by Kit Pearson
Ba grinned at Teacher. I listened to them talk but understood nothing. Later Ba called Teacher a smart man because he eats here one day and at Uncle Guy’s the next to avoid offending anyone.
Ba did not shout at me, so I think Teacher did not mention my schoolyard fight. I wondered when Jaw-jee might return to school, but dared not ask Ba to translate.
September 10
No school today. Ba asked if there was homework. I said no. Ba threatened to ask Teacher himself.
For the first time, I saw a woman and children here. Town children never come into Ba’s café, although they yank open our door and scream insults before fleeing and laughing.
The woman had thin, pinched cheeks. Her dress was limp from too much washing, and her shoes hung loose on her feet. But the children were plump, with healthy faces and store-bought clothes. The girls’ braids were tied with red ribbons. Along with a brother, the girls ate apple pie as the woman leaned back and closed her eyes. She was exhausted. Ba gave her many cups of coffee. She nodded gratefully each time. I guessed she was a farmer’s wife. Such women work very hard.
She made me think about the women who live in town. When I pass them, they stiffen and inch away, as if I carry a strange disease. But this farmer woman smiled at me when I took away her empty dishes.
September 11
Rage is boiling inside me. Jaw-jee took revenge today, but not just against me. He attacked Ba and our café. I never mentioned my fight with Jaw-jee, so even now, Ba blames the damage on Westerners’ disrespect.
Jaw-jee rode a horse into our café! It shrieked and reared up, kicking its front legs. Its head smashed the ceiling while its eyelids spread wide and its eye-whites flashed madly. Tables and chairs fell over. Food and drink crashed. Our customers fled. One kick could kill any man.
Shouting foul names, Jaw-jee made his horse chase Ba, but Ba stood his ground at the window. He yelled and waved his apron at the horse. Several times, Jaw-jee charged at Ba and shouted at him to get out and get out of town, but Ba wouldn’t leave his spot. I ran to pull Ba outside and let the horse follow us, but Ba shook me off. I screamed when the horse bucked wildly over us, but Ba was determined to guard the bottles he had put into the wall. I swung a chair at Jaw-jee, but Ba stopped me. Finally the horse galloped back out the door.
Ba cursed him in Chinese. I trembled from fear and anger. Meals were left unpaid. The horse had dented the floor. I shuddered to imagine such cracks in a human skull.
September 12
Jaw-jee was at school, talking loudly at the back. I braced myself to fight. At recess, Teacher kept Jaw-jee and Wee-yum inside. Then, at lunch, Teacher stopped Sonny and me. He spoke to Sonny, who told me in Chinese to stop fighting Jaw-jee. I should consider the feud “even” because I had beaten Jaw-jee twice. I told Sonny to say that Jaw-jee had caused more damage than me. Teacher said that if I stopped fighting, then he would not mention the schoolyard fight to Ba. How did Teacher know I had not told Ba? Did Sonny tell? I must learn English quickly!
At day’s end, students gathered around Jaw-jee and Wee-yum in the yard. When Sonny and I came out, someone shouted and they all laughed. Sometimes it is best not to understand English.
September 15
Ba finally lets me serve food. Before, he said no, that I would drop the plates, and that customers resented a child waiter.
Now he tells me where the order goes: window table, door table, tiny table or slanted table. If the customer sits among others at the counter, then Ba says who: four-eyes, hat-and-tie, train master or police officer. So far, no armed soldiers like the squads of scowling men with rifles who harass the markets in China. And Ba names each dish aloud so I can call it out at the table. I hope to count money or to cook soon.
Jaw-jee comes to school one day but not the next. I never know if he will be there but I do not worry. I fight better.
September 19
Teacher saw that I truly knew my alphabet, big letters and small, from learning them in China. Now I copy words where one letter connects to another in a single thread. The letters change shape, so it is hard work. Still, it sets me apart from the Grade Ones, so I want to learn quickly. Ba likes it when I do homework. He chants a proverb: Books and pages contain gold and jade. He should let me work quietly.
I promised to write to Ma but have not done so. I feel bad, because she will worry if she has no letter from me.
