Brooklyn Page 0,32

dead.”

“Your mother?”

“I’ve never been away from her before.”

Miss Fortini looked at her but did not smile.

“I’ll need to talk to Miss Bartocci and the priest you came with.”

“Please don’t.”

“They won’t cause a problem. But you cannot work here if you’re sad. And of course you’re sad if you’re not with your mother for the first time in your life. But the sadness won’t last so we’ll do what we can for you.”

Miss Fortini told her to sit down and filled her another glass of water and left the room. It was clear to Eilis as she waited there that she was not going to be sacked. As a result, she was almost proud of how she had managed Miss Fortini, letting her ask all the questions and answering as little as she could, but enough not to seem surly or ungrateful. She felt almost strong as she contemplated what had just happened and she resolved that no matter who came into the room now, even if it were Mr. Bartocci himself, she would be able to elicit their sympathy. It was not as though there was nothing wrong; whatever darkness she felt had not lifted. But she could not tell them that she dreaded their shop and their customers, and that she hated Mrs. Kehoe’s house, and there was nothing any of them could do for her. Yet she would have to keep her job. And she believed she had achieved that much and it gave her a feeling of satisfaction that appeared to melt into her sadness, or float on its surface, distracting her, as least for now, from the worst parts of it.

After a while Miss Fortini arrived with a sandwich that she had brought from a diner near the store. She said that she had spoken to Miss Bartocci and assured her that it was a simple problem, that it had never happened before and might never happen again. But Miss Bartocci had then spoken to her father, who was a special friend of Father Flood, and he had telephoned the priest and left a message with his housekeeper.

“Mr. Bartocci says you are to stay down here until he hears from Father Flood and he told me to get you this sandwich. You are one lucky girl. He is sometimes nice the first time like this. But I wouldn’t cross him twice. No one crosses Mr. Bartocci twice.”

“I didn’t cross him,” Eilis said quietly.

“Oh, you did, dear. Turning up in that state to work and having that look on your face. Oh, you crossed Mr. Bartocci and it’s something that he’ll never forget.”

As the day went on, some of the other sales girls from the floor came down to see Eilis, studying her with curiosity, some asking if she was all right, others pretending to search for something in their lockers. As she sat there, she realized that, unless she wanted to lose her job, she would have to make a decision to lift herself out of whatever it was that was affecting her.

Miss Fortini did not reappear, but at around four Father Flood opened the door.

“I hear there’s trouble,” he said.

She tried to smile.

“It’s all my fault,” he said. “They said you were doing great here and Mrs. Kehoe says you’re the nicest girl she’s ever had staying and so I thought you don’t want me coming around checking up on you.”

“I was all right until I got the letters from home,” Eilis said.

“Do you know what’s wrong with you?” Father Flood asked.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a name for it.”

“For what?” She thought that he was going to mention some private female complaint.

“You’re homesick, that’s all. Everybody gets it. But it passes. In some it passes more quickly than in others. There’s nothing harder than it. And the rule is to have someone to talk to and to keep busy.”

“I am busy.”

“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