The Unfortunates. Laurie Graham

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      ‘Religion gives rise to intemperate opinions, Dora,’ Aunt Fish advised, ‘and a hostess does well to keep those from her table.’

      So we avoided any association with God as carefully as we avoided cold drafts, and, with regard to this, nothing could have made Ma happier than Honey’s choice of Harry Glaser as a husband.

      ‘A good thing about Harry,’ I had often heard her say, ‘is that he doesn’t go in for religion.’

      I knew therefore, as we came to the doors of St Peter’s Episcopalian church, to expect dangerous excesses inside, and I resolved to stay in command of myself. I kept my eyes downcast for five minutes at least, for fear of coming face to face with this God who was too controversial to have to dinner.

      All around me grown men wept and crumbled, and candles were lit, and a song was sung, in poor cracked voices, for those in peril on the sea.

      ‘Too late now for that,’ I thought, aching for the smell of my Pa’s hair tonic. But I liked being there, close to people who had been saved from the dark and deep. I liked how determined they had been to walk to 20th Street and pray when they might have gone home directly and been cosseted with warm milk and cake.

      She was kneeling, across the other side of the church, busy with some Irish hocus-pocus. I kept her in my sights and moved a couple of times, to get nearer to her, squeezing past people who complained and people who were too lost in their sorrow to notice. I had remembered her name.

      When the singing and praying was over I moved quickly, to be sure of blocking her path as she made to leave.

      ‘Nellie,’ I said, ‘is it you?’

      She gave me a stubborn look I recognized, but her face colored. She may have been dressed by Mr Worth, but she still had the look of a maid caught trying on her mistress’s gown.

      I said, ‘My Pa was on the Titanic. Did you see him, by any chance?’

      Still she resisted me, and I felt my chance slipping away, to know the worst, or to find new hope.

      ‘Please, Nellie,’ I begged. ‘Can you tell me anything at all?’

      Her pertness dissolved.

      ‘I’m so sorry, Miss Poppy,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss. He went back for my muff. I begged him not to, but he would go …’

      We stood face to face but at cross purposes, and people flowed around us, away, out of the church and back into life.

      ‘… it was my Persian broadtail muff,’ she said, ‘and it was an awful cold night.’

      I said, ‘So you did see him? Were you close to him? Did he say anything?’

      ‘He said “Go to the boat station, Nellie. I’ll come to you there.”’

      Then her tears started.

      ‘He lived and died a gentleman,’ she said. ‘Whatever people may say, there were no irregularities between us. I was there by way of secretary to him.’

      I said, ‘How could you be? Mr Levi was his secretary. And anyway, can you read?’

      ‘I can,’ she said. ‘Well. I was more of an assistant. A personal assistant. There was no one could take away his headaches the way I could. And that’s how things stood. I’d swear to it on the good book.’

      They always said that when they were lying. Next thing she’d be asking for wages still owed.

      I said, ‘Where do you live? Where are you going?’

      ‘To my sister,’ she said. ‘Or maybe to my cousin.’

      The slipperiness of the Irish. How right my mother was.

      It was a long walk home. Three miles, I now know, but then I had no idea of distance or time. My shoes rubbed holes in my stockings and my toes were pinched and sore, but I pressed on as fast as I could. I knew the streets were full of robbers and murderers and women who drank sherry wine.

      It wasn’t exactly fear kept me hurrying along. Now my Pa had died, dead seemed an easy thing to be. Still, I wasn’t sure I’d be as brave as he had been. ‘Go to the boat station, Nellie.’ When the moment came, I might squawk, or not quite die, and lie in agony in the gutter.

      I knew, too, I’d be the subject of a full inquiry at home, and I preferred to face it as soon as possible. There was no predicting what grief would make of Ma. She might forgive all, in a fit of tenderness, or she might turn on me, like a wounded beast. In any event, it has always been my nature to take whatever I have coming to me as quickly as possible.

      As I passed the New Theater, nearly home, I heard an automobile chugging toward me and I knew it was a search party in the shape of Harry Glaser. He all but threw me into the car. I didn’t think he had it in him.

      ‘You damned fool,’ was all he could say. ‘You goddamned fool!’

      I said, ‘You were the one abandoned me. I waited for you. And does Honey know you use language?’

      ‘Don’t we have hard enough times ahead of us with your Ma,’ he said, ‘without you disappearing and putting me in a bad odor? What’s your game?’

      I said, ‘I lost you in the crowd, that’s all. Why are you so afraid of Ma? What did she say? What’s my punishment?’

      ‘Consider yourself mighty lucky,’ he said. ‘So far you haven’t been missed, but you’re not home and dry yet. You’ve still got to get back into the house and into your bed, and I suppose you’ll be expecting my help? You’re a brat, no two ways.’

      ‘Harry,’ I said, ‘a porter told me there was a Minkel on the list of survivors. Did you see that?’

      ‘No,’ he said. ‘I definitely did not, and neither did you if you know what’s good for you. Anyway, it was clearly a clerical error.’

      A lamp was burning in the parlor, but it was only Uncle Israel Fish, smoking a last cigarette. He appeared in the doorway as I tiptoed up the stairs but seemed not to notice me. We only see what we expect to see, I suppose. It was another lesson for me, and I had learned so many in just one day. I listed them as I lay in bed, too tired for sleep.

      1. My Pa was not indestructible.

      2. Personal assistants got Persian lamb muffs and trips to Europe.

      3. I was blessed with powers of invisibility.

      4. Harry Glaser was a half-wit, my sister married him, therefore I would be expected to marry a half-wit, therefore I would not marry.

      I got up, lit a candle, and one by one I committed to its flame my ear-correcting bandeaux. First the pink one, then the apricot, then the eau-de-Nil. They created an interesting and rather satisfying smell.

       FOUR

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