Willow Locke - Anarchist Detective

An Unexpected Dance

Zilpah had met quota long ago and was burning through her work. She would make a large bonus by the end of the day. Not that it really mattered. Shek was safe and she ate at Alva's table every night—wondrous meals prepared by Alva's Parisian chef. The allowance Alva gave her made the bonus pay at the blouse factory seem like nothing more than a trifle. But still, she liked the sense of accomplishment. It kept her from the mind-numbing monotony of the work. It was easier to work faster. The velocity of the task filled her body and drowned her cyclical thoughts. It was better than thinking about her dead friends.
She kept up the furious pace, felt as though she was driving hard towards the strike with every stitch. The voracious energy of the machine carried her forward. She had wrested her machine from the corporation, it was hers and hers alone. It was like a living thing beneath her skillful touch, churning and clattering with its own animus. The soft white fabric flowed like a river under her fingers. Every blouse was a step forward. She watched Clara walk through the production floor, effortlessly slipping a circular into one of the girls' fabric baskets as she passed.
Since Ayala's disappearance, Fulton had assigned a red-haired girl named Eileen to work with Zilpah. Zilpah was to mentor the younger girl, but Eileen resisted Zilpah's every effort to provide instruction. She had a look of disgust on her face whenever Zilpah spoke to her, even when Fulton was standing by, insisting on the lessons. Once, when their hands had touched while working on a seam while Fulton watched, Eileen had withdrawn her hand as though she had been burned. It would only be the worse for her if she didn't take to her lessons, but despite her ineptitude Fulton always seemed to praise her work. There was a sickly gloss growing in her gaze as she looked at Fulton, a special frisson to the yellow smile he flashed her in return. Zilpah knew she was becoming one of his devotees.
She and Clara had smuggled in stacks of the propaganda tabloid they had printed and hidden them in the fabric closet. They had begun to clandestinely circulate the paper among the seamstresses. The paper was passed under tables during the lunch hour; it was hidden in the bathroom stalls. Zilpah felt the ice flow of her fear beginning to break up. What if they did catch her? What could they really do? Would they beat her in front of two hundred witnesses? If she lost her job Shek wouldn't starve. If she lost her job she would simply spend every workday with Alva, learning to play the harpsichord. She felt defiant, invincible, protected by her unbreakable happiness. As long as they didn't get her alone.
She saw Charles Fulton run up the stairs to the ninth floor, where he stood at the top landing holding an intense exchange with someone. Zilpah could only see the other person's feet, and she couldn't hear anything over the clatter of sewing machines. Then he turned and began to descend and she saw who he had been talking to. It was Max Blanck. He was beaming, gesturing expansively around the factory, explaining something significant, something which gave him great joy. His odd, childish smile broke over his face as he spoke. He gestured to the seamstresses now, his thick hands moving along straight lines, indicating the entire length of each row. Behind him the Pinkertons and some other men she didn't recognize hauled large wooden crates down the stairs. They reached the production floor, Blanck still speaking, the Pinkertons stacking crates behind him. Zilpah saw something stencilled on one of the crates, but Charles Fulton took off his jacket and laid it over the letters before she could read it. He looked around furtively as he did this, and managed to catch Zilpah's eye. She ducked her head and picked up her sewing, but just then Blanck yelled over din of the machines.
"Stop, Ladies. All of you STOP!" He clapped his hands thunderously together, setting off a rolling wave of girls elbowing and shushing each other as they took notice. When the excited chatter died down the silence on the production floor was deafening. Zilpah felt dislocated without the relentless clatter. She folded the blouse she was holding and laid it back on her table. She closed her eyes for a moment and arched her neck back, lifting up her face. What was she hoping for? Just some movement of the stale air.
"Now stand up, all of you!" He pushed his outstretched arms up towards the ceiling. "Stand up!"
The girls reluctantly rose from their chairs, and stood shuffling their feet in the aisles.
"Pick up your tables," he bellowed, "and move them aside!" The seamstresses hesitated, not quite understanding what he was asking.
"Clear the floor!" he said again. This time he smiled through his shout, wheeling his arms about. Some of the girls laughed, and he responded not with anger, but with his own rich laughter.
One by one the seamstresses began to lift their tables and break up the rows. Folded blouses inevitably tumbled out of their overloaded baskets onto the filthy wooden floor. The girls anxiously snatched up the fallen blouses and refolded them. They continued shoving the heavy tables towards the windows, continued dropping blouses and picking them up. The tension was mounting, it showed on their faces. No one knew what was happening. Whatever it is, it can't be good. But Blanck had a wide smile on his face, he magnanimously spread his hands, palms toward heaven.
"It's all right!" he laughed heartily, his face a mask of comedy. "It's all right girls!" He walked over to one of the girls who had just dropped a blouse on the floor. He picked it up and brushed the dirt off of it.
"Here," he handed it to her, and she began refolding it.
