by Ann Alma
When the teacher gestured again, her stomach cramped. Jumping up, Josie fled from her desk, not to the map, but to the door. Rushing to the washroom, she threw up. She sat down and cried.
Why wouldn’t they leave her alone? Why was she singled out for everyone to stare at? And now that she had disobeyed the teacher, he would punish her. What happened to bad children in Canada? If she only knew the way to the shed, she’d go home to Mutti. She would understand.
The bell rang. Where could she hide? Josie looked down the hall; at the far end kids streamed out of classrooms. This side was still empty, so she ran to where she’d put her jacket. She jerked open the door and stepped in. The space wasn’t as big as it looked from the outside. She was small, but with the shelves she couldn’t stand up in it. Sliding down on her seat, she hugged her knees tightly and slipped the door shut as voices sounded.
It was dark, cramped, stuffy, but safe. Then all around her doors slammed. For a split second Josie’s mind replayed the swim across the river, the gun shots and the searching lights. After a while the noises stopped, and Josie sighed with relief. No one had found her.
She could not stay here much longer. Her body felt crammed, a folded slice of meat between two slices of bread. The air was stale. Her mouth felt like the inside of a garbage can.
Pushing the door open a little, she peeked out with one eye. All was clear on this side. Opening the door all the way, she eased her body out, first her feet, then her doubled limbs. Standing up, wobbling on prickly legs, she took her jacket off the hook. Getting her sandwich from her desk was impossible. Besides, she didn’t want food.
The restaurant! Of course. Father would be mad when he heard that she had run out of the room without her teacher’s permission, but an angry father was a hundred times better than that room full of strangers.
When her legs stopped protesting, Josie sneaked out of the front door, ran across the playground and down the street. Finding the restaurant was easy, but she hesitated at the back door of the kitchen. What if Father had gone somewhere for lunch? What if he got angry? She had to risk that. Pulling the door open a little, she slipped in. John turned from the grill.
“Hi,” he said. “Your dad....” Josie didn’t understand the rest. Just then Father walked in through another door, carrying two boxes on one shoulder. His eyebrows shot up.
“Why are you here?” At least he spoke German.
She rushed over to her father. “Vati, I had to leave. I can’t go back. They all..”
Father put the boxes down and hugged her.
“They laugh at me and they talk about me, and they do mean things to me, and I don’t understand anything.” She burried her head in his chest.
Father patted her on the back. “Have some lunch. Then we’ll go back and ask for English lessons.”
The thought of returning to class made Josie’s throat feel tight. She watched the men work and smelled the food. Then, after sitting on the stool for a while, she ate a little of the soup John gave her.
Father walked her back, hurrying with big steps because the restaurant was busy; he really didn’t have time for this.
While Father talked to Ms. Green, the principal looked at Josie and shook her head. Did that mean she was not allowed back into the school? Josie felt a mixture of relief and worry.
“Ms. Green says she’s sorry you had such a bad morning,” Father explained. “She says she should have asked one of your classmates to show you around and keep you company during recess and lunch. She forgot to tell us you have English lessons every afternoon. It’s called ESL. Ms. Green will take you there right now.”
“Will you come, Vati?”
“I can’t, liebchen. I have to work. Don’t worry; it’ll get easier.” Father gave her a kiss.
As Josie watched her father walk out the door, she almost gave in to the temptation to run after him. But Ms. Green put her arm around Josie’s shoulder and led her away in the opposite direction.
The halls were empty; the students had returned to their rooms. They turned a corner and walked into a large room. Josie stopped in surprise. Like in her old school library, shelves of books lined the walls. But instead of the shelves just holding a few books, they revealed row after row of colourful spines. There were hundreds, no probably thousands, of books. And everywhere the walls were covered with bright pictures.
Ms. Green smiled. “The library.”
Josie nodded. “Das sind....”
