An Absence So Great: A Novel (Portraits of the Heart)

  It just might be. Jessie felt new energy surging through her.

  But what would her parents think about her participating in such dances—if they ever found out? Not only were men and women dancing closely together, but they had no chaperones the way the cotillions and social halls did, and liquor loomed close by. Despite what Joshua said, there might well be dance-for-dime activities going on there too, maybe even more. The mixture of freedom, alcohol, music, and pent-up men and women together for an evening was a temptation cocktail.

  Don’t do it.

  But why shouldn’t girls like Rebecca have their portraits made? The Bauer Studio often had clients who made their money in the lumber camps or flour mills. They’d schedule sittings. They’d be awkward at first, but like so many patrons, when put at ease, they made wonderful subjects. Jessie loved seeing their expressions when they picked up the final prints. Warmth spread inside her when they responded with delight at their own images, and she wondered then if giving to others might actually mean receiving more in return. She thought of Minnie Raymond’s cheerful face.

  There’d be good challenge in taking such photographs, at night, in a hall. She’d have to work quickly, make easy arrangements to contact them to let them know their prints were ready. Or maybe they’d have to follow up with her. If they paid her there, she wouldn’t really need to know where they lived. But if she knew, she could send out notices at Christmastime, encourage them to come in for a more formal sitting and remind their friends that they could have their pictures made too.

  She imagined herself at the dance hall, pictured wet curls stuck to the sides of a girl’s cheeks, the tightly woven hair bobs loosening as she danced. Jessie could almost smell the ale and cigarettes and young bodies hot with sweat. Most of all she envisioned the smiles. It was one of the surprises at the cotillion, the smiles. People acted happy at the dance, as though the music really did wash away the cares of the day. She knew music could do that. How many hours had she spent listening to piano and organ sounds? Selma, her younger sister, had a singing voice, and Jessie remembered fondly how soothing her songs could be.

  Maybe dancing didn’t have to be a bad thing, Jessie thought. Maybe, just like a young woman moving into a man’s world, the new decade offered a change in the way to view things that wasn’t sinful. Her parents might not approve, but she wouldn’t be dancing herself. She would be watching, standing off to the side, waiting for the intermission so she could get engaged, take a picture. There couldn’t be anything wrong with that, so long as she held true to her own virtue.

  “Let’s work out final details,” Jessie said. “You find the perfect hall, Mr. Behrens, and we’ll visit the manager together with our business venture. I just hope he won’t want a part of the profits.”

  “He’ll be happy the girls have a reason to come back, to pick up their prints. Deal?”

  “Deal,” Jessie said as Joshua shook her hand.

  Jessie’s stomach hurt a little as she headed back up to her room. People were always anxious when they did something unfamiliar, weren’t they? It didn’t mean she was doing something bad. Nervousness was part of human nature, not necessarily a warning. She hummed her way back up to her darkroom, vaguely aware of the lyrics from her mother’s favorite hymn: “Prone to wander…prone to leave the God I love.” Whatever could that mean?

  Adding Light

  MUSIC THROBBED AS DANCERS STOMPED the pine floors at the Prospect Avenue dance hall. They danced the Grizzly Bear, looking more like ducks waddling with their derrières stuck out and their feet stomping as they shouted, “It’s a bear!” in unison. Jessie startled every time they yelled. An energy Jessie was unfamiliar with filled the room but also heightened her own senses. People laughed and talked loudly, their eyes wide, perspiration dripping at their temples as they wiped their faces and necks. The yeasty smell of ale from the saloon next door made Jessie sneeze.

  This was another world, a wildly exotic one where limbs and emotions intermixed in unpredictable ways. The fiddlers bowed and stomped along with the dancers at a frenzied pace that gathered volume as more young people made their way into the already crowded hall, shouting to friends, laughingly calling attention to themselves. The closest Jessie had ever come to this energy was at the church hayrides, and even those were subdued by the presence of adults riding along in the back of the wagon.

