by Ellen Datlow
She had stopped all that. My new, unknown cousin had killed the sounds that made our house alive.
I hugged myself tighter and watched the first stars appear, hoping my grandfather would forget I was there.
He didn’t, of course.
“Sarah. Come.”
His voice echoed in the strange quiet.
My aunts and uncles had wanted to bring their children, but Zaideh had told them no. She, the unknown one, would have more than enough time to meet and be met later on … tonight it was important that she be made to feel comfortable. Be made to feel at home.
I was the only child allowed to meet her this night.
“Sarah? Eilt zich!”
But I didn’t hurry. All I could manage was a stiff, slow walk that carried me from my room to the hallway, and finally to top of the stairs. My Mumeh Rebecca was standing at the bottom of the staircase, crying softly into a handkerchief, breaking the terrible, unnatural silence that had filled the room. My heart was pounding by the time I reached her, and her fingers, usually gentle, dug into my shoulder as she pulled me into the front room.
“Terrible, terrible! Gevaldikeh zach! How could they do such a thing? Viazoy? Viazoy to such a little thing. To kinder? Children. She’s the only one left. Ver volt dos geglaibt? Who would believe such a thing?”
Mumeh Rebecca kept muttering in Yiddish and English as she steered me through the sea of serge trouser legs and black crepe skirts. They had come dressed as if to sit shivah, and the pounding of my heart grew faster.
Zaideh stood by the mantel of the blocked fireplace, his head nodding as if in prayer, and waved me forward with his fingers.
“Sarah, here … kum aher.” Then he turned his head and smiled down at the little girl who sat perched on the very edge of the old, overstuffed chair he never let anyone sit in.
Eyes down, hands folded in her lap, she looked smaller without the coat, my new cousin; small and frail and thinner than any nine-year-old should be. There were lines on her face, like Zaideh’s. His, I knew, were from the smiles that always found a way to his lips, but I didn’t think her lines were from the same thing.
She was pale as snow and the shadows beneath her eyes were the color of summer plums, the same color as the jumper she wore. Someone, maybe Mumeh Rebecca, had tied back her mud-brown hair with a red ribbon; but it looked too new and bright, out of place … like a rose left on a grave.
I jumped when Zaideh cleared his throat; but she just sat there, motionless, like stone.
“Sarah, this is your cousin, Janna.”
Janna, her name is Janna.
“Hello, Janna.”
If she heard me or not, I didn’t know. She just sat there, staring at her hands while the lines around her mouth deepened. I looked up at my grandfather and he shrugged, then kneeled next to the chair and whispered, very softly, to my new cousin. For a moment she stayed frozen, then, very slowly, she nodded and raised her face toward me.
Her eyes were the color of amber and so empty they looked like a doll’s. Her lips moved, trembled, then tightened against the pull of the lines on her cheeks. Zaideh sighed and placed his one hand over both of hers.
“Janna doesn’t speak English, Sarah,” he said. “She doesn’t really speak much at all, so you will have to be patient, yoh? Help her?”
“Yes, Zaideh.”
“Good. Es iz gants gut. It will be all right … you’ll see. Yoh?”
I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or her, but I nodded and that seemed enough. He smiled at me but squeezed her hands. “Gut. Now, we eat … come.”
Zaideh’s smile stayed on his lips as he stood and waved toward the kitchen. Food was the binding cloth of my family. There was never any sorrow or joy so great that it couldn’t be laid upon my grandmother’s large wooden table amid the platters and dishes and jars and picked at. My grandmother had been dead for almost as long as I’d been alive, but the tradition remained.
So the family sat down and picked and talked until there was nothing left; but neither my new cousin nor I ate very much. She because all of it was too new, me … because she was there. She held the spoon my mother had pressed into her hand, only moving it to the food-laden plate in front of her and then to her mouth when someone, usually Zaideh, told her to eat. When no one said anything she lowered the spoon and stared … her amber doll’s eyes reflecting the candles my mother had thought would add a festive touch, her gaze stopping somewhere in the middle of the table.
