Sing for Me (9 page)

And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,

O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

A hymnal is open on the podium. With the words in front of me like this, I can sing the second verse alone, as Pastor Riis requested:

Just as I am, and waiting not

To rid my soul of one dark blot,

To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot.

O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

I’ve nearly pushed the other songs out of my mind. It’s my soul that’s aching for that music, my soul that I have to cleanse.

Though Pastor and the man are still praying, the hymn is done, so the service is as well. Mother beams at me. Nils, too. I manage not to look at Rob, who will only remind me of my blotted soul. I walk right past him down the aisle toward Mother and Andreas, who holds Sophy in his arms. Perhaps Nils will follow us down to the basement, and he’ll look at me like I’m all bright, celestial
elements combined. Perhaps when that shock of hair falls in his eyes, I’ll be the one who reaches up and pushes it back into place.

“Rose Sorensen!”

I stop in my tracks at the sound of Dr. Nygaard’s voice.

“Come here, please.”

I turn back to the front of the sanctuary, where the Nygaards await me. Dr. Nygaard, a swarthy, bearish man, is tapping the head of his cane against the palm of his thick hand. The tapping beats out a warning:
Do as I say or else you may not have a roof over your head
. Mrs. Nygaard, a willowy woman, preserves her energy by leaning languidly into her husband. Her buffed nails flash as she drums her fingers against his arm.

“Alas,” Dr. Nygaard says when I stand before them. “We’ve learned that the man in 2B, 546 Marquette left his apartment in a state of filth.” With the handle of his cane, Dr. Nygaard scratches meditatively at his chin. “We have a new family moving into 2B first thing tomorrow morning. I’m loath to ask you to do this on a Sunday, Rose, but we must have the place cleaned today.”

“This family would be living on the streets if we hadn’t provided a place for them,” Mrs. Nygaard says coolly. “So we might consider it an act of service. You’ve been to our Marquette building before, haven’t you, dear?”

I nod. Their Marquette building is just off Maxwell Street, near Jane Addams’s Hull House. It’s not the safest neighborhood by day. After the sun goes down, I don’t want to be there alone.

“Here are the keys.” Dr. Nygaard holds out a set. “You’ll find cleaning supplies in the janitor’s closet. There is no electrical hookup yet, so you’ll need to hurry in order to do what needs to
be done while it’s still light out. I’m afraid you may not even have time to put on your work clothes.”

I smooth my last best skirt.

“We could drop you off on our way home, I suppose . . .” Mrs. Nygaard’s voice fades unenthusiastically away.

“I’ll take the El,” I say.

SIX

T
here’s a crowd outside Hull House—families lined up for medical attention, food, and heaven knows what else. Could be us someday if things keep going as they are, Dad once hinted, grimly polishing his bayonet. People are speaking Italian, Russian, Yiddish, and others have accents that I recognize as Irish. There are black people waiting outside Hull House, too, and people speaking quietly in Spanish, newly arrived from Mexico, I’m guessing.

I wend my way through the crowd and down peddler-packed Maxwell Street to Marquette. There’s number 546. The bottom floor is a butcher shop, the front window of which is filled with plucked chickens and a single, spectacularly large goose. (What Mother once upon a Christmas could do with a goose!) Beside the window is the narrow, locked door that opens to the steep stairs that lead to the apartments jammed into the building’s second story. I fumble with the keys, fit the right key into the lock. The foyer is barely big enough to turn around in. There is the door to the janitor’s closet. I open it.

Cockroaches scatter beneath my feet.

In three trips I carry up: two buckets, one filled with clean water, the other with water and vinegar. The jug of vinegar, in case some mess demands undiluted application. A basket of rags, several of which I recognize as scraps of the rose-patterned bedsheets from my childhood. (Back then everything of mine seemed covered with roses.) A broom, dustpan, and mop. A bin for trash. Three scrub brushes with the metal bristles all but worn away. A wooden stepladder.

When these things are clustered on the floor outside apartment 2B, which is at the shadowy far end of the hallway, I muster my courage and unlock the door.

It’s a studio apartment. One room. At least there’s that. I won’t think about the fact that a family will be living here when there’s barely enough space for a single person.

As Dr. Nygaard warned, there’s also no electricity. The shades are drawn over the main room’s two windows. The light is amber-colored at best. Sepia-toned to muddy brown in corners. I hear the sound of many little, brittle feet, skittering away into hidden parts of this small place. I have had dreams like this after a day of cleaning. Dreams of such light and such skittering. Tonight I most likely will have these dreams again.

