Текст книги "Orphan Train"

Автор книги: Christina Baker Kline

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

New York Central Train, 1929

As the hours pass I get used to the motion of the train, the heavy wheels clacking in their grooves, the industrial hum under my seat. Dusk softens the sharp points of trees outside my window; the sky slowly darkens, then blackens around an orb of moon. Hours later, a faint blue tinge yields to the soft pastels of dawn, and soon enough sun is streaming in, the stop-start rhythm of the train making it all feel like still photography, thousands of images that taken together create a scene in motion.

We pass the time looking out at the evolving landscape, talking, playing games. Mrs. Scatcherd has a checkers set and a bible, and I thumb through it, looking for Psalm 121, Mam’s favorite: I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth . . .

I’m one of few children on the train who can read. Mam taught me all my letters years ago, in Ireland, then taught me how to spell. When we got to New York, she’d make me read to her, anything with words on it—crates and bottles I found in the street.

“Donner brand car-bonated bev—”

“Beverage.”

“Beverage. LemonKist soda. Artifickle—”

“Artificial. The ‘c’ sounds like ‘s.’”

“Artificial color. Kitric—citric acid added.”

“Good.”

When I became more proficient, Mam went into the shabby trunk beside her bed and brought out a hardback book of poems, blue with gold trim. Francis Fahy was a Kinvara poet born into a family of seventeen children. At fifteen he became an assistant teacher at the local boys’ school before heading off to England (like every other Irish poet, Mam said), where he mingled with the likes of Yeats and Shaw. She would turn the pages carefully, running her finger over the black lines on flimsy paper, mouthing the words to herself, until she found the one she wanted.

“‘Galway Bay,’” she would say. “My favorite. Read it to me.”

And so I did:

         Had I youth’s blood and hopeful mood and heart of fire once more,

         For all the gold the world might hold I’d never quit your shore,

         I’d live content whate’er God sent with neighbours old and gray,

         And lay my bones ’neath churchyard stones, beside you, Galway Bay.

Once I looked up from a halting and botched rendition to see two lines of tears rivuleting Mam’s cheeks. “Jesus Mary and Joseph,” she said. “We should never have left that place.”

Sometimes, on the train, we sing. Mr. Curran taught us a song before we left that he stands to lead us in at least once a day:

From the city’s gloom to the country’s bloom

Where the fragrant breezes sigh

From the city’s blight to the greenwood bright

Like the birds of summer fly

O Children, dear Children

Young, happy, pure . . .

We stop at a depot for sandwich fixings and fresh fruit and milk, but only Mr. Curran gets off. I can see him outside my window in his white wingtips, talking to farmers on the platform. One holds a basket of apples, one a sack full of bread. A man in a black apron reaches into a box and unwraps a package of brown paper to reveal a thick yellow slab of cheese, and my stomach rumbles. They haven’t fed us much, some crusts of bread and milk and an apple each in the past twenty-four hours, and I don’t know if it’s because they’re afraid of running out or if they think it’s for our moral good.

Mrs. Scatcherd strides up and down the aisle, letting two groups of children at a time get up to stretch while the train is still. “Shake each leg,” she instructs. “Good for the circulation.” The younger children are restless, and the older boys stir up trouble in small ways, wherever they can find it. I want nothing to do with these boys, who seem as feral as a pack of dogs. Our landlord, Mr. Kaminski, called boys like these “street Arabs,” lawless vagrants who travel in gangs, pickpockets and worse.

When the train pulls out of the station, one of these boys lights a match, invoking the wrath of Mr. Curran, who boxes him about the head and shouts, for the whole car to hear, that he’s a worthless good-for-nothing clod of dirt on God’s green earth and will never amount to anything. This outburst does little but boost the boy’s status in the eyes of his friends, who take to devising ingenious ways to irritate Mr. Curran without giving themselves away. Paper airplanes, loud belches, high-pitched, ghostly moans followed by stifled giggles—it drives Mr. Curran mad that he cannot pick out one boy to punish for all this. But what can he do, short of kicking them all out at the next stop? Which he actually threatens, finally, looming in the aisle above the seats of two particularly rowdy boys, only to prompt the bigger one’s retort that he’ll be happy to make his way on his own, has done it for years with no great harm, you can shine shoes in any city in America, he’ll wager, and it’s probably a hell of a lot better than being sent to live in a barn with animals, eating only pig slops, or getting carried off by Indians.

