A Chosen Sparrow

by Vera Caspary

  I have no diary, no accurate record of that time. It passed. We grew, we learned, we played games, made friends. By other standards our lives were very poor. Few of us knew they could have been richer. Our teachers who were probably hungrier than we, tired and overworked, tried to give us a few of the treats of childhood. In December the Krampus came, all in black with his switch for naughty children and his bag of coal borrowed from the meager store in the cellar. We shivered, giggled, waited for St. Nikolaus whose entrance preceded a falsetto argument with the black devil, finally subdued by the forces of good embodied in the saint. Then the bearded man in the tall peaked hat passed around tiny cakes, colored bonbons and small boxes of raisins from America. Packages of used clothes came, too, from foreign countries. We quivered with happy greed when the skirts and coats, sweaters, dresses and woolen underclothes were distributed. Behind the dining salon in a glass house where the banker had grown orchids for his wife, the shoemaker tried to patch our worn-out shoes. He was old, deaf, unfriendly. We teased him, we hid his tools just as we plagued the workmen who came to repair rusted pipes and broken windows. We begged without much success from the poor women who worked in the kitchen to earn a bit of food for their families.

  There was an earnest Swedish social worker who traced the family records of children who knew their antecedents, sometimes found relations. How we envied those who left the home to live, we thought, in luxurious private houses. For me there was no hope, nor for the two other Jewish waifs who had by mischance been left alive in the Christian world. I thought about this sometimes, but did not become wistful. There was so much to be savored in this life. I could not get enough of the things I had missed in the prison years. How wonderful it all was, streets and shop-windows (with very poor displays in that lean period); he budding of spring, the seasons of sunlight and in winter the snow and frozen ponds. When we walked on the streets it was always in a line, two by two, with a teacher urging us to behave nicely, calling out if we dawdled or stared too hard at passersby. My best friend (I cannot recall anything at all about her, not her face or voice, but only that she was called Annemarie which I thought the most beautiful name in the world) and I always walked at the end slowly so that we could take more time to look at things.

  One day a woman spoke to me. “Little girl, may I ask your name?” I stood dumb. Why should the lady wish to know my name? She carried a shopping bag. I wondered what miracles it held. Since the American soldier had given me the block of chocolate I believed that anything could happen. She asked again. I tried to be very polite. “Leonora Neumann, thank you.”

  The lady crossed herself. “The daughter of Willy Neumann?”

  “That was my father’s name, gnädige Frau.”

  “Your mother was Edith?”

  “Yes, gnädige Frau.”

  “Where are they, dear?”

  “My father was taken by the Germans. Mother died in the prison.”

  She crossed herself again, then embraced me. Tears rolled down from behind her spectacles. The teacher came back to see why Annemarie and I were loitering. All the girls stared.

  The lady begged the teacher to excuse her, groped in the shopping bag. “I have just found this child whose parents were our friends. She has her father’s eyes, I would recognize them anywhere, but she is also like her mother. Where is my handkerchief? Excuse me, I cannot find it.” She looked straight into my face. Tears ran down her cheeks.

  I was embarrassed. In a story book I had read about a girl who had forgotten her handkerchief and suffered acutely until a kindly count had offered his. Perhaps the lady expected me to offer my handkerchief. I could not; I had never owned such a thing. In the home no one thought about such luxuries. We wiped our noses on our petticoats or on coarse toilet paper. At last to my relief the lady found a handkerchief in her bag, blew her nose, wiped her cheeks, introduced herself as Frau Mayr whose husband had been a colleague of my father’s in the orchestra, also a member of the same private quintette. “This child’s parents, there is a remarkable resemblance, came to visit us often. My husband considered the father a fine musician. Your father,” said the lady who addressed herself to me and the teacher alternately, “often came to us for dinner before he was married, and later we visited at your house. On Edith’s birthday we were invited to supper with your parents. And then they vanished and the little baby,” I am sure that at this point she hugged and kissed me again. “We prayed for them, we hoped they were safe in a foreign country. My husband often speaks of Willy. His heart will break when I tell him they are both dead. Such a talented young man.”

