by Roxi Harms
George hadn't seen their parents or little brother in almost seven years. Adam had only seen them once himself.
"Right on time," said Adam as he crushed out his cigarette in the ashtray stand. He stood and strode over to the door as George stubbed out his own cigarette and hurried to join him. Stepping out into the crisp autumn air, the brothers stood side by side and waited as the train slowed and rolled to a stop.
Doors up and down the train began sliding open. Adam and George looked left and right, scanning the disembarking passengers.
"There they are." Adam pointed and headed towards where he'd spotted their dad.
"Dad! Mom!" he called out through the growing crowd. "Hi, Frank!" he added when he recognized the tall boy beside them.
At the sound of Adam's voice, Frank found his older brothers in the crowd and steered their parents towards them.
"Frankie, you're so tall, I hardly recognized you," Adam greeted his little brother in German and gave him a quick hug. The lanky pre-teen standing in front of them hardly resembled the shy eight-year-old Adam had last seen. They'd have plenty of time to get reacquainted. Adam beamed at his parents.
"How was the trip?"
At the sight of his dad's scowl and his mom's strained face, Adam's smile disappeared.
"Is everything okay?" he looked from one to the other and back. His dad grunted and looked away.
"You both look so good," his mom said, a bright smile pasted on her weary face as she hugged her sons. "Never mind. Everything is fine."
"Let's go then," said Adam, glancing at his dad's dark face. "It'll take us about three hours to get home from here, and Jean and Irene will have some supper ready for us." He grabbed the suitcase his mom had been carrying and led them through the station.
As they emerged out of the other side of the building into the parking lot, Adam strode over to his car and inserted the key to open the trunk.
"Is this your car?" Frank's tired face came alive with interest when he saw the big shiny Buick. Adam stood back and admired the red, black, and white three-tone paint job, and the white wall tires for the hundredth time. This would definitely be the nicest car either of his parents had ever seen, let alone ridden in.
"This is my car all right," Adam grinned proudly. "A ‘56 Buick Riviera, damn near new. You won't find a car like this in Germany."
"How the hell do you afford a car like this? And what the hell do you need it for?" his dad grumbled as Adam finished stowing the bags. Everything they'd brought to start a new life in Canada didn't even fill the trunk of his car.
"Hop in, everyone." Adam ignored his dad's questions and opened the back door for his mom.
Silence filled the inside of the car as Adam pulled out onto the street and headed south, but the silence was far from empty.
Finally, a few minutes into the drive, his dad explained. "I've broken my back all my life working to make a living and provide for my family, and what do I get? First, it's the goddammed Russians and the goddammed communists that take everything a man's got," his voice began the familiar rise. "So you start over and you break your back some more, digging ditches, piling bricks, shovelling coal for those lousy, lying Americans. And then your goddammed wife wastes it all! You might as well know now that we are riding in your fancy car and arriving on your doorstep with empty pockets, thanks to your mother," he ranted, glancing over his shoulder at his wife. "All the money for settling here is gone, wasted."
"Your father thinks there was money saved to bring to Canada and that I spent it. There was never as much as he thinks there was," Adam's mom defended herself from the back seat where she and George were settled on either side of Frank.
"Week after week I handed my pay over to you, from every goddammed job I had, and where did it all go?"
"Food and rent cost money. And the clothes you're wearing. I've explained this to you already," Adam's mom answered quietly, but her tone, usually gentle, had an edge. She fell back into silence and looked out of the window.
As his dad opened his mouth to argue, Adam interrupted. "It doesn't matter. We have everything you need here. This is all water under the bridge now, and we don't need to hear any more about it."
He thought about Jean. They'd settled into the new house a couple of weeks earlier. She was still upset at him for selling the split-level, but she already had the new place looking great, and they'd set up rooms for his parents and Frank downstairs.
Adam looked at his little brother in the rear-view mirror. "Tell us about the ship and what you saw on the train ride, Frankie."
