Caraliza by Joel Blaine Kirkpatrick Read Free Book Online Page B

way to understand.
    They suddenly spoke across the ocean between them.
     
    Since the mean furnishings were hers to keep clean, and suffer for if there was a lack of it, she knew several places where the prized item could be kept. She could easily keep it in different places at need, all the better to hide it, if it could never be found in the same place more than a few times. She did not dare try to write anything that night. It was beginning to darken on the street. She needed to find some filth in the kitchen and threaten to actually clean it before her tormentor came back to eat. The thought of food drove the boy, the smiles, the longing, the notebook and the kindness from her mind altogether. She did not even know such a change had taken place.
     
    Nothing was brought to eat. The brute was stumbling drunk instead. She cried herself to sleep on the floor next to the bed. He could not be moved to give her any room that night.
    Yousep wondered all night what she might write. He wondered how he might learn what her language meant. He thought she had spoken German, but he could not be sure. Before he left the breakfast table the next morning, he involved his father in a discussion about languages. It was a natural thing to do, they spent many mornings and evenings discussing the English they were learning. He repeated the few words he heard, making them seem to be a speech overheard on the street.
    “ Ik sprik gen Engel , it sounds German enough, we have borrowed German in our own Yiddish,” His father said thoughtfully. “It could be Swede, perhaps a Dutch speech. There would needs be more of it to be sure. Was it something you heard in the shop? A customer who spoke no English perhaps?”
    “ No Pape, just some speech on a street stair as I walked to the shop one morning. It caught my ear, being rather nice to hear.”
    “ Aye, well, perhaps you will hear more of it, you should be on your way. Those windows are waiting to be built; the shop must be ready. Off, off! Take some bread as you go and kiss your mother.”
    Yousep did both things as told and smiled, with a bite of bread in his teeth, as he walked his path from the house. He would need a book, a book to translate her speech, when he had enough written to know which speech she used.
     
    He was so excited as he neared the shop street that he was almost careless and crossed his old regular path. Caraliza was not on the stair when he arrived. He paused to be sure she heard him. There was a sound at the doorway but it was rough and not cautious. He turned quickly to get to his side and the safety of his door. He saw the reflection of the man leaving the basement stair in the door glass at his nose. He had been only moments from a face-to-face meeting with a person who haunted his dreams. Was he enough man to endure that by chance? His knees told him there was still much of Yousep the shop boy at least in his legs.
    Safely inside, before even threatening the shelves with a sound dusting, Yousep gathered his best rags and carefully put himself in the display to clean the great windowpane. It was very large and with enough determination, it could take him ten minutes to polish well. He was nearing that completion when he saw a delicate hand reach timidly to the top of the stair just under the rail. The notebook was gently laid and her hand disappeared.
    Yousep was determined to read it at once and he would take an awful chance. He did not know where the brute was going, or if the man might not come back, but Yousep hurried from the window and set about trying to make an excuse to be outside again. He did not need one. Papa Reisman was leaving, to discuss the windows; he would be gone for an hour. Yousep only needed to wait a few more minutes and he would be across and back with her treasure in his hand.
    It was an eternity for him.
     
    His employer was finally around a corner down the street. But for a few wagons and a carriage team coming down, the street was empty.