Housewife 1946 (Ellis Island) 


Cross, double-cross, triple-cross. Appealing for sympathy, she 
had done the negotiations with the captain of the cargo vessel 
and handed him the group's hoarded gold. Just her and her aged 
mother, she told the captain. That was the price for hiding 
them down in the hold along with the trucks and artillery on 
the voyage from Naples to New York. Over there, in New York 
Harbour, the arrangements had been made. She would be slipped 
quietly from the boat and fade away into a community of 
friends and relatives. She was desperate. She had no passport, 
no visa, no identity. Just her and her old mother, she said.

That was the cross, because after she and her husband's 
mother, not her own, were installed on board, five men 
including her husband slipped stealthily over the rails of the 
ship and joined them in their safe hiding place. At the going 
rate, all they could afford was illicit passage for two.

Then came the double-cross. On the first night out at sea, the 
captain and another man climbed down the ladder into the hold, 
carrying gas lanterns and calling out her name.

"Eszter, you must go to them," her mother-in-law hissed 
fiercely into her ear. "They must not find us all. They cannot 
come looking. The men must be protected." She shoved her 
roughly. "Go, selfish girl. Go immediately, before we are all 
at risk."

She stumbled away from the hiding place, where one old woman 
and five men lurked in darkness, watching through gaps in the 
planking. 

Her heart sunk deep in her stomach. Last week she had turned 
20. She had been married for less than three months. She had 
grown up to be a woman in wartime, always hiding, escaping. 
The Germans killed gypsies during the war and after it was 
over the Hungarians had no place for them. She had always 
thought she had been born Hungarian, and it took a war to tell 
her she was mistaken. In 1946 gypsies were nationless, the 
unwanted people of Europe. 

The captain was a thickset, middle-aged American with a paunch 
and a blunt, pepper-and-salt beard. The other man was tall, 
tough-looking, fair-haired, younger.

"This is the first mate," the captain said to her. "He wants 
to be cut in on the deal. You must give us more money."

She looked at them blankly. More money? There was no more 
money.

The captain smiled grimly at her and nodded to the first mate 
who stepped behind a crate, withdrew a dusty and dirt-crusted 
mattress, and slung it on the decking in front of her.

"You will have to pay in kind, little miss," the captain said 
to her. "Me, him, we fuck you every night."

She shook her head, eyes wide.

The captain smirked. "No? Then we will have to do our duty and 
turn you and your mother over to the authorities when we reach 
port."

"No," she said. "Wait. I will see if my mother has more 
money."

She knew there was no more money but she hoped. She ducked 
back around and through the trucks to the hiding place. Her 
mother-in-law barred the way, arms folded.

"You must do as they want," the old woman said, eyes black and 
hard. "There is no other way."

Eszter looked for her husband, but he would not meet her eyes 
and turned away. She looked back beseechingly at her mother-
in-law.

"No other way," the old woman repeated. "Go now, do what you 
must, and keep them from this place."

She returned with heavy feet, condemned, to the two men. There 
was no other way. She had been brought up strictly, and she 
had known only one man, her husband. She was about to know 
more, and there was no escape from it.

"No money?" asked the captain. "Well then, little miss, it's 
time to perform. Get those clothes off. We want a good look at 
what we're getting for this deal."

Resignedly, she dropped her shawl and unbuttoned the long and 
heavy dress, shrugging it from her arms and shoulders and 
allowing it to fall in a puddle at her feet. She stood in her 
short slip, the air cool on her bare arms, and tried hard to 
think about golden, sunny times in fields of yellow 
wildflowers. She had shuffled into the dimmest edge of the 
light cast by the two lanterns, with her back to the enclave 
where eyes watched in secret. It was that she could not bear. 
She could be naked in front of these two strange and 
meaningless men, because it was a cruel duty she could not 
avoid, but she could not stand to be naked in front of her 
husband's brother and his three friends, men she had known for 
many months, two of them all her life. It was shame and abject 
humiliation that could not be borne.

But even a shadow of modesty was denied her. The captain 
pulled her roughly by the arm into the centre of the light and 
spun her to face the tall, grinning mate. She would be on full 
display to all.

"Come on, gypsy girl," the captain snapped impatiently. "I 
haven't got all night. This is a cargo tub, not the Queen 
Mary."

She crossed her arms and dragged the slip over her head, stood 
only in the woollen pants she wore for comfort, and resisted 
the overwhelming urge to cover her bare breasts with her hands 
and arms. There could be no protection. It would only delay 
the inevitable.

