The Gilded Hour (19 page)

She followed the detective sergeant down one hall and another, and finally up a short flight of stairs. He opened the door and the purpose of the room announced itself by means of a wailing infant and the ammonia smell of wet winding clothes.

It was a long, narrow room lined with cots. There was a desk at one end and a treatment table at the other where a short, sturdy woman wrapped in an apron that covered her from neck to toe was leaning over an infant. The child was flailing unhappily about being lowered into the bathwater.

“Wheest,” she murmured to the baby. “Wheest. There’s a good girl. We’ll get you cleaned up proper first, and then you can fill your belly.”

A rocking chair creaked and Anna saw that there was another woman sitting in a shadowy corner. She seemed to be sleeping while an infant fretted at her breast. So small and so ferocious in its hunger, struggling for more and more as though he knew with certainty that he would never be fed again.

The three infants in the cots were asleep, swaddled securely, eyelids as pale as moonstone etched with a tracery of blue veins. Newborns should be rounded and padded and pink, but all of these babies were angular, like bundles of sticks wrapped in paper.

“Mrs. Webb?”

The woman bathing the baby looked over her shoulder.

“Detective Sergeant Mezzanotte. Good evening. What have you brought me today?”

“No babies today,” he said, and she turned back to her work. The infant had stopped wailing and was staring up at her with utter fascination.

“You see,” she said. “Not so bad, is it? Lovely warm water.”

To Jack she said, “Then what can I do to help? Still looking for the little Italian boy?”

“I’m afraid so. Can we have a look at your register?”

She gestured with her chin to a large book that lay open on the desk.

He crossed the room directly, but Anna hesitated and then went to
watch Mrs. Webb, who had clearly bathed more than a few babies in her time. She rinsed the newborn quickly and carefully and, as Anna watched, wound her into a towel and rubbed her dry. The child was severely underweight, so that her head seemed far too large for her spindly neck and body; more troublesome still was the umbilical cord, which was ragged and tied with a dirty string.

“A young mother did that,” said Mrs. Webb. She had followed the line of Anna’s gaze. “In a hurry to be done with the business and away. She left this little one wrapped in rags in a doorway, not more than a few hours old when a patrolman found her and brought her in to me early today. Poor thing.”

Generally people believed that an abandoned child was illegitimate and that the mother had put it away from her to hide an inexcusable moral lapse. Anna herself had never challenged this traditional wisdom until she went to medical school and was obliged to look more closely. Abandoned children were a miserable lot, born in poverty and most of them sickly, but their mothers were often married, and desperate in their own way.

Mrs. Webb was saying, “Tomorrow all of this lot will go down to the Public Charities Office and a doctor will examine her. Maybe he can do something about the cord.”

Anna said, “Does she have a name?”

Mrs. Webb began to swaddle the child with quick, efficient motions. “Sometimes the mother leaves a note with a name, but not for this little one. Tomorrow she’ll get a name and a number too, and depending on the luck of the draw they’ll baptize her Catholic or Protestant. And off she’ll go to the Infant Hospital or the Foundling or wherever else they find a cot for her.”

Anna hoped it wouldn’t be the Infant Hospital on Randall’s Island, infamous in medical circles. Overwhelmed by an endless stream of abandoned infants, never enough wet nurses, and very little skilled care meant that three-quarters of the infants admitted to the hospital would be dead within three months, and most of the rest within a year. But it was one thing to hear the figures spoken in a lecture hall or read a report, and another to know that the children in this room would likely be dead before the summer had finished.

Jack Mezzanotte looked up from the register he had opened on the desk and gestured her over. He had put a finger on a line to keep his space.

“Here’s the day the Russo children came over from Hoboken. Forty-two children were logged in over the next seven days. This is the only one that comes even partially close.”

Anna followed the closely written entry:

Male infant, ca. three months, no distinguishing marks, no outward injuries. Warmly dressed. Alert. Found sleeping on the grass under a tree in Stuyvesant Square at 5 o’clock by a clerk walking past on her way home from work. Officer A. Riordan.

“Hard to know,” Anna said. “Without more of a description.”

Mrs. Webb came over, the newly bathed baby on her arm and read over Anna’s shoulder. “Remind me, who is it you’re after finding?”

“A boy, about three months. Healthy. Very dark hair, blue eyes. Went missing on March twenty-sixth.”

