Orphan #8 (30 page)

Rachel realized then that the red wig was not alone. Beside the one she’d seen onstage were two more: one with a cascading mass of black curls, another with golden braids so long they circled the neck like a noose. None was rough and dead-looking like the wig they’d given her at the Home.

“This one would match your coloring,” Madame said, gesturing to the dark hair. “I wear that when I sing
Carmen
.”

But Rachel stepped closer to the red wig, reaching out to stroke a crackling curl. “May I try this one?”

Madame smiled. “Yes, this one is special. Somehow it always puts me in the mood for Mozart. Come, sit.” She rose and offered Rachel her seat before the mirror. It reflected the naked oval of her face.

“Here.” Madame settled the wig gently on Rachel’s head, tugging under the ears until it settled in place. “It’s loose on you. Your
head is smaller than mine. Mrs. Hong makes every wig custom for a perfect fit. There. What do you think?”

Rachel was overwhelmed by the sight of so much hair falling around her face. It was as if Amelia’s ghost had come to swallow her up. Then she remembered Amelia whispering to Marc Grossman, and she tasted bile. If anyone deserved to have the hair, it was Rachel.

“How does it feel?”

The wig was a bit loose, and the hair was heavy, but against her scalp it was soft, soothing, strangely alive. “It’s lovely. It doesn’t itch at all. The one they gave me when I was a girl, it itched so much I couldn’t wear it.”

“Wool lining, probably, and sometimes they use hair from horses’ tails. Mrs. Hong’s girls crochet the lining from silk, and of course she uses only human hair.”

Without taking her eyes off of her reflection, Rachel asked, “Who is Mrs. Hong?”

“Only the best wig maker I’ve ever known. I get all of my wigs from Mrs. Hong’s House of Hair in Denver.”

Rachel’s eyes lingered on the image in the mirror. She ran her hand over her head, wrapping the hair around her neck. “What does it cost?”

“Oh, child, it’s nothing you could dream of, I’m afraid. Even I can only afford one a year.” Madame Hildebrand reached out for the wig. Rachel hunched her shoulders, edging away.

“What if I already had the hair?” she asked. When she had cut Amelia’s hair, her only motivation was revenge. She’d never known why her fist had closed around the braid, why she’d dragged it halfway across a continent. Now Rachel understood. The brown
wig she’d worn to the Purim Dance had betrayed her with false promises of beauty, but a wig made from Amelia’s hair would do more than mask her ugliness. Such a wig would elevate Rachel to match its splendor.

Madame Hildebrand looked at Rachel’s greedy eyes in the mirror and pitied her. She thought this strange girl must have some hair wrapped in tissue paper, the strands thin and oily from whatever illness had left her bald. Scarlet fever could do that sometimes, she’d heard. “I’m sorry, dear. I can’t imagine what it would cost. I don’t even know where Mrs. Hong has her shop. She always comes to my dressing room at the Municipal Auditorium when I’m in Denver.”

The woman with the rack of costumes appeared at the door. “Ten minutes, Madame. I have your gypsy costume.”

“Excuse me, dear, I need to prepare for my next aria.”

Madame lifted the wig from Rachel’s head and settled it back on the form. Rachel’s scalp felt bereft. Resentfully, she put on the cloche hat, mumbled her thanks, and retraced her steps to the stage door. She stood in the cold as long as she could stand it, her breath misting the air.

Goldie and Sadie were in the lobby looking for Rachel when she entered. Sadie was too nervous about the next day to sit through another act, so they returned to the shop. They were upstairs arranging the wedding dress when they heard the men stumble in below. Going down to the kitchen, Rachel hoped for a chance to talk with her brother, but Sam flopped down on the cot and began snoring without even taking off his boots. Rachel undid the laces, pulled the boots from his feet, and covered him with a blanket.

Before crawling under her own covers, Rachel opened the cardboard
case and brought out Amelia’s hair. She remembered the first time she had seen it, so abundant and beautiful it made Mrs. Berger love the girl it belonged to. The braid belonged to her now, and she imagined that someday, somehow, it would make her beloved, too.

