Thirteen

There were lots of girls called Kathy in the world, I told myself. I shouldn’t read too much into this—but it did sound a lot like her. I would try to ask for a description, without seeming too interested, of course. And at the union meeting maybe I’d find out more. In the meantime I had to remind myself that I was being paid to discover a spy. Sometime in the next few weeks, someone was going to deliver stolen designs to Lowenstein’s.

By the time Wednesday night rolled around, I was more than ready to attend the union meeting, and not just because I wanted to find out if the English girl called Kathy was the Katherine I was seeking. As I watched injustice after injustice going on at Lowenstein’s, I realized that I couldn’t just sit quietly and do nothing. I had promised myself that I wouldn’t get involved, but I wasn’t very good at following my own advice. Someone had to do something and that someone was me.

If Mostel’s had been purgatory, then Lowenstein’s was hell itself. The dark, dank cold went right through clothing and bones to the very soul. To sit hunched over machines, eyes straining in the gloom, fingers numb and chilblained, with the constant sound of coughing over the clatter of the treadles was enough to break even the bravest of spirits, and these girls had been through so much before that their spirits were already broken.

On Friday evening the bully Katz wound back the clock hands twenty minutes so that we’d stay to finish the workload and he wouldn’t have to pay us overtime. I saw him. So did several other girls, but nobody said a word. I also watched him smirk to himself as he passed by to his office. I sat there fuming, longing for a chance to get even with him. I’d help get these girls unionized if it was the last thing I did!

The bell rang to signal seven o’clock, which was really seven twenty. Tired girls stood up, stretched cramped limbs, stamped cold feet, snatched up belongings, and got out of there as fast as they could. As I followed Rose to the door, a hand grabbed my arm. “Not you, Murphy. I want a word with you.”

I looked around to find Katz smirking at me.

“What have I done?”

“These sleeves,” he said. “Call yourself a seamstress, do you? I don’t know what the standard of work is like in Ireland, but it must be pretty bad.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my sleeves,” I said angrily. “I stitched a nice straight seam and I finished my quota.”

“Not what I’ve been seeing,” he said. He turned and disappeared through the door into the back room. “Call this a nice straight seam?” He held up a sleeve and waved it at me.

I stomped into the back room after him. “Let me see that. I’ll tell you if it was my work or not.”

I snatched the sleeve from him. “Why, this isn’t even my sleeve. I don’t start my work that way, and look, the threads aren’t even cut. Little Becky cut every one of my threads today.”

I looked up and he was still smirking. I realized then that I had been tricked. The sounds in the workroom were dying away.

“I like ’em feisty,” he said, coming toward me. “A good fight makes the conquest all the sweeter, and you look like a lusty girl who enjoys it, am I right?”

I was so frozen in horror that I didn’t react quickly enough. He pushed me against the cold wet brick wall and pinned me with his body, his knee thrust between my legs. As I opened my mouth to scream, he forced his mouth onto mine, his tongue into my mouth, his hands groping at my body.

I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t believed he could be so strong. I tried to shake myself free from him, but he held me pinned like a butterfly to a board. Revulsion flooded over me as I felt him getting excited and impatient but I fought to remain calm. If he wanted to take this amorous attack one stage further, he’d have to move to lift my skirt and then I’d go for him where it hurt. I was finding it hard to breathe. Then I felt him trying to shift me along the wall to where bolts of cloth lay piled on the floor. If he got me that far, he could throw himself on top of me. I wasn’t going to let that happen. I managed to get my hands up to his face. I couldn’t reach his eyes, but I grabbed his long, curling hair, and I yanked as hard as I could.

He reacted just enough for me to break free of his mouth.

“Let go of me or you’ll be sorry!” I gasped. “I killed the last man who tried to rape me.”

“I don’t kill so easy,” he said, laughing. “Like I said—the harder the struggle, the sweeter the conquest.”

“Molly? I’ve been waiting for you. Are you ready yet?” Rose’s voice echoed behind us, unnaturally loud.

