The light was seeping in through the curtains like dirty water. Cal pushed back the blanket and sat up. Minnie was waiting by his bedside as usual, making sure that he slept alone.
“I’m leaving,” she said. “There isn’t anything here for me. I’m going to Delta Mouth.”
Cal stepped through her and pulled on his pants.
“You can’t stop me,” Minnie said. She floated after him, insubstantial, as he spat in the wash basin and walked down the dark stairwell.
When he reached the kitchen, a wash of light and heat and smell pushed out the door to overwhelm Minnie’s presence.
“Just barely noon,” said Helen when she saw him. “An early morning for you.”
“I had a bad night.” He pulled up a stool and leaned his elbows on the wide wooden counter where she was pulling bread dough into portions and pushing it into proofing baskets.
“I’ve never known that you had a good night.” She pushed a plate towards him with one flour-whitened hand. Yesterday’s pastries.
He shrugged. “There are better nights.” He selected a raisin bun and began to pick it apart. Even a day old it was still soft and buttery, a product of Helen’s kitchen magic.
He saw Helen watching him from the side of her eyes, but she said nothing as he reduced the bun to a scattered pile of crumbs. The sour bile taste of Minnie’s words was harsh in his mouth. The sweetness of the raisins couldn’t yet drive it away. “I’m going for a walk.” He brushed the crumb pile into his hand and tossed it into the open door of the over.
Helen’s nostrils flared as the sharp smell of burnt toast overwhelmed the warm scent of bread. Her lips twitched as she bit back some comment. “There’s a fog,” she said. “Don’t take a chill.”
“There’s always a fog,” he said.
In the entry hall, Helen’s brother was dozing on one of the cushioned benches. His muscular arms were crossed over his broad chest to keep them from falling down into empty space; Harlan was a good foot wider than that bench. He raised his head as Cal walked by. “Going out?”
“Yes.”
Harlan rearranged himself into an sitting position. “How long?”
Cal shrugged. “A while, I guess.”
Harlan stood. “I’ll bar it up behind you then.”
Cal stood to the side while Harlan unbolted the double doors and swung them open. Wet light oozed over the doorstep to show the long hallway with unlit lamps beneath the smoke stains they had left on the walls. The interior seemed as gray as outside. Harlan filled up Cal’s senses, the only definite living thing around.
He stepped out onto the well worn steps and looked up. The sun was somewhere above, but not strong enough to burn away the stubborn river fog of Delta Mouth. The fog had coalesced in water droplets on the sign which hung above the door. There was a light sheen of mildew over the red letters which spelled out “MINNIE’S” and Cal made a mental note to look again at the cost for an electric sign.
Harlan peered out for a moment, then retreated inside again. Cal heard the heavy bar settle into place and knew Harlan would be back to his bench. He should find another doorman who could spell the big man, give him the chance to sleep in a bed somewhere else.
A few steps had taken him down the stairs and across the narrow street to the Torgove Canal, one of many that slithered through the city. The stone wall which held the street away from the water was stained but Cal leaned on it anyway. The dark water moved slowly beneath him, pulling along an assortment of trash. A few brown bottles, a splintered piece of white-painted wood, a woman’s hat with a long green ribbon dragging behind it like a tail or a piece of seaweed. Nothing unusual. Cal brushed a bit of moss off his sleeve and walked slowly along the side of the canal. The Torgove District was silent at this time of day. It wouldn’t liven up until the murky light started to fade, when the lamplighters would come around to coax some shine out of the dirty glass globes that lined the canal and the people of the city - Angiers, Pelagoans, Ibaians and all the mixtures in between - would come seeking entertainment.
From somewhere in the fog, the sound of a train whistle reached him. The sound cut through his revery and made him wince, for it reminded him again of Minnie and her reproaches. The damp was seeping into his shirt and he shivered; he should have listened to Helen’s advice and taken his coat.
