A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [58]
Next to the boiler was a pair of soapstone washtubs with a hinged wooden cover. The partition could be removed and the two thrown into one for a bath tub. It didn’t make a very good bath tub. Sometimes when Francie sat in it, the cover banged down on her head. The bottom was rubbly and she came out of what should have been a refreshing bath all sore from sitting on that wet roughness. Then there were four faucets to contend with. No matter how the child tried to remember that they were inflexibly there and wouldn’t give way, she would jump up suddenly out of the soapy water and get her back whacked good on a faucet. Francie had a perpetual angry welt on her back.
Following the kitchen, there were two bedrooms, one leading into the other. An airshaft dimensioned like a coffin was built into the bedrooms. The windows were small and dingy gray. You could open an airshaft window, maybe, if you used a chisel and hammer. But when you did, you were rewarded with a blast of cold dank air. The airshaft was topped by a miniature, slant-roofed skylight whose heavy, opaque, wrinkled glass was protected from breakage by heavy iron netting. The sides were corrugated iron slats. This arrangement supposedly supplied light and air to the bedrooms. But the heavy glass, iron fencing and dirt of many years refused to filter the light through. The openings in the sides were choked with dust, soot and cobwebs. No air could come in, but, stubbornly enough, rain and snow could get in. On stormy days, the wooden bottom of the airshaft was wet and smoky and gave out a tomby smell.
The airshaft was a horrible invention. Even with the windows tightly sealed, it served as a sounding box and you could hear everybody’s business. Rats scurried around the bottom. There was always the danger of fire. A match absently tossed into the airshaft by a drunken teamster under the impression that he was throwing it into the yard or street would set the house afire in a moment. There were vile things cluttering up the bottom. Since this bottom couldn’t be reached by man (the windows being too small to admit the passage of a body), it served as a fearful repository for things that people wanted to put out of their lives. Rusted razor blades and bloody cloths were the most innocent items. Once Francie looked down into the airshaft. She thought of what the priest said about Purgatory and figured it must be like the airshaft bottom only on a larger scale. When Francie went into the parlor, she passed through the bedrooms shuddering and with her eyes shut.
* * *
The parlor or front room was The Room. Its two high narrow windows faced on the exciting street. The third floor was so high up that street noises were muted into a comforting sound. The room was a place of dignity. It had its own door leading into the hall. Company could be admitted without having to walk through the bedrooms from the kitchen. The high walls were covered with a somber wall paper, dark brown with golden stripes. The windows had inside shutters of slatted wood which telescoped into a narrow space on either side. Francie spent many happy hours pulling out these hinged shutters and watching them fold back again at a touch of her hand. It was a never-tiring miracle that that which could cover a whole window and blot out light and air, could still meekly compress itself in its little closet and present an innocently paneled front to the eye.
A low parlor stove was built into a black marble fireplace. Only the front half of the stove was in view. It looked like a giant halved melon with the round side out. It was made of numerous isinglass windows with just enough thin carved iron to form a framework. At