Band of Sisters

by Cathy Gohlke

  Joshua stepped from the car; Maureen and Olivia crowded behind. Sirens, shrill whistle blasts, and a relentless clanging of bells could be heard in the distance over the mayhem.

  Joshua pulled a boy of ten or eleven aside from the surging tide. “What is it?”

  “The Triangle—she’s burning!” The boy jerked away, rushing ahead.

  Maureen’s heart plummeted to her feet. She pushed past Joshua and joined the throng, running, weaving her way toward her sister’s place of employment. Please, God! Not Katie Rose! Not Katie Rose!

  But Joshua grabbed her hand, pulling her from the crowd, and led her through the back alley of Washington Mews, across University Place to Greene Street, skirting Washington Square.

  They’d nearly reached the Asch Building, could see the plume of smoke billowing above the roof, when another horse-drawn fire wagon, this one from the Lower East Side, broke through the crowd. As it clattered to a stop, its firemen hit the ground, connecting hoses and raising ladders. But the ladders, fully extended to the sixth floor, couldn’t reach the enflamed windows.

  Maureen tucked herself behind Joshua, who shouldered his way through the crowd, pushing toward the burning building. Just as they hoped to break through the lines, they were stopped short by a row of policemen who, with clubs drawn, pushed back the frantic masses. Joshua pulled her round the block until they crowded with onlookers diagonal from the burning building.

  “They’re jumping—get back. Get back!” the policeman before them yelled.

  Maureen screamed for her sister and screamed again. But her cries were nothing in the wails and keening of the watchers. Flames licked the spring air, dancing through open windows of the top three floors, eight, nine, and ten stories high. Women shrouded in smoke appeared on the roof, too near the edge, where flames torched the edges of cornices.

  From the corner of her eye Maureen saw a dark bundle plummet, as if fabric had been thrown from a window. It hit the ground with an unnatural thud. She couldn’t make out what it was, but Joshua pulled her head to his shoulder. Maureen jerked away.

  And then they came. Girls, women, even a boy stepped through windows draped in smoke, backlit by flames. One by one, feet gripping the ledge, they stepped gingerly along the narrow precipice.

  Firemen spread their nets below. A girl jumped, and they tipped her out. She took a few steps and collapsed. Two jumped together, breaking the net—as though it were paper being ripped.

  No matter that the nets could not—did not—hold, they stepped into the air, dropping to the ground, one by one or two by two, arms linked, hands clasped. One young woman stretched her hands toward the early spring air, another toward heaven as if relinquishing her spirit.

  The crowd surged forward again, screaming, “Don’t jump! Don’t jump! Wait!”

  But the Triangle Waist Factory workers jumped anyway, some crashing through the sidewalk skylight to the basement below, their clothes and hair in flames. Some stepped into the windows, prepared to jump, then changed their minds, stepped back, and surrendered to the inferno.

  A young man, a perfect gentleman, helped young women through the window and into space as if handing them into a carriage. Last came the woman he loved, or so Maureen believed, for they embraced and kissed before he let her fall. And then he joined her.

  The last girl Maureen watched did not fall far—grabbed as she was by a steel hook protruding from the sixth floor, caught by the fabric of her dress, hanging like a rag doll in midair.

  If only she can wait until the ladders reach her! They can reach that high!

  But in moments her dress burned, and the weight of her body propelled her to the stone walk below.

  The fire was fierce, and the firemen fierce and brave. It was over in minutes. But for Maureen it was an eternity; she could not move.

  Joshua gently shook her, pinched her arm. “Take hold. We don’t know anythin’ yet.”

  But she couldn’t speak.

  An hour passed. The police wouldn’t let them near enough to view the bodies, to identify loved ones, but Maureen knew in her soul that Katie Rose was not among the corpses lining the street, that she couldn’t be.

  Darkness crept in. A gentle breeze drove the worst of the smoke away. Makeshift lights rigged inside the building burned unnaturally bright and eerie through empty windows where the fire had been contained, exposing their caverns. Firefighters rigged block-and-tackle sets outside the building.