September 22
Two policemen walked in today. Our customers knew them. Ba greeted the officers with smiles and brave words, and called for two cups of coffee. When I delivered, one officer gravely shook my hand and spoke English to me. Ba said in Chinese to smile and say hello. As the three men laughed, Ba added while grinning widely that I must go and empty the white teapot into the outhouse.
I thought it strange because we ate and drank every bit of leftover. At the outhouse, I sniffed the teapot. Liquor. But why such a fuss? Teahouses at home served it.
In the kitchen, the officers peered into shelves and pulled out pots and sacks. They found sealed bottles and wanted them opened. Ba protested. They insisted. They sniffed and frowned. As they stomped out, Ba hurried after them. Then I took a sniff. It was vinegar!
Later Ba explained that the government wanted to stop Canadians from drinking liquor and had banned stores and eating places from selling it. But people craved their liquor, so many businessmen sold it illegally. Ba was breaking the law! Then I realized why Ba had put bottles in that hidden section of the wall. Luckily, the police cannot read Chinese. They could have learned Ba’s secret from this journal!
Tonight Ba trusted me with an important secret. I am an adult.
September 24
I cannot stop thinking about liquor. When Teacher drinks from a bottle, or when Uncle Guy fills his customers’ glasses, I wonder if it is really water. When Ba sent me to the store to buy fruit spices, I saw shelves of bottles. I wanted to ask if the police sniffed them. Ma and Grandma dislike men who drink too much. Me, I wonder how men enjoy something that tastes so awful.
September 26
The worst part of school is singing. The little ones chirp along happily in their high voices, but my voice is deeper. Even I know we sound terrible. Reading aloud together is all right, because there are no high notes.
Each day, class starts with a song. The older children know it while we new students are learning by hearing it over and over. Sonny said we are asking God to protect our king. But I thought Canada had democracy, not a king. Now I see how Ba chose the name for his café!
I wait eagerly for class to end. If I took my journal to class, I would write much more, in Chinese. But Teacher would take it away.
September 28
I finally saw Canada! This morning, we were dismissed from school because Teacher went to help with the harvest. Sonny and I shared glances as we passed the gate of the schoolyard. Without a word, we headed out of town. Who cared about our fathers?
Freedom! I was so glad, it did not matter that there was little to see. The town shrank behind us. Ahead lay miles of flat land, some filled with a light yellow crop, others by a darker gold. Our footsteps crunched over the dry road, as insects darted to and fro.
Sonny ran ahead, hollering to the sky. He started spinning, around and around, faster and faster until he fell. He got up laughing. I was too old to play but could not resist Sonny’s cheer. We spun in circles. We ran with arms out, like hawks circling high above. We cawed and screeched like birds, sprinting until we needed air.
Black smoke rose. We saw some men at a great iron barrel that belched dark smoke. Sacks of coal were waiting to be burned. A long belt connected the iron barrel to a noisy machine where men pitched in grain at one end. Straw flew out from the other end. Horse-drawn machines combed the fields, cutting the crop while wagons waited to take away the grain. Women came to bring something, probably food, to the men. Drivers waved at us; I suppose they were too far to see we were Chinese.
Sonny ran after a butterfly. A car p
uttered behind us. I stepped aside to let it pass, but it pulled up beside Sonny, who shouted for me and jumped into the car. In an instant we were roaring along the fields. Bouncing up and down, I clutched at the seat and the door, thrilled at my first ride. Sonny saw my big grin and nudged the driver, who chuckled and gave me a thumbs-up. They laughed and chattered, shouting over the rush of air. We went so fast that I thought I was flying!
Harvested fields held stumps of dry stalks in prickly rows. At another field, men swung a tool with long sharp fingers to cut grain. Little boys and girls collected stalks and lugged buckets, going from one chore to another. I should have offered to help Teacher with the harvest.
In town, a horse and rider darted into our path without warning. Our car screeched to a halt, and our driver bellowed furiously. When the rider peered into the car, we saw Jaw-jee. He made an angry arm gesture at us and shouted at the driver before galloping away.