  Later in the week I was told that the Mayrs had requested permission to take me out of the home on the following Sunday. They wished me to have dinner in their house. I had read in books that princes and dukes entertained guests at dinner, but I had never known that plain people gave out such invitations. But my mother, according to Frau Mayr, had provided a feast for her friends on her birthday; why had she never told me? I lived in a state of ecstatic fear. Would I behave properly in a private home? Suppose I should drop a cup or spill soup?

  On Saturday night I barely slept, on Sunday morning woke long before the bell rang. It was after eleven when Herr Mayr came to fetch me for he had gone to church first. I think he was just as embarrassed as I was. During the streetcar ride (in itself a great treat) neither spoke. When we changed cars he grunted something, then pulled a bonbon out of his pocket and shyly gave it to me. He had brought it for the purpose. This is the sort of man Herr Mayr was, silent and thoughtful. For years I was afraid of him because he did not talk much.

  As familiar as I became with the Mayrs’ flat and with so many changes, I remember it best as I saw it then with embroidery on the tablecloth, flowers painted on the coffee cups, many cushions and carved saints. They were pious Catholics (the name Mayr or Mayer is as common in Austria as Smith in English-speaking countries) and had holy figures in every room. The furniture was old, in need of upholstery, there were darns in the carpets, stains on the walls and very little heat coming from the green porcelain stove, but I thought this the coziest, warmest place in the world and wondered if ever in my life I would live in a private flat. I believe this is the first time in my life I had ever envied anyone. Before that Sunday I had never thought of privileges for myself; suddenly and fiercely I wanted to live like the Mayr girls.

  Awed, trying to show myself fit for polite society, remembering the instructions of the teacher who had washed my hair and prepared me for this adventure, I smiled, said, “Please,” and “Thank you,” to everything. Frau Mayr apologized constantly. The apartment had grown shabby, “Who can replace upholstery since the war?” The food was not rich nor lavish, “Diamonds and gold cannot pay for butter these days.” The rooms were not well heated, “Who can get wood?” I listened politely and to each lament said, “Please” or “Thank you.” When Herr Mayr spoke, his words were like apologies, too. His daughters nodded.

  The Mayrs had not liked the Germans who invaded Austria, they had not decorated their windows nor gone out to wave handkerchiefs and shout “Heil!” when HE came. No, they had locked themselves into shuttered rooms, lighted candles before their saints, gone down on their knees to pray. Herr Mayr had told lies to save an old Jewish lady on the top floor. For more than a year, he had refused to join the Party, had become a member only when he was told he would lose his job unless he signed the card. He had always been a plain and peaceful man, asked nothing better than to provide for his family, prepare for Heaven and play good music. “How could he help himself with five girls to feed and dress?” Frau Mayr demanded. “How could it hurt anyone for a man to play a flute in the orchestra?” “Please,” I said. “Thank you.”

  When Frau Mayr asked me to tell her husband about the prison I talked freely. My descriptions were not restrained by the modesty of a well-brought-up girl. Evil and filth were not then so remote that they seemed unnatural. What I said must have been vile because I remember how Herr Mayr had thunder
ed, “The children must not hear such things,” and sent Heda, Trudl and Elfy from the room. That superior older girls were not permitted to hear about things which had seemed as ordinary to me as their family meals and concerts caused deep chagrin. For many nights afterward I lay awake and thought of the disgrace. Frau Mayr wept and her husband stamped down the roses of the rug while they shuddered over my evil knowledge and told me over and over again that I was not to speak, nor even to think, of such filth.

  Along with the birth of guilt came a sense of power. The discovery that I could arouse such emotion in grown people intoxicated my young ego. I wept and was comforted, and was torn between the danger of evil knowledge and the pleasure of being comforted with cakes and caresses. “Forget all those terrible things,” commanded Herr Mayr and indeed I tried. For many years I was able to lock away the ugly memories but the day had to come when the specters of evil came back, jeering.

