The Doll Shop Downstairs

by Yona Zeldis McDonough

  “But that fan ...” says Trudie. There’s the familiar whine creeping into her voice again.

  “Well if Trudie doesn’t say yes, then we can’t buy it,” Sophie says. She sounds annoyed.

  “That’s true,” Mama says.

  “You’re so stubborn,” says Sophie angrily. I’m surprised. Usually I’m the one to lose my temper with Trudie, not my oh-so-perfect big sister.

  “Am not!” Trudie says angrily.

  “Are too!” says Sophie. Her voice is loud, and a lady with a little boy turns to look.

  “Sophie, please lower your voice,” says Mama.

  “Girls, you have to stop this right now,” Papa says. He turns to Mama and adds, “Maybe a trip to the toy store wasn’t such a good idea after all.”

  “Yes, it was. Only Trudie had to go and spoil it.” Sophie lowers her voice, but it is clear that she is still angry. The woman and the boy have wandered away.

  “You’re mean!” says Trudie. Her eyes fill with tears.

  “Oh, now she’s going to cry,” says Sophie. “Crybaby!”

  “I ... am ... not ... a crybaby!” Trudie says. But she starts to cry anyway, big, fat tears that streak her face and drip off her chin.

  I am stunned. I have never seen Sophie so upset with Trudie. It’s a little frightening.

  “That’s enough, Sophie,” says Mama sharply. “I think we have to leave. Now.”

  “What about our presents?” Sophie asks. “You promised.”

  “Yes, I did. But not if you girls are going to fight this way.”

  I look at Trudie, who is trying so hard to stop her tears. Suddenly, I am struck by just how young she really is. Why, she was even afraid of the ticket chopper. Trudie doesn’t mean to be so much trouble, I realize with some surprise. She just can’t help it. I feel a strange, new tenderness toward my baby sister.

  “May I say something?” I ask Mama.

  “All right,” Mama agrees.

  “Sophie, you really want the tea set, don’t you?” I say to my big sister. She nods.

  I get another surprise when I see that there are tears in her eyes, too.

  “But, Trudie, you’re not sure if you want it. And it’s hard for you to figure out if you want it when Sophie is so angry at you.”

  “That’s right,” says Trudie. “It is nice.... But I’m still not sure....”

  “Do you remember the tea party we had the day that it rained?”

  “We had fun,” Trudie says. Her voice is still quivery, but her tears have stopped.

  “We did! And if we had this tea set, a real tea set, we could have fun like that again. Maybe even more fun,” I say. She is quiet, so I go on. “Look. Can I just show it to you one more time?” Together we look at the set. “I think Angelica Grace would really like these dishes. And the napkins, too.”

  “She would ...” Trudie wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. Carefully, she lifts up two small spoons. “We can let the dolls stir their tea with these. Or if we make a cake they can cut it with the knives and forks.”

  “Are you saying yes, then?” Sophie asks. But she asks in a gentle voice.

  “I am,” Trudie says cautiously.

  “Trudie, are you very sure this is what you want?” Papa asks.

  “Very sure.” This time, she does sound sure.

  Mama looks at the price tag again and shows it to Papa. He looks at us and then at Mama and nods. Then he brings the tea set to the cash register. We all follow along. Mama gives my shoulders a squeeze. Sophie’s mouth is, I notice, slightly open, as if she is still surprised at how things have worked out. Trudie slips her hand into mine as we walk. It feels small and warm.

  “Thank you,” she whispers.

  “You’re welcome,” I whisper back.

  Our picnic in the park is so much fun. Papa sings funny little songs for us. Mama points out the birds she recognizes—a robin with his red breast, a blue jay with his bright feathers. After we have eaten the sandwiches and the pickles, Trudie pokes around in our picnic basket.

  “What are you looking for?” Papa asks her.

  “Dessert,” she says, continuing to hunt.

  “Dessert? Why, I didn’t know you girls liked dessert,” Papa says. But you can tell he’s teasing her.

  “Where did you hide it, Papa?” says Trudie. She’s abandoned the basket and is pulling on Papa’s hand.

  “Over there,” Papa says. He points toward a bald, tubby man selling ice cream cones from a cart.

  “Ice cream!” cries Trudie, and she runs ahead while Sophie and I help Mama gather up our things.

