“Where is she, Tony?” She begged him. He was supposed to know. He had said he did.
“Things change. People move. People are always moving around down there, sleeping in each other’s beds, beating each other’s children. She’s there. Just keep looking. Hurt yourself if you want.”
“I’ll go again tonight. Every night. Now.”
He was naked in front of her, the last sun glowing on his shoulder blades as he washed himself, his exquisite clothes laid out on a chair. He threw down his towel and turned with sudden exhausted fury, “Why do you care? People lose things, Catherine. It happens. People lose what they love all the time.”
“I care about her.”
“You don’t care about anything. You care about getting back something you’ve lost. Like an umbrella on a trolley. Like a locket in the street. That’s all. But I’ll tell you this. She’s not the thing you lost anymore. She’s a hag, she’s nothing. She’s got no face, no name, no place to live. And this pathetic attempt to find your sister isn’t going to change anything. You’re still going to kill my father, you’re still going to live in his palace with me and all that money.”
His beautiful clothes. His beautiful hair, his hands holding a silver hairbrush, his handsome face in a cracked silver mirror. The way he cared for her and didn’t all at once.
“Your cruelty is astonishing. Alice-”
“Was sweet and cute and fresh and not very bright, but she could sit in your lap, just sit in your lap, and make you come. She didn’t have a shred of a soul even then. And she’s dying because she’s not cunning and careful and smart like her big sister and she wants it that way. You disgust her. Your name enrages her. You think she’s not down there? You’ve left your name with every drunk in the place and she’s still not there. Because it’s the place you go if you don’t want to be found. Ever. There’s only one way in, and there’s only one way out, so leave her in peace. Just leave. Go back to Wisconsin. Forget Alice. Do what you promised. It’s what you were born for.”
But she couldn’t forget Alice, and, in the end, she found her. She stood in her new fur coat against a wall and howled like the wind. A solemn little girl took her by the hand and led her to the end of the street.
She was finishing off a drunken sailor under a streetlight at midnight in the snow while people passed by and threw pennies and nickels on the cobblestones. When she was finished, she spit on the street, on the sailor’s shoes, and he staggered away without even closing his pants. Alice looked up and saw Catherine, then calmly leaned over and began to pick up the change in the dark.
“I don’t want you here.”
“I’ve come to take you… to take you someplace nice.”
“I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t want to know.”
“I have money. I have money for you.” She reached into her purse.
“I don’t want it. What would I do with it?”
“I’ve come here for you. Let’s go to your… to where you live so we can talk.” She looked at the row of shanties, lean-tos with candles guttering out in the late dark. “Which one?”
“Whichever one’s empty. I don’t want you here.” She was counting her money. “Some rich man, I guess.”
“Yes. He’s rich.”
“In here.” Alice ducked into an empty shanty, no more than boards stacked against a wall. Catherine ducked and followed her in. Alice reached in her pocket, pulled out a two-penny candle stolen from a church and lit it with a trembling hand. “There. Home.”
In the flickering light, Alice’s face looked girlish again, softer, golden. The skin across her cheekbones had the tightness of somebody who was going to die. It didn’t matter from what.
Catherine thought of the sweet dresses she had made, the smocking and the lace and the long pleated hems. She thought of the homework, Alice’s beautiful and careful penmanship, the safe rooms of Philadelphia. She remembered the tiny dog in Gramercy Park. All lost. So much losing in this world. So much loss.
“I’ll get you doctors. I’ll take you home and…”
“Oh. A home. I bet you got a lot of money in that purse.”
“I’ll give you some. I’ll give you anything to come with me.”
Alice leaned back against the wall of the shack and rolled a cigarette. Her hands trembled with the cold. She lit the cigarette and looked at Catherine. “You know, I feel so lazy. I work so hard all the time and I don’t feel tired, I can’t sleep at night, but I feel lazy. Like you could do anything to me and I’d be too lazy to care. But I can’t go with you. I don’t know where it is, but I know it’s too far.”
“I’d take you on a train.”
Her face turned hard again. It was just a flicker, her hope, and then it went out. Her cigarette sparked in the darkness. “Catherine. Try to understand something. I never liked you. I told you once. I’m telling you now. Not ever.”
“I…”
“You could take me away, you could take me to Paris, to some spa far away and make me well, and I’d still be bad.”
“There was never a moment when I didn’t love you.”
“Like some little doll baby.”
“You were all I had in the world. All I loved. I wanted things to be different for you. Sweeter.”
The candle flickered out. They sat in darkness except for the glowing tip of Alice’s cigarette. Catherine wanted to reach out to her, but she didn’t. “Isn’t there anything I can do for you?”
Alice hesitated, then grabbed Catherine’s hand, caressed Catherine’s silken skin with her own rough, dirty fingers.
“Sister, sit. I’m sorry. I’m bad and I’m sick and I say things. But just sit by me. I’m never alone, but I always feel so lonely. So far away from everybody. Nobody holds me. Nobody touches me or calls my name. Sit with me until I sleep. That’s all I need, all you need to do. Please.”
“Can’t I take you somewhere? Out of here? To a hotel? A hot bath? Clean sheets?”
“You know, it’s funny. Even if I were well and clean and dressed in a hat and a fine silk dress, I would never leave here. This is all my life is about. I finally found a place I belong.”
Catherine stood, took off her fine fur coat, and laid it over her sister’s body.
“That’s nice,” said Alice. “You always looked out for me.”
“I tried.”
“Why were you so good to me? I didn’t deserve it.”
“You were all I had. I tried to save you from some of the misery.”
“You can’t save anybody. You know that by now.”
Alice closed her eyes, smoothed the fur of her sister’s coat. “I remember the boats. On the river in Philadelphia. The beautiful men rowing, like spiders skating with the tide, the sun on their strong brown shoulders. So quick they were, here and then gone. You think I’ve forgotten, and I’ve tried, but I remember. The beautiful dresses you made, they must have been beautiful, everything you did was beautiful. And the little shoes, the buttonhook. Where are they now? What happened to those things? You were good to me. So good and kind.”
“I haven’t been good or kind. What a pair we are.”
“When I close my eyes, when my head is clear enough, I think you did your best, and I hated you and I was hateful. You were the last nice thing, and I may never see you again and so I say thank you. I’ve never said thank you to anybody, for anything, but I’m saying it to you now.”
“You’re welcome.”
“As though it were ever enough. You should go now. It’s late. It can get pretty rough. Go back to your nice hotel and your rich man. You tried to save me and you didn’t. It wasn’t your fault.”
They sat until the cigarette was gone and Alice was asleep, her money clutched in her hand. Rats crawled around them once the light was out, and the cold came in and the snow came down harder, and Catherine looked at the slim outline of her sister’s face, and she thought her heart would break.