THE DAY AFTER SAM RAN AWAY, RACHEL COULDN’T GET herself out of bed at Rising Bell. Naomi came to jostle her just as Breakfast Bell rang. “You better get up now, and hurry. The other monitor will give the whole dorm standing lessons if you make us late.”
Rachel sat up, her knees, neck, and back aching. Tears spilled over as she whispered, “I just can’t do it.”
“All right then.” Naomi hustled off, then quickly returned. “I sent the rest of them down, I’m taking you to the Infirmary.”
Gladys Dreyer didn’t seem surprised to see Rachel back so soon. “Delayed reaction most likely. You had a very upsetting experience. I’ll keep you here for a couple of days so you can rest up. We’ll say its mononucleosis if anyone asks.” Grateful, Rachel fell into the bed Nurse Dreyer offered. Naomi dashed out and soon ran back in with a book from the library. “I thought this was one you’d like,” she panted, holding out a volume about Scott’s expedition to the South Pole. Rachel had read it before but accepted gratefully, knowing Naomi had made herself late for school on her account. She expected it would be Naomi’s last kindness, now that Sam and his bribes were gone.
It was a luxury unheard of in the Orphaned Hebrews Home: an entire day spent reading in bed. Nurse Dreyer even brought lunch on a tray. It occurred to Rachel this was how children with families lived. Children with quiet bedrooms in apartments where time was told by the soft ticking of a clock instead of the screech of bells. Children with fathers who came home from work to ask what they had learned in school that day. Children whose mothers kept them home when they were feeling too fragile to face the world.
After school, Naomi was back, this time with Rachel’s homework. “Your teacher says to get better quick, and so do I.” Naomi squeezed Rachel’s hand before hurrying off. Rachel looked at the notebook and math text on her lap, pleased but puzzled by Naomi’s continuing attentions.
The doctor from Mount Sinai who attended the orphanage noted Rachel’s fatigue but doubted it was mononucleosis because she had no sore throat or fever. Gladys Dreyer persuaded him. “She could be infectious, even without those symptoms,” she argued. “She’ll only be allowed to stay with your diagnosis. I wanted to give her a few days, after what she’s been through. . . . ” She took the doctor aside and spoke with him in a voice too quiet for Rachel to hear. He listened, nodded, cleared his throat.
“Better to keep her away from the other children, just in case,” he concurred.
So Rachel spent the week lazing in bed, reading the books and doing the homework Naomi brought her and getting used to the idea that Sam was gone for good. With Marc Grossman sent upstate, it was mostly Sam’s abandonment that weighed her down. She wondered if the idea of his running away depressed her more than the fact of his absence. Other than Sunday afternoons in Reception, she’d spent so little time with her brother over the past nine years. They were in separate dorms and different grades, never in the same clubs after school or the same table for meals, on opposite sides of the lake during summer camp. Her life in the Home would hardly be changed without Sam there. She’d no longer look for him across the dining hall or in the yard, was all; no longer search him out when the baseball team was playing; no longer try to catch his eye as they passed each other, silently, in the wide corridors of the Castle.
“When are you coming back to the dorm, Rachel?” Naomi asked on Friday when she dropped off Rachel’s homework. “It’s no fun there without you.”
Rachel smiled, daring to believe Naomi might have been a true friend this whole time. “Nurse Dreyer thinks I’ve rested up long enough, she says I should go back on Sunday.”
“Good! Then you won’t miss the brisket.” Naomi settled herself on the edge of Rachel’s narrow bed. “You ever wondered why Sunday dinner is the best meal of the week? I mean, it really ought to be Friday night if you think about it, right? But it’s Sunday because that’s when the board of trustees has their meeting. You know, those men in suits who look in on us while we eat? They like to see where their money’s going.” Naomi left with a wink that made Rachel smile for the first time since the Purim Dance.
Saturday night, though, one of the boys in the Infirmary who’d been running a fever had a crisis. Rachel woke from an unnerving dream to find Gladys Dreyer examining the boy with a panicked expression. “Can you lift your leg for me, Benny? Just lift it up. No? Then how about your foot, can you move your foot? Are you really trying?” The boy’s fevered face scrunched with effort, but the leg remained inanimate.
Gladys went to her desk and dialed the in-house extension for the superintendent’s apartment. “Mr. Grossman, we’ll need the doctor from Mount Sinai here first thing in the morning.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, as if the louder she spoke the word the more likely it was to be true. “I think it’s polio. Yes, of course, isolation procedures immediately.”
On her way back to attend to the boy, Gladys saw Rachel sitting up in bed, taking advantage of the uncharacteristic light to read her book. “I’m afraid you might be with us for a while longer, Rachel. I’ll confide in you because I know I can count on you not to frighten the younger ones. We may be dealing with a case of polio. We’re going into isolation—no one in or out of the Infirmary until we can be sure none of us is contagious.”
