Читать книгу Rare Objects - Kathleen Tessaro, Kathleen Tessaro - Страница 13

On the way home from my new job, I stopped by Panificio Russo on Prince Street. Open for business from six every morning till late at night, it was more than a bakery, it was a local institution. Just before dawn you could smell the bread baking, perfuming the cold morning air. Rich butter biscuits, dozens of different cannoli and biscotti, delicately layered sfogliatelle and zeppole, little Italian doughnuts, were made fresh each day. Traditional southern Italian cakes like cassata siciliana vied for space with airy ciabatta and hearty stromboli stuffed with cheese and meats, and fragrant panmarino made with raisins and scented with rosemary, all stacked in neat rows. Three small wooden tables sat by the front window, in the sun, where the anziani, the elderly men of the community, sipped espresso and advised on all manner of local business.

Well known throughout Boston, Russo’s delivered baked goods to many restaurants and hotels in the city. But they were first and foremost a family-run business and a proud cornerstone of North End life. It was widely known that once Russo’s ovens were hot and their own bread under way, poorer families from the tenements were welcome to bring their own dough, proofed and ready, to the kitchen door to be baked. Children waited in the back alleyway, playing tag and kick-the-can until the loaf was pulled out and wrapped in newspaper so they could hurry home with it, still hot. When a family finally graduated in fortunes from the alleyway to buying their bread from the front of the shop, Umberto Russo proudly served the woman himself, and his son Alfonso would make a treat of a few choice pastries.

I’d grown up with the Russo children and could remember when the bakery was little more than a single room with an oven. They were famous for their tangy sweet zaletti, dense breakfast rolls flavored with orange rind, vanilla, and raisins, and covered in powdered sugar. There was a time when I’d come in every morning to get one on my way to work. It had been a while since I’d been able to afford such treats, but now things were looking up.

The front of the shop was run by the three Russo women, sisters Pina and Angela and the formidable Maddalena Russo, their mother. They were all small and voluptuous, their figures accented by the white aprons pulled tight round their waists. I watched for my chance to catch Angela’s eye as she bustled from one end of the counter to the other, slipping between her mother and sister in an unending, seamless dance as they ducked down, reached over, slid around, or stretched high to grab the string hanging from the dispenser to tie the boxes tight. Above them, a picture of the Virgin Mary smiled calmly, radiating feminine modesty.

With her broad round face and large brown doe eyes, Angela looked just like the portrait of the Holy Mother that watched over them. Her hair curled gently, spilling out of her black crocheted hairnet to cascade softly on her cheeks. And she had a natural grace and gentleness that belied her often surprisingly sharp sense of humor.

I tried to remember the first time I’d met Angela and the Russo family but couldn’t. They’d simply always been there. For a while we’d all lived in the same tenement building, the one I still lived in now. The Russo children, especially the older boys, had “owned” the front stoop by virtue of being in the building the longest, but were gracious about sharing it with us younger ones. Angela and I were inseparable growing up: playing jacks and skipping rope, making little woolen dolls from old socks with button eyes that we pushed up and down the block in a broken-down old baby buggy that was used for everything from grocery shopping to junk collection. I was on my own a lot during the day while Ma worked piecing blouses together. But Mrs. Russo always made an extra place for me at her table, even though she already had five mouths to feed.

Angela and I made plans to run away from home and become professional dancers at eight; fell in love with the same boy, Aldo Freni, with his unusually long dark lashes, at ten; and were caught stealing lip rouge from the drugstore at thirteen, and received the same number of lashes as a result. She was the closest thing I had to a sister. And yet it was months since we’d spoken. My shame at my circumstances in New York had prevented me from writing, and she’d gotten married while I was in the hospital, a wedding I was meant to take part in as the maid of honor. Pina had to step in instead. Ma made excuses for me, told them the same tales I told her of eccentric millionaire bosses and unexpected trips abroad. But now that I was here, I felt a sudden attack of nerves and regret. The Russos knew me, could see past all my fictions.

It was Pina who spotted me first. When I left for New York, Pina was a newlywed. Now she was heavily pregnant. But though she may have enjoyed the rosy-cheeked sensuousness of a Rubens nude, there was nothing soft in her manner. “Oh, my, my!” She thrust her chin at me. “Look what the cat’s dragged in! Jean Harlow!”

Angela turned, and her face lit up. “Ciao, bella!” She made it sound light and natural, as if she’d only seen me the other day. “I didn’t recognize you! What have you done to your hair?”

The tension in my chest eased. Still, I couldn’t help noticing the wedding band that flashed, catching the morning sun as Angela expertly whipped the string around a cake box and tied it in a knot.

“Mamma mia!” Angela’s mother gasped, holding her palms to the heavens. “Maeve! What have you done to your beautiful red hair?”

All eyes turned.

“I cut it and … well …” I was turning red. “It’s for a job, actually.”

Pina snorted. “What, are you a Ziegfeld girl now?”

“Not exactly. A salesclerk. But no Irish.”

There was a time when the city was full of signs declaring “No Irish Need Apply.” We were considered little more than vermin. Then the Italians came, and suddenly we moved up a little in the world, only not quite far enough.

“Yeah, well, I’m surprised to see you here at all.” Pina folded her arms across her chest. “I thought this town wasn’t good enough for you. That only New York City would do.”

“Stop it!” Angela glared at her sister. “Just because you’ve never left Boston!”

“I don’t need to leave Boston. And evidently neither do you!” Pina laughed, nodding at me. “I hope you left a trail of bread crumbs so you could find your way home.” Pina always had a tongue like a stiletto blade. Even as a kid, she had a preternatural talent for verbal vivisection.

“Basta!” Her mother shot Pina a look. “We’ve missed you. Your mother told us you had important business in New York and couldn’t come to the wedding,” she continued evenly, resting her hands on her hips. “We’re sorry you couldn’t get away.”

