Pinkerton's Sister (15 page)

The parasols were grasped with grim determination, as if they were stakes about to be hammered through the hearts of a whole vault full of vampires. After the stakes through the hearts came the beheadings. There’d be no problem finding the garlic —
Phew!, Fah!, Faugh!, Teuch!
: all the exclamatory sounds of disgust — to stuff in the mouths of the severed heads with all this French around.

They held their parasols before them like Crusaders brandishing crosses in the faces of the infidels. They would valiant be ’gainst all disaster, get in a few good whacks, and go down fighting against the rising tide of — the italics sprang back into action —
filth
.

The troops of Midian were upon them.

They were prowling and prowling around.

They would strive.

They would tempt.

They would lure.

They would goad into sin.

Onward, Mrs. Albert Comstock!

Ever onward, Mrs. Goodchild!

Get prodding with those parasols!

Fight the good fight with all thy might!

Faint not nor fear!

Dr. Wolcott Ascharm Webster moved first. Gazelle-like, he leaped from his position outside the Manhattan & Brooklyn Bank, lingering for a shy moment, as if to allow the Ethel model to display the suppleness for which it was universally noted and respected by the discriminating, and then began to skip out across the street. With a coy grace, G. G. Schiffendecken, like an object drawn to its reflection, moved toward Dr. Wolcott Ascharm Webster, and Dr. Wolcott Ascharm Webster moved toward him.

They met, like creatures mating, in the middle of the street, G. G. Schiffendecken leaping high into the air, spinning around twice — the swinging garters making a sound like a child’s paper windmill spinning — and landing with perfect aplomb in Dr. Wolcott Ascharm Webster’s confidently upraised hands, to lie calmly on his side like someone reclining on a
chaise longue
in the comfort and privacy of his own home. Dr. Wolcott Ascharm Webster, legs slightly apart, was braced to hold him, and Carlotta rotated slowly and then with increasing speed, above Ethel, until G. G. Schiffendecken was just a blur, his spectacles a continuous gleam on the periphery, and the sound of the paper windmill became an insistent rattle, a child running a stick along metal railings. War veterans flung themselves earthward — a loud
WHOOP!
from Dr. Brown — in a well-trained automatic response to its machine-gun rat-a-tat-tatting, but this temporary distraction did not break G. G. Schiffendecken’s concentration. His voice — rather breathless — could be heard in bursts as he spun around.

“I would …”

—
Gasp! —

“… recommend Carlotta to anyone. I love …”

—
Gasp!
—

“… to feel her …”

— (
her!
) —

“… silky sheerness against …”

—
Gasp! —

“… my skin.”

The Misses Isserliss (saying their names correctly three times in rapid succession was generally recognized as a reliable test of sobriety in Longfellow Park) moved closer, arm in arm under the same parasol, which was at an angle of forty-five degrees. Estimable ladies — now in their seventies — always dressed identically because they were twins, even though Miss Issie Isserliss was twice the height of Miss Cissie Isserliss, they commented favorably on the firm uplift and support afforded by Ethel, who did not sag and did not crease, even under the most trying conditions, giving rise to universally approving comment amongst discerning friends.

Mrs. Albert Comstock and Mrs. Goodchild gaped and pointed their parasols accusingly.

Prod! Prod! Prod!

Far off, beyond the distant end of Hudson Row as it turned west and began to move toward the upper reaches of Broadway, the Reverend Goodchild, a veritable
prima ballerina assoluta
, was executing a
divertissement
as he
glissaded
south toward New York City. His Dorinda corset — flesh-colored (for those who happened to possess pinkish-white flesh) for discretion when wearing paler garments in the summer season — was partly obscured by the filmy cascades of a Zuleika lace negligee. The Reverend Goodchild liked his little luxuries. The front of the negligee— he was negligent with his negligee, in a disheveled state of dishabille— lazily opened and closed with each stride he took, slowly, like fabric unfolding under water, something being repeatedly washed to remove stains.

His arms were wide open, as if to embrace the whole city, and he was smiling beatifically, like a man who — at long last, after much searching — had found his true self.

It was suddenly dusk.

The area under the chestnut trees, where the children played — she thought of the trees as being immeasurably old, trees that had given their name to Chestnut Street — was deserted with the coming of darkness. In the spring, she’d look out each morning, waiting for the first glimpse of the whiteness of the candles appearing in the branches, the blossom one of the signs that winter really was over. Sometimes, in the summer, she stood on a table in the schoolroom under the opened skylight, looking out, and she could hear the voices of the children at play — The Baptist Game; Trials, Troubles, and Tribulations — and glimpse the girls’ pale dresses.

Last night she had heard them playing Walking on the Green Grass, a game they did not often play because it needed boys as well as girls, and the boys were reluctant to join in with the girls’ games. Serenity Goodchild, the Reverend Goodchild’s fearsome grubby-minded granddaughter, must have threatened, or physically assaulted, the boys until they had joined in. She had not been born until several years after the deaths of Albert Comstock and Alice’s father, but there she was on this day of dancing, the same age then as she was now. The children’s voices were high and piercing in the fading light.

Any boy who attempted to swing Serenity Goodchild round and round by her hand (she was a — er — big-boned girl) would have been risking permanent damage. There would have been agonized grunts, the sounds of muffled internal explosions, reverberating twangs. The pattern of movement shifted and broke beneath the trees, the procession becoming a circle, the circle becoming two lines, the figures swinging up into the air, as if they weighed nothing at all, and then there were no figures there, just the trampled grass and the darkness.

Papa — completely alone — was pirouetting in the middle of the bandstand in the park, which was illuminated like a miniature stage. The immense polished dome of his bald head emitted a discreet muted gleam that harmonized with his pearl necklace and earrings.