When the doctor examined Benny the next day, he wasn’t as convinced as Nurse Dreyer had been. There was too much hysteria over polio, he thought, and most of the cases he saw were in infants. Still, he ordered that the boy be moved to the Infirmary’s private room while he sent a sample to the Rockefeller Institute for analysis. He agreed that isolation procedures should be followed until the results came back. At their meeting that afternoon, the trustees were informed of the situation by Mr. Grossman, who assured them isolation would be complete: doors at either end of the Infirmary hallway were locked to prevent errant contact, and a dumb waiter would be used to deliver food and supplies. The abundance of caution let the trustees go home to their own families, congratulating themselves once again that the Orphaned Hebrews Home was the best child care institution in the country—if not the world.
Benny’s fever broke, though his leg remained terribly weak. Results came back positive for poliomyelitis, which meant the Infirmary stayed in isolation for the full six weeks—the rest of March, all of April, and into May. And so Rachel was trapped, along with a despondent Gladys Dreyer and the dozen children who happened to be in the Infirmary at the time.
A few of them were in serious condition: a girl in danger of developing pneumonia, a boy with bronchitis, a stitched knee that risked infection, a broken arm requiring elevation. Most, however, soon recovered from the sprains, cuts, scrapes, coughs, aches, and bumps that had sent them to the Infirmary in the first place. Rachel was the oldest and she wasn’t even sick, so Nurse Dreyer enlisted her as a nurse’s aide. She taught Rachel how to clean the pus from infected stitches, how to prepare a mustard plaster for bronchitis, how to check for fever and take a pulse.
Only Nurse Dreyer attended to Benny, assiduously following the disinfection protocols set out by the attending doctor. Between visits to the boy, however, Gladys leafed through the pages of Look magazine and sipped tea in her apartment while Rachel circulated among the children. During the night, if one of them called out, Gladys stayed in bed, listening for Rachel to get up in her place.
“I don’t know how I’d survive isolation without you, Rachel,” she said one day over lunch in her cozy kitchenette. “You’ve taken a real interest in the Infirmary. Have you thought about becoming a nurse? You could start a course in the fall. I’d be glad to put in a word for you with the Scholarship Committee.” Rachel hadn’t thought about what came after the Home, but she liked the idea. Nurse Dreyer lent her an old copy of Emerson’s Essentials of Medicine, which she read eagerly. Even if she didn’t completely understand it, she enjoyed the pages dense with anatomical terms and diagnostic descriptions, illustrated by simple drawings of various systems and organs. She worked through the glossary letter by letter, abscess to xanthin. In bed at night, she’d run her finger down a column in the index and choose a disease to read about: bilious fever, creeping pneumonia, hookworm, mumps, palsy, typhoid. Bacillus tuberculosis, at twenty-six pages, put her to sleep for a week.
In addition to daily supplies and meals and piles of library books to keep the children occupied, the dumb waiter delivered a substantial package of schoolwork for Rachel, including all her texts and lessons. Tucked into the pages of Tennyson’s poems, Rachel found a note from Naomi.
Hi Rachel, Sorry you’re stuck in isolation! I got worried they’d nab me, too, for visiting you in the Infirmary. It could have been fun, though, if we were both there together! I hear you’re practically running the place. Did you know Nurse Dreyer had a boyfriend? He actually showed up asking about her, but when he heard the word polio you better believe he hightailed it out of here. Doubt she’ll ever see that one again. Amelia even says to say hi, but I think she’s just rubbing it in that you’re stuck up there. Everyone hopes you don’t catch it, though, that’s for sure. I’m still waiting to hear if I’ll get a counselor position, then I can live here while I go to Teachers College at Columbia. That’s what Bernstein’s doing. Not Teachers College, of course, he’s going to City to be a lawyer. I wish the Scholarship Committee would back girls for that. I’d be good at arguing cases, don’t you think? But teaching’s better than secretarial school, that’s for sure, and anyway, only boys can go to City. All the F6 girls are trying to catch Bernstein’s eye, I can tell you. Amelia practically trips over herself every time he walks by, but she’s not his type. He’d make a good catch, though, don’t you think? I’ll write more later, take care of yourself! Your friend, Naomi
Rachel had never had a confidante before, and the connection warmed her. Naomi addressed her as an equal in a way she never could have in the F5 dorm. That night, she read the note again. Naomi wrote about Bernstein with such admiration, Rachel wondered if she was among those girls trying to catch his eye. The idea of Bernstein and Naomi seemed so natural, she wondered why it made her jealous.
THE ISOLATION PERIOD ended in May. Benny was left with a slight limp—enough to keep him off the baseball team but not so severe as to attract attention. Thanks to Nurse Dreyer’s precautions, tests confirmed that none of the other children had contracted polio. But Gladys had come to depend on Rachel so much, she asked Mr. Grossman to let her stay on as an assistant until the end of the summer. They’d count it as an apprenticeship, she argued, to strengthen her case for the Scholarship Committee. Mr. Grossman agreed, provided Rachel completed her schoolwork and passed her exams. Rachel had gotten used to the autonomy of the Infirmary and welcomed the idea of staying through the summer instead of going to camp. The habit of visiting Mrs. Berger and Vic had fallen away with Sam’s leaving, replaced, now that isolation was over, by Sunday afternoons with Naomi in Nurse Dreyer’s apartment. Rachel had come to believe their friendship had nothing to do with Sam’s bribes.
