Poppa vomiting in the street! Shaming himself, humiliating himself! Her proud, arrogant father, allowing himself to be so demeaned! And right under the light! And the priest laughing! Cruel as Michael was, Bella wanted him to remain proud and noble, a big man. That way his treatment of his family seemed somehow justified, or anyway, permitted. If he was better than they, he was allowed to act so. But here he was, vomiting in public! Bella knew Momma was deeply shocked and shamed, and when she heard Momma’s step in the hall, she sat straight up. Momma was going to bed before Poppa returned! She had never done that before. Bella wondered if she had turned off the gas lamp and left the apartment dark, if Poppa would fall, if he would be angry and beat them all. She remained sitting, listening for his step.
Beside her, Euga slept peacefully as the stumbling steps broke the night silence. There was no tramping tonight, just a kind of slurred sound. Poppa was a long time at the door. Maybe he couldn’t find his key, maybe he’d dropped it. Eventually—it seemed an hour to Bella—she heard the sound of the door creaking open, and a stumbling shuffling step inside. Then the door slammed hard. Then silence. Bella waited and waited, but there were no more sounds. What had happened to Poppa? She wanted to get up and see, but was too frightened. Suppose he was angry? She waited, and was still waiting when she fell asleep; she waited all through her dreams.
The next day, when she got up, Momma looked grim, and Poppa was not to be seen. The bedroom door was shut. Bella did not dare to ask Momma where Poppa was, and if he had gone to bed last night—but she noticed his collar and tie, vest and jacket lying on the couch in the dining room. Momma said nothing. When Bella went down to the street on her way to her third-grade class, she tried to see without turning her head. It was there: a big puddle of disgusting yellowish green. She held her head rigid and walked on to school.
Birthdays in the family were not really celebrated, but usually Momma would make a special cake or get some candy for the event. This year, she entirely forgot Bella’s birthday in January. Bella forgot it too, so it didn’t matter. The situation went on the same, although it seemed Momma dragged more and Poppa was more subdued and yet even angrier. And Bella too dragged more, because she couldn’t seem to do her work properly at school and she was failing all her tests. She didn’t tell Momma, but each morning when she went to school, her stomach ached.
One night Poppa came in very bad; Bella could hear Momma almost dragging him to bed. But the next morning he was up and dressed, prepared to leave the house at the usual time. Momma had put on a light coat, for it was May and the trees near the schoolyard had little green balls on them. She was almost at the door when Poppa came in from his bedroom with his face funny—very white—and his mouth open as if he were going to cry (impossible!) and he reached out a hand toward Momma, and then he bent over and in a great gasp vomited all over the floor. Momma cried out and ran to him; the children stood where they were, unmoving, staring. On the floor around Poppa was a pool of blood—everywhere—on the walls, on his lovely jacket and vest—oh!
Momma screamed, she just screamed. She screamed at Bella, “Go get the doctor!” and at Eddie, “Help me get him to the couch!” But the children were paralyzed. Momma kept screaming at them, she looked crazy, she screeched, and finally Eddie moved to her side and grabbed Poppa’s other arm. Poppa was limp, his head was hanging down and he was breathing heavily through his mouth. Momma still screamed at Bella. Bella remained where she was.
Always me, she thought. Whenever anything has to be done, it’s me she calls. Why can’t one of the others go? Why is she screaming? She moved forward a step, reluctantly, leaving her cocoa and rye bread untouched.
“I don’t know where the doctor lives!” she cried.
Momma stood up straight and sighed, as if Bella were an idiot. “You go down two blocks to the pork store, then turn left and go to the middle of the second block, Dr. Dlugosz, you’ll see the sign, tell him to come right away, right away, it’s an emergency!”
Bella went, delivered her message, and returned. By that time, some of the neighbor women had arrived, and were standing with their arms around Momma looking down at Poppa, who seemed to be sleeping. Bella went to her place at table and sat down and began to drink her cocoa, but it was cold. She ate her rye bread. The other children were also sitting at the table, utterly silent. The servant girl had removed their plates and cups, but they still sat there. They didn’t seem to be going to school. Bella was not unhappy about that, and when she was finished with her bread, she too sat on.
