Skating with the Statue of Liberty

by Susan Lynn Meyer

  Gustave reached out to shake hands. “I am called Gustave,” he said. The boys grinned at him in a friendly way. At the next table, September Rose was giggling with Lisa as they shared a package of thin, crispy crackers.

  The noise in the cafeteria was overwhelming. So many voices were talking, shouting out their strange words, and laughing all at the same time that it was like the roar of a storm, and Gustave could hardly understand anything at all. He unwrapped the sandwich Maman had made for him, weirdly orange cheese between pieces of too-pale, too-soft bread.

  Leo and Frank made a few attempts to talk with Gustave, but when he couldn’t answer, Leo turned away and yelled something else at a boy down the table, then hooted with laughter. The boy had bitten holes into a piece of bread for eyes and a mouth and then smashed it over his face, shaping it over his nose and letting his tongue stick through.

  When a group of girls appeared next to their table, the boy with the bread on his face wiggled his tongue, and the girls shrieked. The two in front pushed forward a very pretty girl with creamy skin, pink cheeks, hazel eyes, and golden-brown curls. It was the girl with the green hair ribbon from Mrs. McAdams’s class.

  “Gustave!” the girl called in a teasing voice. She put one hand on her hip and sashayed around the end of the table. When she got close, she flipped her hair back and pursed her lips.

  “Geef me a French keeess!” she murmured, in a fake French accent.

  “Comment?” Gustave leaned back instinctively. Then he blushed when he realized he had spoken French.

  The girl wiggled her shoulders. “Come on, Frrrenchie!” she murmured again, winking, her voice low and throaty. She pursed her lips, making a kissy mouth. “Geef me a Frrrrench keeess!”

  Gustave felt all the grinning faces pushing in at him. He had no idea what to do.

  “Geez!” Disappointment flickered over her face. She half sauntered, half ran back to the other girls as they screamed with laughter, throwing flirtatious glances at Gustave. The boys at Gustave’s table were laughing too, and one of them reached across and poked his shoulder. Gustave heard the name “Martha” several times. Leo was scowling. He shoved the boy next to him, a bottle fell over, and milk poured across the table. Gustave jumped up, but some of the milk had already splashed onto his pants. Now he had to go through the rest of the school day with his pants wet and smelling like sour milk.

  At the next table over, September Rose and her friend Lisa were the only people in the whole cafeteria who didn’t seem to be laughing at him. September Rose flashed him a sympathetic glance. Then, almost as if she hadn’t meant to do it, she dropped her eyes back down to her lunch, picked up a hard-boiled egg, dipped it carefully in a small pile of salt, and started eating again.

  10

  The air outside the school building was cold, and it smelled as if it might snow again soon. Gustave walked home slowly, climbing over grimy mounds of ice at the curb and looking in the shop windows. A five-and-dime he had passed on the way to school that morning now had a red, white, and blue poster in the window with an American flag on it. Next door was a candy store. A few buildings over, the warm smell of spicy tomato sauce drifted out of Mama Regina’s Italian restaurant. And beside Mama Regina’s was a clothing store. Gustave stopped and studied the gray pants, crisp white shirt, and dark tie and jacket on the boy mannequin standing in the window. He had never cared about clothes before, but it wouldn’t be so obvious that he was a refugee if he had clothes like that.

  As he approached the corner of Amsterdam and West 91st Street, Gustave smelled the familiar aroma of Quong’s Hand Laundry, a mixture of steam and perfumed soap. He glanced in to see if Mr. Quong’s cat was in her usual spot on the blanket in the corner of the store window. Yes, there she was. Beyond her he saw a sign he hadn’t noticed before. BARGAIN: ABANDONED CLOTHES. He had figured out the word “bargain” already from seeing it everywhere in stores. And “clothes” he knew. Hesitantly, Gustave pushed open the door. A bell tinkled. Inside, it was warm, and a radio on the shelf was playing jaunty piano music as a woman’s voice sang a lilting song. The cat in the window meowed, stretched luxuriously, and then jumped up and ran over to him. Gustave squatted and petted her for a moment, then walked over to the small rack of clothing in the corner. She followed him, rubbing against his ankles.

