A Hundred Windows and One Warm Loaf

"Tink. Tink. Tink-tink-tink." Rain tapped the tin roof above the bakery, and Rosa lay flat on his stomach with his ear pressed to the floorboards. Underneath the boards the big oven went whuff, and something inside it went tick, tick, tick, like a clock keeping a secret.

Thursday was slow-loaf night. Rosa was six and a half, and he knew everything there was to know about Thursdays. Every stair in the building smelled of warm bread, right up to the top floor, where he lived with Mama and his big sister Ada.

Ada came up the stairs two at a time and stood over him with her hands on her hips. "Mama says don't lie on the floor. You'll get splinters in your chin." Ada was nine, and she said everything like a rule. Rosa didn't move. "I'm listening to the dough," he said.

"You can't hear dough." "I can. It's going pfff. Pfff, pfff." Ada knelt down and put her ear to the boards too. "That's the oven going." "Same thing," said Rosa.

Mama came in with a basket of washing on her hip. "The loaf has a long way to go yet," she said. "It has to rise, then rest, then rise again, and then it bakes. The brass bell will tell us when it's done."

"When?" said Rosa. "When it's ready," said Mama. "That's the only answer bread ever gives."

Rosa groaned and rolled onto his back. "That's the worst answer in the world." Then he sat up and hummed a fast, hurrying hum at the floorboards, the way you hum at a slow dog to make it walk faster. "Hurry up, bread. Hmm-hmm-hmm."

"Bread that hurries tastes like a roof tile," said Ada. "How do you know?" "I ate a hurrying biscuit once. It was like chewing a brick." "Nobody in this house is chewing bricks," said Mama.

"And remember," said Mama, "the bread bell doesn't ting. It goes bong. Low and round, like a big brass plum." She tapped the doorframe with one knuckle. "Bong. You'll know it when you hear it." Rosa nodded and tucked the sound away in his head, like a marble in a pocket.

But the evening was long and the loaf was slow. Rosa did a lap of the kitchen. He did a lap of the hallway. He hung over the back of the sofa with his arms dangling down and asked, "Is it done now?" three times in a row.

He tried counting to a hundred, but he lost his place somewhere in the sixties. He tried standing on one foot. He breathed on the window until it went cloudy and drew a loaf of bread in the steam, then wiped it away and drew a bigger one. None of it made the loaf come any faster.

"Come up on the roof step with me," said Ada. "Mama's coming. Bring the umbrella."

The top step of the building opened onto a small flat roof with a low wall around it, wet and shiny as a plate. Mama held the big umbrella over all three of them. Rain tapped on a hundred roofs at once, and the air smelled of wet pavement and bread, and somewhere down the street somebody was frying onions for supper.

Warm air came up through a grating in the roof, and it smelled of yeast and sugar, so Rosa sat right on top of the grating with his knees pulled up. "The bakery's breathing on me," he said.

"Now," said Ada. "We count the lit windows. When one goes dark, we say goodnight to it." "Goodnight to a window?" "It's polite," said Ada. "And it passes the time."

Rosa looked out over the rooftops. The windows were little warm squares, scattered like crumbs of toast. One had a plant on the sill. One had a blue curtain. One had somebody in it dancing slowly with a broom.

"There's one," said Ada. "Wait for it. Wait, wait, wait. And now!" The window went dark. "Goodnight, window," they said together. "Sleep tight, light."

They counted. A window over the bakery went out. Then two together on the tall building. Then the one with the blue curtain. Each time, Rosa held his breath, waited, and let it go. "Goodnight, window. Sleep tight, light."

"That one's the reading window," said Ada, pointing. "See the lamp and the elbow?" "And that one's the singing window," said Rosa, because music was drifting out of it and a shadow was swaying. "Goodnight, singing window. Sleep tight, singing light."

"Nineteen," said Rosa. "Twenty. Twenty-one." He was wriggling like a worm in a puddle. "Ada. Is the bread done now?" "Are you waiting?" said Ada. "No," said Rosa. "I'm just sitting here. Near the bell."

"Ting!" Rosa's head snapped up. "That's the bell! That's it!" "Wait," said Mama. "Listen first. Was it low and round?" Rosa listened. The sound had been small and bright, like a spoon tapped on a cup. "It was a ting," he said, in a small voice. "That's the shop door," said Mama. "Come down and see, if you like."

They went down the stairs, Mama first, then Ada, then Rosa. A neighbor in a wet hat stood at the counter, buying the last brown roll before closing. The bakery was warm and floury and smelled of everything good. On the way back up, Rosa's shoulders drooped like two little hills.