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SIX
When they reached the house, Adam climbed out of the car and glanced up at the front window as he stretched his legs. Jean was holding back the curtain, watching them. She'd been nervous when he'd left that morning. She and Irene had had their hair up in those big curlers, and Irene, who had herself come from a German village in Hungary, was teaching Jean to make a Hungarian dish for supper.
Adam opened the back door of the car and held out his hand to his mom, while his dad stood on the other side of the car, gazing around the neighbourhood. These houses, typical for Penticton, were bigger than any in Elek or Laudenbach. Grabbing a suitcase in each hand, Adam headed for the house.
"Here we are," he said with a smile at Jean as he pushed the front door open wide. Ushering his parents into the living room, he set down the bags. George and little Frank took up the rear with the remaining luggage. Switching to German, Adam presented his wife and his sister-in-law.
"Hello and welcome to Canada," said Jean to her mother and father in-law, using the German phrase she'd practiced. "And hello, Frank," she said with a warm smile at the 11-year-old, as everyone else carried on in German around her.
After receiving a handshake and a kiss on the cheek from each parent, Jean scooped Sandy up and balanced her on her hip and drew Susie in close. Jean had the girls in perfectly pressed little dresses with those little coloured clips in their hair. They were beautiful, all three of them, thought Adam, beaming.
"This is Sue," said Jean. "Say hello to Granny and Grandpa, Sue." Everyone waited patiently while the toddler looked at the floor silently.
Adam's dad stooped down and spoke softly in German. "Hello, Susie. It's nice to meet you. You're a pretty little thing. You look a bit like our little Anni."
Hearing his dad say Anni's name, Adam felt a slight pang. He could still see her beautiful little face in his mind's eye.
"And this is Sandy," Jean continued. She didn't know what her father-in-law had said, but his voice was kind.
Standing back up, Adam's dad reached for Sandy and settled her on his hip as he began speaking gently to her, smiling softly.
"You must be exhausted," Jean said brightly. "Would you like a cup of coffee or tea? And I've got some nice fruit juice for Frank, and then maybe Adam can show you downstairs so you can freshen up a bit? Adam, can you translate that please?"
After a quick exchange in German, Adam relayed their order. "They'll both have coffee with milk." The three new arrivals all nodded and smiled at Jean.
"Go ahead and sit down then. Irene and I will get the coffee."
A couple of hours later Jean ushered everyone into the dining room. It was cozy with this many people. "Dig in," she said in a cheery voice. "We've made Chicken Paprikash. I hope you like it." Jean smiled brightly at her mother-in-law as Adam translated.
"Did you find everything you needed downstairs?" Jean continued as she cut up a plate of food for Susie.
Adam's mom smiled graciously when she heard Jean's words translated to German. "Ja dankeschön," she replied. She smiled at Jean, but her face looked drawn.
Adam wondered how she was really feeling. He remembered vaguely how he'd felt after sitting on that train for almost a week.
He could see that Jean was doing her best to follow the conversation over dinner, quietly feeding Sandy and urging Susie to eat a bit more. She prompted him for translations when he forgot. As he l
ooked around the table, everyone seemed to be enjoying the food, although his mom wasn't really eating much. His dad, on the other hand, ate heartily, and he saw Jean wink at Frank as she filled his plate for the third time.
"Because our money was all gone," Adam's dad tossed a scowl towards his wife and then continued, "we could not eat in the dining car on the train. The prices were goddammed ridiculous anyway! So when the train stopped at some little town for a few minutes, I would jump off and run down the street to find a shop for some bread and cheese, or some salami or whatever." He was smiling again. "There wasn't anything much good, but I always found something we could eat," he continued, talking a little louder until all other conversation stopped. "But this one time," he chuckled as he looked around at his audience, "I was buying some food just down the street from the station, not too far, and the goddammed train starts to move! I was already on my way back with the food, and I see it start to roll away. Well, holy cow! So I started to run and started hollering at the conductor standing there in the doorway of the last car. Stop! I yelled. My family is on that train! Of course, he didn't speak any German. But he disappeared and wouldn't you know it, the train starts to slow down. They stopped the goddammed train so I could get on! And they even lowered the stairs, so I didn't have to climb up. Amazing! If Canada treats a guy like that, it's pretty good." Smiling broadly at his own story, Adam's dad shovelled another large bite of chicken into his mouth and looked around the table while he chewed.
