Beyond the Pale: A Novel (51 page)

Suddenly noise was everywhere, the noise of panic, confusion. Horses pulling a fire truck clattered past. I don’t know why but my hand went to the brooch Rose gave me last month for my birthday: a woman’s head in relief like you can buy in half the stores on Hester Street. We called her our little Gitl, and Rose had said to brush her tiny lips with my fingertips when I needed to remember.

I stood flat against a brick wall with my hand over the brooch, over my throat, trying to make sense of the people running and the noise.

“The factory! It’s the Triangle factory!” someone yelled just as I saw a snake of smoke rise out of the upper windows of the Asch building on the corner of Greene Street.

No!
I picked up my skirt and started to run towards the commotion and smell. In front of the building firemen and police were holding people back, holding people screaming. The street was full of screaming, smoke was pushing against the windows up there, on the top floors, breaking the glass as if the smoke had grown fists.

Mrs. Goldman stood in front of her café, gripping her broom.

“What do they think they’re doing?” she shouted. “Throwing those burning bolts of cloth—Oh my God!” At the same moment she and I saw the legs scissor open as the smoldering girl smashed onto the pavement. I looked up. Girls were standing on the ledges. I counted the stories. Two groups were pushing through the jagged panes on the eighth floor.

Rose worked on eight.

More girls balanced on the ledge above. Some were screaming too, but most seemed quiet. The real yelling was down on the street, which was jammed with people who had been in the park, and then with the Triangle workers who had managed to escape. One girl’s hair was burnt around her neck, another was stumbling, trying to see out of a pair of smashed eyeglasses. I scanned their faces, then looked back at the ledge.

Where was Rose?

I grabbed one of the girls by the shoulders. “Rose Petrovsky, have you seen Rose Petrovsky?” She stared at me as if she’d seen the fearful face of God and started sobbing, bleating out something in Italian before she pushed past me. The firemen were stamping furiously beside their trucks. They had extended the ladders as far as they could go—the ladders stopped two floors short. The water from the hoses couldn’t even reach the women on the eighth floor. A terrible shrieking was coming from the side of the building.

Then sound stopped in my ears. Looking up, I could make out two women taking each other’s hands as a spear of flame prodded at their sides through the broken glass. They plunged into the air, kicking their legs, as if to keep themselves aloft. The firemen held out a net, slipping back and forth through the wet red street, trying to stay under the jumpers. They managed to get the net right below the two girls, but they broke through as if it were tissue paper and smashed on the ground. Where were their sounds? Where was—?

I looked up again and realized a woman was holding me. Her mouth was moving but if she was saying something, I couldn’t hear. I should have been screaming, yet nothing escaped my throat, everything was caught inside, shaking, cold. The woman I’d never seen before was trying to hold onto me but I felt I was exploding and wrenched myself free. The green metal sheets that opened up the sidewalks for basement deliveries were stained black. Firemen piled bodies on top of each other like logs. The gutter was running blood.

Running blood. Somebody should have been helping them—. The woman who had been holding me disappeared, came back—no, it was Mrs. Goldman this time, with a cold rag. With many cold rags. She pressed one to the back of my neck and I took a deep breath. A terrible stench filled the air, burning machine oil, clothes, hair, flesh. Gutke had said something about the smell of death, what was it? I shook my head to clear it and squeezed Mrs. Goldman’s hand. Then I walked up to every woman in the street, everyone coming out of the building. Women and men were crying, holding onto each other, their skirts and blouses torn.

“Rose Petrovsky, do you know her? Have you seen her?” A woman looked up at the ledge, covered her eyes with her hands and didn’t remove them. I saw Clara, who gave the speech in Cooper Union that started the Uprising. Clara was frantically moving from one group of bodies to another, wailing and laughing with the same breath.

A man was watching Clara from the other side of the street, taking notes. Another tall, skinny man chewed a cigar. “Let them burn,” I heard the skinny man say to the notetaker. “They’re a lot of cattle anyway.” The notetaker’s mouth opened and shut in surprise.

