The County of Birches

by Judith Kalman

  I am very aware of how different the street seems. Everything looks clearer than before, and sharper. My gladness, too, is so acute it hurts. I’m so relieved to be forgiven and allowed another chance. The blackness came and swallowed me, but I was granted a reprieve. I don’t know why I’m so lucky. I got close to the abyss, teetered over the blackness, but it only got a part of me. Unlike that other little girl, my half-sister, Apu’s first daughter, who never came back from Auschwitz. I will have to stay sharp from now on so I can see what’s coming.

  When I get home I plan to strip off these hot, scratchy clothes, throw them away, these wretched, traitorous pants that presume I will return the same as I went. I’m not that same baby. I hate any part of her trusting innocence. I itch to tear the guileless posy off the infantile bib.

  Then I forget. As soon as I step into the cool shade of the house and out of the pitiless light, insight evaporates. Apu enfolds me like something inestimably dear, and Lili pulls me into the sitting room that is arranged for a party. For me? Life is seductive, erasing what I’ve learned. I have already lost it, the horrible fact of my father’s imperfect protection. I’m pulled excitedly to something set up in the bay window. Overwhelmed, giddy, I don’t immediately recognize what it is. Something new, a pyramid of blue and red squares. I gaze a moment, then lift the top block off the pyramid, delighting in its solid, wooden heft. I close my hand around it, feel the smooth, curved edges, hard but not jagged, satisfyingly substantial. The block has weight and bearing.

  It doesn’t take me long to become an avid builder. I build houses, schools, hospitals. I build enclosed pastures and paddocks that surround fanciful edifices characterized by fairy-tale towers. The blocks are the last thing I let Mummy pack before our trans-Atlantic voyage, although she repeatedly threatens to leave them behind if I don’t clear them out of her way.

  But it’s not until we move into our new suburban Montreal home that the blocks realize the potential I had sensed when I lifted the brick at the top of the pyramid. I start to build bridges. I build them over and over again, using red and blue pylons and a yardstick overtop. I build boats from blocks by taping on white paper sails. “This is the Empress of Britain,” I say, “and this is the Queen Elizabeth.” I sail fleets on the pale hardwood floorboards I call the Atlantic Ocean, and pass them under the measuring stick held up by red and blue cubes.

  Apu sits nearby in the white-walled kitchen, writing letters. Our mail in Canada is exotic. It comes from Argentina and Australia, Hungary and Britain, Haifa, New York and Philadelphia. Apu is constant and loving, a devoted relation to whomever he has left. And, over the years, some relatives he had given up hope for are resurrected, as if from the dead. He corresponds with them all, discovering from someone recently exhumed that another cousin he’d left for dead has resurfaced in Boston or Sydney or Utica. He reads the letters of reunion he composes aloud to my mother before sticking on the stamp. I pile up my blocks again, this time as high as possible without their falling. The yardstick balances precariously on top, thinnest of planks to be thrown across the void.

  THE NEW WORLD

  LADIES’ WEAR

  “Tiens,” my aunt Cimi said, standing up from the shop’s worn parquet where she’d been kneeling to tack up the hem of the prom dress Lillian was trying on. She brushed some stray threads from her own spruce, figure-hugging skirt, then stepped back to get a good look at Lillian.

  “Tu vois comme ça change tout? Maintenant t’es vraiment mignonne.”

  Lillian seemed to agree as she studied her reflection in the floor-length three-way mirror. She had assumed a straight-backed pose in the balletic fourth position and three transfigured Lillians gazed back at her from different angles, all of them irritatingly pleased with themselves.

  My cousin Simone and I had peeked from behind the service counter where we were playing cards, suffused in the hopeful fragrance of new fabric. It was a privilege to be admitted into the adult preserve of Cimi-néni’s store in Montreal North. I had promised Mummy not to disgrace her.

  “That one’s the nicest,” remarked Simone, but I shrugged without interest. It would be ages before I could fit into anything Lillian got now. I had just grown into the English woollens Mummy had stored away for me. How I had coveted the red tartan dress and two-piece mauve costume with the pleated skirt that Lillian had worn on special occasions in London. I aspired to be like her, imagining the swing of fine pleats against my confident stride, but when Mummy brought out the garments for me last fall, limp and stale from storage, reeking of mothballs, they had failed to transform me into the competent older sister. The wool itched mercilessly. I was more used to the nylon we wore now in Canada. And the mauve skirt hung shapeless, all its perfect pleats crushed.

