My Notorious Life (57 page)

—Hold still, I said through my gritted teeth.

Greta crouched down right by Cordelia’s head, whispering, —Don’t move, please,
Liebchen,
you’re doing good.

But Greta was a distracted assistant. Twice I called her out of a trance to hand me the gauze or the dilators. The scraping took a long time. It hurt Cordelia very bad. —I’m sorry, I said. —Sorry, love. Sweat poured off me. My patient bit down on a cloth and thrashed with her eyes shut.

At last I asked Greta for the ergot solution of vinegar but she had not prepared any. I waited while she mixed it, and she handed it to me absently and said, —If I may go now, Axie, I am tired.

—You know it’s not through, I said, quite angry. —You’ll stay till it’s finished.

Her eyes filled with tears. Greta did not like that I spoke to her sharply but for once I did not care. SHE was not the one going to court on April First. I administered the solution while Greta held Cordelia’s hand, streams of water running down both their faces, and me a welter of nerves and pity and fury at all of them, the mess of it all, that it came to this.

—There now, I said, —all finished.

The patient whimpered then sat up and vomited. —The pail, Greta, I said, but my friend took her time getting it and cleaned the mess up in a huff. I lay the patient down again. —There’s a good girl, I told her, with as much tenderness as I could muster. Which was not much. It was nine in the evening on one of my last nights of freedom and I was not in my bed beside my husband with a glass of brandy.

—Don’t leave me, Cordelia said, very weak.

—Nobody will leave you, I said.

—I am alone. Mortally alone.

—I’ll stay with her tonight, Greta said, grudgingly.

—I thought you wanted to leave, I said.

—Truth is I don’t want to go home. Willi will not speak to me. And Mr. Sprunt
ist ein Knilch und ich hasse ihn so viel.

—Oh Greta, I said, —I don’t know what you said but the two of us is in a fine f*****g mess.

—What will happen to us? my friend said, and rested against me. —What will happen to any of us?

—We’ll carry on best as we can.

—YOU will, maybe. Your husband is a good man.

This stopped me. Greta always said Charlie was a dangler. She was the one who said he had
Ein kleines Schmuckstück,
a piece of trade on the side. Now she said I was lucky. He was a good man.

—Always he is devoted, said she. —You have the luck while I have a lout.

I mused on this idea of luck, for it had never seemed to apply to me. —You’ll be fine without Sprunt. You’ll live here. Bring Willi over in the morning and you two can have both rooms upstairs after Cordelia is gone.

Cordelia stirred in her bed when she heard me. —But I can’t leave, the poor patient murmured, weeping and still drunk. —I’ve nowhere to go. Not back to Philly there’s men in the hedges. I’ve no one. I’ve only cabbages. I will be your housemaid. Please.

—Hush, I said. —We’ll talk about it in the morning. Rest now.

We helped her muttering and bleeding up three long sets of the backstairs and settled her, with Greta bunking next door. I crept down the hallways past my sister’s room and seen her light was off. I went and washed myself and climbed into bed next to Charlie. He snored so loud it was a comfort, and I fell asleep.

*  *  *

Around three o’clock a.m., Greta came into my room, whispering, —The
Fräulein
wants you. No matter what I say it does no good. She says you must come.

Charlie cursed at being woken up but I put on my wrapper and went down the corridor with Greta to see the patient. In the lamplight Cordelia looked fevered, her eyes bright in their dark sockets. She clutched my hand and thanked me for saving her life, all the while showing no signs of wanting it, curled up under her covers, a ball of misery. —You won’t send me away, now, will you Madame? Please don’t. I’m afraid. Hines will come after me again. He will, Missus. I’ve no one. Nowhere to go.

It was late. I was exhausted. My weakness and her pleading undid what was left of my good judgment and so again I failed to turn away from risk because it wore the face of a crying woman. I said Cordelia could stay another few nights. —But you will be out by Monday morning, the first of the month, before daylight. I could not have her in my house while I was at trial. —Monday morning not later. Sunday would be better.

