They all seemed so close to one another, it prompted me to ask, “Are you related to them?”
“Ha, ha, no, David is Polish Jew from Galicia,” he said. “He cannot be blood relation to Orthodox Serb from Belgrade. But we have – what is word? – bond, yes bond that is like blood.”
“And what is that?”
“Living as subjects of Austro-Hungarian Empire.”
Every single syllable – “Austro-Hungarian Empire” – was spat out like bullets. It was another flash of the bitterness that Stefan carried with him, along with his talent and his gentleness. And now I finally knew where he came from: Serbia. Again, I cursed my ignorance, for it might as well be the Moon. As for being Orthodox, it summoned up for me a picture of a dark, incense-choked church and a cavalcade of holy statues. I’d never had a good friend who was Orthodox, much less a man I was interested in.
Before we reached the Creation Angel, Stefan suggested we part ways briefly to allow him to change clothes. He didn’t relish meeting with the police wearing his sausage-cart uniform, that was clear. But going on ahead to the Art Building to wait for him there posed a problem. The absolute last thing I desired was another confrontation with Louise, who might still be haunting that part of the park, a particularly unpleasant prospect with Stefan beside me.
“Another meeting place, perhaps?” I suggested.
“Sure. Which place you like?”
“Hmmmmm. How about Hell Gate?”
His eyebrows shot up once more, but he agreed, and, assuring him I knew its location, I made my way alone to the demon-draped attraction of Dreamland.
I had expected that when I stood in front of Hell Gate, it wouldn’t disturb me as much as it had when seen across the way. I was mistaken.
Who designed the figure leering on the roof of Hell Gate? That was the question I kept returning to. This artist must be privy to some disquieting visions. The statue, if that’s the correct word for this thing, peered over the top of the building, a horned man with blazing eyes, one arm propped on the edge as if to get a better view of who could be snatched from below. The spreading wings attached to his back must have spanned twenty feet in each direction. As for the “attraction” below him, the dark cave I’d spotted from a distance was in fact a grotto. A dozen boats bobbed in murky water, ready for the brave to step into them and be mechanically conveyed farther into the ride, away from what I could see. Screams and shouts emanated from its depths. Within Dreamland, this was a chance to live a nightmare.
I waited outside Hell Gate long enough to see certain couples get into the queue, edge their way forward, jittery with nerves, step into a boat, and slink off into darkness… and then those same couples emerged from the other side of Hell Gate, the ride complete, both laughing and gasping over what they’d seen. One young woman clutched a man’s forearm so tight as she staggered away, he cried, “Let go! My God. You can let go now.”
As happy and relieved as I was to see Stefan again, and find him not angry with me in the least, I kept turning around to watch the flushed, frightened couples and families entering Hell Gate. There was a silly part of me that didn’t feel safe with my back to the dark grotto, as if demons might hurtle out from its depths with me unaware. I don’t know where these thoughts came from. I hadn’t been raised on fire and brimstone; still, to me, Hell was a pit of roasting flames, not a watery prison. This was more like the River Styx.
“You like Hell Gate?” asked Stefan once he reappeared. He wore the same jacket as when he took me to dinner, I noticed with a tender pang, but he’d fastened a black tie around the neckline.
I shrugged and laughed. “I have no notion of what happens in there.”
Stefan assured me that this was like being inside no other attraction at Dreamland.
“That’s not all that helpful, since I haven’t been inside any of the attractions – or the buildings – except to see your art.”
He shook his head. “Peggy, you serious? What? Was day I met you first time you come to Coney?” When I informed him that yes, it was, he said, “Many, many things to do.” His gaze strayed over my shoulder. “But you feel pull to Hell Gate. Maybe you should follow.”
Impulsively, I reached for his arm. “If you were to go with me, yes,” I said.
The amusement died in his expression. “You want me to take you in, sit beside you?”
I hadn’t any idea that this would be a serious matter. I said, “Only if you want to.”
Stefan said, “If you want this – and want with me – then we must do now.”