  The cakes with which I was consoled, and all the food for which Frau Mayr apologized so repeatedly, seemed to me delicious and abundant. Although there was much that the Mayr kitchen could not provide, how did I know, who could not remember the taste of any dish carefully cooked and lovingly seasoned? When I left that evening I carried a little sack of sweets and three handkerchiefs with crocheted edges made by Frau Mayr’s mother who lived in Baden in the Russian Zone. All of this important adventure was, of course, related to my bedroom companions at the refuge, all the carpets and cushions described, the piano, the geraniums growing in pots. With swollen pride I showed off the handkerchiefs, the first I had ever owned.

  After this I spent every Sunday with the Mayrs, became easier in my conduct, said more than “please” and “thank you,” admired the three daughters who lived at home (the two oldest were married) and loveliest of all, listened to the family concerts. I had begun to study music with a teacher at the children’s home, but I was far too ignorant to become part of the Mayr family orchestra. When I said that my mother had taught me some of my father’s songs, Herr Mayr asked me if I would sing them. “To think that this is all that is left of such a fine talent,” he said sadly while Frau Mayr wept once more. “You have true pitch,” said Herr Mayr and I felt as if a rich gift had been bestowed. True pitch became my magic phrase; when things got too bad, as they often did in the next few years of my life, I would murmur the lovely words; some good must surely come to a girl who had true pitch.

  One night while I sang Herr Mayr wrote the notes on a sheet of music paper. I have the manuscripts still and treasure them with the three handkerchiefs. In the box with them, faded and dust dry, is a wild cyclamen. I found it in the woods near Baden in the Russian Zone the first time I traveled with the Mayrs to visit the girls’ grandmother.

  Baden was real country, not at all like the city parks where girls had to walk sedately on gravel paths, two by two, led by a teacher. Here were meadows, here I was free to whirl about and dance. Elfy Mayr, two years my senior, became infected by my gaiety. We spun around until we dropped dizzily onto the grass, we rolled on the ground, sniffed the fragrance of earth, we lay on our backs and let the sun bless us. Such joy! And to crown it all I found a lavender flower in the forest. “What is this called, Elfy?” “A wild cyclamen.” She ran ahead carelessly because she did not know how sacred this moment had become. Cyclamen! Suddenly as though she were standing close to me among the slender trunks of the pines, I heard my mother.

  “Leni!”

  Her voice swept over me like the wind; it was closer than Elfy’s shout:

  “Leni!”

  Elfy ran back for me, saw the tears, put her arm around me and led me back to the house. Five minutes later I was making a pig of myself with the dainties Omama had baked for us. She was a wise old lady; out there in the Russian Zone she had got a farmer to sell her butter. It was years since the Mayrs had tasted Vanille Kipfel and the grown people ate as zestfully as the children.

  Things were becoming a bit better in our country. People were permitted a bit of Gemütlichkeit again, Frau Mayr said. The pastry was lighter and flakier, there were fresh vegetables on the table. My birthday fell on a Sunday that year. I spent it with the Mayrs. The Gugelhupf was not as rich as it should be (Frau Mayr apologized) but to me it was so delicious that nothing I have tasted since has touched the recollection of that sweet celebration. They had got hold of a candle, too, a jolly red heart to light my gift table. It was my eleventh birthday, my last year in the children’s home.

  From the banker’s villa with its ghosts of luxury…dimpled cherubs swinging from dirty baroque ceilings, marble staircase, ornate, dragon-shaped bathroom faucets…whose verdigris we children believed was a coating over ancient gold…and the contrasting Spartan life with daily cold baths and the penetrating smell of antiseptic soap, it was a dizzy leap to the Stompfers’ flat.

  “A real Viennese home with a typical Viennese family,” said the lady assistant to the director of the refuge. One afternoon I was called to the office and told the news. It was not a great surprise. In some foreign city a group of important ladies and gentlemen had decided that the home had been an emergency shelter and that they could no longer support it. Children whose relations had not been traced were to be placed with people who, for a fee from a fund which the important foreigners could still support, would keep us in their homes. The director’s assistant (I remember her only because she had a faint black mustache) told me how lucky I was. A Jewish child, homely, undersized, with sharp bones thrusting themselves through bluish flesh would not be accepted by everyone. “Frau Stompfer is a splendid type. I am sure you will be happy with her little family.”