On Rachel’s fifteenth birthday in August, Gladys had slices of pound cake and stewed peaches brought up to the Infirmary for the occasion, and Naomi presented Rachel with a card made from folded construction paper decorated with pictures cut out of a magazine. Naomi could hardly wait to finish singing happy birthday before she burst out with the good news. “You’re looking at the new counselor for F1. Ma Stember’s finally leaving, to get married, can you believe it? I’m even moving into the counselor’s room.”
“Congratulations, Naomi.”
“Listen, I’m going to Coney Island to visit my aunt and uncle next Sunday, to tell them all about getting the counselor job. Why don’t you come with me?”
“What a nice idea,” Gladys said. “Get some color back in your cheeks.” Rachel raised a hesitant hand to her scalp. “I’ll lend you my cloche hat, it’ll cover you right up.” Gladys got up and lifted the hat, a new and prized possession, out of its round box and placed it on Rachel’s head. The bell-shaped felt covered her scalp, curving prettily from her brow to the nape of her neck. Stylish women were wearing their hair so short, such hats revealed little more than a fringe above a bare neck. On Rachel, the look was perfect.
“You’re like from a magazine,” Naomi said. “Come see.” They gathered around a mirror. Rachel hardly recognized herself. Her transformation was so stunning, Naomi and Gladys were both at a loss for words.
“You’re sure you don’t mind?” Rachel asked, meeting Nurse Dreyer’s eyes in the mirror.
“Of course not, dear. I know you’ll take care of it.”
“And everyone wears bathing caps on the beach,” Naomi said.
“All right, then, I’ll go with you.” Rachel’s smile made her even prettier. The image startled her, and she turned away from the mirror.
The subway ride to Coney Island was the longest Rachel had ever taken. On the way, Naomi told Rachel about her Uncle Jacob. He was her father’s older brother; the two of them had taken passage together from Kraków to New York. Naomi’s father was Jacob’s apprentice, but Jacob was too busy establishing their woodworking business to find himself a wife, so the younger brother married first. They all lived together in an apartment above the workshop. “I used to sweep up the shavings. I remember I had a collection of the nicest ones.”
“Do you remember your mother?” Rachel asked.
Naomi shrugged. “I remember how I felt when I was with her, and I know what she looked like, but I don’t know if that’s from my memory or from the pictures at my uncle’s house. I was only six when they died of influenza.” Naomi finished her story, telling Rachel that she was left with no one but her uncle. “Uncle Jacob was a single man back then, and my father died just when he took on a big order for the carousel. He didn’t have much choice except to take me to the Home. He told me I’d have more fun, with so many children to play with.” Naomi and Rachel sat beside each other in silence. Neither had to say that any child would choose a family of their own, no matter how shattered, over the rigors and routines of the Home.
At the Stillwell Avenue station, families and couples surged toward the boardwalk. Naomi took Rachel’s elbow and steered her down Mermaid Avenue, the hot sidewalks emptying as they left behind the beaches and amusements.
“There it is.” Naomi pointed to a brick building that looked like a stable. Rachel didn’t understand how this could be anyone’s home, but Naomi led the way up an exterior staircase to a second-story door painted glossy blue.
A bearded man with gnarled hands opened it to her knock. “Naomi, dear, come in.” They embraced and kissed.
“Uncle Jacob, this is my friend Rachel, from the Home.”
Rachel, too, was kissed, Jacob’s whiskers tickling her cheek. “Welcome. Estelle, they’re here!” he called over his shoulder. He stepped back to usher Rachel into the sitting room of a tidy apartment. She could see through to a small kitchen from which Estelle emerged to join them.
“Naomi, darling, how are you?” Estelle, whose hair was piled up in braids on top of her head, shared Jacob’s Polish accent. To Rachel they seemed to be from another century. The apartment’s furnishings—table, chairs, chifforobe—were all ornately carved and brightly painted. Instead of radiators, there was a woodstove with a black chimney pipe. The walls were decorated with framed pictures of temples and castles. Rachel thought they were drawn to look like lace, but as she stepped closer to the pictures, she saw the images were made of paper cut out to show every detail of crenulated rooflines and leaded windows.
“You like that?” Estelle asked, coming to stand next to Rachel. “That one I did, but over here is one Jacob made.” She pulled Rachel toward a larger picture. Within the boundaries of the frame a whole city unfolded: cut paper trees and a cobblestone street, paper horses drawing a wagon, small houses with paper smoke rising from chimneys, and on a hill above the town a domed paper temple.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Rachel said.
“This one he made back in the Empire, before America. Now he doesn’t have time for the paper cutting, only the horses, always the horses. I don’t cut paper anymore, either. Now I am painting the horses. We will show you after we eat. Come now, Naomi, Jacob, come and sit.”
