The house was very still, and in the dark of her room she found herself listening for every sound. Often she could not go to sleep until Marja came home, but tonight was even worse than usual. Peter had gone out after supper and had not as yet returned. She knew what that meant.
He would be nasty and irritated and drunk with beer when he came in. She would have to keep him away from Marja or there would be an argument.
After a few minutes she began to feel better, but still she could not sleep. It was too hot in the room, and her bed was warm with the heat of her body. She got out of her bed and went into Marja’s room. In the crib, the baby was sleeping restlessly, his tiny body pink with a faint summer rash. As she looked at him, he suddenly awoke and began to cry.
She picked him up and whispered soothingly, but he continued to cry. She carried him into the kitchen and gave him a bottle of cool water. He sucked at it happily and she placed him back in his crib.
There was a sound at the kitchen door and she turned toward it. It must be Peter, it was too early for Marja to come home. One look at his flushed face and she knew where he had been.
He closed the door and looked at her. His eyes were bloodshot and puffed. “Still up?” he asked.
“You see,” she said, walking past him toward the bedroom. “Come to bed.”
“It’s too hot,” he said. He crossed the room to the icebox and opened it. “I want a beer.”
“Haven’t you had enough?” she asked expressionlessly.
He didn’t answer as he punctured a can and held it to his lips. Some of it trickled down his chin and slopped onto his shirt. He put the can down and stared at her. “Mind your own business,” he snarled.
She stared back at him for a moment, then turned and went into the parlour. She leaned out the window and looked up the street anxiously. It was almost time for Marja to be home.
“What are you doing?” he asked pugnaciously.
She didn’t answer. He knew what she was doing. She began to walk past him.
His hand on her arm stopped her. “Looking for your daughter?” he asked nastily.
“Yes,” she answered, lapsing into Polish. “Is there anything wrong with it?”
He answered in the same language. “You don’t have to worry about her. She’s probably making a few extra bucks in some hallway on the way home with that fellow who walks her home every night.”
“Go to bed,” she said coldly. “You’re drunk.”
His grip tightened on her arm. “You think I don’t know what I’m saying?” he asked shrewdly.
“I know you don’t,” she said, pulling her arm from his grip and turning back to the window. She looked out. Marja and Mike were walking down the block toward the house.
A moment’s pleasure ran through her. This Mike was such a nice boy. They looked so good walking together. Maybe someday—but that was too far off. Sometimes she had to force herself to realise that Marja was still a child. This wasn’t the Old Country. She turned away from the window, the trace of her pleasure still in the corners of her mouth.
“I’m going to bed,” she said. “You’d better come, too.”
He didn’t move. “No. It’s too hot. I’m going to have another beer.”
She went into the bedroom and began to undress. She could hear him stumbling in the kitchen—the icebox door and the sharp sound when the beer can was opened. She threw a light kimona over her nightgown and went into the kitchen to wash.
He was sitting at the table, the half-empty can in his hand, staring at the door.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked. “Come to bed.”
He shook his head stubbornly. “I’ll show you who knows what they’re talking about. Wait’ll she comes in.”
She tried to smile. “Don’t be a fool, Peter,” she said. “Leave the girl alone and come to bed.”
“A whore she is,” he muttered.
Her stinging slap left a white imprint on his face. He stared up at her in surprise.
Katti’s face was white with anger. He had never seen her like this. “Shut up!” she said angrily. “The girl has more brains than you. If it weren’t for her, we’d be starving!” She walked toward the bedroom. At the hallway she turned and looked back at him. “You forget it was Marja who got a job when we needed money, not you.” Her voice was contemptuous. “She’s like her father. You’re not half the man he was. I only hope your children are like him, not like you. Else, God help them!”
He got to his feet quickly and moved toward the kitchen door. “I’ll show you who’s a man!” he shouted, opening it. “No girl in my house is going to be a whore!”