After she had polished the door knocker, Annie — it was an essential part of her daily duties — gave his head and teeth a vigorous rub with Putz’s Pomade Metal Polish. He came out and stood on the front step, bending his knees — further, further — so that his teeth were on the same level as the knocker, then bowing his head to allow access. He completely ignored Annie as she buffed his baldness. One did not thank servants.

“When applied to any polished surface and rubbed off,” Annie demonstrated to applauding passers-by, “Putz’s will leave a luster obtained in no other way. It will take off dirt, grease, or tarnish quicker than any known substance.”

— Annie sang (it was not Bizet, but Charlotte would be pleased to hear Gilbert and Sullivan) —

— the passers-by chorused —

“… That now she is the Ruler of the Queen’s Navee!”

Some of them linked arms, and danced around in time to the music. It was quite a jolly scene.

Papa looked like a gigantic version of the ballerina in the jewelry box that Mama had given her when she was five years old, spinning round and round to an insidiously repeated little tune. He was a massive Mary Benedict, eager as ever to demonstrate her knowledge of all the ballet positions.

First position.

Heels together, feet turned out.

Don’t forget the simper.

Second position …

He kept lurching over to the right. A loss of balance would demolish the ornate metal balustrade, and several rows of the chairs lined up on the grass beyond.

The tinkling little tune became louder, and the song from
H.M.S. Pinafore
faded completely away. The luster from Putz’s Pomade Metal Polish remained, like a tastefully subdued beacon in the darkness.

The music to which he was wobblily revolving — it was being played by his pocket-watch, one of the six tunes in its repertoire — was the melody she had heard more times in the last years of the century than any other, more even than “After the Ball” (a fleeting glimpse of the grotesque little gnomic silhouette pursuing the large black ball that appeared on the sheet music), “Just Tell Them that You Saw Me,” or — raising the tone slightly — “To a Wild Rose,” or “Rustle of Spring” (“
FrÜhlingsrauschen
” to those who wished to impress). The melody had been heard everywhere, and it was surprising that the constant repetition of it by her less promising pupils did not have Miss Iandoli hurling herself from her window in despair, driven to madness by something she had once loved, a Lady Macbeth of music. There she would be, impaled on the ace of spades tips of the railings, unable to prevent her feet from waving in time to the music that stumblingly continued to ker-plunk away inside.

Ker-plunk, ker-plunk, ker-plunkety plunky-plunk
…

This melody was “Narcissus.”

“I shall now play Ethelbert Nevin, Opus 13, Number 4,” a pianist would announce portentously at a musical evening.

(He or she — shes tended to predominate — would be one of those who announced “Rustle of Spring” as “
FrÜhlingsrauschen.
” They clearly wished it to be understood that they were more refined than the common herd of amateur ker-plunkers.)

There would be consternation as the threatened imminence of culture looked all set to interrupt conversations and spoil the atmosphere. Then, after the first few bars, everyone would relax. Call it what you would, it was only the tinkly sound of “Narcissus” after all.

What a relief!

Papa revolved and wobbled, revolved and wobbled, a Narcissus reflected in his own inner eye, and liking what it was he saw there.

You’re a crackerjack!

That’s what he was thinking.

That corset sets off your figure to its best advantage.

Your legs are superb.

“Narcissus” began to play more and more slowly as the mechanism of the pocket-watch — the bandstand jewelry box — ran down, each
ker
separated from its
plunk
by a longer and longer whir-filled silence. An early evening breeze ruffled the frills on the lower part of Papa’s Little Missy corset — he liked Little Missies — and fluffed them up. He revolved ever more slowly, ever more jerkily, the ballerina coming to a halt as the clockwork abruptly stopped with a shudder. He was on tiptoe, his arms raised gracefully above him, a still figure of poise and gracefulness, about to perform in
The Tales of Hoffmann
, another sinful French opera.

(The distant parasols, as if alerted, pointed like dogs sensing game —
Over there! Over there! —
quivering with impassioned distaste.)

He was an Olympia — the mechanical doll — the first great love of Hoffmann’s life, waiting to be wound up by Spalanzani.

The key in her back would be turned —
Whir! Whir! Whir! —
and she would begin to sing again with mechanical exactness, her singing ever shriller, ever faster.

A voice rang out of the growing darkness. The music of
Carmen
had returned.

It was the voice of the captain beginning to question Carmen after her arrest. Who had wounded the girl in the fight at the cigarette factory?

Papa was Carmen. Saucy, tantalizing, deliberately provocative, he refused to answer.

“Tra la la la la la la la …” he sang, teasingly alluring, coquettishly fluttering his hands, Mrs. Albert Comstock letting rip with her fan.

You are completely irresistible.
You ooze ooh-la-la allure.

“You may cut me,” he answered (it sounded far worse in French). “You may burn me, but I won’t answer! I defy steel and fire!”

Mockingly defiant, his beard and ballet dress rustling, he repeated the same taunting phrase after each attempt at questioning, his voice higher each time.

“Tra la la la la la la la …”

At each “la” the tips of the parasols winced like Julius Cæsar as yet another dagger thrust home into him.

“Tra la …”

—
Ouch!
—

“… la …”

—
Ouch!
—

“… la …”

—
Ouch! —

“… la …”

Casca, Cassius, Decius, Cinna …

They all piled in, a starving mob hacking, salivating, into the rotating carcass at a serve-yourself barbecue. Brutus, in need of a nibble, hovered hungrily. Each “la” was a filthy French attempt to sully the innocence that characterized all things American.

He wouldn’t tell them what he knew.

He wouldn’t tell them anything. What he knew would remain a secret. No one would ever know.

His eyes were bland, his expression mild, his fingers stroking in a slightly suggestive way the letters
SIN
on the base of his left breast. He seemed very happy. His well-polished bald head gleamed.