by Pamela Pope
And then came the ultimate shock.
‘Momma, Poppa, this is Ellie,’ Max said, drawing her forward. ‘We were married this evening.’
‘I’m so happy to meet you,’ the girl said, smiling and extending her gloved hand. No one responded and her smile faded like the sun going in.
Hedda trembled and looked to her husband for support, knowing that his feelings must be akin to her own. Jacob stood at the head of the table laden with kosher food which would have pleased a Jewish girl, and the candlelight shone on the front of his balding head on which, as always, he wore his yarmulke. His expression was solemn.
‘Forgive us, we are totally unprepared for this moment,’ he said. The Bermans’ house in a Jewish area of Chicago was open to anyone in need, the bell above the door of Jacob’s tailoring shop ringing as often to admit friends as customers. Never before had they been so slow to offer hospitality. ‘Do we know your family?’
‘My father is Conrad Harvey,’ Ellie answered.
Jacob’s beard flicked as his mouth went into a spasm which he immediately controlled. He said: ‘Not only an important railroad man but also a respected member of the Catholic Church, I believe?’
‘That’s right.’
Hedda felt faint. She’d known from the moment the girl came in the room that something else dreadful was happening, but this was worse than she could have possibly imagined.
Max was anxious for approval which he had no right to expect.
‘Have you no words of welcome, Poppa? I told you I was planning to get married. It just came about a little sooner than I had intended.’
‘You have always been impulsive, my son. This time you have acted without any consideration for your family.’
‘I’m sorry if this upsets you, but please have respect for Ellie’s feelings.’
‘I love him, Mrs Berman,’ Ellie declared. No doubt it was the truth. Her eyes glowed with it, her gaze rarely straying from Max’s face. ‘I’ll make him a good wife.’
Life was continually cruel to the Bermans. Sometimes they had thought they wouldn’t survive, but having escaped from Russia with little more than their lives they had found enormous strength to cope with misfortune. Now they faced yet another evil blow, so soon after the death of their beloved daughter Katrina. Hedda braced herself, determined not to let anyone see the depth of her misery, but the inward pain was dagger-sharp.
Yesterday Max had said he would be bringing home someone special and she had thought it would be to ask for their blessing and their permission to become betrothed. She remembered when Laban had introduced them to Elizabeth and how happy they had all been, so she had looked forward to welcoming another good Jewish girl into their midst — perhaps one she could love and eventually accept as God’s chosen substitute for Katrina. Not for a moment had she suspected that Max would disappoint them like this.
For seven days following the death of Katrina they had been in deep mourning. They hadn’t left the house after the funeral, but had sat on low stools receiving help and consolation from neighbours who brought them food. Now they had taken up the threads of life again with hearts heavier than at any time since the barbaric loss of their unborn child which had prevented Hedda from ever again conceiving, but it was far from easy. Sometimes she wondered how to find patience and strength, for it had fallen on her and Jacob to look after the infant Galina while the gentile Katrina had married was wallowing in self-pity in Philadelphia, too weak to accept his domestic responsibilities.
Ellie saw the cradle and went over to it, looking in with joy. The baby still had slight breathing problems from the smoke and gas fumes which had filled her tiny lungs, but she was strong and progressing well.
‘She’s growing,’ she exclaimed. ‘And she’s so beautiful.’
‘Ellie saved Galina’s life after the fire,’ said Max. ‘Momma, for that reason alone can’t you make her welcome?’
Hedda’s eyes filled with tears. ‘For that reason she has our eternal gratitude, but I cannot let another gentile bring destruction to our family. I do not wish to embrace her. I do not want to see her again. You must take her away, my Max.’
He was her wayward son, but her favourite. She had jealously guarded his love for herself and had dreaded the time when he would take a wife, but she had been prepared to sacrifice him to someone wisely chosen. She remembered standing with Jacob under a splendid chuppah to make their vows, and how important she had felt in her bridal white, drinking wine from the goblet of joy. Jacob had put the gold ring on her finger, saying, ‘Behold thou art consecrated unto me by this ring according to the Law of Moses and Israel.’ Now she would never hear Max saying the same words to his bride.
‘Tell me,’ said Jacob to Ellie. ‘Will your father approve of this marriage?’
She flushed. ‘He’s going to be very angry.’
‘While we are heartbroken. You have lured our son away from his faith.’
At that Max flared up. ‘Katrina married out of the Jewish faith, and you accepted it. What right have you to judge me differently?’
‘Think what has happened!’ cried Hedda, in sudden hysteria. Her voice rose in a crescendo, ending in a sob. She raised her arms as she swayed back and forth in torment. ‘Katrina has lost her life!’
‘Her death had nothing to do with Oliver.’
‘God has punished her, and us, for allowing a gentile into the family. They were not married according to the Law of Moses and Israel. Now it has happened again.’
‘Momma, be calm,’ pleaded Jacob, as his wife continued to wail. He faced his son. ‘She is right, of course. We can never give our blessing to another mixed marriage.’
The girl looked close to tears and Max went to her. The candles fluttered. ‘Ellie, I’m sorry.’
