Hungry Hearts
jungle of savages who had to eat one another alive in order to survive.
And then, in the very bitterness of my resentment, the hardness broke
in me. I saw the girls through their own eyes as if I were inside of
them. What else could they have done? Was not an immediate crust of
bread for Balah Rifkin's children more urgent than truth--more vital
than honor?
Could it be that they ever had dreamed of America as I had dreamed? Had
their faith in America wholly died in them? Could my faith be killed as
theirs had been?
Gasping from running, Yetta Solomon flung her arms around me.
"You golden heart! I sneaked myself out from the shop--only to tell
you I'll come to see you to-night. I'd give the blood from under
my nails for you--only I got to run back--I got to hold my job--my
mother--"
I hardly saw or heard her--my senses stunned with my defeat. I walked
on in a blind daze--feeling that any moment I would drop in the middle
of the street from sheer exhaustion.
Every hope I had clung to--every human stay--every reality was torn
from under me. I sank in bottomless blackness. I had only one wish
left--to die.
Was it then only a dream--a mirage of the hungry-hearted people in the
desert lands of oppression--this age-old faith in America--the beloved,
the prayed-for "golden country"?
Had the starved villagers of Sukovoly lifted above their sorrows a mere
rainbow vision that led them--where--where? To the stifling submission
of the sweatshop or the desperation of the streets!
"O God! What is there beyond this hell?" my soul cried in
me. "Why can't I make a quick end to myself?"
A thousand voices within me and about me answered:
"My faith is dead, but in my blood their faith still clamors and
aches for fulfillment--_dead generations whose faith though beaten back
still presses on--a resistless, deathless force!_
"In this America that crushes and kills me, their spirit drives me
on--to struggle--to suffer--but never to submit."
In my desperate darkness their lost lives loomed--a living flame of
light. Again I saw the mob of dusty villagers crowding around my father
as he read the letter from America--their eager faces thrust out--their
eyes blazing with the same hope, the same age-old faith that drove
me on--
A sudden crash against my back. Dizzy with pain I fell--then all was
darkness and quiet.
* * * * *
I opened my eyes. A white-clad figure bent over me. Had I died? Was I
in the heaven of the new world--in America?
My eyes closed again. A misty happiness filled my being.
"Learning flows free like milk and honey," it dreamed itself in me.
I was in my heaven--in the schools of America--in open, sunny fields--a
child with other children. Our lesson-books were singing birds and
whispering trees--chanting brooks and beckoning skies. We breathed in
learning and wisdom as naturally as flowers breathe in sunlight.
After our lessons were over, we all joined hands skipping about like a
picture of dancing fairies I had once seen in a shop-window.
I was so full of the joy of togetherness--the great wonder of the new
world; it pressed on my heart like sorrow. Slowly, I stole away from
the other children into silent solitude, wrestling and praying to give
out what surged in me into some form of beauty. And out of my struggle
to shape my thoughts beautifully, a great song filled the world.
"Soon she's all right to come back to the shop--yes, nurse?" The
voice of Yetta Solomon broke into my dreaming.
Wearily I opened my eyes. I saw I was still on earth.
Yetta's broad, generous face smiled anxiously at me. "Lucky yet the
car that run you over didn't break your hands or your feet. So long
you got yet good hands you'll soon be back by the machine."
"Machine?" I shuddered. "I can't go back to the shop again. I
got so used to sunlight and quiet in the hospital I'll not be able to
stand the hell again."
"Shah!--Shah!" soothed Yetta. "Why don't you learn yourself
to take life like it is? What's got to be, got to be. In Russia, you
could hope to run away from your troubles to America. But from America
where can you go?"
"Yes," I sighed. "In the blackest days of Russia, there was
always the hope from America. In Russia we had only a mud hut; not
enough to eat and always the fear from the Cossack, but still we
managed to look up to the sky, to dream, to think of the new world
where we'll have a chance to be people, not slaves."
"What's the use to think so much? It only eats up the flesh from
your bones. Better rest ..."
"How can I rest when my choked-in thoughts tear me to pieces? I need
school more than a starving man needs bread."
Yetta's eyes brooded over me. Suddenly a light broke. "I got an
idea. There's a new school for greenhorns where they learn them
anything they want ..."
"What--where?" I raised myself quickly, hot with eagerness. "How
do you know from it--tell me only--quick--since when--"
"The girl next door by my house--she used to work by cigars--and now
she learns there."
"What does she learn?"
"Don't get yourself so excited. Your eyes are jumping out from your
head."
I fell back weakly: "Oi weh! Tell me!" I begged.
"All I know is that she likes what she learns better than rolling
cigars. And it's called 'School for Immigrant Girls.'"
"Your time is up. Another visitor is waiting to come in," said the
nurse.
As Yetta walked out, my mother, with the shawl over her head, rushed in
and fell on my bed kissing me.
"Oi weh! Oi weh! Half my life is out from me from fright. How did all
happen?"
"Don't worry yourself so. I'm nearly well already and will go
back to work soon."
"Talk not work. Get only a little flesh on your bones. They say they
send from the hospital people to the country. Maybe they'll send
you."
