Bread and Roses, Too

by Katherine Paterson

  "She needs your help to get up," Rosa whispered to the boy. "Give her your hand."

  Sal pulled the old lady to her feet.

  "Now," Mrs. Gerbati said, heading for the attic steps. "We see."

  What Mrs. Gerbati wanted to see, it seemed, was whether the clothes she had taken out of the trunk would fit Sal. She bypassed the sitting room and led them directly into the kitchen. Then she sent Jake to his room with the armload and ordered him to try everything on. After he'd disappeared into his room, she went to the sink and began to fill a basin with a mixture of water from a kettle on the stove and water from the tap above the sink. Rosa hurried to the table to carry over the breakfast dishes—twice as many dishes for the four of them as the nine members of the Serutti-Jarusalis household would ever own, let alone use in one meal. It hurt her to think of her hungry family. If only she could send them a bit of the Gerbatis' food and a few shovelfuls of coal.

  Soon Sal appeared at the door separating his room from the kitchen. He had on a wool cap and an oversized heavy wool overcoat. His face was hardly visible behind the coat's thick collar.

  "Now, take off, let's see," Mrs. Gerbati ordered.

  Sal took off the cap and unbuttoned the overcoat and put them down on a kitchen chair.

  Rosa gasped. The boy was dressed finer than a mill owner's son in a wool suit with a white shirt underneath. The pants and sleeves of the suit were too long for him, but Mrs. Gerbati had already hurried over to kneel beside him and start to turn up the cuffs on the trousers. "I fix, I fix," she said. "Then perfect, yes?"

  "Che stai facendo?" The cry from the opposite doorway made the children jump in fright. They hadn't even seen the little man until he shouted, a shout that sounded to Rosa less like an angry person than an animal in pain.

  His wife turned and began to make soothing noises in Italian that even Rosa couldn't understand. Sal just stood there in his magnificent clothes, his eyes wide. Mrs. Gerbati stuck out her hand, so Rosa ran over to pull her to her feet. The old woman nodded her thanks and then went to the door and gently pushed her husband back into the front room, shutting the door behind her. Rosa and Sal were left staring at each other, unable to figure out what was being said on the other side of the wall except to know that it was one between a wounded man and a woman trying desperately to soothe him.

  "What have we done?" Rosa said. "What have we done?"

  "We ain't done nothing," Sal said. "It was her done it. I didn't ask for nothing. It was her fault."

  "She did it for us, don't you see?"

  After what seemed like an eternity, the door opened and Mrs. Gerbati returned. "Better to take off," she indicated the clothes. "Not so good. We buy new clothes for you tomorrow, yes?" Without another word, she returned to the sink and finished washing the last of the dishes, handing each dish to Rosa, who polished and repolished every piece.

  New Clothes and New Problems

  It had been a glum morning. After his outburst, Mr. Gerbati returned to his chair in the sitting room and buried himself in his paper. But even worse in Rosa's mind was the change in Mrs. Gerbati. All the warmth had slipped away. She put away the clean dishes without talking or smiling—just a nod and a murmured grazie for Rosa's help. Then she went to sit in the front room herself, taking up some kind of sewing job. Through the open door, Rosa could see her glance up from time to time, sending a worried look in her husband's direction.

  Sal reappeared, looking thin and drab in his own clothes, and plunked himself down at the kitchen table. Rosa sat across from him, fiddling with the fringe of the tablecloth that hung onto her lap. What had happened? She wanted to talk to Sal, but with the door to the sitting room wide open, she was afraid to speak aloud. She cleared her throat. He ignored her, seeming to study his chapped hands and grimy, broken fingernails.

  "I think I'll go up to my room," she said finally. There was no answer, so she pushed back her chair and stood up. He didn't raise his head. "So," she said. "I guess I'll just go."

  "Fine," he said. "Go."

  "Okay. I'm going."

  "Hell's bells," he said in a voice too low to be heard in the next room. "Just get out of here, will you?"

  Rosa bit her lip. She slipped from the kitchen into the hall to avoid passing through the sitting room, where the Gerbatis sat in grim silence.