“Books,” Ms. Green said. Directing Josie to a low shelf, she pulled out a few large, hard-covered ones. They were for little kids, Josie thought, when she saw the pictures with big words written under them. Ms. Green pointed to a ball. “Ball,” she said. She looked at Josie.
“Ball,” Josie repeated. That was an easy word, almost the same as in German.
Ms. Green introduced a tall man with a beard as Mr. Johnson. Josie hoped she could remember all these strange names, so different from Jädicke and Jäger and Von Dach.
The librarian helped her sign the books out. Then Ms. Green took Josie past magazine racks to a door in the far corner.
As they walked into a small room, a petite woman with shiny dark hair and twinkling brown eyes looked up and smiled. Josie felt comfortable right away.
“This is Josie,” Ms. Green said. “This is Mrs. Lang, and Rosita,” she pointed to a small dark-haired girl, “and Li,” she patted a boy on his shoulder. At the church Josie had seen some people who looked like Li. Maybe these children were refugees too.
Ms. Green talked to Mrs. Lang before she left. Josie noticed that Mrs. Lang was no taller than she was herself.
“Sit down, please.” The teacher spoke slowly. “This is yours.” When Mrs. Lang handed her a book, Josie realized she hadn’t even tried to shake her hand. Maybe she was getting used to things just a little bit.
After the children repeated some English words from a list, Mrs. Lang brought out a game board and cards. If they knew the word to go with the picture on their card, they hopped their token one space along the board to a cup filled with notes. Li reached it first.
Choosing a note, he opened it and read, “the playground.”
“Oh good, we will go out to the playground,” said Mrs. Lang.
What was a playground? Josie got up with the rest and followed them into the hall.
“Your locker?” Mrs. Lang asked.
Josie looked around. Mrs. Lang tapped a door, tugged at her own coat sleeve, repeated “locker” and pointed to Josie.
“Ach so.” Josie walked down the hall, opened her door, took her red “locker” out and put it on. The others already had theirs, and they were waiting at the door.
Outside they walked around, repeating the names of objects on the field. Mrs. Lang made everyone take turns on the slide, then tried to balance herself and Rosita against Josie and Li on the teeter-totter.
Suddenly a flake of snow drifted down and landed on Rosita’s hair. Another one followed, and another.
Mrs. Lang called “snow, snow.” Josie felt excited but snow meant digging firewood out from under it, slipping on the path to the creek and wearing wet clothes in the cold air.
Then she noticed Li and Rosita’s reactions. They stared at the white particles as if they were bugs. When Mrs. Lang asked them to catch some flakes and watch them melt, they looked almost afraid. At first Rosita pulled her hand back every time, as if she got an electric shock, but at last, after Mrs. Lang even ate a snowflake to prove that they were harmless, the little girl let one melt on her finger.
They went back to the library where they looked at a map. The teacher explained how it snowed in all the countries closer to the North and South Poles. Even though Josie didn’t grasp most English words, she understood. The other two looked confused; they had probably never seen snow before.
When Mrs. Lang asked each one to indicate on the map where they came from, Josie found East Germany right away. Li pointed to Cambodia, but Rosita didn’t know what to do, so Mrs. Lang took he
r finger and put it on Guatemala.
After returning to the classroom, Mrs. Lang took off her coat and said “coat.” Then she held her hand out to Josie, saying “jacket” and expected something.
“Jacket?” she said slowly. What was a jacket?
“Your jacket,” Mrs. Lang pronounced it carefully and pointed at Josie’s sleeve.
Hadn’t she just learned that this was a locker? Josie pointed to her jacket and said “locker?”
“No, no,” laughed Mrs. Lang, slapping her own forehead. “Sorry, come.” She took Josie to the hall.
“Locker,” she said, pointing to the narrow door. “Jacket,” she touched Josie’s sleeve.
“Ach so.” Understanding, Josie handed her jacket to Mrs. Lang. They went over the names of winter clothing. Josie hoped she could remember some of them. Already she had forgotten the words she had learned earlier.
