“What was her name?” I asked.
“Kathy,” Rose said. “I remember it because none of us from Europe can say that ‘th’ sound proper. We called her Katti and she kept correcting us.”
“And when did she stop showing up?”
Rose put her hand to her mouth, thinking. “Must have been about three, four weeks ago.”
“I’ve changed my mind,” I said. “I think I will come to this union meeting with you after all.”
Thirteen
There were lots of girls called Kathy in the world, I told myself. I shouldn’t read too much into this—but it did sound a lot like her. I would try to ask for a description, without seeming too interested, of course. And at the union meeting maybe I’d find out more. In the meantime I had to remind myself that I was being paid to discover a spy. Sometime in the next few weeks, someone was going to deliver stolen designs to Lowenstein’s.
By the time Wednesday night rolled around, I was more than ready to attend the union meeting, and not just because I wanted to find out if the English girl called Kathy was the Katherine I was seeking. As I watched injustice after injustice going on at Lowenstein’s, I realized that I couldn’t just sit quietly and do nothing. I had promised myself that I wouldn’t get involved, but I wasn’t very good at following my own advice. Someone had to do something and that someone was me.
If Mostel’s had been purgatory, then Lowenstein’s was hell itself. The dark, dank cold went right through clothing and bones to the very soul. To sit hunched over machines, eyes straining in the gloom, fingers numb and chilblained, with the constant sound of coughing over the clatter of the treadles was enough to break even the bravest of spirits, and these girls had been through so much before that their spirits were already broken.
On Friday evening the bully Katz wound back the clock hands twenty minutes so that we’d stay to finish the workload and he wouldn’t have to pay us overtime. I saw him. So did several other girls, but nobody said a word. I also watched him smirk to himself as he passed by to his office. I sat there fuming, longing for a chance to get even with him. I’d help get these girls unionized if it was the last thing I did!
The bell rang to signal seven o’clock, which was really seven twenty. Tired girls stood up, stretched cramped limbs, stamped cold feet, snatched up belongings, and got out of there as fast as they could. As I followed Rose to the door, a hand grabbed my arm. “Not you, Murphy. I want a word with you.”
I looked around to find Katz smirking at me.
“What have I done?”
“These sleeves,” he said. “Call yourself a seamstress, do you? I don’t know what the standard of work is like in Ireland, but it must be pretty bad.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my sleeves,” I said angrily. “I stitched a nice straight seam and I finished my quota.”
“Not what I’ve been seeing,” he said. He turned and disappeared through the door into the back room. “Call this a nice straight seam?” He held up a sleeve and waved it at me.
I stomped into the back room after him. “Let me see that. I’ll tell you if it was my work or not.”
I snatched the sleeve from him. “Why, this isn’t even my sleeve. I don’t start my work that way, and look, the threads aren’t even cut. Little Becky cut every one of my threads today.”
I looked up and he was still smirking. I realized then that I had been tricked. The sounds in the workroom were dying away.
“I like ’em feisty,” he said, coming toward me. “A good fight makes the conquest all the sweeter, and you look like a lusty girl who enjoys it, am I right?”
I was so frozen in horror that I didn’t react quickly enough. He pushed me against the cold wet brick wall and pinned me with his body, his knee thrust between my legs. As I opened my mouth to scream, he forced his mouth onto mine, his tongue into my mouth, his hands groping at my body.
I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t believed he could be so strong. I tried to shake myself free from him, but he held me pinned like a butterfly to a board. Revulsion flooded over me as I felt him getting excited and impatient but I fought to remain calm. If he wanted to take this amorous attack one stage further, he’d have to move to lift my skirt and then I’d go for him where it hurt. I was finding it hard to breathe. Then I felt him trying to shift me along the wall to where bolts of cloth lay piled on the floor. If he got me that far, he could throw himself on top of me. I wasn’t going to let that happen. I managed to get my hands up to his face. I couldn’t reach his eyes, but I grabbed his long, curling hair, and I yanked as hard as I could.
He reacted just enough for me to break free of his mouth.
“Let go of me or you’ll be sorry!” I gasped. “I killed the last man who tried to rape me.”