In the next room a girl about my age was sweeping the floor, her long straight hair half falling over her face. She looked up briefly when we came in, then continued with her work.
I glanced around. All the cabinets were filled, except one that stood beside a crib. I looked at Frau Strom.
“We are overcrowded,” she said. “The agency doesn’t seem to understand that I can’t make room. I have asked for more beds, but do they send them? Well, you’re not so very tall. You’ll fit. Put your things in the shelf, then. Emma, did you sweep under the beds?” she asked the girl.
“Yes,” the girl said softly, pushing back her hair.
“Here, then.” Frau Strom held out a chocolate bar, and the girl took it quickly. “Unpack your things, Lisa!” Frau Strom said, and I was surprised that she knew my name.
As soon as Frau Strom was gone, Emma began eating greedily, taking large bites of the chocolate.
“When is lunch?” I asked her.
“You missed it.”
I began to unpack, and Emma watched me, still eating.
“I’m Lisa Platt,” I told her, not at all sure that she cared.
“How do you do,” she said with some sarcasm. “I’m Emma. Emma, the housemaid.”
“What do you mean?”
“My wages,” she said, holding out what was left of the chocolate bar. “Would you like some?”
“No thanks.”
“Take a little piece, Lisa.”
I accepted, and immediately longed for more, but it was gone. “Where are the others?” I asked.
“Out playing in the woods, I guess,” Emma said. She fixed her keen blue eyes on me intently. “There’s nothing to do here, you know.”
“But what about Frau Strom?”
“What about her? She doesn’t do anything either, except curl her hair and go out shopping. It’s like a jail, you see. The worst thing about a jail,” she said, pushing back her long hair, “is that there’s nothing to do. We’re all just waiting.”
“For what?”
“Oh, different things. Some are waiting to leave Switzerland. I’m waiting to be adopted. Big chance—people only want babies. What are you waiting for?”
“To be with my father in America,” I said.
“Ah well, that is something worthwhile, at least. You won’t mind it here,” she said, smiling slightly. “The other kids aren’t bad. Say, do you play the piano?”
I shook my head. “I dance, though.”
“There’s one boy here, Werner, who plays the piano. He won’t do it anymore, though. Too many keys are stuck on that old thing in the parlor. We call Werner the professor. There’s nothing to do, but he’s always busy. He studies things, like bugs and flowers and rocks. I wish I could be that way,” she said wistfully. “I’m too restless.” She began to pace, as if to prove her words, and by her attitude it seemed that the only thing lacking were bars on the windows.
Ruth came in, looking as confused as I felt, asking, “Where is everybody?”
“Ruth, meet Emma,” I said, still unpacking my things.
“What’s that crib for?”
“Me.” I felt a lump rising in my throat.
“You can take the mattress out,” Ruth said at last, “and sleep on the floor.”
“No,” Emma said briefly. “There are mice.”
I couldn’t look at either of them. I dreaded the night, and when it came and the little room was noisy with girls all settling down into their beds, I climbed up into the crib. All talk ceased suddenly, and it seemed that everyone avoided looking at me. “Hey!” I cried out, unable to bear their silence, “look at me!” I clung to the bars and scratched violently and made faces like a monkey. Now there was laughter all around me, and they cried, “Oh, Lisa, do it again! That’s the funniest thing I ever saw!”
“Quiet now!” came Frau Strom’s voice from the corridor. The lights went out, and I curled up into sleeping position, the top panel of the crib pressing against my head.
I awakened ravenous. Supper the night before had consisted only of oatmeal and crackers and half an apple for each of us.
“When do we eat?” I asked Emma, climbing out of my bed.
“Never,” she replied. “Never enough.”
“What do you mean?” I demanded.
“We get oatmeal and beans, oatmeal and crackers, oatmeal and apples,” Emma said, her jaw firm with anger. “Oatmeal is cheap, you see.”
“I do not see!” I cried, feeling faint from hunger.
