By the Rivers of Brooklyn

by Trudy Morgan-Cole

  “I want to play with you, Daddy,” Ralphie said. “Come on, Daddy, play with me.”

  Ethel was always amazed how well Jim took this pestering. He said, “Wait a minute, Ralphie, and I’ll come out and we’ll set up your toy soldiers, all right?”

  Ralphie kept dancing around him pleading, “Now, Daddy? Are you coming now? Come on, Daddy!” Ethel herself couldn’t ask Jim two questions in a row when he came home from work without him flying off the handle at her, but he put up with all Ralphie’s foolishness.

  It was funny how different she and Jim were about having company. Ethel was the one who invited their friends over, who planned and did all the cleaning and getting the sandwiches ready and looked forward all week to this one evening when they’d be able to sit back and relax and have a few games of cards and a little grown-up conversation. Jim mumbled and grumbled and complained. Yet once the crowd was there Jim was the life of the party, telling all the stories, making the other fellows laugh, even flirting in a harmless way with Jean and Frances and Eileen. Ethel usually found herself sitting quietly on the edge, watching and listening, slipping off to the kitchen to put the kettle on, sometimes having a little bit of a headache from all the loud voices and the smoke from Dick’s and Jim’s cigarettes: Friday night was the one night in the week Jim would have a few smokes. It was as if Ethel liked the idea of company better while Jim liked the actual company.

  Part of it was that they always played cards and Ethel was never very good at it. Of course she had been brought up to think card-playing was a sin, so she’d never learned anything but Rook, and even though Jim had explained over and over that hundred-and-twenties was the same game with different cards, that didn’t help much. She’d never been any good at Rook either. “I just don’t have a head for cards,” she’d say, and no-one ever wanted her for a partner because she forgot what trumps meant or what card it was.

  Usually Harold took her as his partner just to be kind. She would sit a little dazed as the cards were laid down, trying to follow the game but never really catching on. She felt a little guilty at the sight of the hearts and clubs and diamonds and spades, knowing that they were of the devil and also wondering why nobody else had trouble telling the clubs and the spades apart and why they couldn’t just be different colours like the Rook cards. She was glad when the card part was over and they just sat back and talked.

  A good bit of the talk was news from home. All four of them were related in one way or another – Eileen Mouland was a cousin of Jean’s on her mother’s side – so they knew a lot of the same people and shared the bits and pieces of news in letters from home. And they swapped news about friends and family here in Brooklyn. None of them had any friends who weren’t Newfoundlanders; they lived in a web of crisscrossing lines of relations and old friends.

  Harold asked about Rose. “Has she been around here lately? We haven’t seen hide nor hair of her since the summer,” he said.

  “No, sure, we hardly ever sees Rose unless she takes it into her head to come visit; it’s not like you’d run into her anywhere,” Jim said, for Rose, unlike the rest of them, had no friends from back home and seemed to live in an entirely different world. “She was over here…what was it, Ethel? A few weeks ago?”

  “She came over one Sunday at the end of August,” Ethel said, “but she only stayed half an hour, and we never got no news out of her. I don’t think she’s with that Italian anymore though.” She went into the kitchen to see if the tea was steeped.

  Frances followed her in to help. Frances was quiet tonight, like she had something on her mind. Maybe it was only worrying about work and money, which all the men were talking about again now. Or maybe – could she be having a baby? She and Harold had been married over a year. It was about time, but it would be better if they waited till things picked up a little. As Frances took down the teacups and laid them in the saucers Ethel wondered if she should ask what was wrong, or let it go till Frances was ready to talk.

  But it was Frances who said, “You’re quiet tonight, Ethel, anything on your mind?”

  “No, girl, just wore out, you know, after all week. Or, if you don’t know, you will when you’ve got a couple of youngsters.” That would give her a chance to talk, if it was babies she had on her mind.

  But Frances only said, “Yes, I s’pose they must be a handful.” As Ethel lifted the teapot off the stove she could see Frances darting little glances at her, like she was trying to work herself up to say something. It couldn’t be a baby, after all. That wouldn’t be so hard to tell to your sister-in-law and closest friend.

