A House of Tailors Read Online Free

head over the skirt, my tears dripping on the cloth, ashamed of what I had done.
    For the first time I realized how much I loved this house and the river. How terrible it would be never to hear Friedrich and Franz laughing and playing on the stairs. And Mama!
    But the worst was Katharina. How could I leave and know I would never see her again? How had I not thought about this before?
    Katharina bent over the trunk, her eyes on the ceiling. “Soft fabrics to bring for Barbara’s baby, and ribbons.” She reached up, pulling yards of pink silk off the shelf.
    I changed my clothes and then sat there, numb, looking around at the room I would never see again, and then at my brothers. They’d grow up, become men, and I wouldn’t be there to see them. How well would they remember me . . . their sister who left when they were so young?
    And then the hour was gone. The trunk was filled and closed, waiting in the hall. Mama cupped my face in her hands. “Will you write every week?” she asked.
    I nodded, unable to speak.
    â€œI’m not much of a letter writer,” she said, “but I’ll try. And I’ll think of you every day for the rest of my life. Know that, Dina.”
    My brothers, solemn for once, stood on the step, looking the way they had when Papa died.
    I said goodbye to Katharina in the hallway. She emptied her pocket. “Take this,” she said, handing me her treasure, a small envelope of buttons Papa had carved the year before he died.
    At the last moment, I ran up the stairs to get my Sunday hat. I brought it down to Katharina. “I want you to have this.” How bitter I felt. I loved this hat, but because I was greedy to make an even better one, I had deprived Katharina of her right to go to America. Now she would be the one to stay, and I to leave.
    She held it in her hands, turning it, looking down at it. “You are the best of us, Dina.”
    I closed my eyes. “I won’t have to sew again,” I said, trying to smile. “Not in America.”
    And then we were holding each other, hugging each other, until Friedrich said, “Herr Ottlinger is here.”
    We broke apart and I went down the front steps without looking back.

Brooklyn, New York
1871

five
    I angled for a place near the railing of the ferry, stepping around packages of every shape I could imagine and through knots of people, practicing my English: “I beg you parrdon.”
    They paid no attention. All of them were talking and pointing to the shore, so close we could almost reach out and touch it. I felt as if I could almost grasp a chunk of soil in my hand.
    Was I the only one alone? I glanced at a family over my shoulder, two children clutching their mother’s skirt and another in his father’s strong arms, his small fingers tangled in the man’s beard.
    I stood there shivering, tucking my hands into my sleeves. Who knew what had happened to my gloves on this long journey? But never mind. It was almost over.
    After leaving Breisach, I had stayed in Freiburg at my grandmother’s house. I had waited there for days until my cousin Karl could take me as far as Hamburg, where they had arranged passage for me. I had crossed that ocean alone on a miserable ship; fifty-seven days it had taken!
    Now there was only this last bit, the ferry from Castle Garden to the dock. I had gotten through all of it. I was a world away from home and my family.
    Again I was reminded of something I had thought of so many times: Katharina guiding me across the great stone bridge over the Rhine, holding my hand. I must have been only four or five years old. She had hoisted me up so that I could see a passing barge that left a smooth white V in the river, and we waved to the pilot in his ribboned hat and striped jersey.
    â€œSomeday, Dina,” she had said, “I will sail on a ship a hundred times the size of that barge and go to America. I will walk along Madison Square and have