Twenty-five

I don’t remember how I came down that flight of stairs again. I sat on the W.C. letting the cold bring me back to my senses. Mr. Mostel after all—that genial man playing the worried father and betrayed employer so well. Had he paid someone to remove Katherine or had she been lured up to his office and dispatched right here? Until now I had dismissed the notion that I was dealing with a highly dangerous man.

“You took long enough, didn’t you,” Seedy Sam commented as I returned to my seat.

“Sorry, but I’m not feeling too well today,” I said, giving the phrase enough meaning to make him refrain from further questions.

At lunchtime I decided that my ill health was a good excuse for staying put and keeping an eye on the place.

“Aren’t you coming to eat?” Sadie asked me.

“No, thanks. I’ve got a piece of bread and cheese in my bag if I feel like eating anything at all,” I said.

“Do you want me to bring you something back from the café?” Sadie asked.

“I think it was their food that did it in the first place,” I said. “That stew yesterday.”

“It was bad. I couldn’t finish mine,” she said. “I didn’t even want to look at it. But I could bring you some noodle soup and a roll. It’s very nourishing.”

“Thanks, Sadie. You’re a pal, but I think I’ll survive,” I said. “You better get going or you’ll be at the back of the queue.”

She left. It was completely quiet in the sewing room. Even Seedy Sam had gone to have his lunch with the cutters and pressers downstairs. I nibbled nervously on my bread and cheese. I hadn’t had to lie about that one—I really did feel sick. Katherine’s locket in Mostel’s drawer. One day she disappeared and never came back. And if Mostel got wind that I was snooping, or was involved in starting a strike, then the same thing could happen to me. “Get out while you still can,” a voice whispered in my head.

I looked up as I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. The half hour for lunch wouldn’t be over for fifteen more minutes and girls were not usually in a hurry to return. Sadie came into the room. She had flushed cheeks from the cold wind.

“Horrible food again. Be happy you didn’t order anything. I came back early—couldn’t stand the smell,” she said. “Now I need to go to the washroom myself.”

She went through the inner door without even pausing to take her shawl off. I heard the washroom door close, then another sound that had me up on my feet—it was the creak of floorboards. Sadie was going up the stairs to Mostel’s office. I gave her a head start and then I crept up the stairs after her. Mr. Mostel’s office door was closed. Cautiously I inched it open. The office was empty. I crept through into the back room beyond which the sample hands occupied when they were at work. Empty apart from bolts of cloth and a couple of forlorn dummies.

Could those creaking floorboards have been the product of my overactive imagination? I could have sworn I heard feet going up the stairs. But she couldn’t just have vanished. She must have heard me following her and be hiding, waiting for me to go downstairs again before she looked for the designs. I checked the drawer to see if she had maybe taken them already and was sitting somewhere, copying them furiously. But the folder still lay unopened in Mostel’s drawer.

I felt the back of my neck prickle. Where was she? I spent futile minutes turning over bolts of cloth to see if she was behind or under any of them. I was about to go downstairs again when I noticed a door I had overlooked. Mostel’s door had always been open as I had come up the stairs, concealing another door to the left of the little landing. This door was not properly shut. I pushed it open and found another short flight of stairs. I crept up it. It was dark and seemed to be leading to some kind of attic storage space. Bolts of cloth were stacked high on either side. It smelled musty. What on earth could Sadie want up here, unless she was doing what Mostel had dreaded and quietly helping herself to a few yards of trim?

Then I heard a girl’s voice whisper, “Wait. I think I hear something.”

And the whispered answer, “It’s okay. They’re all at lunch still.”

I went up the final steps, around the bolts of cloth, and stood staring at two frightened faces.

“Molly,” Sadie stammered. “What are you doing up here?”

“More to the point, what are you doing?” I asked, “and who is this?”

I stared at the other girl. She looked somehow familiar. She was staring back at me, frightened, poised for flight, and yet at the same time defiant.

