Listen for the Singing

by Jean Little

  “He says a watch doesn’t mind marking time till he can get back to it,” Anna quoted. “I think it’s really that he likes having a break every so often from working all alone.”

  “So you’re leaving the house about five o’clock,” Maggie said, “and making a night of it. I’m so glad you’re going to see The Wizard of Oz. I loved it — all three times.”

  Anna folded up the waxed paper which had held her sandwiches. It had started out as a bread wrapper. It was still good enough to be used again.

  “I almost feel as though I’ve already seen it from listening to you,” she said. “But being told about a thing ahead of time doesn’t spoil it for me. I like to be certain that things will have happy endings before I begin them or I worry too much. It’s the first movie I’ve ever seen in Technicolour. We all had chickenpox when Snow White was on. I wanted to see it so badly I thought I’d die.”

  “You’ve seen Mickey Mouse cartoons, though,” Maggie reminded her. “Not that it’s one bit the same because it isn’t.”

  “I’ll listen hard and get that one part of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ that you missed,” Anna said. “Oh, I wish school was over.”

  When the Soldens came out of the theatre, it was dark. Anna had learned the one phrase of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” that Maggie had not been able to remember and now could sing the whole song.

  Once they were off the streetcar and walking the last couple of blocks, she began to sing it. Mama hummed along with her.

  Gretchen and Frieda, who were walking out in front, began to sing “We’re Off to See the Wizard” in competition.

  Then Rudi, not to be outdone, began improvising on the song that the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion had sung. He is as good at improvising parodies as Paula, Anna thought, and stopped singing herself so she could hear his words.

  … I can tell you plump and plain

  I’d be quick on the trigger.

  I could read and write and figure

  If I only had a brain.

  “Do the Tin Woodman,” Anna said.

  “Um … let’s see,” he thought for a moment. “How’s this?

  If I had a heart like butter,

  I’d set all the girls aflutter.

  I would play the hero’s part.

  And then down I would settle

  With a miss who’s worth her metal,

  If I only had a heart.

  There was general applause as he finished.

  “Now do the lion,” Fritz urged.

  “The creative impulse has died,” said Rudi grandly.

  “Heck,” Fritz said. He and Frieda began to talk about the movie.

  Anna, a little tired, fell behind. Rudi dropped back beside her and sang very softly, so only she could hear:

  If of most things I am wary

  And though I find living scary,

  Yet the world I’d like to save.

  Though my knees would knock and rattle,

  I might gladly go to battle …

  Oh, if only I were brave!

  Anna looked at him, uncertain how to react. If he meant it lightly, as he had the others, he would have sung the words out for everyone to hear. Was he trying to tell her that he knew he was a coward?

  “That’s silly,” she said aloud. “You’re just playacting. How could a boy like you save the world anyway?”

  He didn’t answer but, as they walked under a street lamp, he winked at her.

  So he wasn’t taking himself seriously! She felt more comfortable. Yet she did not ask him to sing the verse for the others.

  One more block and they were home.

  It was Gretchen who spied the letter lying on the mat inside the door. She snatched it up before they would trample on it.

  “It’s … I think it’s from Aunt Tania, Papa,” she said, holding it out to him. “But it’s got a Dutch stamp.”

  Gretchen had a stamp collection so she should know. Did that, by any chance, mean that Aunt Tania had somehow got out of Germany into Holland? Anna didn’t know whether to feel excited or scared. She tried not to feel anything until she knew. Papa reached for the paper-knife on the hall table. Nobody moved while he slit the envelope open, pulled out two flimsy sheets of paper, and skimmed the first page. Then, even before he spoke, they knew that Aunt Tania was not safe.

  “Let’s go into the living room,” he said, “and read this together, sitting down. I should tell you right away that the letter was written in August and that Tania is still in Germany.”

