Brooklyn (10 page)

“Eilis, I hope you don’t mind if I try and enrol you in a night class. Do you remember we mentioned bookkeeping and accountancy? It would be two or three nights a week, but it would keep you busy and you could get a very good qualification.”

“Is it not too late to enrol for this year? Some of the girls said that you have to apply in the spring.”

“It’s a funny place, Brooklyn,” Father Flood said. “As long as the guy in charge is not Norwegian—and in a college that’s unlikely—then I can pull strings most places. The Jews are the best, they always love doing something for you. Say a prayer it’s a Jewish fellow who believes in the power of the collar. We’ll try the best college first, and that’s Brooklyn College. I love breaking all the rules. So I’ll go down there now and Franco says you are to go home, but be here on time in the morning with a big smile. And I’ll drop by Ma Kehoe’s later.”

Eilis almost laughed out loud when he said “Ma Kehoe.” His accent was, for the first time, pure Enniscorthy. She understood that Franco was Mr. Bartocci, and she was interested in the familiar way in which Father Flood had described him. As soon as he left, she found her coat and slipped quietly out of the shop. She was sure that Miss Fortini had seen her pass, but she did not turn as she made her way quickly along Fulton Street and then home towards Mrs. Kehoe’s.

As she let herself into the hall with her own key, she found Mrs. Kehoe waiting for her.

“You go into the sitting room there now,” Mrs. Kehoe said. “I’m going to make tea for the two of us.”

The sitting room, which gave on to the front of the house, was surprisingly beautiful, with old rugs and heavy, comfortable-looking furniture and some dark pictures in gold frames. Double doors opened into a bedroom, and, since one of the doors was open, Eilis could see that the bedroom was decorated in the same heavy, rich style. She looked at the old round dining table and supposed that that was where the game of poker was played on Sunday nights. Her mother, she thought, would love this room. She saw an old gramophone and a wireless in another corner and noticed that the tassels on the tablecloth and the curtains seemed to match. She began to take note of all the details, thinking, for the first time in days, how she could include an account of them in a letter to her mother and Rose. She would write it as soon as she got to her room after supper, she thought, and she would put nothing in about how she had spent the last two days. She would try to put those two days behind her. No matter what she dreamed about, no matter how bad she felt, she had no choice, she knew, but to put it all swiftly out of her mind. She would have to get on with her work if it was during the day and go back to sleep if it was during the night. It would be like covering a table with a tablecloth, or closing curtains on a window; and maybe the need would lessen as time went on, as Jack had hinted it would, as Father Flood had suggested. In any case, that was what she would have to do. As soon as Mrs. Kehoe appeared with tea things on a tray, Eilis clenched her fist when she felt that she was ready to begin.

After the evening meal Father Flood came and Eilis was summoned once more into Mrs. Kehoe’s private quarters. Father Flood was smiling and went towards the fireplace as soon as Eilis
appeared as if to warm his hands, even though there was no fire lit. He rubbed his hands together and turned towards her.

“Now I’ll leave the two of you in peace,” Mrs. Kehoe said. “If you need me, I’m in the kitchen.”

“The power of the Holy Roman and Apostolic Church is not to be underestimated,” Father Flood said. “The first thing I found was a nice devout Italian secretary who told me what courses are full and what courses are really full, and most important told me what not to ask for. I told her the whole story. I had her in tears.”

“I’m glad you think it’s funny,” Eilis said.

“Oh, cheer up. I got you into the night class in bookkeeping and preliminary accountancy. I told them how brilliant you were. You’re the first Irish girl. It’s full of Jews and Russians and those Norwegians I told you about and they’d like to have even more Italians, but they’re too busy making money. The Jewish fellow who runs the place looked like he never saw a priest in his life before. He stood to attention when he saw me like it was the army. Brooklyn College, only the best. I paid your tuition for the first semester. It’s Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, seven to ten, and Thursday, seven to nine. If you do it for two years and pass all their tests, there’s no office in New York won’t want you.”

“Will I have time?” she asked.

“Of course you will. And start next Monday. I’ll get you the books. I have a list here. And you can spend your spare time studying them.”

