The Time Travelers, Volume 2 Page 15

  It was divided among rooms whose gray carpet went right up the walls, giving both exhibition and visitors a padded permanent look, as though they would be here forever, enclosed in cloudy gray. She was bumped by two very old ladies with museum headsets perched in their white curls. A girl in frayed black sweats sat cross-legged on the floor, sketching a statue whose eyes had been ripped out in antiquity. A middle-aged man read the translation of an ancient papyrus, while a tiny delicate woman studied a trinket box carved from hippopotamus ivory.

  There were a number of photographs. Each one had a caption. LIGHTNER EXPEDITION. 1899.

  The first one Annie studied was not framed, just tacked to splintered wood. It was black and white, yet full of glare and heat. It showed a woman caught in a whip of sand and dust, arm raised against her face so she could breathe, her long skirt billowing, and beyond her, the rising side of a vast pyramid.

  Who was the woman? The placard did not say.

  Maybe it’s me, thought Annie Lockwood.

  The contents of the next room had come from the tomb of a queen named Hetepheres, mother of King Khufu, who built the Great Pyramid.

  The tomb of Hetepheres had been found entirely by accident when a cameraman employed by the archaeologists got clumsy. His heavy wooden tripod fell over, striking a patch of plaster that had hitherto concealed the entrance to the shaft.

  The placard did not give the name of the cameraman.

  Was it Strat?

  If she could touch the photo, she’d know. She’d feel Strat through that paper. Or she wouldn’t.

  A museum guard, finely tuned to be aware of all ready-to-touch visitors, gave Annie the heavy-lidded look of authority.

  She stumbled on.

  In the third room was a small gold statue of Sekhmet, goddess of revenge, on a pedestal behind glass. And there, at eye level on the carpeted wall, was the photograph described in the newspaper article: every member of the dig that had uncovered the tomb of Hetepheres.

  Museum visitors were standing in front of it and blocking Annie’s view. She peered around shoulders and between the straps of handbags.

  The picture was large, with the quiet hazy look of early photographs. A dozen people had posed in two rows, shadowed by the brims of hats they had worn a hundred years ago to protect themselves from the Egyptian sun. They seemed to have been mummified as they waited for the picture to be taken.

  Slowly the exhibition visitors rotated on. One boy was still half in Annie’s way, but she couldn’t wait any longer, even though she wanted to be alone with her photograph. She shouldered the boy away and carefully examined each tiny black-and-white face. This had to be her shaft through Time.

  But Strat was not in the photograph.

  Annie was just a silly girl in silly clothing, wearing her silly hopes. “Oh, Strat!” she said, heart bursting with grief.

  The boy who was also still looking at the photograph said, “Yes?”

  CAMILLA: 1899

  Six months after the murder of her father, Camilla Mateusz decided to become a man, because men were paid more. She had read once that a Confederate girl pretended to be a soldier throughout the entire War Between the States and never got caught. So why couldn’t Camilla be a man during the twelve working hours of the day—and never get caught?

  Camilla possessed an advantage in such a masquerade. She towered over all ladies and most men.

  A lady must be delicate, with white throat and narrow ankles. Not that anybody believed a Polish girl was within reach of being a lady, but Camilla Mateusz had an additional affliction. She was six feet tall in a generation where most girls were hardly more than five. When she was sitting, people thought her attractive, and praised the thick blond braids, rosy cheeks and blue eyes.

  Eventually, however, Camilla had to stand up. Mill hand or shopkeeper, priest or policeman—everybody who saw Camilla unfold burst out laughing. Who would ever marry her?

  Only once had her height been useful, in the wonderful new game called basketball. How grand to feel the joy men had always felt: throwing a ball.

  Of course, girls did not play the same game as boys. Girls, for example, could not dribble, which was a skill far beyond their capacities. The court was only half as large, and in long skirts, girls did not move quickly. Last season, however, the girls had actually been permitted to play against another school’s team. Oh, not without arguments. The community was outraged by this attack against feminine behavior. It was clear where this kind of thing would lead. Lovely sweet girls would be ruined.

