that many years, by the look of you. You can’t be more than twenty.”
“I’m almost nineteen, but I heard you speak when I was eleven. I’d like to get more involved in the struggle and I wonder if you could tell me how I can help.”
Emma held Lil’s arm, up near the shoulder. “Read. Listen,” she said, giving Lil’s arm a shake with each word. “Then think for yourself. Question everything! The key to liberation is to first free one’s mind,” she said, tapping her own temple. Then she took Lil’s copy of Living My Life, signed it without being asked, returned it, and turned her back to greet other admirers.
Lil searched for me in the crowd. She was annoyed, and I couldn’t tell at whom. I moved towards her, but when she couldn’t locate me, she turned back to Emma and tapped her on the shoulder.
“All right, Miss Goldman,” she said. Her voice trembled, but she spoke loudly enough to interrupt others who had already started to talk. “I have a question: Is this how you treat someone who might just be a new ally? A sister in the struggle? By dismissing her with platitudes? With all due respect, I’ve been reading and thinking and questioning and trying to free my mind ever since I first heard you speak here in ’26. I’m ready for more.”
A hush came over the gathering. Emma did not turn around.
When there was no answer, Lil added, nervously, “And I’m not afraid of hard work.”
Emma remained with her back to her for a few more seconds. Then, slowly, she turned around, fixed Lil in the eye, squinting through her round spectacles, and brushed aside a strand of grey hair. She was not smiling this time.
“What is your name, dear?” she asked. The people around them shifted about, glancing to the side, maybe checking out the nearest exit.
“Lillian Wolfman, Miss Goldman,” Lil said, more feebly than her initial volley.
“Miss Wolfman, hard work is one thing, but courage is in short supply, and I can see you have that in spades. Or at the very least, you have chutzpah, and for now, that will do.”
Lil’s face flushed. “Yes, Miss Goldman. Thank you.”
Emma took a pencil from behind her ear and wrote something down on a piece of paper she fished out of the pocket in her cardigan. “Come to this meeting. I am raising money for the anarchists being forced to flee repression in Germany, but shortly thereafter, I will be leaving Toronto for the United States. They have finally let me back in, if only for a few months. We need people to carry on the fundraising while I am gone.”
“Yes, Miss Goldman, I’ll be there. You can count on me.”
“Call me Emma.”
“In that case, you can call me Lil,” she said, braver than she’d ever felt, I’m sure.
At that, Emma gave an explosive cackle, and said, “All right then, Lil. You and I are going to get along just fine.”
Lil rushed back to find me and dragged me out of Hygeia Hall, talking incessantly all the way. You’d have thought she’d seen the Messiah; that was how elated she was. We went straight home, and Lil ran ahead. She burst through the door to tell our parents about her encounter, but shortly into her story realized that Ma’s eyes were red and she was waiting for Lil to stop talking.
It was then that we noticed Bessie sitting in the living room, weeping in Pop’s arms.
When you greet the morning like any other, rubbing sleep from yours eyes, it’s hard to imagine that a day can flip over like that. Like a dog lying on its curved back, belly up, tongue out, paws slack, suddenly disturbed and leaping to its feet. One dog will flip over and be tail-wagging happy. The other, hackles raised. It was like that the day Lil met Emma and Bessie lost her new husband. Same day, two very different dogs leaping up at them.
Ma told us the awful news: Bessie’s Irv had been killed in an accident. He was running to catch the trolley, crossing the street in front of it, and he slipped on a patch of ice. The trolley conductor tried to stop, but the wheels locked and slid, just enough to crush him under the front bumper.
The shiva lasted all week and was held at Irv’s parents’ house, a few blocks over on Bathurst Street. Bessie moved home. She spent most of the shiva with her face in Lil’s shoulder. Lil held her close, patting her back, taking handkerchiefs from others and pressing them against Bessie’s nose, warding off acquaintances who seemed only to want to gouge out a piece of Bessie’s grief and take it home clutched to their chests. One girl made it through the protective wall. She was small and fair-skinned, with a pretty face and a kind smile. Instead of blocking her, Lil urged her forward. She sat down beside Bessie and put her arm over her shoulder, then drew a finger across her own bangs, uncovering a port wine stain on her forehead, just above her right eye. Its ruddy roughness mesmerized me for a moment, not to mention that it was sticking out there for all to see. Did she mean to uncover it, or was she so preoccupied with Bessie’s grief that she’d forgotten she had it? I’d never seen a girl with a facial disfigurement before and wished I could’ve asked her about it, but that was impossible. A few minutes later, she made her apologies and left. I was too embarrassed to ask Lil her name.
Though Lil carried on protecting Bessie, by the third night of the shiva her face began to betray an uneasiness, a slight embarrassment. I thought it was because she was so unused to consoling anyone, especially her older sister. I’d never seen Lil be so tender before, so protective. When people tried to come to speak to Bessie, Lil continued to wave them away, and Ma, Pop, and Irv’s father took them aside to receive their condolences.
That night, after the prayers had been said, Lil waited until our parents were in the other room, then dislodged Bessie from her shoulder, held her face in her palms, and said, “I have to go out for a little while, Bessie; I’ll be back later.”
“What? Where are you going?”
“There’s a meeting I promised someone I’d go to.” Her eyes flickered once in my direction. It was then that I understood. What I’d mistaken for uneasiness was really just impatience. Lil had promised Emma she’d attend that fundraising meeting.
“You’re going to one of your political meetings? Lil, this is Irv’s shiva!” She’d raised her voice a little and people turned to look.
“I have to, Bessie. I made a promise. I’ll be back as soon as it’s over.” Then she turned and quickly left before Bessie could protest further and before our parents had a chance to stop her.
The comfort Lil provided that week apparently receded in Bessie’s memory. As an older woman, she would tell people of how Lil chose politics over family. Everyone had come to expect such behaviour of Lil, she said. “Running out on me in my darkest hour to go to a meeting was only one instance of my sister’s topsy-turvy priorities.”
This one-sided version of those events lived on because it elicited no protest from Lil. She took her beating again and again. “That was only the first of many mistakes,” she’d admit.
After I met with the prison classification board, I assumed I’d be transferred immediately to Collins Bay, given that its chief keeper was present at my interview, but instead I spent the first eight months in the main jail, Kingston Pen. Also, despite the talk of construction work and my request for the carpentry shop, I was sent to work on the farm. Every morning, a whole crew of us were marched through town escorted by guards. Townspeople would clear the roads to let us pass. Women stood on the sidewalks and held their children close, but the men largely walked on without stopping. Once we’d reached the outskirts of Kingston and arrived at the fields, which were, in actual fact, right by Collins Bay, we’d work from eight in the morning until five at night with a half-hour lunch break.
They operated the farm to provide produce for the two prisons—to reduce their operating costs. We cultivated hay, oats, buckwheat, potatoes, carrots,