An Inconvenient Wife (23 page)

My movements became more frantic. I tried to stem my mounting embarrassment and horror—I could not pay, and it was too far
to walk, and I must get there, I could not go back home.

The man beside me touched my arm, and I froze.

“Let me get this for you,” he said, reaching into his vest pocket, tossing up the coin. His face was kind. “My wife forgets
her bag from time to time.”

“Yes, that’s just what I did,” I said, my words stumbling over themselves. “It was so silly. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Some days are like that, eh?” He brought up his paper again, burying himself within it, and I had to bite my lip to keep
from crying in sheer gratitude.

The ride seemed so long. I stared out the window, but I could see nothing but the fire licking at the paper of my sketches,
Washington Square curling into ash. The sorrow and pity on William’s face fueled my anxiety, until I nearly jerked loose the
string signaling my stop on White Street. I gave a smile to the man who’d paid for my trip, and he tipped his hat to me, and
then I jumped from the stage into a puddle of mud that splashed into my boots and wet the hem of my gown. I hardly cared;
I was too busy looking at the building before me. It was dim, the store beneath was dark. For a moment I thought I would have
to break the glass to get in, but the door was unlocked.

When I reached his office door, it was locked. I tried the handle again, sure I was mistaken. Of course he was there; where
else would he be? I rattled it until I was sure it would come loose. Then I knocked on the glass window that bore his name
in black and gilt letters. Harder and harder until finally a light came on. I nearly cried in relief. I saw a shadow behind
the patterned glass, and I laid my hands flat upon it and burst into a smile. When it opened, I nearly fell into his arms.

“Oh, thank God you’re here. You’ll never—”

I stopped short of pitching myself into him, because it wasn’t Victor at all. It was Irene, looking annoyed.

“Mrs. Carelton,” she said. “Whatever are you doing here at this hour?”

“I want to see him,” I said firmly, pushing my way past her to the office door. “Where is he? I demand to see him.”

“He’s not here,” she said, rounding me, blocking my access. “Really, Mrs. Carelton, he’s not here. You should go home. I’ll
be sure and tell him in the morning—”

I pushed past her. The door was open, and I burst through.

“Mrs. Carelton, please. He went home hours ago.”

“Home?”

“Yes, of course. Where else would he go now that his appointments are done?”

“And where might home be?”

She hesitated only a moment. Then she went to the desk and scrawled out the address on a scrap of paper. She handed it to
me, and I turned on my heel without even a thank-you. The paper was precious; I wrapped my fist around it and headed to the
door.

“You might want to have your driver take a weapon, ma’am,” she said. “It can be dangerous in that part of town.”

I went out the door and closed it behind me. When I was standing on Broadway, I opened my fist and looked at the paper. The
address was unfamiliar; I did not even begin to know where to go, and the stage was already gone.

A street sweeper was raising the scents of manure and garbage down the way. I hurried over to him and said, “Excuse me, but
could you tell me where Essex Street is?”

He gave me a queer look, one almost too familiar, that took in my lack of a bustle or gloves. “Essex Street? You sure you
want to go there, lady?” he asked.

I assured him I did.

“Go up a block,” he said, “and then take Canal Street to the East River.”

Canal Street. The East River.
I felt faint. “Are you sure?” I asked. “I fear you must be wrong. It couldn’t be—”

“Well, it is,” he said. “You want to know the direction or not?”

“Yes, yes. Please.”

“When you get to Allen Street, turn left. Essex crosses it. You’ll have to ask around there for who you’re lookin’ for.”

“Allen Street,” I said.

“You’d best take care, lady,” he said, and then he went back to his sweeping.

I could not seem to move. The twilight was coming on strongly, the sky darkening. Soon the arc lights would come on, the rest
of the world would be cast in darkness, and I was alone here on Lower Broadway.

I should go home. I didn’t belong here. Not here, and certainly not on Canal Street, or Allen Street, or any of those little
streets that gathered beneath Houston and stretched to the East River. I should not be here. I should be at home. With William.
I should be living the life I was meant to lead.

Before I knew it, I had started to walk up Broadway, past the street sweeper, ignoring the stares and curious glances of those
who wondered what a lady alone was doing on Lower Broadway at twilight. I walked quickly, afraid I would change my mind, grow
weak somehow in my own steps. I knew if I went home, if I went back to William now, I would never see Victor Seth again.

The night began to come down around me, and still I walked. Canal Street began as retail shops and warehouses, and as it went
on, the streets on either side became narrower and dingier, the smells grew stronger, less familiar—fish and sausage and garlic
and garbage and manure—and the buildings changed from warehouses to small frame houses nearly falling apart.

The streets were muddy and strewn with garbage. Pushcarts were being led slowly home, moved by men and women with weathered
faces and gray clothes, holding what fish or rags or tin had not been sold. I pushed past a woman with cages of chickens that
squawked loudly as I went by, and she screamed after me in some foreign guttural language.

It was as though I had entered another world. I was afraid and more certain with every passing moment that I had made a mistake,
that he could not possibly be here. Not here, not my Victor. He was a doctor, a brilliant neurologist. How could such a man
live in a hell like this, its tiny little stores emblazoned with signs I could not read, and the terrible smells: urine and
death and rot and blood from carcasses hanging in windows and bad fish and spoiled milk and sweat and greasy smoke. . . .

I hugged myself close and walked faster, through a warren of old row houses that had been altered beyond recognition, windows
boarded up and possessions piled in what had once been tiny yards and stoops. There were no signs now, at least none that
I could read. I had to stop finally to catch my breath, to get my bearings, and when I did, some filthy little man came from
the shadows and spoke to me in a language I couldn’t understand, though I knew what he wanted.

