Chapter 21 - Ditches of Misery Part 1
~~~~New York, 1887~~~~
Walls of mud.
Up to his neck; his head barely peaked over the top of it.
The mud sucked at his shoes and climbed up his pant leg like a claw of some monster, yearning to swallow him up.
He hated mud, always did, even when he was a child. Back in the village of Smiljan, after heavy rainfall, the other children would run and jump into the massive murky puddles on the road towards the schoolhouse, getting their shoes, socks, and those of the ones standing around them all dirty with the filthy, muddy water. Nikola, at the young age of 8 had become an expert at avoiding these puddles and the young boys who got immense joy out of ruining the new dresses of the girls.
Nikola never found the joy in being dirty.
The other men in the ditches sung and whistled over the course of the day, stopping for lunch and laughing and joking with each other, just happy to be alive and making money to feed their families. But Nikola wanted more than that.
Nikola had no one to work this hard for, just himself, and he was better than this. This wasn't so his kids could eat, so his wife could feel pretty, safe, and secure, this wasn't even so he could occupy his time doing work.
This was temporary. He had plans, which is more than he could say for the rest of the low lives working in this ditch.
He heard the bell to signify their fifteen-minute lunch break.
Nikola didn't need to eat, so he kept digging, if he stopped he would realize just how far in hole he had fallen, and he didn't need that. If he kept working, he could keep dreaming.
He wiped his muddy hands on his pants. The sweat dripped from his forehead and mixed with the mud on his face, causing a small stream of murky brown to color his vision.
He wanted out, had to find a way out, if he kept digging maybe he could dig his way out, a tunnel straight to the top again, where he belonged.
"Nik, stop working for once, the ditch isn't going to fill up if you aren't constantly digging in it, take a rest," said a butch man named Forest. The only man in the ditch he considered having half a brain, they had sort of befriended each other.
"I'm not tired," muttered Nikola.
"But you must be hungry, I have some spare chicken in my box if you want," offered Forest.
"I don't eat, it's fine, I'm just going to keep working," Nikola shoved the spade deep into the mud.
"Fine, just remember, you're paid by per day, not by the amount of dirt you drudge up," joked Forest.
"Understood," Nikola waved him off and continued digging.
He was going to get out, by every mound of dirt he was going to get out.
Thunder cracked in the grey sky and a sheet of rain swept across him, coming down in heavy, thick sheets, it soaked his clothes, it collected from the road and poured in streams into the ditch to pool around his knees.
Nikola kept digging.
This hole he had dug himself, he couldn't see the sun out the top of it. He was in deep, and he was never going to get out of it.
A crack of lightning broke him out of his thoughts and he looked up, his tired, stained face, gazing up to look at the resurrecting surge of blue light. His hope.
He fell against the mud wall, his eyes fixed upwards.
The lightning cracked the sky again, and Nikola could swear it looked like a bird.
His exhaustion took over him then and he slid down to sit in the mud, his head resting against the wall. He closed his eyes, the rain falling on him. If only he could drown in the cool water, stopping this nightmare.
When had it become evening? The sun, hidden behind the rain clouds was setting, the air was getting cooler, and the rain kept pouring. How long had he been here?
He heard a horse-drawn car on the road. It stopped and the door opened. A foot reached out and hit the cracked pavement.
The other men were done for the day, collecting their pay and packing up their lunch tins and paper bags and booking it to catch a ride back into the heart of Manhattan or Brooklyn, where ever the assorted bunch lived.
He had nowhere to go.
"Excuse me, do you know where I can find..." he heard a voice but decided to ignore it.
He got up and continued digging, there was nothing left for him but this.
"He's right over there, Miss."
"Thank you," she handed the man a dollar for his services and he nodded and went his way.
She made her way across the muddy plains of the old road to the mile long ditch that lined the side of it.
She could see one lone head bobbing just over the top of it.
It had been almost 4 years but she had finally found him.
She came to the edge of the ditch and looked down.
"Hello, Nikola," she said.
He looked up, his eyes wide.
"H-Helen?" he looked at her, a vision, just as he remembered. "What are you doing here?"
"I came here looking for you, I heard your stint at the Edison company didn't go well, that you were working in the ditches just to feed yourself, I had to come," she kneeled down.
"Had to see it for yourself, eh?" Nikola dismissed and kept digging. "The genius working in a ditch, I bet John's laughing up a storm."
"John doesn't know I'm here, none of them do, I came here for you, to help you Nikola," she said sincerely.
What a miserable state he was in. Drenched, mud-covered, and bitter. The light that was once in those beautiful eyes had faded. They were simply grey with disappointment. His journey to America didn't fulfill his dreams the way he had hoped, she had read the letter he had left her. He had come here to make something of himself, instead he found himself cheated and rejected, forced to make his living clawing at the mud on the roadside.
