Song of the Shank

Tom’s ears perk up. They have only to take the next corner, follow this last street, empty and mute and dark (dim lamps stationed far apart), which presses in on them like the walls of a narrowing tunnel. Tom relishing (smiles, grins) these bumps and declensions. Under inspection, the corners and lanes scramble to order, form a neat row of identical nondescript five-story residences reflecting the crude elemental law of symmetry, which has directed much of the layout of the city. She tells the driver where to stop. The facade pleases the observer (the broader view) because it looks so gray in keeping with its actual age, but sturdy, able to withstand. The brick — she wants to believe she has memorized each one — honeycombed with bullet holes. Every window is open, except theirs — a sultry night despite the time of year.

The driver will take the luggage into the vestibule and no farther.

Tom gets out of the cab unassisted and, golden-headed cane in hand, hops shifts and hobbles along the sidewalk up to the building entrance, his hat flying away from his head, Eliza behind him struggling to keep up, walking deeper into the darkness, away from the gaslights. They walk through the heavy door, pull moonlight in, and start the five-flight climb, Tom wheezing fitfully from the effort of lifting his ample bulk, voices from the street following them up, loud, night-singers, and frenzied laughter and shouts, mixed with the erratic barking of neighborhood dogs.

She rattles keys at their door. The one that should won’t turn the lock. Tom clings to the banister, alert and listening.

I’ll need to go fetch Mr. Hub.

Tom makes a slow sound of assent. As might be expected.

Forcing himself to immobility, remaining at the banister while she descends five floors — six? — to the basement in search of Mr. Hub. The Hubs inhabit the smallest dwelling in the building, the sort of place you see all at once upon entering. (And she has, once or twice over the years.) They have a bell and a knocker at their door. She tries both. For quite a long time nothing happens. Mr. Hub is someone who usually rushes to answer a bell. She knocks and rings again. That sensation that has to do with a shut door. Mr. Hub answers, a ripple of surprise passing over his face, that shapeless lump jammed into the angle of opening, little circles where the eyes should be as if thumbs have gouged in. (How he always looks or only the pallor of the late hour on his cheeks?) He smiles, nods — Mrs. Bethune — trying to hide his discomfort. Hovers anxiously in the doorway, looking leaner than usual, perhaps because of the bedclothes. Eliza used to seeing him in denim overalls, a rag fraying away in his hand.

Now his wife, a gaunt woman with stern pale features, is standing behind him, holding her dressing gown at the collar, flanked by their children. Eliza cannot recall a single instance when she has heard the woman speak, even in greeting or to chastise one of her offspring.

I’m sorry to draw you from your bed. She tells him succinctly about the key and asks him to look into the matter.

Yes, Mrs. Bethune. Of course.

They hasten along, Mr. Hub rising before her with a three-foot candle, which he carries like a sword at his side. He is low and stout but lunges his body up the stairs with long strides as if someone is pushing him from behind.

A most peculiar thing, she says, the key.

It ain’t the key, Mr. Hub says. A lock can shrink and swell. Like most things.

She sees the logic of that.

Mr. Hub reaches the landing where Tom is standing against the banister. He barely acknowledges, a peep, a nod. Puts his whole body before the door, hands working, and the door springs open. There. He lights the candle, stops at the threshold of their inviolate privacy before passing off the candle to her.

That tallow’s still got some life. The wife will be wanting it back.

She looks at him dubiously. This small matter. Burning wax. Will the morn be soon enough?

Certainly, missus. Make as much use as you need.

She informs Mr. Hub about their luggage waiting down in the vestibule. Okay squeezes out of his eyes faster than his mouth. He holds out a new key to her. You’ll be needing this, he says.

She takes the shiny new key, wondering how it confirms or contradicts his theory of contraction and expansion.

He starts back down the stairs, Tom still, waiting. Only when Mr. Hub’s footsteps have died away does he move, half-stumbles half-dances into the apartment. Continues on, the fingers of one hand touching the wall, a map to orient him, the carpet muting the sound of his and her feet.