Her mind froze.
Are they here for me?
The front door of the house opened and more men in uniform led out the four Chinese girls. The girls looked helpless and confused as they were ushered to a large horse-drawn wagon that waited on the street. One of the men opened the back door of the wagon, which had a small window crisscrossed with iron bars, and pushed the first girl inside. Next, Mrs. Lee emerged, with another tall man in uniform pulling her by the arm.
“You make mistake,” Mrs. Lee said. “Everything legal here!”
“Tell it to the judge,” the policeman said.
He maneuvered her toward the other girls, who were being loaded into the back of the wagon.
Finally, Maryk emerged from the building, led out by two police officers, one on each side. Squinting into the sunlight, Maryk paused at the doorway.
He looked out onto the street and his eyes found Sarah. They stared at each other for a moment, his face filled with concern. Then he quickly shook his head.
He wanted her to stay away.
Just then, Sarah saw Johnson emerge from behind the police wagon, watching the raid, wearing a satisfied smirk. His small, spectacled eyes followed the direction of Maryk’s glance and caught sight of Sarah.
“That girl is one of them!” he shouted.
Sarah’s eyes widened with fear.
“Run!” Maryk mouthed.
A Small Tugging
“HEY, YOU! HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!”
Sarah dropped the paper bag she was holding and took off toward Mott Street. She glanced over her shoulder. Two of the police officers were running after her.
“Someone stop that girl!” one yelled.
She almost gagged as the grape candy momentarily got stuck in the back of her throat. She pulled it out of her mouth and threw it to the ground.
The Chinese men on the street looked up as Sarah sped by them, followed by the lumbering policemen. Because of her size, Sarah had an easier time navigating through the sea of bodies than the men, who took out their nightsticks and used them to prod people out of the way.
“Move it!” she heard them growl. “C’mon. Out of my way!”
Sarah ran north until she came to Canal Street, a busy thoroughfare clogged with carriages, horses, and people moving across town in both directions. As she darted into the traffic, she nearly collided with a fast-trotting horse-drawn carriage. She cut in front of the horse, her shoulder grazing the animal as she passed. The horse reared up and whinnied loudly, causing Sarah to trip and fall in the middle of the street.
The enormous animal rocked back on its muscular hind legs and raised its front hooves, ready to trample her. Sarah closed her eyes tightly, held her breath, and waited for the deathblow. But the carriage driver yanked on the reins and pulled the horse to the left. The animal’s hooves crashed down beside Sarah’s head and the carriage continued down the street.
Sarah opened her eyes and looked back. The policemen were right behind her now, just a few yards away.
“Stop that girl!”
She felt sure they would catch her and considered just giving herself up.
Just then, an old bearded man with a pushcart piled high with multicolored rags stepped into the path of the policemen, momentarily blocking their progress.
“Hey!” the policemen yelled at the old man. “Move this thing!”
Seizing the opportunity, Sarah sprang to her feet and sprinted across Canal. She ran a few blocks north, having no idea where she was heading or where she should go. She turned right down a smaller side street, then took an immediate left down another.
Finally, she was able to duck into an alley and hide behind a half dozen wooden barrels with rusted metal lids. Laundry lines filled with drying clothes zigzagged up over her head between the two buildings that formed the alley, filtering the waning sunlight into jagged yellow flares.
She fought to quiet her breathing as she peered out from behind the barrels and stared into the street. After just a few seconds, her body tensed as she saw the two policemen enter her field of vision. She pulled herself back behind the barrels as one of them stepped into the mouth of the alley. Sarah held her breath, willing herself to be as still and silent as possible.
The policeman took his nightstick and slammed it on top of the first barrel with a loud clang. Sarah flinched.
“All right, come out!” he said. “I know you’re in there.”
Clang! Clang! He slammed his stick on the barrel again and then waited in the echo. Sarah bit her bottom lip and stifled a cry of fear.
Clang!
Another beat of silence.
“She ain’t in here,” he called to his partner. “You see her out there?”
“No,” the other called. “She must have cut down Kenmare.”
“Great,” the first policeman said. “My feet are killing me.”
He reattached the nightstick to his belt and ambled after his partner.
Sarah remained still for a long time, making sure they weren’t setting a trap for her. Finally, she peered out from behind the barrel. The alley was empty and the sky was darkening so the street disappeared under a veil of gray.
Unlike Mott, this street wasn’t crowded with as many pedestrians. And most of the people she saw were not Chinese. She heard snippets of English and Italian being spoken, and even some Yiddish. She decided she wouldn’t venture out into the street again until night had fallen.
Sarah huddled behind the barrels for another two hours as the air grew colder and a chill settled into her skin and penetrated her bones. The same questions kept rattling through her mind. Why were the police there? Had Smitty and Miss Jean been arrested too? And what about Bao Yu and Mrs. Fat? Maybe they had all been arrested because of her.
No matter the cause, she knew she could not go back there. Her empty stomach twisted at the thought of her new friends in jeopardy. But the more pressing question was, where would she go now?
