The Mammoth Book Of Steampunk Part 24

I wandered over to the jewelry case. "You sold them the monogrammed watch?"

"Hm?" she said. "Which watch?"

"The gold pocket watch. Did you sell it?"

"Sell? No."

"Then where is it?"

"I'm sorry, Miss Rosen!" she said. "It's my fault. I wasn't watching the boy who was in here before. He was staring at the jewel case. I'm sorry!"

I patted her arm. "Don't worry about it, child. What's true for business is also true for life. Things come and go. We have to learn to let things pa.s.s."

She nodded and said, "So true." And I thought of her mother.

At a quarter to eleven, while Divya was helping a stocky man try on a suit carefully hiding a lapel stain with her palm I snuck off to my attic. The window was open, cool air blew in from the East River, and my six angels waited patiently on the floor. In front of each lay the spoils of the night.

Beth had acquired a set of pearl earrings with a gold backing (tarnished, but lovely). Eve had brought gold, monogrammed cufflinks (monogrammed items were a hard sell). Leah had folded a taffeta scarf and placed it on the floor (how tidy of her). Talia and Shoshanna each held one side of a gilded Tanakh, the collected Jewish scriptures (from Shmuel Cohen's press, and it was beautiful). Last was Miriam, who held a small, black, dusty wooden box, like the kind a watchmaker might use to keep his tools in.

"What in Gehenna made you think this ugly box was valuable, little Miriam? I think your lenses need adjusting again."

But Miriam twittered and shook, as if begging me to open it. So I flipped up the rusty metal clasp and gasped when I saw what lay inside. Diamonds. Hundreds of them. Tens of thousands of dollars' worth. The oblique afternoon sunlight fell across the gems and sent constellations of color dancing about the walls.

"Miriam!" I said. "You little malekh! You precious angel!" I nearly burst with joy. "Now, sleep, meine kinder. You've had a long night. Save your springs for tonight!"

I held the box of diamonds to the sun. Lost in the rainbows, I thought of Divya. I'd make a fortune selling these to jewelers on the Bowery, and with the money I could take care of Divya and myself forever. She'd never know poverty again. But she'd have to let me help her.

I heard the faint ring of the bell as someone entered my store, so I returned downstairs, ebullient. Divya asked me what I was so joyous about, but I kept mum. Like her, I didn't dare spoil the good fortune by speaking it aloud, lest the evil eye take notice, keyn aynh.o.r.eh!

I was brewing a special batch of spiced coffee when he came in to my store. Since he'd started courting Divya, he'd been making a show of visiting every day. He wore an expensive suit, a top hat (which he took off upon entering), gold-rimmed spectacles and dangled his pocket watch ostentatiously from his jacket pocket. His hair was black and slicked and his persistent smile, just like on his campaign posters, reminded me of the smile of a wolf.

"Robert!" Divya said, rushing over to him. Her exuberance seemed forced, false.

His two enormous and humorless bodyguards stepped aside to let Divya hug him, and I had to look away as he squeezed her. Robert held her fingers and looked her up and down for a long, silent moment. I wanted to strangle him. She was no doll for him to ogle.

"My dear, you look ravishing today!" he said.

She smiled demurely and lowered her eyes. I hated how coquettish she became around him. It was an act, a ruse, I imagined, designed to secure his affections. And he seemed to fall for her charms, too, which didn't make sense to me, because this man despised anything that wasn't pure-blooded Christian. I sensed deception in his intentions.

He examined my store. "I don't know how you persist in working in this filthy shop," he said to Divya. He ran his finger along a shelf and held the dusty tip before his eyes. One of his bodyguards handed him a handkerchief that he used to wipe his finger clean. "When I'm Mayor, you'll live with me. You won't have to work in this ... squalor. If fact, you won't have to work ever again."

His "filth" and "squalor", of course, were code words for his hatred of Jews and our little section of the city. I despised him, but up until this moment, I had thought Divya had just been dabbling, devouring his large budget for fun; such wealth had been unknown to her. But Robert revealed he had more prurient intentions.

"You have to win the election first," I said, scowling as I lit a cigarette.

"And gut morgn to you, Miss Rosen," Robert said, intoning the Yiddish with scorn.

