Sex Wars

by Marge Piercy

  She collected her money and swept out of the store. Izzy was right behind her. “I never expected you would end up this way, Freydeleh.”

  “I ain’t ending up yet. I’m still kicking and I’m kicking your behind right now, Izzy. So lay off me.”

  “You’re still a fine-built woman, Freydeleh. I wouldn’t mind trying out your merchandise with you.”

  “I would mind, Izzy. Don’t lean on me. I’m a good woman and I don’t take no guff from you or anybody else.”

  “Who is this Sammy Abe says delivers your merchandise?”

  “He’s my adopted son—an orphan, the child of a woman from my shtetl.” How many stories she had told about Sammy already.

  She wanted to get rid of Izzy because there was a bakery three blocks from the pharmacy, a German bakery she wanted to visit to ask about Shaineh. Remember to call her Samantha, she told herself.

  “You’re a user, Freydeh,” Izzy said. “You pumped me for information and now you’re trying to put me out of business, underselling me. You used me and I wonder how many others!”

  She walked fast and Izzy didn’t keep up. He turned and left her, muttering to himself. A user. That made her uncomfortable. She could see herself flirting with Izzy to get him to feed her the details of manufacture. She had taken advantage of her job with Yonkelman to learn how the pharmacy business worked. Did she pick Sammy off the streets to use him in her business? It made her dizzy. She could see her whole life one way and then the other. Certainly she wanted a better life for herself, but for Sammy too. Had she taken advantage of Izzy? In a way, yes, but he had tried to take advantage of her. Did that make it better?

  In the bakery several women, a man and a dirty little girl were ahead of her. After the woman behind the counter had waited on everyone except Freydeh, she said to the little girl, “Get out of here, you pest.”

  “Just gimme old bread. Old bread you give to the rats.”

  “Get out of here. Go beg in the street, you worthless dirty little beast.”

  “I’m hungry. I’m starving.” The girl had a way of wheedling. She was Jewish, Freydeh knew. She was also absolutely filthy. “Just give me some old bread.”

  The girl had black hair, not dark brown but black, dark eyes of Oriental cast like Jews from Kazan, but her skin, as far as Freydeh could see through the dirt, was milky pale. Freydeh plunked down four cents on the counter. “Give her a roll and give me a roll too.” It wouldn’t be kosher in here, but she had to buy something.

  The girl took the roll and ran out. Freydeh made her usual fruitless inquiry. Nobody worked here but family, the woman said, and never had. She didn’t believe in hiring outsiders. And, she said pointedly, looking Freydeh up and down, she certainly wouldn’t hire a Jew.

  When Freydeh emerged from the shop, about to toss the roll in the gutter, she saw the child licking her fingers as she sat on the curb. “Here, little one.” She handed her the other roll.

  The girl took it and ate it quickly and totally. “What do you want?”

  “What makes you think I want anything?”

  She nodded at a group of boys at the end of the street. “They buy me a roll if I let them poke me.”

  “Poke you?” Suddenly she got the girl’s meaning. “How old are you?”

  “I dunno. Eight, nine I think?”

  “How long have you been on the street?”

  The little girl held up two fingers. “It was the summer with the cholera.”

  “That killed your family?”

  “My mama died having a baby. The cholera got my papa. So the landlord put me out and I live in Thieves’ Alley.”

  “Where were your parents from?”

  The girl shrugged. “I don’t remember. I was born on the boat.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Katie, they call me. My name in school was Katerina but my mama called me Kezia.”

  “That’s your Hebrew name.”

  The girl looked at her sideways, mistrustful. “That’s not true.”

  Leaning over the girl, Freydeh could see her bruises—on her arms, on her legs, exposed by the torn and too small dress. A bruise on her forehead her long hair almost hid. “Don’t be afraid. I’m a Yid too.”

  Suddenly tears ran from the corners of the girl’s eyes. “Everybody hates me… Do you have another roll?”

  Freydeh sighed. Sammy was going to kill her, she was an idiot, but she could not leave this child here on the street to be used sexually by the street thugs and beaten and starved. “Come. I’ll feed you.”

