Ashes of Roses

by Mary Jane Auch

  The sun came out as we reached Washington Square. There was a huge stone arch in the park that reminded me of pictures I’d seen of the great arch in Paris.

  Gussie noticed me admirin’ it. “It’s pretty, isn’t it? Wait till you see this place when the trees leaf out. One week from tomorrow will be the first day of spring. When the weather warms up, we can eat our lunch here in the park.”

  “Are we almost there?” I asked. “Can you see it from here?”

  “The Triangle factory is on the top three floors of the Asch Building, down Washington Place, over there. We have to go around to the Greene Street side. They don’t allow us to use the front entrance.”

  Girls were comin’ across the park from all directions now, everyone headed for the same place. Most of them seemed to be about Gussie’s age. I was surprised to see how elegantly some of them were dressed, with hats as big as upturned washbasins. Some of the hats were adorned with feathers, and a few had silk roses the size of cabbages. I knew New York was the center of fashion, but some of these costumes seemed a bit much to me. They were what Ma would have called highfalutin.

  A number of the girls waved to Gussie as we walked along. Three of them fell into step with us. Gussie introduced me as her friend and told me their names were Bertha, Esther, and Dora.

  Bertha laughed. “You’re dragging this poor young thing to work her hands bloody at the Triangle?”

  I must have looked as frightened as I felt, because Dora touched my arm to reassure me. “Don’t listen to Bertha. The people here at the Triangle are nice, very nice to work for. We have a good time, and we make the best pay in the needle trades. We’re sorry to lose you from the eighth floor, though, Gussie. What’s it like to be back among the masses again?”

  Gussie’s face turned red. “It’s fine. Now I’ll be able to help Rose through her first few days.”

  “I’ve never known you to be late before,” Esther said. “We tried to tell Mr. Bernstein not to give away your place, but he brought down a young Italian woman from the ninth. Probably doesn’t have to pay her as much as he paid you, what with your experience and all. Did they give you a pay cut to go back on the ninth?”

  “It’s all right,” Gussie said, keepin’ her eyes on the sidewalk.

  “Well, a pay cut wouldn’t be all right with me,” Esther said. “After all the time it took me to work up to sample-maker. Why didn’t you send in a message with someone? There are several Triangle workers on Sullivan Street. If Mr. Bernstein had known you were coming, he would have waited for you.”

  “I did send a message,” Gussie said. “It just didn’t get delivered. What’s done is done.”

  Suddenly I realized they were talkin’ about the day Gussie went with me to Moscovitz’s shop. I had caused her to lose her job as a sample-maker, and now she had suffered a pay cut because of helpin’ me. I felt terrible, but I didn’t know what to say, especially in front of the other girls.

  Four handsome young men passed us and went on ahead.

  “Do they work at the Triangle?” I asked.

  Bertha laughed. “Hardly. They’re college boys. New York University is in the next building to us, but don’t expect you’ll be mixing with them. They think they’re too good to give us as much as a how-d’ye-do, just because their daddies have enough money to send them to a ritzy school.” She purposely had been talking loud enough for them to hear. One of the boys turned around and made a face at us. I’d be sure to avoid them in the future. I wanted nothin’ to do with people who thought they were better than me. I’d had enough of that with Uncle Patrick’s family.

  When we started down Washington Place, I saw the Asch Building. It had signs for clothing companies runnin’ all the way up the corner. The highest sign said “Triangle Waist Company.” I’d never been in anything so tall.

  As we turned the corner onto Greene Street, somethin’ glinted in the sunlight and caught my attention. The sidewalk was filled with thick pieces of glass the size of silver dollars. “Will ye look at this? They have little windows in the sidewalk.”

  “They’re called deadlights,” Gussie said. “They let light into the basement.”

  By the time we reached the entrance, we had to take our place in line.

  “Why is it movin’ so slowly?” I asked.

  “The elevators can take only about a dozen people at a time.”

