Part Sixteen
Gershon, 1921
Chapter 40

“Hurry,” Yetta told Gershon. “The march starts at five.” She adjusted the purple cloche with its spray of seed pearls over her springy gray curls. It was the fourth hat she’d tried on to wear to the Women’s Trade Union League protest rally. “Does this hat make me look too rich?”

Gershon slumped on an overstuffed chair in their bedroom. He wore an undershirt and trousers grown so loose in the two years since he’d failed to find Shmuel, that the waist flapped between his suspenders. He longed to lie down. Only Yetta’s insistence that their maid Margaret make the bed each morning got him out from under the covers before midday. “I already told you, I’m not going on this cockamamie march.”

“Rivka and Dev are meeting us at the corner of Orchard and Rivington. Ruchel already left to pick up Zipporah.” Yetta counted on her plump fingers. “That makes six of us.”

“Five.” Gershon sank farther into the chair.

“Mr. Stubborn.” Yetta stood over him and crossed her arms over her corseted bosom. “Shame on you. You don’t help no one no more since you resigned as president of the shul.”

“It’s a march for women.” Gershon crossed his own arms over his sagging chest.

“Nu? Women aren’t people? You got a wife and two daughters. Someday, God willing, a granddaughter. We don’t count?”

“I’m not saying women don’t count. You run the home.”

“Hmph! Some women got to go out and work too.”

“Thank goodness, not in our family. Even with the next-to-nothing Avram makes, Rivka stays home to raise the children.” Mortified, Gershon let the plural hang in the air.

If Yetta also thought “child,” not “children,” she didn’t correct him. She pulled him from the chair and laid out his clothes on the bed. “Meanwhile, you stay home when you don’t got to. So today, I’m making you go out. It’s past time you did poor people a bissel good again.”

His wife was right. Torah commanded him to care for the poor, widowed, and orphaned, just what the women’s march to raise wages and end child labour demanded. But if he ignored that commandment, could God punish him worse than He was already doing? Being reminded of his failure made Gershon obstinate. He kept his elbows stiff as Yetta tried to force his arms into a freshly-ironed shirt. “It’s bad enough Rivka calls herself poor. Must she drag you along?”

“You should thank God Rivka is getting out of the house, after being so dershlogen since Shmuel’s funeral. Marching gives her what else to worry about.” Yetta stuck a finger in the gap between the top button and Gershon’s scrawny neck. She tsked. “It would do you good too.”

“You’re giving me what else to worry about.” Gershon squirmed as she tucked in the folds of his shirt and slipped on his suspenders. “The neighbours will see our entire family link arms with Margaret Drier Robbins and her Communist rabble. It’s one thing for me to help the needy behind the scenes, another for a matron like you to make a public spectacle of herself.”

“Does that mean you approve of young maidens like Dev and our girls marching?” Yetta stroked his cheek and smiled so coyly that he struggled to look stern.

“If Avram can’t control Dev, that’s his affair.” Gershon sat back down. “Zipporah is a married woman now and belongs at home with Jonah. As for Ruchel, she should figure out what to do with her own life instead of telling others how to live theirs.” Gershon was ready to tear out what was left of his hair over her. She’d quit secretarial school, decided college wasn’t for her after all, and was a salesgirl in a hosiery shop. She bragged that working for a woman, even in a menial job, was less degrading than being supported by her father. It irked him that she ignored the fact that all she paid for was her clothes. He put a roof over her head and food in her mouth.

In some ways, life had been easier in Lemberg, where even a poor man like himself could dictate seemly behaviour for his wife and daughters. True, Yetta had fallen in love with Gershon, but their marriage wouldn’t have happened without her father’s permission. Here in America, even a rich man trying to control the women in his family could no longer count on the approval of the community. A new wave of impatient immigrants was breaking the old rules.

“It’s a shanda!” Gershon catapulted from his seat with outrage. “Have they no shame?”

“So nu,” Yetta said, slipping her arm into his and marching them to the door, “if you’re so worried we women will bring disgrace on ourselves and you, come along as our chaperone.”

***

Lower Manhattan smelled of summer sweat and fruit rotting on pushcarts. Gershon wanted to cover his nose, but in this crowd he was self-conscious about his silk handkerchief. He settled for taking short, shallow breaths, which left him light-headed. Yetta pulled a small ivory fan from her purse but quickly put it away too. Children, naked or in rags, ran squealing through the clear gushing water of an open fire hydrant. Mothers in faded dresses, and a few fathers stripped to their undershirts, tried to herd their little ones toward City Hall, where the rally would soon start.

A phalanx of police officers and spectators lining the curb forced the protesters to walk in pairs. Yetta sought out Zipporah, eager to hear how she was adjusting to married life, while Dev and Ruchel gravitated toward one another as the two youngest members of the family. Gershon found himself beside Rivka, their first time alone since the final admission of his failure to find Shmuel. He had trouble keeping up with her brisk stride and lively patter. Yetta was right that these marches had restored his sister’s vigour. He was reminded of her as a girl back in Lemberg, racing him through the priest’s orchard with stolen pears tied up inside her skirt.