  The clothing on the “bargain” rack was an odd assortment: some men’s shirts in different sizes; a few little girls’ dresses, one with a duck embroidered on the front pocket; and a pale yellow woman’s blouse with the shadow of a stain on the collar. The clothes weren’t new. They must be washing that people had never picked up. Between the blouse and a large gray pair of men’s trousers, Gustave saw one pair of boys’ pants, navy blue, sturdy, and about his size. They were definitely long enough to go down over his ankles, and suddenly he wanted them badly. He found the price tag. Two dollars. Not as expensive as new pants, surely, but still, it was too much money. He couldn’t ask his parents. Papa hadn’t even found a job yet. Reluctantly, Gustave slid the pants back onto the rack.

  “Can I help you?” A short, elderly Chinese man had come out of the back of the laundry and was peering at him curiously.

  “No.” Gustave felt like an imposter. There wasn’t so much as a penny in his pockets. What was that American sentence? He had heard it a few times while shopping with Papa. “I’m just seeing.”

  Mr. Quong squinted at him, puzzled, then smiled, a warm smile that went all the way up to his eyes. “Oh, just looking! Sure, go ahead.” He opened up a notebook on the counter in front of him. The cat leaped up and sat down exactly in the middle of Mr. Quong’s page, meowing. Mr. Quong laughed and lifted her off, dropping her gently to the floor and saying some words that Gustave couldn’t understand. Even the cat knew more English than he did.

  Gustave mumbled a quick thank-you to Mr. Quong, then pushed open the glass door of the laundry, hearing the bell jingle again as a blast of wintry air hit him full in the face. Snow was falling now, small flakes driving down hard and slanted in the cold wind. When Gustave got back to the apartment, Maman was out. He flopped down on the shabby sofa and looked up at the cracked ceiling, wishing that Jean-Paul lived nearby so that they could go to school together. Maybe he’d be able to help Gustave figure it all out. Why had Martha come over to him at lunch? Had she been teasing him or flirting? It sort of seemed like both. And why had September Rose talked to him when they were walking to his first class but been so unfriendly at lunch? Gustave sighed. It was difficult enough to understand what was going on in girls’ heads in France. In Saint-Georges, Nicole Morin had been his friend. Even though she was a girl, she had acted just like a normal person. Here in America, though, it might be completely impossible to understand what girls were thinking.

  Maman’s key turned in the lock. “Hello!” she said. “How was your first day of school?”

  “All right, I guess.”

  “Do you have homework?”

  “Yeah, but I’m tired. I’m resting before I do it.”

  “Fine, then!” She smiled at him. “Allons-y, lazybones! You need to help me go shopping. Some fresh air would be good for you.”

  “Now? It’s freezing outside!”

  “You’ll be hungry soon, and then you’ll want to eat. Come on. I need you to help me talk to the shopkeepers.”

  Not more speaking in English. Gustave groaned and sat up.

  Outside the wind was howling, and snowflakes drove into their faces. Maman walked briskly down Amsterdam Avenue to a small store a few blocks off. It was filled with fruits and vegetables as well as bottles of milk, eggs, and canned goods. “The food in this store looks good,” she said. “But the prices are too high. You need to help me bargain.”

  While Maman was selecting vegetables, the shop door jingled, and two boys Gustave recognized from geography class came in. “Hey, that’s Gus-tuv,” he heard one of the boys say as they went down the canned-vegetables aisle.

  Maman’s basket was full. “Come on,” she
said, striding toward the register. “Time to negotiate!”

  “Maman!” Gustave hissed. “No one else is bargaining. I don’t think they do that in America.”

  “Nonsense!” Maman held up a head of lettuce. “C’est trop cher!” It’s too expensive! she said to the cashier loudly in French. “Gustave, tell her. Some of the leaves have bad spots. I’ll pay half price.”

  “It is old, a little,” Gustave stuttered miserably in English. “She say she pay half.”

  “Huh?” The cashier stared at Maman, uncomprehending. “The price is ten cents!”

  Maman held up five fingers. “Five!” She fingered the darkened spot on the leaf. “See? No good!” she said loudly in English.

  The cashier rolled her eyes. “Then get another one.”

  Gustave wished he could disappear. “Maman,” he hissed in French. “Just pay what it says.”

  Maman shook her head. “Nous n’avons pas assez d’argent,” she said loudly, looking into her wallet. We don’t have enough money.

