The Virgin Cure (18 page)

Maggie the Borrower paid young mothers for the use of their children. She could fetch quite a lot of sympathy with a babe swaddled in her arms, half again as much if she had a second child toddling along at her side, holding fast to her skirts.

Mr. Tomas was a weeper. He came out from the alleyways at night, a dark cloth covering his face. He’d whisper in a hoarse voice, “Don’t come near, I’m a leper.” Then he’d ask for spare change. “You can drop it on the sidewalk. God will bless you for it.”

Old Beckie was my favourite beggar of all. She was jolly and bright, and knew the hallmarks of any malady you could imagine. She’d fall ill on a street corner at the drop of a hat. Writhing in pain, holding her head or clutching her belly, she never asked for money. What she wanted was to be taken to the nearest hospital (preferably by swift horses pulling a doctor’s carriage) and to be given food and shelter and attention for the night. I found it hard not to send her off each time with a round of applause.

I tried my hand at picking a gentleman’s pocket, thinking that because I’d gotten away with stealing from Mrs. Wentworth I might have some natural affinity for thieving, but my first time at it, I got caught. The gentleman whose money clip I’d lifted took me by the arm and shouted, “Thief! Thief!” at the top of his lungs. Frantic and scared, I dropped the money, and squirmed out of his grasp and ran away. No policeman had been near enough to hear his cries, but his anger had frightened me so much that I vowed not to try the trick again.

After that, I fashioned myself into a nibbler. I liked the gambit because it wasn’t a trick or a lie. I simply had to make my hunger visible for everyone to see.

Late mornings I’d buy an apple from Mrs. Tobin’s green-cart. Sitting on a nearby stoop, I’d eat the thing down to the core. At the noon hour, I’d sit myself on the curb in front of the windows of Mr. Mueller’s bakery. Clutching the shawl Mrs. Birnbaum had given me, I’d stand there, looking sad, sucking and gnawing on my nicely browned apple core. Customers and passersby who felt sorry for me put pennies and nickels in my hand.

Once, I spotted the crooked-eared young man who’d been sitting next to Mrs. Birnbaum the day I’d visited her. He was moving through the crowds, elegantly tipping his hat to people along the way. He even stole a watch from the pocket of a gentleman who was bending over to give me a penny. His fingers dipped under the man’s coat, the watch chain glinting, slithering out of its pocket like a golden, charmed snake. The boy looked at me and winked, then was gone like a ghost.

Every other day (precisely at one, according to the clock in Mr. Mueller’s window), a pair of girls would come to fetch a large box from the baker. “Hey there, what’s your hurry?” the bootblack on the corner would shout each time they strolled by, ever confident, even though the girls never bothered to look his way. They were far more interested in the gentlemen at the oyster bar two doors down from Mr. Mueller’s.

The girls wore their hair piled on top of their heads, curls pulled out from under their hats here and there to make them look knowing, yet sweet. Their dresses had been cut to make them look like ladies, but their faces still held the freckled innocence of youth. I’d watch them pass by, admiring their flounced skirts, Nestor’s voice sounding in my head.
I should hope you’d think better of yourself and of me …

Did he know how little I’d get from Mrs. Birnbaum or how fleeting the money would be? Those girls had nice dresses and, I was certain, soft beds. They were the ones thinking better.

The lodging house ladies often paraded behind them, handing out broadsheets to all the girls on the street. In thick black letters across the top, the notices read,
Girls, don’t go with strangers! WHITE SLAVERY IS REAL
. Underneath was a picture of a girl standing behind a barred window, pleading for her life.
Dear God, if only I could get out of here
. Staring at the girl from the shadows was a man, the brim of his hat crooked, a cigar held tight in his smirking lips.

I took one of the sheets back to the roof and hid it between the newspapers in my barrel, not because I was worried someone would try to steal me away, but because I thought the girl in the picture looked beautiful, even in her fear. She was neat and clean and there was something about the lace along the neck of her dress that said it wasn’t too late for her. Before I’d fall asleep at night, I’d practise being like her, clasping my hands together at my heart and rolling my eyes up to heaven.

