Touched by Fire

by Irene N. Watts

“And you are as skinny as ever! Do you remember how we used to pester Papa to measure us, to see who was the tallest? You have hardly mentioned your father, Malka. How is he?”

  “Papa died of tuberculosis two years ago, Miriam. Mama thinks he must have caught it on the ship. The men’s quarters were very crowded and dirty, he told us.”

  “I am so sorry, Malka.” I wish, now, that I had not asked.

  We get back to work just before the bell goes. The afternoon seems endless. Floor girls run back and forth. Mr. Bernstein walks round the tables making sure the work is going smoothly, and I long to get up and stretch. My back is not used to being hunched over a sewing machine all day. There is no Mama or Bubbe to say, “Time for a glass of tea.”

  Malka says, “Turn your head for a second, Miriam. Mr. Blanck is checking the Washington Place door, again.” I glance behind me but don’t manage to get a good look at the boss.

  A supervisor appears. She says, “Keep your eyes on your work.”

  Finally, the quitting bell rings. I feel as if I’ve been sitting crouched over a table for a week! We hurry to put on our coats. There is already a lineup to get through the partition. I hate the idea of having my pocketbook searched.

  “You’ll get used to it, Miriam,” Beckie says. I suppose so. I manage to smile and say good night to Mr. Wexler. What a relief to get down to Greene Street. I’m glad of the walk, after a long day of sitting down. Malka lives on Rivington Street, so we can walk part of the way home with her. We arrange to meet again, next morning. I’m too excited, now, to feel tired and can’t wait to go home and tell Papa everything that has happened today.

  I decide to bring Malka my outgrown boots that Zayde made for me. They still look good as new. She is so tiny, they’ll fit her beautifully. Her boots look like mine did at the end of the voyage. And although I polished the salt stains away, I badly need some new ones. Mama used to give my outgrown clothes to Malka’s mother for her, when we were small.

  Rosie and I cook supper together, and it is almost ready when Papa comes home from work.

  “Well,” he says, “how did you make out? Have they hired both of you?”

  “Yes, Papa, and we are each to be paid nine dollars a week!” He congratulates us and says how proud he is of us. Then I tell him about Malka. He is pleased that the Pinskis are safe in America.

  “I grieve for Mrs. Pinski and the children. It is so sad to lose a father. Emanuel was a fine man,” Papa says. “How tragic to come such a long way and then to die!” He sighs.

  “So, are you going to tell me about the factory and what work you are doing?” Papa says.

  “I’m a cuff setter on the eighth floor, Papa. It is a big square space, with high ceilings and huge windows. You never told me that the sewing machine can make thousands of stitches a minute. At first, I was scared I’d do something wrong. By the afternoon, I got used to it. What I really don’t like is having my pocketbook searched, as though they suspect me of being a thief. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that. Or the time it takes to get out of the building at the end of the day. The door to leave the shop floor is too narrow to allow more than one of us to pass through. But take no notice of my complaints, Papa. I know we are lucky to work at the ‘Triangle.’ I do like it, and it is fun working with so many girls together.”

  “Miriam, searching employees is the practice everywhere. It prevents dishonest workers – and there are always some – from stealing from the company. Rosie, are you on the same floor as Miriam?”

  “No, Mr. Markov, I work on the ninth floor, hemming. The sewing tables and chairs are so close together on my floor, we almost have to take turns to get up and sit down. There are two hundred and forty machines. All the tables are in rows, from one end of the room to the other. I have some Italian girls at my table, and two of them are from Cherry Street, where my brother lives.”

  “You are lucky girls,” Papa says. “The Asch Building is a new skyscraper, built of steel and concrete. I have often walked by it. A fine factory, I think. Not everything can be perfect, but it sounds as if you will do very well.”

  On Saturday, we all receive our paychecks. Papa suggests that Rosie pays three dollars and fifty cents a week for her board.

  “Thank you so much, Mr. Markov,” Rosie says. “I will be able to send money home to my parents and brothers and still have some over for myself.” She starts to make her wonderful tomato sauce for supper.

  Papa says, “You may keep two dollars for yourself too, Miriam. That is fair. Some you use for housekeeping, some you save for tickets for the family to join us, and the rest is for you.”

