Maude Brown's Baby (4 page)

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always helped him think. He set Elton’s camera bag on the ground and recovered his own Kodak Autographic from his jacket.

A small hand patted the side of his leg.

“Whatca’ doing?”

Donald looked down to see a dusty boy standing beside a girl who was maybe a year younger.

“I’m going to photograph this house. Would you like to be in the picture?”

“Yes!” the boy shouted. Giggling, he pulled the girl forward, until they both stood stiff and barefoot on the grass between Donald and the white picket fence that surrounded the house.
He studied the children for a moment and looked around.

“Over here,” he said, d
irecting them to an ancient stump in the shade of a young red oak. “Is this your sister? Fine. Let her sit here and you stand in back.”

The girl
scrambled on and looked cautiously toward Donald.

“Perfect!” Donald said, “Now stand behind
. Yes, behind her, like that. A bit to the side. Put your hands on the stump and lean forward.”

He
focused first on the pair, then readjusted to a point just beyond them for maximum depth of field. He checked the film counter, looked down into the viewfinder and pressed the release button. At the sound of the click, his subjects moved.

“Wait!” Donald said, raising his index finger. He advanced the film until the number 2 filled the red c
ounter window on the back of his camera. He bent lower to show more of the house, then took a second picture. He advanced the film knob two complete turns, bringing up the number 3.

“Now both of you look to the right, toward that magnolia tree across the street.” The camera clicked a third time.

“All done, thanks,” Donald said.

A woman’s voice got their attention. Waving back at him, the boy and his sister ran across the dirt street, up the stairs and onto the wide front porch where two women sat, each repairing portions of the same quilt. They smiled at Donald, who raised his hand their way before securing his camera inside his jacket. He opened his journal, wrote the date, location
and time, then added a note to print copies for the family.

Donald could have ridden the trolley from there, but it was the first cool day in months. He decided to save the nickel and walk. Twenty minutes later, he was home. Naomi was hanging laundry on the line and the sight made him laugh.

A bed sheet kept her from seeing Donald. Below the sheet he saw her black lace-up shoes, sagging stockings and an inch of white fabric hanging below the hem of her blue dress. Behind the sheet, Naomi’s plump silhouette—both arms reaching above her head—shifted sideways twelve inches at a time. Above the sheet, her fingers moved like legs in a tiny chorus line, pushing clothespins down over the corners of the cloth. Donald jerked the sheet aside and Naomi jumped.

“Hi, Ma!”

“Don’t do that!” she cried, hands on her chest. “You’ll be my death!”

Donald steadied her by the shoulders, kissed her cheek and Naomi relaxed. He stooped to gather the clothespins she had dropped.

“Nina Carhart telephoned a few minutes ago,” Naomi said, patting the combs in her hair and arranging her simple white collar. “She’d like you to come by today.”

“When?”

“Around noon, so you have just enough time to wash up. Don’t you go over to that fancy house looking like some farm hand. I’ll bring you a clean shirt and collar—and wear your good shoes.”

“Sure, Ma. Do you know what she wanted?”

“That magazine you like came in.” Naomi knew something was wrong when Donald didn’t respond. “What’s in the bag, Donny?”

“Elton’s
Speed Graphic. Jake brought it to me.”

“You’ve got yourself a good little business now, fixing cameras for the newsmen and building tripods in your spare time. I suppose Jake did help you get it going; I’ll give the devil credit for that.”

“I wish it was just a broken camera.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Elton didn’t come back from Galveston when he was supposed to. Jake thinks he’s been drinking again, but I’m not sure.”

Donald walked up Bailey Street as far as West Dallas, even though it was a block out of the way. Italians owned the grocery store at the corner of Bailey and Sutton, and Donald stopped there often. The store was closed Sunday mornings while the family was at church, so today, only their arrogant tabby watched Donald from an upstairs window.

Funny how things change, he thought, returning the cat’s gaze. Mrs. Carhart had taught him that each part of town had its own unique story. “Remember,” she would say, “I really do live in the Heights of Houston! People used to travel all the way up here just to escape the mosquitos!”

Donald’s part of the game was to make his eyes big. “And how high up do you live, Mrs. Carhart?”

They’d both laugh at her response: “Why, more feet than you can imagine!”

It was all true. He really was ascending—all of thirty-three feet—to get from the dusty, low-lying streets of his neighborhood to her home in “The Heights.” She had taught him to appreciate the odd mix of houses and people around him. He resisted at first. His head often ached with all the knowledge she tried to cram in.

He passed the white mansions with crumbling columns and leaded glass doors (
Greek Revival!). A few blocks down were rows of tiny houses just two rooms deep (slave cabins!). Nearby, he saw apartments and stables, then farther along, a handful of workmen’s houses like the one owned by the Stokes.

“Open your eyes to the history around you,” Mrs. Carhart dema
nded. In the beginning it seemed pointless. Now, he couldn’t stop. Former slaves settled Freedman’s Town, in the area known as Houston’s Fourth Ward. Immigrants came later, drawn by the cheap land. Here, races and nationalities lived side-by-side. Cheap land even drew survivors of the 1900 storm.

Oh
Lord, that storm.

When Donald reached Montrose, dozens of people were emerging from a nearby church. Children, finally released from ninety minutes of good
behavior, darted between the slow-moving adults.

“Damnation!” a man bellowed
, jerking the reins of his mule while tugging the hand brake of his two-wheeled cart. A pair of church ladies, hats big as their parasols, scurried away. A second mule cart stopped suddenly behind the first, and a Buick swerved to miss them both.