Guilt stung beneath my smile.

“I’m sorry too. I mean …” I looked across at Angela; I was speaking to her more than anyone else. “I was working as a private secretary for a very wealthy man. Quite a difficult character, very demanding … I wanted to come, really I did.”

We all knew I wasn’t being honest. My story didn’t explain why I hadn’t written or called.

“Well, I’m just glad you’re here now,” Angela said, in that way she had of simply closing the door on anything difficult or unpleasant. “It’s good to have you back.” Then, popping a fresh loaf of bread into a paper bag and handing it across the counter to Mr. Ventadino, she flashed me a naughty smile. “La mia bella dai capelli biondi!”

“Ah, bella!” Mr. Ventadino laughed, eyeing me up and down. “Molto bella!”

The old men at the tables by the window laughed too, and Mrs. Russo rolled her eyes. “Girls! Comportatevi bene!”

Comportatevi bene—Italian for “behave yourself”—was the constant refrain of our childhood. When we were together, five minutes didn’t go by without Mrs. Russo saying it, usually with a rolled-up newspaper in her hand, ready to whack one or both of us on the back of the head.

Mrs. Russo turned to me, her face serious. She had a way of looking straight into your eyes, as if she could see right down into your soul. “Come stai davvero?”

“Bene. Meglio, grazie. E tu?” I answered.

When Mrs. Russo spoke in Italian, I knew all was forgiven.

“Bene, bene.” As she counted change and handed it to Mr. Ventadino, she shook her finger at us. “You girls need to grow up. And you!” She gave Mr. Ventadino a dark look too. “Dovreste vergognarvi di voi stesso! And how is your mother, Mae? I hope she’s well.”

Mrs. Russo had the knack of switching between conversations; she could reprimand Mr. Ventadino and still set an example for her daughter of civilized manners without missing a beat.

I stepped aside so Mr. Ventadino could slink past. “She’s fine, thank you.”

Mrs. Russo always asked after my mother, even though she didn’t entirely approve of her. After all the years they’d known each other, theirs was nonetheless a formal acquaintance, maintained by courtesy rather than affection. I suspected it had something to do with the fact that Ma had never married again, a fundamental feeling Mrs. Russo had about the wrongness of a young widow raising a child on her own when she could have easily taken another husband and had more children. In her world, independence was an extravagance, a kind of selfishness.

In truth, I’d always been torn between Ma and the formidable Maddalena Russo. I’d spent so much time in the Russos’ household growing up that she was a second mother to me—only of the more traditional variety.

Small and strong, fiercely disciplined, and certain of everything, Maddalena Russo never doubted, never questioned. She knew. The Russo home was strict, loud, vivid, and real. Nothing else existed nor needed to exist beyond the North End. It was an entirely self-sufficient universe. When I was younger, I used to pretend that I’d been left on the Russos’ doorstep one night as a baby, and they’d adopted me as their own. It was a betrayal I couldn’t resist, and my affection was transparent to everyone—including my mother.

“Is that a new hat?” Mrs. Russo nodded approvingly. “Very handsome!”

“It used to have a net, but it was torn … my mother fixed it for me.” I was babbling. “Anyway, I stopped in for a zaletti. I’m celebrating, you see. I got a job today.”

“Congratulations!” Angela beamed.

Pina passed a tray of fresh biscotti to her mother. “What you need is a husband!”

“Maybe I’m not the marrying type.”

Mrs. Russo clucked reprovingly. “Why do you say that? Any man would be happy to have you!”

“I don’t know.”

“Of course you know!” Pina and her mother looked at each other and laughed. “Don’t talk crazy!”

Reaching over, Angela handed a zaletti wrapped in waxed paper across to me. “I’ll stop by later.”

“I’d like that.”

I tried to give her a nickel for the zaletti, but she wouldn’t take it. “Go on, now. Tell your mother the good news.”

I lowered my voice. “I really am sorry, Ange. About missing your wedding.” I knew I’d hurt her, and I knew too that she had too much pride to let me see how much. “How was it?”

“It was lovely.”

“You should’ve been there.” Pina wouldn’t leave us alone for a minute. “Oh, that’s right! You were too busy taking notation for millionaires. One of these days, Jean Harlow, you’re going to have to wake up and realize you’re just like the rest of us.”

When I got home, Ma was scraping carrots in the kitchen. “Is that you, Maeve?” she called when she heard me come in.

“Who else would it be, Ma?”

“There’s no need to be sarcastic. Where have you been?”

I paused in the doorway. Potatoes, onion, celery … she was making a stew again. There was only ever the smallest bit of beef, a cheap cut softened with the hours of slow braising. She made it last through the week, adding extra potatoes to cheat it out.

“I got the job, actually,” I told her, setting the zaletti down on the table with a flourish.

She stared at it; I think she’d half hoped I wouldn’t get the position and then would dye my hair back. But of course work was always better than no work. “Good,” she said finally. “So, what’s it like?”

“Fancy. Very posh.” I hung up my coat on the hook in the hallway, pulled off my gloves. “You know, they have a silver service there that costs as much as a house! I showed it to a woman this afternoon.”

“Did she buy it?”

“No. But only because apparently it was missing lobster tongs. Have you ever even heard of lobster tongs?”

She frowned, began paring the potatoes into quarters. “Do you get commission?”

I checked the coffeepot on the stove. “I only just got the job, Ma!”

“You should ask for commission.”

“It’s just me and the old man.” I poured a cup. It had been too long brewing and was bitter and strong. I drank it anyway.

“What difference does that make?” She tossed the potatoes in the cooking pot. “A sale is a sale!”

“Yeah, well, I haven’t made a sale yet.”

