A House of Tailors

  We tried to plan how the Uncle would tell Mr. Eis, talking it out at the table. And early the next morning, the Uncle put on his hat, straightened his collar, and went out. He was back an hour later, running up three flights of stairs to tell us: “We have an extension.”

  A new word to tell Johann. Extension. But what did it mean?

  “Mr. Eis will give me a few weeks to pay him,” he said.

  “A few weeks?” Barbara said.

  And I echoed her. “Only a few weeks?”

  We sat there in silence, the three of us, Maria teetering on a chair, leaning against the windowpane until Barbara stood up and scooped her off.

  “How could we possibly . . . ,” Barbara began.

  “We can’t possibly . . . ,” I said at the same time. And then it came to me.

  “Suppose,” I said slowly, “we spent the ticket money.” I was surprised at myself for saying it, but strangely, I wasn’t sorry.

  Already the Uncle looked angry. “That we will not do.”

  “Suppose,” I began again, “we bought fabric for a dress, for two dresses.” I dared to look across at him. “Fine fabric. The best.”

  They were all looking at me.

  “I will make two dresses from Frau Ottlinger’s pattern, two beautiful dresses, and we will sell them to Mrs. Koch.”

  “Who is Frau Ottlinger?” Barbara said.

  I waved my hand. “There’s a pattern in my trunk. . . .” I bit my lip. “I know the pattern by heart anyway,” I said, wondering if that was true.

  The Uncle was looking at the ceiling. “To put the savings all into two dresses . . .” Then he snapped his fingers. “But yes, I can see it. You can certainly sew. You have a gift for it.”

  A gift.

  “If we can sell both,” I said, “we can pay Mr. Eis back for the ruined fabric.”

  “Yes. And still have enough for your ticket.”

  Yes. A few weeks more here. I wouldn’t be sorry for that. I’d have time at the bakery with Johann, time to play with Maria and Ernest, time to cook with Barbara. Time to stay in Brooklyn.

  Time.

  And then the Uncle’s face fell. “What are we talking about? We have no machine.”

  “For this I won’t need a machine,” I said. “I will do it all by hand, lace inserts, covered buttons . . .”

  “Yes,” he said, tapping my shoulder as hard as Maria usually did, and was gone, hurrying to his work in Mrs. Koch’s house. “I will ask Ida to speak for us.”

  Barbara and I waited breathless the whole day, boiling Ernest’s diapers, sweeping the apartment, running down to the store for a penny’s worth of soup greens for a stew to simmer on the stove.

  And then at last we heard Aunt Ida’s footsteps on the stairs. She was lugging Mrs. Koch’s cloth bust with her. “One dress,” she said. “If she likes it, two.”

  We were jubilant. Barbara and I danced around the kitchen table, and I picked up Maria to dance with me. “Good, Dina,” Maria said, hands on my face. “Very good.”

  Aunt Ida gave me a worried look. “You’d better be sure you can do this, Dina.”

  The Uncle and I went to A. T. Stewart’s and pored over the fabric and trimmings. We spent exactly half of the ticket money for the makings of the first dress. I smiled, thinking how lucky we were that Mrs. Koch was half the size of Frau Ottlinger.

  “Smiling is not good,” the Uncle said, “when everything rests on this.”

  Quickly I put on my most serious face, even though I was more excited than I could say. I pointed to a bolt of cloth called Old Rose, the most beautiful piece of silk I had ever seen. I turned my head to see it change color in the light: one way it was a shimmer of soft gray, another it was pink. And through all of it was a thin line of green that wandered across the fabric like a tender vine.

  I was almost ready to begin. But first I rubbed my fingers together. My skin was dry from the fire, the cuticles rough. If I even tried to cut or sew that fabric, there’d be pulls from one end of it to the other.

  I went to bed with gloves over hands slathered in lard. And the next morning I walked around with my fingers in the air, touching nothing, even though I knew the Uncle was becoming desperate with my time wasting. I did take a few moments to write a quick note to Katharina, not mentioning the fire or coming home. One was sad, the other to be a happy surprise.

