by Cathy Lamb
“It’s symbolic,” Chloe said. “I am on fire as a woman, and we’ll make a cake that is on fire, too.” Chloe put her arms up in a victory pose. “Estrogen power. Feminine fortitude. Unrestrained sexuality.”
“What is fem nin fort?” Lucy asked.
“What do you mean Es Trojan power?” Stephi asked.
“It means that women rock this world,” Chloe said.
“I like fire,” my mother drawled, holding a glass of wine, her feet up on the old black trunk. “If I wasn’t a doctor I’d be an arsonist or a firefighter. I’m told that, psychologically, there’s a fine line between the two. Probably easier to be a firefighter, though. I don’t want to go to jail. I need the wide-open sky of Montana.”
“When I think of fire,” Kyle said, “for some reason I think of nuclear fusion.” He stared into space, lost in complicated nuclear fusion thoughts.
“You mean we’re going to light a match?” Stephi said. “But then the cake would be burned.”
“We’re making a Baked Alaska,” my grandma said. She adjusted her scarf. Today it was lavender silk with a dark purple wisteria vine. “It’s tricky, girls. But if you like ice cream, meringue, and brandy, it’ll do. We’ll turn off all the lights and it’ll burn.”
“Burn, baby, burn,” my mother said. She was in her dark blue cowboy boots with the white stars. “I had someone come into the clinic with burns today, girls. I’ll tell you how to treat them.” She leaned forward. “First, depending on the level of burn, the skin can blister and shed so—”
“Mom!” I said.
“What?” my mother snapped. “They need to know about how to treat burn victims.”
“Not now, Mom.”
She brushed a hand through her hair, then sighed, so dramatic. “Oh, fine! Let’s burn a cake. We’ll make it in the shape of a leg, and then I can use it to teach the girls about how to use a scalpel—”
“Mom!”
“And The Fire Breather returns,” my grandma said. “Cakes and operations. Who else would combine the two?”
“Do I have to eat the cake when it’s on fire?” Lucy asked.
“Does it taste okay on fire?” Stephi asked.
“To be frank,” my mother drawled, “legs don’t taste good on fire.”
“When I’m in my helicopter and I see fire, I know where to go,” Chloe said, pointing her fingers up.
I gave Grandma her cookbook, which she had lent me, the leather cover cracked, the pages singed, stains all over, including the stains that appeared to be splattered blood. She undid the ratty pink ribbon. “I remember my mother’s recipe. She had heard about Baked Alaska through a friend, an American chef who came into the bakery each day for my mother’s croissants. My whole family made it together. What fun my sister, Renata, our brother, Isaac, and I had when she set that cake on fire. Gold, purple, blue flames. I never forgot it.”
My jaw dropped. I had seen these names, but that Grandma was willing to talk about them . . .
My mother was silent for once in her life, The Fire Breather’s mouth open, gaping as if she were a dying fish.
Chloe said, “I know this is gonna hurt to hear, but I still want to hear it if you want to tell us about it, Grandma. I’m right here for you, right here.”
Kyle sat up. “These are two members of your family I am unfamiliar with, Grandma Gisela. Mother previously told me not to inquire about your relatives.” He pulled out his Questions Notebook.
“We had a home in Munich. There’s a picture of it in the cookbook. It was lovely. Three stories, brick, a black steel stair rail, a red door, and red geraniums. Our home was near our bakery and near my grandfather’s store, Boris’s Leather Goods, where he sold wallets and handbags. He had started out his working life making saddles and bridles, and his employees still made them, but he found the women’s and men’s lines much more profitable. Anyhow, it was within walking distance of our department store, too.”
Too much to take in . . .
“Your family had a department store?” my mother said, still gaping like a fish.
“Yes. My parents did. Esther and Alexander’s. It was the most popular store in Munich. My father ran it as my mother worked in her mother’s bakery, although she also advised my father. There are pictures of our businesses in the cookbook, too.”
I still couldn’t speak.
Chloe said, her voice wobbling, “Yep. I was right. This hurts. So bad. You had a family.”
