by MJ Auch
“I did, but the fire had started and a man yelled to me that I should go on up to the roof.”
“The roof! How did ye get down from there?”
“Some students from the university put a ladder across from their building. They helped us all get across. Before they got there, one girl jumped.” She started cryin’ again. “I couldn’t do it, Rose. I couldn’t jump.”
I held her close, her cheek pressed against mine so I could feel her hot tears. “I know, Maureen. I couldn’t jump, either. Thank heaven we didn’t.” Who would have thought that university students cared enough to save my sister? Things were not always as they seemed in America.
Mr. Garoff stood up. “I think Gussela is not all right. In my heart I know that…” His face crumpled and he let out a choked sob. “They say there is a place where we can look. A place where they take the … girls.”
I put my hand on his arm. “Maybe if we go back to the apartment, Mr. Garoff, Gussie will be waiting for us.”
The look in his eyes broke my heart. “She waits, but not at home. A father knows these things. I go now to find my Gussela.”
31
“Where are we goin’?” Maureen whispered. We were followin’ a few steps behind Mr. Garoff, movin’ along with the huge crowd that was headed for the pier on East Twenty-sixth Street.
“We’re goin’ to the morgue. That’s where they’ve taken the bodies.”
“Is Gussie dead?”
“I don’t know. She went back into the fire to help someone instead of savin’ herself. But she’s so strong, I think she could have gotten out alive.”
Maureen stopped and pulled on my arm. “Do we have to go and look at the dead bodies?”
“I can’t leave Mr. Garoff alone, Maureen. Go back to the apartment and wait for us, if ye want.”
“I’m afraid to be by myself,” Maureen said. “I’ll come.”
“All right. Ye don’t have to go inside with us.”
I took her hand, and we ran to catch up with Mr. Garoff. He didn’t look up as we stepped up beside him. I had never seen so many people in the streets before. The crowd was like a restless animal, movin’ just because it couldn’t stay still.
As we walked up First Avenue, I realized we must be fairly close to Uncle Patrick’s. Part of me wanted to break away from the crowd and go to his apartment, where we could be helped and comforted. But Mr. Garoff needed help and comfort right now, especially if we found Gussie in the morgue. I decided to stay with him.
The police had set up a barricade at First Avenue and Twenty-sixth Street, and the crowd was growin’ behind it. Every now and then a wagon would come through with more bodies. In spite of the police wieldin’ clubs and shoutin’ at them, people barely parted enough to let them pass, closin’ in right after they went by. Mothers screamed and tore at the blankets coverin’ the bodies. Each time, the wailin’ and cryin’ would hit a high pitch, then die out just in time to be set off by the next wagon. It was more terrible than the worst nightmare I had ever had. As we walked along, I kept reachin’ out to touch Maureen to remind myself that we were both alive.
Finally, the police announced they would be lettin’ people into the morgue at midnight. They formed the crowd into two lines, four or five abreast. Then a policeman came down between the lines callin’ out, “Kaplan? Is anyone looking for a girl whose pay envelope says Kaplan?”
A woman down the line from us screamed and was led into the morgue supported by her family.
“Anyone looking for a girl whose ring bears the initials G. G.?” asked another policeman.
I caught my breath. Those were Gussie’s initials. Gussela Garoff. I was almost afraid to ask. “Did Gussie have a ring like that, Mr. Garoff?”
He kept his head bowed. “No, no rings. No jewelry.”
Finally, the line started to move, but it was still a long time before we reached the door. They were lettin’ people enter the building in groups of twenty. Several policemen went in with each group. As long as we had waited, our turn came before I had steeled myself for the ordeal we had ahead of us. I took a deep breath. “Wait here, Maureen. I’ll come find ye as soon as we’re finished.”
She hesitated, but then grabbed my hand. “No, I’ll come with ye.”
“Are ye sure?”
She nodded.
“All right, then. Stay close.” I gripped her hand tight, mostly because I was terrified.
