John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

“What’s that?”

Maminka had gone out there for a while, after she was big with the last one who was going to be Anezka if it was a girl or Miklos if it was a boy, the last one that came out blue, not yellow, and didn’t breathe. She went out there for the money a couple weeks, before she got so low she just sat and stared out the window that wasn’t nailed shut yet, frozen for hours like the Lady Undressing for Bath. You took a ferry to Randall’s and nursed the orphan babies and the nuns at the Infants’ Hospital paid you.

“They bring women out there to feed the squallers,” says the Kid. “It’s like a dairy.”

“Well whoever ditched this kid should of ditched it out there. Stead of the friggin sidewalk.”

“Women get moody,” says the Kid, “you never know what they’ll do.”

“You can say that again,” says Sluggo.

Most of the shops are closed up. A lone horse trolley rolls by in the opposite direction, nearly empty.

“Where you sleepin?”

“They got a room by the presses at the Sun ,” says Sluggo. “We can stretch out on the benches. Don’t cost a penny.”

“Yeah, but you sleep at the Sun , you gotta sell the Sun. ”

Sluggo shrugs, his feelings hurt. “It’s a good paper. Everybody says so.”

There are no cops on lower Broadway, so they cut across City Hall Park, nearly empty now, the fountain shut off, and angle up to the Five Points Mission on Pearl. They used to have a stroller outside, one of those nice wicker jobs with the wheels pulled off so nobody would nick it, but people would just ditch their babies in it and blow, no matter what the weather, so now you got to rattle the knocker.

“Lord save us, not another one,” says the Sister of Charity who answers. “And at this hour.”

“We could put it back if you want,” says Sluggo.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort.” She takes the little thing from the Kid, holds it up to the light. “Only a few hours in this world, the poor thing. Not much hope for him.”

“You gonna put it on one of those trains?” The Kid has heard about Sister Irene and her trains, sending orphans out to lonely people in the far West, out past Jersey.

“He’ll be lucky to see the sun rise,” she says, hugging it close and turning to go. “We’ll have to get the sacraments taken care of, save his little soul.”

“What I tell you?” says Sluggo when she has closed the door on them without a tip or even a thank-you. “No tits.”

Sluggo gives the Kid his papers back and heads off for the Sun building. The Newsboys’ Lodging House is close on Duane, where everything is a nickel-and-a-penny — six cents for a bunk, six cents for coffee and roll in the morning, six cents for pork and beans at night. You can wash up, bank your money, even get a stake to buy the next day’s papers if they know you well enough. But it is a warm night and doesn’t feel like rain. There is a headstone, a big tall hunk of polished pink rock that shields you from sight of the street in the old St. Paul cemetery yard. Big letters on the front of the stone, somebody important planted under it.

The Yellow Kid spreads his newspapers carefully on the ground, lies down on them and looks up at the stars. The Sunday edition is best for this, at least a hundred pages, three color supplements, a regular mattress of a newspaper, but two afternoon extras will do. If the baby lives, he thinks, probly it will get sent out somewhere with nothing but dirt and trees on the ground, where the horses got no trolleys hitched to them, where you look up in the sky and there’s nothing but clouds. Poor bastid. The Kid can hear the thrum of the presses rolling in the giant buildings a block away, can feel the rumble of them through the ground here at the center of America. They will run all night and tomorrow there will be fresh news to sell. The baby is safe with the nuns and the Spanish fleet is creeping who knows where and the Yellow Kid has a full belly and a new hat and the moon is rising nearly full, smack behind the chapel spire. There is WAR!, and fat times lie just around the corner.

Wu sits back among the crates as his assistant pores over a page of sums, clacking an abacus. The warehouse smells of sandalwood and machine oil. Wu speaks English with Diosdado and never ceases smiling.

“You are an emissary.”

“I assure you that the money is secure,” Diosdado explains. “Here in a bank in the city.”

“We have all heard of your General’s settlement with the Spanish crown.” Wu slumps with his hands folded on his stomach, a round man dressed in the Western style, with a white fedora tilted back on his head. His assistant wears a blue cotton work tunic and makes small noises as he calculates.

“We can make a purchase, then?”

Wu shows Diosdado the palms of his hands. “The merchandise you seek is unavailable.”

“I was told that if anyone in Hongkong could accommodate us—”

“It would be I, yes. But our new administrators, in their wisdom, have forbidden trade in weapons.”

It is always hard to tell with them, the Chinese, what is bargaining and what is fact.

“Many things are forbidden in the Crown Colony,” says Diosdado blandly, “and yet you are known to deal in them.” Wu is alleged to be head of the Three Harmonies Society and an exporter of illegal coolies from Macao. He continues to smile.

“This city is alive with rumor. Weapons, however, are of a great concern to the British government. May I inquire what purpose you might have in acquiring so many of them?”

“For our people,” says Diosdado. “To fight the Spanish.”

“But the terms of your Treaty—”

“Have been violated repeatedly.”

Wu sighs and shakes his head. “Politics. Irresolvable conflicts. I am so very content to remain outside of their sphere.”

“If you were to quote me a price—”

“The Germans in Shandong are growing wary of our — our more ex cit able citizens,” says Wu, leaning forward to make his point. “And the British do not wish to upset the Germans—”

“We are not going to give weapons to the Boxers.”

“Be that as it may, there are none here to be purchased.”

Wu turns and tells the assistant, in Cantonese, that Diosdado wants to buy guns for the naked savages back home, as if they could be taught to use them. The assistant has a coughing laugh that rattles his abacus. Diosdado remains expressionless.

“Do you know of anybody who might have something we could buy?”

“If you are going to fight the Spanish,” says Wu, “surely there will be wounded. I can offer you an excellent deal on medicinal herbs—”

“I’m not authorized to buy opium.” Diosdado stands to leave. “Thank you for your time.” At least this one did not promise like the Japanese, promise and never deliver. Only Dr. Sun, the Chinese revolutionist, actually sent them weapons, but the boat foundered in a typhoon and all was lost.

“So very sorry to disappoint you,” smiles Wu from his throne of crates.

“We carry one foreign power on our back,” Diosdado says in Cantonese as he bows goodbye, “while China opens her legs for a dozen.”

The streets west of Central Market are packed with the usual swarm of humanity, the only relief from the noisy mass of them an occasional unobstructed glimpse up to the slope of Victoria Peak, where the humanity thins out and the British and the wealthiest of the Chinese merchant kings have built their palaces. It is green up there, with unfouled air to breathe, quiet. Diosdado’s rickshaw boy grunts as he trots up a slight incline, weaving them through vegetable stalls and charm-sellers, past an oversized British official sitting pinkly on a pallet borne by four sweating lackeys hustling in the opposite direction. A pair of carriages rattle by, full of wealthy Chinese heading to the Happy Valley racecourse, shouting out joyously as they go.