Flesh and Blood (16 page)

When I came to this country in 1927, I wanted to make it on my own like a good American does. This was my dream. It was the same as most people have. But since working in my shop, I have come to think that this is not the way to think about America, or myself, or about any of the other people in my shop. I think now that we must stand together, and let all the other people stand with us too. We make the clothes the people wear. But we also eat the food they grow. We are in life together, not apart. We are like the body, which needs all its parts to work. We are like the fingers of the hand.

Nothing by Hannah appeared for almost a year after that. Then, in the spring of 1933, there was another short letter, similar to the first. After that, there was nothing until February of 1936. By then, it seemed to Frank as he read the short article on page sixteen of the paper, Hannah's voice had lost all its girlishness. Now it was strong, self-confident and full of a fierce conviction. He could almost hear it ring in the air around him, feel it flowing over him, as the crowds had felt it in the meeting hall and at Union Square.

Justice is not a rally, no matter how big it is. Justice is not a wage, no matter how fair it is. Justice is a way of looking at life. It is a way of seeing every other person, and the rights of that person and the work that that person does for you, and that you do for him. Justice is the way you fit in, and the way you allow other people to fit in. There is no lone justice. There is no solitary justice. There is no work of justice that isolates another person. Justice is the great unifying principle of all life. A single life may look for comfort. A single life may look for love. But all life, when it is lived together, looks for justice.

It had been written in the middle of a labor struggle that, according to the union paper, had rocked the garment trades for many months. Throughout the paper, there were grainy black-and-white photographs of strikes, sit-ins, lockouts, of men and women gathered in crowded meeting halls, or huddling outside doorways while the police stood at a distance, staring grimly at the crowd.

Frank was nearly halfway through the stack of newspapers when he finished the last of his coffee and walked down the street to his office.

Once behind his desk, he poured himself a single shot of Irish, drank it down, then turned on the desk lamp and began going through the papers once again.

In early March, photographs of strikes and marches gave way to a raw winter violence. Police in thick greatcoats charged into the milling crowds, or rode into them, lashing their horses wildly as they plunged forward.

In the March 14 issue of the union paper, there was another article by Hannah. It detailed the particular difficulties of the sweatshop worker on the Lower East Side, the crowded hovels in which they lived, the exploitation they suffered at the hands of the owners and their brokers. Along with the article, there was a picture of its author, a young woman in a thick sweater, her hair held tightly in place beneath a tattered wool cap, her eyes staring fiercely at the camera from behind a pair of plain wire glasses.

Two weeks later, another picture of Hannah appeared in the paper, this one accompanied by a short article about her which had been written by a man named Philip Stern. It detailed her journey to America, her father's death, her work at the sweatshop on Orchard Street, and finally her continuing commitment to the union. The accompanying photograph showed Hannah at the Union Square rally, her body held high on the platform, her fist in the air, a sea of faces gazing up at her from below in a kind of frozen rapture.

For a long time, Frank stared silently at the photograph. He could almost feel the cold winter wind which lifted her scarf and held it fluttering in the air, hear the roar of the crowd as they cheered her, feel the triumph of her hand in the crisp, biting air, sense the sheer, driving power of her voice as it pealed over them, crying out the words which Stern had quoted:

No man lives without other men. No weight is lifted by a single shoulder. No hope is carried on a single voice. Each man lives in another's debt. And the payment of that debt is justice.

Frank turned the page, then went on to the next issue, and the next. The weeks passed in a sweep of yellow pages. The workers returned to their shops. The machines began to hum again.

And Hannah disappeared.

Frank folded the last of the papers, and stacked it neatly on top of the rest. He stood up and stretched his long arms in the shadowy light. Then he walked over to the small sofa which rested by the window at the front of the room and stretched out across it. For a time, he thought of returning to Karen's apartment, but the idea of paddling across its carpeted floor, or sliding in beneath the lush down comforter, did not appeal to him, and so he simply remained on the sofa, his arms behind his head, until light began to break outside his window.

