by Ann Alma
The chairs were old and dirty. Mother wouldn’t like them; she wanted everything spotlessly clean, even when it was used. After dropping off the first load, they went home.
“We’ll finish tomorrow,” Uncle Fritz said, as he sank onto the couch.
“Thanks again,” Father said. “I guess all this is just too much for me right now without your help.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. I’m glad Beth and I took this week off. It’s not every day that we get to welcome new relatives to our country.”
“Do you really feel this is your country?” Mother asked, walking in from the bedroom.
“I’m a Canadian now. I’ve been here fifteen years.”
Mother coughed, sighed and sat down. But Father jumped up. “Eva, enough of this! You’ve moped around all week as if your world has come to an end. You wanted to leave East Germany too.”
“No Karl, I didn’t. You did.”
“But you weren’t happy there either. You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself and help out. We’ve been given a chance at a better life here.” He walked over to Mother and put his hand on her shoulder. “Come on, let’s make the best of it. We’re a team.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Mother sighed, gave Father a little hug and walked back to the bedroom, coughing.
*
Josie swung the empty buckets back and forth as she walked to the creek. She was tired of carrying water, tired of cleaning the furniture, the walls and the stove. She sat down on the bank to rest.
Even though she no longer had the flu or a cold, Mother was unusually quiet. And Father was working so hard around the shed that he rarely took a break. Uncle Fritz had explained that her parents were acting differently because they felt unsure about their future, and were worried about their responsibilities. They had taken Josie away from her home.
“It’ll all get better soon,” her uncle assured her. “It takes time to adjust to new-found freedom and to make difficult choices, in such a different culture. It can be too much at first. It was hard for me, too, for a while. And I didn’t have a daughter to worry about.”
“But I try not to be any trouble.”
Her uncle hugged her and said it wasn’t her fault. Her parents just wanted to make sure they had done the right thing for her future. Plucking a weed from the bank Josie threw it in the creek and watched as it bobbed up and down before it was slowly carried away on the flow.
This morning they had moved into the shed. When they arrived, Mother looked as if she would cry, but then told Josie to get water and start scrubbing. If her mother only knew how much they’d already cleaned! The bad smell, dust and dirt were almost gone.
Father had finished putting a door on the new outhouse. Now he was chopping wood with Uncle Fritz’s axe.
Feeling like a workhorse, Josie plodded back on the path she’d already worn through the weeds. At the shed she dumped the water in a metal container.
“Ready,” she said.
Her father carried the tub inside, placing it on the stove in which a small fire burned.
“When this is warm we wash ourselves. You first.”
When they finished washing in Josie’s curtained-off space, they ate supper: potatoes, cabbage and a boiled egg each. Josie brought more water in for the dishes. They had tea and studied English until it was too dark for Father to read the words.
Josie crawled into her bed, a wooden board with Aunt Beth’s camping foam placed on top.
*
In the morning Josie put her dress on. Aunt Beth had washed and ironed it and had given her white socks to wear with it. Unfortunately, she still had to wear the old coat and shoes the boys in Hungary had given her. The coat hung on her like a sack, was the colour of rotten leaves, had a button missing right on her stomach, and frayed sleeves. The mud-coloured shoes were scuffed and too heavy, with thick soles and heels. Josie hadn’t noticed these things when the boys first gave them to her. Then she was just glad to be dry, warm, and protected. Now that she lived in Canada, where everything was clean and new, she no longer felt right in them.
Moving the curtain aside, Josie saw that Mother and Father were up. The mattress they had slept on leaned against the wall; the table and chairs stood in its place again. They ate their porridge in silence, her parents deep in thought.
A car horn honked. Almost knocking her chair over, Josie ran outside, to greet her uncle. They were going to a church, to sort through second-hand items for the house.
“Your father finished the outhouse.” Uncle Fritz walked over to inspect it. Josie felt embarrassed. Even though he was a relative, she didn’t want him to see the shaky wooden contraption, or the pieces of newspaper they used instead of toilet paper.
