Audacity

by Melanie Crowder

  of the buildings

  leading the way there.

  My feet skip across the sidewalk

  all the way home

  like a mallard glancing off the water

  as he lifts,

  gusting upward

  into the sky.

  Perhaps I will not have to work first

  to earn my way

  into school.

  Once Mama finds a job

  I could carve out time for classes

  by waking up early

  starting my chores

  while the rest are still asleep.

  I drag the washbasin

  into the bedroom

  so when Mama comes home

  she can have a moment

  to herself

  to wash away the chill

  the grime

  of a day on the city streets.

  I fill the kettle

  add a scoop of coals to the fire

  fan the flames

  until the water begins to murmur

  then bubble

  then burst.

  sunlight

  There is a small space

  wide as a horse-drawn cart

  between the building where we live

  and the one behind it.

  Just before noon,

  before the sun has reached its highest point,

  that space

  fills with light

  and warmth.

  The tenement empties

  like sand spilling out of a broken jar.

  The alley swarms with children

  women bring their piecework

  and sit, their faces tilted up

  to catch the sun

  as it filters through the

  silted city air.

  In under an hour, it is gone again

  slipped past the edge of the next building

  like an egg yolk

  sliding out of the shell.

  impossible

  Mama comes home

  at noon on Friday

  to begin Shabbos preparations

  with nothing to show

  for five long days of looking.

  There are so many immigrants

  desperate for work;

  a grocer who left her store behind

  is of little interest

  to anyone.

  We need to buy food

  and oil; pay rent

  pay for seats at shul for the holy days.

  (at least for Papa and my brothers)

  So Papa decides that on Monday

  I will look for work

  instead.

  On this holy day

  which should be restful

  thoughtful

  inspiring

  the gloom

  inside our apartment

  seeps through my skin

  weighing down

  my limbs

  pressing like an iron

  filled with red-hot coals

  against my chest.

  School may be free

  but how can I go

  if I am to work all day long?

  So much is different here

  from our shtetl—

  language

  people

  work

  chaos

  progress.

  But really,

  nothing has changed.

  We travel halfway around the world

  and still

  my dreams are impossible.

  flame

  1905–1907

  sweatshop

  After a morning meal

  of hard bread

  two eggs shared

  between the five of us

  Papa takes Marcus to shul

  to pray

  for Nathan.

  I go looking for work.

  I start at the school.

  I can speak, read, write

  two languages.

  Surely someone

  will pay for a tutor.

  The director turns me away,

  but kindly.

  English is the only tongue of interest here.

  Next I try the grocery stores.

  They do not even tell me why

  I am shooed away quickly

  and not so kindly.

  The day dawned bright

  and clear;

  now heavy clouds have moved in,

  a drizzle

  darkens the cobbles

  beneath my feet.

  I stop in a café

  spend a penny

  on a glass of milk

  for lunch,

  sip slowly

  so my stomach thinks

  it is enough.

  Each day

  the soup is thinner

  our portions of bread smaller

  Benjamin’s rumbling stomach

  louder.

  Mama does not say it

  but I think

  we are near the end

  of our coins.

  In the shtetl

  at least we had

  a kitchen garden

  community donations

  to feed the hungry.

  But here,

  a garden is impossible

  and no one has extra pennies

  to give.

  The waiter, at least

  has a helpful tip

  he says,

  There are always jobs

  at the garment shops

  for girls like you.

  I wonder

  what that means

  (a girl like me)

  but I follow his pointing arm

  to the shops

  up the street.

  It is there I learn

  my first English word:

  sweatshop

  there is no Yiddish

  or Russian translation

  for the rows

  and rows

  of women

  and girls

  some of them younger than me

  breathing air clogged with smoke

  from the coal-burning stove,

  shoulders hunched

  sleep-starved eyes squinting

  at the fabric before them

  ears ringing

  with the

  BANG BANG BANG

  of the machines.

  All those grim faces—

  is that what the waiter saw in me?

  I have to shout

  to make myself heard

  as I visit shop after shop after shop

  asking for work.

  I have to say

  if I am looking for work

  in a place like this

  it must be true—

  I am one of those

  desperate

  grim-faced girls.

  celebration

  I am not the only girl looking for work.

  I visit three shops

  before one in a cellar

  below a clothing store

  ten blocks from where we live

  has an opening for an apprentice

  to a sub-subcontractor.

  The workers

  teenage girls like me

  middle-aged women

  a handful of men

  cut, iron, stitch together

  pattern pieces

  of starched white cotton

  into tapered blouses

  called shirtwaists.

  Starting tomorrow

 
I will work seven days a week

  ten hours or more

  each day.

  I will earn six dollars

  to bring home at the end of each week.

  (though I have to buy

  my own needle

  and thread)

  Now that I have found work

  I can begin English classes

  at the free school in the evenings.

  I buy a fat

  salted pickle to celebrate

  take tiny, ant-sized bites

  so it lasts all the way home.

  obedient

  I should be happy

  to bring home money

  for my family

  but I know now why

  I found a job

  so much faster than Mama.

  The shops prefer to hire girls

  who will work longer days

  for less pay.

  Have we not been told

  all our lives

  that a good girl

  is obedient

  biddable

  meek?

  All these good girls

  marching to work before the sun rises

  marching home again after it has set

  balancing bundles of piecework

  on their heads.

  An army of girls

  trained in silence.

