“I gave them Agatha’s address.”
“They’re asking a lot fewer questions than we did.”
“I think that’s a point in their favor.”
“I think so, too.”
“I could feel your niece’s energy from a yard away. She could’ve set fire to my documents if she’d known how.”
“What about the others?”
“Sheng hasn’t discovered his abilities yet. His instinct is still dormant. And just to think that those eyes …”
“Eerie, isn’t it?”
“He has a disarming smile.”
“What was your impression of Mistral?”
“She’s like a breath of hope.”
“Which was the very last thing at the bottom of Pandora’s box … Hope is woman….”
“And courage is man.”
“What do you think of Harvey?”
“I had him pick up a vase of withered primroses.”
“Did anything happen?”
“After he touched them, they blossomed again. The Earth is reawakening, Irene.”
11
THE TAILOR
THE HELIOS TAILOR SHOP’S LOGO IS A GOLDEN SUN, THE TIPS OF ITS rays forming tiny hands. The name is written in angular Greek characters over a tiny shop partially hidden behind some Dumpsters. The pouring rain and the almost total lack of light are making everything look rather abandoned. Standing on the opposite side of the street, the four kids look around, discouraged.
“What do you say? Should we go in?”
“To do what?” Elettra groans.
“I don’t know. We could ask if they knew the professor….”
Harvey turns the piece of cloth over in his fingers. “Maybe these three needles mean something.”
“Oh, yeah. Sure,” Elettra grumbles skeptically. “It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for us to make sense of anything that’s going on.”
“We’re on the right track,” Mistral states, pointing at the sign. “We’re always chasing after the sun. In Rome it was the sun of Mithra, and here …”
“The sign at a tailor’s shop.” Sheng smiles, crossing the street. “Hao, cool!”
“Maybe we shouldn’t all go inside,” Elettra insists.
“Why not?” Mistral asks.
“I don’t know. I’ve got a bad feeling about this….”
“A bad feeling, like the ones you had in Rome? Are your fingers tingling? Do you feel hot? Are you going to make the streetlights explode?” Harvey asks.
“Something like that, yeah.”
“Would you rather wait out here?” says Harvey.
“I’ll stay with you, if you want,” Mistral offers.
“No, no. You guys go on in,” the girl replies. “Meanwhile, I’ll call my aunt.”
“But don’t you think you might be useful in there? Maybe you’ll feel something,” Harvey insists.
“All I feel is that I don’t want to go in there. Isn’t that enough?”
“We’ll be in and out in no time,” Mistral replies as she and Harvey catch up with Sheng at the door to the shop.
Standing there alone, Elettra sighs as she looks around, disoriented. She lied. She doesn’t feel anything in particular. In fact, she feels completely empty, maybe because of jet lag, maybe because she’s so far from home. But still, it’s as if her energy has disappeared. In the electric city surrounding her, among the windows reflecting images of the streets, before the giant picture windows revealing crowds of people, she feels stifled. Every street in Manhattan makes her uneasy. She feels like she can’t breathe. But it isn’t air she’s lacking. That’s fresh and crisp, full of the smell of the sea. She’s even seen seagulls with their white wings flying among the skyscrapers. It’s the earth that she’s lacking. It’s as though it were constantly trembling beneath her feet, as though it, too, were uneasy, agitated. Or in the never-ending expectation of reawakening.
The sun is hidden behind the clouds. Elettra feels drained. She can’t describe what’s going on inside her, but she’s learned to trust her feelings. And they aren’t all negative.
When she sees Harvey’s silhouette through the tailor shop’s window, she cheers up.
Then she hears a noise beside her.
An ugly black crow is pecking at the bags of garbage in the Dumpster.
The tailor’s shop is small and dark, filled with the smell of wool and other scents difficult to make out: old wood, steam, vanilla, cotton yarn and buttons. Two people are working there: an old man with sparse gray hair and a pair of thick reading glasses who’s staring at a crossword puzzle, and a woman with bowed legs who’s sewing the sleeve onto a jacket that has been fitted over a mannequin covered with pins.
