When We Were Strangers (13 page)

That night in the kitchen I whispered my plan to Lula. “You know any rich women in Chicago? You can’t just walk up to some fine house with your needle. Ladies got their own fancy dressmakers,” she said.

“I’ll find a dressmaker then.”

“If you’re going, don’t tell no one until you’ve saved every penny you need,” Lula warned. She jerked her finger at the dining room where waves of laughter rolled over the table as collar girls took turns miming the Missus. “Not even your friends. If you’re leaving, you’ve got no friends.
She’ll
sniff it out from them and if she thinks you crossed her, wanting something better for yourself, girl, you’re out on the streets, no matter how good you sew.”

Chapter Six
Devil’s Breath

So I waited,
driving my hands to work faster, saying nothing of my plans, a silent traitor to my friends. On the warm days in early March, gritty rivulets ran from snow piled in alleys like old rags, but at night dank cold still seeped through cracks in our dormitory walls, shivering us to sleep. Each dawn paled to a dull white sky and filmy disk of sun, nothing like Opi’s winter-sunrise bands of violet, purple, rose and magenta, and azure skies of noon. Mountain winters were hungry, but at least we had colors.

“I
want
springtime!” said Marta, our new Italian girl. She stamped out crusty patches of snow as we trudged across town, burdened like donkeys with boxes of finished collars. On delivery mornings, we earned no piecework. “The Greeks and Swedes never get sent out,” Marta said bitterly. It was true. The Missus played each group against the others, doling out tiny liberties and capriciously rating our work.

I had determined to leave Cleveland when I saved twenty dollars, with luck before the maple leaves unfurled. Meanwhile, the city oppressed me with the weight of my secret and the white roof of winter sky. Even Woodland Avenue was a torment as new immigrant women eyed my scar and edged away in furls of whispers.

Say nothing to
them
, Lula constantly reminded me. If Marta knew, how could she not breathe my leaving to Sara, who might pass that breath to Bèla, and from there to a Greek and the Missus? It’s true. When Sigrid the German girl gave notice, the Missus found such faults with her collars that Sigrid left owing the Missus for room and board.

When girls did leave, it was rarely for better work, but because they had found husbands. A Swede quit in February when a man she met at a dance appeared one afternoon with a deed for land in Nebraska. Most girls simply stayed. “Where else can we go?” they said, as if deserving nothing better than watered soup, a mice-ridden dormitory and schemes of the Missus to trim away our pay. “It’s not
so
bad here,” they assured each other. “It’s better than scrubbing floors and safer than mill work or factories.”

“Come to the dance tonight,” urged Marta, but I refused. Men had their pick of beautiful girls without scars.

“If I married,” I reminded her, “the money we sent home would go to his family, not mine. I have to think of my Zia.”

“Irma, the truth is, you’re afraid of men,” said Marta flatly.

Not Gustavo, I thought, but of the others, yes, perhaps. “It’s just not my time for dancing.”

“But if we go, you’ll be alone here tonight.”

True, but better alone than hovering at the edge of a social hall. I begged a lamp from Lula to practice the tucks and smocking, piping, matched plaids and scalloped hems in
Godey’s Lady’s Book
. That night I dreamed of gowns: small as a finger, I wandered ruffled hills and slipped through shimmering galleys of tucks, crossing taffeta fields strewn with bright buttons until storm clouds of collars covered the sky. I was first on the bench in the mornings and the last to leave. Finished collars mounded in my box and the Missus bought them all. “You’re learning,” she conceded coldly.

Late in March, a letter came from Opi. I pressed it into my hand, smelled it, ran my fingers around the envelope edges and studied King Umberto’s face on the stamp. “Read it!” Marta demanded. I tore open the envelope and read slowly:

Dear Irma.

The new postman brought all your letters last month, which was a great relief. We had been so worried not to hear from you. We have no word of Carlo but thank Our Lord that you are well and working. Zia Carmela sends her love. She has had fever and chest pains and a cough this winter. Your father asks that you send money for a doctor. He and Signora Assunta are married and Assunta is with child. The bishop praised your altar cloth when he saw our church. The mayor had a new well dug by his house. Old Tommaso died. Gabriele was killed by his own sheepdogs. I must close now for the postman is waiting. The Lord bless you in America.