"Well, isn't that wonderful!" Jean exclaimed when Adam had relayed the high points. "You were very fortunate. I wouldn't have thought they would stop the train for one passenger. Wasn't that nice of them! And, Frank, what kinds of things did you see from the windows of the train?"
"Well," Frank began quietly, "we saw a lot of trees. Really a lot, all day long, trees. I never saw so many trees before. And we saw some black bears by a river. And at this one place, there were some animal skins hanging on these rack things." Frank's shyness dissipated as he recounted the strange sights he'd seen. "A man on the train said they were deer skins that the Indians were drying to use for clothes. I just couldn't believe how long the forest went on for. And not very many towns. And you wouldn't believe the colours of the trees that we could see from the ship when we got close to Montreal!" Adam smiled at his little brother's animation as he described his first impressions of Canada. And he hadn't even seen anything yet. Frank had so much to look forward to now. He was going to love Canada.
"And, George, do you and Irene live near here?" their mom asked at the next lull in the conversation.
"Not really, Mom. Vancouver is about 250 miles from here," replied George. George and Irene had tried Penticton, but it hadn't lasted long. George was a good worker and Adam had enjoyed having his brother on the crew, especially for the fruit-packing house, which had been a huge job. But after a year, Irene had announced that she preferred Vancouver, and they'd packed up and headed back. "It takes about six hours to drive. We have to go home tomorrow so I can get back to work."
"You have a goddammed car too?" their dad interrupted through a mouthful of chicken. "How does everybody get a goddammed car in this country?"
At this, Adam jumped in. "He saved up, Dad. George has a good job in Vancouver. The pay is much better here. Everything is much better."
"Not very smart. You both should have bought houses first, for your families. You gotta make sure they're going to have a roof over their heads before wasting money on cars."
"I own this house, Dad, and George owns his house in Vancouver too."
His dad stopped chewing and stared at him, speechless for a moment.
"I break my back for ten years to buy my brothers' shares in the family home, so you can all have a good, respectable place to live. I tend the grapes for the whole goddammed town, I break my back, harvesting wheat for the goddammed rich farmers, I do day labour when I need to, I raise my animals and sell them for a profit when I can. And then the goddammed communists take it all and deport my family. And you young smart asses come to Canada and work for a few years and each have a house and a car?" The colour had risen in his dad's face as he spoke.
"It's different here, Dad," Adam repeated. "The economy is different. It's booming. And there was no war destruction to recover from. It's different."
"What's going on, Adam?" Jean asked before her father-in-law could resume his rant.
As Adam finished explaining to Jean what his dad was talking about, his mom pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. As she turned away, Adam saw her face crumble.
"What's wrong, Mom?" Adam said gently to his mom from where he'd followed her into the living room. Frank squeezed past him and sat down beside their mom on the sofa.
"Are you feeling sick again, Mom?" Frank asked. Both their parents had experienced sea-sickness on the ship, and their mom hadn't been able to keep food down until they'd been back on solid ground for a couple of days.
"No, no, it's nothing. I'm just a little tired. What time is it in Germany right now?"
"About three in the morning," Adam answered quickly. He could hear Jean and Irene clearing the table.
"Everyone will be sleeping now. We need to let my sisters and Resi know that we've arrived safely. I haven't spoken to any of them for almost two weeks," her voice caught in her throat. "What if something has happened and they can't reach us?" Her voice broke and trailed off, and Adam could see her shoulders shaking.
"Everybody is fine, Mom," Adam tried to reassure her.