  What surprised her most was that she had no desire to join them. She didn’t want to dance, didn’t want to be out in the mix of the throng. Just as she’d endured the hayrides because of her sisters, she was here because it was part of her larger plan to put herself into a respectable studio of her own. This was her kindergarten, she smiled to herself, a place to learn.

  Joshua helped her set up the camera, challenged with leveling the tripod on the uneven wooden floor. Twice they moved it, hoping to find a better place. Lighting was terrible, and the hall’s gaslamps appeared to be set low so people could disappear into the darkness off the dance floor doing who knew what. She’d have to use a flash light each time to get any image at all.

  One interested girl, a foot taller than Jessie, came over and asked questions about how the camera worked but declined when Jessie suggested she have her portrait made. The girl had stood along the wall for quite a while without a dance invitation and only hobbled around doing the Grizzly Bear with other girls when the men moved into the saloon. Revelers returning from tipping up their pints laughed louder, danced even more bawdily. One or two came by calling her “girlie” and asking if she wanted to experience their wonderful talents on the dance floor.

  Her uneasiness grew when Joshua’s attention was diverted. At the cotillion, she hadn’t really needed him, but he’d remained close. At the sporting dance, she could have used his help. Still, she was an independent woman, so she ought to take care of herself and not worry about Joshua’s neglect.

  Then, as she held that uncharitable thought, Joshua walked toward her with a potential client. When it appeared that even curiosity wouldn’t lure the dancers from their stomping to her camera, Joshua worked the crowd, bringing people over. Jessie clicked the shutter and got the person’s name, quick as a flash to send them back out to the floor, Joshua escorting. Now he led a girl who worked in the candy factory. Jessie made a note in the ledger book, swallowing a sigh as she did. She was tired; she’d worked a long day, and it wasn’t over yet.

  As the night wore on, she photographed several young women, talking fast to get them to settle while she lit the flash-light powder and pulled the shutter. The puff of light and smoke brought her a few more customers, and she was busy most of the evening. When Jessie noticed young girls and boys pairing off, looking for dark corners, she glanced at her lapel watch. Midnight. Her best business hours appeared to be between 10 p.m. and the bewitching hour. She’d have to decide if two hours of action were worth the preparation and developing hours required.

  Joshua took longer and longer checking back with her, and by the time she’d brushed off the third ale-influenced male, she affirmed her mistake in staying longer than she ought, let alone in coming to begin with.

  Then a fight broke out in the alley. She could hear it because the owner had opened the door to let cold air inside, but snow, cigarette smoke, and apprehension rode in with it. Men streamed out from the saloon forming a circle around the two pushing and shoving each other. Girls clustered at the door, and Jessie found herself shoved up against the wall with the camera pushed into her chest. Where was Joshua?

  What was she doing here?

  What else could I have expected? she thought. She was in a place she shouldn’t be, and her presence had spoken in ways she didn’t want. Had she learned nothing from her motorcycle episode? Apparently not. The idea of making additional income had lured her here; that and Joshua’s persuasion and her own desire to see how other people did things. She wanted to help Joshua with his business course-work, and she did think young working women ought to have their photographs made. But not here, not in
this place. She shouldn’t be here, working or not.

  “Let’s go,” Jessie said when Joshua finally pushed his way through the crowd toward her. The fight gawkers thinned out; the men in the circle hugged each other over slurred words and bruised faces; and people moved back into the hall. Cigarette smoke clung to their clothes as they passed. Jessie coughed. “I’ve had enough. Let’s pack up.”

  “It’s early,” Joshua told her, genuine surprise in his eyes. “You have to be patient. Business ventures take time.”

  “Not my time,” Jessie said. She began folding up the camera, putting it into its case. She picked up the flash tray and tripod.

  He grabbed her hand, gently but firmly. “We’ve barely been here three hours,” he said. “Lots of the girls won’t even get here until later.”