  “Thank you, Papa.” I can’t believe it. I have never had money of my own before. I can save up for a new shirtwaist or replace my boots. I can take classes in typing; I can go to the movies. Anything is possible in America!

  18

  SATURDAY, MARCH 25

  A whole year has gone by. Arm in arm, Rosie and I set off for work, each of us lost in our own thoughts. My dream will soon come true. Mama has written that Devora is strong enough to travel. They hope to join us in June. After all this time in America without them, I have started to mark off the days until they arrive.

  Bubbe and Zayde have decided to stay behind. Mama wrote us that they feel too old to cross the ocean, to start over again in a new country. I can’t imagine our family without them. Papa comforts me. He thinks they might change their minds. He believes all the “nonsense” of Yuri’s rejection will be forgotten by the authorities in a year or two. I hope he is right.

  Rosie is wearing a beautiful spring hat today, trimmed with a small posy of artificial daisies and violets. I have on my new, cream-colored shirtwaist. For my fifteenth birthday, Papa gave me a lovely, lightweight length of fabric and helped me make it up in the latest style. The material is so delicate, I did not trust myself to cut it. I made it with full sleeves, edging the cuffs and collar and even the buttonholes with scallops of lace.

  Beckie has to stay home today. Two days ago, she pierced her finger on a needle. The wound became infected. Yesterday she came in to work, so as not to miss getting paid. Finally, her mother put her foot down and made her stay home. It is a shame because Saturday is the best day of the week. Not only is it payday, but it is a short workday. We, the Four Fates as Beckie calls us, always have a treat planned.

  Sometimes we stroll in Washington Square Park, or walk along Grand Street and look at the shops. Maybe we stop for an ice-cream soda, or buy a ribbon. Best of all is when we promenade the mile across the Brooklyn Bridge, which spans the East River. We can cross in thirty minutes, if we don’t stop too often. It’s a wonderful way to see New York – to watch people from different parts of the city, rich and poor, strolling along together.

  Malka waits for us at the corner of Rivington Street, as she does every morning. For some reason, today when I see her waiting, I breathe a sigh of relief. I think Mama’s letter must have reminded me of that morning in Kiev, when Malka and her family just vanished overnight. Malka is wearing Zayde’s boots again today. I can’t believe that they still fit her.

  We’ve arranged to go to Katz’s Delicatessen for a soda after work. Malka’s brother, Reuven, waits on tables there now. He has eyes only for Beckie and will be disappointed that she’s not there. I smile at Rosie, and she smiles back, but I can tell she’s miles away.

  A few weeks ago, her brother, Bruno, picked her up to come to his house for supper. He and Clara have a baby boy. It is hard to imagine Rosie as an aunt! She says that she and Clara have declared a truce, though they will never be friends. At least they are speaking! Bruno’s friend Marco was there for supper, too, and walked Rosie home. Since then, they have been out walking twice!

  Rosie sighs happily. “I can smell spring in the air. Isn’t it a perfect day?”

  She must be in love because not a whisper of a breeze gets between our tenement buildings. And you have to crane your neck to catch a glimpse of a clear sky. I know what she means though – I feel s
pring too.

  Malka says, “One day, I’m going to live in a house with big windows. I’ll sleep in a room where the sun wakes me up in the morning, and I can smell grass and trees. I’ll open the window wide and look up and see the sky, as blue as the ocean.

  “I have a great idea,” she continues. “Why don’t we go to Coney Island, one Sunday, and walk along the boardwalk and by the beach? There’s a trolley that goes all the way there.” A gust of wind makes us shiver in our spring finery. Rosie clutches her hat. “Maybe we’d better wait a couple of weeks, till mid-April, when it’s warmer,” Malka says.

  We hurry into work. Rosie is a floor runner now and says she enjoys it. She really does run from one floor to the other, bringing new pieces to the machinists and collecting their finished ones.

  I think she knows everyone’s name in the factory and is often the first one to hear any gossip. She swears us to secrecy before she’ll repeat a single word! We were both given a raise two weeks ago to mark the end of our first year at the Triangle Waist Company. A whole dollar a week each!

