The Unfortunates. Laurie Graham
Down in the kitchen I heard talk.
‘Is Mrs Honey’s baby to be cut?’ the Irish asked me.
‘Why?’ I asked, and she and Reilly exchanged annoying little smiles. I took the question straight to Ma, who was sitting with Aunt Fish and Honey and Harry’s mother, the senior Mrs Glaser.
‘Poppy!’ Ma said. ‘Not in the parlor!’
I had to wait until the company had left. Then I was taken to Ma’s bedroom to have it explained that some baby boys underwent a procedure, but the Minkels and the Glasers were unanimous in judging it quite unnecessary.
‘It’s just an old-fashioned racial thing,’ Honey said, ‘and we are civilized New Yorkers.’
I said, ‘I wish you could stay here, Honey. I’d help you with Sherman Ulysses and we could make dolls’ clothes and have fun.’
‘I’m a mother now, Pops,’ she said. ‘I don’t have time for fun.’
So the party was over. Honey took Sherman home, and time slowed down again, crawling past me while I read to Ma from Collier’s Weekly, and danced imaginary cotillions, but very quietly, so as not to tire her.
Mrs Schwab visited, and Mrs Lesser, and even the Misses Stone returned. They had forgiven me my hysterical outburst and after I turned sixteen they seemed more inclined to take me seriously. They knew better than to mention the distribution of second-hand clothes, but some of their projects, their work amongst ‘the element’, sounded adventurous and exciting. They raised money for the settlement houses where the Russian Hebrews could be washed and fed and trained out of their rude oriental ways. They arranged classes where the unfortunates could learn hygiene and gymnastics. They sent them to summer camp.
I said, ‘Gymnastics and summer camp! I’m sure I shouldn’t mind being an unfortunate.’
The Misses Stone laughed.
‘No, Poppy,’ one of them said, ‘you wouldn’t say so if you saw how people lived. Workers and donations are what we need. Perhaps some day, when you’re not so much needed at home?’
‘I hope,’ Ma sighed, ‘some day I may feel strong enough to spare Poppy for a few hours.’
Her true intention was that I should never set foot anywhere near such dangerous territory, but I wore away her resolve with the daily drip, drip, drip of my requests. It took many months. Then suddenly, one summer morning, she threw down her needlepoint and said, ‘I see you are determined to break my heart, Poppy, so go and be done with it.’
Two days later I was taken by trolley-car to the Bowery, and then, with a Miss Stone on either side of me for safety, I was swept into the tumult of Delancey Street, the very place where Pa had enjoyed his cherry blintzes.
I tried to tell the Misses Stone about this exciting coincidence, and they smiled, but I wasn’t at all sure they could even hear me. I had never in my life encountered so much noise or seen so many people. Then we turned onto Orchard Street and the buildings and the noise of the stinking, shouting unfortunates pressed in on me even closer.
There were dead ducks and chickens hanging from hooks, and women with dirty hands selling eggs from handcarts, and pickle barrels, and shop signs in foreign squiggles, and small boys carrying piles of unfinished garments higher than themselves, and ragged girls playing potsy on the sidewalk.
‘Why is everyone shouting?’ I shouted.
‘Because they’re happy to be here.’ That was the best explanation the Misses Stone could offer.
I said, ‘I’m sure abroad must be a very terrible place if Orchard Street makes them happy.’
We went to The Daughters of Jacob Center where the element could learn to dress like Americans and raise healthy children. And then to the Edgie Library where they could study our language.
‘You see, Poppy,’ they said, ‘how much needs doing?’
I said, ‘I don’t come into my money until I’m twenty-one and I don’t know how much there’ll be because Pa had complicated affairs.’
But the Misses Stone said it wasn’t only money they needed but helpers, and why didn’t I try sitting, just for five minutes, and helping someone with their English reading.
A small girl stood in front of me with a primer in her hands, trying to stare me down. I turned to tell the Stones I probably wouldn’t be very good at it, but they were hurrying away to inspect another class, and the staring girl was still waiting with her book.
I said, ‘The first thing you should learn is not to stare, especially not at your elders and betters.’
She was pale as wax, and skinny.
‘What’s your name?’ she said. She spoke perfect English.
I said, ‘And if you’re going to read to me you had better start immediately because I have to go home very soon.’
I sat on a stool and she stood beside me, a little too close for my liking, and read. She was pretty good.
I said, ‘You can read. You don’t need good works doing for you.’
She grinned.
I said, ‘Have you been to summer camp?’
She shook her head.
I said, ‘How about gymnastics?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I did do that, but now I can’t be spared. I have to help make garters. We get one cent a piece. My name’s Malka but I like Lily better. What do you think?’
I didn’t really know what gymnastics were. As I had never been allowed them I surmised they were something desirable.
‘How old are you?’ she asked. She was one impertinent child.
‘And how were the gymnastics?’ I asked, feeling my way.
‘They were fun,’ she said. ‘Are you married? I like your coat. Want to see how I can turn a somersault?’ And she just flipped over, like a toy monkey. She went over so fast, I couldn’t see how she did it. This attracted the attention of the other little monkeys, who all left off their studying and gathered around me, fingering the fabric of my coat.
I looked around for someone to rescue me, but minutes passed before a Miss Stone appeared.
‘I knew it,’ she said. ‘You’ve made some friends already. They’re quite fascinated by you.’
I said, ‘I think I have to go home now. I think I’m needed there.’
‘But you’ve made such a hit,’ she said. ‘It’s because you’re a younger person, I expect. Do stay a little longer.’
I had to insist most firmly that I be home no later than four.
The girl called Malka shouted after me as we left the room.
‘Hey, Miss No Name,’ she called. ‘You have pretty hair.’
It was a measure of everyone else’s poor opinion of my looks that a compliment from an unwashed unfortunate went straight to my head.
‘That child reads well,’ I said. ‘How does she come to be here?’
‘The Lelchucks?’ she said. ‘They had to run from the Russians. Would you like to meet the rest of the family?’
I was torn. On the one hand I felt uneasily far from home. The loudness and smell of the place exceeded anything I could have imagined. But on the other hand I had a Miss Stone either side of me, greatly experienced in the ways of the ‘element’, and anyway, wasn’t I always longing to escape from the monotony of the parlor? I decided I would rather like to see where Malka Lelchuck lived.
We turned onto Stanton Street, where the buildings seemed still taller and darker, and every fire escape