The Chaperone

  Her expression quickly changed to surprise, however, for Joseph, not Louise, stood before her in the entry, his face grave. He was unshaven, but wearing a clean shirt and overalls, his cap stuffed into a side pocket. A large canvas bag was strapped to one shoulder, and someone small stood behind him. Cora couldn’t see this other person, just a thin arm wrapped around his thigh. At the end of this arm, a hand clutched a wad of overalls above his knee.

  “We have left the home,” he said. “This morning. We move out.” His voice was friendly, casual, but his eyes were locked on hers, with the look of an adult speaking in code for the sake of a child. “I need to say this to you. I worried you would go to the home.”

  Cora stared, silent. He’d been caught. They hadn’t left early enough this morning. A nun had seen them. Or one of the girls had seen them and told.

  “Please come in.” She stepped aside and gestured into the apartment. She, too, was communicating with her eyes. He had to come in, she was saying, and bring in the small person who she knew must be his scared little girl. She was so sorry. It was her fault. It had all been her idea. Her lark, her freedom in a different city. And now he’d lost his job. Their home.

  “It is all right,” he said. “I have a friend in Queens.” The arm around his leg went tight, and he spread his feet to keep his balance. “He works now, but we go there at five. He is a good friend. It is all right.”

  “Please come in,” she whispered. “Please.”

  He limped in as if he had a wooden leg, the child still clinging to him. “Come on now, Greta,” he whispered. He tried to free himself, using his fingers to unclench her hands.

  Cora, behind them, could see the child now. The top of her blond head reached his belt. She wore a mustard-colored dress patched under the arms, her hair cut to her chin. Her face was still pressed against his hip.

  “Sorry,” he said, turning back to look at Cora. “She is not always so shy.”

  “It’s fine.” Cora closed the door gently. Even as she moved past them, she wasn’t able to see the girl’s face. She wasn’t sure she could bear to. “Are you hungry? Is she hungry? I have toast and jam.”

  The head popped out from behind him, so suddenly that Cora smiled. The child, however, did not. She had a pretty face, like her dead mother’s. Cora continued to smile, though her heart lurched inside her. I have been you, she wanted to say. It’s all right. I have been as scared and as small. She had to work to keep her face and voice composed. “I have strawberry jam. Do you like strawberry jam?”

  Greta looked up at her father.

  “You will like it,” he said.

  Cora moved to the kitchen and put six pieces of bread in the oven. She wished she had something better to offer, something more substantial. Had they gotten to eat that morning? Had the nuns just thrown them out? She peeked out of the kitchen. “Do you like oranges?”

  Greta nodded. She was still standing close to Joseph, staring at the picture of the Siamese cat. She would remember this, Cora thought. She would remember this day of upheaval, the strange details, the visit to the unknown lady’s house, the unknown lady wearing a robe and loosed hair in the middle of the day. The child would never see Cora again, but Cora would be part of the day’s painful memory, the unknowing and the fear.

  She brought out two peeled oranges on a plate, setting them on the table. She went back to the kitchen to get glasses of water, and by the time she returned, Greta had already stuffed half the orange into her mouth. She was chewing as fast as she could, her little cheeks full, her lids aflutter over her pale eyes. When Cora set her water glass down, Greta grabbed what was left of the orange and put it in her lap.

  “Slow down,” Joseph cautioned. “You do not want to choke.”

  “And there’s plenty,” Cora added. She held on to the edge of the table, crouching low. “We have more oranges. And you can have all the toast you like. No need to rush.” She smiled, but looking at the girl, the sharp bones of her face, Cora felt the sting of tears. What did she think—that a pathetic meal of toast and oranges would make up for the harm she’d done? All of this was her fault. She’d gone to Joseph’s on her own, without being invited. All because of what she’d wanted. Now she could go back to her easy life, and they would have to pay the price.

  Joseph touched her arm. “Really. It is all right,” he whispered. “We can go to Queens. I just did not want you to think—”

  She nodded, wanting to believe him. Maybe it would be fine. Maybe he would find another job and be able to keep his daughter with him. He had savings. She could try to give him money. She already knew he wouldn’t take it.