13

Frank had just returned from the corner deli with his morning coffee when Farouk walked through the door.

“You do remember me?” he asked, his enormous frame almost entirely blocking the light from the basement window.

“Of course I do,” Frank said.

Farouk nodded. “That is good,” he said. “I thought that perhaps the liquor might have erased a few important items.”

“It doesn't work that way with me.”

“Good,” Farouk said. He nodded toward the chair in front of Frank's desk. “I may sit?”

“Of course.”

Farouk lumbered over to the chair and eased himself into it. “I make myself available, as you recall.”

“Yes.”

He smiled. “Well, in such a connection, I have discovered a few things.”

“About her business dealings?”

“Her possessions,” Farouk said. “She owned the apartment she lived in, along with a small house on Long Island. She was not in debt, and no one was in debt to her. She never declared a dependent on any tax form, which means she supported no one but herself.”

“So there are no lost children,” Frank said.

Farouk shook his head. “She had no life insurance,” he went on, “ so no beneficiary. Again, a dead end.”

Frank nodded expressionlessly.

“As to her will,” Farouk said.

“The American Cancer Society,” Frank said. “Tannenbaum told me.”

“He is correct,” Farouk said.

“Is that all?”

Farouk smiled quietly. “Not quite, no,” he said.

Frank stared at him intently. “What?”

Farouk pulled a single piece of lined white paper from an envelope and unfolded it. “One of my professional services, as you might call it, deals with genealogy.” He smiled shyly. “If I might say so, I have become quite good at it.”

Frank said nothing.

“Do you know what I mean by genealogy?” Farouk asked.

“Tracing families,” Frank said.

“This is so,” Farouk said. He glanced toward the paper. “I have done some work on the dead woman.”

“So have I.”

Farouk looked at Frank quizzically. “Is this your usual practice?”

“When I'm looking for a lost relative, it is,” Frank told him.

Farouk smiled appreciatively. “Yes, of course.” He drew a pair of black-rimmed glasses from his pocket and put them on. “You would like to know what I have found?”

“That her real name was Kovatnik,” Frank said. “And that she was the daughter of a rabbi whose synagogue was on the east side.”

Farouk looked up from the paper. “This is so, yes.”

“And that she had two sisters.”

“Again, this is so,” Farouk said.

“One of them was pretty. Her name was Gilda.”

“That she was pretty is not in the papers.”

“And the other one was named Naomi.”

“Yes, correct,” Farouk said, surprised. “You found all of this from people?”

“Yes,” Frank said. “Where did you get your information?”

“From various records.” Farouk said. He returned his glasses to his jacket pocket and stared evenly at Frank. “A record is a holy relic. To keep it is a primitive rite. To destroy it is a sacrilege. This is the way it works with records. Not only here. Everywhere. When we take a man's name from the files of the world, we steal his soul away from him, you see?”

“What else did you find out?” Frank asked.

“They came from Poland. A little village not far from Warsaw. The year, if you do not know it, was 1927. Gilda was the youngest, six. Naomi was only two years older. Next came the dead woman.”

“Hannah.”

“Yes,” Farouk said, his eyes still on the paper. “She was born in October of 1910.”

Suddenly Frank remembered the calendar. “What day in October?” he asked quickly.

“The fifteenth,” Farouk answered. “Why?”

“She had marked it on her calendar.”

“Marked what?”

“Her birthday,” Frank said. In his mind he could see her doing it, standing on her bed, facing the wall, a red crayon in her hand.

Farouk looked up from the paper. “How do you know this?”

“I saw where they lived,” Frank said. “Nothing had really changed very much. Most of the furniture was gone, but there was a calendar.”

“I see,” Farouk said. “Where was this place?”

“At the synagogue.”

“On Fifth Street,” Farouk said. “Until their father died?”

“Yes,” Frank said. He leaned forward slightly. “Do you know where they went after that?”

