A House of Tailors

  He said goodbye to them in the bedroom as I took a scoop of the meltwater to give Barbara’s plant a drink. I looked carefully for the buds that Barbara promised were coming, but all I saw was a sturdy green stem with a few pale leaves.

  The Uncle came back to the kitchen and hesitated. “If something should happen . . . ,” he began, “I will not be here.”

  I caught his eyes. “I will,” I said.

  He stood there, chewing the edge of his lip, and then nodded. “All right. I know you will do well facing trouble.”

  For a moment I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me.

  I listened to his footsteps going down the stairs and went to the bedroom door. Maria was asleep already. Barbara sat on the edge of the bed resting her head on the iron bars of the baby’s crib, her eyes drooping, almost asleep herself.

  I tiptoed in, touching her hair the way the Uncle had, moving her feet up onto the bed and covering her with the blanket. She nodded at me, whispering thanks, and I went back out to tackle the apartment.

  The window over the air shaft in the kitchen was the worst. Nailed shut, it was always covered with an oily soot. I wondered what would happen if I removed the nails. Thinking about it, I went downstairs and lugged up the water, enough for a pailful of diapers and nightshirts.

  I put the water on to boil and then I worked with one of the Uncle’s tools to pry the nails out of the window. At last it slid open, letting in a whoosh of air, papers, and soot.

  A terrible idea! But after a few minutes the dust settled and air came into the apartment, and as I bent over, scrubbing at the glass with a cloth, light!

  I worked all that morning, stopping to look in the bedroom every once in a while. And later, I told myself, I would take a quick walk to the park, just once around and back.

  I did that, and saw Johann at his table, bent over a piece of fabric, intent on what he was doing. I wished I had the courage to knock on the window or to walk by a second time, but I saw his father standing there looking out, and I scurried past, going home to Barbara.

  On the way I saw the health department cart, the horses raising one hoof and then another as they waited for the men to carry out still another person on a stretcher. A person with smallpox, a person destined to die in the hospital.

  I forgot about Johann then and raised my skirt to my ankles to run home. I never stopped until, breathless, I reached the top floor and our apartment.

  I leaned against the door for a moment to catch my breath, then went into the bedroom. Both of them slept on, and as I tiptoed to the crib, I saw the first small mark on Maria’s cheek.

  That night, I stirred weak soup filled with vegetables and spooned it slowly into Barbara’s dry mouth. I held a bottle for Maria to suck. She had several more pockmarks, and they were beginning to ooze. I washed her face gently with a soft rag, and then Barbara’s, and at last threw myself on the sofa, still dressed, to doze.

  seventeen

  I was dreaming again. This time I could see my river imprisoned in its cement banks, gray and bleak. Great chunks of ice smashed into the stone bridge, jostling each other, squeaking and screaming, almost as if they were alive.

  I knew I was dreaming and was angry that I wasn’t imagining a summer river, with barges drifting along in the sunshine and sailors waving their ribboned hats at me.

  I awoke to Maria crying in her crib again. Why didn’t I hear the sound of Barbara’s footsteps or her soft voice soothing her?

  I lay there trying to clear my mind; it was as filled with cobwebs as the wooden steps in the cathedral tower. My eyes wanted to close, but I knew there was something I had to remember.

  Just on the edge of my mind.

  Slipping away like a chunk of ice in the center of the river.

  I felt my head nod and realized: I lay on the couch, no covers, still dressed. I ran my fingers over the buttons, the top one open, my belt loosened. And then I was on my feet in an instant, stumbling over my shoes on the rug, running down the hall into Barbara’s bedroom.

  I glanced at Barbara in her bed, tossing and turning. Her hair almost covered her face, her head moved from side to side, her hands plucked at the blanket. She was muttering something under her breath.

  But Maria first, Maria screaming in the crib, her red face a mass of raised pustules, her eyes and mouth swollen, her tiny fingers scratching at her cheeks and then her arms. I glanced at the red ribbons on the bars of the crib. How right the Uncle had been. They were useless.

