Laurence M. Janifer

“ Wladek said.
"I will try."
The room was silent as the gypsy woman brought all her knowledge and experience into play. Finally she looked at Mrs. Wladek and said: "A very powerful curse has been put upon you. I can't help you."
"The Church will help me!" Mrs. Wladek screamed. "They have the power to exorcise—"
"Do not speak to me of churches," the gypsy woman shouted.
Mrs. Wladek shook her head. "You, who steal my money, who steal the bread from my old mouth without pity—"
"A woman must live," Marya Proderenska said, with great dignity. ”

“ Should she, then, work? Should her own son, her own Rudi, be forced to work out his time of youth? Surely a little privacy was a small enough thing to surrender for freedom and ease?
But that they should ask for you to surrender it ... Cossacks!
Mrs. Wladek stood up carefully—her old bones creaked, and she could feel them creaking. She looked around the tiny living room, covered with dust. One should have the money to hire a maid. But the case workers had never understood that. Young things, of course they knew nothing of the troubles facing an old woman. ”

“ Of course, Meedy would never know the difference, but even so, Gloria didn't like to do any unnecessary work. Changing someone's mind was a delicate job, and a responsible one, not to be undertaken for a small motive.
Even if the person never knew his mind had been changed at all—
Mrs. Wladek, in her apartment, shrugged on an old coat and compressed her lips with weariness. Appointment time was near, and a person had to be punctual.
Even when a person was going to see a young girl who was strange and frightening, and who might do—
Well, don't be a foolish old woman, Mrs. Wladek told herself. ”

“ As a matter of fact, Gloria thought, she deserved a good talking-to. She hadn't had enough experience, and that was the simple truth. It was all very well to work on a boy like Rudi, or another one like Tom Francis, when they didn't have any idea who you were or even that you were trying to do something. That was easy.
But a woman like Mrs. Wladek—
She was suspicious from the start, and Gloria thought that perhaps she shouldn't have done anything. But it was obvious that the woman needed help to become a functioning member of society. ”

“ It has made me want to look for a job. In time, I will not be able to fight the curse, and I will take a job. And then—"
"I don't see anything wrong about that," Father Seador said mildly.
"You see nothing wrong in a poor old woman being forced to work? In a boy forced to grind out his youth among package-wrappers? You see nothing wrong in this?"
"Well, I ... we all have to work."
"Here?" Mrs. Wladek said with astonishment. "Here in America, you believe that? It is not so. My own uncle Bedrich has told me years ago it is not so. Do you dispute the word of my own uncle Bedrich?" ”

“ In the old country, one still heard the old stories, the streets paved with gold and the food waiting for such as yourself; oh, the war had not changed that in the least. Now the Voice of America was heard in the old country—she had a letter, smuggled out, from her own second-cousin Marfa, telling her all about the Voice of America—and that was only another trap. They wanted to make you leave your own land and your own country, and come far away to America and to the United States, so that you would have no friends and you would be defenseless. ”

“ Ten minutes to nine, and Gloria put her beret away, reached for the first folder—and froze.
A second later the door opened. Gloria looked up and smiled helpfully. "Mrs. Wladek," she said. "Is there anything I can do for you? This isn't your day for—"
"It is not my day," Mrs. Wladek said. She closed the door behind her. "This, I know. But I am here. Does this mean anything to you?"
Gloria forced her face to remain expressionless. "Can I help you in any way?" she said. "Is there anything I can do?"
"You?" Mrs. Wladek barked. "You have done enough. I am not here to see you. ”

“ There was only the case worker with her reports that took the last bit of privacy away from an old woman, and left her with barely enough money to remain alive.
"Get a job," they said. "Tell your son to get a job. He is young and strong and healthy."
Certainly! But the United States is not a place in which to work. The United States will give you money. This fact she had from her uncle Bedrich, who had come to the new country years before, and who had written many letters back to his family before his death in an accident. ”

“ Got to have money, got to have a job."
Someone said: "Hey, Rudi. Wait. What's the hurry?"
And Rudi had gone.
Gloria dropped the doll and closed the drawer, and sat back, smiling gently. It was wonderful to be able to help people.
It was just wonderful.
Find work. Find a job.
Go to the employment agency.
Start looking for work, right now.
Get a job.
It will be nice to have a steady job.
Nice—
Somehow, Mrs. Wladek fought off the voices in her mind. It was so easy to succumb to them and to drift into the terrible things they wanted. Mrs. Wladek did not want them at all.
A job, indeed! ”

