Ashes of Roses

by Mary Jane Auch

  “No!” Bellini sobbed.

  I felt them start to go over the edge. I couldn’t tell if they meant to jump, or if Klein had lost her balance reachin’ for me.

  “Don’t!” I screamed, pullin’ away.

  Bellini’s hand clawed at my sleeve, but I clung to the window frame with both hands.

  And I watched my best friends drop all the way to the pavement.

  28

  As I tried to get back into the room, I was almost pushed backward out of the window by the girls tryin’ to jump. There was a huge crowd fightin’ to get to the windows now, and I saw why. The flames had cut the room in half. On the other side of the fire, I could see a crowd of people over by the passenger elevators. A girl in front of me tried to run through the flames. Within seconds her hair and clothes were on fire. She stood twistin’ in the orange flame like a dancer. Then she crumpled to the floor.

  I was so terrified watchin’ someone die, I had bitten into my knuckle until I tasted blood. But that was the only way to escape. I had to run into the fire or die right where I was. I ran to a pole holdin’ fire buckets and found one that was still full. I dumped it over myself, pulled the back of my soggy skirt up over my head and ran straight into the fire. It was like bein’ in a bad dream. I couldn’t see anything but flames. Was I goin’ in the right direction? I seemed to be movin’ so slowly. There was no air. Could I hold my breath long enough to get through the fire? Suddenly I slammed into somethin’. It was the crowd of girls by the elevator. I had made it!

  There were screams up front as one of the elevators started down. Had I run through fire only to burn now? I was almost ready to give up when the other elevator came back up. I pushed hard to get to the door, but just as I reached it, the elevator started down. The girl next to me lost her balance and fell, arms like windmills in the air. She landed headfirst on the top of the elevator.

  I felt like I was back on the windowsill. I couldn’t make myself jump, but the crowd was pushin’ me. I stretched out my arms, clingin’ to both sides of the open door. I tried to brace myself. There was too much pressure. I was bein’ shoved into the open shaft. Flames shot out from the floor below. This was the elevator’s last trip. It was either jump for my life or be pushed to my death. I leaned back against the crowd as I wound my wet skirt several times around each hand like bandages.

  Then I crouched and jumped for the elevator cable the way I used to dive for the swingin’ rope at Boys Sandy. I gripped hard with my hands and wrapped my legs around the cable, slidin’ down until I could drop to the top of the elevator. Even that short slide had almost worn through the fabric I’d wrapped around my hands. Then somethin’ hit my shoulder, knockin’ me flat on my back. It was another girl, landin’ unconscious next to me. As we descended, I saw a fireman through the grill in the stairwell. “Help me!” I cried.

  “You’ll be all right,” he called back. But he couldn’t see what I saw. The top of the shaft was filled with flame. Girls were comin’ down like torches. I rolled to the front wall of the elevator so I wouldn’t be hit by the fallin’ bodies.

  I closed my eyes, listenin’ to them land, one after another. Thud. Thud. Thud. The whole car shuddered with each one. I wondered how many more could land on us before the cable broke from the weight. But I knew if I had made it this far I could survive.

  That’s when I remembered somethin’ terrible.

  I remembered Maureen.

  29

  The weight of all the people made the elevator sink to the bottom of the shaft. Once, when we passed by a door that had been pried open, I had to hold on to the lifeless girl next to me to keep from rollin’ out. I felt my dress rip as the skirt got caught in the opening. Finally, we stopped, and I could see several firemen in the open lobby elevator door above me. I scrambled to my feet. “Please, help me!”

  I reached up my hands and they lifted me out. I started for the stairwell, and one fireman caught me around the waist. “You can’t go up there.”

  “I have to find my little sister.”

  Another fireman came over. Tears had made white streaks in his sooty face. “You can’t do anything. They’re all past saving up there.”

  “No!” I tried to wrestle free, but they each grabbed an arm and led me to the door, where we were stopped by another fireman.

  He was lookin’ up. “Wait here for a moment. They’re still coming down.” I thought he meant the elevators, but then I saw a burnin’ bundle hit the sidewalk, and from the sound of it, I knew it wasn’t just fabric. A crowd of Triangle girls were huddled in the doorway, sobbin’. I waited until nobody was watchin’ me, and then I ran out and across the street.