We went into a large, dark room with sputterin’ arc lights overhead that seemed to throw more shadows than illumination. The bodies were arranged in two long rows, in pine coffins, with their heads propped up awkwardly on boards so you could see their faces. I thought about how uncomfortable that looked, then realized it didn’t matter. I squeezed Maureen’s hand to keep my mind from seein’ her laid out like this.
It wasn’t long before I recognized the faces of two girls who sat in the next row over from me at work. I knew the pretty one had just gotten engaged last week. She had come down our row showin’ off her ring, and I had admired it. And now there it was, glitterin’ on her finger as she lay in her coffin.
As we moved down the row, the girls in the pine boxes began to seem more like life-sized dolls than real people to me. Maybe tellin’ myself that was the only way I could bear lookin’ at them. Mr. Garoff had gone on ahead of us.
Then my heart almost stopped at the sight of two more familiar faces. I let out a cry, and a policeman came to my side. “You found the girl you were looking for?” His lantern showed their faces in full light.
Maureen buried her face in my coat. “Klein and Bellini! Oh, Rose, I can’t look.”
Bellini’s head was turned slightly to the side, and her face wore an expression of sheer terror. Poor Bellini. She had been so afraid of jumpin’. Why hadn’t I grabbed for her?
“Miss? Do you know this girl? Are you related?” The policeman moved the lantern to Klein’s face. Her eyes were starin’ right at me, and her mouth was open as if she was about to say somethin’. Her body and clothes weren’t burned, but her hand was raised toward her face and twisted at a strange angle.
“Miss? If you know her name … We need to get their names to notify the families.”
I choked down a sob. “Her name is Rose Klein. And the girl next to her is Rose Bellini.”
He wrote the names in his notebook. “Both named Rose,” he said, shakin’ his head. “Can you give me their addresses?”
I burst into tears. “They were my best friends, but I don’t know where they lived.”
My knees started to buckle, and I almost pulled Maureen down with me, but the policeman caught us both. “Did you come here with someone, miss?”
“The girls are with me.” I looked up to see Mr. Garoff comin’ back for us. He took Maureen’s hand and put his arm around my waist to hold me up. “Do you need to go outside?”
“No,” I gasped. “This is just so awful.”
“It is terrible to lose friends,” he said, his voice hoarse, “especially ones so young.” He held me quietly for a few minutes, until I felt steady enough to keep goin’.
It didn’t take long to figure out that the bodies in the best condition had been placed closest to the door. As we moved farther back into the building, they were more badly burned and harder to recognize. Maureen wouldn’t look at the faces. She clung to me and kept her head down, seein’ only the feet of the girls we passed. Mr. Garoff stopped to look in each coffin, shakin’ his head and mutterin’ what sounded like prayers.
We had made our way almost to the end of the building. “I don’t think she’s here,” I whispered to Mr. Garoff. “Maybe we should check the hospitals.”
“You go, if you want. I keep looking.” His voice was barely a whisper now.
I wanted to get out of there. I couldn’t breathe. There were screams and moans all over the building as people found their loved ones.
Then Maureen cried out in horror. “Oh, no! Here she is! This is Gussie.”
She was lookin�
� at the feet of a girl who was so badly burned, her face looked like lumps of coal. I had to turn away. “There’s no way to tell who that is.”
I tried to push Maureen ahead, but she stood her ground, sobbin’. “I know it’s Gussie. Look at her shoe. It has that steel plate on the heel.”
“Gottenyu!” Mr. Garoff dropped to his knees and gripped the foot of the coffin. “My Gussela! My shaineh Gussela!” he wailed.
Two men came runnin’ over to us when they heard his cries. They called Mr. Garoff by name and crouched down next to him, speakin’ in Yiddish.
It wasn’t until that moment that I realized how much I had been countin’ on Gussie to comfort me—to make everything all right again. She would know what to say. She could tell us what we were supposed to do. Maureen and I clung to each other. Nothin’ made sense. Gussie couldn’t be dead. She was the strong one.
Now that Mr. Garoff didn’t need our help anymore, I felt a panic take over me. I grabbed Maureen’s hand and ran headlong out of the building, all the way to the end of the pier.