Katz spun around. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Keeping an eye on Molly and making sure she gets home safe and sound,” Rose said calmly. She walked over to me, linked her arm through mine, and dragged me away. “Let’s go home now, Molly,” she said. Then she walked with me calmly out of that door and down the long, empty workroom.

“Thank you,” I stammered. “If you hadn’t come back for me, I don’t know what might have happened.”

“I hung around,” she said. “I thought he might try it. I’ve noticed him looking at you. He tries it with all the pretty new girls.”

“He’s disgusting,” I said, wiping my mouth with my hand and fighting back a desire to vomit. “The owner should be told. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.”

“Mr. Lowenstein doesn’t care about anything except quick profits,” Rose said. “How often do you think he even shows up here? Hardly ever. And Katz gets the work done on time for him. That’s all he cares about.”

“I’m putting a knife in my skirt pocket in the future,” I said, “in case he tries it again.”

“He won’t,” Rose said. “He’ll go on to someone who’s easier. That’s one thing you can count on around here—a never ending supply of girls.”

“Not when we get the union going,” I said.

Rose chuckled. “Another redhead just like me. We’re all born fighters, Molly. I’m so glad you came here. We’ll show ’em; won’t we?”

“We’ll set the dogs on Mr. Katz!”

We linked arms and left the building smiling.

On Monday morning an old gentleman with a neat white beard came into our workroom. He wore a long black coat and top hat and he carried a silver-tipped cane. The effect was rather like an elderly wizard.

“Guten Morgen,” he said in German. “Everyone working hard. That’s good. Where is Katz?”

Katz came flying out of the back room at the sound of the voice.

“Mr. Lowenstein—such a privilege that you should visit us,” he said, groveling. “Everything is going well, sir. The order will go out today like you wanted.”

“Gut. Gut.” Lowenstein rubbed his hands together. “And think about taking on some more girls. Busy season coming up. I should have the new designs in the next week or so and then it’s full speed ahead, ja? A bonus for everybody if we get the first batch of new dresses in the stores two weeks before Christmas.” He rubbed his hands together again. “It’s cold in here, Katz. How can these girls do their best work if it’s cold? Get the oil stoves out, man.”

“Papa, are you coming?” A slim, dark-haired beauty made her way gingerly down the outside steps and poked her head through the door. She was wearing a fur-trimmed bonnet and a big blue cape, also trimmed with white fur. The cape was open and she wore a black velvet ribbon around her throat on which hung a silver locket, sparkling with precious stones. She posed in the doorway, conscious that all those eyes were on her.

“It’s too cold waiting out in the carriage,” she said. “Hurry up, please or we’ll be late for our lunch appointment.”

“Coming, my dearest.” Mr. Lowenstein looked up at her and smiled. “Sorry I can’t stay longer. Keep working, everyone. Good-bye.”

He waved and joined his daughter.

“How about some of us help you carry the oil stoves, Mr. Katz?” Rose asked, not wanting him to be able to wriggle out of it while the boss was in earshot. “Come on, Molly and Golda and Lanie. Let’s help him.”

“Very well. Come on, then.” He stomped into the back room and finally unearthed two oil stoves from a storage closet. We picked up one between two of us and carried them out.

“So that was the boss?” I whispered to Rose as we staggered out with the stove.

She nodded. “He might look like a nice old gentleman, but he’s hard as nails. When Gussie died of consumption right before he gave out the Christmas bonus last year, he wouldn’t even send the bonus to her family. And how do you think she got sick in the first place? Sitting in this damp hole, that’s how.”

“And that was the boss’s daughter, I take it?”

She made a face. “Letitia, her name is. Only child. Spoiled rotten.”

We set down the stoves and waited for Katz to come with the can of kerosene. I couldn’t get the picture of the boss’s daughter out of my mind. There had been something disturbing about her, something that made me uneasy. I thought some more, but couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Be happy that the boss has such a kind heart,” Katz announced as he poured in kerosene and got the stoves going. There was no room for them between the rows of girls so one stood at the doorway to the street and one at the doorway to Katz’s back room. Most of the girls felt no effect at all.