“He’s quite a carpenter, isn’t he?”
“It’s wobbly, and the door won’t stay shut.”
“You won’t need it for long anyway. I may have found your father a job.”
“A job?”
“Yes. Come on, let’s tell them.” Uncle Fritz grabbed Josie’s hand. They hurried into the shed.
“Good morning,” Father said. “There’s been a slight change of plans. Eva doesn’t want to go into Calgary because she can’t speak English.”
“Everything will be so different,” Mother said. “I’m afraid to go into big stores like the ones I saw on TV. All those people will be trying to sell me things.”
“Well, I have some news.” Uncle Fritz ignored their comments. “You may have a job, starting tomorrow.”
“Really? Where?” Her father jumped up.
“At a restaurant. Washing dishes. It’s not a great job, but it’ll....”
“I’ll take it! I’ll take it!” Father said excitedly. Mother smiled as she put on the coat she borrowed from Aunt Beth.
“Let’s go then,” Uncle Fritz said. “First we’ll get Beth; she’s still at home. Then off to the church and on to the restaurant to see about your new job.”
SIX
Father got the job! Skipping beside Aunt Beth, Josie’s feet danced, even though Father said they couldn’t afford to move into a better place right away. They went to the mall, a building so big and with so many stores, Josie could hardly count them all.
Uncle Fritz needed to lend her parents more money. After putting a card in the slot of a machine on the wall, he pressed some buttons, and a screen gave instructions before it produced twenty dollar bills. Maybe when Father started his job, he would get a card like that too.
“Uncle Fritz, can you lend us more money, so we can buy a new house?”
“Josephine!” Father grabbed her by the arm. “How rude of you. Your uncle has already done more than enough for us.”
“But it just comes out of a machine.”
Uncle Fritz laughed. “No, Josie, the machine only gives cash from my savings account. That’s why I pressed my secret code first. If I don’t put my own money into my account, I can’t get any out.”
“Oh.” Josie didn’t understand. She had never had her own money and didn’t know what an account was. But there were so many things she didn’t understand. For instance, why didn’t people bring bags from home when they went shopping? In East Germany they always did. But Uncle Fritz said they didn’t need any because the store attendants put the things in free, large paper or plastic bags for you. Imagine that: more bags every time they went shopping! Aunt Beth bought different sizes of plastic bags for sandwiches and other foods and the free ones she threw in the garbage. She also used paper towels to dry the counter, when she had a dishcloth in the sink.
When they walked into the grocery store, the doors opened by themselves. Josie looked for a doorman or a cable that pulled the handle, but she didn’t see either.
The store was so big even Mother got excited. “Karl, look at all the food, so much of everything,” she said.
“Bananas. I’ve seen pictures of them,” Father smiled.
Everything looked and smelled fresh, clean and colourful. At home fruits and vegetables we
re never fresh in the store.
“Since you don’t have a fridge, maybe you should buy some processed foods. You can heat them on the wood stove,” Fritz said.
“Processed foods?” Mother asked.
“Yes, here, I’ll show you.” Leading them to a shelf, Uncle Fritz held up a box with a picture of pieces of yellow rope on it. “You just add water. Then you cook it, and it’s ready. It’s called macaroni and cheese.”
Josie looked around for the store owner, or a guard. No one was there. “Can you just take things from the shelf?” At home the food was behind Herr Rosen, the baker’s, or Frau Lehmann, the grocer’s counter. They’d be accused of stealing if they touched anything.
“Sure. Just take what you need and put it in the cart. We pay over there.” Uncle Fritz pointed.
They got one box, but Mother didn’t want any more saying, “I can’t read the directions. I want bread, potatoes and cabbage. I don’t know how to make this.”
“Mother, look at the chicken.” Josie had never seen meat all cut up and wrapped in little packages. At home, at times when they could afford to buy meat, Mother had bought a live chicken and had killed and cleaned it herself.