  She climbed the stairs and went into the room Mrs. Gerbati had fixed for her and shut the door. There was a lot of furniture for one person: a wide bed, a bureau with drawers, a washstand with a large white basin and tall pitcher, and a little rocker decorated with an embroidered cushion. There was a lace-curtained window that looked out onto the quiet street with its snow-covered yards and bushes and bare branches. It was a room all to herself, with no bedwetting little boys, and a bed that did not have to be shared with anyone. It should have been wonderful, but she had never felt so lonely in her life. Oh, Mamma, why did you send me away? She lay face down on the quilt and cried until the pillow was soaked.

  "Rosa?" Mrs. Gerbati was tapping on the door.

  Rosa sat up. "Yes?"

  "Please to come in?"

  Rosa wiped her face on the back of her hand. "Yes, yes, of course."

  Mrs. Gerbati entered the room by degrees. First just her head, then her shoulders, and then finally she pushed the door open enough to get her whole body into the room.

  "You cry, povera bambina. Please, no cry, no cry." She came over to the bed and stroked Rosa's hair and then her cheek, as though to wipe away her tears, ignoring the ones streaking her own face.

  Rosa snuffled. "I'll be all right. I just miss my mamma."

  "Si, si. Is very hard to leave your mamma far away. Mr. Gerbati and me, we be Papa and Mamma now, okay?"

  What could Rosa say? That the last thing Mr. Gerbati seemed to want was to be their papa?

  "This morning—" Mrs. Gerbati said. "You know, this morning I make big mistake. I wrong. Not you. Not Salvatore." She sighed deeply. "Only me."

  "The clothes?"

  The woman nodded. "Our boy. He die many years ago. Mr. Gerbati still"—she patted her heart—"still sick, in here."

  Rosa knew. She was still sick "in here" from Papa's death.

  "I like to have boy in my house again, but he say no good. I make big mistake, put Vittorio's clothes on Salvatore, you know?" She slammed a fist into her chest. "Like arrow straight to heart. You tell Salvatore, yes?" She waved her hand. "Not Salvatore fault. You tell him, okay?"

  Rosa nodded. "I'll explain."

  "Tomorrow, first thing, we buy new clothes. Now, we eat. Time for colazione."

  Rosa nodded, although it seemed they'd only just finished breakfast.

  "Then we go to Labor Hall to get"—she squinted her eyes and made a squeezing gesture with her right hand—"una fotografia for Mamma!" She smiled broadly. "She be so happy to see Rosa and Salvatore in foto, yes?"

  They were going to take pictures to send to Mamma? Rosa should have been pleased, but what would Mamma think when she saw Sal's face in the photograph?

  Mr. Gerbati didn't go with Rosa and Jake to the Labor Hall, but Mrs. Gerbati did, clucking all the way like a mother hen. Jake, even with Rosa's explanation of the old man's behavior, couldn't shake a feeling of dread. He didn't care about the stupid photograph—he'd be gone long before Rosa's mother ever saw it—but he couldn't get over Mr. Gerbati's scream. It was too much like—well, like he'd been found out, that somehow the old man knew his secret and wanted him gone even before Jake could figure out how to make his getaway. He would have to wait at least until the old lady bought him some clothes. It was a waste, really. All those swell clothes in the attic, and yet ... and yet they had belonged to a dead boy. He shivered. It was just as well. He already had too much of the smell of death on him.

  Some of the kids milling around in the hall were wearing jackets and hats they hadn't been wearing the day before. He could have looked as good as they did if Mr. Gerbati hadn't raised that fit this morning. Jake pretended not to notice the neat suits o
n the other boys. He and Rosa weren't going to be wearing hand-me-downs. They were going to have brand-new clothes from a fancy store. So there. Who cared about these stupid pictures anyway?

  He and Rosa were told to stay in one spot to wait their turn to be taken out on the steps of the hall for their photograph. Mr. Broggi warned everyone not to move. "You move," he said, "your photo look like big smear." Several photographers stood at street level behind their big long-legged cameras, holding the rubber bulbs in their right hands, from time to time ducking under the black cloths draped over the cameras, then jumping out to squeeze their bulbs and cry in English or Italian, "Hold still!" "Bene!" "Good!" "Un' altre volta!" "Once more now!" "Next!"

  As soon as the photographer yelled, "Hold still!" Jake quickly turned his head. If his face was just a smear, nobody would be able to make out who he was.

