Beyond the Pale: A Novel (49 page)

“You’re going to stand out in the cold all night?” A man yelled at me from an automobile.

“Paper? Support the striking girls, buy the
Call
.”

“I’ll take everything you have left.”

“Dovid?” Gutke probably told her to look for me here. I wasn’t sure whether I was grateful or annoyed.

“Come, get in. I’ll drop you off at home. Don’t just stand there gaping, young woman. The auto won’t bite,” she yelled.

As soon as I was on the leather seat I felt guilty. Riding in an automobile. Sometimes the uptown ladies brought them for suffrage parades, but to actually ride in one! It jolted up and down, even a little sideways, as we made our way.

“Well, what do you think?” Dovida asked, stroking the instrument panel proudly. “Oh, I can tell. You have that look in your eye.”

“What look?”

“Whenever you’re about to go moral on us, you retreat ten feet behind your eyes—.” She swerved to avoid an old man pulling a pushcart across the street. “So you don’t approve?”

“It’s not for me to approve. But—”

“Uh-huh, now we’ll have it.”

“With so many girls on strike, how could you think to buy an automobile?”

“Ah, I should donate every extra penny to the strike fund?”

“Well, yes.”

She patted my hand with her black leather glove. “Maybe so, maybe so. But the fact is, I’m not going to. It’s not human nature. It’s not my nature, at any rate, to leave nothing in reserve or to go without. This I got mainly for business. I have to keep up many kinds of appearances, you know. I’m garaging it uptown but I wanted to have it out for New Year’s Day. I’m taking Gutke for a country ride.”

How could she understand? That she should have so much while the strikers lived on scraps of bread and charity. Dovida gave me a quick look.

“I see you’re suffering over this. If it’s any comfort to you, I have given quite a bit to the League and the union, and I’m putting whatever pressure I can on this new Manufacturers’ Association the bosses have cooked up. You have the numbers and it’s remarkable to see how you’re using them, remarkable. Numbers, though, don’t always translate into power.”

We were driving past Yonah Schimmel’s Knishes on Houston, and I had an impulse to duck. What if anyone saw me, riding around like a big shot? “In a democracy—,” I started.

“You don’t live in a democracy,” Dovida cut me off. “Not the kind they teach you about in night school. The revolutionaries, they know. Power is a ladder, and you can’t climb it with hundreds. You fight through the hundreds to get on the first rung. It’s not easy to knock the ladder down. People have been trying for centuries. Only once they get to the bottom, they get curious about the view, and the next thing you know, they’re climbing too.”

I hated to admit it but riding in her auto was exciting. I was curious about the engine underneath, the mechanics of what made it move. “So,” I sighed, “how
is
the view?”

She laughed. “It depends on what direction you look. When I look down, I don’t like what I see at all.”

“Uh-huh.”

We turned onto Essex. “Chava,” she said, pulling over, “you lash out at the world because the world is cruel. It killed your parents.”

I was surprised that she came right out with it. Everyone else danced around the subject when they wanted to remind me I was an orphan.

“But most of us, even those of us you perceive to be morally compromised, don’t set out to hurt or oppress anyone. I’m getting to be an old man—,” she cleared her throat at the look I gave her, “—so, even I forget sometimes, out on the street. Maybe I make too many excuses because I’ve spent my life playing both sides of every role. I may not deserve it, but I want a comfortable old age among the women I care about.”

“But that’s it. It’s not that you don’t deserve it, everyone deserves it. My aunt and uncle. Me and Rose.” I looked down at the pile of newspapers between us on the seat.

“Even your cousins Aaron and Harry?”

“Them, I’m not so sure about.”

“I’m glad to see you can still make a joke. But I take your judgments to heart, and I’ll think about what more I can do to help with this strike.”

“I appreciate your goodwill, Dovida, but it’s not what you can do for us, except to step out of the way when working people unite.”

“Yes,” she said, smiling at me. “I’ve heard this slogan. Don’t worry. I’ve made a career from knowing when to step out of the way.”

Arguing with Dovida was like punching at a pillow or a shadow. She always yielded and changed shape. Yet she felt almost as familiar to me as my brother Daniel or Rose. I slipped a little on the icy pavement as Dovida handed me a five dollar bill for the newspapers. I held onto the automobile door, looking at the money.

