A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [56]
There was resigned regret that the new flat was not as nice as their Lorimer Street home. They lived on the top floor instead of the ground floor. There was no stoop as a store occupied the street floor of the house. There was no bathroom and the toilet was in the hall and shared by two families.
The only bright spot was that the roof was theirs. By an unwritten agreement, the roof belonged to the people who lived on the top floor as the yard belonged to the people who lived on the first floor. Another advantage was that there was no one living overhead to make vibrations on the ceiling and cause the Welsbach gas mantle to crumble into powder.
While Katie was arguing with the movers, Johnny took Francie up on the roof. She saw a whole new world. Not far away was the lovely span of the Williamsburg Bridge. Across the East River, like a fairy city made of silver cardboard, the skyscrapers loomed cleanly. There was the Brooklyn Bridge further away like an echo of the nearer bridge.
“It’s pretty,” said Francie. “It’s pretty the same way pictures of in-the-country are pretty.”
“I go over that bridge sometimes when I go to work,” Johnny said.
Francie looked at him in wonder. He went over that magic bridge and still talked and looked like always? She couldn’t get over it. She put out her hand and touched his arm. Surely the wonderful experience of going over that bridge would make him feel different. She was disappointed because his arm felt as it had always felt.
At the child’s touch, Johnny put his arm around her and smiled down at her. “How old are you, Prima Donna?”
“Six going on seven.”
“Why, you’ll be going to school in September.”
“No. Mama said I must wait until next year till Neeley’s old enough so we can start together.”
“Why?”
“So we can help each other against the older kids who might lick us if there was only one.”
“Your mother thinks of everything.”
Francie turned around and looked at the other roofs. Nearby was one with a pigeon coop on it. The pigeons were safely locked up. But the pigeon owner, a youth of seventeen, stood on the edge of the roof with a long bamboo stick. It had a rag on the end and the boy stood waving the stick in circles. Another flock of pigeons was flying around in a circle. One of them left the group to follow the flying rag. The boy lowered the stick cautiously and the silly pigeon followed the rag. The boy grabbed him and stuck him in the coop. Francie was distressed.
“The boy stole a pigeon.”
“And tomorrow someone will steal one of his,” said Johnny.
“But the poor pigeon, taken away from his relations. Maybe he’s got children.” Tears came into her eyes.
“I wouldn’t cry,” said Johnny. “Maybe the pigeon wanted to get away from his relatives. If he doesn’t like the new coop, he’ll fly back to the old one when he gets out again.” Francie was consoled.
They didn’t say anything for a long time. They stood hand-in-hand on the roof’s edge looking across the river to New York. Finally Johnny said, as if to himself, “Seven years.”
“What, Papa?”
“Your mama and I have been married seven years already.”
“Was I here when you got married?”
“No.”
“I was here, though, when Neeley came.”
“That’s right.” Johnny went back to thinking aloud. “Married seven years and we’ve had three homes. This will be my last home.”
Francie didn’t notice that he said my last home instead of our last home.
Book Three
15
FOUR ROOMS MADE UP THE NEW FLAT. THEY LED ONE INTO THE OTHER and were called railroad rooms. The high narrow kitchen faced on the yard which was a flagstone walk surrounding a square of cementlike sour earth out of which nothing could possibly grow.
Yet, there was this tree growing in the yard.
When Francie first saw it, it was only up to the second story. She could look down on it from her window. It looked like a packed crowd of people of assorted sizes, standing umbrella-protected in the rain.
There was a lean clothes pole in the back of the yard from