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Authors: Patricia Reilly Giff

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BOOK: A House of Tailors
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two

The bed was warm. I could see the flicker of the gaslights outside, so it was still early, too early to think about getting up. I turned over, the letter still on my mind. Mama had finally read it aloud last night, and it was just as she had said.

“We have room for Katharina,” Uncle Lucas had written. “She will have her own room. From what you have written over the years, she is quiet and helpful. . . .”

Her own room
. What would that be like, I wondered, not having to share a bed, stretching both arms from one side to the other? I saw it in my mind: shelves in the cabinet to spread out my petticoats, my stockings, my gloves; my hat perched on a shelf all by itself.

If only the uncle had added one more sentence.

We have room for Dina, too.

If.

Mama always strung happenings together with that word, reminding me of the garnet necklace she looped around her neck every morning.

“Don't you see, Dina?” Mama had said one day last month, tapping one thin finger gently on my wrist. “If you hadn't forgotten the bread rising on the stove . . . if you hadn't banged out the door with enough noise to wake the dead . . . then you wouldn't have bumped into Frau Ottlinger with enough force to send her flying off into the street.

“And—” Katharina had barely held back her laughter—“if the street hadn't been clear of carriages at that very moment, Frau Ottlinger would have been run over by a horse.”

“Ah, no,” Franz had said, nudging Friedrich. “Frau Ottlinger would have run over the horse.”

Friedrich had nearly fallen off the kitchen chair laughing, but Mama had tapped harder. “That's not the point. The point is I nearly lost Frau Ottlinger as a client, and I did lose the bread. When it came out of the oven, holes the size of your fist ran through it.”

I turned over in bed again, punching my pillow, thinking of another day sewing for Mama's clients, threading needles; running fine stitches in and out of the silk, the linen, the wool; working on seams, and darts, and plackets.

And then I remembered. I sat up straight and slid out of bed in one motion. How could I have forgotten what my plan was for this morning? Still I hesitated. What I was going to do was so simple. Usually so easy. But now so dangerous.

Next to me, Katharina slept on like the dead, her dark hair covering her closed eyes with their long straight lashes . . . camel eyelashes, I called them.

I twisted my hair up on the back of my head, then opened the door quietly, a pair of old shoes in my hand.

The second-floor stairs couldn't fool me. The top steps were quiet, as they should be. It was only when I reached the ninth and tenth squeaky treads that I had to watch out.

With both hands I put my weight on the banister. I glided over the next two steps on my bare toes,
plink plink,
and raced to the bottom.

Safe.

Mama slept on; so did Katharina. Franz and Friedrich were probably awake, fighting in their bedroom. But what did they care about what I was doing?

Outside the hall window I could see the great Cathedral of St. Stephen, and in front, the river with its thin spirals of early-morning mist.

I tiptoed into the sewing room and pulled on a pair of Papa's old pants from the drawer—so old I could see the large uneven stitches I had made in the waist when I was beginning to tailor.

What would Mama say if she caught me wearing trousers? I couldn't imagine. But the last time I had done this, my skirt had been muddied, almost ruined. I had had the worst time hiding it from her.

I sat down on the slipper chair to squeeze my feet into worn shoes with cracked leather. I didn't dare wear good shoes for what I was about to do.

At this hour of the morning the forms of Mama's clients looked like ghosts without heads, arms, or legs, waiting to have fabric draped over them, pinned, and sewed. In the center was the form of Frau Ottlinger, our richest client, but certainly not the thinnest.

Frau Ottlinger and I had something in common: we both loved wide noodles, and coffee cake for dessert. And when I knelt on the floor to pin up her hem, she'd wink at me. “Put the candy plate a little closer on the serving table, Dina,” she'd say. “We don't want it to fall off, do we?”

But never mind that now. As soon as the six o'clock bells sounded, Mama would be out of her bed, and Katharina, too. I rooted through the drawers for the pattern I was looking for; then, back in the hall, I opened the door. König, our cat, padded out ahead of me, and I stepped outside myself. It was chilly, but there was no going back for a wrap.