Cal quickened his steps, hurrying past the lampposts which stood like wrought iron trees amongst the fog. Their curled arms rusted elegantly. The Torgove joined with the Lew and he turned away from the canalside to an interior street on one of the many silty islands which made up Delta Mouth. There were people here, and automobiles rattling over the stone streets. Most of those on the street wore dark coats to hold off the chill and Cal felt his dirty white shirt standing out like a flag of surrender. He slipped from the street into an alleyway. At the far end a heavy door stood open, letting out a glow of warmth. Cal threaded his way through the garbage bins and the refuse which hadn’t made it into them to reach the doorway. Inside would be another kitchen, another sanctuary.
He hesitated in the entrance, breathing in the steam and smells of food. He was hungry now; the stale taste of Minnie had faded away from his mouth, much to his relief. There was nothing he could do with her, for her, to her now, but she haunted him still.
One of the sous chefs caught sight of Cal standing the doorway and motioned him inside. The light enveloped him, the steam curled around him like a woman’s arms. Minnie would not trouble him here.
He passed the long tables where young cooks and scullions were chopping, mixing, stewing and arranging an array of food for the lunch time meal. At the door to the dining room he found a lanky man with an extravagant mustache looking over each plate before the waiters carried them out into the velvet draped dining room beyond. Cal waited while he recurled a delicate twist of radish.
“Good morning Vincent.”
“Cal!” Vincent turned immediately to hug him. Cal returned the gesture, feeling the crisp cloth of Vincent’s chef whites bend beneath his touch. “You’re down around the face, old man. Did you come to tell me that Helen’s deserting you for the Hotel di Ferello?”
“No,” Cal said. “Not yet, anyway.”
“And yet you stumbled out into the street, unwashed and unshaven, and came, I think, directly to my clean kitchen.” Despite his words, Vincent’s tone of voice was gentle and Cal knew his old friend was only joking.
“Not only that, but unfed as well.”
“Unfed?” Vincent waved along a young man in the formal blue uniform of the Hotel di Ferello’s staff who was carrying a tureen of sweet smelling tomato soup. “My friend, you should not be hungry. We no longer sleep on benches by the canal. You could, if you chose, wear clean clothes and visit a barber, even have your shoes shined. We have the opportunities for culture now, though you seem to forget it.”
Cal sighed, even as his stomach growled. He had the management of the nightclub, and there was an entirely different sort of culture than Vincent had found at the Hotel di Ferello. A culture which was tolerant of managers who were haunted by dead lovers. “I had a bad night,” he said and then couldn’t resist adding a dig at Vincent’s high-minded sensibilities. “Anyway, I haven’t your breeding and disposition to culture.”
Now it was Vincent who sighed. “Yes, my mother taught me which spoon to use and to appreciate the taste of a pate. Don’t speak ill of her, there’s enough others who do. If there was anything to be gained by cooking the food of the plains, I would try.”
“You could introduce the fine cuisine of Angiers to the finer folk of Delta Mouth.” It was an old joke, for they both knew that the clientele of the Hotel di Ferello, rich Pelagoans visiting from the northern islands, wanted nothing of the inland food.
“Or I could introduce an Plainsman to the fine cuisine of Pelago.” He motioned to a waiter who had just pushed through the double doors with a tray of empty plates. “Joseph, my friend Cal would like the lamb.”
Cal smiled at the young man as he nodded and replied to the head chef with military precision. “Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” The real joke was that lamb was a traditional dish amongst the people who dwelt on the Plain of Angiers, even if it was prepared with techniques that the Pelagoans had perfected to cook the plentiful fish of the islands.
He accepted the plate of meat and sat down at a small table in a corner of the big kitchen. Another waiter brought him a glass of wine and set it on the table with a friendly wink and exaggerated flourish before continuing with his work in the smooth efficient way that Vincent demanded and somehow received from the kitchen staff of the Hotel di Ferello.