“No,” I said in horror, backing away from him. “Oh, no, no, no—”

He muttered at me and walked on, but I was shaken. I had no idea where to go. What had the street sweeper said? Walk up Allen
to Essex, but where was Essex? How far had I gone?

I drew into the shadows, huddling there, afraid. Irene’s words came back to me—
You might want to have your driver take a weapon
—and I was certain I would not get from this place alive.

The noises around me grew louder. Men laughing, shouting. Faint music. Coughing. The squeak of pushcart wheels. Weary footsteps.
The high voices of women calling out in singsong.

I heard them before I saw them. The swish of a gown, of two, the step of heels. When they came nearer, I saw what they were,
but I was afraid enough that I didn’t care. I stepped from the shadows as they neared me. They laughed nervously and gave
me a critical eye and began to walk by.

“Please,” I whispered, and one of them stopped. She had the hardest face I’d ever seen. She looked at the woman with her—a
younger version of herself, with a tattered kerchief hiding her hair—and rattled off a long string of words. I held up my
hand to stop her and said desperately, “I’m looking for Victor Seth. On Essex Street. Essex Street.”

“Essex,” the younger one said, and I nodded in grateful relief.

“Yes. Essex.”

“Seth?” She pronounced it oddly—a long
e
—but again I nodded. She looked to the older woman and said something to her, and the older woman laughed and pointed to the
corner beyond, saying over and over a word I couldn’t come close to making out. Then she crooked her finger and held up her
fingers—one, two, three—and then the two of them laughed again as I stared uncomprehendingly.

The older one grabbed my arm. She was quite strong, and I was tired and afraid, so I didn’t protest; I stumbled along behind
her. They led me down the street, and I had the dim thought that they were taking me to some terrible little house where I
would be held prisoner. They could have thrown me into the East River, and I would have been helpless to stop them.

But they did not. They took me to the corner and turned right, and we were on a street lined with row houses and tenements
indistinct from the first, and then we were before a ramshackle row house that looked to be sinking beneath the weight of
its misery. They pushed me up the cracked and weathered stoop and left me sagging against the door before the younger one
said, “Seth,” in her odd way. They walked away again, chattering between themselves, abandoning me.

I was cold and sweating at the same time. My feet would no longer hold me, and I was so afraid I was nearly paralyzed. But
I held one last hope that the women had brought me where I wanted to go—in any case, I had no choice—so I lifted my hand to
the door and knocked.

There was no sound beyond. I knocked again, louder this time, and when that brought no answer, I began to pound. Someone must
be there. There was a dim light coming from the second floor—someone had to be there. My pounding became rhythmic, almost
soothing. I think I might have pounded forever, too mindless to stop, too terrified to leave, but then I heard footsteps beyond,
and a muttered curse in something that sounded like German, and then the door was pulled open so abruptly I nearly fell into
the man who stood on the other side.

He was short and wizened, with rheumy eyes that squinted at me before he straightened in surprise and said, “Fräulein, you
must be lost.”

It took me a moment to realize that I understood him. All I could say was “Victor. I—I’m looking for Victor Seth.”

“Ah,” he said, nodding. “Victor.
Ja, ja,
Victor. Come. Come.” He stood back, motioning me inside. I almost collapsed in gratitude and relief.

He closed the door behind me. The house had been converted into flats, and we were in a dimly lit hallway littered with old
mattresses and straw and rags; with bodies that huddled, stinking, in the shadows beyond. There were boxes and cans, heaps
of clothes, piles of fabric tied with twine. From somewhere came the monotonous hum of some kind of machinery. The smell of
kerosene was strong, along with the smells of cooking—onions and cabbage and grease—and the stench of urine. The doorjambs
were grimy with fingerprints, the stairs before us sagged in the middle, and the finish had been worn to bare, filthy wood.
The banister shook as the man put his hand upon it and gestured for me to follow him upstairs.

We climbed the creaking stairs to the next floor, where wash lines were strung with clothing from room to room. One of four
doors had been eased open to cast its faint light across the hall. From inside that room came the guttural sounds of talk
punctuated by the clatter of dishes, and again that whirring sound.

The man pushed open the door. “Victor!” he called, and then he said something in German. I heard an answer, low and deep,
in Victor’s voice, and then there was the sound of a chair pushing back, and footsteps, and he was there, stepping around
the old man, pausing in the doorway, staring at me.

“Lucy,” he said.

I fell sobbing into his arms.

M
y God, Lucy, what are you doing here?” He tried to hold me away from him, but I could only cling more tightly, so relieved
to have found him, so certain he would make everything all right.

He gave me a little shake. “How did you find me? What happened?”

I could not answer. Finally he pulled me close while I sobbed against his chest, and I heard him say something to the old
man in German—the gutturals made his chest rise and fall in jerky movements—and then he was leading me into the room beyond,
where the
whirrr
became louder, the smells of food overpowering. I buried my face in his shirt; the scents of soap and sweat were oddly familiar
and comforting.

“Come,” he whispered to me. He spoke again to the man and to someone else—there was someone in the room whom I saw indistinctly—and
then he led me across the room, which I had no sense of through my tears, into some small dark space. He shut a door behind
us. “Here. Sit down.”

My knee bumped into something—a bed, I realized, and I sank down upon it. It sagged beneath me, and when he sat beside me,
it sagged even more. His arm was still around me; I leaned into his side, my sobs easing. I felt him fumble, and then he was
shoving a handkerchief into my hand.