They pulled chairs up to the table, already set for lunch with decorated plates, to eat their brown bread and pickled onions and slices of smoked tongue. Naomi’s news about the counselor position elicited warm congratulations from her uncle and his wife. Jacob was much older than Estelle, but Rachel could see their fondness for each other, and for Naomi. It made Rachel think of those Sunday afternoons in Reception, when she and Vic and Sam would gather in the kitchen with Mrs. Berger. A deeper memory stirred, an image of a table set with cups and a jelly jar and a woman with eyes like black buttons pouring tea. Then came the image Rachel tried to avoid by never attempting to remember a time before the Home: a spreading red pool and rising white buttons. She shuddered.
“Someone walking on your grave?” Jacob asked.
Rachel paled. It was like he was reading her soul. Naomi saw her expression.
“He always says that when anyone shivers like you just did. It’s an old superstition. Don’t say such things, Uncle Jacob,” Naomi admonished him with a flick of her napkin.
“So, Naomi, we have some news for you,” Estelle said, smiling at Jacob.
Naomi brightened. “Are you going to make me an aunt finally?”
A troubled look passed between them and Naomi blushed, apologizing. Jacob took Estelle’s hand. He said, sadly, “That is a blessing maybe not for us. When Estelle came off the boat we were thinking the house would be crowded already with babies. Otherwise, we would have taken you out from the Home to live with us. I waited too long, I think, to send for my beautiful Estelle.”
“Don’t draw an evil eye to our troubles, Jacob,” Estelle whispered. She turned to Naomi. “Our news is we have for you something.” Estelle got up from the table, opened a small drawer in the chifforobe and pulled out an envelope. “For your high school graduation, and to help with the college.”
Naomi opened the envelope. There were five- and ten-dollar bills, worn soft but clean and ironed flat.
“Fifty dollars? Uncle Jacob, Aunt Estelle, it’s too much!” But they insisted, and Rachel could see this gift was both an investment in their niece’s future and an apology for her past. Naomi finally accepted, grateful. Even with room and board included with her position as a counselor, it would be a strain for her to pay tuition from her paltry earnings. She’d been about to go in front of the Scholarship Committee to beg her case. “Now I can walk into the bursar’s office after Labor Day and pay for all the classes in cash like a Rockefeller,” she said. This pleased her aunt and uncle, and they finished their lunch amid happy chatter. As Estelle cleared away the dishes, Jacob showed Naomi how to hide the money under the insole of her shoe.
“You want to see the workshop before you go down to the beach?” Jacob asked. Rachel thought they’d go back outside, but instead he led them through the bedroom and out another door onto an interior balcony that overlooked a cavernous space. The smell of pine and turpentine rose to the rafters. Down below, Rachel saw the blocks of wood, the workbenches covered in tools, the jars of paint lining the walls on shelves, and everywhere the carousel horses. Horses with flaring nostrils, eyes rolled back and hooves beating the air. Docile horses with soft lips and broad backs. Fancy horses with braided manes and gleaming teeth.
“Since the carousel at Coney Island, horses is all I get orders for,” Jacob explained. “Not that I’m complaining!”
On the far wall above the big workshop doors was something different: a carved lion with a majestic mane and the uncanny eyes of a guardian spirit. Jacob saw Rachel staring at it.
“Ah, that was my test, to show I was finished being an apprentice. You should have heard Naomi’s father complaining! First we haul it on a cart to the train station. Then we sit with it in the baggage car all the way to Bremen. When we are hauling it up the gangplank to the ship, my brother wails, ‘What for do we have to carry a temple lion all the way to America?’ ‘When you finish your apprenticeship, you’ll understand,’ I told him.” Jacob paused to sigh. They’d gotten so busy so quickly in America, he never took the time to subject his brother to the same grueling training he had endured. He shook the regret from his head.
“That is not my first one! No, that lion is the third I carved. The first one my master in Kraków he rejects. Such a lion is not worthy to guard the Torah, he says. My second one also is not good enough. So I carve until the blood from my fingers soaks into the wood. Then, with this one, my master says in Yiddish, dos iz gute. I mount it on the wall over our workshop, so we don’t forget where we come from.”
Rachel was entranced by the story. She had no idea where her people were from. Europe, she supposed, but what empire or country or village? If her parents had been born in New York, she and Sam would surely have been claimed by grandparents—unless they were dead, too. She envied Naomi her connection with family. Most children at the Home had some relative who visited them on a Sunday afternoon, bringing candy or coins. Many, like Vic, even had a living parent, and Mrs. Berger wasn’t the only widowed mother working at the orphanage. Sometimes it seemed to Rachel that the Home was like a big library, with children being checked in by relatives unable to care for them, then checked out when fortunes changed. She had decided long ago her father must have died, or he would have found a way to get her and Sam back, too.
