by Jean Little
Once when she meant “fresh,” she said “raw.” The lady she said it to laughed at her.
“Well, I didn’t intend to buy cooked eggs,” she said.
Mama tried to correct her mistake but got flustered and could not think of the word she wanted. The lady turned away, as though Anna’s mother was not even there, and started poking at the fruit, turning apples over and putting them back.
I know how you feel, Mama, Anna thought. I know exactly.
If her mother had not started to talk with someone else, the girl might have gone to her then and there and spilled out her secret. At home she still spoke German but at school she now talked English all the time. Well, almost. Soon she planned to tell them at home. She daydreamed about how amazed they were going to be. But not yet. First she wanted her English to be perfect. She did not want Rudi to catch her making even the smallest mistake.
“Anna, don’t upset those cans,” Mama called over at her.
Anna shook her head to say she would not. Then she went home. The store was no longer her place. Not only the dust had disappeared. The quiet was gone too. Without the dust and the dimness, without the peace, without the chance to have Papa to herself for minutes at a time, Anna saw no reason to stay.
The next afternoon, she dawdled when school was let out. She was in no hurry to get home. She was still too young to play with the others, new glasses or no new glasses. Sometimes now she watched and thought she might be able to do the things they did if they would only ask her. They did not understand how changed her world was. They did not think to ask.
“Anna, aren’t you going to the store?” Isobel puffed, catching up to her as she went down the street like a snail.
Trudging along, looking at her feet, Anna shook her head.
“We can walk together then,” said Isobel.
Anna’s unhappiness was still wrapped around her like a thick cloak. She did not really hear Isobel’s words for a moment. She made no response and Isobel stepped back.
“Forget it,” she said, her eyes still puzzled. “I thought you’d want to.”
Then Anna understood. Almost too late, she threw off her misery. Her face glowed.
“I do want to, Isobel,” she said. “It would be very nice.”
Isobel was not bothered by the stilted words. She knew Anna. From then on they walked together almost every day. Now that Anna was so busy listening to Isobel’s constant chatter, she had little time to worry about missing going to the store. The older girl knew everything. She told Anna about Ben’s father, who played a violin in an orchestra and sometimes waited on tables. She explained what Hallowe’en was. She gossiped about Miss Williams.
“I think she’s in love,” Isobel said.
Anna’s mouth dropped open. “You do!” she exclaimed. “Who is she in love with?”
For once, Isobel failed her. “I’m not sure,” she said mysteriously, “but I have an idea.”
Anna nodded sagely. Isobel just was not telling.
The first time the older girl asked her to come and meet her mother, however, Anna hung back. Even with Isobel along to give her courage, she did not want to go into a strange house and face an unknown adult.
“Oh, come on!” Isobel pulled at her arm. “She won’t eat you. As a matter of fact, she’ll feed you.”
Inside the front hall, Anna tried to get behind her friend.
“Mo-ther!” Isobel yelled, shattering the silence.
Then Mrs. Brown was there, smiling at Anna with a smile so like Isobel’s that the new Anna smiled bravely back.
“Anna, I’m so pleased to meet you,” Mrs. Brown said.
Maybe I’m getting better looking, Anna thought as she stood in bashful silence but went on smiling.
No, nothing had changed about her except her new glasses.
And my dimples, Anna remembered.
Somehow she was sure she had not had dimples back in Germany.
“How about some bread and butter and brown sugar?” Mrs. Brown broke in on her thoughts.
Suddenly Anna felt empty right down to her toes.
“Yes, please,” she said, as though she had always known Isobel’s mother.
The two girls stopped in for a snack almost every day after that. Anna, realizing after a week or two how one-sided this was, asked Papa if she could bring Isobel to the store sometimes for something to eat.
“Of course,” Papa said at once. “Any time, Anna.”
Mama talked about it a bit more. Anna had known she would. She had never brought a friend to meet them before. She had not had anyone to bring.
“What is she like, this Isobel?” asked Mama. “Is she German?”
“You will see. No, not German,” was all Anna would say.
She knew Papa would like Isobel. She thought Mama might not like the way her eyes crossed. But Mrs. Solden smiled at Isobel as warmly as Mrs. Brown had smiled at Anna.
“Here are oatmeal cookies,” she said. “Just one each, though.”
She put the rest of the box behind the counter especially for them.
“Your mother’s nice,” Isobel said afterward as they nibbled their cookies to make them last.
Anna took another tiny bite. “Yes,” she said, “she is.”
She had almost answered, “Not as nice as Papa,” but she had caught the words back. They had not seemed fair even if they were how she felt. Mama had given them the cookies.
One afternoon in November as the girls neared the Browns’, Isobel said, “When I was little, Mum used to give me a glass of milk with my bread. And she’d always want to know if I wanted more.”
Anna was silent, taking this in.
“Then last year, when Dad couldn’t get work, she didn’t give me anything at all,” Isobel went on, her voice low.
Anna thought this over. It was her turn to say something.
“It is the money,” she said. “My mama and papa, they worry too about the money. Rudi says when he was small, he could have all the cookies he wanted. But he might be lying.”
