Skating with the Statue of Liberty (7 page)

10

T
he air outside the school building was cold, and it smelled as if it might snow again soon. Gustave walked home slowly, climbing over grimy mounds of ice at the curb and looking in the shop windows. A five-and-dime he had passed on the way to school that morning now had a red, white, and blue poster in the window with an American flag on it. Next door was a candy store. A few buildings over, the warm smell of spicy tomato sauce drifted out of Mama Regina's Italian restaurant. And beside Mama Regina's was a clothing store. Gustave stopped and studied the gray pants, crisp white shirt, and dark tie and jacket on the boy mannequin standing in the window. He had never cared about clothes before, but it wouldn't be so obvious that he was a refugee if he had clothes like that.

As he approached the corner of Amsterdam and West 91st Street, Gustave smelled the familiar aroma
of Quong's Hand Laundry, a mixture of steam and perfumed soap. He glanced in to see if Mr. Quong's cat was in her usual spot on the blanket in the corner of the store window. Yes, there she was. Beyond her he saw a sign he hadn't noticed before.
BARGAIN: ABANDONED CLOTHES
. He had figured out the word “bargain” already from seeing it everywhere in stores. And “clothes” he knew. Hesitantly, Gustave pushed open the door. A bell tinkled. Inside, it was warm, and a radio on the shelf was playing jaunty piano music as a woman's voice sang a lilting song. The cat in the window meowed, stretched luxuriously, and then jumped up and ran over to him. Gustave squatted and petted her for a moment, then walked over to the small rack of clothing in the corner. She followed him, rubbing against his ankles.

The clothing on the “bargain” rack was an odd assortment: some men's shirts in different sizes; a few little girls' dresses, one with a duck embroidered on the front pocket; and a pale yellow woman's blouse with the shadow of a stain on the collar. The clothes weren't new. They must be washing that people had never picked up. Between the blouse and a large gray pair of men's trousers, Gustave saw one pair of boys' pants, navy blue, sturdy, and about his size. They were definitely long enough to go down over his ankles, and suddenly he wanted them badly. He found the price tag. Two dollars. Not as expensive as new pants, surely, but still, it was too much money. He couldn't ask his parents. Papa hadn't even found a job yet. Reluctantly, Gustave slid the pants back onto the rack.

“Can I help you?” A short, elderly Chinese man had come out of the back of the laundry and was peering at him curiously.

“No.” Gustave felt like an imposter. There wasn't so much as a penny in his pockets. What was that American sentence? He had heard it a few times while shopping with Papa. “I'm just seeing.”

Mr. Quong squinted at him, puzzled, then smiled, a warm smile that went all the way up to his eyes. “Oh, just
looking
! Sure, go ahead.” He opened up a notebook on the counter in front of him. The cat leaped up and sat down exactly in the middle of Mr. Quong's page, meowing. Mr. Quong laughed and lifted her off, dropping her gently to the floor and saying some words that Gustave couldn't understand. Even the cat knew more English than he did.

Gustave mumbled a quick thank-you to Mr. Quong, then pushed open the glass door of the laundry, hearing the bell jingle again as a blast of wintry air hit him full in the face. Snow was falling now, small flakes driving down hard and slanted in the cold wind. When Gustave got back to the apartment, Maman was out. He flopped down on the shabby sofa and looked up at the cracked ceiling, wishing that Jean-Paul lived nearby so that they could go to school together. Maybe he'd be able to help Gustave figure it all out. Why had Martha come over to him at lunch? Had she been teasing him or flirting? It sort of seemed like both. And why had September Rose talked to him when they were walking to his first class but been so unfriendly at lunch? Gustave sighed. It was difficult enough to understand what was going on in girls'
heads in France. In Saint-Georges, Nicole Morin had been his friend. Even though she was a girl, she had acted just like a normal person. Here in America, though, it might be completely impossible to understand what girls were thinking.

Maman's key turned in the lock. “Hello!” she said. “How was your first day of school?”

“All right, I guess.”

“Do you have homework?”

“Yeah, but I'm tired. I'm resting before I do it.”

“Fine, then!” She smiled at him. “
Allons-y
, lazybones! You need to help me go shopping. Some fresh air would be good for you.”

“Now? It's freezing outside!”

“You'll be hungry soon, and then you'll want to eat. Come on. I need you to help me talk to the shopkeepers.”

Not
more
speaking in English. Gustave groaned and sat up.

