The Unfortunates

by Laurie Graham

  Nineteen fourteen turned into nineteen fifteen. The Misses Stone continued their work trying to uplift the unfortunate Hebrews, Uncle Israel Fish joined a relief committee and Harry, correctly anticipating a trend for changing disadvantageous names, bought two more printing firms.

  In May the Germans sank the Lusitania with the loss of one hundred and twenty-eight American lives, and Ma and Aunt Fish reviewed their invasion precautions. There was an evacuation plan, involving dollars stuffed inside corsets and a secret address in Cedar Rapids. Iowa was apparently to be given a second chance. Priority of travel was awarded to Honey and to Sherman Ulysses, carrier of the blood of Abe Minkel, if not of his name, and they would be accompanied by Ma. I was to bring up the rear with Aunt Fish. This didn’t bother me. Much as I longed to escape the monotony of West 76th Street, a Hun invasion sounded too exciting a prospect to miss.

  In the event, the closest Ma and Honey came to running for port was when the Atlantic Fleet was anchored in the Hudson and German agents were caught planning to blow up the guests at a Grand Naval Ball that was to be held on 72nd Street.

  Defeated by the concept of traveling light and traveling fast, Ma was so unable to decide which hats to leave behind that the moment passed. The Germans were deported. The fleet, having danced till dawn, sailed safely away. And I was left, untangling the silks in Ma’s embroidery basket, wondering what an invasion might feel like.

  I redrafted my letter to Cousin Addie, hoping to capture her interest with the news that I had been as close as four blocks to the barbarian invaders. I obtained her address and a postage stamp from Ma’s writing table, and I dropped it in a mailbox on the way to my weekly visit with Sherman Ulysses. As to how I would explain the arrival of Cousin Addie’s reply, I felt that Providence would inspire me when the moment came. All that talk of war made audacity seem the order of the day.

  EIGHT

  I followed the war as best I could using my old school atlas. Honey and I had enjoyed a brief exposure to education at the Convent of the Blessed Redeemer. We both started late, due to measles, whooping cough and Ma’s conviction that paper harbored disease and all books were written by socialists, and I finished early, almost immediately after Honey graduated, due to scarlatina and the nuns’ inability to warm to me once my blonde and sainted sister had left.

  ‘We pray you may find somewhere more suitable,’ Sister Diotisalvi wrote to my parents, and Pa said, ‘Let her go to the Levison School.’ But the Levison was on the East Side. I’d have had to cross Central Park every day, a journey Ma and Aunt Fish equated with finding the Northwest Passage. Worse still, the Levison was getting a reputation for turning out bookish and disputatious students. One of the Schwab girls had attended for just one year and had emerged so deformed, so stripped of delicacy, that Mrs Schwab had had to search as far afield as Winnipeg, Canada, to find her a husband.

  So I was not enrolled there, nor anywhere else. From the age of thirteen I had been tutored at home. By which I mean I received erratic visits from teachers of French, piano and dancing, and Ma taught me the correct way to serve tea. Of the Balkans, or Belgium, or Kaiser Wilhelm, I knew nothing. But I was a fast study, and Ma depended entirely upon me to explain about the Eastern Front.

  ‘All this rampaging around is most unsettling, I’m sure,’ she said. ‘If only people would be polite and stay in their own countries. Prussians and Russians and Macedonians. It’s all too hectic.’

  I was a little confused myself whether the brave Russians who had taken on the Hun were the same ones who had cruelly chased Malka Lelchuck from her home, and I should have liked to ask the Misses Stone about it, but they never called anymore. They were too busy with war work.

  Then the Ballet Russe came to the Century Theater and as a reward for recent good behavior I was invited to join Aunt Fish and Uncle Israel to see the opening performance of Petrushka. Preparations began immediately after breakfast when Honey arrived with her burnt-orange Directoire gown and a chocolate-brown velveteen evening coat.

  Burnt orange, it turned out, was not my color, but with a little help from Ma’s seed pearl choker and a dab of cream rouge my skin was coaxed out of a tendency to mealiness. The shoe problem was not so easily solved. Honey’s tapestry evening slippers were size 4. My feet were size 7.

  The Irish was assigned to do the best she could with a can of boot black and my battered day shoes.

