Threads and Flames (38 page)

The evening of Rosh Hashanah, Mrs. Kamensky brought the Reshevskys over to share the festive New Year's meal she had prepared. It did Raisa's heart good to see how Zusa's mother took quiet pleasure in giving Brina slices of apple laden with honey. Though Dvorah still looked a long way from being able to smile freely, having the little girl near her seemed to bring her comfort.

 

 

Frigid weather came into the city long before the calendars declared that winter had arrived. Raisa continued to wear nothing but a shawl over her street clothes, even though the weather called for a heavy coat. Her own coat hung untouched and shunned, even though Mrs. Kamensky had performed the miracle of banishing every whiff of smoke from the fabric and repairing the mark of the fire. One day, Raisa saw that the peg where her coat had once hung was empty. By the time she came home that evening, a new coat had taken its place, a coat of dark green wool with black wooden buttons.

When she cast a questioning look at Fruma, her friend shrugged and said, “What did you expect? It was easy enough for them to sell the old one. They don't want you to say anything about it, all right?”

Raisa nodded, but that night she kissed Mr. and Mrs. Kamensky before sitting down to dinner.

The coat was not the only change in Raisa's life. After class one evening, Miss Bryant told her that her level of skill in reading and writing English made it a waste of time for her to stay on in the elementary class.

“I hope that your schedule will accommodate the change in class time, Raisa,” she said. “I will still be your teacher, of course. It pains me to confess that if that were not the case, I might have held you back, for purely selfish reasons.”

“I cannot believe that,” Raisa replied.

“The class begins on the sixth of December. I look forward to seeing you there.”

Two days before Raisa had to face her new course, the manslaughter trial of Isaac Harris and Max Blanck began with the selection of jurors. In the time since their indictment, Raisa had become as much of a newspaper hound as Mr. Kamensky. Unlike him, she didn't read the Yiddish press exclusively. Instead, she practiced her new language by reading every scrap of English newsprint she could find about the case.

She didn't know why she hadn't been called to testify or even to give a statement, but she reasoned that perhaps it was all for the best.
If it took them this long to begin the trial, who knows when it will end? I will never forget what I saw, and I will never be silent, but if the prosecutors already have enough people to bear witness, I can stay at work with a clear conscience. We need the money. Fruma's put off her marriage until spring, but she can't delay it forever. Her mother won't stand for that. Once Fruma leaves, and until they take in an additional boarder, I'll be all they have to rely on, besides the store. I will always stand witness, but, may God forgive me, I'm glad I don't have to do it now.

On the day after Harris and Blanck made their first appearance in the criminal courts building, to be met by a mob of black-clad women screaming for retribution, Raisa went to work as usual. That evening, she found her new classroom at the Educational Alliance building, held her breath for a moment, and went in.

A grand surprise was waiting for her.

“Raisa! Is it you?” Renzo rose from his seat and ran to welcome her. “This is wonderful!” He babbled on in Yiddish, to the puzzled stares of the other students, until Raisa begged him to stop.

“You know how strict Miss Bryant is about only speaking English in the classroom,” she said.

“That is true.” His smile was blinding. “Ah, it is so much better to see you here than where we last met.”

“Renzo ...” Raisa lowered her voice. “Renzo, will you do me a great favor? Please tell Paolo that I understand why I was not invited to Luciana's funeral. It must have been the same reason why I was not told when they buried Zusa. I would like to come and visit him and the family, to share memories of Luciana with them, but ...” She hesitated. “But only if that would bring them comfort, not more pain.”

“That would be wonderful, Raisa,” Renzo said. “I am certain Paolo and his family would be happy to see you. But there is something you must know: there was no funeral for Luciana. That day, that awful day at the pier, we found nothing. She was not among the dead.”

Raisa stared. “Like Gavrel,” she whispered. “Renzo, what did Paolo do when he could not find her? Did he go to the hospitals?”