Naomi kept a bathing suit at her aunt and uncle’s, and Estelle lent hers to Rachel, saying Naomi could return it on her next visit. It was afternoon by the time the girls went down to the boardwalk. Ahead, the Wonder Wheel turned slowly and the Cyclone slunk up and over its tracks. They went past the amusements and toward the water. Sharing a rented changing booth, they stuffed their shoes and summer dresses into the straw bag Naomi carried and put on the knit suits, a bit old-fashioned but still exposing arms and legs. Naomi helped fit a bathing cap over Rachel’s head. Pulling open the curtains of the booth, the sun blinded Rachel as she stepped onto the warm sand. She liked the way it shifted beneath her bare feet. The girls spent some time basking before going into the water. In the roiling ocean, they stayed near shore, jumping over incoming waves and tasting sea salt on their tongues.
The afternoon took on a dreamlike quality. With the summer sun suspended overhead, time ceased passing. The trips from sand to sea and back were timed not by the hands of a clock but by the evaporation of water from their swimsuits. The regimented ringing of bells was replaced in Rachel’s inner ear by the sound of surf bubbling onto the beach and the whoosh and plummet of the roller coaster.
They stayed until the slanted light told a story of evening. In the close darkness of the changing booth, hips bumped as they bent to roll the damp suits from their salty limbs. Standing, their eyes met. For the first time in ages—maybe in forever—Rachel felt lifted by joy. In gratitude for the day, she kissed her friend on the lips. Naomi became so still and serious, Rachel wondered if she’d done something wrong. Then Naomi put a hand on Rachel’s waist and kissed her back, pursed lips pressed together. The moment stretched beyond friendship into an unmapped territory Rachel could not name. The sounds of surf and children on the beach faded as Rachel’s awareness exaggerated each tremor of lips, every shift in pressure. The tip of Naomi’s tongue touched her own, sparking an electric shock. Without meaning to, she pulled away, lips still tingling.
A giddy joy bubbled up between them, filling the gloomy booth with their laughter and dispersing the tension. They finished dressing, Rachel covering her head with the cloche hat. Naomi made sure the money was still secure in her shoe. They stopped for Italian ice on their way to the station, turning their tongues red. On the long ride back to the Home, they sat with linked arms and dozed. When Rachel licked her lips, she tasted sea salt and cherry syrup.
Manhattan felt crowded and dirty after the openness of the beach. Under the shadow of the clock tower, they pulled open the heavy oak doors of the Home. Naomi turned to say something to Rachel, but a bell rang. Both girls were stunned to realize they didn’t know which it was. Then they saw the children coming up from the dining hall. “Club Bell already! I’m late. Gotta go.” Naomi dashed off to her duties while Rachel went up to the Infirmary.
“I almost didn’t recognize you, Rachel. You’re cheeks are positively glowing. And that hat makes you look so normal.” Gladys caught herself. “I mean to say, it looks so natural on you.”
Reluctantly, Rachel handed the hat to Nurse Dreyer, exposing her bare scalp. The monitor’s warning about Naomi came back to her. She’s not a normal girl . . . she’s not natural. Rachel shivered, as if someone had walked on her grave.
AS THE SUMMER came to an end, Nurse Dreyer finally had to let Rachel go. The Saturday before Labor Day, Rachel prepared herself to rejoin the girls in the F5 dorm, though it hadn’t quite been settled if she’d move that night or the next. Tuesday she’d start her nursing course, thanks to the support of the Scholarship Committee.
“I don’t know what I’ll do without you, Rachel,” Gladys told her. She was lingering over her magazines as Rachel collected the lunch trays. “You’ve been such a help.” A bell rang, spurring Gladys up from the table. “I don’t suppose you’d mind going down to the office for me one last time? I’ve still got curlers in my hair.”
“Of course not,” Rachel said. She took the back staircase from the Infirmary to the ground floor and followed the long hallway past the synagogue, the library, the band room. The club room door was propped open. Rachel saw Vic inside. Naomi had told her he’d started a new club, the Blue Serpent Society. Rachel had heard they were planning a party for next Rosh Hashanah. Vic saw her passing and dashed into the corridor.
“Rachel, I haven’t seen you in months! How are you? You look like you’ve gotten some sun. Were you at camp?”
“No, I’ve been here all summer, helping in the Infirmary. But Naomi took me to Coney Island last Sunday.” Rachel felt her cheeks redden. “I got burned, I’m afraid.”
“No, you look lovely.” Vic smiled, and Rachel noticed again how blue his eyes were.
They stretched the conversation. It was between bells and the corridor was quiet. Rachel told him about going back to the dorm and starting a nursing course. Vic had graduated, but he was staying on, too. He was going to be a counselor himself, in M2, and a freshman at City College.
“What do you hear from Sam?” Vic asked.
Rachel looked at the floor. “Nothing. I don’t know where he is or even if he’s all right.”
Vic seemed confused for a moment. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then shut it, then opened it again.
“What is it?”
“No, nothing, it’s just . . . I’m sure he’s safe, Rachel, I’m sure he’s okay. Sam knows how to take care of himself.” A bell rang. The door of the club room opened and the members of the Blue Serpent Society came into the hall, jostling them.