  Even Mama had no remark to make. They moved ahead of him into the living room. Anna sat down on the hassock beside Papa’s chair. He had liked having her there, close to him, in the past. When he was tired or discouraged or when she was lonely or hurt, it had comforted both of them. Perhaps this was such a time.

  She knew she had been right when, holding the letter up to the light with his right hand, he let his left rest on her shoulder. He began to read:

  3 August 1939

  Dear Ernie,

  I am sure this letter will reach you, as sure as I can be of anything now, but I can’t explain how and I have no idea when. I have written to you regularly but I have had only two letters from you in the last six months. I suspect they are not getting through.

  I shall write in English since that is now your language. I have been working as a translator and I have been grateful to be fluent in English since work is hard to find. Father did not dream I would have to earn my own living when he had taught me to play the piano, sing lieder, embroider, and cook fancy dishes!

  “She kept her house beautifully,” Mama interrupted but then hushed, waiting for him to read on. Anna wondered if Rudi had caught that part about how good it was to know more than one language. But his face told her nothing.

  The man for whom I worked was in favour with the new regime. We discussed nothing but the work I did. It is best now not to know what anyone else thinks and to confide in as few as possible.

  “Aunt Tania has so many friends and loves so much to talk,” Gretchen said, as if to herself. “It must be hard for her.”

  “It would be if she were still in Frankfurt in her old home,” Papa agreed. “But she has moved. Listen.”

  Since Tobias’ death, I have lived in one room near your old school. But the day after tomorrow I am going to live with Tobias’ father. His housekeeper, who has been with him for almost half a century, was told last month that she must not work for him any longer. She would not have obeyed, had she had her way, but her son came a week ago and took her away. Mr. Riesmann was relieved because he did not want her to suffer on his behalf. She is not Jewish, although she insists that she feels as though she is, having lived with the Riesmann family for so long.

  Father does need care however. He had a stroke and must walk with a cane. Also he grows more and more forgetful.

  Anna, glancing at her mother, was surprised to see her lips tighten and her eyes grow angry.

  “Where’s Esther?” Klara Solden burst out. “Surely his own daughter should take responsibility for the old man.”

  “Esther and David and their children went to England while they still had a chance,” Papa said, the anger in his voice matching and then mastering that in hers. “She is safe, Klara, like you and me and our children. What would you have her do? Go back?”

  “I spoke without thinking,” Mama mumbled, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve. “Forgive me, Ernst.”

  “Your love for Tania is excuse enough,” Papa said, gently now, and began again to read:

  Ernst, please understand that it is not just for his sake that I am going to live with him. I need someone to care for and belong to. I’m tired of being alone. We two will be good for each other.

  This letter may sound sad. Yet day-to-day life is not filled only with unhappiness. Children play. Snowdrops bloom. There was the joyous day when I got your letter with the pictures of the children. They seemed so tall! Tell them that I do not forget them.

/>   Gretchen made a choking sound. Papa read on, his voice steady:

  You remember that Mr. Riesmann used to be a fiercely liberal newspaper editor? He has not altered his beliefs and he talks too much. So far, he seems to have been overlooked by the Gestapo, perhaps because he was once popular and he is now very old and frail. He surely can be no real threat to the State. When I am with him, I will try to keep him in more, hoping out of sight will be out of mind. This may be more difficult than it sounds. He is as stubborn as Tobias was.

  He has told me not to come. He has no fear for himself, but he is afraid for me. ‘I do not want you,’ he says. But we both know he is lying. Together we can talk of Tobias and of the old days and ease each other’s loneliness.

  There is so much I want to say but cannot. Whatever happens, Ernie, remember that I know exactly what I am doing and that I am doing it of my own choice.

  Give my love to Klara and to each of the children: Rudi, Gretchen, Fritz, Frieda, and Anna. Just saying your names over to myself gives me pleasure. It comforts me that you are together in a safe place. I pray God’s blessing on you daily.

  Don’t try to do anything for me no matter what news reaches you. You are so dear to me I could not bear it if you were here.