The matron was shaking her head. “No child like that come through here. When I get one that big and healthy, usually a mother comes around looking for it sooner or later. Most all of mine arrive half-dead already.” Her tone was unremarkable; a sailor talking about the tides. “But they leave clean and warm with a full belly. Every one of them. After that it’s up to the good Lord.”

•   •   •

W
ITHOUT
DISCUSSION
THEY
started for Washington Square, turning left onto Bleecker before either of them even thought of talking. Then Jack said something that took her by surprise.

“You know better than to be in this neighborhood at dusk.” Not a question, not a command. A simple statement.

“Of course.”

It was always odd to be reminded how close the very worst of the city was to the house where she had grown up, where she knew all the neighbors and never felt even the slightest discomfort, no matter the hour. The city was like a deck of cards well shuffled; any corner could reveal disaster or deliverance.

•   •   •

W
ALKING
THROUGH
LENGTHENING
shadows in Washington Square Park was almost dreamlike. For those last ten minutes Jack thought of what he might say, and rejected everything that came to mind.

At the corner of Waverly Place and the park she stopped and turned to him.

“Sophie and I are writing to all the smaller homes and orphan asylums, but there are several I think I need to visit personally.”

“We can do that this week.”

Sometimes when she smiled in a certain way, a dimple fluttered to life in her left cheek. It was there now. “That’s kind of you.”

He was wondering if she was really oblivious to his interest in her when she said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but it would be better if you don’t come to the door with me. If Rosa sees you she’ll pin you down with a million questions.”

He might have said
I can answer questions
, or
I’m not ready to leave you yet
, but neither of those things would move him toward his goal. A goal he had somehow formulated without much conscious thought, but one that had already put down roots. He had to clear his throat to speak.

“I’ll send word tomorrow, or the day after, unless work gets in the way, and then it might not be until later in the week.”

“Generally I’m in surgery in the mornings,” she said. “We both have schedules to work around.”

He took her hand as if to shake it and ran his thumb over the cool silk of her glove to feel the warm skin beneath it, stroking the cleft where palm met wrist. She started but didn’t pull away. He wondered if it was possible for her to stop herself from blushing, or if it was a battle she always lost.

After a moment he passed her leather satchel back to her, and she turned and walked away. Jack watched her go, her pace picking up. Then she stopped and turned back, as if she had forgotten something important.

She called, “If your man yesterday had been French, what would you have said to him then?”

He laughed.

“You don’t know!”

“Maybe not,” he called back. “What part of France?”

B
Y
THE
TIME
they had spent four nights in the house on Waverly Place, the little girls had settled into a routine. “Give children a clock to live by,” Mrs. Lee said. “So they know what’s coming, when it’s coming, how long it will last. They’ll take comfort in that knowing.”

To Anna’s surprise it was a comfort to her, too. Wherever she was—in surgery, with students, in an exam room or a meeting—she could look at the clock and know where the girls were and what they were doing. She knew, for example, that when Margaret went in to wake the girls at eight, Lia would be confused and tearful. She would let Rosa comfort her, and then she would spend some time being comforted by Margaret while she was made ready for the day. By half past they were at the breakfast table.

Over the course of the day Lia sought out every adult on a rotating schedule to ask questions about Sophie and Anna and when they would be home.

“She’s worried about people disappearing,” Sophie said. “She wakes up missing her mother and father and brothers. It will take some time for her to realize that we won’t disappear too.”

An outsider would see a sunny little girl curious about everything; enthusiastic about the meals put before her, the toys brought out of storage in the attic, the chickens that roamed the garden; full to bursting with questions that poured out of her in a tangle of Italian and English. Lia listened closely to every conversation whether it included her or not, and fished out words she didn’t recognize to present like small puzzles.
Butcher? Bustle? Weeds? Sneeze? Swallow? Slippery?
Between
Rosa and Aunt Quinlan she got the answers she wanted and by the third day Anna thought she had gained at least a hundred new words in English.

Rosa’s mood was far more subdued. She was thoughtful, observant, and quick to be helpful in the way of children who are unsure of their place and desperate for acceptance. Lia knew how to ask for and accept comfort; Rosa could do neither. In fact, Rosa seemed to wake up for the first time on their second full day, when she realized that Anna and Sophie were talking about finding her brothers. They began to organize the search for the boys by writing a classified advertisement to put in the papers. Rosa asked Sophie to read it to her twice.

