The Cats in the Doll Shop

by Yona Zeldis McDonough

  “Oh no!” Sophie moans. “How could he?”

  “Let’s call Papa,” I say. “He’ll know what to do.” I can see Sophie hesitate. But the sound of the meowing is so pitiful that she agrees. We run back up the stairs alongside the doll shop to our apartment, where Papa is now playing a harmonica. “Papa, we need to see you right now!” Sophie says, her voice low and urgent.

  “I was in the middle of playing for our guests,” Papa says with a smile. “Can’t it wait?”

  “No, it can’t,” she says. I see her eyes pool with tears, and Papa must see it, too, because his smile fades as he turns to everyone and says, “Please excuse me. I’ll be right back.” Sophie never, ever cries, so if she is crying now, I think Papa must know there is a serious reason.

  “What is it, Sophie?” he asks gently when we are alone. She turns to me and says, “You tell,” before pressing a fist to her trembling mouth.

  “Something terrible has happened, Papa,” I say, grabbing his warm, comforting hand. “You have to come now, so you can see.”

  “Tell me what this terrible thing is,” Papa says, but instead of answering, I lead him down the stairs and out the back door. We stand in the yard, where the sounds of meowing continue to pierce the velvety blue night.

  “Cats meowing? Cats meow to communicate with each other. That’s not so terrible,” he says.

  “Oh yes it is,” I say, and I explain about the man, the broom, and the terrible fall from above.

  All at once Papa stiffens. “Did the man have a thick mustache?” he asks. We nod, and Papa adds, “I know him. He runs a shoe repair shop on Hester Street. He’s bad tempered and mean to his employees. And I’ve heard that he deliberately does shoddy work so people have to come back and pay for another repair. I’m not surprised to hear what he’s done.” The meowing continues. “Not surprised, but disgusted all the same. You girls were right to tell me.”

  Papa strides across the barren yard and pulls himself up and over the brick wall that separates it from the yard adjoining ours. Sophie and I sit down on the ground and wait. After about fifteen minutes, we hear Papa rustling in the yard behind ours, and once more, he is up and over the wall. This time, he stumbles as he lands. Then he picks himself up and brushes off his pants.

  “Did you find them?” Sophie asks in a small voice. “Are they all right?” Her fist is back at her mouth again.

  “I found the mother cat,” says Papa. “She’s fine.”

  “And what about the kittens?” I am not sure I want to hear the answer.

  “I only found one kitten,” Papa says carefully.

  “But there were others. I saw them.”

  “They didn’t survive the fall.” Papa’s face is grim as he delivers this news.

  Sophie and I just look at each other, stricken.

  “What about the one kitten you did find, Papa?” I say finally.

  “He’s alive. But I think he broke his back leg in the fall. It was dangling in a very peculiar way. It didn’t look right to me,” Papa says.

  “That’s so sad!” I burst out.

  “Yes, it is,” Papa agrees. “But his mother found him, and so at least he’ll be fed.”

  “What about his leg?” I ask. “Do you think it will heal?”

  “I don’t know,” Papa says.

  “What if it doesn’t?” Sophie asks.

  “Well, the leg might wither and fall off,” says Papa. “I saw that happen once, to a cat back in the old country. She hurt her leg in a fall from a roof. The leg just sort of hung there for a while. Eventually, it dropped off.”

  “That sounds terrible,” Sophie says.

  “Not as terrible as an infection. A cat can live with three legs. But an infection could kill him.”

  Sophie and I are silent, thinking about that for a moment.

  “What will happen to the cats?” asks Sophie.

  “There’s not too much more we can do right now,” Papa says. “We can leave scraps out for the mother. If she’s hungry, she’ll come and find them. Her kitten isn’t ready to eat solid food yet anyway.”

  “We already set out some food,” Sophie says. She shows Papa the box with the rags and the dish of fish scraps. Neither one of us mentions the cream.

  “You girls can keep setting out scraps. But don’t try to find the cats, and whatever you do, don’t touch them. I don’t want either one of you getting scratched. Or even worse—bitten.” He turns to go inside.