“Well, I gotta go. Why don’t you come to Reception tomorrow, visit my mother with me? She hasn’t seen you in so long, she asks about you all the time.”
“Sure, tomorrow, I’ll meet you there. At Study Bell?”
“Study Bell, yeah. Okay, see you then, Rachel.” Vic lifted his arms to make some kind of gesture, then seemed unsure what to do. He ended up placing his hands on Rachel’s shoulders and drawing her toward him. He kissed her cheek. “Take care of yourself,” he whispered.
Rachel made her way through the corridor, now crowded with children. The place on her cheek where Vic had kissed her felt warm, and she put her fingertips there to hold on to the feeling. She smiled to herself, thinking it was the most natural thing in the world.
Entering the office, she greeted Mr. Grossman’s secretary, who thought nothing of handing over the Infirmary’s small pile of mail to Rachel. On her way back, she sorted through the letters in her hands. One, addressed to Nurse Dreyer, had its stamp canceled in Colorado. Curious, Rachel turned over the envelope to see who had sent it. On the back no return address was written, but the envelope was printed with the name of a business, ink pressed into the rag paper. Rabinowitz Dry Goods, Leadville, Colorado.
A coldness swept over Rachel, like a drift of snow. It couldn’t be a coincidence, she thought. The letter must have something to do with her. She hurried her steps, eager to ask Nurse Dreyer about it—but no. She stopped. No matter whose name was written on the front, if it was about her she had a right to open it. She could think of only one place where she could be alone to read it.
Rachel climbed three flights of stairs, then slipped behind the small, secret door of the clock tower. The darkness blinded her at first, but as her eyes adjusted, she could make out the steep metal stairs, like a fire escape, leading up to a landing. Beyond that, a wooden ladder stretched up to a dusty platform. She climbed up and settled herself in the dim light that filtered through the clock face.
Again she examined the envelope, questions bouncing through her mind. Rabinowitz Dry Goods. Hadn’t her father been in the garment trade? Was that the same as dry goods? Leadville, Colorado. Could her papa still be alive? Maybe he’d gone to Colorado after the accident that killed their mother. Rachel had always believed it was their neighbor’s shrill voice screaming murder that drove her father to flee. Was it possible he was sending for her, now, after all these years? Or maybe Sam had tracked him down. Rachel’s heart beat very fast. The letter must be from Sam. It was addressed to Nurse Dreyer because Sam found out somehow that she was staying in the Infirmary. Maybe that’s why Vic seemed so confused when Rachel said she hadn’t heard from him. Maybe Sam had written to them both but Vic had gotten his letter already.
The coldness that had washed over Rachel when she first saw the envelope melted away in this new understanding. She smiled, imagining seeing Vic on Sunday and being able to tell him that Sam had written to her, too, that she’d gotten the letter that very day they talked. She put her fingers to her cheek again, then tore the envelope and drew out the letter. Inside were two pieces of paper, one folded inside the other.
Dear Nurse Dreyer, Please give the other letter in this envelope to Rachel. I heard from Vic she’s been staying in the Infirmary. Thanks again for all of your help after what happened with Mr. Grossman. I know I shouldn’t have gone after Marc like that but you know what he did was wrong and he had it coming. Sincerely, Sam Rabinowitz
In her lap was the second letter, still unfolded. She was certain now it would be an invitation from her brother to join him in Colorado. To join him and Papa. With trembling fingers, she unfolded her letter.
Dear Rachel, Vic says you’ve been staying in the Infirmary learning to be a nurse. You’ll be good at that. I’m writing to let you know I’m safe and you shouldn’t worry about me. I can’t tell you where I am cause I don’t want Grossman to find me, but just know I’m fine and take care of yourself and do good in school. Love, Sam
Rachel read it over and over again, searching for more meaning between the lines. Finally she had to acknowledge the truth. Sam didn’t want her, didn’t even want her to know where he was. He’d been corresponding with Vic before ever writing to her. A flash of anger shook her hands. She tore both letters into tiny squares and tossed them down the shaft of the clock tower. They twirled like snowflakes and settled onto the dusty floor. There was nothing left for Rachel to do but let the tears come. The shadow of the clock’s hands moved slowly across Rachel’s face until, inevitably, a distant bell rang.
Rachel was wiping her eyes when a thought flowered in her mind, a thought so bright and supple it pushed back the sadness and dried her tears. Sam was always doing what he thought was best for her, from paying for Naomi’s protection to beating up Marc Grossman. It was like the time he promised to come for her if she’d be good for the agency lady, just so she wouldn’t cry. Maybe his letter, too, was an effort to do what he thought was best—stop her from worrying, let her finish school, allow the Home to care for her.
But Sam was wrong. He’d been wrong about Marc Grossman; Sam’s running away hurt Rachel more than what Marc had done to her. He’d been wrong about Naomi, too; she’d have stood up for Rachel, been her friend, even without Sam’s bribes. And he was wrong now. The Home, the nursing course, what did any of that matter when she could be with her brother and, maybe, their father as well?