“Now?” We had made the decision to go to the Coney Island police to discuss his seeing a possible murderer. Jumping onto a boat chugging toward Hell seemed a most unseemly thing to do first.
He repeated, “If you want me with you, it must be now.”
It seemed as if Stefan were trying to convey something to me by making this stipulation, but I didn’t know what. I was confused – with Stefan everything was new and novel – but also aware that I wanted to be with him, to go with him, however such opportunities presented themselves. I nodded.
And so we joined the queue of other couples waiting for a ride to Hell Gate. I’d noticed that these young men and women clung to each other in the line, or at least held hands. Two days ago, Stefan had not only kissed me but held my hand as we walked in the twilight. I ached to touch him now, to at least feel those roughened fingers, the fingers of an artist, but he maintained his distance, a polite but unmistakable wariness coming off him. This was my chief regret at his learning about my family. I could no longer be Peggy the Shop Girl, someone of his world, but an heiress occupying the wispiest of clouds above. I did not want to perch on that cloud.
When it was our turn we stepped into the dimness: a boat bobbing in the dark water. It was a shabby little vessel, and filthy, with an empty candy box on the floor and smears of God knows what on the side where my arm briefly rested. My left shoe settled into something even stickier; I feared for the condition of my leather sole after this journey. But most importantly, I now sat perhaps two inches from Stefan. We were almost touching. I didn’t take advantage of this proximity, though. A new shyness paralyzed me as well.
The boat swayed back and forth, but we did not yet move forward. “I wonder what’s down there?” I said, peering into the water, first on my side and then on Stefan’s. Its surface reflected the electrical lights strung up at the top of the grotto – points of yellow in the inky blackness. But nothing was visible beneath.
I felt Stefan’s fingers close, very gently, around my forearm. With his other hand, he took off my hat, and then he pulled me closer to his side so that I leaned across him, brushing against his chest, leaning even closer to the water. I could smell him, neither sausages nor oil paint, both of which I’d expected, but a whiff of Pears soap he must have scrubbed his hands and face with before meeting me.
“Look at your face,” he said. “The lights on water, reflecting, what it does to you.”
I managed to say, “I can’t.”
“That’s all I see now,” he whispered. “Blue eyes and red lips and black, black hair. I think, I think… what shades I choose. Do such shades exist?”
Is he going to paint me? I wondered, dazed.
The boat moved forward with a jerk. He gently put me back in my place on the seat beside him. Some mechanical contraption pulled us forward, from underneath, toward a shredded rubber curtain. The boat in front of ours pushed its way through that curtain and into blackness. We surged forward too.
But we were only in darkness for an instant. Next came a huge room, like an underground stage filled with water, dimly lit. We’d joined a procession of other boats moving in a circle, going faster and faster, as if being dragged into a giant whirlpool. The water swirled toward a center. We had no choice but to be pulled toward that center. I don’t know if I took Stefan’s hand, or he took mine, but we gripped each other’s fingers.
Emboldened, I laid my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. Seconds later,
his mouth pressed on mine, and my lips opened. Kissing him deeply, I threw my arms around his neck, pulling him down as our boat surged and spun. After a short time, it could have been thirty seconds or ten minutes, I’ve no idea, we stopped spinning and straightened, moving to some other part of Hell Gate. People screamed all around us; frightening scenes of Hell, other demons perhaps, must have been dancing before us, but I never opened my eyes, never stopped kissing him.
My eyes only flew open because of light. We’d left the darkness; our boat eased to a halt. Stefan eased away from me, stroking my cheek with his fingers. I drew a ragged breath, staring up at him.
“Now, Peggy, we go to police,” he said.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Like those other couples I’d seen emerging from Hell Gate, I clung to Stefan’s arm. I felt no lingering fear, only delight and a fierce exultation. I didn’t release him even when we’d left the demon’s dominion behind. To behave like this in public, in front of strangers, would be unthinkable in my circle. But I wasn’t in my circle, I was in the middle of Coney Island, where other couples hugged and flirted and clung to each other, and no one blinked an eye.
