I’ll tell Pietro about this, too—he’ll want to defend my honor! He’ll tell them that I’m not a thief they have no right to treat me like that, to touch me, to cheat me out of the money I earned. . .
The sidewalk outside was crowded, but she was too angry to care about how many people shoved against her. She scanned the crowd for Pietro, but he wasn’t there yet. She paced.
It’s so unfair! That Signor Carlotti! That guard! I can’t wait for Pietro to tell them off!
The other workers streamed out of the building, in festive moods because it was Saturday night and they’d just gotten paid and they were probably all going to movies and dances. Bella crossed her arms and leaned back against the building, just so the force of the crowd didn’t carry her away. The tide of workers coming out of the building slowed to a trickle, and then stopped. Pietro still wasn’t there.
What if he thinks I’m to blame somehow for the guard groping me? And then he might think I am bad, like damaged goods.... Maybe I shouldn’t tell him about that, just about the money.
To distract herself, she told herself maybe he’d gotten paid extra today—maybe he was right this minute buying movie tickets and planning to ask Bella to go with him. Bella had never heard of an unmarried boy and girl doing something like that back in Italy, but that was just because Calia didn’t have a movie theater, right?
Bella couldn’t trick herself into believing her fantasy at all. The wind whipped around the corner, and she shivered. It was going to be dark soon, and the sidewalks were emptying out. Where was Pietro? He’d never been this late before—never.
The tall buildings cast huge shadows. The wind blew more fiercely. Bella’s thin cotton dress was meant for the heat of southern Italy; it was no match for this cold wind. She was shaking now, huddled against the cold wall of the factory building. She wanted to bargain with God: Oh, per favore, per favore, Idon’t need to have the rest of my payment, I don’t need to have my honor defended, I don’t need to go to a dance or the movies, just please send Pietro. . . .
“Epes felt dir?” someone said.
Bella looked up. It was a girl from the factory, the girl who had cut threads with Bella the first day. This girl had moved on to running a sewing machine a long, long time ago, so Bella had barely seen her since that first day. She was with another girl with equally dark eyes and lustrous hair-Bella thought maybe the other girl was her sister.
“I’m waiting for my cousin,” Bella said, pantomiming her hand over her brow, looking around searchingly.
“Doesn’t your brother usually walk you home?” the girl said, and somehow Bella understood this, even though it wasn’t in Italian.
“Cousin,” Bella said. “Cousin, not brother. But he didn’t come tonight. . . .” She swallowed hard. She wasn’t going to cry in front of strangers.
“Do you want us to take you home?” the sister said.
And let Pietro wonder what happened to me? Sure. Let him be the one worrying. Because now she was nearly as mad at Pietro as she was at Signor Carlotti or the guard. Better to be mad than to worry—what had happened to Pietro?
Bella and the two sisters set off walking, but every time they reached a corner, the sisters looked questioningly at Bella, pointing—right? Left? Straight? Which was it? Everything looked different in the dark, without the crowds, without Pietro leading the way. Sometimes Bella could remember— Oh, yes, this is where the pigeons always roost on the light posts—go that way—other times she had to guess and, as often as not, backtrack when nothing looked familiar. But somehow, finally, they reached the front of the Lucianos’ tenement building.
“I live here,” Bella said. “Grazie. Thank you.”
“I’m Yetta and she’s Rahel,” the girl said, and she pointed and gestured so Bella understood this as well. “If we can do anything else to help . . .”
“I’m fine,” Bella said stiffly. “Thank you.”
The hallway and the stairs were dark; Bella stumbled climbing up. She shoved her way into the Lucianos’ apartment, where the entire family and a few of the boarders were crowded around the table making flowers.
“You missed supper,” Signora Luciano said. “It’s all gone.”
“Pietro—” Bella said. “Is Pietro here? Did he come home after work?”
“Haven’t seen him,” Signora Luciano said. Even in the dim light, Bella could see the malice gleaming in her eyes. “What’s wrong—is he two-timing you? Did he take it into his head to move somewhere else without you? Or—was he too stupid to get out of the way when they dropped a pipe in that ditch he was digging?”