“And they’re not going to fall into your lap!” she warned, pointing the paring knife at me. “You need to be friendly. Outgoing.”

“I am friendly!”

“But you’re not outgoing, Maeve!” She scraped the carrots so hard one snapped in two. “You’re an introvert. Even as a baby you were quiet. All that time spent in your room reading!” She shook her head. “Too much time daydreaming—that’s always been your trouble! You have to make a concerted effort. You need to act like you’re the hostess at a party!”

What had gotten into her today? “Didn’t you hear me? I got the job!”

She stopped, wiped her hands on her apron. “Mrs. Shaw’s retiring next week.”

“Does that mean …”

“It means they’ve hired a new saleswoman in Ladies Wear. And it isn’t me,” she added bitterly.

Here was the crux of the matter. Unfortunately we’d been here before, and I’d exhausted my repertoire of conciliatory clichés.

“I’m sorry, Ma. You’re too good at your job, that’s the problem.” It was a stupid thing to say, but I had nothing left.

She stirred the stew on the stove, staring fixedly into the pot. “You’re lucky. You don’t realize it, but you are. You can really make something of yourself. It’s too late for me. But you can be somebody.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“You mustn’t waste your opportunities. Do you understand?” She turned. “You can be anything you want, anything you set your mind to, Maeve. You’re so clever, so much more capable than I ever was.”

“That’s not true.”

But she was serious. “You mustn’t fail yourself. Do you understand, Maeve? You mustn’t settle.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Who’s that?”

“Angela said she would stop by.”

“Angela?” Suddenly she seemed small and forlorn, caught off guard. “Tonight?”

I got up. “I’ll tell her I’ll see her another time.”

“No.” Yanking the strings of her apron, she pulled it off, handed it to me. “Keep an eye on dinner. I’m going to lie down.”

I poured some fresh coffee into one of my mother’s Staffordshire willow-pattern teacups and passed it to Angela. “Sugar?”

“Yes, please. These are nice.” She held up her cup, admiring the delicate blue-and-white oriental design. “I’ve never seen these before. Where did they come from?”

“They’re my mother’s. A wedding gift.” I smiled. “But we only use them on special occasions.” I wanted to make things up to her.

“I’m honored!”

I sat down across from her at the kitchen table. “I’m sorry we don’t have any cream.”

(In truth we never had it.)

We divided the zaletti in half on a plate.

“Here’s to you and your new job!” Angela raised her cup.

“Here’s to you and your new husband!” We took a drink, and then I asked, “So, what’s it like, being married? I want to hear everything!”

“Oh, Mae!” She blushed, gave me a slightly embarrassed grin. “I don’t know! It’s different. I mean, from what I thought it would be like.”

“How?”

Cupping her cheek in her hand, she pretended to concentrate on stirring the sugar into her coffee. “Faster!” she whispered back with a giggle. “Seems no sooner do we close the bedroom door than … you know, he’s on top of me!”

“Well, men are like that. You have to slow them down.”

“Mae!” She gave me a stab in the ribs. “You shouldn’t know these things! And it hurt.” Her face flushed pink again. “He kept apologizing!”

“What about the rest of it? You know, the bits that happen outside the bedroom.”

She rolled her eyes. “I hate living at his mother’s house. It’s like being a bug in a glass jar; everyone knows everything you’re doing all the time. But we haven’t the money to move yet.”

I lit two cigarettes on the stove and passed one to her. “No one’s got any money. At least he has a job.”

“Oh, he’ll have more than that when he graduates from pharmacy school—he’ll have his own business. We’ve got our eye on that corner shop on Salem Street. It would make a perfect drugstore.” She tilted her head, looking at me sideways. “What about you? How was New York?”

“Fine. Good to be home.”

Her eyes met mine. “Really?”

She could always see right through me.

I felt an awkward flush of shame, took a long drag. “Well, maybe it didn’t go quite the way I planned.”

“You never answered my letters.”

“No … I’m really sorry about that.”

“Are you upset at me?”

The hurt in her voice pricked my conscience. “No, Angie. Not at all. I wanted to write, really I did.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t want you to worry, that’s all. It was hard.” I shrugged, tried to smile. “I had troubles.”

“What kind of troubles?” Her voice became stern, maternal. “What happened, Maeve?”

I wanted to tell her; I wanted to be able to tell her. But it was all so far away from anything she was used to, and it had been so long since we’d really spoken. Instead I grabbed at a half-truth, hoping that any confession might draw us closer again.

I inhaled. “I got in the habit of going out after work, hanging out in clubs. I guess I started to drink too much, Ange.”

“Oh, Mae!” The shock and disappointment in her face surprised me. “You mean bootleg gin?”

I knew Angela didn’t approve of drinking. In fact, I’d always hidden how much I’d drunk from her, knowing she thought of it as something only men did and distinctly unladylike. Wine was the exception, but like most Italians we knew, she didn’t count wine as alcohol. The homemade version her father and brothers made in the summer and kept stored in wooden barrels in the basement of the shop was sweet, fruity, and mild. Not even the police bothered to confiscate it. But still, I’d expected her to be more worldly and understanding.

“I wasn’t the only one! Everyone drinks in New York,” I said, “men, women, young, old, Park Avenue right down to a bench in Central Park! But it sort of sneaks up on you. And it does make everything messier …”

“Then just don’t drink.”

Nothing was complicated for Angela. It was one of the things about her that I loved but also resented. Everything that was black and white for her was gray for me.

“Well, I didn’t want to, not really,” I tried to explain.

“Then just don’t! Honestly, Mae!” She’d run out of patience. “They put anything in that stuff! You should hear the stories Carlo tells me!” Brushing some loose crumbs off the table into her hand, she shook her head. “You really need to settle down. You’re too old for that sort of foolishness.”