As we passed the attraction “Lilliput,” the crowd parted but not for us. The most striking of human pairs presented themselves to all. They were wearing rather formal garb. The man in a topcoat stood well over seven feet tall – he would have towered over Henry Taul and over my tallest cousins and uncles. The woman at his side, wearing a deep gray Victorian-style dress with a long train, was barely four feet tall. She was, I assume, one of the “little people.” Under her wide forehead sparkled a pair of brown eyes.
“Stefan,” said the Giant. Of all the people swarming around him, Stefan was the one he considered worthy of mention.
In response, Stefan tipped his hat, showing as much respect as someone would encountering the mayor of a city.
I smiled to the Giant, and then to the woman who in height did not even reach his enormous belt. She smiled back, but there was a cool assessment to her glance. Perhaps it was suspicion of a newcomer. I remembered the words of Louise: “You don’t belong here.” Is that what they all thought? Was I so obviously an outsider?
I defiantly ran my hand up Stefan’s jacket, to grip his arm even more openly as we made our way around the mismatched couple. Stefan didn’t seem to mind.
Once out of Dreamland, Stefan told me he had never been inside the police precinct building but had an idea of which one it was. He knew the street and how to get there. “Nothing that far away from you on island,” he explained.
What had that man shouted on the promenade when I first came here with Ben? “Four miles long and a half a mile wide – and anything your heart could desire here on Coney Island, America’s Playground!” It’s true that if you picked an address, any address, it could be reached fairly easily on a spit of land this size. But that didn’t mean that it was a simple place to navigate, much less to understand.
The attractions of Luna, Steeplechase, and Dreamland were not the only ones on the west side of the island. As Stefan and I walked to the police precinct that afternoon, I glimpsed some of those other places.
Across the street from the rides and the exhibitions stretched a large restaurant – a cluster of buildings really – with a sign atop: “Feltman’s: Deutscher Garten. Clam Bake and Dining Gardens.” When I asked Stefan if this place were connected to the stall where he and Wiktor worked, he explained they were all one and the same, that a great many people on the island worked for Feltman’s, either in the restaurants or pushing carts on the promenade. As he put it, with a short laugh, “We all work for the German.” Ah, so that was the language of Deutscher Garten.
Wiktor had greater ambitions for himself, Stefan said. He planned to open his own establishment, one devoted to sausages, and by doing so, earn the money to not only live more comfortably but also bring over to America members of his family besides a wife and a sister.
“How old is Marta?” I asked.
“Seventeen.”
When I told Stefan I assumed she was much younger, he said, “She and Wiktor, they come close to death in Galicia.”
“Death?” I stopped walking, appalled. “How?”
“They both starving,” Stefan said matter-of-factly. “That the reason why so small. Wiktor, he never ever go to school. Working all the time by nine years old. He works harder than any man who lives. All he thinks about is getting brothers and cousins out of Europe.”
“Are they in danger of starving to death too?”
“Maybe. Always possible. But he wants to get them out before war comes, the big war.”
That was definitely news to me. A war threatened? While America had known peace for more than two generations, I was vaguely aware of occasional conflicts in Europe. I’d glimpsed headlines in the newspaper or heard my uncles mention Russia or Japan or some other distant country having troubles. But nothing that could be described as “big.” Every time I’d visited Paris, Florence, or London with my relations, I’d witnessed peace and prosperity. Certainly the starving were kept out of sight. Once again, I felt the vast gulf between my life and Stefan’s.
While we waited for the streetcar to pass, about to put Feltman’s behind us, he nudged me to have a last look. From this spot, I got a glimpse of an inner courtyard crowded with small, square, dark green tables, a dozen thick-trunked trees spreading leafy branches, thus shading the patrons. A waitress wearing a frilly red and white apron set a huge pitcher of beer on one table. A ray of sun pierced the canopy of leaves and picked out the white foam bubbling atop the dark gold beer, surrounded by heaping plates of food. I suddenly realized I was rather hungry.
“Could be Berlin, yes?” he said. I nodded, though I had never been to Germany. It did look like a spot of Europe rather than “America’s Playground.”
After we’d crossed the street, Stefan commented, “Marta does not – how you say it? – go out of her way for many people. She likes you.”