Bella gasped.
“Where would they take him if he got hurt?” she asked, reaching back for the door. “I have to find him. Who would know where he is? The places he goes at night—the, the bars . . .”
Signora Luciano laughed.
“No respectable female would go into places like that,” she said. “You go there, I’d be forced to kick you out. Can’t have you making a bad influence on my girls.” She patted the nearest dirty head, though Bella wasn’t sure that that particular Luciano child was a girl.
“But, about Pietro—” Bella pleaded.
The oldest Luciano boy, Rocco, stood up. He was perhaps nine or ten—Bella had barely seen him before, because he was almost always out on the streets selling newspapers or shining shoes.
“I’ll go look for him,” Rocco said.
“You haven’t done your share of the flowers,” Signora Luciano growled.
“I sold extra newspapers today,” Rocco said. “The swells always feel sorry for the newsboys when it gets cold.”
Rocco brushed past his mother.
At the door, he told Bella, “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Bella sank down on the edge of the bed, even though two of the children and one of the male boarders, Nico, were already sitting there, their hands twisting flowers. Nico leaned over and whispered something to Signor Luciano, and they both laughed. Bella knew they were talking about her, something crude and nasty. Something that made her feel the same kind of shame she’d felt that afternoon, with the guard touching her. Her face flamed, and she focused on praying.
Please let Rocco come back quickly, with Pietro. Or at least with news that he’s fine, that the only reason he didn’t meet me after work was . . .
Bella couldn’t think of any good reason that Pietro hadn’t met her.
The fire in the stove threw scary shadows; the baby whined, then howled, then cried itself to sleep; Signora Luciano woke it up again shouting at everyone to work faster. Bella waited.
When Rocco returned, he was alone.
Everyone stared at him, but he looked only at Bella.
“They’re saying”—he panted, as if he’d run all the way from the bar, all the way up the stairs—“they’re saying the padrone took him to South Carolina.”
“South Carolina?” Bella repeated, having trouble pronouncing the unfamiliar words. “Where’s that?”
She hoped it was just a street or two over. No matter what Signora Luciano said, Bella wanted to go find Pietro for herself and make sure he was all right.
“It’s another state, hundreds of miles away,” Rocco said. “The padrone took his entire work crew. He thought he could make more money there.”
“And Pietro didn’t even tell me?” Bella cried out, in a strangled voice. “Didn’t even ask if I wanted to go with him?”
She felt betrayed, injured down to her very core.
“The girl wants to go off with a bunch of men?” Nico whispered, and that hurt too, what he was implying. Bella tried to ignore him.
“Pietro probably didn’t even know what was going on, until the padrone had him on the train,” Rocco said. “He left all his things here. It’s like . . . like he was kidnapped.”
Bella didn’t understand. Bandits kidnapped people—bandits were the ones who kidnapped and robbed and murdered. Padroni were powerful; they wouldn’t have to stoop to such things.
/> “But, but—the padrone gave us the money to come here,” Bella said. “Pietro first, then me. The padrone helped us.”
Signor Luciano laughed harshly.
“Padroni don’t give anyone anything,” he said. “They loan the money, and expect a lot of money back in return. Pietro probably wasn’t paying fast enough.”
My three dollars and ten cents today instead of four or four-twenty-five, Bella thought, stricken. Pietro was paying back my share too. Maybe it’s because of me?
But the padrone wouldn’t know that she got less money today. By the time Bella got paid, he’d already kidnapped Pietro.
“That reminds me,” Signora Luciano said. “Your rent is due today. And because I lost a boarder, and Pietro skipped out without paying, I’ll have to raise my rates. It’s . . . three-fifty now.”
She held out her hand, waiting. Bella could see the dirt under her long, scraggly fingernails. Dirt as black as night, as black as Signora Luciano’s soul.
“But—I only made three-ten this week,” Bella protested. “I don’t have that much money. I can’t pay. Please, I beg of you—”
“Then you’ll have to help us with the flowers, won’t you?” Signora Luciano said. “Here. Get to work.”
