Amongst the "discontinued pensioners" I visited, I found a young Jewish
woman with two children, one eight and one six years old. From the
reports I learned that she came to New York five years ago from Russia,
had worked some time in an embroidery factory and had been disabled in
an accident--lost her right arm.
The report also spoke of a fruitless search made to find her husband,
who, the woman claimed, had deserted her in Russia and was now in New
York. The investigator claimed that this was all a tissue of lies, that
Mrs. Baum's husband was a myth, as the children whom she had questioned
admitted never having had a "papa."
A certain Jewish paper in New York publishes daily the pictures of men
who desert their families, and other details about them. In the report
it was stated that the investigator asked Mrs. Baum for a picture of her
husband, but the woman refused it, saying that she did not want to brand
the father of her children. The report ended with the remark that the
whole thing was a tissue of lies and demanded closer examination. It is
interesting to know that the report was made by a new investigator,
working in a district formerly entrusted to a woman with whom this
investigator was at dagger points, because of some love affair. Later
on, the same investigator spoke about Mrs. Baum's severe illness and the
temporary removal of the children to an orphan asylum.
The pension was kept up for eighteen more months, then suddenly
discontinued. When I read this I tried to think out the reason for the
discontinuance. Was the woman placed in a hospital for incurables? Had
she fallen? Had she found her husband? The discontinuance dated eight
months prior to my reading of the report, and although I knew how many
times one can change his abode in New York, still I set out to hunt the
woman up. For more than a week I spent every moment I could spare trying
to trace her, but without success. In despair, I wrote ten letters, the
first three to the addresses I knew and on the rest of them I just
inscribed her name and the name of one of the lateral streets of the
lower East Side. In the letter I wrote a few words asking for an
appointment and giving my address and asking for hers. I hoped that the
woman had notified the Post Office of her changed address, and placed
not a little confidence in the searching qualities of the New York post
office employés. To my great astonishment I had a reply the next day,
and an address was given of a house I had passed twenty times in my
search.
However, to the Montgomery Street house I directed my steps that
evening. On the way I was overtaken by a heavy rain and looked more like
a wet rat than a man when I knocked at the door. I confess that I
thought more of getting dry than of the cause of my errand. Curious, but
personal discomfort makes one forget all remote considerations; the
whole man is taken possession of by the desire to get his bearings, to
right himself--much like the swinging pendulum when an accident has
crippled the machine that sets it in motion.
As soon as I entered Mrs. Baum's house and told who I was, I took off my
coat, with her permission, and hung it on the back of a chair which I
pushed near the kitchen stove, while I seated myself thereon and tried
to regain my wits.
The woman was alone. The children were at some kind neighbours. Oh! how
painful it was to see her at a little table near the window trying to
make bunches of artificial flowers! How she twisted and turned the wires
with one hand, with the left, while with the stump of the crippled right
she kept the bunch on the table. She had encased the stump of her broken
arm in a frame of wood so as to suffer less when working. She used her
teeth, her chin, forehead, knees and armpits to help form a bunch, and
the work went slowly, slowly. So little did she earn that she did not
care to stop when a guest came, though I felt right along that she was
consumed with curiosity. She lived in one room, which was kitchen,
dining-room, and bedroom for her and the children, and also workroom. It
did not take me very long to get dry, but it took less time for my coat
to catch fire. Before I had time to put out the fire the whole back was
gone. I had a hard time to keep the woman quiet on her chair. A cry of
fire would have created a holocaust in that fire-trap.
When all was quiet again, I sent a neighbour's boy to my home to bring
me another coat, while I seated myself near the table and began my
questioning. But I had no luck. A knock at the door was followed by the
entrance of a matron who immediately asked me who I was. I answered her
very politely that I had business of my own with the lady and was not
obliged to answer to strangers.
"Who is that man?" was now the question put to the crippled woman, who
was just twisting a rose with her stump.
"I don't know," she said, shrugging her shoulders.