—Please, Missus, I am—

—By Monday morning. That’s the last day.

W
e was now a house of desperate women. My sister, trapped. Cordelia broken. Greta despairing. Me accused. And Charlie, pacing and scribbling on scraps, scheming with Morrill. All of us sleepless. Outside on the Avenue the lawmen paced up and down at their appointed stations, spying out of their maggoty eyes, assigned by my enemies to watch over us, to mark the comings and goings of the house. What a boresome show it must have been, for by day it was only lawyers, Mr. Morrill and Mr. Stewart, my defenders arriving with their papers for me to read, their strategies. Or it was Annabelle returning from school, where again my poor angel suffered the taunts of her schoolmates, little cats in ruffly pinafores calling her Daughter of a Witch, etc. Afternoons, I went riding out as usual in the park, alone, and returned to supper. The house retired early. But in the dark, the stairways was haunted by white nightgowns. We women roamed with our hair loose, or long in a plait hanging down the back, soundless in our stocking feet. Greta and me went back and forth to our poor patient, who sweated and moaned. Dutch wandered the halls. The piano played late at night. The stairs creaked. A door latch groaned. There was whispers of crying.

Sunday, March 31st, was the day before I was to face my Accusers. That morning I encountered Greta on the stairs, fretting and biting her lips. She had been home to see Willi but found him with Sprunt, learning to play gin rummy. —My son don’t speak to me, Greta said, her eyes full of terror
and her breath full of gin. —He is gambling already. He calls me
eine dumme Frau
like Sprunt calls me, und—

—He should be spanked, I said. —And no dinner.

But Willi would not leave Sprunt to stay here with her, she said. —He calls him Papa! And scorns me, his own mama.

—Now listen you silly kraut, I said to her, —the boy has always wanted a father and Sprunt has temporarily distracted him. You tell Willi to come here to me and Uncle Charlie.

—The truth is, said Greta, crumpled, —my husband is through with me.

It was a good thing, to be shed of Sprunt, but Greta would not be convinced today. She had her black moods and the many tumblers of spirits she emptied didn’t help. She was so sad and I should’ve paid attention to her but I didn’t. I left her to her troubles. It was the last day before my ordeal and I would spend it with my Annabelle. We drove out with Charlie to the park, where the cold snapped at our faces but our hands was warm with the fingers laced under the ermine lap robe, so soft I could think only how I wished to transport it and my little family with me to prison, all of us together there, a thought so backwards it shows how desperate are the bargains of the cornered.

—Your mama might have to go away, Charlie said to Annabelle as we wheeled around the Meer in Harlem. We had agreed to prepare her a little, in case the worst happened. —But she’ll only be gone a little while.

—Why? Annabelle cried. —Where? Where will she go?

—She might go to a hospital, to help some ladies who need her, Charlie lied, while I looked at him over the top of her head, my eyes raw as peeled fruits. His were skittish with anger and sorrow.

—I don’t want you to go, Mam. Not ever again. You promised.

—Well maybe I won’t have to go at all, I told her, as brave as possible. —But if I do, you’ll be a good girl and write letters to me, and I’ll be home before your next tooth is out, so I will.

Now Charlie explained more of his lie to her, about the ladies in a hospital, and how they needed my expertise, and how when it was done I’d come home.

But my angel cried, —Mam, I don’t want you to go, and held on to me, and I thought if the sky would only open and swallow me it would be a welcome punishment for the torment of motherlessness I’d soon inflict on
my innocent girl, only ten years old. Even younger than I was when I was took from my Mam. I should’ve quit my profession four years before, when I had the chance, when I gave my word. Recriminations fed off me till they grew fat.

*  *  *

In the evening after supper I went to Cordelia in her bed and explained to her again in the strongest terms that by morning she must leave. —I will be in the midst of a trial and can’t manage you and won’t risk having them discover you. You must be away before daylight.

—I have a pain here, she said, weakly.

—Perhaps this will calm it. I gave her five hundred dollars and instructions to leave when there was no police about.

