Barren Island

by Carol Zoref

  Noah wiped his bloody fingers on the makeshift tourniquet. “You’re wrong, Dad,” he said. “A birthright’s like air and water. I’m entitled. Anything less isn’t normal. It’s my right.”

  “They cut your toes off if they want. Because they feel like it. Or because they feel nothing for you at all. Never mind you’re entitled. No one gets entitled to nothing. That’s normal.”

  The crowd thinned out south of Union Square. It was quiet, as if the riot had never happened, as if the streets had sucked everyone up and everything out of them. It was getting dark and people were walking quickly, including my father and the boys. Here and there a gaslight had been lit early. It was hard to keep from falling behind.

  “And just where’ve you been,” Yorgos asked me when we stopped for the traffic light at St. Marks Place. The way Yorgos spoke, it was as if I had abandoned Noah, not he.

  “Opera,” I said, out of breath. Imagine how hard it had been for those opera singers to get enough air, even with those big, enlarged lungs, when I could barely catch my breath from rushing! I never learned to breathe right anyway, the way singers do. It is part of the legacy of growing up on Barren Shoal. Who felt safe to take a deep belly-filling breath, never mind one after the other after the next?

  Yorgos laughed at the mention of the opera. “That’s damned nice, Marta: Nero fiddles while Rome burns.”

  “That’s just a story,” I said. “Ask Miss Finn.”

  “You think this is some kind of fairy tale? An opera? People got shot today. For real. We coulda been killed.”

  “Not you and Joey. You were too busy stuffing your faces.”

  Noah barely spoke on the trip back to Barren Shoal. We Eisensteins are so good at that. He refused the cigarettes that the boys offered. When Joey resumed scat singing to the beat of the rat sticks, Noah told him to “shut the fuck up.” Those are Noah’s words, not mine. At one point he threw his stick at a rat that would not be frightened off by the pounding. The rat lay stunned for a few seconds before scrambling away. One of the rats—there was no way to tell one from the other or if this was the one that Noah had stunned—poked its head back out from behind a horse hoof and ran. It stopped in its tracks when it neared Joey in order to nibble something off his shoe. Yorgos reached into a pocket inside his jacket, pulled out a knife, and stabbed the rat a bunch of times. When the rat finally stopped twitching, Yorgos wiped the knife on the corpse and kicked it on the pile of horses. No one even flinched.

  A bright red cherry appeared on Noah’s chin where our father had hit him; there were also three pale impressions where the knuckles made contact. Noah stood quietly cradling his wounded arm. Too quietly. After all those years of my mother’s silence, I do not have the stomach for anyone else’s. I tried telling him about Tosca.

  “Not now,” he said, when I began describing how, in the second act, Scarpa manipulates Tosca, who is too self-righteous to even notice when she is being used.

  There was certainly plenty of that going around. Noah was polite and quiet and angry, like someone shooing a fly from their plate at a holiday dinner.

  By the time we reached the halfway mark across the bay, Joey was using his stick to poke around the fly-covered horse cadavers, jacking up their legs and letting them drop. No one cared until Joey poked his stick beneath a horse’s tail. Yorgos grabbed the stick, threw it into the bay, and kicked Joey so hard in the rear end that Joey stumbled over the horse and landed on another.

  Everyone settled down again, quiet except for the steady pounding of our sticks. So much silence. What do people do with all of the silence they keep inside themselves? Is it comforting? Contemplative? Cowardly?

  The barge captain, Parson Otis, was drunk as usual and too busy talking to himself to pay us much notice. I wondered what he would tell police when they came for Noah, which they would certainly do. What would they do when they found him? Arrest him, of course. What else would they do to him on the trip from Barren Shoal to Brooklyn? From the police station to the courthouse; from the courthouse to the prison? He had punched a cop. Now every cop in New York would feel entitled to kill him, never mind slap him around.

  The barge churned closer to home. The sky over Barren Shoal was dark but for the single red light atop the smokestack, which served as a beacon for the airplanes landing across the water at Floyd Bennett Field. Funny thing, that light: planes never landed at night, but the light glowed anyway. A little further off I could see the similar lights on the smokestacks of Barren Island. Behind us were the lights of Manhattan, draping a pink glow over the island like the pale rose umbrella of a moon jellyfish, the kind that washed into Jamaica Bay in late spring.

