In the Shadow of Blackbirds(14)

“At your age, you shouldn’t even know what men and women do behind closed doors.” She shook her head with a pained sigh. “You’re sixteen years old, for pity’s sake. I didn’t know about those sorts of things until my wedding night.”

“You should have read Gray’s Anatomy, then.”

“Well, there you have it.” She held up her hand as if she had just solved the deepest mysteries of the universe. “You read too many books that encourage the loss of innocence.”

“I lost my innocence on April sixth, 1917. And it had nothing to do with Gray’s Anatomy.”

“What?”

“The day this country declared war against Germany,” I reminded her. “The day spying on neighbors became patriotic and boys turned into rifle targets. That’s enough to take the sweetness out of a girl.”

“Shh.” She furrowed her brow. “Mary Shelley Black! Don’t you dare publicly announce such things about the war.”

“Don’t publicly announce such things about me losing my innocence.” I kicked the toe of my boot against the rail and felt the vibration shinny up to my fingers.

Ten minutes later, we arrived at the island that wasn’t an island and disembarked.

A double-decker electric streetcar that looked like one railroad car had been squished on top of another transported us down Coronado’s main road, Orange Avenue. We clacked down the tracks, past plaster bungalows and traditional clapboard houses that loomed larger than the average American home. Buicks and Cadillacs rumbled by the streetcar, belching clouds of exhaust that smelled of city life and wealth. No signs of poverty existed anywhere on the island, but still, black and white crepes marked the Spanish influenza’s lethal path just the same.

For half the journey, a motorized hearse drove by our side, its cargo—a shiny mahogany casket topped with calla lilies—on full display through open scarlet drapes. I ground my teeth and clenched my fists and felt as though Death himself were riding along next to us, taunting us. He was a nasty schoolyard thug, bullying us with a killer flu when we were already worrying about a war, flaunting the fact that we couldn’t do a thing about the disease.

Just go, I thought. Leave us alone.

I turned my eyes to the passing palm and magnolia trees, and like everyone else on the streetcar, I tried to pretend the hearse wasn’t there.

After reaching a stretch of shops and a pharmacy, Aunt Eva and I climbed off the streetcar, walked two blocks southwest, and arrived at the familiar row of houses that ran alongside the beach, separated from the white sands by Ocean Boulevard and a seawall of boulders. Waves crashed against the shore with a roar, echoed by the cry of seagulls combing the sand for food at the water’s edge.

“You’re going to see a noticeable change in the Emberses’ front yard,” said Aunt Eva when we neared our destination.

“What?”

“Look.”

The brick chimney and brown shingles of the Emberses’ home rose into view, as well as a serpentine line of black-clad men, women, and children that wound from the side of the house to the wall of privets along the property’s front edge. As on the train from Oregon, I saw only desperate eyes and ugly white patches of gauze where mouths and noses used to be.

I sucked in my breath. “What are all those people doing there?”

“I told you, Julius specializes in photos of fallen servicemen now. People have been traveling across the country to benefit from his work, and the flu has tripled demand.” Aunt Eva quickened her pace and led me across the Emberses’ front lawn, past the waiting customers.

“There’s a line, lady,” barked a short woman with squinting eyes.

“I know the family, thank you very much.” Aunt Eva adjusted the wide-brimmed hat she wore to conceal her boyish hair and, with an air of pride, bypassed the crowd.

I gulped at all the glares shooting our way over the masks and slouched with embarrassment.

We made our way to a side entrance that led directly into the studio. In April a simple wooden sign bearing the words EMBERS PHOTO STUDIO had greeted us, but now a large oval plaque made of polished brass announced in boldfaced letters:

MR. JULIUS EMBERS

SPIRITUALIST PHOTOGRAPHER




“Excuse me.” Aunt Eva hiked up the hem of her dress and climbed past a small group on the cement steps. “I know the family.”

A heavyset woman shoved her back to the ground. “Then use the main entrance.”

“Mr. Embers told me not to.”

“Then you must not know the family well.”

The side door opened, and out poked the masked face of a thickset girl no older than eighteen, with a nest of chaotic brown hair pinned to the back of her head. Her white blouse bunched at the waist of her wrinkled gray skirt, and she had the overall appearance of a melting ice-cream cone. “Please make room for the exiting customers,” she said in a voice as frazzled as her hair.

A family of four—two malnourished-looking parents and a small boy and girl—filed out of the studio with wreaths of garlic strung around their necks, as if they were warding off vampires instead of the flu. Behind them blared John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever.”

“Good afternoon, Gracie.” Aunt Eva elbowed her way back up the steps to reach the girl at the door. “Tell Mr. Embers I’ve brought Mary Shelley Black for him.”