I exhaled smoke in his direction. Divya glanced at me, but quickly averted her eyes.

"Anyway, my darling," Robert said to Divya, "I should not tarry. I've a lunch meeting with the South Street dockmaster. We're trying to open the dockyards to auto-police inspection. We're going to put an end to the contraband that's smuggled into this city."

"And what do the boys down at the Seventh Precinct think of your plan, Robert?" I said. "I don't think they're very happy that you plan to replace their jobs with machines."

"I don't plan to replace them, only augment what's already there."

" 'Augment'? Is that what you're calling your little coup?"

"Pardon me, my 'coup'?"

"It's obvious that you and the dockmaster are planning to take control of the docks to secure your own smuggling ring."

"Miss Rosen!" Divya chirped.

Robert put his hand on her shoulder to quiet her. "It's all right, Divya. I'm not offended. I hear such accusations regularly. In a city full of corruption, one can hardly blame Miss Rosen for being suspicious."

"There's enough corruption in this room to fill all of New York," I said.

"Indeed," he said. "I too have friends at the Seventh Precinct. Thievery is rampant in the Lower East Side, they tell me. Things burgled out of bureaus and jewelry boxes while good folks sleep. Now, where might a thief sell such things?" Robert ostentatiously scanned my store. He ran his hand along a rack of clothing, stirring up a cloud of dust. "I know you think I hate Jews, Miss Rosen. I don't. Yours is the faith of Jesus Christ, the Son of G.o.d. Many Jews in this neighborhood contribute to society with honest, hard work. But there's nothing honest about this place. These feral p.a.w.n shops provide an avenue for crooks and thieves how does one say in Yiddish? ganefs. As Mayor, I'll see to it that all of these shops are closed permanently."

"You're not Mayor yet," I said.

"No, not yet. But soon. Now, my dear," Robert said, turning back to Divya. "I must beg your leave. I'll be late for my lunch with the dockmaster. But first I must dash home to fetch some papers for him to sign. I'll see you tonight?"

"Yes," she said, briefly looking askance at me before she kissed him on the cheek. Finally, Robert and his entourage left the store.

Divya returned to her position behind the counter. I lit another cigarette and stared at her.

"What?" she said.

"Nothing."

"Why are you looking at me that way?"

"What way?"

She shook her head. "I know you think Robert is a buffoon."

"That's the least of his faults."

"Are you jealous?"

I set my jaw and took a sip of my spiced coffee, which had gone cold. "Tell me, Divya, is this the financial security you were talking about? Your knight come to rescue you from a life of poverty? Because you know there's only one thing men like him are after, and it's not your smile."

She swallowed and sat on a stool as the color fled from her face. "I need to tell you something, Miss Rosen. It may ... change your opinion of me."

I moved closer, dreading the worst. Had she already defiled herself with that despicable man? I felt sick. "What is it?"

"Two nights ago, I went to a political dinner with Robert, and he introduced me to many senators and businessmen. He made a show of me, and more than one person refused to shake my hand. There were so many important people that my head spun. I had a bit too much wine, and I allowed him to whisk me back to his house by private dirigible without protest. He waved to many people on the ground as we flew home. It seemed he wanted everyone to know I was with him."

My stomach turned as I sensed where this was heading. Divya looked up at me with the same guilty eyes as when the gold watch had gone missing.

"Back in his bedroom, Robert pressed himself upon me, but I resisted his advances. He was drunk. Far drunker than me. I convinced him to lie on the bed, and he was more than obliging. I whispered softly to him as my mother once did to me, and in no time he was sound asleep and snoring.

"It was very late, past 2 a.m., and I wanted to go home, but I dared not walk the Manhattan streets alone at that hour. But I could not sleep. So I began looking through his shelves for something to hold my attention a book perhaps and when I found nothing of interest, I opened his drawers."

I raised an eyebrow.

"In the back of one, I found a small velvet satchel that I a.s.sumed was filled with small seeds. What a curious thing to keep in a drawer, I thought. But they were not seeds. The satchel was filled with diamonds."

My heart skipped a beat.