Sam didn’t know what was best for her. Only she did. All these years she’d been doing as she was told. Maybe that’s all she knew, but it wasn’t what she wanted, not anymore. Her lower lip jutted forward as something stirred in her, born of the same stubborn impulse that once sent her into tantrums.
She still had the envelope. Sliding a fingertip over the words Rabinowitz Dry Goods she made her decision. She would go to Leadville, join her brother, reunite with their father. Somehow she would make her own way, show Sam she could take care of herself, that he didn’t have to protect her anymore. It was far, and the train ticket would be expensive. She wasn’t sure how much money it would take, but with an awful clarity, she knew where she could get it.
THE SHADOW HAND made a full circle around the clock face before Rachel climbed down the wooden ladder and the metal stairs and closed the secret door behind her. The corridor was crowded with children streaming down to dinner. She made her way against the tide to deliver the rest of the mail to Nurse Dreyer. The clatter of the children’s voices disturbed her thoughts. For the first time since she’d been at the Home, Rachel filled her lungs and shouted, “All Still!”
Instantly the din ceased. With a long exhalation, she looked up over the heads of the frozen children. Naomi, their new counselor, was at the back of the F1 group, twice the height of her charges. She looked at Rachel, confused and concerned. Rachel lowered her head and hurried along to the Infirmary. After she passed, she heard Naomi call out, “Okay, girls, go ahead.” The children sprang to life, like a stalled heart shocked back to beating.
At the Infirmary, the doctor had been summoned to set a boy’s broken arm, so Rachel’s lateness was not noticed. When the boy was resting, wrist in a damp cast, Gladys Dreyer put away the gauze and plaster. “I wanted to go watch the movie,” she said, “but he’ll need some looking after. The Warner brothers sent over a new Rin Tin Tin.”
“Go ahead, Nurse Dreyer, I’ll stay with him until I go down to the dorm to sleep.”
“So you’ve decided to go back to the dorm tonight? That’s good, Rachel. Get back in the routine before school starts up. Thanks so much for staying.”
“What’s one more evening?” Rachel hesitated. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course, dear.”
“Do we all have accounts?” She knew that whenever a child won some prize—a dollar for best essay, fifty cents for an outstanding speech—they were never given the money but told it would be added to their account.
“Most of you do, yes.”
“Is there any way to know how much is in it? And, how do we get it?”
“Mr. Grossman’s secretary keeps the books. I think all the money is on deposit at the bank. They don’t keep it in cash, I can tell you that. Whenever you’re old enough to leave the Home, they’ll close your account and give you what’s in it. But you’d have to ask at the office to find out how much there is.” Gladys looked at Rachel, curious and skeptical. “Have you won many prizes?”
Disappointed, Rachel shook her head, wanting to change the subject. “No, I was just wondering, that’s all.” She hadn’t expected any other answer but felt she owed it to Naomi to at least ask.
After the nurse left, Rachel read to the broken-armed boy until he fell asleep. Closing the book, she quietly dragged her cardboard suitcase from under the bed she’d come to think of as her own. She packed up the few things that had gathered around her in the Infirmary since she’d taken up residence there: change of clothes, nightgown, toothbrush, her birthday card, a jacket. From the desk drawer she added a big pair of scissors, black handles tapering to shining points. She picked up and put down Essentials of Medicine when her eyes fell on Nurse Dreyer’s cloche hat on a hook near the door. Knowing that, by tomorrow, this small theft would be overshadowed, she took the hat and placed it in her case.
The movie was still running as Rachel made her way through the empty corridors. The flickering light played against the windows as she passed. She paused to watch as Rin Tin Tin, his projection huge on the outside wall of the Castle, ran across the crest of a distant hill. Waves of clapping erupted as the credits started to roll and children began stirring from their places on the fire escapes. Rachel hurried along to the F1 counselor’s room. She entered and turned on the light. She was worried Naomi might be wearing the pair of shoes she was looking for, but no, there they were, under the little dresser.
Rachel set down her case and knelt on the floor. Reaching for the shoe, she drew it out and peeled back the insole. Fifty dollars. Hopefully it would be enough. She told herself that Naomi could still manage her tuition from what she earned if the Scholarship Committee pitched in. And if it turned out to be more than Rachel needed, she could send back the rest. She pulled out the bills and stuffed them into her case. She was about to leave when the door handle turned. Rachel froze.
Naomi came into the tiny room. “Rachel, what are you doing here?”
Caught, Rachel should have panicked. Instead, she felt strangely calm. Maybe she was already beyond the reach of the Home. “I’m moving back to F5 tonight,” she lied. She studied Naomi to see if she would be believed, but all she noticed was how beautiful her friend was. The visit to Coney Island had brought out the freckles on Naomi’s nose and cheeks. She had always worn her hair cropped, but now that it was fashionable her bob made her look modern. Rachel regretted, for the thousandth time, the nakedness of her own scalp.
“I figured as much, but I mean, why are you here, in my room?”