That was always the answer, no matter the question. If only I would settle down, behave myself. When we were younger, it was a reprimand leveled at both of us. But Angela had since become the model daughter, sister, and now wife. I was alone in my delinquency.

Tears welled up in my eyes. She was right, of course, and I suppose exhaustion and the stress of the day had gotten to me.

I started to cry, something I hadn’t done in almost a year. “I’m so sorry about the wedding! About everything! I’m really sorry I let you down.”

I hate crying; I’d rather be caught naked than with tears on my face.

Angela put her hand over mine. “I just think if you stopped running around and got married you’d be better off,” she said gently.

I wanted to laugh, but couldn’t muster it. “Believe me, no one wants to marry me now!”

“Mickey did. Remember? Probably still does,” she added hopefully.

A year ago, no one thought my old boyfriend Mickey Finn was good enough. Now he was an opportunity.

She lowered her voice. “He doesn’t know what you got up to in New York, does he? So don’t tell him. Any man is better than no man, Mae.”

I stared at her. We were so different now. Tapping my ash into the ashtray, I brushed the tears away with my fingertips. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry I’m weepy. So”—I changed the subject—“how’s the rest of your family?”

Frowning, Angela ran her finger along the milky-white porcelain edge of the willow-pattern teacup. It was so delicate, so fragile you could almost see the light through it.

“That’s not everything that happened, is it? You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

She knew me well enough to know I was deliberately shutting her out. I stared down at the uneaten zaletti.

She took a deep breath. “You’re better now, though? Right?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “It’s all in the past.” Outside the window, the evening sky softened, and the men standing round the chestnut stove below were reduced to shadowy outlines, the ends of their cigars glowing and bobbing in the air as they spoke. “It’s good to be back.”

Winshaw and Kessler was quiet. Not just quiet but holding its breath, waiting. After the constant jostling and hustle in New York City, it was strange to walk down an almost empty street each morning, unlock the door, and step into a world dominated not by people but by things. There was a sense of solemnity and guardianship, like being in a library or a church. And like a church, the shop had a muted, remote quality, as if it were somehow both part of and yet simultaneously removed from the present day. The essence of aged wood, silver polish, furniture oil, and the infinitesimal dust of other lives and other countries hung in the air. I could feel its weight around me, and its flavor lingered on my tongue. Time tasted musty, metallic, and faintly exotic.

Almost everywhere else, time was an enemy; the thief that rendered food rotten, dulled the bloom of youth, made fashions passé. But here it was the precious ingredient that transformed an ordinary object into a valuable artifact—from paintings to thimbles.

I’d never been around such extraordinary things. I was content to sit and hold the carved cameo shell for half an hour at a time, running my finger over its variegated, translucent surface, wondering at the imagination that brought the Three Graces to life. The regular clientele, however, were not so easily mesmerized. Most, in fact, were disconcertingly focused.

“Do you by any chance sell eighteenth-century naval maps?”

“You haven’t any Murano glass, have you? Nothing common, mind you. No red earth tones. I want something special. Do you have anything blue? Perhaps influenced by Chinese porcelain?”

They weren’t casually browsing, but on an unending quest for very specific prizes. And they would accept no substitutions.

“I can’t even get them to look at anything else!” I complained to Mr. Kessler one afternoon.

He took off his glasses, rubbed them clean with his pocket hankie. “Perhaps it’s better if you don’t even try.”

He didn’t make sense. “But how am I meant to sell anything?”

Instead of answering he asked, “Are you by any chance a collector, Miss Fanning?”

“Me?” I laughed. “I haven’t got that kind of money!”

He gave me a reproachful look. “It’s not about money. You know that. Tell me, did you ever save anything when you were a little girl?”

“Well”—I paused a moment—“I had a cigar box that I kept under the bed.”

“And what was inside?”

“Just junk. Kid’s stuff. Maybe a clothes-peg doll or some buttons strung together on thread. Ticket stubs my mother saved from the pictures or the foil wrapper from a bar of chocolate that still smelled sweet if you pressed your nose into it. Nothing special.”

“And yet you kept it. See!” He smiled knowingly. “You are a collector! You collected for nostalgia, the most natural, instinctive thing in the world.”

“Nostalgia?”

“Sentimentality. You sought out little pieces of the world you wanted to live in—a world of chocolate and pretty buttons and picture shows—and you created that world as best you could.”

I thought about the old wooden box, the earthy, sweet smell of tobacco that remained from the cheap cigars. Mr. Russo had given it to me, much to Angela’s indignation, after a meeting of the San Rocco Society one evening when we were five. He was a very quiet man. It was unusual for him to say anything or show any affection. But I could remember how he’d swayed a little that night, unsteady on his feet from too much red wine as he bent down to hand it to me. “Here you go. Something for your secrets,” he said in his thick accent.

For a while I shared it with Angela, but she campaigned relentlessly until she got one of her own. Together we used to scour the streets for old chocolate wrappers—gold and silver foil peeking between the grates of gutters or sparkling in the dirt of empty lots. We pressed them flat with our fingers and stacked them in neat little piles, taking almost as much pleasure in smelling them as if we’d eaten the chocolate ourselves.

As I got older I kept other things in the box too, things I didn’t show to anyone else, not even Angela—a man’s black bow tie I’d stolen off a washing line when I was eight; a used train ticket I’d seen a stranger toss into a rubbish bin, stamped from Boston to New York. I’d pretended the bow tie belonged to Michael Fanning and that the ticket was his too—that he wasn’t really dead, he was only traveling and someday he’d be back. That’s when I began to hide the box under my bed, where no one could find it.

“Can you remember why you did it?” Mr. Kessler asked.

“I suppose it gave me comfort—the sense of having something only I knew about.”

“Anything else?” He pressed.

