Sister Jeanne briefly closed her eyes. Her cheeks grew warm. The young mother gave a short, startled laugh. “Yes, Sister,” she said. “He is.”
Sister Lucy raised her bare hand, one red finger in the air, and Sister Jeanne thought of General Washington again—or perhaps it was Napoleon. “Has he got a good job?”
“He does,” the mother said. She straightened her spine. “He’s a doorman at the St. Francis Hotel.”
Sister nodded, barely placated. “Do you live nearby?” she asked.
“Yes, Sister,” she said. She nodded over her shoulder. “Just at 314. Since last Saturday.”
Now Sister Lucy turned the finger toward the woman’s heart. “You come to see me,” she said, “if ever he’s not good to you.”
“He’s good to me,” the girl said again, laughing.
“We’re in the convent on Fourth. I’m Sister Lucy.” She swung her hand. “This is Sister Jeanne. You come see us if need be.”
The woman gave a little curtsy, but began to move the carriage nonetheless. “I will,” she said. “Good morning, Sisters.”
The woman was only a few feet away when Sister Lucy said, “If he was good to her, he might let her catch her breath before starting another child.” She blinked at the snowflakes that were trying to cover her eyes. “He might think of her health instead of his pleasure.”
All joy was thin ice to Sister Lucy.
Sister Jeanne bowed her head and studied for a minute the tips of their identical shoes. Under the skim of cold on her cheeks she could still feel the rising heat.
“I’ll go in, then,” Sister Jeanne whispered, and turned to the steps.
“I’ll try to get the word out,” Sister Lucy called after her. “I’ll talk to Mr. Hennessey, who knows all the motormen. But there’s hardly time to gather a decent crowd, the way she’s rushing things. And only one night for the wake.”
Sister Jeanne nodded without turning, going up the steps. She had quite forgotten God was in the snow around her, in the cold and the wide sky; she had quite forgotten her pleasure in the day’s work ahead. She was thinking instead that they were well rid of Sister Lucy.
*
A POLICEMAN AND A FIREMAN were conferring with another gentleman in the hallway by the stairs. They all turned and nodded to the young nun as she came through the vestibule. The door to the apartment was ajar and she let herself in. In full, if weak, daylight, the room seemed nicer than it had last night, if only because now, with the curtains in the big picture window opened, it had the view of the snow to make it cheerful. There was still the smell of smoke, but the smell of cleaning ammonia was now cut into it—the smell of the day going on. She crossed the living room and entered the narrow corridor that was lined with two portraits of dour peasants and found Sister St. Saviour in the tiny kitchen. Sister Jeanne placed the broom against the door and carried the bucket to the table where the old nun sat. The kitchen had been well scrubbed, the only trace of the lady’s interrupted dinner was the newspaper that had been folded beside her plate. Sister St. Saviour now had it wide open before her.
Sister Jeanne poured the milky tea into a cup she borrowed from the cabinet and set it down. “It’s still awfully cold in here, Sister,” she said.
Sister St. Saviour moved the cup closer without raising it. “The men have just been in to turn on the gas,” she said. “I asked them to carry out a few things that were damaged in the fire. They’re going to wash the walls for me as well. So we’ve made some progress.”
Sister Jeanne took a plate from the cupboard, set out the buttered bread and jam.
“Mr. Sheen will get the body from the morgue this morning,” Sister St. Saviour went on. “First thing the lady wakes, she’ll have to pick out his clothes. You can run them over for me. We’ve got a mass set for six tomorrow morning. Then the cemetery. The ground, praise God, isn’t frozen. It’ll all be finished before the new day’s begun.”
“That’s quick,” Sister Jeanne said. She hesitated and then added, “Sister Lucy wonders why it’s such a rush.”
Sister St. Saviour only raised her eyes to the top of the newspaper. “Sister Lucy,” she said casually, “has a big mouth.”
She turned the opened newspaper over, to the front page, straightening the edges. Then she touched her glasses. “Here’s a story,” she said, and put her fingertip to the page. “Mr. Sheen mentioned it to me this morning. A man over in Jersey, playing billiards in his home, accidentally opened the gas tap in the room, with the pole they use, the cue, it says, and asphyxiated himself.” She raised her chin. “His poor wife called him for dinner and found him gone.” The glasses made her dark eyes sparkle. “Day before yesterday. Mr. Sheen mentioned it to me this morning. He was pointing out how common these things are. These accidents with the gas.”
Sister St. Saviour moved her finger up the page. “And now here’s a story of a suicide,” she continued. “On the same page. Over on Wards Island. A man being treated at the hospital over there, for madness. It seems he was doing well enough, but then he threw himself into the water and disappeared. At Hell Gate. It says the water covered him up at Hell Gate.” She clucked her tongue. “As if the devil needed to put a fine point on his work.” She moved her arm once again. She might have been signing a blessing over the page. “And here’s another story of a Wall Street man gone insane. Same day. Throwing bottles into the street, bellowing. Carted off to the hospital.” She leaned forward, reading, her finger on the page, “‘Where he demanded to see J. P. Morgan and Colonel Roosevelt.’”
Sister Jeanne leaned forward as well. “Is it true?” she asked.
Sister St. Saviour laughed. “True enough.” Her smile was as smooth as paint. “The devil loves these short, dark days.”
Sister Jeanne straightened her spine. She sometimes feared that Sister St. Saviour was wobbly in her ways. Hadn’t she once said, on Sister Jeanne’s first day in the convent, “Could you go tinkle for me?”
“Mr. Sheen told me,” Sister St. Saviour went on, “that he could show the article about the billiard man to anyone in the Church, or at the cemetery, in case there was a question. To show how common these sorts of accidents are. And how easily they could be misinterpreted. This New Jersey man, after all, had come home early from work. And closed the door. Had he been a poor man, not a man with a billiard table at all, they might have made a different report out of it. The rich can get whatever they want put into the papers.”
*
BY THE TIME MRS. GERTLER RETURNED to reclaim her apartment, Annie was up and dressed and sitting in a chair by the window with one of Sister Jeanne’s handkerchiefs clutched in both hands.