Threads and Flames (26 page)

“Gavrel, what are you doing?” Raisa whispered, beginning to draw her arm away.

“Oh.” He looked as if she'd slapped him. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you; I only—”

“I'm not upset.” Suddenly she realized that walking with Gavrel like this, arm in arm, felt like the most natural thing in the world. She settled her hand comfortably on his wrist and looked up at him, smiling. “I was just surprised.”

They walked in amiable silence for a few more steps. Then Gavrel said, “When I said you're a good teacher, I wasn't just trying to sweet-talk you, Raisa. I meant it. Do you
like
teaching?”

“I never thought about it before. I know I like going to classes, learning. I feel good whenever my teacher says I'm showing progress. I admire her for being able to help so many of us, who come in speaking all different languages. Last week, one of her former students came into the classroom to thank her. He told us that he used to be like us, a greenhorn, but now he's going to become an accountant! He was going to tell us about some of her other students who'd gone on to better things, but she made him stop because she said it would be”—she spoke her teacher's words as she'd heard them, in English—“‘an o-ffence against hu-mil-ity and proper de-co-rum. '”

“Your teacher is a modest woman,” Gavrel said, nodding his approval.

“She is a
wonderful
woman.” Raisa's hand tightened gently on Gavrel's wrist. “And sometimes—sometimes when I'm helping Brina, I realize that I
do
like teaching and I wish I could be like my teacher, do what she does, make a difference for other people's lives.” She bowed her head. “But all I make are shirtwaists.”

Gavrel stopped walking and made her turn to face him. “That's what you're doing
now,
” he said, gazing intently into her eyes. “It's not what you have to do for the rest of your life. Right now I make a living as a cutter at Triangle, but I'm not going to be a cutter when I die. As sure as I'm going to become a rabbi, you can become a teacher. You'll have to make time in your life for more classes, but if you want to teach ...”

“How can I, Gavrel?” Raisa replied. She kept her voice low, not wanting the Kamenskys to hear her, but they were so far ahead and so cheerfully distracted by Brina that there was small chance of that. “How can I spare time for anything except looking for my sister?”

“I know, I know. It's why you came to America, it's why—”

“No,” Raisa said suddenly. “That's not true. I was always supposed to come to this country—
we
were, Henda and I together. We never believed the fairy tales about gold in the streets, but we knew there was something better here for us, and better for Glukel, too, someday. We had dreams. ...” She closed her eyes, unable to go on.

“You should always have dreams, Raisaleh.”

She felt the soft touch of his fingertips lifting her chin. She opened her eyes to see Gavrel gazing at her with a strong, determined expression as he said, “I promise you on my life, I'm going to do whatever is in my power to give you your dreams.”

SEVEN ARROWS

R
aisa sat at attention in her seat as the uptown trolley lurched along its route. She only glanced at the changing street scene, so different from her own neighborhood, and the people who inhabited it. She felt a passing twinge of envy for the obviously wealthy women, their hands warmly snuggled into luxurious fur muffs. Her own hands were cold and a little stiff from clutching the precious piece of paper in her lap.

All the way uptown, Raisa kept looking from that scrap to the street signs rumbling past. Gavrel had written down the address she was after, along with a small sketch map. It wasn't the only thing he'd done to help her follow the clue to Henda's fate that Morris Zalman had given her at Thanksgiving, five days ago.

She remembered what Gavrel told her that evening, when he'd made her dreams his own and they'd walked along as if they were the only two people in the world:
We have to be practical, Raisa. You need to go to Seven Arrows, to ask the people there if they've got any idea, even a
hint
about where your sister might be now. But to go so far uptown and ask around like that, you'll need time. So you go. Don't worry about missing work. I'll talk to people. I'll see if I can't work out something for you, maybe me putting in extra hours or something. No offense, but I'm a cutter and cutters make more than sewing machine girls. As soon as I can fix this for you, you go.

