“Get away!” Joseph crouched and put his arm across the buggy. “I know what you do!” The boys backed away, but only a few steps, as if only waiting for another chance to pounce. Cora didn’t know what to do. The boys were so dirty, and they smelled foul, but they had sweet, little-boy faces and the scrawniest legs, and one reminded Cora of Howard as a boy, with apple cheeks and eyes that seemed to give off their own light. She was thinking how sad it was that a boy who looked like Howard could be so bone thin and dirty when she felt a hard tug on her purse. She turned fast to find an even younger boy, no older than five, smiling up at her even as he was still tugging. She held tight, and told him to get away.
“Okay, okay, there you go.” Joseph brought a fist out of his pocket. “Pennies, okay? And one nickel for who gets it.” He turned away from the buggy and rolled a handful of change down the sidewalk. The boys whooped and ran after the coins.
“Walk fast.” He took Cora by the arm, his other hand on the buggy’s push bar. They hurried around a corner, one wheel of the buggy squeaking. When they were halfway down the street, he let go of her arm, but she could still feel where his hand had been, the pressure of his fingers through her sleeve.
“They got a few coins out of you,” she said. “How often do you have to do that?”
He shrugged. “Maybe they will get something to eat. They will probably buy candy, though.”
Cora looked down at her purse. She didn’t have much in it, now that they’d bought the radio. But she wished she would have thought to reach in and throw down some coins herself. “Why were they all in wet clothes?”
He eyed her strangely, as if she’d asked a trick question. “They swim,” he said. “The river is just down there. They jump off the docks and go up and down, from one street to the next.”
“Well, that’s nice, that they can cool off, at least.”
He made a face. “The water is filthy. They have to breaststroke to push away the garbage.” He pantomimed this for Cora, one hand pushing away, the other covering his mouth and nose. “They all go in, though, to cool off. Except for our girls. The nuns do not let them swim in the river. They walk them to the public baths once a week, and that is it.”
Cora was quiet. A bath once a week, in this heat. And they were the lucky ones. She’d known she was lucky, even as a child. The nuns provided steady shelter and enough to eat—nothing tasty, but enough for health—and that was no small thing.
“What’s your daughter’s name?”
“She is Greta.”
“Does she go to school? It’s the law now, isn’t it?”
“The nuns give lessons in the home. They don’t want the girls at a public school. They have to work around the laundry schedule, too.” He paused to ease the buggy over a curb. “I have been saving, though, for an apartment. Maybe next year, and I can go to work while she goes to the public school. Right now, she just hangs clothes on the roof. But they will have her in the laundry soon if we do not go. I know the sisters have to do the laundry, to keep the home with money. But I don’t want Greta working so hard, not when she is so young.”
Cora remembered seeing the older girls’ hands, the burns from the boiling water. Her own hands, under her gloves, were unscarred and soft. “What will you do for a job?”
“Anything. I already work extra around the neighborhood, fixing things. People know me.” He took a hand off the push bar and pointed at his mouth. “But my accent makes it hard.” He smiled with resignation. “I am the Hun.”
“Why don’t you go back?” She kept her voice soft, so quiet that even she could barely hear herself over the squeaking tire and the cars in the street. She was really just asking, wanting to know, not making a rude suggestion.
“To Germany? No. Things are bad with inflation, and the reparations. We would have more trouble there.” He shook his head. “And it is more than that. I have been in America from when I was nineteen. And before that, all I wanted was to come here.” He looked out at the street, the rumbling cars. “I like this country, the idea of it. I was thinking to enlist when they sent me to Oglethorpe.”
Cora almost pointed out that if he’d just made these statements at the beginning of the war, to whomever demanded an answer, and gone ahead and knelt to kiss the flag, he might not have been sent to Oglethorpe in the first place. But of course there was a difference between loving a country, truly loving what it stood for, and letting someone tell you to get on your knees and prove it.
“Ah, look at this,” he said, slowing the buggy. “It is our old place.”
