A House of Tailors Read online

  No more! I would never sew again. Well, a rip in the seam of my skirt or a hole in the toe of my stocking. I almost hugged myself with joy. Never mind the soldiers who looked for me, or my dear river, or the cathedral bells that tolled away the hours. I was in America!

  six

  At last it was my turn to go down the gangplank. I tried to remember what Mama had told me about being a lady, about being correct. But I ran the last few steps, my hat skimming off my head and sailing down on my back, held only by the woolen ties against my neck.

  I ran straight into the Uncle’s arms.

  He was surprised—no, more than surprised. He was shocked.

  I stepped back. “I’m here,” I said a little uncertainly. I raised one shoulder in a half shrug. “Me instead of Katharina.”

  “I see that.” He didn’t smile. “Wait until I bring your trunk.”

  I stood there, waiting forever, it seemed, watching the sea of people around me and the foaming wake as the ferry began its trip back to Castle Garden, until he returned carrying my trunk on his shoulder. We began the walk to my new home.

  I remembered the last time the Uncle had come to Breisach. I couldn’t have been more than five, sewing a bit of lace on my doll Gretchen’s coat.

  “You will be a good tailor like Uncle Lucas,” Mama had said.

  “Wait.” He had picked up the tiny coat. “You do it like this, the lace underneath so the stitches don’t show.”

  I had pulled it back. “No, like this. It’s my doll, my doll’s coat, my lace.”

  I wondered if he was remembering the same thing. How could I have forgotten that even then we rubbed each other like emery? Was he disappointed not to have Katharina there? Katharina, who was quiet and soothing, and never in trouble.

  I swallowed. The Uncle had been right about the lace, of course. But what was I thinking of? Sewing had no place in my life from this moment on.

  I chattered to him all the way, ignoring the cold gray day. “Katharina sent soft cloth for the baby, Maria,” I said. “Barbara can run up nightgowns and shirts. And there’s pink flannel, the softest pink for a blanket, and rolls of ribbons, rose and green. I will embroider roses and leaves on the binding for her myself.”

  I stopped. Had I said that? But what was a little embroidery for a baby? I couldn’t count that as sewing, not at all.

  It was a long walk through the streets, and several times the Uncle stopped to shift my trunk from one shoulder to another. But I didn’t mind the distance at all. I stared at the stone houses, one attached to the next, like the ones in my own city.

  There was a difference, though: the streets were filthy. Every time we turned a corner, I expected to see the houses become grander, the streets cleaner. But when we finally reached the last corner and the Uncle put down the trunk once more, and pointed, I saw our house.

  I drew in my breath. Such a tall house. True, there were droppings from the horses in the streets, and bits of coal and sawdust that rose up in eddies and settled again as a rogue wind turned them from one direction to another. But the size of this house!

  Would I have one floor all to myself?

  By the time we entered the vestibule I knew I was mistaken. “The top floor is ours,” the Uncle said.

  Only the top?

  My heart fell, but I told myself it was all right. I didn’t need a whole floor; all I needed was a bedroom of my own.

  We began the climb. I followed the Uncle up the stairs, holding on to the broad wooden railing, breathless as we navigated the steps and the stairwells.

  One woman peeked out of a doorway and nodded at us, her head covered with a kerchief, a broom in her hand. And on the next floor was a girl who looked almost like Katharina. She smiled at me shyly before she closed the door again.

  On the top floor, the door was open, and Barbara stood there, beautiful and slim, just as I had pictured her, and so tiny she didn’t quite reach the top of my head. She waited for us, arms out.

  I flew into those arms, hugging her, and was surprised to notice the lovely smell of cinnamon. In back of her was Aunt Ida, Mama’s older sister, looking so like Mama, except that her cheeks were round and full, her arms straining at her sleeves. She covered my face with kisses, patting my cheeks with soft, plump hands. “Ah, Dina, Margarete’s daughter.”

  And Barbara said, “Look, Dina, a surprise for you.”

