Leah's Journey (16 page)

After work that evening they took the subway up to 137th Street and sat on the hard stone steps of Lewisohn Stadium, listening to the strains of Mozart. Around them other young couples sat, clutching books and brown paper bags of sandwiches, leaning slightly forward as though fearful of missing a sound. Above them the summer stars hung in shimmering brilliance and the moon was a perfect crescent carved of burnished amber. These young people were David’s fellow students, she knew, and wondered if her husband had ever granted himself the luxury of sitting beneath the stars and allowing the music he loved to drift over him. During the intermission, she saw a slight, dark-haired man with David’s slow, deliberate gait ascend the steps, and her heart beat faster. But it was not David, of course, and she leaned back against Eli, her hands trembling and her dress damp.

As the evening grew cooler, Eli took off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. The smell of his body clung to the garment and she pulled it tight around her, as though to envelop herself in his very essence. An odd memory occurred to her suddenly. During the early days of her marriage to Yaakov, she had sometimes wakened in the morning and slipped his discarded shirt around her bare limbs, fondling the material that had nestled next to her young husband’s body and carried with it still the intimacy of his smell. In the bottom of her trunk, still neatly folded, was the blue cambric shirt he had worn the day of his death, the shirt she had mended again and again as an endless penance for the sin of staying alive, during those first mindless days of grief and despair after his death—those days before David had taken hold of her life and gently guided her until she had grown strong enough to guide herself.

“What are you thinking about?” Eli whispered.

“Nothing,” she replied, and realized that it was the second time that day that she had lied to him.

The next day at work, Salvatore Visconti came to them with the news that Arnold Rosenblatt had returned from Europe. He would be in the office on Monday. This was Thursday. They would have only that evening to meet and finalize their approach before the weekend scattered them. Leah had to meet her family in the mountains and others, too, planned to flee the steaming city on the weekend.

“At my place then. We’ll meet tonight.”

“No. There’s more room in my apartment,” Leah insisted, and it was agreed that they would meet there that night.

Eli looked at her thoughtfully.

“Why did you want the meeting there, Leah?” he asked.

“There is more room,” she replied, and saw the doubt in her voice reflected in his eyes.

The same group that had assembled for the first meeting in Eli’s small room gathered again that night, with a few additions. Leah had asked young Bonnie Eckstein to come and represent the girls who worked in her section. Salvatore Visconti had persuaded two young Italian men who worked with him in the shipping section to participate. Eli was pleased to see them. He had explained to Leah that the unions often found newly arrived Italians the most difficult group to organize.

“They are used to a feudal system where they hand their lives over to a don and in return for their work he clothes them, provides food and housing. In America, bosses like Rosenblatt just became their dons,” he had explained.

But Leah could understand that Salvatore’s great warmth and his vituperative powers of persuasion would be difficult to resist, and she was not surprised when he reported that he had guarantees of support from every Italian worker at Rosenblatts.

Eleanor Greenstein arrived late and was at once given the most comfortable seat in the room. She wore a pair of green linen slacks with a matching jacket and Leah realized it was the first time she had ever seen a woman wear pants. She watched as Eleanor lit a small cigar, and offered her an ashtray. They all knew now why the successful designer had joined forces with them.

Eleanor Greenstein had a daughter who had left home in her early teens and taken a job in a factory in the South Bronx. There had been a fire and the girl had suffered burns on every part of her body. She had died after weeks of pain, screaming in agony through lips that were scorched into ribbons of blackened flesh. It was then that the designer had asked Arnold Rosenblatt to provide adequate fire protection in the factory. He had refused, ignoring her persistent argument, until she turned to Eli Feinstein and became part of the organizing effort.

Now she took out her notebook and, in her usual brisk voice, summarized the situation.

