A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

by Betty Smith

  Sissy washed the baby every hour. She changed its shirt and band three times during the day. The diapers were changed every five minutes whether they needed to be or not. She washed Lucia and made her clean and sweet. She brushed and brushed her hair until it glowed like satin. She couldn't do enough for Lucia and the baby. She had to tear herself away when it came time for the father's returning.

  The father came home and went into the dark room to give Lucia her daily food pittance. He turned up the gas and found a radiant Lucia and a fat healthy baby sleeping contentedly at her side. He was amazed. All this on bread and water! Then fright grew on him. It was a miracle! Surely the Virgin Mary had intervened for the young mother. She had been known to work such miracles in Italy. Maybe he would be punished for treating his flesh and blood so inhumanly. Contrite, he brought her a plate heaped with spaghetti. Lucia declined it saying she had grown used to bread and water. The mother sided with Lucia and explained that the bread and water had formed the perfect baby. More and more the father believed a miracle had come about. Frantically, he tried to be nice to Lucia, but the family were punishing him. They wouldn't permit him to show any kindness to his daughter.

  Sissy was lying peacefully in bed when her John came home that evening. Jokingly, he asked,

  "Did you have that baby today?"

  "Yes," she said in a weak voice.

  "Aw, go on!"

  "It was born an hour after you left this morning."

  "It was not!"

  "I swear!"

  He looked around the room. "Where is it, then?"

  "In the incubator at Coney Island."

  "In the where?"

  "It was a seven months' baby, you know. Only weighed three pounds. That's why I didn't show."

  "You lie, see?"

  "As soon as I get my strength back, I'll take you to Coney Island right to the glass case where it is."

  "What are you trying to do? Drive me crazy?"

  "I'm going to bring it home in ten days. Just as soon as it grows fingernails." She put that in on the spur of the moment.

  "What's gotten into you, Sissy? You know God-damned well you didn't have a baby this morning."

  "I had a baby. It weighed three pounds. They took it to the incubator so that it wouldn't die and I'm going to get it back in ten days."

  "I give up! I give up," he shouted and went out and got drunk.

  Sissy brought the baby home ten days later. It was a big baby and weighed almost eleven pounds. Her John asserted himself for the last time.

  "It seems mighty big for a ten-day-old baby."

  "You're a mighty big man yourself, Lover," she whispered. She saw a pleased look come into his face. She put her arms around him. "I'm all right now," she said in his ear, "if you want to sleep with me."

  "You know," he said afterwards, "it does look a little like me."

  "Especially around the ears," murmured Sissy drowsily.

  The Italian family went back to Italy a few months later. They were glad to go because the new world had brought them nothing but sorrow, poverty and shame. Sissy never heard of them again.

  Everybody knew that it wasn't Sissy's baby--that it couldn't be her baby. But she stuck to her story and since there was no other explanation, people had to accept it. After all, strange things did happen in the world. She christened the child Sarah, but in time everyone called it Little Sissy.

  Katie was the only one to whom Sissy told the truth about the origin of the baby. She confided in her when she asked her to write out the names for the birth certificate. Ah, but Francie knew too. Often in the night she had been wakened by the sound of voices and heard Mama and Aunt Sissy talking in the kitchen about the baby. Francie vowed always to keep Sissy's secret.

  Johnny was the only other person (outside of the Italian family) who knew. Katie told him. Francie heard them talking about it when they thought she was sound asleep. Papa took the part of Sissy's husband.

  "That's a dirty trick to play on a man, any man. Somebody ought to tell him. I'll tell him."

  "No!" said Mama sharply. "He's a happy man. Let him be that way."

  "Happy? With another man's child palmed off on him? I don't see it."

  "He's crazy for Sissy; he's always afraid she's going to leave him and he'd die if she left him. And you know Sissy. She went from one man to another, one husband to another--always trying to get a child. She was on the verge of leaving this one when the baby happened along. Sissy will be a different woman from now on. Mark my words. She'll settle down at last and make him a much better wife than he deserves to have. Who is this John, anyhow?" she interrupted herself. "She'll be a good mother. The child will be her whole world and she won't need to be going after the men any more. So don't monkey around with it, Johnny."