  When we all reach the cart, Sophie picks chocolate and Trudie picks strawberry. I am torn between vanilla, my favorite flavor, and strawberry, because Trudie’s looks so tempting. After standing there for five minutes while everyone waits for me to choose, I finally decide to get vanilla. I know it will taste good. I tell myself that I can get strawberry another time, even though ice cream is a special treat and we don’t have it very often. I am just about to take a lick when Trudie yanks on my sleeve.

  “Here,” she says, holding her cone up toward my face. “You can try some of mine.”

  “Delicious,” I say, swirling my tongue across the creamy, cold pink of it. “Just delicious.”

  4

  BAD NEWS

  The last day of school comes in June. All of our lessons are finished. There is a special assembly in the auditorium, and then each of the classes has a party to celebrate. Sophie, Trudie, and I have on our best lightweight dresses, the ones we wear to shul in the summer. Mine is red with dark blue stripes; Trudie’s is made of the same material, but somehow, with her golden brown curls, the colors look better on her. Sophie’s dress is made of ivory cotton with tiny blue forget-me-nots embroidered on it; Mama used leftover fabric from one of her own dresses. I wish I had a dress like that, but there wasn’t enough fabric for me.

  Once I am in my classroom, I don’t think about the dress anymore. My teacher has brought in cupcakes from a bakery on Grand Street; they are frosted with butter-cream and sprinkled with sugar. Batya gives me a belated birthday present—an embroidered handkerchief—and Esther invites me to come over to her apartment next week. Sophie, Trudie, and I stroll home together, talking about our class parties. The air is warm and soft; the sky is blue with only a handful of puffy clouds. Summer feels like it is really here.

  Now that school is over, we settle into our new routine. In the mornings, we all do chores in the doll shop. The shop stays busy with customers. Some are from our own neighborhood, but others come all the way from the Bronx or Queens or even New Jersey. Goldie greets each new arrival with a series of merry chirps.

  In the afternoons, when our chores are done, we can play. We go out on the street, where sometimes someone has pried the cover off a fire hydrant and the water gushes up and out into the gutter. We take turns running through the icy spray, and then run home to towel off and change out of our wet dresses.

  On the Fourth of July, along with Mama and Papa, we climb up onto the roof to watch the fireworks. Although it is usually forbidden, Papa allows us to bring our special dolls and the tea set up with us. We give the dolls root beer in the cups and broken pretzel sticks on the plates; of course, we do the drinking and eating for them. We tap the cups together in a toast, just like we have seen grown-ups do, and we rub our fingers over the plates to get up every last bit of salt. Above us, the night sky blooms with glittering streaks of red, blue, and gold.

  By the end of July, we are all tired of the heat. One Sunday we take the streetcar to Coney Island, where we splash in the waves and eat cotton candy on the boardwalk. But most days, we are content to play quietly with the dolls. Sometimes we pretend they are dancers or singers on the stage; other times, they are princesses in a royal court. We use the tea set in almost all our games; Trudie always says how glad she is that we bought it. One day, she accidentally drops a plate and it breaks in two. Her face pales with fear as we both wait for Sophie to explo
de. But Sophie only says, “If Papa can fix china dolls, I’ll bet he can fix china plates, too.”

  Trudie is so relieved that she jumps up and hugs Sophie, who looks surprised, but hugs her back.

  During the school year, Papa always gets up early and goes to the newsstand on the corner to get his newspaper. In the summer, though, it is my job to get the paper for him. I don’t mind at all; getting the paper is kind of fun. Solly, the man at the newsstand, usually rolls the paper into a cone and hands it to me with a bow, like it’s a bunch of flowers. Sometimes he even gives me a piece of penny candy—a peppermint ball or a lemon drop—and I get to eat it on the way home.

