The Singing Fire Read Online Free PDF Page A

were you for so long?” Mr. Blink asked angrily.
    “I was in a hospital,” she said, and then told him the whole story because someone must comfort her. The young woman with the pipe was nodding and smirking as if she understood Yiddish and didn’t think much of it. Mr. Blink was waving his hand to say, Get to the point. Patrons of the tavern came in and out, looking like drunks do anywhere, wounded and stinking. One of them knocked Mr. Blink’s bowler hat into the gutter, and he picked it up, rubbing away the dust on the brim, while Nehama cried out, “Why did they do that to me?”
    Mr. Blink studied her without saying a word. Nehama put her hand to her hair, fallen out of its pins and hanging loose around her shoulders. Mr. Blink’s voice was sad, his eyes empty of any emotion. “So you’re no longer a good girl.”
    “I’m not?” She hadn’t thought—well, something had happened but she’d hoped that perhaps it wasn’t really the thing and now it seemed that her sisters were right, she was stupid, stupid not to know.
    “You know what I mean,” Mr. Blink said. “It’s too late to do anything about it.”
    “What will happen to me now? God in heaven.” The rain fell, drenching her as Mr. Blink stepped back into the shelter of the doorway.
    This was her punishment. Before she stepped on the boat she had made herself a thief, and then God had made her—She wouldn’t think of the word. To buy the ticket, she had sneaked into her sisters’ rooms and taken from each of them a piece of finery to sell. A pair of earrings, a blouse, a silk kerchief. From the middle sister, Shayna-Pearl, she’d taken nothing. Not because she was afraid of Shayna-Pearl’s temper but because her sister only had books and Nehama wouldn’t sell a book. She’d left a note that said her dowry should be given to her sisters so that they could replace what she’d taken. But Bronya’s earrings were theonly thing her husband had ever given her. Repayment doesn’t exonerate a sin, does it?
    “I told you to stay in my rooms above the shop. And you didn’t listen. May God forgive you. Now. Well, now … What shall we do with you? To the loan committee, I can’t go. Not under the circumstances. But still the entrance fee must be paid. There’s only one thing to do. The fee will be paid by someone I know, and you’ll work for him to pay it back.”
    The young woman with the pipe rolled her eyes. She wore a brightly colored, badly made dress. “Should I take her now?” she asked in Yiddish. Another landsmann . Who knew there were so many Jews in London?
    “This is Fayge,” Mr. Blink said. “Here they call her Fay. She’ll take you to the Squire, and if you can’t be a good girl, then at least you can work hard. Remember that you’re only here because he paid for you, and he can turn you over to the authorities any time he likes.” He walked away just like that. In a big city, people come and go, her grandmother used to say.
    Nehama followed the other girl inside, her skirt dripping on the floor. The tavern was long and narrow, and at the far end the Squire sat at a table near the map of London 1809 and a door marked PRIVAT . If only there wasn’t so much noise, she might have heard her grandmother trying to talk to her.
    You see him? He’s called the Squire because he wears a watch with a chain, but he’s just a man who used to be a sailor. He’s a gentile, of course, are Jews fishermen? But now he makes his business with girls. A good drama he likes, and he can buy the best seat. In the theater he wears a long scarf and an old wool cap. A man in a silk hat is nothing to him. The magistrate doesn’t worry him either. But listen to me, my girl. He’s afraid of the wind. I’m telling you this so you should know that even a man like him is afraid of something. You don’t have to look at the floor. Look at him and see what he is. Then turn around and go away. Right now and not a minute later. Do you hear me,