A sea of black umbrellas preceded waves of endless sorrow. Eddie positioned himself at the edges of such gatherings, his cap pulled down, his camera slung over one shoulder. He photographed the funerals from a distance, stationing himself behind a stone wall or under a wide-limbed copper beech, doing his best not to bring attention to himself while keeping his lens free from raindrops with a soft rag. The world carried the scent of lilacs and damp earth, and the sky was a dove-colored, so laden with clouds it seemed that heaven touched the ground.
Eddie waited for the end of each service before showing the dime-store photograph of Hannah Weiss to mourners who filed by. Most of those he approached were mistrustful of his presence, so far inside their own grief he often had to repeat himself to be understood. He spoke in English and Yiddish, as well as the broken Russian he remembered from his boyhood. Please excuse the interruption, but this girl is still missing. Perhaps you knew her? Did you see her on the day of the fire? Or the day before? Maybe recently? One young woman who was lamenting her own losses had sputtered, “Who do you think you are asking questions here?” before stalking off. Another time Eddie had been chased off the premises when relatives of the deceased noticed his camera and charged after him, fiercely protective of their grieving family’s privacy. They had thrown rocks and called him a ghoul. Perhaps he was, but the photographs of the distraught, raging mourners were among the best he’d ever taken. He added the prints to his wall of sorrow, which now ran the length of his loft, ravaged souls scattered in black and white, the exalted and the earnest, the mourners and the mourned side by side.
On the fifth of the month, New York City held a mass funeral for the unidentified victims of the fire, a procession that would take six hours to complete. The morning’s drizzle would become a driving rain, but a sea of more than three hundred thousand mourners holding black umbrellas lined the street to pay their respects to those who had lost their lives. Guards had been stationed around the homes of the owners of the factory, for there was talk of retaliation. The survivors murmured to each other in remembrance of those they had lost, girls who had jumped holding hands, lovers who had kissed before the flames engulfed them, lives burning up like cinders as the owners and supervisors were skulking over the melting tar of the roof, making their way onto a neighboring rooftop. The deceased were put to rest in black coffins covered with shrouds—each had a silver plate upon it, stating that they were the unidentified departed.
The International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, begun in 1900 to protect working people from seventy-hour workweeks and wretched conditions, had met in long sessions, swelling the halls at Cooper Union, petitioning President Taft and the governor, John Dix, only in office since January of that year, for workers’ rights. The parade of mourners was more than just a funeral; it was a river of outrage. Carts transporting the dead were laden with flowers, pulled by huge draft horses draped with black netting. Thousands of mourners in black coats, the men in bowler hats, the women draped in black wool and velvet, followed the carts, including the members of the Ladies’ Waist and Dress Makers’ Union, Local 25, the union that had tried and failed to have sprinklers installed in the Triangle factory. The mourners carried black banners and garlands of roses. Signs carried by women’s union groups called out, AN END TO GRIEF. The city still smelled of smoke, and a gray film hung above them. It was April, yet it seemed another month entirely, more somber November in mood.
As Eddie made his way through the crowd, he was looking for one person, a young woman with pale hair, the color of snow. Snow melted, Eddie knew that much. It disappeared if you tried to hold on to it. He had posted himself in the doorway of a pet shop. From this position he could see the swelling throngs. The gathering was not unruly, but the quiet was worse than any mayhem, a pulsing wave of sorrow. Soon enough, the owner of the shop came out with a broom. There was to be no loitering, he declared, for he feared his plate-glass windows would be shattered should tempers rise.
As Eddie moved on, he thought he spotted Weiss’s daughter. It was what he had come to do, yet at the sight of this girl, he grew light-headed. He shifted his camera stand over his shoulder, then folded himself into the crowd. He made his way through the mass of people on the street, trailing her, holding his breath, like a man about to jump from a bridge. She wore a camel-colored coat over blue skirts and high-buttoned boots, her pale hair falling down her back, proceeding so quickly Eddie wondered if she was a ghost, for ghosts are said to move in the corners of human sight. She disappeared in a mob on Fourteenth Street, but after a few moments Eddie spied her again. Her hair was indeed a beacon. If she chose to slip a shawl or scarf over her head, he would certainly lose her in the crowd. He pushed his way through the throngs with greater haste.