  "You Rommely women are too deep for us men," decided Johnny. A thought struck him. "Say! You didn't do that to me, did you?"

  In answer, Katie got the children out of bed. She had them stand before him in their long white nightgowns. "Look at them," she commanded. Johnny looked at his son. It was as if he were looking in a trick mirror where he saw himself perfectly but on a smaller scale. He looked at Francie. There was Katie's face all over again (only more solemn) except for the eyes. They were Johnny's eyes. On an impulse, Francie picked up a plate and held it over her heart the way Johnny held his hat when he sang. She sang one of his songs:

  They called her frivolous Sal.

  A peculiar sort of a gal...

  She had Johnny's expressions and Johnny's gestures.

  "I know, I know," Papa whispered. He kissed his children, gave them each a pat on the backside and told them to go back to bed. After they had gone, Katie pulled Johnny's head down and whispered something to him.

  "No!" he said in a surprised voice.

  "Yes, Johnny," she said quietly. He put his hat on. "Where are you going, Johnny?"

  "Out."

  "Johnny, please don't come home..." she looked towards the bedroom door.

  "I won't, Katie," he promised. He kissed her gently and went out.

  Francie woke up in the middle of the night wondering what had taken her out of her sleep. Ah! Papa hadn't come home yet. That was it. She never slept soundly until she knew he had come home. Once awake, she started thinking. She thought of Sissy's baby. She thought of birth. Her thoughts went to birth's corollary: death. She didn't want to think of death; how everybody was born but to die. While she was fighting off thoughts of death, they heard Papa coming up the stairs singing softly. She shivered when she heard that he was singing the last verse of "Molly Malone." He never sang that verse. Never! Why...?

  She died of a fever,

  And no one could save her,

  And that's how I lo-ost

  Sweet Molly Malone...

  Francie didn't stir. It was a rule that when Papa came home late, mama was to open the door. She didn't want the children to lose their sleep. The song was coming to an end. Mama didn't hear--she wasn't getting up. Francie jumped out of bed. The song was ended before she reached the door. When she opened it, Papa was standing there quietly, his hat in his hand. He was looking straight before him, over her head.

  "You won, Papa," she said.

  "Did I?" he asked. He walked into the room not looking at her.

  "You finished the song."

  "Yes, I finished the song, I guess." He sat in the chair by the window.

  "Papa...."

  "Turn out the light and go back to bed." (The light was kept burning low against his return.) She turned out the light.

  "Papa, are...are you sick?"

  "No. I'm not drunk," he said clearly from the dark. And Francie knew that he spoke the truth.

  She went to bed and buried her face in the pillow. She did not know why, but she wept.

  35

  ONCE MORE IT WAS IN THE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS. FRANCIE HAD just had her fourteenth birthday. Neeley, as he put it, was waiting to turn thirteen any moment. It looked as though it wouldn't be such a good C
hristmas. There was something wrong with Johnny. Johnny wasn't drinking. There had been other times, of course, when Johnny stopped drinking but that was when he was working. Now he wasn't drinking at all and he wasn't working, and the wrong thing about Johnny was that he wasn't drinking but he was acting like he was drinking.

  He hadn't spoken to his family in more than two weeks. Francie remembered the last time Papa had said anything to her was that night when he came home sober singing the last verse of "Molly Malone." Come to think of it, he hadn't sung since that night either. He came and went without speaking. He stayed out late nights and came home sober and nobody knew where he spent that time. His hands were trembling badly. He could hardly hold the fork when he ate. And suddenly, he looked very old.

  Yesterday he had come in while they were eating supper. He looked at them as though he were going to say something. Instead of speaking, however, he closed his eyes for a second and then went into the bedroom. He had no regular hours for anything. He came and went at odd hours of the day and night. When he was home, he spent the time lying on his bed fully clothed with his eyes shut.

  Katie went about white and quiet. There was a foreboding about her as though she were carrying tragedy within herself. Her face was thin and there were hollows under her cheeks but her body was fuller.