“Don’t tell on us, please, Molly,” Sadie begged. “She had nowhere else to go. If they find her they’ll kill her.”

I came closer, trying to make out her features in the poor light.

“It’s all right, Sadie. I should go anyway. It’s not right for you to take risks for me,” said a very haughty English voice.

“Katherine?” I said.

She started in horror. “Who are you? I never saw you in my life before. How do you know me?”

“It’s a long story,” I said, “but for now let me just assure you that I am a friend. I’m on your side.”

“Did you tell her, Sadie?” Katherine asked.

“Of course she didn’t tell me, but don’t worry, you can trust me. What on earth possessed you to hide out here, of all places?”

“We couldn’t think of anywhere else. This room is hardly ever used, so we thought I’d be safe enough.”

“But so close to Mostel. What if he’d discovered you up here?”

“He’d have been annoyed, of course.”

“Annoyed. Wasn’t he the one trying to have you killed?”

They looked at me as if I was speaking Chinese.

“Mr. Mostel? He’s really an old sweetie,” Katherine said.

“Then who?”

“Why, her husband and his horrible friends, of course,” Sadie said. “She came to me one night in a terrible state and I couldn’t think of anywhere else to hide her but here. I smuggled her in early next morning and I’ve been bringing her food.”

“So that’s why you’ve been leaving the café early, and going to the washroom so frequently.”

She nodded.

“You’ve been taking a terrible risk.”

“I know,” Katherine said, “that’s why I should go now, while I have the chance.”

“Where will you go?” Sadie asked.

“I’ve no idea.”

“I’ve an idea,” I said. “My name is Molly and believe it or not, I’ve been trying to find out what happened to you. I’ve just thought of a perfect place for you to hide out. Go to Nine Patchin Place, behind Jefferson Market in Greenwich Village. Two women live there. Their names are Sid and Gus—don’t ask. Tell them you are Katherine and Molly says they should hide you until she gets home. I’ll explain everything later.”

“Are you sure?” She was still regarding me suspiciously. “Why should you put yourself out for me?”

“I said I’ll explain everything later, but for now you have to trust me, Katherine. And nobody would think of looking for you as far away as Greenwich Village, would they?”

“I suppose not.”

“Then wrap yourself up in a shawl and get out of here while you can.”

We were just about to bundle her down the stairs when the sound of voices rose from below. The girls were back from lunch.

“We’ll have to wait until after work,” I said. “Sadie and I will work out how we can distract Sam while we get you out of here somehow.”

“Don’t put yourself at risk for me,” Katherine said.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I replied breezily. “Come on, Sadie. Let’s get back down there before Sam docks us half our pay.”

We rushed down the stairs.

“So where have you two been?” he demanded.

“Washroom again,” I said. “We’re both sick from the stinking stew we ate yesterday. We’re not eating at that café ever again.”

Sam just grunted.

“It’s like an icehouse in here,” one of the girls commented as a group of them came back into the room. “Can’t you turn up those stoves any higher?”

“If I do, they’ll burst,” Sam said. “If only you try working hard enough you’ll create your own heat.”

“Very funny,” the girl muttered.

Machines started clattering again. The afternoon dragged on. Girls clapped their hands together and stamped their feet to bring back the circulation. Sam walked up and down the lines of girls.

“What kind of work are you doing here?” he demanded, stopping beside a machine in the far row. “Those are supposed to be straight lines, not zigzags. Only a blind person would want to buy that garment.”

“Maybe I could keep my lines straighter if my hands weren’t so cold,” the girl he was speaking to said. “The wind comes in through the cracks around this crummy window. I’m so cold I’m one big shiver. I can’t take it no more.”

“Fine by me,” Sam said. “You don’t have to take it. Get your things and go. You’re out.”

“Wait a second.” Gina, the tall Italian girl, rose to her feet. She was almost the same size as Sam and she glared at him, eye to eye. “You can’t fire her because you don’t heat this lousy place well enough for us to do our work.”

