Page 17

I take a step back and squint. My hope is that it’ll erase the impression that the wallpaper is a series of eyes. It doesn’t. Not only are the eyes still there, but the flowers now no longer look like flowers. Instead, those spreading petals take on the shapes of faces.
It’s the same with the crown molding. Hidden within the intricate plasterwork are similar wide-open eyes and pinched faces.
The sensible, rational part of my brain knows it’s an optical illusion. Yet now that I’ve noticed it, I can’t trick my eyes into returning to what they originally saw. Those flowers are gone. All I can see now are the faces. Grotesque ones with warped noses, mutated lips, elongated jaws that make it look as though they’re talking.
But these walls don’t talk.
They observe.
Yet something inside the apartment is making noise. I hear it from my spot in the sitting room—a muffled creak.
At first, I think it’s a mouse. Only, the Bartholomew doesn’t seem like the kind of place that would have mice. Also, it doesn’t sound like any mouse I’ve ever heard. The creak is accompanied by the groan of something that’s normally still being forced into motion. It brings to mind rusty cogs and stiff joints.
I follow the sound to its point of origin in the kitchen, at the cupboard between the oven and the sink.
The dumbwaiter.
I throw open the cupboard door, revealing the empty shaft behind it. A cold draft hits me, shivery and crisp. The ropes that hung lazily when Leslie showed me the dumbwaiter during my tour are now taut and in motion. Above, the pulley turns, stopping and starting with each tug of the rope. Each time it moves, it emits a short, shrill squeak.
I peek into the shaft itself, the brisk draft brushing my face. At first I see nothing. Just inky darkness that, for all I know, might stretch to the Bartholomew’s basement. Then something emerges from the black, rising to meet me. Soon I can make out the top of the dumbwaiter itself.
Wood.
Thick coat of dust.
Holes on the top and bottom to let the ropes slither through.
The pulley turns and squeaks. The dumbwaiter continues to rise. The draft stirs the dust on top of it, sending up a small puff that makes me back away before it swirls out of the cupboard door like ash from a chimney.
I imagine it in use a hundred years ago. The harried cooks sending down extravagant meals dish by dish as the dumbwaiter shaft filled with the scent of roast chicken, rack of lamb, and fresh herbs. The dumbwaiter’s return trip would bring stacks of dirty dishes,soiled silverware, crystal goblets with wine swirling in their bottoms and lipstick on their rims.
It sounds romantic through the soft gauze of time. In truth, it was probably wretched. At least up here, where the servants worked and ate and slept.
When the squeaking of the pulley finally stops, the once-empty space is filled with the dumbwaiter itself. It’s a perfect fit. A casual visitor opening the cupboard door wouldn’t even know it was a dumbwaiter if not for the ropes. It’s a plain wooden box, just like any cupboard.
Resting on the bottom is a piece of paper. Its left edge is slightly ragged, indicating it was torn from a book. Printed on it is a single poem. Emily Dickinson. “Because I Could Not Stop for Death.”
I turn the page over and see that someone has written on the back. It’s brief. Just three words, the letters large and in all caps.
HELLO AND WELCOME!
Beneath it, in slightly smaller text, is the messenger’s name.
Ingrid
I search the kitchen for a pen and paper, finding both in a junk drawer stuffed with rubber bands, ketchup packets, and takeout menus. I write my response—Hi and thanks—before placing it inside the dumbwaiter and giving the rope an upward tug with my right hand.
The dumbwaiter shimmies.
The pulley above it creaks.
It’s not until the dumbwaiter begins to descend that I realize how big the whole contraption really is. The same size as an adult male, and almost as heavy. So heavy that I need to use both hands to lower it. As it descends, I count how far I think it’s traveled.
Five feet. Ten feet. Fifteen.
Just before I hit twenty, the rope goes slack in my hands. The dumbwaiter has been lowered as far as it can go, which by my estimate means to the apartment directly below.
11A.