For the Love of Mike (13 page)

As we made our way down the slick, crumbling steps and ducked into the workroom the foreman was waiting for us, hands on hips and an indignant expression on his face. “Late again! Won’t you girls ever learn?” He pointed at the clock on the wall behind him. It showed twelve thirty-three. “That will cost you ten cents. At this rate you’ll end up paying me by the end of the week.”

“We can’t be late,” I blurted out. “I looked at the clock at the deli and we had five whole minutes to cross the street.”

I felt Rose dig me in the ribs.

“Late on your first day and argumentative too? Dear me, that’s not a good sign, Miss Murphy. I’ll have to dock you twenty cents so that you learn to keep your trap shut. Now get to your machines, all of you!”

As Rose and I made our way down the line of machines she whispered to me, “I should have warned you—if you oppose him, he fines you, so it’s not worth it.”

“But I’m sure we weren’t late. How can we have taken eight minutes to cross one street?”

“We weren’t late. He puts the hands forward on the clock. He does it all the time. And he turns the hands back when we aren’t looking so that we work later at night.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. That’s disgusting. Does the owner know?”

“Oh, I’m sure the owner knows all about it,” Rose said. “He turns a blind eye, if he didn’t order it in the first place.”

“It’s terrible. We should do something. They can’t treat us like that. It’s just not fair.”

Rose smiled and shook her head. “You’re new,” she said. “You’ll learn that a lot of things aren’t fair.” She leaned closer to me. “Oh, and another word of warning—don’t let Katz get you into the backroom alone. He’ll claim there is something wrong with your work, or pretend he needs to give you a talking-to. All he wants to do is to force himself on you. He’s tried it with a lot of girls.”

“I still hear talking!” Katz’s voice shouted. “Someone want no pay this week?”

We got down to work. I watched the clock carefully all evening to make sure that Mr. Katz didn’t try to move the hands backward. I was dying to catch him at it. But he didn’t go near it.

It was raining and a cold wind was blowing as we staggered up into the fresh air at seven o’clock.

“I’ll see you bright and early then,” Rose said. “He likes us in our seats at six thirty, although our day officially starts at seven.”

“If that was one day, I don’t know how I’ll manage a whole week,” I said. “My back is so stiff from that broken chair. I pointed it out to Katz and he told me I could bring my own if I wanted.”

Rose waited for a group of girls to go past, then pulled me closer to her, under an awning out of the rain. “If you really want to help change things, some of us are trying to get a union going. There’s a meeting on Wednesday night.”

I had promised myself I wouldn’t get involved. I shook my head. “I’d really like to, but . . .”

She nodded. “I understand. It’s a big risk. If someone snitches on us and the bosses find out, nobody would hire us again, but I’m willing to take the risk. I’m educated. I can think for myself. If someone doesn’t speak out for these girls, nothing will ever change.”

“You’re very brave.”

She laughed. “Maybe I’m just stupid. Me and my big mouth, huh? But I feel it’s up to me—most of these girls are peasants, they can’t even read and write. They don’t speak English well, and their families are desperate for money. So they shut up and put up with all of this. We won’t get nothing unless we unionize. My brother was with the Bund in Poland.”

“The Bund?”

“It’s a radical socialist group, working to change the old order—justice, freedom, equality for all people. Many Jewish boys were involved, even though it meant possible prison or even death. My brother had to keep his work secret from my father—my father would never have approved.”

“What does your brother do now?”

“He lies in an unmarked grave. He was executed when one of their group betrayed them to the secret police.”

I touched her arm. “I’m so sorry. So many tragedies in the world.”

“That’s why I’m doing this work with the union. Someone has to make sure my Motl didn’t die for nothing. Someone has to make sure this country is better than the last one.” She draped her shawl over her head. “Think about it and let me know if you change your mind. You’d be a real help, because you speak good English.”

“So do you.”