  I lifted Maria, wrapping the blanket around her, and sank down on the floor, rocking her back and forth. “Oh, poor baby, poor baby,” I crooned.

  I couldn’t believe I had slept, couldn’t believe I had closed my eyes.

  “Dina,” Maria was saying through her tears. “Dee-na.” The first time she had said my name. Her first word, I was sure of it. I was filled with love for her.

  “Bottle,” Barbara was saying.

  “I know,” I said. “Don’t worry, I’m here.”

  “Give her . . . ,” Barbara said again.

  “Yes.” I nodded, but I wasn’t thinking of Barbara’s words but of Johann’s: Most people who go to the hospital die.

  I glanced at the small window over the bed. Light shone through; it was daytime.

  Never mind wanting to sleep. My legs felt weak as I thought of the wagon that would roll down the street in just a short while, the medical emblem on the side, the two health workers going from house to house, checking to see if anyone had the disease.

  Smallpox. A word that seemed like nothing, but such a terrible sickness. If only I could pick up Barbara and Maria and take them somewhere, hide them.

  There was no way to do that.

  This morning, they’d take Barbara and Maria, and we’d never see either of them again.

  How could I ever tell the Uncle?

  Never mind the Uncle. I loved Barbara, with her sweet face and soft ways. I loved Maria, with her tantrums, and her block throwing, and her smile.

  I put Maria back into the crib and went into the kitchen for the bottle. The tube down the center was coated with old milk. I worked at it, running some of the water that was left through it over and over, and in back of me I heard the water dripping into the pan under the icebox. If I didn’t empty it soon, it would flood the kitchen floor.

  All the time I was thinking about what I could do about the health department men.

  I could show them a spotless apartment. Show them a spotless Maria, a spotless Barbara. For a moment I told myself it was too much, and what difference would it make? The men would take them both anyway.

  Beg them, came a voice in my mind. The Uncle’s voice: Say please. I practiced it in my head, and then aloud as I gave Maria the bottle.

  “Pliz,” I said as I ripped up soft clean cloths and wrapped them around Maria’s hands so she couldn’t scar her face with scratching.

  “Pliz,” I said as I washed her face and changed her diaper cloths, tucked knitted booties over her feet, and buttoned a clean white gown around her.

  Pliz: a begging word.

  And in back of me, Barbara called out, sensing that I was there even in her fever: “Hide the baby, Dina. Hide the baby.”

  I went into the kitchen and scrubbed the floor, put the milk back into the icebox, swept the hall, and changed my dress.

  Pliz.

  eighteen

  I heard the cart, the horses clopping, the wheels grinding. I bent to look out the window. The cart stopped at the first house, leaving a trail in the mud behind it.

  Still barefoot, I ran into Barbara’s bedroom to slap her cheeks gently, and then a little harder. “Listen to me, Barbara, stand up.”

  Barbara’s eyes stayed closed. “Dina?” she whispered. “Hide the baby.”

  I slid my hands under Barbara’s back. How hot she was! I lifted her slowly until she was sitting, leaning against the pillow. Since I had thrown myself on the couch the night before, a mark h
ad appeared on her forehead.

  “We’ll trick them, Barbara. We’ll try.” I reached for the brush and ran it through her hair: Barbara’s shining hair, lank now, hanging in knots, damp with perspiration. How could I ever trick them?

  I combed Barbara’s hair into loops over her forehead and felt a quick rush of tears as I suddenly remembered Katharina standing in front of the mirror playing with her hair. It wasn’t possible to hide the mark completely, but it was the best I could do.

  From the window I could see the wagon moving again. I had time to wonder if someone had been taken from the first house as I slid Barbara’s feet and legs from under the blanket. Marks there, too, on her ankles, but her skirt would hide them.

  I rubbed her legs, wondering if I would come down with the pox. A stab of fear went through me as I thought about the men coming, pulling me out of my bed, dragging me down the stairs and into the cart on a stretcher, never to return from the hospital.

  I dressed Barbara, listening to the soft sounds of Maria sucking on her bottle and the wheels outside in the street again. They were at the third house.