  CHAPTER 15

  The awkward silences of the barge crossing and the walk along the sandy loop road ended at home with the door closed behind us.

  “You’d no right to stop me, Dad,” insisted Noah. “I keep telling you: this island is an accident waiting to happen. There’ll be another explosion, a worse one, more people blown to pieces.”

  “What should I do when my son’s getting bashed in the head by a cop? Or gets shot by who-knows-whose bullet? Stand by and admire his principles?”

  My mother was in their bedroom, as usual, still avoiding everything she could. Working through Helen’s death took her so long that she never fully moved on to what came next. For my mother, there was no next. She must have known we were home by then, what with my father and brother hollering loud enough that anyone could hear.

  “That’s why we have to organize, so you don’t have to.” Noah was standing at the sink washing his wounded arm. It was bleeding again now that the tourniquet was off.

  “Stop already, stop it!”

  Each waited to see if the other would let it go. But why would they? My father was angry and terrified; Noah was angry and terrified and bleeding. Neither had something different to offer. They were stubborn and stuck, going round and around.

  “A ‘right’ is an idea,” said my father. “A ‘protest’ is an act. Between an idea and an act are the New York City police, who will bust in your brains if they can find you, never mind arrest the bunch of you, throw you in jail, who knows what. What gives you the ‘right’ to that?”

  Noah’s face was shimmering with sweat. His arm hurt more as his excitement wore down. “The same reason you got on the boat in the first place. Because I have to; because I can.”

  Maybe other families do not talk to each other this way, do not talk about these kinds of things. Mine did.

  Sofia came across the way to see what was wrong.

  “I’m not listening to this again,” I told her on the way upstairs. “I won’t be their audience.” Words like “forbidden” and “selfish” rose through the floorboards. “Not in my house,” my father shouted just before the back door slammed and the house went silent.

  Sofia sat on my bed, hands in her lap, waiting for me to get past whatever it was that was making me too angry. Neither of us ever sat on Helen’s bed. Except for that time I was so sick with poison ivy that my father slept upstairs, no one ever did.

  “Yorgos says Noah was amazing until your father punched him.”

  “Yorgos wasn’t even there! He was over by the Automat with Joey, stuffing his face.” I do not know why I needed to defend my father, except that I could not stand Sofia defending every stupid thing that the boys did. “My father was afraid Noah’d get arrested!”

  “Your father is afraid, period.”

  “Shut up, Sofia,” I said. “Would you just shut up.”

  I pulled off my shoes and kicked them across the room. One landed on Helen’s bed.

  “What are you doing?” This time she spoke harshly.

  A quiet moan leaked out of me as I dropped onto my bed.

  “Tell me about the opera,” she said, the harshness suddenly, unpredictably gone. Nothing is predictable. There is only what happens.

  “How’d you hear about Tosca?” I wanted to be the keeper of my own secrets. Yet one more thing we
cannot control.

  “Like I said: Yorgos told me everything.”

  “You and Yorgos are friends now? I don’t believe this.” I shook my head. I was losing track of Sofia, of one of the few things I thought I knew.

  “And now the opera’s some big secret?” she asked, throwing one of her cold looks of doubt.

  “You’re the one with secrets.”

  “You wanna tell me about the opera or what? If not, fine. If you do, c’mon already.”

  There was no point in doing otherwise. Why resist the desire to tell what follows in beauty’s wake? It was not like we got so many chances. I told her about the tuxedos and the costumes, the perfume, the scenery, and the lighting. I told her about Lois and Gray and the awkward introductions to my father. But how does one describe sound without speaking in notes?

  “You know that the story makes no sense, don’t you?” said Sofia, when I finished Act II.

  “Just let me finish.” I said. “Finally, when the firing squad appears, Tosca coaches her lover, Mario, on how to fake his death. The soldiers fire and Mario falls; the soldiers go off. Tosca kneels by Mario, urging him stand up so they can escape, but he doesn’t move. Tosca discovers that instead of the blank bullets Scarpia promised to use, the rifles were loaded with live ammunition. Mario is dead. No pretend dead; for real dead. Realizing this, Tosca leaps to her death.”

