A House of Tailors (10 page)

Brooklyn

1872

twenty-four

On New Year's Day, we sat around Aunt Ida's table, crowded together, Ernest in my arms and Maria bouncing on my feet as if I were a
Wippe
. Ah,
seesaw
. I'd have to tell that odd word to Johann.

I smiled, looking at the baby, counting in my head. I was sure Katharina was hinting at a baby for her and Krist, probably to be born in the summer.

In front of us was all we owned, things the Uncle and I kept bringing home. A few spoons and forks, a rolling pin with one burned handle, a tin of needles and pins, the pots and pans that just needed scrubbing, and, strangely, Barbara's apron. It had hung on a hook in the kitchen yet was barely singed.

Aunt Ida moved the coffeepot from the stove and poured cups for all of us laced with sugar. “And a dollop of whipped cream for comfort,” she said. Because there wasn't room on the table for the raisin cake just out of the oven, we held the warm pieces in our hands.

We sat without speaking for a while, Maria pinching my ankles, trying to make me laugh.

I looked around at them, rocking the baby gently: Aunt Ida with her heavy comfortable body and soft face; the Uncle, his face smeared with lard, his eyebrows gone, his beard ragged, his hands black, and both arms still covered with cloth.

Deep inside me a small voice:
Not the worst, Dina; oh no, not the worst thing in life to be here with people you love, and yes, who love you
. And something else, which Johann had whispered to me after church on Christmas morning.
Don't ever leave, Dina.

My hand went to my neck to feel the chain and then the slim key under my shirtwaist.
Johann
. I pictured him bent over his table fashioning the key for me. I pictured his hair falling over his face. And then I thought of him laughing and how I loved to make him laugh.

But these were fast thoughts, fleeting thoughts, because I realized everyone was staring at me. I raised my hand to my face, feeling where my eyebrows should have been, and my hair singed at my temples.

“Never mind,” Aunt Ida said. “It will all grow back.”

And then the Uncle spoke; his voice was the way it always was, almost challenging me to disagree with him. “I have decided something today,” he said.

I took a sip of the coffee, wondering what was coming next. He was frowning, and Aunt Ida turned away to put the pot back on the stove.

I thought he was going to talk about the trousers, or the machine, or even the fire itself. I glanced at Aunt Ida, then at Barbara, and could see they knew what he was going to say.

“I am sending you home, Dina,” he said. “You will be in Breisach by spring.”

I sat there, the warm cup in my hand. I opened my mouth but I couldn't speak. Inside my head was a picture of my river, my bedroom on the third floor, Mama's face, Katharina's, my brothers laughing with each other at the kitchen table. The joy of it!

And then I realized why he was sending me back. I had not fit into this family. They didn't want me. And why should they? For the first time, I thought about it. Every word I had spoken to the Uncle had been angry or irritable. And still another thought. I looked up at him. “But where will you get the money?”

He patted his waist. “It is always with me in a little bag. You don't think I'd be foolish enough to put it in a trunk.”

“Lucas,” Barbara said, and he was quiet.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “It is my fault that—”

The Uncle's eyes gleamed. He didn't wait for me to finish but spread his hands wide. In a husky voice so unlike his, he said, “I would never have gotten Barbara and Maria around the stairwell and down the last flight of steps. One of them, perhaps. But both, never. Barbara's skirt had already caught the flames, and Maria's blanket was scorched.”

Next to me Aunt Ida began to cry silently.

“If you hadn't . . . ,” he began, and stopped.

And Mama's voice in my head,
If you hadn't forgotten the bread rising
. . . How far away Frau Ottlinger seemed. How far away the sewing room, how far away Breisach.

“How could we keep you here, knowing how unhappy you are?”

He knew. He had known it all along. And now I was crying, like Aunt Ida. “But the money . . .”

He looked down at his hands. “The sewing machine is gone. The fabric. The trousers for Mr. Eis.”

I was nodding. “So I can't take the money.”

“You don't understand,” he said. “What is gone is only a foolish dream. My work for Mrs. Koch is good. I like rubbing down the horses in the warm sun. And Mr. Eis . . .” He hesitated as if he were thinking it through. “I will pay him back little by little from my salary.”

It would take him years; it would take him forever. But I had never heard him talk so much in all these months. I remembered his crying and how proud he was. “I can't,” I said.

“You certainly can,” he said. “It is what I want.”