  Elevators. I’d heard of them, but had never seen one. It didn’t seem natural havin’ a little room hauled up a cable. As we reached the door, I could feel the crowd pressin’ in from behind. “I’ve never been in an elevator,” I said. “Is there a flight of stairs I could climb instead?”

  I had been speakin’ to Gussie, but a girl on the other side of me answered. “You must be new here. Just be thankful they let us use the elevator in the morning, because they want to get us up to work in a hurry. At night, when we’re so tired we can hardly move, they make us walk down.”

  Another girl looked over her shoulder. “That’s a fact. They just want to get their money’s worth out of us. More than their money’s worth, if you ask me. And don’t ever be late. They lock the doors at eight sharp and don’t open them again until noon, so you get only half a day’s pay.”

  I was tempted to ask them more about workin’ at the Triangle, but I didn’t want Gussie to think I was questionin’ the job and not grateful for gettin’ it. Just then, the elevator doors opened and I was swept inside with the crowd. The elevator operator closed the iron doors with a clang. He pulled the cable, and we suddenly started to rise. My knees gave out from under me, but we were so packed in, there wasn’t room for me to fall. I stood in terror as our metal cage moved up the narrow shaft. I felt like a fish being pulled up in a net. When we came to a stop, I was thrown off balance again.

  All the men and a few girls got off at the eighth floor. I saw a table of sewin’ machines against a wall of windows. The rest of the room had about half a dozen tables with some men already workin’ at them, layin’ out thick piles of fabric.

  The trip from the eighth to the ninth floor was slower. As soon as the doors opened, we were pushed out into the room. I was shocked to see how crowded it was. The entire room was filled with long tables placed close together, with a double row of sewin’ machines stretchin’ from end to end of each one. Girls were makin’ their way down the rows to their places, callin’ to each other and wavin’.

  “Come,” Gussie said. “I’ll show you where we put our coats.” She led me around a partition to a dressing room where dozens of girls were hangin’ up their coats and hats. Some of the feathered hats were so fancy they looked like rare birds.

  Gussie poked my arm. “Don’t just stand there staring. If you want to use the bathroom, do it now, because you won’t be able to after work starts.”

  I pulled off my coat and hat, still fascinated with all the activity. One girl had taken off her skirt, turned it inside out, and was puttin’ it back on. “What’s she doin’?” I whispered to Gussie.

  “She’s turning her skirt so it doesn’t get dirty from the machine or get covered with lint and threads. Frankly, I prefer sturdy clothes that will wear like iron, instead of those thin wool suits. Fancy clothes don’t hold up well for factory work.”

  Gussie took my coat and hung it on a hook. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to the forelady, and we’ll get you set up at a machine.”

  My heart was beatin’ fast, like I had just run a mile. How could I ever do this? All of these girls seemed so sure of themselves. They would walk into that big room and know exactly what to do.

  This would be just like Mr. Moscovitz’s flower shop, only here, instead of ten pairs of eyes watchin’ me, there would be more than two hundred. I could imagine the sound of all those girls laughin’ at me. Why had I stayed here instead of goin’ home with Ma? I’d be halfway to Limerick by now. Then I’d work in some little shop or maybe even take in sewin’ at home. It wouldn’t be an adventure, but it would be safe. Grandma always said my bein’ h
eadstrong was a curse. Now I knew she was right.

  With a hand on my elbow, Gussie had been firmly pushin’ me across the room to a woman named Anna Gullo. My mind was racin’ so fast I could hardly make sense of my own thoughts, much less what people were sayin’ to me. The woman told Gussie to have me sit at the machine next to her. Then Gussie had me by the hand and was leadin’ me down one of the aisles between tables. Some of the girls were already at their machines. The tables were so close to each other, it was difficult to squeeze past when two girls were seated back to back. Our spot was about halfway down the aisle, which put us almost in the exact center of the huge room.

  There was a shallow trough runnin’ down the center of the table for its full length. A large wicker basket to my right was filled with cut pieces of cloth.

  “I want to show you as much as I can before they pull the switches,” Gussie said.

  “What switches?”

