A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley

Author:Jane Smiley [Smiley, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2022-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

 11

Eliza was late getting to Mrs. Parks’s, mostly because she had asked Lucas for another look at his horse, and then waved goodbye after he decided that the weather was good enough, and the mud was dry enough, that he could make his way back to his uncle’s. He said, “The horse knows the way.”

Eliza said, “I’ve heard that! Please, remind me!”

Lucas chanted, “Over the river and through the wood, to Grandfather’s house we go; the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh through the white and drifted snow.”

Then he mounted, leaned down, and squeezed her hand, and the horse did, indeed, know the way. Eliza watched its lovely dun haunches amble off.

She wanted to ask if Mrs. Parks knew anyone named Zeke, but she didn’t have the time. Her customer was already in the chamber. Carlos had handed him a draft of beer and said that Eliza was “round back” (which meant in the outhouse). When she went into the chamber, she saw it was one of the sailors she had seen before, though she couldn’t remember his name. She smiled, then ostentatiously washed her hands twice and her face once. The customer lay back on the bed, and Eliza began to remove her apparel piece by piece, leaving her bonnet until last, which seemed to amuse the customer, especially when she touched her head and pretended to be surprised that her bonnet was still there. As she did this, she remembered something about him—he was the one who liked hair—and so she sat down on the bed and let him take out the pins and settle her locks around her shoulders, then stroke it. It did the trick, and he had finished his business within a few minutes. Afterward, she allowed him to continue to stroke her hair (it was very pleasant), and he appreciated it even though stroking her hair didn’t resurrect his prick for a second go. He accepted this, finished his beer, asked how she was getting along. Now she remembered that he was chatty, which she didn’t mind. She told him about the elderly pelican.

The next day, she and Mrs. Parks went to a ceremony honoring the death of Mrs. Marvin. It was not held at a church—rather, at a private home on Pacific Street with a pleasant garden. Eliza had thought there would be a multitude of mourners, but there were perhaps twenty, including Jean, whom she and Mrs. Parks stood next to. Perhaps Mrs. Jacobs was there, but Eliza didn’t know her. None of the other girls from Mrs. Parks’s establishment were there. Eliza hadn’t told Olive about Mrs. Marvin—she’d seen her only in passing since that day. The service was not religious; one man in a dark outfit did invoke the Lord, but he was the only one. Most of the mourners were women, and there were plenty of tears, but nothing was said about Mr. Marvin, about the nature of Mrs. Marvin’s death, about what might happen to Less and More.

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