“Not that I can think of …”

“It gave you two things,” he elaborated, “purpose and hope. Think of the hours you spent looking for treasures—were they pleasant?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “They were.”

Patrolling the streets for discarded candy wrappers and ticket stubs had kept Angela and me happily occupied for most of a summer. And it had also given us, as Mr. Kessler pointed out, a tangible link to the movie-going, chocolate-eating world we longed to someday inhabit. They weren’t just wrappers—they were talismans, gathered in the faith that each one drew us nearer toward the fruition of our dreams.

“Of course not everyone collects out of sentimentality. Some only appreciate usefulness and market value; they want items with excellent craftsmanship and aesthetics—porcelain, glass, furniture, and clocks fall very much into this category. A brilliantly functioning timepiece is a triumph of engineering, as is an exquisitely turned Adam chair. These things consistently maintain their value and often prove to be wise investments. These customers are easy to please—quality and tradition are what they want. You have only to convince them of a piece’s merits and they’re sold. Then there are the true connoisseurs, in search of the distinctive, obscure, and unknown.”

“In what way obscure?”

“See these?” He pointed to three tiny silver containers in the jewelry case, each in the shape of a heart with a latched lid. “These are Danish hovedvandsaeg—extremely rare, made somewhere between 1780 and 1850. They hold sweet smelling spices and were popular as betrothal gifts. You can see their charm, can’t you?” He regarded them with affection. “I have a customer who collects them exclusively, but he won’t touch these because he believes them to be too pedestrian. I blame myself.” He seemed dismayed by his own lack of foresight. “It’s the heart design—too common for his taste. He wants something more unusual now. And yet only about three other people in the whole of Boston even know what a hovedvandsaeg is.”

Each container was over a hundred dollars. It wasn’t difficult to understand why someone would invest in something practical like a chair or a clock, but these? “How can anyone afford to spend so much on a tiny little trinket?”

“Well, we don’t sell as many as we did,” he allowed, “but for many serious clients, collecting isn’t a luxury but a necessity—like an addiction. I know people who will go without food or new shoes to buy just one more piece.”

“They would do that to their families?”

“Few of them have families; most are unmarried men, often professionals who have money to spare and no one to tell them how to spend it. In fact”—he peered at me over the tops of his glasses—“just the sort of people who might be swayed by a pretty blonde.”

“Yes, but I don’t seem to have much influence,” I reminded him. “If I haven’t got what the customers want, they’re out of the door before I can stop them.”

“That’s my point, though. These aren’t just customers, they’re pilgrims, searching for a holy grail. So ask them about the journey. Get them to tell you about the other pieces they have. Listen. And before you know it, you’ll be able to show them almost anything you like. But they like to feel they’ve discovered things for themselves. There’s something furtive about a real collector; it has to do with the thrill of the hunt. And then, of course,” he added, “there are the eccentrics.”

I had to laugh. “It gets more eccentric than eighteenth-century Dutch spice boxes?”

“Oh, yes! I have one man who only wants to buy rare porcelain that’s been repaired in some unusual way, long before the days of glue. Exquisite teapots with ugly twisted silver spoons for handles, platters held together by metal staples and twine, broken glassware with shattered bases replaced by hand-carved wooden animals. Actually, I have to admit, as an anthropologist, he’s one of my favorites.” He leaned against the counter. “You see, a well-curated collection always tells a story. His tells a tale of resourcefulness and industry; of people who had the foresight to salvage something even though it will never be pristine again. I like to think of it as the moment when aspiration meets reality.”

“You were an anthropologist?” It never occurred to me that he had been anything other than a shopkeeper.

“That’s right. I taught at the University of Pennsylvania.” He seemed to grow several inches as he said it. “But this is absorbing too, in its own way.” He cast an eye round the shop like a ruler surveying his kingdom. “It’s anthropology of another sort. You see, in its purest form, collecting is designing—selecting objects to create sense, order, and beauty. To us, we’re simply selling a serving dish or an ivory comb. But for the buyer, he’s fitting another intricate piece into a carefully curated world of his own construction. At its root is an ancient belief, a hope, in the magic of objects. No matter how sophisticated we think we are, we still search for alchemy.”

I thought of the cigar box, of the black bow tie and train ticket.

And then suddenly I remembered the gold pocket watch in New York; the thick chain and the solid, satisfying feel of it in my hand. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up; I knew why I’d taken it.

Some distant part of me knew it belonged in the box under my bed, too.

Even with Mr. Kessler’s expert sales advice, business at Winshaw and Kessler continued to be slow. Every day Mr. Kessler put three bills into the cash register in the morning and took them out again, often unsupplemented, in the evening. It didn’t bode well. But he remained unfazed. “We’re hunting for bears, Miss Fanning,” he told me. “You don’t need to catch one every day, just a few a season.”

The last thing I wanted was to be out of work again. I liked having heat in the mornings and the luxury of being able to afford new stockings rather than darning and redarning the same pair until they were more cotton thread than silk.

So I made work for myself. Each morning I went in determined to prove myself indispensable by rearranging displays, cataloguing inventory, polishing, and cleaning. And I enjoyed it. After the bleak emptiness of the hospital, the shop was a feast for not only the senses but the imagination too. While dusting the furniture, I found myself pretending this was my drawing room filled with fine antiques. Or as I polished silver, I mulled over which pieces might give the most favorable impression of excellent taste. (The plain English serving dishes were elegant without being ostentatious.) Sometimes when Mr. Kessler was out, I took all the jewelry from the cases and tried it on in different combinations, mixing Victorian opals with strings of red coral beads and Art Nouveau cloisonné bangles. I was playing dress-up, like a child—pretending to be a woman of means and charmingly eclectic sensibility.