“We’re into July now. The fall line is entirely cut, pieced, and basted. Monday we’re scheduled to begin sewing and trimming. That’s cutting it very close, and if we don’t start work next week there’ll be no shipments in August and no Rosenblatt line in the stores in September. If that happens his creditors will pounce on him and he’ll be through. And not only on paper. All his personal money is in the business now. He needs that fall line. On Monday morning your steering committee will meet with him. We’ve got a ninety percent commitment from the workers to strike if he doesn’t agree to terms. He can’t face that down. Ten or twenty he could fire, but not the whole work force. He’s a shrewd man. I think he’ll see that our demands are reasonable. After all, what are we asking for? The right to collective bargaining. Paid vacations. Sick leave. And most important of all—adequate safety protection. A fire alarm system, windows that open, and accessible fire escapes.” Her voice, always so cool and firm, faltered now and they looked away from her. Some said her daughter had been only fifteen years old when she died.

“Who’s on the steering committee?” Moe Cohen asked.

“Eli Feinstein, Salvatore Visconti, and Leah Goldfeder.”

There was a murmur of approval and Leah felt a small glow of pleasure. It was good to be part of a group and recognized.

“All right then,” Eli said, taking control of the meeting. “When the steering committee gets back, if we have to strike we’re ready. Everyone will be down in the street in fifteen minutes. We’ll have the picket signs ready and Dubinsky’s organizers will be waiting to help. But remember—this is going to be an orderly strike. If you’re called names you keep on walking without answering. If Rosenblatt brings in scabs, close your lines and keep them from breaking through. If they manage it, let them pass without any violence from us. If the police arrest you, go along quietly. The union will make bail and get lawyers. Make sure everyone in your group knows what’s happening. Any questions?”

Bonnie Eckstein raised her hand.

“If they arrest you, you get locked up in a jail. You can’t get home?”

“That’s what will happen,” Eli said gently. “But not for long, Bonnie, maybe a few hours or just overnight.”

Leah’s heart sank. She remembered the strike at the Gay Paris Blouse Company only the year before. That picket line, too, had been an orderly one. The girls in their long dark skirts and neat white blouses had marched quietly around the building, some of them wearing their best hats as though they were on a festive outing, not fighting a weary battle for survival. Suddenly the police had arrived and made a mass arrest. The union lawyer had angrily demanded to know the grounds for the arrest and the police officers, clutching the arms of the young women and shoving them into wagons, had leered and answered, “Prostitution. Ain’t they walking the street?” There had been a burst of laughter from the crowd. Leah knew that some of those girls had spent the night in filthy cells which they shared with criminals and prostitutes. She would talk to Bonnie before Monday, she decided. She would talk to all her girls. They must be prepared.

“Are there any other questions?” Eli asked.

There were none and the meeting slowly broke up into small groups. There was quiet talk and laughter as they lingered on, unwilling to relinquish the sense of togetherness that had grown between them during the long weeks of preparation and equally unwilling to confront their individual doubts and unease about the week to come. Leah passed around bowls of fruits and nuts and glasses of cold lemonade. The small gathering took on the ambience of a party. They talked louder and laughed with nervous exhilaration. Someone put on the radio and a few couples danced to the slow mood music until the tenant downstairs banged irately on a water pipe and the baronic tones of the news announcer replaced the lazy melodies. President Hoover was predicting a full economic recovery. Elections had been held in Germany and the new National Socialist Party had won 107 seats in the Reichstag. The Duke of Windsor continued his alliance with Mrs. Simpson despite the Queen’s disapproval. The news bored them and they turned the dial and finally found more dance music, but the mood was broken. It was late and people began leaving, saying good-bye with unusual affection considering that they would all see each other at work the next morning.

“How is your brother, Bonnie?” Leah asked as she walked the girl to the door.

“He’s better but he’s still in the hospital. The doctors think that with a brace he’ll be able to walk. That’s what they think.” Bonnie’s eyes filled but she fought back the tears and hurried down the steps.

Eli and Leah remained alone in the apartment. Like a married couple skilled at coordinating small domestic tasks, they straightened the room and in the kitchen she washed the soiled glasses and he dried them. They did not talk but moved in easy rhythm as though they had done this many times before.

“All right. This is finished,” he said and placing the towel on the sink, he took her in his arms.