“Yes,” my grandma said, so quiet. “I had a family. A very large, loving family. My mother had four brothers. They were all married and had children. My cousins.”
I rubbed my face. Too much sadness. She had a family. Gone. Long gone. So long gone.
My mother stood up and stared out the windows, but not before I saw her blinking rapidly.
Chloe sniffled. “I’m sorry, Grandma. I feel like my heart is gonna split in two for you.” She pounded her chest.
“Thank you, Nutmeg.”
Kyle stood up, leaned down, and hugged my grandma. She held him tight. He is a dear boy. He patted her back, three times. Then, quite significantly, which showed his pain for her, he patted her again, three times.
“My mother and grandmother loved to cook. At home, we all cooked together, as a family. Like we do now, the seven of us.” She nodded at Kyle. “Isaac was an artist, too, Kyle. And he loved science and math, as you do.” Kyle wrote that down in his Questions Notebook.
“Wait!” Lucy pointed her finger in the air and sat up straight.
“Are we, me and Lucy, two of the seven, Grandma Gisela?” Stephi asked, her face lighting up, hopeful.
“You are,” my grandma said.
“Really, Grandma Gisela?” Lucy asked.
“Absolutely. We’re all family. Forever and ever.”
The girls shot up and hugged my grandma. They were so desperate for family, desperate for love and to belong. I thought of my grandma’s family. Her sister, Renata; her brother, Isaac; her mother, Esther; her father, Alexander; her grandparents, all named in the cookbook . . . it had to be the camps that killed them.
“This cookbook is our history, our story, our recipes and family drawings, together. It’s how we’re connected, through all these generations. From Odessa, in what was then the Russian Empire, to Germany to England to Montana. It’s our family, all in a cookbook.”
By the window my mother bent her head, covered a sob. Then she muttered to herself, “Buck up, you emotional wimp. Get some cement in your spine.” She doesn’t like to cry.
“Now let’s make that Baked Alaska and set it on fire.” Grandma tapped the recipe.
We made the Baked Alaska that my grandma made with her mother, Esther, her father, Alexander, her brother, Isaac, and sister, Renata, in Munich, who had all been hidden in my grandma’s tragic past.
On the Baked Alaska recipe there were splatters of a dark reddish brown stain and another brown stain in the upper-right-hand corner.
“Do you know what made these stains, Grandma?” I asked.
“Yes, Cinnamon.” She pointed to the splatters. “Blood from my father, Alexander.” She pointed to the brown stain. “Spilled tea. My father knocked it over after he was beaten.”
We couldn’t even speak.
She ran a light finger over the faces of three smiling children in front of a three-story, brick, gracious city home with a black steel stair rail, red geraniums in flower boxes, and a red door. Gisela, Isaac, and Renata, drawn by Ida.
“What happened, Grandma?” I asked.
She kissed my cheek. “I will tell you after we have made the Baked Alaska. For now, let’s make a cake and let your mother, the arsonist, my own beloved Fire Breather, enjoy herself.”
* * *
Later, with the lights off, we watched my grandma pour warmed-up rum over the Baked Alaska. My mother lit the match and the meringue caught on fire, golden and blue flames, dancing and waving.
No one said anything while it burned.
Then my grand
ma whispered something, in German.
“What did you say, Grandma Gisela?” Lucy asked.
“I said forever and ever our love is everlasting.” She wiped a tear, her finger shaking a bit. “I told my family that I loved them, I missed them, that I would see them again.”
“Dang it twice. I’m crying again like a baby,” Chloe said. “My emotions go deep for you, Grandma.”
“Mom,” my mother said, holding her mother. “I am so sorry.”
I put my arm around my grandma’s shoulder, too. “I am, too, Grandma.”
We did not bother to wipe the tears from our faces, the room dark, the flames dancing.
Grandma told us her story.
From Odessa to Munich to England to Montana, Grandma’s family visited through a Baked Alaska.
January 1939
Munich, Germany
Esther Gobenko, great-grandmother of Olivia Martindale
Esther Gobenko held her husband, Alexander, as he stumbled, bleeding, through the back door of their Munich home at midnight.