  I have never been

  obedient

  or

  biddable

  or

  meek.

  In this world

  where I am made to be

  something I am not,

  small,

  secret things

  wither

  inside of me.

  lock

  Slam

  twist, click.

  Locked inside

  a brick box

  bile rises

  lungs pump

  workers shuffle

  to their stations.

  Stools creak

  heads bow

  needles stabbing

  bobbins banging

  thread marching in

  straight

  steady

  seams.

  Breath settles

  panic swallowed

  footsteps click

  stool creaks

  my own head

  bows down.

  search

  At the end of the day

  the foreman unlocks the door.

  The workers form a line,

  their eyes fixed on the shard of sky

  just visible

  between two buildings

  almost touching,

  their faces

  empty

  lips drawn

  tight over gritted teeth.

  One by one

  the foreman

  pats the workers down

  roving over curves and creases

  searching for scraps of fabric or thread or dignity

  that might find their way out

  of the shop.

  when it is my turn I cannot make

  myself take that last step forward

  so he comes at me and again I am

  only trying not to flinch not to cry

  out not to quiver not to fling those

  hands off curves and creases that

  have only ever known my own two

  hands

  sleepless

  night winds

  wind through the streets

  below

  moaning

  wailing

  drawing down courses

  of tears

  out of a starless sky

  forbidden

  My second English word

  is written on placards

  all over the shop.

  It means

  a rap on the knuckles

  if I talk

  a clap on the back of the head

  if I laugh

  a smack on the shoulder

  if I so much

  as hum.

  It seems everything

  is forbidden

  in this shop.

  When I walk home through gaslit streets

  after work

  after two classes at the free school

  Papa’s anger is steaming

  bubbling

  like a kettle

  left to boil over on the stove.

  He says,

  You were supposed to be home

  by seven o’clock.

  I say,

  I had English classes

  after work.

  I forbid you

  to attend classes at night,

  he says.

  English is not Russian, Papa.

  This is not the language of persecution

  it is the language of our freedom.

  He shakes his head.

  You will come home

  after work

  to help your mother

  with the cleaning.

  All my life

  I have been told

  a daughter can do no worse

  than talk back to her father

  but I am so tired

  from the terribly dull

  terribly long day.

  I smell

  like that sweaty

  stale room that trapped me inside

  all day

  and I cannot bear

  that word

  one more time.

  I worked ten hours

  for this family.

  I have earned an hour

  or two

  for myself.

  I know better

  but still

  I say,

  You help her.

  I brace myself

  set my jaw against

  the blow

  I know

  is coming

  but still

  my head whips back,

  the sound of his hand

  smacking my cheek

  seems to come from somewhere

  hollow

  inside my head.

  I know

  he thinks

  to break this thing in me

  that insists

  I think

  for myself

  but like a fledgling

  thrust from the nest

  it only makes me test the strength

  of my own wings.

  Sundays

  Mama walks under bare branches

  just beginning to sprout

  young buds

  to the pier

  to call Nathan’s name

  across the water.

  The ferry docks,

  drops its latest crop

  of immigrants

  on these shores.

  Mama begs a crewman

  to deliver a letter

  to Ellis Island.

  He takes the paper

  she presses into his hands

  whether or not he understands

  her pleas.

  Mama believes he does as she asks

  but I wonder

  if her letters are not simply tossed

  into the waves,

  lost

  in a sea of tears.

  truce

  There is still no news of Nathan

  so Papa and I have settled

  on an uneasy truce.

  The immigration documents

  are in English

  the quarant
ine officials

  speak English.

  Mama keeps the house

  Papa takes my brothers to shul

  to pray,

  I work

  I learn English.

  We all do our part

  to bring Nathan home.

  mornings

  I have become adept

  at getting dressed

  in the dark

  feeling for the bend in my stockings

  heel

  then knee.

  Buttoning,

  lacing, cinching.

  Twisting my frizzy hair up

  into a coil

  that will not unravel

  no matter how late I work.

  With my first few paychecks

  and the pennies

  from her piecework

  Mama paid the rent

  purchased food

  covered a single wall in the parlor

  with a creamy yellow paper

  —just the color of the sun rising

  through the window

  of her store in the shtetl—

  with scrolls and blossoming vines

  climbing toward the ceiling.

  A boiled egg

  a thick slice of unbuttered bread

  out the door

  stepping around the rats

  that scrabble in the hallways,

  down the stair.

  My feet find the sidewalk

  where the air is alive

  with the sharp smell

  of warm rain

  on dusty cobbles,

  where I cannot see

  more than an arm’s length in front of me

  but I can hear

  the brisk swishing of skirts

  as thousands of girls

  walk with me.

  In the shtetl,

  we woke with the cock’s crow

  with the sun rising,

  turning the tips of the meadow grasses

  into pure gold.

  If I am honest,

  I admit

  that on some lonely,

  sleep-hazed mornings

  when I cannot see a thing

  but the hulking shadows

  black on black

  of building

  after crumbling building,

  I long for that simple,

  quiet place.

  English class

  I wash the dishes,

  the teacher says.

  I wash the dishes,

  we repeat.

  A dozen eggs, please,

  the teacher says.

  A dozen eggs, please,

  we repeat.

  Do you want starch in the collar?

  the teacher says.

  Do you want starch in the collar?

  we repeat.

  The classroom at the free school