Item to remember for future reference, I said to myself. Never try to take on two cases at once. Item number two—never get romantically involved with anybody connected with the case. I thought of Jacob’s arms around me, his lips against my fingers and the strange, not unpleasant, tickle of his beard. Had Nell guessed that Jacob was falling for me? Had Jacob, ever honest and open, actually told her his true feelings for me? In which case we had both driven her to her death.
I fell at last into troubled sleep, only to be woken by the alarm clock what seemed like minutes later. It was still dark. The wind was still blowing, making the bare branches dance crazily in the light of the street lamp. I stood on the cold linoleum, wondering what I was doing awake at this hour, until I remembered that I had to join my fellow workers on a picket line before Mr. Katz arrived at Lowenstein’s.
I dressed in my warmest clothing, looked longingly at my wool cape, then took a shawl like the other girls. I made myself a cup of tea, a thick slice of bread and cheese for later sustenance, and some toast for breakfast. I was just eating it hurriedly when I looked up to see Seamus standing there.
“So you’re really going to walk a picket line, are you?” he said.
I had given him sketchy details when I came home the night before.
“I’m afraid so. Those girls need all the support they can get.”
“Be careful, Molly,” he said. “Those bosses don’t play fair. Don’t try to do anything too heroic, will you?”
“No, of course I won’t.” I was touched by his concern.
“You’re a good woman, Molly,” he said. “I’ve been feeling so guilty that you’ve taken us in like this and I’m doing nothing to support my own family. I’m going out this very day to find something. I may not be strong enough to go back down the tunnel yet, but there are other jobs that don’t require strength.”
“You recover your health first, Seamus,” I said. “I can take care of things until you do.”
“No, you’ve made it too easy for me,” he said. “Life is not supposed to be easy. We’re born to a struggle and we die in a struggle, and it’s a struggle in between too.”
Trust an Irishman to be poetic at five in the morning!
“I’m going to visit Tammany Hall,” he said. “I’m a loyal voter. They owe me something. Surely they’ll find a loyal Irishman a job.”
“Good luck, then,” I said. “Tell the children good-bye for me and make sure they wash their faces before they go to school.”
He smiled. “You’re a good little mother to them. I was thinking, Molly—when the end does come, for Kathleen, I mean . . .”
“Don’t even let that thought cross your mind,” I said severely. “She’s not dead yet and maybe she’s not going to die. And even if she did, I’m not the wife for you, Seamus.”
Then I beat a hurried retreat. I had enough on my plate at the moment without having to worry about proposals from Seamus O’Connor.
The streets were still wet from last night’s downpour and I picked my way carefully between puddles. I had actually been looking forward to this moment, especially to seeing Katz’s face when confronted by a cordon of angry girls. But that was before the events of last night. I couldn’t get the image of Nell’s dead face out of my mind. I had to do something, at least follow up on the Mostel’s connection, but I couldn’t approach him until I had gone through the motions of this strike. Besides, these girls needed my support. I couldn’t back out on them now.
When I reached Lowenstein’s, a knot of excited girls had already gathered, whispering together in the shadows. Rose was among them. She looked up and saw me.
“Molly—over here, quick, we need you,” she said. “We’re making signs, but we don’t write English so good.”
They had some squares of cardboard, a pot of black paint, and a large brush.
“What do you want me to say?”
“You’d know the right thing,” Rose said. “We can write it in Yiddish and Italian and even Polish, but not in English.”
“How about ‘Lowenstein unfair to workers! We want better conditions’?” one of the girls suggested.
“We demand better conditions,” I suggested.
“That’s good. And tell the world we are not slaves, we are free human beings with rights,” another girl chimed in.
“And we need a workplace that is warm enough and light enough.”
“And a proper water closet that doesn’t freeze.”
“And a foreman who keeps his hands to himself.”
“And why should we work on the Sabbath? My papa wants to throw me out because we work that day.”
“He doesn’t even let us get home in time for Shabbat on Friday nights!”
The suggestions were coming thick and fast. “Hold on,” I yelled. “I only have a few signs here. We just need to state why we are striking and that’s because they are unfair.”
They nodded and watched as I wrote the messages, then Rose handed them out to several girls. While this was going on the three men who were the cutters and pressers came to work. They needed a little persuading to join us, but when they saw that they weren’t going to be allowed inside and that fifty angry girls might set upon them, they changed their minds. Two of them went home and one decided to join our line.