“As soon as he could, as many as he could,” Renzo replied. “But there are so many, and none of them had anything useful to tell him! He went to the Red Cross, too. They said they would help, but they were very busy. So many people sent them contributions to help the families of the dead! Such kindness! There are times that I don't know what to think of human beings. How can I believe that the ghouls and thieves who came to gawk and prey on the dead and the living come from the same blood as the good souls who suffer with us?”

That night, after class, Renzo walked her home. At every corner where the weather had turned the street to slop, he took her arm to help her over the worst of the mess. Before they reached her building, he was holding her arm with every step. The attention made her uneasy, but she didn't know what to say about it.

When they arrived at the stoop leading up to the Kamenskys' tenement, he said, “There's no class tomorrow night, but if you like, I can come by to bring you to the Delvecchios' for that visit. I'm sure you will be welcome.”

“Thank you, yes, I would like that,” she said, and was surprised by how much her answer made him smile.

 

 

When the next evening came, Renzo appeared at the Kamenskys' door after dinner. Gavrel's family looked on doubtfully as he helped Raisa into her coat. Renzo's attention made Raisa feel uncomfortable enough without the Kamenskys' critical stares.

“I'm only going to spend a little time with Luciana's family,” she said. “I won't be out too late.”

“Who said anything?” Mrs. Kamensky replied with a shrug. “You are a young woman, and you know how to take care of yourself. Go wherever you want.”

As Renzo had predicted, Raisa's visit was warmly received. The Delvecchio apartment was filled with people and the smells of cooking and baking. Raisa spoke to Mrs. Delvecchio mostly through Renzo as they shared coffee, cake, and stories about Luciana. The walls of the little apartment were covered with many sketches Luciana had done of the family, and even one of Brina on the ship to America. Raisa took bittersweet pleasure in telling Luciana's mother about the way her daughter had helped comfort and care for the child during those strange days aboard the steamship.

They did not talk only about Luciana. Mrs. Delvecchio insisted on hearing everything Raisa had to tell about the fire, too. Raisa tried to hold back her words to protect herself from revisiting the horror, but she soon found the story spilling from her lips, with Renzo scrambling to interpret, until she broke down sobbing. Luciana's mother embraced her. Someone else—Raisa was too lost in tears to see who it was—pressed a strong drink into her hand. It smelled of lemons and burned her throat, but it helped her calm down.

“I am sorry,” she said, looking into Mrs. Delvecchio's sympathetic eyes. “I did not want to say so much. I did not want to upset you.” She looked to Renzo to translate her English into Italian, but there was no need. Mrs. Delvecchio gathered her back into her arms and let her know that everything was all right.

It was later than she expected by the time Renzo walked her home. The Kamensky apartment was quiet and dark. She had a hard time getting ready for bed with no light to guide her in the windowless room, but she didn't want to disturb anyone. She lay down on her mattress, expecting to find Brina already asleep with the whole blanket wrapped around her, and gave an involuntary cry of surprise when she found she had both the blanket and the mattress all to herself.

“Brina's not here.” Fruma's drowsy voice came through the darkness. “She's spending the night with her best friend, Ruthie from upstairs.”

“Oh, Fruma, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you. I'll be quiet.” She closed her eyes and, as she always did, began to recite in the softest of whispers her prayers before sleep.

Tonight the whisper was not soft enough; Fruma overheard.

“I didn't know you still pray.” She sounded surprised. “Just like Papa. He gives thanks to God for Mama's recovery every day.”

“So do I,” Raisa said very softly.

“You still believe in God?”

“Yes.”

“That's incredible.”

“I don't think so.” Raisa's hands clenched the blanket.
Why, Fruma?
she thought angrily.
Why are you making me feel that I'm confessing a sin instead of simply telling you that I still pray, that I still have faith? You sat next to me at services during the Days of Awe. Why did you think I was there?

“You mean that after what happened to you, to your friends, to Gavrel, you can still . . . ?” She clicked her tongue. “Well, I suppose it's because
you
came through it all right.”

“You believe that?” Raisa's voice broke with pain.