The doctor arrived, and all the children, as if a signal had been given, slipped down from the table. Bella didn’t know where they went. She also left the room, and looking around first, slipped into the living room and tiptoed over to the window and slipped behind the curtain. She stood there for a long time, barely seeing the people walking on the street below, the pushcarts going by, the horse-drawn drays and coaches. She had long blond curls and blue eyes and was standing in a beautiful house gazing out at the sea, waiting for the sun to go down. She was wearing a beautiful pink dress and had pink ribbons in her hair, and behind her was a happy silence, the quiet of order and peace.
After a long time, she returned to the dining room. Four or five women sat at the table with Momma drinking glasses of tea. Father was gone. Euga was sitting on Momma’s lap, whimpering.
“Quiet!” Momma yelled. Then she said roughly to Bella, “Take her away, take her!” Bella stared at Momma: Momma never talked like that. Momma’s face went wild again, she screamed at Bella, “Take her and go, get out, get out! Take care of her!”
She stood Euga on the floor roughly and Euga cried. Momma put her head in her hands and began to cry too. The women gathered around her, stroking her back, saying soothing words. Poor Pani Brez, there there. Bella took Euga’s hand and pushed open the outside door. Euga wouldn’t let go of her hand, even going down the stairs. They reached the sidewalk and Bella realized it was still a little chilly and they had no coats. But she was afraid to go back upstairs. Nor did she know where else to go. They could go to the stationery store for candy, but Bella had no money. They could go to the playground three blocks away, but Bella was frightened of the big boys who played there. At a diagonal, across the street, was a nickelodeon. Bella had never been inside it—it cost a nickel—but there were always photographs outside showing the people who were inside. They were funny people—sometimes they wore strange clothes, and sometimes the women had hardly any clothes on, but they were very beautiful. She would take Euga to look at the pictures.
She grasped Euga’s hand even more tightly and started across the street. The noise shocked her, it was all around her, a great clamor—screeches and screaming and Euga was crying and people all around were yelling at Bella. She looked around, but things were blurred and she felt dizzy. After a few minutes, things settled down into forms, and she gasped at the streetcar that was standing just beside them. If it had moved a few inches farther, it would have hit Euga, who was still holding Bella’s hand as she sobbed.
The conductor’s uniform had gold on it, and he had a gold tooth in his mouth too. Bella shrank: what would he do to her? He was waving his arm round and yelling. What was he saying? “Stupid kid! Stupid! Why don’t you watch where you’re going? You want to get your baby sister killed? Heh?” All around her people were murmuring: Bella’s face was hot, she could hear the disapproval in their tone. She was bad, terrible. She tugged at Euga’s arm and pulled her out of the street, then ran, almost dragging her, down the block past their house, away from all the people. She glanced back once and saw the trolley moving on; the crowd of people was smaller, although some still stood there, talking and gesticulating. She wondered if they would tell Momma on her. What would Momma say? Terror invaded her heart at this new Momma.
She sat Euga down on the curb, and sat uneasily beside her. They did not speak. Would Momma get like Poppa now, and Poppa get like Momma? Bella wondered. Would the people tell Momma? Bella felt she couldn??
?t bear it if Momma spoke angrily to her about it; she felt she would have to die if that happened. Momma said take care of her and I almost killed her, she kept saying to herself, over and over, until her heart slowed again to its normal rhythm.
4
TWO DAYS LATER, ON May 26, 1913, Michael Brez died in the hospital of uremic poisoning, his dream of returning to Poland unfulfilled, his business near bankruptcy, and leaving no life insurance. He didn’t believe in it: he used to say over the dinner table to his fawning friends that he wasn’t going to leave behind a rich widow who would turn over his hard-earned money to some new man.
In the week after his death, Frances, desperate for money to bury him, sold whatever she could for whatever price. The business, already in trouble, simply disappeared. The counters, the chandeliers, the bolts of serge and twill, fine cotton and silk shirtings, the ties, all of it went for whatever she could get. She sold even the furniture from the house—all that was salable. She kept the old couch, the round table and chairs, a sewing machine from the shop, and her marriage bed.