  “Don’t be so picky, Dana,” Mummy had scolded. “These clothes were good enough for Lillian.”

  Mummy draped the matching cropped jacket of the prom gown over Lillian’s bare shoulders. Now my sister looked like a powder-blue brocade obelisk, with a spike of luxuriant dark hair. Mummy and Cimi-néni exchanged a knowing glance over the top of Lillian’s head.

  “Oui, c’est comme ça la vie! Les jeunes deviennent toujours plus belles, quand, nous-autres, nous prenons de l’âge.”

  Cimi-néni’s family’s French and our family’s English reflected the linguistic polarities of the city, but just by coincidence. When Cimi-néni and Uncle André fled Hungary, they tried living in France first, much like we had initially emigrated to England. Our adopted languages were both lingua franca in Montreal, where my mother was starting to add French to her repertoire.

  Mummy didn’t take aging as philosophically as Cimi-néni’s comment suggested. Age wasn’t really a threat to Cimi-néni yet. Vibrant, petite, with a shapely athletic figure, Cimi-néni bounced from showroom to kitchen and back again, still looking fresh. Mummy’s beauty, on the other hand, had grown overblown and blowzy, like a blossom about to drop its petals. She pulled Lillian’s shoulder strap straight and pressed her lips together as though biting back her irritation with her sister. It was boring, watching them ogle Lillian.

  “Come on.” I pulled Simone back behind the counter, but I found I’d lost my taste for Crazy Eights. “That’s okay,” my cousin said, putting up with my mood.

  My cousin’s nickname at our house was the Best Girl in the World. This was so true neither Lillian nor I felt particularly put out by it. It bothered only Mummy.

  “Ah,” my father would say as Simone danced into our house when Uncle André relented, letting her stay for an overnight visit. My father dropped whatever he was doing and stood up, just as he would to greet an adult visitor. “Here comes the Best Girl in the World,” he said, holding out his arms to her in delight.

  Mummy told Apu not to be a fool, he’d make the child self-conscious, but Simone’s smile readily excused what she understood to be hyperbole. Like Cimi-néni, Simone was pretty, unpretentious and obliging. There would have been no contest among us. Mummy envied Cimi-néni for her daughter’s pliant will and even temper, in the same way that she resented Cimi-néni’s wealth. Lillian was high-strung and unpredictable, while my flaws were flagrantly apparent: I was selfish, loud and talkative to start with. And, unfortunately, I looked like my father.

  “Yes,” sighed Mummy whenever this resemblance was remarked upon. She took it personally. After all, I could have had the neutral loveliness that ran in her family. Surely it was contrary-mindedness on my part to take on the pronounced Semitic features of my father’s side, when their brains would have sufficed. My cousin Simone hadn’t made the same hapless error. Simone managed to look like her bear of a father, but such a sweet, translucent and gracious version it wasn’t necessary to forgive her for it.

  “We can say hi to Tante Helène, if you want,” she offered, knowing how I liked to poke about the stockroom.

  Tante Helène was Mademoiselle Foissy to me, but her doting over Simone extended my way—la petite cousine—the few times I was in the shop. Compared to t
he neon-lit showroom, the back office was dark and close and secret. Boxes overflowed with white plastic hangers. Others held tissue paper that was piled and pressed so immaculately flat I longed to grab a bunch to crumple. But even Simone was forbidden to touch things back here. Dresses hung on racks, set aside for alterations or held on deposit, no longer Cimi-néni’s and Uncle André’s to pardon if you soiled them with a sticky finger. There were treasures, too: trims, buttons, samples and remnants. The clean chemistry of unused fabric was headier than in the shop. I loved the oddments, more fascinating to me as scraps than as ready-to-wear, for I was an ardent seamstress of clothes for my dolls. In the tiny office, Mademoiselle Foissy perched on a high wooden stool, filling in the ledger. She cocked her head at us, a frail woman with her glasses pushed down on her nose.

  “Viens.” She crooked her finger at us, slid off the stool and led us towards some samples. “Regardes ces boutons comme ils miroitent.” She showed us a cardboard flat of gold-painted buttons with sparkling glass centres. Knowing of my penchant, she winked at me and cut off a set of four. “Gardes-les pour tes poupées.”

