Threads and Flames (11 page)

“Leave her alone!” she yelled as loudly as she could. “Get away from her! Help! Help! Someone help us! Someone—”

The woman slapped Raisa's face so hard she saw dazzling bursts of light. One of the men made a grab for Brina. He was short but powerfully built, his arms bulging with muscles under a thin stained shirt. He had no trouble tearing the child away from Raisa. Brina shrieked and kicked, batting at his face. Another man might have laughed at the little girl's ridiculous attempt to defend herself, but he held her with one arm and raised the other, ready to hit her with a scarred fist the size of a grapefruit.

Raisa threw herself at him and clung to his arm, weighing it down so that he couldn't strike Brina. His companion roared with coarse laughter while he cursed and tried to shake her off. Meanwhile, the old woman seized Luciana's arm and began dragging her away. The Italian girl fought back, broke the woman's grip, and staggered to the mouth of the alley-way, shouting for aid. The old woman ran after her.

Still laughing, the second man pulled Raisa off his partner as casually as if he were plucking petals off a daisy. He must have been over six feet tall, and when he took hold of her right arm at the wrist and elbow she found herself dangling on tip-toes in his grasp. Raisa didn't understand the Italian words he bellowed, but the grinding pressure on her bones made it plain that he would break her arm if she didn't cooperate. The threat was effective. He gave a satisfied grunt as she stopped fighting.

The shorter man managed to get a tighter hold on Brina and said something to his partner. The big man had an ugly gift for being able to communicate what would happen to the child if Raisa made any sort of fuss when the four of them stepped out of the alley and back into the streets. The gesture he used was the same action Raisa had seen back home in the shtetl when she'd come across the innkeeper's wife slaughtering chickens with a twist of the poor birds' necks. Then the big man jabbed a finger at the two pieces of luggage Raisa had dropped when she went to Luciana's aid. She picked them up docilely, her thoughts paralyzed, and began to follow him out of the alley. She moved as if caught in a horrible dream.

And then, just as the man stepped into the light, Raisa saw a thick dark rectangular shape come flying through the air, hitting him right in the side of the head and sending him crashing to the cobbles. His partner shouted what must have been a curse and dropped Brina. She scrambled to rejoin Raisa just as three young men came racing past, slammed the thug against the wall, and began giving him the beating of his life. Raisa was too shocked to look away, until the young men dropped their fists and allowed the man to slump unconscious in the filth of the alley.

“Raisa! Raisa!” Luciana's voice broke the spell. The Italian girl threw her arms around her and babbled excitedly while she led Raisa and Brina into the sunlight. Raisa was astonished at how deserted that small stretch of pavement had become. The fight in the alley had the magic power to make everyone in the vicinity disappear.

Grinning, the three young men emerged from the alley and joined the girls. One of them picked up Luciana's valise; the others relieved Raisa of her bags.

“
Buon giorno, signorina
,” said the young man carrying the valises. He tipped his cap to Raisa. “
Mi chiamo Paolo, e questi sono i miei amici.
” When Raisa didn't reply, he repeated, “Paolo, Paolo,” until she understood that was his name and introduced herself and Brina. There was no need to ask how he knew Luciana; the family resemblance between them was unmistakable. It was also entirely missing between Luciana and the other two men, so Raisa supposed they were Paolo's friends, keeping him company when he'd come down to the docks to wait for his sister's arrival.

The six of them walked through the streets of lower Manhattan. Luciana chatted gaily with Paolo and his friends, leaving Raisa alone with her thoughts. With no knowledge of Italian, Raisa couldn't know if Luciana was telling her brother about how she'd come to miss her meeting with him and had fallen afoul of the vultures who'd nearly trapped her. Her lighthearted demeanor made that seem unlikely, but perhaps the girl was the type of person who preferred not to dwell on past perils, as long as they were safely over and done with. Raisa didn't mind being left out of the conversation. Now that she and Brina were out of danger, she was enjoying herself, gawking freely at all the sights.

