The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [108]
“I’ll make it up,” the woman said, smiling. “I know who you are. You worked at O’Hara’s alehouse, and you worked harder than anyone he’s had before. I’ve seen your little girl, she’s lovely. My name’s Mrs. McCready—Georgie to me pals. Well, best get on with it then, before the foreman catches us yapping.”
The noise of the treadle machines and the fierce hissing of the big pressing irons, the clouds of steam, the shouted orders, and the press of bodies in the ill-lighted loft seemed to crowd in on Missie, but she put her head down and went to work; by eight-thirty the pile in her basket was beginning to diminish and she felt pleased with herself. Until Sammy came rushing by and filled it up again. By ten o’clock the noise had given her a headache, and the close press of bodies and dust was nauseating. Still, she knew she was lucky to have a machine within sight of a window. Mostly they were given over to the cutters and their big tables and enormous shears. At ten o’clock there was a ten-minute break and she joined the other women hanging out of the windows, smoking illegal cigarettes—cigarettes had caused serious fires in some sweatshops and many people had been burned to death. Missie hung her head out too, grateful for the icy air after the stifling workroom. Too soon it was back to the machine and the endless basket of “pieces.” By twelve her back ached as well as her head and she felt exhausted. Apart from the ten minutes, she hadn’t stopped work in five hours—and even so, her basket had only been changed once, while everybody else’s had been refilled several times.
“Don’t worry,” Georgie told her kindly as she ate her bread and herring, “you’ll get quicker as you get used to it.”
At six-thirty they filed silently from the room, most too weary now for chatter and smiles.
Missie felt as if she had been sewing seams in her sleep, but she was at Zimmerman’s promptly again the next morning, and the next. When it was over she waited in line triumphantly for her three days’ wages. It was piecework so she didn’t know exactly how much she had earned. “Too slow,” the foreman said curtly, handing over her money. “Don’t come back next week.”
Missie’s mouth dropped open with shock. “Oh, but I’ll get better,” she promised, “I’m learning.”
“There’s no time here for learners,” he said curtly. “Move on.”
She stepped out of the way so the next girl could be paid, feeling like crying, but crying would not get her a job. Nothing would, it seemed.
“Try the market again Monday,” Georgie whispered as she passed her. “There’s always another sweatshop needing workers.”
She opened her hand and stared down at her three days’ wages. It was exactly five dollars.
Missie sat opposite Zev in the Ukrainian café after supper on Sunday night, feeling like a failure. “I really tried, Mr. Abramski,” she said sadly, “but I wasn’t quick enough.”
He shrugged. “You should not be working in a sweatshop, a girl like you,” he said with a spark of anger. “I cannot let you do this, Missie.” He coughed apologetically. “Excuse me, I meant Mrs. O’Bryan.”
“Oh, no, please, call me Missie, everybody does,” she said quickly.
His dark eyes lighted up. He smiled and said, “It would be pleasing if you would call me Zev.”
She looked at him, thinking how seldom he smiled and how sad his dark eyes were, and she suddenly realized how young he was. Somehow she had always thought of him as just Zev Abramski the pawnbroker and never as “a young man.” She thought guiltily that she was so full of her own woes that she had never even asked him about himself, only if he was a happy man, when he so obviously was not. She wondered what had caused the sorrow that lay behind his dark eyes. Leaning forward, she said impulsively, “Tell me about yourself, Zev. I know you were born in Russia, but where?”
Zev took a deep breath. He felt as if he were trembling inside. In all these years he had never, never told his story to a living soul. He only communed with the dead, in his dreams.
He drank deeply from his wineglass,