Page 95 of If Looks Could Kill

“There’s an operetta Saturday night,” I told Pearl, “that Mike and I are planning to attend.”

Pearl slung her broom and mop over her shoulder. “Oh?”

“Freyda and her friend Ben are coming,” I told her, “and it sounds like Cora has a fellow who’ll join her too.” I hoisted up my box of supplies. “Would you like to come?”

She made a face. “And be the odd girl out?” she said. “No thanks.”

We climbed to the fourth floor. At noon, the windowless stairwell was as dark as night.

“I see what you mean,” I said. “What if we invited Paddy to come, to even things out?”

She pursed her lips. “You’re the world’s worst actor, you know that?”

“Actor?” I cried. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re still doing it,” she observed. “Lying through your teeth.”

“Paddy’s lonely, is all,” I said.

We reached the fourth floor. “ Paddy’s lonely,” she said. “That’s all you’re saying.”

A woman with disheveled hair answered my knock.

Her skin was sickly pale, and ribs poked through her dress.

She carried a tiny baby in one arm and had a little boy clinging to her ankles.

A sodden diaper sagged around his bottom, and both nostrils streamed mucus.

We heard the clamor of older children arguing and a man’s voice, between coughs, telling them to shut up.

She’s just a few years older than me, I realized. She looks like she’s lived three lifetimes.

The woman eyed us wearily. “I’m not buying anything,” she said, “and I don’t need any more religion.” She began to shut the door.

“I’m Pearl, and this is my friend, Tabitha,” Pearl said gently. “We’re not here to sell anything or to preach. We’re Slum Sisters with the Salvation Army. If we can be of any assistance, such as with cooking or cleaning or the children, we’d be very glad to help you.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “You’re looking for work?” she said incredulously. “ I can’t afford housemaids.” She humphed. “Nobody around here can.”

“Who’s there?” came the man’s voice from within. “Is that the building super?”

“Naw, Lem,” she called back. “It’s nothing.”

“We don’t want payment,” I told her. “We never take money. We’re only here to help.”

Her door opened an inch more. “You ain’t with city hall?”

“Not at all,” I assured her.

Pearl never could resist newborns. “Please,” she said eagerly, “may I hold the baby?”

“And I can occupy the older ones,” I added, “if you don’t mind.”

The woman studied Pearl’s mop and broom, and the cleaning supplies in my hands.

“Here.” She broke her doorway barricade. “I’m Becky Palmer. Come meet my husband, Lem. If he says you can stay, you can stay. Heaven knows I could use help. If it’s free.”

We followed her in. The air was suffocating. It smelled of sweat and sickness and urine and cigarettes. The floor was wood, but you wouldn’t know it for the greasy dirt.

Pearl relieved Becky of her tiny infant, cooing all the while. I began making droll faces at the little one clutching his mother’s ankles. I fished underneath my clean rags for a colorful wooden toy duck I kept for just such occasions, and soon I wiped his nose, thank heaven.

Becky led us through the kitchen to the only other room in the flat, where a man lay sprawled on a bed while two older children, perhaps three and four, whacked each other with wooden spoons. They stopped and stared at us, wide-eyed.

“Lem, these girls say they want to help us,” she told the man. “Do-gooders. For free.”

The man sat partially upright and coughed at us. “Where’s the catch?”

“No catch,” I told him. “You don’t have a spare diaper, do you, for this little one?”

Becky drooped in embarrassment. “Nothing’s clean,” she admitted. “Just haven’t had time to haul water and get the washing done. Not since Lem’s been sick….”

“D’you know what?” I said. “I believe I have a spare diaper in my box. And look! I do.”

I caught a glimpse of Pearl rolling her eyes. She’d seen my Magical Diaper-Producing Act a time or two. The charm had apparently worn off. I grinned at her.

“I still don’t get,” protested Lem, “what you two are here for. You with some church?”