  “The power that runs the machines. It gets noisy then.” Gussie pushed her chair back. “Look under the table. See that long axle running about eight inches off the floor? That’s hooked to a motor that makes it spin, and that leather belt looped over the flywheel on each machine is what makes it run.”

  “Ye mean I don’t have to work the treadle with my feet?”

  “You only push down on the treadle to connect to the power. Then the machine runs itself. It’s much easier than the machine you worked on at home.”

  “But how do I stop it?”

  “Just let up on the treadle. And mind you don’t knock into that little wooden shell just over your knees. It holds the oil drippings from the machine.” Gussie took some fabric from my basket. “Now, when we start, you’re going to line up these two pieces of fabric and stitch the seam.”

  I took the fabric from her. “What is it?”

  “It’s the back of the waist and one half of the front. You want the straight line of the front going right down the center. Make sure you don’t sew them together this way.” She took it back and flipped one piece around. “Do you see what I mean?”

  “It looks every bit as good as the other way around to me. I can’t for the life of me see how this makes a shirtwaist.”

  “It goes like this. See?” Gussie held the pieces of fabric up to herself and showed me how the round cutout would later meet with the sleeve. Now I could see how my section fit into the whole waist like a puzzle piece.

  Suddenly a bell rang. “Here we go,” Gussie said. “Get ready.”

  There was a low rumble that made the floor shudder, followed by a raspy sound from all around me, as if hundreds of bumblebees the size of cats had flown in and settled on the tables. “Saints preserve us,” I whispered, grippin’ the edge of the table.

  Gussie laughed. “You’ll get used to it. Like this. Watch.” When she pressed on the treadle, her machine sprang to life, and she guided the flimsy cloth past the needle. When she held it up, she had a perfect seam. Then, without cuttin’ the threads, she took another set of pieces and sewed them together. Soon she had a whole string of them, and she pushed them into the trough in front of her. “See? It’s not hard.”

  I took a deep breath, lined up my fabric in front of the needle, and pressed on the treadle. The needle started movin’ up and down with such speed, I was payin’ more attention to it than I was to my own fingers. It wasn’t until a spurt of red covered my pieces of fabric that I realized the needle was goin’ through my finger.

  “Let up on the treadle,” Gussie shouted. Her words made no sense until she kicked my foot away and the needle stopped, still plunged deep into my finger.

  Gussie held my hand still as she moved the flywheel to lift the needle. It must have stabbed me three times before Gussie disconnected the machine.

  “I’ve ruined the fabric,” I said.

  “Not to mention what you’ve done to your finger.” She blotted the blood away from the end of my finger with the ruined fabric, then snipped the threads and pulled the stitches out of my flesh. For the first time my mind connected with the pain I hadn’t felt before. My finger throbbed as Gussie pressed the fabric against my wound. “Lucky the needle didn’t go through your fingernail. That’s excruciating when it swells up.” She dabbed away the blood. “This is just through your fingertip. It should heal up fast. Here comes Mary Leventhal with the first-aid kit. She’ll have you fixed up in no time.”

  A pretty, blond woman came down the aisle, opened up a small box, and took out some supplies. Then she dabbed my finger with iodine and bandaged it tightly.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I feel so stupid.”

  Mary smiled. “Don’t worry. This happens to everyone sooner or later. I must say, you’re the soonest we’ve ever had, though. Now, make sure your finger has stopped bleeding before you start in again.”

  I wanted to tell her I wasn’t ever startin’ in again. I wanted to run out of the room and keep runnin’. But I just watched her slowly zigzag her way down our row, swivelin’ her slender hips to squeeze past the chairs and the wicker baskets on the floor. I looked around the huge room. There was a sea of machines, and each one had a young girl bent over it. Had they all been as clumsy as me at one time? Had they all sat with a bandaged finger feelin’ like a fool?

  Gussie patted my shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  “This is too hard, Gussie,” I whispered. “I’ll never learn how to do it right.”

  “Don’t be silly. They say you learn best from your mistakes. At this rate, you should be a very fast learner.”

  The girls across from us smiled at Gussie’s remark, but nobody laughed. Not one single person.

