Of course I must confess my secret to my diary, and here it is: Instead of taking the train, I walk home from work. It does not sound so bad when one looks at the words on the page, but I will explain. Every day, after we are let out of work, I walk partway with my friends, to Prince and Broadway, and then I say goodbye to them and continue on to my regular stop at the Cristobaldi Family Bakery. For my secret daily ritual. And although it is wrong, I cannot give it up.
Ever since I started at the factory two years ago, the meals Mama prepares do not fill me up. So, I save on the cost of the ticket for the El, and stop for a bun before dinner. The only way to truly avoid feeling terrible about this is to stop buying the bread, but I simply cannot do it. I am so hungry all the time.
It is wrong for me to be spending money when I am not sharing it with my family. It is not that I feel bad for Papa; Mama always gives him more food anyway. I do, however, feel guilty about Mama. The problem is that she would never simply take extra food if I brought it for her; she is far too dutiful a wife and mother not to share it with the family. And of course sharing with the family would mean a big piece for Papa, two tiny pieces for me and Ida (our boarder), and only after we all had, she would take the tiniest piece of all for herself.
This would never happen anyway, because I am supposed to turn over all of my wages, except for my train fare, to Papa, and they would consider buying the bread wasteful. So, walking home instead of taking the train is really the only way I can save money. I have tried to convince myself, in order to soothe my guilt, that Mama is not actually as hungry as I myself am, and that because I am only sixteen and still young I need more food than she does. But because I know this to be a lie, it does not work, of course.
Also, I see the way she eats. She raises her fork to her mouth so slowly it is almost shaking. She is trying with all her might not to tear at her food. She only restrains herself out of pride, and so as not to set a bad example with table manners. But whenever we finish a meal, such a look of sadness comes over her face, and she tries to hide it by looking down at her plate, and then she fidgets by wiping the plate repeatedly with her last morsel, making sure no drop of sauce or kernel of kasha is wasted. When this happens, I turn my eyes downward too. Seeing her do this gives me a lump in my throat exactly the size of my pre-dinner bun.
What is worse is when Mama announces that she will not be eating with us, and she tells us to go on without her because she wants to get a head start cleaning the pots. When she does this, I know it is because she is extra hungry and cannot bear to slow down her eating that day. I know this because on occasion I have caught a glimpse of her crouched over the wash basin either before or after we have all eaten, rapidly shovelling food into her mouth as though she should hide the fact that she eats at all.
I don’t know what my own children’s lives will be like, but I most sincerely hope that they are never trapped in circumstances like these. It is a terrible thing when a person cannot escape her trap except to deceive, and then that deception does not really make her feel any better, because she is sick with guilt.
But as I wrote at the beginning, if I had children of my own, I would not necessarily share these thoughts with them. They would be told our history plain and simple: at age fourteen I quit day school to work in a shirtwaist factory, food was scarce in our house, and my mother made great sacrifices for her family.
I have just re-read what I have written and do not feel at all that my thoughts are sorted out. But then I suppose that I am not properly following Mrs. Pearson’s advice. Perhaps I am jumping about too much, not waiting until I have finished telling the story before leaping in with how I am feeling about it. So let me begin again, maybe starting from the scene of my crime, and continuing on from there.
1909
The foreman let the Jewish workers out early on Friday afternoons, but he expected them to make up for it by working overtime and on Sundays. So when Rebecca stopped at the bakery, there were so many reasons to feel shameful. On the eve of the Sabbath, when she should have been rushing to help her mother prepare dinner, she was wasting time walking home, secretly spending her train money on food, and, to make matters even worse, was about to eat food from a bakery that didn’t keep kosher. The bakery’s air was thick and pungent and warm, and she could feel the heat sink through her hair and warm her nape. Afraid that the smell of bread would linger on her if she stayed too long in the shop, she quickly approached the counter and pointed to a bun.
Mrs. Cristobaldi smiled, wiping her hands on her white smock just below her ample bosom. “You wanna try some different bun today, bambina? You always have the same thing.”
“No, thank you, Mrs. Cristobaldi. I love this kind.” Rebecca took it with one hand and poured her pennies into the woman’s palm with her other.
“You have a nice evening. We will see you tomorrow?” The old woman nodded, prompting Rebecca for the answer.
“Perhaps Sunday. Thank you. You have a nice evening too.” Rebecca tore a piece off of the bread as she walked out the door of the bakery.
She still had several blocks until she reached the Jewish part of the neighbourhood, but she took her time, walking slowly. As she passed by a storefront, a bearded grocer tried desperately to bait her by catching her eye and calling out to her, waving her in with his fleshy palm. Above him, a woman stirred a huge pot near an open window. She could just smell the sweet aroma of some soup the woman must have had on the boil, but it was quickly overpowered by the tang of dill pickles floating in two barrels standing like gateposts in front of the grocer.
At the next shop, a pot- and skillet-maker leaned over his table, placed tantalizingly in front of his shop, and accentuated the appeal of his wares by opening his arms at her as if to invite an embrace. He smiled at her, and she smiled back, but his fickle attention shifted to the next passerby when Rebecca failed to stop at his table.
Pushcart vendors vied for space on the sidewalks and on the streets. Taking a more aggressive approach, they shouted out their prices to her, almost angrily. Rebecca wondered how they could think she would choose to buy from someone simply because he was the loudest. Besides, was it not clear she wasn’t shopping? She was walking far too quickly, and she had no shopping bag. She supposed anyone was fair game, there always being a possibility one could remember suddenly that one needed something after all.
She avoided their gaze and looked up at the tall buildings, erected shoulder to shoulder so they shared one shadow. Her eyes followed the shadow outwards. In the late afternoon sun it was held out over the street, the ragged rooftops forming the ruffled edges of a cape that draped partially over the backs of a pair of horses standing up ahead. The animals were harnessed to their carriage and scuffing their hooves against the ground to pass the time while they waited for their master to finish a transaction with a woman selling potatoes.
Beside the horses, she saw a boy try in vain to find a space in which to play in the midst of the chaos. He was balancing a top on the lid of a carton, but each time he spun it, someone would jostle the carton, sending the top flying into the street and the boy diving after it. On his third attempt, the child’s top rolled under the legs of the horses. Recklessly, he scuttled crab-like under their bellies, grabbed the errant top with his left hand, and rolled out the other side. He picked himself up again just in time for Rebecca to avoid stepping on him and jumped out of her way.
Despite the frenzied activity surrounding her, and despite her guilt, Rebecca enjoyed this part of the day the most, because it was the only time that she had to herself. Her teeth cut through the bun’s crunchy, powdery crust, and her tongue savoured the reward of the sweet-soft doughy centre. On evenings like these, when the November wind blew through the streets, pulling her skin taut, Rebecca liked to heighten her senses by drawing the cold air through her nostrils as she chewed and walked, grateful just to be outside, and alone.
It was not that she was antisocial, but it did always seem to her that now that she was grown up, there were expectations that came with being in the company of others.