“In the bedroom.”
I ran my tongue over my lips.
“She’s had a baby, Dina, a boy.”
I struggled to sit up, feeling a knocking in my head and a sudden surge of sickness coming up from my stomach. “Is everything all right?”
“A fine baby,” she said. “Ernest, after your grandfather. And Maria is in the kitchen with Lucas. She’s all right, too, not a burn, not a mark.”
Alive, then; all of us alive. I raised my hand to my head, feeling the pain in my fingers, seeing the strips of cloth that covered my arm from wrist to elbow.
“It’s not a bad burn,” she said, “but still, I’ve covered it with lard.”
I nodded, and before I was even sure I was thirsty, she was off the chair and bending over me, holding my head up so that I could sip from a cup of cool water. I swished it around in my mouth. Had I ever tasted anything so good?
I gathered the blanket around me and went to stand at the bedroom door to see baby Ernest. He had a small fuzz of hair on his head, and his face was red from the effort of crying, waving his fists in the air.
I went into the room to lean over him, and put my mouth on his forehead, the skin wrinkled and softer than anything I’d ever felt before. I touched his chin, his shoulders, his fists, and it seemed as if he stared up at me, knowing who I was. And I knew who he was, all of us in our family, my grandparents, my mother, dear Papa. I felt as if I’d never loved anyone so much.
Next to him, Barbara smiled at me, her eyes filling, too. I watched them: tears drying on Barbara’s cheeks, the baby’s fists relaxing and falling to his chest. And in my mind I heard Barbara’s voice again, Everything gone.
Not everything.
But I thought then of my suitcase with the pink lining, the money for home, my clothes, even my shoes. Every trace of home, so many things Katharina and Mama had made for me.
And what about the Uncle’s fabric? The pile of trousers for the man at the shop? Would we not have to pay for them? I tried to get the words out. “Cloth” was all I could manage. And then I had an even worse thought: what had happened to the sewing machine, the black beetle?
“Sleep,” Aunt Ida said. “We will worry later.”
How strange—sun was streaming in the dusty window. It was daytime. I went back to the parlor dragging my blanket. I was going to sleep as if night had just begun.
Ernest was crying again; the cry wove itself into my dreams, and Maria’s coughing, as well. When I woke again, at last, it was afternoon. It had begun to snow. A soft gray light filtered through the window. I sat up to see the three of them sleeping in the bed in the corner. Barbara was in the middle, her arms around Maria and the baby.
On the floor next to me was a neatly folded pile of clothes. Underwear, a waist and skirt, wool stockings, and even a pair of worn shoes.
I put everything on quietly, wondering what had happened to Kristel’s shoes.
“Thank you for the clothing,” I said to Aunt Ida when I reached the kitchen, “but where . . .”
“Mine,” she said. “Are you awake? Feeling better?” She waved her hand. “A stitch here and there, a snip of the scissors this morning. You are just half my size.” She smiled. “The size of the shoes is . . .”
“Fine,” I said. I leaned over to give her a kiss. “I want to go back and see the apartment.”
“Don’t do that, Dina,” she said with a quick shake of her head. “Let it be.”
My eyes were brimming with the thought of the apartment on Christmas evening, filled with candles, soft in that light. “I have to,” I said, and she patted my shoulder with her warm hand, sighing. “That’s what Lucas said.”
I let myself out the door and went down the stairs. Outside, the flakes were large, covering everything: the lights had small caps, and the steps clean new pillows of snow. I turned the corner, hurrying now.
When I reached our street, I could see there were gaping holes where windows had been, and great patches of black covered the building. In front of me were piles of wood and rubble.
Others had had the same idea I did. People picked through the charred remnants on the first floor, people who hadn’t even lived there.
I went inside toward the stairs, wondering if they would hold me. Treads were missing, and the banister looped over the steps. I looked up, fingering the sides of my skirt, and behind me someone said, “Don’t try it, miss.”
But suppose something was left? Something I could bring Barbara or Maria.