  “Because Mario’s dead or because Scarpia duped her?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe both.”

  “Union Square sounds a lot more exciting, if you ask me,” said Sofia.

  I would have described it again until I got it right, but that would be like an accounting of an infatuation. Its story is tedious when it happens to someone else.

  “So tell me: what don’t you understand?”

  It was warm upstairs even though the day had been cool. Certain things that Miss Finn had taught us, such as that heat rises, were not as mysterious as they seemed. Usually it was the other way around: events were more mysterious than expected.

  She grabbed one of my bare feet and held it tight. “Such as I think I’m pregnant.”

  “What?” I could not even think about doing what it took to get pregnant, never mind imagine being pregnant. With Sofia’s announcement, all that changed. How could it not?

  She nodded and squeezed harder.

  “You can’t marry Joey!” I wish that I had said something else, but it is easy to wish that when it no longer matters.

  “Oh god,” she said. “I can’t marry Joey.” By then she was sobbing.

  We were out the door long before anyone else Monday morning and long before the police boat arrived bearing Miss Finn and her carpetbag of clothing, bundle of newspapers, and the groceries to last the week. Joey was already sifting through a recently arrived barge, as was the girl in the brown dress, Katrine, who was scavenging with the other regulars. I cannot imagine that year after year she wore the same brown dress; it is just that this is the only dress I can picture her in.

  Miss Finn was startled to see us waiting at the dock. She told Katrine that she did not need help getting her things to the schoolhouse. It was the first time I heard about Katrine always helping Miss Finn. Joey could have mentioned it, but never did. Katrine looked a little pained as she turned back to the barge.

  “Come in a bit,” Miss Finn called after her. “Girls?” asked Miss Finn, inviting us to account for the mystery of our early morning appearance. It was awkward, all of us standing there, but somehow Miss Finn understood its importance. She handed her carpetbag to me, the newspaper bundle to Sofia, and took the other parcels herself.

  We followed Miss Finn up the sandy path to the school and waited quietly while she fumbled with her keys and unlocked the door. Plovers and starlings were chirping and we could see desperate groups of gulls, always hysterical, swarming to the barge. I thought how I might remember, later on, the morning light on the undersides of things as much as I would remember anything else about that day.

  Miss Finn finally remarked about how she appreciated our help, but could not stop wondering what brought us out so early. I nudged Sofia in after her, which was all it took to tip Sofia into tears. Miss Finn began putting things away in the classroom and the kitchen and on the shelves along the steps leading up to her private rooms. Sofia and I stood at the doorway, Sofia still quietly weeping.

  “Are we expecting an earthquake, girls?” asked Miss Finn, as if only something as grand as an earthquake warranted notice. “You’re supposed to stand in a doorway if there’s an earthquake, yes?”

  “There aren’t earthquakes in New York,” I said. It was a stupid conversation to be having when Sofia was right in front of her crying, but I suppose that Miss Finn was waiting for Sofia. Besides which, I was wrong. Of course there are earthquakes in New York, just like there are earthquakes everywhere.

  “There’s a fault line running right through New York State,” said Miss Finn. “Not like the ones where your family is from, Sofia. Greece and Turkey—all of Asia Minor—a huge fault runs through it. The whole history of western civilization has been suddenly turned upside down a number of times because of earthquakes.”

  Tell her, I said, mouthing the words. If we did not stop her, Miss Finn would chronicle each and every one.

  “Tell what?” asked Miss Finn. She rested her hands on her hips the way that our mothers did when they grew impatient.

  “Go on,” I said, nudging Sofia in Miss Finn’s direction.

  “Marta, why don’t you unpack these things,” said Miss Finn, pointing at a canvas bag filled with small, brown paper bags. A bunch of carrots and stalks of celery were poking out along with some fat, white leeks.

  “And this?” I asked when I lifted the other bag as well. Glass jars inside it clinked together. This one must be cooked things, I thought.