“You will,” Emma replied.
As Emma had said, oatmeal appeared unfailingly at each meal that day and the next and the next. There was only one helping for each of us.
“Nobody complains,” I said to Ruth incredulously.
“Maybe they’re used to it,” she answered. “But I’m not!” Her face had that look of angry determination I knew so well. “Come on,” she said, yanking my arm.
She half pulled me through the dim corridor, and when we stood in front of Frau Strom’s door, she knocked loudly. There was no answer, and she knocked again, harder, and we heard a shout, “Come in!”
The radio was blaring, and Frau Strom turned to look at us. “Well, what is it?” she shouted over the noise.
“My sister and I are hungry,” Ruth said distinctly. “We would like something to eat.”
Frau Strom stared at us, and her face turned redder still, as if she could not believe her ears. Deliberately she walked to the radio and turned it off, then faced Ruth. “What did you say?”
“We’re hungry,” Ruth repeated. “May we have something to eat?”
“I saw it from the first,” said Frau Strom, her eyes blazing. “It shows in your face. You are a typical troublemaker. Have you not eaten three meals every day since you arrived? Do you hear any of the other children complaining? At least they are not rude. At least they have some gratitude. Did you expect the Ritz Hotel? This is a charity camp. Charity!” She almost screamed the word, and my hands were trembling.
“It’s no good to give charity to some people,” she went on, breathing heavily. “They’re never satisfied. Well, I will tell you something, young lady. You will appreciate what you have here, and if you should dare to come to this room again asking for special favors,” her voice shook with anger, and she stepped close to Ruth, “if you should dare, you will be punished. In other countries children are starving and you—you—get out!”
We fled, the door slamming after us, Ruth sobbing while I tried in vain to comfort her. Ruth flung herself down on her bed, and I sat down beside her. At last Ruth looked up, her face red and tear-stained, and she said between clenched teeth, “She steals the money the agency sends for our food. She uses it to buy clothes.”
“Oh, Ruth,” I began, and then we heard Emma’s calm voice from the doorway.
“It’s true, of course,” Emma said. “She goes to town two or three times a week and comes back with boxes and boxes of clothes. She’s going again this afternoon. She had Pop get the car out for her. It’s our luck when she goes.”
“What do you mean?” Ruth asked, wiping her eyes.
“Pop will give us something to eat when she’s gone. He can never refuse us. He’s a nice old man, but a little bit …” she tapped her finger on her forehead, “you know, strange.”
As soon as Frau Strom’s car was out of sight, all of us as if on signal walked down to the kitchen, with Emma and Werner in the lead. For the first time the house rang with the noise of twenty-three boys and girls all talking at once, and there was a great deal of pushing and laughing as we crowded into the kitchen.
Pop turned from the sink, where he was washing a large pot. “Yes, my children, come in, little ones.”
There was laughter, for Werner, at sixteen was nearly as tall as the old man. “Do you have something for us, Pop?” Werner asked gravely.
“Well, chicken I do not have.” The old man smiled, his head bobbing. “Nor do I have eggs nor chopped livers. If you had seen the lunche
on spread at the Hotel Hofstaader, the buffet filled, and on an ordinary day, without even any dignitaries …”
“Do you have some bread, Pop?” Werner asked gently.
Pop opened the pantry and took out a long loaf. “That I have,” he said, “and how about some applesauce on top?”
He cut a thick slice for each of us and spread it generously with applesauce. “It should have a touch of cinnamon,” he said, shaking his head sadly, “but there is none.
The agency doesn’t pay for frills, Frau Strom always says. A woman quite in a class by herself.”
We all laughed, cheered by the food, and Werner said, “Tell us more about the hotel, Pop.”
I couldn’t understand Werner’s interest or the eagerness of the other children as they crowded close around the stool where Pop sat and began dreamily to share his memories.
