Читать книгу The Featherbed - Джон Миллер - Страница 8

Today was Tuesday, and that usually meant an extra heavy workload. Rebecca sewed leaning into her machine, struggling to focus on her work. She looked up and squinted to see the clock on the wall across from her and then began to pump more vigorously with her foot. She was behind. Straight lines, she told her herself, it was important to concentrate on the straight lines. Keeping her fingertips as close to the guide as she dared, she watched the needle flying up and down, so quickly it was a blur. But the chug-chug of the wheel and the hazy grey of its swirling spokes soon lulled her back into a reverie.

A high-pitched scream came from across the floor and jolted her back to attention. Stopping her wheel, she swivelled in her chair to look. The room was long and wide, with fifteen rows, and she could just make out her friend Elsie standing up, ten aisles over by the windows, waving her arms. It was difficult to see her clearly at first, not so much because of the distance as the sun’s glare, casting her body in shadow.

Elsie shouted for a foreman to come. Rebecca’s eyes adjusted to the light, and she saw that a woman beside Elsie, it looked like Gertie Reznikoff, had one hand pressed flat on the sewing table, the other clutching at Elsie’s hair. Because her hand was so close to the guide, it looked like she had a finger trapped under the needle. The row where her friends sat erupted into chaos. Elsie extracted Gertie’s hand from her hair and put it on her forearm. She grabbed a piece of material and pressed it down against the trapped finger.

She called again, this time for Lev Sklawer, the floor supervisor, but Rebecca saw that he was near her side of the floor trying to make his way over to them. Many of the workers stood up from their chairs and watched, as Elsie shouted for everyone to be quiet. The noise slowly died down to a low hum, and people waited for her next move.

Then Rebecca heard her friend speak, calmly and steadily.

“Gertie, honey. Take a deep breath. I’m gonna turn the wheel at the count of three and pull out the needle. Be a brave girl now, okay?”

Gertie was now crying in a series of short sobs that were cut off when she ran out of air, followed by a gasp, a staccato of whimpers, and then another sob.

Elsie had her hand on Gertie’s arm. “Okay, honey, are you ready?”

Gertie nodded, her eyes closed, her face red and pinched.

“One, two. . .” Elsie turned the crank in a sudden movement, and Gertie screamed.

Gertie grasped her freed finger in her other hand, squeezing it tight, and rocked back and forth in her chair. Lev motioned to one of the foremen, who came and carried Gertie off into a room at the back.

Elsie crumpled back down into her chair, and Rebecca could see her other friend, Dora, crouching down to comfort her. Thank God for Elsie; Gertie had been lucky to be sitting next to her. From where she sat, it looked like Dora was now helping her to fix her hair. Together they drew it up and pinned it into her usual pompadour. Dora took a piece of excess cloth and mopped Elsie’s brow. Elsie had a stout, round face, and when she took the cloth to mop the back of her neck, Rebecca noticed that it was unusually long for someone so short.

It was a good thing that Elsie was always so coolheaded and sensible, and not like one of the flighty girls in the adjacent row. She looked for solutions to whatever troubles came her way, no matter how terrible. The world was a horrible place, Elsie claimed, but there was no point in waiting around with your head up your tuchus, or up in the clouds, when there was usually something to be done to make things a little less bad. That was Elsie — so pragmatic it was depressing.

A murmur rippled through the crowd and eventually reached Rebecca’s table. One of the women across from her received the whispered news and leaned across the table to share it with Rebecca.

“The needle go straight through that bone.” She wagged her index finger. “They will take it off,” she said. Her curled lips conveyed both revulsion and disapproval. Which was the more dominant emotion, or what exactly she disapproved of, Rebecca couldn’t tell.

“Poor Gertie,” she said.

“She is schlemozel, that girl,” the woman answered. “This is third accident this year.”

“Well, that’s true, but still...”

“Yes, of course true. First, with her hand in that wheel, with all blood everywhere. After, remember? Finger again with hole, but not in that bone. Not so bad like this. This, they must take off.” Again, she wagged her finger and curled her lips.

“I know she’s careless, but don’t you feel sorry for her?” she protested. “She’ll probably be fired now, finger or no finger.”

“Yes, of course I’m sorry.” But the woman’s tone spoke more of ambivalence than sympathy. She turned her head, disengaged from their conversation to begin a new one in Czech, with her neighbour.

