When We Were Strangers by Pamela Schoenewaldt

Author:Pamela Schoenewaldt
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Chicago (Ill.), Immigrants, Historical, Italians - United States, Immigrants - United States, Women dressmakers, Fiction, United States, Italians, Historical fiction, General, Women immigrants, Cultural Heritage
ISBN: 9780062003997
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2011-01-24T10:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Infallible Cure, Number Two

The pale faces of Jacob’s sisters hovered over me, two hazy moons in the smoky kerosene light. I still smelled burned wood. When Jacob paced behind us in stocking feet on the rag rug, I heard the crunch of broken glass. A mound of striped cloth in the corner heaved. Striped curtains fluttered like his striped trousers. I tried to twist away, but at every side hands pressed me down.

“Irma, be still,” said Jacob patiently. “My sisters help you.” Two women hovered like tall crows with flapping black shawls, chattering, cooing, stroking, unpinning my hair. An avalanche of weakness crushed me. Jacob pointed to a bed.

“No bed, no bed!” I gripped the chair. Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairway and a man’s voice growled beyond the wall. I shuddered.

“It’s just Mr. Rosenberg, our neighbor. The door’s locked, don’t worry.” The sisters wrapped a blanket around me and Jacob said, “Irma, I’ll get a policeman. Can you describe the man?” He crossed to the door, pants legs hinged like scissors cutting the room.

“No, no!” I shouted. Who could know a real policeman? A false one might fool Jacob, break in and do that again, even to his sisters. “Don’t go!”

“But the police can look for that man, that vile beast,” Jacob explained patiently. Yiddish flew over my head. I understood only “police” and the sisters’ voices trampling his down.

Jacob knelt by me. “I’m sorry, Irma, that was just my mishigas, my craziness. Sarah will make a special bath so you are clean again and purified.” The smaller sister hurried to the kitchen. A metal thud hit the floor: a wash basin. I would be unwrapped and wet in this shaking cold? Couldn’t they hear my bones rattle? Didn’t they know I wanted only dryness and heat now, and to never have my body touched?

“There now, go with Freyda.” The tall one pulled me up before I could protest and walked me in the tiny kitchen, stiff as the doll in Mrs. Gaveston’s parlor, left by a daughter who died young. Propped in a corner, trapped, I watched the two sisters fill the tub, adding herbs and pouring in vinegar and turpentine. A piercing tang filled the air.

“Why?” I demanded in English and Italian, but they only smiled and pulled a curtain to close off the little room.

“Gud,” said Freyda, pointing at the tub. They circled me, voices high, shawls fluttering, peeling clothes from my body until I was utterly plucked, then maneuvered to the tub and made to step inside. Look how they fold, these doll legs. My eyes burned.

“What are these?” I asked, scooping dried buds and twigs from the pale foam, but they said only “gud” and washed me with sponges, at least not with hands. Softening, I looked up and saw Freyda, tall and stern, fluttering rag wings, holding a glass rod with rubber bulb tip pointed between my legs. Not there—not there. “No!” I screamed. “Take the rod away.”

“Shh!” they soothed. “Shh! Shh!”

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