In Theda Bara's Tent, a novel

8/7/2019 In Theda Bara's Tent, a novel

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CHAPTER ONE

I didnt see my parents die when I was nine but I saw the way they died. I saw others leaping

from the flames landing with a thud on the sidewalk. Young girls once vibrant were now a pile of

clothes. Thud. Then the next one. Thud. Its that sound that remains with me and the chaos of the

scenethe cops linking arms to form a barricade to keep us back, firemen hosing water up the

eight stories of the textile factory where my mother worked. The crowds shoved and screamed

and knocked over pushcarts, but for one strange moment, I was detached and took a scientific

view. Water came from somewhere and went into those hoses. The water came from somewhere

outside of my Delancey Street neighborhood, and for a split second, I saw the wide world, saw

how everything was really much bigger than Id imagined. That was a comforting insight. Then

someone shoved me, and I shouted for my father, and Oats told me hed gone in to rescue my

mother.

Afterward, neighbors were all whispering and looking at me as if something was lurking

behind me. One of the women was cooking at my mothers stove. The men who used to grab and

tickle me avoided my eye. It was Oats who drove me to the docks in Mr. Goldfarbs wagon. This

could not happen unless there was some emergency because Mr. Goldfarb never let anyone drive

his wagon, especially not Oats, whose racket was protection. If you paid Oats, he wouldnt

poison your horse. Now here he was sitting in the wagon outside my building waiting for me to

come downstairs with those coins in my pocket and some of my clothes bundled together in a

shawl. It never entered my head as we clip-clopped along the streets of the Lower East Side that I

was going away.

Id never been to the piers before, and I was excited to see all those gigantic ships, sailing

schooners, freight ships and a gaudy three-story side-wheeler like the kind in picture books about


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the Mississippi River. The pier was dense with activity, families carrying luggage, tractors

heaped with cargo, sailors loading freight. It was a madhouse with seagulls overhead screeching,

sheee, yuk, yuk, sheee, yuk, yuk. Oats said, That one, and pointed to the side-wheeler. You go

find him. I cant leave the horse. I assumed he meant my father come back alive somehow.

Passengers were coming down a gangplank to the dock. When I caught sight of my

fathertall, shoulders back, head highI charged through the crowd. What a relief! No more

lying in bed at night wondering who was going to take care of me. I threw my arms around his

waist, but the hands that loosened my grip were not my fathers. Startled, I stepped back and

looked up into the face of a young man who said, You got money for the ticket? He had my

fathers face but not the face I knew. He had my fathers young face, the one in the photo from

Lithuania before my father came to America, the one Mr. Goldfarb tucked into my bundle as I

was walking out the door. I held my coins in an open palm as if feeding a horse, and the young

man picked out what he needed. His hands were calloused, with black under the nails.

I had made one of the most humiliating mistakes of childhood. I hugged the wrong

person. I tried to recover my dignity by saying, Oats is here, which I thought would show that I

had things under control. But Oats had vanished. Now I heard some of the words that had

circulated in whispers around me that week: Who says nineteen isnt old enough? and New

England? Wheres that?

Are you Uncle Sonny? I said. Youre the ones supposed to take care of me.

He looked down at me with grave eyes. Dont you think I know that? A whistle blasted.

Come on! Uncle Sonny shouted and I ran after him out to the deck where the wind blew my

hat off. I watched it sail out over the water, dip, sail more, then land on the waves.


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Uncle Sonny didnt care about my hat. Hey! See that? he shouted. Its the Statue of

Liberty!

Think it will sink? I asked him. He considered this, then realized I was teasing. He

pulled his hand back pretending he was going to cuff me, and I ducked, and our eyes met with a

quick hug. I had always wanted an older brother. So this was the Uncle Sonny my father was

always looking forward to seeing again.

We spent the night in a room the size of a cell and ate dinner rolls that young women in

the ships galley donated to us after Uncle Sonny flirted with them. We disembarked in Fall

River and hurried to a train depot. Looking out the window at rural Massachusettsred barns,

black-and-white cowsI waited for bandits with kerchiefs over their noses to gallop close, a

familiar scene at the motion-picture hall upstairs in Mr. Goldfarbs store.

Our train stopped in a town of red-brick mills where the air smelled of leather and there

was a continual hum coming from the windows of the mills. A large billboard with a picture of a

womans high-buttoned shoe read, Welcome to Haverhill, Slipper City of the World, population

45,000.

