A Death-Struck Year (2 page)

Lucy reached over, gathered the itinerary, and tapped it against the table until the edges lined up. “Go to university,” she said, sympathetic. “See what interests you. Young ladies today have the freedom to do what they like.”

“
Except
become a bohemian,” Jack said with a warning glance. He tossed back the rest of his drink and stood. “There are enough sapphists in this city as it is.”

Wednesday, September 25, 1918

“A
ut viam inveniam aut . . . aut facile?”

“No! It’s
faciam,
Cleo. Not
facile.
‘I will either find a way or make one.’ We’ve gone over this before,” Grace said.

It was nine o’clock at night. I was in my dormitory room, lying on a rickety old bed that had been moved from the attic for my temporary stay. Grace sat cross-legged on her quilt, her Latin textbook open before her. Across from us, Fanny lounged against a pile of pillows, reading poetry. Something depressing like Byron, likely, because she never read anything but. In the fourth bed, beside Fanny, Margaret wrote a letter to Harris and ignored us all.

“Memorizing Latin is just like memorizing French or Italian, and you know both,” Grace continued. “You’re making this more difficult than it needs to be.”

“I’m not!” I said, feeling stupid. “And why should we learn it? Who uses Latin anymore? Old men, that’s who. It’s a dead language.”

“Well, you’re the one who’s going to be dead if you don’t pass this class,” Grace said.

Fanny smirked. Like the rest of us, she wore a white nightgown that reached her ankles. But Fanny’s was topped with a blue satin wrapper covered in tiny silver stars. There would be hell to pay if Miss Elliot, our headmistress, happened by. Blue satin did not fall under the school’s approved category of sensible white cotton night clothing.

“Grace is right, Cleo,” Fanny said.
“Diligentia maximum etiam mediocris ingeni subsidium.”

Margaret glanced up from her letter. “Oh, do shut up, Fanny!” she snapped. Fanny’s smile evaporated.

I sat up. “What? What did she say?”

“Nothing.” Grace cast her own withering look in Fanny’s direction. “Ignore her. Just listen for the roots. It’s easy.
Fortiter in re, suaviter in modo.
” She flicked a blond braid over one shoulder, so long the ends skimmed the pages of her textbook.

A month ago, my own hair had been just as lengthy. But Lucy had decided to have hers shaped into a bob. I’d taken one look at the result, thrown caution to the wind, and cut my hair off too. Miss Elliot huffed and puffed whenever she saw me, saying it was a completely inappropriate hairstyle for a young lady. Lucy had only laughed and said it was impossible to please everyone.

I tried to concentrate. It was difficult. Next door Emmaline practiced her violin. Schubert’s
L’Abeille,
a piece that always made me feel as though I were trapped in a beehive. Aggravated, I reached up and pounded on the wall with the side of my fist. The buzzing stopped but only for a moment. Emmaline started up again, and I wished I were back on King Street. In my nice quiet home. As I had wished every day this week.

“Cleo!” Grace said, exasperated.
“Fortiter in re, suaviter in modo.”

I concentrated.
Fort
was the French word for
powerful.
Modo
was Italian for
manner.
In,
thankfully, meant
in.
But what about
re
and
suaviter
? Powerful in blank, blank in manner. The faintest memory stirred, and I tried, “‘Resolute in action, gentle in manner’?”

“Good! See?
Qui tacet consentire videtur?
”

“‘He who is tacit’. . .” I began. Grace’s expression darkened. “Um, ‘He who is silent gives consent’?”

“Yes!”

I jumped as a crash sounded from another room, followed by girls giggling like lunatics. No one in our room batted an eye, though. They’d had years to get used to living in a zoo. I drew my knees up and wrapped both arms around them.

If I were at home, toothpowder wouldn’t clog the sinks, and clumps of hair wouldn’t stop the drains. The halls would smell like lemons, the way Mrs. Foster preferred. Not like damp stockings. Or feet. Or the hard-boiled eggs Fanny snuck in from dinner.

Grace turned a page.
“Si post fata venit gloria non propero.”

“I know that one,” I said. “‘If one must die to be recognized, I can wait.’”

Fanny rose and wandered out of the room. In her blue wrap and with her brown hair loose and flowing, I grudgingly admitted she would make a very good bohemian in New York City.

“The door!” Margaret called.