I noticed then finally that Werner turned and gave a slight nod to two of the other boys. I saw them take off their jackets and move slowly away from the group, circling toward the pantry. They slipped noiselessly into the small storeroom. When they came out, they moved toward the door, holding their jackets, now curiously lumpy, under their arms.
Now the group began to separate, and Werner said, “We’ll go outside now, Pop. Thanks for telling us. It sounds very exciting.”
“Ah, yes,” Pop sighed, nodding and mopping his face. “That was a time, a time to remember.”
Once outside, the boys began to run, and the girls, laughing wildly, followed. I was caught up in the excitement and ran with them, not knowing where we were going or why, thinking only how wonderful it was to be running in the sunshine through the woods, feeling the wind in my hair.
Ways Through the Woods
WHEN WE REACHED a small clearing everyone stopped before a circle of large, flat stones.
“What’s happening?” I asked Emma, still panting.
“A cookout,” Emma replied, smiling. “Come on, let’s help gather some twigs.”
“What is there to cook?”
“Potatoes.”
“We stole them,” Werner said, coming up with a large log. “What do you think of that?” he demanded, with a nod at Ruth.
Ruth’s cheeks reddened, then she quickly looked away.
Soon a fire blazed in the circle of rocks, and we all sat around it until the potatoes were done. They were scorched and burning hot on the outside, half raw on the inside, but we feasted on them hungrily and called them delicious.
I looked around at the faces that had become familiar in just a few days. There were the twins, Nick and Anton, who spoke only Italian but made themselves understood nevertheless. There were Lotte and her brother David, both pale and silent; they had fled from Vienna. We knew nothing more. There was Carla from Holland, always gay, her blond braids swinging. Her parents had sent her to Zurich alone, intending to follow later.
Ruth and I were the lucky ones, with our mother close by. I wondered what my mother and the parents of the others would think if they saw us sitting there eating stolen potatoes. And yet, they must have been intended for us. How could people steal from themselves?
For the first time in many days I felt peaceful and happy. I began to wander away from the group, thinking of Papa and how he would love the forest. I wanted to memorize it all, to tell him later and let him share it. Just beyond the campfire circle was a field of tiny yellow and pink wildflowers. The wild grass reached up to my knees, and I bent down to let the fragrance surround me. Nearby, in a large fallen log, a colony of insects was working, building, and I stopped to watch. Still further a clump of willows stood bent together, and between their leaves I could see a stream flowing down the hillside, wearing the large stones into smooth, glistening mounds.
“You like it?”
I was startled, then I smiled at Werner, who stood beneath a tree, closely examining the bark.
“It’s beautiful,” I sighed. “I didn’t know there were so many beautiful places in the world. When we were leaving Germany, I looked out of the train window and I thought it was the end.”
“I know,” he nodded. “I felt the same. But that’s wrong. There is always something more. Look at this.” He motioned for me to come near. “See that perfect circle of holes? A woodpecker sits here every morning and makes these designs. This tree,” he said gravely, “is sixtyeight years old.”
“How do you know?”
“By counting the rings here where the branch was cut. It was cut with an axe,” he said. “You can tell by the marks. See this dark mark and the hollow place?” I nodded.
“The tree was struck by lightning some years ago, about ten, I think. New shoots are growing all around the scar.”
“How do you know these things?” I asked him, feeling awed and privileged to be his pupil.
“I read,” he said, “and I think about things. The secret is to concentrate, to forget about yourself.”
“Are there books here?” I had not read for weeks, and I longed, now, for something new to fill my mind, as Werner’s explanations had done.
“In the parlor,” he said, “on the shelf behind the piano there are some books.”
“Storybooks?” I asked eagerly.
“No. There are some on wildlife, a few about minerals and some almanacs. Don’t look so sad! Maybe there is a storybook or two. But it doesn’t matter. You can read about the wildlife or find facts in the almanac and make up the stories for yourself.”
No boy had ever spoken to me this way. Actually, my cousins were the only boys I really knew well, and they were always joking and playing pranks. Werner was much older than I, and yet I felt that he understood me, that he already knew whatever I would say.