  “Et pour toi, ma belle.” Mademoiselle Foissy patted Simone’s blonde helmet and produced a square pelt of synthetic fur that was so soft and plush I ached to wrap it around the unyielding shoulders of my bride doll. Simone rubbed it against her cheek. She longed for a cat more than anything, but Uncle André said that the string of au pair girls who worked for them at home came fresh from the country where they were used to letting cats run wild. There would be fleas in the house, dead birds in the yard and run-over kittens. Cimi-néni told Mummy that Uncle André had had enough of animals before the war. He would never have mentioned his life in Hungary to his daughter.

  “Comme un vrai minou, n’est-ce pas?” Mademoiselle Foissy whispered conspiratorily to Simone.

  The back door to the parking lot opened, illuminating the dim interior briefly before filling with my burly uncle. We all felt a little abashed, caught fiddling with the merchandise.

  “Mesdemoiselles!” he exclaimed, feigning pleasure. My unexpected appearance in his stockroom meant that my mother wasn’t far behind, and it made Uncle André nervous whenever his sister-in-law’s inherently Jewish presence loomed into his life, especially in public, where his Canadian associates and employees might, by an indiscreet “slip” of my mother’s sharp tongue, catch on that we were Jewish.

  “Alors mes enfants, vous vous amusez bien?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow at the treasures in our hands.

  Adept at managing her father, Simone showed that she understood the gifts were really from him. “Merci, Papa,” she piped, “c’ est si doux.” She stretched on tiptoe, clasped her golden arms around her father’s neck, and rubbed the patch of cloth on his cheek to share her pleasure with him. Then she planted two kisses, one on each side of his prominent beak. Knowing what was good for me if I wanted to keep the buttons, I followed suit.

  “Hi, Uncle André. Thanks,” I mumbled, discharging the obligatory smack. With Lillian’s prom dress at stake behind the door, my mother would expect me to do my part to humour Uncle André. “Hm,” he responded, barely politely tapping my back.

  Uncle André was right not to trust me, I suspected. I liked to talk too much. I talked to whoever or whatever was around. Alone, I often talked to my dolls or sang to myself all the thoughts that flitted through my head. I was careful not to reveal anything to Simone about being Jewish, but even I doubted I was always reliable.

  We trailed my uncle into the shop where he took in the scene at a glance. Mademoiselle Simard up front assisting a customer, two women browsing through the carousel of sale items, a grubby-handed toddler grabbing at the garments from his stroller. Lillian in prom regalia as Cimi-néni, instead of seeing to the unattended browsers, pinned on a corsage to complete the effect.

  “Et voilà, il arrive justement.” She rose as smoothly to her husband’s unwelcome arrival as had Simone. These feminine wiles intrigued me. My mother always got what she wanted by force of will, but Cimi-néni and Simone finessed their way around my uncle. Cimi-néni had intended to give the dress to Lillian as a little gift Uncle André didn’t have to know about; now she would use another tactic.

  “André,” she went on, “regardes ta nièce comme elle est belle!”

  Lillian shifted awkwardly in her saddle shoes, suddenly self-conscious under male scrutiny.

  “Naturellement,” said Uncle André with a chivalrous nod at my mother who, I knew, wouldn’t be taken in for a moment. “Lili,” he said, “you’re now ready for the big dance?”

  “Our graduation present for Lili,” Mummy put in quickly, lest there be any concern that she was taking hand-outs from my aunt.

  “Ben non, I won’t hear of it,” said Uncle André. Obviously he liked what he saw of the obelisk. “This is a big event. One little dress is nothing. Cimi, didn’t we just get a shipment of new summer stock?” he continued, warming to the role of benefactor. “There were some nice pieces, I remember. Lili, what do you wear?” He sized her up appraisingly. “Certainly no bigger than a six.”

  Lillian, saddle shoes forgotten as she grasped the bounty that was about to descend on her, surprised me with an artfulness that had had few opportunities to express itself between essays, examinations and books. Launching fluently into school-learned French, she assured Uncle André that she didn’t need or want any new summer clothes. After all, she’d just be lounging all summer, in the back yard.

  What could she be thinking to look crosswise at such a gift horse? Mummy would wring her neck. But Mummy, when I glanced in her direction, looked strangely self-satisfied.

