Brookland (73 page)

Tem drew herself taller and called out, “Anyone with a boat and nets, we would be greatly obliged if you'd help us.” She took a moment to collect her thoughts. “Anyone with a horse who would ride out toward Wall-about or Jamaica, or down toward Red Hook, we would also be thankful. Our own horses . . .” she said, and paused, listening for their anxious neighs, which echoed down from the ridge. “I believe Winship Gin's
horses are on the Ferry Road, and may be taken by anyone, if they are calm enough to ride.” People began to confer, and split off in groups to saddle their horses or retrieve their boats. Will Severn continued to lean on his knees and weep. Tem walked up to him and said quietly, “You will have Hell to pay, sir, if any ill has befallen my sister.”

He did not respond to her.

She turned to Prue. “We should go on a boat. I believe it the more likely means of finding her.”

Prue said, “I, too,” though it cost her some effort to admit it. She took Tem's elbow, and together they walked down to their landing to climb aboard one of the barges. Ben and Marcel came on, along with two of the distillery workers to row it. Before doing anything, Ben took Prue in his arms and held her close. Over her shoulder he said to Marcel, “We shall need a net.”

“I'll go borrow one from the dories on Butcher's Wharf,” he said, and set out running upriver.

Cornelis Luquer came down to the water and said, “Jens is going to alert my father. If she's in the water, that's where she'll end up. I'll take a horse and head east out the turnpike. Joe has volunteered to ride up to the Wallabout.” Prue saw Jens running past, down the dark Shore Road. Up on the hill, a crowd of boys were whistling and clicking their tongues as they tried to subdue the horses.

Someone—Isaiah, no doubt—had gone back to ring one of the warning bells, and it once more pealed out across the river, calm and clear. They had sent the engine home not half an hour before, and already they were calling for New York's help again. Ben said, “We need torches,” to someone on the strand, who ran off shouting, “Torches!” This struck Prue as sorely ironic, given what they'd all just witnessed. “She'll be fine,” Ben said into Prue's hair. “You'll see.”

Prue prayed he was correct, but was preoccupied with thoughts of Pearl setting the fire. How else could it have occurred? The distillery might have gone up in smoke at any time during its operation, but at night, when the fires were cool, it was safer than a house. Barring lightning, there seemed no way to set it ablaze without a tinderbox. And as for Joe's assertion, Prue thought Ezra Fischer had little reason to start a conflagration. He was still taken with Tem, and even had he been angered by her refusal, his business was in no imminent danger from the bridge. As
Prue stood on the gently rocking barge, however, thinking through Pearl's reasons for discontent, she found herself wondering why it had not occurred to her earlier how much Pearl might resent the bridge. She had devoted as much of herself to its planning as anyone, for the reward of a grimace of pity from Hendrik Stryker and a subsequent return to the house. Perhaps she had always hated the distillery; and if she had long known what Prue had done to her and kept the secret to herself, it would no doubt have festered.

Prue tried to talk herself away from this line of reasoning as Ben tried to coax her from what he must have thought was her sorrow and fear. But the longer she dwelt on the possibility, the surer she became in her conviction. Pearl had taken a cask, lit the rectifying house—as this was the building that mattered most to Prue—lit the bridge, and jumped or fallen into the river. They would find her washed up in the Luquers' trash rack—exactly as their father had been found, but well pummeled by the bridge's debris.

Marcel returned with a torch in his good hand and a fishing net slung over his other arm. Prue stepped clear of Ben's embrace as Marcel climbed aboard and told her, “Everyone is coming. We shall all form a line, and begin to drag as soon as possible.”

Tem was pacing the length of the barge. Ben said to her, “Don't worry, we shall find her,” but she did not seem at all appeased.

Losee's ferryboat, manned by a stranger, was working its way across the river to enlist the New York fishermen's aid; and meanwhile, everyone from Red Hook to the Old Ferry who owned a rowboat was pulling it down off the docks while a companion held a torch aloft. Some of the Cortelyou boys commandeered Joe's fishing boat, which he'd built for sport and which one hardly ever saw on the water. Prue sat down on the barge's gunwale and watched the smoke clear and boats begin to assemble in a ragged line stretching all the way across the river. It made a far less elegant span than did what was left of the bridge, but as it drifted and broke, it was beautiful all the same.

