A Song Across the Sea (11 page)

What a place this was, this New York! The buildings were even taller, more numerous than she could ever have imagined. Multistoried tenement houses hugged the streets, one right after another. The streets themselves were blighted by an endless series of traffic jams.

It was a relief, in a way, to wander anonymously in this foreign place. Here she had no past. No identity.

That hadn’t been the case when the Carpathia’s passengers had disembarked in New York. Dozens of tugboats and yachts escorted the steamer into the harbor, tooting bells and sirens in a loud welcome for the Titanic’s survivors. When she’d stepped down the gangplank, Tara realized the enormity of the Titanic’s sinking; it looked as if every citizen in America was on hand to greet the rescuers and the rescued. Thousands pushed against cordons patrolled by police officers on horseback. Magnesium flashes from photographers’ cameras had temporarily blinded her.

“Miss! Miss! Are you off the Titanic? Do you speak English? Tell me your story. I’ll put it in the newspaper!”

Tara wanted no part of the notoriety. The Titanic was gone. Let others recount the ghastly details for curious readers of newspapers. She was intent on forgetting.

•  •  •

“D’ya know how to sew?”

“Of course I do.”

“If you can’t keep up the pace, you’ll be let go faster’n you can sneeze. We got a lotta dresses to make here, and make fast. There’s no time to coddle people.”

“I understand.”

The misshapen little man stared at her, his bushy eyebrows wriggling furiously. She wondered why he didn’t use the dingy handkerchief trailing from his pockets to blot his forehead, which was unpleasantly glazed with perspiration.

“You English?”

“I’m from Ireland.”

He nodded. “We got a lotta them here. Good workers, mostly, but they talk too much. Can’t shut \’em up. Always wantin’ to gab with their friends. You know anyone who works here?”

“No. I’ve…only just arrived.”

“Well, you’ll start tomorrow. Ten cents an hour, thirteen hours a day. You don’t show up one day, don’t bother comin’ the next. Your job’ll be gone. If you get sick, I don’t wanna hear about it. And don’t come runnin’ to me with any women’s complaints. Some of you girls think you should get a vacation every month.”

She ignored his crudeness, although it took some effort.

“Mr. Van Zandt? When will I be gettin’ paid?”

“In two weeks. If you last that long.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance of drawin’ an advance against my wages? I had some troubles on the way to New York.”

“I don’t wanna hear no hard luck stories. And you sure ain’t gettin’ paid before you put in any work. If you want the job, be here tomorrow. Six a.m.”

Would it have made any difference if she’d mentioned the Titanic? She didn’t think so.

A German man in suspenders directed her—in halting English—to a nearby boarding house that he thought might have some rooms to let. The enormous, coarse-haired woman who answered her queries favored her with undisguised suspicion.

“Ya got no family? No relatives here at all?”

“I don’t.”

“What’s a young girl like you doin’ in New York all alone?”

Tara had had enough. “D’ya have a room to let or do you not? It’s a simple enough question.”

The woman glowered at her. “No need to get snippy, missy. We just don’t want any of the wrong type here. Girls on their own sometimes make ends meet by bringing men to their rooms.”

“I have a job in a dress factory.” Tara looked down the dank, windowless hallway, trying not to inhale. The odor of rotting garbage was overpowering. Smoke from cooking fires in poorly-ventilated rooms coated the walls of the corridor with a greasy layer of grime. She was almost relieved when she was turned away; the foul woman wanted a week’s lodgings in advance.

“But I have a job! I’ll be startin’ tomorrow.”

“We don’t give no credit.”

It was the same everywhere she went. Suffocatingly cramped rooms in dilapidated buildings—rooms not fit for pigs—were denied her because she couldn’t pay “up front.” Ignoring the urgent rumblings of her empty stomach, Tara tried one establishment after another, always getting the same answer.

She finally had to admit that she was beaten. Night was falling and she’d nowhere to sleep. Worse yet, she’d no money with which to buy a little food. She yearned for the simplicity of a farm again. Supper was as near as the garden. Breakfast could be found in the henhouse, washed down with milk gathered from a cow. A few staples had to be purchased in town, but most nourishment came from the farm.

