Deadly (12 page)

At work this evening, I watched Mr. Soper prepare for the planned meeting with Mary Mallon at her home. The lines on his face seemed deeply engraved, his darting eyes would not meet mine. We had not spoken about the incident with the rummy. I knew I could go with him, that Marm would not be waiting for me, but I expected he didn't want me to accompany him to Mary's home. As I watched him dress in wool overcoat and leather gloves, I thought of the rummy's wicked face, and Mary Mallon with her knife raised, and it
struck me: These are frightening people—foreign, dangerous even. If Mr. Soper went alone, something might happen to him, and no one would know about it. I felt my responsibility then. I stood; I didn't want to see him hurt, despite my reservations about him.

When I threw my cape over my shoulders and gathered my folio, he put up his hand to stop me.

“I will speak to Mary alone,” he said.

“Please, Mr. Soper, I believe I can be useful.”

“Not tonight, Prudence, I must go myself.”

“I'll wait outside then, in case there's an emergency,” I said.

He paused.

“She seems to be such an unpredictable woman, sir.”

I worried he'd continue the case without me, but I was convinced my presence might help him to stay a proper course. I wanted to make sure Mary would agree to come peacefully this time. I didn't like the misgivings I held toward my chief, but I wanted things to go well, for us to get some long-awaited answers.

He put on his bowler without further discussion, and I followed him out the door.

We made our way to the dark address the rummy had given us. Neither his name nor Mary's were on the downstairs
door of this ratty place, an uneven-floored tenement, worse than anything on our street, four stories of dirty tiles, print-smeared walls, halls barely lit. We went upstairs and pounded on 4D, as the rummy said, but only a dog answered with yip and howl. Mr. Soper banged and rapped, raising up a ruckus of furious barking, and finally the neighbor's door cracked open and a voice snarled, “Hang it up! They ain't home, they gone till Monday!” and the door snapped shut.

We both stared at it. I couldn't help but wonder at the inch of relief I felt.

“It's a circus!” Mr. Soper exclaimed. “This is the worst kind of human circus. I cannot believe, I simply cannot believe our luck with this woman!”

On the trolley downtown, he ground his fist into his bowler and muttered about making unsuccessful contracts with questionable people.

I could feel his anger like hot rays emanating from him. He bent the rim of his hat between his gloved hands. I glanced over and saw the muscles in his jaw twitching furiously. He sighed heavily through his nose.

We got off the trolley and he walked me to my door as it was late. When we faced each other to bid good night, I could see the pain he held in his eyes.

“This case is becoming—insufferable,” he said.

I nodded.

“They—Mary doesn't seem to understand the importance of it,” he said.

I shook my head.

“I want nothing more than for her to cooperate—appropriately,” he said.

I said, “Mr. Soper, I know that I've not worked for you very long, but I do believe that Mary Mallon is a most impossible person, and that it was very decent of you to try and give her a chance to come in for testing on her own. I know that you
will
find her, and that your theory
will
be proven.”

As I spoke, the anger dropped from his eyes. He gave me a most surprising look, one that penetrated through me, through my very cells, almost. It turned something in me, like a key.

“Prudence, your enthusiasm is perfectly contagious,” he said. “Continue with the good work.”

Before I could reply, he walked quickly to the corner and into the night. I came inside, though I have no appetite for the meal Marm left me. I sit at the table with this new sense, this
feeling
. I think of the timbre of his voice, the gentle way he said my name. I cannot tell what this burning in my chest is. It is sudden, and unexpected, like an Indian summer day,
and it contains ribbons of all colors, a rainbow fluttering up through me, shining out of my mouth and eyes, and around my head like a halo.

I am emerging, I'm afraid, like a butterfly, a shimmery bright thing coming into being.

A
new year.
Marm and I went to the festivities at Herald Square last night to celebrate. I stayed long enough to eat a fried pike and crack two fireworks, and to watch Marm's friend Mr. Silver give her a slim shell bracelet. Despite my hesitation, there is something about Mr. Silver's round features that makes me and Marm smile whenever we look at him. I feel myself warming to him, his presence in our lives thawing our hearts.

The streets were crowded with folks dancing and laughing, drinking and singing, their hats falling off, their cheeks red. I polkaed some with Uncle David, which made me feel lonely, that and watching all the lovers kiss at midnight. Marm and I went home shortly after and listened to the fireworks until sleep overtook us.

I will be seventeen this year. I think of my resolutions: to
read more books and study more of the sciences on my own. But how? Anushka's father had a treasury of books, those he retained from his store across the street. New science books are far too expensive to buy, and the library contains only musty copies of old textbooks and several difficult medical journals that I have attempted to read in the past, only to feel like I was studying Latin. If it weren't for the illuminating figures, I would understand nothing. Anushka suggested I ask that science fellow to help tutor me, but I'm not sure I wish to have such close relations with him. When by chance I see him in the hallway, he stops me with his eyes and winks. I wait for him to say something, an intelligent scrap that might interest me, but he sees me only as female and can't talk to me any other way, it seems. Very tiring. If only he worked as hard on his mind as he does on his polished appearance.

Anyhow, I know that eventually Mr. Soper can teach me all I need to know.

W
e finally
contended with the cook again tonight when she arrived home with her rummy. But I was not prepared for how Mr. Soper planned to speak to Mary. His actions confuse and disturb me—I don't know what to think of his behavior.

We watched them pull up in a carriage, get out, and hurry upstairs. Mr. Soper gave them time to settle in, and we proceeded after them. From the hall, we could smell meat frying; the smell got stronger as we ascended, and we could hear the cooking noises coming from their door. Mr. Soper and I exchanged glances—if she's cooking, she may have a weapon handy—but her nearness spurred us on.

He knocked, and stepped back. The dog yipped and scratched his nails on the door. When Mary called out, Mr.
Soper introduced us by name only, and said he simply wished to talk with her for a moment.

The door flew open, and she eyed us. She had a cooking fork in her hand. The little dog pushed his fluffy black head around her legs and growled at us.

“How'd you find me?” was her first question.

Mr. Soper paled; I could see the truth on his tongue, which he didn't want to tell. I felt myself holding my breath.

From inside, the rummy called out, “Who's it, darlin'?” and Mary turned to him, opening the door a little wider. The dog ran out and scratched at our feet, and the rummy saw us and blanched. He called the animal and they disappeared into the apartment, a bit of which I could see, a surprising chaos of rags and dirt, so different from the starched whiteness of her collar.

“Youse followed me here, didn't ye?” Mary said, entering the hall with us and closing the door behind her. She looked straight at me with disgust.

Mr. Soper said he thought she would appreciate speaking to him in the privacy of her own home, rather than at her place of work.

“A sneak, that's what you are,” Mary said. “Following me.”

The way she tapped the long cooking fork against the door frame gave me a rubbery feeling in my lower half.

“I really honestly do not mean to be sneaky, ma'am,” Mr. Soper replied gently. “I just wish to talk to you, to explain to you how important it is to take these tests we spoke of. If you had agreed in the first place—”

“You say I'm dirty—that's all I been hearin' since I got on Ellis Isle—the dirty Irish!” She pointed her fork as she ranted; her anger seemed to gain her a few inches in stature. “Dirty Irish, carryin' disease! Well, I'm sick of it, 'cause it ain't true. I wash me hands, always. I use the freshest goods, I never made anyone sick off me cooking—all's I ever do is nurse those people, and it ain't even my job! If I were so dirty, all of you wouldn't hire me in the first place, so be gone with your diseases and your tests!”

I was ready to leave right then, to find another way to convince her to come into the office, but Mr. Soper didn't give up so easily.

“I'm not accusing you of anything, ma'am,” he said, holding up his hand to Mary's fork. “I am a scientific man, and I go only by the sciences. And I believe that it is scientifically proven that a healthy person can possibly carry germs inside them, harmful germs that are invisible to them, but which
a test will prove exist. If only you'll come into the office, we can give you a simple test, and you'll be on your way,” he said.

“And who's in charge of these tests?” she asked, squinting at both of us in that dim hall.

“Well, the department will administer the test—”

“And they can say anythin' they damn well please, that's right, isn't it?”

“Of course not, Miss Mallon. They'll give an honest testing—”

“I don't see why you're after me, why you won't leave me alone! I never done nothing to nobody, I just want to work, so leave, leave me in peace!” she cried. She was becoming quite agitated, pointing her fork again.

“My God, woman, I have had enough!” Mr. Soper raised his voice at her, and I looked at his blotched face, astonished at the sudden change in him. He shouted, “You have forced me into it! I have a police guard waiting at the ready, and if you don't come with me right now, I will have them take you away like a criminal!”

“Police!” Mary shouted.

“Yes, police! You're sickening people! You are killing people with your cooking and you won't stop. You're a stubborn woman, and you've left me no choice!”

He came right out and accused her. Accused and insulted her. Threatened to have the police arrest her. Were they really downstairs waiting? Was this the way we were to treat her?

“You get the police,” she cried, “go on, you nosy bloodsucker. I done nothing wrong.” She raised the fork and shouted something I didn't understand, as Mr. Soper turned and pushed me ahead of him. The fork clattered over our heads as we ran down the stairs, and I could hear the crazed woman hollering above.

We reached the street, no policemen there, and Mr. Soper in such an agitation as I've never seen, his eyes unusually animated, his face such a ghostly white that I feared something might be wrong with him. I wondered about all the time he spent alone studying the case. First the bribe, now this lie about a police guard. Was it a lie, or did he have some plan he wasn't telling me? I felt useless, as if I hadn't been doing my job, hadn't been reading his notes. I had missed very important information. I spent the ride home abashed and fuming at myself, and at Mary, and at the confusion I felt again with this case. Mr. Soper had come straight out and called Mary a killer. Her words echoed in my ears—
dirty Irish
.

Is that what Mr. Soper thinks of her?

T
he whole thing
has become so bizarre and twisted, I hardly know where I fit in, or what my feelings are. I am shaken, unsure of my own feet on the ground, and that is all I know for certain. Maybe it was my desperation, my need to understand—I don't know—

After arriving home from Mary's, I couldn't sleep. I spent the night watching the moon rise and set, feeling very alone. I had to return to the office, I decided, and look through Mr. Soper's private notes, all the way back to the time when I visited Anushka, even before that, to see what I had missed. It was the only way I would understand Mr. Soper's unpredictable behavior, I thought.

I left a note for Marm and dressed before dawn, just as the first streetcars began running. I hurried through the cold up to 14th Street.

Our office building was unlocked; I thought the cleaners were already at work, and I entered. Instead of turning left toward our office, however, something made me stop. The laboratory. No one would be in there so early. A tickling started inside me, a curiosity as to how the room might appear without all those staring eyes. I turned right and walked to that great laboratory. I could see through the glass door that the globes were lit, but there wasn't a soul inside. I decided to go in, to explore further. I leaned on the first desk and touched the microscope with one finger. I closed my eyes and imagined what it might be like working in that room all day, studying our world from the inside out, and the feeling was glorious. At that moment, I felt so happy, as if I truly understood my purpose in life.