I was looking forward to the union meeting on Wednesday. I had written a list of grievances that I couldn’t wait to share with union organizers. Maybe with two of us, Rose and myself, we could light a fire under those girls at Lowenstein’s and get them to speak up for themselves.

Rose and I had a bowl of soup together at Samuel’s and then we made our way to Essex Street where we went down the steps into another basement. This one was quite different—brightly lit, warm, and filled with benches, most of them already occupied.

“Here’s Rose, at last,” one of the young women called as we stood hesitantly in the doorway. “I thought things had been too quiet until now.”

“Yes, and look what I’ve brought with me,” Rose said, dragging me inside. “A new warrior for our struggle. This is Miss Molly Murphy, come from Ireland.”

“Welcome, Molly. Sit yourself down.” A place in the back row was indicated for me. I sat and looked around the group. I was interested to see an equal number of men and women in the group—serious young men in worker’s garb, with dark beards and dark eyes. There were plenty of young women like ourselves, dressed humbly in shirtwaists and skirts with shawls around their shoulders, but one or two stood out, the cut and fabric of their dress announcing them to be not of the working class. What were they doing here?

Three men and two women sat at a table in front of us. The women were better dressed than the rest of us and one of them looked familiar. I stared, trying to place her. Had I seen her picture in a newspaper? She had dark and rather angular features, a long thin nose, and hair swept severely back from her face. She wore a black fitted coat, trimmed with astrakhan, and a neat little black velvet bonnet sat on the table beside her, decorated with a stunning black ostrich plume. Obviously not one of us, then.

“Right then, let’s get started.” A young man banged a gavel on the table. “For those of you who don’t know, I’m Jacob Singer of the United Hebrew Trades, and we’re here to help you form a ladies garment workers union.” He spoke with the slightest trace of a foreign accent. He was slim with a neatly trimmed beard and expressive dark eyes, framed with round wire-rimmed spectacles which gave him a boyish, owlish look.

A slim girl in black rose from my left. “We’ve had such a union for a year now, Mr. Singer.”

“Yes, I know that, Miss Horowitz, but it has only existed on paper, hasn’t it? It hasn’t sprung into action yet.” Jacob Singer smiled. His face had been so grave and earnest before that it came as a shock to see his eyes twinkling. It quite changed his appearance.

“No, but it will.” The girl thrust out her chin defiantly.

“I don’t doubt it, but first it needs members. How many members are on your books so far?”

“Twenty-five.” The girl’s voice was little more than a whisper.

There were some titters from around the room.

“So it would appear, ladies, that our first task is to grow your membership,” Jacob said.

“How do we do that?” Rose got to her feet. “How can we persuade girls to join us when they fear for their jobs? Where I work, at Lowenstein’s, we are treated worse than animals. We have no rights. There are constant abuses. But if a girl speaks up, she is dismissed. So all remain silent and the abuse goes on.”

Jacob nodded his head gravely. So did the others at the top table. “We can do nothing without solidarity,” another man at the top table said. He looked more like a student, with straggly beard and Russian worker’s cap on his head. “I represent the cloak-makers union, and we have had some small successes with strikes in the past. But only if we get one hundred percent participation. All for one, one for all. We cannot hurt them until we are united. If there is to be a walkout, then all must walk out.”

“If we walk out, then they just hire new girls,” Rose said.

“If the walkout is only at one shop,” the straggly young man agreed. “If all shops walk out at the same time, then they have a problem.”

“It will never happen,” a voice behind me said.

“We have to let them see that it can happen,” the slender young woman at the top table said. “Maybe there will have to be some sacrifices, but we must let the owners see that we are prepared to strike and lose our jobs if we want progress.”

“Begging your pardon, miss.” A girl with a luxuriant coil of hair, wound around her head like a halo, rose to her feet. “But you keep on saying ‘we’ and ‘us.’ It won’t be you who loses your job. You have a nice house uptown to go home to after these meetings. I know you mean well, but you can’t know what it’s like to live in a stinking tenement and never have enough to eat.”