And he
did
fix it for me!
she thought, so very proud of him. All of a sudden, she spied a big sign on the side of a building. A gaily painted bald eagle clutching a bunch of arrows in its left talon and a lightning bolt in its right spread its wings above the name SEVEN ARROWS CLOAK AND SUIT COMPANY.

Raisa leaped to her feet and pulled the cord to request her stop, then hopped off the trolley
.
She raced from the trolley stop to the tall building housing the Seven Arrows Company. The trip uptown had taken longer than she'd anticipated, even though she hadn't wasted any time trying to locate the factory itself, and now it was almost the start of the workday. If she wanted to ask any of Henda's former coworkers if they'd seen or heard from her sister, she had to hurry.

She began talking to the shopgirls the moment she found herself in their midst at the building entrance. Seven Arrows wasn't the only garment factory in the building, but as soon as she determined which girls did work there, she peppered them with questions. From the front door to the elevator to the shop cloakroom, Raisa grilled one girl after another. Some were new hires; they'd never heard of Henda. Some had worked at Seven Arrows for months, even years, but didn't know her. Some knew her as just another face in the crowd. The ones who did know her were casual acquaintances, not close friends.

“Sure, I remember her. Just to say hello, good-bye, how's the weather, you know.”

“Wasn't she the
really
pretty one? I remember how jealous I was every time I looked her way. But looking that good's more trouble than it's worth to girls like us. Some of the salesmen gave her a hard time, always hanging around her machine, pestering her, but she didn't give them the time of day. That's pretty much all I knew about her.”

“I knew Henda. We used to go to the picture show together sometimes. So you're the sister? I'm so sorry, I haven't heard a thing about her since she took off, but I can tell you this: she never stopped talking about you. Every payday, the first thing she did was look in her envelope, smile, and say, ‘I've almost got enough to send for Raisa!'”

A harried-looking woman rushed out of the cloakroom, her pince-nez glasses crooked and her hair coming out of its tight bun in wisps and strands. She was clearly in a hurry, but when she overheard Raisa questioning one of the other girls about Henda, she stopped short.

“
You
knew Henda?” She peered into Raisa's face. “Oh my God, such a resemblance; you must be her sister! What are you doing here? She hasn't worked at Seven Arrows for—” Raisa's swift explanation made the woman gasp in distress. “You poor girl, I don't know what to say. Believe me, I know how you feel. She was my best friend. We used to talk about how she was going to move into my building as soon as you came over and got a job of your own so the two of you could afford to live somewhere better. She said the Levi family was nice, but it was getting too crowded, the son was getting married, and it broke her heart every time the mama thought she was her dead daughter, Sadie. Look, I'd love to talk more with you, but I've got to get to my machine.” She started away.

“Wait!” Raisa called, following her onto the shop floor. “Please, you might be the only one who'd know. Was Henda seeing anyone, a young man who dressed really well?”

“Yes, I think I remember—but please, I'm sorry, I can't talk now!” the woman replied, flying down the narrow aisle between the rows of sewing machines. Other workers were also scrambling into their seats, getting in Raisa's way as she tried to pursue Henda's friend. She bumped into one woman who was carrying a basket full of thread spools for the machines. The impact wasn't hard, but it was awkward enough to send the basket flying. Spools clattered across the floor and the woman gave a loud shriek of distress.

“What the hell is going on here?”
A bald man exploded out of a dark oak door on the edge of the factory floor while Raisa knelt to help the woman gather up the scattered spools. The workday was young, but his clothing was already so rumpled that the sagging trousers and sweat-stained white shirt looked as if their wearer had just put in eight hours in a boiler factory. “You!” He leveled one finger at Raisa, who was conspicuous as the only person on the floor still wearing an overcoat. “Who the devil are you, and what are you doing in this shop?”

Raisa straightened up to face him as the woman tossed the last spool back into her basket and scurried out of harm's way. “Mister, I am sorry, I only came here because—”

Raisa's attempted explanation was cut off by another torrent of abuse and obscenity. The bald man ordered her into his office, then bawled at the sewing machine girls to get to work. “I'm not paying you to stand around talking! This time's coming right off your pay; you see if it doesn't!” He slammed the office door.