Isobel nodded. Then, her face brightening, she went on, “But we will have Christmas this year no matter what. Mother promised.”
Anna stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk and stared at her friend.
“Always there is Christmas,” she stated.
“Not last year,” Isobel said. “Oh, we got one thing each, something to wear. But that was all. Dad said he was sorry but there was just no use in hanging up our stockings. The Depression had hit Santa Claus too, he said.”
Anna had to have a lot of this explained to her. She had never hung up a stocking. She quickly understood that Santa Claus was Saint Nicholas, der Weihnachtsmann — the Christmas Man. She did not know what the Depression was. Isobel did well with the first two but all she knew about the Depression was that her father had lost his job and there had been no money. Now he had a new job.
“He works for my uncle,” Isobel said. “They’re undertakers.”
“Under … what?” Anna asked.
Isobel’s cheeks went pink but she smiled.
“That is a word you really should know, Anna Solden,” she said. Then she explained. Isobel had to explain many, many things to Anna many times a day. It was tiring sometimes, but she did not really mind because Anna remembered what she was told. She would mutter each new word to herself, and next thing, you would hear her using it talking to Ben or even Bernard. Isobel, who worshipped Bernard, wished she knew how Anna had become such a friend of his.
“Undertaker,” Anna was murmuring now. “Undertaker.”
Isobel’s eyes sparkled. She hoped she was there when Anna tried to use that word. Anna looked up, caught her laughing, and laughed too. Alone with Isobel, laughter came naturally to the youngest of the Soldens.
That night at supper, Gretchen announced, “Papa, I have to have skates!”
Papa said nothing. Gretchen leaned toward him.
“All the girls skate,” she said. “They were talking about it today. When t
he ice is thick enough, that’s all they’ll do.”
“Wait a little,” her father said. “Christmas is coming.”
Gretchen thought Christmas was a long way off but she held her tongue. She knew her parents were worried about money. She wished she were Anna’s age again. Look at Anna right now! She was positively beaming. Gretchen wanted to slap her.
“Nothing’s funny, Anna,” she said coldly, “so stop smirking.”
“Gretchen,” Papa said ominously.
“I’m sorry,” Gretchen muttered, wishing she really dared slap her little sister.
Rudi, who had already traded his stamp collection for secondhand skates, gave her a look of sympathy. He knew what was important here in Canada even if none of the others did.
Neither of them guessed that Anna smiled because Papa had just said, “Christmas is coming.” They, who knew so much, had never dreamed that Christmas might not come. Anna, after her talk with Isobel, knew it was not certain at all. If there was no money, they would have to do without Christmas.
But now Papa had as good as promised. Gretchen or no Gretchen, Anna smiled on.
She saw her father look at her anxiously. Maybe he thought she, too, wanted skates. But she didn’t. Just Christmas itself, with the magic of the tree, with the singing, with special things to eat, special smells in the air, with extra happiness all through the house — that was what made her joyful.
“Enough about skates,” Mama said. “Who wants to wash the dishes and be my dearest child?”
She was laughing, teasing them.
“You know something, Klara,” Papa said, the tension leaving his face. “I think working in that store all day agrees with you. You are turning back into your old self.”
“Maybe, maybe,” Mama said. “But I am still looking for a dishwasher.”
At last Gretchen volunteered. It was her turn anyway. But lately, when Rudi took the garbage out without being asked, when Frieda sewed on her own button, when Gretchen helped to clean the silver which had finally come from Frankfurt, when Fritz sang his mother German songs, each of them became “the dearest child.” Life was getting back to normal. Even Anna liked it.
Not that she had herself become “the dearest child” at home.
“Anna, hurry and get the table set,” Mama called the very next night.
Still something in her voice said Anna was slow. Anna, trying to be quick, put the forks and knives crookedly and one spoon upside down.
“Oh, Anna,” Mama sighed, as they sat down. “When will you learn to take care!”
Anna straightened her own fork and felt anger boiling up inside her. Hadn’t Mama said to hurry? She began to eat in silence, leaning over her soup bowl.
“And don’t slouch,” Mama went on. “You’re so round-shouldered.”
She had just told Fritz to eat more quietly but Anna did not notice that.
Always I am the one she picks on, she stormed inside herself. She did not straighten up.
Fritz too felt picked on. He too thought it was unfair. He looked sideways at Anna’s furious face. “At least I speak English,” he said virtuously.
That was too much. Anna, who never answered them back when they teased, who stared straight through her tormenters, forgot the cold silence she had mastered under Frau Schmidt and exploded.
“You shut up!” she yelled at Fritz, who could not believe his ears.
“Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!” she added to make sure he got the message. In English, too!
Then she jumped up and ran from the table up the stairs to her own alcove where she threw herself, face down, on the bed.
This time, nobody would come up after her. In the Solden family, nobody ever left the table without being excused first by Papa. She had just been ruder than she had ever been in her life before.
And she had enjoyed it. She giggled into her pillow, remembering how Fritz’s eyes had popped. Then she stopped and lay very still. Was Papa terribly angry?
If she had gone to the stairs and listened, she would have heard her father telling the family that they were to stop teasing Anna and tormenting her.