  That afternoon, I washed my hands under water without soap until every trace of the grease was gone, and my fingers and palms felt soft again. I took pattern paper we had bought from A. T. Stewart’s and I began to shape the pieces with a pencil.

  I reminded myself of the dress Mrs. Grant had worn when her husband had become president. I had studied that picture in the newspaper and knew I could make a dress very much like hers. I began to cut, marking the pattern for diagonal bows. It was almost as if I were back in Mama’s sewing room and sure that she would help if I ran into any trouble. “It will be a dress with a short waist and a bustle with narrow ribbons in the back,” I told Barbara as she leaned over my shoulder. “A dress that even a president’s wife might wear.”

  I took the fabric from its paper wrapping then and shook it out, a beautiful tent of cloth to spread across the kitchen table. I looked at that silk. What would happen if I made a mistake? There were no second chances. And what would happen to us if I ruined it?

  And all the time I was thinking of the sewing, the French seams with edges folded over on themselves, the stitches, each one the size of a tiny seed.

  And something else. Mrs. Koch loved hats the way I did. I’d be careful with the cutting, and there might be fabric left over, bits and pieces that I could shape into flowers for a hat that would go with the dress. Surely Mrs. Koch would buy that, too.

  Suddenly I realized I was humming. And Katharina’s voice came into my head: Dina’s happy, she’s making bird sounds.

  Coo-coo, Friedrich would have said.

  I began to arrange the pattern over the cloth one way and then another to save as much of the fabric as I could. Then I picked up the scissors and began to cut.

  twenty-six

  If.

  If I hadn’t learned to sew.

  If I hadn’t left my hat at Mrs. Koch’s.

  If I hadn’t found the most perfect Old Rose fabric.

  So many ifs.

  I took the dress over my arm for Mrs. Koch’s first fitting and slipped it over her head in her dressing room. We looked in the mirror together and caught our breath.

  “I’ve never had anything so lovely,” Mrs. Koch said, admiring the delicate pleats in the bodice, the circular arrangement of the material I had swept up for the bustle.

  I knelt on the floor with pins in my mouth the way I used to in Mama’s sewing room, mumbling through them that there would be a hat, as well, and both would be finished—I closed my eyes for a moment—within the week.

  I’d stay up all night if I had to.

  “March,” Mrs. Koch said dreamily. “Spring.”

  “Excuse me?” I said, the thought running through my mind that I had said the words almost the way an American would.

  “Everyone will be wearing straw hats,” Mrs. Koch said. “I’ve seen the advertisements in the newspaper, but nothing like what you could do.”

  I could see the hat in my head, a straw base, flower buds made from the silk. But then I shook my head. “Straw . . . ,” I began.

  “You said that your sister wrote about a machine,” Mrs. Koch said.

  “Expensive,” I muttered, thinking that we didn’t even have the black beetle anymore. And then I took a breath. “If,” I said, not even realizing I was talk-ing aloud as I helped her slip the dress off over her head.

  “If . . . what?” she asked.

  “If I weren’t going home . . .”

  “Home?”

  “I’m going back to Breisach,” I said. “It was never my dream to come here and sew. Sewing is my uncle’s dream.”

  She sank down on her pouf of a chair, still in her che
mise. “You foolish girl,” she said, sounding just like the Uncle. “A dream! A dream is nothing unless you can make it happen.”

  I began to fold her dress.

  “Your dream is to sew,” she said.

  “No, never.”

  “Well, let me say it this way. This is your talent, like it or not. This is what you should be doing.”

  Mama. She sounded like Mama. I wrapped the dress in a sheet.

  Mrs. Koch reached out and took my arm. She held it hard. “I will buy the machine. You and Lucas will pay me back a little at a time.”

  I kept shaking my head as Mrs. Koch turned to put on her morning dress, and smoothed down her hair. She reached into her dresser drawer and pulled out some money. “I will pay you for the dress and the hat now,” she said, “more than you asked, because, of course, you will make me another, and still another. And more for my friends. And someday, you will have more work than you ever dreamed of. You have a wonderful future.”

