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Authors: Jami Attenberg

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BOOK: Saint Mazie: A Novel
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Mazie’s Diary, May 19, 1918

I went early this morning to Nance’s. The alley outside their front door was quiet except for the strays, the rats, and the cats, scuttling, tussling. The door was shut tight. I pressed my face up against it. It was early and quiet. I was sure I could hear Marie crying inside. I had milk with me, and lollies, too.

I started pounding on the door.

I said: I’ll leave the milk outside. You don’t have to speak to me, only please take the milk.

I hid around the corner to see if Nance would open the door. Finally two enormous stray cats, spotted gray and filthy, knocked over the jug and took to lapping it. Then cat after cat came out of every corner of the alley, and the milk was gone. Nance had never opened the door.

I took it upon myself to do a little nosing around today—as best I could from that cage. I talked to a beat cop, Officer Walters. He’s stopped by a few times to share a nip from the flask, and to flirt. He’s an old dog. His hair’s turning gray and he’s got a big belly. I’d worry he’d crush me if I let him hold me. But he’s good for a laugh and he’s got a nice set of thick lips on him, so all right, he can have a nip. He tells me to call him Mack but I never do.

I asked him if he knew about Nance. He knew Nance, oh yes he did.

He said: Sorry to tell you this, Mazie, but if she wants to keep her door locked she’s entitled to it.

I said: But those children are living in darkness all day I’m telling you. And she’s not feeding them right. Can’t you just go knock on her door?

It occurred to me that his breath was thicker with liquor than mine.

He said: I think we know how to handle this. It’s our jobs to know.

I said: Well then I know how to handle you.

I snatched the flask from his hand.

I said: Go on, get out of here. I’ll find someone else to help me. What are we paying our taxes for?

I yelled and yelled, but there was not a hint of guilt in his step. Just another man in a uniform, just another man with a swagger.

All day I asked those who came to my cage their opinions on the matter. Everyone said the same thing: It’s her door. I reminded them about the children but it didn’t matter. All you can do is knock, they told me.

A rule-breaker on my side is what I need.

Mazie’s Diary, May 20, 1918

Sister Tee! Sister Tee.

Mazie’s Diary, May 21, 1918

I tracked Tee down last night. I saw one of the other Theresas on the street. Sister Terry, this one was called. She was older, with a thin gray mustache. I suppose they don’t give a care what they look like when they’re married to Jesus. I called her over and told her I’d give her free tickets for a week if she’d go find me Sister Tee. She said I didn’t need to bribe her, and that salvation was right around the corner and it was always free, no matter what. She rushed off, her habit in ripples. Ten minutes later, there was my Sister Tee, loose strands of golden hair coming out of her wimple. I didn’t even know I had missed her until I saw her again, and I think she felt the same. She smiled like she knew me well. Maybe she already does.

I said: I know I’m technically a sinner and all. But I could use a little help.

She said: God has love for everyone.

I told Sister Tee everything, ending with the part about the big red door being locked. I told her Nance no longer trusted me, that she’d never open the door for me again. The whole time her eyes were set tight, her face too. I told her I couldn’t stop wondering what was happening in there. Locked behind the door. At last, Sister Tee cried out in some kind of pain. I put my hand on hers, I asked her if she was all right.

She said: I’ve been grinding my teeth lately. I used to do it at night, and now I’ve started doing it during the day. When things are bad. When I hear a sad story. A story of ungodliness.

I said: A story of unfairness.

She said: A story of injustice.

I said: A story of inhumanity.

Her eyes were wet with inspiration. The air between us churned into something new.

She said: We must save those children.

Tomorrow, she promised, she would return with news.

Mazie’s Diary, May 22, 1918

Not a peep.

I might die from the waiting. Stuck in a cage, waiting.

After dinner Rosie was teasing Jeanie about Ethan, and Jeanie didn’t even blush.

I wonder if he’ll propose someday. An engagement. Rosie would be beside herself. Then it’d be just me left for her to worry about.