"No," he held up his hand to stop her. "Tell me your name."
"It's Leah— Leah, sir." she hesitated.
"How old are you, Leah?" he asked, his voice warm and paternal.
"I-I'm fourteen, Mr. Blanck, sir."
"I want you to have this blouse Leah, in recognition of all of your good work," he clasped her hands and the dusty blouse between them.
"Really?" she smiled suddenly, and clutched the dirty white blouse to her breast. "Oh, that's so generous, Mr. Blanck! It's beautiful! Thank you so much!"
"All of you girls!" he shouted, "Today you will wear your own work! It is beautiful, and you all deserve it!" He gestured to the Gibson drawings on the wall. "When I look at those drawings every day, I see all of you. That's who I see. My wonderful ladies!" His laugh was a clarion, guileless roar. "Everyone take one of those blouses, and get those tables moved!"
Then the mood changed, the anxiety of the seamstresses dissipated. They were being rewarded, not punished. The tables were quickly maneuvered to the perimeter of the production floor, the girls laughing as they worked. Zilpah lugged her heavy table towards the window. The girls were picking out shirts now, holding them over their shabby clothes and admiring each other. It was only early afternoon, and they were delighted not to be working.
"Do you really think I could be a Gibson Girl?" she heard one of them call out. Laughter rang out—such a strange sound on the production floor.
"Now, we'll have to sweep this floor if we are to have a proper celebration, won't we, girls?" Blanck chortled. "I'd hate for anything to trip up your pretty feet!"
Another chorus of laughter. What was happening? They ran to the closet for brooms and began merrily sweeping the floor. Malevich walked to the stairwell door and eased it open a crack, talking rapidly with someone on the landing. Then he opened the door wide, and a young boy, no more than nine years of age, entered the room. He had white-blonde hair and pale skin and eyes like blue ice. He was dressed all in white and carried a violin case. The case had been coated with aluminum paint—it was silver. He knelt on the floor and opened it, drawing out a blood red violin. The seamstresses stared at the angelic figure as he lifted the violin to his chin and began to play. He played a few languorous bars of a minor-key requiem before abruptly giving way to a jig, a sly smile lighting his face. There was a cascade of laughter as the girls finished their sweeping and leaned their brooms against the wall, then rushed back to the floor to join hands in a rollicking dance. The seamstresses laughed and clapped their hands. A circle quickly formed. They took turns linking elbows and turning around in the middle.
Mr. Blanck laughed, picked up one of the brooms and unscrewed the handle. He tapped out the rhythm on the wooden floor, clumsily attempting to match the music's complex syncopation. Even Charles Fulton smiled, revealing his snarled yellow teeth. He walked over to one of the girls and effortlessly swept her into a brutish two-step. She struggled to emulate his stomping, and winced as she trailed along in his arms. He raised his eyebrows and smirked, an expression of disdain, perhaps commenting on his partner's poor dancing.
Timothy Louvar danced more gracefully. Ever the gentleman, he proffered his open hand to request a dance, instead of simply grabbing a girl as Charles Fulton did. Timothy's step showed refinement and training in a variation of steps. He foxtrotted gaily with his current partner. He had to change partners with every song, in deference to the long line of girls who had queued up to dance with him. There was no line to dance with Fulton, girls simply jumped up and reached for him, throwing their bodies in his line of motion to be snatched up.
Timothy was dancing with little Leah now, and Zilpah was suddenly struck by his youth. In the moment his authority as a boss had evaporated, and she realized that he was not much older than his partner. His position had hung on his face like a mask, and now it had slipped. He smiled into Leah's eyes. Timothy's waltz was both courteous and flawless, and Leah let herself be guided by him. Their movements were in perfect harmony, and they turned across the floor in flourishing asymmetric arcs. The other dancers gave way to let them pass. Zilpah felt the dislocated as she watched them dance. The gray, grinding world of the factory was in tension with another, populated by young people with courtly manners and nothing better to do than take dance lessons. It was Alva's world. The world she and Shek now inhabited too. She would always feel like an infiltrator there. She felt like an infiltrator in every world.
The violinist shifted to a popular song, one they all had heard, either on the street or in the dance hall. It was "All that I Ask of You is Love." Leah twirled away from Timothy and clasped her hands together in front of her chest and sang it beautifully. The dancers slowed down, their movements became expansive as they circled the floor. One of them sensually trailed her hand across Charles Fulton's back, he responded with his wolfish grin. Zilpah stood rigidly, leaning against the wall and clutching one of the brooms. We are all sweeps now.
The laughter of the seamstresses rang out. They whirled across the floor in high-step. Mr. Blanck was beaming, his round face as ruddy as a newborn baby's. The ugly, happy afternoon wore on and on. Her gaze slid across the large crates stacked next to the overseer's office and rested on the figure of Clara sitting on the stairs, her chin resting on her fist, sneering. Something was very wrong.