  ‘No one will see,’ Ma said, ‘if you are careful to take small steps.’

  After luncheon I was excused all further duties and sent to my room with instructions to double my dose of Pryce’s Soothing Extract of Hemp and lie still with my eyes closed.

  ‘Attending a ballet is a very draining business,’ Ma advised me. ‘You must conserve yourself, otherwise you will be no use to me tomorrow and then what shall I do?’

  At six I was collected by Uncle Israel’s driver. We no longer had one of our own. After Pa’s death Ma had given him notice.

  ‘After all,’ she said, ‘we shall hardly be going anywhere.’

  Ma had plenty of money, but she seemed always to derive pleasure from small economies.

  ‘Remember, Poppy,’ Ma called after me as I bounded downstairs to the front door, ‘small steps.’

  We ate an early supper of clear soup and epigrams of mutton, and I was supplied with an extra precautionary napkin, to be tied under my chin.

  ‘It would be a tragedy,’ Aunt Fish said, ‘if Honey’s beautiful gown was ruined, when she has been generous enough to lend it.’

  It wasn’t all that beautiful a gown.

  Uncle Israel asked, ‘What is it again we’re going to see?’

  ‘It will come to me momentarily,’ Aunt Fish said, ‘though why you ask I cannot fathom. I see you are quite determined to dislike it, whatever it’s called.’

  I suppose musical comedies were more to Uncle Israel’s taste. I suppose he took along the evening paper as a fall-back in case of boredom.

  I had never dreamed how wonderful a theater might be. The carpets were thicker and deeper, the chandeliers were vaster and sparklier than anything I had imagined. And there were marble staircases curving either side of a palm garden. I should have liked to practice majestic sweeping on those stairs.

  But most exciting of all was the frenzy of the orchestra preparing to play and the roar of the audience. Aunt Fish was examining every face in the grand tier, and occasionally she would flutter her hand.

  ‘The Elmore Ferbers are here,’ she observed, ‘in spite of the talk. How brave she looks.’

  Uncle Israel looked up from his paper and rolled his eyes.

  ‘And I spy Mrs Root,’ she pressed on, ‘with a person who may be her sister from Buffalo. What a serviceable gown that twilled silk has turned out to be. I declare I must have seen it a hundred times.’

  The lights went down.

  ‘Now, Poppy,’ she whispered, patting my hand, ‘we need only stay for the first act. And do sit up nicely. With good posture and Honey’s lovely gown I believe you look rather pretty this evening.’

  The curtain went up. The stage appeared to be covered with snow, and crowds of people were walking about, just like they were in a real town. There were candy stalls and a merry-go-round and a puppet theater, and everyone seemed happy, except for Petrushka who looked sad and the Ballerina who looked plain dumb. Petrushka wore beautiful blue boots and red satin trousers, but the clothes I liked best were the Wicked Moor’s. He wore gold trousers and a bright green jacket and his hat was made of twisted yellow and violet silk.

  Uncle Israel didn’t care for the music.

  ‘Darned racket,’ he said, and he took out his newspaper again, even though it was far too dark for him to read.

  Aunt Fish kept wondering aloud why they hadn’t been able to find a dancer who could point his toes.

  I said, ‘I think he’s meant to be dancing that way.’

  ‘Meant to?’ she said. ‘Of course he isn’t meant to. Ballet is danced with pointed toes, as I woul
d have expected you to know. And I’m sure one pays enough to see correct technique.’

  I was anxious that the combination of rackety music and incorrect feet might provoke an early exit, so I fairly begged Aunt Fish to be allowed to stay to the end. This made a sickening spectacle, I dare say, but it worked. I believe she was so astonished by my fawning she quite forgot about leaving the theater early. So the Moor killed Petrushka, the curtain came down, and far below us the livelier element of audience divided, two-thirds whistling and stamping, one-third booing.

  With the house lights up, and the prospect of a second supper drawing near, Uncle Israel became cheerful again.

  ‘Nine-thirty and our duty is done,’ he said. ‘Now that’s what I call a decent show.’

  I said, ‘I should like to see it all again.’

  ‘Well, don’t look at me,’ he said. ‘I’ve swallowed my dose. Bring your sister. Bring your mother.’

