Lazaretto (2 page)

She was certain, though, that she'd given birth, believed it to be a boy, because the president told her so. She'd focused on Abraham Lincoln's likeness during the time she was in labor. His picture hung above the only lit candle in the room and in her throes of her pain she thought she saw his lips move, thought she heard his whispered voice as he encouraged her and
told her that she was doing well, even alerted her when she was crowning. “Fine boy you've got there, Meda,” she thought she heard Lincoln say just before the candlelight died, and then she couldn't hear him anymore.

She studied Mr. Lincoln now under the blazing sunlight. He was no longer talking to her and returned to being just a picture in a frame on a wall. Now here was the young girl, Sylvia, coming in, a pleasant-looking brown-skinned girl in a crisp white dress. She held a bucket; towels were draped over her arms; her dress pocket bulged with a cup that would catch the milk she'd press from Meda's breasts. And now Meda could see that her face was tear-stained.

Meda sat straight up. “You've been crying,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “It is my baby, is it not? My baby's dead?”

“No, ma'am—I mean yes, ma'am,” Sylvia said, confused. “Dr. Miss didn't tell you? I mean, I am so sorry, but it is the president. It seems—I am so sorry about your baby, Miss Meda. Yes, I thought Dr. Miss had told you that your baby succumbed—but . . . also the president.”

“They killed him?”

“Yes, ma'am,” she sniffed. “They did, they killed him.”

“They killed my baby. I knew they would.”

“Oh! No! Miss Meda, no, not your baby. I mean, your baby's gone, but your baby—of course I am so, so sorry about your baby, and yes my tears are for her, too, but also for the president. Mr. Lincoln, the president, is dead.”

“The president? They killed the president?”

“Yes, ma'am. While he watched a play, shot in the head. Mr. Lincoln, the president, is dead.”

“And you said ‘her'? Are you saying my baby was a girl?”

“Yes, Miss Meda, I am so sorry, I thought Dr. Miss told you.”

“Not a boy?”

“No, ma'am, a girl.”

“Might I see her?”

Sylvia set the bucket on the floor and hung her head as if in prayer. “I am sorry, Miss Meda. Forgive me, please. I am generally far better with my composure, but with learning of the president, uh, and your sweet baby. Uh, no. I am afraid you cannot see the baby. Mr. Benin arranged for a swift burial that has already taken place.”

“Did you see her?” she asked then. Her voice was flat.

“I did not. Dr. Miss whisked her away while I was with you, trying to tend to you, you were bleeding quite a bit, and, uh, Miss Meda, my heart is breaking for you this instant.”

“But he told me it was a boy, a fine boy.”

“Who, Miss Meda? Who said such a thing?”

“I—” Meda stopped herself. She couldn't tell Sylvia that Mr. Lincoln had watched from the wall and congratulated her on the birth of her son. “It must have been my imaginings,” she said, and as she looked away, Sylvia approached the bed.

Meda offered neither resistance nor assistance as Sylvia pulled her gown from her shoulders to ease the pressure in her breasts. She had lost the capacity to feel; thought that the channels that carried sensations throughout her body had been crushed under the weight of this dual tragic news, that her baby had died, and the president, too. Thought right now that it was a blessing that she could not feel. She shrugged as Sylvia apologized for the hard coldness of the cup against her breast. Then Sylvia made a buffer out of the towel and told Meda that her hope was that her baby girl and Mr. Lincoln had found each other in the sky and flown away together, Heaven-bound.

GOOD THING FOR
Sylvia that the city, or at least her tidy block of well-to-do black people on Addison Street above Eighteenth, her comfortable home filled with books and fine china and parental scrutiny, was in an uproar over the president's death. She didn't have to force herself to say all was well when her mother, Maze, asked her how she'd gotten along at Dr. Miss's—she'd never let on if her hours with the midwife were traumatic because she feared her parents wouldn't allow her to continue working there. But today she didn't have to hide her deflation. Didn't have to pretend to laugh at her father's, Levi, jokes about how all the babies Dr. Miss delivered came feet first—Dr. Miss had in fact delivered Sylvia, who herself had threatened to come feet first, but Dr. Miss had managed to turn her around and later informed Maze and Levi that Sylvia bore close watching because such children were known to be troublemakers for bucking the tide; Levi had whispered to his wife that Sylvia had just been trying to delay the instant when she looked on Dr. Miss's godforsaken face.