Mazie’s Diary, May 23, 1918

It was hot today, too hot, spring’s gone already, and I never even had a chance to love it. I sent one of the ushers to get me a beer from across the street, and then another after that, and then another before closing, and I let Officer Walters buy me one to take home with me, which I’m drinking right now by the open window. There’s a big pack of pigeons cooing on the roof across the street. The moon is nearly full. I’ll drink until I know I’m done. What else am I supposed to do with myself? No Sister Tee. The waiting is killing me.

Mazie’s Diary, May 24, 1918

Louis won big at the track and bought us all new purses. Mine’s pink and has a jeweled clasp and it’s very pretty and I don’t care because I haven’t heard anything.

Mazie’s Diary, May 25, 1918

Sister Tee brought me no good news today. I can’t stop crying to save my life.

She and some of the other Theresas were switching off shifts, all day and all night. Some sisters from an uptown church relieved them twice. The first two days the red door didn’t open. They knocked and they waited. There they all were, huddled amongst the rats in the alley, waiting for this hophead to open the door. I can’t believe I asked them to do this. I was feeling shame all over me. I apologized and Sister Tee told me not to worry. The weather was so pleasant they didn’t mind at all. And then finally, the third day, the door opened.

Sister Tee said: It creaked and moaned like a waking demon.

There was Nance, blinking in the sunlight. She was staggering. Her head hung down, and her arms drooped, and she was swaying. Sister Tee imitated her. Like a dead woman risen, is what Tee told me. The nuns rushed from their corner nest and pushed past her into the spoiled room.

Sister Tee said: The stench.

I asked if the children were dead.

Sister Tee said: Not dead, but not much alive either. The littlest one is too small for her age, and it might be too late, is what the doctors are saying.

She started talking about malnutrition and bruises and bad blood. I couldn’t pay attention to the details through the sting of my fury. I know what it means now to see red. I could feel the hellish flames within me. It was blinding me. I punched my fists against the counter and I couldn’t even feel a thing. Sister Tee took a step back. I had scared her, and I was sorry for it. I tried to calm down but couldn’t.

Sister Tee said: I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner to see you, Mazie. We had some praying to do.

I said: Where’s Nance? I’ll kill her.

Sister Tee said: Mazie, you need to be more forgiving. She’s an ill woman.

She told me Nance was in the hospital drug sick, her two children on a different floor. The little girl’s dying, the little boy’s fighting.

I started to cry. The faded babies, fading.

I said: What can I do?

She said: Same as us, just pray.

I didn’t tell her I wasn’t one for prayer but I’d give it a shot. I’m saying it now, this counts as my prayer. Please let them get well.

Mazie’s Diary, May 29, 1918

The youngest one died. Little Marie. Sister Tee says Nance will go to jail as soon as she’s able. She says the nurses won’t even look at her. They’d sooner throw her on the street. I’d do the same if I could.

Red-eyed in the cage all day long.

Lydia Wallach

Everything’s packed away in the guest room and I can’t bring myself to dig through the boxes. I’d have to unpack them all. I just can’t leave them half packed, or half unpacked, as it were. Once I start I’d have to finish the whole project. So it would be a whole thing I would have to do. And I don’t really have the time for it now. Or I guess the space, the mental space. It was enough to come downtown to meet with you. I’m happy to do it, don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to make you feel bad. It’s just an exertion. Like there’s taking the train to work, and then there’s work, and then there’s taking the train home again, and that’s all I’ve got in me. When I think of all those boxes it seems insurmountable. It could take days. And I’d have to find a place for everything. How will I know exactly where things will go? I’m just not prepared to make that kind of decision. This is why I can’t help you. It’s the boxes’ fault.

I know you wanted a different answer than that. I don’t think there’s much in there. I’m certain I’ve only ever seen one picture of her, and I have the faintest memory of it in my mind. But it’s been decades since I’ve seen it.

I’m sorry. I wish I could do this for you, but…right now I can’t. I’ve just moved into this new house in Westchester. I’m divorced. The marriage was brief, shockingly so. His mother died last year, and mine did as well, and a friend of ours who was very sick, suddenly, pancreatic cancer, and was given three months to live, and then was gone. And we just looked at each other at the end, and we should have been holding each other through all of it and instead we were separate, we were in opposite corners of the room, and we simply couldn’t find our way back to each other. It felt physical. There were all these ghosts between us. Everyone always thinks of ghosts as being invisible or like air but they take up so much space in a room, you’ve no idea.