“
Ya
, but I sound like a foreigner—a newnik. Nobody’s going to take me seriously. The union loves English-speaking girls. There was this English girl who came a few times. You should have heard her talk—
oy
, but she talked real pretty. Just like the queen of England. ‘We’re going to make these petty tyrants sit up and listen to us,’ she said.” Rose did a fair imitation of upper-class English speech. Then she laughed. “Real hoity-toity, she was. I got a kick out of her.”

“She’s not there anymore?”

Rose shook her head. “Nah. She only came for a few weeks, then she didn’t show up no more. I expect she’d found something better—a girl like her from good family. I don’t know what she was doing working in no lousy sweatshop to start with.”

I was getting a chill up my spine and it wasn’t from the drips that were falling on us from the awning.

“What was her name?” I asked.

“Kathy,” Rose said. “I remember it because none of us from Europe can say that ‘th’ sound proper. We called her Katti and she kept correcting us.”

“And when did she stop showing up?”

Rose put her hand to her mouth, thinking. “Must have been about three, four weeks ago.”

“I’ve changed my mind,” I said. “I think I will come to this union meeting with you after all.”

Thirteen

T
here were lots of girls called Kathy in the world, I told myself. I shouldn’t read too much into this—but it did sound a lot like her. I would try to ask for a description, without seeming too interested, of course. And at the union meeting maybe I’d find out more. In the meantime I had to remind myself that I was being paid to discover a spy. Sometime in the next few weeks, someone was going to deliver stolen designs to Lowenstein’s.

By the time Wednesday night rolled around, I was more than ready to attend the union meeting, and not just because I wanted to find out if the English girl called Kathy was the Katherine I was seeking. As I watched injustice after injustice going on at Lowenstein’s, I realized that I couldn’t just sit quietly and do nothing. I had promised myself that I wouldn’t get involved, but I wasn’t very good at following my own advice. Someone had to do something and that someone was me.

If Mostel’s had been purgatory, then Lowenstein’s was hell itself. The dark, dank cold went right through clothing and bones to the very soul. To sit hunched over machines, eyes straining in the gloom, fingers numb and chilblained, with the constant sound of coughing over the clatter of the treadles was enough to break even the bravest of spirits, and these girls had been through so much before that their spirits were already broken.

On Friday evening the bully Katz wound back the clock hands twenty minutes so that we’d stay to finish the workload and he wouldn’t have to pay us overtime. I saw him. So did several other girls, but nobody said a word. I also watched him smirk to himself as he passed by to his office. I sat there fuming, longing for a chance to get even with him. I’d help get these girls unionized if it was the last thing I did!

The bell rang to signal seven o’clock, which was really seven twenty. Tired girls stood up, stretched cramped limbs, stamped cold feet, snatched up belongings, and got out of there as fast as they could. As I followed Rose to the door, a hand grabbed my arm. “Not you, Murphy. I want a word with you.”

I looked around to find Katz smirking at me.

“What have I done?”

“These sleeves,” he said. “Call yourself a seamstress, do you? I don’t know what the standard of work is like in Ireland, but it must be pretty bad.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my sleeves,” I said angrily. “I stitched a nice straight seam and I finished my quota.”

“Not what I’ve been seeing,” he said. He turned and disappeared through the door into the back room. “Call this a nice straight seam?” He held up a sleeve and waved it at me.

I stomped into the back room after him. “Let me see that. I’ll tell you if it was my work or not.”

I snatched the sleeve from him. “Why, this isn’t even my sleeve. I don’t start my work that way, and look, the threads aren’t even cut. Little Becky cut every one of my threads today.”

I looked up and he was still smirking. I realized then that I had been tricked. The sounds in the workroom were dying away.

“I like ’em feisty,” he said, coming toward me. “A good fight makes the conquest all the sweeter, and you look like a lusty girl who enjoys it, am I right?”

I was so frozen in horror that I didn’t react quickly enough. He pushed me against the cold wet brick wall and pinned me with his body, his knee thrust between my legs. As I opened my mouth to scream, he forced his mouth onto mine, his tongue into my mouth, his hands groping at my body.

