Jewish fiction; Jews -- New York (State) -- New York -- Fiction; Lower East Side (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction; Short stories
Didn’t the nurse tell them all about us already? It was bitter enough
to have to tell the nurse everything, but in my own house nobody was
hearing my troubles, only the nurse. But in the office there was so
many strangers all around me. For why should everybody have to know my
business? At every question I wanted to holler out: “Stop! Stop! I
don’t want no vacations! I’ll better run home with my children.”
At every question I felt like she was stabbing a knife into my
heart. And she kept on stabbing me more and more, but I could not help
it, and they were all looking at me. I couldn’t move from her. I had
to answer everything.
When she got through with me, my face was red like fire. I was burning
with hurts and wounds. I felt like everything was bleeding in me.
When all the names was already called, a man doctor with a nurse comes
in, and tells us to form a line, to be examined. I wish I could ease
out my heart a little, and tell in words how that doctor looked on
us, just because we were poor and had no money to pay. He only used
the ends from his finger-tips to examine us with. From the way he was
afraid to touch us or come near us, he made us feel like we had some
catching sickness that he was trying not to get on him.
The doctor got finished with us in about five minutes, so quick he
worked. Then we was told to walk after the nurse, who was leading the
way for us through the street to the car. Everybody what passed us in
the street turned around to look on us. I kept down my eyes and held
down my head and I felt like sinking into the sidewalk. All the time
I was trembling for fear somebody what knows me might yet pass and see
me. For why did they make us walk through the street, after the nurse,
like stupid cows? Weren’t all of us smart enough to find our way
without the nurse? Why should the whole world have to see that we are
from the charities?
When we got into the train, I opened my eyes, and lifted up my head,
and straightened out my chest, and again began to breathe. It was
a beautiful, sunshiny day. I knocked open the window from the train,
and the fresh-smelling country air rushed upon my face and made me feel
so fine! I looked out from the window and instead of seeing the iron
fire-escapes with garbage-cans and bedclothes, that I always seen when
from my flat I looked--instead of seeing only walls and wash-lines
between walls, I saw the blue sky, and green grass and trees and
flowers.
Ah, how grand I felt, just on the sky to look! Ah, how grand I felt
just to see the green grass--and the free space--and no houses!
“Get away from me, my troubles!” I said. “Leave me rest a
minute. Leave me breathe and straighten out my bones. Forget the
unpaid butcher’s bill. Forget the rent. Forget the wash-tub and the
cook-stove and the pots and pans. Forget the charities!”
“Tickets, please,” calls the train conductor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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