  “You don’t mean to hide her away!” Uncle André addressed his sister-in-law, who was for once blessedly speechless. “That’s nonsense. We could use a lovely young girl right here in the shop.” Lowering his voice, he added something unflattering about the desmoiselles Foissy and Simard. Knowing shrewdly when to efface herself, Mummy retreated to a corner armchair and watched, gratification deepening as the afternoon progressed, as Lillian let Uncle André turn her into a mannequin.

  Barefoot by now, she preened in one ensemble after another. “No, that is too yellow for your complexion,” Uncle André declared, and she compliantly discarded that number in favour of another. Once in a while Lillian voiced a preference, but the power of veto was ceded to my uncle. After all, Lillian seemed to imply in her gestures, the pleasure should be foremost the giver’s. I couldn’t believe a grown-up would actually fall for it, but Uncle André became ever more expansive as my sister pirouetted in front of him.

  No sooner than a dress was approved by my uncle, Cimi-néni hurriedly wrapped it, so he wouldn’t see how much Lillian was accumulating. Box after box, Simone and I carried the new wardrobe out back, stacking up a load my mother would stash into the taxi that would be more than justified by this shower of fortune. Lillian’s thanks were heartfelt. Gracefully dodging the big hook of our uncle’s nose, Lillian kissed him on both sides and promised to appear at nine o’clock sharp on the first Monday after the close of school.

  Uncle André was visibly pleased with Lillian, who had grown, in the few short years since our arrival, to be so appealing. He was glad to reward her for adapting so sensibly. But mostly he looked relieved. For all his apparent pleasure in the afternoon’s proceedings, Uncle André had pulled out dress after dress as though to stave off the inevitable. He passed a handkerchief over his high brow before bending to kiss his sister-in-law goodbye. Mummy hadn’t denounced him this time. Not yet. Not once in the long afternoon had she succumbed to a foreign phrase that might give us all up.

  A REASON TO BE

  “Lili?” Mummy asked casually one evening during summer break. Lillian had sunk into the armchair and stretched, fanning her sore toes on the teak coffee table. A nylon sheen emanated from her limbs, and the new synthetic fabric of her blue shift from Uncle André’s store hadn’t wrinkled despite the hot bus ride home. Two oversized white buttons seemed to pin th
e dress to each damp shoulder. Mummy stood framed in the opening to the living room, brandishing a soup pot she swiped dry with hard, purposeful strokes.

  “Do you think at McGill, there will be a B’nai B’rith group?”

  Wary, Lillian pretended ignorance. “B’nai-quoi?” she demanded. She had just matriculated with a ninety in French oral and liked to show off the fact that she conversed daily with the French-Canadian customers she served in Cimi-néni and Uncle André’s shop.

  “Don’t be smart,” said Mummy in Hungarian. “The university isn’t going to be like Mountview High. At McGill you will meet all sorts of suitable Jewish boys.” This was the first we heard of the term that became Mummy’s code word for Lillian’s post-secondary education.

  Apu would get home later than usual this evening because it was Friday. First he had to stop at a deli on St. Lawrence Boulevard, to choose a Shabbas challah and coiled poppyseed buns for the sabbath brocha. Mummy picked up crusty white bread and baguettes at La Savoreuse here in Ville d’Anjou, but real bread—challah, bagels, pumpernickels and ryes—couldn’t be had in our suburb. I rode my bicycle desultorily up and down Boulevard de la Loire, weaving around the crescent across the street from our house. It was too hot to pedal in earnest. I was hungry and impatient for Apu to arrive.

  Mummy had been preparing the meal, off and on, since morning. Out on her lawn chair under the filmy awning of a sapling willow, she’d snapped green beans for the evening’s cold sour cream soup. At noon, she’d chopped cucumbers and onions for the salad that needed time to marinate and chill. Mummy grumbled about being overworked on her summer holiday, but her meals were inspired by memories of her own mother’s kitchen where, although Rózsa the cook had held dominion, only my mother’s Mamuka’s hands ever shaped the feather-light dumplings that went into their Sabbath soup. As Mummy dipped a moist slice of veal into a dusting of flour, then soaked it in egg and dredged it slimily through bread crumbs she had crushed herself, her face rested into a look that approximated serenity.