“We’re Slum Sisters volunteers,” I told him, “with the Salvation Army.”

“We’re not here to preach,” Pearl said. “We’re here to help.”

Lem sank back on the bed. “She needs help, all right. Never gets it clean around here.”

“What this room needs,” Pearl said cheerfully, raising ignoring to a professional level, “is more light and more air.” With her free hand, she raised the one window.

“You’re letting in the cold,” said Lem.

“Just for a moment.” She fanned the air with the curtain. “It’s mild out today.”

I finished diapering the toddler and set my sights upon the older two children. I pulled a colorful children’s book out of my magic milk crate and dangled it where they could see it, pretending as though I didn’t realize they could. They inched toward me like stealthy caterpillars.

Pearl, meanwhile, cradled the infant in her arms. Wintry light gilded her hair so it seemed lit from within, like a halo. Like the Madonna and Child, she was a picture of bliss.

When the light landed on Becky, however, it revealed fading bruises from a black eye.

Pearl saw it too. We glanced at each other and silently nodded.

I followed Becky into the kitchen and indicated her eye. “Are you all right?” I whispered.

Her expression fell. “Lem’s a good man,” she whispered back. “He’s just—he’s been sick, and out of work, and it frightens him. And when he gets frightened, he gets to drinking a bit too much.” She stood up straighter in a conspicuous show of I’m fine and I don’t need your pity .

“I understand,” I told her. “I’m sorry.”

“He’s a good husband,” she insisted.

Relief work, as I learned anew each day, is a complicated affair, and grinding poverty brings out the worst in many people.

My job was not to pass judgment on her husband, though I had my own opinions.

My job was to help this family thrive. None of them would thrive if Lem were gone or in jail, that was certain.

They would starve to death on the streets.

“The Salvation Army is holding a medical clinic on Saturday,” I told her. “Physicians will examine patients all morning.” I rested a hand on her arm. “Maybe they could do something about his cough? And that might help him return to work?”

Her eyes grew wide. “How much?”

“No charge,” I assured her. “Doctors are donating their time.”

She took a deep breath. “I’ll get him there. Where and when is it?”

I gave her the details, then followed her into the front room. Pearl still held the infant while the older children pored over my book and the diaper lad chewed on my wooden duck.

“Tabitha,” Pearl said, “why don’t you and Mrs. Palmer get some water for washing up?”

“Oh, yes,” Becky breathed. “I’ve been meaning to. The spout’s all the way in the backyard,” she said apologetically. “Right next to the outhouses.”

And down three flights of stairs. With four children, including two infants, and a sick husband to tend, it was no wonder Becky’s flat and its occupants were so grimy. She could never get away to fetch water and had no one to help her do it.

“That’s all right,” I told her. “A couple of trips will give us enough water to wash some diapers and laundry. We could heat some up for baths for the children too.”

“Take my guzunder when you go,” called Lem, helpfully offering me his chamber pot.

“Meanwhile, I’ll stay here and tidy up a bit,” Pearl announced. To the recumbent father, she said, “You wouldn’t mind holding this precious baby while I sweep, would you, sir?”

Lem, that prize specimen, frowned. “It always cries when I hold it.”

“Then you just need to get to know her better,” Pearl said sweetly, depositing the infant in his arms without waiting for permission and returning to the kitchen to collect her broom.

I brushed past Pearl on my way to the door. “Be careful,” I whispered.

She gave me a look of surprised innocence. Who, me?

Who’s the bad actor now, Pearl?

“Will you be all right in here, alone with him?” I asked her.

She winked at me. “Wrong question.”

Very funny.

“Pearl,” I warned.

“I’m only going to talk to him,” she assured me. “I promise.”

Suit yourself, and good luck to Lem. Pearl and I both knew what lay coiled beneath her angelic smile. She knew it well enough that, as far as I was aware, she never needed to show it.

I grabbed my bucket, and Lem’s putrid “guzunder,” and headed out and down the stairs.