by Marge Piercy
TWENTY-ONE
OVER THE NEXT MONTH and a half, Freydeh and Sam canvassed the neighbors of the house where Shaineh was said to have lived. Most of them had never met her; some were new to the area; some spoke no language Freydeh or Sam understood. An old man told them the body of a woman had been found in the building by the team of firemen who had won the battle with another firehouse to squirt water on the fire and then loot the ruins. Freydeh refused to believe that was Shaineh. It could have been any woman living in the three burned houses.
Freydeh’s English had been improving under Sam’s tutelage. In the fall, she had sent him to school. When he came home, they worked together or he ran errands, getting supplies or distributing to their customers. They cut their prices to a bare profit to compete with those already established in the business, and they were not yet as fast as they needed to be. Still, they paid their rent, they had enough to eat. Gradually she was improving Sam’s wardrobe as well as her own. He had difficulty learning to wear shoes, for he had been barefoot in all weather for years. He complained that boots hurt his feet. He developed bleeding blisters, but she would not let him go shoeless any longer. “Long as you’re barefoot, you mark yourself a street kid. Nobody will trust you with orders. You don’t live in a box in an alley any longer.”
She had new wool mittens she had knitted from good yarn, and when she crawled into her bed at night her stomach no longer growled with emptiness. Sam had his own cot in the front room. They had slowly acquired a skillet, glasses and cups and a pillow apiece, a better kerosene lamp. The vision that Moishe and she had brought with them to the New World of a better and more ample life was slowly coming to pass. She had written to Sara, her older sister married and with three children already, to tell her what had happened with Shaineh and ask if she knew where Shaineh was. At last Sara wrote back a bitter letter, not understanding how big a city Manhattan was, berating Freydeh and saying she had heard from Shaineh, who was working as a seamstress and living on Varick Street. That was the burned-out house.
Finally, in December, they found a woman who had known Shaineh, an Irishwoman of maybe twenty and wary with them. She asked them as many questions as they asked her. Freydeh said she worked in a pharmacy and Sammy kept his mouth shut. Finally the woman sat them down and gave them some tea.
“How could you speak with her? She didn’t know English,” Sammy said.
“Sure and she did. She had an accent thicker than a brick, but she could talk with me fine as you.”
“Do you know what happened? Was she hurt in the fire?” Freydeh wrung her hands in frustration. She wanted to shake the answers from the woman.
The woman scrutinized her carefully, squinting a little. Then she seemed to come to a decision. “She ran away.”
“From the fire, you mean?”
“From that scummy Yankee who was keeping her. He was a brute. He locked her in. Sometimes she’d be hungry, poor thing, and my brother would get money from her through the window, then bring her food. It was nailed so she couldn’t get out the window, just open it a mite.”
“She didn’t get burned in the fire?”
“One of the men broke in the door and let her out and she ran with just the clothes on her back and what she could carry in her wee hand. But she was in the female way.”
“With child?” Freydeh asked.
The woman nodded. “She ran to get away from him. That’s all I know.”
“Do you know his name?”
“I only saw him coming and going. He called her Samantha, but she told my brother that wasn’t her name. She said her name meant pretty. And for sure, she’s a pretty little thing. Tiny hands and feet and golden hair.”
Freydeh was a little surprised. Shaineh had dainty hands and feet but her hair was a light brown. “I thank you, Mrs. Connor. You’ve been a big help. I knew she wasn’t dead. I knew it.”
“Well, you keep looking for her, ’cause a lot of bad things can happen to a pretty little thing like her in this place.”
“That man sounds like one of the bad things.”
Mrs. Connor nodded. “The saints be with you. Keep looking. Don’t ye lose heart.”
“Now what?” Sammy said when they trudged off down the street. A light snow had begun to fall again. Even horse piss froze almost as soon as it dropped in the street, and the patties of manure steamed in the frigid air. In winter, the air felt cleaner in the city, but the streets were almost impassible, with heaps of filthy snow and ice mixed with what didn’t bear thinking about. Still the traffic of carts kept clattering and clanking past all day and all night. They dodged them as they crossed each street.
“If she’s with child, she probably can’t afford to have it. So she’ll have to seek a remedy. Madame Restell is the best. I’ll start with her. She knows me, if she remembers—and that woman has a memory that files every face and name away in its crevices. I used to buy remedies from her when I worked for Yonkelman.”
With Sammy in school during the days and orders beginning to come in as fast as they could fill them, it was several weeks before Freydeh could go to see Madame Restell, the most famous abortionist in New York City. Finally she trotted off to Chambers Street, near Greenwich Street, where Madame lived and practiced. Chambers was a fashionable street lined with brick houses not nearly so tall as the tenements Freydeh was used to. It was paved and obviously the garbage was picked up here. Someone had cleared most of the sidewalks of snow and offal. The house was next door to a station house of the police, but Madame had remarked to her that she got on perfectly well with them, and unless some politician or clergyman was making a momentary fuss, they were friendly and peaceable together. However, the neighborhood was obviously not as fine as it had been. There were businesses moving in and signs for professionals appeared in parlor-story windows. But the worst intrusion was a depot for the Hudson Railroad, whose trains she could plainly hear, causing the windows along the street to rattle.