Time passed in a daze for Bella, who saw nothing, heard nothing, remembers nothing. Only a few pictures remain in her mind:
She is standing at the kitchen window in the almost empty apartment, looking down at the sidewalk where Momma is standing talking to the used-furniture man. His horse-drawn wagon is heaped high with carved-wood chairs inlaid with mother-of-pearl and cushioned in crimson brocade; a mahogany sideboard; a Persian carpet; a carved-wood brocade couch; two mattresses; and several boxes of dishes, silver serving pieces, flatware, and ornaments. Momma is arguing now; the used-furniture man has tried at the last minute to cheat the Polack widow out of a dollar. Momma is losing, and looks around her in despair. The neighbors gather round, and Frances explains the situation to them with charming helplessness. They crowd the man in a tight circle, angrily yelling, the men raising their fists. The man looks contemptuously at them, pulls a dollar off his roll of bills and thrusts the bill toward Momma. The crowd still mumbles, calling him names, and he gets up on his wagon and flips the reins. He pulls slowly away, but the crowd remains, smiling and patting poor Pani Brez.
She is sitting with Momma in an office in a big building, she doesn’t know where. They are inside a small office that is inside a big office that has long wooden benches with people sitting dejectedly upon them. It reminds Bella of the office in the school, when she was expelled before she even started, but Momma is different this time. She is still wearing the black hat and the same black coat, but they are old and shabby now, and Momma herself is slumped over in her chair. The woman sitting behind the desk is like the woman in the school: she has grey hair and eyeglasses and the same kind of mouth. Momma’s mouth is twisted, and she is twisting her hands too. The woman is speaking very slowly, very distinctly and very loud, as if Momma were deaf. She speaks so clearly and loudly that even Bella understands her.
“You cannot possibly earn enough to support them,” the woman says.
Momma is near tears. “I can sew. I sew all my life.” Momma is speaking English. “Since I am nine years old I sew. I work in my husband’s shop, I make coats, trousers. The mayor of New York City come to my husband’s shop.”
The woman smiles thinly. “That’s all very well, Mrs. Brez, but wages paid to seamstresses cannot support four children. We will have to take them.”
Momma bursts into tears. “No! No! My children, my babies! You cannot do, no!”
The woman purses her lips and looks over Momma’s head. She is waiting. After Momma stops talking, and her sobs are a little softer, the woman says, “It’s for their own good. It’s for your good too. Surely you must see that, Mrs. Brez. How will you feed them, clothe them? Who will watch the little one when you are at work and the older children in school? At the orphanage they’ll be properly fed and clothed, and they will be taught a trade. It will be better for all of you in the long run.”
Momma sobs louder, hitting her fists on the desk noiselessly, over and over. “No, no!” she keeps crying.
The woman twists her lips again, gazing at Momma. She looks down at her hands. Momma is crying as if she would never stop. “No, no,” she keeps repeating in a little soft voice from way down in her throat. The woman clears her throat.
“Well, perhaps…I guess it would be all right…maybe we could let you keep one of them.”
Momma stops crying. Bella is embarrassed that snot is running down from Momma’s nose to her upper lip. Momma digs in her handbag for a handkerchief and wipes it away and blows her nose. She raises her head tiredly, her shoulders slumped. “I keep Isabella,” she says.
The teacher is handing out the report cards. Bella tries not to think about it. She gazes around her, seeing nothing. The teacher comes to her and hands her the card. Bella doesn’t look at if, she slips it swiftly into her writing tablet. The class is dismissed, and the children tear out with that special energy and joy that marks the last day of school. Isabella Brez rises slowly from her seat and trails behind them slowly. She doesn’t want to speak to any of them, to have them ask her anything. She doesn’t want to know herself.