  “They won’t arrive until after midnight? I can’t imagine that. And how is it that you know the routines of working girls?” Jessie said. For the first time she questioned Joshua’s real motives for being here. “Is this your slumming time?”

  He frowned as he dropped her hand. “I only wanted to help,” he said.

  “Help yourself,” she said.

  Still, there was no reason to be angry with him; she’d come here of her own free will. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t called for. Coming here was a mistake, for me at least. You can stay.” She said that last lightly so he’d know she wasn’t upset, but also to hide how much she wanted him to leave with her. She’d have a difficult time getting back to the Harmses’ at this hour. She’d have to get a cab, and she wasn’t sure she had enough coins with her to pay for it. Or she’d have to walk the several long, dark blocks back home carrying her equipment. She hadn’t planned ahead at all.

  “I’ll go with you,” he said, but she could tell he didn’t want to leave. “I just wish you’d stay. Until two o’clock. Everything is over by then.”

  She’d have to develop the film when she got home, then print it the next day in order to bring the images back the following night. She’d need him even more then to help her not only take new pictures but also find the girls and give them their prints. And if she didn’t find them, she’d have to locate them at their places of employment. She didn’t have the time for any of that. She just hadn’t thought this through.

  “This is embarrassing,” Jessie said, “but I’m not sure I have the money for a cab. If you could loan me the fare, I’ll return it. That’s all I’d need, and really, you could stay.”

  He hesitated, and she almost suggested he take her home and then come back. But before she could, he said, “Thanks, Jess,” using a nickname for her that she hated. “I’ll get a cab for you and pay him.” He hiccupped. He’s been drinking. “Thanks for understanding.”

  He left to find a cab while Jessie finished packing up. Her face burned with humiliation, from her own poor choices, the failure of the entire idea. The evening had cost her cab fare, lost time, and dignity, and she still had to come back the next night to give the prints to those who had already paid.

  Water under the bridge. She’d have to do finish what she had started. She straightened her shoulders. Another lesson learned, she hoped.

  Joshua hailed the cab and paid the fare, then leaned down before he closed the door. He’d been interested in his coursework and not her, which ought to have pleased her. At least she didn’t have a sticky, maudlin good-bye to say.

  “I wish you’d stay longer,” he said. “Things are just getting started.”

  “Not for me,” she told him. “I’ll pay back the fare.”

  “Don’t bother,” he told her. “It’s a business expense.” And he closed the cab door.

  When the cab broke down, Jessie got out to walk. She wasn’t that far from the dance hall on Prospect Avenue, and she considered going back and waiting until Joshua was ready to leave. But returning would only prolong the humiliation.

  “If you w-w-wait, I’ll get it fixed,” the cabby told her. “It’s a c-c-cold one. You don’t want to be walking in this.”

  “You… Your speech,” Jessie said.

  The driver bowed his head. “S-s-sorry, miss.”

  “No, please. My brother stammers.”

  “Used to b-b-be worse,” he told her. “Th-there’s a school here. On First.”

  “There is? I’ll look for it.”

  “Wish I could t-t-take you by there. If you wait…”

  Waiting. Why did everyone expect her to wait tonight? But waiting in the cold was worse than walking. “Thanks,” she told him. “But it’ll be better for me to keep moving.”

  Jessie headed out. Fortunately, she hadn’t brought the props along, only her camera and tripod and the flash pan. She juggled the pan and her tripod in one hand, carried the camera case in the other, and began to trudge past walkways, some shoveled, others thick with icy snow. In places, she stepped out into the street, where the cabs and drayage carts had packed the snow as hard as concrete, avoiding the deeper drifts in front of houses. The cold air hurt her lungs. It was easier walking in the street, but when she met a horse-drawn sleigh near St. Mary’s Hospital, she stepped back onto the sidewalk. A new moon slivered the sky, casting pale light. She tried to remember just how far it was, how long the drive to the hall had taken. A couple of miles at least. No use complaining. At least she had a warm coat and wool muffler wrapped around her head and throat. She wore mittens instead of carrying a muff. That had been wise. The lake winds stung her nose and cheeks, exposed to the night. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She could see pale lights from houses.