  Once Papa has gone, my sister turns to me and in a small, almost desperate voice says, “That man who swept the cats off the fire escape . . .”

  “What about him?”

  “How could he have been so cruel? How could anyone?”

  “I don’t know,” I tell her. For a moment, it seems I am the big sister, and she is the younger one. I put my arms around her in a fierce hug, and just as fiercely, she hugs me back.

  5

  WAITING

  The next day, we get dressed up and go with our parents to the shul on Rivington Street. Sophie wears a velvet dress Mama made out of an old drape, and the garnet earrings. I wish I had a dress like that. Trudie and I wear nice dresses, too, made of black and ivory striped ticking. But they are not as nice as Sophie’s dress. When I complain to Mama, she says that since Sophie is older and almost a young lady, it’s important for her to start wearing more grown-up looking clothes. My turn will come, she tells me. I sigh. It feels like a long way off.

  After shul, we don’t go to school but back home where we spend time in the yard, looking for the cats. My friend Esther comes over, and we tell her everything that’s happened—seeing Ginger Cat, the box, the food, the man with the mustache, the wounded kitten. Esther can’t believe that the man could have been so cruel. “I think he should be arrested!” she says.

  Ten days after Rosh Hashanah is Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. This year, Sophie decides that she will fast for the whole day, just like Mama and Papa. In the past, I felt grateful that we didn’t have to do that. We girls would skip breakfast, go to shul in the morning, and then come home for lunch. I still don’t want to fast all day, but I am not sure I like it that Sophie is moving away from us.

  During the next couple of weeks, we keep a lookout for Ginger Cat and her kitten, but we don’t see either of them. I even go up to the roof, because I think might be able to see better from up there.

  The first time, I see nothing. I try again the next day, after school, and I am rewarded by the sight of the kitten nestled close to Ginger Cat. They are both lying near a stunted, nearly bare bush. The kitten doesn’t have much fur, and he is as scrawny as the bush. Still, I wish I could pick him up and cuddle him. Ginger Cat looks very gentle and sweet lying there with her baby. Although Papa warned us, it’s hard to believe she would ever scratch or bite.

  I go for several more days without seeing him again. But the next time I spot the kitten from the roof, I notice something truly amazing. He is trying to stand up! He balances, shakily, on his three good legs. The fourth, with its useless paw, dangles behind him. I watch as he pulls himself up, then flops back down. He tries again, with the same result. Then he tries a third time, and manages to remain standing for several seconds longer. I am so proud of him! Although it is clearly hard, he is trying to stand up all by himself. And somehow I have not only the hope but the faith that he will be able to do it.

  I also notice that he’s starting to grow fur—he’s like his mother in color, only lighter, as if someone has mixed white paint with the orange. I rush downstairs so I can tell my sisters. “Guess what I saw!” I say to Sophie and Trudie, who are in the kitchen peeling potatoes. I tell them all about the brave little cat who is just so, so, plucky—that’s what he is! And then I realize: his name should be Plucky.

  “Plucky,” repeats Trudie, as if trying it on for size.

  “I like it,” says Sophie. “It fits.” The glow of her approval stays with me for the rest of afternoon.

  I have been so busy cat-watching that I alm
ost forget that today is the twenty-eighth of September—that’s the day when we are supposed to start checking the Shipping and Mails section of the newspaper. When we look, we see that Tania’s boat is due to arrive tomorrow!

  “Can we go with you to get her?” I ask Papa. He has finished working at his desk in the doll shop and is putting all his papers together. “Please?”

  “You have to go to school,” Papa says. “You’ll see her when you get home.”

  That night, Sophie, Trudie, and I stay up talking long after lights out. This is one of our last nights in the big, old bed, and I am so glad. Squashed in between my two sisters, I feel like a jack-in-the-box, ready to pop out any second.

  “How will she understand us?” Trudie asks. “She won’t know any English.”

  “We’ll have to teach her,” Sophie says. “That’s going to be my job, remember?”

  “We can all help,” I say quietly.

  “Oh, of course,” says Sophie. “I’m not sure how much time I’ll have anyway. I’m very busy in school.”