Just then Sarah felt a small tugging on the back of her coat, and she craned her neck over her shoulder to see what it was. A fat black rat was nibbling on the hem of her garment.
Sarah screamed and jerked up. But the rat hung on, its sharp yellow teeth sunk into the fabric.
Night on the Bowery
SARAH JUMPED UP AND down, but the rat just dug its claws in and began to climb up her back. Her skin crawled as the animal inched higher and higher, until she could feel it touching the edge of her hair. She whipped off her coat and swung it against the wall of a building. Finally, the rat fell free and scurried away. Sarah bolted out of the alley as fast as she could.
She ran past vendors closing up for the night, stalls that sold tomatoes and big jugs of olive oil, and stores with huge sausages and cheeses on strings hanging in the windows. There were no Chinese people to be seen. Everyone seemed to be speaking a different language. She had heard Mrs. Lee and Miss Jean mention an area of the city called Little Italy but hadn’t known that it was so close by.
Sarah finally allowed herself to slow down to a fast walk, trying to put more distance between herself and the police who had been searching for her. She kept her eyes open for stray pieces of food and potential hiding places, but there were none. She passed several newsboys, trying to unload their last papers.
“Please, I’ve got to eat tonight,” one said.
So do I, she thought.
She suddenly felt desperately hungry and cursed herself for dropping the candy when she ran. Sarah also wished she had the bag of coins she had earned with Tommy, but it was still buried beneath Maryk’s mattress.
She came to another wide cross street lined with shops with more foot and horse traffic. A massive elevated train track ran up and down the street, casting everything below in deep, dark shadows. The wind howled and she pulled her coat tighter around herself. All the shops in this area were closed, but many dingy taverns were open. Groups of men huddled around the entrances to the bars, smoking cigars and talking and laughing with rough voices.
She cast her eyes down and kept moving. Past the dim lights of the taverns, the sidewalks were even darker and she saw other broken men sitting on the sidewalks in grimy heaps with their backs up against darkened buildings, drinking out of bottles and mumbling to themselves.
A loud clap of thunder shook the ground as a heavy rain started to fall from the dark sky. Sarah looked down every alley, searching for cover or a place to camp for the night, yet every dry spot was already taken by a bum or a newsie. And she suspected that these streets were too dangerous for her to sleep outside.
Where would she go? Who would take her in? Her relatives in Brooklyn were gone. Maryk and Mrs. Lee had been taken away by the police. At least in the crown room of the Lady she had been protected from the elements. But there was no way to get back there at night.
Passing yet another tavern, she heard a rowdy crowd inside singing along to an out-of-tune piano. Snippets of the lyrics appeared to be warnings.
I struck a place that they called a “dive,”
I was in luck to get out alive. . . .
The Bow’ry! The Bow’ry!
They say such things,
And they do strange things
On the Bow’ry! The Bow’ry!
I’ll never go there anymore!
Despite the romping melody of the song, something about it sounded menacing to Sarah. Every voice seemed thickened with drink. Yet she knew she had to take cover, so she steeled herself and ducked inside.
The Egg
THE AIR IN THE ROOM WAS SO clouded with cigar smoke that she could barely see more than a few feet in front of her. Dozens of men crowded around the bar, holding mugs of beer or gathered around the piano that was against the back wall. There were just a few women in the room, and most of them wore low-cut dresses and had their hair hanging loose.
Sarah pressed herself into a shadowy corner, hoping to wait out the storm and not be noticed. A half-empty mug of beer sat on a counter nearby. Her throat constricted from thirst. The mug appeared to be abandoned, and she watched it closely to make sure no one would claim it.
Finally, she moved forward to grab the mug, but a man in a brown tattered coat and hat stepped into her path.
“Hey, girlie, can I buy you a drink?”
“No thank you,” she said, shrinking back, hoping to become invisible again. But the man followed her back to her corner.
“Aw, come on,” he said. “I won’t bite.”
Another man approached.
“Jimmy ain’t got the teeth to do much damage anyway,” he said.
The first man smiled and revealed a red, toothless upper gum.
Sarah recoiled. The men laughed.
“I just came in to find my father,” she said.
“Your pa’s here?”
“My mother told me to come fetch him for dinner. He’s a police officer. Have you seen him?”
“A copper, you say?”
The men instinctively took a step back.
“Yes. A big man, with red hair.”
“I haven’t seen him. Have you seen him, Jimmy?”
“Naw, I haven’t seen him neither.”
“I’m going to look for him.”
Sarah slipped between the two men and wound her way through the crowd to the other side of the bar, where she hid in the opposite corner.
Her mouth felt dry and her stomach ached with hunger. She spied a large jar of hard-boiled eggs, sitting on the wooden counter behind the bar. Dozens of white eggs floated in a clear yellowish liquid. Periodically the bartender would reach in and hand one out along with the drinks he served. Sarah’s stomach groaned at the sight of the food.
The bartender placed one egg in front of a man sipping a large frothy mug of beer. The man left the egg untouched on the bar as he turned to talk to another man.