"You don't know?" sarcastically. "You don't know who the man is who
sits near you in his shirtsleeves?"
"Madame," I tried to explain, "I came here during the rain, hung my coat
on the back of a chair. It caught fire, and here I am." But the matron
would not hear my explanation. She slammed the door and went out,
cursing, talking loudly and insultingly.
The woman was as pale as death. She looked from me to the door, and back
again. It was my turn to ask a question.
"Who is that woman?"
"The investigator of an institution that pays my rent."
So saying, the woman's head sank on the table and she wept bitterly. She
did not weep long. Real sorrow is deep and short. There is no time for
artistic posing when the knife has pierced the heart.
The broken-down figure rose, brushed away some tears, and asked me:
"And now, sir, tell me, who are you and what do you want?"
She stood before me defiantly, as though to say: "Make it quick, you
bird of evil."
"Madame," I began, "I am making a supplementary investigation on behalf
of the charities, and I want to look into the reason of your
discontinuance."
Hearing this she retreated, laid off her defiance, and sat down. I took
out my notebook and started my questioning.
"Have you now an idea where your husband is?"
"Of course I have, and this started the whole trouble," she began with
animation.
"How so?" I asked.
"For four years I looked and searched without any result. I hoped and
hoped, and the charities helped me also. I did not want to publish his
picture in the papers. Then I had that accident in the factory. Great
God! what that woman, Mrs. Sol (an investigator) made me suffer! Never
did she believe a word I said. Called me beggar, liar, crazy, and all
the ugly names in the language. I stood it all because I hoped that one
day I would get rid of them. Suddenly, one morning, while going to work,
I saw _him_ going into a door on Greene Street. I ran after him and
throwing my arms around him, cried: 'Chaim, Chaim.'"
Mrs. Baum sobbed again and repeated her husband's name, as though she
again saw him. After a few moments she resumed her narrative.
"He looked at me, with strange eyes, as though he saw me for the first
time. Meanwhile a crowd had collected. I still kept calling 'Chaim!
don't you know me? Your wife, Leah?' 'What wife Leah?' he asked. 'Are
you crazy?' Ah! my own husband; the father of my children, did not want
to recognise me. The crowd grew. I kept at him. A policeman arrived and
forced me to let him go. He quickly entered the door and I ran to the
charities and told them my story and gave them the street and house
number. I was told to come the next day, when some one would be sent
with me--a special man they had for such errands. What a day and what a
night I passed! The next morning, bright and early, I was at the office.
A young man accompanied me and I led the way to the house. We entered
and the man asked the bookkeeper if a Mr. Baum was not working there. He
looked in all the books and could find no such name. On my advice the
young man asked permission to visit the shop. We were allowed to go up.
We looked--he was not there. Yet I was certain that I had seen him
enter."
The investigator again treated me to such epithets as "crazy woman,
liar, etc." Coming down, I begged the bookkeeper to look over the names
of all the employés again. I thought perhaps he was working as a driver,
clerk--or at some other job. To get rid of me he asked, 'How does he
look?' I had his picture with me and I showed it to the man. He grew
pale, and exclaimed: 'That's our boss, Mr. Ap.' All at once he realised
what he had said and bent his head over his books. I was thunderstruck.
Here he was, the boss of all this and his wife and children starving and
begging. So that's the kind of a man he is? The investigator asked the
bookkeeper:
"'Is Mr. Ap. here?'
"'No.'
"'When do you expect him?'
"'He is gone to Europe.'
"'When did he go?' I jumped up.
"'I don't know,' he answered, and we could get no more information from
him. I cried and pleaded--it did not help.
"We returned to the office, where the Manager was told of all that had
happened. He listened very patiently and then said: 'Give me the
picture--we will attend to that now. Meanwhile, you keep quiet.' Some
additional money was given to me and they said that I must not go to the
factory. They would watch the place and if it was true that he had gone
to Europe we would have to wait his return."
The woman's chest heaved, and cold sweat appeared on her brow and face
and arms, as though her whole body were on the rack. She rested a few
minutes, drank some water and resumed.