But every now and then those eyes would widen and her fingers would tighten against the spoon handle and the lines on her cheeks would deepen.
We were sent to bed early, she and I, but I went without one word of resistance. My stomach hurt and I didn’t want to stay up and watch the family pretend it was a night like any other: my mother and aunts in the kitchen gossiping, my uncles and father on the porch smoking their pipes and arguing about the latest baseball scores, Zaideh—without me—listening to either the Lux Radio Theatre or Fibber McGee and Molly or The Fitch Bandwagon or The Lone Ranger.
Mameh came in to help my new cousin change into one of my old nightgowns, then sat down on the bed that had, until that night, only been mine, and sang a lullaby I had almost forgotten. It was for her, of course, my new cousin. I was almost twelve, too old for such things, but I listened and fell asleep with the sound of it in my ears.
And woke to screams.
At first I thought it was her, but when I sit up I see it’s the children who are screaming. Boys and girls, naked … their skin and lips blue … eyes wide with fear as they run across the frozen ground … screaming even as the dogs get closer and closer. They’re still screaming when the dogs reach them. Then it’s their mothers who scream while soldiers in dark uniforms laugh—they’re always laughing—and bet on which dog will finish its meal first. I try to bury my face beneath the blankets, but strong hands pull my arms away and shake me like a rag doll.
“No, no. You must watch, little one. How will you learn if you don’t watch. It’s just like when you were in school. See? Open your eyes … this is a lesson you need to learn.”
The hands tighten on my shoulders and turn me toward the barbed-wire fence where the body of a woman hangs head-down like a chicken in a butcher’s window … her throat cut … gutted … the blood frozen on the ground beneath her
“And this is another lesson. Do you want to see another?”
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I should answer or keep quiet. Sometimes they want you to answer … sometimes being quiet kills faster than the dogs or the knives. I don’t know what they want this time.
“Did you hear me, little one? I asked you a question.”
“N-n-n-”
“N-n-no? You didn’t hear? Or you already know all your lessons? No … I don’t think so. I think you’ve forgotten everything we’ve tried to teach you. Yah?”
The hands tighten on my shoulders and drag me toward one of the buildings … and I turn … somehow I manage to turn and look into the bright blue eyes that stared out at me from a grinning white skull.
“Time for another lesson, little one.”
“MAMEH!”
The headboard banged against the wall when I sat up … woke up. Sobbing, gasping for breath, I clutched the blankets in my hands and heard my father’s yawning mutters and the soft whisper of my mother’s slippers on the hall carpet and, from the small room downstairs, my grandfather’s constant snores. I was awake, this time I was awake … but it didn’t help.
“MAMEH!”
“Yoh … yoh, I’m here, I’m here, maideleh … shush, it’s all right. Sha, sha, sha, sha …”
The next moment I was in her arms, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. I was almost twelve and it was only a nightmare … and almost-twelve-year-olds don’t cry over nightmares.
But I still burrowed into my mother’s warmth until she pushed me away.
“Where’s Janna?”
I looked and her side o
f the bed, my bed, was empty.
My mother’s hands dug into my shoulders the same way the skull-faced soldier in my nightmare had.
“Where is she, Sarah, where is Janna? Simon! Simon, kum!”
The hall light came on and my father stumbled into the room—mumbling, rubbing his eyes, his robe untied. When he finally looked at us, he yawned.
“What?”
My mother let me go and stood up and her hands moved like birds in the yellow light from the hall.
“Janna’s not here! Look! She’s not in bed!” My mother’s hands stopped moving and closed into fists. “Simon … where could she be?”
My father shook his head. He looked very big with the light behind him. I couldn’t see his face.
“She’s not here? How could she not be here? Sarah—” He turned toward me but I still couldn’t see his face. “—where’s your cousin?”