  “Thank you,” I said, laying the dress over my arm to be hemmed, “but there will be only one more dress before I leave for Germany.”

  She shook her head impatiently. “Take the money,” she said. “You’ve earned it.”

  Outside, it was a beautiful day. Soon the Uncle would buy me the ticket. I’d be on my way before the heat of summer. But for the first time I thought about that terrible trip, that long way, so far I’d never come back to America again.

  I went past the park to Johann’s shop and saw him bent over a table in the corner, working on a key. I stopped, trying to remember something. And then it came to me. I had dreamed of him just there, and in the same dream I had been lost, looking for home.

  I tapped on the window and he came outside, squinting a little in the bright sunlight. “Christina Dina Bina,” he said, smiling.

  And then I began to blurt it out, all of it. And while I did, we walked toward the park and sat on a bench. I told him about the Uncle and the ticket. I told him how much I missed my family. I told him what Mrs. Koch had said.

  “Breisach,” I said. “I am going home.”

  “Home is here,” he said, reaching out to me. “Look at the people walking in the streets, all from Germany or Ireland or some other country. Every one of them homesick. All of us, in the beginning. And sometimes now even I miss Freiburg. But oh no, Dina, you belong here. Everyone needs you. And I . . .”

  Before he could say more, I stood up. I could hardly see him for the tears in my eyes. “I must go back to the apartment now,” I said, “before the dress becomes dusty.”

  I went down the street listening to him call after me: “Stay, Dina. Stay.”

  I passed the flower shop next, and bought a small flowering plant for Barbara to replace the one that had been lost in the fire. Not such a foolish thing to spend money on a small plant, I thought.

  Back in that tiny apartment I put Mrs. Koch’s dress carefully on the bed while Barbara was exclaiming over the plant. I put the money into her hand. “It’s yours,” I said. We stood there for a few moments, and she reached out to hold me. “Dear Dina,” she said. “You are my dearest friend.”

  I spent the next hour bent over Mrs. Koch’s dress, sewing tiny stitches in the wide hem. And when I was finished, I embroidered my name under the collar: Dina Kirk.

  I sat there looking at it, proud of my work, remembering Mama did the same thing. Frau Kirk and Daughters.

  And at the same moment, I felt as if my heart would burst. I wanted to go back. I wanted to stay. I belonged in both places. I put my hand on my chest to still the pain, felt the key.

  I couldn’t bear to leave them all: Barbara, Maria, Ernest, and even the Uncle. I couldn’t bear to leave Johann. And it was true. I was proud of my work, and maybe that was just as important as loving it.

  And something else. They needed me, and deep in my heart I knew that it would be hard for them to manage this new venture without me. What could be more important, I thought, than being needed?

  Dear Mama. Dear Katharina. Dear Franz. Dear Friedrich. I love you all. I will miss you forever.

  I sat there for a long time crying for them. Then I wiped my eyes and stood up. There was something I had to do.

  twenty-seven

  “A festive dinner,” Barbara said, “with pork and noodles, and Aunt Ida brought apple strudel.”

  The Uncle had counted out all the money, telling me there was more than enough to pay Mr. Eis and buy fabric for the second dress. “And with that,” he said, “comes your ticket.”

  I didn’t answer; I waited until we had almost finished dinner before I began, and then, almost trembling with excitement, I asked, “Dear Barbara, could you live in two rooms in back of a shop?”

  “I could live anywhere,” Barbara said.

  And then I turned to the Uncle. For the first time, I was going to win a battle with him. I was like a Prussian soldier. “There’s an empty shop next to Schaeffer’s,” I said.

  “Empty since the Frohlings went down to Varick Street in Manhattan and took a train west,” Barbara said, cutting into the strudel. “Can you imagine?”

  There was a bubbling in my chest that came up into my throat. “I saw the owner today. It’s for rent at a very low rate.” I swallowed. What did I know about low rates or high rates or any rates at all?

  The Uncle was eating strudel, hardly paying attention to me. Maria, my hat over her head, was tugging at him, wanting a taste of apple.