‘Leave us,’ Jacob commanded. ‘There’s no home for you here.’
Max took his wife out into the night, and Hedda was too distraught to care that they had nowhere to go. She rocked Katrina’s baby in her arms and continued to weep.
Seven
No one in Chicago could remember such a terrible winter as the one of 1893-4. Following on from a bad autumn, it was the coldest ever known, and the depth of the Depression added to the appalling misery, bringing starvation and death. On the same day in late October that the World’s Columbian Exposition closed, Mayor Carter Harrison was assassinated outside his Ashland Avenue home. Widespread unrest followed. The number of homeless multiplied and hundreds of people marched south to Washington with the Commonwealth of Christ Army, hoping to find help. Those who stayed suffered increasingly from hunger, and the unbearable cold seemed as if it would go on forever.
For Ellie Berman the winter was worse than any horror she could have imagined.
The night of her marriage to Max was spent at the Florence Hotel, an extravagance which she accepted as normal, and in spite of the upsetting visit to his parents it became a romantic experience she would always remember. Max was an exciting lover and she responded to him in a way that would have been shameful had they not been man and wife. It didn’t occur to her until she saw Max counting out money next morning that he might have difficulty finding enough to pay the check.
The following morning they went to Prairie Avenue, Max having been given one day’s leave of absence from the shop. Ellie hoped that her Papa might have a change of heart once he realised that the deed was done and she was legally married, but she was told that Mr Harvey had gone early to his office and Mrs Harvey was not well. A trunk containing some of her clothes had been left on the doorstep and instructions given that on no account was she to be allowed to enter the house.
‘May I just see Prudence then?’ Ellie begged.
‘I’m sorry, Miss Elena,’ said the butler, his face expressionless. ‘I’m afraid no one is available to speak to you. Good day.’
‘I’m not Miss Elena,’ she shouted. ‘I’m Mrs Berman.’ The door was shut in her face.
Tears spr
ang to Ellie’s eyes, and Max rang the bell again with angry persistence but no one came to answer it.
‘I won’t have my wife treated like this. Have they no feelings?’
‘It doesn’t matter, Max,’ said Ellie shakily. ‘I have you now. That’s all that matters.’
After a few minutes he calmed down. ‘Very well, we’ll take the trunk and go.’
‘I don’t want the trunk. I don’t want anything from here.’
‘We’re accepting nothing else from your family. Have these before I change my mind.’
She agreed reluctantly. He hoisted the heavy trunk on his shoulder and they walked down the road to take a trolley into the city. It was Ellie’s first lesson in economy. Back in Pullman Max went to the agent’s office on the second floor of the Arcade to apply for a single-family house at a rent of eighteen dollars a month. The houses had five rooms, a basement kitchen, fireplaces and a water faucet on each floor. But the agent was apologetic.
‘Mr Berman, I regret I can’t offer you a house until you have paid for the repairs to your tenement in Fulton Street which is now habitable again.’
‘I can’t possibly find that much money,’ Max exclaimed, looking at the detailed document handed to him. ‘The damage was caused by a fault in the gas system. My sister died.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. The lease is in your name and if you read your contract you will see that you are responsible for all repairs.’
It was grossly unfair but there was no way out of it. As soon as they had left the office Ellie voiced her indignation loudly.
‘It isn’t right, Max. They can’t make you pay for that terrible accident. I shall speak to my godfather about it and he’ll see that we get one of the nicest houses in Pullman.’
Max rounded on her immediately. ‘You will do no such thing. I forbid you ever to speak to Mr Pullman about our affairs. There’ll be no favouritism, no charity. Is that understood?’
‘But, Max …’
‘Ellie, if I ever hear of you going to your godfather for a single cent I’ll never forgive you. You will live on what I can provide from now on.’
‘Then why did you make me bring my clothes?’
‘We didn’t ask for them. They were thrown out.’
They had been married only a few hours and already they were having a row. It was so awful Ellie decided she must fall in with whatever Max wanted, rather than risk escalation. A short time later they climbed the wooden stairs to their tenement home and she experienced another pang of anxiety. She didn’t want to live in the place where poor Katrina had died. And she was afraid of the gas stove, but as there was nowhere else for them to go she knew she would have to get used to it.
The rent was raised to pay for the repairs in instalments so there was no money to buy furniture to replace what had been destroyed in the fire, but Max used his talents to make a sofa out of boxwood and upholstered it so cleverly it could have come from a rich home. Soon there were two chairs to match, simple in design but comfortable and elegant. Neighbours who saw them exclaimed over the originality and Max took orders for more. After a few weeks his evenings were taken up with furniture-making at home and he had no free time at all.
Ellie found housekeeping hard and quite dreadful. Menial tasks which other women took for granted were horrid chores which made her back ache and spoilt her hands, and when Max came home he often had to finish cooking the evening meal. At first he made allowances for her inexperience.
‘It doesn’t matter. You’ll get used to it,’ he said, when she failed to get his shirts clean. ‘There are men wearing far worse than these.’