"I don't need help, Helen, yes this is a bit of a drawback in my plans, but I'll make it out of here, what's the point of dreaming if you can't work for it," he shoved the spade into the mud.
"Will you stop, Nikola! For once put your pride aside and get out of the hole you've dug yourself into," Helen fumed and offered her white gloved hand.
Nikola sighed and dropped the spade.
"Fine," he muttered and climbed up the rickety ladder out on to the rain stroked street, the rain washing away the mud almost instantly.
Helen held an umbrella above her head shielding her from the rain.
He looked at her warily and she kept her hand outreached for him.
"Come on, I am starved, join me?" she invited.
"I'm hardly dressed for a fancy dinner," Nikola looked down at his ratty garments.
"I can fix that," Helen smiled affectionately at him.
He took her hand and she led him back to her car.
She tapped the side once they were inside and the car started to move.
"Now, where do you live? We can stop and you can get your things."
"All I have is what you see, Helen," he gestured to the ratty suit pants, work shirt, and grey cap that adorned his person. He had a few days worth of stubble on his cheeks, not including the thick, ratty, ungroomed mustache atop his upper lip.
"You must have something," she said.
"I sold what I had to make ends meet, the only things I have left are worthless knickknacks. I live in a box, Helen, a box with a door, a small little cot and a piece of glass taped to the wall for a mirror, I rather not you see the state to which I'm reduced to," he sighed, staring out the window.
"Alright...we'll go to my hotel, you can bathe, I'll have the concierge bring you some fresh clothes, some attire worth a dinner of my standards, and we can pretend that you are a famous inventor, and I am a beautiful doctor regaling over the past," she smiled softly.
"But I'm not a famous inventor, and as far as I know they still don't let women practice medicine unless as a nurse..."
"That's why I said we're going to pretend, please Nikola, for once can you put your cynicism aside and just go with me on this," Helen took his hand in hers and squeezed it.
He looked at her hand for a long time.
"Please, Nikola, for me," she said softly.
"Alright...for you," he said and Helen smiled.
"Thank you," she lifted up the top of his hand to her lips and kissed it lightly, squeezing it one more time.
She released his hand and he tucked it on to his lap, looking at it for a moment.
He shifted his weight and looked out on to the rain swept streets of New York as the car took them into the heart of the magnificent city to the front steps of a fancy hotel.
A doorman stood at the front welcoming in the guests.
The whole scene felt daunting to Nikola, he was horribly under-dressed for the bums on this street, let alone to actual enter the building.
"They can't turn you away if I don't want them to," Helen seemed to have read his mind, her hands found themselves to his shoulder in a comforting manner.
"I don't think that's true," he looked at the large building and swallowed the knot in his throat.
"Nonsense, come," she took his hand again and led him out of the car.
She flashed a bright smile at the doorman.
"Evening Roger," she said to him and he smiled back at her.
"I see you found you're friend," he gestured to Nikola.
"Yes, he may not look like much but I plan to clean him up," Helen tugged Nikola along.
"You've told them about me?" Nikola said, feeling uncharacteristically shy.
"I just told them the reason for my visit, which was to find an old friend who was hiding in the ditches, which is the truth," she pulled him through the lobby to the front desk.
"Miss Magnus, lovely to see you...is this the man?" said the concierge.
Nikola removed his filthy cap revealing his shaggy, messy hair.
"Yes, you will reserve my table for 8:oo won't you?" said Helen taking her key.
"Of course, Madame," bowed the concierge.
"Thank you," she bowed her head to him and tugged Nikola to the elevator, the bellhop closing the door after them.
"Third floor please," she said to the man and she looked at Nikola. "I remembered the third floor was always your favorite."
Nikola kept his eyes down; he didn't want to see the look in the bellhop's eyes. He knew what he must be thinking. He didn't belong here, not yet.
They elevator stopped and Helen led him to the hotel room.
Room 303.
He smirked weakly.
"Here we are, make yourself comfortable, I'll start working on that bath, you get out of those rags," she removed her hat and her hair flowed down, long blonde and curly, just like he remembered it.
He looked down at himself and shrugged and kicked of his holey shoes, his toes peeked out of the worn socks. He removed the ratty woolen overcoat and folded it on bed. He dropped the grey wool cap on top of it.
He silently removed the rest of his clothes save for his white undergarments.
All he neatly folded into one pile, even stuffing the socks into the shoes for safekeeping.
Helen returned and smiled at her old friend.
"That's better," she came over and looked at his shaggy mop of hair, it had definitely seen better days, it was matted and crusted with mud, like everything else of Nikola's. "I'll have to do something with your hair, but no matter."
She took his hand and led him to the bathroom.
The large tub sat in the middle of the candlelit room.
"Hop in," Helen ordered.
"Stop mothering me," mumbled Nikola and Helen laughed dryly.
"Someone has to," she pushed him to the tub.
"Then let my mother do it, she's still living," he whined.
"She's unavailable but she gave me full permission to take over for her responsibilities," she teased.
