Threads and Flames (31 page)

“Gavrel, what are you
doing
?” she hissed, turning bright red. “Someone's going to tell your mother about this, I know it!”

“Let them tell,” he declared blithely. “Can't a man kiss his bride-to-be?”

“What are you talking about? You're crazy! I'm not your bride-to-be.”

“Mmmm, you're right. I've neglected one very important thing.” He stopped on the spot and raised her hand to his lips. “My dear, beautiful Raisa, I love you with all my heart. If you feel the same for me, then please, make me happy. Say that you'll be my wife.”

Raisa could hardly breathe. There was a fluttering in her throat. The countless different sounds of people, animals, and traffic that made up the hubbub of the crowded streets faded into nothingness. “Oh, Gavrel ...” She spoke his name as softly as a sigh. “I—how can I say yes? How can we even think about getting married?
I'm
too young,
you're
too young—”

“You're too serious, that's your problem,” he said. “You spend so much time looking at the details that you don't see the big picture. Of course we're too young to get married
now,
but now isn't forever.
Now
is dull work and long hours and bad pay. Every morning when I say my prayers I thank God for having given me a door out of
now.
And don't you see? He's given you one, too! Raisa, we can have a different future—me as a rabbi, you as a teacher—and we can have it sooner than you think, if we work for it hard enough. Well? What do you say? Yes or no?”

She squeezed his hand tight. “I love you, Gavrel. I love you very much.”

He smiled. “Not a yes or a no, but I can live with it.” He kissed her again, this time on the lips. A group of middle-aged women flounced past, clicking their tongues loudly in disapproval. “That's right, ladies, keep on clucking!” Gavrel called after them. “We can use the eggs!”

 

 

On the way home that evening, after they'd bid good night to Zusa and Luciana, Gavrel asked Raisa, “Shall we tell my family tonight?”

“Not yet.” She rested her hand on his arm and leaned close. “You know what they'll say.”

“Too young, too poor, too far from my ordination, too soon to think of you as a teacher and not a pupil? Yes, I
do
know, but I don't care. I want to tell them, Raisa.”

“Can we at least wait until we've got some kind of solid proof to give them?” she begged.

“Proof of what?”

“Proof that we're s
erious
about wanting to make our own life. Gavrel, I'm going to start working more hours at Triangle. I put in my fifty-two a week, but at this time of year there's plenty of extra work. My forelady likes me; she'll give me the chance to earn more. I want to be able to pay my rent and send something to Glukel
and
still put aside a little extra every week. I'm going to save my money so that when we do tell your parents about our plans, I can slap it all down on the table and tell them, ‘See? We've
planned
for this. We're responsible people. We're not just going to live on air and dreams.' ”

“No, we're not,” Gavrel agreed, tugging at a wisp of her hair. “But I still want to share your dreams and make them all come true.”

Z
usa was just coming out of the ninth-floor cloakroom when she bumped into Raisa. “Well, look who's here!” she exclaimed. “And on Shabbos, too. Don't tell Rabbi Gavrel.” She giggled.

“Oh, Zusa, stop teasing.” Raisa smiled as she sidled past her friend to get into the cloakroom. As she hung up her hat and coat she added, “Anyway, I've worked on Saturdays before.”

“Not
every
Saturday, like Luciana and me.”

“Yes, but now”—Raisa plucked one of Brina's stray hairs off the shoulder of her coat—“Miss Gullo knows I'll be coming in on Saturdays from now on, besides my weekdays. She was happy to approve the change.”

“Forget Miss Gullo; why didn't you let us know? We could have walked up here together, the way we usually do.”

“I should've thought of that. I guess that since this is something different for me, I didn't connect it with any of the other things I do on an ordinary workday.”

“Oh, so now your friends are only a part of what's
ordinary,
huh?” Zusa laughed. “Gavrel's
really
not going to like hearing that! If you ask me, that boy's got plans for you that are anything
but
ordinary.”