With her hands clasped in front of her, Raisa told the man the reason for her presence at Seven Arrows as succinctly as possible. He heard her out while chewing the end of an unlit cigar he'd taken from the pocket of the jacket hanging on the back of his chair. Though there were two other chairs in the office, he didn't offer her a seat, or anything but a stony, silent stare. When Raisa finished her story, he finally spoke.

“Sure, I remember that girl. Pretty. Too damn pretty, if you ask me. One time the owners had some important businessmen visiting, and one of them asked to see the shop floor because he wanted to talk with the workers. He's one of these goddamn rich Jews, the German ones who act like enough money makes them
real
people!”

Raisa flinched at the man's ugly words, but she held her tongue. Part of it was the old lessons of endurance from the shtetl, yet more than that was the sole reason she'd come to this place:
He remembers Henda, so he might know something that will help me find her. For my sister's sake, I have to hear this venom.
She pressed her lips together and let him rant on.

“That one, his old man owns a bunch of high-class department stores, so they're one of our biggest accounts. That means
I've
got to bend over backward and kiss
his
ass. Who sent for him? He could sit home all day on his backside like a prince, but
he
wants to learn all about the business, like he's a regular clothing buyer, sticking his big nose in where it don't belong. He said the big strike last year made things real bad in his daddy's stores, because they couldn't get stock. Well, boohoo, poor little rich Jew. He said he wanted to talk to my girls to make sure things were better in the shops, so there wouldn't be any more trouble, but I didn't see him going to any of the
ugly
girls for answers.

“Yeah, she knew a good deal when she saw one, a first-class meal ticket,” he went on. “Young and a big deal and not half bad-looking. But she was a sly one. When he talked to her, all he got was yes-sir-no-sir-I-gotta-do-my-work-sir. Nothing like playing hard to get when you're fishing for the big one! And it worked, too. When I didn't see him up here with some excuse or other, I caught him waiting around downstairs in the street at quitting time. And now I don't see him
or
her coming around here anymore, so I guess the fish bit hard.” His mouth twisted into an ugly, insinuating grin around the fat cigar.

“I see.” Raisa wanted nothing more than to knock both the cigar and the leer off the bald man's face, but until she had every bit of information he might possess, all she could do was gulp back her feelings. “Thank you very much, sir. This is . . . a great help to me, knowing more about the young man. Please, can you tell me his name?”

“Why, so you can go pester him and say I sent you? Sure, that's just what I want to do, send some little bunco artist after one of our biggest customers!”

“Bunco artist?” It was an English term Raisa had never heard before.

“Don't play dumb with me, girly. I know a grifter when I see one. That girl must've lived in your neighborhood, and you figured to come up here with a fake sob story so you can get your paws on her back pay. And now you want that rich guy's name so you can go crying after him, too?” He jumped up and hit the desk with his fist, his face turning purple. “Well, you can forget that! Get the hell out of my shop now, damn you! And I swear to God, if I ever see your face around here again, I'll call the cops!”

Raisa fled the office. She didn't wait for the elevator, but headed for the nearest stairwell. She wanted to escape Henda's former boss as fast as she could, but her exit was blocked by another man, who commanded her to stop so that he could search her purse. It was a familiar, if humiliating ritual, one she went through every day at Triangle Waists. In the eyes of the owners and the bosses, every worker was a potential criminal, a thief avid to stuff her pockets with company property. When the man finally handed back Raisa's purse and unlocked the stairway door, she nearly knocked him over in her haste to breathe fresh air.

Once outside, she felt better.
I'll wait for quitting time,
she thought.
That lady upstairs said she was Henda's best friend. I've got to talk to her some more in case she knows anything else about what's become of my sister. I'll walk around the neighborhood until then, and when I see her leave the building, I'll—