by Belva Plain
“Not at all! Why should you do that?” Olga was indignant. “I don’t need—” The words were cut off by a spasm of coughing.
“I wasn’t trying to embarrass you. Let’s not quibble, Olga. Your coat’s like paper and you’re sick.”
There was no answer. They trudged, their feet squelching in the mucky brown snow. The wind fought with the placards borne high on flimsy sticks, trying to wrench them out of numb hands. An automobile passed deliberately close to the curb; girls squealed and jumped to escape the spattering slush, while the driver laughed with contempt. But a workman on top of a wagon tipped his cap as the vanguard of a small procession reached the corner for the fiftieth time that day, wheeled, and turned back down the block.
“Olga,” Hennie persisted. “You shouldn’t be here at all. You should be seeing a doctor.”
“What good is a doctor if I can’t make a decent living? No, this comes first.” Olga had a faint accent, no more than a Russian countess who had learned English from her governess might have. “Besides, I know what’s the matter with me anyway.”
Indeed, one did not need much knowledge of medicine to recognize tuberculosis, the East Side killer. The pink-petal flush, and that peculiar luminous beauty of the eyes, were both as typical as the cough.
“Of course, I know you haven’t been feeling well, you’ve told me—”
“Come, Hennie, call it what it is!”
“But … you never know, a doctor might—”
“Might what? You said before, let’s not quibble.”
She is going to die as her husband did; she knows it quite well. In a few more months she will be too weak to get out of bed. She will lean over the side and spit blood. The fever will mount. The end will come too slowly, unless she gets pneumonia out here first. Then it will come sooner and more mercifully.
They walked in silence to the end of the block. Hennie glanced down, for Olga was much shorter than she; most women were! Still, Olga’s steps kept pace: one-two, one-two, turn at the corner and back. The second hour and the third. Why? Since she would certainly not see the benefits of this strike, if there should ever be any! Surely it would be easier for her to join with the poor frightened handful of scabs who, protected by double ranks of burly toughs, went scurrying into the building every morning.
“I worry so about Leah.” The wind muffled the sound so that Hennie, not sure she had heard, asked Olga to repeat it.
“I worry about Leah. She’s only eight and a half.”
“No family here at all?” Hennie asked, although she knew the answer.
“Not here, not there. The ones over there are dead. Killed when they burned our house.”
Immediately Hennie saw it all: orange flames and black figures, pursued and struck down. She heard shots and wailing and the final silence when it was over. She felt now Olga’s silence of recollection. It was necessary to speak, to make it bearable.
“I haven’t seen your Leah in so long …” Hennie was guilty and ashamed. She had been concerned with so many things that she had neglected her friend.
“I wish we had a good place to live. It’s not right for her this way, living with strangers. They’re good people, they struggle, with five children. They sew pants, the whole family, even the children work. Oh!” Olga cried. “What will become of Leah?”
And now she looked Hennie full in the face, while her question hung in the cold air between them. One had to look away from such terror, such anguish; one had no answer.
“She’s smart, she’s good at numbers. I suppose she could grow up and be a cash girl,” Olga said. “They take them as young as twelve, for one dollar seventy-five cents a week, a sixteen-hour day … she’ll be pretty, too, which is another worry. I don’t say so because she’s my child, I’m not a fool. But you’d know what I mean if you saw her. Don’t look at me, she doesn’t look anything like me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the way you look,” Hennie said gently.
Olga pinched her lips into the shape of a suppressed smile, full of bitterness. The smile said: That was a stupid remark. It had nothing to do with the case and you are stupid, too, if you are trying to make me feel good. I am talking about life and death, don’t you understand? All this was in the bitter smile. And Hennie did understand, and was rebuked.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Olga,” she said honestly then. “I wish I did. God knows. All I can say is, I’ll try to keep an eye on her.”
Keep an eye on her! What did they mean, those banal, weak words?