  There’s no time left for talking or daydreaming. As usual, we take our seats in front of our machines moments before the starting bell rings. Malka works at a different table now.

  The pace is frantic all day, typical of a Saturday at the height of the spring season. There are not enough hours left for us to fill yet another back order before Monday. New orders pour in as fast as the shirtwaists pile up at the button machine. Rosie says the machine broke down twice this morning! I doubt that we got our full lunch break today. I’m sure they fixed the clock to get us back to work earlier.

  Everyone, especially on a Saturday, tries to get away the second the quitting bell sounds. Sometimes, Rosie manages a quick exit into the dressing room before the other girls. She is so particular about fixing her hair and her hat! The floor girls move between the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors all day, so they are not stuck at the machines, like we are, until the bell rings.

  Malka now works on lace runners. Her table is by the windows, which overlook Greene Street, close beside one of the cutting tables. This year, I’m making collars, but Beckie still sets sleeves. She is one of the best workers on the floor.

  The afternoon is worse than this morning – one of the foremen complains he has more bodices than sleeves. “Where are my missing sleeves?” he yells. “And why aren’t those collars finished? How can the orders get out?” On and on, he rants at us, blaming the machinists for everything.

  We are all going at full speed. Rosie comes down to our floor to pick up more pieces, winks at me, and hurries back upstairs. It must be 4:30 p.m. Here comes Anna Gullo to distribute our pay. Good, only fifteen more minutes till quitting time!

  I tuck my envelope in my stocking top, the way Rosie does. I have just finished my last collar. My workbasket is empty for the first time this afternoon. I glance towards Malka. She is still busy, her head bent. Over at cutting table two, Isidore Abramowitz reaches for his coat. He keeps it hanging from a peg, under the shelf holding three fire buckets. There are more than two hundred of them, spread all around the factory floors.

  Cutters keep their jackets close by so they can be the first ones out at the end of the day. Their assistants finish preparing the tables for Monday. The sheerest fabric, lawn, and tissue paper are stretched across the tabletops. The men stand and chat, waiting for the quitting bell. One of the cutters lights up a cigarette, right below the NO SMOKING sign.

  There goes the bell. The power is shut off, and the machines are still. We are free at last. I get up gratefully. For a few seconds, the room is silent, then the hubbub begins. Chairs are pushed back, scraping noisily on the wooden floors. Talk is about the evening ahead of us.

  Nettie, who still sits next to me, says, “I’m meeting my future mother-in-law for the first time. I’m so nervous.”

  “Don’t be – she will like you, I’m sure,” I say.

  We make our way, one by one, down the aisle to the dressing room. Mr. Bernstein calls me over to the bookkeeper’s desk, before I can get my coat. Dinah Lipschitz sits between two of the short cutting tables in front of the windows leading to the fire escape.

  Mr. Bernstein says, “Please tell Beckie Singer that we expect her to return on Monday, Miriam.”

  A terrified cry penetrates every corner of the room. “Fire, Mr. Bernstein, fire! I smell something burning!” Eva Harris, sister of Mr. Isaac Harris, runs screaming across to the desk from the middle of the shop floor. She shouts the words everyone dreads to hear.

  Suddenly I see smoke and flames rising up from under the second table. All around the floor, girls start echoing Eva’s shouts of “Fire, fire!”

  Mr. Bernstein immediately crosses to Mr. Abramowitz’s table at the Greene Street windows. A fire must have started in the bins. It is weeks since Mr. Levy, the rag dealer, has collected the scraps. Now the bins are full to overflowing. Cutters come running with buckets of water to douse the flames, which are growing faster than the men seem able to quench them.

  Only seconds have passed since the quitting bell rang. I’m still here and Malka is too, standing at her table. What is the matter with her? Why isn’t she running away from the fire? She is too close to the blaze. Girls jostle and push their way from the aisles into the dressing room, anxious to save their new spring outfits.

  I’m going to have to get to Malka. The crowd of girls is piling up at the door of the partition leading to the staircase. I won’t join them without Malka. I run back towards her, shouting her name. She looks up, shocked, as if woken abruptly from a dream.