Fanny disappeared, leaving it wide open. I scowled after her as well, having just deciphered her earlier insult.
Diligentia maximum etiam mediocris ingeni subsidium.
“Diligence is a very great help even to a mediocre intelligence.” Trollop. Just once, it would be nice to think of a retort at the exact right moment. Not five minutes later, when the effect was lost completely.

“Dulce bellum inexpertis,”
Grace droned.

I sighed. “‘War is sweet to those who never fought’?”

“Faber est quisque fortunae suae.”

“‘Every man is the architect of his own fortune.’”

Through the open doorway, I glimpsed red.

“Amare et—”

“Louisa!” I yelled. When there was no response from the hall, I jumped off the bed and was out the door in an instant.

“Louisa.”

Louisa turned. There was no mistaking the guilt in her brown eyes. “Yes?”

“Yes? Is that all you’re going to say?” Louisa had yet to change into her nightgown. I looked pointedly at the cherry-red sweater she wore over her white blouse. My cherry-red sweater. “One usually asks to borrow clothing
before
wearing it.”

“I’m sorry. But I couldn’t find you and . . .” She smiled sweetly, not fooling me one bit. “May I borrow your sweater, Cleo?”

“No.” I held out a hand.

“Well.” Louisa pouted and sulked. She removed the sweater and dropped it into my hand, before marching down the hall to her own room. A door slammed.

If I were at home, no one would enter my bedroom without permission. Lucy wouldn’t steal my clothing. Or my shampoo, which had also mysteriously gone missing.

“How do you bear it?” I asked no one in particular.

Fanny brushed by me on her way back into the room. “My mother says there’s a history of kleptomania in that family. I told you to keep the door locked.”

Emmaline was playing a new piece, one I did not recognize. I stood in my doorway, listening as the music reached a violent, off-key crescendo. I inspected my sweater. A button was missing.

Jack and Lucy wouldn’t be home until the third of November.

Five and a half more weeks.

Monday, September 30, 1918

Greta lay sprawled and lifeless with her head against my skirt. The rag doll was four feet tall, the same height as its owner, with red yarn hair. Her blue gingham dress looked as if it had been pulled through a dirt field. She was missing both eyes.

Baffled, I studied the doll, then looked at the six-year-old playing at my feet. “What happened, Emily?” I asked. “Did you pluck her eyes out?”

“Anna did it,” Emily said. “She told me Greta’s button eyes gave her the willies. She pulled them out while I was having my bath.”

“Lord,” I said under my breath.

Emily’s brown eyes were big and anxious. “You’ll fix her, won’t you, Cleo?”

“I’ll fix her. Don’t worry.”

We were in the stairway that led from the dormitories to the main floor. I perched on a step halfway down. Just below, on the small landing, Emily played with an elaborate set of paper dolls. Murky oil landscapes lined the walls above us, each painting framed in blackened wood. It was just after four in the afternoon, and most of the other girls were off finishing their schoolwork or outside. Emily and I had the stairway to ourselves.

“Does Greta give you the willies?” Emily asked.

She certainly did. Emily dragged her everywhere she could, and it always felt like the doll’s black button eyes watched my every move. Poor Anna. I would be tempted to yank Greta’s eyes out too, if I had to share a room with her.

“Greta’s a perfectly lovely doll,” I said. “I’ll talk to Anna and make sure she takes more care with your toys.”

Cheered, Emily returned her attention to the paper dolls. Her brown hair was set in two braids that looped the sides of her head like earmuffs. Emily’s roommate, Anna, was also six. The girls were among the school’s youngest boarders. Anna’s family lived in Tigard, just outside Portland. She spent weekends at home. Emily’s family was from Honolulu. She sailed back to the island once a year, in the summer.

I rifled through my school satchel for a small sewing kit, then set one of Greta’s button eyes back in place. The grime had been rinsed off, and the black button, two inches round, was nice and shiny.

“Cleo?”

“Hmm?” I hunched over Greta. The light in the stairway was poor, and I wondered if I should fix the doll back in my room near a window. I dismissed the thought. Fanny was there, more snappish than usual. All things considered, I preferred the dim staircase. When there was no response from Emily, I glanced up. The child looked back at me, uncertain.

“Did Anna do something else?” I asked, pulling the needle taut.

Emily shook her head. “No, but I forgot Greta in the library this morning. I went back for her, and I heard Mr. Brownmiller and Miss Abernathy talking . . .”

I paused. “What did you hear?”

