Deadly (11 page)

I
n thinking
over the typhoid bacteria I saw in the microscope, I think perhaps our cook is made of something that isn't quite human, that doesn't respond to these tiny sickening cells. It's almost as sinister as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, this idea. Maybe that's why our cook doesn't want to come in for testing. She doesn't get sick and won't admit that she makes other people sick—she can't see what we're talking about at all.

I wish we could bring the microscope to her and show her what typhoid looks like. I wish we didn't have to stake her out like a criminal. Or corner her like an animal. It doesn't feel quite right to approach her this way.

I must trust that Mr. Soper knows what he is doing by trailing her. We still have not seen her come out of the mansion.

I think it'll be a relief to have a few days away from this case. We've been working with such focus, I simply cannot see clearly. Just three more days, and I'll be on my way to Anushka. I'm nervous about the trip, but I'm glad to go—I can't wait to see my best friend's smiling face.

I fear Mr. Soper will be spending the holiday alone—he speaks only of work, of Mary Mallon, and how to get her to submit to testing. When I asked him about his plans for Christmas, he shrugged my question away. From the notes, I can see he's been working late and on Sundays, trying to figure out if his theory is wrong in any way, if there is something we missed, some other way these families could've fallen ill. I believe he does not wish to encounter the woman's kitchen knife again if he doesn't have to. I think the incident embarrassed him as well as Mary, and we need to contact her more successfully next time.

There is so much to think over, so many things I don't know. I see Mr. Soper working on this case in my absence—what will he do if he has to face that cook alone? While I hope he does find her residence, I pray that no harm comes to him while I am gone.

I
hardly
know where to begin writing my impressions of Anushka's farm and the trip. It was such a whirlwind, I have not yet caught my breath nor collected my thoughts into any sort of coherent line. I did not realize how far Virginia was, nor the many different lands I'd be passing through. I arrived home yesterday, this morning, actually, after nearly ten hours in that bumpy, rocking locomotive, and still I feel the ground moving beneath me.

Tired as I am, I have to write, even a quick entry; there is so much I must record. To a large degree, the trip was nothing like what I expected. The amount of acreage her father owns—how striking that he was able to save enough money from the bookshop to buy such a piece of land. I keep thinking of the grandness of the farm, the distance I could see, endless ground covered in a white shawl of snow. I felt
my eyes stretching, looking for miles ahead of me to the horizon where earth meets sky. I have never looked so far in my life.

The house struck me so. It looked raw—walls and floors of big planks whitewashed clean, the railwood furniture, knots and grains left intact, the row of butter churns, the cast-iron range, big enough to feed the boys and all of their friends, and hers. Her parents busy, but with work that made them whistle. The warmth of the woodstove in the living room. The walk we took in the woods, the way we scared rabbits from their holes, and partridges—no, pea hens, she called them—and all of her beautiful animals, horses, lambs, chickens. I didn't realize the extent of her responsibilities, how much labor is involved in running a farm. And this not even planting season! Every moment is taken up—the feeding, cleaning, grooming, slaughtering, smoking, shoveling—I was awed by the muscles in her arms!

I have never tasted lamb so fresh; next to the herring I brought, the chops seemed to be practically walking. The potato pancakes her mother made, the onions her father jarred, the bread and honey—goodness, I think I have gained ten pounds in three days.

On my second afternoon with her, when we had finished
all her chores (I accompanied her, but was not obliged to work nearly as hard as her), Anushka took me to a nearby pond that had frozen over. She wouldn't say why—she still has that impish sense of mystery. When we got to the edge, suddenly she cried out, “Watch!” and ran onto the ice. Right before my eyes, she flopped onto her bottom and slid across the entire expanse of the pond, petticoats flying, bloomers exposed to the birds!

A shock of cold air caught in my throat, then I exploded into a great burst of laughter—I couldn't help it—she looked so very silly and daring at the same time. She ran over the ice back to me, her curls bouncing, her breath coming in heavy white puffs, and she dragged me out onto that pond with her. There was nobody else for miles around. We slipped and fell and skittered all around the frozen water until the day darkened. I have not laughed so much for nearly a year. It felt as if we had not skipped a single day in our togetherness, but rather picked up right where we had left each other.

But time
is
changing us, pulling us deeper into life without having each other to turn to. I felt like she needed me, but I couldn't pinpoint how or why. It was on the last day, when I met her friends Ida and Randall, and saw Anushka's relation to them, that I understood how she
holds her darker feelings inside now, how she guards them from me almost.

In her letters, and before we met them, Anushka didn't tell me of her friends' advanced ages. Ida is twenty-seven, Randall a man of thirty, which is nearly Mr. Soper's age. It was clear how she could love both those people—our conversation with them ranged far and wide. They were both so full of knowledge about the natural world, the way they named trees and celestial bodies, Randall's reading of clouds, Ida's firm way with the animals, they were both so easy with themselves, and each other. Randall's power and skill, his long, sensitive face and thick blond hair, are very alluring. I understand how Anushka could have a terrible mash on him. Ida's quick smile, and the deep way she listens when one speaks, has great charm as well. Their backgrounds are so different—Randall from wealthy Protestant stock, Ida a second-generational transplant from Lutheran Germany, and Anushka, the New York Russian Jew—but it was a sweet camaraderie.

Yet here is the difficulty: Those two friends of hers are in love with each other.

It's clear how impossible it's been for Anushka to state her feelings, to choose, as I'd been urging her. Randall is kind
to her. Ida's too wonderful to lose. But they have chosen each other. The pain Anushka must feel, my poor friend, the tear of the heart.

