Beyond the Pale: A Novel (33 page)

In between daydreams, I tried to listen to the reader. In tobacco, they had a person, usually the boss’s wife or daughter or greenhorn relation, reading to the workers. Very nice. Sometimes it was just the newspaper or tales from Sholom Aleichem, sometimes even socialist essays. From one of Polstein’s daughters we heard about the Haymarket Martyrs of Chicago. She was reading an essay by a Lucy Parsons, the wife of one of the men the police had killed in Chicago. What did he do? Gave a speech where a bomb was thrown. They said he caused the bomb to be thrown by his speech, and they hanged him because a policeman died in the explosion. That sounded like the reasoning of the Tsar—who would believe a man threw a bomb at himself? The essay was in English but I was pretty sure I understood it all right. When there was a hard word one of the tobacco rollers would nod and repeat it quietly in Yiddish.

Polstein didn’t know what his daughter was reading until she was almost finished. When he heard, he yanked her out by her collar and we worked in silence the rest of the afternoon.

All Over the World
At Once

A
PIG WILL STUDY
T
ORAH
before your high-society friends will knock on your door with a job,” Aaron taunted. He had overheard me talking to Rose about getting a bindery job.

“They are not high society. They’re working-class girls like me, organizers.”

“Organizers, shmorganizers. You don’t even know that most of your precious League is rich goyim.”

“And how do you come to know so much, Mr. Failed-His-First-Exam?” Aaron had gotten into school last spring, finally, which made it easier to tease him.

“I heard about it in City College, from a friend of someone’s sister who knows that woman, Mary Drier, who’s mixed up in it. She’s ‘loaded,’ he says.”

Aunt Bina was listening while she worked. “New York sometimes is just another small town, isn’t it? But,” she frowned, “why would this ‘loaded’—” she said the word carefully in English, mimicking Aaron, then switched back to Yiddish, “—lady get involved with union agitators?”

I took a little piece of white cheese out of the ice box. Aunt Bina had baskets she hung from the ceiling so the rats wouldn’t get into our food. I reached up and pulled off a chunk of bread. “In their pamphlet they say the League is for sisterhood, for women helping women,” I said as I chewed.

“That’s nice,” Bina said. “Don’t snort like that, Aaron. Someday you’ll be a married man. You should only be so good to your wife. But Chava, dear, I wouldn’t hope too much on these ladies. You know what they say, ‘Easy to promise, hard to fulfill.’” She peered at me across the mountain of unsewn clothing pieces. “You didn’t do anything foolish? Give up your place at Polstein’s?”

“Don’t worry, I know: ‘If you stuff yourself with hope, you go crazy.’” Rose laughed to hear me trade proverbs with her mother like a yente.

I brought Rose a piece of bread and cheese too. I let my hand move slowly across her knuckles as she stitched, and she pretended not to notice. Usually she didn’t sew at night—why should she? It was still busy in the garment industry, where she worked sometimes twelve or thirteen hours setting in sleeves. The factory wanted her there at 6:00
A.M.
, and sometimes kept her so late she missed night school. Then we had an excuse to go somewhere quiet, a rooftop corner behind a chimney, so I could catch her up on her lessons if she wasn’t too tired and the night wasn’t too cold. A little cold was good because no one looked twice at us sitting so close to each other, sharing a coat.

That night she was helping me sew a banner for the big event planned by the Jewish Defense Association, a memorial parade for the pogroms. Really, she was doing all the sewing. I designed the banner, picked out the colors from Aunt Bina’s scrap basket and bought a purple background cloth from a pushcart on Hester Street. Rose embroidered where I drew the letters: “In memory of Rabbi Isaac and Miriam Meyer, murdered in Kishinev, 1903.” I wanted to say something else but I was caught between quoting Torah and socialist tracts, so we left it simple. I knew Papa would have liked something from the Torah, but this way the message was clear and dignified. I didn’t care anymore if people knew my parents had been killed in Kishinev. In fact, I looked forward to the opportunity of honoring their memory.

When we first heard about the parade, I showed Mama and Papa’s photograph to Rose. Why I never showed it before I couldn’t say. She touched the edge the way she sometimes touched my ears, gentle and curious. I was still hiding the photograph in Abramovich’s verses. Rose read from the page: “And I? I suffer and keep silent./ Whom do I dare reproach?/ Whom may I embrace?” I could feel the blood rise up my neck in knotted ribbons when she read.