Soon men, finishing their shifts at the factories and sweat shops, began to swell the ranks of the women protesters. Rivka’s head swivelled from one side of the street to the other. “Do you see Avram?” she asked. “I was hoping he’d join us when he got off work.”

Avram, here? Gershon panicked. Was Yetta unaware he might show up or had she kept it from Gershon? “I didn’t think my brother-in-law made political appearances,” he said.

Rivka laughed, a sound Gershon hadn’t heard in years. “I’m not really expecting him to come, unless it’s to keep an eye on me and Dev.” She hugged him, something else that had not happened in a long time. “I’m surprised you came, but it matters a lot to me. A sheynem dank.”

He stopped himself from saying Yetta had made him come for his own sake. Let Rivka think he’d come for hers. “It’s good to see you less ...” He hesitated, afraid to sound accusing.

“Depressed? Downhearted?” Rivka pulled down the corners of her lips in a mock frown. “Grummy?” She pointed ahead of them to where Dev was walking with Ruchel. “Dev’s slang can be a trial, but the wild expressions she uses make you take a more honest look at yourself.”

“Then I should apologize for being such a washout. Is that the right word?”

Rivka looked up at him, not understanding.

Gershon hated to dampen her mood, but he had to unburden himself. “A disappointment. A loser. I should have made the Navy find Shmuel and send him home. I’m the big brother, the big macher in the community. It’s my job to make things right.” He choked back tears. “Avram’s justified in spitting on me now. I wouldn’t blame you if you thought I was nothing too.”

They stood still, facing each other. Marchers flowed around them, shouting slogans, but Gershon was deaf to everyone except Rivka.

“Nothing?” She expelled the word. “I look up to you more than anyone in the world.”

“How can you? I failed you when you needed me the most.”

“You did everything you humanly could. More.” Rivka gently pressed her fingertips into his hollow cheeks, then rested her hands on his sagging shoulders.

“It wasn’t enough to save your son.” Gershon’s memory was flooded with an image of Shmuel at his bar mitzvah, singing his Torah portion in a sweet but quavering voice.

“Fate is for God to decide. All we can do is act as though every deed matters.”

Gershon thought of the quote from the Talmud. “Pray as if everything depends on God. Act as though everything depends on you.” He’d lost his belief in action along with his faith.

Rivka lifted his chin and stared fiercely into his eyes. “I’ll always look up to you. If you hadn’t had the courage to move to America, Avram and I would still be nothings in Lemberg. There’s a good chance I’d have died in childbirth or that Shmuel would never have lived past infancy. It’s true I lost him, but not before I had the joy of knowing him for sixteen years.”

“You’re not much better off in America than you were in the shtetl. It’s still a struggle to put food on the table.”

“Here we can hope for change.” Rivka pointed ahead again, where Dev and Ruchel were saving the family a spot at the front of the rally. “Your success gives me hope for our daughters. Think how many people you’ve helped. Now that I’m finally getting better, I want to make a better life for others too. Looking up to you has been and will always be my inspiration.”

Rivka’s embrace opened a floodgate of relief in Gershon’s chest. He took a deep breath, not caring that he was drawing the tenement’s polluted air into his lungs. “So you forgive me?”

“What’s to forgive? All I ask is that you stay strong for me while I finish healing. It’s been four years since Shmuel left, two since I sat shiva. Recovery is slow. Be patient with me.”

Gershon again thought guiltily of their childhood, wondering if hereafter he might finally forgive himself for nearly causing his sister’s death. Was it possible that Rivka’s insistence on seeing him as a hero had given her the determination to get better then too?

“I ought to help more.” Gershon cupped Rivka’s elbow and steered her to the grandstand, where Yetta and Zipporah now stood with Dev and Ruchel. “For one thing, I should stop putting you in the middle between Avram and me. A wife’s loyalty belongs with her husband.”

“Avram is a good man,” Rivka said. “He can’t help being jealous of you.”

“It’s been that way since we were boys. Time we got over it.”

“You’re both stubborn.” Rivka smiled.

Gershon shook his head. “Two alter kockers stuck in our ways.”

“Except that Avram’s stubbornness keeps him rooted in place, while yours pushes you ahead.” Rivka held Gershon back while she finished speaking. “The point isn’t to get the most nuts in the hole or quote a wiser passage from Talmud. You win simply by daring to take up a worthy cause.” Waving to Yetta and the girls, Rivka now led Gershon to the front of the rally.

***

The speeches lasted nearly two hours. Robbins and other League officials harangued the crowd to petition Congress for better treatment of women and children. A few councilmen spoke to show they sided with the poor. Stepanic and his fellow board members were nowhere to be seen.

Gershon wilted. Not since Shmuel’s funeral had he walked as far or stood outside as long. Others grew restless too, hoping for a rousing speech that would end the rally, but everyone on the makeshift podium had said his piece. Gershon closed his eyes, waiting to be dismissed. When he opened them, Ruchel was approaching a nearby family gathered around a woman twisting a handkerchief. She looked old, but judging from the ages of the adult children comforting her, she must have been Gershon’s age. Poverty had worn her down to wrinkles and bones.