I smiled, but I felt uneasy. Stefan didn’t know that Louise had confronted me, that Marta was pushed to choose between us. I knew that I should tell him. Being less than honest had very nearly doomed us before we could begin. But I didn’t want to bring up Louise – who clearly felt proprietary toward Stefan – in the street. Perhaps after we’d gotten this police interview over with, we’d find a quiet moment, one suited for such a conversation.
We passed a grand theater with the mute and lonely look that all such establishments have during those hours before the next curtain rises. Stretching behind it were at least two blocks of other theaters and dance halls, like a miniature Broadway. I saw a sign for “Henderson’s Music Hall” and remembered it was the establishment Louise performed at, according to the man who declared her one of the most beautiful women in the world. For the first time I wondered what she did at Henderson’s. Sing? Dance? Act? It wasn’t pleasant, having such a rival.
We didn’t walk past the theaters, but through a neighborhood of restaurants, hardware stores, grocers, and taverns before Stefan hesitated, pointing at an imposing brown building, one that bore the dreary evidence of being governmental: the faded signs of official type, the wide doors and narrow windows, the forlorn men clustered on the sidewalk, holding briefcases. We drew a few steps closer, and I realized that a courthouse dominated this building, but a side door led to the police precinct.
Stefan stiffened as he stared at the words “Brooklyn Police.” I wondered what difficulties in his European past marked him in this way, caused such deep apprehension. I hoped I could help him see the difference. This was America. We headed toward the two steps leading to the police precinct doorway.
To my own surprise, I was the one who hesitated as my determined civic mindedness wobbled. I thought about my mother’s vehemence about the importance of a lady staying out of the newspapers. I’d have to make sure that the policemen understood that what we had to contribute must remain a private conversation. That didn’t seem too much to ask. Ther
e was another area of concern, too. I said, “Stefan, I’ve been thinking we should say that we were talking when you saw the man. Not kissing. After all, it doesn’t matter what we were doing, right? My back was to him. You saw him alone.”
“If that what you want to say, then that what we say,” he answered.
Stefan opened the door for me, so I was the first person over the threshold – and the first to experience the precinct. This was like Hell, much more so than Hell Gate in Dreamland. It was hot, the sort of airless, muggy heat that is most oppressive. And then there was the noise. A throng of some thirty people filled the small waiting area, talking loudly, some bickering. One woman held a squalling baby. And then there was the smell: unwashed people, and worse. Even if I had a perfumed sachet in my handbag, it couldn’t obscure the odors of those who should have used the latrine.
Stefan led the way now; I stumbled as I accompanied him to the front desk.
“Complaint?” barked a sweaty police officer manning the desk, his moustache sagging in the heat, his forearms rigidly cradling an open ledger book, covered with rows of meticulous handwriting.
“We’re here to help with the murder investigation,” I said faintly.
“What?” he said.
I had to repeat myself, speaking loudly to be heard over the din. I added that we were coming forward in response to the newspaper article. “We may have seen something that’s helpful.”
After emitting an exaggerated sigh, the police officer asked us for our names. I had to spell “Batternberg” twice.
The police officer turned his weary gaze on my companion. “Stefan Chalakoski.” He had to spell it three times. If nothing else, this visit to the police meant I now knew his last name.
We were also asked for our addresses. Stefan gave him a house number in Brooklyn. I said my home was on Seventy-Second Street in Manhattan, but for the next six weeks, I’d be staying on the fourth floor north of the Oriental Hotel.
We were told we’d be called once an officer was free to take a statement. I wondered if it would be the Lieutenant Pellegrino who stood up to Mr. Lancet. He had been a bit rude to me when I saw that first girl in the water, but he was clearly keen to catch her murderer. Giving our statement to him might be the most effective route. We returned to the thick of the room. As the people who occupied its three chairs looked fully prepared to fight to the death to retain them, sitting down wasn’t an option. Stefan and I made our way to an open space next to one of the grimy windows, a six-inch gap pushed open. It afforded us not the faintest puff of a breeze.
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