“That’s like you are. You suffer too silently.”

“I’m not always so silent.”

“What you say in your sleep doesn’t count. Let’s put this picture on our chest of drawers. You don’t have to keep it hidden.”

I looked at our bedroom door. In the apartment everyone could hear everything, though if Rose and I talked fast in English, Bina, Isadore and the boarder Leon usually couldn’t follow. But Harry knew even more slang than us from always being out on the street, so we had to be more careful when he came in, which was usually very late.

I studied Mama’s eyes. Would she mind watching how I felt for Rose now? Even if Papa could look, he wouldn’t see. But Mama would have known. Maybe she would be glad I found comfort, someone to embrace.

“We should find a frame to protect it,” I decided.

“On Orchard Street, we’ll look tomorrow.”

Just before the parade, I received a letter from Esther and Sarah.

Dear Chava,

Thank God everyone is well! I can’t tell you how frightened we were this last year, with all the trouble from the agitators and intellectuals, and of course the rabble is so quick to fight on either side—anything to entertain themselves at our expense! There was a pogrom here again just four weeks ago, but all of us, thank God, came through all right. Nathan’s family has a secret cellar near the river where they keep the provisions for their inn, so we were comfortable enough there, better than Shendl’s chicken coop! Now that the Tsar has put down the revolution, we are doing a good business again. I am carrying my own first child. God willing, it will be born in early summer. I hope it can live without seeing the misery that we have. I was asking around for Mama’s old midwife, who used to live by the spinster Golde who made my wedding dress, but no one has seen her for several years. Well, there are other midwives.

Nathan is talking about coming to America after the baby is born, but I’m not excited to go. I can’t see to leave a good business behind and start all over in a new country with a newborn infant, or leave Mama’s and Papa’s graves. Bobe Malka is too frail now for the trip. She begins to live more and more in the past. I can’t just leave her in a poorhouse or with some cousin she doesn’t recognize. I know you wrote that Sarah would not have as much trouble as we were told, but I don’t like to send her alone. If you tell me we should come, I will think about it again.

No one has heard from Daniel since Pesach. I’m afraid his politics may have hung him after all. We make inquiries discreetly and if we find out anything we will let you know. From Abraham we got a letter this summer. He married! He has two girls already, one and two years old. He named the first one Miriam for Mama and the second is Rebecca. They are living in a place called Beersheba. So you and I are now aunts—mazel tov! I sent him your address in New York, so maybe he will write you also. All the violence here made me appreciate family more, so I wanted to let you know all that I could.

Your loving sister,

Esther

Dear Chava,

Esther said all the news. What is your news? I was scared in the pogrom but Bobe told me a story about how brave you were during the last one and I forgot to be scared most of the time. I want to see you again. I’m sending you a picture of me and Bobe I drew myself. Do you remember me?

Sarah

Did I remember Sarah? One footstep for Mama, one for Papa, one for Sarah, one for Daniel, one for Esther, one even for Abraham, two for my nieces I would never see, then I started again, counting in time to the beat of a drum way ahead of us on Bowery. Sarah was the third step of my marching, right after Mama and Papa. How could I forget?

It seemed as if there were a million people, as many watching as were in the street, even in this cold. I knew the East Side boiled with Jews, every day more coming from Russia, but it was something to see us all at once. Many of the marchers had political banners for the unions, the anarchists, the socialists, even for suffrage. I particularly liked the banners that had fringes on them, jiggling with the marchers’ steps. And I was listening as well as looking. Even before we got to the platform for speeches in Union Square, people were arguing about how this was a memorial march, not a political one. Why didn’t they ask me? It was my family. I took a deep breath and marched into the cloud of myself that formed in the winter air.

“Why couldn’t they organize this for the spring?” Rose complained.

“Either it would rain or be too hot. Do you want to stop for awhile?”

“Just so I can get this pebble out of my shoe, do you mind?”

“Of course not.” We stepped to the side and I took her pole, folding the banner in the middle. She put her weight on my shoulder, balancing to unlace her shoe. I stood still and serious, so no one should notice how much pleasure her closeness gave me.