  “Then come on!” Gustave muttered. On his way out the door, he looked over his shoulder. One of the boys from school was standing next to a display of canned tomatoes, watching them. Outside, tiny, hard pellets of ice were coming down. Gustave turned to Maman angrily. “I told you Americans don’t bargain! You just pay what it says.”

  Maman shook her head stubbornly. “We’ll try another store.” She grabbed his arm to keep him from running away. Gustave shrugged her off, slipping and nearly falling on a patch of ice. He walked angrily behind her as she threaded her way through the streets as if she had always lived there to another store seven or eight blocks north. DEROSA’S, said a large red sign. A row of brightly colored snow shovels stood to the right of the door, a stand piled high with apples and potatoes to the left. “Here!” Maman announced triumphantly. “We’ll try this one.”

  The narrow aisles were stacked high with fruits and vegetables, and the market had a fresh, earthy smell. Maman scrutinized the food, selecting three small red potatoes from one barrel and reaching on tiptoe to get the best carrots from the top of a display. A burly man in a green apron who had been singing snippets of Italian opera in the back headed toward her, still humming.

  “Ah! A lady who knows a good potato! I am Mr. DeRosa.” He was stout and not much taller than Gustave, with curly black hair and a jovial face. He held out his hand.

  Maman shifted her basket to the other arm and held out her own hand. “I em Madame—Meeseez Becker.”

  They shook hands. Maman held up a parsnip. “Zees,” she said loudly in a strong accent. “How much zees?”

  Gustave cringed. “It says right there, Maman,” he muttered in French, pointing at the sign. But Maman ignored him.

  “How much?” she demanded, waving the parsnip.

  The Italian grocer looked pleased and amused. “For you, Madame Becker,” he said, gesturing toward her basket, “all this—ten cents?”

  “Ten cent.” Maman nodded happily. “Ten cent ees good! And zees?” She held up an onion.

  Mr. DeRosa laughed. “Just like in the old country!” he said. “Three for a nickel?”

  Maman reached for two more. Then she turned to the eggs and opened a carton on top of one pile, with brown eggs in it, marked forty-three cents, then a carton on top of another, marked fifty cents. The eggs in the second carton were white. “More cheap,” she said suspiciously, pointing to the brown eggs. “Bad?”

  Mr. DeRosa shook his head. In the protesting flood of words that followed, Gustave heard “eggs” several times and “fresh, very fresh.”

  Maman took a carton from the cheaper pile. Gustave walked away to look at a display of unfamiliar curved, greenish-yellow fruit near the front window. He picked one up and sniffed it absentmindedly, watching the people going by outside the window.

  Two Negro boys who looked high-school aged meandered by, tossing a small pink rubber ball back and forth between them. The taller one stopped and threw the ball straight up, watching it rise through the snowflakes. He held up his hands and took two steps backward, ready to catch it. But as he did, he crashed into one of the snow shovels on display outside Mr. DeRosa’s shop. It clattered to the sidewalk, taking several other shovels with it. As the boy picked them up and set them back in place, Mr. DeRosa hurried to the front door of the store, frowning.

  “Go away! Go on!” he shouted, making shooing gestures.

  “Sorry, sir,” called the boy, adjusting the last of the shovels.

  “Hoodlums,” Mr. DeRosa muttered. He looked over at Gustave. “Aren’t those beauts?” he asked. “You like bananas?”

  Gustave quickly put it back on the display, shrugging.

  Mr. DeRosa waddled over and broke off two of the curved fruits, beaming, and dropped them onto the counter. “For you and your mother,” he said. “No charge!” Gustave caught the word “yellow” as Mr. DeRosa pantomimed ripping off the skin. It was obvious what he meant: wait until it is yellow, then peel it before eating it.

  Humming once more, the grocer rang up Maman’s purchases at the cash register.

  “See?” she said triumphantly to Gustave as they went out. “I told you I know what I’m doing! Shopping is the same all around the world.”

  11

  Gustave woke up the next morning confused about where he was. He blinked at the cracked, unfamiliar ceiling above him. When he turned his head and saw the two green bananas on the windowsill where he had put them to ripen, he remembered, with a sickening feeling of dread. He was in New York, and today was his second day of school.

