Neal Pollack

Billik jerked his head in Mary’s direction. “She bring you along?” His English wasn'’t completely right, but he spoke with hardly any accent. His skin burst out of his collar, but was clean and smooth, pale and shiny like a baby’s. He barely seemed to look at the oversized cards that he was handling, as they made a slapping sound. A breeze started blowing and it began feeling more like May in Chicago.

“Tell her to stay away,” he said. “She waste my time.”

“I tried telling her to stay away. She thinks you have powers.”

He stopped and looked up at me with the blackest eyes I have ever seen. “I do have powers. She has nothing for me to tell her.”

“She thinks you do, or you will,” I said.

“Stupid girl.” He looked up at me and grinned. “You want fortune?”

“No, I—”

“Give me your hand.” He grabbed toward my arm.

“No. ”

“Who are your parents? Where do they work? You have nice house?”

I hurried away. Before I could even talk to her, Mary practically ran into the tent.

“What did he say?” asked Ginny, as we saw Mary eagerly sit down in the chair in front of Billik, who looked supremely uninterested.

“He says that Mary’s bothering him. He seems like a complete farce. He’'s mean. You go up there and you’ll see.”

“No, I’m not. My parents would send me to a convent if they heard I was meeting with a mystic or a seer or whatever it is he calls himself.”

Mary looked on with great interest at the cards that Billik was flipping around carelessly, and she eagerly held out her hand, which Billik pretended to study with poorly concealed boredom. He accepted the nickel she offered him like it was soiled linen.

I received some good news a few weeks later. My family was able to put some money together and I was going to go up to Milwaukee to attend Alverno, a women’s college. Fall of ’06, I packed my things, said goodbye to my family, and took the train to Wisconsin to begin classes. I wrote home frequently, and tried Mary several times, telling her about school and my classmates and the city, in hopes of getting her to speak with me again, but she gave me no answer.

I came home for Christmas, excited to see my family.All the aunts and uncles and cousins met at our house, and Ginny and I took a walk around the neighborhood to see if anyone else was out celebrating. All the houses looked lit up and warm, but as we came to the Vzral house, it was dark, with a wretched little black wreath on the door.

“What happened?” I asked.

“That poor family,” whispered Ginny, who was becoming like her mother, more pious and maternal, as she grew older. “Tillie died the day before you came home,” she said, referring to one of the younger sisters.

“Oh! That’s so sad. First their father, then Tillie

”

“Actually,” said Ginny, “Susie passed away right after you left for Milwaukee. They’ve lost two sisters.”

“Why didn'’t you tell me?” I said.

“I didn'’t find out about it until much later,” she said. “You know that family better than I do. I forgot, I suppose.”

“What happened?”

“They say stomach trouble. For all of them. I hope it’s not contagious.”

We came home just as Mary had stopped by to say hello to my parents. She looked gaunt, much older than when I had last seen her. She seemed happy, though, and was cordial to me.

“How is your father, Mary?”

“Oh, He’'s fine, on death’s door as he always is. But I’'ve been working, and it’s good to get out of the house.”

“That’s good news,” I said. “Where are you working?”

“Some housekeeping here and there,” she said lightly, trailing off. “Some bookkeeping too.”

“Where?”

“Neighbors,” she said, and abruptly changed the subject.

I hadn'’t seen Edward, my neighborhood boy, for a while and it was good to spend time with him again, away from my family and my classmates. I enjoyed school but being around so many other girls was tiring. The night before I left to go back, he asked if I would marry him. I said I'’d think about it but of course I knew that I would.

Back in Milwaukee, Mary deigned to write to me again. I found out that she was working for Billik. She really, truly seemed happy, though, and told me stories of their fine house, his dusty cases of fortune-telling equipment that she wasn'’t allowed to touch, and the large sums of money that she kept track of, but knew nothing about.

“Is he paying you well, at least?” I wrote back.

“My payment comes in watching him work,” she wrote me. “And his knowledge. He says that He’'s starting to see some good luck for me in the future. And love! I hope it’s true.”

“What’s his wife like?” I responded, and she ignored this question in her next letter. She did congratulate me when I told her I was going to marry Edward.

I came back to Chicago for good that summer in 1907. We were hoping to marry in the winter, so we went to the parish to discuss the date with the Father and were surprised to see a coffin inside.