Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  Oi vey! Stan, Stan za slogan man

  Offcuts, please put za cabbage can

  Please, every stitch must be on time

  You comink late! Zen your pay I fine

  Next time late, you not verk again

  You can say cheer-o to Flinders Lane

  I’m sorry, my dear, zis come to pass

  Not on time, you can kiss my arse!

  Now Sophie can look after Sarah’s baby during the day and still earn enough to help keep the wolf from the door. With Morrie’s night job, her job and Sarah’s scholarship money, they can pay the rent, put food on the table and have a bit over for petrol and the theatre or the symphony orchestra once a month. Morrie’s also bought the secondhand Singer machine for Sophie. The work involved in turning the handle of the sewing machine is very tiring and their very next priority is to trade it in on a second-hand treadle. It’s not a bad life and Morrie says they couldn’t wish for more, a little food, a little culture, a little learning, freedom from danger and a family with a child to love.

  Baby or no baby, the favour granted by Mr Stan doesn’t extend to Sophie not meeting her quota. Like everyone else in The Lane, he runs a sweatshop on a shoestring. Sweatshop isn’t a dirty word, it just means a frock factory and the frock factories run by Jewish immigrants are always short of money. There’s a joke which says they are called sweatshops because the proprietors are always sweating on orders, sweating on deliveries, sweating on credit, sweating on deadlines and a host of other intangibles. Credit is everything and prompt payment for goods is a matter of survival. Work simply can’t be late.

  Mr Stan has been in business eight years. To start up on his own he borrowed fifty pounds from a moneylender, a Pole called Wolski from the same part of Poland as him who came to Australia before the war and made a lot of money making military uniforms, so the interest on the money was only twenty per cent per annum on the principal with weekly repayments. There is no reduction on the principal until the interest has been paid. Banks wouldn’t lend immigrants money and these were generous terms compared to many being offered the Jewish rag traders.

  Mr Stan leased a factory in Fitzroy with six machines and a cutting table and two years later moved into Flinders Lane. This was not a big jump on the prosperity ladder but more an opportunity to make small economies that would add up. The conditions of most Flinders Lane premises were appalling but now he could get his buttons and binding, sequins, cottons and fabrics, beads, zips, machine parts and the mechanics to fix them, as well as his designers and pattern-cutters and rat catchers, all on the spot. What might have taken a messenger boy all morning to procure when Mr Stan’s factory was in Fitzroy, now takes a matter of minutes and the messenger boy’s salary is another few shillings saved.

  Then, of course, there is the comfort of having his own kind around him. Everyone knows everyone, The Lane is the beating heart of the schmatte business. The clanging of lifts with their brass grilles gives a certain assurance that business is solid. A hundred sewing machines whirring in impossibly cramped quarters is the sound of opportunity beckoning. Trucks backing into tight spaces, the drivers yelling out warnings and hurling abuse, mean orders are completed and soon to be delivered. The squeaking of the clothes racks on the cobblestones below is continuity of purpose and recalls lives spent in other places, where their fathers and their grandfathers cut and stitched and earned a livelihood pushing the same delivery racks along more worn cobbled lanes. The smell of burnt coffee and the hiss of the steam presses remind them that life is urgent and goes on whatever happens. Even the tired ceiling fans swirling fetid air around the factory before pumping it out through the windows into The Lane below are a living, breathing reminder that you have survived another day. Despite the persistent invasion of rats coming up from Queen’s Wharf and the clogged and broken lavatories and primitive facilities, they tell themselves that they are in the business of elegance, the fashion trade, a place of rags to riches, where a ball gown can take a year to make and cost five thousand pounds. If the place they work in is freezing in winter with the pecking order on the factory floor determined by one’s proximity to the oil heaters, and if in summer they must resort to working in their slips because of the oppressive heat, they are still in a free land where hardship and sacrifice can lead to security and freedom from want. All it will take is work, work, work and a little mazel, a little luck.

