“Jessie is such an exotic hostess,” Dorothy said. “We’re going to dine on lobsters that were shipped in ice from a fish market in Toronto.”
Clara’s bridge partner for the evening was Roberta McCarthy, who was a house guest of the Rossiters. She had recently been widowed and had known Jessie from childhood. Roberta’s large diamond wedding ring reminded Clara that she had had to sell hers. Fortunately, I don’t show my hardship, she thought. Clara was congratulated heartily when she made a grand slam. With an impish grin, she admitted to being a master player at the Sault Ladies’ Bridge Club. At the end of the game, Jessie escaped to the kitchen to see if the lobsters were being boiled humanely.
Anne Rossiter, who was Ivy’s age, slipped into the library and complained, “I’m bored playing canasta with my sisters. They both cheat.”
“Would you like to join my daughter?” Clara asked. “She’s at a party with friends.”
“My driver can take her if you give me the address,” K.G. suggested.
“I’ll have to call my niece. She acted as chauffeur this evening.”
K.G. led Clara into his study to use the phone.
“Where’s Ivy’s party?” she asked Lily when her niece answered. “Anne Rossiter would like to meet young people her age.”
“I’m not sure,” Lily said.
“But you drove her.”
“I did.”
“Then where is it?” Clara could see Jessie waiting at the study door. She hung up with a clack and apologized. “I’m so sorry. Ivy’s taken ill,” Clara lied. “She’s in bed at Dr. and Mrs. Barnaby’s.”
“Anne is here for another week. If Ivy recovers, we’ll invite her for tea.”
“That would be nice,” Clara said, smiling but furious. Her daughter had hoodwinked her while she was at her own New Year’s Eve party. As Clara dined on the succulent lobster, she contemplated accepting Jessie’s offer to be chauffeured and asking to be taken to the Barnabys’. She wanted to chastise Lily right away rather than wait until morning when Ivy returned home. She was sure Barnaby would support her. By the end of the meal, she had cooled down and asked the chauffeur to drop her at the duplex instead. She felt relief as she noted from Sergeant Stuart’s darkened window that he had already gone to bed. He had suggested several times that Clara was too controlling of Ivy, and she preferred not to discuss this evening’s events.
CHAPTER 9
The constables conducting the New Year’s raid on Sal’s home had taken down Ivy’s name and threatened to speak to her parents. So Lily couldn’t hide the truth from Clara, knowing her aunt would tell the officers, “My daughter stayed overnight at Dr. Barnaby’s and certainly wouldn’t be part of a raid on a bootlegger’s establishment.” When Clara learned what had happened, she was disappointed that both Lily and Ivy had lied to her.
The next day the Sault Star published a photo of Ivy in her clown pajamas huddled with her half-clad friend, holding a pillow for modesty and standing beside an upturned mattress and broken liquor bottles. The article was terse and short, stating only that the police had made an arrest without mentioning the family name. The newspaper was focused on the fifty men let go at Algoma Steel at the beginning of the New Year. The Sault Star covered this social calamity with a photograph of despondent men, mostly Italians, lined up at Algoma Steel’s pay office for their last cheques.
As Lily read the two articles, she reflected on the paradox that unemployed Italians had to resort to bootlegging to support their families. She had found it painful to hear about the women in her English classes being forced to rent half their houses to other families despite having large families themselves. The financial crisis has had much less impact on the wealthier people in town, she mused.
Sal was kept in the city jail for several days until she came before a judge. Julio Valenti, an articling law student, defended her. His widowed mother bootlegged, as well, but she had none of the ebullience of Sal’s establishment. Julio adored Sal and used every argument he could muster, but the judge wouldn’t budge. Even the image of young children fending for themselves didn’t move him. The owner of the Sault Star, James Crowder, published an editorial:
Sault Ste. Marie is not Chicago. Chief Dan Roswell and his armed constables practised Chicago-style law enforcement by arresting a bootlegger in front of her children. They should be going after Le Mano Nero, an organized crime unit operating out of Hamilton that bootlegs to the Americans. Upright citizens frequent bootleggers to avoid the sniffling little clerks who record our purchases with moralizing comments in the mandatory permit book. The draconian rules that surround the consumption of alcohol make every purchaser feel like a drunk. Bootlegging when men are laid off may be the only way to support their families. Buying illicit liquor when the stores and bars are closed should not be shameful. What is shameful is sending a widowed mother of eight to jail for three months.