She caught his arm and tried to pull him back into the apartment. “Leave her alone, you drunken bum!” she shouted. “She’s my daughter, not yours!”
He pushed her away roughly and she stumbled back against the kitchen table. A wave of pain ran through her body. She looked at him, her eyes blurring.
He was pulling his belt from around his waist. He shook it at her. “Hold your tongue, woman!” he said hoarsely. “Or you’ll get more of this than she will. When I get through with her, you’ll see what she is.” He went out into the hall.
Katti took a deep breath and ran after him. The man was crazy. Marja had been right all the time. If only she had listened to her! A wave of dizziness grabbed at her temples, but she fought it off. He was at the stairway now. She grabbed both his arms.
“Leave her alone!” she whispered, trying to hold him back. With an almost superhuman strength she forced him around. Her eyes stared wildly into his. “If you touch her, you’ll never come into this house again!”
The words spilled into his brain like a spray of cold water. A sudden sanity returned to his eyes. He shook her hands violently from his arms. She grabbed at the banister to hold herself erect.
He walked past her to the kitchen door, where he turned and looked at her. “It’s your daughter,” he said coldly. “May her sins be on your own head!”
The dizziness reached up to her temples, and his face blurred before her. She let go of the railing and took a hesitant step toward the apartment, but the pain in her temples spread a mantle of darkness over her mind.
“Marja!” she screamed into the suddenly aching void. Then time came rushing up to meet her in the shape of a flight of stairs.
They heard the sound, and almost before Mike could move, Marja was halfway up the first flight of steps. He ran after her, his heart pounding in fright at the piercing scream. He got to the third landing a step behind her.
“Mama!” Marja’s voice in his ears was like a frightened child’s. He saw her sink to her knees beside the crumpled woman. He stood there dumbly.
“Mama!” Marja’s voice was the sound of tears in the cradle. Her blond hair shimmered as she pressed her lips to the still face.
“Katti!”
Mike looked up. The man’s face was ashen as he stood on the stairway above their heads and stared down at them. “Marja, what happened?”
Marja shook her head dumbly. She turned and looked at Mike. Her eyes were hurt beyond understanding and dull with shock.
He reached down and touched her shoulder. He could feel the trembling in her body. “Is there a phone somewhere in the house?” he asked.
She didn’t answer. Somehow he knew she hadn’t heard him. He looked up the steps. The man was coming down slowly, both hands gripping the railing tightly as if he was afraid he might fall.
A door beside him opened and a man’s face looked out. “There’s been an accident,” Mike said quickly. “Have you a phone I could use?”
The man nodded and came out into the hall. Behind him Mike could see a woman clutching a wrapper around her.
Mike stepped into the apartment. The woman pointed silently to the telephone. Mike picked it up and was about to speak when the faint whispering sound came to his ears.
It was the only time in his life he was ever to hear Marja cry.
Chapter Sixteen
IT WAS A week
before Marja went back to work at the Golden Glow. Her face was thin and there were deep hollows under her eyes. First had come Katti’s funeral.
The Mass at St. Augustine’s had been simple. Father Janowicz had been kind and thoughtful. He spoke graciously of her mother’s great courage and devotion to Catholic principles, and prayed fervently that her children would guide themselves by her example.
She sat beside Peter in silence as the lone car followed the hearse to the cemetery. The burial was done quickly and inexpensively, and they returned home.
Welfare was waiting for them. Francie’s mother, who had been minding the baby while they were out, went upstairs and left them. The young man and older woman who represented Welfare were concerned with their ability to take proper care of the child.
Marja persuaded them that all would be well. She was home during the day and Peter would be home in the evening while she was at work. They agreed to let things stand as they were until fall, when Marja would have to return to school.
She stood in the entrance of the dance hall for a moment. It seemed strange to her that while so much had changed, the dance hall was still the same. The cheap, tinselly decorations, the dim blue lights, the tired music with its false rhythms—everything was the same.