Prue had never been out on the river at night, and was surprised at the gentleness of its motion. It hardly resembled the bustling daytime river; it was calm and black except for the uneven line of flickering torches stretched like a string of beads to its far shore. Prue could hear every word her neighbors spoke—about the fire, and about the likelihood of
Pearl being found in the river and not in an inn somewhere down the Jamaica road. Then the pilot of the final boat to join the New York side of the line hollered for the dredging to begin. Tem and Prue crouched together at the starboard side of their barge and gripped their net. Rachael Livingston held its other end, and Prue watched her across the six feet of water separating them. She thought Rachael was looking at her kindly for the first time in her life.

The scores of oarsmen began to row Tem retched over the water.

They had traveled no more than a few minutes before a piece of the bridge's flotsam lodged in a net halfway down the line. Everyone stopped, tense with fear and excitement, until it was drawn in and the trapped wood cast into the water upriver, where it would no doubt knock continually on someone's stern. After the terrible heat of the fire, the cold of the river breeze bit at Prue's fingers and face. A great bass next held up their progress at the New York end; after that, some men drew up a broken lobster trap. At this rate, Prue imagined if her sister had hit the water living, there was no possibility she would still breathe when they found her. Seemingly inch by inch they progressed southward toward Upper New York Bay; and if they did not find her before they reached that open expanse, they would not do so until she washed up, bloated past recognition, eaten by crabs and invaded by eels.

Prue did not realize how spent she was until she found herself staring off in the distance for the spirit canoe. She knew it to be a figment of her own imagination, but she almost expected to see its vaporous form sliding silently toward land. Pearl would ride in the bow, her gray dress black with salt water, her wet hair sticking to her shoulders like kelp. The horrible sliver of boat would appear and publish Prue's shame for the delectation of all her neighbors. But of course, this had already happened; there could be no more dark secrets her neighbors did not know. Prue thought no night could be longer than one spent waiting for news of a beloved person. Neither the spirit boat nor Pearl appeared.

They were still out on the river when dawn broke over Brooklyn's rooftops. The light was pink as springtime in the flat, overcast sky, and empty of consolation. Many of those out on the river had not bothered to grab their coats before heading out to the blaze, and now they were shaking with cold. Tem's lips were blue. Even in Pearl's tight-fitting coat, Prue felt her boots and cuffs were frozen, and each time she thought she
might be able to control her shivering, a new paroxysm seized her. Marcel kept freeing his maimed hand from the torch to stretch its remaining fingers.

“Does it pain you?” Prue asked him.

“When it's cold,” he replied. “De Bouton says it should mend within a year or two.”

Whenever the line of boats halted for someone's cry, Prue feared to look toward their nets, so clearly could she imagine Pearl's appearance, drowned. The nets continued to bring up fish and detritus, and the boats continued to move slowly, blocking all traffic. The captains of the few ships waiting in the bay must have known what they were doing, and Prue hoped they were praying for her sister's safe return.

Buttermilk Channel emptied into the bay just past the Luquer Mill and the tannery, and Prue understood their hopes of finding Pearl would be dashed if they did not turn her up before reaching it. No one dredged a bay.

As the snaking line approached the mill, Prue saw old Nicolaas Luquer standing atop the small, pitched roof protecting his trash rack from airborne debris. The blackened shards of timber that had fallen from the bridge had already been dragged up to shore. One of Nicolaas's feet rested on each slope of the roof, and he faced the boats with his arms folded across his chest and his mouth hanging open. Prue had the impression he was looking straight at her, but he was far enough off, she could not say. His daughter Eelkje, three boats down, called “Father?” and the river, against its habit, was so quiet, her voice resounded off the buildings of the mill and farm.

Only after his daughter had called out to him could Prue see Nicolaas was crying; that was why his mouth hung open. Prue began to shake anew. Tem, still crouched on the deck of the barge, said quietly, “No, no, no,” exactly as she had done when their father's body had come up in the wagon. She began patting about the bare, moldy planks as if she'd lost something.

Ben wrapped his arms around Prue from behind. He was as damp and chill as she.

Their end of the net slipped into the water, and Rachael Livingston hurried to gather it up. Prue almost wanted to jump in after it and drown, rather than see what she was about to see.

“Father, did you find her?” Eelkje called as they drew nearer.

Nicolaas's mouth still hung open, revealing his tongue and teeth. Prue expected his “yes” or a nod of his head so completely that at first she could not discern that he was shaking his head no. Once she saw, she disbelieved it.

“You didn't find her?” Eelkje said. They were no more than twenty feet from the small roof.

