The Property of a Lady (34 page)

“I began to do things differently now, to smarten up the business, to think more about myself. I went to night school and learned how to read and write in English and I discovered the joy to be found in books. I could not read enough! I bought a piano and taught myself to play. But I always kept alone. I was too afraid to be close with anyone, in case they knew that I was not a legal person, that I had no immigration papers for America. I had no identity in this country.”

Missie stared at him as he said finally, “I am not a person in America and not a person in Russia. I am no one. Just a pawnbroker.”

Her heart was bursting as she took his hand and laid it against her cheek, “Papers are not important,” she whispered, “it’s
what
you are,
who
you are. And you are a man of courage. I
know
you, Zev, just the way you know me and about me. We have shared our secrets. Now you
are
a person.”

Their journey back home that night was as silent as ever but he walked closer to her—not enough so that their hands touched, but closer. And when she said good night, she leaned forward and kissed him impulsively on the cheek. He knew that night as he returned to his shop that
he was the happiest man on the Lower East Side of New York.

Rosa knew when Missie came through the door that she had not found a job. Her face was drawn and her eyes weary; even the flowers on her hat drooped.

“So?” she asked, determinedly cheerful. “It’s not the end of the world to be out of a job. It happens to everyone.” She stroked back her curly dark hair, smoothing the escaping tendrils into the knot at the nape of her neck, and then she put her hands on her hips and stared at Missie. The look of utter despair in her eyes frightened Rosa, and she hugged her like a mother hugging a child. “It’ll be all right, Missie,” she whispered, “I promise you. Meanwhile, I have five dollars hidden in my old samovar—safe from Meyer’s prying hands or it would all be gone on whiskey down at the union meetings. Take it. It’s better off with you.”

Missie shook her head. “I can’t take your money, Rosa,” she said quietly. “I know how you did without to save it.”

“For friends, it’s the same,” Rosa said quickly, taking the money from the samovar and pressing it into her reluctant hand. “Only worry about yourself, one more to feed here is no problem.” They looked at Azaylee sitting at the table eating supper with Rosa’s three little girls, one so blond, the others so dark, and Rosa laughed and said, “She looks like a changeling turned up on my doorstep, brought by the gypsies in the fairy tales.”

Missie sat at the table and Rosa put a glass of tea and a thick slice of bread spread with chicken fat in front of her. “A gypsy once told me that I would have a great responsibility, one that would change the world,” Missie said thoughtfully. “Do you think she meant looking after Azaylee? But if she did then how would Azaylee change the world?”

“Maybe she’ll grow up to become President of America,”
Rosa said, sitting next to Missie and helping herself to more bread.

“When I grow up,” Azaylee chimed in, “I’m going to be a dancer.”

“Nu?
A dancer is it?” Rosa laughed. “A ballerina, no less?”

“A ballerina,” Azaylee said firmly.

“You can’t be a ballerina,” Hannah retorted, “you don’t have a dress.”

“I can, I can,” Azaylee wailed. She threw her bread suddenly at Hannah, and they fell to the floor, wrestling.

Missie stared at her, shocked. “Azaylee!” she cried, hauling her off Hannah.

“It’s good she shows some spirit,” Rosa said calmly. “Hannah’s too bossy.”

“I will be a ballerina,” Azaylee said, glaring at Hannah, “you’ll see.”

“You have to take lessons to learn,” Sonia, the eldest, said practically, “and you can’t afford the cost.”

Azaylee wasn’t sure she knew what “afford” meant, and she glanced at Missie plaintively. There was a scratch across her nose and Missie could see the line of dirt under her chin where she had finished washing before she sat down to her supper. It can’t go on like this, she told herself, it’s enough, enough … just look what’s happening to Misha’s daughter.

“You want to tell me what happened?” Rosa asked, glancing at the clock. Meyer was expected at seven and it was already half-past six. There was time, but she knew Missie would not stay when he came home; she knew she couldn’t stand Meyer Perelman.

