The Shoemaker's Wife(80)

“Come down out of there, Joe,” Laura demanded.

He climbed down the ladder.

“Now get out of here.”

The operators protected Enza and hissed as he passed.

Laura stood in the break room. The young women of the night shift filled the room and spilled out into the factory.

“Can everyone hear me?” Laura raised her voice. “Keep your work scissors in your apron pocket. From now on, you travel in pairs to the ladies’ room, and take your lunch in groups of three or more. If you are threatened, you must speak up. We all tolerate the comments and whistles, but if anyone puts their hands on you—you are within your rights to strike back. We let them know we have the scissors, and we let them know we will use them.”

The operators, most of them teenagers, all foreign born, often didn’t speak English. They fared better at this factory than most because of the sheer numbers of Italians, Yugoslavs, Czechs, Greeks, and Jewish girls who had learned to watch out for one another. They trusted Laura to protect them, and to do right by them.

Each poor immigrant girl had a plan in place to survive. Some had brothers or fathers for protection, others, young husbands; but for all of them, the first line of defense was their scissors. The girls gathered and talked strategy: Imogene May Haegelin drafted a letter to management explaining the perils of the night shift; Patte Rackliffe vowed to bring her fiancé and his friends to the factory; Alanna Murphy’s brother knew “some people”; Julia Rachel’s father was a boxer; Lena Gjonaj’s brother-in-law was a cop; and Orea Koontz was a good shot, who owned a pistol and vowed to use it on Joe Neal or any other man who approached her with evil intent.

The operators were bound together by what they were running from—poverty in all its forms, despair, hunger, decimated families—as well as what they hoped to gain. Their imaginations were filled with American treasures: painted houses, boxes of chocolates, bottles of soda pop, white sand beaches, Ferris wheels, rumble seats, silk stockings, and the words a better life.

Better meant American. Better meant safe, clean, honest, and true. Dreams of every size and description lulled them into restful sleep at night and fueled them through their backbreaking days.

At the end of their shifts, the girls took magnets and pulled stickpins from the cracks in the factory floor, saving every pin, and therefore every penny, for management. Sometimes the silver pins shimmered in the cracks like buried treasure, and the girls imagined there might be something more beneath the wide planks of old wood, something more just for them.

The cut over Enza’s eye was not deep, but it angled above her eyebrow like an apostrophe. Laura entered with the first-aid kit from the office.

“That’s it. I had the office send for Mr. Walker. He’s on his way. They told him everything.” Laura threw open the metal kit and poured rubbing alcohol on a square of gauze.

“Was he angry?” Enza asked.

“It’s the middle of the night. He wasn’t happy.” Laura reached over the sink to swab Enza’s wound. “This is going to hurt.”

“I’ll do it.” Enza said. She took the gauze and dabbed the cut.

“Why don’t you cry? You’ll feel better.”

“I’m not sad.”

“But he hurt you.”

“No, you came in time. He’s been after me for months. I’m lucky you were there,” Enza said, but there was no mistaking the anger in her voice. “How soon can we get out of here?”

“We can leave right now, if you have enough money saved. Do you think you can get by? Because if you can, now is the moment. We just got paid, so I’m flush. I’ll resign the minute Mr. Walker gets here. I’ll need an hour or so to go home and pack. We can get a short-term room at the Y and hunt for jobs from there. We’ll split everything right down the middle, fair and square,” Laura promised. “Go home and pack. I’ll meet you on the sidewalk in front of three-eighteen Adams Street by eleven a.m. Does that give you enough time?”

“Yes!” Tears sprang to Enza’s eyes.

“Now you cry?” Laura said in disbelief.

“Happy tears,” Enza said, wiping them on her handkerchief. She decided, for the first time in six years, to take her last paycheck from the factory to provide a foothold for her new life instead of sending it home to the mountain. This was the day she had learned her value. She would be worth nothing if she continued to take the abuse in the factory and on Adams Street. The old ways were finished, and not for one moment would she miss them.

As Enza walked back to Adams Street, the haze over Hoboken hung like a bolt of thick charcoal wool in the early light of morning. She saw a group of street urchins, hungry, barefoot, covered in the ash-gray desperation of poverty, playing in the streets with an old rusty tin drum, which they rolled down the street with sticks.

There were times when she stopped and bought bread for the children, or sweet rolls, or hot pretzels. This morning, Enza stopped at the corner and bought a large sack of oranges. They were expensive, but Enza wanted to do something special, since she wouldn’t be here on Christmas. Enza waved to the children. They ran to her, gathering around her like pigeons pecking for crumbs, extending their open hands.

On this gray winter morning, on the brown street, the only flashes of color came from the oranges, bright and full like the sun itself.