I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t believed he could be so strong. I tried to shake myself free from him, but he held me pinned like a butterfly to a board. Revulsion flooded over me as I felt him getting excited and impatient but I fought to remain calm. If he wanted to take this amorous attack one stage further, he’d have to move to lift my skirt and then I’d go for him where it hurt. I was finding it hard to breathe. Then I felt him trying to shift me along the wall to where bolts of cloth lay piled on the floor. If he got me that far, he could throw himself on top of me. I wasn’t going to let that happen. I managed to get my hands up to his face. I couldn’t reach his eyes, but I grabbed his long, curling hair, and I yanked as hard as I could.

He reacted just enough for me to break free of his mouth.

“Let go of me or you’ll be sorry!” I gasped. “I killed the last man who tried to rape me.”

“I don’t kill so easy,” he said, laughing. “Like I said—the harder the struggle, the sweeter the conquest.”

“Molly? I’ve been waiting for you. Are you ready yet?” Rose’s voice echoed behind us, unnaturally loud.

Katz spun around. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Keeping an eye on Molly and making sure she gets home safe and sound,” Rose said calmly. She walked over to me, linked her arm through mine, and dragged me away. “Let’s go home now, Molly,” she said. Then she walked with me calmly out of that door and down the long, empty workroom.

“Thank you,” I stammered. “If you hadn’t come back for me, I don’t know what might have happened.”

“I hung around,” she said. “I thought he might try it. I’ve noticed him looking at you. He tries it with all the pretty new girls.”

“He’s disgusting,” I said, wiping my mouth with my hand and fighting back a desire to vomit. “The owner should be told. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.”

“Mr. Lowenstein doesn’t care about anything except quick profits,” Rose said. “How often do you think he even shows up here? Hardly ever. And Katz gets the work done on time for him. That’s all he cares about.”

“I’m putting a knife in my skirt pocket in the future,” I said, “in case he tries it again.”

“He won’t,” Rose said. “He’ll go on to someone who’s easier. That’s one thing you can count on around here—a never ending supply of girls.”

“Not when we get the union going,” I said.

Rose chuckled. “Another redhead just like me. We’re all born fighters, Molly. I’m so glad you came here. We’ll show ’em; won’t we?”

“We’ll set the dogs on Mr. Katz!”

We linked arms and left the building smiling.

On Monday morning an old gentleman with a neat white beard came into our workroom. He wore a long black coat and top hat and he carried a silver-tipped cane. The effect was rather like an elderly wizard.

“Guten Morgen,”
he said in German. “Everyone working hard. That’s good. Where is Katz?”

Katz came flying out of the back room at the sound of the voice.

“Mr. Lowenstein—such a privilege that you should visit us,” he said, groveling. “Everything is going well, sir. The order will go out today like you wanted.”

“Gut. Gut.”
Lowenstein rubbed his hands together. “And think about taking on some more girls. Busy season coming up. I should have the new designs in the next week or so and then it’s full speed ahead,
ja?
A bonus for everybody if we get the first batch of new dresses in the stores two weeks before Christmas.” He rubbed his hands together again. “It’s cold in here, Katz. How can these girls do their best work if it’s cold? Get the oil stoves out, man.”

“Papa, are you coming?” A slim, dark-haired beauty made her way gingerly down the outside steps and poked her head through the door. She was wearing a fur-trimmed bonnet and a big blue cape, also trimmed with white fur. The cape was open and she wore a black velvet ribbon around her throat on which hung a silver locket, sparkling with precious stones. She posed in the doorway, conscious that all those eyes were on her.

“It’s too cold waiting out in the carriage,” she said. “Hurry up, please or we’ll be late for our lunch appointment.”

“Coming, my dearest.” Mr. Lowenstein looked up at her and smiled. “Sorry I can’t stay longer. Keep working, everyone. Good-bye.”

He waved and joined his daughter.

“How about some of us help you carry the oil stoves, Mr. Katz?” Rose asked, not wanting him to be able to wriggle out of it while the boss was in earshot. “Come on, Molly and Golda and Lanie. Let’s help him.”

