Caraliza Read online

  Caraliza

  Copyright © 2010 by Joel Blaine Kirkpatrick

  Design Credits:

  Cover © Serendipity Graphic Design by Kelly van der Staal (www.kellyvanderstaal.nl)

  Images © Serendipity Graphic Design by Kelly van der Staal (www.kellyvanderstaal.nl)

  Caraliza is portrayed by Maret Reutelingsperger

  Dutch translations by Irma van der Staal

  Book design by Joel Blaine Kirkpatrick

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real or historically accurate. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

  United States of America

  May, 2010

  ISBN: 978-0-557-46189-9

  ISBN: 0-557-46189-8

  CHAPTERS

  New York, 1919

  1. A secret desire and the camera

  2. The questions and the dangers

  3. The panic and the hiding

  4. The loss too dear

  5. Madness

  New York, 1994

  6. A waiting home

  7. The Waterburys

  8. The Clan war

  9. Yousep’s plates

  10. Disturbing the garden

  11. The Lovers’ notebook

  12. Under the stoop

  13. Unceasing torments

  14. The rise and fall of Shelly Reisman

  15. Opening The Studio

  New York, 1997

  16. The closing

  New York, 1919

  17. A wish for Papa

  CHAPTER ONE

  She hated the sound of the rain on the crusted basement window above the rusted, tin kitchen sink. Rain in the slums did only two things on her street; it brought the smells of sewage and refuse right into the tenements, and it kept him home all day. To her the drops seemed as useless as petals tossed down upon a coffin.

  The rain she remembered at home seemed always pleasant and fresh. It brought mud into the house as easily as the smell of sewage in the city, but it was a clean mud, just good soil. Mama would sweep it out when it dried and seemed never to be cross about it. Even if the pup came in wet from the brook, Mama would not complain about the mess.

  Slum rain would make the already dank, dingy basement rooms smell worse no matter how she cleaned. If he was home, she had better be cleaning.

  He could not get onto the roofs in the slums when it rained. Being a huge man, he could do such work; the materials were harsh and heavy. He would laugh at lesser men if they could not carry passed the third floor. He could carry as much as they, up to the ninth or tenth, before stopping to shift whatever load was his burden that day. However, he would work tomorrow and for several days after.

  Rain brought leaks and he fixed leaks.

  Caraliza could bear the horrid smell of the rain today, because he would not be home tomorrow. She cleaned to forget the sound of it and hoped he would go out for a drink. It might mean nothing to eat, but cleaning would take her mind off any hunger. She learned to endure hunger; she wondered how long she could endure him.

  “Come here!”

  The brute would not be going out.

  Her home; it was real, but no longer felt real to her as he crushed her with his weight. It was harder to escape to home when she closed her eyes to block out the abuse; it was a long, sorrowful time ago, somewhere else, some time before he forced his way into her life. When she tried to think of home, he would always appear in her desperate thoughts.

  Caraliza understood she had no real choice in leaving; there was a desperate ‘yes’ - or there was starvation. Leaving might save her sister, who was so hungry; there would be no way to know, and she kept breathing life into the waning desire to know if her family had lived. The Great War ravaged Europe, and the people there found any means they could to survive, what meager food there was, always had too many mouths needing to taste it.

  Kind souls would come and help as they could, and take those they could, sometimes children; to save them, as their parents might plead. Yet, not all rescuing souls were good and did as well as they promised. Some, who broke those promises, ought not to have a soul at all.

  An awful price was paid for Caraliza, by one who kept no promises. An awful payment, so her family could pay some debts and buy better food, hoping she at least was being rescued for them. They sold her, in hope it was not an ill event. She did not want to, but she agreed; a bad life - was life still.

  Mother screamed, and wailed: such things were not done; sell the house; live in the street; sell yourself - not your child. Mother wept bitterly as the brute stood in the door, ignoring her, watching the sisters. For her little sister, Caraliza could endure this awful payment. She would try.

  The goodbyes were terrible; grieving parents to clutch in vain, and dark, vacant eyes, hidden behind little sister’s limp hair, as she lay too weak to rise from bed to be embraced. Those weak eyes, they barely looked at Caraliza, as she placed her hand on little sister's head, and kissed her goodbye.

  He thundered in to take her arm; she had taken too long.

  She was as desperate to block this memory as she was to close her mind to the near daily abuse in his basement home.

  She pulled her dress back down when he rolled away, and she rose painfully from his sagging bed. She could breathe again; he never cared he crushed her nearly to death before he finished. When he rolled over and closed his eyes to fall asleep, she gasped to soothe her pounding head. The smell of him was all over her now, and the rain only kept the air heavy, and putrid.

  She wiped herself with a whimper at the basin, and threw out the water into the street, refusing to notice the lags, sitting on the stoop, who were spitting on umbrellas that passed. She turned without a glance and went back down the stairs to continue cleaning. There were footsteps behind her; they were hurried and careless. Someone she did not look at, raced to meet her at the doorway, and shoved her roughly against the wall; a dirty face leered against her shoulder, and rude, groping hands felt her.