Mr. Kessler seemed more bemused by my industry than anything else. I asked a thousand questions, wanting to know when and how and even why things were made, their worth, how long they’d been there. He was used to being alone, and while he enjoyed teaching me things, he perhaps wasn’t quite prepared for the way I set about rehanging all the paintings by “mood” rather than period or displaying the glassware in rows of color instead of style. Some of my methods were more successful than others. It turns out china collectors, for example, are extremely particular about mixing patterns and makers and they wasted no time setting me straight.

But gradually, in spite of my overzealousness, a precarious order began to prevail. There was only one place that remained impervious to all my improving efforts.

Even though he’d been away a long time, nothing had been touched in Mr. Winshaw’s office; the drawers were bulging with letters and receipts; books and piles of old newspapers and journals were stacked high, all just as he’d left it. A fat tabby called Persia slept curled up on the old red velvet seat cushion of his chair. Stubbornly territorial, he guarded the place like a sentinel. I was allowed to use the office for paperwork and to take my lunch sitting at Mr. Winshaw’s massive Victorian desk, amid this spectacular monument to disarray. At first it was maddening; I had to physically restrain myself from throwing things out. But there was also something intriguing about being privy to the intimate belongings of a complete stranger. Scientific journals, volumes of world mythologies, old playbills, and overdue library books formed unstable, teetering towers around me as I unwrapped my daily meal of two hard-boiled eggs from waxed paper and peeled them. Atlases from different corners of the globe and translation dictionaries for half a dozen languages bore cracked spines from excessive use. Correspondence from countries like Australia, Cuba, and India remained tantalizingly unopened, crammed into cubbies.

But this wasn’t just messiness or neglect. It was knowledge, rich, chaotic, and diverse.

And everywhere there was evidence of Mr. Winshaw’s constant intellectual curiosity; notes jotted down on the backs of envelopes, dog-eared pages in books, underlined passages, and articles torn from newspapers. Like an excavation site, different eras of obsession were layered one on top of another. Here was an entire collection of books on African art, and on top of that a thick stack of newspaper articles explaining German Surrealist cinema. Then came an examination of eastern American Indian rites and rituals. What his interests lacked in cohesion, they more than made up for in variety. Sometimes I’d open one of Mr. Winshaw’s books and find myself unexpectedly lost in another of his fascinations—like the making of medieval tiles. But the most compelling thing was the map of the ancient world that hung on the wall above his desk, with pins marking destinations. At lunchtime I stared at it, wondering at the places he’d been, the things he’d seen, and where he was now.

“Where exactly is Mr. Winshaw?” I asked Mr. Kessler one day.

He looked up from a pile of invoices he was going through, peering at me over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses in a certain way he had, like a mole poking its nose aboveground to sniff the air before venturing out. “Well, I haven’t heard from him in some time.”

“When will he be back?”

“I’m not sure.” He put the papers down, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes with his fists. “You see, Winshaw’s an archaeologist—a serious archaeologist, not just an academic. A year ago, an opportunity came up that was too good for him to miss; he joined a dig with an old friend of his, Leonard Woolley, in Iraq. What used to be Mesopotamia, the ancient city of Ur.”

I’d studied the map long enough to remember where that was. “In Arabia?”

“Yes. But the truth is, I’m not exactly certain where he is now. Winshaw’s something of a loose cannon. It’s a bit worrying,” he conceded. “There’s been violence in that area. Bombs, air attacks on local tribes. But I’m fairly certain he’ll turn up sooner or later.”

“Fairly certain?” He appeared disconcertingly calm. “But what about his family? Haven’t they heard from him?”

“Oh, he hasn’t got a family.”

“Couldn’t we write to Mr. Woolley?”

Mr. Kessler took a handkerchief from his breast pocket and cleaned his glasses. “There’s no need to jump to conclusions. Winshaw occasionally wanders off course. But he always turns up again, usually with something extraordinary. If it will make you feel better though, here’s an address, a postal box in Baghdad.” He took a note card from his desk drawer. “Actually, you can send his mail on for me. Could be important. Now, are you any good with numbers, Miss Fanning?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have a look at these.” He handed me a thick ledger bulging with loose receipts. “Don’t lose anything. That’s the only copy I have.”

I went back to Mr. Winshaw’s office, put the ledger down.

Leaning in closer, I studied the map again. Tattered and frayed, it was worn at the edges as if it had been hung and rehung on many walls over the years. It was drawn in a delicate, florid style, painted in rich, sun-bleached colors that were the fashion at the turn of the century. Here was ancient Egypt with the pyramids, and the golden walls of Troy; another pin marked the island of Crete, home of the mythical Minotaur. It reminded me not of a worldly man but of a small boy planning future expeditions, eager to discover the world of his heroes—to walk in the footsteps of Virgil and Homer, and see with his own eyes the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Great Colossus, and the Sphinx. The very fact that it existed, pins and all, betrayed a child’s ambition and enthusiasm, as well as lasting awe.

A shiny silver pin marked the ancient city of Ur in Mesopotamia.

Was this where the story ended?

I sat down in the wooden swivel chair. Its arms bore the initials of several previous owners, the kind of boyish vandalism of students. I had an almost irresistible urge to open all the drawers, go through every book and paper. But Mr. Kessler was just across the narrow hallway, door open.

Reaching for a pen, I brushed against a stack of books. A thin old volume toppled to the floor, a book of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poems. It had naturally fallen open on a dog-eared page of “Ulysses” on which certain lines had been underlined in pencil.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

As tho’ to breathe were life! …

… that which we are, we are:

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Something quickened in my chest as I read it, an indefinable excitement and longing.

… that which we are, we are … to shine in use …

Someone, presumably Mr. Winshaw, had scrawled “Yes!” in the margin.