After we got out, Sonny was surprised that I did not know our driver was the liquor delivery man. In return, I realized that Uncle Guy does sell liquor. He owns such a high-class place. Sonny bragged about his father’s hiding place for liquor, and I told him about Ba’s.
I expected Ba to scold me, but he was preoccupied, He was puzzled because Jaw-jee’s father had ordered him to come to apologize for riding the horse through the café. I mentioned how our driver had almost crashed into Jaw-jee. Ba ordered me never to wander off again without telling him first.
October 5
The harvest is finished and Jaw-jee came back to school. The harvest inspired Teacher to make us work with our hands. We were given long thin strips of paper and told to weave them into a mat. When I showed my little weaving to Ba, he snorted at our waste of time. Maybe if we do more silly things in class, then Ba will let me quit school.
October 8
Trust no one.
Today the police burst in, marched straight to the front window and removed the wall beneath it. They found the liquor and arrested Ba. Our customers fled even though I chased them for money.
It had to be Sonny who told our secret. I ran to the hotel and grabbed him. I slapped and punched him. He didn’t know how to defend himself. Uncle Guy came running and pulled me away. I wanted to hit out and kick him too, but he held me firmly at arm’s length. He pretended to know nothing, so I confronted him. Did Sonny tell him where Ba hid his liquor? Had Uncle Guy told the police? Uncle Guy said I was talking nonsense and flung me away.
Of course they were guilty. How else could the police go right to our hiding place?
I noticed our customers strolling into Uncle Guy’s place. That was why he had betrayed us — to grab our customers on the busiest day of the week!
I locked our front door and fixed the broken wall with nails and boards. I stored the meat Ba had been cooking. All day, people banged the door. I guessed at how much money we were losing. It was all my fault.
Will Ba be jailed? It could be for weeks or months! Could I run the café myself? How could I find Ba? Teacher might help me, but I needed Sonny or Uncle Guy to talk to him. What a disaster. If I went home to China now, I would be the biggest laughingstock in the county.
October 9
This morning I started the fire and boiled water. There was bread and pie from yesterday. Many times I had watched Ba cook breakfast. I set out butter and jam. When a customer entered, I shouted good morning and poured coffee. I listened carefully for “ham” or “bacon” and then fried meat and eggs, and made toast. I let the customers talk. I made a second breakfast, a third and then a fourth. When I collected my first twenty cents, I almost floated into the sky.
Mid-morning, Ba came back. He said nothing about the police. We worked madly to catch up. I stirred the jelly. Ba baked, cut meat for lunch and dinner, and made soup. I pared potatoes, sliced tomatoes and shelled peas. Ba gruffly said that I had done well to serve breakfast.
But I fretted how to admit that I was the one who told Sonny about Ba’s hiding place.
Finally, all customers were gone and our workday was finished. I washed dishes while Ba prepared for tomorrow. I told him about Sonny, and urged him to take revenge by telling the police where Uncle Guy hid his liquor.
To my surprise, Ba insisted that Uncle Guy had not informed on him. I said that Uncle Guy must have, because how else did the police know where to go? Ba raised Jaw-jee’s name. Had he not seen me in the liquor car? Had he not seen Ba protecting the window wall from the horse? Ba also mentioned that last week the police stopped the bootlegger’s car and questioned him. Jaw-jee and his father happened to be in town and saw it.
“Don’t think that Jaw-jee is stupid,” Ba said. “He is smart too.”
I fell quiet. I never thought of that. What a stupid ass I was.
I went to sweep the floor, but Ba handed me a slab of meat and some vegetables, and told me to make tomorrow’s lunch. He took pen and paper to the front counter.
I had watched Ba cook pot roast many times, so I seared the beef in hot oil and then browned the chopped-up onions and carrots. I added soup-water, salt and pepper, and dried green spices, and let it simmer.
Ba didn’t come watch me, so he must trust me now. He had never imagined I could cook and serve breakfasts on my own, had he?
When he strolled past me, heading to the outhouse, I sneaked out front.