A
T THE WEDDING
, Rachel took Sadie’s bouquet as the bride held out her hand for the modest gold band Saul pushed down her finger. Then the glass was smashed underfoot and shouts of mazel tov mixed with clapping. After the ceremony, the assembled Jews of Leadville lingered in the synagogue, offering the new couple kisses and handshakes and slipping them folded dollar bills. Max had told Rachel there used to be so many, the synagogue could barely contain them all; now they were lucky to have enough men for a minyan. Goldie and Nathan invited everyone to share in the wedding cake. As long as a bottle had been opened by the rabbi for religious purposes, they all enjoyed small glasses of wine.

Max sidled up to Rachel and took her elbow. “I’m wanting to ask you something. Would you come over here?” He led her to the far corner of the room, where two chairs had been pulled close together. When they sat, Max’s knees bumped into Rachel’s. He pulled out his shirttail to wipe his glasses.

“What is it, Uncle?” Rachel asked, her eyes following the circle of his silver hair from mustache to sideburn and around to the other side.

“I talked it over with the rabbi yesterday, and he advised me to talk to you plain and simple.” He cleared his throat. “So, here it is, Rachel. Could you ever think of me as something more than your uncle?”

She wasn’t sure what he was asking. Did he want to take the place of her father, to adopt her? Her expression prodded Max to explain himself.

“Sadie and Saul, they’re moving away today. My son, he’s going to start his own family now. And what am I left with, alone in my shop? Your brother, he’s a restless one. What if he leaves, tries his luck somewhere else?”

“Can’t he work for you, making deliveries, like Saul said?”

“I hardly got enough business to keep my own head above water. But you, Rachel. Since you came, it’s been good, working with you. How we talk when you take the inventory. That I need, someone in the shop, to help with the stock. And the lady customers, they like having a woman to deal with. But what will they say, a young woman and a grown man living together like that? You can’t sleep on a cot in the kitchen all winter. But if we were married, we could stay together, upstairs. I’d take care of you, Rachel, if I was your husband.”

Rachel’s heart cowered behind her ribs. She had to swallow, hard, before she could speak. “But you’re my uncle. You’re older than my father.”

“I’m not too old to be a husband, and a father.” He tilted his chin up. The sun, slanting through the synagogue windows, bounced off his glasses. “There’s lots of older men who get themselves a young wife. Rabbi says an older man is more understanding and patient. As for me being your uncle, it’s true, it’s not so usual here. But back in the old country this is what happened sometimes, to keep a family together. And the rabbi says he’ll bless the marriage.”

Rachel remained silent. Max had one more argument to make.
“Maybe soon we’d start a family together. Wouldn’t you like that, Rachel, to have a baby all your own?”

Rachel’s stomach was curdling, but her mind ticked like a clockworks. It was revolting to contemplate marrying her uncle, but the prospect of refusing him made her realize how dependent she was on this man. She considered and rejected every option she could imagine. To buy herself time, she said simply, “Uncle Max, I don’t know what to say.”

“You think about it, Rachel. Maybe it’s a new idea for you, you have to get used to it. I’m also driving out to Colorado Springs this afternoon. I decided to give the bedroom suite from my own wedding to Saul and Sadie, so I’m going to take it in my truck. I thought maybe it’d be nice to get a new bed. For a fresh start?” Max closed his hand over her knee. “I won’t make it back tonight, so you don’t have to answer me until tomorrow.”

Rachel blinked. “Tomorrow?”

“I could wait until you turned sixteen to get married, if you want, so we’d just be engaged for now. But, well, I can’t have a young girl living in my shop unless there’s an understanding between us.” Max took her hand. He pulled her toward him and pressed his mouth against her lips. Beneath the hair of his mustache, Rachel could feel the hardness of his teeth followed by the damp tip of his tongue. A chill shivered through her as someone walked on her grave. Max pulled away. “Besides, where else can you go?”

Nathan’s voice carried above the murmur. “Time to go home.”

The word rang false in Rachel’s ear. Rabinowitz Dry Goods could only be her home if she let her uncle become her husband. Then it occurred to her—Sam would never stand for that. Once she told him, he would take her away. They would leave together,
maybe find Papa, make a real family for themselves. A smile pulled at her mouth as she followed Max out of the synagogue. Rachel thought of that scene in the movies where a girl is tied to railroad tracks and the train is coming. She relished the certainty that Sam would save her.

“M
AYBE IT’S FOR
the best,” Sam said that night when Rachel told him about Max’s proposal. Everyone else had gone to Colorado Springs, the newlyweds in the back of Nathan’s sedan, Max following with his old bedroom furniture tied down in the truck. Sam was reclining on his cot in the kitchen, a lit cigarette between his lips.