He grumbled something incoherent and climbed into the oversized gravy boat.
"I have some clothes for you, they're James' you two were close to the same size, the shirt will be a bit baggy but it's clean," she said.
"I don't need all this charity, Helen," Nikola sat in the warm water.
Helen tossed him a bar of soap.
"Wash," she said as she continued to lay out the clothes for him. "The shoes are from John, they might be a bit big but they should be comfortable."
Nikola sighed inaudibly.
"I thought you said they didn't know you were here," commented Nikola.
"They don't, but unlike you we still live in the same place, we're still a team, and despite what you think but you are still very much apart of that team, we would do anything for you," Helen finished laying out the clothes then came over to the tub and dumped a bucket overtop of Nikola's head. He gasped, not expecting it.
She stole the bar of soap and made a lather in her hands and shoved the soapy fluff through his dark, messy hair.
He gripped the sides of the tub as she roughly cleaned his mud-cracked head.
"Close your eyes," she ordered.
"What?"
She poured another bucket of water over his head and a cascade of soap came down over him.
He sputtered slightly.
"There, much better," Helen walked away. "Keep washing."
Nikola grumped but did as he was told and washed the pale grimy skin he found attached to himself.
Helen return with a comb and pair of scissors and what looked like James' shaving kit. She handed him a hand mirror and the shaving cream.
He looked at it oddly.
"If I were you I would shave that hairy caterpillar off your face before it sprouts legs and walks away," she muttered before running the comb through Nikola hair, roughly combing out the mats and knots that had built up in there.
"It's a little unkempt, but I still think it makes me look handsome," he grinned, for the first time that evening and Helen was happy to see it.
"At least shave the stubble, it makes you look like a drunk bum," she took the scissors and started to trim his hair.
"As you wish, my lady," he said sardonically.
The two worked in a comfortable silence; it almost felt like old times, Nikola was slightly surprised to realize how much he missed it.
Helen finished his hair to a length of her liking and washed her hands in the tub water.
"Finish up, we have dinner in an hour," she said with a smile. "There is some of James' cologne, I hope it's not too strong, and some of Nigel's hair slick, make yourself look nice."
Helen left the bathroom and went to change her own dress, the rain had muddied up the one she was wearing, as was to be suspected.
She looked at the neatly folded piles of rags that were Nikola's work clothes; maybe she can have the bellhop burn them while they're out for dinner.
She scoffed, and burn the only thing he apparently owns, Nikola would have a fit, and everything between them was already so fragile.
The two young chambermaids assisted her with her dress. She insisted on looking after Nikola herself; he had a hard enough time accepting her help, she couldn't imagine the difficulty he would cause if he had to accept help from strangers.
She was changed into an appropriate dinner gown, a dress John had purchased for her. She lifted the chain around her neck to reveal a small jeweled ring. John's ring. They had been engaged for almost two years. John wanted to complete law school before the wedding. John refused to have his wedding to Helen be an act of charity from a friend of Helens fathers, though many had offered. Helen allowed him the time to get his liscense and work at the school. Maybe that's why she was here. She couldn't get married without Nikola's blessing, which wouldn't be easy.
She put the ring on the necklace so she wouldn't have to bring it up until she was ready.
It took her too long to find her old friend. It wasn't until James contacts had found him in that bloody ditch, knee-high in misery that they had heard any news about him.
She was going to take him home now, and everything was going to be fine.
After she was dressed, she ordered a bottle of wine from the hotel and waited for Nikola to finish in the bathroom.
She had drunk a whole glass before he disembarked from the washroom.
He came out fully dressed, cleanshaven - aside from the mustache - and hair perfectly slicked back. He looked like the old Nikola again. The suit fit him perfectly, just like she knew it would.
"I knew there was a gentleman behind all that grime," Helen grinned.
"Very funny," he said coming up to her. "You clean up well, yourself."
He gestured to her new dress.
"Here," she handed him the glass of wine.
He smiled tiredly and took it.
"Thank you," he sipped it carefully. "...For everything Helen."
Helen stood up and kissed him on the cheek.
"We have dinner reservations," she took his arm; she escorted him outside.
"At least now I look the part," Nikola half-joked.
"I wish you had shaved that thing off," teased Helen.
"Not going to happen," sighed Nikola.
Helen smiled at him.
"Face it Nikola, not even a ditch as deep as that one could change who you are," she looked at him softly.
"You're probably right, just doesn't feel like that right now," sighed Nikola.
"Now look, we're going to go down there, have a nice meal, as friends, forget the ditch, forget Edison, just you and me, can we do that? I haven't seen you in four years, I didn't come here for a pity party, I came here to find you."
Nikola looked at her as she spoke.
"Of course we can...for you," he sighed and they continued walking towards the elevator.
"Come on, it will be fun," she smiled her bright beautiful smile and he followed her into the metal car.
It was just dinner, what could go wrong?