“I just did,” Sam said. “You want to join her—fine by me too.”

“This place is too cold for anyone to work properly,” Gina said. “It’s a disgrace. Look at it. Nobody ever sweeps the floors. Nobody cleans the W.C. No light, no heat. We’re treated no better than animals.”

Sam was still lounging against the window ledge with a lazy grin on his face. “Like I said, anyone who don’t like it can hit the road, anytime.”

“Fine,” Gina said. “We take you up on your kind offer.” She looked around the room. “You said it wasn’t a good time to strike now. How much worse does it have to get? Look at our hands. We all got chillblains from the cold. Come on, girls. What are we waiting for? Let’s show them.” Several girls had risen to their feet. “You can tell Mr. Mostel he better treat us nice if he wants his new designs in the stores anytime soon,” Gina said loudly, “cos we’re walking out. Let’s go, everyone.”

Some girls jumped up, cheering, others lagged, looking at each other with scared faces, but in the end they were all on their feet, nobody wanting to be the last out of the door. I had no alternative but to rise to my feet with the rest of the girls. As they all surged forward to grab their bags and scarves from the hooks along the back wall, Sam pushed past and stood in the doorway.

“Nobody’s going anywhere,” he bellowed in a threatening voice.

“You can’t stop us, Sam,” someone shouted back.

“You wanna bet?” He leaped through the doorway and slammed the door shut. We heard the sound of bolts being shot. “You ain’t going nowhere till I get the boss,” he called through the door. “You’re going to sit there and stew.”

Then we heard the sound of his heavy boots running down stairs.

Girls began to whimper.

“Oh, Mein Gott, we’re in trouble now.”

“He’s gonna get the boss.”

“He’s gonna bring the police.”

“We’ll all be fired.”

“My papa will throw me out if I lose my job!”

The wail rose in different languages, most of which I couldn’t understand, but understood anyway.

“They can’t keep us in here against our will,” Sadie said, pushing through the crush of girls at the door. “It’s against the law. Let’s see if we can break down that door.”

“You heard the bolts. We can’t break through bolts,” someone said.

A great mass of girls pressed around the door.

“I want to get out. I hate being locked in,” one little girl screamed from the middle of the crowd. She forced her way to the door and pounded on it. “Let me out! Let me out!”

“They locked her in jail when she was a kid in Russia, then they shot her parents,” someone explained. “No wonder she’s scared.”

“Henny, calm down.” Gina grabbed at her, but Henny fought her off like a wild thing.

“Leave me be. I have to get out—”

There was a crash and the oil stove toppled to the floor. With a whoosh flame raced along the spilled oil, eating up the lint and scraps of fabric in its path. Panicked girls tried to get away, screaming as the flames reached them. A skirt blazed up and screams rose with it. Other girls batted out the flames with their shawls.

“Somebody get water,” someone was shouting and girls were already racing for the washroom. I was one of them, but there was nothing in there in which to carry water, except for an old tin mug.

Someone filled it and raced away in a futile attempt to put out the flames with four ounces of water.

“Soak some cloth,” I shouted. “We can lay that on the flames to beat them down.”

We grabbed at the nearest bolt and tried to tear it, then slopped water over the whole thing, staggering out with it between us, like a battering ram.

But it was too late. Fueled by the debris on the floor the flames had caught at the first tables and the machine oil made them leap higher and fiercer. The whole area around the door was now on fire. Black smoke billowed out and the acrid smell drove us back, coughing and retching. The girls were huddled together like a flock of sheep, herded together and moving this way and that as the flames drove them.

“Maybe it will burn down the door and someone can rush through the flames to get help,” a voice suggested, but I couldn’t imagine anyone volunteering to rush through those flames that now licked ceiling-high. Wooden rafters were blazing and crackling like a bonfire.

“They’ll come up from downstairs to rescue us,” I heard someone saying.

