his wagon rumbled past. As angry as she was at him, she still marveled at how he guided the horse so quickly through a street teeming with vehicles, greengrocers’ carts piled high with fresh produce and, most of all, with people.
She’d never envisioned a city with so many people. The Lower East Side throbbed with humanity, a pulsing mass formed by newcomers from all corners of the earth. Two Rumanian men in white, full-sleeved tunics and embroidered vests argued prices with an urchin selling sweet potatoes from a pushcart. Tall, black fur hats crowned their heads. Bushy mustaches shook under hawk like noses as they haggled with the vendor. A family of gypsies hurried past, the mother in voluminous skirts, the father and sons in short jackets and cloth caps. Mustachioed laborers digging a ditch alongside the street wore stained overalls, heavy work boots and fedoras. They spoke to each other animatedly in Italian, reminding her fleetingly of Dominic. She heard English and Irish accents, and fragments of conversations she guessed to be in Swedish and German, Russian and Yiddish. Particularly exotic to her were several women with skin the color of dark chocolate. She couldn’t keep herself from staring at them as they passed. The startling blackness of their complexions was emphasized by the tropical colors of their loose-fitting cotton dresses. On their heads they wore bandanas, twisted into elaborate shapes. Their accents sounded French. She tried to remember her geography lessons from school. These women must be from the French West Indies.
What a place this was, this New York! The buildings were even taller, more numerous than she could ever have imagined. Multistoried tenement houses hugged the streets, one right after another. The streets themselves were blighted by an endless series of traffic jams.
It was a relief, in a way, to wander anonymously in this foreign place. Here she had no past. No identity.
That hadn’t been the case when the Carpathia’s passengers had disembarked in New York. Dozens of tugboats and yachts escorted the steamer into the harbor, tooting bells and sirens in a loud welcome for the Titanic’s survivors. When she’d stepped down the gangplank, Tara realized the enormity of the Titanic’s sinking; it looked as if every citizen in America was on hand to greet the rescuers and the rescued. Thousands pushed against cordons patrolled by police officers on horseback. Magnesium flashes from photographers’ cameras had temporarily blinded her.
“Miss! Miss! Are you off the Titanic? Do you speak English? Tell me your story. I’ll put it in the newspaper!”
Tara wanted no part of the notoriety. The Titanic was gone. Let others recount the ghastly details for curious readers of newspapers. She was intent on forgetting.
• • •
“D’ya know how to sew?”
“Of course I do.”
“If you can’t keep up the pace, you’ll be let go faster’n you can sneeze. We got a lotta dresses to make here, and make fast. There’s no time to coddle people.”
“I understand.”
The misshapen little man stared at her, his bushy eyebrows wriggling furiously. She wondered why he didn’t use the dingy handkerchief trailing from his pockets to blot his forehead, which was unpleasantly glazed with perspiration.
“You English?”
“I’m from Ireland.”
He nodded. “We got a lotta them here. Good workers, mostly, but they talk too much. Can’t shut \’em up. Always wantin’ to gab with their friends. You know anyone who works here?”
“No. I’ve…only just arrived.”
“Well, you’ll start tomorrow. Ten cents an hour, thirteen hours a day. You don’t show up one day, don’t bother comin’ the next. Your job’ll be gone. If you get sick, I don’t wanna hear about it. And don’t come runnin’ to me with any women’s complaints. Some of you girls think you should get a vacation every month.”
She ignored his crudeness, although it took some effort.
“Mr. Van Zandt?
She’d never envisioned a city with so many people. The Lower East Side throbbed with humanity, a pulsing mass formed by newcomers from all corners of the earth. Two Rumanian men in white, full-sleeved tunics and embroidered vests argued prices with an urchin selling sweet potatoes from a pushcart. Tall, black fur hats crowned their heads. Bushy mustaches shook under hawk like noses as they haggled with the vendor. A family of gypsies hurried past, the mother in voluminous skirts, the father and sons in short jackets and cloth caps. Mustachioed laborers digging a ditch alongside the street wore stained overalls, heavy work boots and fedoras. They spoke to each other animatedly in Italian, reminding her fleetingly of Dominic. She heard English and Irish accents, and fragments of conversations she guessed to be in Swedish and German, Russian and Yiddish. Particularly exotic to her were several women with skin the color of dark chocolate. She couldn’t keep herself from staring at them as they passed. The startling blackness of their complexions was emphasized by the tropical colors of their loose-fitting cotton dresses. On their heads they wore bandanas, twisted into elaborate shapes. Their accents sounded French. She tried to remember her geography lessons from school. These women must be from the French West Indies.
What a place this was, this New York! The buildings were even taller, more numerous than she could ever have imagined. Multistoried tenement houses hugged the streets, one right after another. The streets themselves were blighted by an endless series of traffic jams.
It was a relief, in a way, to wander anonymously in this foreign place. Here she had no past. No identity.
That hadn’t been the case when the Carpathia’s passengers had disembarked in New York. Dozens of tugboats and yachts escorted the steamer into the harbor, tooting bells and sirens in a loud welcome for the Titanic’s survivors. When she’d stepped down the gangplank, Tara realized the enormity of the Titanic’s sinking; it looked as if every citizen in America was on hand to greet the rescuers and the rescued. Thousands pushed against cordons patrolled by police officers on horseback. Magnesium flashes from photographers’ cameras had temporarily blinded her.
“Miss! Miss! Are you off the Titanic? Do you speak English? Tell me your story. I’ll put it in the newspaper!”
Tara wanted no part of the notoriety. The Titanic was gone. Let others recount the ghastly details for curious readers of newspapers. She was intent on forgetting.
• • •
“D’ya know how to sew?”
“Of course I do.”
“If you can’t keep up the pace, you’ll be let go faster’n you can sneeze. We got a lotta dresses to make here, and make fast. There’s no time to coddle people.”
“I understand.”
The misshapen little man stared at her, his bushy eyebrows wriggling furiously. She wondered why he didn’t use the dingy handkerchief trailing from his pockets to blot his forehead, which was unpleasantly glazed with perspiration.
“You English?”
“I’m from Ireland.”
He nodded. “We got a lotta them here. Good workers, mostly, but they talk too much. Can’t shut \’em up. Always wantin’ to gab with their friends. You know anyone who works here?”
“No. I’ve…only just arrived.”
“Well, you’ll start tomorrow. Ten cents an hour, thirteen hours a day. You don’t show up one day, don’t bother comin’ the next. Your job’ll be gone. If you get sick, I don’t wanna hear about it. And don’t come runnin’ to me with any women’s complaints. Some of you girls think you should get a vacation every month.”
She ignored his crudeness, although it took some effort.
“Mr. Van Zandt?
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