One morning, just three weeks after I’d come back to Chrystie Street, a man grabbed me tight around the waist as I was climbing down from the roof.

“Gotcha!” he said as he pulled me to the ground.

I struggled, but his hold was far too strong.

“Where’s your mother?” he asked, his breath hot in my ear.

Mr. Cowan had found me and had come to collect the rent.

“Let me go!” I twisted in his arms to face him, my back against the brick, my arms pinned so I was unable to reach my knife.

He put his face close to mine. “I knew it was you, Princess, sneaking around on my roof.” Then he licked my cheek and hissed in my ear. “Tell me where your mother’s got to.”

He used to visit her on the last day of every month, like a hungry tick. He’d show up, his big liver-coloured dog at his heels. Mr. Cowan and the dog looked alike—both of them shovel-faced and wheezing—only the dog’s eyes were yellow, which meant he couldn’t hide in the dark. Mama would lead Mr. Cowan to the corner of the room, leaving me to sit with the dog. The dog and I would watch each other for a while, the animal pacing and sniffing the air between us. Then it would settle down in the middle of the rug to growl and whine at me.

“Such a pleasure to see you, Mr. Cowan. Is it the last of the month already?” Mama would ask, sidling close to him. “I’m afraid I’m a bit short today, but if you come by on Friday, say around supper hour? I’ll give you the rest then. I’ll cook you up a plate of sausages and cabbage for your trouble.”

He sat at our table and ate our food a few times. Twice he’d gone with Mama to our backroom.

I’d looked through the keyhole once and seen Mama on her back, the weight of Mr. Cowan pressing her down into the tired straw mattress. He had pushed and grunted, and Mama’s head had lolled to one side, turned away from his breath. I could’ve sworn she was staring right at me. Her face looked just like it did when she was counting the coins in her pocket with her fingers, or remembering her way through a nursery rhyme she half knew—
Oh that I were where I should be, Then I would be, where I am not; But where I am, there I must be …

I’d closed my eyes to the dark arch of the tiny hole and thought,
“And where I must be, I cannot.”

Not long after that he told her he was tired of her.

“The end of the month is the end of the month,” he’d say, before putting the tip of a pencil to his tongue and making marks in his thick black book. The only time I saw him come close to smiling was when he was writing in its pages, his long, dark beard bristling against his collar. “I’ll be back tomorrow to collect the balance, plus a quarter’s penalty, for my trouble.” Before leaving, he’d rouse the dog with his cane, and say to me, “Penny and penny, laid up shall be many. Who will not save a penny, shall never have many.”

Now Mr. Cowan’s dog circled my legs and sniffed at my skirts.

“I don’t know where she is.”

Rubbing his body against mine, he kept at me. “How about you give Mr. Cowan a fuck?” he said. “Then we’ll call it even.”

I tried to scream but nothing would come.

From the other end of the alley came the shrill sound of a policeman’s whistle.

Feeling Mr. Cowan’s grip go loose, I thrust my knee between his legs and ran.

Many well-dressed and comely females whose ages range from fourteen to twenty-five years walk the streets of New York unattended by the other sex. They are Nymphes de Pave, or, as they are more commonly called, “Cruisers.” Dressed in the best style, they are smart, good looking, fairly educated, and predisposing in appearances. All strangers in our city would do well to keep a bright lookout for this class of girls. They are to our public street what sharks are to the ocean.

—
A Gentleman’s Guide to New York
, 1871

I
t wasn’t the police who saved me from Mr. Cowan, it was a girl.

I nearly ran her over as I raced out of the alley, Mr. Cowan’s dog giving chase, barking the whole way. The girl’s sudden appearance caused me to trip on a crooked stone and fall.

“Hey!” I heard the girl shout.

Turning to look at her, I saw she’d put herself between me and the dog.

The animal stopped cold and stared at her, its body tense, foamy drool stringing from its jowls.