But there were no jokes today. No need for Sylvia to make excuses for her puffy eyes or lack of appetite. As soon as she walked through the door, Maze pulled her in a hug and held on. And even though her father had always maintained that Lincoln could have much sooner initiated much bolder moves to resolve the issue of the enslaved, right then he showed signs of having wept.

By the next day, Sylvia had replayed that image of the baby's
hand pushing into the air in that whitewashed room so often that it sapped her of all vitality. She was so listless that her parents didn't pressure her about attending Easter Sunday services as they prepared to go themselves.

She gathered books once they left,
The Scarlet Letter
and
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
, and sat out back on the steps and tried to force her mind in other directions. Before now she'd mostly been able to manage the complex of emotions that came with the job of assisting Dr. Miss. She aspired to be a nurse, and she knew that her tenure with Dr. Miss was proving a remarkable training ground. But Meda's situation had been different.

She looked up from her book at that moment and watched their next-door neighbor, Clo, walk into the yard. Crazy Clo they called her behind her back, for her penchant for obsessively tracking her husband's every move. It surprised Sylvia that she was actually glad to see Clo; she might at least be the distraction that Hester Prynne had not been.

Clo was dressed for church, her crocheted gloves on her hands, her bonnet sitting high atop her upsweep of a hairdo. She'd adorned the bonnet with replicas of fruit made of plaster of Paris, bananas and pears that Sylvia thought hideous. Her face was practically lost under the hat. Clo was thinner than she should be, and Sylvia's mother maintained that Clo was so busy chasing after that philandering husband, she didn't nourish herself as properly as she should. Sylvia felt sorry for Clo all of a sudden, for the ugly hat, for what showed of her hungry, lean face, her eyes red, her voice trembling as she asked Sylvia if she would assist her in an important task.

“Of course, Miss Clo,” Sylvia said as she jumped up from the steps, thinking that perhaps Clo needed help packing up collations to take to church, then regretting that she'd agreed when Clo told her what she wanted: namely, for Sylvia to travel with her
to Fitzwater Street to coax a woman from her house so that Clo could have a conversation with her.

Sylvia asked, “What woman? Why?”

“Some strumpet of a woman Seafus has taken a liking to, and I need to nip it right now.”

Sylvia protested that she didn't really want to get involved. Plus, gambling houses were in that neighborhood; her mother would be mortified if she knew. Clo persisted. Reminded Sylvia of all the times she cared for her when she was younger, allowing her parents the flexibility to concentrate on their thriving catering business. “You ought to give me my due, Sylvia,” she said. “Weren't for me, you and your people might be relegated down there on Fitzwater.” Sylvia knew there was no truth to that. But she also knew that Clo wouldn't otherwise leave the yard until she relented. So she did.

Nevada, the woman Clo wanted to talk to, had just moved to Philadelphia and had already earned the nickname Clam Buster for her ability to crack a man's illusions of himself and render him spineless, soft, have him flopping about after her wih his dignity nothing more than a trail of droppings. Clo told Sylvia that she had picked Sunday knowing that most on that block were likely late-sleeping heathens, and those who were up at a decent hour were probably at church. The front steps would be empty of sitting-outs who might notice her and get to Nevada first and warn her. Clo hung back at the corner, prepped Sylvia to draw Nevada out of her house by saying that she was girlfriend to Seafus's brother, that Seafus had a surprise for her waiting at the corner.