The place smells of something rotten. Something dead.

I swallow hard, pray harder. I pray about calling and service. I pray about my life, Sophy’s life, Mother’s, Dad’s, and Andreas’s, too—all of our lives held in precarious balance. I pray that God weaves a net beneath us all. Then I choose my best weapons against the unknown—the mop and the broom—and step into the apartment.

The little brittle-footed creatures have gone into hiding, so that’s a mercy. But the smell. The smell is out and about, taking full possession of the place. As does the garbage on the floor—newspaper, wax paper, unidentifiable bits and smears of dried food, open tin cans, and what looks to be the leavings of an animal.

Gagging, I stumble back into the hallway, where the close air is at least not putrid. Before I bring in the rest of the cleaning supplies, I tie a scrap of old, rosy bedsheet around my mouth and nose. I must look like one of those people suffering through the Dust Bowl storms. If they can endure, so can I.

Back to work.

First thing I do is open the windows as far as they will go. They’ve been painted sloppily shut—Dad would never have done this; it must have been the work of the Nygaards’ previous superintendent—so I have to bang on them. Finally they give and lift. The cold air outside smells of the garbage cans lined up in the alley just below. Which is to say, in comparison to what I smell inside, the air smells fresh and fine.

With the broom and the mop held aloft as a defense against rats or mice, I begin searching out the stinking thing. I think (though I can’t be sure, because the smell pervades the room) that the stench is caused by the rotting fish lying on a shelf in the warm refrigerator. From the long whiskers and sharp teeth, it appears to be a catfish, perhaps pulled from the filthy Chicago River. Its empty eyes stare balefully at me as, using the broom handle, I nudge the carcass onto a piece of newspaper that the tenant so thoughtfully left behind. I toss aside the broom. Holding my breath and the catfish, I run to an open window and drop the catfish into an open garbage can below. Then I plunge my
hands into the bucket of water and vinegar and, to the best of my ability, wash them clean of
eau de rot
.

Now I can really start cleaning, working from top to bottom as Mother taught me. Using the stepladder, I wash the ceiling first. Then the walls. Then the windows, which means having to close them. Closing them forces me to open the door to the hallway. Never mind who sees me cleaning. I need to breathe. Once I’ve opened the windows again, I decide to leave the door open, too. It helps with circulation. It’s cold in here now because of the draft, but the fresh air is life-giving. I clean the small kitchen and the smaller bathroom. Time is flying, and I’m not nearly finished. Never mind that I’m tired, I must work fast, faster.

I try to pretend I am a machine. I try not to think or feel.

This doesn’t help.

I start to sing.

This helps.

Singing “Bringing in the Sheaves,” I pick up the litter from the floor. It takes a good while, especially since I have to keep emptying the trash bin into the garbage cans in the alley.
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.
I don’t toss the litter out the window, because the wind tunneling through the alley would blow it hither and yon. I walk the bin down the stairs, empty it carefully, return for more. Seven times I do this before the floor is finally free of litter. Now, to sweep. Sweeping, singing, I think of Mahalia Jackson. Hers is a voice that holds hundreds of years of hard history, trials and labors beyond any I can imagine, any I’ll ever know. I’ll never sing like Mahalia Jackson, but I can sing inspired by her.

I clear my throat and test out my best, lowest register. My voice isn’t nearly as low as Miss Jackson’s, or nearly as rich and
lush. But warmed up like this, I’m surprised by the notes I’m able to reach. Mr. Helt would be proud. My voice doesn’t falter or break. I can sustain the song:

Amazing Grace,

How sweet the sound . . .

I sweep back and forth, back and forth, the broom’s straw bristles against the stained-wood floor my steady accompaniment:

I once was lost

But now am found . . .

There’s no blot on this music. It’s spotless, as is my soul when I sing it. And if I keep up the effort, soon this place will be spotless, too.

I make bold and ask God to bless Miss Jackson, wherever she is, however she is, whatever she is doing on this day. Then I tuck the hem of my last best skirt up into my waistband. I pull off my shoes and stockings, get down on my knees, plunge a rag into the bucket of vinegar and water, and start to scrub the floor.

Before Dad came to America, he was a cabin boy on a Danish ship, and then a sailor. Though Mother winced, he’s told us stories of swabbing the ship’s deck, the raucous songs they used to sing. The only sea chantey I know is “Blow the Man Down.” Swabbing, I sing that: