Free Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín Page A

her life as she would find herself going through it scene by scene. Even tiny details stayed in her mind. When she deliberately tried to think about something else, or leave her mind blank, events from the day would come quickly back. For each day, she thought, she needed a whole other day to contemplate what had happened and store it away, get it out of her system so that it did not keep her awake at night or fill her dreamswith flashes of what had actually happened and other flashes that had nothing to do with anything familiar, but were full of rushes of colour or crowds of people, everything frenzied and fast.
    She liked the morning air and the quietness of these few leafy streets, streets that had shops only on the corners, streets where people lived, where there were three or four apartments in each house and where she passed women accompanying their children to school as she went to work. As she walked along, however, she knew she was getting close to the real world, which had wider streets and more traffic. Once she arrived at Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn began to feel like a strange place to her, with so many gaps between buildings and so many derelict buildings. And then suddenly, when she arrived at Fulton Street, there would be so many people crowding to cross the street, and in such dense clusters, that on the first morning she thought a fight had broken out or someone was injured and they had gathered to get a good view. Most mornings she stood back for a minute or two, waiting for the crowds to disperse.
    In Bartocci’s, she had to clock in, which was easy, and then go to her locker in the women’s room downstairs and change into the blue uniform that girls on the shop floor had to wear. She was there most mornings before most of the other girls arrived. Some of them often did not appear until the last second. Miss Fortini, who was the supervisor, disapproved of this, Eilis knew. On her first day, Father Flood had taken her to the main office and she had had an interview with Elisabetta Bartocci, the daughter of the owner, who she thought was the most perfectly dressed woman she had ever seen. She wrote to her mother and Rose about Miss Bartocci’s flaring red costume and white plain blouse, her red high-heeled shoes, her hair, which was shiny black and perfect. Her lipstick was bright red and her eyes were the blackest Eilis had ever seen.
    “Brooklyn changes every day,” Miss Bartocci said as FatherFlood nodded. “New people arrive and they could be Jewish or Irish or Polish or even coloured. Our old customers are moving out to Long Island and we can’t follow them, so we need new customers every week. We treat everyone the same. We welcome every single person who comes into this store. They all have money to spend. We keep our prices low and our manners high. If people like it here, they’ll come back. You treat the customer like a new friend. Is that a deal?”
    Eilis nodded.
    “You give them a big Irish smile.”
    As Miss Bartocci went to fetch the supervisor, Father Flood told Eilis to take a look at the people working in the office. “A lot of them started like you, on the shop floor. And they did night classes and studied and now they’re in the office. Some of them are actual accountants, fully qualified.”
    “I’d like to study bookkeeping,” Eilis said. “I’ve already done a basic course.”
    “It’ll be different here, different systems,” Father Flood said. “But I’ll find out if there are any courses nearby with places open. Even if they don’t have places open, we’ll see if we can get one open. But it’d be best not to mention this to Miss Bartocci and concentrate for the moment, as far as she is concerned, on the job you have.”
    Eilis nodded. Soon Miss Bartocci came back with Miss Fortini, who said “yes” after everything Miss Bartocci said, barely opening her mouth as she spoke. Every so often her eyes darted around the office and then, as though she had been doing