  The whole top three floors were ablaze, and the smoke made the sky as dark as night. A fireman unharnessed a team of wild-eyed horses from the fire wagon and handed the reins to a policeman. “Get them around the corner. The smell of blood has them spooked.” I looked down to see that the stream of water runnin’ close to the curb was stained red. And then I saw the bodies. They were all over the street and sidewalk, some by themselves, some in piles where they had landed on top of one another. Was one of them Maureen?

  I tried to get to the nearest group to look for her, but a policeman stopped me. “You don’t want to see that,” he said.

  “I have to find my sister. She needs me.”

  “If she’s over there, she doesn’t need anybody.” When I groaned at his remark, he took me gently in his arms and spoke softly in my ear. “Why don’t you go home so your parents don’t worry about you? Your sister is probably with them right now.”

  I sobbed into his shoulder. “No. I left her. I left her in the fire.”

  Another pair of fire horses reared up in terror right behind us, and the policeman let go of me to catch their reins so they wouldn’t trample the crowd. I stumbled on down the block, lookin’ at faces, hopin’ to see Maureen. She was young and strong. And hadn’t she said, back when we were out on Uncle Patrick’s fire escape, that she would never jump, not even from the lowest platform of a fire escape?

  I kept runnin’ the facts through my mind. The fire had started right at quittin’ time. Maureen wouldn’t have had time to come up to the ninth floor. And there were lots of men on the eighth—the cutters. Surely one of them would have taken a young girl under his wing and led her down the stairs to safety.

  I had to push my way through crowds of people who were streamin’ into Washington Square. There couldn’t be this many people with relatives workin’ at the Triangle. Some of these people were comin’ just to look, to stare at the broken bodies as if they were goin’ to the nickelodeon for entertainment. “Go home,” I screamed, barely able to see through my tears. “It’s none of yer business.”

  As I ran block after block, I kept sayin’ over and over, “Please, God, let Maureen be all right; please, God…” as if repeatin’ the words would make it happen.

  I tripped on a curb, sprawlin’ in the middle of the street. Several men ran out to help me, but I scrambled to my feet and pushed away their hands. I finally reached our building and ran up the stairs. “Maureen!” I screamed. When I opened the door, the apartment was dark. I ran into our room, callin’ out again. She wasn’t there. I threw myself on the feather bed and tried to pull the edges up over me. Ma had trusted me to take care of Maureen. And now what had I done?

  Why hadn’t I thought of Maureen in the fire? Was she in one of those crowds I had pushed through? Had I shoved my own sister aside to save myself? Had I left her there to die? “Oh, Ma!” I cried. “I’m so sorry. I meant to take good care of her.”

  Pictures of the fire kept goin’ through my mind. I pressed my fists against my eyes to make them go away, but I could still see the faces of Klein and Bellini goin’ over the window ledge. I hadn’t tried to save them, either. I had just hung on to the window to save myself. I was a terrible person. I wrapped myself tighter in the feather bed and wailed.

  But stayin’ here wasn’t helpin’ Maureen. As much as I dreaded
it, I had to go back there. I wrapped myself in the shawl that Gussie had lent me the day she took me back to Mr. Moscovitz’s shop. Gussie! I hadn’t given her a thought, either. And Mr. Garoff. Was he out lookin’ for her? Surely everybody had heard about the fire by now. The smoke must have been seen for miles.

  When I got outside, people were streamin’ through the streets. These weren’t thrill seekers. I caught snatches of conversation. “I told her not to work there.” “I knew something terrible would happen.” “My poor Rachel.”

  As I approached the fire scene, I slowed down, and people jostled me, rushin’ past. I didn’t know if I could face that awful sight again, but I had to find Maureen. And Gussie. Where was Gussie?

  I found a line of policemen holdin’ back the crowd that was pressin’ in from Washington Square. I tried to work my way through to the front, searchin’ faces as I went. I didn’t see anyone I knew from work.