Sarah’s eyes fixed on the egg, like an animal stalking its prey, waiting for an opportunity to pounce. She had scavenged piles of food on the Lady’s island, but all of it had been thrown away or abandoned. If she took the egg, she knew, she would be crossing a different line, that she would be stealing food that was not hers. But she had to eat something.
Would anyone really care about a single egg?
It was not even clear to Sarah if the eggs cost any money. Maybe no one would notice or mind if she took it.
After a minute of observing the man and the egg, Sarah decided to make her move. She inched toward the bar, trying to simultaneously keep an eye on the bartender and the man drinking the beer. Saliva formed beneath her tongue in anticipation. She squeezed between a group of men crowded near the bar and slowly extended her arm.
A man accidentally jostled her and she pulled back for a moment. But then she carefully reached out her hand and grabbed the egg.
“What’s this then?” the man with the frothy mug of beer said, as he caught sight of Sarah.
The bartender turned to look at her.
“The kid grabbed your egg, Charlie,” another man said.
“What are you doing there, girl?” the man with the beer said.
Sarah’s eyes widened in fear, but she did not let go of the egg.
“Get out of here, you little thief!” the bartender shouted as he made a move toward her.
Sarah quickly turned, snaked her way between men, and bolted back out into the rainy night.
No one seemed to be following her, but she ran on anyway. She shoved the egg into her mouth and was shocked by the briny, pickled flavor, completely unlike any egg she had ever eaten. She almost choked as she attempted to run, chew, and swallow at the same time. The yolk of the strange-tasting egg stuck in her throat, and one single, awful word the bartender had said echoed in her mind.
Thief.
A powerful sense of shame washed over her as she realized what she had become. From her earliest childhood, she had been taught that stealing was wrong, that it was one of the most important of the Ten Commandments delivered by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. She had never felt that she was doing anything wrong on the Lady’s island, but now she was clearly guilty of something.
Those thoughts weighed on her almost as heavily as the question of where she would spend the night.
Bleecker Street
THE RAIN STARTED TO fall harder in thick sheets. She kept moving uptown, but within minutes she was completely drenched.
Reading street signs as she went, she walked by several drunks lying on the sidewalk, pulling long draws from their bottles, oblivious to the storm. Spring Street, Prince Street, Houston. The names had no meaning, but she read them anyway. Until she reached Bleecker Street and the name triggered something.
Bleecker Street.
That was where Tommy said he lived with Mr. Duffy! A spark of hope flickered inside her. Maybe if she could find them, they would let her stay for the night.
Tommy had said he lived on the corner of Bleecker and another street, but she couldn’t remember which one, so she turned onto Bleecker. Maybe she would remember if she read it. Mulberry Street—no. Broadway—no. Mercer Street. Is it that one? No. She kept moving, the wet chill settling into her bones. Greene Street—no.
When she came to Wooster Street, she paused.
The corner of Bleecker and Wooster. That was it!
Her joy at figuring out the right corner quickly evaporated as she looked around at the rows of buildings that lined the streets. Which one could it be? She couldn’t go knocking on every door. She went up the stairs of the first building she came to and realized that there was a list of names beneath the mailboxes of the people who lived there. Schmidt, Cousins, Morrelli, Anderson. She moved on to the next building. O’Brien. Jamieson. Williams. Leary. Parkman. Again, no Duffy or Grogan. She couldn’t find either name on the third building she tried or the fourth or the fifth.
After the sixth building, Sarah gave up hope. She stood at the corner of Bleecker and Wooster and looked around in frustration. She had checked every building anywhere near the corner.
And then she h
eard a small cough coming from between two nearby buildings. A gaslit lamp beside the door of one of the buildings sent flickering shafts of light into the alley.
Sarah heard the cough yet again and moved toward the sound to investigate. She peered into the dark alley, but in the shadows all she saw were a few trash cans and a large wooden crate. She waited and listened. Nothing. She was about to turn away when she heard the cough again, coming from inside the crate.
Sarah slowly moved to the box and peered into the opening. Inside, she could just make out a shadowy form lying under a pile of unsold newspapers.
“Tommy?”
The body stirred.
“Red? Is that you?”
Meeting Mr. Duffy
SARAH KNELT BESIDE THE crate and peered inside. Tommy was lying on top of a pile of old newspapers with a layer of other papers covering him like a blanket. He used his wool cap as a pillow. In the dim light from the street, she could see him rubbing his eyes as he struggled to sit up.
“What are you doing out here?” he said.
“I was about to ask you the same thing.”
“Come in out of the rain,” he said, shuffling aside to make room for her.
Sarah ducked and squeezed herself into the small space beside him.
“Where’s your uncle?” he said.
“My uncle?”
“Yeah. Didn’t you say you were staying with your uncle?”
“He wasn’t really my uncle,” she said. “And I think he got arrested.”
“Arrested for what?”
“I don’t know,” Sarah said. “But I can’t go back to where I was staying. Or I’ll be arrested too.”
And then she told him everything. When she finally finished, he shook his head. “I’m really sorry you’re in such a tough spot.”
“Why are you sleeping out here? What happened to Mr. Duffy?”
“Oh, he’s here,” he said.
The Girl in the Torch Page 14