I know you didn’t ask about this, I’m just offering this as an explanation. So there’s all these boxes from my mother in the guest room, and my husband would have been the one to unpack them. I’m organized, of course, but I can’t face my mother’s things right now. Another thing to face. All I have done is face things for months and months. So there they sit, in this room, I guess it’s a guest room. Maybe it will be a study. Honestly, I have so many rooms. This house is much bigger than I needed. It feels a little preposterous and self-indulgent. But there’s this deck out back, and I sit there in the mornings with coffee, and the birds are chirping in the trees, and there’s a little stream past the trees, etcetera, and it feels like a thing that I wanted, I’m sure I wanted it, and now I have it, but I do not think I wanted it all alone.

Mazie’s Diary, June 15, 1918

Sister Tee can’t find Rufus. She thought he was at an orphanage uptown, and she went up there looking for him, but he’d never made it there. She’s going to check three more orphanages tomorrow. She says there’s no point in calling. She says you’ve got to go there and see for yourself. I offered to go with her, but she says she can get more done looking the way she does.

At least he’s been released from the hospital. At least he’s well enough. But where has he gone to?

Lydia Wallach

I was a child when I saw the picture. I can imagine how frustrating it is for you to not be able to secure any photographic evidence of her. Truly. My entire job is to deal with evidence and facts. But my memory won’t help you much, because I only saw the picture for a moment. Okay. Let me think. The one thing I can recall is this—and I’m not sure it will be much help to you at all—I had heard many times that she was a bottle blonde. Brassy, sassy blonde. That was supposed to be her schtick. But in my memory, in the photo I saw, she was a brunette. She was young, and a brunette. She was standing in front of a ticket booth, her ticket booth, I am assuming, and my great-grandfather is standing next to her. They’re both saluting, as if they were soldiers. Oh, and there was a cross around her neck. That’s in my memory, but I don’t know how it could be true. Because she was Jewish.

Mazie’s Diary, July 3, 1918

I thought if I waited to write until I had good news it would make the good news happen. But there’s nothing good to report. I’ve been drinking cold beer all day long for weeks, waiting for Sister Tee to come back into my life. But she had disappeared until today.

She said: We’ve lost him.

I gasped.

She said: No, no, no! Not passed away, lost. But lost in the system. He could be anywhere.

She told me she would keep trying to find him. I thought, well, I won’t hold my breath.

I was sweating. I wasn’t even going to cry. I had promised myself I wouldn’t cry. I’ve been holding it all in. I didn’t cry. I feel like I’ll never cry again.

She put her tiny hand into the ticket booth.

She said: I brought you something.

I put my hand out and she opened hers and dropped a chain of light blue beads into it. I saw the cross immediately. It was a rosary.

I said: I told you this soul’s not yours for the saving.

She said: I’m not worried about your soul. I’m worried that you’re sad. You could just think of this as a pretty thing you could hold on to sometimes that will make you feel better. Sometimes that’s all it is to me. But please, Mazie, don’t tell anyone I said that.

I promised I wouldn’t. My promise is gold. I said she was my friend now, and she agreed I was hers, too.

And it is a pretty thing to hold on to, it’s true. I left it behind in the cage though. It’s becoming a home of a kind to me. I didn’t mean to get comfortable there. I didn’t mean to be there so long. But there I am. Here I am.

 

 

 

Heartbreak’s one thing that leads these bums to the streets. But by the time they get there, the bums don’t care about loving nothing but their booze. Coupling up is good for a night or two. It’ll keep you warm, if warming up is what you’re looking for. But when you’re a drunk you never want to share that bottle for too long with anyone. Love requires you to share. To these bums, love looks prettier from afar. They believe they’re better off in their sad lives with just the memory of love—and they’re probably right.

BOOK: Saint Mazie: A Novel
10.5Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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