Children murmur in their seats. What’d he say?

Mr. Curran looks around uneasily. “You’re scaring a whole car full of kids. Happy now?” he says.

“It’s true, ain’t it?”

“Of course it ain’t—isn’t—true. Kids, settle down.”

“I hear we’ll be sold at auction to the highest bidder,” another boy stage-whispers.

The car grows silent. Mrs. Scatcherd stands up, wearing her usual thin-lipped scowl and broad-brimmed bonnet. She is far more imposing, in her heavy black cloak and flashing steel-rimmed glasses, than Mr. Curran could ever be. “I have heard enough,” she says in a shrill voice. “I am tempted to throw the whole lot of you off this train. But that would not be”—she looks around at us slowly, dwelling on each somber face—“Christian. Would it? Mr. Curran and I are here to escort you to a better life. Any suggestion to the contrary is ignorant and outrageous. It is our fervent hope that each of you will find a path out of the depravity of your early lives, and with firm guidance and hard work transform into respectable citizens who can pull your weight in society. Now. I am not so naive as to believe that this will be the case for all.” She casts a withering look at a blond-haired older boy, one of the troublemakers. “But I am hopeful that most of you will view this as an opportunity. Perhaps the only chance you will ever get to make something of yourselves.” She adjusts the cape around her shoulders. “Mr. Curran, maybe the young man who spoke to you so impudently should be moved to a seat where his dubious charms will not be so enthusiastically embraced.” She lifts her chin, peering out from her bonnet like a turtle from its shell. “Ah—there’s a space beside Niamh,” she says, pointing a crooked finger in my direction. “With the added bonus of a squirming toddler.”

My skin prickles. Oh no. But I can see that Mrs. Scatcherd is in no mood to reconsider. So I slide as close as I can to the window and set Carmine and his blanket next to me, in the middle of the seat.

Several rows ahead, on the other side of the aisle, the boy stands, sighs loudly, and pulls his bright-blue flannel cap down hard on his head. He makes a production of getting out of his seat, then drags his feet up the aisle like a condemned man approaching a noose. When he gets to my row, he squints at me, then at Carmine, and makes a face at his friends. “This should be fun,” he says loudly.

“You will not speak, young sir,” Mrs. Scatcherd trills. “You will sit down and behave like a gentleman.”

He flings himself into his seat, his legs in the aisle, then takes his cap off and slaps it against the seat in front of us, raising a small cloud of dust. The kids in that seat turn around and stare. “Man,” he mutters, not really to anybody, “what an old goat.” He holds his finger out to Carmine, who studies it and looks at his face. The boy wiggles his finger and Carmine buries his head in my lap.

“Don’t get you nowhere being shy,” the boy says. He looks over at me, his gaze loitering on my face and body in a way that makes me blush. He has straight sandy hair and pale blue eyes and is twelve or thirteen, from what I can tell, though his manner seems older. “A redhead. That’s worse than a bootblack. Who’s gonna want you?”

I feel the sting of truth in his words, but I lift my chin. “At least I’m not a criminal.”

He laughs. “That’s what I am, am I?”

“You tell me.”

“Would you believe me?”

“Probably not.”

“No point then, is there.”

I do not respond and we three sit in silence, Carmine awed into stillness by the boy’s presence. I look out at the severe and lonely landscape drifting past the window. It’s been raining off and on all day. Gray clouds hang low in a watery sky.

“They took my kit from me,” the boy says after a while.

I turn to look at him. “What?”

“My bootblack kit. All my paste and brushes. How do they expect me to make a living?”

“They don’t. They’re going to find you a family.”

“Ah, that’s right,” he says with a dry laugh. “A ma to tuck me in at night and a pa to teach me a trade. I don’t see it working out like that. Do you?”