Ruchel patted the woman’s wrist and marched up to the stage. Her heels, unlike the rundown soles of the workers’ boots, clicked smartly on the rickety steps. She grabbed the bullhorn and faced the crowd, nostrils quivering with determination. The setting sun, released from behind a cloud, backlit her shiny black hair, making her look like an avenging angel.

“Wives, mothers, widows,” Ruchel called out. “Young and old.” A pause. “Even men!”

A burst of laughter was followed by silence. Children stopped whining, women’s heads snapped forward, men strained to see the girl whose clear voice cut through the murky air.

“It’s been a decade since the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire.” Ruchel waited for them to remember the young Italian and Jewish immigrant women who perished. “The sister and aunt of one of my fifth-grade classmates were burned to death.” Gershon recalled paying for their funerals. Ruchel nodded toward the family of the weeping woman. “The fire was put out but their grief will never subside.” People craned their necks to see the circle of mourners. Several shouted out that they’d lost relatives too. In a way he couldn’t have done then, Gershon understood their pain.

Ruchel let everyone vent their rage before she continued. “Conditions now are marginally better. Women aren’t trapped behind locked doors, but they’re still trapped working fifty-four hours a week and earning half the pay of men.” People booed until Gershon grew alarmed for Ruchel’s safety before recognizing they were expressing solidarity with her. The wind died down, letting her voice reach the crowd without the bullhorn. “Men who rule the unions won’t speak out for us or against child labour. Now that women have the vote, we must use it to elect candidates who will fight on our behalf.” She raised her arms for quiet and spoke to a knot of labourers milling up front. “Men, when conditions improve for your wives, sisters, and daughters, yours jobs will get better too. Everyone will benefit when women are truly emancipated from slave labour.”

The assembly chanted, “Vote women’s rights!” and, “End child labour!” Gershon panicked they’d lift Ruchel and carry her out on their shoulders. Instead, they parted like the Red Sea to let her walk with dignity down the steps. In unison, the stirred-up crowd turned and marched with resolve back to their dilapidated tenement buildings. Gershon’s shaking fingers closed his gaping mouth. His daughter had saved the rally from petering out and spurred a call for action. She’d given a speech more effective in its passion than any sermon he’d heard in synagogue.

Flushed and happier than Gershon had seen her in months, Ruchel accepted the embraces of Rivka and Dev. Yetta, awkward before her own daughter, patted her perspiring cheeks and beamed. Zipporah grinned with pride for her little sister. Gershon wanted to congratulate her too, but was afraid he’d be met with scorn. He didn’t know if Ruchel saw him as the enemy or as one of the men whose support would help the women’s cause. Years ago, he’d have taken her regard for granted. Now, he had no reason to believe she’d see him in a better light than he saw himself.

The women turned toward home, five abreast with Ruchel in the middle. Dev skipped beside her like a proud puppy. Women, who an hour ago looked ready for the grave, marched with a bounce in their step. Young men tentatively smiled or waved. Ruchel responded to no one, but the lift of her head told Gershon she was aware of the attention. He was content to walk behind the women in his family. It was a relief to hide in their shadow, concealing his own shame, but also gratifying to see them in the spotlight. Where but in America could such a thing happen?

After a block, Yetta fell back to join him and linked her arm in his. They walked together in comfortable silence until she asked, “Are you happy I made you shlep to the rally?”

Gershon pulled his wife closer. Her body felt warm and soft beside the stick figure he’d become. “Ruchel spoke well,” he said. “Who knew?”

“She can make your hair go gray, but we raised a good daughter.” Yetta leaned against him and for the first time in months, Gershon let himself think he might regain his strength. He sensed his appetite returning for Yetta’s cooking, for her.

“You deserve the credit,” he said. “Like you, Ruchel’s generous the way only a rich person who’s been raised unspoiled can be. I shouldn’t have been so quick to doubt her.”

“Did you ever think maybe she gets her goodness of heart from you?” Yetta asked. “After you got rich, you didn’t stop taking care of the poor.”

Gershon squirmed. He had stopped, ever since he’d failed to find his nephew.

“And making such speeches?” Yetta continued. “She doesn’t get that from me.”

“I still think you deserve the credit,” he told Yetta.

“Since when it is a contest?” she asked. “Why can’t we both kvell and shepp nachas?”

The dream of all parents, thought Gershon, to revel in their children’s accomplishments. Perhaps his daughter’s outspoken defiance was proof he’d succeeded with her after all. He watched Dev giggle and frisk in the aura of Ruchel’s success. Unlike his relationship with his niece’s father, Gershon was not in competition with his wife. They’d built a solid marriage and their memory would live on through the good deeds of their children. “You’re right, we’ll share the credit,” he told Yetta. “As our niece likes to say, you know your onions.”