Outside the wind was howling, and snowflakes drove into their faces. Maman walked briskly down Amsterdam Avenue to a small store a few blocks off. It was filled with fruits and vegetables as well as bottles of milk, eggs, and canned goods. “The food in this store looks good,” she said. “But the prices are too high. You need to help me bargain.”

While Maman was selecting vegetables, the shop door jingled, and two boys Gustave recognized from geography class came in. “Hey, that's Gus-tuv,” he heard one of the boys say as they went down the canned-vegetables aisle.

Maman's basket was full. “Come on,” she said, striding toward the register. “Time to negotiate!”

“Maman!” Gustave hissed. “No one else is bargaining. I don't think they do that in America.”

“Nonsense!” Maman held up a head of lettuce.
“C'est trop cher!” It's too expensive!
she said to the cashier loudly in French. “Gustave, tell her. Some of the leaves have bad spots. I'll pay half price.”

“It is old, a little,” Gustave stuttered miserably in English. “She say she pay half.”

“Huh?” The cashier stared at Maman, uncomprehending. “The price is ten cents!”

Maman held up five fingers. “Five!” She fingered the darkened spot on the leaf. “See? No good!” she said loudly in English.

The cashier rolled her eyes. “Then get another one.”

Gustave wished he could disappear. “Maman,” he hissed in French. “Just pay what it says.”

Maman shook her head.
“Nous n'avons pas assez d'argent,”
she said loudly, looking into her wallet.
We don't have enough money
.

“Then come on!” Gustave muttered. On his way out the door, he looked over his shoulder. One of the boys from school was standing next to a display of canned tomatoes, watching them. Outside, tiny, hard pellets of ice were coming down. Gustave turned to Maman angrily. “I
told
you Americans don't bargain! You just pay what it says.”

Maman shook her head stubbornly. “We'll try another store.” She grabbed his arm to keep him from running
away. Gustave shrugged her off, slipping and nearly falling on a patch of ice. He walked angrily behind her as she threaded her way through the streets as if she had always lived there to another store seven or eight blocks north.
DEROSA
'
S
, said a large red sign. A row of brightly colored snow shovels stood to the right of the door, a stand piled high with apples and potatoes to the left. “Here!” Maman announced triumphantly. “We'll try this one.”

The narrow aisles were stacked high with fruits and vegetables, and the market had a fresh, earthy smell. Maman scrutinized the food, selecting three small red potatoes from one barrel and reaching on tiptoe to get the best carrots from the top of a display. A burly man in a green apron who had been singing snippets of Italian opera in the back headed toward her, still humming.

“Ah! A lady who knows a good potato! I am Mr. DeRosa.” He was stout and not much taller than Gustave, with curly black hair and a jovial face. He held out his hand.

Maman shifted her basket to the other arm and held out her own hand. “I em Madame—Meeseez Becker.”

They shook hands. Maman held up a parsnip. “Zees,” she said loudly in a strong accent. “How much zees?”

Gustave cringed. “It says right
there
, Maman,” he muttered in French, pointing at the sign. But Maman ignored him.

“How much?” she demanded, waving the parsnip.

The Italian grocer looked pleased and amused. “For you, Madame Becker,” he said, gesturing toward her basket, “all this—ten cents?”

“Ten cent.” Maman nodded happily. “Ten cent ees good! And zees?” She held up an onion.

Mr. DeRosa laughed. “Just like in the old country!” he said. “Three for a nickel?”

Maman reached for two more. Then she turned to the eggs and opened a carton on top of one pile, with brown eggs in it, marked forty-three cents, then a carton on top of another, marked fifty cents. The eggs in the second carton were white. “More cheap,” she said suspiciously, pointing to the brown eggs. “Bad?”

Mr. DeRosa shook his head. In the protesting flood of words that followed, Gustave heard “eggs” several times and “fresh, very fresh.”

Maman took a carton from the cheaper pile. Gustave walked away to look at a display of unfamiliar curved, greenish-yellow fruit near the front window. He picked one up and sniffed it absentmindedly, watching the people going by outside the window.

Two Negro boys who looked high-school aged meandered by, tossing a small pink rubber ball back and forth between them. The taller one stopped and threw the ball straight up, watching it rise through the snowflakes. He held up his hands and took two steps backward, ready to catch it. But as he did, he crashed into one of the snow shovels on display outside Mr. DeRosa's shop. It clattered to the sidewalk, taking several other shovels with it. As the boy picked them up and set them back in place, Mr. DeRosa hurried to the front door of the store, frowning.

“Go away! Go on!” he shouted, making shooing gestures.