  They pointed to Camilla as proof, how unwomanly she was, with her attention to the ball and her desire to win.

  Well, Camilla had lost the joy of basketball. She had lost her chance to win a high school diploma as well. But she had not lost her father’s courage. He had crossed a terrible ocean, worked hard at a terrible job and died a terrible death. He had done this for his family and she could not do less.

  What to do about the waist-length yellow hair of which she was so proud?

  Since men wore caps or hats in the street, as a man, she could cover her hair to an extent, but caps were removed indoors. Camilla would have to have short hair. And so she gave herself a ragged haircut, put on Papa’s clothing and Papa’s cap. Low on her cheeks she rubbed a little soot from the kerosene lamp. Then she put on Papa’s old reading glasses, smudging them a bit in hope of lessening the blue of her eyes.

  Oh, Papa! He had had his heart set on seeing his children finish school. They would not spend their lives in a mine or mill. They would go to an office, have clean jobs and wear white shirts with white collars.

  The Mateusz family had but one photograph on their walls. It was large and quiet in its heavy brown frame. Mama was seated, Papa standing behind her, his hand resting on her shoulder. Mama wore the dress she had been married in and Papa his only suit—the one in which he had lately been buried. Seven children stood around them, solemn and proud to be in a portrait. Since then, the three oldest had had to drop out of school to work in the mills—or rather, the remaining mill; the one Mr. Hiram Stratton had not burned down; the one in which her father had not died.

  This morning Mama had had no food to put in the lunch pails. Irena and Magdalena, Antony and Marya did not cry. They just looked a little more pinched as they set out for school. Stefan, age thirteen, shrugged and walked out to endure his twelve-hour day. But Jerzy paused for a moment, running his fingers over the pile of his abandoned schoolbooks, still stacked on the shelf by the door. He made a fist, hit the wall, apologized to his mother and went to the factory. Jerzy was fourteen.

  Mr. Hiram Stratton, Sr., the man whose wealth and needs dictated all that happened in this city, had broken a strike by the simple expedient of burning down the factory. He had not checked to see if the factory was empty. He ordered his thugs to torch it, and they did. Michael Mateusz had been there. He had not gotten out.

  Hiram Stratton was not accused of arson. He was not accused of murder. In fact, he was named the next police commissioner.

  So Camilla left a note for her mother. “I’ve gone to get a good job. I will send money so the boys can return to school. Do not worry about me. I am strong.”

  Newspaper advertisements contained four possible jobs. The first three interviews went badly. She blushed when she pretended to be Cameron Matthews instead of Camilla Mateusz. She lowered her eyes demurely, forgetting to stare man to man. She did not remember to stride or swing her arms. Furthermore, she went in the morning, while sunlight streamed into each office. Nobody guessed that this very tall person could be a girl, but they were puzzled and uncertain and did not want to hire her.

  The fourth interview was late in the afternoon. Camilla found herself at an office that did not yet have electric lights, and the single lamp in the little room scarcely illuminated the papers on the desk, never mind the stranger in the door. She paused for courage, reading the sign.

  DUFFIE DETECTIVE AGENCY.

  WE FOLLOW YOUR SPOUSE.

/>   WE FIND YOUR MONEY.

  Camilla’s heart sank.

  She could not be party to the sort of things that led to divorce! Aside from the fact that the Church would disapprove, she might lose faith in the human race.

  Although, given what Hiram Stratton had done, what faith had she in the human race anyway?

  She raised her hand to cross herself, and keep away the evil of such practices as arson and divorce, when she was greeted by the man who must be Mr. Duffie. Just in time, Camilla remembered that her pretend self, Cameron Matthews, was probably not a good Catholic.

  But Mr. Duffie thought she meant to shake hands, so he got halfway up from his desk, extending his hand over the wide wooden top. Luckily she had been doing this all day and knew to grip hard.

  His black pomaded hair glistened on his head. He might, or might not, have brushed his teeth the week before. He handed her a form to fill out.

  Cameron Matthews, she wrote, in big strong script.

  High school diploma, she added, instead of Eighth-grade graduate.