I didn’t have time to answer, to tell him I didn’t know. Zaideh came into the room, the crocheted blanket my grandmother had made before she died wrapped around his shoulders, his legs bare beneath the flannel nightshirt.
“Vos tut zich?”
My mother told him, and the tears that filled her voice made my eyes burn.
“Gone?” Zaideh asked. “Gone where? Where could she go?”
“I don’t know! Ich vais nit!”
“Sha, Rachel, quiet.” My grandfather’s voice was soft as he touched my mother’s cheek. “What are you talking? She’s not gone. Look … she’s there.”
I looked where he had nodded and saw her … my cousin. She was standing next to the window, wrapped in the curtain, the dull yellow light from the hallway reflecting off her eyes. I watched my mother’s shadow race across the room.
“Poor baby.” My mother’s voice was soft, almost a whisper as she picked my cousin up and carried her back to the bed. “Poor little thing. Did Sarah scare you?”
“Me? I didn’t do anything.”
My mother shook her head and made a face—at me—while she tucked my cousin back under the blankets.
“Of course you did,” she said, “you frightened her.”
“I had … a bad dream.”
“You’re too old to have bad dreams. Now, both of you … go to sleep. A gute nacht.” Then my mother pointed at me. “Sleep. Now.”
As I closed my eyes, I heard my father whisper. “Funny. I thought it would be the other one who would have bad dreams.”
Zaideh said something back, but it was lost in the sound of the door closing. When my room was dark again, I opened my eyes and listened to the sound of their steps getting softer and softer. She must have been listening, too, my new cousin … because the moment the house was quiet, she got out of bed and walked back to the window. Cocooned in the curtain she just stood there, looking out at the night between the bare branches of the maple tree.
I watched her for a few minutes, then turned onto my side—away from her. She was crazy, maybe that’s what happened to her. She went crazy and her parents sent her here because they didn’t want her anymore. No wonder I had a nightmare, sharing my bed with a crazy person. In the morning I’d tell my mother.
I fell asleep thinking about this and didn’t dream for the rest of the night.
I didn’t have time to tell my mother anything in the morning.
“I called you almost an hour ago, what took you so long?” She barely looked up from the pot of oatmeal she was stirring. “What are you standing there for? Hurry and eat or you’ll be late for school.”
My new cousin was already at the table, spooning oatmeal into her mouth as if she were a clockwork toy: Spoon into bowl, mouth opened, spoon into mouth, mouth closed, spoon back into bowl … over and over again even though it seemed her bowl never emptied. Zaideh looked at me from over the top of his newspaper then rapped his knuckles against the tabletop.
“Are you here to watch? Sit down and eat before it gets cold.”
I sat. “Why does she eat like that?”
“Like what?” my grandfather asked. “She eats … so should you. Go on. Eat.”
“But …”
“Enough with the talk. Fill your mouth instead of emptying it. Food is to be eaten; how it is, doesn’t matter. You are lucky to have it, so eat.” He glared at me for a moment, so I’d understand that what he said was important, then winked. “Is good, yoh?”
He waited until I nodded before turning his attention to her. My new cousin. “Gut, yoh? Gut … oatmeal, yoh. Farshtaist? Understand … oat … merely. You say … oat-meel.”
She looked up, those wide amber eyes staring at his face.
“Zie farshtait ir? Say it.” He tapped her bowl and said the word again, very slowly. “Oat … meel.”
She looked down at the bowl. “Kasha?”
Zaideh laughed.
“No, nain … nain kasha … oat-meel.”
“Ohmeel?”
You would have thought an angel had suddenly appeared in the kitchen.
“Yoh! Yoh, iz gut, pisherkeh! Rachel! You hear? Janna said oatmeal! She talked.”
My mother dropped the wooden stirring spoon and oatmeal splattered against the green-and-white linoleum.
“She talked. A miracle … they said she might never … She talked. A real word.”