After Mrs. Lang gave everyone some work to do in their books, she sent Li and Rosita to their rooms and motioned for Josie to follow her. They went down the hall, stopping at Mr. Walters’ classroom.
“No.” Before she could stop herself, Josie had blurted it out. She wasn’t going back in. She only wanted to go to Mrs. Lang’s class. How could she tell the ESL teacher that?
Moving a step back from the door, she said, “No, please, I not,” in her best English. But Mrs. Lang said “yes” and something else, then put her arm around Josie’s shoulder, led her into the room and stayed at the front with her.
Immediately the class fell silent. Josie looked at the floor, wishing she’d sink through it. Mrs. Lang spoke to the students. Her tone was different than the one she used in her own room. She sounded angry. Josie glanced around the classroom. She noticed that now the students spoke only after they raised their hands. Mr. Walters smiled encouragingly at her. Finally, just as the bell rang, Mrs. Lang took Josie to her desk.
Carrying her lunchbag and the library books, Josie followed Mr. Walters out to the line of yellow buses. The parking lot was full of vehicles. At home everyone either walked, rode a bike or took a public bus. Nobody, not even the teachers, went to or from school by car.
Mr. Walters introduced Josie to her bus driver, Mrs. Adams, who pointed to the front seat. A few minutes later the bus drove off.
They drove a long way out of the city; houses or farms stood alone in the fields. Josie looked out the window while from time to time the bus stopped to let some children off. Even though it was a dark afternoon, with the snow still falling, Josie could see her shed clearly in the wheat field, now covered in white.
She stood up. “Hier, please.”
“Bye,” Mrs. Adams said.
“Bye.” Protecting her books under her jacket, she ran down the driveway.
Mother was waiting in the doorway. She said Josie was very brave and looked at her new books. When Father came home, they talked about ESL and she filled him in on the events of the afternoon.
Suddenly the door burst open and in rushed Uncle Fritz. “Karl, Eva, komm, schnell. Quickly. East Germany. It’s all over the news.”
“What, what?” Father and Mother both yelled.
“The whole government of East Germany has resigned. They’re gone!”
They rushed out to Uncle Fritz’s car and drove to his house. There they watched the TV cameras zoom in on politicians ducking questions as they slipped into taxis. There were interviews with Germans who danced and sang in the streets. Josie watch eagerly. She wished she were there in the streets to share the excitement.
*
Two days later, on November 9, they again hurried to her uncle’s house. This time reporters talked about East Germany and cameras zoomed in on bulldozers punching holes in the Berlin Wall. People laughed, cried, sang and shouted. One man attacked the wall with a sledge hammer.
“Freiheit, freedom,” Father cried. “Finally.”
“Now we can go home, at last,” Mother sighed.
“Don’t get your hopes up, Eva.”
“Why not? We’re free to go back there now.”
“But we have no money for the trip.”
“We can save it. Then we’ll go back.”
“I think we have to give Canada a try.” Father sounded determined.
Josie looked at her parents. She hoped Mother would not give in this time. She wanted to go home, to Oma and Greta and even to her old school. Was Oma celebrating right now and thinking of them so far away?
Josie walked to the shelf where a framed photograph of Uncle Fritz’ family, taken many years ago, stood to one side. Oma was in it too, but she was a young woman then and things were so different.
EIGHT
Josie stretched her arms above her head, but then quickly pulled them back under the bed covers. Her breath clouded in front of her face; her feet felt like clumps of ice.
Today was the first day of Christmas vacation, so she didn’t have to get up. And even though the shed was either too cold with the stove out, or too hot with the fire blazing, she liked the time at home better than school. She had nothing to play with, but at least here nobody bothered her.