  But on the morning of August second, I go to the newsstand and Solly doesn’t even seem to know who I am. He just hands me the paper in an absentminded sort of way, and if I didn’t tell him twice, he would have forgotten to take my money. I look longingly at the rock candy, the gumdrops, and licorice but Solly doesn’t pay any attention. I check my pocket—sometimes I have a penny tucked inside—but no such luck. I sigh and walk home slowly in the heat, paper tucked under my arm. Then I see it: a penny on the sidewalk, winking up at me. A penny! Now I can run back to Solly’s and buy candy after all. As I kneel down to get the penny, I drop the paper, which flops open. The headline is in huge letters:GERMANY DECLARES WAR ON RUSSIA

  FEAR THAT FRANCE IS NEXT

  I have never seen such big letters on a newspaper before. This must be important. Very important. I forget about going back to Solly’s for candy and instead run the rest of the way home and take the stairs two at a time. By the time I reach our door, I am out of breath and panting a little. Everyone is at the breakfast table. Sophie is dipping her bread into her tea, and Trudie is taking advantage of Mama’s turned back to stick her spoon into the jam jar. I hand Papa the newspaper. I see his eyes get wide and his mouth shrink to a tight, worried line. Silently Papa hands it to Mama. She looks at the headline and then pushes the paper away. “So it’s finally come,” Papa says quietly. Mama doesn’t reply.

  “What’s come? What’s happened?” says Trudie. There is a dot of jam on her chin.

  “The war,” Papa answers.

  “What war, Papa?” asks Sophie.

  “In Europe,” he explains. “Germany and Russia are fighting .”

  “Will it come here?” I ask. I sit down at my place, next to Sophie. To my surprise, she grabs my hand and squeezes it tightly before letting go. Mama has placed a slice of jam-covered bread on my plate, but I suddenly seem to have lost my appetite.

  “I don’t think so,” Papa says. “But the Germans will invade France, too—that much is clear. And we have family in Russia: Mama’s brothers and sister, my two brothers. You girls have a lot of cousins you’ve never even met.”

  “I don’t want them to get hurt, Mama,” Trudie says.

  “We don’t want anyone to get hurt,” Mama says, more to herself than to Trudie.

  Trudie looks at Mama, and her bottom lip quivers. But before she can actually begin crying, I reach over and touch her on the shoulder. “Don’t be scared,” I tell her, trying to sound calm. It isn’t easy; I am scared, too. “Everything will be all right.” Will it? I don’t really know, but it is the only thing I can think of to say. Trudie’s lip stops quivering as she gets up from the table, walks over to me, and plops down in my lap. I let out a loud, showy sigh. But secretly, I am glad. Ever since that day at F.A.O. Schwartz, things have been different with Trudie and me. It’s as if now she looks up to me, too, not just Sophie. “Just don’t get any jam on me,” I tell her. She nods and then uses my napkin to wipe her face.

  Despite the news about the war, everything seems to be normal for the next few weeks. Summer vacation will be over soon. Sophie, Trudie, and I spend our time helping Mama, playing in the doll shop, or trying to stay cool in the stifling heat. Sophie and I take turns putting each other’s hair up, and we both comb and style Trudie’s hair—anything to get it off our necks. But one night, after dinner, Papa asks us to join him in the parlor. He looks so serious that my heart starts to thump a little faster as we follow him in.

  “You all know about the war,” Papa begins.

  “We do, Papa,” says Sophie.

  “Well, even though America is not fighting, the war will still affect us here.”

  “How, Papa?” I ask.

  “Doll parts,” he says. “The parts we use come from Germany. And because of the war, we won’t be able to get them. Not for a long time, anyway.”

  “Why not?” asks Trudie.

  “Because America is going to stop trading with Germany. That’s what happens when countries go to war. Everything suffers.”

  There is a long, heavy silence while we try to make sense of what he has just said.

  “How can you fix the dolls without the parts, Papa?” Trudie finally asks.

  “I can’t,” says Papa. “At least, I can’t repair any dolls whose parts I don’t have here already.”

  “How many dolls is that?” Sophie asks. I glance over at her worried face.

  “I’m not sure,” he says. “I’ll have to check.”

  “If you and Mama can’t fix dolls, what will happen to the shop? And what will happen to us?” asks Sophie. Those are the exact questions I want to ask, but I am afraid to hear the answers.

  “I’m not sure,” Papa says again, looking down at his hands as if he doesn’t quite know what to do with them anymore.

  It turns out that there are twenty-three dolls in the shop. For the next week, Papa and Mama work extra hard to fix all the ones whose parts are there—that totals ten. When they are done, the mended dolls are picked up or sent back to their homes. Thirteen dolls are left stranded.