“Perhaps they won’t even know until it’s too late,” I said. “Fires don’t spread downward. Let’s see how we can get out of here.”

We ran across to the windows and tried to get them open, but the frames were buckled and they wouldn’t budge. Besides, they only led to a daunting five-story drop.

“Come on, up to Mostel’s office,” I shouted. The girls nearest me surged forward, fighting to be first up the stairs.

“Don’t panic. Don’t push!” I yelled over the screams and shouts. “We don’t want anyone getting trampled.”

Stinging, blinding smoke accompanied us up the stairs. With eyes streaming and smarting we burst into the office. There was one small window to one side. We opened it, but again it was useless—a sheer drop into the well between buildings.

Girls screamed from the window. “Somebody help us!” But they were shouting to nobody in a useless well of blank walls.

We could feel the heat of the flames and the acrid black smoke coming up the stairs behind us now. Girls packed tighter and tighter, not wanting to be the last on the stairs. I tried to herd them back again, out of the office, but nobody was willing to retreat toward those flames.

“It’s no good. There’s nothing this way. We’ll have to try the attic,” I yelled, “and if that doesn’t work we’ll just have to break the windows and see if we can find any cloth long enough to lower ourselves to the street.”

“Lower ourselves to the street, are you crazy?” someone close to me screamed.

“Move!” I shouted, trying to close Mostel’s office door enough to open the door to the attic hidden behind it, but nobody wanted to risk being shut in the office.

“Help me, Sadie!” I screamed and we literally pummeled and clawed girls out of the way to open the other door. When the girls saw that there was indeed another door and maybe a way of escape, they didn’t fight us as much. We opened it and staggered up the stairs to be met by a frightened Katherine.

“What’s happening? I can smell smoke.”

“Place is on fire. We have to get out,” I gasped. We were all finding it hard to breathe by now. The girls weren’t screaming anymore, but coughing and moaning and praying. Ave Marias and Hebrew prayers rose simultaneously to the smoke-filled rafters.

“This is not good,” one of the girls groaned. “Look at all this fabric. Look at the gauze and muslin. It will burn like crazy. We better get back down again and try the windows.”

“Wait,” Katherine shouted. “There is a window at the end that leads onto the roof. We may be able to get out that way.”

She ran to the skylight at the far end. It was cut into the slanted roof above our heads. “Help me push this table under it,” Katherine shouted as I ran to join her. We shoved the heavy table between us. She climbed up beside me and we pushed at the window with all our might. Just when I thought we were going to have to smash it, it came flying open.

“Give me a push.” I hoisted up my skirts and dragged myself out. The pitched roof of the attic ended in a broad flat strip of tarred rooftop.

“Come on, it’s all right. We can get out this way,” I shouted back as smoke licked around my ankles. “Help them up, Katherine. Give us your hands.”

“I’m not getting on no roof,” someone said but a little girl scrambled onto the table.

“I ain’t waiting to be cooked like a chicken,” she said and reached up to me. Katherine shoved from below and I hauled her through the narrow window.

“Sit on your bottom and slide down gently to the flat part,” I said, then reached for the next one.

One after another we handed the girls out onto the roof until the flat area was jam-packed with terrified, sobbing bodies. Now I just prayed that the roof didn’t collapse under the weight of them.

There was an explosion as glass blew out from a window on the floor below us and flames licked upward. Smoke billowed up toward us, making it hard to see.

“Where do we go now?” someone shrieked.

That was a good point. I hadn’t had a chance to see how we might get off the rooftop.

“Hold on a minute. Katherine, you get the last few out,” I said and slithered down the slates myself, working my way through the crush of bodies. When I reached the end of the roof and turned the corner they followed me, like rats after the Pied Piper. We kept on going down the other side. I had hoped that this roof would join the next building somewhere, but it didn’t. There was a six-foot gap between them. Safety was a few tantalizing feet away.

At the other end of the building there was a crash and sparks shot high into the air as part of the ceiling fell in. A collective scream arose again.

