“Why not go to a hotel till you find a suitable room?” she blandly
advised.
My laughter sounded unreal so loud it was, as I reminded her, “Before
the French Revolution, when the starving people came to the queen’s
palace clamouring for bread, the queen innocently exclaimed, ‘Why don’t
they eat cake?’”
“How disagreeable you are! You think of no one but yourself. I’ve come
here for a little change, to get away from my own troubles, and here
you come with your hatefulness.”
I hadn’t known the relief of laughter, but now that I was started I
couldn’t stop, no more than I could stop staring at her. I tried to
associate this new being of silks and jewels with her who had worked
side by side with me in the factory.
“How you act! I think you’re crazy,” she admonished, and glanced at her
wrist-watch. “I’m late for my appointment with the manicurist. I have
to have my nails done after this dusty railway trip.”
And I had been surprised at the insensate settlement worker, at my
uncomprehending American friend who knew not the meaning of want. Yet
here was my own sister, my own flesh and blood, reared in the same
ghetto, nurtured in the same poverty, ground in the same sweat-shop
treadmill, and because she had a few years of prosperity, because she
ate well and dressed well and was secure, she was deaf to my cry.
Where I could hope for understanding, where I could turn for shelter,
where I was to lay my head that very night, I knew not. But this much
suddenly came to me, I was due to report for work that day. I was shut
out on every side, but there in my office at least awaited me the
warmth and sunshine of an assured welcome. My employer would understand
and let me take off the remainder of the day to continue my search.
I found him out, and instead awaiting me was a pile of mail which he
had left word I should attend to. The next hour was torture. My power
of concentration had deserted me. I tapped the keys of my typewriter
with my fingers, but my brain was torn with worry, my nerves ready to
snap. The day was nearly spent. Night was coming on and I had no place
to lay my head.
I was finishing the last of the letters when he came. After a friendly
greeting he turned to the letters. I dared not interrupt until the
mail was signed.
“Girl! What’s wrong? That’s not like you!” He stared at me. “There are
a dozen mistakes in each letter.”
A blur. Everything seemed to twist and turn around me. Red and black
spots blinded me. A clenched hand pounded his desk, and I heard a voice
that seemed to come from me--scream like a lunatic. “I have no home--no
home--not even a bed for the night!”
Then all I remember is the man’s kindly tone as he handed me a glass of
water. “Are you feeling better?” he asked.
“My landlady put me out,” I said between laboured breaths. “Oh-h, I’m
so lonely! Not a place to lay my head!”
I saw him fumble for his pocket-book and look at me strangely. His
burning gaze seemed to strip me naked--pierce me through and through
from head to foot. Something hurt so deep I choked with shame. I seized
my hat and coat and ran out.
It was getting dark when I reached the entrance of Central Park.
Exhausted, I dropped to the nearest bench. I didn’t even know I was
crying.
“Are you lonely, little one?” A hand slipped around my waist and a
dapper young chap moved closer. “Are you lonely?” he repeated.
I let him talk. I knew he had nothing real to offer, but I was so
tired, so ready to drop the burden of my weary body that I had no
resistance in me. “There’s no place for me,” I thought to myself.
“Everyone shuts me out. What difference what becomes of me? Who cares?”
My head dropped to his shoulder. And the cry broke from me, “I have no
place to sleep to-night.”
“Sleep?” I could feel him draw in his breath and a blood-shot gleam
leaped into his eyes. “You should worry. I’ll take care of that.”
He flashed a roll of bills tauntingly. “How about it, kiddo? Can you
change me a twenty-dollar bill?”
As his other hand reached for me, I wrenched loose from him as from the
cloying touch of pitch. “I wish I were that kind! I wish I were your
kind! But I’m not!”
His hands dropped from the touch of me as though his flesh was
scorched, and I found I was alone.
I walked again. At the nearest public telephone office I called up the
women’s hotels. None had a room left for less than two dollars. My
remaining cash was forty cents short. The Better Housing Bureau had
robbed me of my last hope of shelter.
I passed Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue mansions. Many were closed,
standing empty. I began counting the windows, the rooms. Hundreds and
hundreds of empty rooms, hundreds and hundreds of luxuriously furnished
homes, and I homeless--shut out. I felt I was abandoned by God and man
and no one cared if I perished or went mad. I had a fresh sense why the
spirit of revolution was abroad in the land.
Blindly I retraced my steps to the park bench. I saw and felt nothing
but a devouring sense of fear. It suddenly came over me that I was
not living in a world of human beings, but in a jungle of savages who
gorged themselves with food, gorged themselves with rooms, while I
implored only a bed for the night. And I implored in vain.
I felt the chaos and destruction of the good and the beautiful within
me and around me. The sight of people who lived in homes and ate three
meals a day filled me with the fury of hate. The wrongs and injustices
of the hungry and the homeless of all past ages burst from my soul like
the smouldering lava of a blazing volcano. Earth-quakes of rebellion
raced through my body and brain. I fell prone against the bench and
wept, not tears, but blood.
“Move along! No loitering here!” The policeman’s club tapped me on the
shoulder. Then a woman stopped and bent over me.