She walks home slowly, but before she reaches home, she sits down on a curb and looks around her No one is watching her, the streetlife goes on as always. She reaches into her tablet and slowly pulls out the card. She looks at the grades first. She has failed everything. At the bottom, where it says----IS PROMOTED TO----MUST REPEAT-----, she sees that she has been left back. Isabella MUST REPEAT 3rd grade, it says. Her heart stops. They have found out.
She stands, slumping, and drags herself toward home. Momma will be there, her head in her hands, sitting at the table over a cup of coffee, crying. Stupid. Stupid. Useless. Everyone knew she was stupid. It is a terrible thing, to be stupid and know it. She climbs the stairs slowly, and pushes open the door. Momma is alone at the table, crying. Bella enters softly, and goes to her room. She does not tell Momma she has been left back. Nor will Momma ever ask.
The man and the woman come into the almost empty apartment. They are dressed like the people in the pictures outside the nickelodeon: the man is wearing a bowler hat and a blue suit, and the woman has a big-brimmed hat with flowers on it, and a brown wool jacket over her long tan skirt. Her boots are black. They talk to Momma the same way the woman in the office did—very clearly and loud. Edmund, who is now ten; Wallace, who is six; and Eugenia, who is four, are sitting in their best clothes, rigid on the edge of the couch seat. Beside them, on the floor, are three boxes tied with string, containing their clothes. Each holds a bag in their lap—food Momma prepared for them. The man and the woman do not look at the children, and they are annoyed with Momma, who won’t stop crying. The children gaze with white faces at the strangers. Finally, the man says something sharp and fast to Momma, and Momma looks up at him. Bella gasps. She has never seen Momma’s eyes look like that before. The woman hurriedly helps the children up, and puts her hand on their backs to usher them out the door. The man quickly picks up the boxes and follows. But the woman doesn’t go down with them; the man runs down the steps after the children. The woman comes toward Momma, who is still looking like that.
“Mrs. Brez…it isn’t forever. As soon as you get settled, earn enough…you will get them back.” Swiftly, she turns and leaves, as Momma, in a great gasp puts her head in her hands again and cries as if her throat were a cave, as if the howling winds came from her belly, she cries like a storm that will never end.
Bella walks slowly to the kitchen window and looks down at the carriage. She cannot see her brothers and sister, only the man, who is fixing the boxes on the seat beside the driver. The woman comes out and quickly steps up into the carriage and disappears. Then the man gets in. A strange noise comes out of Bella’s throat, and Momma leaps up and runs into the kitchen and stares down at the carriage, when it begins to move, and then she screams, “Killers! Killers! Beasts! Bastards!” She is screaming in Polish, using words she never used before (Huje, she cries, and Niech ich szl
ak weźmie!), the kind of words Poppa would say when he came in late at night. Bella shrinks from this woman. She walks slowly into her bedroom. Except for a heap of her clothes on the floor, it is empty.
5
SHE REMEMBERS NOTHING ELSE. There must have been activity, Frances must have been busy, but Bella, wherever she was, was absent. Frances found a job in a sweatshop, ten hours a day, six days a week, for five dollars a week. She found a new place to live—it was on Manhattan Avenue, on a street like that on which they had lived before, but shabbier. The rent was six dollars a month. The apartment was only a few blocks away from their old one; there were stores on the bottom, and one or two stories of apartments above them. But this time, they would not live above a store, or even on the street, but in the back alley. The enterprising owner of the front building had put up a house in his yard. It had a one-room basement, in which an old Russian immigrant lived alone until one night, a year and a half after Momma and Bella moved in, he turned on the gas in his bedroom without lighting it, and died in his sleep. Momma and Bella would live on the first floor, in two rooms, and there was a family upstairs in another two-room apartment—a mother, father, two children, and two boarders newly arrived from Russia. These boarders had long stringy beards and spoke neither Polish nor English, and they frightened Bella.
To reach the house, you had to go through a door beside a millinery shop that fronted the street, pass the staircase leading to the apartments above, and through a long hall, and out the back. There was a small open space, and then the back building. The toilet was in the front building, though, and all three families had to go through the back door and halfway down the dark hall to use it. The millinery shop would lock up at night, but the two doors were always open.