  “I’ll take care of those,” Miss Finn said, snatching the bag from me and setting it back down, the bottles clinking again.

  “I can’t do this,” Sofia whimpered over the clinking of bottles, the rustling of bags, and the other minutia of the groceries. She turned as if to go, then turned back again. “I don’t, I can’t.”

  “Come,” said Miss Finn, extending her hand. Sofia did not take it, so Miss Finn came closer. She placed her hand on Sofia’s shoulder. “We’ll talk?” she asked.

  Sofia looked at me, not Miss Finn, but she nodded.

  “It’s better if we go upstairs,” said Miss Finn. “Marta, you stay here.” The exactness of her instructions made it plain that I should not wander to another room, even though the only other room was the classroom.

  It was hard being parked in Miss Finn’s kitchen doing nothing, wondering what it was that Sofia had found her way to saying. I thought about our so-called hygiene lesson from years ago, and how Sofia had been intrigued and I had been put off. Same story, different girls. It took me longer to see the point, but I was catching up. What, it should be some sort of race?

  I sat at the cold little table, rested my head in my hands, my palms against my brow, and closed my eyes. I emptied the visible world of everyone and everything until I was emptied from it as well. All that was left after that was the smell of Barren Shoal.

  There was no mistaking the cry that broke my...what should I call it? Daze? Stupor? Reverie? In Sofia’s cry I heard a question that traveled to something larger than her, then back to her again as if it contained an entire conversation. Not a cry like Helen’s wailing nor like my mother’s, but something her own. I suppose there are millions of ways to cry in pain. Never mind suppose: I know it. Anyone who reads a newspaper knows. Or hears a man howling in the HIAS lobby.

  A door opened and closed, followed by the sound of footsteps. Miss Finn blocked my way.

  “Sofia’s not feeling well,” she said with a worried smile.

  “Will she be okay?” I stepped back so I could see her better. I could not ask her if Sofia was pregnant before knowing for sure that Sofia told her.

  “I’m sure sh
e’ll be fine. Why don’t you work at your desk and I’ll put these things away.” She placed her hand on my shoulder, gently but firmly pushing me across the kitchen.

  She guided me into the classroom and into my seat, like I was some sort of mannequin on wheels. She sat down in the chair next to mine—Sofia’s chair—and said that Sofia and I were invited to her house in Brooklyn the following Saturday. She would speak with our mothers and arrange everything. And that I should go about my business; that everything would be fine.

  After she left, I could hear the sound of glass jars clinking around in her kitchen, and then the sound of her voice in conversation with Katrine, who must have been waiting outside the whole time. I thought she had gone back to the docks.

  My marvel at Miss Finn’s invitation to Brooklyn was accompanied by a sense of unease, as if a large mechanical wheel was turning our lives. Not the busy wheels at the factory oozing grease, but a mechanism that was cold, deliberate, and precise in its intentions.

  Sofia slipped into her chair an hour later, sliding it so close to mine that our arms brushed as we turned the pages of the prior week’s newspapers. The room had filled. I could only hope it was as comforting to her as it was to me. The world was asking something more of her than it had just a week earlier, and I could feel it knocking harder on my door, too. We were growing up slowly and then—how suddenly—we were growing up a lot.

  On the front page of my newspaper—I do not know what date it was from—there was a headline about the National Industrial Recovery Act being declared unconstitutional. I had not thought about it much when the bill was passed by Congress, but now, two years later, I was old enough to make a leap from a Supreme Court ruling in Washington to its direct effect on Noah, Yorgos, and Joey, which by then meant its effect on all of Barren Shoal.

  I could hear it in the garden debates over which union was the right union; I could hear it in the desperate sounds of their voices. Who would not be after so much time? Too much time when things all over were going from terrible to worse. Yorgos was still leaning towards the tough guys from Mulberry Street, who Noah said were fascists; Noah was leaning towards Stanley Morrow’s anti-fascists, who Yorgos said were communists. When Joey accused them all of being a bunch of big-shot bosses any way they looked at it—I think he was right—the other two knocked him around playfully, though they were training for a bigger, more brutal fight.