  Propped up on the sewing machine at the other end of the hall was a letter. I recognized Katharina’s handwriting. But the other thing I noticed made my heart lurch inside my chest, my breath almost stop. I looked at the red patterned carpet, at the machine with a chair in front of it . . .

  . . . and underneath the machine, the rug was worn bare, almost all the way through to the floor. Worse than our rug!

  In that second, I knew this was a house of tailors, no different from my own, except that it was poorer.

  “You sew,” I blurted out.

  The Uncle blinked. “Of course I sew. Every minute I can when I’m not working for Mrs. Koch.”

  I took a step backward. I tried not to act shocked. Where had I ever gotten the idea that people who lived in Brooklyn were all rich?

  What had I done? I asked myself. What had I done?

  15 January 1871

  Dear Dina,

  I am sending this letter on even though it may reach Brooklyn ahead of you. I like to think it will greet you when you arrive. How much we miss you! There seems to be a hole at the dinner table. No one to laugh with, no one to tease, no one to reach for second and third helpings.

  First the news of the war.

  After the French lost Fort Mortimer and then the castle at Neuf Breisach, the soldiers left our town. They went on to lay siege to the French fortress at Belfort, but that fortress held out, still holds out.

  A soldier returned, asking questions about you in the shops. It must have been that terrible soldier who followed you that day. Even though no one answered him, it seems he is determined to find you. How glad I am that you are far away and safe.

  But there was one unusual happening, Dina. Do you remember a third soldier? His name is Krist. He has a fencing scar and blue eyes almost like Papa’s. Somehow he found out that you lived here. Don’t worry. He came to see if you were all right. He has no use for the two soldiers who chased you, but he’s glad that you are far away and safe.

  You’ll know that Mama was very impressed with him when I tell you that every time he comes, she puts out her best tea set.

  Krist. Isn’t that an interesting name?

  Dear Dina, I send hugs and kisses. Franz and Friedrich cry for you.

  Your loving sister,

  Katharina

  And on the bottom in Mama’s heavy script:

  Dearest child, how much we all miss you! Grandmother said you were very helpful. I hope you will be helpful to Barbara, too.

  Love,

  Mother

  seven

  From the time I reached Brooklyn I longed for warm weather. I thought it would be like Breisach—sunny, with a cool breeze from the river. But when the heat came, long before it would have at home, I was shocked. My arms were prisoners in their sleeves; my back almost sizzled on the roof of the house.

  By that time, the tin roof was my bedroom!

  I could no longer sleep in the closet that had been fitted out for me. That first night the Uncle had opened a door off the hall and said, “Your room.” I looked in at a pantry meant to store bags of flour, and tea, and sugar. “I have taken everything out for you. Barbara and I have cleaned.” He waited for my reaction as if it were a chamber for Elizabeth of Austria. “Room for your trunk at the side of the bed,” he said, as if he had thought of everything.

  I swallowed. Barbara had tried, I knew that. A crocheted spread covered the tiny bed, and a starched white towel with embroidery along the edges lay at the foot.

  The spread was exactly like the one on Mama’s bed. They must have shared the pattern. I ran my hand over it, wondering if I
would disgrace myself by crying. “It’s lovely,” I managed. “Really lovely.”

  “You can close the door, Dina,” Barbara had said. “You will have privacy that way.” Still, she looked worried. A thin line appeared between her eyebrows, and she smoothed down her apron as, behind her, Maria pulled on the strings until she untied the bow.

  “Thank you, dear Barbara.” I made myself smile, and I could see the relief in her eyes.

  The Uncle clapped his hands together. “How you worry for nothing,” he told her.

  But later, when I closed the door and sat on the edge of the bed, I felt as if I might suffocate without light and air and a window to see down into the street.

  I ate so much at that first dinner, too much: a huge piece of brisket, a high pile of noodles I quickly devoured, pickles, and salad! What a festive dinner, with bread pudding Aunt Ida had made for dessert. Aunt Ida, who had been here since I was a baby, the first of the family to come to America. She had fallen in love with a man who was determined to see the world.