Zilpah steeled her courage, and crossed purposefully along the wall to the crates, brushing Charles' coat aside as she passed, glancing at the hidden logo. Frick Industries. She walked past Clara, their eyes met for a moment. She felt an electric frisson on the back of her neck, the gaze of one of the Pinkertons, she thought, hooked into her skin like a fishing line.
The lockers were in a narrow hall adjacent to the factory floor. She would be hidden if she could get to it. She was leaning on the wall, she knew that Clara was sitting on the stairs on the other side. She touched the wall with her open hand, drawing some strength from her friend. She watched the dancers. Charles was still on the floor, he pulled Eileen roughly close, and held her pressed against him. Mr. Blanck was bashing his broomstick on the floor in a crude approximation of the rhythm. Another song had just begun. The Pinkertons were joining in now, finding girls to dance with. A bottle of whiskey materialized and was passed from hand to hand. The dance became wilder, more raucous. Malevich sat on one of the crates, pulling from his flask and sneering at the revelry.
Zilpah faded back into the hallway. Hannah's locker, in the same row as her own, five to the left. Eighty-six, Seven, Twenty. She spun the dial, peering at the faded numbers in dark. There, it was open. Carefully. Quietly. She eased the door open and felt around in the shallow space. A thick envelope. Hannah's writing. She had hidden it under their very noses; it was the one place they had neglected to look. There was no sign-up sheet for the lockers, the management didn't even bother to keep track of it. Only the seamstresses knew whose was whose. She closed the door and untucked her shirt, slipping the papers into the waistband of her skirt. She could feel the envelope heavy against her back. She opened her own locker and put on her coat. She watched for a long moment from the shadow. When she was sure no one was watching, she stepped out onto the factory floor again.
Mr. Blanck signaled to the violinist, who finished his song and held the violin and bow languidly in front of his hips, his eyes half closed. Zilpah could see his long, transparent eyelashes illuminated in the dusty bronze light.
Blanck laughed gregariously, and then addressed his employees.
"Girls, you've worked so hard. You've built this industry with your own hands. Your ambition has changed the world for the better. I want you to remember that every time you see someone wearing one of these blouses! Wear one yourself tomorrow and spend the day courting in the park, with my blessing. All of you have the rest of the week off, at full pay!"
The seamstresses shrieked with disbelief and delight. "Thank you Mr. Blanck!" they shouted.
Mr. Blanck absorbed their praise, swelling with pride, then continued.
"There will be changes to the factory, wonderful changes upon your return on Monday. New equipment, new processes for more efficient production. At my factory, I'm going to make sure we have the very best technology of the new century to help you girls in your work. Just imagine. Just imagine for a moment: a sewing machine you don't have to pedal."
Gasps of delight from the crowd. Charles was prying the lid off one of the smaller crates with a mini-crow bar.
"I know what you're thinking, and I can answer your questions. No, it isn't one of those H.G. Wells stories. It's absolutely real. Look around you, everywhere you see cars replacing horses. Soon the horses will be gone, and no one will remember them. The same thing is happening right here, right now in this factory. Ladies, I give you, the world's first fully automated sewing machine."
He gestured towards Charles, who lifted a gleaming chrome sewing machine from the crate, and held it up to the seamstresses' general astonishment.
"How—how does it work?" Leah asked haltingly.
"We'll begin training on Monday." Blanck smiled at her. "Don't let a thought of work enter your pretty little head for the next few days." He ruffled her hair paternalistically before turning back to address the seamstresses as a whole. "Enjoy the time. When you come back you will all learn how to operate the new machines. I promise you, your work will be much faster and more enjoyable. This is a great day for all of us. Rest and enjoy, ladies, I'll be thinking of you. And don't forget your blouse! It's my gift to you."
The seamstresses began selecting blouses and gathering their things. The room was filled with happy conversation. A large group of girls were planning an outing to Coney Island. They all thanked Mr. Blanck and Charles Fulton, and many stopped on their way out to curtsy graciously.
The musician child placed his violin in its gleaming silver case. He loosened the tension on the bow and set it carefully next to the violin. He closed the case and walked out onto the landing with the girls. Clara nodded at Zilpah as she walked out. Zilpah knew she would be waiting for her in the stairwell. She picked up her things and walked towards the door, past Charles Fulton.
"Not surprised that one didn't dance, the old sourpuss," she heard Fulton whisper, elbowing one of the Pinkertons as she passed by. "Never even took off her coat."
She turned to look at him over her shoulder and their eyes met for a moment, but he only smiled wryly and broke her gaze.
Clara was waiting on the third floor landing, they walked with the crowd of seamstresses, out the door and into the park. They were a happy phalanx walking down fifth avenue in the copper light of the setting sun. Clara and Zilpah began distributing their leaflets. The girls stopped on the street and gathered in knots to discuss the strike.
"Aww, stuff it. I'm going to Coney Island," one of them said, turning her back and walking away down the sidewalk.