Brooklyn (19 page)

The main course was a flat piece of fried meat covered in a thin coating of batter. When Eilis tasted it, she found that there was cheese and then ham inside the batter. She could not identify the meat. And the batter itself was so crisp and full of flavour that, once more, each time she took a taste, she could not work out what had been used to make it. There were no vegetables or potatoes accompanying it, but as Diana had explained that this was normal for Italians, Eilis was not surprised. She was telling Tony’s mother how delicious it was, trying not to imply that it was also strange, when a knock came to the door. Tony’s father answered it and returned, shaking his head and laughing.

“Antonio, you are wanted. Number eighteen has a blocked drain.”

“Dad, it’s dinnertime,” Tony said.

“It’s Mrs. Bruno. We like her,” his father said.

“I don’t like her,” Frank said.

“Francesco, shut your mouth,” his father said.

Tony stood up and pushed his chair back.

“Take your overalls and your tools,” his mother said. She pronounced the words as though with difficulty.

“I won’t be long,” he said to Eilis, “and if he says anything at all, report him to me.” He pointed at Frank, who began to laugh.

“Tony is the street plumber,” said Maurice and explained that since he worked as a mechanic they called him when cars and trucks and motorbikes needed repairing, while Laurence would soon be a qualified carpenter so that if people’s chairs or tables broke they could call him.

“But Frankie here is the brains of the family. He’s going to college.”

“Only if he learns to keep his mouth shut,” Laurence said.

“Those Irish guys who beat Maurizio up,” Frank said as though he had not been listening to any of their conversation, “they moved out to Long Island.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Eilis replied.

“And out there, they have these big houses and you have your own room and you don’t get to sleep in the same room as your brothers.”

“Would you not like that?” Eilis asked.

“No,” he said, “or maybe just sometimes.”

As he spoke, they all looked at him, Eilis noticed, and she had the impression that they thought the same thing as she did, that Frank was the most beautiful boy she had ever seen in her life. She had to stop herself looking at him too much as she waited for Tony to come back.

They decided to go ahead with dessert in Tony’s absence. It was a sort of cake, Eilis thought, filled with cream and then soaked in some sort of alcohol. And, as she watched Tony’s father unscrewing a machine and putting in water and spoonfuls of coffee, she realized that she would have plenty to tell her fellow lodgers. The coffee cups were tiny, and the coffee, when it came, was thick and bitter, despite the spoonful of sugar that she added. Although she did not like it, she attempted to drink it, as the rest of them seemed to think it was nothing special.

Slowly, the conversation became easier but still she found that she was on display and every word she said was being listened to carefully. When they asked her about home she tried to say as little as possible and then worried that they might think she had something to hide. Each time she spoke now she observed Frank staring at her, taking in everything as though he would need to memorize it. When the meal was over and Tony had still not returned, Laurence and Maurice said that they would go to get him away from the clutches of Mrs. Bruno and her daughter. Tony’s parents refused Eilis’s offer to help them clear off the table and appeared embarrassed now about Tony’s absence.

“I thought it would just take him a second,” his mother said. “It must have been serious. It’s hard to say no to people.”

When Tony’s parents were away from the table, Frank signalled to her to come close.

“Has he taken you to Coney Island yet?” he whispered.

“No,” she replied in a whisper.

“He took his last girlfriend there and they went on the big wheel and she puked hot dogs all over herself and she blamed him and wouldn’t go out with him again. He didn’t speak for a month.”

“Is that right?”

“Francesco, get up and go out,” his father said. “Or go and do homework. What was he saying?”

“He was telling me that Coney Island is nice in the summer,” Eilis said.

“He’s right. It is,” his father said. “Has Tony not brought you?”

“No.”

“I hope he will,” he said. “You’ll like it.”

She detected a smile on his face.

Frank was watching her with wonder because, she thought, she had not told his father what he had really said. When his father
turned away, she made a grimacing face at him and he stared at her in astonishment before he made a face back at her and left the room just as Tony, in his overalls, was returning with his two brothers. He dropped his tools and held his hands up: they were grimy.