“Rose, what are ye doin’?” Maureen cried, tryin’ to hold me back.
I dropped to my knees and vomited into the water. When I finished, Maureen and I held each other and cried.
“What are we goin’ to do, Rose?”
“I’m not sure.” I didn’t even know what I’d be doin’ tomorrow, much less weeks and months from now. Still, I didn’t want to frighten Maureen. She was only a child, and it was my fault that we were in this mess.
Maureen wiped her eyes. “Well, I’ve been doin’ a lot of thinkin’. Ye know Ma and Da are never comin’ back here, don’t ye?”
The matter-of-fact way she said it made me realize she was right. I probably had known it since Ma left us on the pier. So much for protectin’ Maureen from the hard truth. “I know,” I said. “Ma hates it here. She’ll talk Da into stayin’ in Limerick.”
“So what do ye think we should do,” Maureen asked, “stay here or go back? I’ve been thinkin’ about that, too, and Uncle Patrick could help us out either way.”
When had Maureen changed from a little ninny into this girl who made me feel like the younger sister? “Everything happened too fast,” I said. “I need time to figure it out. Let’s go back to our room.”
As we walked through the streets, still crowded as if it were the middle of the day, I was lost in thought. We had gone to work this mornin’ without a care in the world. How could everything have changed in just a few hours?
“D’ye know what I think?” Maureen asked, when we were almost home.
“What?”
“We should stay here in America. I think we’ll be all right from now on. Because, as long as we live, we’ll never have another day as terrible as the twenty-fifth of March 1911.”
32
By the time we got back to the apartment, a faint light was showin’ in the sky over the East River. And as we walked down the hall, we heard voices comin’ from behind the door.
“Do ye think we should go in?” Maureen asked.
“Of course. We live here, don’t we?” But I felt uneasy as I turned the knob. We weren’t family, just people who paid to use some space. I thought maybe we shouldn’t intrude, but I was exhausted and cold and wanted the comfort of Ma’s feather bed.
Mr. Garoff was sittin’ at the table with his face in his hands. The two men from the morgue plus an older woman were with him.
The woman got up as we came into the room. “Oh, you poor dears. What a horrible thing you’ve gone through.” She steered me into her seat, then turned and took Maureen’s face in her hands. “Oh, and this one. So young. Where is your mama?”
“I am,” I said. “I mean, I’m takin’ care of her. We’re sisters.”
The woman poked one of the men, who got up and gave Maureen his chair. “Just a child herself,” she clucked. “How could we let our young girls work for such monsters?” She went to the stove and poured tea for us. “Here, a glezel tai to warm yourselves. Are you hungry?” Without waitin’ for an answer, she cut thick slices of black bread and set them next to the tea.
Mr. Garoff looked up and took my hand in his. He tried to say somethin’, but just shook his head, tears runnin’ down his cheeks. I put my other hand over his. “I’m so sorry about Gussie, Mr. Garoff.” He closed his eyes and nodded, but I felt him squeeze my hand. My heart broke for him.
The woman, whose name we learned was Leah, watched over us as we tried to choke down some food. The men continued their discussion in Yiddish. “They’re planning for the leveiyeh,” she whispered, “the funeral.”
When we finished, Maureen went to Mr. Garoff. He looked up at her for a second, then hugged her. “You’re a good girl,” he whispered, pattin’ her back. “A good little girl.”
Leah went into our room with us and fluffed up the feather bed. “Get some sleep, now.”
“I’m afraid to go to sleep,” Maureen said.
I realized I was afraid of sleep, too. When I closed my eyes, would I see the fire? I felt as if all those horrible images were right there waitin’ for me, lurkin’ behind my eyelids. Would I ever be able to forget the things I’d seen?
Leah sat beside Maureen on the bed and put her arm around her. “It’s all right, maideleh. Nothing can happen to you now.” She started singin’ a song in Yiddish, then reached out her other arm to include me. And though I thought I’d never be able to sleep again, the last thing I remembered was Leah quietly slippin’ out of bed and tuckin’ the covers over Maureen and me.