  “Do you run a house?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Helena, she was on the street with me. She was bigger than me and getting her tits and her hair was red. A woman came and put her in a house where men paid for her. But she got clothes and food. The woman didn’t want me. She said I was damaged goods, but I’m stronger than I look.”

  “I just work making things and selling them. I’m not taking you to do things that are dirty with boys or men who hurt you. Come along, Kezia, if you want to eat and sleep in a bed.”

  Kezia stared at her, frightened. She made Freydeh think of an alley cat being offered food, ready to grab and run. “What for?”

  Freydeh shrugged. “Because a little girl shouldn’t be alone and hungry on the streets.”

  The girl jumped up from the curb. Her eyes were still mistrustful, but Freydeh understood the poor child would follow anybody who offered food and a little warmth. It was lucky she had not been led down to the river to be raped and her throat slit—yet. Freydeh couldn’t take in the thousands of children starving on every street, but she could save who she could. That was why Hashem had not given her a baby of her own body with her love Moishe: so she could save Sammy. She would keep trying to find her sister Shaineh, but in the meantime maybe she should take in this little girl. She had money enough to feed Sammy and herself and now Kezia—if she stayed. At least the child could have a meal to fill her belly and be cleaned up.

  She would watch the child carefully. Sometimes street life made even a young child bad so that she would steal from someone trying to help her or would harbor a streak of violence so that you could never turn your back. Sometimes the street life was all a child knew, and they would return to what made them feel that that was how things were and would always be. She would have to see if Kezia was able to leave the street behind. In the meantime, the little girl stank of urine and shit and surely had lice. It would be a project to clean her up, for Freydeh would not wash her in the yard but in the privacy of their little flat. She would have to find her clothes. The ones Kezia wore were far too small for her, scarcely decent. She took Kezia’s filthy paw in her hand and led her along. The child was barefoot, of course. The temperature was mild today, a fine late October day, but the nights had been chilly. She could imagine the child curled up in her scanty rags in an alley full of rats and human and animal feces, the garbage of years of neglect. Kezia followed her willingly to whatever fate Freydeh intended, probably figuring that anything was an improvement. She had an old scar on her foot and a livid purple bruise on her cheek. Freydeh matched her footsteps to the little girl’s and pulled her along gently, never letting go her grip of the small, almost fleshless hand lest Kezia change her mind and bolt as they moved into what had to be foreign territory. “Do you remember where you lived when your papa was alive?”

  Kezia pointed with her free hand. “That way.”

  “You don’t have any relatives?”

  “I had a brother. He ran away after Papa died.”

  No help there. “We have five more blocks to go to where I live.”

  Sammy was home already, studying with a book at the table near the window light. “What’s that?”

  “A surprise.” Freydeh laughed. “This is Kezia. I found her begging at a bakery.”

  “And you brought her home?”

  “Am I for him?” Kezia asked, sucking her dirty thumb.

  “No. Maybe he’ll be your b
rother.”

  “Like hell I will… You took a year and a half knowing me to take me in, and you pick up this thing on the street?”

  “I had to decide at once. Now, go get me some water and we’ll heat it and clean her up.”

  She left Kezia and went into the hall with Sammy. “You’re special to me. But I couldn’t leave her there. I just couldn’t. She’s been beaten and ravished and starved. I felt it was my destiny to save her.”

  “Just don’t leave any coins lying around.”

  “It will take a while to tame her, of that I’m sure. She’ll have to be taught to be a little girl again.”

  “She’s damaged goods.”

  “She’s a little girl who had a hard life. If it works out, we can make it better. Only the truly evil are damaged beyond repair. Little girls aren’t.” But she had no idea if Kezia could adapt to life with them.

  Kezia was standing in the middle of the floor as if in awe, turning slowly around and staring at everything. “You live here? Just you and him? Nobody else?”

  “And now you. Who did you used to live with?”

  “My mama and papa and me lived in the kitchen with a family and two other boarders. One of them slept in the kitchen too.” Kezia made a face. “I didn’t like him. After my mama died, he hurt me.”

