A House of Tailors (5 page)

ten

That night I had my second argument with the Uncle, even fiercer than the first.

I was reminded of the Prussian and French soldiers with their grim faces and smoking guns. How well I remembered that morning on the bridge with the two soldiers, especially the one with the beard and the terrible eyes. But, thinking of Katharina's letter, I told myself I must not act like a weak little girl without a brain. I was fighting for a way to get back to my home in Breisach someday, and I couldn't afford to be afraid of anything. Especially not the Uncle.

At dinner he told us about his day washing Mrs. Koch's carriage, her horses, and even the barn in back of her huge house, where they were kept. Dark shadows lay in crescents under his eyes, and the frown lines in his forehead seemed deeper than they had that morning.

I waited until dinner was over and Barbara had gone back to the bedroom with Maria before I spoke. “Are you ready to see the sewing machine, Uncle?”

Katharina would have told him to watch out. “Like König the cat, Dina has claws that you don't see until you've been scratched,” she had said once when I had bested her in an argument.

I followed the Uncle down the hall and watched as he inspected the machine. He spent time running his fingers over the belts, and moved the needle up and down to see that it went smoothly. “Dina can sew while I am at Mrs. Koch's house,” he muttered to himself. “Barbara will keep the house and help in between. It will work; yes, it will work.”

Even though he tried not to show it, I could see he was impressed with the way the machine gleamed in the flickering light.

Why not? It looked like new. And I had begun to organize the fabric he had managed to buy for the time when he had his own shop. I had refolded the pieces so they lay against the molding in neat piles, the heaviest at the bottom, the lightest at the top, matching colors where I could.

“I will sew for you at night.” I narrowed my eyes just a little, the way I did at home when Franz and Friedrich were bothering me. “I can sew quickly when I need to, but my stitches remain tiny and even and well placed.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked. “What do you mean, at night?”

I took a breath. “I mean to go into service with you and Aunt Ida during the day.”

His face reddened. “You will work all day and then come home to take a few stitches for me?”

I raised my chin. “More than a few.”

He was frowning, the lines in his forehead a washboard. “You will sew for me during the day. There is lots of work to do here, jackets and skirts and shirtwaists.”

My lower lip went out. “I have a pattern for a hat,” I said. “From Paris.” I didn't say it was made of straw. I didn't say how impossible it would be to do.

The flicker in his eyes matched the gaslight.

I rushed on. “I know the hats they are wearing in Paris and Breisach this year. I know what I need to make them and how to shape them.”

I drew myself up. I'd always been tall for my age, but still I came only to his shoulders. “Half the women in Breisach are wearing my hats and I'm only fourteen years old.”

Not quite the truth. In my mind I could see Mama's eyebrows raised almost to her hairline, and I looked up quickly to see . . . something. I wasn't sure, but was he ready to laugh? It was almost as if he could guess the truth. I
had
made hats once, for Frau Ottlinger and both her daughters, but nothing like the one I had made for myself, which by some miracle had turned out so well. Even I had been able to see that the ribbons that hung down the Ottlingers' backs were a little crooked as I sat behind them in church.

I
had
made two other hats after that, and they had sold. They were better, though the flowers were heavy in front and sparse in back.

As I was thinking of Mama and home and bending over those flowers to secure them to the felt, the Uncle began to pound his fist on the edge of the sewing machine.

If he had been about to laugh, he wasn't laughing now. “Do you think you can come here and tell me how important you are?” he asked.

Bang.

“Anyone can see you are just a child.”

Bang.

“A child who eats more than the rest of us.”

Bang.

“Two pork cutlets at supper. Two helpings of creamed potatoes, two of carrots.”

Bang.

His hand must have hurt. He stopped pounding and covered his head with both hands.

I had an enormous appetite, it was true. Once, at home, it had been my turn to chop the carrots for the stew. By the time I had finished cutting, I had eaten almost all of them.

For a brief moment I almost felt sorry for the Uncle. He had hoped for dear, good Katharina and had gotten me instead.

I slid onto the chair in front of the machine and ran my hands over it. “I can easily sew for you at night. I don't need much sleep. And most of my work is by hand. You can use the machine while I sit at the kitchen table.”

In my mind, I saw Mama raise her eyebrows again. By the time the cathedral bells tolled nine times every evening, I was yawning. By ten o'clock, I was tucked up in my third-floor bedroom so sound asleep that Katharina had trouble pushing me to my side of the bed to make enough room for herself.

The Uncle's neck looked as if it were too big for his stiff collar. He seemed as if he might explode.

