The Orphan Collector. Ellen Marie Wiseman
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over her fists, and tried to stop shivering. Was she trembling because of the cold, or because she couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d seen and heard since the Liberty Loan parade?
Mrs. Schmidt had told Mutti that within seventy-two hours of the parade, every bed in each of the city’s thirty-one hospitals was filled with victims of a new illness called the Spanish influenza, and the hospitals were starting to refuse patients. By day four, the illness had infected over six hundred Philadelphians, and killed well over a hundred in one day. Pia overheard the teachers talking about a shortage of doctors and nurses because of the war, and that poorhouses and churches were being used as temporary hospitals. More posters went up that read “Spitting Equals Death,” and the police arrested anyone who disobeyed. Another poster showed a man in a suit standing next to the outline of a clawed demon rising from what appeared to be a pool of saliva on the sidewalk, with the words “Halt the Epidemic! Stop Spitting, Everybody!” And because everyone was wearing pouches of garlic or camphor balls in cheesecloth around their necks, the streets were filled with a foul, peculiar odor that she couldn’t help thinking was the smell of death. Most frightening of all, she heard that those who fell sick were often dead by nightfall; their faces turned black and blue, blood gushing from their mouth, nose, ears, and even their eyes.
She’d been having nightmares too, filled with ghastly images of the parade spectators flashing in her mind like the jerky moving pictures in a penny arcade—each face with black lips and purple cheeks, and blood coming from their mouths and eyes. Every time it happened she woke up in a sweat, her arms and legs tangled in the sheets, her stomach and chest sore and aching. Just thinking about it made her queasy. The stench wafting up from the garlic tied around her neck didn’t help.
She took the putrid necklace off and laid it in the grass, then lifted her chin and took a deep breath, inhaling the familiar scents of fall—a mixture of moist earth, sunburnt leaves, and chimney smoke. But despite the fact that the air smelled significantly better than the strong odor of garlic, it still reminded her of her first dreadful day in her new school last year. She could still hear the voices of her mother and new teacher.
“Did you see the letter I send in to school, Mrs. Derry?” Mutti had said.
“Yes, Mrs. Lange, I received the note. But I’m not sure I understand it.”
“Forgive me, I only wish to make sure...” Mutti said, hesitating. “My Pia is, how do you say, delicate? She does not like crowds, or anyone touching her. I am not sure why....” Her mother started wringing her hands. “But she is a normal girl and smart. Please. Can you be sure the other children—”
“Mrs. Lange, I don’t see how—”
“Pia needs to learn. She needs to be at school. I don’t want her to . . .”
“All right, Mrs. Lange,” Mrs. Derry said. “Yes, I’ll do my best. But children come into contact with each other while playing all the time, especially during recess. It’s part of learning. Sometimes I won’t be able to stop it from happening.”
“Yes, I understand,” Mutti said. “But if Pia doesn’t want... if one of the other children does not know to leave her alone . . . please...”
Mrs. Derry put a hand on her mother’s arm, looked at her with pity-filled eyes, and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her. And I’ll let the other teachers know too.”
Mutti nodded and gave her a tired smile, then said goodbye to Pia and left.
After that first day, for the most part, Mrs. Derry and the rest of the teachers had done little to look out for Pia. And the memory of that encounter—her mother wringing her hands and trying to communicate her odd concerns to a confused Mrs. Derry while Pia cringed at her side and the other kids watched—recurred to her every time she stepped foot in the classroom. While the other children played Duck, Duck, Goose or Ring-Around-the-Rosy, Pia stood off to the side, sad and relieved at the same time. Inevitably, when the teachers weren’t looking, some of the kids taunted and poked her, calling her names like freak girl or scaredy-cat. And now, because of the war, they called her a Hun.
Thankfully she’d met Finn before school started, while he could form his own opinion without the influence of the other kids. It was the day after she and her family had moved in, when Mutti sent her out to sit on the stoop with strict instructions not to wander off while she and Vater talked—about what, Pia wasn’t sure. She’d been homesick and near tears, frightened to discover that the jumble of trash-strewn alleys and cobblestone streets and closely built row houses made her feel trapped, and wondering how she’d ever get used to living there, when he approached from across the alley. She tried to ignore him, hoping he was headed for the entrance behind her, but he stopped at the bottom of the steps, swept his copper-colored bangs out of his eyes, and gave her a friendly grin.
“Yer a new lass around here, aren’t ye?” he said in a heavy Irish brogue. “I’m Finn Duffy, your neighbor from across the way.” He pointed at the shabby building across from hers, a four-story brick with narrow windows and a black fire escape.
She nodded and forced a smile. She didn’t feel like talking but didn’t want to be rude either. “Yes,” she said. “We moved in yesterday.”
“Nice to meet you, um... What did you say yer name was?”
“Oh, sorry,” she said. “I’m Pia Lange.”
“Well, nice to meet ye, Pia Lange. Can I interest you in a game of marbles?” He pulled a cloth sack from the pocket of his threadbare trousers.
She shook her head. “No, thank you.”
“Would ye mind if I sit with you, then?” he said. “You look rather lonesome, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
She thought about telling him she wanted to be left alone, but didn’t want to start off by making enemies. Instead she nodded and moved over to make room, gathering her pleated skirt beneath her legs and sitting on her hands. He smiled and sat beside her, a polite distance away. To her relief, he kept quiet, almost as if he knew she didn’t feel like making conversation. Together they sat lost in their own thoughts, watching three colored girls with braids and pigtails play hopscotch across the way. One held a rag doll under her arm, the doll’s limp head flopping up and down with every jump. A group of ruddy-cheeked boys in patched pants and worn shoes kicked a can along the cobblestones, shouting at each other to pass the can their way. Snippets of laughter, conversation, and the tinny music of a phonograph drifted down from open windows, along with the smell of fried onions and baking bread. Line after line of laundry hung damp and unmoving in the humid air above their heads, crisscrossing the row of buildings like layers of circus flags. People of all colors and ages and sizes spilled out onto the fire escapes, some sitting on overturned washtubs and kettles, all looking for relief from the heat.
An old colored woman in a dirty scarf and laceless boots limped past, humming and pulling a wooden cart filled with rags and old bottles. She skirted around two boys of about seven or eight playing cards on their knees in front of a stone building three doors down. One of the boys glanced over his shoulder at her, then jumped to his feet, grabbed something from her cart, and ran, laughing, back to his friend. The old woman kept going, oblivious to the fact that she had been robbed. The second boy gathered up the cards and did the same; then they both started to run away.
Finn shot to his feet and chased after them, cutting them off before they disappeared down a side alley. He yelled something Pia couldn’t make out, then grabbed them by the ears and dragged them back to the old woman. After returning her things to the cart, the boys hurried away, rubbing their ears and scowling back at him, muttering under their breath. The old woman stopped and looked around, finally aware that something was amiss. When she saw Finn, she shooed him away and swatted at him with a thin, gnarled hand. He laughed and made his way back to Pia, shrugging and lifting his palms in the air.
Pia couldn’t help but smile. “Do you know her?” she said.
“I don’t,” he said, catching his breath. He sat back on the stoop beside her and wiped the sweat from his brow. “But I see her every day, selling