Their home was freezing, as they could no longer afford heat. There were blank spaces on the walls where art used to hang. Armoires that held figurines now held nothing, the glass fronts broken. The Nazis had taken everything of value. They had thrown against the walls their Seder plate, the Shabbat candlesticks, the menorah, the Kiddush cups, and had stomped on her husband’s prayer shawl.
They had taken the jewelry Esther couldn’t hide. One had knocked her over with his fist when she told him she had no more jewelry. He had even ripped the wedding ring off her finger. She was not about to tell him where the rest of her jewelry was. It was all they had. They would sell it to survive.
The Nazis had also taken their department store, Esther and Alexander’s, and Boris’s Leather Goods, and they had forced the closure of Ida’s Bakery. She had drawn pictures of their businesses in the cookbook so her family would always remember them.
On Kristallnacht, on the ninth of November the previous year, the windows were broken and all of their businesses looted, then firebombed.
Her family was now living off hidden savings, as their bank accounts had been confiscated. Unbelievably, the Jews were told they had to pay for the damage incurred on Kristallnacht.
After Kristallnacht, the truth could no longer be denied: Jews had to leave Germany or die. Alexander’s parents, her dear Aizik and Raisel, were ill, and they knew they could not make the journey. “Go, son, leave,” they had begged Alexander months ago. “Now. Save Esther. Save Isaac, Gisela, and Renata. Go.” Her own parents, Ida and Boris, looking grief stricken but courageous, had told them the same thing, as they had told her brothers, Grigori and Solomon, “We love you. You must leave Germany. Save yourselves and your families.”
Alexander and she had not wanted to leave their parents, the thought was abhorrent, but they could get out now or they and their children could all die or disappear, as Esther’s brothers Moishe and Zino had disappeared. Moishe and Zino had spoken out against Hitler, now no one had heard from them in months. So many of their Jewish friends, doctors and professors, business owners and musicians, artists and writers, had also disappeared. Some had left Germany earlier, the Nazis stripping them of all their assets, including accounts, businesses, and artwork, before they escaped.
They soon found that they could not get visas, they could not get permission to travel as a family to any country. The paperwork, for them and for a sponsor in a new country, was extensive, near impossible. No country wanted more Jews, either. America had closed its doors. They were stuck, and they were terrified. They had waited too long. They had tried to wait until the German people came to their senses and kicked Hitler and his ghouls out. The German people had not come to their senses. They had embraced a madman. A dictator. A psychopath.
Esther’s family was starving. They could not get enough food, as they were restricted on where and when they could shop. There were curfews for Jews, beatings of Jews on the streets, Jews moved to ghettos, synagogues burned, and their citizenships revoked.
That night, Esther had hoped that her family’s cookbook would calm her as she waited for Alexander. He was so late. Where was he? What had happened? Would her beloved husband disappear, too? What were they to do? How could they save the children? Her hands shook as she wrote and drank tea, her tears falling on the page. She added a recipe for Baked Alaska, a treat she and her mother had learned about from an American chef who came to their bakery for croissants.
When she heard light knocking on the back door, she stopped breathing, petrified. She tentatively stepped through the semidarkness of her home, clutching a knife.
She heard the soft knock again. She wished that Alexander was home. He would know what to do. He would protect her and the children. “Who is it?”
“It’s Alexander, Esther.” The voice didn’t sound like Alexander’s. It was strangled, panting. “Please. Open the door.”
She opened it an inch to see him curled up on the back door step. Alexander had been beaten and robbed of his wallet and keys by a mob and had escaped only by luck and with the help of one man, a former customer, who had taken pity. He was bleeding, blood dripping from a gash in his head, down his neck, onto his shirt.
“Alexander,” she breathed, trying not to sob.
She wrapped her arms around him, his weight heavy, and dragged him into the kitchen, kicking the door shut. She settled him in a chair at the kitchen table. He turned his head, blood from the wound splattering across the Baked Alaska recipe. He grabbed, awkwardly, at the table to keep himself from falling, and he spilled her tea onto the upper-right-hand corner.