“We’re going to be burned alive.”

One girl threw her leg over the parapet. “I’m not waiting to fall into that,” she said. “I’m ending it now.”

Katherine grabbed at her. “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “We’re going to get out of this. Listen—I can hear the fire engines.”

And it was true. In the distance we could hear bells ringing as fire engines galloped toward us. I looked at the flames, now licking up from all sides and knew that there was little the firemen could do. Even if they had ladders long enough, how could they put them through the flames to reach us? I stood at the parapet and looked at the rooftop on the next building. It was maybe less than six feet away and stacks of lumber were piled on it. If only I could get across—

Without hesitating any longer I unlaced my boots, undid my skirt, and pulled it off, then off came my petticoat until I stood there in my drawers and stockings. This produced a gasp of horror almost as great as the original flames had done. I climbed up on the parapet and heard screams behind me.

“Molly, don’t do it,” someone called.

“I’ll be fine.” I didn’t feel fine. I had done some stupid things in my life, including jumping little ravines on the cliff tops, usually on a dare, but that was long ago now and I was out of practice for such stunts. I glanced down. My eyes were streaming from the smoke and all I could see was a blurred mass of upturned faces five floors below me beneath the drifting smoke. If I missed, it would be a quick death and maybe the girl had been right. Maybe it would be better than being burned alive.

I’m not usually a religious person—in fact definitely heathen, according to my mother—but I crossed myself hastily, just to make sure. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and all the saints, just help me this time, not for myself but for those girls,” I whispered, “and I promise I’ll start going to mass again.” Then I took a deep breath and leaped. Cold air rushed past me, then my fingers grabbed onto the brickwork, my legs scrabbled, and for a second I teetered on the brink. Another shriek behind me as I hauled myself over the parapet and stood, safe and secure on the other rooftop. I rushed to the lumber and came up with a plank that I thought was long enough.

“Catch the other end,” I shouted, standing it up and then letting it fall in their direction.

Hands caught it as it fell. It reached, but only just. I ran back and found a second one, a little longer. Then a third. We had a bridge of precarious planks. I stood up on the parapet at one end.

“Come on, I’ll help you,” I said.

Nobody moved.

“Look, any moment that roof is going to collapse and you’ll all fall into the fire. Is that what you want?” I yelled, my voice harsh and scratchy from the smoke. I rubbed at my eyes and tried to focus as I set my balance.

“Come on, hurry up,” Katherine shouted, stepping up to steady her end of the plank.

After what seemed an age one girl climbed up, looked down, shrieked, and hastily got down again.

“Come across on all fours then,” I suggested. “Crawl like a baby, only hurry.”

The girl tried again, this time hitching up her skirts and clambering across on hands and knees. When she reached safety she burst into tears. Another girl followed and soon there was a stream of frightened animals coming toward me on all fours. I shouted across to make sure they only came one at a time, as once the first girls had succeeded they all wanted to be next.

It was going well until Henny, the one whose panic had set off the whole thing, got to the middle. She looked down, then cowered, frozen on the middle of the planks.

“Henny, come on. Give me your hand,” I shouted. “You’re almost there. Hurry. The other girls are waiting.”

“I can’t,” she whimpered.

There was nothing for it. I leaned over the side until I could grab at her hands, then I yanked her like a sack of potatoes. On the other side a cheer went up and girls started coming across again. The fire bells came closer until I could see a flash of red beneath us, but I didn’t see how they could ever get a ladder up here. Hoses started spraying the lower floors, plunging us into clouds of billowing smoke that made the crossing impossible.

“Idiots!” Katherine shouted down. She started handing girls across to me, shouting at them to get a move on. It seemed to take forever. Every now and then there would be another crash, another roar as more of the building collapsed. My heart was beating so loudly, I’d swear you could hear it over the other noises. We’d never get them all across in time. I became a machine—reach out, grab girl, drag her to safety, reach out again. When I looked around behind me, the square roof was packed with girls. Only the last few remained on the other side.