  Flinders Lane is not only a place of work, but also a place of the heart. The Lane is food for the impoverished soul. It is the intellectual and spiritual nourishment needed by a people who have suffered and lost everything and are once again trying to gather sufficient emotional capital together to rebuild their lives. Flinders Lane is a new place in the heart where the word ‘Jew’ is a description, or, at the very worst, a bigoted though harmless adjective and not a death sentence.

  After eight years in the business, with, God forbid, never a debt he couldn’t somehow pay, the bank is only just beginning to trust Mr Stan. But then, in Flinders Lane, everything is conditional, nothing is a certainty, trust is a compliment that has to be earned over and over again. Mr Stan has to deliver his garments On time, every time!, which is another of his more important slogans. Each season in fashion is a lifetime ago, sometimes even a week or a month is a different age. Mr Stan would explain, ‘What was good last week or last month, next month you couldn’t give it away!’

  With pieceworkers anything can happen and Mr Stan knows this; children get sick, evictions take place, husbands lose jobs, get drunk and smash and bash things, including their wives, home sweet home is a constant tragedy in the process of occurring and reoccurring.

  In other words, What you can’t see you can’t guarantee. Mr Stan wants his workers at their Singer sewing machines at nine sharp every morning and he shakes their hands at the front door when they leave at five. ‘See you tomorrow, Mrs Kaspowitz, my compliments your husband.’ Each garment worker is recognised and accorded a departing remark. ‘The sleeves the crystal organza you are doing, very nice, Mrs Adams. Remind me a small bonus.’ If they can’t get into work because of illness or some domestic problem, Mr Stan expects his workers to call him or to send a message so he has sufficient time to bring in a freelancer for the day and get the maximum work off the floor.

  In the harsh world of the schmatte business, everyone knows the rules. If Mr Stan doesn’t deliver on time to Myers or Mantons, Darrods or Buckley & Nunn or a dozen other emporiums big and small, the entire order, months of work, can be cancelled with the stroke of a pen. There’s always someone else. Competition, even with your best friend, is a no-holds-barred business. The big buyers are the whimsical gods of prosperity. They cannot be offended. A broken promise is a business broken.

  Mr Stan is working for the most part on credit, if he doesn’t get paid, his suppliers don’t get paid and he’s out of business. Of all Mr Stan’s many slogans, one is the most important to him. This particular slogan has been painted by an expensive Italian signwriter in big red letters above the door leading to the rows of Singer sewing machines on the factory floor.

  IT’S THE SINGER, NOT THE SONG.

  IDLE MACHINES SEW NO SEAMS.

  Promises don’t make profits is another favourite.

  Sophie knows the piecework rules. Not in on the day, means sorry, no pay, which means that the first time she’s late she doesn’t get paid for her work. The second time, yet another slogan, Second time late and you seal your fate.

  Mr Stan speaks like most Polish Jews who have learned their English late. Like Morrie, he gets it right but often his words are the wrong way around. But his slogans are always in proper English and there’s no mistaking their meaning.

  While a few of his factory workers are Australian, most are refugees, migrant women who speak almost no English, so that the rhyming in Mr Stan’s slogans is meaningless to them, but they soon catch on that the sentiments they express are not negotiable. Mr S
tan is fair, pays overtime at slightly above union rates and treats them well. Good work earns a two shilling bonus at the end of the day. At Christmas he throws a party for his staff with gifts for their children, even though most of his workers are Jewish. He explains this simply as ‘custom of the new land’, which becomes the all-embracing explanation for anything that can’t be readily explained.

  Above all, his slogans are his business, break them and you break him. To show he means what he says, he works twice as hard as anyone else and puts in twelve hours a day, six days a week, and so does his family. On the Sabbath (Saturday) he does the books. God looks when we do the books. Often he and the family are simply too busy to go to synagogue. God understands busy hands. Mr Stan is credited with a famous saying in The Lane. It is supposed to have occurred outside Shul one Saturday when the rabbi noted, a little sharply, that he hadn’t seen him in synagogue in over a month. ‘Rabbi, personally I am not so worried, everyone in the schmatte business will go to heaven because already they have been to hell.’