And underneath it all I was thinking of the money tucked behind the lining of my trunk. Suppose that heavy wood had withstood the fire? Suppose I could put my fingers inside and find my money, neatly folded?
Home.
Bent almost double under a beam that seesawed over the banister, I started up. Smoke still swirled on the high ceilings, and everything was warm to the touch. I pulled my skirt higher, and holding on to the side of the wall rather than the banister, I eased my way from one step to another, feeling my own unsteadiness and the unsteadiness of the stairs themselves.
I stopped where the Uncle had handed Maria down to me and saw that a small piece of her blanket had caught in the banister, blackened, almost like paper. No one would have recognized it as the soft pink shawl Barbara had knitted, leaning over in the dim light in the evenings.
The next flights were easier, not that they were in better condition, but I knew now how to use my shoulder against the wall, the hand that wasn’t burned against the tread itself. Like a small spider I went up.
When I reached the top, I saw our door half open. The rug with its poor bare spot under the machine had burned away. But the machine was there, a melted ruin, and so was the Uncle. He was leaning over it, crying.
The Uncle. Crying.
I took a step backward, and another, and rounded the top step so he wouldn’t know I was there. But in my haste I touched something, the edge of the banister, perhaps, and one of the posts detached, falling through the opening to the next floor, and the next, hitting everything as it went, making a tremendous clatter, raising smoke and dust, and causing someone below to call, “All right up there?”
The Uncle turned as I went toward him, staring at me, surprised, his eyes red, but I might not have known he was crying if I hadn’t seen it.
“What are you doing here?” His voice was shaky. “You climbed the stairs? What is the matter with you?” He was like the Prussians: attack, attack. Always I had to defend myself.
I shook my head, running my hands over the machine.
“Foolish,” he said, as if he hadn’t done the same thing, maneuvered those stairs to see.
My mouth was dry. “My money, all in the trunk.”
I walked past him, glancing in at the kitchen. Bags had sprung open, and flour and sugar were mixed together, gray and grainy on the floor.
And then my own closet bedroom: the mattress sagging and dark, the trunk closed in front of it, covered with soot and patches of black, and pitted in spots.
I sank down on the floor to run my hands over the metal strips, and opened the trunk to see nothing: clothes gone, lining gone, money gone, all of it just a layer of ash on the bottom.
I knew I’d never go home. Never see the house in Breisach, or my family. Never.
Everything gone.
I rested my head on my knees. This was the worst moment of my life, worse than the soldiers at the river that day, worse than saying goodbye, worse than the terrible trip with the storm and my terrified prayer that I’d never eat again on Good Friday if only we survived.
I don’t know how long I crouched there, but then I remembered the Uncle. I went back to stand in the hallway, seeing that the machine belts had burned and snapped, and the piles of trousers and fabric were completely gone, as if they had never existed. Like my clothing. Like the lining and my money.
“Will you have to pay the man for the trousers?” I asked slowly. Even talking seemed an effort.
He didn’t answer. He was down on
his knees now, his head tilted, trying to see if he could repair it.
Of course he’d have to pay for the trousers.
And the fabric. The fabric that had belonged to him, that would start his business; that terrible scratchy wool, the lengths of cotton. I remembered that I had taken enough for a dress for myself without thanking him. I had never paid him back for it.
I bent down next to him. It was no use. The sewing machine that I had hated was gone along with everything else.
“I was going to go home,” I said, hardly realizing I was saying it aloud.
We left an hour later, with no energy to talk, but the mailman came running after us waving a letter from Katharina. I knew it would be her Christmas greetings. How strange. Christmas seemed such a long time ago.
1 November 1871
My dear Dina,
How busy we are you can imagine, but Friedrich and Franz are helping greatly. Everyone is thinking about winter and the holidays coming. I think that by the time you receive this it will be Christmas, so I send you the happiest of Christmas greetings.
At last that terrible soldier has gone. Krist spoke to him and says he will never come back.