The taste of blood filled my mouth. I couldn’t look at the other lookers anymore. I tried to get close to the doorway but a policeman stopped me. “Can’t let you past here, miss,” he said. “We’re doing the best we can. If you want to be useful, go look over there by the fire carts and see if you recognize any bodies.”

The street was full of bodies, so many bodies in just one little street. They were being piled into ice carts and delivery trucks, into fire and police trucks, ambulances. At home it hadn’t been like this, all together—just one, then two—just one and—. I closed my eyes. No. Not Rose. Not Rose. Not Mama. Not Rose.

Sound stopped again. There was a different smell. Rose’s perfume and the smell of something I couldn’t place.

Flame spikes up through the floorboards.

Everyone is running

yelling

you can hear it

even though the flames are moving faster than sound

open mouths

let me out of here      I have to get downstairs      don’t you understand?

let me through      let me through

how can this happen to me?

how can this

how can it      to me?      
to me?

I’m trapped by the wall      window      coat hooks      door      elevator      

beating on the locked door

I’m too young

can’t you hear we’re too young we’re just girls

we      are      just      girls

this can’t happen

an hour from now      the floor would be empty

this—

look at us

we came on ships

from small towns in Italy      Russia      Poland

from big cities where there were no jobs

we were grateful for these jobs last year

I kept my machine oiled and never talked back

I had such a good stitch

unlock the door!      enough already

let us out

someone drags a girl to the window       a rag doll

breaks the glass      pushes

my lover is downstairs waiting for me

I don’t want her to see me like this

Chava      I worked sewing since I was fourteen

seven years in sweatshops

and still I had pride in my needle

Chava      I went to the window but I saw what happened to the girls

who jumped

I tried to get back to the door

the black stripes on my shirt

burn first

Chava      wait      wait for me      this heat

my face cracking      crackling

there’s another story      where I get back to you

where I’m on the last elevator that makes it down

where I crawl across the roof

where I fall onto a fire escape and rave in the hospital for a week

but survive

Chava      I tried the door of all these stories

but each was locked from the inside

I’m scared      angry

it’s too hot here      and I can’t breathe      the fire is on my hair

oh god      I’m batting at it with my hands but

my skin is peeling back in strips

it hurts      it burns inside my lungs      my lungs are going to burst

if I close my eyes      Chava      Mama      Mama      

this can’t be happening to me

Chava      don’t let this happen to me I can’t

I can’t open my eyes      I can’t

Rose touched my cheek.

“So fast, Chava, you wouldn’t believe how fast it is. I tried so hard to get to you. I knew you would be out in the street. I didn’t want you to see me fall. The doors—I pushed and pushed, but they were locked, we couldn’t break through. I got trapped against the back wall. They’ll find me there. You’ll be able to identify me by the ring you gave me. I clutched it tight in my hand, I never let go. Oh Chava, I wanted my life. I wanted my life. I’m so sorry.”

Ash was blowing through the streets. There were no more falling bodies. The eighteen minutes were over. One hundred and forty-six had died and their spirits were filling the small street, the streets beyond Washington Square, teaming, pushing, trying to get home, trying to speak with their last energy, almost all young Jewish and Italian women trying to get to their mamas, to their families, to say: Don’t worry, it was fast, I died quickly, keep me with you, keep me alive within you, I didn’t know this morning to say goodbye, to say I love you, remember me, Mama—
how could this happen to me?

The spirits were called quickly. The mothers in their kitchens sat down. Everything was suddenly wrong. They didn’t know why and then there was shouting in the street below the window.

I bent over and put my hands in the gutter. They came up red and black. I smeared my face, my shirtwaist, with the dirt. The man with the notepad came up to me probably thinking I was one of the ones who fled the building. “No, no. I have to go home now.”

I made my way to Houston Street. How was I going to tell Aunt Bina? How could I go back to our room, our bed, our—. I slumped against a wall.

I’m not sure how much time went by before I felt someone put their hand under my chin, lift my face up. Blue legs, blue coat, blue cap. I swatted the hand away.

“Chava.” A familiar voice. Aaron. “Chava,” he said again. “You weren’t in the building, were you?” His voice shook. His face was out of focus. I looked at my arm and saw that my shirt was torn and covered with blood.