Aldine went out within the quarter hour carrying a small suitcase, wearing her frayed coat, scarf, and gloves. The night was silent except for dogs, and the cold air seeped through her clothes as soon as she began walking toward the tracks. She hoped the unsmiling doctor was deaf in his sleep, like Mrs. Odekirk, and that the plain reflective squares of the neighbors’ windows would let her pass by unremarked upon: half turtle, half woman. The curtains were drawn, the lamps were dim, the sidewalks barely visible because there was no moon. Stars like specks of ice, like the mica that had stuck to her hands that night of the Winter Entertainment, were strewn in their billions but gave no light.
The South Avenue houses were large and judgmental, fronted by elms and American flags, but on First and Second Avenues the houses were crude narrow boxes between stores, the trash piled up in cans on untended front yards. She paused a moment, feeling the baby within her. At first, he (as she thought of him) had been a strange hardness inside, an oval mass that kept her from bending properly at the waist, more like a piece of internal pottery than a living thing. But then the fluttering had started and she’d not been able to stop thinking of the fairy tale wolf that had swallowed a whole family of white kid goats, stuffing himself with their quivering bodies and then falling, as the story went, asleep. In a few weeks, or maybe less, her baby, like all those goats, would come out whole.
She kept one arm folded over her belly and ignored the ache of her feet as she forced them, swollen and creaky, to leave the sidewalk for the gravel beside the tracks. Her entire head seemed to pulse with fear, and her footsteps crunched the night silence that had enveloped her on the street. The immense depot loomed above her, a few of the dormitory windows glowing orange behind cheap muslin. The window she had once shared with Glynis was dark.
Ahead of her a group of men stood around a barrel, the flickering light from the fire casting jagged light on their faces. They stopped talking and watched her coming toward them, each face too dark yet to be identified as Ansel’s.
“I’m looking for a man,” she said, and one of them snickered in a low way. “A newcomer,” she corrected.
“We’re all new enough,” said the hollowest one, high-voiced and snaky.
Aldine could feel them appraising her condition, thinking their knowing thoughts about why the man she was looking for might have run away. Still, she made herself ask again. “He just got here today. His name is Ansel Price and he might have been asking which train to Salt Lake.”
They shook their heads so slowly they might not have been answering her at all.
A man who hadn’t said a thing, bareheaded and wide jawed, removed his hands from his pockets and looked at her with a different kind of knowingness. “Far from home, are we, lass?” he said, a name she’d not been called in so long that it was like he’d spoken her true name. The vowels and consonants were like a code between them and something unlocked in her head.
She nodded and her eyes were wet. “Far.”
“I’ll go have a wee chat for ye,” he said, and he left the barrel for a group of men, who, while he talked, glanced over at her and then told him something she couldn’t hear. She wanted to put her cold hands over the fire but stayed back, feeling with each vertebra the suspended weight of her abdomen, so heavy that she couldn’t decide whether to lean forward or lean back.
As the Scotsman walked back toward her she sensed that he had learned something, and when he met her eyes she was sure. “What?” she asked.
“They said there was a man asked about Salt Lake. They said they’d show us where he is.”
All the hope that had been pooling in her chest ran fast and hot now, as if it were lava rolling down into the sea. She followed the Scotsman, and he followed a lanky man in a soldier’s canvas coat, and they walked past buildings without windows or names until they stopped by a crooked door that might have been red or dark brown once. The lanky man opened it and let them go by, the sour, dank smell of bodies reaching her as the warmth of the room came out. A stove of some kind was lit, and some men slept on the wooden floor, three or four of them it looked like. She didn’t know which one they were headed for, and it was too dim to see.
“What’s the name?” the Scotsman asked, and she said, “Ansel.”
The bodies on the floor didn’t move and the inhabited but silent room frightened her.
“Ansel,” the man repeated for her, louder. “Are ye here?”
Now a body did move, rolling slightly, and they walked toward it. She got close enough to see his face—yes, it was his wide forehead, his jaw, his mouth. “Ansel?” she said, and he turned his eyes toward her.
82
It was not a fit place to be found sleeping, so he stood up quickly. He picked up the bag he’d been using as a pillow and led her out into the cold where he could be himself again, not one of these men. A skinny-eyed tramp said, “Found ya, didn’t she, Pop?” and snickered.
He and Aldine walked along the tracks to the sidewalk, breath mingling in cold isolation, her small gloved hand in his. “You’re here,” he said. “We can go to the farm now.”
“I’m living with Mrs. Odekirk,” she said.
“Sonia?”
“Yes. She has a house here.”
“Why did Glynis say you’d gone to Utah?”
“She was just leading you away.”
He tried to trap his cough but the cold dragged it out of him. She kept close, so he turned away. “I’m sorry,” he whispered when he stopped and had his breath again. “I’ll be fine now that I’ve found you.”
They walked silently past the narrow houses and the spilling trash. They began to approach the wide, squat invincible houses, where even the shadows felt more virtuous and safe. He had still done nothing more than hold her gloved hand. In front of a looming house and fenced lawn, he reached for her other hand and held it tightly so that they came to a stop. “Wait,” he said. He wanted to look at her face. “We need to go,” he said. “We should leave right away for the farm. Can you travel?”
“What kind of travel?”
“Just a car. We need one. Maybe Gil—” He wondered if Gil had a car for work now. Perhaps he could give them a ride.