She passed a food stall. The apples there seemed to torment her with their shiny red skins, promising moist fruit inside. Tara snatched one up and ran, amazed at herself. She heard excited shouts behind her. Faster than she’d ever run in her life, she sped down the street and into an alley.

When she was certain she wasn’t being followed, Tara dropped to the ground and tore into the apple greedily. What a turn of events this was! She, Tara McLaughlin, was a thief. She ate the apple down to its core, savoring every last bite. Hunger imbued it with extraordinary taste. It was the most delectable thing she’d ever eaten.

Tara spent the night huddled under a wagon, shivering and scared. She felt terribly alone in this huge city bursting with people. Even in the deepest part of the night, the streets were never silent. Workers coming home from late shifts and young boys extinguishing the gas street lights a few hours before dawn added to the night’s collection of footsteps and voices, echoes and rattles. Tara pillowed her head on her hands and tried to sleep. She would begin a new job and a new life tomorrow.

It was also her seventeenth birthday.

•  •  •

She awoke before the street came to life and slid out from under the wagon, stiff and sore. At least it hadn’t rained. Sleeping in a puddle would have been infinitely worse.

She made use of a privy standing behind a tenement house. A small lake in a park helped her complete her morning ablutions; she still had the toothbrush and comb that had been given to her on the Carpathia. She stripped off her stockings and as much clothing as she dared and waded, shivering, into the chilly lake, scrubbing at herself with a handkerchief. She was relieved that there was no one about this early.

There wasn’t much she could do about her clothing, short of a thorough washing. She hid her wrinkled blouse beneath a nubby sweater she’d been given.

A cup of tea and a thick slice of her mother’s brown bread would have been grand just then. How long could she go without food? She must find a way to get some money before she received her first wages from the factory. Two weeks was too long.

The work at the dress factory proved to be an exercise in frantically-paced drudgery. She sewed shoulder seams on an endless succession of floral dresses, with only a quick break for lunch. While the other girls feasted on the black bread, soup and hard cheese they’d brought with them, Tara strolled outside, trying to quell her hunger pangs. She considered asking one of them for a small loan. They were friendly enough girls for the most part, but given their threadbare dresses, it was unlikely that they had any money to spare.

The workday dragged on interminably. When it was finally over, Tara trudged listlessly through the streets with only one thought in her mind. She must, somehow, get something to eat.

She followed her nose to the noisy marketplace at Hester and Canal streets. Food was everywhere. Vendors stood behind pushcarts groaning under heavy loads of fish, meats, colorful vegetables, ripe cheeses, pickles and plump golden loaves of freshly baked bread. That wasn’t all, but Tara paid no attention to the peddlers hawking other sundry items like suspenders and shoelaces, glasses and tinwear.

She weaved uncertainly through the crowd. Desperation drove her to think like a thief. If she could just grab one of those loaves of bread and run with it… The hollowness of her stomach, though, had spread to the rest of her body, infusing her limbs with unaccustomed lethargy.

An attractive man with penetrating brown eyes stared at her curiously. Was he a policeman? He didn’t wear a uniform. In fact, his casually impeccable linen shirt and well cut jacket and pants looked distinctly out of place—distinctly American, she imagined—amid this colorful sea of foreign garb. His nonchalant stance heightened the impression. Was he an officer in plain clothes who’d seen the ravenous look on her face and guessed what she was about to do?

Frustrated tears flooded her eyes. She turned away from the bread stall but her legs failed her. An agonizing ache shot through her head. She staggered a few steps, then collapsed in a heap.

•  •  •

Those liquid brown eyes were the first things she saw when she regained her senses, although at close range, she discovered flecks of green and gold in them.

“When was the last time you had something to eat?” The accent was a lazy drawl. Purely American, it must be, she thought.

She struggled to bring him into focus, but black spots kept appearing before her eyes. The hard bench she rested on seemed to be in the back room of some business establishment. Energetic voices and dull thumps drifted in from the hallway outside.

“I… I… What is this place? Where am I?”