—But I am Miss Munson, she said, off her head. —And I am Mrs. Purdy. And Mrs. Nobody.

—Where will you go?

—Not Philadelphia. The bushes are full of bad men. There’s hair on the backs of their hands. If you eat onion you can scare a man away. But onion left out on the sideboard takes the poison from the air, and I am an onion. I will die of it. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

She was out of her head singing and rambling. Or, she was faking. Was she? Her fingers was bitten raw, the nails gone down to the half-moon nearly. One of the long scabs on her wrist had opened and bled onto the sheet and I was put in mind of my Mam and the red swollen wreck of her arm. She would die, I thought. I always believed it likely that one of my ladies would die. Just my luck, it would happen now. I felt Cordelia’s head. I checked her belly. She did not have fever.

—You’re fine, I said, when it was plain she was not. —I’ve done all I can for you.

—You have not anointed me Missus nothing, nor have you rinsed the underthings.

—Pardon? She was acting. She was malingering.

—You’re a mercy, she said with her eyes rolling. —A cabbage of mercy.

And she was a faker. If she was going to die or be out of her mind I preferred her to do it elsewhere. It was my own hide now I needed to save. I couldn’t care about her.

—You must leave tomorrow. Take the money and go. Good luck to you, love, I said, and kissed her goodbye.

—Oh Madame, please don’t make me leave. I’ll have to swallow spirits of turpentine. I’ll have to leap off the windowsill. I will jump in the river.

—I trust you will find the strength, please, to move on, I said, and fled.

*  *  *

When I went in to see my sister, she stared into the fire, drinking a glass of claret, and did not look up.

—Dutchie, I mean Lily, pardon—

—Call me whatever you like. She shrugged, smiling. —It doesn’t matter now anyway.

—Before the week is out they could take me to jail.

She closed her eyes and put her hand low on her waist again, resting it there. —What if they call me as a witness?

—If they haven’t by now they will not, I told her again. —The lawyer assures me they will not likely. They’ve no evidence against you, and the case will come to nothing.

—Already there is such a scandal, she cried. —I am sorry for you. Sorry for all of us. Your name is more tainted than my own.

—What is a name? It’s nothing. I’m not ashamed. You shouldn’t be, neither.

—Shame is all I know. Shame and regret.

—What I’m trying to say, Dutchie, is that it would seem you might still have some days to . . . to change your mind, if you require my assistance. Even if they do find me guilty—which I am not—they might not pronounce a sentence on me for days or even weeks after a judgment is made. I’ll come home here tomorrow evening and every night of the trial. And Mr. Morrill appears quite sure that the charges will be dismissed.

—I hope so. For your sake.

—And yours? Eliot returns in three weeks.

She shrugged. —The Lord will guide me and show me the way.

So it seemed she had decided. She would leave. Would she? She was wavering.

—I wish you’d stay here. Oh Dutchie, if they take me away to prison who will stay with my daughter? It would relieve me to think of you here
with her. Promise me you won’t go away. Greta and Charlie will help you. And then when I am free again—

She closed her eyes, smiling. —I would like that. To stay with Annabelle. You have a lovely family.

—So will you consider it?

She smiled again and nodded and promised me, —Yes, Ann, I will consider it.

I kissed her good night with a melancholy deep in my bones, and to my surprise, for a moment she clung to my shoulders like the Dutchie I knew from her days as a winkle attached to me.

—Good night, Axie. I am sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you.

—You are never no trouble to me. —You’re my sister.

*  *  *

Just before daylight on the morning of April First, I woke, listening. Someone was afoot, drawing a bath. I heard water running in the mysterious pipes of the house and was relieved. It would be Cordelia, preparing for her journey to Trenton. So she had been faking, as I suspected. The money had convinced her and now she was leaving in darkness, as I asked, before the traps could accost her. With a sudden clamp of fear, the thought of the trial that awaited me later that day at Jefferson Market Court made me cringe under the covers, and for a while I drifted in and out of troubled dreams.