“Chava!” I turned around as Rose bent over to lace up again. Lena was marching by with a group from the League. She handed her placard to someone and ran over to us. “I thought I would see you here. And who’s this?”

Rose stood up and brushed a stray lock of hair from her face. “We’ve already met,” she said.

“Of course, on the ship. You’re Chava’s cousin.” Lena had forgotten her name. I could see Rose was annoyed. She was so social, discussing the weather and new corsets with every girl and pushcart lady on the street, that most people knew me as her cousin, not the other way around.

“Rose,” she said, putting out her gloved hand very proper, “Rose Petrovsky.”

“Of course, Rose, like our Rose Schneiderman, eh, Chava? I won’t forget again.” Lena noticed how Rose cut her eyes at me, how I smiled back. “So—.” She rubbed her hands together and jiggled up and down. Lena’s jacket must have been even thinner than mine. “So I heard you had a nice talk with Rose Schneiderman?”

I nodded. “Under these gloves, my hands have turned to mud from tobacco so I went—”

“I know. I was going to come by after the parade and leave a note for you. Over at Harriman’s Bindery they’re hiring. They’ve got a couple of places now, from girls getting married. Go by on Monday morning, on Broadway by Spring Street. Tell them you’re the one Nellie Quick sent.”

“Nellie Quick?”

“She’s the bindery union’s representative at the League. If you last three weeks, you’ve got to join the union.”

“I’m happy to. Thank you.” I looked at her calm green eyes. “Thank you very much. I thought maybe you’d forgotten me.”

“Forget you? No such luck. We’re counting on you to lead the youth brigade of the revolution with Pauline.” She clapped me on the shoulder as a comrade.

Rose hoisted her side of the banner pole. “We should get back in the march, Chava.”

Lena looked at our handiwork. “Very nice,” she said, looking at me as if to say, You see, I knew all along about your parents. “I have to go find the rest of the League myself. See you at headquarters. Goodbye, Rose Petrovsky, a pleasure seeing you again.” She ran ahead, between the crowd on the sidewalk and the legions of marchers.

“What was that about seeing you at headquarters? And who’s Pauline?”

“A girl our age who works over at Triangle Shirtwaist. They say she’s already organizing strikes but I never met her. Lena didn’t mean anything, she was just being friendly.”

“Not just friendly. She got you a job, now she expects you to pay her back, you’ll see.”

“It’s not like you to think the worst of someone. And what would be so bad if I did some work for the League? Do you know the bookbinders already have an eight-hour day? I’ll have so much time now.”

“You could do other things with your time.”

“What? I would spend it with you but you’re at work too. Don’t be jealous, Rose. It’s politics.”

“I’m not jealous.” A man carrying a banner from the landslayt organization of L’vov turned around and looked at us for a second. Rose straightened her pole and squared her shoulders, looking ahead. “I just don’t want you to get swept away in some political fever, like Daniel and Saul.”

“I’m not like Daniel or Saul.”

She turned to show me her grin. “Thank God for that!”

The forelady at Harriman’s, Miss Wolfe, was stocky and brusque, constantly taking in every detail. She was one of those German Jews who’d been here a generation already and fussed about the bad manners of us Russian newcomers. Right away I liked her, even if she wasn’t so sure about me. A warmth hid beneath her suspicious nature, at least that was how I read her. Miss Wolfe showed me the different work stations. The only places for women were at the sewing table, gluing area and folding machine. What was I expecting, that they’d teach me how to make fancy decorations in the leather? It was just another factory, with noisy contraptions and sewing, no less. Also plenty of paper dust, but at least Harriman’s was cleaner than anywhere I’d worked so far.

“Gluing or sewing?” Miss Wolfe asked.

The sewing machines looked like a cross between a weaver’s loom and the machines Rose and Aunt Bina used. “Gluing,” I said.

“Any experience?”

“I worked gluing in a paperbox factory—”

She cut me off with a sharp laugh. “Here we make books. You’ll see it’s very different.”

“Oh, I know. I always wanted to work with books. My brother is a printer.”

“With whom?”

“In Russia.”

She gave me a look as if Russia wasn’t a word in English, not one that a lady would say. “Well. We’ll see how you do. You have two weeks’ probation. Gluers get $7 a week to start, $7.50 after probation, $8 after a continuous year. Reva will show you what to do.”