“I don’t know now whether I’ll be able to help,” she continued. “Maybe if we win in this place, conditions will change and they’ll pay a living wage, with decent conditions, some sort of future.”
What did that have to do with a child, alone in the world?
“It will take a long time. A long time to pass laws. And scabs—”
Hennie interrupted, relieved to change from the subject of Olga’s child. “There haven’t been any in over a week.”
She gazed up at the building. The grimy windows were blank, with drawn shades. A prison. A gray stone mountain. A house where everyone has died. Hennie shuddered and shook herself. Then she spoke briskly.
“That may be a good sign, that they’re not going to try anymore. It’s not working out for them. Maybe they’re going to give in, partway at least, enough to meet and talk. There’ll be a union …”
They turned again at the corner. The block seemed to be growing longer and longer. How many more times before the relief arrived? It was too much trouble to take off gloves and fumble with freezing hands for her watch. No matter, anyway. When the time was up, she would know.
It was so still. The sounds of shuffling feet and passing traffic grew remote in the women’s ears. A numbness began to possess them. They moved mechanically, gasping with the cold. One by one, they had stopped singing and talking. Speech only used the energy they needed now to move their feet: up and down, turn, stamp, shuffle, and trudge. The day wore on, the whole long, gray unbroken day.
It shattered into a thousand pieces.
When the smash came, the narrow column wheeled about. On the instant, without seeing, the strikers knew what it was that had come pounding at their backs. They had seen it before.
From around the corner, with savage, insane cries, as if the sound of their voices could strike its own terror—which it could—came a dozen or more men on the half-run. Street thugs they were, of the familiar type that loiters in bars and pool halls. Huge-shouldered in jackets and sweaters they came; they fell upon the women, shoved them, beat them with raw fists, swore at them, and scattered them.
They wrested the flimsy cardboard signs out of frozen hands. Some of the women, thus pushed off balance, fell screaming; others, small as they were in contrast to their attackers, put up an astonishing fight. In Italian, in Yiddish, in English, they screeched their righteous rage; they used their small fists, kicked and beat at their attackers with the frail sticks and placards on which they had demanded justice.
The street came alive. Windows on the other side, which had revealed no signs of life all day, were raised; from every one heads poked, crowding to the sight of the struggle below.
And rushing to the factory door, heads down, with furtive glances at that struggle, went a file of pathetic shamefaced women, some old, some young, all desperate for work. The door opened briefly to admit them and closed behind them with an echoing clang.
Now the hired toughs were driven into fury. They had not expected such desperate resistance from the striking women. They had not expected to be kicked and scratched, had not expected such united strength. And they brought fuller force to bear; out of nowhere came bricks and clubs, as well as shrill calls for the police.
In the confused chaotic struggle, Hennie had been slammed against the factory wall, at the rear of the flailing mass. She had lost sight of Olga, but suddenly, through a tangle of knees and shoulders, she saw the familiar red woolen hat on the pavement and Olga sobbing on the
ground beside the hat. A man’s knee pressed her down, grinding into her chest, while her frantic hands scratched at his face.
There was no thought in Hennie, only a crazy rage on behalf of her friend. She leapt. She tore at the man.
“You savage, you ape, you’re not fit to live!”
She clawed him, kicked his ankles, and pulled at his shoulders to topple him; but he was too heavy and she couldn’t move him. She heard herself howling like an animal. Why, why was he doing this to Olga, frail as a bird, not half his size? Because he loves it, loves her pain and her sobs.
Hennie bit him. She sank her teeth into his earlobe and bore down. She heard him scream, was flung off, and felt a blow on the side of her head that dropped her on the ground.
How long she lay there, she did not know; it could not have been long before the women were bested. The brawl could not have lasted more than five minutes. She awoke to a clear instant of unreality, thinking: I must have fainted, I never fainted before in all my life, but that’s what I must have done. My face is warm, no, it’s burning hot and it hurts; I think my nose is bleeding.