She held out wires, leaves, and petals, cheerful-looking things meant for grand ladies’ hats. But Bella knew they were really chains, handcuffs, shackles. If Bella so much as touched one of those wires, she’d be chained to the sewing machine all day at the factory, chained to the flowers every evening.
“No, please,” Bella moaned, but she was only a girl, alone—what could she do? Pietro was gone. No one was there to protect her anymore.
She gazed beseechingly at Signor Luciano, at Nico, at Rocco, but the men kept their heads down, carefully ignoring her. And the boy just shrugged, helplessly. Only he had the grace to look ashamed.
“Take it!” Signora Luciano ordered.
Bella took the wires, the leaves, the petals. She let Signora Luciano show her how to wrap everything together, creating the illusion of a flower. She let Signora Luciano scream at her when her fingers fumbled with the wires, when she dropped the leaves, when she accidentally smashed the petals.
The old Bella wouldn’t have stood for this, Bella told herself. She wouldn’t have let anyone yell at her like that, not without yelling back. She wouldn’t have let Signor Carlotti cheat her, either And she would have found some way to save Pietro from the padrone. . ..
But she knew none of that was true. The old Bella was courageous and daring and fierce only because she hadn’t known any better. She hadn’t known any better than to come to America.
That was worth it, she thought, blinking away tears. It’s worth it to work so hard, to be so hungry and tired and cold. Everything’s worth it as long as my family has food.
But that was hard to believe when the wires squirmed in her hands, when Signor Luciano and Nico leered at her, when Signora Luciano yelled at her, when everyone she loved was so far away.
When she felt so completely and utterly alone.
Yetta
We should have asked her about joining the union,” Yetta said.
Rahel gave her a sidelong glance.
“That girl was worried sick over her boyfriend—couldn’t you see?” Rahel said. “She was in no frame of mind to hear about her rights as a worker, her importance to the union. And I don’t think she understands English.”
“It was her brother she was waiting for—brother or cousin or something like that,” Yetta said.
“Oh, Yetta, didn’t you see the look on her face? That girl’s in love.”
Yetta hated this, when Rahel made her feel like a little child who knew nothing of the world.
“The union’s more important than love,” Yetta said stubbornly.
“Yetta, Yetta, Yetta,” Rahel said in a singsongy voice, playfully swinging around a lamppost. “Let’s see what you say when you fall in love.”
“Won’t happen,” Yetta said.
Rahel snickered in response and skipped ahead. It was a cold night, but they were both in high spirits because they’d just come from a lecture by a famous socialist. They’d heard how the workers really had all the power, so much more than the bosses—all they had to do was unite. Several other girls from Triangle had been in the audience, girls who nodded and clapped at all the same moments that Rahel and Yetta nodded and clapped. They’d felt united, there.
“If the Italian girls knew what was good for them, they’d want to join the union too,” Yetta said. “I think that was the girl who got cheated today.”
“Who hasn’t been cheated?” Rahel said, spinning back around to face Yetta. “Who hasn’t had their pay docked for being a minute late? Who hasn’t had the clock set back on them, so you work and work and work and quitting time never comes? Who hasn’t been forced to work overtime for no pay, and been told, Oh, here, you can have an apple turnover for your supper—aren’t we generous?’ Three hours overtime, and all you get is a measly turnover! Who hasn’t had a supervisor follow them to the bathroom and say, You’re taking too long in there! You’re stealing time from the company!’ Who hasn’t been charged for the electricity, for thread, for needles? Who hasn’t been charged for torn shirtwaists that the contractor himself ripped?”
“Rahel for union leader!” Yetta cheered, her voice echoing slightly off the tenements around them.
Rahel laughed.
“Oh, you know they’d never let a girl be in charge,” she said. “Those big union men, they look at us like we’ve got fluff for brains, and they pat our heads and say, ‘Now, now, you know it’s impossible to organize girls. They’re just working for pin money, just working until they get married. Girls can’t be depended on in a union.’”