I wondered what happened to the people. There werent enough of them. Did Cossacks

on a rampage kill everyone right and left? No pushcarts overflowing with cabbages, potatoes and

lemons. No mangy dogs licking the puddles found under the carts of fish laid out on ice. No

organ grinder whose monkey held out a black and shriveled palm. No women haranguing

merchants on the sidewalk. The stores were lined up, each with its own big glass window, the

goods arranged artistically: eggs in a pyramid, butter in terra cotta pots.

We walked into a neighborhood of dirt streets and triple-decker wooden houses.

Clotheslines held up shirts, denim trousers, womens bloomers, diapers. Small children stopped


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their play to watch us. It was unnerving to see how interesting two people walking by was to

them. Did nothing ever happen in this place? Uncle Sonny opened a small gate, and I followed

him into one of the identical houses.

The hall was dark and narrow, and the stairs were so steep they were almost

perpendicular. The smell was cooked cabbage. Uncle Sonny and I climbed one flight, two

flights, three flights to his room in the attic. A mattress on the floor was covered with a moth-

eaten blanket. Books and maps were everywhere. He gave me some of our leftover rolls and

said, Stay here. I heard him go down the steep stairs and when I looked out the window, I saw

him hurrying down the hill as men carrying lunch pails trudged up in the other direction.

His maps were crisscrossed with red pencil, routes to Alaska, Canada and California.

Catalogs showed pickaxes, shovels and strainers used for panning gold. When he didnt come

back, I went downstairs and stood on the empty dirt street. Then I climbed back up the stairs. A

little later, I went down again hoping maybe a band would march by or an opera singer would

belt out some aria, but there was nothing. I went up and down all afternoon and absolutely

nothing happened except the sun began to go down, then the sun went down and the street lamps

went on, and I stood by the window upstairs looking out and waiting. At last, I heard his

footsteps on the stairs. He opened the door and said, Im done! He picked me up, twirled me

around and collapsed onto the mattress.

Im not a baby, I said and brushed myself off. As far as I could see, he had not brought

me anything to eat.

Youll thank me some day, he said.

For what?

For the fortune Im going to heap on you.


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He packed some maps in his knapsack, stuffed in his hairbrush, took off his factory

uniform and stomped on it as if killing a roach. No music came through the windows of the

homes we passed, no raised female voices complained, no male voices defended, no clip-clop of

tired wagon horses, no shrill police whistles.

We stopped in front of a red brick mansion set back from the road and surrounded by

trees, gnarled trunks that seemed alive with shadowy faces. The house loomed there, black at all

the windows. The bell on the front door was a bronze crank. Uncle Sonny wound up the handle,

and when he released it, a shrill brriiinnnggresounded inside.

A light came on at a window upstairs. Footsteps behind the door, then the porch gaslight

whooshed on. The door opened, and a woman with gray hair stood clutching her bathrobe closed

and squinting out through wire-rimmed glasses. Behind the woman, sleepy children in pajamas

came out to the upstairs landing. One of them said, Is it a new boy, Lady Mother?

Uncle Sonny knelt down so his face was directly in front of mine. For the first time, he

spoke in Yiddish. I done my time, he said. I signed for two years. I done two years. He stood

up, then knelt down again. My heart was racing with fear. Your papa, may he rest, didnt mean

I should stand in front of that machine until Im old. Im going to stake a claim in Dawson City

and come right back. You wait for me here. Ill be back for you. He stood up. Why are you

looking at me like that? Dont look at me like that! Then he turned and ran down the front path

and away into the night.

From inside the house, a small voice asked, How old is he?

The woman said, Do you speak English? Her diction was precise. Speak English?

She slowed the question way down. What. Is. Your. Name.

Harry Sirkus.


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Harry Sirkus, please come in.

No, thank you. Ill wait here.

The street was empty, nothing but one black dog with a feathery tail trotting by and the

rhythmic vibration of crickets. I sat down on the top step with my back to her so I could figure

out what to do.

Harry, she said. Come inside. Please.

When I stayed put, she closed the door but did not turn off the porch light. I sat on the

step, my heart in my throat. How could my mother do this to me? My mother stirring a pot at the

stove saying, Make sure you find a wife that cooks with love. Whats love? You see how I love

cooking this stuff for you? Thats cooking with love.

The sky was filled with stars. I looked up into that New England dome of diamonds and

felt like I was falling into it, a speck in the universe. The front door opened. Come inside,

Harry, the woman said. Come have a cookie. You cant sleep outside. Thats for bums and

Boy Scouts.

She had a kindly face, and I was hungry. Next to the door was a bronze plaque. I read as I

entered: The Elizabeth Home for Destitute Children.

In Theda Bara's Tent, a novel

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