City Of Fire Trilogy 1 - Dreamland by Kevin Baker

himself, and went on to the hall bathroom without so much as looking at the four of them.
    Kapsch quickly excused himself to take his turn in the warm bed. He had the prime, twelve-to-eight shift, while Cuti, the third roomerkeh —a fastidious little Italian plasterer—got the eight-to-four. Esther’s mother bustled around the kitchen, coaxing the old man back into the bedroom, putting together her litter for the night.
    “Esse, you sure you ain’t hungry?”
    “No, Mama.”
    “You sure? I can fix you somet’ing . . .”
    “No, Mama, I got no appetite for this living,” she snapped, suddenly feeling deeply tired and sorry for herself. The Triangle would be open again tomorrow, after the two-week summer layoff, and she would be up at dawn. Back at her machine.
    “Gottenyu, why do you always have to tear up the world like a crazy?”
    “Oh, Mama!”
    “I don’ know. It just seems like you’d be happier.”
    She pushed aside the little kitchen table and the trunks, put together the couple of chairs that served as her bed. She placed a pillow and blankets down on them, turned over the edge of the blankets as carefully as if it had been a real bed.
    “You sure there’s nothink more I can do for you?”
    “No, Mama. You done enough already.”
    Sarcasm was lost on her mother, as was despair. She shuffled over to give her a kiss and a quick, tremulous hug around the waist.
    “Sweet dreams, Esse.”
    “Sweet dreams, Mama.”
    She hurried back to the bedroom. Esther waited until Abady had dressed and left, then she got out one of the little towels her mother had laid out for her. They were nearly threadbare, but in her few spare moments around the tzatzkes, she had painstakingly embroidered them with bright sunsets and rainbows, and sayings in Yiddish like “A life into your eyes!” and “Peace upon you!”
    Esther pumped herself a sink full of water and unpinned her hair. She lowered the top of her bathing costume, then the white slip under it, the green and gold scales painted on it shimmering away beneath the water, where she would wash it along with her hair. Before she did, she paused for a long moment again, before the tub, thinking about the day just past.
    Outside, the elevated sped by, rattling the dishes and shaking everything else in the apartment. She gathered up her long dark hair and dipped it down into the water. It was lukewarm, almost cool, a relief on a night like this. She lowered her hair all the way into the water, and began to wash.
     
    The roomerkehs’ room was more a cave than a real room, with a long curtain instead of a door, little blue curtains that Esther’s mother had sewn and hung over the interior window, and a single bed that took up nearly the whole space inside. Her mother didn’t let Esse go in to clean, but she had glimpsed a small shaving mirror nailed to the wall inside, a single shelf—with three small towels, three collars, and three straight razors laid out along the shelf. The very thought of it—those bare possessions, laid out so simply— always filled her with despair.
    But now, though she could not see, Kapsch peeked out through the little blue window curtains, watching intently as she washed herself. She stood solemnly before the wooden sink, her white skin radiant in the darkened room. She swung her long hair down into the water, emerged again with her eyes closed.
    He took in every part of her: Her bare calves, and ankles. The long, gracious sweep of her neck as she bent over; her round, white, dimpled shoulders; the gentle curve of her body under the slip. He watched ecstatically from the window as she dipped her hair down again, ducking back into the lovely and enveloping darkness, dipping it down again, white and black, white and black in the dim light.

10
     

ESTHER
     
    This life is too much for me
    Esther lay in the dark on her crude litter, all her exhilaration from the day and the night—all her satisfaction over her own daring—seeping away