“Then fight the union men,” Yetta said. “Fight the union men, fight the bosses—fight the world!”
Rahel looped her arm through her sister’s.
“You would, wouldn’t you?” she said, laughing again.
They’d crossed over now from the section where mostly Italian people lived, to an area where it was all Jews. They passed a Yiddish theater, and Yetta heard a burst of laughter when someone opened the door. The streets were crowded with people going to the theater or dances or movies or lectures or night school. In fact, there were more people out walking in this one block than had lived in Yetta’s entire shtetl back home. She remembered how shocked she’d been when she’d first got to America, by the noise and lights, the beardless men, the giggling girls who didn’t seem to know any of the rules about how females were supposed to behave. Now it all delighted her. In spite of her empty stomach, her aching feet, her threadbare clothes, her lousy job—in spite of everything, Yetta could still feel a burst of love for America, for New York, for the Lower East Side.
Back in the shtetl, she’d faced such a narrow future. Her parents and the matchmaker would have married her off to someone just for the status he could bring her family. If her father had had his way, it would have been a scholar, someone who’d spend his days with his head bent over the Torah while Yetta milked the cows and baked the bread, birthed the babies, and squeezed a living out of every little coin. No— that wouldn’t have been a living. This wasn’t quite living either—spending her life hunched over a machine, a supervisor always yelling at her, the work always piling up. In the factory, she was little more than a machine herself. But so much more was possible here. She was taking night-school English lessons and going to lectures and classes, and she could feel her mind opening up, her dreams opening up, her future opening up.
Maybe she and Rahel would be union leaders together.
“That Italian girl,” Rahel said, staring off into the distance, past the throngs on the sidewalk. “I suppose she will get married. She’ll get married and have babies and quit the factory. Maybe the union men have a point. How can we ask her to fight and struggle and suffer when she’s just going to quit? When she won’t benefit from anything we’re fighting for?”
/>
“Because maybe she’ll have daughters,” Yetta said fiercely. “And maybe her daughters will work in the factory. She wouldn’t want her daughters being tricked and cheated. She wouldn’t want her daughters to work a full week and have nothing to show for it. She wouldn’t want her daughters to starve.”
“Oh, Yetta, you have all the answers, don’t you?” Rahel said. But she didn’t sound proud or impressed. She sounded wistful, the same way she sounded sometimes when they whispered together in the night. Remember how Mama used to tuck us into bed when we were little? Remember how she polished the Sabbath candlesticks until they gleamed? Remember how Papa would lift us up on his shoulders and cry out, “The richest man in town can only wish to have so fine a family as ours!”
Yetta didn’t have an answer for that. It didn’t matter, though, because Rahel had turned away from her.
“Oh!” she cried out, her cheeks suddenly coloring up. “Mr. Cohen!”
A tall, well-dressed young man was coming toward them. On a sidewalk full of couples and clusters of friends, he was walking alone.
“Miss Rahel!” he said, then said something in English that Yetta didn’t quite understand. What did “It’s such a treasure to see you” mean? No, wait. “Pleasure”? He thought it was a pleasure to see Rahel?
“Your English is perfect,” Rahel said, with a trilling kind of laugh that Yetta had never heard Rahel use before.
“Thank you so much. Thank you,” Mr. Cohen said with a little bow, then he walked on.
Rahel stood still, watching him. Yetta watched Rahel.
“Who was that?” Yetta demanded.
“Mr. Cohen,” Rahel said. “He’s in my English class.”
Rahel was in a different English class than Yetta, a more advanced one, because she’d been in America longer. That was something else that made Yetta feel like Rahel would always be far ahead, that Yetta could never catch up.
Rahel sighed, as Mr. Cohen disappeared into the crowd.
“He’s so . . . don’t you think he’s handsome?” she asked.
Handsome? Back home in the shtetl, it wasn’t much worth noticing who was handsome and who wasn’t. Girls didn’t have a choice. They just married the man their parents told them to marry, and hoped he wasn’t too hideous. But in America . . . what was Rahel thinking?
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