“I’ve told you and told you that she is the youngest. And she does speak some English, Fritz, with that friend of hers. I’ve heard her. At home, we could all talk German now sometimes. We do not want to lose our own language.”
Anna, not hearing, told herself that it did not matter what anyone else thought if only Papa was not too angry.
Then, suddenly, her eyes gleamed and she began to sing softly, under her breath, at Mama, at Fritz, at the whole world which tried to bother her.
And if tyrants take me
And throw me in prison,
My thoughts will burst free
Like blossoms in season.
Foundations will crumble.
The structure will tumble.
And free men will cry,
“Die Gedanken sind frei!”
14
Rudi’s Meeting
EVERYWHERE IN TORONTO, store windows and coloured lights and radio programs and the Santa Claus Parade were telling children that Christmas was coming. Fritz and Frieda had been asked to sing a duet in German at the school Christmas Concert. Rudi had asked for a dog. He asked every year at Christmas, although all the children, Rudi included, knew he would not get one. Mama said five children were enough wildlife.
The first snow fell and melted by mid-morning. The second drifted down in fat lazy flakes and stayed on the ground like spun sugar for two whole days.
“Do they have Christmas trees here, Ernst?” Mama asked.
Her eyes twinkled. Anna was certain she was teasing. Still, she felt frightened for a moment till Papa said, “Of course!”
In spite of his sureness, in spite of the snow and the carols and the talk of the puppy they would not get, in spite of everything beginning to point to Christmas, there was an uneasiness in the house. The children tried to pretend it did not exist. After all, Mama and Papa did talk of Christmas — but not in the old way. Always before, they had entered eagerly into the planning. This year, they looked at each other soberly and remained silent.
“Rudi, what’s wrong with Papa and Mama?” Fritz put it into words at last.
“I’m not sure,” Rudi said slowly.
I know, Anna thought.
She did not tell because Rudi was the oldest. It was up to him to decide such important things. Perhaps, though, Rudi did not have a friend like Isobel who could explain.
It is the Depression, Anna said wisely to herself. It is not enough money.
Gretchen, not Rudi, arrived at the same answer. A couple of days later, when the children were alone in the house, she made it clear.
“People just aren’t buying enough at the store,” she said. “I think they don’t have enough money for the kind of Christmas we had in Frankfurt.”
As she finished speaking, she gave a sharp sigh. Anna knew her big sister’s dream of ice skates was vanishing.
Rudi glowered at her.
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about that,” he said, throwing himself down into Papa’s chair. “We all have to go to school.”
“If I were old enough, I’d quit and go to work,” Fritz announced.
He sounded so wistful they all laughed. Everyone knew how much Fritz loved school! Without Frieda’s help, he would have failed long ago. He was clever but he was lazy too.
“We’d all be glad to stop school, you Dummkopf!” Rudi said.
I wouldn’t, Anna thought.
For so long she had dreamed about the heaven of no school. It was queer to know, all at once, how much she would miss it now.
“Everybody think hard tomorrow,” Rudi said. “Kids in books always have ideas and save the family from starvation. Get home right after school and we’ll compare notes. There must be something!”
When they came down to breakfast the next morning, though, Rudi had had an idea already.
“What is it, Rudi?” Frieda said in a stage whi
sper while Mama was in the kitchen for a moment. Papa had gone to the store before any of them were downstairs.
“Shhh,” he warned her, frowning. Mama was coming back. “Just hurry tonight. I’ll tell you then.”
Mama, who used to be able to read their very thoughts, seemed unaware of the stir of excitement as the children left for school. When Anna shut the door behind herself, Mama was at the closet getting her coat. Every morning she hurried to the store as soon as they were gone.
Anna tried to think that day but she was busy learning a new poem by heart and showing Ben how to carry when you add. Anyway, Rudi had the answer.
“I can’t wait tonight,” she gasped at Isobel after school and streaked for home as fast as she could.
She was still late. She had farther to come than the others and the sidewalks were slippery. They would go on without her, of course. All the same, she was breathless when she tugged the front door open.
From the hall, as she struggled out of her scarf and coat, mittens and hood, she listened.
Rudi was in the middle of a speech. She could hear him walking up and down importantly as he talked. Papa did that sometimes.
“So that’s what we’ll do,” he said. “This year, we’ll make our presents for them and save them the Christmas money Papa always hands out. When they go to give it to you, Gretchen, you can just say, ‘Thank you, but this time we have decided to make our own arrangements.’ I’m pretty sure, the more I think about it, that they’re worrying about money for Christmas as much as anything. I mean, we can let down our old clothes and stuff. And Mama’s more careful about food. So the presents must be the thing. It’s good we don’t give each other anything.”
Everyone talked at once. Anna, tucking her mittens into her coat pocket, smiled. Good for Rudi!
“Great idea!” Fritz didn’t know he was agreeing with her.
“I don’t need you to tell me what to say to Papa.” Gretchen had her nose in the air. Then Anna, from the doorway, saw her grin at her older brother. “You did make it sound grand though,” she admitted. “Tell me again.”
While Gretchen practised the words over in an airy unreal voice and Anna leaned over to unbuckle her galoshes, the twins clamoured for attention.