The two men were grinning at her, but extended no warmth or 
sympathy. The air in the hold was close but dankly cold. 
Goosebumps flushed her arms, and she felt her dark nipples 
harden.  
  
"Look at those little pointy tits," the captain muttered. "We 
got ourselves a nice one, Eddie."

Fatalistically, she decided to get it over with. Putting the 
task behind her was better than standing around on lewd 
display. She would rather do her duty to save her husband and 
his friends than pose for them. Maybe then, afterwards, she 
would have earned some sympathy from them, maybe even some 
element of respect for her courage. She was saving their 
skins. She pulled down the woollen pants she wore to keep out 
the cold, and they dropped to the floor. She stepped out and 
stood wholly naked, waiting to be violated by these 
blackmailing and double-crossing mariners.

The captain pointed bluntly at the mattress, and she sat in 
the centre of it, arms around her drawn-up knees. He 
unbuttoned the front of his trousers, grimacing as he 
extracted a short, stiff, stubby penis. He dropped carefully 
to his knees in front of her. She eased herself back on her 
elbows and spread her legs, and he lunged forward, toppled, 
and collapsed on her. 

His forearm landed square on her stomach and she lost her 
breath for a moment. She gasped, blinked, and he was already 
pushing into her, inside, opening her up. The weight of his 
body pressed her flat on the mattress, and his mouth slid 
wetly over her breasts. He wriggled his hips, and eel-like, 
his blunt penis slipped into her as far as it could go.

Eszter had never before been taken unwillingly, and she was 
surprised at how simple it was. She was not assisting him, but 
yet he was lodged inside her. She had been hoping it would not 
hurt. It didn't. Her hips flattened and spread, she did not 
resist, and while he shoved and grunted, she looked up over 
his shoulder into the darkness above the light of the gas 
lamps. She felt almost nothing. Her body was poked, prodded, 
and pushed around a little, but really, it was near enough to 
nothing.

She remembered her husband had not made love to her for almost 
a month. They had been on the run, hiding, walking the roads 
at night, always watchful. And everywhere his mother, never 
out of sight or hearing. She was a crow of a woman, hopping 
about, protective, harsh, pecking at her. Go out and let those 
men use your body, his mother had said to her, and her husband 
had turned his back on her.

The captain had already finished with her. Cursing softly, 
whether at her or himself she did not know or care, he 
withdrew, got to his feet and turned away, adjusting his 
clothing. She turned her head to look for the other man, the 
younger one. Must she endure him as well? He was walking 
towards her, undoing the belt of his trousers. Yes, he would 
have her too.

The man thrust down trousers and shorts, and a very much 
bigger penis than the one she had just accommodated jutted out 
from his groin. Maybe, she thought apprehensively, this one 
might hurt a bit.

The big man thrust into her mechanically, and she felt herself 
stretch, but she had already been used. There was some 
discomfort but no pain, and again she was surprised how 
ordinarily easy it all was. The passive acceptance of it was 
helping. She was getting through the experience, getting it 
done with. This was how whores must do it, she thought to 
herself. Just let it happen.

He hunched himself on her body and shook violently, letting 
loose his seed. It had been done with quickly, she realised. 
Six or seven strokes, no more. The man rested on her for a 
minute or two, his body heavy. "You're so pretty," he 
whispered softly in her ear so only she heard.

He rolled away from her and she sat up, feeling the cold 
wetness of sperm on her inner thighs. Both men stood looking 
at her, the big man buckling his belt. 

"We'll be back tomorrow night," the captain said to her. 
"We'll have ourselves another party."

They took the lanterns and climbed the ladder out of the hold, 
leaving her in darkness. She scrambled around for her clothes, 
dressed as well as she could, and returned to the hiding 
place. Nobody barred her way, but no eyes met hers. Nobody 
said anything. She sat beside her husband but he turned his 
back on her. All around her, silence. She sat, waiting to be 
spoken to. When it became obvious nobody would speak, she 
curled up on the rug and closed her eyes.

She woke in the morning cold and coldly angry. The only member 
of the group who would meet her eyes was her mother-in-law, 
and that was a look of utter contempt. Forced by them to have 
sex with two strangers, they now treated her as a whore and 
slut. Eszter set her mouth and, difficult as it was in the 
confined space with six other people, kept her own company. 
She dozed and slept most of the day.

