The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [106]
Monday morning Missie awoke with a headache and a feeling of quiet desperation. The old-world charm of the Ukrainian café had faded and the relief of unburdening herself to Abramski had turned to fear. After all, she told herself nervously, you barely know him and Sofia wanted you never to tell anyone….
She waited until she heard the Perelmans’ door slam as Meyer left for work, and then she hurried downstairs to Rosa. Azaylee had stayed with the Perelmans last night, and the dog too; Viktor had transferred his loyalty from Misha to his daughter and refused to leave her side. Where Azaylee went, he went. It would be a problem when she went to school, Missie thought, and that thought triggered another nagging problem—the one about school. Misha’s daughter couldn’t just go around the corner to the rough local school. Why, she already knew more than she could learn there: She knew how to read a little, and she knew her alphabet, and she spoke French and Russian as well as English, though now her English had a distinct Yiddish accent like that of the rest of the kids on Rivington Street.
Rosa looked at her face full of woes and grinned. “So? You’ve come to cheer up my Monday morning? I should need such cheer!” She laughed as she poured Missie a glass of tea. “Well?” she asked, sitting down and gazing expectantly at her. “So tell me? About the pawnbroker—the clockwork man—you can set your clock and the days of the week by him. But you are the first to find out what makes him tick.”
“I didn’t find out a thing,” Missie confessed, “it was me who did all the talking. Oh, Rosa, I told him everything. Things I was never supposed to tell.” She stared at her, her eyes wide with panic. “Things I’ve never even told you.”
“Best friends you don’t need to tell,” Rosa said, patting her hand comfortingly. “Whatever you might have done is all right by me. I know it can’t be bad.”
“What would I do without you, Rosa?” Missie said suddenly. “I’m so stupid, I know nothing. I don’t even know how to get a job.”
Rosa smoothed her flowered apron thoughtfully. It was a last resort but she knew Missie was at her wit’s end. “There’s always the Chazir-Mark, the Pig Market on Hester Street, where the people wanting jobs in the clothing factories go every morning to see if there’s any work.” She hesitated. “It’s not really a place for a girl so refined like you, Missie, but for a few weeks maybe, until something else comes along. At least it would put a little money in your pocket. If you are chosen, of course,” she added with a sigh. “There’s always more workers than jobs. And the foremen have their favorites, the ones they know they can get most work out of for least pay.”
“But I don’t even know how to work a sewing machine,” Missie said doubtfully. “All I know are useless things, like the date of an Egyptian tomb or the history of the ancient Babylonians—I never learned anything really useful.”
“You know those things?” Rosa asked, astonished. “You should be a professor, not a machinist. But need drives us to strange places, Missie, and it’s all I can think of for you, now O’Hara’s gone.” She glanced shrewdly at Missie. “And what news by O’Hara?”
Missie shook her head, blushing. “None, not since he left for New Jersey two weeks ago. But then, I didn’t expect to hear from him, not after I turned down his proposal.”
Rosa sighed. “Meshuganah,” she muttered. “A good, strong man who would have kept you in luxury. What more does a girl want?”
“Love?” Missie whispered. Their eyes met across the table and Rosa reached out and took her hand. “Ah, love, Missie,” she said bitterly, “I have a feeling that love ends up as just like this: one man, two rooms, and three kids. Nothing ever changes.”
Missie hurried down Hester Street at six o’clock the next morning. It was beginning to snow and she turned up her coat collar, wishing she had taken the roses from her hat because the damp would ruin them. She hovered at the back of the crowd, taking in the scene. There were more men than women, some quite smartly