Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow [40]
When the train arrived the two refugees found a bench in the station and spent the night there. Tateh was not entirely himself. He had in his pockets, fortunately, that part of his week’s wages he had set aside for the rent: two dollars and fifty cents. The girl sat beside him on the shiny bench and watched the patterns made by the people moving through the station. By the early morning hours there was only one porter pushing a big broom across the marble floor. As always she seemed to accept totally the situation in which she found herself. Tateh’s head ached. His hands were swollen and scraped. He sat with his palms cupping his ears. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t think. Somehow they were in Philadelphia.
In the morning he picked up a discarded newspaper. On the front page was an account of the police terror in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He found his cigarettes in their box in his pocket and smoked and read the paper. An editorial called for an investigation of the outrage by the Federal Government. So that was it, the strike would be won. But then what? He heard the clacking of the looms. A salary of six dollars and change. Would that transform their lives? They would still live in that wretched room, in that terrible dark street. Tateh shook his head. This country will not let me breathe. In this mood he slowly came to the decision not to go back to Lawrence, Massachusetts. His belongings, his rags, he would leave to the landlord. What do you have with you, he said to his daughter. She showed him the contents of her small satchel—things she had taken for her trip away from home. Her underthings, her comb and brush, a hair clasp, garters, stockings, and the books he had made for her of the trolley car and the skater. From this moment, perhaps, Tateh began to conceive of his life as separate from the fate of the working class. I hate machines, he said to his daughter. He stood and she stood and took his hand and together they looked for the exit. The I.W.W. has won, he said. But what has it won? A few more pennies in wages. Will it now own the mills? No.
They cleaned and refreshed themselves in the public lavatories. They went to the station café for a breakfast of rolls and coffee and spent the day walking through the streets of Philadelphia. It was cold and the sun was shining. They looked in the windows of the stores and when their feet began to ache from the cold they walked into a department store to warm up. It was a vast emporium, every aisle crowded with shoppers. The girl noticed with interest that wire baskets swung from moving cables over the counters. They carried the money and receipts back and forth from the counters to the cashier. The sales clerks yanked on wooden-handled rope pulls to bring the baskets down and pulled on other ropes to get them back up. Mannequins, like grown-up dolls, sported satin toques and broad-brimmed hats plumed with egret feathers. One of these hats is more than a week’s wages, Tateh said.
Later, on the streets again, they walked past iron-front buildings where trucks were pulled up to warehouse platforms. The windows of supply companies and wholesalers offered little of interest. But then her eye was attracted to the dirty window in which were displayed all the gimcracks of a mail-order novelty company. At this time businessmen were discovering the profit in practical jokes and parlor magic tricks. There were exploding cigars, rubber roses for the lapel that squirted water, boxes of sneezing powder, telescopes that left black eyes, exploding card decks, sound bladders for placing under chair cushions, glass paperweights with winter scenes on which snow fell when you shook them, exploding matches, punch-boards, little lead liberty bells and statues of liberty, magic rings, exploding fountain pens, books that told you the meaning of dreams, rubber Egyptian belly dancers, exploding watches, exploding eggs.
Tateh stared at the window long after the girl’s interest had waned. He led her into the store. Tateh removed his hat and spoke to a man in a striped shirt with sleeve garters who came forward to meet them. The man was amiable. Sure, he said, let