  Papa takes out a box of file cards. The cards have the names and addresses of the dolls’ owners printed in black ink. Papa and Mama write notes to each of the owners, asking what to do with the dolls. Some of the owners come into the shop and take their broken dolls home. I think the dolls seem sad to be leaving before they have been made whole again. Some owners who live in far-off places like New Jersey or Connecticut ask that Papa mail back their dolls, which he does, packing them carefully in double boxes and lots of straw. In the end, there are six dolls left in the shop: Angelica Grace, Victoria Marie, and Bernadette Louise are among them.

  “How odd that they all stayed,” says Sophie. Papa has just left for the post office with the last of the dolls to be mailed, Mama is upstairs, and we girls are in the doll shop. With so many of the dolls gone, the shop looks empty and unfamiliar.

  “It’s like they wer meant for us,” I say.

  “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it were true?” asks Sophie.

  “If only we could keep them ...” says Trudie, looking deep into Angelica Grace’s face. I touch my finger to the crack in Bernadette Marie’s glazed white arm but say nothing more.

  We stop going down to the doll shop to play. Instead, we try extra hard to help Mama. She has started taking in sewing for some of our neighbors, like Mrs. Kornblatt and Mrs. Mirsky, who live upstairs, and Mrs. Rogoff, who is my friend Esther’s mother. Soon our apartment is filled with baskets of clothes to be mended or altered. I overhear Papa and Mama arguing in Yiddish. I hear one word—gelt—over and over again, so I ask Sophie what it means. She tells me it means money.

  One night, I am unable to fall asleep. Even though it’s late and I’m tired, I just can’t settle down. The bedroom is hot and stuffy, and Trudie snores. I hear rustling in the dark and say, “Are you up?” to Sophie.

  “I’m up,” she says.

  There is more rustling and then Trudie says sleepily, “Me too.” In a minute, though, she is snoring again.

  “I’m worried about Papa and Mama,” I confess.

  “So am I,” Sophie says.

  “But what can we do?”

  Then I hear a click and someone opens the door. Mama.

  “Girls, aren’t you supposed to be sleeping? Why do I hear voices?”

  “Sorry, Mama,” say
s Sophie. “It’s just too hot to sleep.”

  “Would you like to sleep on the roof tonight, then?” asks Mama. Instead of answering, Sophie and I start bouncing up and down on our beds.

  The noise wakes Trudie, who looks up and says, “Why are you bothering me?” But Sophie and I are already gathering pillows and blankets and following Mama out the window and up the fire escape. Trudie drags herself out of bed and stumbles behind. This is not the first time we have slept on the roof, but it’s always a big treat when we do. It’s much cooler up there, and we love the view of the streets below. Sometimes, other families join us, but tonight, we have it all to ourselves.

  Mama goes back down to get the big, soft feather beds she had when she was a girl in Russia. We love to hear stories about her little village in “the old country.” Mama used to tend geese, and the feathers in our beds come from the fat, noisy birds that lived half a world away.

  When we are all settled into the cozy beds she makes for us, she plants a kiss on each of our foreheads and says, “Now go to sleep! Papa and I will be up soon.”

  Trudie falls back to sleep right away, but Sophie and I wait until Mama has been gone for a few minutes and then start talking again.

  “Maybe we could get jobs,” I say.

  “What kind of jobs?”

  “We could help out some of the ladies Mama sews for. Wash the dishes or run errands. Mrs. Kornblatt has a baby. We could watch her sometimes.” I have seen the baby with her white bonnet, white booties, and plump, pink cheeks. It would be fun to look after her for a little while.

  “Anna, that is not going to help,” Sophie says in that I’m-so-much-smarter-than-you tone that always stings. “We need to make some real money, not pocket change.”

  “It was just an idea,” I say, feeling snubbed.

  “Well, it’s not a very good one, so keep thinking.”

  I don’t say anything but just look up at the sky. I can see the stars and the pale, white dime of the moon. At first, Sophie was so grateful that I was able to persuade Trudie to agree to the tea set, she was really nice to me. But it seems that’s over now. After a while I realize that Sophie is asleep. I am the only one awake until Mama and Papa climb the fire escape to join us. Papa. How to help Papa. How? The question keeps circling around and around in my mind until my eyelids start to feel heavy, and I drift off into dreamland.