  Auf Wiedersehen,

  your loving Tan

  Papa did not look at anyone as he folded the thin sheets of paper and replaced them in their envelope. He then put it in the breast pocket of his coat.

  Rudi spoke first, his voice as deep as a man’s.

  “Papa, what does she mean at the end when she says whatever news reaches you? Does she mean the war? It sounds as though she knows something bad will happen. How can she?”

  Papa’s answer came slowly, as though it was difficult for him to get the words out.

  “She doesn’t know. Not for certain. The old man may attract no special attention. But she doubts this. I do too. He is a brave, outspoken man and too old to change his ways. When we left Germany, free speech was already dangerous. Even more so if you were a Jew as he is. It is astonishing that he is still left alone.”

  “Maybe he hasn’t talked to the wrong people,” Gretchen said, doggedly hopeful. “Maybe they’ve forgotten all about him.”

  “If they’ve forgotten him, why did they make his housekeeper leave?” Frieda asked.

  “Tania hoped we wouldn’t ask ourselves that question,” her father said. Then he looked at Rudi again. “I told you we must laugh, didn’t I, son? This letter makes it much harder. Impossible. Tania was saying goodbye. All we can do is pray for her safety, as she prays for ours. And rejoice that we are here ‘together in a safe place,’ as she says.”

  “But you can’t rejoice, can you, Papa,” Rudi said quietly, as though he were the adult and his father the child. “You want to go back for her.”

  “If I only could,” Papa said.

  If it weren’t for us, Anna thought, he would go and try. Even if he died for it.

  She looked up at Rudi. Seeing his expression as he, too, looked at Papa, she was sure he had the same thought.

  She tried to think of something to lighten the darkness that seemed to have fallen over them. After all, it was still the twins’ birthday. But she could not think of a thing and neither could anyone else. They said “good night” quickly and went away to their beds.

  The next morning, Maggie was the only one waiting when Anna arrived at their meeting place. Before Anna could speak, Maggie demanded. “Did you get the part I missed? In ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’?”

  “Yes,” Anna said, from what seemed to her a great distance. Yet she was thankful to Maggie. The song would allow her to stop thinking about the sadness at home. She began to sing it:

  Somewhere over the rainbow,

  way up high,

  There’s a land that I heard of

  once in a lullaby …

  She stopped.

  “I know that much,” Maggie said impatiently. “It’s the part right after that … Anna, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Anna said, pulling herself together. “I just was reminded of a lullaby someone used to sing to me when I was little. It was … it was about raisins and almonds and a little goat.”

  Then she hurried on with the song, her voice only wavering on the first two or three words:

  Somewhere over the rainbow,

  skies are blue

  And the dreams that you dare to dream

  really do come true.

  “That’s it,” Maggie cried. “‘And the dreams that you dare to dream …’ I kept singing ‘There’s a land’ again. And I knew it wasn’t right. Hi, Paula.”

  Suzy came running up the next minute and they were on their way.

  And soon, Anna found herself laughing at Paula’s account of the part she had been given in the Dramatic Society’s first play.

  “I told you I was the maid. Well, yesterday we got our scripts. I answer the phone once and the door twice. Miss Sutcliff had us read it through and I was putting my all into it and she said, ‘Paula, you’re not Lady Macbeth. Don’t spend five minutes slinking to the phone or they’ll have hung up.’ I thought maybe today I’d pretend to be hard of hearing and keep asking people to speak up. I have to get some drama out of it or what’s the point of being in it at all?”

  “You wouldn’t? Not really?” Anna said.

  “I dare you,” Suzy said, knowing Paula.

  The three of them went to watch the rehearsal. As Paula began to carry out her plan, they convulsed in stifled laughter. Miss Sutcliff did not allow her to finish, though. She stopped everything and delivered a few stinging remarks about people who could not resist “showing off.” Then, still keeping her face straight, she assigned the chastened Paula a different part. The girl who had been given it first was moving away.