He was finally writing a letter to Ma! He mentioned my safe arrival and said he was pleased with my good health and intelligence, which let me provide great help to him.
Why doesn’t he say this to my face?
Ba also explained his long absence from China. He had started several cafés but in one town, a rival left him bankrupt. In another town, a fire burned him out. He left a third town because its residents bullied him. However, Uncle Guy had lent him money each time to start again.
So that’s why Ba says Uncle Guy has not betrayed us!
At the end, Ba asked Ma to forgive him for being too ashamed to admit his failures.
When Ba came in the back door, I grabbed the broom and hurried out to the sidewalk to hide my tears.
I still do not fully understand Ba, but now I respect him.
After World War II, many Jewish families immigrated to North America and a few were able to get into Canada. Many were broken from the struggle to survive the war. They still grieved the loss of their dear ones who had died in ghettoes and concentration camps, and some were trying to find other lost members of their families.
LILLIAN BORAKS-NEMETZ is herself a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto. She has written about the war years in her novel, The Old Brown Suitcase.
In the Silence of My Heart
The Diary of Miriam Hartfeld
Montreal, Quebec
June – September 1947
June 10th, 1947, evening
This afternoon when I opened my school bag something blue fell out. Lo and behold, it was a little leather-bound book with a key and Diary written on the cover in gold letters, and inside only blank pages with lines on them. Don’t understand how it got there. No one has access to my school bag, and my parents would not go there. I wonder if I should be wicked and take a chance on writing something in it, but what?
And what if someone finds out all about my secret life? Nobody seems very interested, except Abe and Deborah. It’s good to have new friends — Abe helping me with things I don’t understand in school, and Deborah being my example of a Canadian girl much more grown up than I, though we’re the same age.
In any case, I have decided to write about my birthday.
Happy Birthday to me!!!!
I am Miriam Hartfeld, an immigrant from Warsaw, Poland. I was born on June 10th, 1934.
I am Jewish.
How good it is to be able to say this — to say my real name — after six years of hiding in a Polish village, with a false identity paper that said I was Zosia Bielska, a Catholic whose parents died when Nazis attacked Poland in 1939. Lies of course. But Papa said we must do what we need to survive.
/> It’s safe here in Canada, even though Papa said they didn’t want to take in Jewish people after the war. Thank goodness Uncle Bronek came here long enough ago and was able to sponsor us. And now here we are in Montreal, Quebec, and I love the French language. Sometimes, even better than English.
It has already been half a year since Mama, Papa, Georgie and I arrived in the Port of Halifax last January. I cannot believe that we came without Katya, but how do you find a sister who simply disappeared during the war, even though we looked for her everywhere. I miss her so. She is still my best friend, even if she is six years older than I.
It was awful to be put into Grade Seven and then fail all the tests. I sat in that classroom like a dummy. But at least when my English improved I started doing better after studying very hard.
A confession:
I started writing this first entry in Polish, then translated it into English. It “killed” me (as they say here) to see how the translation made it possible to substitute words from one language to another. Seeing Polish changing into English, and meaning the same, made me feel friendlier towards the English language. It kind of broke the barrier between my two cultures. Of course, I used a dictionary a lot, and a grammar book. And it puzzles me the way English is used. For instance “to kill,” which can mean “to murder,” can also mean “to amaze or overwhelm.” “Kill” is after all a serious word.
My English is still in its infant stages and has only just begun to crawl — like my brother Georgie did a few months ago.
Mama and Papa went out early today and left a note wishing me a Happy Birthday. They also left a package, and in it a practical gift of panties and socks. I felt a bit disappointed not to have received the red purse they knew I so wanted to carry on weekends. Deborah has a purse and so do the other girls at school. My parents think that a girl my age only needs a wallet. Surely a thirteen-year-old is old enough to carry a purse? Mama and Papa are so old-fashioned. In Poland, girls my age are not allowed to wear lipstick, let alone carry a handbag or, G-d forbid, wear shoes with little heels. I tell Mama and Papa that this is 1947 in Canada, and thirteen-year-old girls are so much more sophisticated. But they don’t listen.