His good humour seemed strange to her; it seemed he was putting on a show. She tried to smile.

“Are you sure this is okay?”

“It’s done.”

“Did Rose ask you to do this? Is that why you are doing it?”

“I’m doing it for the Lord,” he said.

“Tell me really why you are doing it.”

He looked at her carefully and left silence for a moment. She returned his gaze calmly, making clear that she wanted a reply.

“I was amazed that someone like you would not have a good job in Ireland. When your sister mentioned that you had no work in Ireland, then I said I would help you to come here. That’s all. And we need Irish girls in Brooklyn.”

“Would any Irish girl do?” Eilis asked.

“Don’t be sour. You asked me why I was doing it.”

“I’m very grateful to you,” Eilis said. She had used a tone that she had heard her mother use, which was very dry and formal. She knew that Father Flood could not tell whether she meant what she said or not.

“You’ll make a great accountant,” he said. “But a bookkeeper first. And no more tears? Is that a deal?”

“No more tears,” she said quietly.

When she came back from work the following evening he had left a pile of books for her as well as ledgers and copy books and a set of pens. He had also arranged with Mrs. Kehoe that she could take a packed meal with her the first three days of each week at no extra charge.

“Now, it will be just ham or a slice of tongue and some salad and brown bread. You’ll have to get tea somewhere along the way,” Mrs. Kehoe said. “And I told Father Flood that since I would already be getting my reward in heaven, I have that nicely arranged, thank you, he owes me a favour that I would like repaid on this earth. And before too long. You know it’s about time someone spoke up to him.”

“He’s very nice,” Eilis said.

“He’s nice to those he’s nice to,” Mrs. Kehoe said. “But I hate a priest rubbing his hands together and smiling. You see that a lot
with the Italian priests and I don’t like it. I wish he was more dignified. That’s all I have to say about him.”

Some of the books were simple; one or two appeared so basic that she wondered if they could be used in a college at all, but the first chapter that she read in the book on commercial law was all new to her and she could not see how it might apply to bookkeeping. She found it difficult, with many references to judgments of the courts. She hoped that this would not be an important part of the course.

Slowly, she became used to the timetable at Brooklyn College, the three-hour sessions with ten-minute breaks, the strange way in which everything was explained from first principles, including the simple matter of writing down in an ordinary ledger all money going into the bank and all money going out and the date and the name of the person making the deposit or making the withdrawal or writing the cheque. This was easy, as were the types of accounts you could have in a bank and the different sorts of interest rates. But when it came to drawing up annual accounts, the system was different from the system she had learned, with many more factors added in, and many more complex features, including city, state and federal taxes.

She wished she could tell the difference between Jews and Italians. Some of the Jews wore skullcaps and many more of them appeared to wear glasses than did the Italians. But most of the students were dark-skinned with brown eyes and most were diligent and serious-looking young men. There were very few women in her class and no one Irish at all, no one even English. They all seemed to know each other and they moved in groups but they were polite to her, careful to make space for her and make her feel at ease without anyone offering to see her home. No one asked her any questions about herself, or sat beside her more than once. The
classes were much larger than the classes she had attended at home and she wondered if this was why the instructors went so slowly.

The law instructor, who took the class after the break on Wednesdays, was clearly Jewish; she thought that the name Rosenblum was Jewish, but he also made jokes about being Jewish and spoke in a foreign accent that she guessed was not Italian. He talked big, asking them all the time to imagine that they were the president of a large corporation, larger than that owned by Henry Ford, being sued by another corporation or by the federal government. He then drew their attention to real cases in which the issues he had outlined were actually argued. He knew the names of the lawyers who had done the arguing and the track records and the temperaments of the judges who decided the cases and the further judges of the appeal courts.