"It's never going to be done," he said, up on the roof step again. He put his chin on his knees. "Waiting is the worst thing in the world. It's worse than wet socks. It's worse than when your sock has a hole and your toe pokes out and it rains."

"How long is a long time?" he asked. "Longer than a bath," said Ada. "Longer than a bath and a story and a glass of water." Rosa sighed so hard his fringe lifted up and flopped back down.

Ada sat down beside him. "Then don't wait for it," she said. "Wait with it. That's different." She hummed, low and steady, and tapped her knees with both hands. "Mmm-mmm, mmm-mmm. Pat, pat, pat. Try it."

So Rosa tried it. Mmm-mmm, pat, pat. He hummed along with the rain and tapped along with the rain, and the time didn't stick to him so much. It was like being on a boat, he thought, except the boat was a step and the sea was rain.

Then he saw it. High up, at the very top of the building across the courtyard, was one small square of light with a plant pot on the sill. "That one's still awake," said Rosa. "That's the last window."

"Maybe," said Ada. "When that one goes dark, the bread will be done," said Rosa. "That's the rule." "Who says?" "Me and the window," said Rosa. Ada laughed so hard the umbrella wobbled, and the rain ran off the edge in a silver line.

"I wonder who's in there," said Rosa. "Somebody writing a very long letter," said Ada. "Twenty pages at least." "Or knitting a scarf for the whole building," said Rosa. "One end at the front door, the other end up the chimney." "Or eating a hurrying biscuit," said Ada, and they both giggled.

The window stayed lit. The rain went soft, pattering instead of tapping. Mama brought up two mugs of cocoa and one for herself, and Rosa held his mug in both hands and felt the warm come through his fingers.

"Mmm-mmm, pat, pat," hummed Rosa. "Mmm-mmm, pat, pat." Under their feet the oven hummed too, low and round, a hum he could feel in his knees. The windows across the rooftops went out one by one, until his last window was the only one left, glowing like the last coal in a fire.

His eyes got heavy. He didn't mean them to. He sat up straighter and shook his head. "Mmm-mmm. Pat, pat." "You can lean on me," said Ada. "I'll keep watch."

"No," said Rosa. "I want to see it." So he hummed, and he counted the taps of the rain, and he kept watch. His eyes closed once, twice, and each time he opened them again.

Then, very softly, the light in the little window went out, like somebody folding a letter and setting it down. "Goodnight, window," whispered Rosa. "Sleep tight, light."

"Bong." Rosa sat up so fast his cocoa sloshed. "That's it! That's the low one! That's the bong!" "That's the bong," said Mama, and she was smiling.

Down the stairs they went, Mama first, then Ada, then Rosa, all three of them quick but careful on the wet steps.

The bakery was gold and warm inside. The baker slid the slow loaf out of the oven on a long wooden paddle, and it was round and brown, and it crackled as it cooled, crack, crackle, like it was telling a secret to itself.

"That one took its time," said the baker. "It always does," said Mama.

The shop door went ting, and a woman in a green coat came in, shaking the rain off her sleeves. Rosa looked at her, then at Ada, then back. "Was yours the window?" he asked. "Up top, with the plant?" "It was," she said. "I was finishing a letter. A long one." "I saw your light," said Rosa. "I was waiting for it." "And I saw yours," she said. "Yours was the one with the little face in it. So I knew somebody else was waiting too."

The baker cut thick slices and spread them with butter, and the butter went shiny and melted down into the warm holes in the bread. Rosa took a bite. It was soft in the middle and crisp at the edges, and it tasted of the whole long evening, of the rain and the counting and the waiting.

"Oh," said Rosa. "Oh, that's good." "Told you," said Ada, with her mouth full. "Chew," said Mama.

The baker wrapped the last heel of the loaf in paper and gave it to Rosa for the morning. "For the one who waited longest," he said. Rosa put it in his pocket and patted it all the way up the stairs.

Going up, Rosa held on to Mama's sleeve and yawned a wide, wobbly yawn. The rain had gone quiet, pat, pat, pat, and the stairwell smelled of bread all the way to the top. He hummed his waiting song, slower than before. Mmm-mmm. Pat, pat.

At the top, every window was dark, and the whole city looked like it was sleeping under one big gray blanket. Mama pulled his quilt up to his chin. "You waited a long time tonight," she said. "Bread takes what it takes," said Rosa, half asleep already.

"Mmm-mmm," he hummed, softer still. "Pat, pat." Outside, the rain tapped on the tin roof, tink, tink, tink-tink, slow as a sleepy heart. Every window was dark and everybody inside was warm, and the last thing Rosa heard before he slept was a low, round bong, somewhere far inside his head, soft as a plum.