“Sure you do,” he said. “Come on, Al, tell me.”
“You seemed lost in your thoughts, too.” She dodged his question, unsure she wanted to tell him about Francesca. She knew her brother would caution her to mind her own business, to put her head down and work hard to gain her boss’s favor rather than help a stranger who might very well cause trouble for her. That was the only way Fritz knew how to be—work more efficiently and harder than everyone else. He took great pride in the way he gained the trust of the men who worked below him as well as those ranked above him, and he deserved it. His promotion last year had felt like the obvious next step. Alma firmly believed he would be running the IRT one day in the not-too-distant future. She took pride in working hard as well, but it didn’t define who she was, not the way it did him.
“We’re talking about going on strike.” A cloud gathered in his light-blue eyes. “We deserve a pay raise, and we want a few hours knocked off the workday. Conditions are dangerous.” He sighed. “They have to give us something, or people will walk.”
“When?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure yet, but it looks like it’s a certainty if negotiations don’t go well. I’ve worked my tail off. We all deserve a raise, damn them.” He ran a hand over his tired eyes. “My boss is already talking about moving me into the offices at some point, away from the job site, which is great for me, but I can’t leave my men to fend for themselves.”
“They’re lucky to have you.”
Fritz grabbed her hand to lead her around a puddle. “I hope so. They know the conditions are dangerous at the very least. We don’t need another fire underground.” He exhaled tiredly. “I still can’t believe we lost those men.”
Alma had been horrified to hear the news of the fire underground in one of the new subway trenches. Two months ago, a worker had lit a candle to warm his freezing hands, igniting five hundred pounds of dynamite. Five people died instantly, and another one hundred were severely injured before the blaze had been put out. Fritz had come home covered in ash. His eyes were still haunted when he spoke of it.
“You’re doing good work, Fritz. Surely the bosses will come around,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I’m so proud of you.”
He smiled gratefully. “Always my biggest fan, aren’t you?”
She returned his smile.
They walked another street block, the sounds of the city filling the silence between them in an orchestra of bicycle bells, horses’ hooves, and the patter of boots on sidewalk.
“Now your turn,” Fritz said. “What happened at work?”
She hesitated, parsing out what she wanted to share, and decided on the truth. If she was his biggest fan, he was hers, and she trusted him implicitly. “There’s a young woman from Sicily who needs a male relative to sign for her so she can enter the country, but she doesn’t have any. She’s a sad case, Fritz. I feel for her. Her other option is to have an employer sign work papers for her.” Alma’s pace faltered. “What if…” But why hadn’t she thought of it before? She threw a sidelong glance at her brother.
“What?” he asked.
“Do you think Mama would sign an employment waiver?”
His sandy eyebrows knitted together. “For this woman? Do you even know what kind of person you’re dealing with? She might have connections to a gang. You know how the Italians get mixed up in that Mafia business.”
“I believe she’s trustworthy, if that’s what you mean. And not every Italian joins street gangs, Fritz.” If he met Francesca, he would see just how absurd his assumption was.
“I’m just trying to make a point. You don’t know anything about this woman.”
“She’s alone. Her sister just died in the hospital on the island. Her father is a terrible man, beat her at times, which is why she left home in the first place. Her life depended on it.”
His jaw clenched. “Sounds like a real bastard. I don’t know how a man can knock a woman about and look himself in the eye.”
“She has braved all sorts of things and came all this way to start over,” she continued.
“I don’t know, Al.” He moved around a stack of empty crates left on the street outside a fruit market. “Would we be responsible for her?”
She shrugged. “I don’t think so. People lose work all the time, and they aren’t shipped out of the country when that happens. They just get another job. I think it’s only a matter of getting her here, into the city. After that, she’s free to do as she pleases.”
Even if Mama didn’t want to hire Francesca legitimately, the employment waiver could at least get the young woman off the island. And if anyone cared to question Francesca’s “employer,” Mama could say Francesca worked there a short time before Mama realized she didn’t need her after all and let her go.
They turned onto their street as a brisk wind blasted between a row of apartment buildings and rushed down the street. A few hats flew into the air, and several forgotten pamphlets caught the current and rode the wind far above their heads. Alma braced herself and picked up her pace.
“Good luck talking Robert into it.” Fritz enunciated their stepfather’s name with exaggerated respect. “You know how he hates Italians.”
“Well, Francesca is beautiful.”
He laughed. “What does that have to do with anything?”
She shoved him playfully. “I don’t know, but it can’t hurt, right? Maybe Herr Robert will be more open to her because she has a pretty face.”
Fritz ran a hand through his shaggy brown waves. “Maybe, though her looks might also invite trouble. Not with Robert, of course, but others.”
The unspoken words hung in the air between them. The fate of many immigrant women, in particular those from the Italian provinces or from Eastern Europe, was to find work in the only way a woman could make money easily: in the brothels in Chatham Square or in the Bowery, run by either the notorious Jewish gang, the Eastmans, or their Italian rivals, the Five Points Gang.
“Speaking of Italians, have you heard about what’s happening on Mulberry and Mott Street lately?” he continued. “There were some arrests made a few days ago.”
“What is it with the gangs lately?”
“It isn’t the gangs. It’s the anarchists.” His voice dropped an octave on the last word.
Alma felt a familiar prickle of worry. Fritz held regular anarchist meetings at the bierhaus and showed no signs of stopping them, even with the riots that had taken place in the Midwest, New Orleans, and right here in the city. The anarchists were pushing for unions to glean more control from their employers and lawmakers, for better hours and working conditions. Employers were pushing back by firing “troublemakers,” and Fritz led the way among his friends, truly believing he could effect change, something Alma admired in him. And yet, it was dangerous. Police were cracking down on their meetings, and many had been arrested.
“Be careful. If your boss finds out about your meetings, you could lose your job.”