  Sophie, if she has to, can probably afford to lose the pay she won’t get if she can’t deliver first thing Monday morning. After all, a baby doesn’t come along every day, does it? But she can’t afford the Second time late, you seal your fate clause. Mr Stan makes no exceptions. ‘Why you think za word sentimental got za word mental in it? For sentimental I got no slogan!’ he would say. Sophie was simply too nervous a type of person to have the threat of instant dismissal hanging over her head if she was ever late a second time. So what to do? The answer is, there is nothing they can do, they’re stuffed, might as well relax.

  Bozo and me decide to take the Bitzers for a walk. We invite Mike but he says he wants to talk to Sarah when she wakes up about talking to Nancy about him working in Melbourne. On the way we gather up a bunch of young kids who like the dogs. Station Street is full of kids playing and soon there must be twenty or more traipsing behind us. By the time we get back outside the house we’re all mates and just for fun Bozo puts Bitzers One to Five through their paces.

  The kids love the show and the Bitzers love doing it, so Bozo keeps going. Soon, quite a crowd gathers and there are almost as many grown-ups as kids, with women in aprons and slippers coming out of their kitchens to have a squiz. Bozo’s Bitzers are good performers and he’s been told lots of times he could make a quid if he took the act to the RSL clubs.

  Bozo’s dogs are good all-round but Bitzer Five, the Silky–Pomeranian mix does this special trick that brings the house down every time. He can piss standing on his front legs with his back legs in the air. Fair dinkum, that’s what he can do! So Bozo’s just about finished his routine and all the dogs are sitting in a straight line in front of him, tongues lolling, waiting for instructions. Each one of them can do a trick that’s his very own and you can see they’re all hoping they’ll be the one to be picked next. The crowd want more action so Bozo points to Bitzer Five.

  ‘Bitzer Five, handstand with golden squirt!’ he commands.

  All Bozo’s dog tricks have names like that, ‘Roll over rover’, ‘See you later alligator’ and so on. Some of them are also accompanied by a certain number of claps, which tells the Bitzers when to perform a particular trick. Bitzer Five jumps out of the ranks and comes and sits at Bozo’s feet, tail wagging like mad. You can see he’s going to do his best. Bozo claps three times and Bitzer Five is up and moves over to the telegraph pole and gives it a bit of a sniff first, sees who’s been there before him the way dogs do. Sniffsniff he goes and this gets a laugh, even though they must have seen a dog doing this a squillion times over. Then Bitzer Five turns so his bum is facing the pole and waits. Bozo claps three more times and the little dog ups onto his front legs with the back legs in the air and splashes the pole with a golden stream, holding his balance perfectly until he’s finished.

  The crowd goes wild. They’ve never seen a dog do such a thing before. Bitzer Five then rejoins the ranks, licking his chops and looking very chuffed with himself. Then this loud voice from the back says, ‘You ought to be arrested, son, dog messing the pavement like that!’

  Everyone parts to let this cove come through. ‘Afternoon, Mr Lovegrove,’ a few of the adults say, but they’re smiling and he’s smiling, like you can see he doesn’t mean what he’s just said.

  Bozo says quickly, ‘About turn!’ and all the Bitzers up and turn, facing in the direction of the bloke coming towards us and they sit up on their bums, front legs in the air. ‘Say gidday, the Maloney way!’ Bozo commands and each Bitzer waves his right paw. This brings a roar from the crowd and this Lovegrove bloke breaks up. ‘Stand at ease!’ Bozo shouts and the dogs bring their paws down again and drop to the footpath.

  ‘How’s young Sarah?’ Mr Lovegrove asks right off. ‘Had her baby yet?’

  I don’t know how he happens to know about Sarah but Bozo replies, ‘Early this mornin’, a little girl, sir.’

  ‘Congratulations, she’s a tribute to the working classes. I’m glad she won in the university debacle.’ Who is this bloke? I think he must know Morrie or maybe even Sarah. He’s got a look of authority, like a headmaster. You know, a man who’s used to talking to people and also being listened to. He must have been reading my thoughts, because now he says, ‘Denis Lovegrove, Member for Carlton.’ He looks at Bozo and then at me, ‘And you are?’