  Then someone called out the name “Bessie” in an agonized cry. The crowd surged forward to the bodies. There were screams and moans and prayers, and above it all, the shouts of policemen tellin’ them to go back. I was carried with them along Washington Place and around the corner to Greene Street, where I managed to stumble out of the crowd.

  This was where I would be lyin’ now if I had jumped with Klein and Bellini. I made myself look at the pile of bodies and thought I saw the bright pink of Klein’s new suit. When I got closer, I found it was another girl, whose white blouse had been stained with blood.

  A policeman took me roughly by the arm and pulled me back.

  “Please,” I said, “I’ve lost my sister.”

  “I’m sorry, miss. We’ll be taking all the … We’ll be settin’ up a morgue … a place where you can … Look, you shouldn’t be doin’ this alone. Go find your parents. Let them help you.”

  My parents! How I wished I could run into Da’s arms and feel safe. He would find Maureen and he would take us home to an apartment of our own, where we could be a family again.

  As I turned away, I stepped on something soft. It was a bonnet, soaked and crushed—a spring straw bonnet with pastel silk flowers tucked up under the brim. I dropped to my knees, hugged the bonnet to my chest, and sobbed.

  30

  I couldn’t leave the scene of the fire. I didn’t want to go back to that empty apartment. I watched as the firemen spread a dark-red canvas over the Greene Street sidewalk across the street from the Asch Building. Then they worked in pairs, carefully liftin’ the bodies and placin’ them on the canvas. I was waitin’ to see a body that was smaller than the others. I was waitin’ for them to find Maureen.

  I didn’t cry anymore. I was numb, as if what was goin’ on had nothin’ to do with me. I watched as wagons brought in wooden caskets, dozens of them. I watched as they carefully put a body in each one, then loaded the pine boxes into ambulances and patrol wagons. The crowd parted as the clangin’ death wagons took them away.

  Then darkness fell, and two fire trucks with searchlights were brought in. I saw firemen on the roof lower a hook to the ninth floor of the Greene Street side, where several firemen pulled it into a window. When they let it swing out again, it held a long, slender wrapped bundle. There was a moan from the crowd as they realized what it was.

  Firemen on the Washington Place side were doin’ the same thing. Spotlights followed the bodies as they twisted and turned at the end of the cable. At each floor, a fireman leaned out of the window to keep the body from hittin’ the building. Such care was bein’ taken now that it was too late. Why hadn’t anyone cared enough to make sure this couldn’t happen in the first place?

  The sad bundles were lowered down each side of the building, like an eerie trapeze performance. These were the girls I had worked with every day, had shared laughs with in the dressing room.

  There was a policeman pickin’ up personal belongings—shoes, combs, purses. I clutched the hat, knowin’ I should give it up but wantin’ to keep it. I could give it to Bellini’s family, if I ever met them.

  Around eight o’clock, the firemen carried a man out of the Greene Street entrance. They put him in an ambulance, which took off at a furious speed, bell clangin’. I heard someone say he had been alive, under one of the elevators in the basement. He had almost drowned as the water from the fire hoses rose.

  Workers from the Edison Company arrived and strung rows of arc lights along both streets, makin’ a little patch of daylight in the night. Then they went inside and put lights on every floor. Now we could see gigantic shadows runnin’ across the ceiling as the firemen carried on their search. From somewhere inside, a burglar alarm had been triggered. Nobody bothered to turn it off, so it continued to ring while body after body was lowered.

  I heard two women talkin’ about goin’ to the Mercer Street Police Station, where they were givin’ out information about the dead and injured, so I followed them. Many others made the three-block walk to the station. It was somethin’ to do, better than standin’ helplessly. But when we got there, a policeman at the door told us that the bodies were bein’ taken to a morgue on a pier at Twenty-sixth Street.

  “I’m tryin’ to find my little sister,” I said. “She’s only twelve.”

  “We don’t have her here,” the policeman said, “but we have some of the personal articles from the girls. You can look and see if there is anything of hers.”