  “I hope she doesn’t bring too many things with her,” Trudie says, looking around our small room. “It’s already crowded enough in here.” Shifting once more in the tightly packed bed, I have to agree with her. Still, I am eager for Tania’s arrival.

  “I hope she’ll like dolls,” I say. “Do you think she will?”

  “Doesn’t everyone like dolls?” Trudie says. She reaches down to touch her own doll, which is in a box on the floor just beside the bed. Even though Sophie and I have asked her a hundred times not to do this, she insists on keeping the box right there, where we are apt to stumble on it.

  “We can show her the doll shop,” I say. “I’ll bet she’ll love it.” I feel a pang when I remember that I had wanted to make Tania a doll but never got around to it. And the ideas I had before—the Russian princess, the Spanish dancer—somehow seem wrong to me now.

  The next day drags by. I keep looking at the big clock that hangs on the front wall of my classroom. It seems to me that the slender black hands do not move at all but are frozen in place. History, geography, arithmetic . . . Will the lessons ever end? Our teacher, Miss Marsh, is not even here today. She is out sick, and we have a substitute. She is very young and giggles nervously when she has to give us instructions. I feel sorry for her.

  Finally it is three o’clock, and as soon as we are dismissed, I race down the stairs in search of my sisters. We agreed that we would walk home as a group and greet Tania together. We don’t stop to look at anything along the way, and even though today I have my allowance money in my pocket, I am not tempted for a second to stop for a root beer or penny candy.

  But when we all clatter into the shop, we see Mama bent over her sewing machine and Papa at his desk, just like it’s a normal day. There is no sign of Tania, no sign that today is different from yesterday or the day before.

  “Where is she?” pants Trudie, dropping her satchel.

  “She’s still on Ellis Island,” Mama says, turning to face us. “Papa went but he couldn’t get her today.”

  “Why not?” I ask.

  “There were so many people,” Mama says. “Everything took much longer then we expected. But Papa will get her tomorrow.”

  “Oh,” I say. I was so sure she’ d be here by now.

  “What’s Ellis Island?” Trudie asks. “Is that where the lady with the torch stands?” Mama has told us about seeing the tall statue, Lady Liberty, from the boat.

  “No, silly!” says Sophie. “The statue is on a different island. When you get to America, you have to pass through Ellis Island first.”

  “Did you have to go through Ellis Island, Mama?” Trudie wants to know.

  Mama repositions the fabric under the needle of the sewing machine. “I did, and so did Papa, and so does almost everyone else who lands here.”

  “What do they do there?” asks Trudie.

  “They ask a lot of questions. There are some forms to fill out. A doctor examines you to make sure you don’t have a contagious disease.”

  “What if you do?’ Trudie wants to know. “Have a contagious disease, I mean.”

  “Sometimes the officials won’t let you in,” Mama says.

  “What if that happens to Tania?” I ask. It would be terrible if after coming all that way she were not allowed into the country.

  “It won’t,” Mama says firmly. But somehow, the way she says it makes me think she is trying to convince herself as much as she is trying to reassure me.

  “Mama, is Tania all alone on Ellis Island?” Trudie asks. Her voice sounds a little frightened, which is just how I feel.

  “No,” Mama says. “She’s not. Aunt Rivka’s friend is with her.”

  Trudie sighs and clomps upstairs. I follow her. A whole night and day to wait. It seems like Tania will never, ever get here.

  6

  SHANNON

  Our room has been scoured in anticipation of Tania’s arrival—furniture dusted and shined, floor mopped and waxed, curtains pressed and starched. And the new beds are here! Last week, Papa went uptown, to a furniture store on Fourteenth Street, and ordered two white, enameled iron bunk beds. This morning, just before we left for school, a scarlet truck with gold lettering on the side drove up to our building. All of our neighbors gathered round or poked their heads out of their windows to watch the deliverymen bring the new beds upstairs.

  There are new mattresses on each bed, springy and firm, and new pillows, too. We still have our old blankets, but Mama sewed each of us a new coverlet to spread over the blanket during the day. Mine is red-and-white checks, Sophie’s is gray-and-white checks and Trudie’s is pink-and-white checks. But Mama ran out of checked material, so Tania’s is just a pure, deep blue, the color I imagine her eyes will be.