“Hurry up, the roof’s going!” I shouted. “Run if you dare. Hold the plank steady, Katherine.”

We knelt on either end. A girl screamed as she ran across, but it was the same half-exhilarated scream that a roller-coaster produces. Another followed, then another. One girl froze. It was little Sarah and she held her lunch bag in one hand.

“Drop the bag, you’ll be unbalanced!” I shouted, but she didn’t obey. She just stood there, like a statue.

Sadie got up behind her and gave her a mighty shove that sent her staggering across to me. As I caught her she went sprawling. The bag fell from her grasp. Sheets of paper flew out over the parapet to be lost in the smoke. I caught a glimpse of a dress with a high frilly collar, another with a gentleman’s bow tie. I turned to look at Sarah but she had melted into the crowd and I had more important things to take care of.

Four more girls, then at last I held out my hand for Sadie and Katherine.

“Well done. You did a marvelous job,” the latter said as she stepped down gracefully.

“So did you.”

“Good old British sangfroid. We don’t lose our nerve like the continentals do.” She gave me a triumphant smile as we joined the crush of girls.

Then behind our backs came a great cracking sound. Flames shot up, making us all jump back and brush off the sparks that landed on us. We turned around to see the roof fall in. There were a few moments of panic when it looked as if the fire might spread to our building, but before that could happen a door onto our rooftop opened and a fireman appeared.

“They’re all up here, Barney,” he shouted. “They’re safe.”

Weeping and hugging we made our way down the stairs, into the arms of relatives, friends, and well-wishers. Families snapped up daughters and mothers and whisked them away, weeping with joy. I looked around for Sarah. She was hurrying toward the outstretched arms of a frail-looking woman and a girl I recognized—the sister who worked for Lowenstein’s. Little Fanny who looked as if she wouldn’t hurt a fly. As I started to push my way through the crowd to reach them then I saw them hugging and kissing and I lost my nerve.

One by one girls were whisked away from me. I stared out through a blur of tears feeling suddenly alone and helpless. Then through the crowd I thought I saw Daniel’s face and started toward him.

Suddenly I heard someone shouting my name.

“Molly!” I spun around to see Jacob running toward me. “Molly, I’ve been looking everywhere. Thank God.”

I had thought the tears in my eyes were just from the smoke. Now I knew they weren’t. I fell into his arms, blubbing. His arms were warm and strong around me and I lay my head against his shoulder, feeling safe.

“This is enough,” he said, stroking my hair. “I can’t take any more of this. I want you to marry me right away, so that I can look after you.”

At any other moment I would have told him that I could look after myself very nicely thank you, but I had to admit it sounded most appealing.

“Your mother won’t approve,” was all I could think of saying.

“She’ll have to learn to accept it, won’t she? And who could not learn to love you, Molly?”

I looked up into his face. He was smiling at me with infinite tenderness. To be cherished and protected—what more could any woman want? I felt a warm glow spreading all through me.

“Now we had better get me home before your mother learns that I was on the street in my underwear,” I said.

Jacob eyed me. “At least I know that you have good legs before I sign the wedding document,” he said, still smiling. “Most Jewish men are not so fortunate.”

“How did you know I’d be here?” I asked, as my brain started to clear.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on you. I had a feeling you’d be doing something else stupid.”

“I didn’t intend this to be dangerous,” I said. “They locked us in. A stove was knocked over and the place was a complete firetrap. It was an accident that could have happened anywhere.”

“It wasn’t deliberate then?”

“No, of course not.”

“But I thought Mostel was responsible for Katherine’s disappearance?”

Katherine—I had forgotten all about her. I looked around and saw her sitting on a doorstep, all alone, looking as shocked and bewildered as I had been. I took Jacob’s hand.

“Over here,” I said. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

She rose to her feet as we approached her.

“Jacob,” I said. “This is Katherine.”