“Hello, kids,” the old man greets them, pulling his nose out of the puzzle. Two tufts of long, graying hairs are sticking out of his nostrils like antennas. “What can I do for you?”
“Hello,” Harvey replies. “Actually … we aren’t sure, exactly.”
“Excellent,” the man replies good-naturedly. “That’s just the kind of answer one expects from someone who walks into a tailor’s shop, of all places!”
The woman makes an impatient gesture as she tugs on the sleeve on the mannequin. It doesn’t escape the man’s notice. “Can’t a man make a joke, Trittolema? Please!” he exclaims, pushing the newspaper on the counter away from him. “You’re always so serious! Always sewing and cutting, sewing and cutting …”
The woman says something in Greek, but her tone is universal.
“Don’t mind her,” the old man begins again. “She’s been this way for fifty years, but she’s never been one to bite. Isn’t that right, Trittolema?” He rests his fists on the table, his thumbs tucked inside of them. “In any case, as we were saying, you don’t know exactly what you’re doing here. Well, this is a tailor’s shop. We offer custom-made clothing. Pardon me for saying so, but it doesn’t look like that’s anything for you. Not that I have any objection to your jeans or to your sweatshirt with the pig on it …”
“It isn’t a pig!” Sheng protests immediately. “It’s a hippo. It’s really famous in China.”
“That’s my point. In here, the only thing famous is our Prince of Wales.”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“It’s the name of a black-and-white fabric,” Mistral explains.
“Very good, young lady. Fortunately, there’s still someone in this world who remembers such things.”
“My mother works in fashion. She makes perfumes, actually.”
“That’s wonderful. Hear that, Trittolema? Perfume!” Then, in a hushed voice, to make the kids laugh, he says, “I’ve never managed to convince her to buy any for herself.”
Harvey reaches into his pocket and pulls out the swatch of black fabric with the three gold needles. “Actually, we came here because of this. Does it mean anything to you?”
The old man rests the snippet of cloth on the workbench and takes a deep breath, making the hairs in his nostrils quiver. “Outstanding-quality English wool, fourteen stitch … heavens! It must be twenty years since I’ve seen one of these samples, but it’s definitely one of ours. Not only because of the label, of course.”
“What about the needles?”
“Three excellent needles. May I?”
“Please.”
The tailor pulls the arm lamp toward him and turns over the tapered shapes of the three gold needles directly under the light. “Oh, yes. Of course. These are ours, too. Or better, I bet they’re my father’s old gold needles, imported directly from Holland. Let me check…. Hmm … yes, yes, just as I imagined. They’re three different needles for three different kinds of fabric. A New York needle, long and sturdy, for sleeves and buttonholes. The Paris needle for lapels. And finally, the London needle, the thinnest one of all, for the lining. What a trip down memory lane, kids! We haven’t used these since back in my father’s day, rest his soul…. Anyway, it’s been a long, long time, you see.
Where did you find them?”
“In an old house.”
“Oh, Father’s needles! He’d only give them to important customers, together with swatches of cloth and thread from their suits. That way, even if they were somewhere on the other side of the world and they needed a patch or a little darning, the suit would already have its own needles and spare pieces of the original cloth. I’m sure these things don’t mean anything to you, but once, a good suit was a thousand times more precious than a nice car. In any case, I’ll buy these back from you, if you like.”
The seamstress grumbles something in Greek, which perfectly infuriates her husband.
“Yes, I do want to buy them! They’re Father’s needles, and these kids just brought them back to me. They’re a part of my past, which, if I may point out, is far more interesting than my future.” The old man clears his throat and goes back to focusing on the three kids. “How much do you want for them?”
“Actually, we didn’t come here to sell them,” Harvey explains, a little embarrassed.