She cut herself trying to peel potatoes, scalded her hand draining vegetables, had to be told she was responsible for keeping a section of the staircase clean, and there were no potted geraniums as there had been in Katrina’s day.
‘I want things to be nice for you, Max, really I do,’ she wailed against his shoulder. ‘I try but everything goes wrong.’
‘You do your best,’ Max consoled her. ‘And you must rest. Getting too agitated won’t do the baby any good.’
The days were long, and though other wives in the blockhouses were friendly she found it hard to mix. They had hordes of children, and their main topic of conversation was how to exist on Pullman wages, which were getting smaller all the time. Ellie’s frilled, expensive gowns were so out of place she took the scissors to them in an effort to make them simpler, but she was no needlewoman and the result was disastrous; by November, when none of them would fit her expanding figure, Max had to buy her a frock from an Arcade shop. It made her look fat and shapeless, and it had cost him a week’s wages.
She hated her altering shape. She hated the tenement and the hard work. But most of all she hated the cold. At night Max would hold her close and warm her with his body, but during the day she shivered so much the tension made all her muscles ache.
Loneliness and homesickness prompted her to take a train into Chicago one day at the beginning of December. She walked towards Prairie Avenue dreaming of the warmth inside her old home, but as she approached it she came upon the dispossessed huddled together in doorways, their faces blue and pinched as they trembled uncontrollably in the bitter cold. She looked at them, and someone moved over to make room for her. Tears filled Ellie’s eyes and spilt onto her cheeks where the frost made them sting her skin. She looked no different from these poor homeless creatures, yet only yards away was the home she had given up to make a new life with Max. Self-pity threatened to engulf her, but she had the strength of will to push it aside. She loved Max just as much, if not more than ever. For his sake she would survive. Bracing her shoulders she started back to the station, passing a long queue for bread on the way, and was thankful that at least she had enough to eat.
On 9 December the steamfitters and blacksmiths went on strike for higher wages, but it was over in a few days.
‘Why didn’t they succeed?’ Ellie asked Max. It had become important to take an interest in what the working men of Pullmen did, now that it affected her.
‘They’re only a small group against the company,’ Max explained. ‘If every shop went on strike it might be different. The craft unions ought to form an alliance.’
‘Would you go on strike, Max?’
‘Yes, if I thought it would do any good. But Harvey Middleton’s made a list of men who’re still out and they’re barred from working for the company again. That doesn’t help anyone.’
Harvey Middleton was in charge of all the Pullman shops and his main objective was to cut costs, which made him unpopular, especially as he favoured the foremen.
‘But we need more money,’ protested Ellie. ‘I can’t manage on so little.’
‘You did very well last week.’
‘That was because Drew came and gave me some.’
Max was so angry she backed away in sudden fright. He caught her by the shoulders and shook her until she felt faint. ‘You will never take money from your family. You know I’ve forbidden it. Don’t ever do it again.’
‘Oh Max, stop, please stop.’ When he let her go she sank onto a chair, holding her stomach and swaying back and forth. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
He was contrite, sinking to his knees beside her. ‘I’m sorry, Ellie. Forgive me. I’m too proud, I know it. But I’m doing well making furniture after work and we’re not nearly so badly off as most people.’
‘I’m so cold,’ she cried. ‘So cold I could die.’
He sighed and took her in his arms, comforting her until the shivering stopped. Then he went out and didn’t come back until the early hours of the morning.
*
Above the noise of the machines in the upholsterer’s shop the scream of a worker with a needle through his hand was like the cry of an animal in pain. There was an immediate rush to help him but Warren, the foreman, cracked down on it.
‘Get back to work,’ he yelled, his voice like a whiplash. ‘It doesn’t n
eed an army to see to one man with a cut hand. Meddons, you’re out. Berman — take over his work.’
‘You can’t do that, Mr Warren,’ Meddons gasped, holding a cloth to his hand where blood spurted from the piercing between the bones. ‘I’ll be fine shortly, soon as the bleeding stops.’
‘Carelessness can’t be tolerated. I’ve got to stand off three more men by the week’s end. You’re the first.’
‘But Mr Warren, how’ll I pay my rent?’
Max wanted the work, but not at the expense of Charlie Meddons. It was an awkward situation. He looked around at the others and saw support for Meddons on every face. ‘How much extra will you pay me?’ Max asked.
‘You heard me say three men must go. That means there’s no extra money for anyone.’
‘Then I’ll do my own work and nothing more,’ Max said, risking his neck.
A cheer went up. Warren was lower management and liked the feel of power, but the men were becoming increasingly hostile. Many were left with only a dollar on which to feed a family for two weeks after the rent was paid, and many more were so badly in debt they’d had to give up their homes, yet it was said that Warren and those like him had suffered no wage cuts, George Pullman being afraid of losing his better men.
‘You could be the second laid off,’ Warren threatened, though he knew he had to tread carefully with Max Berman.
Work had stopped in the shop. ‘We’re on piece rates,’ someone said. ‘We want fair payment.’
‘Let Charlie Meddons report sick or I’ll take the matter to the ARU,’ said Max. ‘