Orphan #8 Read Free Page B

the foreman chasing after her.
    Visha was now standing in front of Harry, her mouth lifted for a kiss.
    “What are you doing here?” he growled. She lowered her chin.
    “We brought your lunch, Papa. You left it at home this morning.”
    “She was so upset you left it, I thought she’d have another fit. I told her if she was good we’d bring it to you.” Visha offered the wrapped package.
    “That’s fine, Visha.” Harry shoved the lunch into his pocket, grabbed his wife’s elbow, and steered her toward the elevator, carrying Rachel. “But I told you I got a big order, I don’t have time for this.”
    Rachel’s lip began to tremble. “Aren’t you happy to see us, Papa?”
    “I’m always happy to see you, little monkey, don’t get yourself upset. I just got a lot of work to do today. I’ll see you at home later.”
    He set Rachel on her feet and left them to go back to the cutting table. When the elevator opened, it was crowded with crates full of wispy bits of cloth. “Maybe you could walk down?” the young man asked. “Scrap man’s here.”
    Visha and Rachel went over to the stairwell and pulled the door in. On the landing of the stairs, a sewing machine operator was leaning against the wall, sobbing. She was merely a girl, Vishathought, seventeen at the most, and Italian from the look of her. Visha wondered what tragedy had brought on her tears. She placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder but she threw it off with a shudder and ran back up the stairs. Visha shrugged and grabbed Rachel’s hand, guiding her down. It was dozens of steps, with a turn between each floor; by the time they reached the lobby, Rachel’s head was spinning.
    Rachel’s arm hung heavily from Visha’s hand as they did their shopping: the butcher on Broad Street for the meat bone, the bakery on the corner for a yesterday’s loaf. From a pushcart in front of their tenement, Visha haggled over a bunch of limp carrots and some potatoes with sprouting eyes. Only when they entered their building and stopped at Mr. Rosenblum’s pickle shop did Rachel perk up.
    “Look who’s here for brightening my day.” Mr. Rosenblum’s smiling eyes crinkled his face. He spoke Yiddish with most of his customers, but with the children he practiced his English.
    “Mr. Rosenblum, we went to the waist factory!”
    “You did? Did you like the factory? You going someday to work there with your papa?”
    “No, I don’t want to work there. It’s too noisy, it makes the operators cry.”
    “Ach, pickles never make for crying. Pick a pickle, Ruchelah.” Mr. Rosenblum lifted the wooden lid from a barrel of brine, and Rachel chose a big, fat pickle.
    “Taste it,” he said. She took a bite, puckering her lips. “The more sour the pickle, the more better it’s good for you.”
    “So good, Mr. Rosenblum, thank you.”
    “And for you, Mrs. Rabinowitz?” Visha asked for half a dozenpickles. Mr. Rosenblum gave her seven. “One for the boy,” he said, winking at Rachel. “So he shouldn’t be jealous of his sister.”
    In their apartment, Visha gave Rachel a slice of the newly purchased bread. “Look here, the middle’s still soft. Take it in front and work on your buttons. I’m going to make the soup now.”
    In the quiet room, Rachel dragged the jar of buttons over by the window, where warm light stretched across the patterned linoleum. She reached into the jar and brought up a fistful of the little disks. She spread them out on the floor, then began sorting the buttons by color, dividing black from brown from white. Then she grouped them based on what they were made of: mother-of-pearl separated from ivory and bone, tortoiseshell from jet and horn. Last would be size, though Harry mostly brought home tiny shirtwaist buttons. Sometimes Rachel would find a burly coat button mixed in, so big she could spin it like a top. While she worked she recited the letters of the alphabet that Sam had taught her, all the way from A to Z .
    Visha smiled at