I do hope Anushka finds another beau, someone who can see how very darling she is.

T
hings went
awry in the office in my absence. I'm not sure I understand what happened. I must untie the knots of feeling in me, to see if I can uncover the truth of the situation.

Upon my return to work this morning, I placed the jar of blackberry preserves I brought from Anushka's farm onto Mr. Soper's desk and cleared my throat for the speech I had thought of on the train.

“Mr. Soper,” I said, “I just want to tell you that I'm grateful for this opportunity to work with you. I have always wanted to do something meaningful, and you have given me the very chance to do so. This job gives me a direction in my life that I might not otherwise have had. While I was away, I missed the office and our work and you—my employer—”

There my words faltered; the way Mr. Soper averted his gaze made me feel uncouth. My gift and admission seemed to affect my chief oddly—he said, “Hm, yes, well, thank you, but you weren't gone so long. I've spent many years alone.” He grabbed some notes and began to read, completely dismissing me and my speech.

I sat at my typewriter, my face aflame. I excused myself and headed for the lavatory, where I splashed a bit of water on my cheeks and loosened my shirtwaist at the neck.

When I returned, I began to type up the notes from the days I had missed. They were few, and simple. I saw that Mr. Soper had not gotten very much further with the case.

Later in the day, Mr. Soper straightened his cuffs and began to put on his jacket as if he were about to leave the office. He said, without meeting my eyes, “I think I have found a person who could show me where Mary Mallon lives.”

I had not seen this in his notes—such an important occurrence!

Still not looking at me, he said, “I caught sight of Mary while you were gone. She visited a place I want to return to this afternoon.”

I stood from my desk and quickly gathered up pencils and folio.

“Prudence, I want you to stay here, in the office, to catch up on work you missed,” he said.

I felt him strange and distant.

“Sir, I've finished most of my work and would have no trouble coming with you.”

He seemed to look at me as though he were evaluating my character.

He sighed and tapped his desk. “You may come,” he said. “But leave the folio in the office. I don't want to be obvious.”

We took a trolley north to 33rd Street, where we exited and walked east. My chief stopped just outside a saloon—a beat-up front called Donovan's with spittoons on the sidewalk, dank gaslights, and loud laughter and music emanating from its doors. Something about the place frightened me; I looked to Mr. Soper for explanation. He glanced at me—then he took a breath and said, “You're to stay close to me at all times, Prudence. Don't touch anything, don't speak to anyone, just stay near. Do you understand?”

I swallowed the grip of fear in my throat, and we went in. The stink of coal hit me, and the smell of food—sausage, pickle, sauerkraut, stew. On top of it all, the odor of bodies nearly made me choke. Every table was filled, a lunch crowd of gamblers and streetwalkers shoveling kraut and links from
hot bins into their plates, swigging from steins of brew. The clamor bewildered me. I recognized faces—cigar-smoking Officer O'Malley, for one, and Mr. Jackson, the smithy, drunkards both. The rest looked stale and ravenous, hedonist, with garish mouths and careless ways, a group as bad as those who hang out at the Poor Man's Retreat—old Five Points gang members now gone decrepit. With their ill-gotten money, they're worse than any of our neighborhood bums. I wished I had not agreed to go, but I wanted to find out our purpose. I held my breath and steadied myself with my hand on Mr. Soper's arm as he led me through that boisterous crowd.

He stopped at a table in the very back where sat an unshaven man with rummy eyes. The rummy looked at Mr. Soper and nodded. I moved behind my chief, fearful of the man, yet curious, as Mr. Soper seemed to know him.

My chief put several dollars on the table.

“Did you set up the meeting with Mary Mallon?” he asked.

A sick feeling sank in my stomach.

The dirty rummy slid the dollars off the table. “Aye,” he said.

A bribe! I had just watched my chief bribe a man.

I couldn't see Mr. Soper's face, but his shoulders curved
down, his head low to the table. For a moment, he didn't seem any different from the bums around him.

I looked left and right. What was I doing in this dank place? What were
we
doing there? Why had our search for Mary come to this? It was wrong, it was improper. It was immoral. I wanted to push the scene away, to deny that it was my honorable chief making such a lowly offering to such a dirty man, but there he was.

“Mary's comin' home Wednesday night,” the rummy snarled.

Mr. Soper set out another few dollars. “When should we come by?” he asked.

“Aye, we'll set it up for eight, we'd be eatin' around eight.”

That man took the bills and sold out his girl, just like a piece of chicken.

I followed Mr. Soper out of that saloon, all the way back to our office, and I could think of nothing to say. He did not offer an explanation; he did not even look at me. My mind rapidly tried to make up excuses for him, but none seemed right. What he had done was simply beyond my comprehension! Suddenly he seemed unpredictable to me, even questionable. A stranger. He had acted alone in the time I'd been gone—while making no notes in our common folio.

I feel I don't know what happened in our office while I was away. I wonder if Mr. Soper has done this sort of thing before and has not kept record of it—to protect himself? To hide?

How can I work in an office with a man who does such things? How can I trust that he will not lead me astray in some way?

I wish I could speak to Marm about this, but the act has so shamed me, I could not possibly do so. She would surely be upset.

She might even want me to leave the job.

O
n this last
night of the year, as I wait for Marm to return so we can attend the festivities, I feel as if a whole different girl is trying to emerge from me. Like I'm about to visit one of those cocoon tea parties, cloaked in dull gray. Inside, I will reveal a silver and pink gown, and win the prize as the most beautiful butterfly.