“You’re from Berlin, too, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, stepping out into the clearing abruptly. “It’s going to rain,” he said. “I can feel it. Come on—we’d better get back.”
Later, when we were indoors and the rain gushed down against the windows and thunder cracked in the distance, I asked Emma about Werner.
“Do you like him?” she asked with a slow smile. I shrugged. “He’s very smart.”
“Yes, he is,” Emma nodded. “He knows so many things; mostly he knows about people. I was crying once, and he saw me and we talked. He knew why I was crying, I think, even before I told him. That’s when he told me about himself. He’s from Berlin, you know. One day he was at a friend’s house, and when he went home his parents were gone. He found out later that his father had been shot. He doesn’t even know where his mother is. His parents had both spoken out against the Nazis at a meeting. Friends sent him here to Switzerland. I guess he’s worse off than any of us, not knowing.”
I went down to the parlor and groped along the shelf behind the piano. The parlor was always dark, for there were no bulbs in the light sockets. I took the first book that my hand grasped and sat with it on the stairway, where a dim light shone and the noise from upstairs was muted. It was a very old book about birds. The pages were badly warped, some of them stuck together with mildew, but I read with complete absorption all afternoon and into the night, not realizing until later that there was to be no supper at all.
Perhaps Pop had forgotten, hypnotized by his memories. Perhaps Frau Strom, returning late from the city, happened to investigate the pantry and discovered the half empty potato bin. Nothing was said, and although my stomach growled, I went to bed contented, calculating how wise I would be if I read a book every single day of my life.
I read almost constantly for the next few days, while outside the rain continued in torrents, and Frau Strom kept to her room, unwilling, as she put it, to catch her death by going to town in the rain. To us it meant simply that there would be no stolen treats, either from the pantry or from Pop.
But one day Frau Strom approached me as I sat on the stair reading a book about Catholic saints. She interrupted just as in my story the torches were being lit around the pyre where St. Joan was tied to the stake.
�
�Do you have a sweet tooth, Lisa?”
I looked up, started, and saw that she held out a bar of chocolate.
I nodded, still dazed from the story.
“There is dusting to be done,” she said, “and the hall is thick with mud. You would think that people would wipe their feet, wouldn’t you?”
My eyes were fastened on the chocolate, a thick, large bar. Suddenly I hated her tight little curls and ruddy face, and the temptation she put in front of me. Oh, I wanted to be a martyr like St. Joan and the others so clearly pictured in the storybook. I wanted desperately to resist the bribe, to cry out that I would not work for the food that certainly we were entitled to receive. But I dearly love sweets, and my mouth watered until I felt faint from the desire.
I stood up and said, “I’ll do it.”
“You will have your reward when you are finished,” said Frau Strom, putting the chocolate back in her pocket.
I had never scrubbed before. What happens to the handle while you’re wringing out the mop? I had watched Clara do it dozens of times, and I had never seen her get sopping wet or getting her feet tangled in the long wooden handle.
I had to laugh at my own awkwardness, but by the time I had finished mopping the long hallway twice over, I was so tired and miserable that I sat down on the stair, feeling truly like a martyr. I dreaded the thought that anyone would walk on that floor. I remembered how Clara used to say, “Now, don’t you stamp mud all over my clean kitchen!” But she always said it with a twinkle in her eyes, and she was never really cross. Why hadn’t I ever told Clara how much I loved her while there was still time? The last time I said good-bye, I knew I would probably never see Clara again. Now I realized what that meant.
When Frau Strom came to inspect the hallway, she only nodded and handed me the chocolate, saying, “This is only for you. Don’t give any to your sister.”
I wouldn’t look at her. I wouldn’t let her see that I had been crying. She would have thought I was crying about the work—if she had noticed at all—but it was for Clara, only for Clara. I went up and found Ruth and divided the chocolate bar in half.
Journey to America Page 6