“Very well. Come on, then.” He stomped into the back room and finally unearthed two oil stoves from a storage closet. We picked up one between two of us and carried them out.

“So that was the boss?” I whispered to Rose as we staggered out with the stove.

She nodded. “He might look like a nice old gentleman, but he’s hard as nails. When Gussie died of consumption right before he gave out the Christmas bonus last year, he wouldn’t even send the bonus to her family. And how do you think she got sick in the first place? Sitting in this damp hole, that’s how.”

“And that was the boss’s daughter, I take it?”

She made a face. “Letitia, her name is. Only child. Spoiled rotten.”

We set down the stoves and waited for Katz to come with the can of kerosene. I couldn’t get the picture of the boss’s daughter out of my mind. There had been something disturbing about her, something that made me uneasy. I thought some more, but couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Be happy that the boss has such a kind heart,” Katz announced as he poured in kerosene and got the stoves going. There was no room for them between the rows of girls so one stood at the doorway to the street and one at the doorway to Katz’s back room. Most of the girls felt no effect at all.

I was looking forward to the union meeting on Wednesday. I had written a list of grievances that I couldn’t wait to share with union organizers. Maybe with two of us, Rose and myself, we could light a fire under those girls at Lowenstein’s and get them to speak up for themselves.

Rose and I had a bowl of soup together at Samuel’s and then we made our way to Essex Street where we went down the steps into another basement. This one was quite different—brightly lit, warm, and filled with benches, most of them already occupied.

“Here’s Rose, at last,” one of the young women called as we stood hesitantly in the doorway. “I thought things had been too quiet until now.”

“Yes, and look what I’ve brought with me,” Rose said, dragging me inside. “A new warrior for our struggle. This is Miss Molly Murphy, come from Ireland.”

“Welcome, Molly. Sit yourself down.” A place in the back row was indicated for me. I sat and looked around the group. I was interested to see an equal number of men and women in the group—serious young men in worker’s garb, with dark beards and dark eyes. There were plenty of young women like ourselves, dressed humbly in shirtwaists and skirts with shawls around their shoulders, but one or two stood out, the cut and fabric of their dress announcing them to be not of the working class. What were they doing here?

Three men and two women sat at a table in front of us. The women were better dressed than the rest of us and one of them looked familiar. I stared, trying to place her. Had I seen her picture in a newspaper? She had dark and rather angular features, a long thin nose, and hair swept severely back from her face. She wore a black fitted coat, trimmed with astrakhan, and a neat little black velvet bonnet sat on the table beside her, decorated with a stunning black ostrich plume. Obviously not one of us, then.

“Right then, let’s get started.” A young man banged a gavel on the table. “For those of you who don’t know, I’m Jacob Singer of the United Hebrew Trades, and we’re here to help you form a ladies garment workers union.” He spoke with the slightest trace of a foreign accent. He was slim with a neatly trimmed beard and expressive dark eyes, framed with round wire-rimmed spectacles which gave him a boyish, owlish look.

A slim girl in black rose from my left. “We’ve had such a union for a year now, Mr. Singer.”

“Yes, I know that, Miss Horowitz, but it has only existed on paper, hasn’t it? It hasn’t sprung into action yet.” Jacob Singer smiled. His face had been so grave and earnest before that it came as a shock to see his eyes twinkling. It quite changed his appearance.

“No, but it will.” The girl thrust out her chin defiantly.

“I don’t doubt it, but first it needs members. How many members are on your books so far?”

“Twenty-five.” The girl’s voice was little more than a whisper.

There were some titters from around the room.

“So it would appear, ladies, that our first task is to grow your membership,” Jacob said.

“How do we do that?” Rose got to her feet. “How can we persuade girls to join us when they fear for their jobs? Where I work, at Lowenstein’s, we are treated worse than animals. We have no rights. There are constant abuses. But if a girl speaks up, she is dismissed. So all remain silent and the abuse goes on.”