  “I don’t s’pose Jim is much help, working queer hours and all,” Frances said, filling the pink lustre jug with Carnation milk.

  “No, he’s late getting home these nights. Well, I s’pose you know what it’s like yourself, since him and Harold got this job. They’re working the men all hours, weekends and holidays and all. Some nights he don’t even be home to his supper. Sure, you know one night last week it was eight o’clock before they were home. But it’s better than him having no work at all.” Ethel lowered her voice. “Like poor Dick and Eileen. I don’t know what they’re going to do if Dick don’t find something soon.”

  “We’re some lucky Jim and Harold got jobs,” Frances said. “I worries all the time what will happen when this job is over, don’t you? Especially when we got so much of our stuff bought on time: half our furniture, our vacuum cleaner, the icebox. We’ll lose it all if we can’t make the payments.”

  Ethel nodded but said nothing, busied herself filling the sugar bowl. She didn’t believe in buying on time. Jim would have done it, but Ethel put her foot down. They had saved for their icebox and they did without a vacuum, but everything in the apartment was theirs and she had no worries about losing it. She thought Frances was foolish for buying on credit, but it was no good telling anyone that; they all wanted everything right now and all the best.

  Frances set out the teacups on the tray and Ethel carried it out to the living room. It wasn’t till later, when they were all gone, that she remembered that Frances had had something on her mind, and she didn’t think it was anything to do with the icebox being bought on time.

  She had another chance to find out, though. On Sunday Jim left early; it was his turn to work the Sunday shift. Ethel took the children to church and then Frances came round after lunch to ask if Ethel wanted to take them to the park. “Harold’s home trying to fix our radio,” Frances said. “He likes fooling around with that electrical stuff and there’s no money for a new one, so good luck to him. I tells him I misses hearing my stories, so I hope he can get it working again.”

  “Oh, he’s not working with Jim today?” said Ethel, heading out the front door with Jimmy in the carriage and Ralphie running ahead of them. Frances hesitated and gave her a funny look, and Ethel wished she hadn’t spoken. Jim might be getting more hours than Harold, which meant more money for her and Jim, less for Harold and Frances. Better not to mention it. “Ralphie! Slow down!” she yelled. “Come back here and hold my hand!”

  They walked up Flatbush Avenue to the park and began strolling down the wide tree-lined paths, towards the zoo where Ralphie was dying to go. Above the noise of the children and the park the two women kept up a steady stream of talk, but after awhile Frances fell silent again.

  “Is everything all right with…with you and Jim, Ethel?” Frances said suddenly.

  “All right? What do you…well, you know, we’re struggling to make ends meet just like yourselves, like everybody I s’pose, but we’re no worse off than anyone else. We’re getting by, I guess. Why?”

  Frances frowned and looked away, like she was sorry she’d opened her mouth but determined to go on. “No, I don’t mean money, I mean…between yourselves, you know, is everything all right?”

  Ethel wondered what Frances was working up to. Maybe she and Harold were fighting, was that it? They weren’t newlyweds anymore, for all they were so cuddly and sweet with each other. “I s’
pose so, girl. We gets on all right,” she said.

  “Mommy! Mommy! Can I go on the carousel?” Ralphie was tearing ahead again.

  “I don’t have no money for no carousel!” Ethel called back.

  “You don’t need no money, it’s free!”

  “Go on then!” She turned back to Frances, who was pushing Jimmy in the carriage, looking down at the ground. “Frances, what is it, is something on your mind?”

  Frances blew a little sigh out between her lips like a small gust of wind. “I don’t know, Ethel, I been struggling with myself over whether to say anything, even praying about it if you wants to know the truth. Harold told me not to say a word but…he told me something last week. Something…something about Jim.”

  “About Jim?” Ethel echoed. This was a turnabout; she didn’t know what Frances was talking about at all.

  “Ethel…look, I think you got a right to know. Harold says…Harold says Jim’s been…well, Jim’s not working late every night he says he is. Like last week, Harold wasn’t home eight o’clock no night last week. And he says Jim doesn’t have a shift today. He made that up, Harold says.”