  “They’ll be lowering the corpses soon,” an onlooker said.

  Joshua pulled Maureen through the crowd. She followed, stumbling, tripping on the walk, on her own feet. He slowed, wrapped his arm around her, and helped her cross the street into the faintly lit square.

  “She might not have been in the buildin’ if she met someone in the square. And if she was, she might have gotten out in time. Let me take you home. If Dorothy’s not heard from her, I’ll come back. I’ll stay till they let me check each one. I swear it.”

  Maureen gritted her teeth, determined to stop their chatter. “I won’t leave until we find her.”

  Joshua tried to embrace her, but she pulled back, stumbling into a young woman behind who cried out in anguish.

  “I’m sorry.” Maureen turned to the girl, whose clothing reeked of smoke. “I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?”

  The girl, shivering, seemed about to cry, couldn’t seem to speak. Her face was streaked with soot and her hair fallen down and singed, her hands and one arm wrapped in bandages, yet she looked vaguely familiar.

  “Katie Rose—you were with Katie Rose in the square last week, weren’t you?”

  The girl stopped, appeared to try to focus on Maureen’s face, and nodded, her smoke-reddened eyes filling with tears.

  “Did she get out? Did Katie Rose get out?” Maureen would have shaken the girl if it would have made her speak faster.

  But the girl shook her head slowly, wearily. “I . . . I don’t know. I don’t . . . I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, dear God!” Maureen cried.

  “When did you see her last?” Joshua urged.

  The girl shook her head yet again as if trying to remember. “She went out with Emma—at noon—to meet someone.” She looked at Joshua, clearly confused. “I thought she said you—” She stopped. “They came back, but late, and the supervisor . . .”

  “The supervisor what?”

  “The supervisor separated them from the other girls—gave their machines to new girls, said he would dock their pay and they were lucky to have jobs at all. He sent them somewhere—upstairs, to snip threads with the nursery girls. I don’t know where, but I didn’t see them with the others when we came out.” The girl’s eyes filled. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She swayed. “I’ve got to go home.”

  Stepping back, Maureen let her go. “We can’t let them take the bodies away without knowin’. We can’t—”

  Joshua took her arm and led her toward the building. By that time the bodies were being gently lowered by davits, forlorn bundles followed by searchlights, and pushed carefully, one by one, by policemen, away from the building. Each time a body was lowered, Maureen pressed as near as she could, praying that by some telltale sign she would know it was not Katie Rose.

  Though Maureen begged to be allowed closer, and Joshua implored, the police told them they had to do their best to identify the bodies, record the details, and tag them before they could be released to families.

  “Go on home now, miss. It’s after ten and we’ll not be done for another hour or more. Come down to the pier in the mornin’. We’ll have them laid out proper enough. You can look for your sister then.”

  It was only when they knew the policeman would not relent that Joshua guided Maureen back through Washington Square. Somewhere a clock bonged eleven. They’d not quite reached the Garibaldi statue when Olivia and Curtis, Carolynn, Hope, Julia, and Agnes met them, enfolding Maureen in their arms.

  “Come, dear,” Olivia whispered. “Ralph has the car waiting; we’ll go
home.”

  “We couldn’t find her,” Maureen muttered, closing her eyes.

  “Take her home,” Joshua whispered. “I’m goin’ to stay.”

  “Joshua?” Maureen clutched his coat sleeve, needing him beside her.

  “They’re bound to need help gettin’ the bodies to their makeshift morgue. It’s somethin’ I can do to help, and I can look for her at the same time.”

  Maureen swallowed and, nodding, let him go.

  “I’ll come with you,” Curtis said, but he squeezed Olivia’s arm. “You’ll be all right?”

  Olivia nodded too.

  The cluster of women formed a shield around Maureen against the milling crowd. The night breeze picked up as they walked her through the square toward Washington Arch, forging a path between men and women, boys and girls wandering, anxious, numb, dazed, still searching for their own loved ones.