Clara was more hurt than angry that Ivy had been in cahoots with Lily, leaving her ignorant of a plan that could have ended badly. The vigilante-style arrest with guns was certainly dangerous. Dominic had begun to argue, and only Sal’s quick reaction to go quietly had prevented the situation from escalating.
“Why don’t you come this Saturday and meet the Italian women I teach, Clara?” Lily suggested soon after the incident. “Many of them sell liquor from their houses. Until Dan Roswell there had never been a raid. If I had anticipated that, I certainly would have discouraged Ivy from spending the night at the D’Agostina house.”
There was a blizzard, but Saturday, the day set for Clara to visit the library, was cold and clear. Lily’s blue Rambler pulled into the shovelled parking lot of the West End Library. Several women bundled in black wool coats and headscarves were gathered on the front steps.
“The blonds are Finnish ladies who come to socialize,” Lily said. “The rest are Italians.”
“Maybe they know Veera Aalto, the laundress at Shingwauk,” Clara said. “Her husband owns Aalto’s Finnish Baths.”
Lily laughed. “They’re most likely his competitor.”
The ladies greeted Lily with embraces and smiled politely at Clara.
“You come to see Lily’s library?” a lady in black asked. “Even my husband take sometime a book.”
Clara stepped into the large main room with a long wooden table centrally placed and steel shelves stacked with books lining the walls.
“The books were donated by my neighbours,” Lily said proudly. “Barnaby found this unused table in the basement of the hospital. Not the morgue,” she added with a chuckle.
Clara perused the stacks that were low enough for children to reach. When she turned, she noticed three girls bent over their books at the table. They glanced up, and Clara recognized Irma D’Agostina, who seemed embarrassed. The girl had the classic chiselled features so often depicted on ancient Roman busts, making her a beautiful young Italian. Clara could understand her light-skinned, green-eyed, blond daughter’s attraction to this exotic girl.
Irma stood up and faced Clara. “I’m sorry Ivy was involved in a police raid.”
The two girls at the table gathered up their books and left.
“The police have never gone after a home operation before,” Irma said, lowering her voice. “My mother has to bootleg to pay for the family. I’m hoping to go to university next year.”
“How’s your mother doing?” Clara asked. “It was high-handed of the police and the judge.”
“My mother has to iron the cotton shirts of the fat jail guard while he sits with his feet on his desk,” Irma said bitterly. “He boasted when I last visited, ‘Your mama’s better at ironing than my missus.’ Lily and Miss McCrea have helped my sisters and brothers to keep up with their schooling while Mama’s away.”
“I’m not worried about the raid. I was offended by the lying. I’m sorry, Irma, that my daughter felt she couldn’t tell me the truth. She’s seen just about everything growing up in a public hospital. There was no need for deceit.”
; Irma shot Clara a grateful glance. “My brother, Dominic, and I are in charge until Mama’s released. We live in a tightly knit neighbourhood. We have more food than Mama could cook,” she added, smiling and noticeably more relaxed.
CHAPTER 10
Because Clara arrived at Shingwauk in August, she hadn’t yet experienced many of the school’s defects. However, by late January, the temperature dipped below minus four degrees Fahrenheit, causing the external pipes to the girls’ bathroom to freeze and requiring them to use the boys’ showers and toilets. The rule, “no water after five,” was being strictly enforced to avoid night trips to the toilet. Clara was firmly opposed to limiting water.
“Mark my words,” she argued, “we’ll start seeing bladder infections in the girls.”
