The Shoemaker's Wife(84)
Enza and Laura left the Y in midtown, bundled in scarves, gloves, coats, and wool cloche hats pulled low, and headed up Fifth Avenue on foot.
The mansions on Fifth Avenue looked like a row of top hats, as the kerosene streetlamps lit by the doormen threw shadows on their facades. Enza and Laura walked in and out of the pools of light under the entrance awnings, feeling a blast of warmth from the small portable coal ovens positioned to keep the wealthy warm as they walked through the polished brass entrance doors and into the motorcars waiting to take them out on the town.
Enza and Laura observed the shift change in the mansions, as black maids left through the service entrance and the night staff entered, replacing them. Irish maids made their way east to the el train for their commute home. The wind was bitterly cold, whistling through the city blocks, creating errant gusts that hit Enza and Laura like the crack of a whip as they crossed the streets.
Enza and Laura found 7 East Ninety-first Street easily. Lit from within, the Italian Renaissance mansion dazzled as torches lit the street, throwing golden light on to the entrance. The elegant home had a particular Roman opulence, and yet, like most of the new buildings born of the latest architecture trends in the city, it seemed courant and fresh, or maybe it was the people who lived inside that imbued the homes with those qualities. Semicircular arched windows were embedded in the eggshell-colored limestone like jewels. Thick mahogany castle doors, arched and set with iron bindings, were thrown open, festooned with garlands of fresh cedar and bunches of cranberries and walnuts. Enza marveled that simple fruit and nuts, available for free everywhere on her mountain, became embellishments for the gentry of New York City. She would remember to write to her mother about the decorations.
“This is it. The James Burden mansion.” Laura scanned the notes she had made for them. “We are to enter from the carriage drop door in the back and ask for Helen Fay. She’s in charge of the house.”
“This is not a house. It’s a palazzo,” Enza said, taking it in.
“It’s a palazzo with a kitchen. Let’s go.”
Enza followed Laura through the service entrance. Laura asked the butler for directions, and he sent them through a small hallway. No sooner were they in the service hallway when the girls were forced to back against the wall to make room for a team of waiters, who passed by carrying enormous flower arrangements, Tuscan urns stuffed with fuchsia peonies, red roses, and green apples. Laura and Enza looked at one another in disbelief.
As the butler opened the doors to the rotunda, the girls looked inside. The opulent foyer, the granite floor, the limestone walls, and even the stairs were pearl white, set off by a grand staircase that resembled ivory keys on a piano. The wide Hauteville marble steps twirled in an S shape up to a landing with an ornate gold-leafed railing. The banister railing was lined with black velvet; Enza imagined it would be like holding a gloved hand for guests making their way to the party upstairs.
The urns were placed on pedestals throughout the atrium, vibrant shots of color against the pale marble. Crystal hurricane sleeves covered white pillar candles made of beeswax that threw warm, fractured light onto the marble, making the atrium glow.
“Where do they get peonies in winter?” Laura whispered as they proceeded to the kitchen.
The kitchen was as wide and deep as the main factory floor at Meta Walker. Long aluminum tables inset with wooden chopping blocks were situated down the center of the room like a racetrack. Sleek pots and pans hung overhead. The long wall was a series of smooth griddles attended by a staff in white, headed by a chef who wore a toque. Beyond the kitchen was an assembly room, where trays of fine china waited to be filled before serving. Off the assembly room, the work doors were propped open to reveal a courtyard, where a Negro attendant in a white apron and wool hat hand-cranked ice cream in an aged wooden barrel. His warm breath exhaled in the cold looked like puffs of smoke as he operated the crank.
The kitchen ran like the greased gears of a sewing machine, one operation leading to the next without a glitch. The workers spoke little, coordinating their work via a series of hand signals.
The first person Enza and Laura met was Emma Fogarty, a no-nonsense young woman around their age with light brown braids twisted up on her head, bright blue eyes, and a nondescript figure hidden behind a brown cotton smock, with wooden clogs on her feet and red woolen knee socks on her legs. She wrote on a blackboard visible throughout the kitchen.
“We’ve been sent from the Dandrow agency,” Laura said.
“Both of ye?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re slop and wash. I’ll show you.”
“We’re supposed to report to Helen Fay.”
“You’ll never lay eyes on Helen Fay. She’s upstairs, fanning the napkins.”
“I’m Laura Heery, and this is Enza Ravanelli.”
“Emma Fogarty. I’m the kitchen captain.”
Emma pointed to a coat closet, and the girls took off their outer clothes. She handed them each a smock like the one she wore, which they pulled on as they followed Emma through the catacombs of the kitchen. Along a long hallway, floor-to-ceiling closets with small windows revealed stacks of dishes, cups, tureens, bowls, and glassware.
Emma led the girls down a dark flight of wooden steps to a dimly lit room, in which a large wooden table was surrounded by stools. On the far wall, the mouth of a dumbwaiter sat open, stacked with empty trays. Under the dumbwaiter was a metal trough with a shaft leading into a hole in the floor for scraps. A series of deep sinks with movable nozzles attached to the faucets created an L shape beyond the trough. Wooden dowels, on which dishes could drain before they were dried, separated the sinks.