  When the toast was ready, Greta, who had already eaten two oranges, devoured a piece slathered with jam.

  “I tell you you like jam,” Joseph said, and he and the girl exchanged smiles, which were similar, Cora noticed, with matching overbites. He looked at Cora. “We talk?” He tilted his head toward the kitchen.

  As Cora stood, she leaned down toward Greta. “You can take the jam with you,” she said. “The whole jar.” She almost touched the girl’s thin arm, but thought better of it. It would do no one any good if she lost her composure.

  She led Joseph through the kitchen to the bedroom. She saw the made bed, the clean sheets she’d just been lying on, dreaming of tomorrow, the meeting that wouldn’t come. She continued into the bathroom, wanting to be out of Greta’s vision, out of her hearing. By the time she turned around, she was crying outright, cool tears on her cheeks.

  “The nuns saw me leave?” she whispered. “Is that why?”

  He moved toward her. “I only tell you so you will know. I did not come to make you cry.” His hand moved to her cheek and then down her hair.

  “It’s my fault.”

  “No.”

  “Why did the nuns make Greta leave? She didn’t do anything.”

  “They did not. They want to keep her, but I say no. I want to keep her with me.”

  She nodded, suddenly exhausted, depleted. Yes. He was right to insist. If they put her on a train, she’d be gone.

  “You can stay with this friend in Queens? You can go there? You’re certain?”

  “Ya. He is good friend.”

  “For how long? How long can you stay there?”

  He shrugged. He was putting up a front, she thought. He was scared. He must be.

  “Where will you work? Who will look after her when you work?”

  He looked down, his thumb and forefinger kneading the skin above his eyebrows. Even with the window open, cars moving by in the street, the apartment was quiet. From the bathroom, two rooms away, she could hear the clink of the knife against glass, Greta helping herself to more jam. Cora listened, as pained as she’d been as a young mother, distraught by the wails of one of her boys in another room. This was just a different kind of wail: quiet, cunning. Greta didn’t believe the unknown lady would really let her take the whole jar with her, so she would eat all she could now, even if she was stuffed. Cora understood. She’d done the same during her first meals with the Kaufmanns. She’d eaten mashed potatoes until her stomach ached; she’d hidden entire biscuits in the folds of her skirt, sneaking them off to her room.

  The knife again scraped against the jelly jar, and it was then, at that very moment, that the answer came to her, a ringing bell in her head. She drew in a deep breath and held it. Of course. She heard the engine of a truck, the cooing of pigeons, yet the world felt still, silent. She put her hand on Joseph’s shoulder. She was already certain, every part of her. It was him she would need to convince.

  “Come with me,” she said.

  He frowned. “Where?”

  “Wichita. Bring her. We have a big house. Empty rooms.” She watched his eyes. She would have to speak before he did, to lay out the reasons before he sealed off his mind.

  “It’s how you could stay with her. How else can you? We have an entire floor, unused. She could go to school.”

  He was already shaking his head. “Stop this.
I will not take charity from you.”

  But it wasn’t charity. Not at all. How could she make him see what she was just now seeing so clearly? What did she have in Wichita, now that the boys were gone? Lunches at the club? Dinner parties? No. She was meant to help this child. She’d learned nothing at Grand Central, nothing of who she was supposed to be from poor Mary O’Dell. And why should she? All this time she’d had the Kaufmanns. She had them even now, as if they were in the very room with her, pushing her on. “We’d like you to come live with us and be our little girl.” She remembered Mother Kaufmann wearing her bonnet, crouching low. “We have a room all set up. Your room. With a window, and a bed. And a little dresser.”

  “Of course you would earn your own living, Joseph. You could get a job there, a good one.” She heard the desperation, the pleading, in her voice. She was pleading for herself. She wanted to help this child as she’d been helped, but she also wanted more time with him, just to see, just to see. At least some part of her believed she deserved that.