The fine brick house in which she had been accustomed to find Madame Restell was still there, still well kept, but Madame was no longer using it for business. Her husband, Charles Lohman (now calling himself Dr. E. Melreau, although so far as she knew his background was as a printer), had an office there where he made up patent medicines. His receptionist informed her that the family was living and Madame was operating in a new mansion way uptown on Fifth Avenue.
That was a trip that required more time off than Freydeh could manage for several weeks. She was a little nervous about going all the way up there, where the rich people lived. She didn’t want to keep Sammy out of school when he had so much catching up to do, but she didn’t want to venture into that foreign territory without him and his good speaking. She could make herself understood to Yankees now, but she had a thick accent and anybody could tell she was an immigrant. With other immigrants, so what? But traveling up where the fancy people lived and spoke so fine, she wanted Sammy with her. He was a smart lad, she had always known that, and he could write now and do sums. It was good for him to get an education, but it did take up lots of his time.
Christmas came and went. The Yankees made a fuss about it and so did the Germans who weren’t Jewish. She had heard that even some of the German Jews celebrated it. So what was to celebrate? They were worse fools than she had thought. Not all the goyim made such a fuss. She didn’t see the Hungarians or the Italians making much of it. Still, the holiday decorations made her uneasy. Meanwhile, the market for the condoms they were manufacturing grew. They were beginning to get a reputation for good quality and cheap price that kept their customers buying and brought them new ones. Every week a new pharmacy or bookstore or rubber goods store would start ordering from them.
January came in with fierce weather and one storm after another. It was February before they could set out to locate Madame Restell’s mansion. The rich were building up near the new Central Park. What was it central to? It was miles uptown. A German couple in their building had gone ice-skating there. It was a
new fad. People put metal things like knives on their feet and went scooting around on the ice. Sammy was intrigued. She had gone in a sleigh on the ice of the river near her shtetl many times, but she was sure she would fall on her face if she tried those weird shoes with knives on the bottom. Her neighbors hadn’t felt comfortable in the new park. They said there were nothing but swells and ladies dressed up in furs who gave them the evil eye as they skated around. It was a nice park, but only the rich belonged there. There were so many rules of what a person could and couldn’t do that it was pointless to go all that way, for ordinary folk just couldn’t enjoy themselves or be at their ease.
During a February thaw, she waited for Sammy at his school, grabbed his arm and they were off by horsecar to find Madame Restell. They were heading for Fifth Avenue and Fifty-second Street. She was not sure that Madame Restell, who had always been genial and friendly in the past while she was conducting her business on Chambers Street, would be glad to see her uptown. That Freydeh was a Jew had never seemed to bother Madame, who appeared to lack the common social snobberies and prejudices. But now it might be different. They might spend an hour getting up to Fifty-second Street only to have Madame or more likely a servant slam the door in their faces. Still she had to try. If Madame would talk with her and it turned out she had never seen Shaineh, still Madame would know the other abortionists Freydeh could visit.
After the horsecar deposited them by the unfinished great cathedral the local Catholics were building, they made their way over ridges of frozen mud and slicks of ice, threading past piles of lumber and bricks, great blocks of sandstone and limestone. Everywhere buildings were going up, mostly fine mansions. Madame already had hers. Across from a Catholic orphanage with grounds of stately trees, she had an imposing pile, almost, to Freydeh’s eyes, a castle. It was built of brownstone, four stories tall with expansive gardens, now sere and bleak, a fountain shut off for the winter, stables, a carriage house. Madame had done well for herself, obviously, and she was willing to proclaim it to the world, in the same way that she advertised her trade openly in the newspapers. She was a woman who did not believe she had anything to be ashamed of, and she would not hide herself or her good fortune.
“Are we really going in there?” For once, Sammy’s confidence was quelled.
Freydeh too was intimidated by the front door, framed with balconies and approached by a flight of wide shallow steps with balustrades on either side. All the windows had identical flowered satin draperies and fancy shades. She kept walking around to the side. There it was: another entrance, not a servants’ entrance but for clients. It bore a silver plate saying APPOINTMENTS. Behind the iron fence through the gate that stood open, a path led to an elegant door with a bell pull. Grinding her teeth with anxiety, Freydeh marched toward the door. “Maybe you should wait outside.” She pointed to a bench that sat beside the flagstone walk.
“You don’t want me to come in?”
“Wait. I know Madame, if she remembers me.”
She was let in by a servant in livery and led to a fancy reception room, all walnut-paneled with bronze statuary, a Persian carpet, leather and plush chairs. Madame’s circulars were on every little table. A female assistant of late middle age whom she remembered from the Chambers office greeted her and asked her what she wanted.
She explained that she knew Madame and that she had come not for help for herself but in an effort to find her sister, whom she had lost track of and whom she thought Madame may well have helped when she was in the family way. She needed to find her, and she hoped that Madame would be willing to help her.
“Madame isn’t here.”
“Will she be back soon?”
“Every day at this time, weather permitting, she takes her team and rides in the park.”
“Central Park.”
