The Gallery (12 page)

Chapter

I
trotted out my woman troubles story on Ma and headed back to Brooklyn early, willing the subway on to reach home before five o'clock, when Mr. Phelan closed his pharmacy. His was our local, the site of Sunday afternoons at the soda counter and late night knocks on his upstairs apartment door for fever reducers. But as my hand wrapped around the doorknob, and I glanced the back of his balding head through the window, I could already picture his skeptical, gossiping face. Whatever we discussed would be in Ma's ear by nightfall.

So without the door giving so much as a jingle, I walked on.

The thing I love about Brooklyn is that you can cross countries and even continents, if you just keep
walking long enough. So I kept walking deeper into Brooklyn, past signs for Flanagan's Five and Dime (“Everything under the sun!”) and Gallagher's Hardware (“Where your ‘to-do' list gets done!”), past Gottschalk Household Goods (“It's got to be Gottschalk!”), and Shapiro & Sons Fine Dresses (“If you can find a better price, your brother must be in the business!”), past butcher shops with names devoid of vowels and slogans. I stopped at a few shops with the telltale red cross hanging over their doors, but they were either closed or the babble of languages at the counter drove me back outside.

I kept walking until I reached Bedford Avenue.

Across Bedford was off-limits. Across Bedford was where “the other kind” lived, as Ma put it, and you didn't want to go there alone.

But then, Ma was wrong about a lot of things, I was starting to think.

Here I was relieved to hear only English in the streets, but the voices had a different cadence—swingier, janglier, with broad English accents here and there—and people came in all shades, from almost as light as my “white Irish glow” to an astounding shade of blue-black. I held myself upright, on guard for the unnamed danger Ma always warned about, but no one gave me any notice. Other whites
wandered freely, shopping, even socializing with the men and women on the sidewalks, and I wondered: Did they not know about the unnamed danger . . . or did they believe Ma was wrong, too?

When I saw the next red cross hanging over a lane, I turned and entered the shop underneath, relieved to escape the threat of a threat.

The shop resembled Mr. Phelan's in almost every way: a small soda counter and baubles up front, brightly colored boxes and bottles lining the walls, more mysterious potions behind the counter. The same mothers wiping kids with snotty noses, the same constipated-looking old biddies, the same shifty men in line with prescriptions for “medicinal” alcohol. I let out a small sigh of recognition.

I compared the brands of hair tonic in too much detail until the bulk of the customers had cleared out.

“I know what you're looking for,” called out a soft voice, deep and royal with something like the King's English.

I turned cautiously, hoping he was speaking to another customer. But I was the only one left.

“I keep them here, behind the counter,” said the man. His grizzled hair matched the white coat he wore over a natty suit, a camel color that seemed a
natural outgrowth from his deep brown skin. As I drew closer, I was surprised to notice he had freckles like me. “Girls like you were stealing them, too embarrassed to ask.”

He pushed an enormous box labeled Kotex across the counter to me. “It's nothing to be ashamed of, girl,” he clucked quietly. “It's as natural as the tides.”

My own freckles must have flared as my face turned red. “No, I'm not—I mean, that's not why I'm—” I fumbled in my pocket for the handkerchief I'd knotted back at Bridie's workstation. “Here,” I said, holding it out, “it's this.”

He looked at my hand for a moment, then plucked up the handkerchief gingerly between his thumb and forefinger.

“And this is . . .?” He left the thought unfinished.

“No, nothing . . . unpleasant.” My mind scrambled for some plausible story. “My ma, uh, found a bottle in the kitchen. Unmarked, you see, with this . . . powder in it. She's not sure if it's sugar, or salt, or um, medicinal in nature. Maybe you could say?” He looked at me strangely. “She hates to throw it out if it's useful,” I hastened to add.

“Ah.” The pharmacist continued to weigh me with his eyes. “And naturally, she sent you here?” He cocked his head, taking in my cheeks, still pink, and
my hair which had never seemed more red than in that moment.

“Well,” I said, trying to sound assured and sophisticated, “I was passing through.”

He chuckled to himself. “Yes. Passing through. Of course.” He weighed the handkerchief in his palm, bouncing it up and down slightly, while still considering me.

Finally he set it on the counter and went to work on the knot.

“Well, let's see what you've brought me, Miss . . .?”

“Oh. It's Marth—Marguerite,” I blurted.

More slow nodding. “Marguerite, it is? Well,” he reached over the counter to shake my hand, “how do you do? I am Dr. Murphy.”

“Murphy?” I responded without thinking, “Oh, we have a whole Murphy clan on our block. Jack Murphy, John Murphy, Sean Murphy, the other Sean Murphy—” I stopped when I realized there wasn't likely any relation.

He smiled indulgently. “No, I don't know them. I think we are from different parts of the isles.” He opened the handkerchief flat on the counter. “My Irish heritage comes by way of Jamaica.”

I'd never met a black Irishman, but then, I'd never crossed Flatbush before either.

The doctor manipulated the handkerchief a bit, watching the crystals of the powder shift and glimmer in the electric light that hung over the counter. Then he licked his pinkie, dipped it into the powder, and he touched it to the tip of his tongue. Like me, I saw him screw up his face a little.

“Salty in taste.”

“Yes, exactly!” I jumped in. He gave me that suspicious look again, and I shut up.

“That indicates a sodium base. Could be one of several varieties though.” The door opened, letting in a neatly kept grandmother whose complaints could only be suggested in the broadest of terms. I moved back to the hair tonic until the pharmacist was able to decode and prescribe the right remedy. Once she left, he waved me back over. “Wait here,” he said, and went into the back room.

