“Dr. Frias, Willard Anschutz’s regular physician, also recently returned from Europe. With an International Benz.”
“Precisely.”
“Mr. Herzberg, do you have the particulars of the Newark case? The name and address of the family?”
“I have the name and address right here.” Herzberg tapped a small pile of papers on the left side of his desk, indistinguishable from the myriad other stacks that rendered the wood top invisible. “Were you planning a ferry ride across the Hudson?”
Noah nodded. “Even if I can’t speak to anyone in the family, there might be neighbors about.”
“Do you know Newark, Dr. Whitestone?” It was Miriam speaking.
“No, but New Jersey is not equatorial Africa. I’ll find my way.”
“No need to pioneer, doctor. I know the city quite well. I’ll show you the way.”
Maribeth flashed in Noah’s mind, but then was gone. Noah glanced to Miriam’s father. “Do you object, Mr. Herzberg?” he asked.
Herzberg shrugged. “Not at all.”
FIFTEEN
DAY 4. SATURDAY, 9/23—1:15 P.M.
Newark meant a ride on the Pennsylvania Railroad ferry from the terminal at the south end of Manhattan to Jersey City and, from there, a passage west on light rail. With luck, the journey could be completed in less than two hours.
As Noah and Miriam Herzberg walked toward the hansom stand at Cooper Square, a man approached, waving. He was thin without being slight, square-jawed with a pencil mustache, wearing a brown suit and derby tilted to sit on his left ear. He smiled as he neared them. When Noah looked to Miriam, it was clear that this was neither friend nor male admirer.
The man stopped directly in front of them, standing quite close. “Miriam!” he exclaimed. “I am so pleased to see you again.”
Miriam stared back at the man as if she had swallowed a piece of rancid meat.
“And who is your friend?” He put up a finger. “Wait. I know. It’s Noah Whitestone. Noted physician . . . until a couple of days ago anyway. And how are you on such a fine day, Dr. Whitestone?”
“You have the advantage of me, sir,” Noah replied.
The man’s smile vanished. “And I will continue having the advantage of you, doctor. You will never, I can assure you, have the advantage of me.” Then, just as quickly, the mask returned. The man swept his hand to a gray and overcast sky. “But why should there be bad feeling on such a lovely day? Here we have two young people stepping out for a Saturday afternoon romp. But where could they be romping to?” He turned his gaze back to Miriam.
“Wherever we please,” she replied coldly. “This is a free country, I believe.”
“It won’t be, if you people have your way.” He shifted half a step to stand directly opposite Noah. “You’ve made a fine choice, Dr. Whitestone. I don’t know if you realize just how fine. Marriage isn’t good enough for the Red Lady here. She believes in free love. Most of ’em ain’t so much to look at, but Miriam is . . . ain’t you, Miriam?”
Noah hadn’t struck anyone since he was a boy. But as his hand came up, Miriam’s fingers were around his wrist. She was remarkably strong for a woman. “Well, Officer McCluskey,” she said, now matching his smile, “it is nice to see that you’re on such good behavior. You usually accuse me of being a Jew as well as a whore.”
“I didn’t want to shock your new beau.” McCluskey smirked. “But now that you mention it . . .”
“We’re leaving now,” Miriam said. “Why don’t you run on home to Mrs. McCluskey? After all you’ve told me, I would like so much to meet her.”
The grin shot off McCluskey’s face. “You best watch yourself, little girl. And you, too, doc. Unless you’re a very good swimmer.”
“You might watch yourself as well, officer,” Noah snapped, unwilling to just stand by and do nothing. “Unless you wish to meet some old associates in prison. The police are not above the law, you know.”
McCluskey emitted an incredulous guffaw. “You think so, doc? Well, stranger things have happened, I suppose.” The copper shook his head in wonder. “Not above the law . . .” He stepped aside, laughing. “Well, you two lovebirds be on your way now. Maybe I’ll meet you where you’re going.” As Noah and Miriam proceeded down the street, Noah could hear, “Not above the law.”
Noah and Miriam walked to the hansom stand in silence. As their carriage clattered its way downtown, Noah stared out the window.
