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Authors: Joel Blaine Kirkpatrick

BOOK: Caraliza
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She was back in the kitchen, scrubbing grime that would never be cleaner, when he awoke. Since he said nothing as he pulled up his dusty trousers, he must be leaving. His absence might mean peace, a drink and perhaps some food.
She stopped the wasted effort on the grime as he closed the door. Listening breathlessly to hear the lock, she sighed in disbelief; leaving the cloth where it was, she quickly slipped outside to the stairs. The dampness outside would be better than the dank air in the basement.
The rain stopped; there was a sliver of blue. She wished there had been a breeze, but she could not have that. Instead, there was a trickle of wetness on her inner thigh.
“
Als je blieft niet WEER zo’n dag,”
Please, not another of those days -
she would silently pray,
“Als je blieft NIET vandaag.” Please not today

 

She lifted her skirt above her hips to avoid soiling it, and stood there silently sobbing in the damp stair, just to have one more breath of blue. She cried as she pushed the door open again to hurry to the water closet before the trickle on her leg reached the floor.

 

Yousep was finished with the plates and was again at the window, pretending to dust the shelves, when Caraliza appeared under the stoop. He stared as she poured this next basin into the street. The bloody water repulsed him and he turned away, too young to understand; she was two years older, and barely understood herself.

 

Caraliza was putting wet wash things on the drying rack in the kitchen that evening when her tormentor returned. He stank of stout. Unexpectedly, he put three large sausages and a bag with potatoes in the sink, and walked back out. She knew he would expect her to cook them, before he returned, drunk this time. She left the wet clothing and lit the stove soon as he closed the door. She did not listen for the lock to be turned. She knew better than to be late with his dinner.
After washing the food and cutting it, she took one small slice of potato and one very small slice of the sausage and placed them together on her tongue, closing her lips very slowly. Her mouth did not water. The slices stayed dry and tasteless on her tongue.
She was starving. Her body did not know what to do with food.
Risking a beating, she grabbed two more slices and put them into her mouth with the others. As she began to chew, she closed her eyes and tried to imagine a cake. She stopped daydreaming when she was able to swallow.

 

The brute would not be much longer, and the pan was finally hot. She emptied everything into it, hoping he would be very drunk, and might not notice some leavings in the pan. She drank two large glasses of the coppery water as she watched his meal on the stove.
She was still standing there, stirring without thought, when the key in the door reminded her, she had forgotten to set a plate at the table. Quickly as she could, she pulled a plate from the shelf and spooned it full. He stumbled into the kitchen table and sat down as she placed the steaming plate in front of him. He held his bottle of stout close to his shoulder and filled his mouth with the hot food.
“
Lift yur skirt!”
He pointed and flipped up the fork in her direction. Caraliza understood and lifted the dress to just below her breasts. He looked at her and indicated she should open her legs. When she did, he looked closer, filling his mouth again as he saw the stain inside her thigh. He leered and waved he was satisfied; she could cover herself again.
She did not know how he could tell it was that day. He was never wrong. He never did anything but look and sneer during that inspection, as she stood exposed. Taking another huge swallow of stout, he belched at her and growled.
“
Yur too fuckin skinny.”
He poked his fork back into the middle of the plate and scraped back from the table with his bottle hurrying to his lips. When he staggered into the bedroom, she stood silently admiring the plate. He had eaten nothing of it and left it for her.
It was more food than she might be given in a week.

 

Drunk as he was, he would leave her alone tonight, even if he still crushed her with his unconscious bulk. She did not have to hurry. The third bite finally made her mouth water and she tried very hard to eat quietly.
She sat at the table for an hour, forcing herself to eat more slowly with each bite. It had been more than a month passed that the vile man left a plate like this, and she retched all of it up from eating so quickly. To lose it, was far worse than watching him eat everything, getting nothing at all.
She lifted each mouthful, and trembled.
When the kitchen was cleaned and put away, she walked into the bedroom to the sounds of his snores. There was not much room left in the bed, but she did not expect any; she removed her dress and laid it on the simple chair above his boots.
It was painful to lie down, holding herself onto the bed with one arm. She only hoped he would sleep through the night because of the drink. She hoped it did not rain tomorrow. The food in her belly was churning and she licked her lips wanting more of the taste of it; it was making her sleepy. The brute would not wake; she began to sing to herself, as she did so many nights.
“
Slaap, kindje, slaap
daar buiten loopt een schaap.
Een schaap met witte voetjes
dat drinkt zijn melk zo zoetjes
Slaap, kindje, slaap
daar buiten loopt een schaap.”
Caraliza fell asleep in the bed she shared, naked, with the brute for almost two years. She missed dreams, but for her, it seemed there was nothing left to dream.
Hours into the oppressive night, the drain clogged in the street, and a putrid trickle found its way down the stairs, seeping under the basement door. When Caraliza noticed the smell, she hurried into her dress, and up the steps, out into the rain. She shivered as she felt at the drain in the familiar place and pulled a wad of paper and manure from the grate; she tossed it further down the street.
The foul trickle down the stair stopped, and she came back through the slime, to mop up at the door. Standing at the kitchen sink, wringing her dress so she could wash it, she suddenly realized, she had nothing to wear the next day. Her other dress was not in the day's wash and was far worse than the one she just wore in the rain to clear the sewer.
“
Als je blieft laat de zon gaan schijnen morgen,”
Please let there be sun tomorrow
- she silently prayed again,
“
Als je blieft laat hem weggaan!”
Please let him be gone
Both washed dresses were hanging on the drying rack as she walked naked back in to the bed. Caraliza was hoping that moment, the rain would stop, it was just another of the torments she could barely endure.