I pulled a spool of pink thread off its nail on the wall so that I wouldn't have to look at him, looped it under and over the machine hooks, and in one swift movement threaded it through the needle.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“With all this work you want me to do,” I said, leaning over to reach for the pink flowered cotton on top of the pile, “I will need a dress that won't suffocate me.”

“I will take it out of your wages when you go into service,” he said.

“That's fair.”

“Fair? You think any of this is fair?” He marched down the hall and slammed the outside door so hard I could see the fabric trembling under my fingers.

I rubbed my hands on the wool of my skirt. They were damp. And my heart was still pounding.

But I had won, hadn't I? I calmed myself by taking deep breaths as I went back into my airless bedroom to pull a simple dress pattern out of my suitcase.

Kneeling on the hall floor, I pinned the pattern to the fabric and cut it quickly, thinking how glad I was that Mama had filled the bottom of my suitcase with starched white collars and cuffs.

I stood up, rubbing my back. What an endless day this had been.

It was much later by the time I sat in front of the machine, my feet on the treadle, and fed the material under the needle. I started by sewing the three pieces of the bodice together, matching the tiny flowers so it was impossible to see where they had been pieced, and then I gathered the sleeves into their openings.

By the time I began the four long seams of the skirt, I was hungry again. I told myself that I could do without, but I could hear the ice dripping into the pan under the icebox. I knew there was one small cutlet left on a plate.

I went into the kitchen and sprinkled a little salt onto the cutlet. Then I leaned against the windowsill. People below were still sitting on the steps to keep cool. I was getting used to the look of them: an old man reading a newspaper, a knot of women talking to each other, and even children playing in the dark streets. I closed my eyes and took a bite of the cutlet.

eleven

While I waited to hear if there was a place for me, I sewed during the day, or helped Barbara, who grew more tired each day. A few times I walked past Schaeffer's Tailor Shop to see what the boy was doing. Most of the time he was staring out the window. I wondered if he hated sewing as much as I did.

One afternoon I returned from my walk, went into the hall, and began to pin the pattern to the fabric the Uncle had left for me.

Hideous, the whole thing: pattern, thread, and brown fabric.

Horrible thick material. Who would buy such a jacket? And what would they pay?

As the sun poured in through the side window, I sat there cutting, changing, then marking in darts with tailor's chalk, to give a little shape to this poor piece of work.

And all the while I thought about that pattern Katharina had sent me. The hat dipping down over the eyes, the lace. How it would look in church on Sunday. And another thought. The boy in the tailor shop. He had been in church last Sunday.

I couldn't make a hat from straw, but something kept tugging at my brain. I stood up and stretched, wiping my hands on the sides of my skirt. There wasn't a breath of air in that hall. Not a breath of air in Brooklyn. And poor Barbara was downstairs on the steps trying to keep Maria happy.

I wandered into the kitchen and poured another cup of water from the pitcher.

And then that little tug at my brain pulled everything into focus. Instead of straw I could use . . .

What could I use?

A piece of cardboard, perhaps, covered with . . .

Not one piece of fabric in the hall was possible. The Uncle had no idea of style.

I pictured Mama bent over the trunk before I left, her hair falling over her eyes as she tucked the pink fabric around the insides. “At least this,” she had said, patting the edge of the trunk, and sewing it carefully. A pink hat would be perfect with the new cotton dress. I could do without a lining in my trunk very well.

And then I was moving through the kitchen, opening drawers, going back to my bedroom, searching for . . .

And there it was, the bottom drawer of my dresser. I stood there thinking about it, Mama frowning in my mind, Katharina's horrified face.

The bottom drawer wasn't made of wood; it was nothing but a thick piece of cardboard.

What would the Uncle say to my hacking the cardboard away from the wood?

What would poor patient Barbara think?

Even so, I was back at the machine pulling out the large scissors, scissors that certainly would need sharpening after I was through with them.

Another picture of Mama in my head, saying, “A tailor is only as good as his scissors and thread.”

But never mind that. I stabbed at the inside of the drawer, the dresser groaning and trembling as if it were alive.

When I was finished, I knelt on the floor to draw a circle on the heavy piece of cardboard, then cut it out. I plopped it over my head and stood up to see myself in the dresser mirror.

I could cover this with the pink lining, cut petals from the pink fabric, and dye them a deep rose.

I dropped the circle on the dresser, thinking it was a wonderful plan, a perfect plan, and while I was congratulating myself, there was a tremendous bang on the door. The health department men were there, coming into the house, down the hall, looking into the kitchen, the bedroom, to make sure we harbored no one sick with smallpox.