The bouncer came toward her. His apelike, dull face was without expression. “Mr. Martin wants to see yuh,” he said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the office.
Without answering him, she cut across the dance floor. She knocked at the door.
Martin’s voice came through it. “Come in.”
She opened the door. He was seated at his desk, some papers spread out before him. She hesitated until he looked up. Then she came into the room, closed the door behind her, and stood in front of his desk.
“You wanted to see me?” she asked in a dull voice.
He nodded. “Sit down. I’ll be with yuh soon’s I finish this.”
She slipped into a chair beside the desk and watched him. His face was harsh and lined, and his grey-black hair gave his blue eyes an even colder look. His chin was firm and square, but his lips, though thin, had an almost strange gentility about them.
At last he looked up. “I’m sorry about your mother, Marja,” he said gently.
She looked down at her hands. “Thanks,” she said, her throat tight and constricted. It was still difficult for her to talk about it.
He was silent for a moment. “An investigator was here from the Welfare Department. They were checking up on your job.”
Her face held a sudden fear. She looked at him questioningly.
He smiled reassuringly. “Don’t be frightened. I told him you were a cashier.”
She looked down at her hands again. Her voice was perilously close to breaking. “I don’t know how to thank you, Mr. Martin.”
He looked down at the papers on his desk. “Why didn’t you tell me how old you are, Marja?” he asked suddenly.
“Would you have given me a job if I had?” she countered.
He hesitated. “I guess not.”
“That’s why,” she answered. “Besides, you never asked me.”
His eyes searched her face. “I never thought about it. You look old enough.”
A faint smile came to her lips. “I am old enough.”
He got to his feet and came around the desk to her. His hand reached out and touched her shoulder. He nodded thoughtfully. He remembered his own youth. He had come from a neighbourhood very much like Marja’s. “I guess you are,” he said.
She looked up at him questioningly. “It’s okay if I go back to work, then, Mr. Martin?”
“Yes,” he answered. “But keep your eyes open. If there’s any trouble or anything, get out in a hurry. We can’t have you caught here or our licence is gone.”
“I’ll be careful, Mr. Martin,” she said, getting to her feet. “I promise.”
He opened the door for her and she stood there a moment, a grateful smile on her lips. “Thanks very much, Mr. Martin,” she said in a low, husky voice. “I won’t forget how nice you’ve been.”
He stood in the doorway watching her make her way to the dressing-room. He shook his head wonderingly. Even now that he knew, it was still hard to believe. Not even sixteen. Still, some of these Polacks came to it early. He grinned to himself as he closed the door and walked back to his desk.
The calendar would never mean very much to her. She had now all the wisdom she would ever need. She had man sense. It was the sixth sense that most women spent all their lives without ever finding.
She opened the door and stepped into the kitchen. Her stepfather was reading a paper spread on the table. He looked at her.
“How is the baby?” she asked.
“Okay,” he answered stiffly. “He was sleeping quiet all night.”
She went into her room and glanced into the crib. Peter was sleeping peacefully, his thumb stuck into the corner of his mouth. Gently she removed it. Suddenly she was aware of her stepfather’s gaze. She turned swiftly.
He was standing in the doorway of her room, watching her. His face flushed suddenly.
“What do you want?” she asked.
He cleared his throat. “Nothin’,” he answered. He went back into the kitchen.
She slipped out of her dress and slip. Throwing on a robe, she went into the kitchen and turned on the water in the sink.
Peter looked up at her from his chair. “That feller Mike,” he asked cautiously. “He come home with you?”
“Yeah,” she answered, scrubbing her face vigorously with soap and water.
“He like you, eh?”
“I suppose so,” she replied, still busy with her face.
“You spend lots of time with him downstairs?” a leering sound had crept into his voice. “Before you come up?”
She turned on him coldly. “What are you trying to find out?”
He couldn’t meet her gaze. He looked down at the table. “Nothing.”