“It’s a Chinese laundry. I know the owner. It was the closest place I could think of to bring you. You had quite a spill outside.”

She found herself unable to reconstruct recent events. She remembered that she’d been about to steal bread, had seen a brown-eyed man who looked like a policeman. After that, her memory failed her.

“Am I…under arrest?”

He threw back his head and laughed, a lusty, deep-throated sound. She noticed a network of crinkly lines emanating from the corners of his eyes. He had tawny hair—brown streaked with sun—and a determined jaw. His features were strikingly defined yet mobile, and she guessed that his expression could shift as easily to menace as it had to merriment.

“Under arrest? As far as I know, it’s not against the law to faint. Have you been ill lately?”

The inside of her mouth was dry as dust.

“I…no, I haven’t. Normally I’m a strong enough girl. I’m just a wee bit hungry just now. I was about to buy some supper when I—”

“That’s funny. I didn’t find a purse near you when you fell. What were you planning to use for money?

She was caught in a lie, and she deserved to be at that. “How did I get here?”

“I carried you. When was the last time you had something to eat?”

“Last night I had…an apple. Before that, I don’t remember.” She met his eyes unwillingly and said, with some resentment; “I stole the apple. You may as well turn me in to the police, if you’re not a constable yourself. I was just about to help meself to one of those fine loaves of bread. Yes! Without payin’ for it. So take me away to jail. I don’t much care anymore.”

He stifled another laugh and tried to assume a serious expression. “And how long have you been involved in this…life of crime? You’re not very good at it.”

“I’m not a criminal! Not really. The apple was the first. I only just landed in America the day before yesterday.”

“And you didn’t bring any money with you?” he asked incredulously. “All the way to a new country with no money? How were you planning to live, exactly?”

Tara sat up slowly, wincing from the persistent ache at her temples. An unexpected wave of nausea rose up in her.

“I came over on the Titanic,” she said quietly but defiantly. “I lost everything, including me little brother.”

She fought back tears. She would not cry in front of this man, this arrogant American, with his easy ways and undoubtedly carefree life. She knew what she must look like to him: a dowdy immigrant girl fresh off the farm, with tangled hair and dusty clothes. She might have nothing else left, but she still had her pride.

He looked at her consideringly for a long time.

“Well, we can’t have you fainting in the streets again, can we? I guess I’ll have to buy you dinner. Do you feel well enough to walk?”

“I’m grateful to you for bringin’ me in here, but I’m not needin’ any more help from you. I’ll look after meself, thank you.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“I do not.”

The notion both intrigued and amused him. “Why not?”

“Why should a rich American like yourself take a kindly interest in a girl like me? A girl with no relations to look after her. It could be that you’re a…” she settled on an expression she’d heard once—”a flesh peddler, luring young girls into evil ways. I may be just off the farm, but I have me wits about me.”

“A flesh peddler?” He chuckled. “Is that what you think I am?”

“It is. Why else would you be helpin’ me?”

“Two days in New York and you’re already a full-fledged cynic. Only make up your mind. First you think I’m a police officer, then a corrupter of young girls. Which is it?” He strode to the open door and shouted: “Mr. Lee! Mr. Lee! Could you come in here for a moment?”

A Chinese man appeared at the door, wiping his hands on an apron tied around his waist.

“Young lady better now?”

“She certainly is. Mr. Lee, would you tell the young lady what it is I do for a living? It seems she has some doubts about my character.”

“Mr. Reece Waldron race cars. Fly airplanes. He have many friends.”

“Have you ever known me to be—what was it? A flesh peddler.”

Mr. Lee’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. Reece Waldron said a few words to him in singsong Chinese and Mr. Lee guffawed loudly.

“Very good joke, Mr. Reece. I go back to work now.”

Tara sighed and got to her feet. She wavered a little and reached for the wall but he moved—quick as a flash—behind her. Embarrassingly, she found herself leaning against him. It was not an unpleasant sensation. He felt so sturdy, so reassuring. His warmth almost seemed to radiate into her, giving her strength and another pleasant feeling which she could not quite name.

“Should I carry you again?”

“Please don’t. I’m already mortified at your havin’ to do it the first time.”