The next morning, instead of crowding into the demonstration room or hurrying straight to the wards, Una and the other trainees were shepherded into the library. The furniture had been pushed to the far side of the room and in its place sat several rows of chairs facing a blackboard that had been wheeled in for the lesson. Though Una would have preferred a seat at the back where she might be able to catch a few more minutes of sleep, Dru tugged her to the front row.
Beside the blackboard was a table where dozens of bones had been laid out on a velvet cloth. Una’s skin prickled, not on account of the bones themselves, but their reminder of her long hours in the cemetery near the Gas House District. She touched her forehead, beginning the sign of the cross, but stopped and pretended to be straightening her cap instead. The other trainees would think her superstitious and simple if they saw her crossing herself on account of a few old bones.
“Do you think those were dug up and stolen from a grave?” one of the women seated behind her whispered.
“People still do that?” asked another. “How much do you think they get paid?”
Una swiveled around in her chair. “There’s no money in grave robbing anymore.”
The women eyed her like she were three-day-old bread. “How do you know?” one of them asked.
“I . . .” She couldn’t very well tell them that she knew a man who’d once made a living digging up bodies and selling them to medical colleges. The good ol’ days, he’d called it, back before the passage of the infamous Bone Bill, when a man could get thirty dollars for a fresh corpse.
Dru saved her the trouble of coming up with a demurer explanation. “In 1854 the Act to Promote Medical Science and Protect Burial Grounds was passed in the New York State Legislature,” she said over her shoulder as pleasantly as if they were speaking about tea cakes. “All vagrants dying,
unclaimed and without friends, are given to the institutions in which medicine and surgery are taught for dissection.”
The women turned their three-day-old-bread look on Dru, who only smiled and turned back to the blackboard. Una faced forward as well, but not before giving the women her own, superior smirk. With any luck, the rest of the day’s foibles would be as easily surmounted. Too bad she couldn’t keep Dru and her encyclopedia-like brain on hand in the hospital. Then again, she’d likely suffer a dreadful earache from all Dru’s chatting. Never mind that they were supposed to be silent as corpses themselves on the wards.
Luck favored Una again when another of the head nurses, not Miss Hatfield, came forward to address the class. “Good morning, ladies. Today will be the first of many lectures presented by the hospital’s esteemed body of physicians. These lessons will cover a great breadth of topics, beginning today with human anatomy, presented by Dr. Pingry of the Second Surgical Division.”
Una winced as the pompous old doctor she’d met yesterday strode forward. So much for her luck holding. The women clapped. Reluctantly, Una did the same. He was too old and self-absorbed to remember her, she assured herself. Besides, dressed in their caps and uniforms, one trainee looked so much like another, who could tell them apart? But when he surveyed the room, his eyes halted a moment on Una, and his lips compressed as if he’d tasted something sour.
Then, without preamble, he began his lecture, describing the human body as an intricate machine, the skeleton being the underlying apparatus upon which all else functioned. He alluded to a complex interior of vessels, marrow, and a latticework-like tissue called cancellous. But he brushed that quickly aside, saying it was beyond the scope of the lecture and their intellectual capabilities. As nurses, they need only know which bones fit where.
Beside her, Dru’s shoulders slackened. Clearly she would have delighted in such minutiae. Una also found it interesting to imagine the bones inside her not merely as stone scaffolding but as a complex, living part of her. Simple descriptions of long bones, short bones, flat bones, irregular bones, and how many there were of each were patently boring. It didn’t help that Dr. Pingry spoke in a flat, droning voice punctuated every so often by the squeak of his chalk on the blackboard.
Una’s gaze drifted to the window. The heavy velvet drapes were drawn aside, but a wispy veil of white gossamer obscured the goings-on outside. Una couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent so many days straight indoors. Even when the winter air was bracing and the streets a sloppy mess of mud and snow, she’d enjoyed meandering through the city. The world felt bigger then. Freer. She got up when she pleased, bought a roll and cup of coffee if she were hungry, and went to whatever spot she fancied for the day. Sure, she had her reasons—it was slim pickings at the train depot on a Saturday while Central Park brimmed with fat-pocketed promenaders—and her rules, but no one stood over her shoulder telling her which mark to pick or inspecting her technique. Marm Blei didn’t care as long as she brought back the goods and didn’t get herself into trouble.
Damn those lousy cuff links. Damn Deidre and Traveling Mike and the goddamn police. Were it not for them, she’d be out there now basking in the chilly air and bustle of the city instead of sitting here on this uncomfortable wooden chair listening to this odious old man blather on about . . . about . . . Jiminy! She had no idea what he was talking about anymore.