  They’d just passed the last wooded area of the park within the square when Maureen heard what sounded like a whimpered chanting, over and over. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, so sorry.”

  Maureen stopped and listened. She couldn’t tell the direction of the sound, but it seemed to have come from the darkness to her right.

  “Forgive me, forgive me. God, forgive me. I’m sorry, so sorry.” The muffled voice came again.

  Maureen pulled away from Olivia. She pushed through her human shield and followed the voice down a small side path, out of the light of the streetlamp. She stopped and listened again.

  No words, but heartbreaking sobs, half-choked, came from somewhere beyond the shrubbery.

  “Who’s there?” Maureen dared not voice her hope. She crept forward.

  “What is it, Maureen?” Olivia asked.

  But Maureen motioned for silence and strained to listen, strained to separate the whimpering pleas from the drone of hundreds. The crying stopped. She stepped deeper into the shadows. “Katie Rose?” she whispered, then more loudly, “Katie Rose? Is that you?”

  Nothing.

  “Maureen, no one’s there.” Julia wrapped her arm around Maureen, pulling her back to the path. “Come, let’s go home. We’ll search in the morning.”

  Maureen pushed her away and waited, but no sound came from the darkness. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed until she thought her heart would break—five minutes, ten . . . a hundred years—until Olivia folded her in her arms and led her away.

  They’d reached the lit path at last, were nearly to the arch, when a voice behind them softly pleaded, “Maureen.”

  Maureen turned, and there, in the half-light and shadows, stood Katie Rose, barely more than an apparition. Her face streaked in black soot and tears, her eyebrows singed, her hair burned on one side and torn from its bun, her skirt and waist blackened and half-burned away, wearing one shoe and no coat.

  “Katie Rose!” Maureen gasped and took a step, stumbling forward, picked herself up, and stumbled again.

  But Katie Rose ran, limping, to meet her, falling into her sister’s arms.

  “Katie Rose!” Maureen cried. “Katie Rose! Thank You, God! Thank You!”

  Maureen cradled her sister’s head to her chest, kissing its crown again and again, wrapping her tight in her arms, fearful to breathe lest she disappear.

  Katie Rose clung back, surrounded by women who loved her.

  In the days following the fire, Maureen and Katie Rose, with thousands of New Yorkers, attended funeral after funeral, in churches, at gravesides, in the downstairs rooms of tenement houses, sometimes two in an afternoon. Of the 146 dead, Katie Rose knew only a few. But the one she’d known and loved best was Emma.

  The newspapers listed no services for her friend, but Katie Rose was not surprised. She leaned her head against the overstuffed chair in Olivia’s parlor and lamented to the circle women gathered there, “Her parents don’t speak English. How they would even know what to do, I don’t know.”

  “Someone must speak English, or someone must have helped them. They claimed her body,” Maureen said quietly.

  Katie Rose turned away. “It’s not enough.”

  “No,” Maureen replied, reaching for Katie Rose’s hand, “it isn’t. What do you want to do? I’ll help you do it.”

  Katie Rose let out a small sob and clasped her sister’s hand. “I want to tell them I’m sorry. I want to tell them it’s my fault that Emma died.”

  “Katie Rose—”

  “If she hadn’t gone with me to meet Joshua—I thought it was Joshua, but it was James. But if Emma hadn’t gone with me, that man would have taken me. I could never have fought him off alone.” Katie Rose swallowed her grief, determined to tell the truth at last. “And I knew . . . I knew that’s how it must have been for you, with no one to help you . . . I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you. I’m so sorry I said all those hateful, spiteful things.” Katie Rose sobbed but pressed on. “Emma was so good to me—she didn’t shame me or hate me, even when we lost our machines. She told me to go to you and to Joshua, that you would take me back, that you would love me because we’re family, because that’s what her family would do.”

  “She was right.”