  “What?” Ethel’s mind raced, trying to put this together in a way that made sense. It never occurred to her that Harold would not be telling the truth: if Harold said it, it was true. “What is he up to then? Why would he tell me he’s working when he’s not? He’s not…he isn’t going out drinking with that Dick Mouland is he? When we hardly got two coppers to rub together?”

  Frances shook her head; she looked like she was going to cry. Two horseback riders trotted past, little rich girls in matching riding costumes, erect as princesses. Ethel watched them and their glossy brown horses while Frances fumbled for words. “No Ethel, it’s not that, it’s…oh, Harold says Jim got a girl. Another woman.”

  “A woman?” Once, a week or so ago, Ralphie had been running towards her, full tilt. He got her right in the centre of her stomach with his hard little head, right in the gut. She felt like that now, punched in the gut, and then thought, Ralphie. She hadn’t seen him since he asked to go on the carousel. She scanned the heads of children atop the bobbing horses. “Where’s Ralphie? I can’t see him, Frances! Is he–”

  “He’s there, he’s right there on the carousel.” Frances pointed, and laid a hand on Ethel’s arm. Ethel saw Ralphie waving, then looked down to see that Jimmy had fallen asleep in the carriage. Ethel opened her mouth to speak and found to her horror that her throat was tight with tears that would spill over if she said a word.

  Frances rushed on. “Harold says…he says he’s going to have words with Jim. Try to straighten him out. I didn’t know…I wanted to talk to you. Maybe you want to talk to Jim yourself.”

  “No. No.” The tears were here already and Ethel wiped them fiercely on the back of her glove. Ralphie was climbing off the carousel horse and running towards them. She tried to make her voice, her face, normal again as he approached. “Tell Harold he can do what he wants, say what he wants to Jim. I’m not saying nothing to Jim about it. I wouldn’t know what to say.”

  Jim wasn’t home for his supper. Ethel put it on a plate and laid it in the oven for him. She put the boys down to bed herself. She stood for a long time by Jimmy’s crib, watching him sleep, his face so like Jim’s, but round and babyish and innocent. Then she went out to sit on the daybed next to Ralphie, tracing the soft curve of his flushed cheek with a fingertip, wishing he would open his eyes so she could see their startling blue. Bert’s eyes, she thought again, though Jim’s were the same colour. Bert’s eyes were so clear and honest; Jim’s were always winking and laughing. This is what comes from marrying the wrong man, she thought clearly.

  Two weeks later – two weeks of sleepless nights, Jim working late, she and Jim mostly silent or snapping at each other, two weeks when the apartment was filled with things that were not said – they were all at Harold and Frances’ apartment one Friday night playing cards. Ethel was in the kitchen helping Frances with the tea, wondering how the boys were doing at home with Jean’s young niece Carol Ann watching them. When Frances went out, Ethel stayed in the kitchen, tidying things away, and the noise from the living room was so loud she didn’t even notice that Harold had come in with an empty teacup which he laid down on the counter.

  “Ethel,” he said, very quietly.

  She looked up at him. Even the way he said her name made her happier than she had been in weeks. It reminded her of that good time before he and Frances were married, when he stayed with her and Jim and there was so much talk and laughter in the house. Harold was standing very close, just a foot or so away. His grey shirt was unbuttoned the top two buttons, and she looked at the hollow of his throat and smelled his nice clean smell of soap and air, like laundry just off the line. He put a hand, brotherly, on her shoulder.

  “Frances told me she talked to you about…you know,” he said.

  “About Jim,” Ethel whispered.

  “Yeah. About that. I just wanted to say…look, I talked to him the other day. We had it out. I think I made him see sense…I mean, that’s all over now. He swears it is and I’m sure that’s true. I mean, I don’t think he’d do anything so foolish again.”

  Ethel nodded, the knot in her throat too big for her to speak right away.

  “I’m sorry for butting in, but you know, he’s my brother and I don’t like to see him make a fool of himself. Jim don’t know how lucky he is.”