Cities!
she thought, awestruck by her new surroundings.
All my life, I lived in our shtetl, where
city
was only a word. I never
truly
got to see such places from the train or when I was in the middle of that crowd of travelers in the streets of Bremerhaven. This is different. This is wonderful! Look at these buildings, so tall! And so many people, all in such a hurry. Where are they all going so fast? Not one tiny spot of earth underfoot—everything's paved over, and not with gold! Look at all the carts, with a whole herd of horses to pull each one, and men everywhere, pushing smaller ones. Good smells, plenty of good things to eat. Now that, at least, is something that reminds me of home, but—
she cupped one hand over her nose as they went past an especially reeking alleyway
—ugh, some of the other smells are worse than anything back home, even the peasants' pigs! So much, so much—it's overwhelming. Oh, Henda, and to imagine you came here all by yourself, with no one to help you. I wonder what you thought when you first saw all this? I wish I could remember everything you told us in your letters home. But this is your home now, Henda, yours and mine. A new home, a new life . . .
She murmured a prayer of thanks to God.

One of Paolo's friends fell into step beside her. “A Jewish prayer, yes? You are Jewish girl?” Raisa's jaw dropped. His accent was outlandish, his grammar was shaky, yet there was no denying that he was speaking to her in Yiddish.

“Uh, y—yes, I am. But you . . . you're notaJ. . . ?”

He flashed her a brilliant smile. “No, no, not me. But I know some. My name is Renzo. My sister Angelina has many friends, Jewish girls, from work, making clothing in the factory. Sometimes she visits them, they visit her. Mama makes me walk with them when they go out of our neighborhood. For safety, you know? That's when they teach me. They think it is very funny. Then I teach them Italian and it is my turn to laugh.”

“Do you know English, too?” Raisa asked. Brina began to fall behind, so she picked up the little girl and carried her as they walked on.

“Some. Mama says I should learn more, but why bother? Most days I help Papa in the store. All our customers speak Italian. Do
you
speak English?”

“No,” Raisa said. “But I will.”

That made Renzo laugh again. “When? You have a job here where you can learn English?”

“I don't have a job at all,” Raisa confessed. “Not yet. I'm hoping I can find one at the same place where my sister works.”

“Ah, so you do have family here? Luciana thinks you are alone. She wants her parents to let you stay with them. Of course they will agree, especially once they learn how you saved her from those—those—”

“Vultures?” Raisa volunteered.

“Worse. The people who linger by the ferry terminal, looking for innocent, unknowing girls—new to this land, alone, eager to find a friend—they are monsters. If they cannot lure the girls away, they use force. The end is the same, a shameful life in houses where men pay to—” He stopped, blushing. “Your pardon. I say too much, and nothing fit for your ears.”

Raisa spoke quickly, to spare him further embarrassment. “Luciana is a good friend, but there's no need for her parents to take Brina and me in.” She pointed at the bag Renzo was carrying. “I have my sister's address in there.”

“Then you should get it out so we can take you to her. If she lives far from Paolo's family, you walk a long way for nothing.” Renzo put down the bag and called out to the rest of the group. They gathered around Raisa while she produced the paper with Henda's address. There was a brief conference among Paolo and his friends as they wrestled with the handwriting, but at last Renzo turned to Raisa and told her, “It's good. We know this street you want. Come.”

Raisa didn't know exactly when the city streets transformed around her. The waterfront was crowded enough, but as they headed north and east the human traffic grew denser and denser until there were times Raisa felt she couldn't move ahead even half a step. Little by little she became aware of other changes, as well. The streets were packed with people; pushcarts; displays of fruit, vegetables, cloth, and other merchandise—that didn't change—but at some point she noticed that the store signs were printed in the Hebrew characters used to write Yiddish words. There were other words, too—English, no doubt—that were dwarfed by the size of the Yiddish letters and altogether absent on some signs. Raisa was pleasantly surprised when she was able to read a few of the Yiddish words. Zusa's lessons had made a difference after all!

And almost everyone here is speaking Yiddish, too!
she thought.
It's just like Zusa said it would be. Zusa . . . I hope you weren't kept behind by the inspectors. Maybe you're home already, reunited with your family. Please, God, let it be so!