* * *
When I awoke the next mornin’, the first thought that went through my mind was the fire. As I tried to get out of bed, I felt the bruises on my knees from landin’ on the elevator and burns on my hands from beatin’ at the fire in my hair. There were more burns on the backs of my legs. They must have been unprotected when I ran through the fire with the back of my wet skirt pulled up over my head. Maureen seemed to be sleepin’ soundly, so I didn’t disturb her.
When I went out into the kitchen, I was surprised to find Leah sittin’ at the table. “Good morning, Rose. How are you feeling?”
“All right,” I said. I certainly wasn’t goin’ to mention my small ailments. After all, I was alive.
She set out tea with bread and cheese for me. “The others have gone with Mr. Garoff to make the funeral arrangements.”
Leah carried on a one-sided conversation while I ate. I learned that she and her grown daughter ran a deli in our neighborhood. They belonged to the same synagogue as Mr. Garoff, and so did the two men from the morgue.
Maureen wandered in sleepy-eyed and sat next to me, leanin’ against my shoulder. I pushed her hair out of her eyes and kissed her on the forehead. “Are you all right this mornin’?”
She nodded and reached for the glass of tea Leah had put in front of her.
“You sure?” I asked. “No burns?”
“I told you,” Maureen said. “I never saw the fire. I went right up to the roof.”
Leah looked at me. “Rose? Did you get burned?”
“It was nothin’,” I said.
“Let me see.” She took my hands in hers and turned them palm-up. “Why didn’t you tell me last night? You have some blisters here. Anywhere else?”
“A little on my legs. It’s all right.”
Leah emptied the contents of her purse on the table. “I have something for burns.” From the number of things that tumbled out of her purse, I thought she must have somethin’ for everything. She caught a little jar that almost rolled off the table edge and plucked a small roll of bandages from the pile.
“Are you a nurse?” Maureen asked.
“No. I just like to be prepared.” The salve took away the sting as she spread it on my burns. Then she neatly wound the bandages.
“You could be a nurse if you wanted to,” Maureen said, impressed.
I finished the last of my bread and cheese. “What will become of Mr. Garoff?” I asked.
“He’s going ba
ck to Russia,” Leah said. “There’s nothing here for him now.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to bring his family over here?” Maureen asked.
Leah shook her head. “This is the way he wanted it. He said America’s streets weren’t paved in gold after all. He wants to be back with his family in the village where he was born. A worker from the Women’s Trade Union League was here this morning. They’re going to pay for Gussie’s funeral and for his passage back home.”
I thought it was sad that Mr. Garoff was leavin’ America. Even with all we had gone through, I wouldn’t want to go back to Ireland for good. But I did long to see Ma and Da.
When Leah was sure that Maureen and I were all right, she went home.
“Will Mr. Garoff and those men be bringin’ Gussie back here?” Maureen asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I don’t want to be here if they do.”
“Neither do I. Let’s go for a walk.” I didn’t mean to be disrespectful, but I couldn’t look at Gussie again. I wanted to remember her face the way it used to be.
When I combed my hair, I could feel that it was all short pieces on the top, where it had been burned. The mirror had been covered with a black cloth, so I couldn’t see what I was doin’. I knew the cloth must have somethin’ to do with Gussie’s death, so I didn’t touch it.
“Sit down,” Maureen said. “I’ll help you.” She pulled up the long hair and twisted it in a bun on top to cover the burned place. She stepped back to examine her handiwork. “You look older.”
“I feel ancient,” I said.
As we walked through the neighborhood, three funeral processions passed us. There were crowds of weepin’ family and friends followin’ each one. On every block, there was at least one door with flowers tacked to it. I stopped when we reached the street where Klein had lived—Spring Street. Why couldn’t I remember that when the policeman asked me for her address? I didn’t know which building she lived in, though. From the corner, I could see three with flowers on their doors.
Maureen looked up. “What’s the matter, Rose?”
“This is the street Klein lived on.”