"I waited. True, I could not keep away from the place. Several times I
walked past in the hope of getting a glimpse of him. I knew that if I
could meet him quietly and talk to him he might relent. I might show him
his children. Perhaps he had not recognised me. I had changed so much in
the years that had passed since we had last seen one another.
"He was not to be seen, however. Yes, he has grown rich--very rich--he
did not want me any longer. He has changed his name--perhaps he has
married another woman. All these thoughts came to me. My God!" The woman
sobbed again.
"For weeks and weeks my only occupation was to go from home to the
charities, from there to Greene Street and back. The Manager of the
office at the charities spoke to me several times and asked me details
about our former life and condition when we married. I told him all. The
truth as ever. One day as I walked down from the elevated on First
Street and Third Avenue I saw him again, but this time he was not alone.
A woman leaned on his arm. What I suffered! What I endured! I did not
approach him. I feared he might again go away. I ran to the office, and
told them that he was back. Again I was counselled to keep still. They
would attend to it. The next and the third day I asked the Manager
whether he had any results. 'No, he had not seen him.' Then on the
fourth day he called me into his private room and told me that Mr. Ap.
denied that he had ever married me.
"'Have you a marriage certificate?' he asked.
"I had none. We were married only religiously by a rabbi and had no
certificate.
"'But,' I said, 'I have his children.'
"'He does not recognise them. He says he knew you in Russia, true
enough, but that he never married you. When I told him your situation he
agreed to give you enough money to go back to Russia.'
"You understand?" the woman exclaimed. "Send me away from here."
"Of course, I refused and asked the Manager to help me force him to
recognise me and his children. I grew bitter, and wept and cried. He
quieted me down and told me to go home. That he would see that all would
be well.
"The next day and the next passed without result. The Manager was very
gentle, very nice. Then on the following day, no, on the next after
that, he told me that Mr. Ap. had agreed to give me one thousand dollars
if I would go back to Russia immediately. Of course, I did not want to
accept. He was my husband, the father of my children. He had to admit
that, though I had no certificate. I looked about to find a man from our
village, a man who knew him, a man who knew we were married. I found
none. Then I went back to the office and asked for the photograph. But
the Manager would not return it. Mr. Ap. had taken it. I cried, I
menaced, but could not get my picture back. Not only did they not help
me to legally force him to recognise me, to support me, but they took
away the only weapon I had--the picture.
"The Manager kept on urging me to take the one thousand dollars and go
to Russia. 'It's kind enough of him to do that. After all, I believe him
more than you, and he says that he never married you.'
"So he told me, to my face, a week after that I was 'discontinued.'
'What is that?' I asked. 'Take the one thousand dollars and go away.'
"I was put out in the street in the dead of winter. My children almost
froze. I ran to Greene Street. They would not let me in. I went to the
charities. The Manager just told me: 'People that can get one thousand
dollars need no charity.'
"Finally, a society paid my rent and I was again under a roof, but I was
afraid to say anything about my husband, and when they asked me I
answered that he was dead. How could I say otherwise? I had nothing to
prove my case. My one piece of evidence was taken away. He had changed
his name. I had no letters, no certificate. Now I will have more
trouble, through you, with that woman who saw you."
"And what do you intend to do now?" I asked.
"I have my plans. I expect some one from my village who knows him and
who knows that we were married. I am saving every cent I can for the
steamship agency to buy a ticket."
She bent down over her work again. Meanwhile my coat was brought. I took
leave, promised to look into the matter and went out.
In a few minutes I was in Greene Street. I looked up the number. Above
the door hung a big sign, announcing the business of the firm, and on
the door, near the knob, was nailed another little sign, with black
letters on white enamel:
"Member of organised charity."
All was now clear why the woman was not helped in her fight, and why she
was coerced through the "discontinuance." I remembered the Manager's
answer:
"Who is supporting this institution? The poor or the rich?"
And of course they had to work for the ones that were supporting them.