“Dina.” The voice came from above. Franz was leaning out the window still in his nightshirt.

“Shhh,” I called up. “Go back to sleep.”

“I want to come with you to see the soldiers.”

Heaven!
Mama would collapse if she heard that. “I'm not going to see the soldiers,” I whispered as loudly as I dared. I motioned for him to close the window. “Want to fall out?”

I looked to be sure no one was in the street, then crossed the walk with König and slid down the bank of the river, out of Franz's sight, out of Mama's hearing.

The river was beautiful in the morning, peaceful. I knew this time of day well. Many times I had rowed across to the French side to talk with my friend Elise, and to exchange patterns. What did we care that we were on opposite sides of the war!

Mama and Katharina talked endlessly about the war: Otto von Bismarck's North Germany linking up with us in the south to create one country to fight against the French. And now the infantry was going to take Fort Mortimer away from the French, then their castle at Neuf Breisach, and move on to the castle in Belfort. But Elise and I didn't talk about any of this; we tried not to think about it.

Next to the stone wall that kept the river inside its boundaries lay an abandoned skiff. I had used it many times. As the river began to capture the rosy sunrise, I slid into the skiff and began to pole my way across. I knew Elise would be waiting for me.

I glanced back at the cathedral that towered over our town. Soldiers were there, our own German soldiers, in the bell tower, using that height to watch the fort on the French side. Soldiers in such a holy place!

I thought about going back, but Elise wanted my dress pattern as much as I wanted the new French design for a hat that she had promised me.

I saw her waving and nudged the skiff onto the landing. “A little wet, this pattern,” I said apologetically.

“You must go right back,” she said, handing me the hat pattern, made of thin paper with its cuts and arrows, and directions in French.

We hugged for one quick moment; then I was on my way back. I could see myself wearing the most elegant hat in Breisach on Christmas morning.

And then I thought . . . there was something I could do for Katharina. I took a breath. I could make the hat for her.

Mama had a saying:
As much as you hate sewing, Dina, that's how much the needle and thread love you
.

I knew it was true. We all knew. For some reason, my stitches were straight and true, my seams almost invisible. I could cut into the fabric almost without using a pattern. Yes, as hard as it would be to give up making it for myself, Katharina would have that hat. I'd keep it a secret until the very last moment.

Even as I thought it, I had to swallow. I comforted myself with the thought of the hat I had made earlier, my beautiful hat that I had copied from a picture of one worn by Elizabeth of Austria.

Frau Ottlinger
coveted
that hat. But even Mama shook her head. “It is Dina's, and it is not for sale.”

But the new hat, even more wonderful, I would surely give to Katharina.

So busy was I daydreaming, I didn't look up until the skiff bumped into our side of the river. I barely heard the heavy boots sliding down the bank toward me, and by that time it was too late.

It was one of our own soldiers! His rough hand covered my mouth. He was so close I could smell the onions on his rank breath. I fought him, feeling my hair caught in the buttons of his tunic. “French spy,” he said.

I couldn't shake my head, couldn't answer. He stepped back and I was pulled along with him, up the riverbank to the street, where König stood guard over a poor dead mouse.

three

I could feel the mud against the heels of my shoes as the soldier dragged me along the river promenade.

How could this be happening?

The windows of my house were across the way. If I had one second to scream, my family would be at those windows, Mama and Katharina, Franz and Friedrich, and in the next second, they'd be outside to help me. If only Papa were alive. He'd make short work of this soldier.

I did see Frau Ottlinger in her window several doors down, handkerchief to her mouth, just staring as I was pulled along.

I tried to raise my arm to plead for her help, but then we were past her window, and she had seemed frozen.

We went along the narrow path near the bridge, and I could feel the soldier's grip loosen. I pulled forward, strands of my hair ripping from my scalp, and turned to make my escape.