  I stretch out on the top bunk of my new bed, ready to settle in with my library book—it’s about unicorns—when all of a sudden, a loud, rumbling sound erupts from my stomach.

  “What was that?” Sophie says.

  “I guess I’m a little hungry.” I say.

  “I guess so!” Sophie says.

  At lunch today, I was so excited telling my friends Esther and Batya about Tania’s arrival that I barely even touched my lunch. By the time I got around to eating it, the bell had rung and I had to scoot back to class. So now, starved, I climb down from my new bed and head to the kitchen. Dinner won’t be ready for a while, so I fix myself a snack of bread and butter sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and pour a glass of milk. Sitting down at the table, I stub my toe on Trudie’s satchel, so I lug it out of the way. It’s so heavy. What does she keep in there anyway—lead weights?

  I take a big bite of the bread. Just then I get an idea—it’s a brilliant idea, too—about what kind of doll I will make. Gobbling my bread quickly, I rub my sugar-coated lips with the back of my hand. Good thing Mama is not here. She would scold me for not using a napkin. But I am in a hurry.

  Still, I stop to cut off a teensy-tinsy slice of cheese for Ginger Cat. I am only supposed to use scraps, but I don’t see any right now, and I want to leave something in her dish. Then I run downstairs, leave the cheese in the box outside, and step into the doll shop.

  I find Mama bent over her machine, sewing a batch of doll clothes. Kathleen is attaching the caps to the heads of some Nurse Nora dolls. Her husband Michael is piling some boxes on a shelf, and Papa is at his desk, going over some figures on a pad. He’s wearing his glasses and a small frown. Figures always make him a little cross. I know just how he feels—figures and arithmetic make me cross, too. “Did you need something?” Mama looks up from her sewing machine.

  “I want to make a doll,” I tell her.

  “A doll?” she asks. “You mean one of our dolls—Nora or the fairy?”

  “No,” I say looking down. I had wanted this to be a surprise. But that’s not possible. “I want to make a doll for Tania. As a present. She might not have a doll, you know.”

  “Why Anna, that’s such a thoughtful idea,”
Mama says, smiling. “What sort of doll did you have in mind?”

  “It’s a secret. Do I have to tell?”

  “Of course not,” Mama says. “Just let us know if you need anything.” She goes back to her sewing. I stand there for a minute, looking around for materials, parts, and supplies. I can use one of the bodies from Nurse Nora, and one of the faces, too. I just need some yarn for the hair . . . now where could it be? Didn’t Papa used to keep all the yarn right on the shelf over there?

  “Lookin’ for something, darlin’?” says Kathleen. I turn. Kathleen has bright red hair and a whole face full of freckles. Her big, friendly eyes are round and amber. She and her husband Michael came over from Ireland. Sometimes, she tells me stories about her cottage back in an Irish village, and about the hard times long ago when the potato crops failed and people didn’t have enough to eat. Like my parents and Tania, Kathleen and Michael made “the crossing.” And like Tania, they spent time on Ellis Island.

  “Is there a spare doll body and head I could use? And I need some yarn, too,” I say.

  “I think I can help with that,” Kathleen says. I love listening to her. Her lilting accent makes everything sound like a song. She climbs on a stepladder and brings down a box of yarn. So that’s where it’s kept. Yellow, brown, black . . . But I choose a rich orangey-red, a color that’s like Kathleen’s hair. Then she pulls out a box of fabric scraps and another of odds and ends left over from the doll hospital days. “Can you use what’s in here?” she asks.

  “Yes. This is perfect.” I peer into the box. “Thank you so much!” Kathleen goes back to attaching the dolls’ caps. Michael finishes stacking the boxes and brings one of them to the door. He has black hair that stands up from his head like fur, and a beard covering his wide, jolly face.

  “I’m steppin’ out to deliver this now, Mr. Breittlemann,” he says to Papa. Papa nods briefly and looks back down at the figures. Michael gives me a wink before hoisting the box in his strong arms and heading off.