“Which is why nobody asked you,” Raisa replied, joking back. “Now, stop making everything into a big romance and let's get to work. I'd just like to earn a little more money, that's all.”

“You're not the only one.” Zusa's eyes swept the long shop tables as the two girls headed for their workstations. “This place is just as packed on Shabbos as during the week. If our old rabbi from back home could see how many Jews are spending the day sewing and cutting instead of resting and praying, he'd have a fit! I'd feel worse about it if I didn't know that plenty of the Christians work on Sundays, too.”

“Wouldn't it be nice if we got paid enough so that none of us had to make these kinds of choices?” Raisa said with a sigh. “Someday . . .”

“I'll be
old
someday. Forget about it; I've got a good idea for
today.
Let's spoil ourselves a little, after work. We could go to Mrs. Goldman's restaurant for a bite and then to the movies.”

Raisa remembered the fuss Mrs. Kamensky had made the last time she'd missed dinner at home without telling anyone. “I'd like to do that, but I'll have to send word home. Could you help me find one of the other girls to take a note to my place when it's quitting time?”

“Sure, but why do you have to go through all that?”

Raisa shrugged. “My landlady worries.”

“Hmph. That sounds less like a landlady and more like a mother.” Zusa nudged Raisa. “Or a mother-in-law.”

“If you don't stop teasing me, I'm not going to sit next to you.” It was a friendly joke, not a real threat.

“Ha! As if we sit next to each other anyway! Maybe if you were attaching cuffs today, like me—never mind, I'll find someone to carry that mother-may-I note for you. Say, if Luciana can't join us, I'll bet she'll do it. Meet you at the usual place!” She started to make her way through the obstacle course of chairs and employees to her workstation at the end of one of the already crowded aisles, where the tables butted up against the grimy windows.

All that day, Raisa worked diligently at her station, setting in sleeves, snipping threads, and watching the river of shirtwaist fabric flow under her fingers. The drone of the belt powering her machine and the eternal up-down-up-down rattle of the needle were no longer reminders of a life doomed to one place, one task. Every seam she sewed was one more step on the path she and Gavrel would take out of the factory. Every bobbing stroke of the needle brought her closer to the door. Once she reached it, they could be together. They could be free. She bent to her work with renewed energy.

As it got closer to four forty-five—quitting time—Raisa looked up from her machine to see Miss Gullo handing her the pay for the week. The amount was disappointing, as always, but there was nothing she could do about it except work more hours.
Next week will be better,
she told herself.
Working Saturdays will make a big difference.

Miss Gullo finished distributing the workers' pay and started for the freight elevators to ring the quitting bell. Some of the workers had already gotten their hats and coats and were following her toward the exit that led to the freight elevators and Greene Street. Raisa put her last completed garment into the trough in front of her and debated whether or not to squeeze in work on one more shirtwaist.

In the end, she decided against it.
I'm tired, and I can always work longer this coming week. After all, Zusa and Luciana and I don't go out together every day, and I'll bet Mr. Kamensky will be pleased to hear I'm treating myself. Maybe there's a Mary Pickford movie! Gavrel loves Mary Pickford, too. I should let him know what we're doing tonight. He wouldn't be able to meet us in time for dinner, but he could catch up to us for the movie. I'll put that in the note I'm sending to his mother! Perfect.

Now that she had her mind made up, she tidied her work space as quickly as she could. She wanted time to write her note and find the right messenger to deliver it.
I can't depend on Luciana going home,
she thought.
Maybe Gussie or Jennie could do it, but I don't remember seeing either one of them here today. I should've paid more attention.

The bell rang, and the power running the sewing machines was cut off. The few early quitters waiting to have their purses searched at the narrow doorway leading to the freight elevators would soon be engulfed by the mass of departing workers. Raisa was among the first in the crowd of girls jostling to get their hats and coats from the cloakroom. They laughed and chattered around her. Everyone was happy that another week of back-bending, eye-straining work was over and it was finally time to go home. Raisa craned her neck, vainly hoping to catch sight of a friend who could carry her note.
Either they didn't come in today or they slipped out early,
she thought.
Now what am I going to do?