  Ethel nodded again. She wanted Harold to put his arms around her, to hold her and keep her safe. She wanted Jim and Frances both to melt away like they’d never existed so it would be just her and Harold here in the kitchen, their kitchen.

  “Thank you, Harold,” she said. “If you’re right and it’s all over…don’t worry, I won’t say a word to Jim about it. But it was a nice thing for you to do.” She turned away, back to the sink where she rinsed a plate under the tap. “We’ll just pretend it never happened.”

  Harold’s hand tightened on her shoulder a minute, he gave her an awkward pat, and then he was gone back to the party.

  ROSE

  BROOKLYN, MARCH 1931

  ROSE SITS ALONE IN her tiny room at Mrs. Borkowski’s boarding house. Mrs. Borkowski is famous for not being too picky over her boarders, or too nosy about their private lives. In some boarding houses where Rose has lived, there are rules about young girls coming in by a certain hour of night and not entertaining gentlemen callers in their rooms. Mrs. Borkowski, by contrast, has only one rule: rent is due on first and third Fridays. Beyond that, she cares little about what her boarders do or when they come and go.

  Rose has gentlemen callers, on occasion. She finds the narrow lumpy bed a better place to make love – if you can call it that – than back alleys and laneways. Something snapped in her the night Danny Ricks did it to her in the laneway after the movie. Or maybe it was the next day when he gave her the necklace and earrings. It was just like the books and Sunday School teachers said after all, just like The Story of a Rose. Once a girl’s virtue was tarnished there was nothing left but for her to sink further and further into sin.

  So far, Rose doesn’t mind being sunk in sin. She gets taken out for dinner and movies, sometimes all the way to Manhattan. Rose knows this is because some of the fellows have girlfriends in their own neighbourhoods and they don’t want those girlfriends to see them with Rose. She gets presents, too – more cheap jewellery, dresses, things like that. Fellows know what to expect at the end of the evening and Rose obliges.

  It took a few weeks before the talk got round to Tony and he asked her straight out if it was true. Actually what he said was, “This isn’t true, Rose. This fellow, I punched his face in for the things he said about you. I didn’t mind. I was happy to do this. Only tell me I didn’t make a fool of myself, you didn’t make a fool of me.”

  “I can’t tell you that, Tony. It’s true. I went with all those guys and probably a couple more you don’t know about.”

  “Rose, this isn’t true! Rose, why?
Why would you do this to me?” To her surprise he didn’t look angry, didn’t raise a hand to her. He looked, instead, as if she had slapped him. “Why would you do this to yourself?”

  “I…I don’t know, Tony. I just felt like it, that’s all.” She couldn’t explain the darkness she felt at the centre, the sure and certain belief that there was nothing to save herself for. She couldn’t explain why she had to throw away some silly idea of purity and virtue. And she certainly couldn’t explain that she preferred a man who saw sex as a straightforward exchange of goods and services. Tony would think she wanted him to start buying her stuff, and that wasn’t what she wanted at all.

  “You didn’t need to do this, Rose. You’re a good girl, a beautiful woman. I was gonna marry you, Rose. You know I wanted to marry you, right?”

  “But not now, right? You wouldn’t want to marry me now, would you, Tony?”

  He looked down, still clenching his fist, now grinding it into his palm. But shook his head. “No. Not now. I still love you – I’ll always love you – but I couldn’t marry you now. Not after you do these things.”

  Not long after that, she takes the room at Mrs. Borkowski’s. She gets a new job, too, at the soda fountain of a candy store. She meets a lot of fellows there, and some of them wait for her after work and come back to Mrs. Borkowski’s with her. Gentlemen callers, to use the term loosely.

  Rose stops making even the few infrequent visits she used to make to Harold and Jim. There’s no point in seeing her family, now. The folks back home thought she was an abandoned woman even before, when she was respectably going around with Tony. Why let them see what her life is like now? She has tried hard to cut all ties to her past, to avoid anyone with a Newfoundland name or a Newfoundland accent. She is cut loose, floating free.