Eilis had no trouble understanding Mr. Rosenblum’s accent, and even when he made mistakes in grammar or syntax or used the wrong word she could follow him. Like the other students, she took notes when he spoke, but she could find nothing in her book on basic commercial law about most of the cases he mentioned. When she wrote home about Brooklyn College, she tried to describe to her mother and Rose some of the jokes Mr. Rosenblum made in which there was always a Pole and an Italian; it was easier to describe the atmosphere he created, how much the students looked forward to Wednesdays after the break, and how easy and exciting he made corporate litigation sound. But she worried about the exam questions that Mr. Rosenblum would set. One day after class, she asked one of her fellow students, a young man with glasses and curly hair and a friendly yet studious appearance.

“Maybe we’d better ask him what book he’s reading from,” the young man said and looked worried for a moment.

“I don’t think he’s reading from a book,” Eilis said.

“Are you British?”

“No, Irish.”

“Oh, Irish,” he said and nodded and smiled. “Well, see you next week. Maybe we can ask him then.”

The weather grew cold and sometimes in the morning it was icy when the wind blew. She had read her law book twice and taken notes on it and bought a second book that Mr. Rosenblum had recommended and it lay on her bedside table close to the alarm clock, which rang each morning at seven fifty-five just as Sheila Heffernan was starting her shower in the bathroom across the landing. What she loved most about America, Eilis thought on these mornings, was how the heating was kept on all night. She wrote to her mother and Rose and to Jack and the boys about it. The air was like toast, she said, even on winter mornings, and you had no fear when getting out of bed that your feet were going to freeze on the floor. And if you woke in the night with the wind outside howling, you could turn over happily in your warm bed. Her mother wrote back wondering how Mrs. Kehoe could afford to keep the heating on all night, and Eilis replied to say that it was not just Mrs. Kehoe, who was not in any way extravagant, it was everyone in America, they all kept their heating on all night.

As she began to buy Christmas presents to send to her mother and Rose, and Jack, Pat and Martin, checking how early she would have to post them so that they would arrive on time, she pondered on what Christmas Day would be like at Mrs. Kehoe’s kitchen table; she wondered if each of the lodgers would exchange presents. In late November she received a formal letter from Father Flood asking her if she would, as a special favour to him, work in the parish hall on Christmas Day serving dinners to people who did not have anywhere else to go. He knew, he said, that it would be a great sacrifice for her to make.

She wrote back immediately to let him know that, as long as she was not working, she would be available during the Christmas
period, including Christmas Day, any time he needed her. She let Mrs. Kehoe know that she would not be spending Christmas in the house, but working for Father Flood.

“Well, I wish you would take a few of the others with you,” Mrs. Kehoe said. “I won’t name them or anything, but it’s the one day of the year I like a bit of peace. Indeed, I might end up presenting myself to you and Father Flood as a person in need. Just to get a bit of peace.”

“I’m sure you would be very welcome, Mrs. Kehoe,” Eilis said, and then, having realized how offensive that remark might sound, added quickly as Mrs. Kehoe glared at her: “But of course you’ll be needed here. And it’s nice to be in your own house for Christmas.”

“I dread it, to be honest,” Mrs. Kehoe said. “And if it wasn’t for my religious convictions, I’d ignore it like the Jews do. In parts of Brooklyn, it could be any day of the week. I always think that’s why you get a biting cold on a Christmas Day, to remind you. And we’ll miss you now for the dinner. I was looking forward to having a Wexford face.”

One day as she was walking to work, crossing State Street, Eilis saw a man selling watches. She was early for work and so had time to linger at his stand. She knew nothing about types of watches but thought the prices were very low. She had enough money in her handbag to buy one for each of her brothers. Even if they already had watches—and she knew that Martin wore her father’s watch—these could serve them if the old ones broke or had to be repaired, and they were from America, which might mean something in Birmingham, and they would be easy to package and cheap to send. In Loehmann’s one lunchtime she found beautiful angora wool cardigans that cost more than she had in mind, but she came back the next day and bought one for her mother and one for Rose and wrapped them together with the nylon stockings she had bought on the sale and sent them to Ireland.

Slowly, Christmas decorations began to appear in the stores and streets of Brooklyn. After supper one Friday evening, when Mrs. Kehoe had left the kitchen, Miss McAdam wondered when Mrs. Kehoe would put up the decorations.