Had I ever won a battle with the Uncle? “Thank you,” I said, looking from him to Barbara, hardly able to get the words out. “But if you do this for me, I will pay you back someday.”

We sat there for another few minutes drinking coffee. Suddenly I felt so tired; it was an effort to raise the cake to my mouth. I felt my head drooping, my arm throbbing.

“Sleep, Dina,” Aunt Ida said.

I touched the baby's soft hair and gently slid my feet out from under Maria. Then I put the baby into Barbara's arms, and went back to Aunt Ida's bedroom.

I wouldn't see either of them grow up; they wouldn't even remember me. But I'd take home a picture of them in my mind. I slid into bed thinking about all I'd have to tell Mama and Katharina.

And Johann. I'd have to tell Johann.

My dreams were strange, dreams of the bakery shop burning in a fire and Johann bent over a key, dreams of Maria asking me for another doll. “Go home,” someone said. And I kept whispering, “Where is it? I don't know where it is.”

twenty-five

Within a week we found an apartment, this one without even a closet for me. I would sleep in a space under the kitchen window. Barbara looked at me with brimming eyes. “I'm so sorry,” she said.

“It's only for a few weeks, after all,” the Uncle said. “As soon as the weather warms, you will take the ship.”

I didn't mind the kitchen. It was a cold January, and it would be the warmest room in the apartment. The window faced the backs of the buildings across the yards, and there was always something to see: people calling out to each other, and children playing on the fire escapes. Sometimes, I thought, Brooklyn was an exciting place to be.

We planned to move on a Sunday. The Uncle would be home from work, and so would Aunt Ida. “Everyone will help,” she said.

There was so little to move, though, I wondered why we'd need help. But on Saturday afternoon, Aunt Ida came home laden with things from Mrs. Koch: old sheets and pillows, three blankets, a waist and skirt for Barbara. And I ran to Schaeffer's shop to ask Johann to help, too.

On moving day, we told ourselves we'd manage to get the iron bedsteads down the stairs of our old apartment. None of us mentioned that we'd just have to leave the sewing machine.

We made a fine parade going to the new apartment. Someone had sold the Uncle old mattresses for a few cents, and he and Johann carried them on their heads. I carried Mrs. Koch's things, and Aunt Ida dragged Maria's iron crib along the street as Barbara came along at the end carrying Ernest and holding Maria by the hand.

Upstairs, Johann looked at the apartment. And as everyone scurried back and forth to put things away, we were left alone in the hallway.

“The apartment is very small,” he said.

“But . . . ,” I began.

“But . . . ,” he said at the same time, “someday things will be different.”

I nodded. It was time to tell him I was going home.

“My business will be a success,” he said. “And when that time comes . . .”

I looked at him, shocked.
When that time comes
. . . I knew what he meant. My mouth was so dry I couldn't speak. How could I tell him my news? What could I say?

I didn't have to say anything.
“Success,”
he said. “How do you like that word?”

“Seesaw,”
I said, and then, before I could stop myself,
“Sorrow.”

At that moment, the Uncle came to thank him, and I watched as he went back down the stairs, taking the steps two at a time.

That night we looked almost as dirty as we had the morning after the fire. We sat in the kitchen spooning up Aunt Ida's vegetable soup and biscuits, feeling satisfied with what we had done, and talking about how we'd find enough money to live now that we owed Mr. Eis so much.

We tried to plan how the Uncle would tell Mr. Eis, talking it out at the table. And early the next morning, the Uncle put on his hat, straightened his collar, and went out. He was back an hour later, running up three flights of stairs to tell us: “We have an extension.”

A new word to tell Johann.
Extension.
But what did it mean?

“Mr. Eis will give me a few weeks to pay him,” he said.

“A few weeks?” Barbara said.

And I echoed her. “Only a few weeks?”

We sat there in silence, the three of us, Maria teetering on a chair, leaning against the windowpane until Barbara stood up and scooped her off.

“How could we possibly . . . ,” Barbara began.

“We can't possibly . . . ,” I said at the same time. And then it came to me.

“Suppose,” I said slowly, “we spent the ticket money.” I was surprised at myself for saying it, but strangely, I wasn't sorry.

Already the Uncle looked angry. “That we will not do.”

“Suppose,” I began again, “we bought fabric for a dress, for two dresses.” I dared to look across at him. “Fine fabric. The best.”

They were all looking at me.