She became aware of someone standing over her. A policeman. She stiffened. One knew that the police could be brutal.
But this one helped her, although not too gently, to her feet. He was young, fresh-faced, with disdain like a veil over the youthful freshness.
“For shame,” he said, “a lady. Or supposed to be.”
Because of my good coat, Hennie thought, he takes me for what he calls a lady.
The toughs were gone, the battle over. Of course, they always fled when the police came. Only a few of the women were left, the bravest. The rest had fled too; one couldn’t blame them.
“I’ve got to arrest the lot of you,” the officer said, surveying the poor remainder. “Will you come along decently or will we have to put handcuffs on you?”
His voice was proudly resonant. He played his part; the watchers at the open windows across the street, and the curious passersby for whom the sidewalk was now free and open, were his audience.
For some reason Hennie found herself the spokeswoman.
“We’re decent women, so we’ll go decently. But why do we have to? What have we done?”
“Disturbed the peace. Brawling on the city streets when you ought to be home tending to your families.”
“It’s not your business to tell us what we should be doing with our lives, as long as we’re not breaking any laws. And we weren’t,” Hennie said hotly.
The officer looked her up and down. It was apparent that something about her puzzled him. He couldn’t place her. She didn’t seem to be a worker, not the way she handled the English language. But she wasn’t one of those eccentric society women either, one of those who liked to get themselves mixed up in this kind of business, and had to be handled with extreme politeness lest their husbands complain to the commissioner.
“Now listen here, lady,” he mocked. “Lady … I’d advise you to keep your mouth shut or you’ll have another charge against you. Resisting arrest.” He caught Hennie’s elbow. “I’d advise you further to step into that wagon with the rest of your lot.”
Oh, you hero, you upholder of the law against criminals like us!
Olga was coughing, holding a handkerchief to her mouth.
“Are you all right, Olga?”
“I’m so sore where he … but you! Your face is turning black and blue! And the blood!”
“The blood’s nothing, only a nosebleed. You know, if I’d had a gun, I would have killed that man.”
“Less talking there! And step lively.”
Two taxis had stopped alongside while the pickets were climbing in. They were crammed with passengers, all laughing, who now got out to watch the affair.
“Well, look at that bunch, will ya?”
“Never saw an uglier crew in all my born days.”
“Hey, sister, what you need is a man!”
“That’ll cure what ails you!”
Hilarious, they pointed and hooted. Hennie stared back at painted faces, fancy plumes, and soiled silks. Poor, wretched, stupid things, ready for their night’s work, victims as much as any of these others who were striking for a decent wage! Except that these, unaware of their shame, were far more wretched.…
The patrol wagon drove away to the sound of their tittering malicious laughter.
At the station house, the sergeant behind the high desk looked down on a bedraggled lot. If he felt any pity, he did not show it; if he felt disdain, he did not show that either, as the younger man had. One wondered what he could be feeling, dressed in the authority of good dark blue cloth with a double row of brass buttons. Well, he had his job to do; he had no choice. One by one, they were called before him.
“I’ll have to set bail. Two hundred dollars,” he said.
From each woman in turn came a gasp.
One ventured, “We’re not criminals—”
“Resisting arrest is a crime,” the sergeant said. He raised his voice. “Two hundred dollars. If you wish to use the telephone to contact your lawyer, there’s one at the desk, and Officer McGuire will assist you.”
Olga whispered, “My lawyer. Which one shall I call? The one who handles my real estate investments, or the one who does my trust fund?”
“Or,” the sergeant said, “you may use the telephone to notify your families. There are bail bondsmen three doors down on this street.”
“What family, what telephone?” Olga whispered again.
“We haven’t got a telephone either,” Hennie said.
They hadn’t needed one, they’d always thought; at this moment, with cold alarm running through her veins, she would have given anything for one. Freddy would be coming home from school and there’d be nobody to let him in. Dan would be in his lab; one could only hope that Freddy would think of going there.