Una retrained her focus on Dr. Pingry, hoping she hadn’t missed too much of the lecture. He’d moved to stand beside the table and was holding up a short, squat bone with a hole in the center and winglike protuberances on either side.
“There are thirty-three vertebrae, exclusive of those which form the skull. Each is classified according to the position they occupy in the spinal column, seven being found in the cervical region, twelve in the dorsal, five in the lumbar, five in the sacral, and four coccygeal. Can anyone tell me to which region this vertebra belongs?” Dr. Pingry glanced about the room and continued, clearly not expecting anyone to answer. “The cervical region. Note the relatively small size and that it is broader from side to side than front to back.”
He held up examples of the types of vertebrae, describing their bumps and notches with strange terms like pedicle, lamina, and spinous process that Una hoped she wouldn’t need to remember. Then he drew a long, flattened S on the blackboard and described the proper curvature of the spine.
“Who can describe for me an ailment associated with the improper formation of the vertebral column?”
Dru raised her hand. “Scoliosis, when the spinal column curves sideways.”
“Correct. Depending on its severity, it can cause pain, numbness, and even damage to the heart and lungs. Anyone else?”
A few more women offered up answers. Then Dr. Pingry’s gaze landed on Una. “What about you? Can you name a disease related to the spinal column? You seemed most eager to supply your thoughts yesterday.”
Una ignored his smug stare and thought back to her life on the streets. The slums drew all sorts of ill-shaped folks—those with clubbed feet and shrunken limbs and twisted backs—but Una didn’t know the fancy medical names of any of their ailments.
“No?” he said with appreciable glee. “I thought not.” He gave his silk waistcoat a sanctimonious tug and addressed the class. “Moving on to the bones of the cranium. There are eight—”
“Hunchback,” Una blurted out.
Dr. Pingry turned back to her. “I beg your pardon?” “A disease of the spine. Hunchback.”
“I can only presume you mean kyphosis, which itself is a condition associated with several ailments, not a disease in and of itself. Now as I was saying, there are eight bones that compose the cranium . . .”
Una found herself itching to punch him again. He was a slight man with only a few inches of height on her. She’d brawled with men half his age and come out none too worse the wear. But as gratifying as the thought may be, Una couldn’t risk so much as a scowl in his direction. He didn’t have the power to dismiss her from the school. Only Superintendent Perkins did. But he could go sniveling to her about any perceived slight or flash of disobedience.
So Una folded her hands in her lap and trained her face muscles into a mask of quietude. She need only listen, or appear to be listening, and Dr. Pingry would have no charge to lay against her.
But when Dr. Pingry finally quit his spouting and asked the head nurse to pass out slates and chalk for the examination, Una’s quietude vanished. Examination? If she failed, he’d have a legitimate gripe to take to Miss Perkins.
Una felt like a schoolgirl again, taking the slate and chalk in hand. Felt the same nettlesome whir in her stomach as she had before an arithmetic test or geography recitation. That she’d been a good pupil in those days,
earning top marks for both her schoolwork and behavior, wouldn’t help her one lick now. And though one failed examination might not be enough to get the other probationers expelled, Una had no doubt it would be enough for her.
“When I hold up a bone,” Dr. Pingry told them, “write down its name, type, and location in the body. Afterward, you may have five minutes to review your answers before bringing me your slate for evaluation. Are there any questions?”
Yes, Una wanted to say. Why the hell didn’t anyone mention an examination at the beginning of the lecture? Then she might actually have listened. She had to admire the doctor for this omission. It was the sort of wily trick a con man would use. But that didn’t diminish her hatred for him either, nor calm her whirring insides.
Thank God Dru was seated beside her. As Dr. Pingry held up the first bone, Una feigned to write the answer while her gaze slid to Dru’s slate. Clavicle, long bone, located in the shoulder area. Before Una could copy all that onto her slate, Dr. Pingry moved on to the next bone, and she was obliged to look up. It wouldn’t do to be caught cheating.
He progressed all too quickly through a dozen bones. Some, like the vertebrae he’d made such a fuss about, Una recognized on her own. Most she had to copy from Dru. Years of thieving had trained her eyes to be quick, and what she didn’t get on first glance, Una figured she could copy at the end during the time Dr. Pingry had allowed for review. But after the doctor set down the final bone, Dru took only a moment’s gander at her slate before standing and presenting it for evaluation.
Una swallowed a curse and looked down at her slate. Only half the answers were complete. One or two she could guess at. The occipital bone looked like a flat bone . . . or maybe irregular. . . no, flat, and surely it was part of the skull. But most she could scarcely recall and had no idea about their positioning in the body. She shifted in her chair so she could peek at the slate of the woman seated to her other side. But she had fewer answers written down than Una. The responses she did have were nearly illegible. Una would have to cheat off of someone else’s slate. But whose? Thanks to Dru, she was seated in the front with almost no options. A sidelong glance was one thing. Turning clear around to gawk at the slates of women behind her was another thing entirely.
