Through the Window
One
The prescribed period of laying-in after the birth of a child is two weeks, according to my mother-in-law, who is a self-proclaimed authority on such things. Getting on one’s feet too soon results in bleeding to death at worst, lack of milk production at least. I know my own mother didn’t follow such advice—each time she gave birth, she was back at work a day or so after the baby came, as far as I can remember. Well, she had a husband and other children waiting to be fed. But then her last delivery had killed her, so I thought I had perhaps better follow my mother-in-law’s advice after all. The trouble was, I felt recovered and raring to go within a day or so after Liam’s birth. The ordeal hadn’t been nearly as bad as I had expected, and my son was a fine, healthy boy with a good set of lungs on him. Daniel’s mother, Mrs. Sullivan, had arrived to take charge of the household before I went into labor, and we had also hired a mother’s helper named Aggie, whom I had rescued from a home for unmarried mothers after she was forced to give up her own child. I had taken her on out of pity but, having grown up as the eldest of ten children, she proved to be a willing little worker with a magic touch when it came to my crying baby. So here I was, confined to my bed with nothing to do except nurse my child every four hours, eat plenty of nourishing food, even drink the occasional beer to help the milk come in. And of course I was bored. Mrs. Sullivan tried to encourage me to knit little garments for the baby, but my knitting skills were still sadly lacking. Besides, she herself had made enough clothes for a young princeling, and Sid and Gus, my neighbors across the street, had been more than generous in their gifts. So I did some reading. I chatted with Sid and Gus when Mrs. Sullivan allowed me visitors, and the rest of the time, I looked out of the window.
Not that there was much to see. Patchin Place was a quiet little backwater amid the hustle and bustle of New York City—ten redbrick row houses, five on either side of a narrow cobbled cul-de-dac. At the far end of our little street, where it joined Greenwich Avenue, there was life a-plenty—the Jefferson Market with its early morning fruit and vegetable vendors, the police and fire stations with clanging bells and rumbling fire wagons, students hurrying past to classes at the nearby New York University, artists from the growing bohemian community. But from my bed I could only catch the briefest glimpses of all this, fleeting vignettes flashing across a screen like those in the moving pictures that were now the rage. In Patchin Place itself there was rarely anything worth watching. Sid and Gus, who lived directly opposite me, were always on the go, waving up at me as they emerged from their front door, but apart from them the inhabitants were sedate, predictable, and quite reclusive. There was an elderly professor from the university on one side, a poet on the other, a distinguished-looking doctor with a haughty patrician wife, and an old German immigrant lady who walked her dachshund. The remaining inhabitants were middle-aged couples with husbands who left for their jobs early in the morning and wives who sometimes stood together gossiping, but rarely acknowledged me with more than a nodded “Good day, Mrs. Sullivan. Pleasant weather for the time of year.”
No children, no laughter or squeals. None of the teeming life you’d find if you strayed over to the Lower East Side. Not that I’d have wanted that amount of noise and dirt and risk of disease, but it would have been pleasant to hear the sound of children’s voices chanting as they jumped rope or shouting as they played ball. Poor Liam would be wanting for playmates if we continued to live here, I thought.
So I was intrigued one day when Sid and Gus came up to see me, bringing fresh croissants from the French bakery around the corner. “You’ll never guess who we’ve just seen in Patchin Place,” Gus said, perching herself on my bed without waiting for permission. “A negro. Imagine.”
“Look out of your window, Molly. He may still be there.” Sid went around my bed and pulled back the curtain. “Yes, there he is. Walking away. See.”
I looked and saw a slim, young man with light brown skin—a man of mixed race that I believe are called mulattos here in America. In Ireland they had no name—I had never seen a colored person before I came to New York. He was dressed in a bright blue jacket and cream-colored pants. He paused just as he reached the end of Patchin Place and looked up at the houses on my side of the street. He had a handsome face with well-sculpted features. Then he turned and was gone.
“What could he have wanted here?” Gus asked. One saw negroes in the city, but they usually kept to themselves in the upper streets beyond Central Park, and they were enough of a novelty to make even worldly travelers like Sid and Gus curious.