 

Yousep was closing the shop when the drunk came back to the basement stairs. Watching with a mixture of terror and curiosity, he wondered, could the dark brute be the girl’s father? She was fair under the grime; Yousep was sure. She was half the brute's size. She was too young it seemed to be married to the man. Yousep could not imagine her accepting a marriage, to a form like the one drunkenly trying to make it down into the basement.
He desperately hoped marriage did not cause them to share the dark world he viewed from the shop window; however, it left only one other option, if the others were not true. He supposed it unthinkable she was prisoner, to the frightening man disappearing into the darkness beneath the stoop.
She could only be his daughter; people divorced and remarried, she could be his daughter by marriage, though Yousep never knew any other person to descend those stairs or return from them. Yousep could not help desiring to know her name, but he was not stupid; he did not dare cross the street to that stair, even for desire.

 

He quietly walked the half-mile to his parent’s home. Still misting a bit of rain, the weather made the walk unpleasantly wet after such a distance. On very bad days, he would take a carriage, but it was so expensive for his meager pocket; his parents needed the money he shared, and he was glad to give most of it, saving very little for himself. They adored him and lived in dread of the day he found his way free of the slums. He was their only child and he had a respectable job - if not very prosperous; with his help, they afforded their rent and good food.
They would have worried, if they had known; a girl somehow stirred his youthful heart. From such things as love, harm could come. They would arrange his marriage one day, as was expected. That a young Jewish boy would constantly look across his shop street to stare after a girl? That was simply unthinkable.

 

As he walked in the door, his mother greeted him from the kitchen.
“
We should have chicken for the Sabbath. Can you bring us a chicken?”
It was Thursday, and Yousep expected to answer, “Yes, Muter,” each day until the Sabbath. He took his place at the table, eager for the fish and greens she prepared for his supper. His father smiled and asked if he sold a camera today.
“
No, Pape. I developed the plates for Mrs. Hollsworth.”
“
Perhaps tomorrow, you will sell a camera?” his father replied.
Such was their discussion every night, until dinner was done. He rarely answered ‘yes’ to selling a camera.
Yousep rarely found the chance to make camera sales, only about four other times had he done such a thing. He knew the devices well; he heard Papa Reisman explain them so many times to customers in the shop. One thing he knew very well, it was important to ask the type of photography the customer expected the camera to produce. He should not sell a portrait camera for landscaping or casuals. It would be bad for the shop's reputation to have an unsatisfied customer.
His father sat reading the paper, repeating the news of the troubles in Europe; but it was home - they loved it and still felt pain at the strife others endured there. His parents were Polish Jews, who fled the political unrest and persecution in that country. They learned English, quickly, upon arriving in New York City. Something other immigrants struggled to do.
Yousep was determined to speak well.
He only spoke English now, to his parents’ amusement; they continued to speak Yiddish at home to him. They agreed, they must be Americans now, but God preferred Yiddish, they would say as they smiled.

 

The meal finished and the news shared, they would say a prayer and his father would start a lesson while his mother cleaned the kitchen. Yousep grew increasingly distracted by the sound of the continuing rain outside the window. His father said he hoped it would rain all night.

 

On the way to work the next morning, he happened upon a carriage load of college graduate students. They were frolicking on the carriage, taking impossible poses for the distracted photographer on the walk beside them. Nearly ten handsome young men pestered their fellow on the walk to get about his business and produce their photo, before the passing clouds hid the morning sun. They were causing nearly more commotion than the poor carriage could bear.
Yousep noticed the photographer was no novice; he had a second camera at his foot, an extravagance to be sure. Suddenly as the fellow shifted to adjust his tripod, he lost his footing. In his tumble to the walk, he fell against the extra camera and hurt himself. That would have been terrible enough an event in itself, however, the pain caused him to lash out his leg and his mounted camera was suddenly at Yousep's feet, the lens shattered and the plate ruined in the slide.
The outcry in the carriage was shocking. They laughed.

 

The poor hapless fellow had ruined an instrument worth nearly six months of Yousep's pay, and likely damaged himself to no small extent. Yousep mourned for the broken camera and said the first thing that came to mind.
“
I don't like the looks of that lens now, but the slide is not badly harmed. We could change those lenses with a bit of patience. I bet we could fix it.”
The fellow on the walk was sitting up and trying to reach the bruise on his back. He looked up at Yousep with an odd expression.
“
How would you know anything about that Waterbury?”
Yousep decided the fellow was not being rude, but merely in pain from the accident.
“
We sell that model, and last year’s Putnam Plate camera in our shop, just three streets over. Those use the same lens, and we have those as well. I think I know on which shelf to find them right off.”
The fellows in the straining carriage scrutinized him, and one of them yelled that perhaps Yousep should catch the photograph himself, with the undamaged camera at his feet. The photographer on the ground shrugged his shoulders and waved his approval.
It was quite a notion - the shop boy taking over as the photographer, but Yousep quickly changed the damaged instrument off the tripod, and within moments, he was focusing on the overloaded carriage. The photographer on the ground was impressed with the skill and care which Yousep displayed, and was about to compliment the young fellow when Yousep turned to him with a wink.

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