What she needed was a commotion. Something to distract Dr. Pingry, the head nurse, and other goody-goodies who might squeal if they caught her cheating. But unlike the busy train station where someone or something was always kicking up a fuss, the nurses’ home was decidedly lacking in commotions.
“One more minute,” Dr. Pingry said.
The whir in Una’s stomach became a riot. The blank lines and half- written answers on her slate went in and out of focus. She needn’t tally her responses to know there was too little white amid so much black. And too little time. No hope waiting for a commotion. She’d have to cause one herself.
A line had begun to form, crowding the small space between the front row of seats and display table, as women waited to have their answers evaluated by the doctor. Una smiled. A crowd was the perfect cover. Now for the commotion. Another trainee approached from the back, slate in hand, and Una saw her chance. Just as the woman neared the table, Una stuck out her foot. The woman tripped, floundered forward, and collided with the table. The woman remained upright, but the table toppled, landing with a thwack on the wooden floor. Bones rolled and scattered.
Una leaped up and reached out to steady the woman. “Are you all right?” “Yes, I . . .” The woman looked around at the mess, her cheeks turning
the color of pickled beets. “I tripped over something and . . . oh, I’m so clumsy.”
“Just a fold in the rug, I’m sure,” Una said, giving the woman’s arm a squeeze before glancing at the slate she held limp in her hand. “Here, I’ll help you pick everything up.”
Dr. Pingry grumbled and scowled as they righted the table. “Mind that nothing has broken.”
The woman nodded, the color in her cheeks deepening. She set her slate down on the table as they began to gather up the bones. Una took her time retrieving ribs and vertebrae and other bones whose name she still hadn’t learned, laying each carefully down on the table while surreptitiously glancing at the woman’s slate. By the time all the bones were found, Una had memorized everything she needed to complete her answers. The woman thanked her profusely and got back in line. Una followed, filling in the blanks on her slate just in time to present it to Dr. Pingry.
Up close he smelled of cigar smoke and camphor. A breakfast crumb was tangled in his graying beard. He’d given the other trainees’ slates only a cursory appraisal, check-marking the answers they got correct and striking through those that were wrong, all the while wearing a disinterested expression as if the women hardly warranted his time. Even when one of the women failed and pleaded with him in tears to retake the examination, he simply shooed her away, unmoved.
But Una’s slate he scrutinized with interest, marking her incorrect responses with such thick, heavy lines she thought his chalk might break.
“But it was a vertebra,” she said, pointing to one of the three answers he’d obliterated.
“Yes, but you failed to specify which type.”
Una was sure he hadn’t marked the other women’s responses incorrect for the same omission, but she fought the urge to argue. She’d still gotten enough right to pass. And there were other ways to get even. When he handed back her slate, she slipped her other hand inside his suit coat and took his pocket watch as well.
* * *
That evening, Una lay on her bed dangling Dr. Pingry’s watch above her. Dru was still downstairs in the library reading this or that medical text and wouldn’t be up until they turned off the gas at ten. It wasn’t a particularly fine watch, more utilitarian than ornate, with no front lid and the initials CJP carved into the back. It might fetch her ten dollars, twelve at the most. Not that she’d dare venture into the city to hawk it. But having it here was a danger too. What if Mrs. Buchanan went rifling through her things and found it? It violated rule number nineteen: Never steal something you can’t sell, and also the new rule she’d set for herself about not pilfering anything while she was in hiding.
Una sighed and dragged herself out of bed. It had been almost second nature, dipping into the doctor’s pocket. And served him right for grading her unfairly. But she had to be more careful. More to the point, she had to be smart. She’d come within a hairbreadth again of being expelled, and she couldn’t rely on Dru always being on hand with the correct answers.
She opened up the lid of her trunk and made a small tear in the cotton lining along one of the sides. She slipped the pocket watch through the tear.
It slithered down between the lining and wood, striking the bottom of the trunk with a clang. Not a perfect hidey-hole, but at least out of sight. She closed the trunk and plodded downstairs even though she’d much rather dress for bed.
A dozen women sat scattered about the library. Some flipped through magazines. Others played chess or cards. Two chatted quietly by the dwindling fire. She spotted Dru at one of the tables, a thick textbook splayed open before her. Una thought again of her soft bed or how nice it would be to stick her feet out beside the fire. But she willed herself across the room to Dru. The textbook was open to a diagram of the sternum and rib cage. Hadn’t she gotten enough of bones for one day? Una wanted to ask. Instead she said, “Can I join you?”
Dru looked up with delight. “Of course.”