The girl at the top table flushed, then nodded gravely. “You’re right. I can’t know exactly what it’s like for you, but I do have some experience with confronting the enemy when it comes to the suffrage movement. I have been to jail twice, and believe me, I was not treated like a lady there. There are many of us, all of good families, willing to go to jail, to make nuisances of ourselves, if we can obtain the right to vote for our sisters.”

There was scattered applause from the audience. The young woman from uptown bowed her head again. “But I admit that I know I will have a home to go to and food on the table when I am let out of jail. I know you will be asked to make enormous sacrifices, but somebody has to, or nothing will ever improve. Every generation of immigrants who steps off the boat will go into conditions like the ones you are enduring right now.”

“So what can we do?” Rose asked.

“You must recruit members where you work,” Jacob said. “Plant seeds in the minds of your fellow workers that you can change things, that you can make your employers fear you. I know that for many of you the busy season is approaching—the rush to get items into the stores for the holiday shopping and then the new spring lines after the January sales. This is when the shops make their biggest profit. If you walk out now, you will cost them valuable time while they find and train replacements. Maybe they are not so willing to lose that time. Maybe they are willing to negotiate.”

Rose looked at me, her eyes shining. “It might just work, Molly. If we walked out the moment Lowenstein wanted us to start on the new designs, maybe he would listen.”

“It’s worth a try,” I said.

Rose got to her feet. “We are willing to try. Mr. Lowenstein prides himself on getting his garments into the store first. Maybe this will be a way for us to make him listen.”

“Good for you, Rose,” the dark girl at the table said. “Do you have someone to work with you?”

“I have Molly,” Rose said. “She has just arrived from Ireland. Stand up, Molly, and let them see you.”

I rose to my feet.

“Two redheads, oy vay,” someone near me said. “I pity poor Mr. Lowenstein.”

There was good-natured laughter.

The meeting progressed. It was decided that Lowenstein’s should be a test case. We would try to bring all of the girls into the union so that we could conduct an effective walkout the moment the new designs were produced. I knew better than any of them that this might work. Lowenstein counted on getting his stolen designs into the stores before Mostel had his ready. If he couldn’t corner the market first, then he would lose. A good bargaining tool indeed.

When the meeting concluded, refreshments were served—cookies and hot tea and a big plate of sandwiches. The girls fell upon them with gusto. I took a cup of tea, then joined a group of girls.

“So you’re from Ireland, are you, Molly?”

I agreed that I was. “And I understand that there was another Irish girl here not too long ago? Didn’t you say so, Rose? By the name of Kathy?”

“Kathy? But surely she was English,” one of the girls said.

“I thought someone said she was from an upper-class English family, only she lived in Ireland.”

“I don’t think she ever said where she was from, did she?” The girls looked at each other.

“No, very tight-lipped about herself, she was. But outspoken when it came to union matters. You should have heard her talk. My, but she could have talked the hind leg off a donkey.”

“Remember you told her that, Fanny? And she laughed and said something about being good at blarney, whatever that means.”

“Too bad she stopped coming to meetings.”

“So where did she go?” I asked. “Did she move away?”

The girls looked at each other and shrugged.

“I don’t know what happened to her,” one said.

“Which company did she work for?”

Again the girls shrugged. “She only came a few times, then she stopped. Too bad because I’d have loved to hear her tell those bosses what she thought of them. Real haughty she was, and kind of looked down her nose when she spoke to you.”

“Did she have light brown, sort of wispy hair and very light eyes?” I asked.

“Yes, did you know her?”

“I thought she might have been a friend from back home,” I said.

“So you just arrived from Ireland, did you?”

“That’s right.” As I said it, I found myself looking at the upper-crust young lady from the top table. She was standing with a sandwich in her hand, staring hard at me. Then she put down the plate and came straight toward me. “Now I know where I saw you before,” she said coldly. “What exactly are you doing here?”