“You talked with him again at the museum.”
Her stomach twisted again. “I didn’t plan that—”
“I never said you did,” Dolph murmured. “But as I said, he seems taken with you.”
“I’m not interested in him, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“And if I want you to be interested?” Dolph asked.
“I’m still not interested,” Esta told him, firm.
He didn’t say anything else at first as she stood there, growing increasingly uncomfortable.
“Was there something you needed from me?” she asked, breaking the silence when she couldn’t stand it anymore. “I still have my quota to bring in today, and it’s pointless to steal wallets if the money’s already been spent.”
“You won’t need to worry about that today,” he told her.
“Why?” she asked, her throat tight. “Did I do something wrong?”
He lifted himself from the chair without answering and took his time about rinsing his teacup and saucer in the long enameled sink in the attached kitchen. Esta shifted, trying not to let her impatience get the best of her as he set the cup aside to dry and crossed the room to fetch his coat. He’d already stepped past her and opened the door before he spoke again.
“Walk with me,” he said, a command if ever there was one.
Curious and more than a little worried about her position with him, she didn’t argue. They walked in a wordless, companionable silence through the dimly lit hallway, down the narrow stairs, and out onto Elizabeth Street.
“Am I allowed to ask where we’re going?” she said once they’d gone more than a block without Dolph saying anything.
He glanced at her. “If I said no, would that stop you?”
“Probably not,” she admitted.
“And if I don’t want to tell you?”
“I’d probably be curious enough to follow you anyway.”
“Fair enough,” Dolph said. “We’re going to be making some calls today.”
“On who?” she asked.
He gave her an unreadable look and didn’t answer as he continued on.
Two blocks later, they arrived at a building that looked like all the other tenements in the neighborhood: same worn redbrick walls, same cluttered fire escapes, same small children playing out on the walk, watched over by a tired-looking woman with a scarf wrapped around her head for warmth. Inside, it smelled of coal smoke and garlic, of onions cooked days before and too many bodies. The halls were narrow, like the ones above the Strega, and the walls were stained with the residue of the lamps burning softly in the windowless space.
On the fourth floor, Dolph knocked at a door and was let into an apartment by an older woman wearing a shapeless dress and an apron. Inside the apartment, the air was filled with a sharp chemical scent. The furniture had been pushed up against the walls, and five children—none older than ten or eleven—sat in the center of the floor around a pile of silk flowers. They barely looked up at the visitors, quickly turning their small faces back to the task before them as they glued the tiny silk petals onto wire stems one by one.
“How are you, Golde?” When the woman gave an inarticulate shrug, Dolph went on. “I came to see about your husband,” Dolph said, switching into German.
The woman shook her head. “He won’t see anyone.”
Dolph seemed to accept this and didn’t press. “How is he?”
The woman twisted her hands in her apron as she sat at the table and began gluing her own flowers. “The doctors say he’ll heal.”
“His position?”
She shrugged, a small movement that broadcast her fear and worry without a single word. “Filled, I suppose. He’ll find another. We’ll get by.”
Esta crouched down to watch the children at work as Dolph talked to the woman about the state of their affairs—the rent that needed to be paid, the groceries she could barely afford. The little ones looked at Esta with the same tired, cautious eyes as their mother, but the youngest held up one of the silk flowers as an offering, her fingers red and raw from her work.
Esta took the delicate bloom carefully and pretended to give it a sniff. The girl smiled softly. Suddenly Esta felt the warm pulse of magic, and the flower petals began to move, fluttering open and closed.
The girl grinned, proud of the demonstration, and Esta pulled a coin from her pocket and presented it to the child, whose eyes widened. “Go on,” she whispered, but the child didn’t seem to understand, so Esta placed the coin in the small hand and closed it.
“Where’s your oldest, Josef??” Dolph asked, nodding to where Esta kneeled with the children.
“Out,” the woman said, her tone bleak. “Sometimes he collects coal for us during the day. Keeps us in warmth at least.”
“And the other times?”
“With his father sick, he runs with a group of boys from the street.” The woman shrugged, defeated. “I don’t like them, but what can I do? He’s nearly fourteen. I’m lucky he hasn’t left altogether.”
“Send him to me when he gets home. I have some work I can give him.” When the woman frowned, Dolph spoke again to reassure her. “Nothing dangerous. I need someone to make small deliveries. He’s welcome to collect your coal while he’s out.”
“My husband won’t want any of your bargains,” the woman said warily.
“No bargain required, and I won’t ask your son for his oath, if that’s what worries you. He’s too young to be making those decisions, but he needs to be kept busy. Kelly or Eastman won’t be so understanding if he gets mixed up with them. The boy can keep the position even once your husband’s well, so long as he spends his nights at home with you.”
The woman didn’t argue the point any further, simply nodded her head and turned back to the flower she was piecing together.
Dolph glanced at Esta. “We’ve other stops to make.”
At the next building, they visited a girl who couldn’t have been any older than Esta herself. The baby on her hip fussed and a toddler played at her feet as Dolph accepted her cup of coffee and sat to talk with her.
“Dzień dobry, Marta. I came because I heard about Krzysztof. . . . There’s been no sign of him? No news?” he asked in Polish.
The girl shook her head as she stood to stomp out the paper doll the toddler had just set on fire with nothing but his will and his affinity. “Nie,” she said sharply, cracking the child across the hand, which caused him to begin wailing and set the baby off as well.