“I will make two dresses from Frau Ottlinger's pattern, two beautiful dresses, and we will sell them to Mrs. Koch.”

“Who is Frau Ottlinger?” Barbara said.

I waved my hand. “There's a pattern in my trunk. . . .” I bit my lip. “I know the pattern by heart anyway,” I said, wondering if that was true.

The Uncle was looking at the ceiling. “To put the savings all into two dresses . . .” Then he snapped his fingers. “But yes, I can see it. You can certainly sew. You have a gift for it.”

A gift.

“If we can sell both,” I said, “we can pay Mr. Eis back for the ruined fabric.”

“Yes. And still have enough for your ticket.”

Yes. A few weeks more here. I wouldn't be sorry for that. I'd have time at the bakery with Johann, time to play with Maria and Ernest, time to cook with Barbara. Time to stay in Brooklyn.

Time.

And then the Uncle's face fell. “What are we talking about? We have no machine.”

“For this I won't need a machine,” I said. “I will do it all by hand, lace inserts, covered buttons . . .”

“Yes,” he said, tapping my shoulder as hard as Maria usually did, and was gone, hurrying to his work in Mrs. Koch's house. “I will ask Ida to speak for us.”

Barbara and I waited breathless the whole day, boiling Ernest's diapers, sweeping the apartment, running down to the store for a penny's worth of soup greens for a stew to simmer on the stove.

And then at last we heard Aunt Ida's footsteps on the stairs. She was lugging Mrs. Koch's cloth bust with her. “One dress,” she said. “If she likes it, two.”

We were jubilant. Barbara and I danced around the kitchen table, and I picked up Maria to dance with me. “
Good,
Dina,” Maria said, hands on my face.
“Very good.”

Aunt Ida gave me a worried look. “You'd better be sure you can do this, Dina.”

The Uncle and I went to A. T. Stewart's and pored over the fabric and trimmings. We spent exactly half of the ticket money for the makings of the first dress. I smiled, thinking how lucky we were that Mrs. Koch was half the size of Frau Ottlinger.

“Smiling is not good,” the Uncle said, “when everything rests on this.”

Quickly I put on my most serious face, even though I was more excited than I could say. I pointed to a bolt of cloth called Old Rose, the most beautiful piece of silk I had ever seen. I turned my head to see it change color in the light: one way it was a shimmer of soft gray, another it was pink. And through all of it was a thin line of green that wandered across the fabric like a tender vine.

I was almost ready to begin. But first I rubbed my fingers together. My skin was dry from the fire, the cuticles rough. If I even tried to cut or sew that fabric, there'd be pulls from one end of it to the other.

I went to bed with gloves over hands slathered in lard. And the next morning I walked around with my fingers in the air, touching nothing, even though I knew the Uncle was becoming desperate with my time wasting. I did take a few moments to write a quick note to Katharina, not mentioning the fire or coming home. One was sad, the other to be a happy surprise.

That afternoon, I washed my hands under water without soap until every trace of the grease was gone, and my fingers and palms felt soft again. I took pattern paper we had bought from A. T. Stewart's and I began to shape the pieces with a pencil.

I reminded myself of the dress Mrs. Grant had worn when her husband had become president. I had studied that picture in the newspaper and knew I could make a dress very much like hers. I began to cut, marking the pattern for diagonal bows. It was almost as if I were back in Mama's sewing room and sure that she would help if I ran into any trouble. “It will be a dress with a short waist and a bustle with narrow ribbons in the back,” I told Barbara as she leaned over my shoulder. “A dress that even a president's wife might wear.”

I took the fabric from its paper wrapping then and shook it out, a beautiful tent of cloth to spread across the kitchen table. I looked at that silk. What would happen if I made a mistake? There were no second chances. And what would happen to us if I ruined it?

And all the time I was thinking of the sewing, the French seams with edges folded over on themselves, the stitches, each one the size of a tiny seed.

And something else. Mrs. Koch loved hats the way I did. I'd be careful with the cutting, and there might be fabric left over, bits and pieces that I could shape into flowers for a hat that would go with the dress. Surely Mrs. Koch would buy that, too.

Suddenly I realized I was humming. And Katharina's voice came into my head:
Dina's happy, she's making bird sounds
.

Coo-coo,
Friedrich would have said.

I began to arrange the pattern over the cloth one way and then another to save as much of the fabric as I could. Then I picked up the scissors and began to cut.