Saturday, September 22, 2012

The Abortionist in the Basement, Part V

An Unsettling Visit From the INS

When MD received the telephone call from the office of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service with a request for an interview about Marta, her stomach sank.  What could Marta have done to merit such a call?  Why was her employment by my family of any concern to the government?  What was this all about?

INS badge image courtesy of
the National Museum of American History

Several days later, a man from the INS came by our house to interview MD.  He explained to my mother that he was a case officer and was gathering information about Marta.  He informed MD that Marta was in custody and that the INS was preparing a case to deport her, for reasons that he would explain to MD once he had completed his interview.  With that agreed to, they proceeded.

"Mrs. Darling, what kind of employment did you provide Marta when she worked for you?"

"She was a maid and cook, and she took care of my children.  She and her daughter lived with us for about a year and a half.  I let her go a year ago."

"Why was that?"

"Well, although Marta was a nice person and a good worker, and I liked her, she had issues of truthfulness, and she got herself into hot water a few too many times."

"Hot water?  What do you mean by that?"

"She got caught shoplifting at Woodie's once, and she did some things that made me uncomfortable, and which I had asked her not to do."

"Such as?"

"She had a 'gentleman-friend' who would visit her, and he would occasionally spend the night in her room, even though I expressly forbade it."

"Who was this 'gentleman-friend'?"

"He was a chauffeur at the Ecuadorean Embassy, and we all called him 'Big Daddy.'  I don't know that I ever learned his full name."

"Were there any other things that Marta did that made you uncomfortable when she worked for you, Mrs. Darling, that you can recall?"

"Oh, there were other things, yes.  One problem we had with her toward the end, and which was all rather straining, is that she had too many visitors come by in the evenings, mostly her friends among the domestic staffs from the other embassies.  I had to put a stop to that, you see, because I felt my own house was being overrun!"

"Did you see these visitors, Mrs. Darling?"

"From time to time, but since Marta lived in a room in our basement and she had her own door to the outside, these people would come and go without us ever laying eyes on them, unless I or one of my children went downstairs to get something."

"What did they do, Mrs. Darling, during these visits?"

"As far as I can remember, officer, I think they mostly sat around talking, all of them, listening to Spanish music on the Hi-Fi.  Social stuff, really."

"Do you know how Marta's visitors got to your house, Mrs. Darling?  You live in a neighborhood that isn't exactly easy to get to from the embassies downtown, and these people typically don't have cars."

"Well, I suppose that some of them may have taken a bus.  But most of them, now that I think of it, would come with Big Daddy, who would give these ladies rides back and forth."

"What was it that led you to let Marta go, Mrs. Darling?  Was there a specific incident?"

"The final straw was that Big Daddy moved into our house when Mr. Darling and I went out of town on a trip, and they all moved upstairs, and made themselves right at home.  When I found out about it I had to let her go.  You see, I just couldn't trust her anymore."

"Was there anything else about her that you didn't trust, Mrs. Darling?"

"No, officer, that's about it.  That's all I know."

The man form the INS closed his notebook and looked at her.

"Mrs. Darling, as you know, we have taken Marta into custody, and we are planning on deporting her.  We have determined that she is an undesirable person, and we are sending her back home to Guatemala."

"Yes, I understand that, officer, but would you please explain to me why?"

He drew in his breath and paused.

"After Marta left your employment, Mrs. Darling, she set herself up in an apartment downtown, where she went into business performing abortions, mostly on maids and such from the embassies.  She worked with this fellow, whom you called 'Big Daddy,' and for a while they had a pretty active business going.  That is, until she mangled some of her customers, and the whole thing collapsed.  We picked her up just in time.  She was packing her suitcases when we arrested her."

MD was shocked beyond belief.  She had difficulty comprehending what the man from the INS had just told her.  It was all too horrifying.

"But—where is her daughter, Telma?" she asked, her head spinning.

"Nowhere to be found Mrs. Darling.  Also, her 'gentleman-friend,' the one you called Big Daddy?  He skipped town before we were able to get to him.  He's back in Ecuador now.  If he knows any better, too, that's where he'll stay.  We've informed the Ecuadorean Embassy about all of this."

MD sat there, dumbfounded.  As she processed the information her heart began to sink, though, for she realized that there was, more than likely, more to the story, and it was much closer to home.

"Tell me, please, officer, what does this have to do with Marta's time working for me?" she asked.

"Mrs. Darling, we have reason to believe that Marta had already set herself up in business when she was still here in your house.  While some of these 'friends' who would come by and visit with her may actually have been just friends, we believe that more than a few of them were actually customers.  This Big Daddy fellow acted as a procurer, where he put out the word in the Latin community here in the city, and he would ferry these poor girls back and forth to your house, where Marta would take care of them."

"Do you mean to tell me then, officer, that Marta was performing abortions in the basement of this very house?!"

"I'm afraid so, ma'am."

MD kept this sickening story from me and my siblings for many years.  It was not until I was in my early thirties that MD told me of her conversation with the man from the INS, while she and I were sitting in her living room one gray autumn afternoon, reminiscing of days gone by.

32 comments:

  1. Hello Reggie, Please don't tell me this is the end of the story. There has to be some aftermath--your mother's reaction, your family's, and most of all your own reaction and feelings about these shocking events, even if well after the fact. Also, did you ever hear of what finally befell Marta?

    In the meantime, kudos on a shocking story grippingly told.

    --Road to Parnassus

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Parnassas, for your comment and questions. MD was, of course, appalled at what she learned, as was I when she told me her story. Shocking, indeed. As to Marta, I never learned what became of her, nor of her sweet daughter, Telma, who taught me how to do the Twist, and who I had a little boy crush on all those years ago. RD

      Delete
  2. An amazing series, Reggie, and so well told. It's interesting to wonder how much of our own reality might be false!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, it can all be rather a slippery slope, can't it?

