Uprising (6 page)

“You try,” Signor Carlotti said.

Bella wasn't prepared for how hungrily the machine gobbled
at the material. The thread snarled; the delicate shirtwaist tore.

Signor Carlotti snarled and swore.

“That's a shirtwaist ruined,” he said. “That'll come out of your salary, young lady!”

Twenty-five cents extra minus the cost of every shirtwaist I ruin?
Bella wondered.
I could end up losing money on my new job !

“But it's my first time!” Bella protested.

“And it will be your last if you don't do better,” Signor Carlotti growled.

Bella bit her lip. This time, she fed the shirtwaist through the machine more carefully, pumping the needle as slowly as possible.

“All right,” Signor Carlotti said. “But if you don't get faster soon, you'll be back cutting threads.”

For the rest of the day, Bella worked steadily. Her palms were sweaty and her stomach twisted in knots, and she stopped every few seconds to pray for the strength to go on. The sewing machine was a gleaming, glossy black that reminded her of the landowner's horse back in Italy; sewing, Bella felt like she was holding on to the reins of a wild stallion. She couldn't risk even a single second of thinking about Pietro or Calia or anything else. But by the end of the day, she'd managed to sew dozens of shirtwaists without ruining a single other one.

Proudly, she stood up to take her pay for the week from Signor Carlotti. He counted out three dollars and one thin dime into her hand. Bella stood there waiting for the other dollar, the other fifteen cents. But Signor Carlotti had already moved on to the next girl.

“Wait,” Bella said. “You said you'd pay me four dollars and twenty-five cents.”

“You ruined a shirtwaist,” Signor Carlotti said.

“Only one!”

“And you were a learner on the machine today. Remember, learners don't get paid. So that's only five days of work, minus twenty cents for the ruined shirtwaist—yep, three-ten.”

Bella gasped.

“You tricked me!” she said. “You promised me four twenty-five! You told me I'd make more money on the machine!”

“I don't understand what you're saying,” Signor Carlotti said. “If you're too stupid to learn English, at least learn proper Italian.”

Bella glared at him. She knew he knew what she was saying. But how could she defend herself if he wouldn't even listen? Desperately, she glanced at the other girls around her. None of them were Italian, but
they
seemed to understand. They peered at her with sympathy in their eyes, but they were shaking their heads fearfully.

“Don't fight—he'll fire you,” one girl whispered. Bella could figure out what she was saying just by the resignation in her voice.

“I'm telling Pietro,” Bella said.
“He'll
make you give me my money!”

She stalked toward the elevators, but there was a huge crush of workers all wanting to leave at once. Bella was too angry to wait. Wasn't there any other way out? For the first time, she noticed a door at the other end of the building; she rushed over to it and peeked through the glass pane in the
door—stairs! She turned the knob and shoved against the door, but it was locked.

“Oh, no, you don't,” a man said angrily. He jerked her away from the door, then shoved her back toward the crowd again.

Bella circled the sewing machine tables widely so she didn't have to go right past Signor Carlotti again. This time, passing a row of windows, she looked out and noticed that there was a small, rickety fire escape leading down toward the ground in the narrow space between buildings. Fine. She'd go out that way. Bella was just beginning to tug on the window, trying to push it up, when she heard the man yelling at her again.

This time, he clamped his hand around her arm and pulled her through the crowd until they reached the guard who always watched the girls leave, inspecting their purses and their hair, sometimes even patting down their blouses or skirts. Bella had never understood what he was doing, and he'd never bothered her much, since she didn't have a purse or a fancy hairdo. But now the man shoved her toward the guard and said something like, “Search this one very thoroughly”— Bella guessed that was what he said, because the guard began sliding his hands along her sleeves, then reaching for her waist, even her breasts . . .

“How dare you!” Bella screamed, pulling away.