Anyone with accurate information about the location of two missing children will receive a generous reward once they have been returned safely to their family. A boy of seven years called Anthony and his brother, three months old, called Vittorio. They may still be together, or have been separated. Both boys have dark curly hair and very blue eyes. Both went missing on Monday afternoon, March 26, near the Christopher Street ferry. Please write with details to Mrs. Quinlan, P.O. Box 446, Jefferson Market Post Office. All letters will be answered.

Rosa could not have asked, but she was relieved to find that there would truly be a search for her brothers. The advertisement was the first step, but it was the letter writing that fired her imagination.

From Father Anselm and the city
Directory of Social and Health Services
they had identified almost a hundred places that had to be considered. A dozen or so Anna planned to visit personally, and the rest had to be contacted by mail. Rosa sat and watched them write letters as she might have watched a play on a stage, produced for her alone to enjoy.

Now Sophie reached for an envelope, and looked up to see Rosa watching her closely.

“Almost forgot,” she said. Then she cleared her throat and read:

April 3, 1883

Reverend Thomas M. Peters, Rector

St. Michael’s Church
West 100th Street
Manhattanville

Dear Reverend Peters,

At midday on Monday, March 26, Tonino Russo, age seven, and Vittorio Russo, age three months, arrived at the Christopher Street ferry terminal in a larger party of recently orphaned Italian children. An accident on the dock caused great confusion, and during this time the boys disappeared without a trace. I am writing to you regarding the search for these two brothers.

Both boys have Italian complexions, dark curly hair, and very blue eyes. There are no other distinguishing marks.

As the founder of the Sheltering Arms you see too many lost and homeless children to remember them each; nevertheless, I write to ask you to please keep these boys in mind. If you or anyone on your staff have seen any children fitting this description, alone or together, I would be thankful for word from you at your earliest convenience.

I am a graduate of the Woman’s Medical School and a physician registered at Sanitary Headquarters, but my concern for the Russo brothers is personal. At your request I am ready to provide further information as well as professional and personal references.

Sincerely yours,
Dr. Sophie Élodie Savard

When a letter had been signed and the envelope addressed, it went into the pile in front of Rosa, who was as attentive as a bird watching over a nest. But with every completed letter came questions.

“Will he write back?”

“I would think so,” Anna told her. “But maybe not right away.”

“Unless he knows where my brothers are.”

“Of course,” Sophie said. “In that case he would write to us immediately.”

“Or come to the house,” Rosa suggested. “He might just bring them here.”

Gently Sophie said, “We can hope for that, but you know it’s not likely.”

Rosa knew no such thing. She was making order out of chaos by pure force of will.

“I am certain we’ll hear back,” Anna said. Her tone was firmer than Sophie’s, something that did not escape the girl.

There was a moment’s hesitation. “But how do you know?”

And that was the issue, of course. They knew almost nothing and might never learn more. They could make no promises beyond the one Anna repeated now.

“We will keep trying until we succeed, or we all decide together that we’ve tried long enough.”

Tonight they had written letters to the Sheltering Arms Home, the Eighth Ward Mission, the Ladies’ Aid Society of the Emmanuel Baptist Church, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and the Home for Little Wanderers.

With every letter Anna wondered if they were helping or harming the little girl consumed by guilt and sorrow and an anger she couldn’t put into words.

When they had finished for the evening, Rosa went off to Margaret, who would see that the girls were bathed and put to bed.

“I wish somebody would do the same for me,” she said to Sophie as she reached for her own mail, still to be read and answered.

“No, you don’t,” Sophie said. “You’d break out in hives if somebody fussed over you.”

Anna ran her eyes over a letter written in an educated hand on very fine linen paper. “A referral,” she said. “From Dr. Tait.”

Sophie sat up a little straighter, and Anna went on. “A Mr. Drexel wants me to take over treatment of his wife when they arrive here from England.”

“That’s good news,” Sophie said.

“It might be,” Anna said. “If Dr. Tait remembered to tell him I’m female. He forgets that kind of thing, even if nobody else does.”

Sophie rested her cheek on a fist and struggled to contain a yawn. “If only they were all so unconcerned with gender.”

Anna would answer the inquiry, but she knew from experience what would happen: Mr. Drexel would first talk to his wife’s original physician at Women’s Hospital. Dr. Manderston would steer him back to Women’s Hospital and one of his male colleagues. Anna told herself it didn’t matter; her income was sufficient to her needs; she didn’t lack for patients, and never would. The male doctors at Women’s Hospital had little use for her or for Sophie or any of the other women who had studied medicine and taken up its practice, but most of them were conscientious physicians. If not especially insightful and dismissive of advances they themselves could take no credit for.