      Delete
  3. Holy smokes! That's pretty scary. And I agree with Parnassus... what's the rest of the story?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello m'dear -- I'm afraid that's all that I know of to tell. After five (count-em) installments in the series, I'm afraid I've exhausted the subject! RD

      Delete
  4. RD,

    I so enjoyed this "serial" no pun intended post! What a great teller of a story you are! It left me like the others, wanting more, but I feel that you concluded very well. You also inspired my twisted Bergdorf post on my blog Dean Farris Style!

    Dean

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello Dean, thank you for your comment and encouragement. I scurried over to your blog and read the sad tale of your former BG colleague. So New York! Reggie

      Delete
  5. Reggie, you are quite the Story Teller, it cannot be denied. But I suggest that you consider changing the title as I figured out the ending early on. I'm not very good at these things, but maybe "No More Wire Hangers!".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello LG: Thank you for your words of encouragement. I knew that I would be giving away the ending with the title, as you deduced it. However, I thought the title of the series was too delicious not to use, so I used it anyway. RD

      Delete
  6. Surely this is not the end. You need to go to a therapist and determine if you have repressed memories. I can't imagine this went on in the basement with the "hi-fi" (loved remembering that one myself) playing and no cries, moans, or anything of the sort to alert you that these were not Spanish festivals going on. Reggie, this cannot be the end.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear Anon: I've benefitted from many years in therapy (long ago, but it was still more than a handful of them), and am sorry to inform you that no repressed memories (at least of Marta & Co.) were revived as a result of it. Fortunately our house was very solidly built, sothe only sounds we heard from the basement were from the records played late into the night. RD

      Delete
  7. I'm hoping for another good yarn in the not-to-distant future. Well told!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Jeepers! I thought I was conditioned to maid stories but I had never heard of something like this. Knowing you, the best is yet to come. You are a great storyteller, dear Reg, well done!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Wonderful storytelling, Reggie.

    Perhaps, I'm terribly naive and there's more to come..but if that was the final chapter, I would urge you not to give away the ending when assigning the title.

    P.S. Either you've convinced me somehow or this is wishful thinking on my part but you can see I'm assuming there will be other stories. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello Gail, Thank you -- as I responded to an earlier commenter I thought the title of the series was too good not to use, even though I suspected more than a handful of my readers would figure it all out before I finally spilled the beans in the final installment. And yes, there are more stories knocking around in my noggin that I plan on sharing with my Dear Readers in the future. Reggie

      Delete
  10. Wow. See, and this is yet another reason not to have a basement.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hello Reggie:
    But this is surely not the end, rather the beginning of the next instalment of Marta, Big Daddy and the rest. One thing is for certain, there are no happy endings on the horizon for anyone.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear J&LH: I suspect you are correct -- there were likely no happy endings for that trio. RD

      Delete
  12. This anecdote lends a whole new meaning to the term " finished basement."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you MLS: I sneezed wine out of my nose when I read this comment! Most amusing (the comment, that is). RD

      Delete
  13. How horrifying and how horrifying it must have been for MD. And what happened to little Telma? That poor girl. So sad.

    You really have a way with words, Reggie. I'm with ADG. I'm ready for another story.

    Elizabeth

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello Elizabeth: "poor" Telma indeed, I've often wondered what happened to her, a sweet girl. It was likely not happy I think. RD

      Delete
  14. Yes I also wonder what happened to Telma and Marta?

    I hope you saw my comment on your comment (on your previous blog )about Neverland. I was thinking of the Darling children being whisked off to Neverland by Peter Pan

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear smr -- I can be incredibly obtuse at times. Thank you for explaining your previous comment, which I took most literally. Reggie

      Delete
  15. Was anyone cite for practicing "medicine" without a license? Also, it seems easy enough for a guy to dress up like a girl to gain access under the watchful eyes of neighbors ... or was it a cat house.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, yes, "someone" was practicing medicine as you note, and unlicensed, too. No reason to believe our house was also being used as a brothel, that would have certainly excited too much attention from the likes of Mrs. Westerfield, I suspect. Reggie

      Delete
  16. When we bought your house, we boarded several people in Marta's room. I always thought of it as "Cathy's room", as she was a GW law student who eventually moved back to Connecticut to practice law in Ward 3. We also took in a St. Albans boy who claimed to be Haile Selassie's nephew, which, along with quite a few other people, would have made him the son of the brother of God.

    Have you ever written about the bears in the cupboard in the front corner room? I don't recall whether it was a Fitt or a MacKenzie who moved the door to the 35th Street end of the front porch, making that glassed-in room the entrance hall. If your photo of the house was taken during your tenure, then of course, the front door we used was there before our time at 3501. In any event, the far end of that room was covered with open cupboard boxes in which were kept a menagerie or stuffed bears of all varieties. One had to meet them as one made their way from the front door to the main saloon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello Brad,
      Thank you for your comment. The front door to 3501 was moved to the glassed in room by the previous owners of the house to us. I believe it was moved back to its original location by the Lenzners. My family did keep a collection of tiny Steiff bears in the glassed in room, in little rooms made out of discarded olive oil boxes from Skenderis Greek grocery down on Dupont Circle, where my sister Camilla worked during a semester off from Sarah Lawrence. The Bear House, as it was known, was ultimately given to the Yale New Haven Hospital, where it was on display in the childrens' ward. I have no idea if it is still there or not. Reggie

      Delete

Please do comment! I welcome and encourage them, and enjoy the dialogue.