Cora looked up. They were in front of the drugstore where they’d had the orange drinks. Cora could see the older Italian woman behind the counter inside.
“Since you bought the girls the expensive present, I will at least buy you an orange drink.” He watched her eyes. “Do you have time?”
She hesitated. It was just another soda. But he was poor, saving everything he could, and she hated to think of him spending even a nickel on her. Still, it was likely a point of pride for him. And he was looking at her with such affection, as if they were already great friends. She didn’t want to leave him just yet.
She was quiet as they waited by the counter, even though the Italian woman, her hands no longer stained, recognized her and smiled, and pointed at the buggy and made a joke about their radio bambino. Joseph explained to her that it was Cora who had purchased the radio for the girls in the orphanage, and the woman nodded, though it was unclear if she really understood him. Cora watched him talk. He’d taken off his cap when they came in, and she considered that his face had strong bones—he didn’t really need a full head of hair. He paid the Italian woman and gave Cora a smile, sincere and open. She followed him, wondering about his dead wife, how young she’d been, how pretty.
“Tell me about your life in Kansas,” he said. He sat in the adjacent chair, one elbow on the table, the other on the back of his chair. “You know all things about me, and I know not much about you.”
She looked down, pretending to be overwhelmed by the task of unbuttoning her gloves. She didn’t want to answer. She would have been glad to just keep hearing about him, or the orphanage, or the neighborhood, all the while feeling a little intoxicated by his focused attention, the gold streak in his eye, the pleasing lowness of his voice. But the vacation was over. He’d asked. And she didn’t have it in her to actively lie, to kill off her family, even in word.
“I’m married,” she said. “We have two sons, twins. They’ll leave for college in the fall.”
His brows went low behind the silver frames. He didn’t seem angry, but she could guess what he was thinking, what opinions he was forming of her now. He was in no position to accuse her of withholding information. She’d only been friendly, she could say, and this was the first time he’d asked about her life. But she’d known very well how he was looking at her. And now he thought her dishonest and careless, a married woman with no ring. It was so unfair. He wouldn’t know what this afternoon had meant to her, these few hours of not being herself, stepping out of her life. Perhaps she could just be honest. She’d never told anyone about Alan. She couldn’t risk it, with even the closest friend. But Joseph Schmidt had a thoughtful face, and she would never see him again. He didn’t know her last name, or even what city she was from. He could do Alan no harm. And what a relief it would be to say the words aloud, to have someone else in the world truly know her.
And so right there, while sitting at the little table with the whirling fan muffling her voice, she explained her life to him, the truth of it, as plainly as she could. The Italian woman was over by the counter, reading a magazine, and Joseph was still and quiet as Cora talked. She told him about Howard and Earle and how much she loved them, and how even they didn’t know. She told him that even she and Alan talked and acted as if nothing were amiss between them, as if she really didn’t know that he was still meeting with Raymond at his office after hours, as if she didn’t know they bought each other presents—a watc
h engraved with R.W. and a Latin phrase she didn’t understand, books of poetry with lines underlined. I am he that aches with love.
Joseph said nothing. She didn’t know what he was thinking, but she kept talking. She didn’t stop to take a sip of her drink. It was as if she needed to talk to breathe. She told him how young she’d been when she married, and how alone, and she was careful to explain that it really wasn’t as terrible as it sounded, that Alan was not a bad person, that he was good to her in many ways, and certainly an excellent father.
“But not a husband to you.”
She shook her head. He twisted his lips to one side. For a moment, she thought he might spit.
“I had a cousin like that, back in Germany,” he said. “He was a good man. He was a good person.”
Cora frowned, waited.
“Beaten. We did not know who, but we knew why.” He rubbed his cheek. “Your husband is maybe right to be secret.”
She put her face in her hands. Alan. She couldn’t bear it if he were harmed. She was as stuck as she’d ever been. It hadn’t changed anything, her telling Joseph Schmidt.