  “No one here is going to hurt you.”

  “That boy doesn’t like me.”

  “That’s Sammy. He will. You’ll be a good girl, and everyone will like you just fine, Kezia. I promise you. We all try to help each other here.” Why should Kezia trust her? Only desperation held her there while Frey-deh boiled water in a kettle on the two-ring coal stove, sent Sammy down for more, stripped Kezia to her waist and began scrubbing the months of dirt. The more she scrubbed, the more bruises and scarring she found. She felt like weeping as she surveyed Kezia’s tiny thin body. Besides the bruise on her forehead and the ones on her arms and legs Freydeh had noticed earlier, a scar ran along her back where she had been struck with something sharp and the scab had healed into a long welt. Her thighs were bruised all along the inside, probably from being used sexually.

  “Kezia, you have head lice. I’m going to shave your head. You’ll look funny for a couple of weeks, but then your beautiful hair will grow back and you won’t have lice.”

  “You have to cut off all my hair?”

  “Look.” Freydeh caught one of the lice between her nails and showed it to Kezia. “Your head is covered with these. They’ve been biting you.”

  Kezia nodded, tears in her eyes. “All my hair?”

  “Just this once. Otherwise we’ll all have head lice before the week is up.” She wanted to hug the poor child, but she did not want to frighten Kezia, and it was also necessary to clean and delouse the girl before she was huggable. She wrapped Kezia in an old dress of her own—one she would have to boil afterward. Eventually Kezia was clean and her head shaven. Freydeh dressed the wounds she could and rubbed salve on the bruises. Then she fed Kezia bread and cheese and put on a stew to cook.

  “I’ll go to the market tomorrow and find you some clothes. Yours will have to go.” She had Sammy carry them down to the street and discard them, for the seams were full of lice and fleas. She cut part of her old dress into a sort of shift, pinned under the girl’s arms.

  “What’s all that for?” Kezia was pointing at the rack of rubber sheets, the metal table, the vat for vulcanizing and the forms for making condoms.

  “We make rubber goods for a living. We make them here and we sell them to pharmacies and other stores… Have you ever gone to school, Kezia?”

  She nodded. “When Papa was alive.”

  “Can you read and write?”

  “I read a little bit. I know the alphabet. But I don’t know how to write… Are you mad at me?”

  “No! But we’ll try to get you into school.”

  Sammy frowned. “She has to do some work. She’s no good to us.”

  “I can do things!” Kezia shouted at him. “I can fetch water. I can cut up things. I used to help my mama cook.”

  “It will all work out,” Freydeh promised, looking at the bone-thin waif with her body covered with old and new bruises and her head shaven like a clay bowl. She did not know how it would work out, but Hashem had put this little one in her path, and she accepted responsibility. If Kezia would try, she would try and they would make it work. After a while, Sammy would come round. He had a good heart. He would have to make room in it for this raw little pisherkeh.

  After supper, she put Kezia to sleep in her bed and occupied herself sewing her old dress into a little one for Kezia. The spare material could be bindings to wrap her legs. She had to find a used dress and a shawl—that would be a start. They didn’t let barefoot children into school. She would measure Kezia’s feet with a stick and then find shoes to make do.

  Everything was make do, yes, but Freydeh could remember when she had no bed to call her own, not a coat or boots for winter. She looked at Sammy, still studying at the table with the kerosene lamp at the head of his book, and she remembered when he was little bigger than Kezia and just as thin and battered. Now he was tall and filling out. She had bought him a pair of glasses he used sometimes, never in the street. He was a bit nearsighted. That meant he didn’t need glasses for reading. He was a lot healthier than he used to be, although he still got sore throats too often. It was the bad air, she was sure. He was a good boy, tempted sometimes by the street, but loyal to her. What would Kezia turn out to be? She had no idea. Sammy was right, she had leapt into action without knowing the child, but again, she felt she had no choice. So she had chosen life for Kezia, and life it would be.