  “It’ll offer you more scope, Paula,” the teacher said.

  She then dismissed the cast till the following afternoon.

  “Which one are you?” Anna demanded, as they started to leave.

  Paula grinned. “The one who gets poisoned in the first scene,” she said.

  Chapter 12

  For the next few days, Anna found herself thinking of the letter at the oddest times: while they were shopping for shoes, when she was struggling with homework, during breakfast, and nearly every night before she fell asleep. Then, bit by bit, the drama of her own life came between her and thoughts of Aunt Tania. By the end of October, it seemed the letter had come years before. They heard nothing more but they did not expect to. Anna even caught herself hoping they wouldn’t, because she was afraid of what might have happened since August.

  Rudi had now almost disappeared into the world of University. He was sometimes home for supper but more often he came in late and ate what Mama had kept warm in the oven for him. He worked long hours in the library.

  “He is growing too thin,” his mother worried aloud, as he hurried out of the house early one Saturday morning, “and he is not happy. Yet he will not talk to me. I ask and he brushes my questions off like flies.”

  Anna was too busy in her high school life to be much aware of her older brother. He didn’t look too thin to her. And Rudi had plenty of reason to be happy, she thought. He was studying all his favourite subjects, and he loved studying.

  Then, a couple of days later, she passed him in the hall downstairs and she saw his face suddenly blaze with excitement

  “Oh, I see, I see!” he cried out. “It’s so beautiful!”

  Anna stood still and watched him rush away up the stairs, his feet stumbling because his eyes were still bent on the book he held in his hands. She had seen enough to know it had something to do with a kind of mathematics completely outside her experience. How could he possibly get excited about anything in a book like that!

  Well, Mama’s wrong about him being unhappy anyway, she told herself, going up to work on her own homework. She had not known that her mother’s words had disturbed her until she felt a sudden relief at seeing that th
ey were not true.

  She told Papa about it later. Her father smiled.

  “Rudi has a fine mind,” he said. “It is wonderful to watch him discovering how to use it, to see it becoming such a joy to him. But you, Anna, how is your math? What are you studying this year? I have trouble keeping everyone straight.”

  “Algebra,” Anna said, looking away. She wished she could ask Papa for aid but he had often admitted he was no mathematician. Mama kept the books at the store, but she had never studied algebra. Anyway, Mama was like Paula — quick herself but unable to explain to someone else. Rudi, of course, would know all the answers but he seemed so busy, and Anna had never in her whole life gone to him when she was in trouble. He seemed kinder now but preoccupied. And what if he laughed at her! Anna changed the subject. “I love my English teacher, Papa. But I’m having great trouble with French.”

  “French?” Papa was all interest, algebra forgotten. He spoke French almost as well as he did English. He loved studying languages the way other people loved hockey or chess. “What’s wrong?”

  “The accent marks in my book are so small. I have trouble making them out and I can’t remember them. And Miss Raymond takes off points every time you slant one the wrong way. The circumflexes, too.”

  “Of course, they must be right,” Papa agreed with Miss Raymond. “What if I make you a big dictionary of your vocabulary with all the accents in, big and black? Couldn’t you memorize them from that?”

  “That would be perfect,” Anna said, smiling at him. “Oh, Papa, you’re such a help!”

  Her father laughed at her but looked pleased and went to get large sheets of paper and a big black crayon so he could begin. As he worked at it, she came to watch. He looked up.

  “Anna, when you want to practise these words, let me help you in the evening. If you say them correctly, you will soon know which accent belongs where.”

  So French became easier. But algebra was still completely beyond her. The only consolation was that Mr. McNair had not yet discovered how little she knew. She always had her homework done, because she copied Paula’s at lunchtime. Thank goodness math was last period in the afternoon!

  One day in November, they moved from cooking to sewing in home economics and Anna had to face Miss Marshall and break the news that she could not thread a needle or, once threaded, make small neat stitches with one, and that her parents had forbidden her to use a sewing machine.