  “You stink!” But his eyes grew wide with understanding. “Don't you tell him! Don't you tell!”

  The footsteps rushed back up the stairs and there was laughter among the lags.

  Caraliza slipped cautiously inside to resume cleaning before the brute awoke. He never bothered to teach her English, so she did not know exactly what the dirty fellow hissed into her ear, but she could guess. She wished the brute had caught him in the basement stair, even if she were beaten again as well - the others would leave her alone for a while at least.

  She did not know, across the street in a small photographer's shop, a young clerk saw her below the stoop. He watched her wince with pain as she chucked the basin, he saw the limp as she turned to go carefully back down the wet stairs, he cringed as the lag jump down with a filthy hope in his eyes. The clerk did not know her name, but he saw her below the stoop nearly every day.

  She never passed beyond the curb, or the stoops on either side. Her entire existence seemed to be contained in the clerk’s widow, hidden behind those walls, down those stairs, deeper than the filthy street. The clerk also knew the shape of the man who lived down those desperate stairs, so the fifteen-year-old boy who looked out the shop window never crossed that street.

  The rain was not letting up, the crusted window was beginning to seep the filth from the sidewalk. The lamps were merely fumes, which g
ranted little light. Caraliza did not dare go back to the stair to get any sky or breath. The only thing that would help would be some clean water, coppery smelling, but cleaner than the sweat, or worse, the brute had left on her.

  She softly closed the water closet door and tried to open the spout, quietly as she could. A trickle of water came, and as it cleared, she removed her dress, the only thing she wore. She did not cry at the bruises or the scrapes on her knees. She cried because the water was iced cold. She had forgotten a warm bath; those were impossible to have. The brute used the baths near the barbershop, sometimes, because the closet was too small for such a big man to wash himself, and because he was too cheap for a tub big enough to use in the kitchen.

  Caraliza took the icy rag and tried to wipe herself softly where she could reach. It was painful to wipe between her legs; she would try there last. She stood in the cramped, dark room crying and wiped his smell from her breasts.

  At that moment, across the street, the clerk stood looking at her small world through the shop window, as the coffin-petal rain fell, and the carriaged horses added to the filth. His daydreaming of learning her name would get him into trouble.

  “You might want to waste your day spitting on umbrellas, Yousep, but you won't get paid for it. Finish those plates for Mrs. Hollsworth, she will be here tomorrow.”

  Yousep turned to nod his head and went to get the darkroom apron from the hook. He picked up a new candle and stepped inside the closet to bathe the photographic plates in the developer. He could hear Mr. Reisman trying to sell another camera. They did not sell many, and each one was several months of Yousep's pay. The shop was desperate for sales of cameras.

  Menashe Reisman, his employer, was well known and well loved as ‘Papa’ by entire neighborhood. Originally, this had been his portrait studio; it was not now, because a six-story tenement was pounded into place right next-door, blocking the morning light from the studio completely. Poor money and bad decisions meant the shop could not move to retain portrait clientele. They tried selling cameras instead. Years of dwindling business had worn Papa Reisman into an early old man. He took fewer portraits each year; the families, who once paid him handsomely, were forgetting him.

  Yousep was fortunate to have the job at all. Except for the misunderstood daydreaming at the window, he was as good a clerk as Papa could hope to find; plus, Yousep was honest, which was impossible to find. His immigrant parents might try to keep him raised according to their traditional beliefs, but poverty often made thieves of even faithful men, after long enough in despair.

  Yousep was unaffected yet by such despair. He even returned an extra dollar he accidentally received in his pay one week. His honesty might outlast his poverty. Such a lad was likely to escape the slums; if ever, God willing, that should occur - his brains would wisely keep him away forever. Papa Reisman felt fortunate Yousep remained at the meager job, even if the lad seemed in love with the window.

  A whistle from the closet meant some of the image plates were ready to dry. Yousep waited until the door opened a slit, then he passed a dripping plate through just before it closed. This repeated four times and he was able to get back to the plates in the developer. They were almost ready for the fixer. He caught himself before he whistled a tune that was in his head; he was not ready to hand out more plates yet. He instead imagined walking across the street to those basement stairs.

  Below that stoop, while Yousep thought again of the girl, Caraliza dropped her cloth into the basin and stood for a moment to dry her skin. She closed her eyes and tickled her fingers up one arm and down the other, barely touching until little bumps rose and she smiled. She tickled up her legs from her knees, passed her bruised thighs and lightly up her stomach to her breasts. She tickled softly until the bumps rose again and returned the smile to her lips. It was the only pleasurable sensation she could remember. It was time to clean her tender privates and it was more time than she dared take, but hurrying would make it unbearable. Her captor would pull her from the water closet if he awoke and thought she was hiding. If he found her naked….

  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 w
ould 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.”