  Aunt Fish gave him a warning tap with her fan.

  ‘Dora would find the stairs far too taxing,’ she said. ‘And I don’t know that anything so progressive would suit Honey. Besides, it seemed to me a rather silly story. How much more satisfactory it would have been if someone had married the dainty little doll.’

  But I was glad Petrushka never got the Ballerina. It was bad enough he always had to go to his poky room and couldn’t wander around and buy gingerbread and just please himself, without having a prissy girlfriend, too. He was better off dead.

  Uncle Israel said why didn’t he treat us all to steak tartare at Luchow’s, but Aunt Fish said she thought we’d had quite enough stimulation for one evening. I didn’t care. I was ready to go home and dream about bright blue boots and turbans made of yellow and violet silk. It seemed to me I had discovered an elegant answer to the question of my mutinous hair.

  NINE

  By the beginning of 1917 President Wilson had taken about as much as he could from the Hun, and even Reilly, who never had a good word to say about the British and believed they intended to take over the world, even she was preparing herself for all-out war. She kept a heavy poker by her bed, in case of a night-time invasion, and was working, in her spare time, on a type of cambric nosebag filled with crushed charcoal biscuits, which she hoped would protect her from phosgene gas. After she had made one for herself and one for the Irish she began work on a miniature one for Sherman Ulysses.

  I ran upstairs to report this act of kindness, but it cut no ice with Ma.

  ‘Little wonder,’ she said, ‘that we are expected to eat our chicken still pink at the bone, when the help amuse themselves all day with handicrafts.’

  I said, ‘When the war comes …’ but she would never let me get any further. She was of the firm belief that talking about a thing could bring it on, and that, therefore, the best policy was to look on the bright side. She even planned a season of gay afternoon teas, her first social foray since Pa’s death.

  ‘Teas,’ she said, ‘are quite suitable for a widow, and not nearly so draining as dinners.’

  When war did come, in April, she said, ‘Poppy, you have been humming this past hour and smiling to yourself like a loon. I fail to account for your happiness. I’m sure war is a most inconvenient thing.’

  It wasn’t quite happiness I felt, but a little bubble of excitement. Whatever her shortcomings, my mother was deeply patriotic, so it seemed possible that my country’s need of me might outweigh her own claim on my time. I was, after all, nearly twenty years old.

  I said, ‘Ma, I should really like to do something for the war effort.’ Nursing was what I had in mind. I liked the crisp femininity of the uniform. I hoped I might be sent to the Western Front and have a handsome blinded officer fall in love with my voice.

  ‘How proud your father would have been,’ she whispered, and her eyes quite shone.

  The very next day Miss Ruby was sent for. She was an unfortunate person who had lost her money through unwise investments and so was forced to do mending and alterations for good families. After a brief discussion with Ma, Miss Ruby provided me with a basket of sludge-brown wool and a lesson in turning heels. I was to be a knitter of socks for the American Expeditionary Force.

  I confided in Honey my hopes that I might have been sent to the front line.

  ‘There are many important ways to serve,’ she said. ‘I shall be very glad of your help at my War Orphans Craft Bazaar, for instance.’

  I said, ‘But I wanted to go to France.’

  ‘And what use would you be to anyone there?’ she asked.

  I reminded her that I had studied French for four years, but she laughed.

  ‘Looking into French books doesn’t signify anything, you goose,’ she said. ‘Minnie Schwab went to Paris and she found they spoke something quite unintelligible. Besides, if you went away who would take care of Ma?’

  I said, ‘She has Reilly. Or she could stay with you.’

  ‘Isn’t that a rather selfish scheme, Poppy,’ she said, ‘to think of uprooting her from her own home?’

  Somehow, at the age of nearly twenty, I managed to be both useless and indispensable. My country didn’t need me, my mother couldn’t spare me, and the French would not be able to understand me. I knitted socks in such a fury of frustration, Miss Ruby could barely keep me supplied with yarn.