"She's exhausted and probably homesick," Jean's quiet voice at his elbow startled Adam and he jumped. "I think it's time for everyone to hit the hay."
"You'll feel better after a good sleep, Mom. And tomorrow we can telephone Germany," Adam suggested in German. He heard Frank mumble something to their mom as he tried to wipe his eyes so his big brother wouldn't see his tears. Jean was right. They needed sleep.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SEVEN
After her initial homesickness, Adam's mom settled in well. She and Jean overcame the language barrier with hand gestures. They were becoming fast friends. Gradually, the hand signals evolved into stilted conversations punctuated with laughter as Jean worked to learn the Elek dialect of German, and her mother-in-law began to pick up a few English words.
Frank adapted quickly too. He had looked terrified when Jean left him at the door of the classroom that first Monday after they arrived, but the principal said not to worry. Kids learned new languages at lightning speed through immersion and Frank would be fluent in English in no time.
Sure enough, the principal had been right.
About a month after Frank started school, Adam joined him at the kitchen table after supper, where he was bent over a book. It was a Thursday and Adam had been in Kamloops all week, arriving home in time for supper that evening. "How's school going, Frank?" he asked, speaking German to his little brother.
Frank looked up and beamed at Adam.
"I am reading in the grade three class now and next week I move up to grade four. The little kids in grade one follow me in the playground and ask me to come back and sit with them in their class," he laughed.
"They're both asleep," said Jean as she walked into the kitchen from the girls' bedroom down the hall. "Now Frank, let's go through that book." She sat down beside Adam's little brother and placed her hand on the bump of her belly. "Mr. Ellis says he's moving up quickly and making friends in each class," she added.
"Yes, that's what he just told me," Adam said, tousling his little brother's hair.
"Okay, Frank, go back to the start. Read it to me again." Jean stopped rubbing her back and bent over the reader with Frank.
Adam's dad wasn't adjusting as well.
Adam had invited him out for a drive the morning after they had arrived. He'd been eager to show his dad the mark he was making on Penticton, and he'd started the tour with pride. First the block plant, then the motels and the other buildings his masonry contracting company had done
, then the three houses where they had lived the last four years, two of which he'd built.
The more they saw, the further downhill his dad's mood went. Realization began to dawn on Adam. Elek hadn't changed in his dad's lifetime, nor had Laudenbach. Here, on the other hand, there were construction projects every few blocks. Half the town had been built in the last few years. Adam loved the pace, the constant change. But it was completely foreign to his dad. He couldn't comprehend growth like this. And his dad had worked most of his life for a few pengoes a day, so how could he possibly grasp Adam's ability to buy and sell properties and finance these large projects.
Despite his dad's lack of enthusiasm, Adam took him to see the 77-acre parcel of land he'd purchased. Maybe he'd think owning land was a good thing. They parked at the bottom of the property and hiked up the rocky hill.
"Why would you throw all your hard-earned money away on land that can't be farmed?" his dad demanded, waving his arm at the craggy outcrops that overlooked the lake.
His family had been in Canada a week or more when Adam paused at the top of the basement stairwell on his way to bed one night. The door was open a crack.
"I don't know what's going to happen, Anna. Adam's got a lot of debt. He doesn't actually own a goddam thing. And now he's got three more mouths to feed, and another baby on the way. If he goes broke, we'll all starve. How the hell are we going to feed ourselves? No garden, no cow to milk, not even a pig. Nothing," his dad ranted. "And he doesn't work. He just drives around. I might not know much, but I do know that a man's got to work to keep his family fed."
His dad fell into a routine of sitting in a chair in the living room, playing with Susie and Sandy and not doing much else.
In late November, Adam invited him along to the construction site in Kamloops for the first time. The apartment building that was going up there was bigger than the one Adam had built in Penticton, twenty-four units, and the site more complex. But it was coming along well. His dad had wandered around the site and sat nearby smoking, not saying much.