“Are you upset because I didn’t let you defend my honor with McCluskey? Or because you think I have no honor to defend?”
“That’s absurd. Neither.”
“What then?”
Noah shook his head and once again turned away. New York street life flickered past as the hansom rumbled over the Broadway cobblestones. The truth was he felt like a coward. He was supposed to defend her with McCluskey, no matter what the odds. And then to be dissuaded because of her hand on his wrist . . .
“Why did you become a doctor?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“I’m curious. It wasn’t an accusation.”
“Because of my father,” he replied. “He’s a doctor as well.”
“Tell me about him.”
Noah turned to face her, placing his left hand on his opposite knee. “He’s more than just someone who treats illness. People trust him when they’re afraid. He’s someone whose advice they seek when they’re unsure. He . . .” Noah suddenly didn’t want to talk about Abel, although he wasn’t certain why. “At first, I thought your father had been a military officer. But as he spoke, I felt as if I was listening to a professor.”
“He was both.”
“He didn’t seem like a . . .”
“Like a revolutionary? A bomb thrower?”
“That isn’t what I meant. Please don’t confuse me with McCluskey.”
“What did you mean then?”
“I’m not certain.” He wasn’t. “Everything seems a jumble.”
She reached over and patted his hand. It was brief, light, and perfunctory, but it felt electric on Noah’s skin. “Enlightenment may be your reward, Noah Whitestone.”
“That or being thrown off a pier.”
“Oh, I suspect you are going to come out of this better than you think.”
“That will not be difficult.”
“McCluskey’s been badgering me for months,” she said suddenly. “‘If you believe so much in free love, what’s wrong with me?’ The imbecile. He told me his wife doesn’t like relations so he was all saved up. I told him that, first, I don’t fornicate with other women’s husbands, and second, even if I did, I’d do so with pigs before I would consider it with him.”
“You told him that? Weren’t you afraid?”
“I’m always afraid.” She paused. “You know, free love doesn’t mean copulating indiscriminately. It means that we view marriage vows as a means of oppression by the power structure . . . church, government; they’re all the same . . . another way to keep the poor and the workers in line. The more laws and conventions we get rid of, the better for society. The rich and those with power talk about the rule of law, but they certainly don’t follow it. It’s only to keep everyone else down. And they use McCluskey and his ilk to do it. The poor fools don’t understand that they’re simply tools of the rich.”
“You mean the police?”
“Of course I mean the police. What do you think he meant when he said you’d better be a good swimmer? Lord, you don’t know anything, do you? There’s no one in this city who commits more crimes than the police. The force is rotten, through and through. Always has been. How could you possibly have been unaware of that?”
“Doctors, the police. You people seem to think everyone is corrupt . . . except the poor, of course.”
“Not everyone.”
The hansom had reached the South Ferry terminal. After Noah paid, they walked toward the slips. After checking the board to determine where the ferry for Jersey City would depart, Miriam took Noa
h’s arm. “Wait,” she told him.
They loitered among the throng hurrying about, coming from or going to Brooklyn, Staten Island, Elizabeth, or other destinations in New York or New Jersey. Miriam waited until the Jersey City ferry was announced last call before she and Noah hurried aboard. She waited at the rear, watching everyone who boarded after them. There were only five: a husband and wife dressed in unmistakably Italian garb; two elderly women; and a Negro. None could have been a police agent. The ferryman soon pulled the gate shut and the powerful, deep-throated engine churned the boat away from the slip. Noah and Miriam moved inside, watching to see if anyone at the slip was observing. There was no one.
They spoke very little until the ferry passed Bedloe’s Island and the lighthouse, “Liberty Enlightening the World,” a gift from France fifteen years earlier.
“A fine ideal,” Miriam said, as they passed under the torch that stood atop Liberty’s outstretched arm. “A pity it’s a hollow one for many who pass here.”
“People keep coming though.”
“Desperation breeds desperate acts.”
“Is that how you got here? Desperation?”
A small smile played across her face. “Papa brought us here in 1880, just after I was born . . . just after he left the army.”
“Yes, I thought . . . I didn’t know that . . .”