  “My husband has influence. He could help you find a job, and when you’re working, I’ll look after her.”

  He looked at her as if she were crazy, as if nothing she was saying made sense. “Why would your husband help me?”

  “Because he owes me.” She understood the truth of this as she said it. “And because he’s kind.” She put her hand to her mouth. She understood how outlandish the idea must sound. She was asking him to take a blind leap, his daughter in tow. He didn’t know Wichita. He didn’t know Alan. And really, he didn’t know her, certainly not well enough to put his fate, his daughter’s fate, in her hands. And she didn’t know him any better. Then again, how well had she known Alan when she’d taken her leap with him? And they had done everything according to custom, with the long courtship and the engagement party, the approval of his family and the Lindquists. With all that carefulness, all that custom, she’d been soundly duped. Didn’t she already know more about Joseph, really? Or at least as much as anyone could?

  “You can always come back. If Greta isn’t happy, if you aren’t happy, you can just come back.” She kept her hands at her sides. She wouldn’t touch him now—she didn’t want him to misunderstand. “I’ll give you return train fare. For you and for her. I’ll give it to you before we go, so you’ll have it. You could come back, and you’d be no worse off than you are now.”

  She looked at him, waiting. She couldn’t think of what else to say, how else to persuade him. It was arrogant, perhaps, presuming she was what Greta needed. But she thought she could be. And what had the Kaufmanns known? What had they presumed with her? She just wanted a chance to try. If she had to, she would get on her knees and beg.

  She heard steps out in the hallway, then the rattle of a doorknob. Her hand went to her throat; the front door wasn’t locked. Louise. She had kept her word. Cora tightened the sash of her robe as she moved quickly around Joseph. She had to get to the front door. She worried that Louise, startled, would scream and scare Greta. That was her only thought.

  When she reached the front room, Louise was standing in the open doorway, giving the table a puzzled look.

  “Cora.” She was impressively calm. “Who is the little girl under the table?”

  When she turned, her eyes went wide, and Cora knew Joseph must have followed her through the kitchen, that Louise was taking them in together, as well as Cora’s robe and undone hair. She looked at Louise and opened her mouth, thinking a helpful phrase would come to her, but nothing was right.

  “Cora?” The black brows moved high.

  Cora lifted her chin, her only answer. There was too much to be careful of, too much to complicate just for the sake of her pride. If Joseph said yes, if he and Greta came to Wichita, she would need to come up with a plan, some idea of what she would tell neighbors and friends. She didn’t yet have an exact plan, so it was best to say nothing, to not give any story just yet, even if it meant she had to stand there dumbly while Louise’s expression slowly changed from utter shock to thrilled amusement, the beginning of a howling, ridiculing laugh. That was fine, Cora thought. She could endure it. Withstanding it would be the beginning of her penance, fair punishment for her blindness and all the stupid things she’d said. She would bear the mortification and recover. There might be so much good to come. For now, she at least owed Louise this moment of cackling delight.

  PART THREE

  “Is it your idea, then, that I should live with you as your mistress—since I can’t be your wife?” she asked.

  The crudeness of the question startled him: the word was one that women of his class fought shy of, even when their talk flitted closest about the topic. He noticed that Madame Olenska pronounced it as if it had a recognised place in her vocabulary, and he wondered if it had been used familiarly in her presence in the horrible life she had fled from. Her question pulled him up with a jerk, and he floundered.

  “I want—I want somehow to get away with you into a world where words like that—categories like that—won’t exist. Where we shall be simply two human beings who love each other, who are the whole of life to each other; and nothing else on earth will matter.”

  She drew a deep sigh that ended in another laugh. “Oh, my dear—where is that country? Have you ever been there?”

  —EDITH WHARTON, The Age of Innocence

  I’m not intimidated by anyone. Everyone is made with two arms, two legs, a stomach and a head. Just think about that.