  On the next Sunday when I went to visit the Mayrs I told them that I was to be placed in a real Viennese home. They were delighted to hear this good news and hoped soon to meet my new foster parents. They never did, for I soon understood that the Stompfer family would not be approved by my old friends. I was such a little goose that I did not want to tell Frau and Herr Mayr about the real Viennese home. Through childish pride I allowed my good friends to believe that Frau Stompfer was generous, Herr Stompfer industrious and their daughter Mimi a virtuous girl.

  The people at the refuge probably believed all this when they sent me to live with the Stompfers. Frau Stomp-fer had a way with officials. She never failed to impress foreigners and priests. With coy humility she fitted herself into garments of meekness; she could aim a timid and arch glance with such skill that it nearly always found its target. When not successful she accepted rebuff with pretty grace, wore shabbiness with style. Her heavy coat crudely fashioned out of an army blanket was always adorned with an artificial rose or pompon or a real flower she had stolen from the park when the policeman’s back was turned. She had been a handsome woman when she was younger and cleaner. Her smile would have been delightful if two prominent teeth had not been missing.

  When the lady with the mustache told me I was to live with a typical Viennese family in a private home I remembered descriptions of my mother’s apartment, thought of silver knives and forks, flowers in pots and Biedermeyer furniture. I had no idea what Biedermeyer looked like although now as I recall the Stompfers’ two rooms I remember a chair that might have been. It had one peg leg like a war veteran. My dreams of a cozy life in a private home were no grander than Frau Stompfer’s ideas of the luxury a foster child could bring, not only because my keep was to be paid out of the foreign fund but because I provided another asset, a ration card.

  The first time she took me with her to the shops I was flattered and excited. Before this I had only looked in shopwindows but had no reason to go inside. Now I was to accompany a patron into a store. Walking on the street beside a lady with a shopping bag made me feel no more a waif but a respectable child, member of a family. We went a long way to a pleasanter part of the city. Frau Stompfer stationed herself opposite an elegant butcher shop with gold letters on the window. Women stood in line outside. Frau Stompfer treated me to a running comment on their appearance and clothes. Suddenly she
cried, “Come along now,” darted across the street. With me at her heels she sidled close to a fashionable lady with a fur-piece around her neck, whispered like an old friend. The lady looked in all directions. Frau Stompfer whispered again and the lady opened her big handbag for the purpose of taking out her handkerchief but managed to slip something into Frau Stompfer’s hand. In return Frau Stompfer slipped a ration book into the lady’s bag.

  We waited around the corner until the lady had finished her shopping. She passed us like a stranger, but in the same way that newcomers had slipped us biscuits or bits of sausage when they came to the prison, she handed the ration book back to Frau Stompfer. That week the fashionable lady had an extra Schnitzel and I was hungrier. Not only that week either; shopping expeditions became a regular routine. I disliked them but Frau Stompfer insisted that I come along. A child gave a woman an air of respectability. And I could look out for policemen. “Keep your eyes open, Leni. We’ve got to watch our step. The police don’t make it easier for people that have been in prison.”

  We had other reasons for dodging policemen. Frau Stompfer had many tricks for getting extra food, handouts from agencies that distributed old clothes and medicines. Often she brought home drugs she did not need but could sell to ailing neighbors. Working as a pimp for black market butchers she was rewarded with bones, with pig’s heart or liver, treats she always denied me. It was mortal sin, I was told, for a Jewish child to eat the flesh of swine. This may well have been the reason she resisted the arguments of the parish priest to have me instructed for conversion to the Catholic faith. She made Beuschel with pig’s liver, celebrated Sunday with pork. I ate my ersatz bread and drank my watered wine while my foster mother, eating heartily, promised that such pious deprivation was for the good of my immortal soul.