Free Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham Page B

his machine. He hurried away. He ran up Rivington, keeping to the street, dodging the carts and carriages.
    A river of girls and women was already streaming out of the Mannahatta Company when he got there, and they showed no signs of having seen a calamity that day. He searched for Catherine among the crowd. He saw any number who might have been her. They were so alike, in their blue dresses. As more and more of them passed by, in twos and threes, talking low, stretching their spines and flexing their fingers, he finally made bold enough to ask one of them, and then another, if she had seen Catherine Fitzhugh. Neither of them knew who she was. There were hundreds of girls in the sewing room; Catherine would be known only to the few who worked near her. From a distance Lucas saw Emily Hoefstaedler walking among the many, plump and serene, laughing lewdly with another girl, but he didn't speak to her. He would never speak to her about anything, certainly not about Catherine. He asked another girl and another. Several smiled and shrugged, several scowled, and one, a young dark-haired girl, said, "Won't I do instead?" and was pulled away, laughing, by her friends.
    And then he saw her. She was near the end, with an older woman who had drawn her thin gray hair severely back and walked with her neck craned forward, as if her face were more eager to go forth than her body was.
    Lucas approached them. "Catherine," he cried.
    "Hello, Lucas," she said. She looked at him with exquisite patience.
    "Are you well?" "Quite well. And you?"
    How could he say what he was? He said, "Shall I pray? Shall I venerate and be ceremonious?"
    "Lucas, this is my friend Kate." The older woman dipped her head.
    "Kate, this is Lucas. He is Simon's brother."
    Kate said, "I am sorry for your loss."
    "Thank you, ma'am."
    "Have you come to see me home?" Catherine asked.
    "Yes. Please." He struggled not to snatch at her hand.
    "Kate, it seems I am escorted. I'll see you tomorrow, then."
    The older woman dipped her head again. "Goodbye," she said. Her face led her onward, and her body followed.
    Catherine placed her hands upon her hips. "Lucas, my dear," she said.
    "You are well."
    "As you can see."
    "Will you let me walk with you?"
    "I have to sell the bowl."
    "Where is it?"
    "In my reticule."
    "Don't sell the bowl. Keep it. Please."
    "Come with me, if you like."
    She walked on. He went beside her.
    How could he tell her? How could he make her see?
    He said, "Catherine, the machines are dangerous."
    "They can be. That's why you must be careful."
    "Even if you are careful."
    "Well, being careful is the best we can do, isn't it?"
    "You mustn't go to work anymore."
    "Where should I go, then, my darling?"
    "You could sew at home, couldn't you? You could take in piece-work."
    "Do you know what that pays?"
    He didn't know what anything paid except his own work, and he had learned that only by being paid. He walked on beside her. They passed together through Washington Square. He didn't come often to the square. It lay beyond the limits of his realm; it wasn't meant for a boy like him. Washington Square, like Broadway, was part of the city within the city, cupping its green and dappled quietude, ringed by the remoter fires a place where men and women strolled in dresses and greatcoats, where a lame beggar played on a flute; where the leaves of the trees cut shapes out of the sky and an old woman sold ices from a wooden cart; where a child waved a scarlet pennant that snapped and rippled in countertime to the flute player, who in his turn produced a little point of ginger-colored beard as answer to the pennant. Lucas tried not to be distracted by the beauty of the square. He tried to remain himself.
    He asked Catherine, "Where are we going?"
    "To someone I know of."
    He went with her through the square, to a shop on Eighth Street. It was a modest place, half below the street, called Gaya's Emporium. Its window showed two hats floating on poles. One was pink satin, the