Farouk smiled. “Yes,” he said. “To a man named Feig. He had a factory on Orchard Street. They lived in the rooms above it.”

“Yes, I heard that.”

“Something else,” Farouk said. He looked at Frank quizzically. “Perhaps something of service, something you did not find yourself?”

“What?”

“This Feig, he is still alive.”

“The factory was here,” Farouk said as he pointed to a small playground. “This is where they lived.”

Through the metal web of the storm fence, Frank could sec a bare stretch of ground dotted with swings and seesaws. There was a metal slide at the far corner, and two small children were climbing up it while their mother watched nervously from below. A few feet away, another group of children were moving up and down the climbing dome, one of them screaming triumphantly from its top.

“This playground is a part of the project,” Farouk added. He glanced up at the tall brick buildings which towered over them. “If the sisters had had children,” he added bleakly, “they might have been living here.”

Frank continued to watch the playground. He could remember how Sarah, his daughter, had loved the small playground near their house, how she had climbed higher than anyone else, swung faster, how she had seemed to crave speed, motion, height. In those days he had been sure that she had gotten it from him, and that such needs were good, that they would not betray her.

Farouk blew a wide, tumbling cloud of smoke through the fence. “There was no playground then,” he said, “no place for a picnic, a walk, nothing.” He turned and jabbed the cigarette and ivory holder toward the adjoining streets. “Only the streets, the tenements, the factories.” He shrugged. “Such it was, at that time.”

“Is it different now?”

“For some,” Farouk said with a slight shrug. He turned and pointed down Orchard Street. “Come, let us talk to this Mr. Feig.”

They moved north, away from the projects, and as they entered Orchard Street, the crowds seemed to engulf them. On all sides thick herds of people jogged one another mercilessly as they struggled to make their way up and down the street. Wooden display stands spilled out from the small stores, and people stood in tight knots as they picked through the goods. Above them, crude hand-lettered signs advertised in English and Hebrew. There were butcher shops and shoe stores, electronics outlets and haberdasheries, and by the time Frank had jostled his way to the entrance of the retirement home, he had come to think that he could have bought almost anything at some point along the way.

There was a small glass enclosure at the front of the building and Frank followed along as Farouk stepped up to it and nodded to the nurse who sat at a desk behind it.

“I am looking for a Mr. Sol Feig,” he told her.

“Are you a relative?” the woman asked.

“No,” Farouk said. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a laminated card. “I am from the Social Security Administration,” he added, “and it is possible that Mr. Feig would be eligible for certain additional benefits. It is a matter that needs to be discussed with him as soon as it is possible to do this.”

The woman looked at the card, then glanced at the small round clock behind her. “Well, you got here just in time,” she said. She handed Farouk back the card. “Visiting hours just started.” She looked at Frank. “Will you be seeing Mr. Feig, too?”

“Yes, he will,” Farouk answered quickly. “Mr. Clemons is my associate in this matter.”

The nurse nodded peremptorily. “Room three oh six,” she said.

Sol Feig sat in a wheelchair, his face turned toward the small window at the back of the room. His body was curled forward slightly, as if he were reaching for something, and a rounded hump could be seen rising beneath his plain white dressing gown.

“Mr. Feig?” Farouk said as he stepped up to him.

Feig turned slightly, twisting painfully toward them. A gentle palsy rocked his head and shook his two thin hands.

“I am Farouk, and this is my associate, Mr. Clemons.”

Feig's small brown eyes darted to Frank, narrowed slightly, then returned to Farouk. “Feig,” he whispered gruffly. He blinked rapidly as he labored to straighten himself. “I am Sol Feig. What do you want with me?”

“We would like to speak with you,” Farouk added. He nodded toward Frank. “Mr. Clemons will explain,” he said, as he stepped back slightly.

“We're trying to find out a few things about a woman you once knew,” Frank began. “We think you might be able to help us track a few things down.”