“If we have no telephone,” she began, addressing the sergeant, “is there any way somebody will get in touch with our families?”
“Give Officer McGuire the name and address. We can notify the precinct to take care of it. Arraignment is before the magistrate at ten tomorrow morning.” A pile of papers, to which he now turned his attention, lay on the high desk before the sergeant. He’d had enough of these troublesome women—a bunch of foreigners, anyway.
“When they’re finished with their contacts, take them right back, McGuire.”
“Back” was a cell at the end of a corridor. Hennie held Olga’s sleeve to make sure they would not be separated. When one cell, holding eight or ten, was filled with strikers, the remaining few went to the next one, which was already partly filled. The iron gate closed and the officer rattled the key, drawing it out with a final click. Final.
For a moment, Hennie stood quite still, watching the dark blue uniform march away. Me, in a cell! Me, Hennie Roth. And farther back, more astonishingly still, Henrietta De Rivera, daughter of Henry and Angelique, granddaughter of—
She came to, and looked around. She was in a gray cement room, fairly large, without a window. There were cots on one side, each with a pillow and mattress; she did not have to look twice to see that they were filthy. Around the other three sides ran a narrow bench. Four buckets in the corners revealed by the stench what they were used for.
It came to her that this was what they called a “holding cell.” If you didn’t get bail, you had to spend the night here. All of this went through her mind in seconds.
In the next few seconds, her eyes took in the women on the benches: one prostitute, very young and pretty with a dirty lace-flounced dress; one old woman with tumbling gray hair, typical of the homeless who sleep in doorways; and another of indefinite age, respectably clothed, shabby and trembling.
It came to Hennie that this was a scene out of Dickens.
The young one was interested in Hennie’s bruises.
“Say! You got beat up! Who done it?”
“We were pickets at the shirtwaist factory.”
“You got it
easy, then. You’ll be out of this dump in no time. A couple of hours.”
“Why is that?”
“Because. The high mucky-mucks’ll get you out. They always get your kind out.” And as Hennie looked perplexed, she explained, “You know, uptown mucky-mucks. Ann Morgan. Mrs. Belmont. Don’t you read the papers?”
Now Hennie understood. It was true: Women whose names appeared on the society pages in vivid accounts of banquets and balls were often the same who marched in the suffrage parades and signed the peace petitions; too, often those privileged women came to the support of these other women who made some of the clothes they wore. Hennie had had to remind Dan more than once of that.
“Yes, but it’s late,” Olga said. “Even if they come, it won’t be before morning.”
Looking at the cots, Hennie shuddered.
“I asked the officer at the desk to tell Dan to get bail for you, too, Olga.”
She tried to recollect what little she knew about bail. Didn’t you have to have some surety? Four hundred dollars, she thought. Goodness knew, Dan didn’t have money like that at home! They did have more than that in the savings bank, but the bank was closed by this time until tomorrow morning. Again she looked at the cots and shuddered.
Olga had sunk onto the bench next to the middle-aged woman, the only one who looked clean. Hennie looked for a space, although she would have preferred to stand, touching no surface in the room; she had an uncontrollable horror of vermin. Yet it seemed absurd to be standing there alone for what might be many, many hours. She sat down on the other side of the clean little woman, who, after searching her face curiously, struck up a conversation.
“Knocked you around a bit, didn’t they? Does it hurt much?”
“A little,” Hennie admitted. Her face had begun to throb badly.
“Looks awful. You’ll have a shiner. Maybe two.”
“I wish I had a mirror.”
“I can tell you. You’ve got a bloody lump on your nose, your left cheek is turning green and blue and is swolled up, like you’ve got mumps.”
“Maybe I could get some ice,” Hennie said doubtfully.
The woman laughed. “Who do you think’ll give you that? Them, out there? This ain’t no hospital. You’re lucky they don’t punch you another one.”