Missie shrugged. “The foreman at the Pig Market,” she said, “you know the one I told you about, he picked me the first time for Zimmerman’s? He picked me again this morning and sent me to Galinski’s.”

Rosa nodded. She knew Galinski’s. It was a small operation,
hand to mouth each week, picking up cheap itinerant labor when it was needed.

“There were only two other people there,” Missie said, “a cutter upstairs by the window and Mr. Galinski in his office. He showed me a machine and told me to begin. I worked steadily until noon, and then I took a break. ‘No pay for time stopped,’ Galinski said, and I told him all right, I knew. Then he put on his hat and coat and went out for lunch. I went back to my machine and the next thing I knew somebody was standing behind me. It was the foreman who had hired me.

“‘Everything all right?’ he asked me, coming closer.

“I told him yes and went back to work. He came even closer.” Missie blushed as her eyes met Rosa’s understanding ones. “Too close. He put his hand on my shoulder and slid it….” Lowering her eyes, she whispered, “He said there would be work for me every day, that he could make it easy for me, and I would earn good money—if I was nice to him.”

Rosa stared at her and said breathlessly, “What did you do?”

“I jumped up and picked up a pair of cutter’s shears and I said that if he came near me again I would stab him where it hurt and he would never be able to molest another girl again.”

Rosa flung back her head and laughed. “Missie O’Bryan,” she exclaimed, gasping, mopping up her tears, “six months ago you never would have thought of that! You have become a true Lower East Side girl.”

Missie glanced at Azaylee. “We both have,” she said bitterly.

“Anyway,” she concluded, “he told me to get out, so I did. He shouted after me that there would be no pay and not to come back to the Pig Market again if I knew what was good for me. So”—she shrugged—“that’s that.”

“You should go uptown, Missie,” Rosa urged. “You are too good for them here. There are smart shops on Fifth
Avenue where they make beautiful clothes for rich women. They’ll need seamstresses, handworkers—anything would be better than the sweatshops. Take the five dollars,” she urged, pushing it into Missie’s hand. “Go tomorrow.” Their eyes met as she added understandingly, “Before it’s too late.”

That night when Azaylee was asleep, Missie took out the valise from under the bed and opened it and looked at the tiara with its golden sunburst, naked of diamonds except for the four largest, and the huge ice-green emerald. She wondered what would happen if she walked into Cartier and said simply, “I would like to sell the Ivanoff tiara.” Would they call the police? Arrest her maybe? Send her to jail for stealing it? She had no proof that it was hers, or that Azaylee was an Ivanoff. The only papers she had were the yellowing legal documents about some mines in India, and they were brown with age and the red sealing wax was breaking away from the pink legal ribbons.

She picked up the photograph and looked at Misha’s dear face again, as she often did when she was alone. Sometimes he felt so close to her, as if maybe somewhere he was thinking about her too. After picking up the brooch, she pinned it to her dress and went to look in the mirror. The diamonds sparkled under the light and the rubies glowed mysteriously with their own fire. It was all she had of him, he had chosen it for her, he had held it in his hands and looked into her eyes to see her pleasure when he gave it to her. No, she could never,
never
part with it. She would starve first.

And so you will, she thought, replacing the jewels guiltily in the valise, unless you get a job this week. She looked at her old gray coat hanging on the nail and her hat and the tired flowers drooping on top of it. To get a job uptown she would have to be smart. It would take an investment. She looked at Rosa’s five dollars and told herself that tomorrow morning she would go to Glanz’s store on
Grand Avenue and buy herself a new coat. She would pay a deposit and when she got the job she would pay it off at so much a week, the way all the women did around here. It was a risk, she knew, because the odds were she would not get a job. But she squared her shoulders resolutely. This time she was going to start right at the top. On Park Avenue.

She was at Glanz’s as soon as it opened the next morning, choosing a simple coat of navy wool in the new, slim line. She bought a pair of kid gloves. Deciding she could not afford a new hat, she went back to Zabar’s pushcart and bought a single imitation white gardenia to replace the roses on her old one. She polished her black shoes and ran excitedly downstairs to show Rosa.