  Barbara leaned against me. Her voice was a whisper, hard to hear. “Hide the baby.”

  I looked toward the crib. Maria, still awake, eyes unfocused. She’d be asleep in a moment. And even if I could hide her, what about the crib? What about the list the men might have telling who was in the house?

  I walked Barbara into the kitchen, holding her tightly so she wouldn’t fall, and pulled on her apron with its spicy smell of cinnamon. The downstairs door was opening now. Would they start at the apartment on the ground floor or would they come up the stairs and begin at the top? I could hear the rough feet on the steps below, coming higher.

  We were next, then.

  I looked down at my feet, remembering that my shoes were by the sofa. I leaned Barbara against the sink. “Can you hold on?”

  “Hide . . .”

  I curled Barbara’s hands over the wooden rim of the sink. “Don’t talk. Don’t turn your head. Just hold on.” I took a step away from her, hesitating, wondering if she could do it.

  “Hide . . . ,” Barbara began, but I could hear the noise of heavy footsteps turning up the last stairway. I pulled on my shoes, buttoning the bottom two buttons, no time for stockings, then went in to Maria, almost tripping against the sewing machine in my haste.

  I pulled off the old blanket and kicked it under Barbara’s bed with my foot, then covered the baby with a clean pink blanket, one I had stitched with rosettes in a pattern across the top the first month I had been here. How sad I had been as I had twisted the ribbon into tiny circles and cut snippets of green for the tiniest leaves.

  Would the men be rough with Maria? Would she awaken and begin to cry when she saw those strange faces?

  I felt fear in my mouth and my throat, my tongue so dry I could hardly answer as the men pounded on the door.

  “Coming. I am coming, sir.” But I knew they couldn’t hear my whisper. I walked slowly down the hall and opened the door for them.

  They came inside, those big men with dark beards, so big they seemed to take up the whole room.

  At the sink Barbara’s head was lowered, her hair a veil over the side of her face. Her hands were slipping off the sink and I took a step toward her, leaning against her for just a moment.

  One of them motioned to her with his thumb.

  “No English she speaks,” I said. “Greenhorn.”

  They both laughed; I knew it was because of my own English. But that was all right, as long as they left her alone and didn’t make her turn toward them.

  “Is there sickness in the house?” one of them asked.

  I betrayed Maria with a quick look back down the hall.

  They brushed past me and I followed them, standing in the doorway as they looked down at her.

  “The baby who waved at herself,” one said. “Such a pity.”

  “Pliz.” I grabbed his arm, almost forgetting how afraid I was of him. I held tight. “We will take care. Her mother and I. The apartment is . . .” What was that word? “Clean. Is so clean. The baby is clean.”

  He turned to me and shook his head. “We have to . . .”

  I raced on. “She will die in the hospital.”

  The man raised his hand and uncurled my fingers from his sleeve. “She has the pox. I’m sorry. I’m so . . .”

  A voice came from the kitchen. Barbara.

  “What is she saying?” the man asked.

  I didn’t bother to answer. “Pliz.” I was wringing my hands now, blocking the doorway. “We will not move out of this house. We will stay in here with her until she is better or . . .” I was silent then.

  They glanced at each other, one of them flipping his finger across the red ribbon. They were sorry for us.

  But in the end I think it was not I who saved Maria. She awoke suddenly and looked up at the men and smiled, her small shy smile, the most beautiful smile. I could feel it myself, the sweetness in it, even through the redness, the oozing blisters. Maria, our tyrant!

  She raised one little hand in its white cloth, almost as if she’d give them a backward wave; then her hand fell and she closed her eyes. I went to the crib and put my head down on the crib rail, hearing the soft sound one of the men made in the back of his throat. “Like my daughter,” he said gruffly. “No one sick here. A clean house, good careful people.”

  They tramped down the hall again, through the kitchen, not even noticing Barbara as her hands slid away from the sink. They had just closed the door behind themselves when she collapsed on the floor in front of me.

  nineteen

  A week later, in the middle of the afternoon, the Uncle arrived home to find us all asleep, Barbara and Maria in the bedroom, me dozing with my head down on the edge of the sewing machine.