“I don’t know. Haven’t thought about it,” I say, though of course I have. I’ve gleaned bits and pieces: that babies are the first to be chosen, then older boys, prized by farmers for their strong bones and muscles. Last to go are girls like me, too old to be turned into ladies, too young to be serious help around the house, not much use in the field. If we’re not chosen, we get sent back to the orphanage. “Anyway, what can we do about it?”

Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a penny. He rolls it across his fingers, holds it between thumb and forefinger and touches it to Carmine’s nose, then clasps it in his closed fist. When he opens his hand, the penny isn’t there. He reaches behind Carmine’s ear, and—“Presto,” he says, handing him the penny.

Carmine gazes at it, astonished.

“You can put up with it,” the boy says. “Or you can run away. Or maybe you’ll get lucky and live happily ever after. Only the good Lord knows what’s going to happen, and He ain’t telling.”

Union Station, Chicago, 1929

We become an odd little family, the boy—real name Hans, I learn, called Dutchy on the street—and Carmine and I in our three-seat abode. Dutchy tells me he was born in New York to German parents, that his mother died of pneumonia and his father sent him out on the streets to earn money as a bootblack, beating him with a belt if he didn’t bring enough in. So one day he stopped going home. He fell in with a group of boys who slept on any convenient step or sidewalk during the summer, and in the winter months in barrels and doorways, in discarded boxes on iron gratings on the margin of Printing House Square, warm air and steam rising from the engines beneath. He taught himself piano by ear in the back room of a speakeasy, plunked out tunes at night for drunken patrons, saw things no twelve-year-old should see. The boys tried to look after one another, though if one got sick or maimed—catching pneumonia or falling off a streetcar or under the wheels of a truck—there wasn’t much any of them could do.

A few kids from Dutchy’s gang are on the train with us—he points out Slobbery Jack, who has a habit of spilling on himself, and Whitey, a boy with translucent skin. They were lured off the street with the promise of a hot meal, and here’s where they ended up.

“What about the hot meal? Did you get it?”

“Did we ever. Roast beef and potatoes. And a clean bed. But I don’t trust it. I wager they’re paid by the head, the way Indians take scalps.”

“It’s charity,” I say. “Didn’t you hear what Mrs. Scatcherd said? It’s their Christian duty.”

“All I know is nobody ever did nothing for me out of Christian duty. I call tell by the way they’re talking I’m going to end up worked to the bone and not see a dime for it. You’re a girl. You might be all right, baking pies in the kitchen or taking care of a baby.” He squints at me. “Except for the red hair and freckles, you look okay. You’ll be fine and dandy sitting at the table with a napkin on your lap. Not me. I’m too old to be taught manners, or to follow somebody else’s rules. The only thing I’m good for is hard labor. Same with all of us newsies and peddlers and bill posters and bootblacks.” He nods toward one boy after another in the car.

ON THE THIRD DAY WE CROSS THE ILLINOIS STATE LINE. NEAR CHICAGO, Mrs. Scatcherd stands for another lecture. “In a few minutes we will arrive at Union Station, whereupon we will switch trains for the next portion of our journey,” she tells us. “If it were up to me, I’d send you in a straight line right across the platform to the other train, without a minute’s worry that you’ll get yourselves into trouble. But we are not allowed to board for half an hour. Young men, you will wear your suit coats, and young ladies must put on your pinafores. Careful not to muss them now.

“Chicago is a proud and noble city, on the edge of a great lake. The lake makes it windy, hence its appellation: the Windy City. You will bring your suitcases, of course, and your wool blanket to wrap yourself in, as we will be on the platform for at least an hour.

“The good citizens of Chicago no doubt view you as ruffians, thieves, and beggars, hopeless sinners who have not a chance in the world of being redeemed. They are justifiably suspicious of your character. Your task is to prove them wrong—to behave with impeccable manners, and comport yourselves like the model citizens the Children’s Aid Society believes you can become.”

THE WIND ON THE PLATFORM RUSHES THROUGH MY DRESS. I WRAP my blanket tight around my shoulders, keeping a close eye on Carmine as he staggers around, seemingly oblivious to the cold. He wants to know the names of everything: Train. Wheel. Mrs. Scatcherd, frowning at the conductor. Mr. Curran, poring over papers with a station agent. Lights—which to Carmine’s amazement turn on while he’s gazing at them, as if by magic.