Gisela, Renata, and Isaac snuck down the stairs, took one peek at their father, bruised, unable to stand, bloodied, and started to cry. They made no sounds. It was one more horror. Gisela held a cloth to her father’s head with trembling hands, and the blood soaked through. Isaac, already so tall for a teenager, propped him up, and Renata held her father’s head still as it wobbled on his neck.
“We must get the children out, Esther,” Alexander rasped, as if they weren’t there, all in a miserable huddle in their kitchen, a kitchen stripped of both food and safety. “Immediately.”
“How?” Esther said, trying to control her hysteria. “We’re too late. We didn’t listen. We can’t get visas.”
“I’m not leaving without you two!” Renata wailed.
Alexander stared at Esther with the one eye that wasn’t swollen shut, his head lagging, blood smeared on his face, pale and desolate. “I heard of a way.”
“How,” Esther pleaded. “What is the way?’
He told her. “We still have the hidden jewelry. We must sell it tomorrow. We must plan.”
Gisela and Renata cried. Isaac adjusted his glasses, his hands flapping.
Over spilled tea and splattered blood, the plan took shape.
* * *
I hit my last straw at work. The last straw was named Gary.
Larry hired him. Gary and Larry. It was poetically gross. Gary had twice served time, once for assaulting his ex-wife, once for assaulting a friend. I was livid. Gary eyeballed me head to foot when he first sauntered in, just like Larry, smirked, laughed in that repulsive way men do when they think women are treats and are valued only for their sex appeal, and said to Larry, “Oh yeah, man. I get to work with that? I’ll take her!” They both laughed drizzly, scummy laughs.
“You will not take me, Gary. It’s not funny.” I had a knife in my hand from slicing chicken. “You talk to me like that again and I will fillet you before I fillet this chicken.”
“Tough girl, are ya?” Gary said, leering. “I like ’em that way, but don’t fillet me, girl. I have other fun we can get up to.”
“I call her Chef Feisty!” Larry said, so proud of his demeaning ingenuity.
I said to Larry, “I don’t want him working here.”
“Too bad, hon—” He stopped himself, winked at Gary. Boys will be boys, women are toys! “Too bad, Olivi
a. This is my restaurant.”
“I’m the chef.”
“And I’m the boss.” Larry tried to meet my eyes, tried to be the commanding boss in front of his jailbird friend, but his eyes slid away.
As the days wore on, Gary made my skin shrivel. Larry said, “Ya gotta learn to get along with people, Olivia. Play nice. Be nice to him and he’ll be nice back.”
Gary was slow. Slovenly. Disrespectful and slimy. One of our waitresses and one of our cooks quit over the next weeks.
One afternoon Gary slithered up behind me when I was bent over a hot stove stirring a gnocchi soup with cream, chicken, garlic, and carrot slices. He said, “How about dinner, sexy momma?”
I jumped. I hadn’t heard him. “Back off.” I whirled around and faced him, brandishing the wooden spoon.
“Thought I’d ask, baby.” His eyes focused on my boobs. Again.
Larry was six feet away, watching. Amused, but wary and angry. Amused because he had a sick control problem with me and liked to see me irritated and powerless. It infuriated him that I wouldn’t kowtow to him. But he was wary because he didn’t want me to quit, and angry because another man was hitting on me and he’s possessive.
“You come near me again, Gary, and I will pull out one of the multiple guns that I have, in my purse, my truck, and at my house, and I will shoot first and ask you questions about your broken kneecaps later. I will then call the chief of police, who has been a close friend of my family for decades, and file charges against you for harassment. Do you need the police, Gary?”
He winked at me. “I’ve always liked you, Olivia. But you need taming.”
I could see the latent fury sparking in his eyes. He was a controlling man, too, like Larry. He hated women because they didn’t like him and that threatened his twisted ego. He needed to dominate.
Then Gary made his final mistake. He leaned toward me because he had to show me who was boss, he had to touch me. He put both hands hard on my waist and opened his mouth to say something disgusting. I reacted instinctively, stabbing that wooden spoon straight into his neck, as hard as I could. He staggered back, hit part of a table, and crashed down, clutching his throat, gagging.