“What goes in has to come out,” a custodian retorted. “We control that so we don’t encounter these savages in the dark. You go home in the evening, Matron, but for us who stay, there’s always the fear of violence. They hate us.”
“I’d hate you, too, if I were dying of thirst,” Clara countered. “The children will sneak to the toilets to get a drink, but they’re not savages! Indeed, you are if you limit their water and bathroom use.”
“We can cut off the water to the second floor,” the custodian challenged.
Clara gasped and marched to the headmaster’s office, where Reverend Hives greeted her with a wan smile.
He looks tired from his temporary living arrangement in the staff lounge, and now the toilets, Clara thought. “I hate to bring up the water issue,” she said, standing in front of the reverend’s desk.
“Matron, I’m worried about the hanky-panky that will go on at night with shared washrooms. The female custodians are afraid of the bigger boys. They don’t know how to handle them, especially in the dark.”
“Cutting off water to the bathrooms isn’t a solution. Better to educate the girls on the risk of sexual misbehaviour.”
“That would put ideas in their heads. Why discuss something until it happens?”
“I set up the first venereal disease clinic in Alberta,” Clara said. “Soldiers were passing VD to their partners after the Great War. But risky behaviour isn’t confined to soldiers.”
The headmaster cupped his head as though he didn’t want to hear what Clara was about to say.
“A pregnancy would be a black mark on your school,” Clara pressed. “There needs to be some education.”
“Let’s wait and see.”
“As the school nurse, I’ll have to take care of the consequences if a pregnancy occurs. Let me speak with the older girls.”
Reverend Hives reluctantly agreed and asked Clara to report back to him.
According to Veera Aalto, the laundress who washed the bloody sheets, there were only ten girls in the school who could get pregnant. Mrs. Aalto was an amiable, heavy-set blond woman with ruddy arms from too much exposure to detergents. She was proud to announce, “Aalto tubs were selected the best Finnish baths in the Soo this year.”
“I’ll have to try them,” Clara said. She had no intention of sharing her bath, something she’d had to do during the war years to conserve water.
“How’s everything up top?” Mrs. Aalto asked. “I rarely see the children unless they work in the laundry. I know them by their sheets — bedwetters, menstruating girls, boys coming into puberty.” She burst into an earthy laugh.
“I need your help,” Clara said, and then explained the dilemma of the shared washrooms.
“The senior girl in the laundry is Doris Canoe,” Mrs. Aalto said. “She’s responsible for the mangle. I can trust her not to get her fingers caught in the large wooden rollers as she’s expelling water from the sheets.”
“She’d need to trust that I have the girls’ best interests at heart,” Clara said.
“Doris’s father came out of residential school with his dukes up. Doris isn’t afraid of anyone. She can keep the boys in check while the girls are sharing the washrooms.”
“Could Doris supervise late night excursions to the toilet?” Clara asked.
“The girl needs her sleep, but as long as it’s not too late, she could take the place of the night custodian.”
Clara took Mrs. Aalto’s list of numbered students and searched for the matching names in the school registry. The home economics room that was familiar to the older girls seemed a suitable place for an intimate chat. The girls spread out as they entered the room, avoiding the inevitable rebuke if they spoke to a friend in their own language. They hadn’t been told why they were congregating, but usually a meeting of this kind was to reiterate the language rules. Mrs. Aalto, like Clara, didn’t care what language the girls spoke as long as they understood.
“Good afternoon,” Clara said. “Before we start, why don’t you tell me where you’re from?” Places that Clara had never heard of spilled off the girls’ lips, which served as an icebreaker before she began her facts-of-life spiel.
“Mrs. Aalto gave me the names of students who are menstruating,” Clara began. “The laundress breaks the rules often to give you ladies at that time of the month a new set of sheets. She doesn’t want to invade your privacy. However, you’re in charge of your own bodies and must not be coaxed by the boys to fool around. They might think it’s funny, but you won’t if you get pregnant.”
“How would I get pregnant?” a girl asked.
