“Oh, wonderful, wonderful, Sister Warshawski, you are really helping these girls. We are grateful.”
In a few minutes, a wave ran through the congregation. You couldn’t hear the murmur above the music, but people poked each other, heads turned: “el coche” cared enough about the children to attend their church. Sancia and her family caught the whisper and turned, stunned to see me here, out of context. Sancia managed a weak smile when she saw me looking at her.
I also caught sight of Rose Dorrado twisting around in a pew on the other side of the aisle to look at me. I smiled and waved; she pressed her lips together and turned to face the front again, hugging her two little boys close to her.
I was shocked at the change in Rose’s appearance. She had always been tidily groomed, holding herself well, and even when she was angry with me her face had been full of vivacity. Today, she’d barely troubled to comb her hair, and her head was hunched turtlelike down in her shoulders. The loss of Fly the Flag had devastated her.
The children marching, or stomping, for Jesus finished their routine and sat down in a row of folding chairs in front of the choir. The man with the bald bobbing head stood next, offering a long tremulous prayer in Spanish, punctuated by emphatic chords from the harmonium and “Amens” from the congregation. Even though he used a mike, his voice was so quavery I could only catch a word here or there.
When he finally sat down, we had another hymn, and two women passed through the congregation with offertory baskets. I put in a twenty, and the women looked at me in consternation.
“We can’t make change right now,” one of them said, worried. “Will you trust us to the end of the service?”
“Change?” I was astonished. “I don’t need change.”
They thanked me over and over; the woman in front of me who’d welcomed me had turned to watch, and she once again whispered news about me to the people around her. My cheeks turned red. I hadn’t meant to show off; it was one of those moments of blind ignorance where I hadn’t realized how really poor everyone in the church must be. Maybe everyone who said I didn’t understand the South Side anymore was right.
After the collection, and another hymn, Andrés began his sermon. He spoke in Spanish, but so slowly and so simply I could follow a lot of it. He read from the Bible, a passage about the laborer deserving his salary—I caught the words “digno” and “su salario,” and guessed that “obrero” must be a worker; I didn’t know the word. After that he started talking about criminals in our midst, criminals stealing jobs from us and destroying our factories. I assumed he was talking about the fire at Fly the Flag. The harmonium began playing an insistent backbeat to the sermon, which made it harder for me to understand, but I thought Andrés was urging a message of courage onto people whose lives were hurt by the criminals “en nuestro medio.”
Courage, yes, I suppose one needed courage not to be rolled under by the wheels of misery that ran through the neighborhood, but Rose Dorrado had plenty of courage; what she needed was a job. When I thought about the load she was carrying, all those children, and now the factory gone, my own shoulders slumped.
People engaged actively in the sermon, shouting “Amen” at frequent intervals, or “Sí, se?or,” which I first thought was an assent to Andrés, before realizing they were calling on God. Some stood in the pews or jumped into the aisles, pointing a hand heavenward; others shouted out Bible verses.
After the sermon had gone on for twenty minutes or so, my attention began to wander badly. The wood pew was pressing through my coat and my knit top into my shoulder, and my pelvic bones began to ache. I began hoping the spirit would make me spring to my feet.
It was close to noon; I was wishing I’d brought a novel when I realized people were shifting and turning in their pews to look at another new arrival. I craned my head as well.
To my astonishment, I saw Buffalo Bill stumping his way up the aisle, walking stick in hand. Mr. William was behind him, his arm supporting an old woman in a fur coat. Despite the coat, and the diamond drops in her ears, she had the round amiable face of a Hallmark card grandmother. This must be May Irene Bysen, the grandma who taught Billy his manners and his faith. Right now, she looked a little frightened, a little bewildered by the noise and the strange setting: her soft chin was thrust out, and she clung to her son, but she was looking around, as I had, trying to spot her grandchild.