There was hardly any line-up at the checkout—not like at home where they sometimes waited for more than an hour at each shop. After Father paid, they went to Uncle Fritz’s house.
A woman at the church had allowed Aunt Beth to take several boxes of donated items home and now they sorted through them.
“Keep whatever you need. We’ll put the rest back in the boxes and return them to the church for others,” Uncle Fritz said.
“There are other poor people in Canada?” Mother’s eyebrows shot up.
“Lots of families come to the church for help.”
“But I thought,” Mother looked from one adult to the next, “Canadians were rich.”
“Some people have more than enough,” Uncle Fritz explained, “but there are others, unemployed people and single parents, who don’t have much. There are people who live on the streets and eat food from garbage cans.”
Mother’s face went pale. “Then why did we come here, Karl?” she whispered.
Uncle Fritz answered. “Because I encouraged Karl to come. Canada is a free country. You can say and believe whatever you want here. And if you work hard, you can have a good life. Karl can go from washing dishes to a better job. That’s how I started. And look at me now; I own a garage.”
Josie glanced around the room. Yes, Uncle Fritz had a good life. But then, why didn’t the government make people share more equally? That’s what her teachers said governments were for.
Aunt Beth held a red ski jacket up to Josie, who slid her arms into the sleeves and zipped it up. It fit as if it was made for her. She’d never owned a jacket, only makeover coats.
“I can wear this when I go skating.”
“You like to skate?” Uncle Fritz asked.
Before she could answer, Father said, “We’ll have to forget about skating for now liebchen, but it looks just right for school.”
School! Josie’s throat tightened, her stomach felt as if she had swallowed a pailful of icy water. Peeling the jacket off she threw it on the floor. She couldn’t start school: she didn’t know anybody. The thought of going to a place where they all talked like Aunt Beth, where no one could translate, petrified her.
The adults continued to sort through the boxes, holding up pants, dresses, hats, mittens, all sorts of things. From time to time Josie had to try something on, to see if it fit, but still wasn’t happy when her pile of clothes grew higher.
Father said, “No shoes for you, Josie. Too bad, you’ll have to wear the old ones to school.”
“Uncle Fritz, can I stay with you and Aunt Beth for a while, to learn more English?”
“We’d like that, but we both have to go back to work.”
“I start my job tomorrow and you start school on Tuesday,” Father said. “The sooner we get on with things, the better it is for all of us.”
*
“Das ist gut, sehr gut.” Oma’s voice rang clearly over the frozen pond. Frau Müller and Greta clapped as Josie skated backwards, then did a spin in the air.
“Ja, ja, she will be famous some day,” Frau Müller said to Oma. “Look how she controls her body.”
Josie skated harder and faster. The sunshine and the cold, crisp air made her feel she could do anything. She jumped and spun around in the air, once, twice, and landed cleanly. The blades of her skates carved sharp lines on the smooth surface of the pond.
She skated a half circle and again picked up speed for a jump. Suddenly she caught an edge and before she could catch her balance she fell to the ice.
Josie woke to the sounds of someone stumbling around in the half-dark room. In the candlelight grotesque shadows swept across the curtain.
“What time is it, Karl?” Mother’s sleepy voice pulled Josie out of her dream.
“I don’t know. I’ll buy a clock or a watch today. Don’t get up yet. I think it’s still very early,” Father said.
Josie remembered. This morning Father had to be at the bus stop by 6:25 so he could begin work by seven o’clock.
Her nose felt cold. The sheet swayed in the wind that blew through a crack in the windowsill; a howling storm lashed the creaking shed.
Grabbing the new jacket she’d been using as a pillow, Josie pulled it over her face. Today was her last day before starting school.