"I thought, 'He has so many. Would Robert miss but a few of these?' I put a handful inside a handkerchief and sealed them tight. I didn't sleep that night, and when Robert awoke the next morning, he remembered little, apologized for his drunkenness and took me home. He was too ill to notice how nervous I was." She looked up at me with those kitten-like eyes.

"Go on," I said.

"As soon as I returned home, I became wracked with guilt. I knew that Robert would discover they were missing. So I decided to return the diamonds at my earliest opportunity. I'd seduce him, return to his bedchamber and replace them while he slept. But last night they vanished from my room."

"Vanished?" I said, in feigned surprise.

"Yes. My door was locked from the inside. My father works nights at the docks and hadn't returned home when I arose for work this morning."

"May I ask where you stored these missing diamonds?"

"In a small wooden tool box under the bed."

I took a deep breath. Divya had just happened to be digging around in the back of Robert's drawers out of boredom? No, she had been looking for something. Something to take. Something to ... steal ? I swallowed as the truth dawned on me. "Divya, may I ask you a question?"

"Yes."

"That little Yid didn't steal the pocket watch, did he?"

Her eyes looked sorrowfully up at me. But I saw, for the first time, deception in them.

"And what else have you taken from me?"

"I'm sorry, Miss Rosen!" She began to cry, but I felt that this, too, was fake. If she had been playing Robert to secure his money, then she had been playing me, too. She had been playing everyone for a fool.

"I trusted you, Divya."

"Oh, come off your high horse, Jessica!" she snapped, startling me. "I've been here three months and you never buy from customers, and yet the inventory increases daily. Don't think I don't know where these things come from! You're a thief, a ganef, too!"

I gasped and stepped back; I suddenly didn't recognize this woman who accused me.

"Your parents left you money!" she said. "They left you this gigantic house! And you accuse me? You had a start. I came here with nothing! I have nothing! My father and I, we are just trying to survive."

"My dear, please-"

"No! You can accuse me all you want," she said, "but that's utter hypocrisy!"

I sighed. I had believed that Divya was a naive, innocent girl. It was painful watching my beliefs torn asunder. But it was also time to shatter some of her illusions, too.

"You're correct. I've no right to accuse you. Lock the store, and come with me."

Looking puzzled, Divya obeyed and followed me upstairs to the attic. There I showed her my file cabinets with all of the items my crawlers had stolen. "Like you, I started small, stealing things here and there, just to get by," I said. "Pretty soon I couldn't stop." I opened one cabinet and handed her the black box of diamonds.

Her jaw dropped.

"The crawlers are like cats. I give them guidelines, but they follow their own instincts." I said. "I could not know that Miriam would steal from you."

"Miriam? You name them?"

"I like to think of them as my children. We take care of each other."

She stared at me, and I sensed warmth in her glance. But I didn't trust her anymore.

"Tell me, Divya," I said. "That time in my office, when we kissed, were you toying with me as you toyed with Robert? Was I another fool?"

Her eyes flashed from mine to the diamonds. "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"At the time, yes, I was manipulating you. But I didn't expect to ... feel something."

My spirits lifted. "What did you feel?"

"I didn't plan on staying here for very long," she said. "I ... don't have time for feelings."

"When were you going to leave?"

"As soon as I had enough money."

I shook my head. "Was anything you told me true? Was your mother sick? Do you even have a father?"

"Yes! All of that was true. We were so poor in Gujarat! You can't understand what it's like not knowing where your next meal will come from, or what it's like watching your mother die while British soldiers vomit ale on the streets, then chortle and try to kiss you as you pa.s.s them on your way to wash their stinking uniforms! Just one of Robert's stones could have saved my mother's life!"

"And do I make you angry, too?"

She shook her head. "No. You've been nothing but kind to me. As kind as my mother."

I sat on a stool and lit a cigarette and looked at the crawlers, which even in their reflected brilliance seemed devoid of life. I suddenly found it pathetic how I had, for far too long, invested them with souls they'd never possessed. My life felt empty, and I realized all the more strongly how much I had wanted Divya to be a part of it, and still did, even now.

"You were going to leave today, weren't you?" I said. "Once your father returned from work you and he would have fled New York with your diamonds."

She nodded. "There's an airship leaving for San Francisco this afternoon. I have two tickets."

"Were you even going to say goodbye?"

"Goodbyes are too painful."