“What you do now?” he asked.
She looked up. “What do you mean?”
“Your boys are grown. That was why you stayed, you said. They’re grown now. This is right?”
“Oh. I don’t want a divorce.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“I don’t.” She tried to explain. “I don’t want to be divorced.” She shook her head. She didn’t want to be divorced. Of course she didn’t.
“Why not?”
She almost laughed. “How would I explain it? What would I tell people? What would I tell my sons?”
“That you want to be happy.”
“That’s not enough.”
“No?” He leaned closer, just a little. She drew back, looking away. The Italian woman had gone out in front of the store to sweep.
“What a waste,” he said.
She looked up. They stared at each other unblinking, with just the sound of the fan and the distant scuffing of the Italian woman’s broom. She couldn’t move, or she didn’t. Alan had once looked at her with so much hope and kindness, but not like this, never like this. Unchecked joy rose up in her, only for an instant, but somehow he saw it, or just knew, for without another word, he reached up under the brim of her hat and pushed a loose curl behind her ear. She didn’t move, not even as his rough fingertips trailed behind her ear along her damp hairline.
She could hear her own breathing, her pulse just under his fingers. His watch ticked by her neck.
“What time is it?” she asked.
He lowered his hand and looked at his watch. “Twenty to three.”
“I have to go.” Her chair screeched against the floor as she pushed it out. She picked up her purse and her gloves. She would put the gloves on outside.
He caught her hand. “Don’t go,” he said. “Not yet.”
“I really have to,” she said, more firmly. “I have to go now. I forgot. I just forgot. I’ll already be late.” It was true. She couldn’t be late, and give Louise that kind of leverage.
“Cora.”
She shook her head. She needed to get away. But she was still flushed and smiling, even as she pulled her hand away. She felt light-headed. To be looked at like that, to be held on to like that, it was intoxicating—she was not herself. “I’ll come back,” she said, a promise as much to herself as to him.
But by the time she was back out in the street, walking fast to the subway in the bright sunlight, she had a clearer head.
She was hurrying up Broadway when she saw Louise walking toward her. Even on the crowded sidewalk, as small as Louise was, she was easy to spot, her face glistening, the black hair tucked behind her ears. A man whistled at her, but she moved past him as if she heard nothing, staring straight ahead. She walked past Cora, too. When Cora said her name, she turned, looking both annoyed and surprised.
“Oh. Hi.” She didn’t smile. “You were late, so I started walking.”
“I’m sorry.” Cora swallowed and tried to steady her breath. “But you really should just wait for me. What if I hadn’t seen you?” Cora had actually run the last block, worried Louise would use her tardiness as an excuse to go off on some solo adventure. But of course the hours of dance class had left her both sweaty and exhausted. Louise wouldn’t want to go anywhere until she had a bath and a nap.
“What’s wrong?” She frowned at Cora. “You look strange. Your cheeks are red.”
“Oh.” Cora touched her wrist against her warm forehead. “Well, I knew I was late. I’ve been hurrying in the heat. Are we headed home then?” It was a little heady, being the one to evade and distract.
Louise resumed walking, though she glanced at Cora. “I hope you’re not coming down with something.”
For a moment, Cora was touched by her concern. But Louise went on to say that they would need to be careful to use different glassware, just to be certain. She couldn’t afford to get sick while she was here, not before they made the selection for the troupe. Cora reassured her that she was not ill, and that she was just tired, but after that, as they walked along, she was silent. Louise talked about Ted Shawn doing his Japanese Spear Dance, and how beautiful it was, how perfectly it showed off his skill and excellent form. Cora nodded, half listening, dazed by the heat. No, she thought. She wouldn’t go back to see Joseph Schmidt, not tomorrow, and not ever again. She thought of the hero of The Age of Innocence, who’d had a brief moment of forgetting himself, unbuttoning the Countess’s glove, but understood he could have no more. It was the way things had to be.