  Perhaps, as Joshua said, the maids were just now heading to the dance, having put the households to bed. That was why they didn’t arrive early, Jessie thought. Early arrivals were those who got off work from the candy or sewing factories. Domestics had to keep working until all went to sleep and then slip out of the households to dance and chatter. They’d grab a few hours of sleep, then rise early to tend to the pampered girls like Marie. And like her, Jessie thought. She was being pampered by the Harms family. And by Fred. She put him from her mind and thought of Roy.

  A school for stammerers! She’d not heard of such a thing, but then, she hadn’t been paying attention to resources that might help her brother. She’d ask about the school tomorrow and see what she could find out.

  She thought about Rebecca, the Harmses’ maid, and wondered if she would go out dancing tonight. Surely not to the club Joshua had picked; it was too far to walk. There must be halls closer, but Jessie hadn’t paid any attention to where they might be, letting Joshua make the choice.

  She slipped and stepped into a drift. Snow filled her boots, chafing her ankles despite the woolen stockings. “Confound it!” she said, the words making her think of Fred yet again. It was his exclamation of frustration. She brushed away the snow, picked up the tripod, and told herself that if she took photographs away from the studio again, she’d leave the tripod and flash lights at home. She was steady enough to hold the Graflex, or she’d learn to be, to save her time and effort.

  Her walk forced new goals: become more proficient and see about that school for Roy.

  Try as she might, Jessie could not get the camera through the teller’s window. “Just take it. It’s enough, I promise,” she said. “You can believe me.”

  “We don’t accept such d-d-deposits,” the teller said. He looked like Jessie’s father but had her brother’s dimples, and he wore a hat similar to the one Joshua Behrens wore. His mustache belonged to Fred. “If you w-w-want credit, we must b-b-believe you. Do you have anything else to s-s-secure the loan?”

  Jessie shook her head. “I’m prone to wander,” she told him.

  “What about your s-s-soul? How have you invested it?” The teller reached his hand as though to grab her, and she fell back, the camera slipping slowly to the floor while he wrenched her heart—or maybe it was her soul—from within her. Blood dripped, wet and red all over the cream beaded dress. However would she explain it to Mary Harms?

  “No! No!” s
he screamed, waking herself up.

  Her heart pounded like a racehorse running, and her entire body felt wet. She threw the covers back and shivered as the cold air hit her. She pulled a paisley shawl from the corner bedpost, one she often wrapped herself in while she read at night. But last night she’d fallen quickly into a dead sleep. She looked at the clock: four in the morning. She’d barely been in bed an hour.

  Wide awake now, she padded to the window to watch the full moon. It looked so serene reflecting off the snow-covered city. Everything appeared still and separate, as though each household went about its business alone. She didn’t often dream. This nightmare made her shiver. A gulping cry escaped her chest, and she felt the waves of despair move through her as she allowed herself to weep. It was pitiful to feel sorry for herself, she knew that, and yet her chest ached as though she had lost her soul. That teller in her dream had taken it, or maybe she’d left it behind at the dance hall or in Winona. All the months of separation, of writing home and saying how fine things were, of reading and rereading the letters from her family, of longing just to go back, to go home… all the ache of absence weighed on her as she looked out at the cold, sterile moon.

  Jessie prayed then. She prayed she’d settle what she was supposed to learn while in this distant place. It had been her idea to come, to begin a life that had more future than longing after what could never be. Wasn’t the wish to own a studio worth pursuing? She was certain that leaving home, with all its reminders of past waywardness, would put her on the right path.

  “Please, please, please,” she whispered, not even certain what she so desperately needed. “Don’t let me wander.”