  Katie Rose covered her eyes with her fists. “Because of me, we were late gettin’ back to the factory. I tried to tell the supervisor what happened, to explain that it wasn’t Emma’s fault, but he wouldn’t believe me. He said I was cheap and that cheap girls get cheap jobs. He sent us to snip threads—the lowest of the jobs. And when the bell rang to quit, we couldn’t get our pay envelopes because we were on the wrong floor.”

  Maureen knelt beside her, but Katie Rose pushed her sister away. She paced the floor. “Don’t you see? That’s why we didn’t get out in time. That’s why we missed the elevator!”

  “Why didn’t she go to the roof with you?” Julia asked.

  “She was afraid to go up. She’d seen Jewish women herded to a roof in her village to burn. She said the firemen would come for her if she waited inside, that they won’t let you burn in America. I told her I’d make sure it was safe and come back for her, but I didn’t.” Katie Rose coughed, choked, burrowed her fists into her stomach.

  “You couldn’t. You couldn’t go back.”

  “No, but I left her there. Don’t you see? The university students ran their ladders to our roof, and we climbed up. They got us out through their buildin’. I got out and I left her there!”

  Maureen closed her eyes and saw clearly, just as clearly as she’d seen number 37 floating in the water when Joshua pulled her to safety. For number 37 she could do nothing but inscribe a marker. She didn’t even know her name.

  But Katie Rose knew Emma’s name, knew where she’d lived, knew that her family had lost a daughter and a sister. And lost a paycheck that Maureen knew could mean the difference between eating and not eating, between having a place to sleep and having no place, between selling your labor and selling yourself.

  The next day the sisters went to the Bowery together. They found Emma’s street, Emma’s apartment in a tenement building. They heard high-pitched keening on the other side of the door and what must have been Emma’s father chanting prayers in a language they didn’t understand. Maureen placed a hand of support on her sister’s shoulder as she knocked on the door.

  The keening stopped. The chanting stopped. But no one answered. Katie Rose knocked again and, after a minute, once again.

  At last the door opened a hand’s breadth, just enough to reveal a pair of reddened eyes in a small woman’s lined face.

  “My name is Katie Rose, and I’m a friend—”

  But the woman’s eyes filled. She shook her head and began closing the door.

  “Of Emma. Please, I’m a friend of Emma’s, from the Triangle!” Katie Rose pushed forward.

  But the door clicked firmly into place. A bolt slid behind it. Katie Rose looked helplessly to Maureen.

  Maureen knocked again. The keening started up once more, the chanted prayers resumed, but the door did not open.

  Maureen cradled Katie Ro
se’s elbow as if to lead her away, but Katie Rose stiffened.

  “No,” she whispered. “This isn’t enough.”

  Moments passed as the two stood outside the door. Finally Maureen nudged Katie Rose, taking up her purse. She pulled from it the envelope her sister had prepared. A letter, written in English—with the hope that the family knew someone able to translate—explaining Katie Rose’s great love for Emma, telling how Emma was her first friend in America, how she’d helped her find her way at the factory, how she had saved her from the kidnapping and likely slavery by an evil man, and how that wondrous gift had led her back to her own sister. A letter recounting the ways Emma loved her own family, loved her faith and the traditions of that faith, how she’d wanted, more than anything, to leave the Triangle and become a shopgirl one day.

  Tucked inside was every bit of money Katie Rose had saved since she’d come to America, as well as money Maureen, Joshua, Curtis, and the women in the circle had added to help the family.

  “Push it under the door,” Maureen urged.

  “But I want to tell them . . . I want to tell them how good Emma was,” Katie Rose pleaded. “How much I loved her.”

  Maureen placed a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “They know.”

  On April 5, in a cold spring rain, thousands of outraged and grief-stricken New Yorkers thronged the streets of Manhattan in a massive silent funeral procession for Triangle Waist Factory workers burned beyond recognition—the unidentified victims no one could claim or no one came to claim.

  Dorothy, Olivia, and Maureen flanked Katie Rose, marching arm in arm through the downpour. Behind them marched the Ladies’ Circle—women who’d picketed with the strikers in life and now mourned them in death.