At school she had not made any friends. Because her English wasn’t good enough, she didn’t talk to anyone except Mrs. Lang, who somehow always understood her. Rosita was too young to play with, and she cried a lot. Like Josie, Li was shy and didn’t say much. A few times classmates had tried to include her. Once Jake, the tall blond boy who had tried to talk to her on the first day, had chatted with her. But when Josie didn’t understand most of what he said, he gave up, as did some of the girls. So Josie just sat through most of the morning, doing her math, exercises in her ESL book or drawing pictures. She liked the afternoon classes with Mrs. Lang, but dreaded the bus trips. A couple of older children on the bus teased her about the library books Mrs. Lang helped her choose. And sometimes, when she left the bus to go to the shed, they called “Moo-o-o-o.” Mrs. Adams, the bus driver, got angry about it, but they did it anyway.
Josie heard Father get up to start the fire. It was light outside already. Now that Father worked a later shift at the restaurant, he stayed in bed longer. Last week Josie was the only one to leave in the dark. She hadn’t seen Father at all because she was asleep by the time he came home from work.
“Eva,” Father said, “get up and have breakfast with me.” Josie heard him crumpling paper and breaking sticks to start a fire in the stove.
“There’s not much here. Eat at the restaurant with your English-speaking friends.” She yawned and Josie could hear her roll over in the bed and gather the blankets around herself. The kindling in the stove began to crackle. Father shut the stove door.
“I think today I’ll apply for a course, to study for a chef’s exam. I’ve saved enough money for it.”
“What about saving for the trip home?” Mother’s voice was muffled by the covers.
“If I become a chef, I make a lot more money. Then we can save,” Father said, “Come on, Eva.” Josie heard wrestling sounds, then Mother giggled and got up. The mattress sighed as it was set on its side against the wall.
“I just wish I wasn’t stuck here all day.” Josie could barely hear her mother’s voice.
“Josie’s with you now for the holidays, it won’t be so bad. And if I can get a better job, we’ll have money to move into the city.”
Josie pulled her cold nose under the covers. She wished Oma were around, or Greta, or even the spider. Maybe the creature had left the shed. She wished she could leave too. Sitting up, Josie put her old pants and sweater on.
“Guten Morgen,” Mother said.
“Good morning, Josie,” said Father.
Should she answer in German or English? Picking up the buckets, she slid her feet into the new boots Father bought with his second pay cheque. “I’ll get some snow for tea and dishes,” she said in German.
“Speak English,” Father said.
“Leave her alone, Karl.”
Father switched to German. “She’s gone to school for over a month n
ow. Why is it still so hard for her to speak English?”
Grabbing her coat, she flung the door open and hurried out. The chilly air urged her along as she scooped up snow and ran back into the shed, the wire handles biting her hands. Inside she dumped the snow in a container on the stove. A whole pailful of it melted into just enough water to cover the bottom of the pot. Her fingers throbbed.
“Use your mittens, liebchen,” Mother advised, holding Josie’s hands in hers. The tingling stopped, and Josie went back out with her mittens, hat and scarf. She brought in ten buckets of snow before the pot was filled with water. The shed door stood ajar. Mother was cooking, and the windows didn’t open.
“No sugar or milk today. We’re out,” Mother said when everyone sat down to breakfast. Silently they ate their oatmeal and drank their tea.
Josie wanted to talk about the decorated store windows she had seen from the bus, but she didn’t know how to say it in English and dreaded speaking German with Father around.
A car pulled up outside the shed.
“Uncle Fritz!” Josie jumped up and ran outside.
“Hi Jos, how are you?”
“Fine.”
“Your aunt wants to take you shopping today.”
“Guten morgen. I see you’re warm in here,” Uncle Fritz said in German.
“We manage.” Father cleaned the extra chair off.
Why was it okay for Uncle Fritz to speak German with Father even though he’d been here a lot longer than any of them?
Mother poured another cup of tea.
“I have a big surprise for you.” Reaching into his pocket, her uncle took out a letter and handed it to Father. “From your mother.”
From Oma Grün! Josie leaned closer. Mother pulled her chair in too. Father opened the letter and a small piece of paper dropped on the table. He unfolded it. Inside were a few tiny pieces of rock.