I drew myself up. “We are healthy,” I said. “Don't you worry about that.”

And later, to make a perfect day, the Uncle came home and told me that Aunt Ida had a place for me at Mrs. Koch's house. I was to replace a helper who had left for the West.

14 July 1871

Dear Dina,

I write this on your birthday, dear sister. We have not forgotten you! I think of you all the time, but I have given up the idea of coming to America. Don't feel sad for me, Dina; it was just a childhood dream. I have taken down the picture of the Fifth Avenue Hotel and Madison Square and have given it to Friedrich. Perhaps he will go to America someday.

But now the really important news. With Mama's permission, Krist has given me a ring. We will be married in September. Such a few words, but my heart is beating with excitement as I write them. You can see now why it's possible to give up my lovely dream.

Hugs and kisses,
Katharina

Dina dear,

I add this quickly so Katharina won't see. Do you remember the lace handkerchief you made for me? With your permission I will add Katharina's initials and yours for her to carry on her wedding day. She is so happy, Dina, smiling often, singing. And I approve of her choice. Krist is a good man, loyal and upstanding.

Happy birthday and love,
M.

twelve

Katharina to carry my handkerchief! I remembered the day I had found the perfect pieces of lace to sew around the fine lawn fabric. Thinking of her wedding made me happy even though I wouldn't be there. I pictured her as a bride. Together we had sewed many wedding dresses . . .

But now I had to pay attention to the Uncle's mutterings as we walked toward Mrs. Koch's house.

“How is this going to work?” he was saying, as if I weren't there. “She can't even speak a word of English.” He took long steps so it was hard for me to catch up.

“I know
pliz,
” I said, trying to keep my new skirt out of the dusty street. “I know
tenkyou
.”

He stopped and waited for me to catch up.
“Please,”
he said in such a loud voice a woman ahead of us turned around to see what was the matter with him. “And
thank
you
.”

To me it sounded as if there weren't any difference, but I said the words under my breath all the way to Mrs. Koch's house. I knew more than those two, of course. I knew at least a dozen words,
door
and
stairs
and
greenhorn,
which was what the iceman had called me yesterday, and
izecrim,
which was now not only my favorite word—I loved the sound of it—but my favorite food as well.

And
Fifth Avenue Hotel
. I knew those sad words now. It made me think of Katharina's dream that was gone. And here I was in America, and I had never seen that hotel myself.

The Uncle looked at me. “That hat.”

I raised my hand to my head. The hat was a disappointment. The cardboard wasn't stiff enough, so the sides curved down under the weight of the lace and ribbon.

“And I thought . . . ,” the Uncle said.

I raised my chin.

He sighed. “You are not a hat maker, I can see that.”

We turned the corner. It was clear that this was the best street in Brooklyn! It wasn't that the houses were so different—they were still made of the same brown stone—but the steps were higher and wrought-iron gates were everywhere. Even the horses in the street looked elegant. They had been brushed until they gleamed, and were attached to carriages that waited for their owners to step outside.

Carriages with velvet seats!

I whooshed up the steps of the house in back of the Uncle, pretending I lived there and the horse belonged to me. What would I name him?

“Pay attention,” the Uncle said as he pulled the knob of the doorbell.

In a moment, Aunt Ida was in front of us, round in her long white apron. I thought again that she looked like Mama except that she ate much more. I could sympathize. I was hungry already and I had just finished breakfast.

“Ah, Dina.” She pulled me inside, glancing up at the great stairs that led to the second floor, shooing the Uncle toward the back of the house with three fingers, and whisking me down one flight into her kitchen.

The kitchen was as large as the Uncle's house.

Aunt Ida smiled at my hat with its droopy edges, took it off, and placed it on a shelf. She straightened my collar, then reached for a starched apron on a hook. She twirled me around, tying the apron strings around my neck and yanking gently at the ones down at the bottom. “Later,” she said, “you can tie those, too. Pull up your dress to form a little bustle over them and it will be easier to work without falling all over your skirt.”

Next she poured me a coffee mixed with condensed milk and slid a plate of toasted bread over to me. And all the time she was talking, asking about Breisach and the Rhine River—my river—and Mama, and Katharina, and the boys, clicking her tongue over poor Papa, whom we would never see again.

I slid onto a high stool, watching her prepare a breakfast tray, while I took bites of the buttery bread that melted in my mouth, and sips of the sweet coffee.

“Mrs. Koch came from nearby at home,” she said. “Heidelberg.”

I had been there once, a small bit of a town tucked in the mountains.