“Not here,” she cried wildly, stiffening suddenly.

“Why not here?” he asked in a harsh voice she did not recognize, and shrugged in defeat when she did not answer.

“Let us go to my place then, Leah. But you know, we cannot keep on like this. Soon we must talk about everything. Make decisions. This must be settled.”

“Yes,” she agreed helplessly and looked around the familiar room.

A small crayon drawing of Rebecca’s hung on a kitchen cabinet. The child had done it as a first-grade exercise. “My Family” the printed block letters read and beneath there were stick figures of Leah and David, Aaron and Rebecca. The children’s hands touched but the faces of the father and mother, drawn in magenta wax, were turned from each other, as though the child had guessed an uneasy secret.

“Let us go, Eli. Let us hurry,” she said, with sudden urgency.

They did not go up to the roof that night, to look at the stars, but went at once to his room, where they clutched each other with a fierceness they could not control, scarring each other’s flesh with hands and teeth, and waking from the light sleep that finally came upon them to cling to each other again. Once, in that thick darkness, she thought she saw a tear glisten in his eye but when she touched his cheek with her lips she felt only the rough dryness of his skin and the vague smell of the menthol lotion that was his one small vanity.

THEY AWOKE TOO EARLY the next morning, but neither Eli nor Leah wanted to return to sleep. They dressed hurriedly in the half-light and Leah felt a curious relief at leaving the building before its women had assembled on the stoop. The excitement of the previous evening had left them at once exhausted and keyed up, and when they stopped for breakfast at the Garden Cafeteria on East Broadway, they ate in silence at a table near the huge windows that overlooked the busy street. Working men and women, their lunches wrapped in oil-stained brown paper or packets of newspaper wrapped in string, hurried past them. Peddlers with bolts of merchandise strapped to their backs lumbered down the street. Groups of rabbinical students, their black caftans sweeping after them, wafted down the street, their earlocks still damp from their morning prayers and ablutions.

“Where are they all running to?” Eli mused, dipping his hard roll into the glass of coffee which was almost white with milk and sugar.

“You should have an egg,” she said.

“For lunch I’ll have an egg,” he answered, smiling as his thick dark eyebrows met.

She blushed, remembering that as they dressed that morning she had urged him to put on a lighter shirt and opened the window so that the room would be properly aired. She was becoming too proprietary, too wifely, worrying over this strong man whose ringing voice had the power to move so many to action and whose strong body excited her so. She was aroused by Eli’s small secrets and weaknesses, the holes in his socks, the frayed cloth of his collars, the way he patted his cheeks with menthol lotion, slapping them sharply for color, and his habit of combing a streak of gray beneath a cluster of dark hair. His vanity amused her and made him even more desirable.

They reached Rosenblatts before opening time, but went at once to their work stations. Eli had emphasized the fact that all work must either be on schedule or ahead of schedule when the committee went in to negotiate on Monday.

“We must bargain from a position of strength and certainty,” he had said. “Rosenblatt knows the kind of work we’re capable of and he’s not going to risk losing us. So everyone must be absolutely on schedule.”

Leah planned to leave early because she knew there would be long lines waiting for the buses to the mountains and she was anxious to see the children. She worked quickly to make up for the time she would lose in the afternoon. Her girls drifted in and took their places at their machines. They rolled up their sleeves and told each other that the day seemed a bit cooler than the day before. Perhaps the heat spell was breaking after all and Monday would finally be cool. They glanced at each other nervously as they mentioned Monday because all of them knew what would happen then, although no one mentioned the possibility of the strike. There was a flurry of talk about a folk dance that night at the Cooper Union and an altercation when one of the Orthodox girls asked how they could think of folk dancing on the eve of the Sabbath.

“Come instead to our forum at the Young Israel,” she urged. “We have a speaker just returned from Palestine.”

Leah thought of her brother Moshe and Henia, his wife. It had been months since she had heard from them. A telegram had arrived just after the Arab riots assuring them of the family’s safety, and then months of silence.