“Turn around,” Rosa said, inspecting her minutely from head to toe. “Give a look only, such a lady,” she marveled, “as smart as any rich Park Avenue person.”

Missie laughed excitedly. “Is my hat all right?” she asked, patting the gardenia doubtfully.

“Perfect,” Rosa declared. “You won’t need a job, you will get married when the employer sees you.”

Missie kissed her, laughing, and Rosa ran to the window, watching as she strode down the street. “Like a deer she walks,” she breathed admiringly. She leaned farther from the window. “Good luck, Missie,” she called, waving and wishing with all her heart that she would return a new person. A person with a job.

The door at the top of the immaculate white marble steps was enameled a shiny purple and in the center was a large brass plaque with the flamboyant signature “Elise.” A doorman in a smart buff uniform gleaming with gold buttons moved his bulk in front of it, folding his arms belligerently and glaring down at Missie, who stood hesitantly at the foot of the steps. “What d’ya want?” he yelled.

Missie flinched and said hurriedly, “I … I’ve come about a job.”

“What are ya? An idiot? Jobs go around the back, not in the front door! Get a move on, will ya. I don’t want ya hanging around here. Hurry, hurry!” After shooing her away, he ran down the steps to open the door of a long royal-purple saloon car, smiling unctuously as he helped the elegant red-haired woman alight. Missie turned to stare. The woman was older, tall and wafer-thin and dressed with an understated flamboyance that drew your eyes to her. She turned her head and her eyes met Missie’s, assessing her thoughtfully for a moment. She said something to the doorman and turned to look at her again; then she swept up the marble steps and disappeared behind the beautiful purple door.

“Hey, you!” The doorman waved his arm at her and Missie stepped closer reluctantly. “You got lucky with your cheek,” he said. “That was Madame Elise herself. She asked what ya wanted so I told her a job, and she said
to go round to Mrs. Masters and tell her that Madame sent you. She’s the manageress of the workroom. Maybe she’ll need an extra hand.” He grinned suddenly, “Sorry I shouted, kid,” he said, “but I was expecting Madame and she hates anyone cluttering up her steps when she’s making her grand entrance. Tell Fred on the door I sent ya, and while you’re at it, ask him to put me a dollar to win on Mawchop in the two-thirty.”

“A dollar to win on Mawchop,” she repeated, and then she turned and ran around the corner before Madame could change her mind.

Mrs. Masters was a dragon. She kept Missie waiting half an hour, and when she finally flounced into the room in a rustle of stiff lilac silk, she peered at her sitting on the chair by the door as if she were an intruder.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “Who let you in here?”

“Why, Joe showed me in. He told me to wait,” she replied, standing up. “Madame Elise said there might be a job.”

“A job?” Mrs. Masters’s sharp eyes raked her from head to foot, and Missie knew she had priced her new coat and her tired hat and cracked leather shoes, and understood exactly where she was on the human monetary scale. Mrs. Masters looked like the kind of woman who prided herself on never letting anyone put anything over on her, and her eyes were permanently suspicious.

“And what can you do?” she asked haughtily.

Missie quickly abandoned the idea of telling her about the sweatshops and said instead, “I don’t have much experience, ma’am, but I learned to sew from the nuns at school.” She crossed her fingers behind her back, hoping the nuns would forgive her the lie.

“Nuns, eh?” Mrs. Masters was suddenly interested, “Of course they’re still the best teachers. A lot of our girls are convent trained. Show me,” she commanded, holding out her hands, and Missie peeled off her gloves, wishing her
hands didn’t look so red and chapped from all the washing and cleaning.

Mrs. Masters felt them and her nose wrinkled with disgust. “Too rough! We use only the finest, most expensive fabrics here: fragile silks and chiffons, laces, silver and bead embroidery. Why, these hands would wreck anything they came in touch with. No, I’m sorry, it’s just not good enough. Good-bye, Miss …”