And just deciding this, it seemed, she got her reward. When she and Louise got back to their building, waiting in the mailbox was a pale yellow envelope for Cora, postmarked Haverhill, Mass.
FOURTEEN
On her way to Grand Central Terminal, Cora stopped to buy a bouquet of yellow roses, which she hadn’t planned to do until the very moment she saw them, bright and lovely, at a corner stand. Still, she arrived at the terminal twenty minutes early, and she had an easy time finding the big clock above the information booth. So there was nothing to do but just stand there, shifting the roses from arm to arm and gazing up at the ceiling. The first time she passed through Grand Central, when she and Louise had just arrived in the city, she’d been so overwhelmed and rushed she hadn’t even noticed, for example, that the blue of the ceiling was the background for a map of the heavens, the constellations outlined in gold. But today she had time to marvel, taking in the ceiling as well as the glittering chandeliers and the terraces overlooking the main concourse, and the polished marble floor that went on and on, and how cool the building felt on such a warm day, even with so many bodies rushing about inside.
But mostly, she looked at the clock. Very soon now. Very soon.
As it got closer to noon, she paid more attention to the travelers approaching the booth from all directions. Mary O’Dell had written that she would be wearing a gray matron’s hat with white beading on the front. There had been no time for Cora to write back with any more questions, or to say what she would be wearing. So she scanned the crowds for a gray hat, turning every time she heard fast-approaching heels, only to watch each woman move past her or run to embrace someone else.
But there was no reason to worry. Not yet. It was still a few minutes before noon. That morning, she woke before dawn, jittery before even a sip of tea, and she’d had to work not to show impatience with Louise’s slow morning routine, the way she lounged in bed until the last possible moment. Cora had literally counted the minutes until she could deliver the girl to Denishawn. Now she was free and here, at the appointed time, exactly where she was supposed to be. She’d done her best to look nice. She was wearing her good silk dress, her pearls, and a pretty hat with a lavender ribbon.
She smoothed down her dress, though it didn’t need smoothing, and tried not to keep looking at the clock. There was, after all, plenty to distract. Clearly, Mary O
’Dell was not the first person to suggest the clock as a meeting place. On every side of the information booth, it seemed, a happy reunion was taking place. An old man with a cane bent low to embrace a running child in pigtails. Two grown women held hands and jumped up and down like schoolgirls. A man in a white suit strode past Cora to a young woman in a sleeveless dress. When he reached the woman, they didn’t speak. The man leaned down to kiss the woman, dropping his cloth bag on the floor so he could put both hands on the small of her back, pulling her against him. The woman’s bare hands moved up to his shoulders. Her fingernails were painted red.
It was only when they both glanced at Cora that she realized she was staring.
She touched her hand to her neck and turned toward the booth, where a man in a turban was asking about a train to Chicago, his English halting and careful. He held the hand of a boy in short pants, who was gazing up at the ceiling with an open mouth, probably seeing it for the first time as well. He tugged on his father’s jacket and said something in another language, and when the father didn’t look down, the boy, perhaps sensing Cora watching him, looked at her and moved closer to his father. He continued to stare up at her, and Cora tried to imagine what he saw in her face, how strange she might seem to him if he was new to America and not just Grand Central. She gave him what she hoped was an encouraging smile, then turned away so as not to scare him.
She loved the city today, loved the beehive feel of where she was standing, loved the signs listing arrival times of trains from Albany, Cleveland, and Detroit, as well as smaller towns she’d never heard of. She loved the little boy standing by his turbaned father, and she loved the man with a pungent cigar and a briefcase sprinting across the concourse as if there would never be another train, and she loved the two old men with sideburns and black hats looking just like some of the Jews back in Wichita and having a good laugh about something. She even loved the man and the young woman who had been kissing, who were now walking out to Lexington Avenue, the woman’s body pressed close to the man’s, his hand moving down from her waist to the curve of her hip for everyone to see.
The Chaperone Page 20