I, too, am thinking I might have a wonderful surprise. It is too early to tell yet, but Krist and I are hoping that we will have an announcement to make very soon.
Much love,
Katharina
Happy Christmas, dear Dina.
Friedrich and Franz send kisses, and I also.
Love,
Mama
Brooklyn
1872
twenty-four
On New Year’s Day, we sat around Aunt Ida’s table, crowded together, Ernest in my arms and Maria bouncing on my feet as if I were a Wippe. Ah, seesaw. I’d have to tell that odd word to Johann.
I smiled, looking at the baby, counting in my head. I was sure Katharina was hinting at a baby for her and Krist, probably to be born in the summer.
In front of us was all we owned, things the Uncle and I kept bringing home. A few spoons and forks, a rolling pin with one burned handle, a tin of needles and pins, the pots and pans that just needed scrubbing, and, strangely, Barbara’s apron. It had hung on a hook in the kitchen yet was barely singed.
Aunt Ida moved the coffeepot from the stove and poured cups for all of us laced with sugar. “And a dollop of whipped cream for comfort,” she said. Because there wasn’t room on the table for the raisin cake just out of the oven, we held the warm pieces in our hands.
We sat without speaking for a while, Maria pinching my ankles, trying to make me laugh.
I looked around at them, rocking the baby gently: Aunt Ida with her heavy comfortable body and soft face; the Uncle, his face smeared with lard, his eyebrows gone, his beard ragged, his hands black, and both arms still covered with cloth.
Deep inside me a small voice: Not the worst, Dina; oh no, not the worst thing in life to be here with people you love, and yes, who love you. And something else, which Johann had whispered to me after church on Christmas morning. Don’t ever leave, Dina.
My hand went to my neck to feel the chain and then the slim key under my shirtwaist. Johann. I pictured him bent over his table fashioning the key for me. I pictured his hair falling over his face. And then I thought of him laughing and how I loved to make him laugh.
But these were fast thoughts, fleeting thoughts, because I realized everyone was staring at me. I raised my hand to my face, feeling where my eyebrows should have been, and my hair singed at my temples.
“Never mind,” Aunt Ida said. “It will all grow back.”
And then the Uncle spoke; his voice was the way it always was, almost challenging me to disagree with him. “I have decided something today,” he said.
I took a sip of the coffee, wondering what was coming next. He was frowning, and Aunt Ida turned away to put the pot back on the stove.
I thought he was going to talk about the trousers, or the machine, or even the fire itself. I glanced at Aunt Ida, then at Barbara, and could see they knew what he was going to say.
“I am sending you home, Dina,” he said. “You will be in Breisach by spring.”
I sat there, the warm cup in my hand. I opened my mouth but I couldn’t speak. Inside my head was a picture of my river, my bedroom on the third floor, Mama’s face, Katharina’s, my brothers laughing with each other at the kitchen table. The joy of it!
And then I realized why he was sending me back. I had not fit into this family. They didn’t want me. And why should they? For the first time, I thought about it. Every word I had spoken to the Uncle had been angry or irritable. And still another thought. I looked up at him. “But where will you get the money?”
He patted his waist. “It is always with me in a little bag. You don’t think I’d be foolish enough to put it in a trunk.”
“Lucas,” Barbara said, and he was quiet.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It is my fault that—”
The Uncle’s eyes gleamed. He didn’t wait for me to finish but spread his hands wide. In a husky voice so unlike his, he said, “I would never have gotten Barbara and Maria around the stairwell and down the last flight of steps. One of them, perhaps. But both, never. Barbara’s skirt had already caught the flames, and Maria’s blanket was scorched.”
Next to me Aunt Ida began to cry silently.
“If you hadn’t . . . ,” he began, and stopped.
And Mama’s voice in my head, If you hadn’t forgotten the bread rising . . . How far away Frau Ottlinger seemed. How far away the sewing room, how far away Breisach.
“How could we keep you here, knowing how unhappy you are?”
He knew. He had known it all along. And now I was crying, like Aunt Ida. “But the money . . .”
