The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [58]
Her hand still clutched Missie’s with a grip of steel and she thought with a shiver it was as if Sofia were clinging to life, that if she let go she might slip away into darkness and never find her way back.
After splashing cold water over her flushed face, she tidied her hair in the mirror and put on a clean cotton blouse. She was so thin her skirt hung from her hips rather than from her waist. She hauled it up and secured it with a wide leather belt.
She gave Azaylee a small blackboard and a few colored chalks bought for a couple of cents from a pushcart and said, “Here’s something to keep you amused, little one. Watch over your grandmother, and if she needs me, you know where to find me.” She hugged her, hating the idea of leaving her alone. “I’ll try not to be too late,” she promised.
Still Missie hesitated, her hand on the doorknob. Azaylee was sitting on a chair by the bed with the blackboard clutched in her hand, staring at her with huge, frightened brown eyes, but Missie knew she had no choice. If she did not work, they did not eat.
She called Viktor to sit by the door. “Stay,” she commanded. “On guard.”
He sat obediently, and she thanked God they had him or she would have been afraid to leave them alone.
“Love you, matiushka, little mother,” she heard Azaylee call as she lingered outside the door, still torn between two duties.
“I love you too, dushka, dear one,” she called back, running quickly down the stairs before she could change her mind.
The saloon seemed busier than usual that night and she was run off her feet, delivering full glasses and rushing around collecting the empties. But even the rough men who had pestered her asked after her grandmother and she thought that maybe, before the drink hit them, they weren’t so bad after all. O’Hara himself made her a sandwich of rare roast beef and stood over her while she ate it, and at the end of the long evening he slipped an extra five dollars into her hand.
“You’re a good girl, Missie O’Bryan,” he told her. “Even though with a name as Irish as the Blarney Stone you’re about as Irish as Zev Abramski.”
“Who is Zev Abramski?” she asked, pocketing the money gratefully.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t been to Abramski’s yet?” O’Hara exclaimed, with his big belly laugh. “You must be the only woman on the Lower East Side who hasn’t. Zev’s the Jewish pawnbroker on the corner of Orchard and Rivington. He’ll lend twenty cents on your husband’s Sunday shirt to get you through till Friday. He keeps most of the population around here alive—until Friday afternoon, that is. Then it’s pay-up time—or the old man has no shirt for the weekend. And now be off with you, and good luck, Missie.”
She would need it, she thought, hurrying back through the dimly lighted streets. Viktor recognized her step on the stair and wagged his long plumed tail in greeting. Azaylee was curled up on the bed fast asleep next to her grandmother. Breathing a sigh of relief, Missie poured milk into a pan, dropped in the cinnamon stick, and placed it on the little burner, remembering wistfully when Sofia used to make her bedtime drink.
She tiptoed to the bed, smiling as she saw Azaylee’s thin arm thrown lovingly across her grandmother. But the smile on her face froze as she looked at Sofía. The old lady’s eyes were closed and her face peaceful, but her lips were blue and when Missie touched her, she felt cold.
“No,” she whispered, horrified, “no, it can’t be.” But it was true. Princess Sofia Ivanoff, encircled by the loving arms of her little granddaughter, was dead.
Rosa Perelman from downstairs sent her eldest daughter, nine-year-old Sonia, to Hester Street to fetch the doctor. After telling her other two daughters to look after Azaylee, she stayed with Missie until he came. The news flashed around the neighborhood and soon the room was filled with women bearing little gifts of food and drink and offering to help. As they laid out