“Then mind your own business,” she said, crossing the room and going out into the hall.
He was waiting at the door when she came back into the kitchen. His hand caught her arm. She stared up into his face, her eyes narrowing slightly. She didn’t speak.
“You’re a very pretty girl, Marja.” His voice had a pleading sound in it.
She still didn’t speak.
“Sometime, maybe, you be nice to me like you are to him,” he said awkwardly. “Then everybody happy, eh?”
She shook his hand from her arm. She was too weary to be very angry. Her voice was dull and flat. “Peter,” she said—it was the first time she had ever called him by his given name without the prefix “Uncle”—“don’t be a jerk. I’m stayin’ here because that’s the way Mama would have wanted it. But that’s all. No more.”
He followed her to the bedroom door. He sucked in his breath and dared another question. “But, Marja, you know how I always feel about you?”
“I know,” she said coldly. “But you’re not my type. If you need a woman that bad, go out and get yourself one.”
She slammed the door swiftly in his face and turned the key loudly so he could hear it. She waited there a moment until she could hear his footsteps walking away. Then she quickly finished undressing and climbed into her bed.
She stretched her arms behind her head and let the faint breeze from the window drift over her body. There was a dull, lonely ache inside her. She closed her eyes, and her mother’s face jumped before her in the darkness.
“Be a good girl, Marja,” Katti seemed to be saying.
“I will, Mama,” she promised in a half-whisper, turning on her side. She heard the faint click of the icebox door as she drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Seventeen
JOKER MARTIN LOOKED up at her. She was standing in front of his desk. “I got it fixed,” he said. “Welfare agreed it was okay for you to take an afternoon session at school and continue workin’ here.”
Her hands made a simple expressive gesture. �
��I don’t know how to thank you,” she said. “It seems like you’re always doin’ somethin’ nice for me.”
He smiled, embarrassed. “Maybe it’s because I like yuh.”
She didn’t speak.
“You’re steady, Marja,” he said. “You show up every night, yuh never give me no trouble like the other girls. Maybe that’s why.”
“I still don’t know how I can ever pay you back,” she said.
He started to speak, but the telephone on his desk began to ring. He picked it up. “Martin speaking.”
The voice spoke for a few seconds and Joker looked up at her. She turned and started to leave, but a gesture of his hand bade her stay. “Hold on a minute,” he said into the ’phone.
He covered the mouthpiece with his hand while he spoke to her. “Here is a way you can pay me back,” he said. “I got a very important guy on the phone. He’s short a dame on a party tonight. There’s five bucks in it for yuh if yuh want to go.”
She hesitated. “I—I don’t think so, Mr. Martin. I’d be outta place there.”
He knew what she meant. “Go on,” he said. “This guy’s okay. There won’t be no rough stuff. All yuh gotta do is dance a little with ’em an’ have a few laughs. Yuh’ll be outta there by three-thirty.”
She still hesitated. “You sure?”
He nodded. “Sure.”
“But I haven’t got the kind of clothes to wear.” She shook her head. “I’d better not.”
“You can take your gown,” he said. “You can bring it back tomorrow night. Besides, you’ll be doin’ me a big favour.”
She drew in her breath. She didn’t see how she could refuse to go. He had been so good to her. “Okay.”
He smiled. “Good girl.” He waved his hand at her. “Go get your bag an’ come back here. I’ll give you the address.”
He waited until the door had closed behind her before he spoke into the ’phone again. Then he spoke quickly, cautiously. “I’m sendin’ over a green kid, Jack, so take it easy. I don’t want her scared off.”
He was silent while the voice on the other end of the telephone crackled in his ear. The sound stopped and he spoke again, a laughing sound in his voice. “Look, it’s the most gorgeous thing you ever saw. But don’t let that fool yuh. It’s under age, and trouble if anything goes wrong. Play it straight an’ give it a little time. It’ll come around.” He put the telephone down as she came back into the office.
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