That night only the first mate came down the ladder. The 
captain was ill, he said. Ulcers. Still angry, she shed her 
clothes without regard for the watchers. Let them look. They 
were worse than the two men she was required to have sex with. 
She didn't care any more.

The big man with the fair hair dropped his pants and 
approached her on hands and knees on the mattress. She lowered 
and opened her legs to allow him entry. As he fumbled around, 
hit-or-miss, she found she was a little lubricated. 
Anticipation, maybe. Annoyed at his poking and prodding, she 
reached down impatiently and guided him into her. Get it over 
with, she told herself.

Again she had a sense of being stretched, but it was not 
unpleasant. He stroked smoothly and rhythmically, almost 
monotonously. It was okay. She was coping.

Unlike the previous night, he seemed to be in no hurry. She 
was coping fine. He would get there, and tonight there was 
only one of them. She relaxed and waited for him to finish.

Relaxed, coping fine, she was unprepared for a sudden surge of 
desire mushrooming across her whole body with the speed of a 
blush. She blinked in alarm. No, that must not happen. She had 
a sudden vision of herself as the watchers might see her, 
pinned on the mattress, writhing in orgasm and crying out her 
delight. No. She switched off, went cold.

Analytically, she noted that this man could do things to her. 
It was something to do with friction and the way their bodies 
met when he pushed all the way into her. No. Not acceptable. 
Not here. Not now.

Warily, she kept herself in check. It would have been easy to 
let go, to let the frustrations bubble over, to cling to 
delicious relief. But no. It could not be.

Or could it?

At last he finished, and she was glad he did, because her 
blood was warm and her loins were on fire. As he rested, his 
head on her breasts, she whispered her plan.

That night she slept alone, off in a corner of the hiding 
place. Nobody spoke to her. Nobody had said a word in a day 
and a night. But in the morning what had been left unsaid 
brewed quickly into trouble. She woke to raised and angry 
voices. A man pointed at her, a man she had grown up with, 
known all her life. Eszter, he was saying, gave herself to men 
and he should have her too. Eszter was common property. She 
had no shame. She would fuck anybody. Eszter should fuck him. 
Eszter should fuck them all.

Her husband pushed the man in the chest. There would be a 
fight. But her husband's mother stepped between them, calling 
for quiet, afraid of discovery.

"She is not your wife any more," the old woman hissed at her 
son.  "She has forfeited her right. You do not want her. She 
is worthless."

Her husband turned and looked at her for the first time since 
she had gone out to the mattress to have sex. He looked at her 
for a long moment. 

"Yes," he said sadly. "She is not my wife. I do not know her. 
Any man can do with her what he wants."

Triple-cross. Eszter stood up straight and angry. "So be it," 
she said, and spat on the floor to emphasise it. "But if any 
man here touches me, I will tell the captain you are here."

Silence. She glared at them defiantly. She hated them, and she 
especially hated her husband and his mother for what they had 
done to her.

"Let her be," the old woman said. "No decent man would want 
her anyway."

They ignored her for the rest of the day. It was as if she was 
not there.

That night the first mate came down the ladder alone, as she 
had hoped. He called her name and she went to him. He took her 
hand and led her up the ladder into the open air, and to his 
small and cramped cabin. She took off her clothes, undressed 
him, and pushed him gently to the narrow bunk. She took hold 
of his erect penis and bent over him.

"Now," she said. "Now I will make love to you properly, as I 
promised I would."

She sat astride him and slid the big, strong penis into her. 
She leaned forward, bending it inside her, and brushed her 
lips over his face. The fire was back. This time she could let 
it consume her.

For four days and nights she stayed in the mate's cabin, and 
when he was with her, she fucked him with a passion she did 
not know she had. His name was Eddie. He told her many times 
he loved her.

Quadruple-cross. In New York, she watched as men in uniform 
came up the gangplank and led away the five men and the old 
woman who had abandoned her. They would be taken to Ellis 
Island, processed without sympathy, and deported, Eddie told 
her. They would be sent back to Hungary. 

They had abandoned her, and now she had her revenge. A gypsy 
woman must have her revenge.

Eddie would get her ashore quietly that night. She would live 
at his sister's house in Brooklyn until he came for her. They 
would get married. Was she married? No. She shook her head. 
She wasn't married. No.

Eddie loved her and she could twist him around her finger like 
a gold ring. She was safe for a time. For a gypsy woman in 
1946, that was enough.

ENDS