The woman nodded. “It has miles of fine carriageways. Madame loves riding in an open carriage and taking the air.”
“Should I wait for her?”
“We don’t schedule any more appointments until five. Why don’t you return then? Or you could simply wait. It’s only half an hour.”
“I’ll return in just a little tiny while.”
She hastened outside and found a very cold Sammy huddled on the bench. She brought him up to date and they walked briskly along Fifth Avenue. Near the entrance to the park, a vendor was selling hot coffee and corn cakes. Freydeh treated Sammy to both, to warm him up, and then they strolled on. Much of the neighborhood was still raw building sites, some thick with scrub, some with foundations or walls going up, some with finished mansions. Horses were dragging drays piled high with building supplies and the noise of hammer and saw, of cursing and singing and yelling rang in their ears. There was a sharp smell of horse urine and sawdust.
As they were returning, Sammy said, “Wow, look at that!”
She recognized Madame, riding in an open carriage being driven by a very large light Negro gentleman in full livery who held the reins on a snow white horse and a shiny black horse, stepping along in perfect symmetry, hoof by hoof. Silver bells jangled on their harnesses. Madame was wearing white fur with her hands in a fur muff and an elaborate hat covered with white plumes on her head. She passed them without looking and the carriage turned into Fifty-second Street. They followed behind, walking slowly so as to give her time to get inside and change if she needed to.
As the sun began to set, it got colder. Freydeh did not think she could leave Sammy outside. The waiting room was warm although she did not see a fireplace. How was it heated? Every part of the room seemed warm. She muttered a question to Sammy in Yiddish and he pointed to a metal object. “The heat’s coming from there.”
A young and attractive woman entered. “Madame can see you now. But the boy will have to wait.”
Sammy shrugged and took one of the plush seats. He looked content to wait in the warm well-furnished room. She followed the woman into the next office and took the chair pointed out to her, across from a large mahogany desk. The room had medical textbooks and anatomy charts here and there. It was even more luxurious than the outer office. The carpet was a fine Oriental and there was a painting of swans on a pond. She was admiring the room when Madame bustled in. She was still a fine-looking woman with black hair, a striking face and a full figure held erect, although she had begun to age a little. Her abundant dark hair had one streak of white. She wore a mauve flowered moiré silk and an orchid on her bosom. Madame was living like the rich lady she presumably was.
“You have perhaps a problem that brings you to me? Why don’t you tell me about it?”
Freydeh began to talk about her sister when Madame interrupted her. “I remember you. Yes, I’m sure of it. Didn’t you used to come to me to buy pills and potions for a pharmacy? You didn’t speak much English but you always had a note from the pharmacist and you did the sums quickly in your head. I remember that.”
“Yeah, that was me, Madame.”
“Do you still work for that pharmacy?”
“No, I work on my own. I make male protectors—condoms. Four different kinds, I make now. Good quality and cheap.”
Madame laughed. “That’s a good line for a woman. You’ll make money. Keep at it, and you may be doing as well as I am someday.” She propped her hands on the desk. “Do you have a sample of your work?”
Freydeh dug in her carryall and pulled out a packet.
Madame Restell carefully unwrapped a condom and tested it on her hand. She examined the workmanship carefully. “You do an excellent job. Good for you. And why are you carrying them with you?”
Freydeh laughed. “Not for use by me. If I see a rubber goods store or a pharmacy, I stop and show them my wares to see if I can make a sale.”
“Good business practice. You have a head for it.”
“I want to make enough for a little house and my sister to live with me—and my nephew Sammy, who’s waiting outside.”
“You have no children?”
“My husband died five years
ago. I’m a widow. And when he was killed, I lost my baby.”
“I have one daughter.”
“Is that her I met? She has a resemblance to you.”
“You’ve learned to speak well since we last met. Good for you. When I arrived here, I had an English country accent—hardly anyone could understand me. So I learned to speak the way the New Yorkers do, and now nobody knows I wasn’t born here… No, that’s my granddaughter. I do think there’s a resemblance, more than with my own daughter. She lives with me—she and my grandson, Charlie. They are precious to me. Caroline helps me with the practice.”
“You’re lucky, Madame.”
“Well, I can afford them. Thousands of women who come to me can’t feed another mouth. But you know, what you do and what I do are against the law now.”
“Madame, you must have protection? You advertise. You don’t live under a rock.”
“Far from it!” Madame Restell laughed. She had a full melodious laugh that shook her shoulders and made her eyes gleam. “I shock them down to their bootheels. When I drive in the park in my carriage, the fine ladies look away. They come to me heavily veiled, but they come. And they pay dearly. But their husbands come to me socially—the judges, the police commissioner, the politicians, the lawyers, they come to my at-homes, they come to my parties. You and I, Mrs. Levin, we have our use to society. They pretend otherwise, but they need us as much as they need their policemen and their cooks and butlers. They scorn us, but they can’t live without us. The society would be overrun with shame, with unwanted children, with bastards, with even more homeless children wandering the streets starving. Women would be thrown out into the street by their parents, by their husbands. We save them in our different ways, but we both save their lives and their honor and their futures.”