  TWENTY-SIX

  VICTORIA WAS ECSTATIC. Presenting the Commodore with an opportunity to make a huge profit in gold and get out unscathed when half the brokers on Wall Street and two-thirds of the investors were stripped clean and left to drown in debt should make him generous. She approached him with her idea and he considered it, mulling it over long enough to unnerve her—enjoying his power, of course. He loved power almost as much as money. She could not sleep all week. She scarcely ate. She had been so sure he would support her scheme. The next week, he agreed.

  Now Woodhull, Claflin and Company was a brokerage firm with offices and their first clients. Victoria had laboriously written out a script for Tennie so she would not make a mistake with a customer if Victoria was occupied. Tennie was not as quick as Victoria at memorizing, but during the weeks the office was being set up, legally and physically, Victoria rehearsed with her sister. They visited a tailor and had business suits made up, men’s jackets with straight severe skirts ending at the ankles—no hoops, bustles or trains. If they were going to make a success of their business, they couldn’t dress like tarts or superior courtesans or even like ladies. They were the first female brokers ever, and the newspapers covered their opening. The journalists were treated to good wine, good beer and better bourbon to warm their copy. It worked. They were declared a great success within days after their doors opened to the public, long before they actually turned a profit.

  The Commodore did not abandon them. Between him and the financial tidbits Annie Wood shared and Josie let drop, they were able to offer their clients good information. Victoria did not pretend to knowledge she lacked. She intended to be honest in her business practices—aside from letting anyone know where the information came from. Everyone thought her source was Vanderbilt. She was careful never to affirm his influence or to deny it, but she also gave credit to the spirits. Anyone put off by spiritualism would probably not come to women to do business.

  Victoria was well off, as Demosthenes had promised long ago. Had she not brought her ragtag family to a fine house on East Thirty-eighth Street? The offices were located in Hoffman House, a fine hotel on fashionable Madison Square, famous for its paintings, statuary, seventy-foot-long bar, ornate banquet hall with a ceiling decorated in gold, silver and allegorical paintings of nymphs and goddesses, and for being the hangout of
Boss Tweed. The parlor of their office was ladylike, with bucolic oils on the walls in ornate frames, a piano, green velvet sofa and chairs. Vases of fresh flowers stood on tables shaped like pillars of Greek temples. A portrait of the Commodore hung prominently, where it would be seen by anyone entering. No point in hiding their assets. The Commodore had a Wall Street reputation as honest, firm in his word and shrewd beyond imagining. That he had made money in gold when everyone else, including probably Fisk and Gould in the end, had been losing it by the bushel only increased his reputation for financial wisdom.

  After the first week, when hordes of men came to gawk, Victoria hired a butler who greeted all comers and pointed them toward a sign that said “All Gentlemen will state their business and then retire at once.” Victoria did not want to give the impression that the brokerage office was the anteroom to a brothel, or that men could lounge around playing cards or chatting.

  Their offices were furnished with walnut desks, cabinets and a teletype and ticker-tape machine, which only the best brokerage houses had. Everything, Victoria felt, reeked of quality. Here you may invest your money with confidence and here you may be sure of discreet and intelligent advice. Here you will find quick and efficient service. The newspapers called them “The Bewitching Brokers,” “The Queens of Finance,” “the Female Sovereigns of Wall Street,” but Victoria aspired to success rather than fame for their novelty.

  Some women had money: widows, but also an increasing number of professionals like herself—an untapped market. It was assumed by male brokers that they could not possibly invest for themselves or manage their own money, yet they did. Victoria intended to encourage women to invest with her.

  Within a month, they had too many clients for the small suite in the Hoffman. They could not handle everything themselves, and there was no room for anyone else. They moved into larger offices at 44 Broad Street. Colonel Blood sat at a huge desk in the front office—no more sofas and pianos, but the portrait of the Commodore moved with them—with the stock ticker and a large imposing safe. James had been a successful businessman in St. Louis before the war had alienated him from his previous bourgeois life, so she trusted him to run the office. The first person he hired was his own brother, for whom he had worked when they first came to New York. George commuted every day from New Jersey to keep the firm’s books. Victoria insisted that all be done legally and cleanly. She could trust no Claflin to do that, but George Blood would keep the books to the penny.