“Be careful there. We wouldn’t want to lose a talent like yours!”

Thanking her didn’t seem right. “Enjoy your automobile,” I said instead.

“Thank you. And you enjoy the Anarchists’ Ball. Come by me and Gutke soon. If you or your family needs anything during this strike, let us know. I consider it an honor to be allowed to help any way I can.”

I had to laugh at how carefully she put that. This time I did thank her. Only as I was climbing the stairs did I wonder how she knew we were going to the ball.

It must have been the AFL that declared the shirtwaist strike officially over in February, because it certainly wasn’t the strikers. Rose’s shop, Moss’s, held out the whole time, sending their work on the sly to small jobbers like Harry, who had settled relatively early. I knew he got pleasure out of looking like a mentsh while really scabbing for the big manufacturers. Rose was on a list of union hotheads since she’d been arrested. Moss’s wouldn’t take her back and she couldn’t find work anywhere else.

At the end of February there was a victory dance at Clinton Hall. I wanted to take Rose out, get her mind off job hunting. Usually she’d leap at any excuse to be on the dance floor but this time I had to play on her sympathy.

“My birthday got lost this year in all the commotion,” I complained, trying to look downcast. “Please come out with me.”

Rose stared at her hat, which lay like a cat that had fallen under the wheels of an ice cart. “I’ll fix it up,” she said, “one more time.”

Aunt Bina supplied a bright scrap from a house dress she’d made the year before, and Rose turned it into a sash that made the hat look almost fashionable again. She mended the torn lace collar on her threadbare overcoat. Our great grandmother’s cameo, one of the only things from the old country Aunt Bina was planning to pass on to her daughter, was fastened at the throat of Rose’s best shirtwaist, and she was wearing the garnet ring on her left hand. I thought she looked grand, certainly as good as J. P. Morgan’s daughter, who had been in all the newspapers with her strike support until the girls voted down the manufacturers’ proposal. The union had been infiltrated by foreign radicals, she then proclaimed. Now Anne Morgan was probably dancing uptown in silk and pearls.

It was a whole dime each to get into the dance. I supposed they thought all the strikers were back at work. We probably could have told the ticket taker that Rose was still looking and likely he would have let her in for free. We stood on the sidewalk watching people go in and out, some with bottles of beer and sandwiches, trying to decide what to do. “Maybe we shouldn’t have come,” Rose said, fingering her earlobe.

“You like to dance and I’m happy to treat you,” I said.

“You’re sweet,” Rose sighed, her breath coming out in a cloud. “I don’t know why I’m in such a mood.”

As I leaned to whisper into her ear about moodiness, a woman called my name. It took me a minute to recognize Lena Reznikoff. As she approached, she peered at both of us from above her spectacles. “It’s Rose, isn’t it?”

“I’m glad you recognized me this time,” Rose said, extending her arm, which Lena pumped in a vigorous handshake.

“I noticed you picketing several times but I couldn’t get close enough to talk. Are you going to the dance?” Lena asked.

“We’re trying to decide,” I said.

Lena appraised us carefully. “I think it’s overly optimistic to declare the strike a victory, but I can understand why people need to feel good about all the work we did.”

“You don’t feel good about it?” Rose asked, a faint bitterness trickling into her voice.

“Don’t misunderstand me. We all did great things during the uprising, didn’t we? It’s important to hold on to some of those feelings of solidarity, the way we stuck by each other—”

“Hmm,” Rose said.

Lena peered at her. “You’re out of work still?”

“Still,” Rose said.

“Listen, I’m on my way over to the Grand Theatre myself. Why don’t you both come with me?”

I looked in at the bright dance floor, boys and girls dancing together, and thought maybe standing beside Rose in the dark theater instead wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

“If I can’t afford the dance—”

“Please!” Lena interrupted Rose. “I don’t invite you so you should have to pay. I got an organizer’s wage through most of the strike, and I share an apartment with one other girl, no family to give my pay packet to.” Lena said, anticipating my objection. “It would be my honor if you’d both be my guests.”

“What do you think?” I asked Rose.

“The dance was your idea,” she said. “Now that I’m all dressed up, we should go somewhere.”