  "Next!" Jake took Rosa's arm and pulled her quickly back up the steps and into the building. Mr. Marchesi, who was once again the list holder, was waiting at the door. Rosa gave him her mamma's name and address, and then they went over to the edge of the room.

  "I don't know what Mamma's going to say when she sees your picture."

  "She won't know who it is. I moved. I'll be a smear. She'll just think it's a bad photo."

  Rosa didn't look convinced.

  "Have you all had a picture taken for your parents?" Mr. Marchesi asked. The children murmured assent. "Then we want all thirty-five of you out on the steps for a group picture with your official escorts from Barre and Lawrence."

  Jake and Rosa looked at each other. What would happen if someone in Lawrence or Barre were to count heads in the photograph and find an extra child? Seeing the panic in Rosa's eyes, Jake melted into the back of the crowd, and as everyone else headed for the front steps, he slipped into the kitchen. He leaned hard against the door until he heard the noisy crowd of children coming back into the hall. Then opening the door a crack, he carefully chose the moment to glide back in among the crowd.

  Mrs. Gerbati was smoothing down Rosa's hair. "Oh, I wish they wait. Tomorrow I get you and Salvatore nice warm clothes. I want to show Mamma nice clothes in fotografia. Make her so happy. Men always hurry, hurry, hurry. Can't wait. Must do today. Union want to sell lotsa foto to make big money to send for strike." She sighed. "They don't think how Mamma need to see children looking warm and happy."

  Once again she wrapped her shawl around Rosa. "Tomorrow we get you nice wool coat, and Salvatore brand-new coat, too, yes?"

  She was as good as her word. Mr. Gerbati, to Jake's relief, had already left for work when the children got up Monday morning. The kitchen was full of the sweet, yeasty smell of bread baking. He dressed and hurried toward the heavenly aroma. Better than the bakery in the Plains. Besides, it was food that didn't have to be begged or stolen. The Gerbatis had no end of food. They'd had three big meals on Sunday, and the old woman was starting it all over again this morning. It would be hard to leave, he knew. Three meals every day, guaranteed, not to mention a warm bed and the prospect of new clothes.

  After she was sure that both Jake and Rosa had eaten their fill and couldn't be persuaded to eat more, Mrs. Gerbati declared that shopping time had come. It was, if anything, colder this morning than it had been yesterday, but the children eagerly followed the old lady out of the house and down the street. She turned when they got to Main, the same street they had paraded up and down on Saturday, and led them into a shop that sold shoes. Only shoes. Shoes of every kind and size.

  "First, we get shoes," Mrs. Gerbati declared. "In Vermont you gotta have good shoes for winter, yes?"

  "These are a perfect fit for the boy, Mrs. Gerbati," the clerk said, putting a pair of leather boots with thick soles on Jake's feet.

  "No, no good," she said.

  Jake's heart fell. They were wonderful boots. Too expensive for the old lady, he bet.

  "Must get big—see, he grow too fast. Get big size."

  "They won't fit nearly so well, Mrs. Gerbati," the clerk protested.

  "So? He wear two pair stocking. Must have room to grow."

  They went through a similar scene with Rosa, only this time the clerk knew enough to bring big boots the first time. Mrs. Gerbati pulled a tiny black purse out of a pocket in her voluminous black dress, took out a wad of bills, and paid for both pairs.

  "Shall I wrap them or—"

  "Take off now. We get stocking first, before we wear. We don't want no blister, yes?"

  Reluctantly, the children let the clerk take the shining boots off their feet and replace them with their worn-out shoes. But it was the last disappointment of the morning. They went from the shoe store to a store that carried stockings and underwear, as well as a wool dress with ribbons on it for Rosa, a wool suit with long pants and a shirt for Jake, and overcoats for them both. The crowning touch was a cap for Jake and a wool hat for Rosa. At this point, Mrs. Gerbati let them go back into the dressing rooms and put on everything at once while she paid the clerk.

  When they met, walking out of their dressing rooms, they could hardly recognize each other. "You look—you look really handsome," Rosa said.

  "You don't look so ugly yourself."

  "Ah," Mrs. Gerbati said, beaming like the sun above. "Che bellissimi! My so beautiful childrens, yes?" She turned toward the clerk for approval.

