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PARTISAN REVIEW
her father had sworn to her that the thief was Loewenthal. Loewen–
thal, Aaron Loewenthal, formerly the manager of the factory, and
now one of its owners. Since 1916, Emma had kept the secret. She
had revealed it to no one, not even to her best friend, Elsa Urstein.
Perhaps she was trying to escape profane incredulity; perhaps she
felt that the secret was a bond between her and her absent father.
Loewenthal did not realize that she knew; Emma Zunz derived from
this fact a feeling of power.
She did not sleep that night, and when the first morning light
outlined the rectangle of the window, her plan was perfectly made.
She tried to live that day, which seemed interminable, as if it were
any other day. There were rumors about a strike at the factory. As
always, Emma declared herself against any violence. At six, the end
of the workday, she went with Elsa to a woman's club, where they
could use the gymnasium and pool. They signed their names; she
had to repeat and spell her first and second name, and had to laugh
at the vulgar jokes that accompany such repetition. She discussed with
Elsa and the youngest daughter of the Kronfusses to which movie
they would go the following Sunday afternoon. Then the conversa–
tion turned to boy friends, and no one expected Emma to speak. In
April she would be nineteen, but even now men inspired her with an
almost pathological fear.... On her return, she prepared a tapioca
soup and some vegetables; she ate early, went to bed, and forced
herself to sleep. Thus, painfully and trivially, passed the eve of Friday
the 15th.
On Saturday, impatience awoke her. Impatience, not nervous–
ness, and the strange relief because
the
day had finally arrived. She
no longer had to scheme and imagine; within a few hours she would
reach the simplicity of facts. She read in
La Prensa
that the Nord–
stjarnen of Malmo would sail from pier 3; she telephoned Loewen–
thal, insinuating that she wished to communicate to him, secretly,
something about the strike, and she promised to stop at his office at
nightfall. Her voice trembled; the trembling was appropriate for an
informer. No other fateful event took place that morning. Emma
worked until noon and arranged with Elsa and Perla Kronfuss the
minor details of the plans for Sunday. Mter lunch, she went to bed
and, with eyes closed, reviewed the plan she had worked out. She
thought that the last stage would be less horrifying than the first, and