  We suffered almost immediate casualties. Our parlor maid and housemaid had conspired to inconvenience us by leaving together to work in a factory. Then Sherman Ulysses’ day nurse volunteered for the signal corps, and Ma, in the spirit of sharing during a time of national emergency, offered Honey the use of our Irish. Honey wasn’t sure. She and Harry wished their son to be cared for by a person of the highest caliber, someone who would truly understand the ways of an exceptional four year old. My nephew was exceptional in a number of ways. His speech was still immature and when he failed to make himself understood he would lie on the floor and hold his breath until he erupted into a howling rage. ‘Num num,’ he’d sob piteously, ‘num num.’ And all around him would try to guess, with the utmost urgency, what he was trying to convey. Also, though he knew perfectly well how to sit nicely on extra cushions and use his spoon and pusher and drink neatly from a cup, he did not always choose to do so.

  ‘I don’t know, Ma,’ Honey said. ‘Does your Irish know anything about children?’

  ‘Of course she does,’ Ma said. ‘The Irish are never fewer than thirteen to a family.’

  Still Honey dithered, driving Ma to become unusually testy with her.

  ‘I must remind you, Honey,’ she said, ‘that war requires sacrifice. And if I am prepared to make my sacrifice you might be gracious enough to accept it.’

  All of this turned out to have been futile because when the Irish was sent for, to be given new orders, she had her coat on, ready to go to Westchester County and be a wartime fruit picker and leave us in the lurch.

  Ma was beside herself, but the Irish was fearless.

  ‘’Tis to free up the men, d’you see ma’am?’ she said. I studied her as she said it, and often rehearsed to myself later how she had told this to Ma, as cool as you like, and then simply walked out of the door.

  It took a week for Ma and Honey to regroup and decide there was a simple choice. Either Reilly had to be seconded to the part-time care of Sherman Ulysses or Honey must suffer a total collapse. Reilly was called upstairs.

  She said it was bad enough managing without a girl to help her downstairs, without having to run to another house and play nursemaid. She said she couldn’t see the justice of being asked to do the work of three for the wages of one, and not very generous wages at that. She said she thought herself quite unsuitable for the care of a small child on account of an ungovernable temper.

  ‘Then you must learn to master it, Reilly,’ Ma said. ‘Think of it as your war effort.’

  Two things occurred to me. The first was that Reilly had a newly defiant look about her. I sensed she would only endure this latest imposition for as long as it took her to make other arra
ngements. The second was that when she disappeared I might well acquire a new set of shackles. I might have to learn to cook and clean. I might have to endure the flailing feet and slimy top lip of Sherman Ulysses in full spate.

  TEN

  No one paid afternoon calls anymore. Mrs Lesser and Mrs Schwab were busy meeting troop trains with coffee and cigarettes, one of the Misses Stone was driving for the Motor Corps, and the other was speaking at Liberty Loan rallies when she could spare time from helping the unfortunates. As for Aunt Fish, she had become the very paragon of a committee woman.

  Monday was Milk for Polish Babies, Tuesday was the Maimed Soldier Fund, Wednesday was Trench Comfort Packets and Thursdays she alternated French Orphans with Plows for Serbia. The Blue Cross Association were anxious to capture her for their Suffering Horses and Disabled Army Dogs Committee, but Ma counseled against taking on any more.

  ‘You will prostrate yourself, Zillah,’ she said, ‘and however deserving the cause, you may be sure it’s not worth paying for it with your health. Besides, think of Israel. When a man comes home to an empty hearth every night …’

  But Uncle Israel was busy, too, with his War Relief Clearing House and I believe he found, as I did, that my aunt was improved by war. It distracted her with practical problems and filled her address book with new acquaintances.

  ‘Mrs Elphick,’ she reported, ‘proposed that we add sewing machines to the list, and Mrs Bayliss seconded the proposal.’

  Ma played with the fringed edge of the tablecloth and yawned.

  ‘And then Miss Landau suggested …’ Miss Landau now featured prominently in Aunt Fish’s conversation.

  ‘Such a genuine person,’ Aunt Fish would prattle. ‘Quite tireless, and so generous with her time. And helping to raise her nephews, too, since her sister was so cruelly taken. They were Philadelphia Landaus, I believe, and her sister was married to Jacoby the furrier. Only thirty-five when …’ Here Aunt Fish would lower her voice. ‘… it was an obstruction of the internal parts, and she might have been saved if only she had given in sooner to the pain.’