Read Online A House of Tailors by Patricia Reilly Giff - Free Book Online Page B

“Kristel is teaching me,” I told him.
    â€œKristel barely speaks English herself,” he said.
    I narrowed my eyes at him. When I reached home in Breisach, I would never speak English again!
Never!
    One afternoon, covered with bits of thread and lint from the fabric, I decided I had had enough. I finished the pockets on a pair of pants, pushed my chair back, and stood up, rubbing my neck and shoulders.
    I looked into the kitchen. Barbara’s hair was limp and her face shiny with perspiration.
    I went in and stood beside her, moving her hands from her work. “Let’s go for a walk. Let’s sit in the park.”
    Barbara stood up and began to heat the flatiron on the stove, her hand on her back. “It’s too much to get Maria ready,” she said.
    â€œI’ll take her with me gladly,” I said, bending down to look under the table as Maria peered out at me.
    Barbara reached into her pocket. “Take a penny,” she said. “Go for a walk. Go alone. You’ll be able to do twice as much afterward for the rest.”
    I felt my face flush. How generous she was. But I was as worried about saving as the Uncle. I shook my head. “Keep your penny.”
    She smiled, though, and dropped it into my pocket.
    I touched her shoulder, then brushed myself off, picked up the bottom of my skirt to straighten it out, and at the last minute went into the bedroom to put on my hat in case I saw the boy in the tailor shop.
    Heaven!
I had left the hat at Mrs. Koch’s house and never even missed it.
    I put on the other one, the one I had worn the day I arrived in Brooklyn, and went down the stairs. The door to Kristel’s apartment, which she shared with her mother and four sisters and brothers, was open. I waved at her.
    The door to the apartment below was open, too, and I peeked in. Dust motes and smells of old food and milk filled the air. The pan under the icebox had overflowed not once but many times, leaving stains on the floor, and sometimes puddles that spread under the table. And today Mrs. Haberton lay on the sofa, her face red with fever. Her son bent over her.
    I went by quickly, down the stairs and out the door. It was cooler outside, a beautiful fall day, with a sky so blue it almost hurt to look at it.
    Homesick weather.
    To make it even harder, I could hear women sitting out on their stoops talking. I could understand every word. Of course, they were speaking German. After all, as the Uncle had told me, many of the German immigrants came right here to this section of Brooklyn called Bushwick.
    Two boys ran ahead of me, chasing each other, so close to the dray horses clopping by that I raised my hand to my mouth. But after a moment they reached the other side of the street, safe. Laughing and pushing each other, they could have been my brothers. I felt an ache in my throat.
    But after a few steps I told myself to stop thinking about home for an hour. I heard the whir of wings and looked up, shading my eyes. A streak of gray went by overhead: birds beating their pale wings against that blue sky. Pretty. I wondered what they were called.
    The ice cream man’s cart with its striped umbrella was just ahead of me. I could almost taste the cold drizzle of ice in my mouth.
    Forget about home, I told myself. Forget about trousers with their four endless seams, their two pockets, their three buttons.
    Forget about all of it.
    With my carefully chosen ice cream, I sat on a bench, eating it as slowly as I could to make it last. Katharina would love it. I wondered why we’d never had it at home. Maybe because we were never outside at this time of day, always working in the sewing room.
    A moment later the boy from the tailor shop sat down next to me, an ice cream in his hand, too. His teeth were white and straight when he smiled at me.
    â€œMy name is Johann,” he said, wiping the drips off the side of his cup with one finger. “John now.”
    I didn’t answer