  Barbara heard the door close and came out of the bedroom with Maria in her arms. “Lucas,” she said. “You are home.”

  He looked from one to the other. Barbara’s eyes were huge in her pale face, her hair in a braid down her back, and she was leaning against the wall for strength. Maria was a mass of thick scabs, and it was already apparent that she’d have several pitted scars on her cheeks from the disease.

  Lucky, though; she was alive. Lucky they were both alive.

  The Uncle gathered them into his arms; then, carrying the baby, he guided Barbara into the kitchen to help her into a chair. He turned to me. “And you, Dina? Sleeping in the daytime with all your energy? Are you sick, too?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I’m fine.” How could I say how tired I was! My legs trembled with fatigue at times as I walked endlessly back and forth at night holding Maria, her arms wrapped around me. I hummed the lullaby Mama always sang, that beloved song, with tears in my eyes for Mama, but loving Maria, determined that she be well.

  How could I say that my days were spent helping Barbara bathe and cleaning the dust off the chairs, the table, even the beds? I knew now it was a mistake to have opened the window over the air shaft so that every bit of soot and paper flew into the apartment.

  I was tired, too, from running up the long seams on the trousers, and my knuckles were bruised from the finishing work on that coarse material. The week had gone by so quickly, I had spent almost no time working on a new hat for Mrs. Koch’s friend.

  I was tired, but not sorry!

  I went back to the sewing machine and slid in the next two pieces of fabric to be hemmed, half listening to the Uncle as he talked about all he had seen on the way to Lake Placid. “Mountains,” he told Barbara, “not unlike the ones in Breisach. Gentler, though. And I saw a tailor shop, talked to the man who owned it. It wouldn’t take much to do the same thing here. . . .” He broke off. “The window is open.”

  “So it is,” Barbara said, noticing it for the first time.

  I began to sew, the noise of the machine drowning out what the Uncle had to say next.

  It didn’t drown him out for long. In a moment, he was calling in a v
oice that I could have heard even on the roof. “Dina!”

  I didn’t move.

  “Where are you?”

  I looked up at the ceiling.

  “Dina!” he shouted again.

  I sighed and got up from the machine to go into the kitchen. “I was suffocating.”

  He shook his head. “I thought you were going to take care of everything here.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him as Barbara began to talk, to change the subject, while he reached for the hammer to close it again. “I dreamed when I was sick,” she said. “So many dreams.”

  “Fever dreams,” he said over his shoulder. “Terrible, I know.”

  “Yes.” She ran her fingers along her braid. “I dreamed I was back in my house as a little girl. I dreamed . . .” She smiled at me. “I dreamed of Dina, who washed and dressed me.”

  She stretched out her hand. “I know you did that for both of us.”

  The Uncle put down the hammer, the window back in place, shut tight; no more grime to come in, and no more air, either. He nodded at me. “I’m grateful for that, Dina.”

  I didn’t know what to say, but Maria was holding her arms out to me, so I took her from Barbara and balanced her on my hip, rocking just the slightest bit.

  “I dreamed that men were in here,” Barbara said. “Men with beards like the giants from one of the Grimm brothers’ tales.”

  I ran my fingers along Maria’s neck, making mouse feet for her. Barbara was right. The men had looked like giants with their black beards.

  “I dreamed . . .” Barbara closed her eyes. “Dreamed that I was telling Dina to hide the baby, hide the baby. . . .” She opened her eyes, hesitating. “That was the worst dream of all.”

  “Never mind,” the Uncle said, pouring thick hot coffee from the pot on the stove. “It was just a dream.”

  I bent my head. “Mousie creeps,” I said to Maria, making her smile again.

  17 September 1871

  Dear Dina,

  Krist and I were married yesterday. It was a beautiful ceremony in St. Stephen’s Cathedral, with Krist smiling at me all the while. The whole town was there, dressed in the finery that we had sewed. I carried the beautiful handkerchief you made. And afterward we had coffee and cake and small candies wrapped in foil.