“I was slaving for him,” she said venomously. Quite a transformation from the meek little mouse who had worked beside me. “He deserves what he gets. He wouldn’t let my sister work with me. He said no families, bad for business, so she had to find work with Lowenstein. Then Mr. Lowenstein found out I was working for Mostel and he tell us he pay good money if we find out what Mostel’s new designs look like.”
“You must have known that was wrong?”
“Wrong? Ha! I tell you something—I wasn’t going to do it. I say to Fanny we are from good family. We do not resort to stealing like common peasants. And that very next day my mother is taken bad. We have to send for the doctor. The doctor wants paying right away. I come in to work an hour late and the foreman says to me, ‘If you’re gonna come in late again, don’t bother showing up.’ He wouldn’t even listen. So I thought—why not? We did it last season and Lowenstein give us fifty dollars. Fifty dollars—can you imagine? We could buy Mama good food, we could pay the rent and the doctor bills.”
“But you were cheating your employer.”
“Oh, and he never cheated us? Ten cents for sneezing. Ten cents for going to the washroom, for coming back one minute late from lunch. And don’t think we didn’t know about turning back the clock hands to get extra minutes out of us. We were cheated every single day, so don’t preach to me about cheating.” She looked at me, suddenly suspicious. “Why do you want to know this? Are you some kind of church lady preacher?”
I shook my head. “No, I was hired by Mr. Mostel to find out who was stealing his designs.”
“So you’re going to go and tell him you’ve found out?”
“I have to.”
“And then what? We get arrested and go to jail and our mother will die. That’s good American justice. They killed my father and brothers in Russia, you know. We came here with nothing—we left everything in Russia: clothes, jewelry, books, all left behind. Our mother has been sick ever since.”
“I’m really sorry,” I said. “I’ll do what I can for you. I’ll make Mostel agree not to press charges, if you promise me you won’t do it again.”
“Won’t do it again?” She laughed bitterly. “I won’t be stealing Mostel’s designs again because there is no Mostel’s. We’ll be trying to live on Fanny’s six dollars a week and we’re going to starve and Mama’s going to die.”
“I really am sorry. If I could do something, I would. Perhaps another shop will take you on.”
“Me and fifty other girls. Oh sure.”
“I should go,” I said. “Give my respects to your mother. I hope her health improves.”
Without saying a word she turned and went back into the room. I heard her telling them in Yiddish that I didn’t want any tea.
I felt really sick as I descended the stairs to busy Hester Street. Here, down below that one room, life was going on merrily—housewives bargaining over herrings and chickens, little boys throwing mud balls at each other, a monkey dancing on an organ grinder’s shoulder. Should I just forget the whole thing and let Mostel think that I hadn’t found his spy? If I made personal judgements about each case that I undertook, I wouldn’t be making much money in my chosen profession. I had to learn to keep myself remote. I had been hired to do a job. I had done that job and now my duty was to report my findings to my employer.
I couldn’t help feeling like a heel as I rode the Third Avenue El north to the Upper East Side where I had been told Mr. Mostel lived. It was always a shock going from the Lower East Side to another part of the city. The sensation was like Alice falling down a rabbit hole and finding herself in another world. There were mansions facing the park with the occasional horse and carriage waiting patiently outside a front door. A maid was scrubbing front steps. A nanny walked past pushing a high English perambulator. On a street across from the zoo I found a mailman delivering letters. Luckily he was an observant mailman and directed me to East Sixty-third.
I found the house easily enough—an elegant brownstone, four floors high. This was what the sweat of his laborers had bought for Mr. Mostel and his family. It was hard to feel too sorry for his current disaster.
I pulled back my shoulders with resolution and went up the front steps. The door was opened by a stiffly starched maid.
“Miss Murphy to see Mr. Mostel.”
“Mr. Mostel senior or junior?” she asked, trying to size me up with a haughty stare.
“Senior. I have been carrying out a commission from him.”
“I’m afraid he is not at home at present, but he is expected shortly. If you would care to wait?”
“Thank you.” I stepped into the welcoming warmth of the front hall. I wasn’t sure that my nerves would hold up to waiting, but it seemed stupid to have come all this way for nothing. I was shown into a small sitting room, obviously a front parlor for visitors as the fire wasn’t lit. I sat on a brocade chair and waited. A clock ticked loudly on the mantelpiece, otherwise there was no sound, no hint that a family lived in this house. I wondered about Mrs. Mostel and what she might be doing.
Then, after what seemed an eternity, I heard footsteps on the stairs. The footsteps came toward me and Ben Mostel came into the room. He froze when he saw who was sitting there.