“Oh, you didn’t? Then what is it you want?”
“Like we told you before, we’re not exactly sure,” says Harvey.
“Do you know a man named Alfred Van Der Berger?” Sheng asks.
“Van Der Berger? Hmm … And why should I know him?”
“We thought he was a customer of yours,” Harvey says.
“The cloth and the needles were his,” Mistral explains.
“Van Der Berger, Van Der Berger … no, it doesn’t ring a bell. Trittolema!” the tailor shouts. Then he starts rambling on and on in Greek, the only intelligible thing being the professor’s last name. At the end of their question-and-answer session, the tailor is even more bewildered.
“Is something the matter?” Mistral asks him, seeing him increasingly lost in thought.
“No, it’s just that … this is absurd …,” he replies, straightening his thick glasses on his nose. “Truly absurd. But Trittolema is never wrong about these things. She’s got a remarkable memory.”
The kids turn toward the woman, who’s concentrating on fitting a jacket and some cloth over another mannequin, her back turned to them.
The elderly tailor leans down behind the counter and pulls out a cookie tin with a sticker on it labeled UNCLAIMED.
“Are you relatives of his?” he asks the kids, opening up the tin. Inside of it are lots of square slips of paper stacked one on top of the other.
“I’m his nephew,” Sheng replies right off the bat, beaming at his two friends.
The tailor looks up at him for a second with glittering eyes. Enlarged by his thick glasses, they look like two giant jellyfish. “You?”
“That’s right,” replies Sheng. “Would you like to see some ID?”
“What would I do with ID?” the tailor replies, starting to riffle through the slips of paper.
The kids watch him anxiously. Harvey glances through the shop window and smiles when he sees Elettra outside, pacing on the sidewalk.
After spending a few minutes shaking his head, the tailor freezes. In his fingers is a slip of paper that’s so thin and worn that it’s almost transparent. “Naturally, it was the very last one in the box. As always, Trittolema was right. Five years ago. Alfred Van Der Berger. A black tuxedo that needed mending on the right elbow. Hmm … you’re lucky,” he adds.
“Why’s that?”
“He paid in advance.”
12
THE POSTCARD
ELETTRA SEES HARVEY, SHENG AND MISTRAL WALK OUT IN SINGLE file. First Harvey, then Sheng with a gigantic package wrapped in brown paper tucked under his arm and finally Mistral, who’s still saying goodbye to the people inside.
“What’s that?” she asks Harvey, pointing at the bulky package.
“Professor Van Der Berger’s tuxedo, which he left here for mending five years ago.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Nope.”
“You mean they kept it here this whole time?”
“Sure looks that way.”
“Instead of standing there chatting, would you give me a hand?” Sheng groans, hidden behind the paper wrapper from the tailor’s shop.
“You’re his nephew. You carry it!” Harvey snaps.
“So this is the thanks I get! If it hadn’t been for me, we never would’ve been able to claim it.”
“I’ll help you, Sheng,” Mistral says, grabbing the other end of the bundle.
“No thanks,” he retorts testily. “I wanted Mr. Grumpy to help.”
Harvey whirls around. “You got something to say to me, Sheng? Because it just so happens that you’ve had this attitude all morning long.”
“What attitude? Being happy despite everything? When we showed up at the hotel, you barely even said hello to us! It’s like everything we say ticks you off—”
“That’s enough,” Elettra says, cutting him off. “Both of you, stop it.”
Harvey’s eyes are hidden behind his hair. He turns to stare at the street and stands there, stock still. Behind him, Sheng lets Elettra pull him away and he follows Mistral down the sidewalk, carrying the package with the tuxedo along with her.
“Harvey?” Elettra asks.
“Forget about it. I’m already over it.”
“No, I won’t forget about it! Sheng’s right.”
“Then go on with him and leave me alone.”
“We’re friends, aren’t we?”