Fruma gasped as if she'd been slapped. “Oh my God, Raisa, I'm sorry! How could I have said anything so cruel to you?” Her hand fumbled for Raisa's in the darkness. “Forgive me. It's just that—this all hurts so much, I don't know what to do. There are times when I want to curl up and cry for hours, but then I see you, so strong, going ahead with your life, helping us when Mama was sick. I know how much you loved my brother. I can't imagine how you must be feeling, not knowing where he is, if he's alive or, God forbid ...” She couldn't say the final word. “Every time I look at you, I know I haven't got the right to give in to grief, to be weak. I wasn't there!”

“Yes, you were.” Raisa squeezed Fruma's hand. “Even if Gavrel and Zusa and Luciana had come home safe that day, even if you didn't know a single soul who died in the fire, you were there with us. Did you see how many people walked behind the hearses on the day they buried the nameless ones? Hundreds of thousands, the newspaper said. I believe that all of them were there, too—not just at the funeral, but at the fire, in the flames. It isn't weakness and you don't need my permission; you have every right to cry.”

She felt Fruma pull her hand away, and she expected to hear the sound of tears follow. But there was only a long silence, broken at last by a weird little laugh. “Oh, Raisa, isn't it strange?” Fruma said. “I don't think I
can
cry now.”

 

 

On December 27, in the early wintry twilight outside the criminal courts building in the heart of a throng shouting, “Murder! Murder!” Fruma cried at last.

She fell sobbing into her friend's arms while Raisa's head still reeled with echoes of the impossible verdict that had been pronounced on the owners of the Triangle Waist Company.
Not guilty. . . . Not guilty?
There had to be a mistake.
Not guilty.
Someone must have gotten the information wrong.
Not guilty.
It made no sense.
Not guilty.
Any minute now, someone else would come through the doors or open a window and shout out the real verdict, the only one that could be true:
Guilty!

But that verdict never came.

Some of the people stood as stunned as Raisa, some wept like Fruma, some raised their voices, crying out in pain and indignation for justice. An elderly man pressed his neatly laundered and folded handkerchief into Fruma's fingers and muttered, “Justice? Whose justice? The dead can't hire lawyers. Let their mothers take comfort; the locked door that killed their children saved the owners enough money to buy the best defense they could find!”

“We will have our justice the moment they show their faces!” a woman shouted. A roar of agreement went up from the crowd, but soon word spread that Blanck and Harris had been smuggled out of the criminal courts through the infamous Tombs prison, which shared the building.

“Follow me!” a young man called out. “I saw where those bastards left their limousine. We'll get them there!” Raisa and Fruma became caught up in that part of the mob that chose to run after the young man, but when they reached the waiting car, Raisa saw that there was already another swarm of enraged mourners surrounding it and no sign at all of the shirtwaist kings.

“Fruma, let's get out of here,” Raisa said. “They're not coming, and even if they did, even if I were to come face-to-face with both of them, I don't know what I'd do.”

“Spit in their faces,” Fruma said through gritted teeth. “Make them bleed for what they've done. Are they allowed to go home to a fine house and a hot dinner and a family that hasn't been destroyed? Why? Because the law couldn't
prove
they were guilty? Why do we have to prove what everyone
knows
? If the law won't do justice to them, I will!”

“My God, Fruma, and what will you do the next time a mob decides that
we're
to blame for something that nobody can prove? Please, let's go home.”

Fruma permitted Raisa to steer her out of the horde around the limousine. As they walked away, Raisa overheard someone say that Blanck and Harris had abandoned the besieged car and chauffeur to their fates and had sneaked away into the subway at Lafayette Street. They were long gone.

They walked home, in spite of the cold. Neither one of them said a word, but somehow both understood that the crowds and noise of any kind of public transportation would be too much for their nerves to take. There was also the very real chance that they would have to share the subway or the trolley with some of the other people who had been present at the court when the verdict came down. They couldn't endure the thought of being trapped in a small space with so much powerless rage and resentment.