"But how will you live without my wages?"
"Davy is already peddling with papers and Bessie is selling
lolly-pops after school in the park. Yesterday she brought home already
twenty-eight cents."
For all her efforts to be cheerful, I looked at her pinched face and
wondered if she had eaten that day.
Released from the hospital, I started home. As I neared Allen Street,
the terror of the dark rooms swept over me. "No--no--I can't
yet go back to the darkness and the stinking smells," I said to
myself. "So long they're getting along without my wages, let
them think I went to the country and let me try out that school for
immigrants that Yetta told me about."
So I went to the Immigrant School.
A tall, gracious woman received me, not an employee, but a
benefactress.
The love that had rushed from my heart toward the Statue in the
Bay, rushed out to Mrs. Olney. She seemed to me the living spirit of
America. All that I had ever dreamed America to be shone to me out of
the kindness of her brown eyes. She would save me from the sordidness
that was crushing me I felt the moment I looked at her. Sympathy and
understanding seemed to breathe from her serene presence.
I longed to open my heart to her, but I was so excited I didn't know
where to begin.
"I'm crazy to learn!" I gasped breathlessly, and then the very
pressure of the things I had to say choked me.
An encouraging smile warmed the fine features.
"What trade would you like to learn--sewing-machine operating?"
"Sewing-machine operating?" I cried. "Oi weh!" I shuddered.
"Only the thought 'machine' kills me. Even when I only look
on clothes, it weeps in me when I think how the seams from
everything people wear is sweated in the shop."
"Well, then"--putting a kind hand on my shoulder--"how would you
like to learn to cook? There's a great need for trained servants and
you'd get good wages and a pleasant home."
"Me--a servant?" I flung back her hand. "Did I come to America to
make from myself a cook?"
Mrs. Olney stood abashed a moment. "Well, my dear," she said
deliberately, "what would you like to take up?"
"I got ideas how to make America better, only I don't know how to
say it out. Ain't there a place I can learn?"
A startled woman stared at me. For a moment not a word came. Then she
proceeded with the same kind smile. "It's nice of you to want to
help America, but I think the best way would be for you to learn a
trade. That's what this school is for, to help girls find themselves,
and the best way to do is to learn something useful."
"Ain't thoughts useful? Does America want only the work from my
body, my hands? Ain't it thoughts that turn over the world?"
"Ah! But we don't want to turn over the world." Her voice cooled.
"But there's got to be a change in America!" I cried. "Us
immigrants want to be people--not 'hands'--not slaves of the
belly! And it's the chance to think out thoughts that makes
people."
"My child, thought requires leisure. The time will come for
that. First you must learn to earn a good living."
"Did I come to America for a living?"
"What did you come for?"
"I came to give out all the fine things that was choked in me in
Russia. I came to help America make the new world.... They said, in
America I could open up my heart and fly free in the air--to sing--to
dance--to live--to love.... Here I got all those grand things in me,
and America won't let me give nothing."
"Perhaps you made a mistake in coming to this country. Your own land
might appreciate you more." A quick glance took me in from head to
foot. "I'm afraid that you have come to the wrong place. We only
teach trades here."
She turned to her papers and spoke over her shoulder. "I think you
will have to go elsewhere if you want to set the world on fire."
Part III
Blind passion swayed me as I walked out of the Immigrant School,
not knowing where I was going, not caring. One moment I was swept
with the fury of indignation, the next moment bent under the burden
of despair. But out of this surging conflict one thought--one truth
gradually grew clearer and clearer to me: Without comprehension, the
immigrant would forever remain shut out--a stranger in America. Until
America can release the heart as well as train the hand of the
immigrant, he would forever remain driven back upon himself, corroded
by the very richness of the unused gifts within his soul.
I longed for a friend--a real American friend--some one different from
Mrs. Olney, some one who would understand this vague, blind hunger for
release that consumed me. But how, where could I find such a friend?
As I neared the house we lived in, I paused terror-stricken. On the
sidewalk stood a jumbled pile of ragged house-furnishings that looked
familiar--chairs, dishes, kitchen pans. Amidst bundles of bedding and
broken furniture stood my mother. Oblivious of the curious crowd, she
lit the Sabbath candles and prayed over them.
In a flash I understood it all. Because of the loss of my wages while
I was in the hospital, we had been evicted for unpaid rent. It was
Sabbath eve. My father was in the synagogue praying and my mother,
defiant of disgrace, had gone on with the ceremony of the Sabbath.
All the romance of our race was in the light of those Sabbath
candles. Homeless, abandoned by God and man, yet in the very desolation
of the streets my mother's faith burned--a challenge to all America.
"Mammeh!" I cried, pushing through the crowd. Bessie and Dave
darted forward. In a moment the four of us stood clinging to one
another, amid the ruins of our broken home.
* * * * *
A neighbor invited us into her house for supper. No sooner had
we sat down at the table than there was a knock at the door and a
square-figured young woman entered, asking to see my mother.
"I am from the Social Betterment Society," she said. "I hear
you've been dispossessed. What's the trouble here?"