  In homeroom, Mrs. McAdams stopped taking roll when she came to Gustave’s name. “Too foreign,” she said. “YOU NEED AN AMERICAN NAME! WE’LL CALL YOU GUS!” she boomed at him.

  Gustave shook his head. But around him, the kids in the class were nodding.

  “Sure, Gus!” said Pete, who sat to his right. “That’s a good name! And easy to say!”

  “Yeah, hi, Gus!” said Elsie, a delicate-looking girl with short blond hair.

  Everyone seemed to have decided that would be his new name. But it was so unfair. His name was two syllables long. He had to learn their whole language!

  Gustave was exhausted again by the end of the day, so he was glad to see that on Tuesdays the last period on his schedule card was music. At least that probably wouldn’t involve very much talking. He glanced at the placard by the door to be sure he was in the right place. It read: MUSIC. HEINE. He felt sick to his stomach. Heine was a German name.

  But he had to go in. He opened the door slowly.

  “Move it, Frenchie!” Three boys pushed past. The classroom was huge, with a piano and chairs arranged in three groups, all facing the center of the room. As he had done in all his other classes, Gustave stood waiting until the other kids were sitting down. Then, as the bell rang, he slipped into the nearest empty seat. But this time a slender young woman in a close-fitting blue dress marched toward him, her heels clicking emphatically along the floor. She spoke to him, shaking her head. This must be Mrs. Heine, and obviously he wasn’t supposed to sit there. Gustave gathered up his things awkwardly and stood.

  The teacher folded her arms and watched. Her short pale hair curved elegantly along her cheek, ending just below her ear. “What’s your name?” she demanded.

  “Gustave Becker.”

  Mrs. Heine frowned slightly.

  “What kind of name is that?”

  “I come from France.” He didn’t like her, but that was two questions in a row that he had answered in perfectly correct English, he was pretty sure. For a moment, he felt proud of himself.

  “Come here,” Mrs. Heine commanded, gesturing toward the center of the room, and Gustave’s confidence left him. He stumbled forward, feeling the eyes of all the students on him, hotly aware of his shabby sweater and short pants.

  Mrs. Heine fired out a series of words that Gustave couldn’t follow. Then she barked, “Sing!” and slid onto the piano bench.

  Gustave stared. Di
d she want him to sing all by himself, in front of all these kids? But he hated singing in front of people. She struck a few notes on the piano.

  “What songs do you know?” she demanded. “O say, can you see?” She sang the first words to the American national anthem, her fingers moving over the keyboard. Gustave shook his head, looking at the floor. No. He remembered the American national anthem a little, from hearing it on the ship, but he didn’t know it yet.

  “What about ‘Lili Marlene’?”

  Gustave shook his head again, miserably.

  Mrs. Heine sighed. “Then sing ‘La Marseillaise,’ ” she said, her tone mocking as she uttered the name of the French national anthem. “You must know that.” She turned to the keyboard and played the opening of the song.

  Gustave listened to the beautiful, forbidden notes in this strange, foreign schoolroom, and pain flooded over him. He hadn’t heard the song since the German victory. Now that France was occupied by the Nazis, the national anthem was illegal. Anyone caught singing it was shot. The last time Gustave had sung it must have been at a Boy Scout meeting in Paris, just before his family had fled to the countryside. Marcel had hammed up the anthem. With his hand on his chest, he had warbled out the high parts like an opera singer, making Jean-Paul snort with laughter in the middle of the song.

  “Let’s go!” Mrs. Heine snapped Gustave back to the present. “Sing.”

  She played, and although his throat felt swollen shut, Gustave lifted up his head, tried to ignore the watching students, and, his voice choking, he sang for wounded, shamed France.

  “Allons, enfants de la patrie,

  Le jour de gloire est arrivé!

  Contre nous de la tyrannie,

  L’étendard sanglant est levé!”

  Gustave had never felt the meaning of the words more keenly, even though some of them felt painfully ironic now. Arise, children of the fatherland/The day of glory has arrived. Not glory for us, thought Gustave as pain twisted in him. Against us the bloody flag of tyranny is raised. That felt like a stab in his chest. The French flag no longer flew over France. The Nazi flag, red with a black swastika on a white circle, whipped arrogantly in the French wind. It was a bloody flag, too, soaked red with French blood.