curve of my shoulder through the artificial silk of my best blouse.
I can assure you, Rose, no one will give you trouble about your breeding here. I can see that even though you are just a woman, you know very well how to make yourself useful, and your industriousness will not go unappreciated in this office.
I was surprised by how well I liked the weight of the Sergeant’s heavy, pawlike hand on my shoulder. I also recall feeling a sense of great reassurance. Not just reassurance in the fact that I had successfully obtained the job, but reassurance that good and fair-minded people—people who believed in administering a grounded, impartial justice—still existed and held sway in this world.
This is not to suggest the Sergeant is a timid, watered-down sort of man. Quite the contrary. He is a man of extremes. Even physically speaking, the fiery red hue of his perpetually ruddy complexion strikes a dire contrast with the icy blue of his eyes. But there was always—
is
always, I should say—an overall sense of equanimity about the Sergeant, an impression that all the contrasts in him are pulling in equal opposition.
At that time, Odalie’s desk at the precinct was positioned directly opposite my own, and in this manner, one might think a natural rapport would arise between us. But at first there was only silence. As I said, I had a peculiar, uncanny feeling about the girl from the first moment I encountered her, but this did not equal an instant friendship. And when she took up with Iris (and then, to add insult to injury, dallied a bit with Marie’s friendship), I took her for a fool and very pointedly turned a cold shoulder, which I was certain did not go undetected.
So I was surprised one day when Odalie emerged from the interrogation room and exclaimed, “He is just absolutely the law itself, isn’t he?” As we were not in the habit of making conversation, I looked around to see who she could possibly be talking to. The days were getting noticeably shorter by then. We were headed into the long black nights of winter, and although it was only four o’clock, outside a cloudy sky was already turning from ash to soot. And yet inside the office there was still something vital, the peculiar sort of kindling that comes from human activity buzzing away in the falling dark of dusk. The electric lights still glowed, and the office thrummed with the sounds of telephones, voices, papers, footsteps, and the syncopated clacking of many typewriters all being operated at once. It could very well be day
or
night outside for all anyone cared; at that exact moment, everyone was quite busy, absorbed in what they were doing. And there was Odalie—still standing in front of her desk, facing me, her question (rhetorical though it was) still hanging in the air unanswered. I looked up at her and I remember—I remember this image quite clearly—the bare electric bulb that dangled above her cast a perfect shimmering halo around the crown of her head, a perfect corona of light caught in the sheen of her silky black bobbed hair.
“Yes,” I stammered after a while. “The Sergeant is an excellent man.”
Odalie cocked her head at me. Her eyes inspected me with a feline ferocity. “I’m curious,” she said. “What can you tell me about the Sergeant?”
“Well, I suppose . . . he always gets his man, as they say,” I said. I leaned my chin on my hand, pondering a longer answer, and ultimately happy to continue. “He’s quite incorruptible, and his instincts are impeccable as a result. Whenever we have a stubborn criminal who is so very
obviously
guilty, we always leave it to the Sergeant; he has yet to fail.”
“But I mean, what do you know about the Sergeant’s personal life?” I stiffened, and Odalie, attuned to such things, noticed. “I hope you don’t think me crude,” she hurried to add. She lowered her very long black eyelashes. “It’s just . . . you seem so . . .
perceptive
to the goings-on in this
I can assure you, Rose, no one will give you trouble about your breeding here. I can see that even though you are just a woman, you know very well how to make yourself useful, and your industriousness will not go unappreciated in this office.
I was surprised by how well I liked the weight of the Sergeant’s heavy, pawlike hand on my shoulder. I also recall feeling a sense of great reassurance. Not just reassurance in the fact that I had successfully obtained the job, but reassurance that good and fair-minded people—people who believed in administering a grounded, impartial justice—still existed and held sway in this world.
This is not to suggest the Sergeant is a timid, watered-down sort of man. Quite the contrary. He is a man of extremes. Even physically speaking, the fiery red hue of his perpetually ruddy complexion strikes a dire contrast with the icy blue of his eyes. But there was always—
is
always, I should say—an overall sense of equanimity about the Sergeant, an impression that all the contrasts in him are pulling in equal opposition.
At that time, Odalie’s desk at the precinct was positioned directly opposite my own, and in this manner, one might think a natural rapport would arise between us. But at first there was only silence. As I said, I had a peculiar, uncanny feeling about the girl from the first moment I encountered her, but this did not equal an instant friendship. And when she took up with Iris (and then, to add insult to injury, dallied a bit with Marie’s friendship), I took her for a fool and very pointedly turned a cold shoulder, which I was certain did not go undetected.
So I was surprised one day when Odalie emerged from the interrogation room and exclaimed, “He is just absolutely the law itself, isn’t he?” As we were not in the habit of making conversation, I looked around to see who she could possibly be talking to. The days were getting noticeably shorter by then. We were headed into the long black nights of winter, and although it was only four o’clock, outside a cloudy sky was already turning from ash to soot. And yet inside the office there was still something vital, the peculiar sort of kindling that comes from human activity buzzing away in the falling dark of dusk. The electric lights still glowed, and the office thrummed with the sounds of telephones, voices, papers, footsteps, and the syncopated clacking of many typewriters all being operated at once. It could very well be day
or
night outside for all anyone cared; at that exact moment, everyone was quite busy, absorbed in what they were doing. And there was Odalie—still standing in front of her desk, facing me, her question (rhetorical though it was) still hanging in the air unanswered. I looked up at her and I remember—I remember this image quite clearly—the bare electric bulb that dangled above her cast a perfect shimmering halo around the crown of her head, a perfect corona of light caught in the sheen of her silky black bobbed hair.
“Yes,” I stammered after a while. “The Sergeant is an excellent man.”
Odalie cocked her head at me. Her eyes inspected me with a feline ferocity. “I’m curious,” she said. “What can you tell me about the Sergeant?”
“Well, I suppose . . . he always gets his man, as they say,” I said. I leaned my chin on my hand, pondering a longer answer, and ultimately happy to continue. “He’s quite incorruptible, and his instincts are impeccable as a result. Whenever we have a stubborn criminal who is so very
obviously
guilty, we always leave it to the Sergeant; he has yet to fail.”
“But I mean, what do you know about the Sergeant’s personal life?” I stiffened, and Odalie, attuned to such things, noticed. “I hope you don’t think me crude,” she hurried to add. She lowered her very long black eyelashes. “It’s just . . . you seem so . . .
perceptive
to the goings-on in this
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