  “I told the owner to hold it for us, that Lucas wanted to rent it.” I wanted to look up at his face, but I didn’t have the courage.

  For one more second there was silence. Then he smacked his hand on the table. “Where is your head?” he asked.

  “The ticket money,” I said, and slapped my hand on the table as hard as he had. “I’m not going home,” I said, and then, not being able to let go of it entirely, I went on, “Maybe someday, somehow. But don’t you see? I can begin to sew in a shop. Soon we’ll have enough money for a machine. Mrs. Koch offered to help. You and I will have a business together.”

  There was silence. Then Barbara pushed her chair back with a crash. “You are not going home! Oh, Dina!” She came around to my side of the table and hugged me so hard I didn’t get to see the Uncle’s face. I heard him mutter, though, “That girl. That girl. What will she do next to me?”

  “If . . . ,” I said to all of them, suddenly worried, “if you want me to stay.”

  “Ah, Dina,” said Barbara, and Aunt Ida reached out to pat my hand, smiling. But it wasn’t until later, much later, that I heard what the Uncle had to say.

  Ernest had begun to cry then, and Aunt Ida, after more hugs, remembered she wanted to be home before dark, and Barbara suddenly went into her bedroom, telling me over her shoulder that there was a letter from Katharina. “I put it away for you,” she said, going into her bedroom, “and almost forgot.”

  It was time for me to take down the wash from the roof. I tucked Katharina’s letter into my pocket and went up with the basket. At the wall that ran around the edge, I stopped to look at the bowl of sky lighted by a full moon.

  The tiniest square of the East River far along the edge of Brooklyn was visible between two buildings, reminding me of the ship I had taken, that endless trip.

  When I closed my eyes, I could almost see the shop next door, and the small section where Johann was making beautiful locks and keys. I couldn’t wait to tell him.

  Johann Schaeffer, who sometimes called me Juliana, and sometimes Christina Dina Bina. I thought then about being here, about going into the stores and understanding what people were saying.

  I looked out at the city and thought about wrapping my arms around it. I was beginning to love Brooklyn, with its heat and its cold, its dust and its dirt. I thought of Breisach, that beautiful festive town with its river and its cathedral, and knew I’d always be homesick for it. That was the price I’d have to pay, the same price everyone who came to this country might have to pay. At least I thought that was what
Johann had meant: we would always have a longing to go back, and a longing to stay.

  Katharina’s letter was in my pocket with all her news from home. I’d wait until I’d folded the wash, savoring the thought of opening that envelope and seeing her small square letters. And maybe this time she’d tell me about the baby she had hinted at.

  I began at the far end of the wash line, dropping the pins into the basket, folding Maria’s small flannel sheets, Ernest’s cotton diapers. Suddenly the door to the roof opened. It was the Uncle. He stood there looking over the city as I had. At the clop of horses, he said, “The health department wagon. Not frightening anymore. The fear of the smallpox is over.” He hesitated. “I often wondered, Dina, was it a dream Barbara had about the men coming?”

  I pretended I didn’t know what he was talking about. I leaned over to flatten the mound of wash in the basket.

  “Did you save them that day?”

  I smiled. He didn’t have to know everything. “A dream,” I said.

  “I wanted to tell you,” he said, and hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “I remember something about my sister, your mother.”

  I wondered if I would ever stop missing Mama.

  “If,” the Uncle said. “She was always saying that.”

  If you hadn’t forgotten the bread . . .

  “I’ll say just this,” the Uncle went on. “If you hadn’t come . . .” He stopped then, and I could see he couldn’t talk.

  But what he had said was enough. More than enough.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  He went downstairs then with the basket, and I stayed to read Katharina’s letter, to hear her news at last.

  5 December 1871

  Dear Dina,

  I think it’s time for you to know our surprise. Krist’s dream, like mine, has always been to go to America. So my dear sister, we are sailing on the S.S. Bremen late next month and should be there by April.

  And maybe, just maybe, we’ll be able to send for Mama and Friedrich and Franz someday. Wouldn’t that be something?