  Mr. Duffie held her paperwork close to the lamp and scanned the page quickly. “Matthews,” he said approvingly. “A good English name. You don’t know how many Poles and Czechs come in here, expecting to be hired, as if they were regular people.”

  Camilla spat into the tobacco stand to demonstrate her disgust at the current situation in America. This was a hard part of being a man. Why did men always have spit in their mouths? She certainly never had any spare spit in her mouth.

  Mr. Duffie leaned back in a wooden swivel chair and chewed the tip of a pipe. “What I need, Mr. Matthews,” said Duffie, “is a man willing to masquerade as a woman. I know, I know. A shameful thing to ask. I have had men vomit at the suggestion of imitating a female. But in this line of work, there are situations into which a man cannot go. A female, however, could do so.”

  That would be interesting, thought Camilla. I’d be a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. “Why then,” she asked, in her new deep voice, “do you not simply hire a female?”

  Mr. Duffie laughed out loud. “Nobody would trust the evidence of a female. Who would hire my agency if it became known that I used female operatives? No, I need a man to disguise himself.”

  “You ask a great deal,” said Camilla, accepting the offer of chewing tobacco.

  “I pay a great deal, Mr. Matthews,” said Mr. Duffie, writing the amount on a piece of paper and shoving it toward her.

  Camilla nearly swallowed her tobacco. He told the truth. He paid a great deal. If she lived frugally, not only could Jerzy and Stefan return to school, lunch pails would be full! Mama could pay somebody else to do the laundry!

  Camilla trembled with the desire to have all that money, but suppressed her shiver as unmanly.

  “Well, Matthews?” demanded Duffie.

  “I shall undertake the task, humiliating though it will be to act like a woman. You will call me Cameron as a man, and Camilla as a woman. You will give me an advance against my salary so that I may purchase female garments. Is this Camilla Matthews to be rich? Or some poor shopwoman? Is she to read and write? Should she talk with an accent? Describe her to me.”

  The detective was impressed. “You are going to be excellent, Mr. Matthews,” he said. “Or should I say, Miss Matthews? You and I will make a great team.”

  And so it began.

  The loneliest, strangest life Camilla could imagine. There could be no friends or family. There could not even be the Church. Tell a priest the sins she was daily committing? The sinful people she followed and watched? The sinful people from whom she accepted pay?

  She lived in a boardinghouse, never going home, lest her family grasp the shameful, scandalous decision she had made. Were Jerzy and Stefan ever to understand the life their sister was leading, they would refuse her money, quit school again and go back to the mills. So Camilla mailed the money to her mother.

  The boardinghouse was for men only, of course. Boardinghouses did not mix the sexes. She shared a bathroom with the other five boarders. This was an extraordinary difficulty. But she managed in part because the other five cared nothing for cleanliness.

  At night, safe under rough sheets, Cameron-Camilla Matthews could be Camilla Mateusz again. She would smother her pain against the pillow, yearning to be back in school, studying history, increasing her math skills and translating her Latin.

  But she was the man of the family now. When a man had a family to support, he must forget himself and his plans.

  And so the months dragged on. Once, dressed as Cameron Matthews, she strolled past the grammar school to feast her eyes on Irena and Magdalena, Antony and Marya. The girls wore new dresses! Their cheeks were pink with good health. Antony had his own baseball bat.

  Sitting on the stoop of a tenement, pretending to fix her bootlaces, Camilla saw Jerzy dash out of the adjacent high school, joyfully taking the steps two at a time, running across the paved playground to greet the little ones. She heard him laugh.

  And so she went on with her masquerade. But she did not laugh.

  At least she could let her hair grow out. When she had to be Cameron Matthews, she wore a cap, pinning her hair safely beneath it. But when she was Camilla, she could brush her hair and admire how yellow it was, buy a ribbon and try on hats.

  She visited Duffie only at dusk, when the man was exhausted, ready to go to his own boardinghouse for dinner, wishing to spend as little time with her as possible. She had already ascertained that his eyesight was poor and his spectacles unhelpful. He saw only the tall gawky frame of Cameron Matthews, and unless she made a large blunder, Duffie would never realize the secret of her gender.