Donald rushed to steady the wild-eyed mule, who was straining to see around his
blinders. He finally calmed the animal while its owner retrieved his lost load of fence posts from the street.

Donald thought again of the Great Storm and tilted his head toward
the sky. Eighteen years ago it would have been much darker. He looked back to the carefree families milling by the church. Had everyone forgotten this dreadful anniversary?

A few blocks on, Donald heard bells and sprinted the last hundred yards to the trolley stop, where the We
stheimer route met the line running north to the Heights. He slipped a nickel token into the fare box and reached for one of the handrails that ran the length of the car. He sat by an open window and leaned back. Sparks crackled from the trolley’s pantograph as it sucked power from the overhead wire. He closed his eyes to focus on the wind in his face. It meant he was moving on.

Donald left the Heights trolley at 11
th
Street and pulled a gold watch from his vest pocket. As always, he ran his thumb over the engraving before opening the lid. Cletus Stokes bought the watch from the Sears catalog, then had his name engraved before leaving for France last fall.

“Keep this until I get back, little brother,” Cletus told Donald the day he boarded the troop train for New York. “I hear it’s muddy over there.”

Donald pressed the release and the lid snapped open. A quarter to noon. He decided to go one block east to Harvard Street where the taller trees offered more shade. Walk tall. Shoulders back. The all-knowing Mrs. Carhart had taught him that, but she didn’t say to tighten his chest and arms to build muscle, or stretch to keep his body loose. Those things he’d learned on his own.             

Nina Carhart’s home was not the largest mansion along Heights Boulevard, but it had the most land. By taking Harvard north instead of Heights, Donald came to the rear of the estate first. A low hedge lined
each side of a path to the back gate. From there he saw the older of two Italian gardeners who lived on the property.

The men no longer spoke to each other
, even though they were from the same village. Mrs. Carhart said the dispute had begun two years before over a bottle of olive oil.

“Che bella,
Albino!” Donald called in less-than-perfect Italian. He pointed left. “Those are fine roses!”

He l
eaned close enough for the bill of his cap to brush the wrought iron. To one side, a curved path led around the fountain past the gazebo to the back of the main house. To the other, Donald could just see a corner of the carriage house, and above it, the one-bedroom apartment that Albino and Paolo shared.

“Grazie, grazie,” Albino called back, rising
stiffly to his feet. He produced a bandana from his coveralls and used it to pat sweat from the back of his neck as he shuffled toward the gate. “Signore Brown, how are you today?"

“Bené, grazie,” Donald answered as Albino selected a heavy key from the ring on his belt
and unlocked the gate. “And you? How have you been, Albino?”

“Accusì, accusì,” the
gardener said, fingers wide as he tilted his head and one hand in unison side to side. “Come. I show you something new.”

Donald spent a minute admiring the lemon tree Albino had planted that morning, then leaned in to whisper mischievously, “Where’s Paolo?”

“UFFÀ!” Albino said, stiffening his body and loudly puffing his cheeks. He spit into the bushes to show the matter was closed.

Donald heard the library’s French doors open and turned in time to see Nina Carhart emerge under the portico. He snatched
off his cap as she approached.

It always surprised Donald how graceful a woman could be.

“My dear boy,” Nina Carhart said as she reached for his hand, “it is perfectly acceptable for you to enter my home through the front door
.” She said that, but he felt more comfortable coming through the garden.

“It’s good to see you, Mrs. Carhart.”

Her dress caught the light as she moved. Donald had never seen such a color. It reminded him most of a perfectly ripened peach, except that it was shiny. As they walked up the path toward the house, sunlight reflecting from her skirt made the bricks in front of her glow.

“My cousin in London sent two issues of the journal. I read them yesterday, so they’re yours. As usual, the writing is a bit stuffy for my taste, but there are some articles you might enjoy.”

“Thanks! You’re sure you don’t want them?”

She laughed. “It wouldn’t do to leave copies of the
British Journal of Photography
lying around. My friends would be shocked.”

“Is there an article about the new
Speed Graphic?”

“If so, I may have missed it, Donald. You know I don’t care for the technical side. It’s bad enough dealing with chemicals to make my prints.”

“When are you going to show me some of your work?”

“Another time, perh
aps. Why are you interested in that camera?”

“I have one that needs repair. Jake Miller, one of the
Chronicle
photographers, gave it to me this morning.”

“Foots?”

Foots! Donald stumbled, then steadied himself on a post.

“You know him?”

“No, but Elsie does. I’ve heard her call him ‘Foots.’ Odd name, don’t you think?” Donald opened the library door for his mentor and she rang the housemaid for tea.

“Let me show you something far more interesting than your t
echnical journals,” Nina said, moving toward one of the bookcases that lined three sides of the library. Each wall of books had its own ladder that rolled smoothly left or right on a rail in the floor, and a matching rail attached to the highest shelf. A thick round table sat directly under the chandelier in the center of the room, with a short sofa in an alcove to one side.

After Elsie brought tea and pastries, she remained discretely in the next room, standing within earshot on a footstool and dusting the china cabinet. Briefly, she stretched on tiptoe to reach an upper shelf. Donald studied her trim figure through the open archway.

Was Elsie another of Jake’s lady friends? Donald wondered what it would be like to have one of his own. His hand touched the frame of his heavy glasses. Slim chance with these goggles, he thought.

Elsie turned toward the open library door, caught Donald’s gaze and smiled. Reflex made him look away. He was sorry at once. She was one of the few girls who paid him any mind. Donald wanted Elsie
to know that he noticed her as well, but it was already too late. By the time he looked back, she had moved to another task.