Rebecca missed her friends in the other row. There on the other side of the floor, the conversation had been more lively. Or at least more compassionate. Also, she had assembled and pleated the main bodice, which struck her as a much more important part of the shirtwaist, closer to the shape of the final product. Here in her exile for the last year, she was stuck with sewing the sleeves. The Czech woman only rarely spoke to her, preferring to speak to her neighbour and countrywoman who hardly spoke any English at all. The woman at Rebecca’s back could be chatty at times, but she had an unpleasant and disturbing odour that was somehow easier to ignore if they weren’t engaged in conversation.

Rebecca settled back into her work. She could see Lev coming toward her.

That vulgar little man, she thought. I wish I could wring his pimply little neck.

He approached her table. “Rebecca, you stupid animal! Your time here should be waist-ing time — not time to be wasted!” He snorted, “Get it?” and then explained his joke, as though she were not bright enough to figure it out. “‘Waist’ing? Like shirt-‘waist’? Get it, Becky?”

She cringed. Normally, it was best to just ignore him and hope that he would go away. Today, she felt she couldn’t bear it anymore.

“Lev, please, I’d almost rather you dock my wages than tell those awful jokes. I should take it up with the union!”

“Sure, I guess that would be a ‘strike’ against me, wouldn’t it? Get it? ‘Strike’ — against me? Get it, Becky, sweetheart?”

She leaned forward and pressed her forehead against her sewing machine. Lev was now right behind her. He put his hand on her shoulder, and she flinched, bracing herself for whatever.

“Anyway, today’s your lucky day, Becky. You get to go back with the old gaggle there on the other side of the room. I switched you with Gertie thinking you’d both be more productive, but it looks like she’s not gonna be doin’ much of anything for a while. So I’m chopping off your arms, and giving you back your torso!”

“What?”

“You saw — Gertie Reznikoff — gone. We need you there again.”

He poked her in the back. “This is poor little Gertie’s finger I got here poking you right back over there to the other section, Becky my dear. Of course, I’m sure Gertie’d be much happier if this bloody thing were still attached to her and not here with me carrying it about, huh Becky?”

She jumped around to look, her face twisted with disgust. And maybe a flicker of ghoulish curiosity. But there was nothing, of course, only Lev’s own index finger, which poked her on the nose.

“Gotcha! Ha ha! God, Becky, you’re such an easy mark.”

She closed her eyes. “Should I go right now, or shall I finish this sleeve?”

“Yeah, right now! Your friends here can finish up that sleeve. What are ya waiting for? Go!”

She handed her unfinished work to the Czech woman, who nodded politely to her and smiled, and she stood up to leave. Lev was intentionally blocking her path so that she had to force her way past, brushing against him.

Crossing the floor, she zigzagged her way up through the aisles, clicking sounds assaulting her from all around. Two hundred needle pistons going at once made it sound like a downpour on a metal roof. Each person had his or her pile of fabric to one side on the table, and then a pile of finished or semi-finished garments draped over a chair in front of it to the worker’s right. A little girl of eight loped by with a handful of buttons to deliver to one of the tables. She deposited her buttons beside a surly woman, who took the child’s hand, held it tight, and slapped it. “I’ve been waiting five minutes for those buttons!”

Rebecca caught up with the girl, pulled her tiny hand out of the woman’s grasp, and smacked the woman across the back of her head.

“Leave her alone! My God, you should be ashamed! Does it makes you feel big and important to yell at a little kid?” Rebecca and the woman locked themselves in a stare-down, and Rebecca won. She turned to the girl and bent down to comfort her, but the child’s eyes were filled with terror, and she darted past her and shot back across the room. The woman muttered after Rebecca as she continued on toward the window aisle.

When she reached her old table, her friends smiled, and Dora pulled out her chair to welcome her.

“I can’t tell you how glad I am that I’m back working with you all! Only God, poor Gertie! Elsie, I saw almost everything, you were so terrific with her.”

Elsie stopped her pedal for a moment. “There’s no chance of her keeping her job now. Three times in a year? Forget it. Lucky her mama does piecework. Maybe there’ll be some extra work for her there.”

Dora unfolded some cloth and began measuring out the unpleated waistline. “Yeah, poor thing. I hate to say it, but that finger looked real bad. Makes us all think twice about jumpin’ every time Lev gets on our backs to pick up the pace, don’t it? I’m sure she’ll lose the finger. The needle went through above the second joint.”

Rebecca grimaced. “What do you mean? Was Lev rushing her?”

“He was at her this morning,” answered Dora. “That creepy little pisher — someone oughta chop off his finger — or better yet, some other teeny tiny dangling thing!”

The girls broke into laughter, and then tried immediately to stifle it with held breath and hands over mouths. They could see Lev approaching.

“Don’t make me send ya back over to the other side, Rebecca!” he bellowed from three rows over.