Rachel couldn’t believe she heard him right. “He wants to marry me, our own uncle!”

“He said he’d wait till you were sixteen, didn’t he?” Sam stood and reached up to the top of the Hoover cabinet, taking down a small bottle. “Max’s medicinal brandy.” He pulled the cork with his teeth and took a swig. “Not bad. Not bad at all.” He stretched out on the cot again, alternating inhalations with sips of liquor.

Rachel was alarmed. “He’ll know you drank some.”

“I don’t care. You just pretend you don’t know anything about it, let him blame everything on me.”

Rachel sat beside her brother on the cot. “I’m not going to pretend anything. You’ve got to take me away from here, Sam.”

“You’re birthday’s what, nine months away? This could work for us, Rachel. You know I’ve been wanting to get out of here, and I saved up a lot, but not enough for both of us to get anywhere and have anything left once we got there. Besides, I want some adventure, after all those years being told what to do, those damn bells
ringing every hour of the day.” Sam shook his head as if there were water in his ears. “Drove me crazy, those bells. But where the hell was I gonna go with you to worry about? Now I know he’ll take care of you, I can go.”

“But, Sam, it’s disgusting! You can’t leave me here, to that.”

“I’m not really gonna let him marry you, Rachel. By the time you’re sixteen, I’ll be settled somewhere, and I’ll send for you. Promise.” He gazed at the ceiling, already lost in his imaginary adventures.

Rachel watched the forgotten cigarette in her brother’s hand burn out. He was supposed to save her, not leave her behind with nothing more to cling to than the memory of his word.

“You promised you’d get me from the Infant Home, too.”

Sam bolted up. “I was just a little kid, Rachel. I couldn’t do anything about that. You want to blame someone, blame our damn father, the bastard, for turning us into orphans.”

“No, Sam, it wasn’t his fault, running away after Mama’s accident. He was just scared.” Rachel caught her brother’s hand. “I don’t really blame you, you know that. You can’t blame him, either.”

“I can’t blame him?” Sam pushed her aside and pounded up the stairs. He came back down a minute later with a knapsack. “You want to find our father so bad? Here!” He yanked out a crumpled envelope and threw it at Rachel. While she pulled out a tattered sheet of paper and smoothed it enough to read the writing, Sam aimed a barrage of words at her.

“Max wrote to our beloved Papa when I showed up here. He’s living in California if you want to go find him. The address is right
there on the envelope. You know what he had to say to me when Max told him I ran away from the orphanage and came out here all on my own?”

Sam tore the letter from Rachel’s hands. “‘Dear Son,’” he read, his words slurred with anger. “‘Glad to hear you’re out in Leadville. I heard through Max you ended up in the Orphaned Hebrews Home. I knew they’d take good care of you and your sister, better than what I could have done. But now Max tells me you’re working in the mine. Maybe you could spare a few dollars to send my way? I’ve been sick lately. . . .’” Sam threw the letter on the floor. It drifted under the cot. Rachel got down on her hands and knees to retrieve it.

“Money! That’s what he wants from me, after all these years. Max says it’s always the same with him. He came out here, after Mama died. Stuck around leeching off Max until he finally ran him off. Max says to me, do what you want, but I’m not throwing good money after bad on my brother no more.”

Rachel was reading the words scrawled on the paper. Her own papa’s handwriting. “If he’s sick, Sam, we should help him. We should go to him.” It was as if the lies she told to the Cohens and the Abramses were coming true after all.

Sam lit a fresh cigarette, the flame reflected in his eyes. “Let him die if he’s so sick. I’m not sending him a penny from what I earned, chipping away underground. He left us, Rachel. We don’t owe him a thing.”

Rachel started to object, but Sam cut her off. “Look, you do what you want. You don’t trust me to send for you? Fine, then go on back to the Home.”

Rachel thought of the curled insole of Naomi’s shoe, of Amelia’s shorn hair. Shame washed over her. “I can’t go back there, Sam. Let me come with you, wherever you’re going.”

He shook his head. “I tried, Rachel, all those years, I tried to watch out for you. You don’t think I would’ve run away a long time ago if it wasn’t for you being in the Home? I can’t protect you anymore. I never could. I mean, look at you!” He flung his hand at the cloche hat. He intended only a gesture, but he knocked it from her head.