“That Jews could be military officers in Prussia? Papa was conscripted in 1867. His father was a teacher in the Jewish school in Gehlenberg . . . we weren’t good enough to be citizens, but good enough to go to battle. He fought with distinction and was promoted to sergeant. Just before Sedan, Papa was promoted to captain.”
“From sergeant? How did he manage that?”
“He killed thirteen French and captured another twenty single-handed.”
“Thirteen . . . himself?”
“It was guile as much as bravery.” Miriam made no attempt to hide her pride. “It was a rainy day. Very difficult to see. Papa had become separated from his unit. Most likely, they had abandoned him. When a French patrol showed up, Papa moved quickly from one place to another behind some rocks. He was the best shot in his division. Every time he caught a glimmer of a Frenchman, he shot him. After he killed one, Papa called out, as if to his comrades, always in a different voice. Papa is quite a mimic. He convinced the French they were surrounded by snipers. After he killed the thirteen, the rest surrendered. He made them throw out their arms before he showed himself. Imagine how they felt when they realized they had been defeated by only one man.”
“Quite a feat” was all Noah could think of to say.
“The generals couldn’t figure out what to do. The incident was in newspapers all over Germany. Papa would have won the Iron Cross if he was Christian. Eventually they promoted him. Probably from embarrassment. After the war, he went to university and taught philosophy. He was dismissed during one of the purges, and so he brought us here. A desperate act.”
“What of your mother?”
“She died of tuberculosis when I was three.”
“I’m sorry. He never remarried?”
“No. He said no one could ever replace Mama. I wish I had known her. I only vaguely remember her. I don’t even have a picture. Papa tells me I look just like her though.”
“She must have been beautiful then.”
Miriam chuckled softly, and for a moment, she looked like a young girl.
The Jersey side was approaching, and Miriam said she wished to stand outside. They went out the door to the observation platform, the only passengers who saw fit to brave the icy headwind in the bay. The ferry, squat and stable, nonetheless bounced erratically in the choppy waters. They were forced to hold the handrails so as not to be thrown to the deck. Traffic in the harbor was heavy, and the sound of fog horns was everywhere, muted in the wind. Dewey would sail by this very spot in four days. As would Pug Anschutz.
“And what about you, Dr. Whitestone?” Miriam’s voice resonated in the rushing air. “I feel certain you’re not married.”
“I was. She died.”
Miriam placed her hand on his. “Oh, Noah, I am truly sorry for you.” She had never before used his given name. “When?”
“Five years ago. She died in childbirth. Hemorrhage.”
“You weren’t delivering the baby, were you?”
Had she guessed? “No. I was assisting. It was no one’s fault. Nothing to be done.”
“The baby was lost as well?”
“Yes.” He thought for a fleeting instant to mention Maribeth, but did not.
Miriam did not remove her hand. And so Noah Whitestone stood, hand in hand with Miriam Herzberg, as the ferry pulled into the Jersey City slips.
SIXTEEN
DAY 4. SATURDAY, 9/23—3 P.M.
The Ironbound was an amalgam of factories and those who toiled within them, all walled in by the curling border of the Passaic River. The variety of industries—paint, lumber, and, of course, iron—were more than matched by the vast array of ethnic enclaves that dotted the streets. Poles, Lithuanians, Italians, Serbs, and Irish all both shared and competed for the space. Few in the Ironbound were abjectly poor—there were always jobs to be had—but, equally, few lived at better than subsistence. Employers saw no necessity of paying the strong and uneducated any more than would keep clothes on the back, food on the table, and a roof overhead. Miriam knew Newark well because it was neighborhoods precisely such as these that were the most fertile targets for those who would forge workers into an organized and cohesive force.
The five remaining Ryans occupied four small rooms on the bottom floor of a row house on Monroe Street. Seven consecutive streets in the Ironbound were named for presidents, perhaps in an attempt to inspire immigrants who would never be among them. Monroe Street was a manageable walk from the Pennsylvania Station, so Miriam suggested she and Noah eschew the ostentation of a cab. Noah replied by asking if it was safe to walk through this district.
