“You worry that she will blame you. But you aren’t at fault. She knows that in her heart, even if she forgets it in her sorrow. And that will temper, over time.”
“Are you saying that I should simply tell her that there’s no possibility of finding them?” Anna didn’t know how she felt about such an idea, whether she should be relieved or resigned or outraged.
“Oh, no,” said Father Anselm. “It’s not time to give up yet. But that time may come. You have to be prepared for that. And so must Rosa.”
When she was calmer Anna said, “Where do we start?” She cleared her throat to hide her embarrassment. “Where do I start?”
“With Jack,” said the older man. “Jack can ask questions where you can’t. As you can, where he cannot.” To Jack he said, “What does Mrs. Webb say?”
“We’re going to see her when we leave you.”
Anna had to physically stop herself from turning to look at him. He hadn’t told her—hadn’t asked her—about another call, and while she knew she should be irritated at his high-handed assumptions, she could only feel thankful that he had taken the lead.
Brother Anselm was saying, “The younger boy was about three months, you said. I would think that as long as he is healthy he will already have been adopted. What was his condition when you examined him?”
She lifted a shoulder. “An infant of normal size. A little underweight, certainly, but not extremely so. Very alert, with blue eyes like his sisters and brother. A handsome little boy, with a head full of dark hair.”
“A healthy, good-looking, alert three-month-old boy with blue eyes—I doubt he spent more than a few nights under a convent roof. So many children on the street, invisible to everyone, but there is always a demand for healthy infants as long as the adoptive parents can convince themselves that the mother was of good character.”
“But how—” she began.
“They can’t know,” Brother Anselm said. “But if the child is healthy and pretty enough, they convince themselves that it is so.”
He got up from the table and went to a cabinet, where he rumbled in a small box. Then he returned to the table and put paper and pencil in front of Anna, and lowered himself back into his chair.
“May I assume the older boy is healthy, and looks much like his brother?”
“Yes,” Anna said. “He’s average size but very strong, with a mop of dark curly hair and blue eyes. Very shy, but so would any child be in such a situation.”
“Seven years old,” Brother Anselm said. “Strong. He might have wandered away and got lost. Jack, you’re looking into the possibility he was picked up by one of the padroni?”
Anna felt herself startle. She had been very young when the padroni scandal had erupted, but she did remember the details quite well. An Italian would go to the small mountain villages in Italy and recruit young boys who showed even the slightest musical talent. He promised their families that they would be back in a couple of years with a substantial nest egg. The travel, clothes, food, lodging, training would be provided. All the boy had to give in return was good behavior and a willingness to make music.
And then the boy would be gone into the maw of the Crosby Street tenements, sleeping on filthy floors, insufficiently clothed and fed, and sent out to play the violin on street corners. Any boy who did not come back with the amount demanded would be beaten. More than one had died that way.
“I thought a law was passed—” Anna began, and stopped herself. Passing a law and enforcing it were entirely different matters, as anyone who lived in Manhattan knew.
“It’s not as bad as it was ten years ago,” Jack said. “But there are still a few of the padroni going about their business. I’ll make some inquiries.”
Father Anselm seemed satisfied with that. “He could also have been taken in by any one of two dozen charitable organizations.”
“And if he wasn’t taken in?” Anna asked.
“We would hope that he ended up as a guttersnipe with one of the Italian street arab gangs. There are enough of them who steer clear of the homes and orphanages, after all. They’d train him in the fine art of picking pockets and minor larceny until he gets big enough to be considered an arab himself.” He had been watching Anna closely, and so she said what she couldn’t hold back.
“If you think that being raised to be a street arab is nothing to hope for, there are worse possibilities to consider.”
“But not to start with,” Father Anselm said. “So I’ll give you the names of people to contact and places to visit, if you’ll write. My hands won’t hold a pen anymore.”
? ? ?
THE CHURCH BELLS were ringing five o’clock when they left Brother Anselm, the light slanted now in that way particular to spring evenings. They stood for a moment on the doorstep, not talking.
“One more stop,” Jack said. “Would you rather I take you home? I can call on the matron at headquarters alone; I’ve been doing it every day since I heard they were missing.”