On a teeming street like so many others in the neighborhood, Paolo stopped at a tall brownstone building with a soot-smirched facade and gestured at the steep flight of steps leading up to the battered black wooden door. Renzo didn't have to translate; Raisa knew she had arrived.

Looking up at the front of the building, Raisa wondered why some of the windows were blocked with what looked like railed-in iron platforms and ladders. All of these were draped with rainbows of drying laundry, and one held a trio of scraggly potted plants. The smell of boiling vegetables spilled into the street, along with a weird symphony of thumps, clangs, and hisses from within. Somewhere an infant wailed. Raisa winced as Brina renewed her frightened, ferocious grip on her hand.

“Don't be scared, sweetheart; we're all right now,” she said, putting on a show of confidence for the child's sake. “This is where Henda lives. We're home.” She took back the bags from Paolo's friends, kissed Luciana, and thanked everyone as best she could before starting up the stairs.

“You want us to wait?” Renzo called after her.

“We'll be fine,” she replied lightly.
We
will
be fine,
she told herself.
This isn't the shtetl, but the people, the language, they're the same. Henda came here alone and she was able to make her way. I can, too.
“Luciana's parents must be dying to see her again. Don't keep them waiting any more.”

Renzo translated this for the others. Paolo nodded, then said something to him in Italian, which Renzo passed back to Raisa. “He says to tell you, all right, we go now, but you remember this: if you ever need help, you come to Delvecchio's grocery on Mulberry!”

Raisa thanked them again and climbed the stairs to the black door. It led into an unlit foyer, the walls and pressed-tin ceiling visible only by whatever daylight came through the open door. A steep, narrow flight of stairs hugged one wall; a pair of apartment doors occupied the other. At the far end of the entry hall, she saw a third door, its small glass panel smeared over with grime so that it let in only a negligible amount of extra light. Something scuttled along the baseboards, and the stink of a badly cleaned toilet hit Raisa right between the eyes. And yet even in such a dingy, squalid setting, some long-forgotten artist had decorated the wall with painted wreaths of ivy framing fat blue urns filled with roses.

“Hey! Who's down there?” Raisa raised her eyes to see a woman in a gray kerchief leaning over the stair rail from the second floor. “Who are you? You don't live here! Get out before I call the police!”

“Please, we don't mean any harm,” Raisa called back. “We've only just arrived this morning. My sister Henda lives here and—”

“Henda?” the woman snapped. “I don't know any Henda.”

“She wrote that she rooms with a family in this building, up on—on the third floor, I think. The Levis? He works as—”

At that moment, Brina pulled at Raisa's hand, beckoned her to bend down, and whispered urgently in her ear. Raisa looked back up at the surly woman. “I'm sorry to bother you, but is there someplace the little girl can pee?”

“In the gutter,” the woman shot back. “But you'd probably have her do her business right in front of this building. There's a hall toilet on this floor. Come up.”

Raisa had a hard time persuading Brina to venture into the dark, smelly little room with the badly cracked and yellowed toilet. In the end, she had to go with her, leaving their bags on the landing. When she came out, she found the woman crouched over Brina's open bag. She sprang to her feet at once and gave them a black look. “Are you done? Then go!”

“Ma'am, I told you, my sister Henda lives here,” Raisa replied, fighting back a rising anger. “She's a boarder with the Levi family. If you don't know her, you must know them. Please tell me, where can I find them?”

“
They
live on the fifth floor, but they haven't got any boarders except a couple of greenhorns the husband hired to do piecework for him. Big man!” she said sarcastically. “Just because he's got his family
and
those two newcomers working for him, he thinks he's better than the rest of us! What next, he rents space in a
real
shop?” Her laugh was dry and brittle.

“I see.” Raisa didn't believe the sour-tempered woman for an instant.
She's choking on her own envy,
she thought.
Why would she tell me the truth about Henda when she can hurt me with a lie and watch me suffer? That's probably the only amusement she's got. Well, she'll have to look for her entertainment elsewhere.
“Thank you very much,” she said. She started up the stairs with Brina tagging along after.