the fireplace was a pair of clean, mended socks. Ren caught a glance of the dwarf’s knobby feet before they disappeared into the new socks and then into boots. When the small man was finished tying the laces, he crawled back into the fireplace, wrapped the rope around his waist again, and began to climb. His rumbling echoed in the hollow of the chimney as he rose, then grew quieter halfway up the flue. Ren peeked over the edge of the basket. The dwarf had left his dirty socks. He had left his apple core. He had also left a small wooden horse.
The boy pushed the potatoes aside and climbed out. The horse fit in the palm of his hand. It had been cut from a wood knot—he could see where the branch had started to grow. The burr was twisted where the saddle should have been. There were delicate cuts on the legs for hooves. There were tiny holes for the nostrils and careful lines carved to show the movement of the tail.
Ren took up the hot water bottle, brushed the ashes off with his nightgown, and tucked it into the crook of his elbow. It was warm and heavy, and the boy wrapped his body instinctively around it. Overhead, the scratching in the chimney was muffled. There was the sound of a kick. Ren got to his knees in the fireplace and peered up into the darkness. He couldn’t see anything. And then he saw the night and the stars.
THIRTEEN
It was barely dawn, the sky outside still dark. Ren’s shoulder itched. He could feel the woolen nightgown tangled about his legs. He was half-asleep, and just beginning to realize that he was in a real bed, not wrapped in a blanket on the cellar floor, when he heard a banging right outside the window. Ren bolted out of the sheets and rushed over to look. Mrs. Sands was down below on the sidewalk, clutching a bin and a tiny metal broom, dumping ashes from the fireplace into the street. She hit the back of the bin with another bang, and one last final cloud of gray smoke filtered out and into the air around her.
She was wearing an apron and a deep purple shift with the sleeves rolled to her elbows. On her head was the same cap she’d worn the night before. It was clear that Mrs. Sands had been up for hours, scrubbing her house. Ren looked at her face as she tucked the bin and broom beneath her arm and glared at the clouds. The expression was hard, as if she expected someone to start throwing things at her.
Across the room Tom let out a snort. Benjamin rolled to the side and pulled the quilt over his head. The room had seemed cold and friendless to Ren the night before, but now, in the morning light, he could tell that it was well-kept. The floor was oiled; the rugs faded in places from the sun, but clean. The bureaus were covered with crocheted doilies, and the mirrors were polished and free of dust. On one wall there was a quilt sampler. On the other hung a bouqu
et of wildflowers, pressed under glass and framed. And on the far wall was a shelf, with only one book on it—a King James Bible.
Ren heard a pair of footsteps go by the door. He ran over and pressed his eye against the keyhole, but all he caught was a blur and a thundering of boots on the stairs. A stream of air blew in, making him blink, and as he drew away he could smell the greasy scent of bacon.
Ren tried the lock. There was a click, and then he was through. Outside he found the drowned boy’s clothes, folded and waiting in a basket. They had been mended—the trousers turned and hemmed, the waist taken in, the sleeves shortened. Ren pulled the nightgown over his head and tried them on. The clothes were now exactly his size. The inside of the jacket was lined, the buttons polished. The cuffs of the shirt were finished, and the trousers had pockets without any holes. Ren slipped his hand inside and pulled out a handkerchief, ironed into a perfect square.
These were not the short pants and tattered coat of an orphan. They were the clothes of a man. Ren spread his arms out, his fingers stretching at the end of one sleeve, his stump peeking out of the other. The fabric fell straight and true, a clean line right past his shoulders. Mrs. Sands must have been up most of the night tailoring the fit. Ren turned the cuff and looked at her stitches—they were perfectly proportioned, even, and true. He felt a rush of delight. No one had ever done anything like this for him before.
There were voices coming from the kitchen. Ren made his way to the staircase, his hand pressed against the wall. On the last step he paused, and listened.
“GET YOUR FINGERS OUT OF THERE.”
A highly pitched set of giggles burst forth from inside the kitchen, making it clear that Mrs. Sands and her shouting were of no consequence to the gigglers. Ren turned the corner, and that’s when he saw them—four girls lined up on the bench—plain, plain, plain, plain. They all wore heavy boots and the same coarse dress of navy blue. One of them had a harelip.