Nicolaas shook his head more forcefully and continued to cry.

The oarsmen drew Prue's barge up to bump against the trash rack, and it came to a halt. Prue's whole body shook as Nicolaas awkwardly crouched down.

Prue saw Pearl's chain dangling limply from his fist, and when he opened his hand, her notecase was nestled inside, its pages so bloated, those that had not torn away were soft and open as a fan made of feathers. Prue recognized it, yet her mind would not apprehend its import, and she stared at it blankly. Someone nearby began to scream, and it took Prue a moment to realize the voice she heard was her own. As soon as she did, she stopped and stood with her hand over her mouth, shaking and crying. Ben, still behind her, held on to her, and Tem walked unsteadily across the deck to take the ruined book from Nicolaas's hand.

The men drew the barge closer in to shore and unloaded Tem, Ben, and Prue onto the strand. Nicolaas stepped from the trash rack to the ground and placed a hand on Ben's shoulder. The men rowed the barge closer to the next one, and Rachael Livingston tossed one end of her net back to Marcel. “We'll keep going, out to the mouth of the bay,” Marcel said to Ben.

Ben said, “Thank you.”

Mrs. Luquer was walking down the path, wringing her hands. Prue did not feel herself capable of bearing one more person's grief; it was enough to look after her own. The flotilla set off southward, its pace slow as before. Prue kept turning to watch it over her shoulder as Ben led her up the hill to the Luquers' warm house.

Once they were inside, Mrs. Luquer brought them dry clothing and fed them lentils and hot sweet tea. Neither Prue nor Tem could stop crying, but they were so hungry and cold, they spooned food into their mouths whenever they could quit weeping long enough to do so. When they once caught a glimpse of each other, looking as sorry as either of
them ever had, they could not help laughing despite everything. Before the meal was through, Prue noticed her sister's lips had returned to their ordinary color; and the moment they had cleaned their plates, Mrs. Luquer led them up to the one large room all her children shared, and they lay down on various beds. Prue had not even stretched her body out before she fell asleep. She awoke in a ball in the early afternoon to find Ben and Tem still sleeping, the dull sky unchanged, and no news of Pearl downstairs, except that the boats had ceased their search when they'd reached the mouth of the bay. Most of the riders had returned to Brooklyn for news and, hearing of the notebook, had not gone back out to search again.

Nicolaas Luquer drove them home in his wagon, as if they were a load of malted grain to be alchemized to gin. As his bandy-legged horses clopped up the Shore Road, Prue thought once more of the day her father had died, and of all the times she had made this journey in his company. The familiar houses and wharves looked different beneath the shadow of a life-rending misery. Nicolaas kept leaning toward them, offering hope that although Pearl had not been found, she might yet live; but Prue saw Ben did not believe this.

Isaiah had left word with Abiah asking them to find him at the distillery when they returned. Abiah had been weeping alone in the house all day, and fell onto Prue's shoulder the moment she saw Pearl's waterlogged book hanging from her hand. Prue held her to console her but could no longer cry herself.

“You should both continue to rest,” Ben said, brushing his hair back from his brow as if what troubled him were only a headache. “I can go to my brother.”

“No,” Tem said.

Prue echoed her. “We need to see what damage has been done, and set the men repairing it.”

“I'm sure Isaiah has done so already.”

“I need to see it with my own eyes,” Prue said quietly.

He nodded his understanding.

Oh, this is grief
, Prue thought as she walked down the lane to the distillery—this soft December afternoon, overcast and mild. She had thought her heart could not bear one more hardship when her mother had died, and again when she'd lost her father; losing the promise of an infant had
seemed the greatest imaginable sadness, but losing Susannah had proven how thoroughly she'd misunderstood. This emptiness, in its turn, showed her truly what emptiness was. She knew no better than anyone where the dead resided—and reflected she knew much less well than Will Severn. His faith in Heaven was solid as an old Dutch house, while hers blew in the breeze as if it were the trailing leaves of a willow. But even Prue's scant knowledge of the Other Side sufficed to show her the dead were dead, their bodies safe in the churchyard and their souls safe who knew where. But who could say where Pearl had gone? Most likely, she had drowned, and would wash up soon in Upper or Lower New York Bay. Until she did, the possibility remained she was alive. Prue felt Pearl's absence keenly, but could not bring herself to mourn for her until she knew without question what had become of her. This was its own rare grief—to lament her sister so utterly, and yet to hold out to herself the prospect of Pearl's safe return.