“ The projection of the sense of hearing was such a simple thing, really; why did people have to complicate it with all this talk about witches and the soul—she was reminded of Mrs. Wladek but put the woman out of her mind. Mr. Gerne was talking.
"... For instance, the new girl—what's her name?"
"Gloria Scott," Mr. Fredericksohn's voice said. "Yes?"
"What's she like?" Mr. Gerne's voice said. "I don't know her personally—of course I've seen her there in the office, and she seems like a friendly, pretty girl. But you deal with her every day—"
"Very nice," Mr. Fredericksohn said. ”

“ Our minds do change, you know, and they do strange things—"
"I have been told," Mrs. Wladek said.
"You've been told? By whom?"
Mrs. Wladek drew herself up in the chair. "By Marya Proderenska, the gypsy fortune teller. She knows that—"
"A gypsy? You consulted a fortune teller?"
"I did."
"Mrs. Wladek, do you know what you are saying ... what you have done? Don't you realize you have committed a sin against—"
But he was speaking to empty air. Marie Wladek was gone.
Gloria looked up at the little clock and sighed briefly. Five o'clock. Another day gone already. ”

“ The trouble was that you couldn't always cure something by a simple projection into the mind. Sometimes you ran into a compulsion that was really deeply buried.
If the compulsion was a big one, and went back far into childhood, Gloria couldn't do anything directly about it. Sometimes it was possible to work around, and, of course, you did that when you could. The important thing was society, but you salvaged the individual wherever possible.
Where it wasn't possible—
Well, here's a man who has a compulsion to get drunk. And, when drunk, he's got to pick fights. ”

“ But your supervisor, your boss—him, I will see."
"My supervisor?" Gloria looked round. "He isn't here yet."
"He will be here later?"
"Of course he will," Gloria said.
Mrs. Wladek sat down in a chair next to Gloria's desk. "I will wait," she announced. "And you should know that there is nothing you can do to me now." She reached into her bag and brought out a small wooden cross she had brought with her from the old country. She waved it at Gloria wildly.
"Do anything to you? What do you mean, Mrs. Wladek?"
"Hah," Mrs. Wladek said. "You need not pretend with me. This frightens you. No?" ”

“ That's all. Now let's eat."
"You got the idea to have a job?" Mrs. Wladek said. "Fine. Fine. Just fine. And when did you get this idea?"
"I don't know," Rudi said, and shrugged. "Some time. This morning, maybe. Look, what difference does it make? I thought you'd like the idea, Ma. Some more dough coming in ... you know."
"This morning." Mrs. Wladek raised clenched fists over her head. "Cossacks!" she screamed. "Monsters! Witches!"
Lunchtime.
Gloria looked up and smiled sweetly and distantly as Harold Meedy appeared at her desk. "Got any special place to go?" he said. ”

“ Fredericksohn remained in his private office, behind the closed door, Gloria opened a drawer of her desk and took out a piece of modeling clay a little bigger than her fist. Working without haste, and never bothering to look up she made a doll in the shape of a tall, thin boy. ”

“ Appointment hour was approaching. Mrs. Wladek did not want to leave the house. She did not want to face this new case worker.
But, all the same, one had to have money to live.
That they should force an old woman to travel across the city and to speak with a girl, by appointment, solely in order to get the money which should have been hers by right! ”

“ The back injury could not be corrected by medical science. And if Gloria were to correct it—
"Your job as a case worker is clearly defined," a teacher had said. "Meddling in another's province, without the permission of your supervisor, is always uncalled-for."
In other words, Gloria thought, the status quo has to be kept. And that, too, made sense when you thought about it.
She looked up to see Harold Meedy smiling across the room at her. She smiled back, very briefly, and went back to her own work.
"Interpersonal relationships within the office framework," a teacher—Mr. ”

“ But it took effort, all the same, to concentrate on herself instead of the work, the job, the employment agency. It took effort to sit down on a bench in the park, near the building where the case workers were, and plan out the next step.
A witch, certainly. The girl was a witch and she had put a hex on Mrs. Wladek, and that hex had to be removed.
How?
Mrs. Wladek thought first of the old woman in the store.
Certainly a gypsy woman would be able to take off a hex. Mrs. ”