“Exactly,” Lena said, getting in between us and marching us down the street.

“What play are we going to see?” Rose asked.

“Sholom Asch’s newest,
The God of Vengeance
. It’s supposed to be scandalous. Just the diversion we all need, eh?”

It was a busy night at the Grand but there were still rail tickets left, standing places at the back. Rose and I had yet to sit in a theater seat in New York, except for sneaking a rest during intermission. The Grand Theatre lived up to its name. Passing through its columns, I felt as if I were entering a kind of temple, where all the prayers were in Yiddish.

And this play! A girl actually kissed another girl on the stage. They made it out she was a prostitute seducing a good girl into a life of sin, but the good girl went willingly. The father and mother kept the brothel, and so they were being paid back for their evil ways because their daughter kissed another girl. Rose and I exchanged astonished glances, hoping that Lena wouldn’t notice.

During intermission we were unusually quiet. Lena, who I always thought could talk about anything, only seemed to be able to discuss the weather. We overheard a few arguments on the difference between mother-love and sensuous-love. We were back at our places well before the signal. For me, it was thrilling and terrifying. I had always thought that as long as no one knew about Rose and me, no one would pay us any attention. We were merely cousins, in the world’s view, cousins who were very fond of each other.

Now that anyone could see, for the price of a ticket, how love between girls could make them disobey their families, even drive them into the arms of prostitutes—would they look at us differently? I couldn’t decide whether or not to be angry at Asch for taking it upon himself to write this play. Why did the world need to know?

Lena invited us out for eggcreams after the play, but Rose insisted she’d been generous enough. So we set out for home, walking in the same direction in silence. Finally Lena spoke.

“I don’t like how Asch implied that it’s God’s vengeance for two girls to love each other,” she said slowly.

“ You don’t think it’s a sin?” I asked her.

“Maybe somewhere in the Bible. But worse things could happen to a girl than that,” Lena said.

“Much worse,” Rose said. The lightness in her voice surprised me. Lena too, I noticed.

Lena cleared her throat. “I—,” she started and stopped.

“It’s all right,” I said, and pressed her hand.

“I myself—,” she tried again.

“You?” Rose said, but she didn’t sound very surprised.

“Well, I never actually. But during this uprising, I was so impressed with all the women and girls. And sometimes when I look at them—.” Lena was several years older than us, but suddenly she seemed younger, tentatively groping for words. “Sometimes I’d look up from the phone and see Leonora O’Reilly taking charge of one impossible situation after another—”

“Leonora?” Her choice surprised me.

“Don’t you know her?”

“Of course,” I said, and turned to Rose to explain. “She one’s of the Irish leaders of the League.”

“An Irish woman?” Rose caught my surprise.

Lena looked indignant. “I thought you’d understand.”

“We understand,” Rose laughed, “really, we understand.” She linked her arm with Lena’s. “I didn’t expect to be taken off guard by an interfaith alliance between women, that’s all.” I could feel my face flush from Rose’s bluntness.

“I wouldn’t exactly call it an alliance,” Lena said.

“Leonora doesn’t know how you feel?” I asked.

“You’re the first people I ever told.”

“Oh,” Rose said, pleased. “You know I’m mostly an observer of your League, but I don’t believe you are the only one there to have these feelings.”

“For Leonora?” Lena sounded distraught.

“For Leonora, I wouldn’t know. All I’m trying to say is that I don’t think she would be shocked if you told her how you felt.”

“Really?”

“Rose has always wanted to be a matchmaker,” I said. “But I think she has a point, Lena. If you never ask, you’ll never get an answer. And what’s the worst it could be? Like Rose says, I don’t think you’ll shock Leonora.”

Lena took a deep breath and expanded from the inside. “Thank you. I’m going down Orchard here. You’ve given me a whole new way to think about this.”

“Our pleasure,” Rose said. “And thank you for treating us to the play.”

“Best thing I’ve done all week,” Lena answered, waving goodnight.

Rose stopped to adjust her hat in the reflection of a store window. “What a good idea of yours this was, Chava, to go out dancing.”

“Dancing?”

Rose laughed and pulled my arm around her waist. We waltzed under the streetlight at the corner of Grand and Orchard, not caring for a minute who saw us or what they thought.