“You think I don’t know that? But how else can we get nice things? Do you know how much I earn at Faircloths? Six dollars a week, that’s how much! And my family’d take it all if I’d let them! As it is, they only let me keep a dollar or two for myself. I’ve got to make do on that, and I have to skip lunch or walk instead of taking the trolley so I can afford to go to a dance.”
Sarah was calculating in her head. The last suit she’d bought for herself cost seven dollars and fifty cents. How many lunches and trolley rides would girls like Lisle and Gerda have to skip and how long would they have to save before they could afford a new outfit? Even a few dollars for a hat or a shirtwaist would require great sacrifice.
Now Sarah understood another truth about the dance she’d just attended. The men were obviously there for sexual favors, and Sarah had assumed the girls gave them for attention. She’d never dreamed there was more at stake.
Both Gerda and Lisle had probably exchanged sex for a hat from the man named George. “What kind of a man is he? This George, I mean.”
Lisle shrugged one shoulder. “He’s all right, I guess. Likes to have fun. Never minds dropping a few dollars to show a girl a good time.”
“Does he have a temper?”
Lisle looked at her with disdain. “All men got a temper if a woman says no. Don’t you know nothing at all?”
Sarah decided not to mention that her husband, Tom, had been at least one exception to that rule. Lisle probably wouldn’t believe her anyway.
“But do you think this George would be violent? Is he the kind of man who-?”
“Who would’ve killed Gerda?” Lisle asked grimly. “I don’t have no idea. Who knows what a man’ll do if a woman pushes him far enough?”
“Would Gerda have pushed him?”
“Gerda liked to make them mad,” Lisle admitted after a moment. “She liked to make them beg her. Lot of men, they don’t like that.”
“Wouldn’t that be dangerous?” Sarah asked, instantly realizing how foolish the question was. Of course it was dangerous. Gerda was dead. “I mean, is that what you do? Is that why Billy was angry?”
Lisle didn’t like talking about this. “I ain’t like Gerda. I don’t like a fuss. I… I just like pretty things.”
They had reached St. Mark’s Place, and they turned toward Tompkins Park. The streets weren’t as deserted as they should have been this time of night. Many people were sleeping on the fire escapes and stoops because of the heat. Others were leaning out of windows or sitting wherever they could find a spot, trying to catch whatever breeze might be stirring.
Lisle lived down a few blocks, in one of the tenements. Sarah remembered how little she knew about the girl.
“Do you live with your family, Lisle?”
“My mother and stepfather.”
“You don’t like him very much,” Sarah guessed from the tone of her voice.
“I hate him,” Lisle said with surprisingly little rancor. It was just another fact of her life.
“I don’t suppose he approves of you going to dances.”
“He don’t have nothing to say about it. I told him if he made any trouble, I’d leave. I’ve got some friends I could stay with. Then he wouldn’t get my money anymore. He didn’t say anything after that.”
“Could you really do that? Live on your own, I mean?”
Lisle made a disgusted sound. “Not likely. Not on six dollars a week, even with three of us to a room. He don’t know it, though, so he leaves me alone.”
The bleakness of Lisle’s existence weighed on Sarah, especially when she thought of Gerda and the other dead girls. Their lives had been equally as bleak and hopeless. “What are your plans, Lisle? What are you going to do with your life?”
Lisle looked up in surprise, as if no one had ever asked her such a question before. “I don’t know,” she said after a moment. “I’ll get me a steady fellow, I guess, and we’ll get married.”
Then the babies would come, too many, too quickly, and fragile Lisle would be old before her time. Maybe she wouldn’t even survive. Life was hard for girls like this, and they had few options. Survival was all they could hope for. Happiness wasn’t even something they dreamed about.
Sarah knew she couldn’t change Lisle’s destiny, but she felt compelled to warn her anyway. “Be careful, Lisle. There are good men out there. Don’t settle for less.”
Lisle gave her an unfathomable look, and Sarah didn’t know how much she’d appreciated the advice. Probably not at all, but at least Sarah had tried.
Lisle’s step slowed, indicating they had reached her building. Some children were sleeping on a blanket on the sidewalk out front, and an old woman crouched on the stoop, staring vacantly out into the darkness. Lisle looked up, apparently checking her family’s apartment windows.
“Looks like it’s safe to go in. No lights. They must be asleep.” Her smile was wan in the glow of the gaslight.
“Thank you for taking me with you tonight,” Sarah said. “I hope I didn’t ruin your evening.”
“There’s always tomorrow,” she said philosophically.
“Gerda thought that, too,” Sarah reminded her gently. “Don’t take any foolish chances.”
Lisle smiled slightly and shook her head, as if unable believe Sarah was real. “Good night, Mrs. Brandt.”
Sarah waited until she had disappeared into the building. She glanced at the old woman, but she hadn’t moved, and Sarah realized she was asleep. Sitting straight up but fast asleep. Probably she was guarding the children.
Leaving them to their rest, Sarah made her way back down St. Mark’s and back toward her own home in Greenwich Village.
SARAH DIDN’T KNOW exactly what she could say to Agnes Otto. The new mother was still in bed, just as Sarah had recommended, and Sarah suspected she was suffering just as much from grief as she was from the exertions of childbirth. Her eyes were red-rimmed, as if she’d been crying, when Sarah arrived the next day.
“Mrs. Brandt, do you know anything about my Gerda? Did the police tell you anything?” she asked eagerly.
“I spoke with my friend, but he hasn’t told me anything yet. The police are probably still investigating,” she added, knowing it was most likely a lie, but not wanting to hurt Agnes any more than was necessary. “How are you feeling?”
Agnes’s head rolled on the pillow, and she closed her eyes against fresh tears. “I cry all the time. I cannot stop,” she said.
The baby was sleeping beside her on the bed, swaddled in spite of the heat, and Sarah carefully unwrapped her. The baby’s arms and legs were still spindly, and when she pinched the baby’s skin, it didn’t spring back the way it should have.
“How often do you feed the baby?” she asked.
Agnes waved her hand vaguely. “When she cries.”
“She’s not thriving. She should have put on more weight than this, and she’s dehydrated… not getting enough to eat,” Sarah explained when she saw the alarm in Agnes’s eyes. “She might just be a good baby who doesn’t wake up often enough. You’ll have to feed her even when she doesn’t cry. Every two or three hours. Listen for the clock to chime and feed her.” The Ottos wouldn’t have a clock of their own, but the city was full of public clocks by which people regulated their lives. “Wake her up if you have to.”
She could see Agnes’s despair. Sarah was making demands of her, and she didn’t think she could cope. “Maybe one of your neighbors would help you remember,” Sarah suggested.
“They already do enough,” Agnes said. “They take care of my children and bring us supper every night. I cannot ask more.”
Maybe she couldn’t, but Sarah wasn’t afraid to, not if it might save this baby’s life.
Sarah finished checking Agnes and the baby, and as she stepped away from the bed, she nearly tripped over a small wooden box sitting on the floor.