I’d read The Odyssey in high school and admired the mythic realm of skies tinted rose and gold by dawn’s light fingertips and a wine-dark sea; of a life defined by bold actions, loyal companions, and true hearts. But I’d never read this poem before.

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

My eyes were drawn to the emphatic “Yes!”

Yes!

The word moved me, though I wasn’t sure why. Perhaps because it had been such a long time since I’d felt pure, unrestrained enthusiasm for anything.

Mr. Winshaw was still alive; I felt sure of it.

A man who believed in “Yes!” couldn’t simply disappear from life without ripples extending to every shore.

Dear Mr. Winshaw,

My name is May Fanning. I’m Mr. Kessler’s new assistant at the shop, and he’s asked me to forward your post on to you. I realize we haven’t met, but there is a great deal of concern here as to your current whereabouts and welfare. We are both, Mr. Kessler and I, eager to know that you are safe. If you would be so kind as to drop us a line or, indeed, any form of correspondence, it would be greatly appreciated. Likewise, if there is anything we can do on your behalf, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

I paused.

I was alone in the shop. The ticking of the clocks and Persia’s deep purr were the only sounds.

“Occasionally,” I continued,

I have used your desk for brief periods in order to complete paperwork and I have come to admire the great map on your wall. I am curious as to whether you have been to all those places and what they were like.

Again, I stopped. He might, quite rightly, find the idea of me sitting in his office intrusive. Then again, I reasoned, this letter would most likely rot in the postal box in Baghdad, along with the rest of his mail.

I envy you your freedom, Mr. Winshaw. I wish I too could leave Boston behind. I would like nothing better than to be somewhere new, where people weren’t so bound by convention and narrow-minded ideas of right and wrong, good and evil. I think there’s nothing duller than trying to be good nor any task more thankless. If I were you, I would stay missing as long as I could.

Sincerely,

May Fanning

Well, that was childish.

I tore the sheet off the writing pad and began again.

When I had finished the second letter—a brief, polite inquiry—I looked for envelopes in the drawers of his desk. Failing to find any, I took one from Mr. Kessler and then packaged up the rest of Mr. Winshaw’s mail into a small parcel covered in brown paper and twine and took it to the post office. It took three clerks twenty minutes to figure out the postage to Baghdad. They were naturally curious about who I was corresponding with, what was in the package … I exaggerated a little, explaining it was my husband, the famous explorer, who was abroad and that I needed some urgent signatures on very important business documents.

By the time I left, they were looking at me differently—as if I was fascinating, handling difficult situations on my own, braving the absence of my beloved with dignity and poise. The fantasy lent the afternoon a certain tender hue of melancholy, an imaginary sadness and courage that made everything just a little more interesting.

So I pretended that, in my own way, I’d somehow said “Yes!” to life too.

I was walking past a barbershop in Prince Street when I spotted it, hanging in the window. “Boxing,” the poster advertised in bold red letters across the top, “Five Bouts, Thirty-Six Rounds at Boston Garden.”

I don’t know why I stopped; maybe out of habit, maybe just because things had been going well and I had to test them, poking and prodding at my own happiness the way a child picks at a newly formed scab.

I read through the list of names, searching, looking for the one I wanted to find. And sure enough, there it was, down near the bottom: Mickey Finn.

A sudden wave of loneliness hit me hard. I had my freedom back, a new job, money in my pocket, but still my chest ached the way an empty stomach gnaws and clutches for food that isn’t there.

Michael Thomas Finlay.

For years he’d been as much a part of my life as my right hand.

We’d grown up together, been in the same class for a while in grammar school. But as soon as he’d grown tall enough, in sixth grade, Mick had been pulled out to work on the docks, loading and unloading with his father, brothers, and uncles. Still, I saw him every Sunday at church, sat next to him in confirmation class. When I learned how to waltz, he was my first and only partner.

I must have been staring—there was a rap on the window, and when I looked up the guys in the barbershop were laughing and blowing kisses at me.

I ignored them, walked on. But the emptiness in my chest grew and spread.

I could still remember the first time Mickey kissed me, in the alleyway behind the cinema; the soft, warm pressure of his lips on mine and, most of all, the way he held me—gently, as if I were made of delicate glass he was afraid of breaking. No one before or since had ever thought I was that precious. It was a pure, uncomplicated affection, almost like siblings, based on unquestioning loyalty.

Of course Ma didn’t like him. He was black Irish, she said, with his thick dark hair and brown gypsy eyes. He’d been taken out of school and would never amount to anything.

But I didn’t want anyone Ma approved of.

Then Mickey’s brother started boxing, and Mick took to hanging out at the Casino Club. As luck would have it, he turned out to be even better than his brother; just the right combination of height, muscle, and speed. And there was money to be made, a lot of money, for just one night’s work.

Everyone knew all the best boxers were Irish. Kids from nowhere could rise to the top of the boxing world in no time—going from brawling in basements and back lots to Madison Square Garden in a matter of months. We watched their breakneck rise to stardom on the newsreels every week—Tommy Loughran, Mike McTigue, Gene Tunney, and Jack Dempsey. Punching their way out of tenements straight into movie careers and Park Avenue addresses.

The first time I went to a fight, I was terrified. But Mickey won that night, and my fear became excitement. Soon I looked forward to the sweaty, raw nerves that snapped like electricity moments before the bell sounded; to the fighters, dancing in their corners, skin glistening, muscles tense. All the chaos, the smells, the din of the crowd, the rickety wooden chairs, the hot roasted peanuts and calls of the ticket touts; gangsters smelling of French cologne sitting cheek by jowl with old-money millionaires; the blood, the fear, the speed, the unholy fury of it all, I came to relish every bit. And Mickey, at the center, fighting, conquering the world.

