The man wiped perspiration from his face and neck. “Job claimed he did nothing to deserve his punishment,” he shouted. “But he railed against God! He failed to accept his suffering as proof that he had sinned!” His visage sharpened; his nasal voice grew more penetrating. “For the innocent do not suffer! God only torments the wicked!”
Around me, angry sighs were passed. Perhaps others felt, as I did, that this man had done a simpleton’s work on an unsolveable dilemma. Why do some suffer and some not? If only we could find reason in the distribution of agony and ease. Not to mention that it was not God, but God’s son Satan who’d sent Job’s torments down. He’d made a wager with God—a wager that he could turn God’s devoted servant Job against him.
Job’s story hardly makes the case that suffering is sent down with an intended moral purpose.
“Ah, shut yer mouth,” said a woman with yellow-white hair to the preacher. She spit on the ground and pressed her mouth tight. Two ragged young men rose from the floor, faced off with the man, then walked away, their muscled arms swinging at their sides. I trembled with the wish to challenge the simpleton—but this would have brought unwanted attention, not to mention that I’d never done such a thing publicly in my life. I rose, too, and left the station.
For the afternoon, the world seemed pleasing. Perhaps from gladness at escaping that harangue and at remembering how everyone is vulnerable to hardship, a tenderness welled up in me toward all the living. I found a stillness within our transitory state, relishing the passing folk intent on business or recreation, and loving the familiar clip-clop of horses, freshly curried and brushed, as they pulled grocery wagons house to house, stopping to deliver milk or ice or bread. The odors of meals escaped through windows, and hunger cut into me. When a bakery wagon stopped, I lingered to stare, and a small boy seated between burlap sacks held up a hefty loaf.
“Fifteen cents,” he called. I gave him a dime and a nickel and tucked the bread into the shawl, at Charlotte’s feet; she gazed down with curiosity. In a square crossed by footpaths and newly planted with trees, I sat and nursed her surreptitiously beneath my shawl, then ate piece after piece of bread.
The day was steaming hot. A trio of baby robins hopped about, flapping stubby wings; their parents flitted near, nervous and attentive. I watched a nurse on a bench read a newspaper and watched her young charges kick a ball. The date on her paper was Sixth Month, Day 11. Charlotte would be three months old in eighteen days! She lay against me, observing those who crossed the park or sat there—the men in suits; the women in form-fitting polonaises, with bustles enlarging their backsides; the servants in uniform, intent on errands. And how improved she was already! She smiled at a woman’s jaunty parasol raised toward the sun and gurgled toward a pushcart vendor offering lemonade and peanuts. Her enthusiastic sounds caught the attention of a passing matron, who smiled into my baby’s eager face, and this recognition cheered me, beaming as it did across a vast divide of circumstances. When I returned us to the train station this evening, there was a hint of the relief one feels at arriving home.
The station does offer more safety than any other place I know—apart from when a man ran through to warn that the police were making an obligatory sweep, and everyone evacuated for a short while. Usually the policemen look the other way, he said, since they depend on several among us who stay alert to goings-on and even report crimes.
Sixth Month 12
After another night of worried sleep, I took us from the train station this morning. I passed hours begging before the same market. I found packets to eat from the ground and drank heavily at a watering place for horses. Then I trod the sidewalks with a heavy gait, Charlotte in my shawl sling.
In time, exhausted and seeking quiet, I followed a path between buildings and settled beside a brick building that appeared abandoned. Its windows were heavily shaded, and no sounds or odors came from within. On the side stoop I sat, with the valise beside me, and took the chance to admire the returning pink of Charlotte’s cheeks.
A large man turned down the path and ambled toward us. My body bristled when his bleary eyes lit on me.
“A harlot with a baby, eh?” He sneered, showing broken teeth.
“No,” I replied, “an innocent mother who seeks only peace with thee.”
“Then why’re ya sittin’ on the steps of a brothel?”
Was he correct? The brick building showed no sign of that purpose. He stared at Charlotte, who was staring back. I raised my hand to cover her eyes, inadvertently drawing his attention to the gold locket at my throat.
“Nice necklace,” he said. “That from your best john?”
In a wink he stood before me. He brought his meaty fingers to my neck and ripped the chain away. Breathing through his thick, half-opened lips, he located the locket’s clasp and flipped it open. My mother’s slip of hair in its black ribbon fell to the path. When he stepped away, his boot ground it into the slimy bricks.
Pain burned in my chest as if he’d plunged in a knife. He raised the locket to his nearsighted eyes. “This oughta fetch enough at the pawn shop to get me soaked,” he said, chortling through his phlegm.
I placed Charlotte on the stoop and stood, tears streaming down my face, emotion firing my every muscle. I took up a sturdy branch from the dirt and raised it.
“Give that back right now,” I threatened, “or I’ll smash thy head!”
The coward began retreating the way he’d come, and I despaired of ever seeing my locket again. So I pursued him and did something I’d never meant to do in all my days: I struck him. Yes, I smashed that stick with all my might into his back.
He stumbled and fell to the brick path, arms slapping down above his head. My locket went skittering into the dirt. I grabbed it and thrust it in my pocket, then collected Charlotte and my valise and rushed toward the alleyway that ran behind the building. Clutched to one side, my baby made no movement and no sound.
The beast followed, yelling obscenities, his boots slapping the bricks some thirty feet behind. I turned onto a cobblestone street and found myself in front of a narrow chapel beside a large church. Its door was ajar. I slipped in and closed the door. Charlotte whimpered as the man’s footsteps clattered by.