“She came here with her husband,” Aunt Ida said. “They worked hard, so hard, at horse training.” She leaned over to take a nibble of the bread. “And now they are rich.” She paused and leaned forward. “Are you homesick?”

Homesick. I felt a terrible longing for home in my chest. Even if I saved all I earned, it would take years before I'd see my river again.

But I wasn't going to tell Aunt Ida anything about my plans to go home again. I wasn't going to tell anyone.

I gave a quick shake of my head, and by that time Aunt Ida was telling me about herself. “I work hard, too.” She swept her hands around to show me the immaculate kitchen. “Someday soon there will be enough money for me to join Peder out west.”

“How long ago . . . ,” I began.

“Two years, long years,” she said. “But he is building a house for us and tilling the land. And soon I will bring money for a cow and some hens.” She shut her eyes tightly. “I will take the train from Manhattan at Varick Street, a long ride, out to the fields and the hills. . . .”

A bell was ringing somewhere upstairs, and Aunt Ida handed me a tray. “Take this up. Can you manage? Knock on the door with one hand. Don't drop it. . . .” She wiped her hands on a towel. “Top of the second set of stairs.”

She took three or four steps behind me, tying the bottom strings of the apron and pulling my skirt through so I had room to walk, and up I went with the tray, up two flights of red carpet with fat blue blossoms.

The tray was filled with more of the buttery bread, a pot of coffee, and a pitcher of cream. There were two little bowls, one filled with raspberry jam and the other with marmalade, that made my mouth water. They slid back and forth on the tray as I took the turn in the stairway.

I was so busy thinking about all the good things on the tray that I forgot to knock but opened the door with my elbow, just glad to have arrived with everything still in one piece.

No one was there.

I slid the tray onto a round table in the center of the room, wiped up a little marmalade that had spilled onto the tray with my apron, and wondered what to do next. Call out?

The Uncle was right. I didn't even know the English word for breakfast. As I tried to decide what to do next, I saw hatboxes piled up on the shelves in back of the half-open door to the closet. The boxes themselves were tied with ribbon and bunches of lily of the valley. They were so beautiful I could only imagine what the hats inside must look like. My fingers itched to lift the lids.

If only I had a dust cloth, I could dust my way into the closet before the woman came back for her breakfast.

I tiptoed to the hall door and poked out my head. Everything was quiet. I looked at the thick red rug with its fat roses that went on forever, the closed doors on each side, four altogether, painted a shiny brown.

I went back to the tray. A shame about the toasted bread. It would be cold by the time the woman ate it. I removed a tiny blob of raspberry jam from the rim of its little bowl with my finger and slid it into my mouth.

I could have eaten everything on the tray myself in about two minutes.

Instead, I went into the closet, closed the door in back of me, and stood there taking in that wonderful space, as large as my bedroom at the Uncle's house. A framed mirror hung on one wall, almost like the one in Mama's living room, but this one was much larger, with more gilt and a baby angel flying on top.

I leaned close to the mirror. Good thing. I could see a dab of raspberry jam in the corner of my mouth and quickly licked it off. What would Mrs. Koch or Aunt Ida say? It would be hard to explain that I had been neatening up the tray.

I wondered if I dared to open one of the hatboxes, but then I saw that two of them were open on the back shelf, the tops leaning back against the wall.

I reached up and pulled the nearest box off the shelf, still listening for the sound of the door outside. What was the word for dust? I could say . . .

I forgot about all that. The hat was in my hands. It was like the chiffon cake at the bakery in Freiburg, all swirls and cream on a round piece of white silk.

At the mirror I put it on, dipping the front down over my forehead, using the white velvet band in back to keep it in place. Clever, that band. I had never seen anything like it. And the swirls, almost as if the ribbons had been let loose across the top and held down with rosettes.

I admired myself for the barest second before I took off the hat and examined that little band in back. I could do that; I could do better than that. Up close the stitches weren't nearly as fine as they should have been. Mama would snip them out and have us start over.

I took down the second hat. It was almost exactly like the one I had made for Frau Ottlinger. I had to smile.

This was the America I had dreamed about.

In back of me the door opened and someone screamed.

I spun around, the chiffon cake hat still in my hand, the Ottlinger hat on my head.

It was Mrs. Koch. And even as I scrambled to put the hats back in the boxes, I tried to remember what
sorry
was in English.

And next came Aunt Ida, rushing up the stairs as if the French army were after her.

“In my dressing room?” Mrs. Koch said. “What? Who?”

And Aunt Ida took a deep breath, telling me in a fierce voice to go down to the kitchen while she explained.

Before I had been there an hour, I was sent back to the apartment and Barbara in disgrace.