“Yes, of course true. First, with her hand in that wheel, with all blood everywhere. After, remember? Finger again with hole, but not in that bone. Not so bad like this. This, they must take off.” Again, she wagged her finger and curled her lips.
“I know she’s careless, but don’t you feel sorry for her?” she protested. “She’ll probably be fired now, finger or no finger.”
“Yes, of course I’m sorry.” But the woman’s tone spoke more of ambivalence than sympathy. She turned her head, disengaged from their conversation to begin a new one in Czech, with her neighbour.
Rebecca missed her friends in the other row. There on the other side of the floor, the conversation had been more lively. Or at least more compassionate. Also, she had assembled and pleated the main bodice, which struck her as a much more important part of the shirtwaist, closer to the shape of the final product. Here in her exile for the last year, she was stuck with sewing the sleeves. The Czech woman only rarely spoke to her, preferring to speak to her neighbour and countrywoman who hardly spoke any English at all. The woman at Rebecca’s back could be chatty at times, but she had an unpleasant and disturbing odour that was somehow easier to ignore if they weren’t engaged in conversation.
Rebecca settled back into her work. She could see Lev coming toward her.
That vulgar little man, she thought. I wish I could wring his pimply little neck.
He approached her table. “Rebecca, you stupid animal! Your time here should be waist-ing time — not time to be wasted!” He snorted, “Get it?” and then explained his joke, as though she were not bright enough to figure it out. “‘Waist’ing? Like shirt-‘waist’? Get it, Becky?”
She cringed. Normally, it was best to just ignore him and hope that he would go away. Today, she felt she couldn’t bear it anymore.
“Lev, please, I’d almost rather you dock my wages than tell those awful jokes. I should take it up with the union!”
“Sure, I guess that would be a ‘strike’ against me, wouldn’t it? Get it? ‘Strike’ — against me? Get it, Becky, sweetheart?”
She leaned forward and pressed her forehead against her sewing machine. Lev was now right behind her. He put his hand on her shoulder, and she flinched, bracing herself for whatever.
“Anyway, today’s your lucky day, Becky. You get to go back with the old gaggle there on the other side of the room. I switched you with Gertie thinking you’d both be more productive, but it looks like she’s not gonna be doin’ much of anything for a while. So I’m chopping off your arms, and giving you back your torso!”
“What?”
“You saw — Gertie Reznikoff — gone. We need you there again.”
He poked her in the back. “This is poor little Gertie’s finger I got here poking you right back over there to the other section, Becky my dear. Of course, I’m sure Gertie’d be much happier if this bloody thing were still attached to her and not here with me carrying it about, huh Becky?”
She jumped around to look, her face twisted with disgust. And maybe a flicker of ghoulish curiosity. But there was nothing, of course, only Lev’s own index finger, which poked her on the nose.
“Gotcha! Ha ha! God, Becky, you’re such an easy mark.”
She closed her eyes. “Should I go right now, or shall I finish this sleeve?”
“Yeah, right now! Your friends here can finish up that sleeve. What are ya waiting for? Go!”
She handed her unfinished work to the Czech woman, who nodded politely to her and smiled, and she stood up to leave. Lev was intentionally blocking her path so that she had to force her way past, brushing against him.
Crossing the floor, she zigzagged her way up through the aisles, clicking sounds assaulting her from all around. Two hundred needle pistons going at once made it sound like a downpour on a metal roof. Each person had his or her pile of fabric to one side on the table, and then a pile of finished or semi-finished garments draped over a chair in front of it to the worker’s right. A little girl of eight loped by with a handful of buttons to deliver to one of the tables. She deposited her buttons beside a surly woman, who took the child’s hand, held it tight, and slapped it. “I’ve been waiting five minutes for those buttons!”
Rebecca caught up with the girl, pulled her tiny hand out of the woman’s grasp, and smacked the woman across the back of her head.
“Leave her alone! My God, you should be ashamed! Does it makes you feel big and important to yell at a little kid?” Rebecca and the woman locked themselves in a stare-down, and Rebecca won. She turned to the girl and bent down to comfort her, but the child’s eyes were filled with terror, and she darted past her and shot back across the room. The woman muttered after Rebecca as she continued on toward the window aisle.
When she reached her old table, her friends smiled, and Dora pulled out her chair to welcome her.
“I can’t tell you how glad I am that I’m back working with you all! Only God, poor Gertie! Elsie, I saw almost everything, you were so terrific with her.”
Elsie stopped her pedal for a moment. “There’s no chance of her keeping her job now. Three times in a year? Forget it. Lucky her mama does piecework. Maybe there’ll be some extra work for her there.”
Dora unfolded some cloth and began measuring out the unpleated waistline. “Yeah, poor thing. I hate to say it, but that finger looked real bad. Makes us all think twice about jumpin’ every time Lev gets on our backs to pick up the pace, don’t it? I’m sure she’ll lose the finger. The needle went through above the second joint.”
Rebecca grimaced. “What do you mean? Was Lev rushing her?”
“He was at her this morning,” answered Dora. “That creepy little pisher — someone oughta chop off his finger — or better yet, some other teeny tiny dangling thing!”
The girls broke into laughter, and then tried immediately to stifle it with held breath and hands over mouths. They could see Lev approaching.
“Don’t make me send ya back over to the other side, Rebecca!” he bellowed from three rows over.
Rebecca grabbed a piece of fabric, turned her eyes down, and smoothed the cloth purposefully on the table. She settled into a steady rhythm but was distracted by Dora’s frequent stops to pat at her hair. A strand of it hung down at the back.
“Dora, you’re fidgeting. Let me help you with that.”
“It’s this new hairdo that I saw in the American Magazine. It’s a bit complicated, I had to have my roommate help pin in the extras. I got them from that lady on Mott Street. She’s got all the nice stuff — fringes, switches, braids, everything.”
Today’s hairpieces were not exactly matched to the light brown of her hair, producing an odd effect. Rebecca knew better than to ask if it was intentional, she just pulled up the strand of fake hair and fixed it in place with a pin that was already there.
Elsie nudged her under the table. Lev was cycling back to their side of the room again and approaching their row. He rarely spoke to Dora, so they were surprised when he leaned over her, putting his mouth near her ear. He whispered loudly, on purpose so that others could hear.
“Be sure to leave lots of room in the bust, Dora Segal, so that big girls like you, who fills out their shirts nicely, will want to buy our merchandise.”
“Lucky whoever made your trousers didn’t have to worry about that, Lev Sklawer.”
Dora’s razor-sharp tongue was legendary. She fixed her brown eyes on him, producing a withering look, and glanced down to his crotch.
Lev turned red. “Very funny, very funny.”
Lenny and Carlo, sitting on the other side of Dora, were