  “Today, Mr. Matthews,” said Duffie, “I have for you an extraordinary assignment. You will have heard of the great gentleman, Hiram Stratton, Sr.—the railroad millionaire.”

  Camilla was almost sick with an evil hope. Perhaps Stratton’s current wife was trying to divorce him. Perhaps Camilla was to have a chance to ruin the man. “I believe Hiram Stratton also owned a factory in the city at one time,” said Camilla.

  “Yes, it burned down. We’re not involved with that. We’re after the son. Hiram Stratton, Jr.”

  Camilla had not known there was a son. How dare Hiram Stratton, Sr., enjoy a son, while Michael Mateusz would never see his sons grow up?

  “The son ran away,” said Mr. Duffie. “It’s a very sad story. He had to be punished for a serious dereliction of duty to his father. He was kept in a private asylum so that he might come to his senses. However, the boy fled from his captivity. Not only did he attack a doctor, but he kidnapped two fellow patients! He did it not for ransom, but for disguise, so that he might look like a family man. I cannot imagine how he pulled it off.”

  Disguise was overrated. If Camilla could trick the world, so could a sneaky sly son of a Stratton.

  “How the great man dreams of a joyful reunion with his long-lost son,” said Duffie.

  Great man, indeed. Why was it that any man of wealth was great, no matter how he acquired his money or what he did with it? Camilla wanted to know.

  “I was honored when the great man chose me to find the boy. I have been working on this, Mr. Matthews, and at last, have an avenue to follow. Stratton junior took his two victims to Spain, where he abandoned them. I am sending you to Spain to interview the female and obtain Junior’s current address.”

  Spain! thought Camilla. Spain of bullfighters and flamenco dancers? Spain of a thousand castles? “Tell me about the kidnap victims,” she said.

  “Shocking,” replied Duffie. “One was a young man with so small a brain he never learned how to talk; the other, a woman with a hideously deformed body. Naturally their parents put them away. We do not have the female’s full name, since her family, of course, did not want the shame of admitting her existence. She wasn’t identified by a last name even in the asylum records. But her first name is Katie. You will find her involved with some sort of hospital. St. Rafael. She seems to be
a nurse now, rather than a patient.”

  Insane asylums were often kind enough to take in defectives, and perhaps the creature really had learned nursing skills. Camilla’s heart broke for such a girl. What pain must she have met at the hands of Hiram Stratton, Jr.?

  “But how will Mr. Stratton prevent a trial of young Stratton for the kidnappings?” asked Camilla. “Surely the parents of the two innocent victims will require justice.”

  “It is my understanding,” said Duffie, “that the parents find it amusing. After all, they need no longer pay for care. No, do not concern yourself with them. As for a trial, naturally Mr. Stratton has paid everybody off. Such a low-class scandal must not be made public. No, we wish to accomplish the joyful reunion of father and son.”

  I cannot bring joy to a Stratton! thought Camilla.

  Mr. Duffie pared his nails. He did this when he was lying. “For this task,” he said casually, “you will be Camilla Matthews. You will offer comfort, real or false, whatever works. Promise the girl anything in order to get young Stratton’s location. Mr. Stratton is providing a large expense account and you will spend whatever is necessary. You will cable me, of course, with every development.”

  Camilla was no saint, to walk away from assignments that paid well. And it might be that in Spain, she could arrange things to her own satisfaction: Destroy the father and ruin the son.

  Camilla’s heart raced in the ugly hot emotion of revenge. Oh, to have more power than Hiram Stratton! To shove in his face what he had shoved in hers! “I will go to Spain. I will need a large advance.” She named an outrageous figure.

  Duffie sputtered and refused.

  She unfolded, her six feet casting a threatening shadow over his desk. “I could inform Mr. Stratton that you are already cutting corners.”

  They glared at each other and Duffie broke first. “Matthews, you are exactly right for this job. You shall have what you ask.”

  How wonderful were the long voyage and the days of female company. How she cherished being once more part of the conversations and laughter and kindness of women. What a delight to discuss hair and fashion, children and church.