Cal savored the lamb and considered when his path had diverged from Vincent’s. Or maybe they had never really been on the same path, only walked together for a ways. Vincent, after all, had begun life at the top, born to a Pelagoan mother. His fall had been swift, though, once society learned that his father had been a Plainsman, an Angier. His mother had not lost her fortune, not initially, but society’s doors opened rarely to her, and certainly never opened for her half-breed son. It was little wonder, then, that Vincent had left home as soon as he was able, making his way to Delta Mouth where Pelago and Angier mingled even as the waters of the sea mixed with the outpouring river, and both of them together worked on the land to form a multicultural mud. The Pelagoans of Delta Mouth were willing to overlook a little Angier blood. The people of the Mouth were willing to overlook quite a lot.
So when Cal had arrived in the city, on a rare afternoon of yellow sunshine, he had felt almost hopeful about his prospects. No wonder Minnie had wanted to come to this great city, with its sparkling canals, with its fine restaurants, with its railway depot where the ceiling made its own starry sky high above you. But even with its lax morals, the Mouth wasn’t a city that would take you in with open arms. And thus both Cal and Vincent found themselves with neither work nor home nor friends, sleeping on benches with newspaper pillows. A wary friendship had become a companionship and as they found doors that opened, each had helped the other, step by step. But Minnie did not dog Vincent’s steps.
Cal mopped the juices from the plate with a slice of bread. The rush of lunch was done and Vincent had come to sit next to him. The tall man pulled off his white hat and dabbed at the sweat on his brow with a napkin. As Cal looked up from his reverie, Vincent refolded the napkin and set it neatly on the table. “A bad night?”
Cal nodded.
“Minnie?”
“What else?”
“What’s done is done,” Vincent said.
“Try telling her that.” Another well-worn conversation, the rough corners of the words smoothed away by years of repetition. “She never did listen much to me.”
“Well, she won’t bother you here. Sit as long as you like.” Vincent clapped Cal’s shoulder roughly and went to oversee a scullion beating egg whites destined for an evening dessert.
Cal sat. The whirl of the kitchen moved in front of him. The uniformed waiters had ferried in nearly all of the empty plates from the dining room and a few joined Cal at the side table, chatting amongst themselves. They were all young Angiers, long limbed and dark haired. Cal listened to them discuss the Pelagoan diners, the chambermaids they’d like to see in bed chambers, the dreary fog which had shrouded the city for nearly two weeks.
“As soon as I save up a good bit,” said one, “I’m headed back north to the sun.”
“You’ll never save up anything,” his companion replied. “You’ll lose it all at the card tables.”
“At least there’s some chance of a payback from gambling. You’ll never win any money in the bed games you play.”
“That’s not true,” said a third. “Find a rich Pelago lady to keep you around. Look at the Vincent, he’s proof a Plainsman can do well in a Pelago bed.”
His companions elbowed him and looked at Cal, who shrugged. Vincent’s parentage was common knowledge in Delta Mouth. “Just ask yourself this,” he said, standing up. “Where’s the Vincent’s father now?” The waiters looked at him with furrowed brows. Where was the father of the man they respectfully referred to as “the Vincent”? Dropped and discarded. A toy which had outlived its purpose, though not by much. But that part of the story was not common knowledge. Cal left the young men speculating on their boss’s past and their own future and found Vincent inspecting the huge vat or sourdough with a mournful air.
“Are you sure Helen won’t come work with me?”
“I can’t speak for her, but you’ve asked her often enough that you know her answer.” No, was the answer. With all due respect to the Vincent, let them come to the Torgove if they want a taste of Angiers.
“So many stubborn women,” Vincent said. He threw a handful of flour into the starter and stirred it in with a wide wooden paddle. The mass of wet proto-dough did not move easily and he grunted with the effort. “I like the electric lights,” he said, “but I want more electric cooking machines. Something that will stir this bitch for me would be nice.”
“You’ve got plenty of young arms.” Cal jutted his chin towards the sous chefs who had formed a talkative huddle at one end of the counters and the idle waiters at the side table.
“But none of them understand the bread.” Vincent scraped the paddle off and hung it on a hook. “Not that I understand it either. But I trust them with it even less than I trust myself.”
“I’ll bring you a loaf next time. I wasn’t thinking when I walked out this morning.”
