LILLY AND MICHAEL stood beneath the elevated tracks as a train pummeled the rails with such force that it rattled Michael’s teeth. His hand was in his pocket, fingering the bills that Francis had stuffed there the day before. Had that really been only yesterday? For the first time he wondered if Francis had known all along that they would be separated, and that was the reason he had given his brother his own stash of walking-around money. As they’d passed pushcarts hawking fruit and pickles and secondhand shoes, dirt-caked potatoes and spools of ribbon, Michael trained his eyes on the storefronts and the second-story windows. Yeats had said that in an emergency, any decent medium might do, and that he would count on whatever second sight his ghostly state offered to sort the frauds from the bona fide mediums.
Lilly considered the vast brick building across the street. It stretched half the length of the block, a home for horses in the days before the automobile and now a shelter for men who had found themselves rendered obsolete. One of the arches, built broad enough for horses and carts, had been partially filled with bricks of a different color to create a pair of low doors topped by a hand-lettered sign: MISSION OF ST. JUDE. ALL WELCOME. PRAISE THE LORD FOR HE IS RISEN. LO! UNTO YOU A CHILD IS BORN. MEN ONLY. NO PERMANENT RESIDENTS. Both doors were propped open and with the elevated train having crashed and screeched its way downtown, Lilly could now hear a piano and a battery of raised voices coming from inside. She took Michael by the elbow and steered him across the street toward the swell of what must have been a hymn but which resonated like the grim recitation of a national anthem, accompanied by the heavy plodding chords of a left hand made for bricklaying, not piano playing.
A man stepped from inside and scanned up and down the street, looking for souls in need of salvation—particularly the souls of men who required no permanent accommodation. He wore a dark blue uniform with scarlet piping at the cuffs of the jacket and a matching stripe that edged the trousers from hip to foot. He had pushed back the peaked cap on his head so he could mop his brow with a limp handkerchief. While the uniform was meant to give him a military bearing, he looked instead like an usher in a middling cinema.
All she had to do was hand the boy over to his care. The man would know what to do. The building must be full of strays like this boy, whose wide eyes scanned the cross-shaped sign, the elevated tracks, the scoured-brick fa?ade of the mission, and the row of storefronts on the opposite side of the street: nickel breakfast joint, rag merchant, cigar store, pawnshop.
As they drew closer to the door, other men straggled in. One wore a white shirt stippled with faded yellow spots, and Lilly wondered how long it would take for her guest’s shirt to lose its creamy luster. Another man almost collided with her; a turban of gauze covered half his face, and above his eye radiated a stain, black at its center and then red waning toward pink at the edges. Lilly stopped short and the boy caught her by the arm, steadying her. With a nod he indicated the bandaged man and made a comic wince: Ouch!
The missionary greeted each man who walked through the door, looking him in the eyes and giving every offered hand a thorough pumping. Some men he gripped by the elbow, others received a pat on the shoulder or a few words of welcome. Some were sheepish in the face of such generosity, others beamed under this moment of casual regard. The boy still had Lilly by the arm and he nodded to her again, but she knew this time he was asking if she was all right. She bobbed her head—Of-course-of-course—and took his hand.
She was supposed to be tying up loose ends, putting everything in its proper place—but how could she even think of abandoning him? Besides, she had at least half a dozen items left on the New York List and wouldn’t it be more pleasant if she had someone—anyone—to accompany her? If Josef could not join her for tea at the Waldorf-Astoria (no. 8) or a visit to the World’s Fair (no. 11) or a movie in Times Square (no. 15), then this boy would have to be his stand-in. He was, in many ways, the ideal companion. He was kind, and his quick action averting a direct impact with the bloody turban proved that he was reliable. He wasn’t going to ask uncomfortably personal questions or prattle on with inanities at the Museum of Modern Art (no. 19). If he had a tendency to fall over at odd times, well, she had overlooked worse habits in men in the past.
Lilly reached into her purse and withdrew a pen and a small pad of paper. Flipping past the names of galleries she had visited, phone numbers at the Foundation, the address of the shipping agent, contacts at the Czechoslovakian embassy—when such a place had existed—she found a blank page and drew three choices for the boy to consider: a steaming cup of tea, the Trylon and Perisphere, and a film projector.
YEATS NUDGED MICHAEL. “Now, she is an artist. Look at how easily she suggests volume with a simple gesture.”
“You’re not still on that, are you?” Michael said. “Anyhow, I think she wants us to choose one.”
Yeats studied the pictures for a moment longer—neither of them could make sense of the pair of shapes in the center—then stuck out a hand before Michael could select the teacup. “Don’t choose,” he said. “Take the pen from her and draw exactly what I tell you.”
He reached for the pen and after a moment’s hesitation, Lilly gave it to him.
“This better not be another gondola,” Michael said.
“Draw a palm,” Yeats said. “No, not a palm tree. Like this.” He held out one hand, as if stopping traffic.
“How is that—”
“Draw.”
WORKING SLOWLY, THE boy added a fourth option to her paper: an upraised hand with an unblinking eye in its center. He tapped the picture and, as if apologizing for the drawing and whatever it signified, shrugged his shoulders. Lilly held the scrap of paper until her hand started to shake. To prove to herself that the boy was real and not some hallucination, she put a hand on his chest. She could feel his heart beating in his narrow frame. She could have counted his ribs through the fabric of his shirt.