Father Anselmo

Nothing else was in the envelope. What had I expected: a clump of our earth, the smell of spring rain or the savor of our bread? I tried to see home faces through the pale page. Did Old Tommaso have a beard? Which of Gabriele’s eyes was crossed? Were all of his dogs lame from his beatings or only the spotted bitch? I pictured my father’s hand on Assunta’s swelling belly. I thought of Zia wrapped in her shawl, sick. I must go to Chicago, make more money and send it home for medicine.

“Irma!” Marta cried. “Look what you’re doing!” I smoothed out the crushed letter. “Something wrong?” she asked anxiously.

“No, I’m just happy to hear from home.” I would send five dollars to Father Anselmo right away for Zia’s doctor although it would cost me another week with the Missus. I looked for my scribe on Sunday, but he was gone.

“Went home to Sicily,” said the fruit seller. “Try Bruno the clerk. He lost an arm in a streetcar crash, but he still writes. You’ll find him in his uncle’s butcher shop.”

The shop smelled of blood and raw meat. At a tiny corner table, gaslight pooled in the caved cheeks of a young man whose jacket sleeve dangled on his lap. He sat motionless, bent over a thick book. “Look alive, Bruno, you’ve got a customer,” the butcher called.

The young man sighed and closed his book. “Good day,” he murmured. “Please sit down, signorina.” From a neat stack, Bruno drew a single clean sheet of gentleman’s paper, not the old scribe’s rough pages. He set a leather-covered rod to weight the sheet, selected a pen from a wooden box, wrote the date and paused for my first sentence. In elegant script, he wrote my words: I had sent five dollars for Zia through a bank and would soon go to Chicago to find better work since Carlo had not come here and I could no longer wait for him.

The soft scratching of Bruno’s pen eased out every other sound: rumbles and shouts from the street, steady thwack of the butcher’s cleaver, yowl of cats and shrill laments of customers fighting over their places in line. Bruno was not like the old scribe. He wrote carefully and gently perfected my grammar. I hoped that Father Anselmo would describe to Zia his elegant writing on the clean white page. “Would you like to sign?” Bruno asked politely, offering me his pen as the old scribe never did.

“Yes, thank you.” Gaslight warmed my face as I leaned over the tiny table. I drew back, turning away.

“It’s only a scar,” said Bruno softly. “Not like this.” He picked up the empty sleeve and let it flap on the table.

“But look how beautifully you write.”

“I work in a butcher shop,” he said ruefully. “And out there,” his eyes flicked to the churning street, “people think I’m a monster. Girls don’t talk to cripples.”

“I’m talking to you.”

“But you’re leaving, no? For Chicago.” I nodded. “Then, addio, signorina.” He sighed.

“Addio,” I said, sliding my coins across his desk. He swept them into a drawer, folded the letter and deftly slipped it in an envelope he braced against a paperweight. When he had addressed the envelope and given it to me, his hand dropped heavily on the folded empty jacket sleeve. This was a good man, I was sure of it, like Attilio and Gustavo. And like them he would slip out of my life.

“Bruno! Customers!” the butcher called. Leaving, I dodged a beaming couple in new wool suits.

“Your best paper, scribe!” the man boomed. “For a marriage announcement.”

I made my customary circle of the Italian shops around Woodland
,
one last futile time seeking Carlo and explaining that he could reach me at General Delivery in Chicago.

“We’ll look for him,” said the Genovese baker.

“Don’t be a meat packer,” the wife warned. “My sister caught her hand in a grinder, then the whole arm turned black and they cut it off.” When I described my plan of making fine dresses, the couple glanced at each other and the wife said, “Well, good luck, signorina.”

The winter had ruined my old shoes. With the cost of new ones and a better dress to look for work in Chicago, it took three more weeks to earn my leaving money. Finally, the last payday came. The Missus sat at the dining table with her great ledger and piles of coins. When she pushed my six dollars at me with her pen as if the very coins were tainted, I swept them into a pouch and said, “Missus, I’m going to Chicago to be a dressmaker.” A gasp ruffled the line of collar girls.

“You’re a fool, Irma!” the Missus snapped. “You think dressmakers take just anyone? You’ll starve before you earn a cent. Besides,” she said darkly, “girls disappear in Chicago
like that.
” She snapped her fingers, closing the ledger with a thud that filled the narrow room.