Clara thought the girl was joking until all eyes were on her, so she gave a simple description of intercourse. Glances and smirks were exchanged. They know what I’m talking about, Clara thought. “I don’t know how long you’ll have to share washrooms, but Doris Canoe will ensure that the boys are respectful,” she added.
The girls shuffled out, whispering and giggling, no doubt thinking that Clara was a bit odd but perhaps realizing that at least she wasn’t mean like the custodians.
“I was a ten-year-old in Lethbridge when I overheard the student nurses giggling that you’d discussed the facts of life,” Ivy said when Clara described what she was doing at Shingwauk. “No one wants to know the yucky details until they have to,” her daughter added with a grimace.
Clara shot Ivy a wry smile, thinking about what the school handyman had told her. According to him, the pipes couldn’t be repaired until spring, so Reverend Hives had used his Sunday sermon to tell the boys they had to respect the girls’ privacy. The headmaster interpreted the passive brown eyes before him as indications of shyness.
CHAPTER 11
Nellie Big Smoke of the Odawa tribe had arrived three years ago as a frail five-year-old from Manitoulin Island. Her three years at the school had been marked by a persistent dry cough, which often kept her in the infirmary. In March, the cough became productive and streaked with dark blood. Suspecting the child had tuberculosis, Clara isolated her in the infirmary. Dr. McCaig examined the girl, tapping her chest and listening through his stethoscope. Nellie’s temperature was elevated, and she had developed chills.
As Clara sponged the little girl with cool towels, Dr. McCaig’s normally cheerful face looked unhappy. Visibly angry, he said, “We have a problem, Matron. The government’s been experimenting with a vaccine for tuberculosis for Indian children. The BCG vaccine is available, but I wouldn’t give Nellie an unapproved vaccine. It’s completely underhanded that our government is using wards of the state to test the vaccine and other experimentation.”
“Could you call a sanatorium and see what’s available?” Clara asked.
Dr. McCaig went to Clara’s office to use the phone. Connected with a sanatorium director in Southern Ontario, he explained the child’s case.
“Where’s the girl from?” the director asked.
“Manitoulin Island.”
“Aha, that’s treaty territory! We’re only allowed to accept non-treaty Indians. Treaty Indians must have the consent of the Indian Department and then, if we’re lucky, the government pays.”
“I’m asking for an eight-year-old child who could be dead by the time the Indian agent giv
es us an answer!” Dr. McCaig shouted into the phone.
“I would lose my job,” the director mumbled. He cited a few bureaucratic platitudes and hung up.
“Nellie can’t stay at the school,” Dr. McCaig said when he returned to Clara. “Fortunately, her living circumstances are better than most.”
“I know. Her father’s the band chief.”
Nellie stared at the doctor with feverish brown eyes. “Giiwe?” she asked tearfully in Ojibwa.
“Yes, you’re going home,” Dr. McCaig answered.
Clara would accompany the child on the train, and she stood beside the house mother as the woman packed Nellie’s cardboard suitcase. The threadbare state of her belongings saddened Clara, but they were spanking clean, thanks to Mrs. Aalto. The little girl had a nightgown and a pair of inherited pajamas from a brother who was no longer at the school. There was one nice dress that reflected her family’s better circumstances. The custodian had never let her wear it.
Reverend Hives drove Clara and Nellie to the train station, handing Clara the tickets with moist eyes. He senses the loneliness of these children now that he has Violette, she thought.
“Let’s sit by the toilets,” Clara said. “No one will want those seats.”
Passengers did use the washrooms during the three-hour train journey. Nellie sat next to the window with her head on Clara’s lap. Just before Espanola, a queue for the toilets developed, and Clara ignored the worried stares. Passengers could now identify the source of the coughing. They also recognized the poorly cropped black hair as that of an Indian child.
“I’m a nurse,” Clara said when a lady inquired what she was doing on the train. “I’m taking this little girl home to her parents.” She smiled cordially but felt angry when she recalled Dr. McCaig’s conversation with the sanatorium.
Patchwork Society Page 5