Long after Father had left, it began to get light outside. Mother got up and asked Josie to get water. In her pajamas and her old shoes Josie slipped out with the buckets. As she opened the door, the wind whipped it out of her hand and smacked it against the wall. A gust swept into the shack, blowing the big curtain right up to the ceiling, scattering some of the clothes from the table onto the floor and ripping a small curtain off a window.
While Josie dropped the buckets, Mother ran over and with her on the inside and Josie on the outside they grabbed the door and shut it. Turning, she saw the pails rolling, bouncing over the weeds as if playing game of tag. She ran after them and caught up with one when the handle hooked on a heavy stalk. The other bounded far across the field before Josie finally grabbed it.
She looked at the field that spread out to the horizon. Weeds bent this way and that in the fierce wind while clouds hurried along in the sky. Otherwise there was emptiness. In East Germany you could see this distance only from the top of the hill behind the town, if it wasn’t a smoggy day. There you saw buildings, the river, other hills and the road.
After filling the buckets at the creek, she headed back, the full fury of the gale trying to blow her over. With most of the water spilled by the time she reached the shed, she put the buckets down to open the door. Both blew over, dumping the rest of their load on her shoes. She kicked the door in frustration, then clutched the handles before the wind could snatch the pails away again across the field.
For a second time she struggled to the creek and filled the buckets. This time when she reached the shed she wedged one half-filled pail between her shoes and added the water from the other one to it before opening the door.
“Only one? And you’re soaked,” Mother turned from the stove where she was stirring the porridge.
“It’s the wind.”
“I have to wash clothes today. I need at least eight more buckets full.”
“But Mutti...” Josie set the full bucket down with a thud, spilling a few drops on the floor.
“Be careful. And don’t argue. Do you think I like all this?” Mother turned back to the stove.
Without comment Josie spent what seemed like hours lugging water that sloshed on her and on the trail with every gust. After the first two trips she ate her porridge and changed into pants and her old coat.
The chairs hung with laundry made a ring around the blazing stove. Wet clothes steamed in a sauna.
“Komm. You must be tired.” Mother’s face dripped with perspiration.
“Mostl
y, I’m cold.” Josie breathed on her fists.
Her mother wrapped her arms around her for the first time since they had arrived in this country. She smelled of soap.
“Things will get better, now that Father has a job.”
“I don’t want to go to school.”
“Try it tomorrow. Maybe it won’t be so bad.”
In East Germany when a new boy had joined their class, others had teased and taunted him, especially when he cried about it. She wouldn’t understand them even if they did tease her, but that didn’t make her feel any better.
Josie watched while her mother repaired the rod for the window curtain.
“That spider again,” Mother said, wiping the window clean of sticky threads. A grey spider rushed to the knothole in the ledge, but Mother tried to crush it.
“Mutti!” Josie jumped up and grabbed her mother’s arm. The spider escaped. Josie sighed with relief.
“Why did you do that?” A wrinkle creased Mother’s forehead. “Every day it weaves a mess on my clean windows.”
“It’s a refugee. We have to help it.”
Mother shook her head and said, “I’m glad you’re starting school tomorrow. You don’t have much to do here.”
For the rest of the morning Josie and her mother cleaned, studied English and made apple pancakes for lunch. In the afternoon they folded the dry clothes and sat by the stove, like they had done at Oma’s on cold Sundays.
“What was Oma like as a girl?”
“I don’t know, liebchen. Remember, I didn’t meet her until after I met your father.”
“Tell me again how you met her.”
“You like that story, don’t you.” They snuggled closer to the stove. “Well, the first time I was invited to Oma’s house your father was so nervous about me meeting his mother that he got the time mixed up. We arrived almost two hours early for afternoon tea and cookies. Oma was still dressed in her work clothes, not her visiting clothes, and her hair was in curlers. She had just started to get the bowl out to make cookies. I offered to make cookies while she changed.
“Your father showed me where things were kept and I got flour, butter, an egg yolk and powdered sugar. I measured and mixed and your father helped me cut them with the edge of a small glass.