  23

  When Mr. Garoff saw my bandaged finger that night, he started arguin’ with Gussie in Yiddish. I had begun to learn some Yiddish words, but they were speakin’ so fast, I couldn’t understand. I knew the discussion was about me, but I couldn’t tell if Mr. Garoff was upset because I had been hurt or because I had been stupid and clumsy. Either way, I wasn’t about to listen. I slipped past them into our room. But then I had to endure Maureen’s endless questions about my first day of work and how I had been injured. She made a face when I described how the needle had gone through my finger over and over. “Ye still want to work in a factory, Maureen?”

  “Of course I do. And I wouldn’t be so foolish as to sew up my finger, either. Why didn’t ye pull away the first time the needle stabbed ye?”

  I couldn’t explain why I hadn’t pulled away, or why I hadn’t even felt the pain. “Ye don’t know what it’s like. Things aren’t as simple as ye think.”

  Maureen plunked herself down on the feather bed. “Well, all I know is I’m not learnin’ anything in school and I might as well be earnin’ some money.”

  “Why aren’t ye learnin’?”

  “Because most of the other children don’t speak English. The teacher spends the whole time tryin’ to learn them the English words.”

  “Tryin’ to teach them the English words.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “No, ye said ‘learn them.’ That’s not correct, and it makes ye sound stupid. That’s why ye need to stay in school.”

  Maureen studied me for a minute. “Well, maybe I don’t always get the words right, but I’m not stupid enough to stab myself with a needle. Three times, for the love of heaven!”

  I didn’t give Maureen the satisfaction of a response, but that didn’t stop her. “There’s another thing I don’t like. The teacher goes on and on about how we have to wash ourselves—she calls it ‘hygiene’—and how we have to have good manners.”

  “Doesn’t sound like either of those things is goin’ to hurt ye, especially the manners part.”

  “I’m tired of it,” Maureen whined. “All she talks about is how she’s goin’ to make us all into Americans.”

  I grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet. “There are hundreds of girls in Ireland who would give their right hands to be made into Americans. And ye’re gettin’ a good e
ducation that’s free for the takin’. If I hear any more complainin’ from ye, I’m goin’ to use my first paycheck to ship ye back home. I don’t know why I agreed to let ye stay in the first place. Ye’ve been nothin’ but trouble since the day we saw Ma and Bridget off at the docks.”

  Maureen gave me a murderous look, but she didn’t say anything more.

  * * *

  My sister and I weren’t gettin’ along, but things were goin’ better at the Triangle. Once I got used to the machine, I almost enjoyed the work. I couldn’t get over my fear of the elevator, though. It just didn’t seem natural to be crowded into that little cage. I climbed the stairs the second day of work. I took them two at a time so I wouldn’t be late.

  I was lookin’ forward to lunch, but when the bell rang, Gussie told me she had some union business to take care of. “You don’t mind, do you, Rose? We’re having a meeting next week, and I want to tell some of the new girls about it.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I said, but I didn’t relish the thought of eatin’ alone. I had noticed that some of the girls ate right at their machines, so I decided to do the same. I pulled out my little package of bread and cheese and began to unwrap the paper.

  The girls across from me had started down the aisle when one of them came back. “Come have lunch with us. If you eat at your machine, you won’t even feel as if you’ve had a break.”

  “Thank ye,” I said, and followed them to the far corner of the room, where we sat on some boxes. They were dressed alike, in the dark skirts and Gibson Girl shirtwaists favored by most of the Triangle workers. They were about the same size and coloring, too, but one had long hair that fell into shiny black ringlets, the other a wild mane of dark hair that she had tried to tame by twistin’ it in a bun and pinnin’ it on top of her head.

  “I’m Rose Bellini,” the one with ringlets said. “What’s your name?”

  “Now, isn’t that a coincidence. I’m Rose, too. Rose Nolan.”

  They both laughed. “Well, that’s something,” the other girl said. “I’m another Rose. Rose Klein. So I guess you’ll fit in here just fine, Rose Nolan.”