“Of course a real word. What would she say—a made-up word? Rachel, shush. Janna … Janna, say again—oatmeal.”
“Ohmeel.”
Zaideh swept the air with his hands. “See … you hear? Janna, look. Look.” He picked up the teaspoon he’d used to stir honey into his tea. “Leffel, yoh … leffel? Spoon.”
“Spunah.”
“Spoon! See … a genius we have.”
My mother yelled for my father to come see, to come hear, while Zaideh pointed to other things on the table, then in the kitchen, then to me.
“Janna, say Sarah.”
Our eyes met and I saw her lips move, but before she could say it, before she could say anything my mother dragged my father into the kitchen and then there wasn’t any more room for my name.
And so our family grew by one.
For almost three months, it was like having a new baby in the house. Day and night, my aunts and neighbor women would find excuses to visit and always with something for “the little one”—a hand-knitted scarf, a box of hand-me-down clothes that were too good to throw away, a toy, a book, or maybe just a plate of cookies to “fatten her up.”
For almost three months my new cousin was the center of the world, then the newness wore off. The neighbor women returned to their own families, and my mother and aunts went back to the day-to-day routine of cooking and cleaning and making sure each new piece of gossip was passed along. Zaideh and my father stopped puffing out their chests as if they’d done something important and started falling asleep again in front of the radio each night after supper.
Everything was back to normal.
For everyone but me.
Because I was the youngest and had “nothing else important to do,” it became my responsibility to take care of my new cousin. I was to see that she ate and dressed warmly and practiced her English every day and wasn’t ever left alone. Any toy or doll or book I had was to be shared with her. Any place I wanted to go, she was to come with me. My friends were to become her friends … my life devoted to hers.
Every moment I was in the house, I was to be by her side … talking to her, playing with her, reading to her, and helping her to forget.
But they never told me what I was supposed to help her forget.
“Sarah … Janna—we’re going! Come give kisses.”
It was Tuesday, canasta night.
My parents spent each Tuesday night playing canasta. Sometimes with the neighbors, mostly with my aunts and uncles; tonight with Mumeh Rose and Feter Aaron who lived in a wonderful apartment above the bakery.
I always went with them when it was at Mumeh Rose and Feter Aaron’s, but not to play or even to watch the card game. I would go so I could sit in the kitch
en that always smelled of vanilla and baked apples, eating cookies and listening to Bob Hope on the Pepsodent Show.
But not this time.
Father was already standing on the porch, shoulders bunched under his coat, his hat pulled down over his ears, the car keys jingling in his hand. My mother was busy with her hat in front of the mirror, her coat still hanging on the hook next to the door.
“Sarah, I need you to watch Janna tonight.”
“But I—”
“We’ll be home early.”
“But, Zaideh—”
I stopped when Mother turned to look at me. “I need you to stay with Janna. Zaideh has gone to visit Mr. Katz over in the hospital. Poor man broke his hip. You’re old enough to stay alone and watch Janna.”
This month I was old enough, last month I wasn’t? But I didn’t ask out loud.
“There,” she said to the mirror when her hat was finally perfect, “come help your mama with her coat and give kisses good-bye. Janna … kumt aher, come here.”
I jumped as she brushed past my shoulder. She was so small and quiet, like the ghost of a mouse, easy to forget.
“You be a good girl, yes?” My mother held my cousin’s face between her hands. “Yes … good girl, yes?”
My cousin nodded. “Yoh. Yez, goot girl.”
She spoke English now. A little—not much and not well—but each word was like a pearl to my parents and grandfather. My mother smiled.
“Yes! Good girl!” She stopped smiling when she stood up and looked at me. “You be good, too, Sarah. And don’t stay up late. Nine o’clock and be sure you lock the door. We’ll be home early.”
My father closed his hand around the car keys when my mother stepped onto the porch, pulling the door shut behind her.
“All right, all right, Mr. Impatient, I’m here now. Sarah—lock the door!”