Harvey doesn’t answer her. He just clenches his fists in his pockets.
“We’re all doing the best we can,” Elettra continues, “and we only managed to come here because of Sheng’s father.”
“Then let’s run off and thank him!” Harvey snaps sarcastically.
“Would you mind telling me why you’re mad at him?”
“I’m not mad at him. I’m not mad at him at all!”
“Then what’s wrong? Are you mad at all of us?”
“Don’t be stupid!”
Elettra tries to get him to look her in the eye. The air reeks of the garbage in the nearby Dumpsters. “You picked a really nice place to get all huffy.”
“I’m not getting huffy.”
“Then what’s up with you?”
Harvey bites the inside of his lip and shakes his messy hair. “Okay. All right. I know I’m not being very nice. Maybe I was wrong to get on his case….”
“You were way wrong.”
“It’s just that … he …” Harvey watches Sheng and Mistral walking away. “He takes everything so casually, like he doesn’t care at all. Like it isn’t real.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s that … I can’t.”
“You can’t what?”
“I can’t take things casually. And he … Sheng, he … he acts just like … oh, forget I said it.”
“No, tell me!”
“The thing is, the farther we get into this whole thing, the worse I feel. Inside. I feel … oh, how can I explain to you what I’m feeling?”
“Are you scared of the people following us?”
“No, I’m not scared.”
Elettra looks at him, waiting for an explanation.
“It’s because of … because of my brother,” Harvey says, caving in. “My brother died a year ago, more or less to the day.”
“Oh … I understand.”
“No, I don’t think you understand at all. It isn’t just because it happened a year ago. Although it’s tough. I mean, at my place these days, every single day, all we do is think about him. Because … because it happened right at this time of year … in March.”
“How did it happen?”
“I don’t feel like talking about it.”
“Maybe you should.”
“He fell. Underground. On a construction site. He used to walk around on the scaffolding like … like he wasn’t running any risk at all. Like he was taking a stroll through the countryside. Carefree … and then, suddenly, one day …”
“What was his name?
”
“Dwaine.”
“So what does Sheng have to do with Dwaine?”
“Every time I talk to him, I feel like I’m talking to my brother. They’re … happy. Happy, carefree … careless, even. And Dwaine sure paid the price for being careless.”
“Then we’ll make sure Sheng doesn’t pay the same price.”
“That isn’t going to be easy, you know.”
“Well, sometimes it’s good to take things a little casually.” Elettra waves her hand in the air.
“What are you doing?” Harvey asks her.
“I’m saying hi to the crow,” she replies, pointing at a crow that takes wing and flies off.
Harvey’s face darkens. “That bird again …,” he murmurs, looking around.
“What’s wrong with the crow?”
“It’s a sign that they’re following me.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do, that’s all. Come on. Let’s go, quick.”
Elettra nods. “We’d better not leave Mistral at the mercy of Sheng’s sense of direction. If he managed to get lost on the buses in Rome, I don’t even want to think what he might do in New York.”
Harvey takes Elettra by the arm and heads after the other two. “I think I should apologize to him.”
“I think you’re right.”
“Olympia says I’ve got a lot of anger inside me.”
“That’s no reason to take it out on us.”
Sitting in the subway car, Harvey and Elettra on one side, Mistral and Sheng on the other, they move westward. The tuxedo that belonged to Professor Van Der Berger resting on his lap, Sheng lifts up a corner of the brown paper wrapper and peeks inside.
“It looks really nice,” remarks Mistral beside him.
“It’s black.”
“Tuxedos are always black.”
“How come?”
“They’re just made that way.”
“I’ve never even seen a tuxedo before.”
“Doesn’t your father have one? What does he wear when he goes to a formal event?”
“His red tunic and babouche slippers!” Sheng replies, beaming.
“Okay, forget I asked….”
The train car starts to slow down.
“Don’t you think we should give it back to Agatha?” Elettra asks.
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