“Keep on scrubbing.”
A nurse glared at her from the balcony above. Sara went back to her work, and even though her staircase was finished in thirty minutes, she noticed the other women stayed at it, going over what they had scrubbed before, so she did the same. It wouldn’t do to attract attention by announcing that the job was done. As she was working on the lower steps, a couple of nurses walked by.
“Superintendent Dent is due in an hour. Dr. Fields said to lock up the noisy ones until he’s gone.”
“They’ll miss supper.”
“No matter. There’ll be another meal tomorrow.” At this she laughed. It was Nurse Garelick, and she caught Sara staring.
“What are you looking at?” She stepped over and placed a dirty boot on the step Sara had been working on. “Clean that up, will ya?”
The other nurse guffawed and they walked away. Superintendent Dent. Sara would pick her moment and approach him, tell her story. Even though she was no longer wearing black silk, and her hair was braided down her back like a schoolgirl’s, she still had the accent and the countenance of a good English girl. She’d stop him in his tracks, raise one eyebrow, and ask for a private moment. It had always worked before, and she knew it was best to do so now, as a fresh arrival.
With renewed energy, she scrubbed off the dirty footprint and when the next bell rang, she followed the other girls, dumped the dirty water outside, and stacked her mop and bucket on the landing. They walked out into one of the wings and entered a long room with tall, barred windows along one side. Severe-looking yellow benches ran along each wall. Most of the women rushed for the seats opposite the windows, and only later did Sara realize why.
They were to sit for hours at a time. If yesterday’s wait to be seen by the doctor had been excruciating, it was a mere blip in a day compared to the afternoon’s torture. Sara took up a bench under one of the windows, a cold wind blowing on her neck and down her back. The women who sat across from her looked out the windows, their eyes lifted to the light like churchgoers to the cross, while she had only their worn faces to watch.
If a woman shifted in her seat, the nurses—all sitting around a table in the middle of the room—would yell for stillness. No one spoke, but a couple of inmates dozed off while remaining upright.
After an hour, Sara did indeed wonder if she was mad. She wanted to stomp out of there, yell at the top of her lungs. Her eyes played tricks on her; the light in the room changed from gold to green to blue. When she closed her eyes, the colors still shimmered behind her eyelids. If she wasn’t careful, she’d lose her mind here anyway, and it would be no different than if she’d been mad in the first place.
The door opened and a man in a black suit, with white whiskers, walked in. The nurses all rose.
“Superintendent Dent, welcome,” said Nurse Garelick.
“Ladies, thank you.” He put a hand in one pocket and with the other fingered his timepiece, as if he were worried it might be grabbed off of him at any moment.
“How do you do?” The superintendent walked the full circle of the room, hardly pausing to hear an answer. Not that he got one. Few women dared speak, other than to say “Fine” and “Thank you, sir.”
As he headed along her row, Sara braced herself. She had to say something. Now.
She opened her mouth to speak, but Nurse Garelick cut in. “Superintendent Dent, I hate to cut your visit short, but Dr. Fields was hoping to get five minutes of your time, if you please.”
“Of course. Lead the way.”
Nurse Garelick shot Sara a nasty look as she turned. The woman knew exactly what she’d been planning. Like she’d read Sara’s mind. She might have won this round, but Sara would outwit her. She had to.
More sitting. With the dregs of the supper settling badly in her stomach, Sara took a seat between Natalia and the woman with the long gray hair who’d cried in the night. Sara tried to make eye contact with her, to make a connection even if it was by blinking, but the older woman only stared down at her feet.
“So cold.”
It was only a murmur, but in the silence of the room it sounded like a scream. Sara made a soft shushing noise. The nurses were just outside the door, jabbering on about a new dress shop that was opening up somewhere in Manhattan, which might as well have been Russia, it seemed so far away. Oh, for the luxury of speaking of dress shops, something she’d taken for granted before being thrown into this dungeon of filth and misery. How she wished she’d not been too caught up with the pettiness of daily life to appreciate such freedom.
“Cold. My feet. So cold.”
Sara leaned close. “I know, we’ll be done sitting soon and we can go to bed. But no more speaking.”
The woman looked up at her with trusting eyes.
“It’s all right. What’s your name?” Sara whispered.
“Marianne.”
The woman must have been lovely once, the bone structure of her face sharp under paper-thin flesh.
“It’s a beautiful name, Marianne.” Sara took the woman’s hand in her own and rubbed it.
“No. No. Cold.” Her teeth chattered in between the words.
“No talking,” said Natalia from the other side of Sara. “You’ll get us all in trouble.”
Sara kept ahold of Marianne’s hand. “She can’t help it.”
Without warning, Marianne leaped up from the bench.
She whirled around and began hopping, her hands crossed tightly over her body. Her mouth opened wide and a guttural yowl erupted. Over and over, she screeched out her anguish, the sound echoing around the vast room.
The nurses charged in, Nurse Garelick leading the way. “What’s going on?”
Marianne ran to the far side of the room, still hopping and howling.
“She’s cold,” offered Sara.
“Don’t say a word.” Natalia, speaking under her breath.
But it was too late for that. Nurse Garelick turned on Sara. “Quiet.”
Unused to taking commands, Sara stiffened. “She’s simply cold. Is there any way she can get another covering, a blanket? Please, you can see how thin she is. The cold goes right through her.”
Marianne was busy evading the grasp of the other two nurses, running around the table with them trailing her. Nurse Garelick stuck out her arm, which was the size of a tree branch, and grabbed her by the throat.
“You about finished there, dearie?”
Marianne nodded, but when Nurse Garelick loosened her grip, she screamed louder than Sara would have imagined possible. The sound came from her very core, embodying all of the hunger, cold, and hopelessness of the place. Many of the inmates shrank from the sound, but Sara stood. “You must help her.”
Nurse Garelick laughed and shoved Sara back down with her free hand. She turned to Marianne, studying her like a wicked child would an injured butterfly. “I hear this one used to be a dancer, back in the day.”
Marianne’s arms dropped to her sides.
“That got your attention, did it? I think you should dance for us, then, since you’re incapable of sitting still like the rest of the patients.”
Marianne shook her head.
“Dance. Or don’t eat for three days.”
Sara flinched, ready to spring to the woman’s aid, to try and distract the nurses, but Natalia grabbed her arm. “Don’t do it. Stay put.”
“Dance. Now.”
Marianne hopped like a robin, wary and watchful.
“That’s not dancing. No dancing, no food.”
Tentatively at first, the woman began moving her feet in dainty steps, then her hands fluttered and she hummed a tune under her breath.