Sylvia had not challenged Clo on the logic, though she thought if she were Nevada, she certainly wouldn't fall for such a story. She watched the door to Nevada's house edge open. An older woman appeared in that slice of opening, and Sylvia took in a
deep breath. The aroma of baking cornbread wafted out and surprised her. She hadn't expected such a righteous aroma; had expected a whore's heavy perfume, or gin, stale coffee even, but not cornbread. Nor had she expected to be eyed by the likes of this wild-looking woman, whose hair was out and unrestrained, her feet bare; she made clucking sounds as she raised her eyebrows at Sylvia. “Well?”

Sylvia mustered up the sweetest smile she could feign. “'Scuse me, ma'am, I'm here to call on Nevada.”

“You friend to my granddaughter?”

“Like to be, ma'am,” Sylvia lied. “We made acquaintance the other day at Freidman's on Reed Street where I was looking at white muslin blouses.”

The woman let go a half-whistle, half wolf-howl of a laugh and Sylvia jumped back. “Hold on,” she said finally, as she closed the door.

Sylvia looked down to the end of the block; she could see the bananas of Clo's hat edging around the corner. She thought about leaving. The woman could just as soon be going to retrieve a butcher knife as she was to be calling her granddaughter to the door. She was about to turn to walk down the steps when the door opened all the way and the smell of cornbread returned and there Nevada stood.

Sylvia was shocked by Nevada's appearance. She wasn't much older than Sylvia, with an innocent-looking roundness to her face. Her coloring was more red than light and a clump of freckles trekked from her right eye in the shape of a teardrop. Her mound of brown bushy hair had come out of a braid, and Sylvia could see nothing about her that justified the clam-buster characterization. Not even in what she wore, a simple pale-blue, ankle-length dress held closed with a wide sash; her feet, like her grandmother's, were bare.

Nevada smiled then, “Good day,” she said. “I know you?”

“My name is Sylvia; I live on Addison—” The sound of the grandmother's laughter crackled from deep in the house, interrupting Sylvia.

“Oh, that's just my grandmom, everybody calls her Miss Ma. She just breaks out into laughter for no good reason. I hope she don't scare you much.”

“Well, as I was saying, I live on Pine Street next door to Clo. You know Clo, do you not?”

Nevada stared directly at Sylvia, the smile gone from her face. “Cain't say I do.”

“Or will
not
say that you do?” Sylvia matched Nevada's stare with a defiance of her own. Deep down, Sylvia knew that what Nevada did, and with whom she did it, was none of her concern, but just the week before she'd assisted Dr. Miss with a procedure on a young woman about Nevada's age who was carrying the child of a married man. She was farther along than she should have been and had almost bled out, but they'd managed to save her life and afterward Dr. Miss told Sylvia that if more young women who had a say-so were witness to the things Sylvia was while in her employ, they'd not fall swoon to the falsehoods a man lets flourish when his nature rises. Sylvia had thought about Meda, who'd had no say-so. “I believe you know her husband,” Sylvia continued.

“Which one is he?”

“That many, you got to ask which one?”

Nevada's expression was unchanged as she stared at Sylvia, though the tear-shaped clump of freckles seemed to slide farther down her face.

“Small wonder Miss Clo calls you a strumpet,” Sylvia said then.

“What she call you, her bootlicker?”

“I am nobody's bootlicker.”

“Well then, you and me got a lot in common. We both pleasing to the eye and now we both know how it feel to be called something we not.”

Sylvia flinched when Nevada said she was pleasing to the eye. She thought her smarts and her sincerity her best qualities, not her looks. She was oak-toned of complexion with a pouty mouth and polite nose and slender build. She had a wide smile that opened her lean face and rounded the severity of her cheekbones. She was often complimented on her smile. Still, she thought her appearance average; certainly didn't think herself pretty like Nevada was pretty in the way that grabbed men by the collar and said keep your eyes peeled on me Mister Sir.

“Why you knock on my grandma's door with your dinging mess?” Nevada squinted her eyes at Sylvia. “What it to you whether I know Seafus or not?”

Sylvia looked away, looked at the window frame that was rotting around the sides, thought it just a matter of time before the window fell completely from its casing. Felt sorry for them that they lived in such a house. Hated that she was so quick to feel sorry for people. Feeling sorry for the hungry look on Clo's face that had gotten her in this imbecilic situation. Thought back to the way Tom Benin's hand had trembled the day before when he'd asked about Meda and then had to steady himself on Dr. Miss's desk, and how she'd felt sorry for him. She shook the feeling now, met Nevada's glare, and returned it. “Actually, I don't give a crow's caw who you know.”

“Then why you show up here?”

“I'll tell you why.” Sylvia decided she owed no allegiance to Clo. “Clo lives next door to me and she helped my parents years ago and used to keep me for them so that they could travel overnights to their catering jobs, and I guess she thinks that gives her the right to persuade me to lure you out of your house so she can talk to you, and she was only able to persuade me because I am tired, I am dis
traught over the president, and I just put in hours at a place where the work tugs at my heart.” She stopped herself. “I don't know why I knocked on your door. All I know for certain is that Miss Clo is hiding down at the corner and waiting for me to bring you down there, likely to whip your hide.”

“So why you spilling the beans?”

“In truth, I do not know why about that, either.”

“Look, Sylvia,” Nevada said then, “I am not really studying Seafus in that way, he much too old.”

“Well then, why do you give him the time of day?”

“'Cause he spends nice on me, that's why. And I'm up north trying to help my grandmother. She not able to work as she once could. She got this malady that you just privy to that spur her into fits of laughter that she cain't stop herself of. It get worse as she's get older and the lady she work for tired of it and cut her hours and her pay and I'm up here to work in her stead, and they pay me half of what they did my grandmother, so she still lacking.”

“So I'm supposed to cry for you and your grandmother? For all I know you could be gumming me.”

“One thing you must know about me, Sylvia, I don't dwell in the dung from a hog or a cow or ox or no other mammal whether it got four legs or two. I confess to letting a already-spoken-for old man like Seafus whisper in my ear and press a quarter in my palm, but I do not want that man for keeps. Furthermore, his wife got the duty to keep him home. I aren't paid to do her duty. Now you can signal her to come on down here if you want, but my grandmom keep a pouch full of lye ready to throw. And you can catch a weasel sleeping 'fore you can find me where I cain't land a punch in my own defense.” Nevada stood up taller, squared her shoulders. “So if she coming down here, I hope she got more than you with her if she think she winning the battle for my, pardon my wording, Sylvia, 'cause you seem proper and all, but, for my ass.”

Sylvia's mouth flew open. Shocked that Nevada would let such a word pass through her lips, on a Sunday no less, an Easter Sunday, an Easter Sunday when all were mourning the president.

“That right, I said it,
ass
.” Nevada repeated it.

Sylvia squared her shoulders, too. “Number one, it would just be Clo. Knocking on your grandmother's door is one thing, but I am not looking to fight on Clo's behalf. And number two, you not so special 'cause you can speak the word ‘ass' out loud. I can as well. Ass, ass, ass.” Sylvia didn't know what it was about this sudden use of profanity that felt so good. But she could feel her whole chest opening as she repeated the word. Felt almost giddy. Wondered if she was on the verge of a breakdown.

“Hmn,” Nevada said, pursing her lips, trying to keep a smile from showing. “Well, in that case, my grandmother got cabbage and cornbread hot and ready to serve. You welcome to some. Just know I am not trying to pay you off. Just being polite.”

“Well, I am just being polite in accepting,” Sylvia said. “Not as if I am trying to be your friend.”

“Suit yourself. But if you was my friend, I sure wouldn't have you putting yourself in harm's way for some no-count man.”

“And if you were my friend, you would have enough sense not to be spooning with a man married to the likes of Clo.”

Nevada sucked the air in through her teeth and ushered Sylvia in, and Sylvia ended up staying the better part of the afternoon. They bickered back and forth over cornbread and coffee—Sylvia declined the cabbage. In between, Nevada told Sylvia uproarious stories about Seafus and several other men she'd come to know. Sylvia was doubled over she laughed so hard. Then Nevada asked Sylvia what kind of work she did that tugged at her heart.