  After a while I folded back the spread and opened the trunk with its pink lining, which Mama had sewed in quickly that last afternoon. I began my first weekly letter home.

  I wrote about Barbara, who kept a whole cinnamon stick in her pocket. I wrote about the funny things Maria did, how she refused to have her shoes buckled and her curly hair combed, how she pushed food off her wooden high chair and watched the crumbs fall around our feet. Maria the tyrant, Barbara called her. I wrote about everything I could think of except what was really on my mind: home.

  When I was ready for bed, I said my prayers. I didn’t know how they should go. I said, Thank you for the safe ending to my journey, but then, Dear God, if I could only go home again.

  And I closed my eyes.

  There was a trick to falling asleep: relaxing my muscles, letting my hands go limp and my thoughts come easily.

  Hadn’t I used that trick every night of my life without even realizing it?

  But this night it didn’t work. I turned one way and then another. I told myself to stop thinking. I clenched and unclenched my hands.

  At last I crept out of my tiny room and up to the roof. That first night it was too cold to sleep there, so I walked back and forth, my arms crossed across my chest, in an agony of homesickness, until I was weary enough to go downstairs and sleep.

  After that it became a habit to go to the roof to think about my new family: Barbara, her hair falling into her face as she leaned over the stove; Maria, who made me laugh with her terrible temper; the Uncle . . . What did I think about the Uncle? Silent most of the time, smiling only when he looked at Barbara or Maria, spending every spare moment at the sewing machine.

  And then in no time the heat reached Brooklyn. Every night I tiptoed up to that tin roof with my pillow, ducking under the limp wash that hung on lines crisscrossing almost every inch of space.

  One night, always a special night at home in Breisach, I stood in a corner of the roof, holding on to the ledge, and looked down at the houses, the streets where heat shimmered up at me. I’d been too embarrassed to mention it was my birthday, so not one person here knew about it. There was no one to whip up a birthday cake, to tuck a small present under my pillow.

  I watched people who sat on their steps or on the curbs, trying to escape the heat. Dray horses clopped up and down the streets. Insects buzzed.

  What would Katharina think of this place?

  I sank down on the roof, cushioning my head in my arms as stinging insects rose in a cloud above my head. They were worse than the heat tonight, crawling under my collar and through my hair. When I moved, they darted up angrily and swooped down again to pierce the soft skin around my eyes, and the lobes of my ears, and under my chin.

  I raised my hand to my face to slap at one of those devils and saw the smears of blood they left on my fingers and the edge of my sleeve. I didn’t even know what they were called, but their high whining sound kept me from drifting off.

  I had to sleep. A pale rim of pink was already reflected in the windowpanes of the houses across the way.

  In the apartment downstairs, Maria began to cry. I didn’t blame her. She was covered with prickly heat and welts from those insects. Through the open window came Barbara’s voice, singing an old lullaby. The cries became softer, Barbara’s voice trailed off, and then there was silence.

  How often had Mama sung that song?

  Don’t think about it, I told myself. Don’t think about Mama’s face. But that was all I could think of, night after night, Mama with her smooth hair tucked into a loop at her neck, her pale skin with faint lines around her eyes, those eyes always sad since Papa had died. Mama shaking her head. Oh, Dina. What have you done this time? If only . . .

  And now for the rest of my life I would be here, with no way back to Mama and Katharina, to my brothers.

  My eyes were so swollen from the insects and from crying I could hardly shut them. But at last they closed. I fell asleep with my thoughts chasing themselves. How would I get home? How could I get the money? I’d have to find a way.

  I knew it would take years, but by then the war would be over and the soldiers long gone. I would save every cent, store it in a roll of stockings the way Mama did. When I had enough, I’d travel back to Breisach.

  I woke to a red ball of sun far to the east. The day was going to be even warmer than the night before.

  eight

  Everything changed that morning.

  It began at breakfast. I helped Barbara lay out the cheese, the rolls, the thick cups, and poured the coffee and milk into pitchers.