  ‘Bozo and Mole Maloney, sir, Sarah’s brothers,’ Bozo answers for both of us.

  ‘Nice shiner, Bozo, had a scrap, did ya?’

  ‘Sort of, sir. Boxing, sir.’

  ‘Boxing, eh? Damn good sport for a lad. Teaches you independence. You’re down from the country for the birth then, are you?’ ‘Yes, sir, Yankalillee.’

  ‘Well, I can see you’re a talented family, you’ve done a damn good job on those mutts.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Bozo, thanks for the show, it was damned good.’ He turns to the crowd, ‘Wasn’t it, folks?’ They’re cheering and clapping and one or two even whistle. Mr Lovegrove then turns back to Bozo. ‘You tell Sarah we’re proud of her and congratulations, she’s got a lot of guts. I had a word about her situation in parliament recently, high time women stepped up and claimed their rights.’ I can see he’s taken the opportunity to tell this to the crowd and not to me and Bozo. There’s a bit of a murmur as people realise that Sarah lives in the same street as them and a few of them clap again. Sarah’s become pretty famous after what’s gone on.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Bozo says.

  ‘You tell her, anything I can do to help, just to give me a call,’ Lovegrove looks at us, ‘I mean it, lad, the working class has to stick together. Anything she needs, call me.’

  My mouth falls open when Bozo says, ‘Well, sir, there is something.’

  Mr Lovegrove shows surprise. I guess he says it a lot, not expecting to be taken up right off the way Bozo’s just done.

  ‘What is it, son?’

  Bozo explains about Sophie and her piecework and how, because of Sarah’s baby, she’s behind and also her machine has broken down and the one we brought has as well. If she doesn’t get the stuff in on time, which is Monday morning, she’ll be sacked. It’s a bit of a lie, because it will be only her pay that’s docked. ‘Sir, there’s four of us can sew,’ Bozo continues, ‘we were wondering if someone here could maybe hire us a sewing machine for today and termorra?’

  ‘Hear that?’ Denis Lovegrove yells out. ‘Anyone here willing to hire their sewing machine to the Maloneys for today and all of tomorrow, they’re in a spot of bother with piecework for the frock factories?’

  Hire? Maybe Bozo’s got some money, but I know all Nancy’s got in her purse is the petrol money to get us home. Morrie and Sophie are skint and Mrs Rika Ray has done nothing but complain about the train fare from Wangaratta since she’s come. Who knows what hiring a sewing machine would cost.

  Two women put up their hands, then one says, ‘He’s a good kid,
putting on a show for us like he done, he can borrow my Singer treadle. I don’t want no money, done piecework meself. Kid’s right, she’ll lose her job!’

  ‘Yeah, he can have ours as well,’ a second woman says,

  ‘for free also.’

  Lovegrove turns to Bozo, ‘Could you use two?’

  Bozo grins. ‘Couldn’t be better, sir.’

  With two treadle machines on the go and the four of them working, we’ll shit it in! Even I know that.

  ‘There you go, Bozo,’ Lovegrove says, pleased. He turns to the crowd. ‘That’s the Carlton spirit, neighbours looking after each other, wouldn’t see that happening in Toorak now, would you? The two ladies, your names, please?’

  ‘Dot!’ one shouts out.

  ‘Betty!’ says the other.

  ‘A big clap for Dot and Betty, ladies and gentlemen! Two very generous people.’

  Everyone claps and Lovegrove shakes Bozo’s hand and then mine and Bozo brings the Bitzers to attention in a straight line. ‘See yer later alligator!’ he commands and they’re up, balanced on their bums, but this time they’re waving both paws at the Member for Carlton and they bark ‘Whoof!’, just the once in unison. Everyone laughs.

  Betty and Dot get their husbands and one of Dot’s sons to help us lug their sewing machines to the house.

  Well, needless to say, with two sewing machines going flat-out between Nancy and Mike, who work past midnight, and Mrs Rika Ray and Sophie, who went to bed at seven o’clock with Nancy waking them at one in the morning to take over, Sophie’s piecework is complete before breakfast on Sunday morning.