“Poor doesn’t mean dishonest,” Miriam told him, with unmasked irritation. “Don’t be so susceptible to propaganda.”
When Miriam knocked at a peeling front door, a woman answered. Mary Ryan was bulky, just short of fat, wearing a faded print dress. Her reddish hair was going to gray, and her face was lined and formless. She seemed to sag, as if perpetually warding off collapse. Despite her appearance, Noah realized that this woman was likely no older than he.
“Hello, Mrs. Ryan.” Miriam spoke both gently and with authority. She knew the lay of the land as well here as did Noah in a hospital. “We’ve come because of what happened to Sinead.”
Mary Ryan turned her eyes to Noah and shrunk away, biting her lip. He realized that she must think him an official of some sort, and officials of any sort were no friends of the Ryans. Miriam noticed as well.
“We’re not with the police, or the city, or anything like that, Mrs. Ryan. This man is a doctor, and we’re hoping to prevent what happened to Sinead from happening to someone else’s little girl.”
“A doctor?” Mary’s fear was little abated. After recent events, doctors could be no more trusted than the police.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Ryan,” Miriam went on. “He’s not going to do anything. We just want to talk to you for a few moments. About Sinead.”
Not going to do anything, Noah thought. What sort of place was this where a woman had to be reassured by being told a physician was not here to practice medicine?
“Sinead?” The corners of Mary Ryan’s mouth turned up for a moment. “All right. Come on in then.”
The Ryans’ parlor was tiny and consisted of slat-back wooden chairs and a dilapidated sofa, on which the woman insisted her visitors sit. Mary Ryan offered refreshments, but Miriam and Noah declined.
With gentle prodding, Miriam was successful in eliciting the tale of Sinead Ryan’s illness and death. The girl had become afflicted with a dry, hacking cough. Fearing tubercular infection, Mary had taken her to the once-per-week free clinic run by the parish in the basement of Sain
t Anne’s. The doctor that day, a man named Tilson, whom Mary had never seen before, had seemed extremely excited when he saw Sinead and told Mary that he was going to give the girl a brand-new drug that would cure her miraculously.
“And did it?” Miriam asked.
“Oh yes. Sinead was better right away. By next morning her cough was gone. She slept through the night for the first time in a week.” Mary Ryan smiled. “Sinead was always so beautiful when she slept. Like an angel was inside her.” The smile vanished. “She’s with the angels now.”
“Was the drug pills or a liquid?” Noah asked.
Mary Ryan jerked her head in Noah’s direction. Her eyes went wide, as if he were a sorcerer. She seemed to have forgotten he was there.
“Pills,” she said quietly.
“Were the pills blue, Mrs. Ryan?”
She shook her head. “Green.”
“Do you have any of these pills left?”
Mary Ryan shook her head. “Dr. Tilson took them. After. Said since I didn’t need them no more, that he could give them to someone else.”
“What happened next, Mary?” Miriam continued, glancing to Noah to let her handle the conversation.
At the sound of Miriam’s voice, Mary Ryan’s apprehension dissipated. Noah was envious of her skill. “The day after Sinead was better,” Mary said, “Dr. Tilson came here. I was pole-axed, I can tell you. We ain’t never had no doctor here before. He wanted to see about Sinead. He examined her and seemed happy. He told me to keep up with the pills and he’d be back in three or four days.
“Day after, Sinead felt so much better still. She stopped coughing and just rested. It was such a relief to watch her. Just breathing easy. Sleeping lots, but she then she needed it, didn’t she? I give her the pills whenever she starts coughing, but the next day, they ain’t working as good anymore. Sinead starts coughing pretty soon after taking them, and then later starts sweating and moving around like St. Vitus Dance. Can’t stop. Asks for the pills. Says they make her feel better. Happy. So, I figured it’s just because one pill ain’t enough, so I give her two. Couple hours later, I give her two more. Soon after, I went out to take in the washing, and when I come back, I catch her in the sink and she’s took some more. I can’t say how many. I didn’t count them. About ten minutes later, she gets real tired, says she needs to go to bed. She’s asleep right away. I was happy to see the medicine was working again. But then she don’t get up.”
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