Hiking up her skirt, the girl kicked the dog square in the head. The animal yelped, tucked its tail between its legs and ran away.

Dressed in a fashionable frock with matching wrap and hat, the girl was a strange sight for Chrystie Street, yet somehow familiar to me. Even from the ground, I couldn’t help but admire the buttery boots on her feet, and a skirt that boasted five rows of ruffles before reaching the hem. As I looked up at her, I recognized the rusty-red curls under the brim of her hat and her pale, freckled cheeks. She brought the Bowery and the scent of fresh-baked bread to mind, even though she wasn’t holding one of Mr. Mueller’s boxes in her hands.

“Are you all right?” she asked, leaning over to help me up.

As she did so, I spotted a shiny silver whistle dangling from a chain around her neck. It was shaped like a fox’s head, the hoop for the chain clenched in its snarling teeth.

“I’m fine,” I answered, waving her hand away and getting to my feet on my own, afraid she might consider giving me a kick if I soiled the white kid gloves that fit tight to her fingers. Still shaken by what had happened with Mr. Cowan, I looked over my shoulder to see if he’d decided to pursue me.

“He’s gone,” the girl said, giving me a knowing smile. “I saw him limp off the other way.”

She’d saved me from my predicament, but I couldn’t guess why. No matter how grateful I was for what she’d done, I figured she wouldn’t want to be seen with me. “Thank you,” I replied as I turned to make my way up the street.

Following close she said, “Wait—let me walk with you.”

Her name was Mae O’Rourke, she was fifteen years old, and she’d come to the city from Patterson, New Jersey, by way of a marriage broker who’d claimed she had found the perfect gentleman for Mae to marry. “A doctor,” she said, jangling her whistle on its chain, twirling it one way and then the other around her finger. “A well-respected gentleman wanting a runaway for a wife—I should’ve known the woman was lying. The man didn’t mean to marry at all, or even keep a mistress. He just wanted a girl he could ruin and toss to the street.”

“You got out of it, I guess?” I asked, desperately wanting to learn how she’d gone from being hoodwinked by a dishonest matchmaker to wearing fine clothes and carrying large boxes of baked goods.

“I did indeed,” she said, grinning. “Our parting was much like your farewell to that gentleman in the alley.”

I laughed at her remark in hopes that she might continue with her tale, but instead she asked me, “Have you got a name?”

“It’s Moth,” I answered. I felt embarrassed by the thin, homely sound of my tongue hissing too long between my teeth.

“How’d you get a name like that?”

“My father gave it to me.”

“Not your mother?”

“She wasn’t for it.”

Pulling a clump of peppermint drops from her pocket, Mae worked to break them apart, then handed me a piece to suck on before popping one into her mouth. Clacking the candy against her teeth, she said, “I know a place on the Bowery that serves the best oyster stew. Graff’s Oyster Bar—want to go there?”

I had a nickel in the bottom of my pocket but I needed it to buy an apple from Mrs. Tobin. “I can’t,” I told her, looking to the ground. “I have somewhere I need to be.”

She took me by the arm. “I’ll pay,” she said. “It’s the least I can do after all you’ve been through.”

My dress was tattered from all the times I’d put my boot through the edge of the hem while climbing to the roof, and the passes I’d made at washing myself at courtyard pumps hadn’t made much of a difference to the filth that had taken up residence on my clothes and skin. I’d become so dirty I’d given up trying to keep clean. On the rare occasions I’d had extra money to spend, every shopkeeper I approached had turned me away before I got through their door. I knew Graff’s had a cellar where a rougher crowd gathered from lunch until midnight, but the one time I’d tried to get in, I hadn’t been welcome. “I’m sure they won’t take me,” I told Mae. “You’re bound to get looked over if I’m by your side.”

“Nonsense,” she said as she began to steer me towards the eatery. “We’ll visit the stand and eat in the beer garden—no one will mind. I know one of the oyster stabbers there. I’ll tell him you’re with me.”