Rebecca grabbed a piece of fabric, turned her eyes down, and smoothed the cloth purposefully on the table. She settled into a steady rhythm but was distracted by Dora’s frequent stops to pat at her hair. A strand of it hung down at the back.

“Dora, you’re fidgeting. Let me help you with that.”

“It’s this new hairdo that I saw in the American Magazine. It’s a bit complicated, I had to have my roommate help pin in the extras. I got them from that lady on Mott Street. She’s got all the nice stuff — fringes, switches, braids, everything.”

Today’s hairpieces were not exactly matched to the light brown of her hair, producing an odd effect. Rebecca knew better than to ask if it was intentional, she just pulled up the strand of fake hair and fixed it in place with a pin that was already there.

Elsie nudged her under the table. Lev was cycling back to their side of the room again and approaching their row. He rarely spoke to Dora, so they were surprised when he leaned over her, putting his mouth near her ear. He whispered loudly, on purpose so that others could hear.

“Be sure to leave lots of room in the bust, Dora Segal, so that big girls like you, who fills out their shirts nicely, will want to buy our merchandise.”

“Lucky whoever made your trousers didn’t have to worry about that, Lev Sklawer.”

Dora’s razor-sharp tongue was legendary. She fixed her brown eyes on him, producing a withering look, and glanced down to his crotch.

Lev turned red. “Very funny, very funny.”

Lenny and Carlo, sitting on the other side of Dora, were virtually suffocating, they were laughing so hard.

“Get back to work everyone, before I decide to keep you here ‘till midnight,” Lev said, moving away again to attend to a disturbance on the other side of the room.

Dora raised her head in victory. As she did so, a beautiful pendant peeked out above her high collar. It was a burnished silver-grey and was intricately carved.

“Dora, that necklace is beautiful. Is it new?”

“Yeah, isn’t it adorable? Elsie and I found it in a shop on Allen Street.”

“Allen Street? You were shopping there?”

“Yeah, look here.” She tilted her head down and pushed her chin into her chest. “I also got this pin for my hair. Isn’t it gorgeous? I’m gonna wear it to my next audition. There’s a show having tryouts next Sunday.”

“Allen Street? Isn’t Allen a little — you know — a little bit on the shady side?”

“Whaddya mean, shady?” answered Elsie. “For God’s sake, it’s practically next door to where you live. It’s where all the craftsmen have their shops. The rabbis even shop there!”

“Yeah, and besides, we were tryin’ to find a present for my poor old mama. I wanted to give her somethin’ nice, ‘cause she just had another baby. Can you believe it? Poor woman — I move out to give them more room, and she pops out another one not a year later. Makes you feel like a goddamned weed. Pull me out, and another one shoots up to fill my spot.”

“Okay, Dora, but isn’t Allen Street also where they have all the — what do they call them — those bawdy houses?”

“Yeah, and?”

“Well, I don’t know ... I guess I don’t think I’d like to be shopping in that neighbourhood, that’s all.”

“Ya know, Rebecca, those girls, they aren’t so different from us, really.”

“What do you mean, no different? Of course they are! They’re nothing like you and me.” Maybe in Elsie’s gloomy version of the world they weren’t, thought Rebecca.

“How would you know? Have you ever met anyone who worked as a whore?”

“Shhhh! Keep your voice down ... Of course not. Have you?” She looked back and forth between them.

Elsie didn’t answer. Dora picked her fingers, looked at her nails, then spoke lightly, for effect. “Yes, as a matter of fact.” Rebecca saw Elsie shoot an angry glance at Dora, who waved her hand dismissively.

“You have?” “Yeah, I have.”

“Who is it?” Rebecca’s eyes lit up.

“No one you know. Let’s just leave it at that.”

“Well, howdya meet her?”

“Through a friend.”

“And what was she like?”

“It’s like Elsie said, she’s not so different from you and me.”

“How could you say that, Dora? I would never do something like that. I just couldn’t. And neither could you.”

“Sure I could.”

“Could not.”

“I’m not saying I would do it, but I could if I had to.”

“What could possibly be so bad you couldn’t earn money with a regular job?”

“Oh, come on, Rebecca,” Elsie said, “Think about it a bit. Not everyone comes from a family like yours, with parents that care about them. You never know what choice ya might make if your situation was different.” Elsie never talked about her family, other than to say that they made artificial flowers in a crowded tenement, and that she and her sister had left as soon as they could afford to. When Elsie got her job at the factory, she rented a room by herself from a landlord on Baxter Street.