“I’ll never lack for work where I am,” Anna said. “I see us shuffling up and down the halls forty years from now, snapping at student nurses and torturing medical students.”

“What a lovely picture.” Sophie laughed. “But I hope there will be more to life than the New Amsterdam Charity Hospital.”

There was a small silence while they both thought of things that should be discussed. Cap, first and foremost, and what Sophie wanted for him. For them both. Anna shifted to look at her cousin more directly.

Sophie said, “Don’t, please. I don’t have any answers. I won’t have any until Cap makes a decision.”

“But your decision is made?”

“Of course,” Sophie said, almost irritably. “If he allows it, I’ll be with him until the end. Have you heard from the detective sergeant?”

“No,” Anna said.

“Not yet,” Sophie amended.

Anna didn’t want to think about Jack Mezzanotte because in truth, she didn’t know if she would see him again. On Sunday they had worked together toward a common goal, but the Russo children were her concern.

“He was helpful,” Anna agreed. “But he isn’t obligated to help. I’m not sure why he’d want to.”

“Ah,” said Sophie, and closed the subject with a grin she didn’t try to hide.

•   •   •

O
N
F
RIDAY
AT
breakfast it was Rosa who asked about the detective sergeants. The fact that she was comfortable enough to ask such a question was a good sign, and one Anna couldn’t ignore.

“Do you think the detective sergeants forgot us?”

She said, “It’s just been since Sunday. And no doubt they are very busy.”

“I thought they were going to help.”

Anna swallowed the last of her coffee and said, “If we don’t hear something today, then we will write a note to them this evening.”

Rosa gave a cautious and extremely doubtful nod.

•   •   •

O
VER
THE
COURSE
of the day Anna repeated to herself the things she had said to Rosa: the detective sergeant would be very busy. Jack Mezzanotte had already done them a great service by introducing her to Father Anselm; it was foolish to wait for the man or even to think about him. So severe was she with herself that for a moment she thought she must be imagining him when she left the hospital to find him waiting for her in the lobby.

He stood there completely at ease as people came and went around him, late afternoon light falling in narrow stripes so that his face was half in sun and half in shadow. But his smile was open, and it transformed his face; he was not a police officer, in that brief moment, but a man who was pleased by something he saw. And he was looking at her.

Beyond that odd fact, he looked exhausted. Anna reminded herself that it was not her place to notice such things about the man, and even less her place to instruct him on his sleeping habits. She returned his smile with one of her own.

“This is a surprise.” She saw some of the tension leave him, as if he hadn’t been sure of his reception.

“I was on nights most of this week, and things were busy.”

“Language lessons?”

He grinned at her. “Among other things. I found the father.”

The abrupt announcement made no sense to her at first. “Father?”

“Carmine Russo. It occurred to me it would be easier to find and claim the boys if we found the father first.”

It had never crossed her mind that one Italian immigrant among many thousands could be found. If it had, she wouldn’t have known where to start looking for him. Beyond that she was unsure of how to feel about Carmine Russo, who had abandoned his children.

She said, “Where is he, exactly?”

“On the island.”

She took a moment to think it through. Blackwell’s Island could mean only a few things and none of them good: he had been sentenced to the New York City Penitentiary or the workhouse, admitted to one of the hospitals for incurables, or committed to the almshouse or the insane asylum. And there was the smallpox hospital. All of that encompassed by those two words:
the island
.

The detective sergeant was saying, “He’s been sentenced to six months in the workhouse. For dissipation and disorderly conduct.”

A habitual drunk, then. “You’re sure?”

“The details fit, but I can’t be sure until I go talk to the man. You aren’t obliged, but I thought you might want to see for yourself. I have a prisoner to transport being held at the dock on the police boat, and a cab waiting.”

Anna dreaded the very idea, but if she balked at this first real challenge, what part of her promise to Rosa could she keep? The detective was watching her, his expression giving away nothing at all. He wouldn’t try to convince her, and that alone was enough to resolve the question in her own mind. The fact that her pulse had picked up was simply an inconvenient and regrettable biological response to a man, one she could resist. There were more important things at stake.

She turned and called to the porter, who had been watching the conversation from the other side of the room.

“Mr. Abernathy, would you be so kind as to send a message to Waverly Place? Tell them I went out on a call and may be a few hours at least.”

Mr. Abernathy had a frown that would stop most troublemakers in their tracks, and now he turned it on Detective Sergeant Mezzanotte.