He looked down at his hands. “The sewing machine is gone. The fabric. The trousers for Mr. Eis.”
I was nodding. “So I can’t take the money.”
“You don’t understand,” he said. “What is gone is only a foolish dream. My work for Mrs. Koch is good. I like rubbing down the horses in the warm sun. And Mr. Eis . . .” He hesitated as if he were thinking it through. “I will pay him back little by little from my salary.”
It would take him years; it would take him forever. But I had never heard him talk so much in all these months. I remembered his crying and how proud he was. “I can’t,” I said.
“You certainly can,” he said. “It is what I want.”
Had I ever won a battle with the Uncle? “Thank you,” I said, looking from him to Barbara, hardly able to get the words out. “But if you do this for me, I will pay you back someday.”
We sat there for another few minutes drinking coffee. Suddenly I felt so tired; it was an effort to raise the cake to my mouth. I felt my head drooping, my arm throbbing.
“Sleep, Dina,” Aunt Ida said.
I touched the baby’s soft hair and gently slid my feet out from under Maria. Then I put the baby into Barbara’s arms, and went back to Aunt Ida’s bedroom.
I wouldn’t see either of them grow up; they wouldn’t even remember me. But I’d take home a picture of them in my mind. I slid into bed thinking about all I’d have to tell Mama and Katharina.
And Johann. I’d have to tell Johann.
My dreams were strange, dreams of the bakery shop burning in a fire and Johann bent over a key, dreams of Maria asking me for another doll. “Go home,” someone said. And I kept whispering, “Where is it? I don’t know where it is.”
twenty-five
Within a week we found an apartment, this one without even a closet for me. I would sleep in a space under the kitchen window. Barbara looked at me with brimming eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
“It’s only for a few weeks, after all,” the Uncle said. “As soon as the weather warms, you will take the ship.”
I didn’t mind the kitchen. It was a cold January, and it would be the warmest room in the apartment. The window faced the backs of the buildings across the yards, and there was a
lways something to see: people calling out to each other, and children playing on the fire escapes. Sometimes, I thought, Brooklyn was an exciting place to be.
We planned to move on a Sunday. The Uncle would be home from work, and so would Aunt Ida. “Everyone will help,” she said.
There was so little to move, though, I wondered why we’d need help. But on Saturday afternoon, Aunt Ida came home laden with things from Mrs. Koch: old sheets and pillows, three blankets, a waist and skirt for Barbara. And I ran to Schaeffer’s shop to ask Johann to help, too.
On moving day, we told ourselves we’d manage to get the iron bedsteads down the stairs of our old apartment. None of us mentioned that we’d just have to leave the sewing machine.
We made a fine parade going to the new apartment. Someone had sold the Uncle old mattresses for a few cents, and he and Johann carried them on their heads. I carried Mrs. Koch’s things, and Aunt Ida dragged Maria’s iron crib along the street as Barbara came along at the end carrying Ernest and holding Maria by the hand.
Upstairs, Johann looked at the apartment. And as everyone scurried back and forth to put things away, we were left alone in the hallway.
“The apartment is very small,” he said.
“But . . . ,” I began.
“But . . . ,” he said at the same time, “someday things will be different.”
I nodded. It was time to tell him I was going home.
“My business will be a success,” he said. “And when that time comes . . .”
I looked at him, shocked. When that time comes . . . I knew what he meant. My mouth was so dry I couldn’t speak. How could I tell him my news? What could I say?
I didn’t have to say anything. “Success,” he said. “How do you like that word?”
“Seesaw,” I said, and then, before I could stop myself, “Sorrow.”
At that moment, the Uncle came to thank him, and I watched as he went back down the stairs, taking the steps two at a time.
That night we looked almost as dirty as we had the morning after the fire. We sat in the kitchen spooning up Aunt Ida’s vegetable soup and biscuits, feeling satisfied with what we had done, and talking about how we’d find enough money to live now that we owed Mr. Eis so much.