“I’m a saint,” he said, and grinned.

When Eilis told Miss Fortini that Tony was going to take her to the beach in Coney Island some Sunday now that the weather was becoming balmy, Miss Fortini expressed alarm. “I don’t think you’ve been watching your figure,” she said.

“Yes, I know,” Eilis replied. “And I have no bathing costume.”

“Italian men!” Miss Fortini said. “They don’t care in the winter but in the summer on the beach you have to look your best. My guy won’t go on the beach unless he already has a tan.”

Miss Fortini said that she had a friend who worked in another store that sold good-quality bathing suits, much better than the ones on sale in Bartocci’s, and she would get some on approval so that Eilis could try them. In the meantime, she advised her to begin watching her figure. Eilis attempted to say that she did not think Tony cared that much about suntans or how she might look on the beach, but Miss Fortini interrupted her to say that every Italian man cared about how his girlfriend looked on the beach, no matter how perfect she might be in other ways.

“In Ireland no one looks,” Eilis said. “It would be bad manners.”

“In Italy it would be bad manners not to look.”

Later in the week Miss Fortini approached Eilis in the morning to say that the bathing suits were to be delivered in the afternoon and Eilis could try them on in the fitting room after work when the store had closed. Since the store was busy towards the end of the working day, Eilis had almost forgotten about it
until she found Miss Fortini hovering around her with the package. They waited until everyone had left and then Miss Fortini informed the security that they would be there for a while longer, that she herself would turn the lights off and they would leave by a side door.

The first bathing suit was black and appeared the right size for her. Eilis pulled the curtains back and moved out of the changing cubicle so that Miss Fortini could see it. Miss Fortini seemed uncertain as she studied it carefully, putting one hand over her mouth as though this would help her to concentrate better and as though to emphasize that getting this right was a most serious matter. She walked around Eilis so that she could inspect how it fitted from behind and, moving closer, put her hand under the firm elastic that held the bathing suit in place at the top of Eilis’s thighs. She pulled the elastic down a fraction and then patted Eilis twice on the bottom, letting her hand linger the second time.

“My, you are going to have to work on your figure,” she said as she went to the package and took out a second bathing suit, which was green.

“I think the black might be too severe,” she said. “If your skin was not so white, it might be fine. Now try this.”

Eilis pulled back the curtain and changed into the green bathing suit. She could hear the humming of the harsh lights overhead but otherwise was aware only of the silence and the emptiness of the store and the intensity and sharpness of Miss Fortini’s gaze as she appeared in front of her once more. Without speaking, Miss Fortini knelt down in front of her and once more put her fingers under the elastic.

“You’ll have to shave down here,” she said. “Otherwise, you’ll spend your time on the beach pulling the elastic down. Do you have a good razor?”

“Just for my legs,” Eilis said.

“Well, I’ll get you one that will do the trick down here too.”

Remaining on her knees, she turned Eilis around until Eilis could see herself in the mirror with Miss Fortini behind her, running her fingers under the elastic, her eyes fixed on what was in front of her. She was, Eilis thought, fully aware that she could be seen in the mirror; she could feel herself blushing as Miss Fortini stood up and faced her.

“I don’t think these straps are right,” she said and motioned to Eilis to put her arms through them and unloose them. When she did, the entire front of the bathing suit folded down and, for a moment, until she held the suit up with her two hands, her breasts were exposed.

“Is this one not all right?” she asked.

“No, try the others,” Miss Fortini said. “Come here and try this one.”

She seemed to be suggesting that Eilis not go behind the curtain again but change from one bathing suit to another beside the chair as she watched. Eilis hesitated.

“Quickly now,” Miss Fortini said.

As Eilis lowered the suit she put one arm over her breast and bent over as she took it off, facing towards Miss Fortini so she did not feel so exposed. She put her hand out to take the suit, but Miss Fortini had lifted it and the other one that she had not tried, holding them up for perusal.

