“The girls do it,” she said. “One started it. She was a lunatic and never should’ve been sent here in the first place. We took her to the asylum after only one night, but it was too late. She’d taken such a hole out of this wall that we couldn’t patch it without tearing the whole thing apart. So we left it alone for the time being, and when the next girl saw it, she took up the idea. Now every one of them picks up where the last one left off. All the punishment rooms are like this now, and we’ve long since given up on re-plastering. The superintendent wants iron rooms built, but the money has to come from the state.”
“How do the girls misbehave?” Minnie tried to sound disinterested, but she was starting to waver.
Miss Pittman turned off the light and led them out. “Fighting, mostly. Setting fires. Running away.”
The girls’ dormitories were downright luxurious compared to what they’d seen so far. They were sparsely furnished with a single cot and chair for each girl, and a hook above each bed for clothes. At the end of each room was a tiny, high window with iron bars across it. “Twelve girls to a dormitory,” Miss Pittman said, “and a night matron making the rounds every thirty minutes.”
They passed a set of classrooms, but Miss Pittman explained that they were hardly used owing to a lack of students from the teachers college willing to come offer lessons for free in the summer. “The state doesn’t like to spend money on literature,” she said. “It isn’t their aim to run a finishing school.”
There was a sewing room and a large kitchen. Miss Pittman said, “The girls are instructed in all manner of domestic work. Each girl cooks for a small group of eight, rather than work as part of a crew making dinner for the entire population. That way, they’ll learn what it is to cook for a family. When they leave here, they’ll be placed in service in respectable homes. Most of our girls were never taught their duties, or refused to do them. Our aim is to raise them ourselves, as their families failed to do.”
Minnie pretended not to have heard that, but Constance said, “Minnie’s family did just fine by her.”
Miss Pittman gave a high and superior sort of laugh. “I don’t believe they did, or she wouldn’t have been sent here. Now, most girls stay on probation after they leave, and we make sure they keep to the job they’ve been given. They’re allowed to marry only with our approval. You see, Miss Davis, we’ll help prepare you for a quiet and comfortable home life. We’ll see that you make a good marriage, and teach you how to be of use to a family.”
“She’s only here temporarily,” Constance said briskly. “She hasn’t been sentenced.” She bristled at the idea of Minnie being made to spend five years in a place like this over one poor decision. Some of these girls might have done wrong, but surely some were just independent and strong-willed. It was cruel to force all of them into domestic service, and wasteful to deprive them of an education and some brighter future.
Their next stop on this most demoralizing of tours was the infirmary, which was housed in one of the two brick buildings they’d passed earlier. When they stepped inside, Minnie took a sniff and said, “I know all about this.” The infirmary used the same naptha soap to rid the girls of lice that was used at the jail.
They followed Miss Pittman into a small wood-paneled room with an examination table, several cupboards of instruments, and a shower room attached. “As soon as the nurse finishes her lunch, you’ll have a complete examination and a Wassermann test.” She gave Minnie another one of her foreboding looks, and Constance was obliged to bend over and whisper into the girl’s ear that it was a test for venereal disease.
“We only just started last year,” Miss Pittman said, as she handed Minnie a dressing-gown, “and it’s a good thing we did. Over half of the girls test positive.”
Constance felt Minnie’s fingers dig into her elbow. Miss Pitt-man noticed and said, “I’m sure you’re eager to get back on the train, Miss Kopp.”
“I’ll stay until the nurse comes,” Constance said. The least she could do was to see Minnie through the examination. Miss Pittman didn’t seem to like it, but she spun around on her heel and left them alone.
27
WHEN THEY WERE ALONE, Minnie said, “Why on earth would they think I have a disease?”
Constance perched on the edge of the examining table and told Minnie to sit next to her. The girl sat perfectly upright and kept her eyes fixed on the wall opposite. She couldn’t look at Constance.
For all of her bravado, Constance saw the truth. There had been other men. Of course there had.
She gave Minnie’s shoulder a hard squeeze and the girl turned to face her. “Before the nurse comes,” Constance said, “isn’t it time you told me the truth? You have good reason to be worried about this test, don’t you?”
Minnie sniffed and tossed her hair around. “Tony ought to be worried about a test. When does he take his?”
Constance had to admit that she didn’t know. In truth, no mention of such a thing had ever come up at the jail.
“I won’t tell the prosecutor,” Constance said. “I won’t tell the sheriff. But is it true what Detective Courter said? About the men going in and out of the place?”
Minnie shrugged Constance’s arm off her shoulder and walked around the room. “Tony stopped coming over,” she said. “There was never anything to do or anywhere to go. Half the time, I didn’t have any supper at all except what the baker downstairs would give me. It was no kind of life. You wouldn’t have stood for it, either.”
“And you found someone who had a better kind of life on offer?”
“Some—a few. It was nice to have somebody buy me dinner. Is that a crime?”
Constance didn’t bother to answer. This was worse than anything John Courter had implied. “Do you mean to say that Tony didn’t coerce you into it? He didn’t bring those men around?”
Minnie stared at her, puzzled. “Tony? Why would he? They took me to restaurants, Miss Kopp. To the moving pictures.”
“And sometimes they came up to your room?”
Minnie crossed her arms over her chest and stayed stubbornly silent.
“Are you telling me that Tony didn’t . . . arrange for any of this?”
“No! Of course not. He never knew.” She didn’t bother to tell Constance about the night Tony found out. There wasn’t time and, anyway, none of it mattered now.
Constance couldn’t bear to look at her. Carrie had guessed at the truth, even when Constance hadn’t wanted to believe it. She let her eyes drift over to the door as she said, “You understand the difficulty this poses. With your case.”
“But you’re not going to tell anyone!”
She forced herself to look at Minnie. “That’s right. I’m not. Only . . . I don’t know how to get you released. If a judge finds out that you invited these men . . . well, that’s exactly why they put girls in a place like this.”
“But I?—”
They were interrupted at that moment by the nurse, a sturdy, broad-shouldered, flat-footed woman with the expression of someone who had confronted many a crying girl in her examination room.
“I’m Nurse Porter, dear, and you’re here for a quick examination.” Her voice was low and level. The nurse put a hand on Minnie’s arm, but she shook it away. All at once Minnie had the look of a trapped animal about her. Constance backed up against the door to make sure she wouldn’t run.