Laurie Graham - The Unfortunates

I said, ‘Gymnastics and summer camp! I’m sure I shouldn’t mind being an unfortunate.’

The Misses Stone laughed.

‘No, Poppy,’ one of them said, ‘you wouldn’t say so if you saw how people lived. Workers and donations are what we need. Perhaps some day, when you’re not so much needed at home?’

‘I hope,’ Ma sighed, ‘some day I may feel strong enough to spare Poppy for a few hours.’

Her true intention was that I should never set foot anywhere near such dangerous territory, but I wore away her resolve with the daily drip, drip, drip of my requests. It took many months. Then suddenly, one summer morning, she threw down her needlepoint and said, ‘I see you are determined to break my heart, Poppy, so go and be done with it.’

Two days later I was taken by trolley-car to the Bowery, and then, with a Miss Stone on either side of me for safety, I was swept into the tumult of Delancey Street, the very place where Pa had enjoyed his cherry blintzes.

I tried to tell the Misses Stone about this exciting coincidence, and they smiled, but I wasn’t at all sure they could even hear me. I had never in my life encountered so much noise or seen so many people. Then we turned onto Orchard Street and the buildings and the noise of the stinking, shouting unfortunates pressed in on me even closer.

There were dead ducks and chickens hanging from hooks, and women with dirty hands selling eggs from handcarts, and pickle barrels, and shop signs in foreign squiggles, and small boys carrying piles of unfinished garments higher than themselves, and ragged girls playing potsy on the sidewalk.

‘Why is everyone shouting?’ I shouted.

‘Because they’re happy to be here.’ That was the best explanation the Misses Stone could offer.

I said, ‘I’m sure abroad must be a very terrible place if Orchard Street makes them happy.’

We went to The Daughters of Jacob Center where the element could learn to dress like Americans and raise healthy children. And then to the Edgie Library where they could study our language.

‘You see, Poppy,’ they said, ‘how much needs doing?’

I said, ‘I don’t come into my money until I’m twenty-one and I don’t know how much there’ll be because Pa had complicated affairs.’

But the Misses Stone said it wasn’t only money they needed but helpers, and why didn’t I try sitting, just for five minutes, and helping someone with their English reading.

A small girl stood in front of me with a primer in her hands, trying to stare me down. I turned to tell the Stones I probably wouldn’t be very good at it, but they were hurrying away to inspect another class, and the staring girl was still waiting with her book.

I said, ‘The first thing you should learn is not to stare, especially not at your elders and betters.’

She was pale as wax, and skinny.

‘What’s your name?’ she said. She spoke perfect English.

I said, ‘And if you’re going to read to me you had better start immediately because I have to go home very soon.’

I sat on a stool and she stood beside me, a little too close for my liking, and read. She was pretty good.

I said, ‘You can read. You don’t need good works doing for you.’

She grinned.

I said, ‘Have you been to summer camp?’

She shook her head.

I said, ‘How about gymnastics?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I did do that, but now I can’t be spared. I have to help make garters. We get one cent a piece. My name’s Malka but I like Lily better. What do you think?’

I didn’t really know what gymnastics were. As I had never been allowed them I surmised they were something desirable.

‘How old are you?’ she asked. She was one impertinent child.

‘And how were the gymnastics?’ I asked, feeling my way.

‘They were fun,’ she said. ‘Are you married? I like your coat. Want to see how I can turn a somersault?’ And she just flipped over, like a toy monkey. She went over so fast, I couldn’t see how she did it. This attracted the attention of the other little monkeys, who all left off their studying and gathered around me, fingering the fabric of my coat.

I looked around for someone to rescue me, but minutes passed before a Miss Stone appeared.

‘I knew it,’ she said. ‘You’ve made some friends already. They’re quite fascinated by you.’

I said, ‘I think I have to go home now. I think I’m needed there.’

‘But you’ve made such a hit,’ she said. ‘It’s because you’re a younger person, I expect. Do stay a little longer.’

I had to insist most firmly that I be home no later than four.

The girl called Malka shouted after me as we left the room.

‘Hey, Miss No Name,’ she called. ‘You have pretty hair.’

It was a measure of everyone else’s poor opinion of my looks that a compliment from an unwashed unfortunate went straight to my head.

‘That child reads well,’ I said. ‘How does she come to be here?’

‘The Lelchucks?’ she said. ‘They had to run from the Russians. Would you like to meet the rest of the family?’

I was torn. On the one hand I felt uneasily far from home. The loudness and smell of the place exceeded anything I could have imagined. But on the other hand I had a Miss Stone either side of me, greatly experienced in the ways of the ‘element’, and anyway, wasn’t I always longing to escape from the monotony of the parlor? I decided I would rather like to see where Malka Lelchuck lived.

We turned onto Stanton Street, where the buildings seemed still taller and darker, and every fire escape was cluttered with boxes and furniture. The entrance to Malka’s house was unlit and dirty, and as we climbed two flights of stairs people pushed past us.

I said, ‘These unfortunates seem to have a great many callers.’

The thinner Miss Stone laughed. ‘No, Poppy,’ she said, ‘these are their neighbors. The Lelchucks have only two rooms.’

Then I began to understand why they were called unfortunates. They had to share their buildings with strangers.

The door was open. The Misses Stone went in and beckoned me to follow, but I peered in from the threshold. Mrs Lelchuck kept her head bowed, too shy to speak, or perhaps too tired. She and four girls were busy around a table, finishing garters. There was a smell of frying, and vinegar, and other unknown things. My head swam.

There was something in the scene I recognized. Tedium, possibly. Finishing garters looked like very boring work. But there was something else I noticed, though I couldn’t name it. I think I now know it was the simple concord of a family working together. At any rate this, combined with the information that Malka Lelchuck had learned gymnastics, suggested to me that these so-called unfortunates were a good deal better off than I. Furthermore, I could not stop toying with the novelty of a compliment. Someone thought I had pretty hair. The unfortunates had looked at me with wonder and admiration. I passed the trolley ride home aflame with self-glory.

By dinner time the surprise of becoming an intrepid doer of good works and a beauty had so drained me I was unable to give an account of myself.

‘I feared as much,’ Ma said. ‘You have caught a disease and now we shall all pay for your recklessness.’

That night I dreamed of pickles that turned somersaults and ducks with no feathers and when I woke next morning I had a circle of itching red weals around each ankle. I had brought home with me from Stanton Street a deputation of fleas. Ma had the house dismantled. The floors were scrubbed with brown soap. Small dishes of camphor were burned in every room. And every surface was dabbed with kerosene until an inevitable encounter between a naked flame and kerosene fumes deprived Reilly of her eyebrows, and consequently us of our cook.