  Is she going to stand frozen like that forever? The way she did when we were little girls and the Cossacks came to burn the shtetl? Papa cannot come and save us this time. We have to save ourselves! I don’t know how, or where, to go. Oh, please, Malka, hurry up. Slowly she walks towards me.

  “Run, Malka, run,” I shout and meet her halfway down the aisle. I grasp her wrist. “We must stay together, whatever happens.”

  Mr. Bernstein jumps up on a table. “Someone get the fire hose from the Greene Street stairwell. We need more water!” he bellows.

  Everyone around us is yelling and pushing to get out by the Greene Street stairs as fast as they can. Girls call out in Russian, Yiddish, English, and Italian for their friends, their sisters, their mothers to help them. They shove, elbow, and kick their way out. Workers run in every direction, from the aisles into and out of the dressing room, to the windows, to the passenger elevators on the Washington Place side. Smoke fills the room. It is everywhere.

  For the year I have worked here, not once has anyone told us what to do in case of an emergency. We twist and turn, retching and choking, making our way through heat and smoke. Sparks dart in every direction. The blaze comes nearer. That small tongue of flame from the bins has fanned out, catching hold of one fabric after another. Paper patterns flare up on the wire and fall on tables, onto chairs and wicker baskets. In some, the delicate fabric pieces left to be finished for Monday feed the greedy flames. Fire bursts out, flying from one surface to another, showing no mercy.

  I tighten my hand on Malka’s wrist as a rush of heat and flame comes roaring in. Windows explode. A fiery wave of heat spares no one. More girls crowd at the Greene Street partition. How are we all to get through that narrow door before the fire engulfs us all? There are over a hundred and eighty of us working on the eighth floor today.

  Mr. Bernstein cries out, “There’s no water coming out of the hoses.”

  Still at her desk, Dinah Lipschitz screams “Fire” into the phone, over and over, to alert those on the other floors. She looks up at me and points to the back wall, where someone has opened the center windows to the fire escape. The steel shutters, usually fastened shut, are pinned back. I have never seen them opened before. I pull Malka towards the windows and the single fire escape that serves the whole building. It is attached to the outside wall and starts at the tenth floor. There are girls ahead of us. I need both hands free to c
limb over the table blocking the window. I tell Malka to stay close behind me.

  Then I crawl out of the window onto the skinny ledge of the balcony. From here, it is one step down onto the first rung of the narrow ladder. There is scarcely room for me to stand. Cautiously, I manage to get up and put one foot onto the slatted, sloping ladder. A girl a few steps ahead of me shouts something. I feel the ladder tremble with our weight. The ladder is flimsy, and I wonder if it will hold to the outside wall.

  “Don’t come any farther yet,” she calls out. “Some girls have reached the sixth floor, and they say to wait.” I am poised to go down, but now, step back. I need to tell Malka to stay where she is, but she is not behind me. Girls waiting at the windows scream at me to hurry. I crawl back along the ledge and climb in through the window. I look down the line of girls waiting to escape and ask if anyone has seen her.

  I reach the crowd of girls crammed together at the exit to the Greene Street stairs. Mr. Bernstein frantically forces them through the narrow door of the partition. I shout, trying to get his attention to ask if he has seen Malka Pinski. He shakes his head and continues to save as many workers as he can from the inferno.

  Did Malka get out? If not, where can she be? There is no place to hide. We are surrounded by walls of smoke and fire. Was Malka looking for the Greene Street windows, longing for one more glimpse of sky? No one could get though those sheets of flame. I call her name once more. She does not answer.

  19

  REDUCED TO ASHES

  I can’t breathe. The smoke rising from the smoldering wooden floors and chairs, and the flying sparks that singe my hair and clothes, are difficult to bear. Mr. Bernstein’s shouts grow faint. Among the whoosh of the greedy roaring flames, I hear faint cries for help. Could some of them be Malka’s?

  I am disoriented. I shut my eyes for a second, trying to remember how the shop floor looked before the fire. I cough and cough, desperate for breath. Flames bar my way to the Greene Street exit. After I stumble, I crawl in the direction of the Washington Place door, praying it is the right way. I lift my skirt to protect my face from burning rags and debris, groping inch by inch towards a last way out. If I am wrong, then I, too, am lost. I reach the door. A group of girls are there before me.