“What a pretty pin!” A blonde girl who looked close to Raisa's age nodded at the gold-and-seed-pearl brooch Raisa always wore.

“Thank you. It belonged to my mother,” Raisa replied. “And
I
love your hat, especially that blue-ribbon trim. Where did you get it?”

“My brother works at Adler's tailor shop, down on—”

“I know Adler's! It's just across the street from Kamensky's Dry Goods. Do you live in the neighborhood?” The blonde girl nodded. “Please, would you mind doing me a
great
favor on your way home?” She explained what she wanted, and the girl said she'd be happy to do it. Raisa almost clapped her hands, overjoyed at her good luck.

As she dug pencil and paper out of her purse and scrawled the note, she heard one of the other girls in the cloakroom begin to sing a popular tune. The girl's high spirits were contagious; others soon joined her, and even Raisa found herself humming along as she handed the blonde girl the note. “I can't thank you enough for doing this,” she said. “You know, I usually walk to and from work with friends. Would you like to join us?”

The girl smiled. “I'd like that. I haven't been here very long and I—” Suddenly she wrinkled her nose. “Do you smell something funny?” Before Raisa could answer, she heard the first scream:

“
Fire!
”

Raisa and the other girls in the cloakroom rushed out into a scene of chaos. Flames were leaping up from below, their bright tongues licking at the wooden frames of the windows behind the garment inspection tables. Workers swarmed for the Greene Street door, no longer an orderly line but a panic-stricken mob. Smoke seeped in and rose in ghostly shapes, stinging the eyes, choking the throat. Shrieks, screams, and sobs of terror echoed beneath the high ceilings as distraught men and women called out the names of coworkers who were also friends and kin. Outside in the enclosed courtyard, a draft whirled through the flames, sending them scaling the inner walls and feeding them until the sheer power of so much heat smashed the loft windows inward as if with a sledgehammer. Fire fell on the piles of garments laid out on the inspection tables and began to advance across the shop floor.

The blonde girl whimpered and ran blindly back into the cloakroom. Others followed her. Raisa stood frozen, watching people shoving one another aside, running for the narrow stairwell and freight elevators of the Greene Street exit. The crowd surged back and forth and some would-be escapees came staggering back, distraught. “The eighth floor's in flames! It's reached the stairs! We can't get down!”

Someone shouted that if the way down was blocked by fire, they should go up to the tenth floor and the roof beyond, instead. “And from there, what? Grow wings?” someone else retorted. More people plunged through the doorway and didn't return. Through the mounting smoke, Raisa saw a few girls climbing onto their workstations. The cluttered aisles between the long sewing machine tables were clogged with chairs, wicker baskets filled with flammable bits of flimsy shirtwaist material, and people desperate to reach a doorway. If they couldn't get through, the younger, nimbler ones were determined to get over by leaping from table to table.

The air was filled with scraps of burning fabric. Raisa saw a second mob rush past the cloakroom door, heading for the second exit, the Washington Place stairs and elevators. These were the elevators reserved for carrying the owners, the salesmen, and the all-important customers to the tenth-floor offices and showrooms. With her eyes still fixed on the flames, she backed into the cloakroom to avoid being carried away in the stampede. Something caught her heel and she stumbled backward, falling on her rump. She had tripped over the blonde girl's body, sprawled full-length across the cloakroom floor in a dead faint. The pretty hat with its bright blue ribbon lay crushed in the middle of the group of people who had taken refuge in the cloakroom.

We can't stay here,
Raisa thought, strangely calm.
We have to get out. Even if the fire cuts us off, we have to try to get away.
Raisa knelt beside the blonde girl and worked hard to revive her, rubbing her wrists, slapping her face lightly, until at last she saw the girl's eyelids flutter.

“Water ...” The girl's lips mangled the word.