He came back with a small glass test tube in its holder, a pitcher of water, and a small bottle marked silver nitrate.

“You know this from chemistry class, yes?”

I shrugged. “I'm a girl. I don't think we take chemistry.”

“That is the silliest thing you've said since you told me your name is Marguerite.”

I said nothing in return to that.

He dropped a pinch of the powder into the test tube. “Now,” he said, pouring a slug of water into the tube as well, “when you add a few drops of silver nitrate, the ions recombine, and what's left behind is a precipitate.”

“A what?”

“Residue. Let's say, stuff,” he said, swirling the tube until the crystals disappeared, absorbed into the water. He reached for the other bottle and picked up its dropper, then squeezed off a few drops of the substance into the test tube.

“That is our magic, right there.” And like a real magician, he obscured the test tube with his hand, roiling it around and around in the air, its transformation hidden behind his palm. “If it is sodium chloride—simple table salt to you and me—we'll see a clean white residue left behind.

“Sodium fluoride, on the other hand,” and here he actually switched the tube to his left, still concealing its magic, “would leave behind nothing, as sodium fluoride is soluble.” He looked at my blank face. “It dissolves.” He peeked at the tube. “Is anyone in the family having tooth trouble?”

I thought back to my conversation with Rose. She hadn't had much opportunity to smile. But her teeth
seemed strong and white, the teeth of a rich girl. I shook my head.

“Then there's sodium iodide.” The tube swirled its way back to his right hand. “There we'll see a pale yellow precipitate.” This time he looked at me instead of the tube. “You're a skinny girl, aren't you? Quick, too.”

“I suppose.”

“How do you like fish?”

I shrugged. “It's all right. I love oysters, though! I can slurp down a dozen, raw. More if my dad dares me!” Then I shut my trap again, because I was supposed to be thinking about Rose's symptoms, not mine. I wasn't sure whether fish was on her menu of bland.

He peeked again at the tube, then began to get the test tube stand ready. “That brings us to sodium bromide. In which we'd see a cloudy white residue. Something like a thickened cream.”

Finally he held the tube up to the light.

The liquid in the test tube spun like its own tornado, then calmed, a cloudy cluster of white settling to the bottom.

We both stared at it for a minute. Then Dr. Murphy put the tube softly into the test tube holder.

“Sodium bromide,” he began sternly, “is a strong treatment. It should
never
be left out, may God forbid, unlabeled. Should you mistake this for common table salt, the results could be dire.”

“Dire,” I whispered. “Sir?”

“Bromides have a long half-life.” He saw the confusion on my face and continued. “They don't flush out of the system easily; they can stay in the blood for a long time, building up.”

I nodded thoughtfully, but he could see that I still didn't get it.

“Yes, they may soothe symptoms at the beginning, but the more you use them, the more toxic they become. In low doses, side effects may be headaches, stomach discomfort with attending loss of appetite, along with the expected somnolence”— he paused—“
sleepiness
, even lethargy. But in higher doses one might see restlessness, irritability, confusion, disorientation, even hallucinations. And on the skin sometimes—”

“Rashes,” I whispered.

He narrowed his eyes. “Yes,” he consented, and I saw his gaze pass over my clear face, neck, and arms.

“And—death?” I gasped.

The doctor frowned this time. “No,” he said carefully. “At least—unlikely, at this dosage.”

“So it wouldn't kill you. But it would make you seem crazy?”

“Yes. Still, it's likely too strong a treatment—”

“But—what is it a treatment
for
?”

“There are much safer sedatives, if that is needed.” He pushed aside the test tube, and leaned a bit closer. His voice became kind rather than stern. “At home, is everything—”

“What's a sedative?”

He spoke even more slowly, with more concern now, as if his own ponderous voice could slow my rapidly beating heart. “For nervous conditions. For calming nervousness, anxiety—”

“Wild, strange behavior?”

“Yes,” he assented.

“So you're saying,” I worked it out slowly, “you might take these—”

“Bromides,” he prompted.

“Bromides,” I acknowledged, “if you're crazy.” I thought, and then said, “Wild. But if you take too much—or if someone gives you too much—they might make you crazier?”

“Yes, that is one way to put it.” He thought for a moment, then reaffirmed, “Yes. I'm afraid so. Extended use could cause greater mental distress than any original symptoms.”

And I remembered—for the first time—that outburst, quite literally that burst of energy and life, came the day after I'd forgotten to add the “sugar” to her porridge.

“And if you stopped taking them all of a sudden—”

“Yes, I would recommend that—”

“—would you get,” I fished around for the right word, “squirrelly?”

He gave me that strange look again. Finally he said, “Yes. You might become very . . . distressed. But,” he said firmly, “it is the only way.”

Who was to blame, my mind set off, for Rose's high doses? Had the doctor written the high prescriptions? He would know the dosage was too high. Or was Mr. Sewell sneaking it in, without the doctor's knowledge? My mind went back to the jar in the kitchen, which Mr. Sewell kept stocked with the “fancy sugar” he said Rose insisted on.
He
insisted on, I could see now. Maybe at first to make her more “manageable.” But then for the way it made Rose seem progressively more and more insane. Not wild or madcap or eccentric, but genuinely crazy.

These were Rose's pomegranate seeds, I realized: the food that kept her trapped in her upstairs version of the underworld.

Dr. Murphy's voice interrupted my wild wonderings.

“Listen, Miss Marguerite, I know you may not be from”—he looked outside, where a group of boys were horsing around in the dusk—“around here. But if you have trouble with anything—with your family, with your household, what have you—you come back here. Or bring your ma or your pa or whoever it is that troubles you. It doesn't matter where you are from. You understand?”