She got a partial shrug as a reply. “Monday is as good as a month around here, and the boys would be in the other building, if they’re still here at all.”
That gave Anna pause, but she focused on what seemed nearer to hand. “And the girls?”
Sister Xavier said, “There’s talk of sisters coming over from Italy to start an orphanage for their own, but in the meantime the Guinea girls are usually sent down to the old place.”
She used the word Guinea—a terrible insult, even Anna was aware of that much—as easily as she might have said house or child. It took Anna’s breath away for a moment, and then she steadied. “There will be a pinch now, but please hold still.” And then: “And here it is.”
Sister Francis Xavier let out a great sigh as Anna pulled back on the plunger and a cloudy yellow liquid filled the syringe.
“That’s better already.”
While Anna cleaned the puncture site and bandaged it, she considered how best to ask what she needed to know.
“You’re as bad as the novitiates,” Sister Xavier said, her tone grumpier by the minute. “Can’t spit out whatever it is you need to say.”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘the old place’—where is that?”
Sister Xavier sat up with some trouble. “This is the new St. Patrick’s, the cathedral buildings. The old place got too crowded, you see, and so the bishop got after the mayor until he gifted this land for a bigger orphan asylum.”
“But the older asylum is still in use?”
“It is. The Italian girls are more likely to be sent there.”
“And why is that?”
The shoulder under the black habit lifted in a shrug. “They’re more at home down there on Mott Street, among their own kind.”
? ? ?
IT WAS SIX by the time Anna finished with the last examination. She found her own way back along the corridors, passing darkened offices and classrooms. Somewhere in another part of the building bells chimed, but otherwise the halls were far too quiet to house hundreds of little girls. Little girls who learned their letters and their prayers and how to polish wooden floors along with other, harder lessons.
At the next window she paused to look out and saw the reason for the quiet. Two lines of girls were walking, quick-step, along a well-traveled path to one of the cathedral’s side entrances. Apparently evening prayer services were in order. She wondered how many times a day this process repeated itself, and whether the girls minded. She thought probably not; they wore sturdy shoes and hooded capes, and their bellies were full. Some of them had probably put up with much worse for far less.
Anna was dry and warm now, but her stomach growled and she wanted tea and a sandwich and a place to sit quietly for a few moments before she went back out into the weather. There was no sign of the young sister who had taken her wraps to the cloakroom but Anna found them, neatly folded, on a chair in the empty hall.
It seemed that Sister Mary Augustin was not available, after all.
For a long moment Anna waited, standing beside a window to watch as a spring rain replaced the sleet. She would have to go hunt down a cab. The thought was still in her head when she felt a light touch on her elbow.
“Pardon me,” said Sister Mary Augustin. “I didn’t mean to startle you, but I’m so glad I caught you before you left.”
They sat on the visitors’ bench in the little lobby as the light rain gave way to watery sunshine, light falling in stripes to make a checkerboard on the cool gray stone floor.
“Mother Superior gave me permission to talk to you,” Sister Mary Augustin said. “But I don’t have long and there are things you should know”—she swallowed, visibly—“about the Russo children.”
“You sought me out to give me bad news, I take it.”
Many emotions moved over the younger woman’s face. Fear, regret, guilt all came and went, but finally she nodded and the story came out quite quickly. She told Anna about the drunken brawl on the docks and the rush back to the orphan asylum. Somehow, she said, the boys had gotten separated from the rest of the children.
“Separated?”
“They never arrived here.”
Anna sat back, and Mary Augustin went on. They had instituted a search once this was discovered, but without success. The boys had last been seen four days ago, on Monday. Rosa was beside herself with worry.
Anna offered to talk to the girl, and color rose in Mary Augustin’s face.
“They’re gone,” she said. “They were transferred to the old St. Patrick’s on Wednesday. The priest there is Italian.” She offered this as if it were explanation enough, and in fact it did lend credence to what Sister Ignatia had told her. Mostly Italians and Irish lived in the tenements crowded together along the East River.
“All right,” Anna said. “I’ll go there straightaway and talk to them.” She was very tired, but she would not sleep if she let this stand while Rosa waited for word.
“That’s the trouble,” Sister Mary Augustin said, her voice taking on a bit of a wobble. “You won’t find them.”