Contrary to Mrs. Scatcherd’s expectations—or perhaps in response to her rebuke—we are a quiet lot, even the older boys. We huddle together, complacent as cattle, stamping our feet to stay warm.

Except for Dutchy. Where did he go?

“Psst. Niamh.”

When I hear my name, I turn to glimpse his blond hair in a stairwell. Then he’s gone. I look over at the adults, occupied with plans and forms. A large rat scurries along the far brick wall, and as the rest of the children point and shriek I scoop up Carmine, leaving our small pile of suitcases, and slip behind a pillar and a pile of wooden crates.

In the stairwell, out of sight of the platform, Dutchy leans against a curved wall. When he sees me, he turns without expression and bounds up the stairs, vanishing around a corner. With a glance behind, and seeing no one, I hold Carmine close and follow him, keeping my eyes on the wide steps so I don’t fall. Carmine tilts his head up and leans back in my arms, floppy as a sack of rice. “Yite,” he murmurs, pointing. My gaze follows his chubby finger to what I realize is the enormous, barrel-vaulted ceiling of the train station, laced with skylights.

We step into the huge terminal, filled with people of all shapes and colors—wealthy women in furs trailed by servants, men in top hats and morning coats, shop girls in bright dresses. It’s too much to take in all at once—statuary and columns, balconies and staircases, oversized wooden benches. Dutchy is standing in the middle, looking up at the sky through that glass ceiling, and then he takes off his cap and flings it into the air. Carmine struggles to free himself, and as soon as I set him down he races toward Dutchy and grabs his legs. Dutchy reaches down and hoists him on his shoulders, and as I get close I hear him say, “Put your arms out, little man, and I’ll spin you.” He clasps Carmine’s legs and twirls, Carmine stretching out his arms and throwing his head back, gazing up at the skylights, shrieking with glee as they turn, and in that moment, for the first time since the fire, my worries are gone. I feel a joy so strong it’s almost painful—a knife’s edge of joy.

And then a whistle pierces the air. Three policemen in dark uniforms rush toward Dutchy with their sticks drawn, and everything happens too fast: I see Mrs. Scatcherd at the top of the stairwell pointing her crow wing, Mr. Curran running in those ridiculous white shoes, Carmine clutching Dutchy’s neck in terror as a fat policeman shouts, “Get down!” My arm is wrenched behind my back and a man spits in my ear, “Trying to get away, were yeh?” his breath like licorice. It’s hopeless to respond, so I keep my mouth shut as he forces me to my knees.

A hush falls over the cavernous hall. Out of the corner of my eye I see Dutchy on the floor, under a policeman’s truncheon. Carmine is howling, his cries puncturing the stillness, and every time Dutchy moves, he gets jammed in the side. Then he’s in handcuffs and the fat policeman yanks him to his feet, pushing him roughly so he stumbles forward, tripping over his feet.

In this moment I know that he’s been in scrapes like this before. His face is blank; he doesn’t even protest. I can tell what the bystanders think: he’s a common criminal; he’s broken the law, likely more than one. The police are protecting the good citizens of Chicago, and thank God for them.

The fat policeman drags Dutchy over to Mrs. Scatcherd, and Licorice Breath, following his lead, yanks me roughly by the arm.

Mrs. Scatcherd looks as if she’s bitten into a lime. Her lips are puckered in a quivering O, and she appears to be trembling. “I placed this young man with you,” she says to me in a terrible quiet voice, “in the hopes that you might provide a civilizing influence. It appears that I was gravely mistaken.”

My mind is racing. If only I can convince her that he means no harm. “No, ma’am, I—”

“Do not interrupt.”

I look down.

“So what do you have to say for yourself ?”

I know that nothing I can say will change her opinion of me. And in that realization I feel oddly free. The most I can hope for is to keep Dutchy from being sent back to the streets.

“It’s my fault,” I say. “I asked Dutchy—I mean Hans—to escort me and the baby up the stairs.” I look over at Carmine, trying to squirm out of the arms of the policeman holding him. “I thought . . . maybe we could get a glimpse of that lake. I thought the baby would like to see it.”

Mrs. Scatcherd glares at me. Dutchy looks at me with surprise. Carmine says, “Yake?”

“And then—Carmine saw the lights.” I point up and look at Carmine, and he throws his head back and shouts, “Yite!”

The policemen aren’t sure what to do. Licorice Breath lets go of my arm, apparently persuaded that I’m not going to flee.

Mr. Curran glances at Mrs. Scatcherd, whose expression has ever so slightly softened.

“You are a foolish and headstrong girl,” she says, but her voice has lost its edge, and I can tell she’s not as angry as she wants to appear. “You flouted my instructions to stay on the platform. You put the entire group of children at risk, and you have disgraced yourself. Worse, you have disgraced me. And Mr. Curran,” she adds, turning toward him. He winces, as if to say Leave me out of it. “But this is not, I suppose, a matter for the police. A civil, not a legal, matter,” she clarifies.

The fat policeman makes a show of unlocking Dutchy’s handcuffs and clipping them to his belt. “Sure you don’t want us to take him in, ma’am?”

“Thank you, sir, but Mr. Curran and I will devise a sufficient punishment.”

“As you say.” He touches the brim of his cap, backs away, and turns on his heels.

“Make no mistake,” Mrs. Scatcherd says gravely, staring down her nose at us. “You will be punished.”

MRS. SCATCHERD RAPS DUTCHY’S KNUCKLES SEVERAL TIMES WITH a long wooden ruler, though it seems to me a halfhearted penalty. He barely winces, then shakes his hands twice in the air and winks at me. Truly, there isn’t much more she can do. Stripped of family and identity, fed meager rations, consigned to hard wooden seats until we are to be, as Slobbery Jack suggested, sold into slavery—our mere existence is punishment enough. Though she threatens to separate the three of us, in the end she leaves us together—not wanting to infect the others with Dutchy’s delinquency, she says, and apparently having decided that taking care of Carmine would’ve extended my punishment to her. She tells us not to speak to or even look at each other. “If I hear as much as a murmur, so help me . . .” she says, the threat losing air over our heads like a pricked balloon.

By the time we leave Chicago, it is evening. Carmine sits on my lap with his hands on the window, face pressed against the glass, gazing out at the streets and buildings, all lit up. “Yite,” he says softly as the city recedes into the distance. I look out the window with him. Soon all is dark; it’s impossible to tell where land ends and the sky begins.

“Get a good night’s rest,” Mrs. Scatcherd calls from the front of the car. “In the morning you will need to be at your very best. It is vital that you make a good impression. Your drowsiness might well be construed as laziness.”

“What if nobody wants me?” one boy asks, and the entire car seems to hold its breath. It is the question on everyone’s mind, the question none of us are sure we want the answer to.

Mrs. Scatcherd looks down at Mr. Curran as if she’s been waiting for this. “If it happens that you are not chosen at the first stop, you will have several additional opportunities. I cannot think of an instance . . .” She pauses and purses her lips. “It is uncommon for a child to be with us on the return trip to New York.”

“Pardon me, ma’am,” a girl near the front says. “What if I don’t want to go with the people who choose me?”

“What if they beat us?” a boy cries out.

“Children!” Mrs. Scatcherd’s small glasses flash as she turns her head from side to side. “I will not have you interrupting!” She seems poised to sit down without addressing these questions, but then changes her mind. “I will say this: There is no accounting for taste and personalities. Some parents are looking for a healthy boy to work on the farm—as we all know, hard work is good for children, and you would be lucky to be placed with a God-fearing farm family, all you boys—and some people want babies. People sometimes think they want one thing, but later change their minds. Though we dearly hope all of you will find the right homes at the first stop, it doesn’t always work that way. So in addition to being respectable and polite, you must also keep your faith in God to guide you forward if the way is not clear. Whether your journey is long or short, He will help you as long as you place your trust in Him.”

I look over at Dutchy, and he looks back at me. Mrs. Scatcherd knows as little as we do about whether we’ll be chosen by people who will treat us with kindness. We are headed toward the unknown, and we have no choice but to sit quietly in our hard seats and let ourselves be taken there.