  —JOSEPHINE BAKER

  EIGHTEEN

  Home. Their train got in just before noon. At the station, Alan kissed Cora on the cheek, looking at her just long enough for her to see the anxiousness in his eyes. But he was friendly, welcoming Joseph with a handshake and pulling a lollipop out of his vest pocket for Greta. On the way to the car, he asked about the train ride and apologized for the misery of Wichita’s latest heat wave, glancing at the cloudless, expansive sky. “Della has a fan going in every room,” he assured them, as if he were perfectly used to his wife giving him three days’ notice, via telegram, that she would be coming home with guests: in this case, her long-lost brother from New York, as well as his motherless daughter. When they got to the car, Greta was scared to get in—she’d never ridden in one before—so Joseph sat close to her in the back and quietly answered her questions: Yes, this was Wichita; they would soon be at Aunt Cora’s house. Yes, she would have a bed there. The tall man who was driving? That was Aunt Cora’s husband, Uncle Alan. Cora, sitting in the passenger seat, turned to give Joseph what she hoped was a reassuring look—which he appeared to need—before she stole a glance at Alan. Before they left New York, she’d received his terse reply, which said only that he would have Della prepare the boys’ rooms as she requested. Now, as he drove, he continued to make conversation, pointing out the library and city hall to Joseph and Greta, joking that Wichita’s modest skyline probably wasn’t what they were used to. When Joseph spoke, saying it looked like a good town, Alan made no remark about his accent. But Cora had no idea what he was thinking—he had always been so polite. Perhaps he was happy for her, or bewildered. Perhaps he believed the lie.

  It was only later, after the luggage was carried into the house and Joseph and Greta were offered food and then shown to their rooms to rest, that Alan asked Cora if he might have a word with her in his study. There was no way to tell by his voice or expression if he was angry or not. She said she would be there in a moment—she needed a glass of water, and did he need one, too? No, he said. But thank you. Even after he shut the heavy door to the hallway and they were seated in the leather chairs on either side of his big desk, he was quiet, clearly waiting for her to speak. She sipped her water and looked at his shelves of law books, the ink blotter on his desk. She didn’t know how to begin. She knew him well, and he knew her. But in regard to so much, they had not had an honest conversation in years.

  “So,” he said finally. “A lot happened on this trip.”

  She nodded. Upstairs, she could hear footste
ps, Greta’s excited voice. Cora guessed she was discovering the little balcony off her room—it was Earle’s old room, his National Geographic magazines still stacked on the desk, the pennants of various football teams hanging on the walls. If Joseph and Greta stayed, Cora decided, she would move them up to the third floor, so the boys could have their old rooms when they came home for holidays.

  “You’re certain this man is your brother?” Alan asked. “How did you find out?” He frowned. “You don’t look anything alike.”

  She turned to the window. Despite the bright afternoon, heavy curtains, almost pulled closed, gave the air the feel of dusk. Years ago, she’d often sneaked into this very room when Alan was away, rummaging through his drawers and papers to find proof of her dark suspicions, proof of Raymond, proof of all she already knew. After so many successful hunts, after she’d found the engraved watch, the poems, she finally stopped coming in here at all, as it made no difference what she found or what she didn’t. They would go on aching with love.

  “He’s not my brother,” she told Alan now. “But that’s what we’ll tell everyone.” She said this plainly, with no threat in her voice. But she’d said it as she’d planned, as a statement, not a question. She would not pretend he could tell her no.

  Alan stared.

  She smiled.

  “Oh God, Cora.” He did not smile back.

  Clearly, she’d surprised him. As if it were so hard to believe.

  “You’re… involved with him?”

  She shook her head. “Not now. I was, but not now.”

  She did her best to explain. She and Joseph had decided they would be friends, only friends, at least until he got on his feet, until he and Greta weren’t so desperate. Cora had made this stipulation—she had no interest in being, once again, the recipient of a man’s feigned desire, a necessary tool for his survival to be flattered and placated. So she would help without expectation, and without any intimacy that might make their arrangement unseemly, or a humiliation to them both. Once he had a job and savings, he could go, maybe back to New York, and she would wish him well, knowing she’d helped to keep him and his daughter together. That was her first concern.