“Where'd you hide the shirtwaists?” the guard muttered, Bella understanding the word “shirtwaists” and figuring out the rest. And then, with a searing shame, she realized: They thought she was stealing shirtwaists. That's what the guard was looking for every afternoon when he peered into purses,
when he curled his fingers into girls' puffs of hair, when he felt under their waistbands. And Bella, by trying to leave without going past the guard, had looked particularly suspicious.

This is what they think of me?
Bella wondered.
They think I would actually do that?

The shame of being seen as a thief mixed with the shame of being groped by a total stranger, and rooted Bella to the spot.

“Go on, then,” the guard said, shoving her forward. “She's got nothing.”

Nobody apologized. Bella whirled around, past the elevators, just wanting to hide her shame. She stepped through another doorway—oh,
here
were stairs she could use. She didn't care if she was supposed to or not; she just took off running down the steps. It was nine flights of stairs down to the ground floor, and she raced down them two at a time. Bursting out into the crisp autumn air, she let the door bang shut behind her.

I'll tell Pietro about this, too—he'll want to defend my honor! He'll tell them that I'm not a thief they have no right to treat me like that, to touch me, to cheat me out of the money I earned. . .

The sidewalk outside was crowded, but she was too angry to care about how many people shoved against her. She scanned the crowd for Pietro, but he wasn't there yet. She paced.

It's so unfair! That Signor Carlotti! That guard! I can't wait for Pietro to tell them off!

The other workers streamed out of the building, in festive moods because it was Saturday night and they'd just gotten paid and they were probably all going to movies and
dances. Bella crossed her arms and leaned back against the building, just so the force of the crowd didn't carry her away. The tide of workers coming out of the building slowed to a trickle, and then stopped. Pietro still wasn't there.

What if he thinks I'm to blame somehow for the guard groping me? And then he might think I am bad, like damaged goods.... Maybe I shouldn't tell him about that, just about the money.

To distract herself, she told herself maybe
he'd
gotten paid extra today—maybe he was right this minute buying movie tickets and planning to ask Bella to go with him. Bella had never heard of an unmarried boy and girl doing something like that back in Italy, but that was just because Calia didn't have a movie theater, right?

Bella couldn't trick herself into believing her fantasy at all. The wind whipped around the corner, and she shivered. It was going to be dark soon, and the sidewalks were emptying out. Where was Pietro? He'd never been this late before—never.

The tall buildings cast huge shadows. The wind blew more fiercely. Bella's thin cotton dress was meant for the heat of southern Italy; it was no match for this cold wind. She was shaking now, huddled against the cold wall of the factory building. She wanted to bargain with God:
Oh, per favore, per favore, Idon't need to have the rest of my payment, I don't need to have my honor defended, I don't need to go to a dance or the movies, just please send Pietro. . . .

“Epes felt dir?”
someone said.

Bella looked up. It was a girl from the factory, the girl who had cut threads with Bella the first day. This girl had moved on to running a sewing machine a long, long time
ago, so Bella had barely seen her since that first day. She was with another girl with equally dark eyes and lustrous hair-Bella thought maybe the other girl was her sister.

“I'm waiting for my cousin,” Bella said, pantomiming her hand over her brow, looking around searchingly.

“Doesn't your brother usually walk you home?” the girl said, and somehow Bella understood this, even though it wasn't in Italian.

“Cousin,” Bella said. “Cousin, not brother. But he didn't come tonight. . . .” She swallowed hard. She wasn't going to cry in front of strangers.

“Do you want us to take you home?” the sister said.

And let Pietro wonder what happened to me? Sure. Let him be the one worrying.
Because now she was nearly as mad at Pietro as she was at Signor Carlotti or the guard. Better to be mad than to worry—what had happened to Pietro?

Bella and the two sisters set off walking, but every time they reached a corner, the sisters looked questioningly at Bella, pointing—right? Left? Straight? Which was it? Everything looked different in the dark, without the crowds, without Pietro leading the way. Sometimes Bella could remember—
Oh, yes, this is where the pigeons always roost on the light posts—go
that way—other times she had to guess and, as often as not, backtrack when nothing looked familiar. But somehow, finally, they reached the front of the Lucianos' tenement building.