“Maybe I should go behind the curtain,” Eilis said. “If one of the security men comes in.”

She took both bathing suits and brought them into the cubicle and pulled the curtain. She was aware that Miss Fortini had been watching her carefully as she moved. She hoped that this would be over quickly and they would choose one of the suits and she hoped also that Miss Fortini would not say anything else about shaving.

Having put on the next suit, which was a bright pink, she opened the curtain and appeared again. Miss Fortini seemed
immensely serious, and there was in the way she stood and gazed at her something clear that Eilis knew she would never be able to tell anyone about.

She stood still with her arms by her sides as Miss Fortini discussed the colour, wondering if it were too bright, and the cut of the suit, which she thought too old-fashioned. Once more, as she walked around, she touched the elastic at the top of Eilis’s thighs and let her hand move over the rise of Eilis’s bottom, patting her there, allowing her hand to linger.

“Now try the other,” she said and stood where the curtain was, thus preventing Eilis from closing it. Eilis removed the bathing suit as quickly as she could and, in her haste to put on the last one, began to fumble, putting her leg in the wrong place. She had to bend to lift the suit and had to use both her hands to find the right way of putting it on. No one had ever seen her naked like this; she did not know how her breasts would seem, if the size of the nipples or the dark colour around them was unusual or not. She went from feeling hot with embarrassment to feeling almost cold. She was relieved when the suit was on and she was standing up once more being inspected by Miss Fortini.

Eilis did not think there was any difference between the suits; simply, she did not want the black one or the pink one, but, since the others fitted her and their colours were not extreme in any way, she felt happy to take either of them. Thus when Miss Fortini suggested that she try each of them on again before she finally decided, Eilis refused and said that she would take either and did not mind which. Miss Fortini said that she would send all of them back with a note in the morning to her friend in the nearby store and Eilis could go herself at lunchtime and collect the one she had chosen. Her friend would make sure, Miss Fortini said, that she got a good discount. When Eilis was dressed and ready, Miss Fortini turned off all the lights in the store and they left by a side entrance.

Eilis tried to eat less but it was hard, as she could not sleep if she was hungry. In the bathroom, when she looked at herself in the mirror, she did not think she was too fat, and when she tried on the bathing suit she had selected she was much more worried about how pale her skin was.

One evening when she came home from work she found an envelope for her on the side table in the kitchen. It was an official letter from Brooklyn College to say that she had passed her first-year exams in all subjects and if she needed to know her precise grades she could contact them. They hoped, the letter said, that she would be returning the following year, which would begin in September, and they provided dates by which she should register.

It was a beautiful evening. She thought she would miss supper and walk down to the parish house and show the letter to Father Flood. Once she had left a note for Mrs. Kehoe and made her way into the street, she began to observe how beautiful everything was, the trees in leaf, the people in the street, the children playing, the light on the buildings. She had never felt like this before in Brooklyn. The letter had lifted her spirits, given her a new freedom, she realized, and it was something she had not expected. She looked forward to showing it to Father Flood if he were at home and then, when she saw him the following night as arranged, to Tony, and then to writing home with the news. In one year she would be a qualified bookkeeper and she could start looking for a better job. In a year the weather would grow hotter and unbearable and then the heat would fade and the trees would lose their leaves and then the winter would return to Brooklyn. And that too would dissolve into spring and early summer with long sunny evenings after work until she would again, she hoped, get a letter from Brooklyn College.

And in all of her dreams, as she walked along, of how this year would be she imagined Tony’s smiling presence, his attention, his funny stories, his holding her against him at one of the street corners, the sweet smell of his breath as he kissed her, the sense of his golden concentration on her, his arms around her, his tongue in her mouth. She had all of that, she thought, and now, with this letter, it was much more than she had imagined she would have when she arrived in Brooklyn first. She had to stop herself smiling as she moved along in case people thought that she was mad.