  She had taken on an extra job in this week before Christmas. She got up earlier and worked faster at her flat cleaning and was finished in early afternoon. She rushed down to Gorling's, the department store at the Polish end of Grand Street, where she worked from four to seven, serving coffee and sandwiches to the salesgirls who were not allowed to take the time to go out for supper on account of the Christmas rush. Her family desperately needed that seventy-five cents that she earned each day.

  It was nearly seven o'clock. Neeley had come home from his paper route and Francie was back from the library. There was no fire in the flat. They had to wait until Mama came home with some money with which to buy a bundle of wood. The children wore their coats and zitful caps as it was very cold in the flat. Francie saw that Mama had wash on the line and she pulled it in. The garments had frozen into grotesque shapes and didn't want to come in through the window.

  "Here, let me at 'em," said Neeley referring to a frozen suit of underwear. The legs of the long drawers had frozen in a spread-out position and Neeley's struggles did no good.

  "I'll break the damn thing's legs," said Francie. She whacked it fiercely and it crackled and collapsed. She pulled it in viciously. She looked like Katie at that moment.

  "Francie?"

  "Huh?"

  "You...you cursed."

  "I know it."

  "God heard you."

  "Oh, shoot!"

  "Yes, He did. He sees and He hears everything."

  "Neeley, do you believe that He looks right in this little old room?"

  "You betcha He does."

  "Don't you believe it, Neeley. He's too busy watching all the little sparrows fall and worrying about whether the little buds will burst into flowers to have time to investigate us."

  "Don't talk like that, Francie."

  "I will so. If He went around looking into people's windows like you say, He'd see how things were here; He'd see that it was cold and that there was no food in the house; He'd see that Mama isn't strong enough to work so hard. And He'd see how Papa was and He'd do something about Papa. Yes, He would!"

  "Francie..." the boy looked around the room uneasily. Francie saw that he was uneasy.

  "I'm getting too big to tease him," she thought. Aloud she said, "All right, Neeley." They talked about other things until Katie came home.

  Katie came in with a rush. She had a bundle of wood blocks which she had bought for two cents, a can of condensed milk and three bananas in a bag. She stuffed paper and the wood into the range and had a fire going in no time.

  "Well, children, I guess we'll have to have oatmeal for supper tonight."

  "Again?" groaned Francie.

  "It won't be so bad," said Mama. "We have condensed milk and I brought bananas to slice on top."

  "Mama," ordered Neeley, "don't mix my condensed milk with the oatmeal. Let it stay on top."

  "Slice the bananas and cook them with the oatmeal," suggested Francie.

  "I want to eat my banana whole," protested Neeley.

  Mama settled the argument. "I'll give you each a banana and you eat it the way you want."

  When the oatmeal was cooked, Katie filled two soup plates full, set them on the table, punched two holes in the can of milk and set a banana by each plate.

  "Aren't you going to eat, Mama?" asked Neeley.

  "I'll eat after. I'm not hungry now." Katie sighed.

  Francie said, "Mama, if you don't feel like eating, why don't you play the piano so it's like a restaurant while we're eating."

  "It's cold in the front room."

  "Light the oil stove," chorused the children.

  "All right." Katie took a portable oil stove from the cupboard. "Only you know I don't play so good."

  "You play grand, Mama," said Francie sincerely.

  Katie was pleased. She knelt to light the oil stove. "What do you want me to play?"

  "'Come, Little Leaves,'" called Francie.

  "'Welcome, Sweet Springtime,'" shouted Neeley.

  "I'll play 'Little Leaves' first," decided Mama, "because I didn't give Francie a birthday present." She went into the cold front room.

  "I think I'll slice my banana on top of my oatmeal. I'll slice it very thin so that there's a whole lot of it," said Francie.

  "I'm going to eat mine whole," decided Neeley, "and slow, so that it lasts a long time."

  Mama was playing Francie's song, now. It was one that Mr. Morton had taught the children. She sang to the music:

  Come, little leaves, said the wind one day.

  Come o'er the meadows with me and play.

  Put on your dresses of red and gold...

  "Aw, that's a baby song," interrupted Neeley. Francie stopped singing. When Katie finished Francie's song, she started to play Rubin-stein's "Melody in F." Mr. Morton had taught them that song, too, calling it "Welcome, Sweet Springtime." Neeley started to sing:

  Welcome, sweet springtime, we greet thee in song.

