Free Leah's Journey by Gloria Goldreich

next to strange women and he knew that Orthodox women covered their hair lest they seem attractive to men other than their husbands. Yet Leah Goldfeder had, without hesitation, agreed to go to a concert at Carnegie Hall with him, a single man and a Gentile. Of course, his tall dark-haired student did not cover her hair (today she wore it in a loosely twisted bun and he found himself sketching the loosely wound coils and wondering how they would look brushed loose against her regally held back) and it was unusual that her husband was studying at City College. The Goldfeders appeared to be an extraordinary couple and his curiosity about Leah mounted. He arranged to meet her on the evening of the concert on the steps of Carnegie Hall.
    Charles Ferguson’s invitation marked the first time Leah had traveled the subway beyond Fourteenth Street. She had lived in New York for five years but her life in the largest city in the United States had been confined to the crowded streets near her home where she did her marketing, took her children to the free clinic, went to the settlement house and the synagogue. Occasionally she and David went to the Yiddish theater on Second Avenue but that too was within walking distance of her home. Only once had she gone as far as S. Klein’s imposing emporium on Fourteenth Street, with the enterprising Sarah Ellenberg.
    Leah sat in the dimly lit subway car and studied the faces of fellow passengers. Students sat on the wicker seats with notebooks spread across their laps. The books danced skittishly as the train jerked to a sudden stop but the students read on, their concentration unbroken. So David must sit night after night, Leah thought. The speeding subway was his study hall too, and he had that rare capacity to remain immersed in his books, undisturbed by movement, children’s play, or men’s arguments. In one corner a group of Italian men argued vociferously until the debate suddenly became a joke and they laughed with such good feeling that even the engrossed students looked up, blinked, and smiled before returning to their books.
    A beautiful young black girl sat across the aisle from Leah calmly applying makeup. Leah watched with fascination as the girl, with the care and precision of an artist, brushed her face with a tawny powder puff and etched new coats of redness around her full lips. Leah herself had never worn makeup but now she felt pale and colorless. She bit her lips and pinched her cheeks, glad that she had worn her brightly colored scarf. Twice she opened the leather purse, borrowed from Masha, and checked the small handkerchief into which she had knotted three nickels.
    “Make sure you have the money safe. New York is not a shtetl. New York is a big city,” David had said. But he was pleased that she was going to the concert. It was hard on her, spending so many nights alone while he studied.
    Leah did not remember the music that was played that night in the cavernous concert hall, but she never forgot the gowns of the women who sat in the orchestra below their balcony seats. She observed the simple lines in which the elegant dresses had been cut and took careful note of the materials—the deep richness of red velvet, the iridescent gleam of blue satin, the gentle jewel-like tones of emerald green silks and topaz yellow brocades. The beautifully gowned women, their jewels resting against creamy skin, sitting in their green velvet chairs, were like graceful flowers blazing in a distant field.
    During intermission, she watched them rise and wave to each other, their stoles draped across their shoulders, fur capes carelessly balanced on their arms. Her fingers ached to touch the fabric of their dresses, to shape the luxurious red velvet not into a ball gown but into a simple afternoon dress. Deftly, in her mind’s eye, she borrowed white satin from another gown and fashioned collar and cuffs for her red velvet creation.
    Charles Ferguson watched as her eyes grew brighter and