“I live here,” Bella said.
“Grazie.
Thank you.”

“I'm Yetta and she's Rahel,” the girl said, and she pointed and gestured so Bella understood this as well. “If we can do anything else to help . . .”

“I'm fine,” Bella said stiffly. “Thank you.”

The hallway and the stairs were dark; Bella stumbled climbing up. She shoved her way into the Lucianos' apartment, where the entire family and a few of the boarders were crowded around the table making flowers.

“You missed supper,” Signora Luciano said. “It's all gone.”

“Pietro—” Bella said. “Is Pietro here? Did he come home after work?”

“Haven't seen him,” Signora Luciano said. Even in the dim light, Bella could see the malice gleaming in her eyes. “What's wrong—is he two-timing you? Did he take it into his head to move somewhere else without you? Or—was he too stupid to get out of the way when they dropped a pipe in that ditch he was digging?”

Bella gasped.

“Where would they take him if he got hurt?” she asked, reaching back for the door. “I have to find him. Who would know where he is? The places he goes at night—the, the bars . . .”

Signora Luciano laughed.

“No respectable female would go into places like that,” she said. “You go there, I'd be forced to kick you out. Can't have you making a bad influence on my girls.” She patted the nearest dirty head, though Bella wasn't sure that that particular Luciano child was a girl.

“But, about Pietro—” Bella pleaded.

The oldest Luciano boy, Rocco, stood up. He was perhaps nine or ten—Bella had barely seen him before, because he was almost always out on the streets selling newspapers or shining shoes.

“I'll go look for him,” Rocco said.

“You haven't done your share of the flowers,” Signora Luciano growled.

“I sold extra newspapers today,” Rocco said. “The swells always feel sorry for the newsboys when it gets cold.”

Rocco brushed past his mother.

At the door, he told Bella, “I'll be back as soon as I can.”

Bella sank down on the edge of the bed, even though two of the children and one of the male boarders, Nico, were already sitting there, their hands twisting flowers. Nico leaned over and whispered something to Signor Luciano, and they both laughed. Bella knew they were talking about her, something crude and nasty. Something that made her feel the same kind of shame she'd felt that afternoon, with the guard touching her. Her face flamed, and she focused on praying.

Please let Rocco come back quickly, with Pietro. Or at least with news that he's fine, that the only reason he didn't meet me after work was . . .

Bella couldn't think of any good reason that Pietro hadn't met her.

The fire in the stove threw scary shadows; the baby whined, then howled, then cried itself to sleep; Signora Luciano woke it up again shouting at everyone to work faster. Bella waited.

When Rocco returned, he was alone.

Everyone stared at him, but he looked only at Bella.

“They're saying”—he panted, as if he'd run all the way from the bar, all the way up the stairs—“they're saying the padrone took him to South Carolina.”

“South Carolina?” Bella repeated, having trouble pronouncing
the unfamiliar words. “Where's that?”

She hoped it was just a street or two over. No matter what Signora Luciano said, Bella wanted to go find Pietro for herself and make sure he was all right.

“It's another state, hundreds of miles away,” Rocco said. “The padrone took his entire work crew. He thought he could make more money there.”

“And Pietro didn't even tell me?” Bella cried out, in a strangled voice. “Didn't even ask if I wanted to go with him?”

She felt betrayed, injured down to her very core.

“The girl
wants
to go off with a bunch of men?” Nico whispered, and that hurt too, what he was implying. Bella tried to ignore him.

“Pietro probably didn't even know what was going on, until the padrone had him on the train,” Rocco said. “He left all his things here. It's like . . . like he was kidnapped.”

Bella didn't understand. Bandits kidnapped people—bandits were the ones who kidnapped and robbed and murdered. Padroni were powerful; they wouldn't have to stoop to such things.

“But, but—the padrone gave us the money to come here,” Bella said. “Pietro first, then me. The padrone helped us.”

Signor Luciano laughed harshly.