I didn’t move. “If there’s work, Missus, I’ll find it.”

The girls who spoke a little English listened avidly, as if we were one of the puppet shows in Garfield Park. Bèla’s face hardened. Sara took Marta’s hand and only Saint Abraham looked down kindly.

I took a long breath. “I’ll need a letter of reference, Missus.” Without such a letter, Lula had insisted, I’d get no decent job in Chicago.

The Missus stood up so suddenly that her chair clattered to the floor. “You leave without notice
and
want a letter? I should write that my shop wasn’t fine enough for our little Italian dressmaker?”

Silence rolled across the room. “Missus, I did good work, you said so yourself.” Lula stood at the kitchen door, pitcher in hand. The mantle clock hammered two ticks. Carts rumbled outside and a drunkard kicked at ash cans. I said nothing.

Finally the Missus sighed loudly, her gray curls trembling. “You will leave tomorrow before breakfast,” she announced, moving so close that a fine spray misted my face, “without disturbing the
working
girls. A letter will be on the table, saying that your work was satisfactory. It will not note that you are ungrateful and abandoned one who befriended you when you were a stranger in this city.”

A year ago I would have begged her pardon. Now I said only, “Thank you, Missus.” She stalked out, her footsteps hammering down the hallway until the heavy door to her apartment slammed shut and a lock bolt clacked into place.

“Well,” said Lula. “Anybody want gingerbread?” She had bought a bucket of beer as well, but it was a somber farewell party. The Italian girls sat near me but were wary and cool, as if I were already a stranger. The others clustered by language, eating, drinking and glancing at me.

“You kept secrets, Irma,” Bèla said flatly.

“You know how the Missus sniffs out everything. Lula said if she knew I was going, she’d keep my last week’s pay.”

“But
why
are you going? We’re like a family here. You’re never alone.”

“Yes, but I don’t want—”

“To live in a workhouse?” Marta asked quietly, brushing gingerbread crumbs from her skirt. “You think we’re not good enough?”

“No, no,” I stammered.

“Irma wants
fine
sewing, for fine women,” Sara announced, gulping her beer. The oiled table was a dark pool between us. “Isn’t that true? You don’t want to be a poor collar girl.”

Her words were knives on my face. “I’ve been poor all my life, Sara. It’s not that. Don’t you see? I want to work with good wool and silk, Egyptian cotton, making pleats and gathers, lacing, smocking. Don’t you—” But Sara had turned to Bèla.

“Irma, there’s more gingerbread,” Lula announced, but it was dry in my mouth and the beer burned.

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Bèla finally. “You weren’t happy here and your brother didn’t come. Chicago might be better. Write to us when you get there. Here, to remember me.” She took one of the delicate carved wood combs from her glossy black hair and gave it to me. I had embroidered poppies on handkerchiefs for her, Sara and Marta. They thanked me politely, and we finished our gingerbread and managed to speak and even laugh a little together. They wished me well and we kissed each other.

Soon clumps of girls drifted up to the dormitory. “God keep you, Irma,” some said. Others laid a hand on my arm and muttered blessings in their languages. I tried to help Lula gather dishes but she brushed me away.

“Go to bed. You’ll need your sleep.”

But I did not sleep that night, only lay on the cot watching hazy stars drift across a patch of attic window as voices tossed in my mind like waves in a narrow tub:
Stay, go. Chicago will be better. Worse. End in the streets. End as a collar girl. Make fine dresses. Be alone again and die with strangers.
Mice skittered across our floor. Girls sighed in sleep, snored and moaned. In the chill hour before our rising bell I dressed and crept downstairs with my traveling bag.

In the kitchen, Lula was already at the stove. “There,” she whispered. “For the train.” She pointed to a basket with corn bread, boiled egg, a bit of potato pie and a jar of tea. A letter from the Missus lay on the table. “And take this,” she added, holding out a palm-sized photogravure of Abraham Lincoln. “So you won’t be alone in Chicago.”

“Thank you, Lula.”

She pressed her dark, warm hand to my cheek, then pushed me away. “Run now, girl. That train don’t wait. Be careful. Look alive.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Don’t you ‘yes, of course’ me. Write. And send me some money from your rich ladies.”