Vincent smiled at the thought, and Cal smiled back at him. Helen’s bread was enough to make most anyone misty-eyed, and he had been out of sorts this morning when he left, or he would have eaten that raisin bun rather than turning it into ashes. His smile turned a little rueful as he thought of what Vincent would say if Cal confessed to having thrown some of Helen’s bread into the fire.
Someone came in from the dining room with a request for a late lunch, or perhaps an early dinner. The sous chefs sprang into action with a few guilty looks at the Vincent, and the waiters began a complicated game to choose who would have to get up. Cal let himself out into the alleyway again.
The fog had lifted up above the buildings now, and a few rents above showed a layer of thin, high clouds. The lampposts were no longer weird mockeries of dead trees, but only dull metal doing a dull job to hold up the lamps until night would breath life into them. Cal walked quickly through the alleys until he came back to the Torgove and followed its sinuous line back to Minnie’s. The nightclub’s sign looked more drab in the filtered afternoon sunlight.
Underneath the sign stood a slight young woman, hardly more than a girl. The mass of curls barely contained by the green scarf tied over her head showed her to be Ibai. The bag in her hand and the defiant glint in her eye showed her to be another young and hopeful immigrant to Delta Mouth.
She stepped aside with a wary look as he mounted the steps and rapped on the door.
“Go away,” boomed Harlan’s voice inside. “No hiring today.”
“Says who?” Cal said loudly.
There was a clunking of locks and Harlan opened the door. “Says me to her, what’s been sulking on the front steps since you left.” The girl’s lip wobbled and she lifted her chin.
Cal could see her about to speak, but he didn’t let her.
“What’s your name, little sister?”
“Emmy Jane,” came the reply. The quaver of uncertainty in her voice was overlaid with a hopeful sweetness.
“Emmy Jane,” Cal said. “The best work you can do for yourself is to turn yourself around, march yourself right back to the docks, and get back on whatever boat brought you downriver and let it take you back home again.”
The girl was shaking her head. The curls escaping from the headscarf bounced. “I can sing,” she said.
“Harlan can sing,” Cal said. “I can sing. There’s hardly a man or woman in the world who hasn’t got a voice to sing with.”
“I’ve been singing at the county fairs in Ibai since I was six,” Emmy Jane said. “I can sing so people want to listen, and you can’t say that about just anyone.”
Harlan harrumphed, taking this as a personal insult on his own voice.
“I’m not going back upriver.” Her lip wobbled again. “I haven’t got the fare.”
That was typical. Young things with big dreams and no money were always turning up in Delta Mouth. The only thing that had made Cal any different when he arrived was that he had a nightmare with him, not a dream.
Emmy Jane took his silence as an invitation to continue. “Let me sing for you,” she said. “Just a little.” She set her bag down on the steps and arranged her hands in front of her.
It was a cold night when I left my love,
The moon shone down ‘mongst the stars above.
My hands were shaking so, so, so,
I did not want to go, go, go, go,
But my love he told me no, no, no,
You cannot stay, you must away.
I walked on down to the ferry dock,
Tide was turning around eight o’clock.
My hands were shaking so, so—
“That’s enough.”
“Everyone always said I had a good voice,” she said.
“No one on my stage sings that sort of song,” Cal said. “It’s too sad. People don’t come to be sad at a club; they come to forget that the rest of their life is sad. And they never want to hear that the girls have another lover besides the audience.”
“I know happy songs, too,” Emmy Jane said. She did not look deterred, rather she looked as if she was about to launch into a happy song. Harlan saw it too and stepped forward. She shrank back a little from him, but then the glint came back into her eye and she straightened her spine.
Cal knew that look, for he’d seen it on many faces, starting with Minnie’s. If Emmy Jane didn’t start here, she’d start somewhere further down the Torgove, even all the way to slums by the canals which remained unnamed. He waved Harlan back.
“You can work in the kitchen,” he said. “Talk to the other girls and learn the songs from them. I doubt any of them are your happy songs from Ibai.”