  "Yes, Mrs. Gerbati. They look very nice. I hope they're properly grateful to you and Mr. Gerbati. You've been very generous."

  Rosa reddened. They'd been so busy admiring themselves that she'd completely forgotten to say thank you. "Grazie, Signora Gerbati, grazie." She gave Sal a stern glare.

  "Oh, yeah, thanks, Miz. These are swell."

  "Well, that one's a real all-American," the clerk said a bit icily, which caused Rosa to send the boy another one of her looks.

  "Yeah, grazie." He'd have to watch it. He mustn't be thought of as too all-American. These people seemed to favor Italian kids.

  He had warm clothes and better shoes than Mr. Billy Wood, Jake bet. Now all he needed was money for a train ticket. It looked to him that Mrs. Gerbati's purseful of bills was depleted. She'd spent a fortune on the two of them. He was glad, of course, but it meant she probably didn't have much left, not in the purse, anyway. There had to be a stash somewhere. He must keep alert to see where she got her money from. If he hadn't slept so late this morning, he might have spied her filling that little purse. Oh, well, too late for today, but he wouldn't miss his chance again.

  The next morning Jake woke in the dark room with a feeling of dread—a hangover from an unremembered dream, perhaps. He lay for a moment listening. Someone was in the toilet next to his room. He could hear the flush and then coughing and wheezing and clearing of a throat. The old man, no doubt of that. From the sound of the clanging of pots from the kitchen, he knew the old lady was up as well. There were no voices, so she must be in there alone. No need to get up. The bed was warm and he had no place to go. Not yet.

  He stretched out full length and yawned. No, not time to go back to sleep. Time to think. First he had to figure out where they hid their money. They had money, there was no doubt in Jake's mind about that. He'd seen how she had pulled that wad of bills out of her pocket and peeled them off to pay for the boots and all those clothes—two pairs of underwear and stockings for each of them—with money left over when she was through. And she hadn't even been expecting two children, just a girl.

  Then, abruptly, his mind went back to the shack, waking up there, looking over at Pa so still and peaceful-like, and then, and then....

  No. He would not think about that. Nor would he let it scare him into running before he was ready. It would surely be some time before they found him. They? Who would even bother to look? It wasn't as though there was anyone in Lawrence who gave a bent penny whether the man lived or died. Jake was his only child—his only relative, even—and Jake had wished him dead more than once. But wishing someone dead was not the same thing as looking over and seeing them dead, realizing you had slept al
l night with a blinking corpse, not even knowing the man was already stone-cold dead when you got into the bed with him. Warm bed notwithstanding, Jake began to shiver as though he were freezing.

  How long had Pa been dead when Jake found him? It had been so cold—it was as though the old man's body had been lying on ice like a great slab of meat. Oh, God, he couldn't stop thinking about it. He had to go someplace far away, where nobody could ever find him. The coppers were bound to ask him questions he didn't want to answer, like how come he hadn't told them when he found his father dead? Or what did he know about his father dying? Oh, God, why hadn't he caught the train to New York City? He should have known which train was which. Besides, there were so many children boarding the New York train, he would have been lost in the shuffle—none of this "thirty-five Lawrence children" talk.

  Instead of finding his fortune in New York City, here he was in this hick town with an old biddy clucking over him every minute while her sourpuss of a husband was hating his guts for not being his dead son. Not to mention a prissy Catholic girl who was always complaining about having to lie and sin because of him.

  A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. "Salvatore. Get-up time. Today is for school."

  School? Among all the dangers he'd anticipated, it had never crossed his mind that school would be one of them. How could he go to school? He couldn't even write his real American name, much less the crazy wop one Rosa had given him.

  "Are you up? Put on new clothes, yes? And two pair stocking, okay?"

  "I don't feel so good," he said in what he imagined was a sickly voice.

  "You get up. You eat nice bread and salami, you feel good. Guarantee. Oh, Rosina, you look bellissima! Hurry up, Salvatore. You must see your sister. So beautiful."

  Jake slid out of bed and went over to the door, which he opened a crack. Rosa, dressed in all her new finery, was looking his way. He crooked his finger and motioned for her to come to the door. With a glance at Mrs. Gerbati's back, she walked over. "Hurry up and get dressed," she said. "Breakfast is ready."