Rebecca giggled. “Oh my God! Can you imagine if I was doing that? I can’t even think what my parents would do. I sometimes feel like they’re gonna disown me just for going to the dance hall on Saturday nights. Or to union meetings.”

“Well, they’d most definitely sit shivah for you for this one, sweetheart,” said Dora.

“Oh absolutely they would. ‘Cause of my papa — for sure.”

“You don’t think your mama would feel the same way?”

“Probably. But she just told me back in Poland once she was almost kidnapped and sent to Argentina into white slavery. So I don’t know ... I’d think she might have some sympathy.”

“How charitable.” Elsie breathed in and out through her nose. Her voice was icy.

“Trust me,” said Dora. “If it was her own daughter, I’m sure she’d object.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. And anyway, that was different. Those girls — it sounded like they had no choice. Lotsa the girls on Allen Street — they choose it. At least I heard that’s how it is. No one’s forcing them. If my mama and papa thought I’d chosen to be a whore, for sure they would sit shivah for me.”

Rebecca could see Elsie shifting again in her seat adjusting herself to sit stiffly upright. “Lotsa people make choices for lotsa reasons, Rebecca.”

“What kind of reason would make a person choose to lie down with all those men who they don’t even know, and take money for it? I can’t imagine it. Even if their parents didn’t love them.”

Elsie’s fists tightened on her bunch of cloth. Rebecca saw her exchange a look with Dora, who turned to Rebecca and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it sweetheart. Concentrate on your fabric there. You’re getting sloppy, and you’re also getting behind. We don’t want another accident.”

Rebecca hated when her friends treated her like a child. Disagreeing was no reason to tell her to calm down. After all, it was Elsie who was obviously upset. It was more than clear she knew someone. But, even though she was dying to find out who it was, if Elsie didn’t want to talk about it, she wouldn’t press the matter.

She quickened the pace of her sewing for a few minutes, and stewed for a while as the machines buzzed away.

Carlo broke the silence, whispering a welcome change of topic.

“You girls going to Cooper Union on Sunday?”

“Uh huh.” Elsie glanced at her friends when nobody else answered. She seemed to brighten up at the thought of it. “Aren’t we?”

Rebecca nodded. “I am.”

Carlo reached behind Lenny and poked Dora in the ribs. “You too, right?”

“I dunno...” Dora’s voice trailed off.

“Whaddya mean, ya don’t know?”

“Well, okay, here it is: I wanna know why aren’t we asking for better wages? This rally — as far as I can tell — it’s just for better conditions, isn’t it? Not for wages. I think it’s a waste o’ time.”

“You think we’ve got it so great here?” asked Lenny. “You like Lev breathin’ down your neck?”

“I can handle Lev.”

“Yeah, we all saw that. But I’m not talkin’ about him actually breathin’ down your neck, I’m talkin’ about the rules here.”

“Yeah, I know, I know. But still, you can sorta understand some of the things they do... I mean the owners, you know, lookin’ at it from their point of view.”

Elsie frowned at her. “We’re not owners, Dora. In case you forgot?”

“I know! But imagine if you were. How would you do things? Some of these girls would be off in a second to meet their boyfriends in the middle of the day, if those doors over there weren’t locked. They’d say they’re goin’ for a bathroom break, and off they’d be smoochin’ for a good ten to fifteen, a coupla blocks over.”

“Oh come on, Dora,” said Rebecca. “What about that fire downstairs last month. Thank God they got it out in time. What if there’s another one, and we’re locked in? You don’t think Lev does a good enough job keeping us in line?”

Elsie snorted. “Really, Dora. You’d think you were the company spokesman. What good is an extra buck a week if I’m gonna be trapped in here and end up like a piece of charcoal?”

“And plus,” added Lenny, “this strike is as much against the city as it is against the factories. Damned inspectors are so stupid. Or more likely someone’s paying them off. They gotta know that as soon as they come in, those guys are unlocking the doors and shuttling the kids out the back. Have ya ever seen this place get a fine? Have ya? That’s ‘cause they’re all patsies.”

“I know you’re right, but I just wish we were gettin’ up for a better wage is all, as long as we’re talkin’ about a strike. For Pete’s sake, I’m still gettin’ eight dollars a week after three years here!”

“Just be there,” said Carlo. “I hear there’s gonna be some good speeches. And you never know, Dora. Maybe you’ll meet the man o’ your dreams.”

Dora stopped sewing for a second and raised her hands in defeat. “I’ll be there, I’ll be there! But I’m not gonna be pickin’ out my wedding dress just yet.”

Neither am I, thought Rebecca, and she hunkered down into her machine, trying to focus on her pleats, which were being pulled just a bit too fast under the pistoning needle.