  His voice changed suddenly from tenor to bass on the high note in "song." Francie giggled and soon Neeley was giggling so much that he couldn't sing.

  "You know what Mama would say if she was sitting here now?" asked Francie.

  "What?"

  "She'd say, 'spring will be here before you know it.'" They laughed.

  "Christmas is coming soon," commented Neeley.

  "Remember when we were children," said Francie, who had just finished being thirteen, "how we used to smell if Christmas was coming?"

  "Let's see if we can still smell it," Neeley said impulsively. He opened the window a crack and put his nose to it. "Yup."

  "What does it smell like?"

  "I smell snow. Remember how, when we were kids we used to look up at the sky and holler, 'Feather boy, feather boy, shake down some feathers from the sky.'"

  "And when it snowed, we thought there was a feather boy up there. Let me smell," she asked suddenly. She put her nose to the crack. "Yes, I can smell it. It smells like orange peels and Christmas trees put together." They closed the window.

  "I never snitched on you that time you got the doll when you said your name was Mary."

  "No," said Francie gratefully. "And I didn't tell on you either, the time you made a cigarette out of coffee grounds and when you smoked it, the paper caught fire and fell on your blouse and burned a big hole in it. I helped you hide it."

  "You know," mused Neeley, "Mama found that blouse and sewed a patch over the hole and she never asked me about it."

  "Mama is funny," said Francie. They pondered a while over their mother's inscrutable ways. The fire was dying down now but the kitchen was still warm. Neeley sat on top of the far end of the stove where it wasn't so hot. Mama had
warned him that he'd get piles from sitting on a hot stove. But Neeley didn't care. He liked his backside to be warm.

  The children were almost happy. The kitchen was warm and they were fed and Mama's playing made them seem safe and comfortable. They reminisced about past Christmases, or, as Francie put it, they talked about olden times.

  While they were talking, someone pounded on the door. "It's Papa," said Francie.

  "No. Papa always sings coming up the stairs so we know it's him."

  "Neeley, Papa hasn't sung coming home since that night...."

  "Let me in!" shouted Johnny's voice and he beat on the door as though he would break it down. Mama came running out from the front room. Her eyes looked very dark in her white face. She opened the door. Johnny lunged in. They stared at him. They had never seen papa looking like that. He was always so neat and now his tuxedo jacket was dirty as though he had been lying in the gutter and his derby hat was bashed in. He didn't own an overcoat or gloves. His cold red hands were trembling. He lunged to the table.

  "No, I'm not drunk," he said.

  "Nobody said..." began Katie.

  "At last I'm through with it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!" He pounded the table. They knew he was speaking the truth. "I haven't touched a drop since that night..." he broke off suddenly. "But no one would believe me any more. No one...."

  "There, Johnny," said Mama soothingly.

  "What's the matter, Papa?" asked Francie.

  "Sh! Don't bother your father," said Mama. She spoke to Johnny. "There's coffee left from this morning, Johnny. It's nice and hot and we've got milk tonight. I was waiting until you came home so that we could eat together." She poured coffee.

  "We ate already," said Neeley.

  "Hush!" Mama told him. She put milk into the coffee and sat opposite Johnny. "Drink it, Johnny, while it's hot."

  Johnny stared at the cup. Suddenly he pushed it from him and Katie drew a sharp breath as it clattered to the floor. Johnny buried his head in his arms and sobbed shudderingly. Katie went to him.

  "What's the matter, Johnny, what's the matter?" she asked soothingly. Finally he sobbed out:

  "They threw me out of the Waiters' Union today. They said I was a bum and a drunk. They said they'd never give me another job as long as I live." He controlled his sobs for a moment and his voice was frightened as he said, "as long as I live!" He wept bitterly. "They wanted me to turn in my Union button." He put his hand over the tiny green-and-white button he wore in his lapel. Francie's throat got tight as she remembered how he often said he wore it like an ornament, a rose. He was so proud to be a Union man. "But I wouldn't give it up," he sobbed.