“Well, Mr. Brownmiller said that people in Phil . . . Phila . . .”

“Philadelphia,” I prompted.

“He said that people in Philadelphia were dropping like flies. Because of the Spanish influenza. He said they’re running out of coffins. Is that true, Cleo? And what about us? Are we going to drop dead too?” Emily’s voice quivered.

I bit back a sigh. Mr. Brownmiller had been the school librarian for as long as I could remember. Miss Abernathy taught upper school history. I thought they should know better than to say such things in a school full of girls. Most of us had light feet. We lurked in every corner, just waiting to hear something we shouldn’t. Like the time Margaret overheard Miss Elliot say that Miss Kovich, our nurse, had been let go because she’d had an affair with a married man and was in a family way. Or the time Fanny heard Miss Bishop sobbing all over Mrs. Brody in the kitchen because her sweetheart had married someone else. There were no secrets at St. Helen’s Hall. Not one.

I set Greta aside—the needle poking out of her eye—and wondered what to say. For I’d heard the same shocking stories about Philadelphia and the rest of the East Coast. And then some.

Fanny’s sister had told her about a fine young family man in Boston who had fallen ill and become delirious. A nurse was sent to his home. But when she left his room, just for a moment, he pulled a revolver from the bureau drawer and shot himself dead.

Emmaline’s cousin had read about a man in New York who went to help his neighbor, the undertaker, transport bodies to a warehouse once the morgue grew overcrowded. He saw the body of a friend, with whom he had chatted the day before. He also stumbled across the girl who helped his wife around the house.

There was a shortage of coffins in Philadelphia. They were burying people in mass graves with only the clothes on their backs. Louisa’s sister had heard of a family who lost a seven-year-old boy. They were so desperate to have him buried in something,
anything,
that they placed him in a twenty-pound macaroni box. A little boy. Buried in a pasta box.

I thought about these stories. Dreadful stories. And for the thousandth time, I was grateful that the entire width of the country lay between such awfulness and my home.

“The Spanish influenza
is
very bad in Philadelphia,” I finally said. “But do you know what?”

“What?”

“Philadelphia is thousands of miles away. Which means the influenza is thousands of miles away. I can show you.”

Emily cocked her head. “How?”

“On a map. I’ll finish with Greta, and we’ll go down to the library. Then you can see that the flu is too far away to hurt anyone here. How does that sound?”

Emily was quiet for a minute. Then her expression cleared and she agreed, returning her attention to the paper dolls. She danced them around on the landing and sang:

“Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling

Your ring?” Said the Piggy, “I will.”

So they took it away, and were married next day

By the Turkey who lives on the hill.

I went back to work on Greta, knowing I would have “The Owl and the Pussycat” stuck in my head for the rest of the day. After finishing off the first eye, I reached for the scissors and snipped the excess string. The button wobbled, but it would hold for the time being. Still, I mentally crossed
seamstress
off my list of future occupations.

After the second button was sewn on and a small tear in Greta’s dress mended, Emily and I gathered our belongings and trooped hand in hand to the school library. Mr. Brownmiller’s globe, along with the city of Philadelphia, held Emily’s attention for all of ten seconds before she looked out a window and spotted her friends playing tag on the front lawn. She dashed outside and joined Anna, who was apparently forgiven for Greta’s earlier disfigurement. I followed, the doll tucked beneath an arm.

St. Helen’s Hall was a grand old building: red brick covered in ivy, with a bell tower, a curved double staircase leading to the main doors, and a second tower room that Miss Elliot used as an office. Dozens of students dotted the lawn, taking advantage of the brisk but pleasant afternoon. It was nearly October. We all knew our mild days were numbered.

I settled onto an empty bench beneath an oak tree. The doll flopped beside me. I took my sketchbook from my satchel and fanned the pages until I found one near the back that was fresh and new. My pencil tapped against my leg for a minute or two while I studied everything around me. I sketched the building, shading in the trees and the ivy, trying to capture the sunlight glancing off the windows. I added students to the lawn, posing Emily in a somersault with her legs kicked up in the air, underthings exposed, as she’d just been. I drew Miss Elliot, broom-thin and dressed in black, her snow-white hair piled high. She scolded Charlotte for riding her bicycle on the grass. Just as I finished with Margaret sitting on the front steps, scribbling madly on paper, I heard someone running toward me. I looked up and saw Grace.