  I went inside to a table filled with shoes, purses, hats, and combs. Two policemen were makin’ sure nobody stole anything. I couldn’t find any signs of Maureen. Then I saw a patch of taffeta about the size of a handkerchief. Even though it was wet I recognized the color. It was ashes of roses and matched the piece of my skirt that had been torn away in the elevator shaft. I had to grip the table. The sight of somethin’ of mine among the relics of the dead made the room swirl.

  “Are you all right?” asked the policeman across from me. “Did you find something to identify?”

  I pointed to the fabric, then lifted the hem of my skirt to show him the ripped place. “This is mine. I’m alive.”

  He handed me the scrap. “Thank God. I hope we find more like you.”

  As I turned and headed for the door, two girls I recognized came into the police station. It was Bertha and Esther. I had met them in the park my first day at the Triangle. I ran over to them. “Ye work on the eighth floor, don’t ye? Did ye see my little sister? She just started there today.” So few girls worked on the eighth, I hoped they might have noticed her.

  “The pretty little one with the pale-blue eyes?” Bertha asked, her eyes red from cryin’.

  “Yes, that’s her.”

  “I think she left before the fire started. She was excited about something she was supposed to do tonight.”

  “Then ye think she got out all right?”

  “If she left the building right away she would have been safe,” Esther said. “The fire started right in front of us, in a bin under one of the cutters’ tables. Then it blazed up and caught all the patterns that were hanging on a wire over the table. I was going to throw a pail of water on it, but Mr. Bernstein told all us girls to get out.”

  “Have you seen Gussie?” Bertha asked.

  “I haven’t seen her since the fire,” I said.

  Esther shook her head. “She never should have left the eighth floor. I think all of our girls escaped. The men stayed to fight the fire, but we girls got out.”

  I thanked them and turned away, tears blurrin’ my eyes. I knew that Maureen didn’t leave the building right away. She ran up the stairs to the ninth-floor dressing room, because that’s what I told her to do. If she had waited for us outside, the way she wanted to, she would have been safe. But I had sent her right into the fire. And Gussie bein’ on the ninth floor was my fault, too. If I hadn’t made her late that mornin’ three weeks ago, she would have escaped. I might have killed them both.

  I turned and ran back to the fire scene. And now I called Maureen’s name, screamin’ like a madwoman. Then I heard a woman’s vo
ice call, “Rose!” Was it Gussie? Did she have Maureen?

  “I’m here!” I shouted. We kept callin’ back and forth while I pushed my way through the crowd. My heart was poundin’ with joy as the voice got closer and closer. I followed it, squeezin’ around the last person only to come face-to-face with a woman I’d never seen before. We stared at each other in bitter disappointment, then both burst into tears.

  I went past the building without lookin’ at it this time. The shrill ring of the burglar alarm seemed to drill right into my skull. Why didn’t someone turn it off? I moved through the crowd toward the park, callin’ out Maureen’s name and Gussie’s, but not expectin’ an answer.

  Finally, I climbed up on a park bench so I could see over the crowd. Then I spotted them—a dazed old man bein’ led by a young girl. I leapt off the bench, ran to them, and hugged my little sister at last.

  “Rose!” Maureen sobbed. “Oh, Rose, I thought ye were dead.”

  I picked her up. “Thank heaven ye’re safe.” I carried her back to the bench and held her on my lap, rockin’ her like a baby as she sobbed into my shoulder.

  Mr. Garoff followed and sat next to me. “My Gussela. She was with you, no?”

  “No, Mr. Garoff. I haven’t seen her since…” In my mind I saw Gussie goin’ back for the old Italian woman, kickin’ aside that burnin’ basket.

  “She is all right? She came out of the building with you?” His eyes looked so pained, I couldn’t hurt him.

  I pushed aside my doubts. “I’m sure she’s fine, Mr. Garoff. Gussie can take care of herself.”

  “Too much she takes care of herself. She needs someone to take care of her.”

  I thought that Gussie’s real problem was that she tried to take care of everybody but herself, but I only said, “Thank you for finding Maureen, Mr. Garoff.”

  His eyes searched the crowd. “We found each other … wandering, looking.”

  I hugged Maureen. “How did ye get out? I was so afraid that ye came up to the ninth floor.”