But I had gone only a few steps when I ran full tilt into another soldier: the same brass buttons, the same blue tunic. But this one had a stiff mustache and beard, and mean narrow eyes, and he raised me high up, my feet in the air.

“A spy,” the first soldier said. “I saw her pole across the river from the tower. I saw her exchange—” He held out his hand for the pattern that was tucked in my sleeve.

“You see,” he said, smoothing out the paper on the top of a stone. “French writing, arrows for direction . . .”

“Her?” asked the other one. “Her?” He looked at Papa's trousers as he set me down in front of him, so close I was only an inch away from that terrible face, those accusing eyes.

My heart was pounding, the pulse in my throat beating so fast and so loudly I felt as I had that time years before when I had leaned too far over the edge of the bridge and fallen into the river. The sound of the water had filled my ears, a giant underwater echo. With my hair covering my face and my clothing weighing me down, I had gone deep below the surface. It had seemed forever until Papa had pulled me out, gasping and vomiting water.

Now there was no Papa to save me. One soldier stood in back of me and the other in front. “It's a pattern for a hat,” I told him, trying to catch my breath. “I'm not a spy, not French. I am as German as you are.”

“She watches to see our movements,” one told the other. “How many we are, where we are going.”

“We were just exchanging patterns.” I was babbling now. A shopkeeper came along the path, and when he saw the soldiers he hesitated, then backed away.

The soldiers didn't believe me. And even to my own ears my story sounded strange. Who would cross the river to the French side while we were at war?

Who but a spy? Or someone like me!

I could hear Mama's voice in my ear.
If you hadn't sneaked out . . .

If.

And at that moment, the pattern was caught by the wind. It sailed over the stone wall and into the river. It floated on the ripples and sank just beneath the surface of the water.

A third soldier came toward us. This one was a little younger than the others, maybe Katharina's age. He had a small fencing scar on his cheek and his eyes were as blue as the sky overhead.

“Please,” I began.

“A spy,” the first one said at once. “She'll have to be tried, but the outcome . . .”

“Shot,” said the other.

“Oh no,” said the blue-eyed soldier. “You must be wrong. She's just a girl.”

“Trousers,” said the first. “What girl would ever—”

Behind us came the noise of a cannon. It was muffled and must have been close to Wolfgantzen, but it was enough to make the first two soldiers turn like a pair of geese to see what was happening.

When they did, I ran. Ran faster than I ever had before, trying to decide which way to go. The shops were to my right, still closed and locked, and I'd have to go to the end of this street before I could get to the next. But to my left was the narrow road climbing to the Kaiserstuhl, a volcanic outcrop that hovered high over Breisach.

I passed the statue in the square with the fountain trickling water and began to climb the hill. The two soldiers were behind me, one of them shouting, “Sooner or later we'll find you, and when we do, you will be charged.” Only the third, the one with the clear blue eyes, said, “Let her go. A girl, only a girl.”

It was a steep path, but no one knew it better than I. Its rocks, its tree roots waited for the unwary, and the soldiers were unwary. Here I had luck. Often I climbed the narrow path that wound around the hill.

I left them far behind.

By the time they decided to give up I was in a sheltered corner of rock, bending with my hands on my knees to breathe normally once more.

I stayed for hours looking down on the river with its boats and barges, a bright ribbon spooling through the countries of Europe, wending its way to the sea. What would Mama and Katharina be thinking? I wondered. How worried they must be!

And I? More frightened than I had ever been in my life. Sooner or later they would find me.

It was almost dark before I crept down that long twisting path, heart leaping at every sound. At the last turn, I could see Katharina below me, pulling her shawl close around her shoulders, rushing back and forth in the narrow streets like a little hen, searching for me.

Dear Katharina.

I navigated the rest of the way as quickly as I could, not daring to call out to her, trying to make myself invisible as I crossed the square.

And then she was in back of me, almost pushing me into the house, whispering frantically. “Frau Ottlinger saw you and the soldiers and ran to tell us. I've been wandering around all day looking for you.”

BOOK: A House of Tailors
9.24Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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