Overnight he had a manager and a nickname—the Boston Brawler. His face appeared on fight posters, and his name climbed up to the top of the listings. And afterward, in the pubs and clubs, we drank and danced and felt the glorious relief of those who’d outwitted fate. With our pockets crammed full of bills from Mickey’s winnings, the future was ours for the taking.

Mick was my champion, punching his way out of this drab, relentless grind into a new life of unfettered possibility.

Only it turned out Mick was a good boxer, not a great one. Someone else came along, an Italian; they called him the Boston Basher, and Mick couldn’t seem to get out from under his shadow.

And then I got pregnant. Suddenly our limitless future shrank to the size of a one-bedroom walk-up in the South End and a dockworker’s pay packet.

He would’ve married me, had I told him. But I never did. I didn’t tell anyone.

I went to New York instead. There was more work there, I said; better opportunities and a chance to really make something of myself.

We talked about what we would do, how we would live when I got back. But we both knew that wasn’t going to happen.

And Mick was such a stand-up guy, he even loaned me the money to leave him.

The Casino Athletic Club on Tremont Street was located up a steep flight of stairs on the second floor of an old grain warehouse. It smelled of generations of young men, training nonstop, in all seasons; of sweat, fear, and ambition. As soon as I stepped inside, a thick sticky wall of perspiration engulfed me. There were four rings, one in each corner, weights, punchbags; the sound of fists slamming against flesh and canvas beat out a constant dull tattoo. It was a familiar sound; I’d spent hours here, smoking and watching Mick train. Pausing in the doorway, I scanned the hall. Then I spotted him.

Mickey was in the far left-hand ring, sparring with a tall Negro man. His trainer, Sam Louis, was hunched over the ropes, shouting, “Look out, Mick! Come on! Look lively!”

And seated on a folding chair and wearing a molting chinchilla wrap over a cheap red dress was Hildy.

Of course.

Poor old Hildy was a permanent fixture at the Casino Club and something of a running joke. When she was younger, she’d worked in the office. With her blond German hair and blue eyes, she broke her fair share of hearts. But as the years passed, her sharp tongue and ruthless gold digging earned her the nickname Sour Kraut. Now she moved from man to man, shamelessly latching on to anyone she could. I looked around and wondered which of these saps she’d been bleeding dry lately. It had to be someone new, someone who didn’t know her game.

I watched as the other boxer, a big man, landed a heavy right to Mickey’s jaw. Sam blew the whistle and they stopped, heading back to their corners for water. Mickey spat out a mouthful of blood into a bucket and Sam mopped him down.

Now was my chance. As I moved through the gym, men stopped and a few catcalls and whistles followed. I knew better than to take it personally—it was just because I was a woman in a place women didn’t go—but I flattered myself into thinking that I was still worth whistling at.

Across the room, Hildy looked up, irritated that someone else was getting attention. And when she saw me, her eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted tight. Tossing the magazine down, she flounced over, barring my way. “What are you doing here?”

“Hi, Hildy.” I looked past her to where Mickey was doubled over, hands on knees, catching his breath. He hadn’t seen me yet. “I need to talk to Mickey.”

“What for?” She had a honking Boston twang and far too many facial expressions. Right now she was glaring, gaping, and smirking, all at the same time.

“What’s it to you, anyway?”

Across the room, Sam gestured at us, and Mick looked up. Surprise spread across his face. I gave a little wave.

He said something to his partner, who nodded, and climbed out of the ring.

“I’ll tell you what it is to me: you owe us money!” Hildy spat the words out.

Now she had my attention. “Us?”

“Yeah, us!” Her upper lip curled in triumph. “What Michael earns is my business now too!”

I felt like I’d taken one of Mick’s left hooks straight to the kidney.

He was behind her now, staring at me like I was the Ghost of Christmas Past.

No longer the golden boy, Mickey wore his history on his face; resignation weighted his brow, and his nose was flattened out from being broken too many times. But if anything, it only added interest to his dark eyes, black hair, and well-muscled physique. Although handsome, Mickey was and always had been slightly unsure of himself, self-deprecating and shy. It was the most attractive thing about him. But now his battered features bestowed a gravitas that had been lacking before.

With one look, I’d always been able to win him back. I searched his eyes. “Us? Really, Mick?”

He laid a hand on Hildy’s shoulder. “I’ll deal with this,” he said in his soft, lilting brogue.

My heart disappeared through the bottom of my stomach. I hadn’t been sure what I was doing here, why I’d come. But now I knew I’d been kidding myself, imagining that after all we’d been through, he might still want me.

Hildy flashed him a warning look.

“Let me deal with it,” he said again.

“I know you—you’ll end up giving her more!” she hissed.

It was charming the way they both talked about me as if I weren’t standing right in front of them. “Actually”—I pulled my chin up—“I just stopped by to pay you back, Mickey.”

“See?” He gave Hildy a gentle push, back toward the chair. “I’ll handle this.”

“Well, you better!” She marched into the office instead and slammed the door. It echoed dramatically through the hall.

Mickey ran his hand across his eyes wearily, like a man forced to mediate between his mother and his wife. “Jesus, Maeve!”

“Jesus yourself!” I shot back. “What are you doing, Mick?”

He pointed a finger at me. “I don’t have to answer to you! You left! Remember?” Still, the color rose in his cheeks, and I knew he was embarrassed.

“Sure.” I shrugged. “You don’t have to answer to anyone. Least of all me.”

“Damn right I don’t!”

“I guess I’m like a bad penny: you just can’t get rid of me.”

He sighed, shook his head, but his eyes softened. At six foot three, he was one of the few men who could ever look down on me. “Aw, now, you know I didn’t want to be rid of you, Maeve. I never wanted that.”

I nodded to the office door. “You do now.”

A shadow of guilt flickered in his eyes. “What did you expect me to do? Wait?”