judge dispensed draconian punishments—this one for the water drop cure at Blackwell’s Island, that one to the treadmills at Ludlow Street—which a wry-necked shorthand stenographer conscientiously recorded in her log. When it was Max’s turn, the arresting officer stood to recite the immigrant’s alleged offense, but in the absence of the greengrocer, for whom the affair had apparently ended with the apprehension of the thief, there was no one on hand to press formal charges. Nevertheless, the judge was reluctant to let such an obvious felon go scot free. “How do you plead?” he demanded, careless of legalities, while Max shook his head in incomprehension, anticipating the worst. Then a spruce, brilliantined young man in silk suspenders stepped up to offer his services in Yiddish. Max was ready to accept help from any quarter, when the man was interrupted by another, this one in rumpled attire, with a doleful bloodhound face, who explained that the pushy fellow was an opportunist and had not the greenhorn’s best interests at heart; whereas he, clutching a battered briefcase bound with twine to his threadbare vest, was the true voice of the oppressed. Having said as much, he set down the briefcase, hooked his thumbs in his sweat-ringed armpits, and began to declaim in orotund fashion; but the speech, despite its repetition of catchwords—“bourgeois toadies,” “bloated plutocrats”—was entirely lost on Max.
The judge had begun banging his gavel again, ordering the attorney to keep silent, when a brash voice whispered in Max’s ear that “nisht gedeyget, don’t worry,” she would look after him. She was—when he turned—a plump woman in her middle years, acrid with the fragrance of rose water and perspiration, her grin slightly predatory, her coral wig shaped like a ziggurat. In the brief hush that succeeded the curtailment of the lawyer’s peroration, she spoke up, informing the judge with all due respect that she would stand surety for the greenhorn. “Give to me in custody the boy, and I will guarantee he should behave himself and personally put him in the way of gainful employ.” Impatient to move on to cases of more moment, the judge agreed to remand Max into her care.
IT WAS EASY enough for Shmerl to guess what had happened: the cutter, the baster, and the finisher, along with the three lady stitchers, had come in early that morning as usual, and as usual had avoided any friendly chitchat preceding their work in his uncle’s shop. (Chitchat was discouraged as leading ultimately to guild socialism.) They all removed their coats, the stitchers grumbling under their breath that only one machine had been returned to its operational position; then they rearranged the machines and sat down to work. The pasty-faced Pearl Voronsky sat at Shmerl’s customized Singer and started without preamble to stitch a hem. Leaning over her machine to position the fabric beneath the needle bar, she began to pump the pedal, only to find that the pedal, activated by the elementary friction-drive engine that Shmerl had installed in the undercarriage, pumped away on its own. The needle began its rapid pecking, the pedal its automatic seesawing motion, the improvised fan belt rotating at an ever increasing speed. Then a loose strand of the girl’s mousy hair was caught in the sewing mechanism and was itself sewn in a literal “lock” stitch into the fabric, yanking Pearl closer to the treadle platform with each tick of the needle. Finally her head, as if leaning nearer to hear a secret, was yanked to the level of the metal platform and her scalp torn loose with a sickening pop from her skull. The bleeding was profuse, her screaming shrill, general chaos having erupted in the parlor. The noise awoke Shmerl whereas a kick in the behind from his uncle, making his customary entrance after the arrival of his workers, had not. There was no question on the part of Zaynvil, squinching his brow above the tufted bulb of his nose, as to who was responsible for the disaster; he’d had advance notice from abroad of Shmerl’s monkey business and had been warned that he should be on guard against it. Nor did Shmerl deny his part in the debacle. Without protest he accepted his uncle’s hasty justice, seconded by a scowling Tante Dobeh handing him his bag, and allowed himself to be bum-rushed out the door.
On the street it was winter, the banked snow peppered with soot, and now both homeless and penniless, Shmerl considered his options. He might present himself