  How different it was from our breakfasts at home, with Franz and Friedrich spilling things and laughing, and Katharina good-naturedly wiping up after them.

  Here everyone was quiet, with just the sounds of knives and spoons clinking and Maria banging her wooden blocks on her high chair.

  It might have been because the Uncle looked exhausted, almost too tired to eat. He worked hard, I had to admit that. First he spent a long day working for Mrs. Koch. And then after a late dinner he sat at the sewing machine running off five or six skirts, or pairs of trousers, or shirtwaists for Mr. Eis, who sold them in a shop in Manhattan.

  But that morning, the Uncle cleared his throat. “It’s time for you to work, Dina.”

  Barbara shook her head. “She’s helping wonderfully, Lucas. Didn’t she make that roast last night, and she’s cleaning. . . .”

  “Yes.” I agreed with him instantly. “I need money. I could go out and . . .” I tried to think of what I could do.

  But that wasn’t what he had in mind. “Right here,” he said, waving his arm toward the sewing machine. “It is a busy time for tailoring.”

  I brought the cup of coffee to my mouth. It almost scalded my lips.

  Late summer at home. Waking up in the dark to hem heavy skirts, to turn over cuffs, to shape collars. Not stopping for meals, but gulping down vegetable soup that Mama stirred and then poured, running back and forth from the kitchen. Every hour the cathedral bells tolled, reminding us that coats, suits, and dresses had to be ready for the clients at a moment’s notice.

  I swallowed that first burning sip of coffee before I looked up at the Uncle, thinking carefully of what to say. “I want to do something instead of sewing.” My words were even, as if I weren’t challenging him, but I could feel the pulse at my throat, the slight trembling of my fingers against the cup.

  The Uncle raised his eyebrows. “And what, may I ask, can you do?”

  I put the cup down before I could spill it. I couldn’t look at him.

  He stabbed a piece of cheese from the platter with his fork and stopped to chew. “Katharina would have gone into service.”

  I leaned forward. “Service?”

  “We would have found a place for her at Mrs. Koch’s house with Ida. She would have become a maid there, doing some cleaning, and maybe a little cooking.”

  “I can—” I began.

  “You can’t,
” he said. “You’re too young.”

  “Only four years younger,” I said, as if it were four months. “Besides, I’m not going to sew.”

  Barbara stood up quietly and took Maria out of the high chair. In a moment both of them had disappeared down the hall and into the bedroom.

  “You are fourteen,” the Uncle said. “You need food and a place to stay.” He leaned forward. “Do you think I can afford to have even one person in this house who doesn’t work?”

  Sounds came through the open window: a horse clopping, someone calling. It must have been almost a hundred degrees in that room. I could feel perspiration on my forehead, my back. But at the same time I was chilled.

  “If you will send me back to Breisach,” I said, “I will return the money someday.”

  “If you want to go back, write to your mother. I have no money to spare.”

  I bit my lip, telling myself that not one tear would drop from my eyes. I put on my I don’t care face, which used to drive Katharina wild.

  “You can sew well. I know that. Your mother is so proud of you. The best of all of us, she says.” His face was red. “Today you will clean the sewing machine,” he said. “There’s oil in the closet.” He waved his hand vaguely toward the kitchen counter. “And now I must go to work. Work.” He almost shouted the word.

  He stood up fast. The plates on the table rattled; his cup wobbled, spilling hot coffee across the table.

  I sat there, my hands shaking under the table as he jammed his hat on his head and stamped down the stairs . . . boom boom boom. I could hear every step of each flight.

  And then that terrible bang as he slammed the door on his way out. It must have startled everyone in the building.

  There was no help for it. I had just exchanged one sewing machine for another. And this one was much older than the one in our sewing room. I had to say, though, that the Uncle kept it carefully; still, he did so much sewing at night with so little time to clean, it was covered with lint.

  I bent over it just as I used to at home, using a small brush to dust out the fluff, and then squirted oil on a cloth to go over the works. When I was finished, it fairly shone. The belts that turned the wheel were black and slippery; the metal reflected my face.