Rachel found herself unable to spin the elaborate story she’d rehearsed in her head. Something about the way Naomi looked at her gave Rachel a new idea. On an impulse, she dropped her case and stepped forward, slyly kicking the shoe, its insole curled out like a snake’s tongue, back under the dresser. Reaching, she took Naomi’s face in both her hands and drew the girl’s mouth close until their lips pressed together.
The room was very quiet, the sound of hundreds of feet moving along the corridor muffled by the closed door. As the kiss extended, their lips softened, then opened. Tongues touched, again sending a shock through Rachel. Their knees beginning to bend, Naomi pulled Rachel toward her narrow bed.
Rachel had thought one kiss would be enough to distract Naomi from her theft, like the kiss in the changing booth. Now, another agenda imposed itself. Haste drained away as they stretched out side by side. Arms around each other, mouths together, there seemed no end to the ways two girls could kiss. Tiny kisses tiptoeing over nose and chin. A tongue-tip tracing open lips. Soft kisses skipping down a neck. Humid breath kissed into an ear. Lips pressed together, mouths open, inhaling each other’s exhalation until they drained their lungs of oxygen.
It should have been enough, more than enough. Naomi pulled away, thinking of Rising Bell and the day to come. But Rachel was uninhibited by thoughts of morning, her secret knowledge making her bold. She asked, “What else is there?”
“There’s this,” Naomi whispered, undoing Rachel’s dress.
“Show me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Show me.”
Naomi exposed Rachel’s pink-tipped breast. Cupping the other, still clothed, in her hand, Naomi took the nipple in her mouth. Rachel felt something inside her come to life, like a hard seed ripening. She arched her back and wrapped her hand around Naomi’s neck. Naomi pushed Rachel’s dress off of her shoulders, licked the other breast. The seed started to split, roots shooting down. Rachel lifted her hips and Naomi shifted. Fabric stretched taught as she pressed her thigh between Rachel’s legs. The seed opened. A light began to glow inside Rachel’s closed eyes. If she looked at it, it slipped away, but if she let her eyes gaze past the light, it grew brighter, purple and gold. The seedling reached for the light, striving, growing. They were close, the bright new leaves of the seedling and the sparkling light. They were near.
They met. Rachel gasped and trembled. Naomi pressed against her, urgent, then buried her mouth in Rachel’s neck and muffled a moan. Together they were quiet, Naomi’s cheek resting on Rachel’s collarbone. Her hand still on Naomi’s neck, Rachel floated away with the receding light into a welcoming darkness.
Rachel couldn’t tell how long she lingered in that darkness before the glowing lamp on Naomi’s desk brought her back. “I have to get to the dorm.” She sat up, pushing Naomi aside, and fixed her dress.
Naomi whispered in Rachel’s ear, “I’ve always thought you were so beautiful, just like you are, so smooth and beautiful.”
Rachel almost let herself believe it. Then she thought of the money and the scissors in her case. She shrugged Naomi off and stood, more abruptly than she intended.
“I have to go.”
Naomi sat up in the bed. “It’s all right, Rachel. Everything’s all right.”
“I know,” Rachel said. On the desk she saw Naomi’s watch; it was after two. “It’s just so late. Maybe I better go back to the Infirmary after all.”
Naomi reached out, but Rachel, knowing she didn’t deserve it, turned away from the offered hand. She grabbed her case and stepped into the dark corridor, the slice of brightness across the floor narrowing as she shut the door behind her.
Rachel moved silently through the sleeping orphanage until she found the entrance to her old dormitory. Setting the cardboard case down and taking off her shoes, she drew out the scissors before slipping inside. The rows of beds stretched away, pale mounds in the blue moonlight. Rachel was suddenly uncertain. After all these months, she didn’t remember where everyone slept. She took a slow breath. She’d simply have to creep down every row until she spotted the girl she was after. Gripping the scissors, she padded through the dorm. In the summer warmth, girls slept openly with light blankets swept off their shoulders. They didn’t stir; years of sleeping together had inured them to the night noises of girls dreaming or snoring or shuffling to the toilet.
It was in the next row of beds that Rachel found Amelia sleeping on her side, braided hair snaking across the pillow. Amelia, who was always so beautiful. Amelia, who ruined everything. Rachel cringed at the memory of Marc Grossman’s hand. She clutched the scissors. Leaning over, she placed the red braid between the bright blades. It was amazing how this thing that grew from Amelia was so dead it could be cut an inch from her scalp without her waking. The braid dropped into Rachel’s hand. She closed her fingers around it, dragging it on the floor as she walked out of the dormitory.
In the corridor, Rachel put her shoes back on and opened the case. In it, she placed the scissors and Amelia’s braid. She’d planned to leave it on the floor to mock the girl, but for some reason her hand had been unwilling to let it go. From the case, she withdrew the cloche hat and put it on before descending to the basement. Past the dining hall, Rachel steeled herself to walk to the end of that dark corridor. She hid in the shadows near the door the baker would unlock when he came in to start the day’s loaves of rye. By Rising Bell, she’d be gone.