by Sasha Martin
Day after day I shut myself away in my castle bed, staring at the drawings until I could almost see Grace sitting next to me. Without her and her brothers, the house was too still. When the last crumb from our meal was swept up, often Mom disappeared into her room for hours at a time. She said she was napping.
There’s a difference between poverty of resources and poverty of spirit. For a long time, Michael and I were oblivious to hardship because of Mom’s determined efforts. But in the end she couldn’t erase the reality of our situation. Nowhere was our poverty more apparent than when we went out into the community, which seemed to operate under a constantly shifting set of rules. Even figuring out where we could buy our groceries was to risk humiliation.
A year after we moved to Jamaica Plain, a new health food store opened two miles from the apartment. When we got the notice in the mail, Mom decided we’d go immediately.
Mom had tied my babushka on extra tight when we’d left the apartment, tucking my long brown hair into the neck of my woolen poncho. She’d pointed to the trees, whose leaves stood silver against the charcoal sky, and said we needed to hurry; there was rain on the way. But she’d said it with a smile since we were going to make a German Tree Cake.
Broiling 21 crepe-like layers of batter into a cake, Mom decided, would be the perfect rainy-day activity. She got the recipe from a German woman at a folk dance. Mom made a habit of asking foreigners what they like to eat, pressing them until they shared something she could add to our patchwork of recipes.
Michael and I wandered into the dry goods section, where I reached into a large barrel.
“This cereal tastes funny,” I said.
Michael stood on tiptoe, his corduroys rising a couple of inches above his loafers, and peered inside the barrel. His hair fell into his eyes. Already in second grade, he could read. “That’s dog food, Sash.” He giggled, but took a handful, too.
The egg-shaped man behind the counter was talking to Mom in a low grumble. She looked upset as she waved her hand over her selections: chocolate, eggs, almonds from the bulk bin, and a tin of almond paste. There was also an avocado. Mom promised we could split it for lunch. But our car had broken down again, and we had walked two miles from our apartment to the health food store. I was hungry now.
The man’s voice grew loud. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I can’t change the rules. We don’t take food stamps.”
Mom glanced over at Michael and me, straightened her small shoulders and knit her eyebrows together.
Michael marched to her side. “Come on, Mom, we don’t need his stupid food,” he said taking her hand, and scowling up at the clerk.
Mom tucked the food stamps back into a fold of her coat. She counted out a few coins from her change purse, looked the man squarely in the eyes, and placed them on the counter with a sharp click.
She managed our avocado lunch, but it would be another few weeks before she could hem enough trousers to buy the ingredients for the German Tree Cake. We begged her to go to a different grocery store, one of the many chains near our apartment where she could use her food stamps. But she said we deserved to shop at the health food store just like anyone else.
Mom saved her money, and when we left the store the second time, we had what we needed. After a painstaking morning spent broiling the 21 almond layers and another afternoon glazing it, the first bite was nowhere as good as I expected.
It was better.
German Tree Cake | Baumtorte/Baumkuchen
This is the kind of cake that pulls family together around the stove, incites gasps when sliced, and tastes like escape. The stacked almond cake looks like the rings of an ancient tree, whose secrets hide under chocolate and crushed almond bark. Golden apricot jam drips like sap.
There’s no denying it—this cake is a lot of work. German bakeries resort to a rotating spit to “paint on” nearly two dozen layers. Mom knew the best way to tackle it is over two days: one for baking, another for decorating. While the layers broil, I set a timer and make a game of cleaning in bursts. By the time the last layer browns, the kitchen sparkles.
For the batter:
14 ounces almond paste (a tightly packed 1⅓ cups)
6 tablespoons half-and-half
12 tablespoons (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for cake pan
1 cup sugar
10 large eggs, separated (put the whites in a large bowl)
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup cake flour
¾ cup cornstarch
¼ teaspoon salt
For assembly:
Apricot jam (about a 10-ounce jar)
Slivered almonds (1 cup or so, coarsely ground)
For the chocolate glaze:
6 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon dark rum
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (1 cup)
Grease and line a 9-inch springform pan with a round of parchment paper.
For the batter:
In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the almond paste with half-and-half, one tablespoon at a time. Start the mixer on low, then increase to medium until smooth. Beat in the softened butter until the mixture is fluffy, then beat in the sugar. Scrape the bowl as needed. Incorporate the egg yolks—one at a time—and the vanilla extract. (At this point, I dab a little vanilla extract on my wrists, just like mom.)
In a medium bowl, whisk together the cake flour, cornstarch, and salt. Beat it into the batter in thirds on lowest speed, scraping the bowl as needed. Finally, use a hand mixer to beat the egg whites in a large bowl until they form medium peaks. Fold the egg whites into the batter in thirds, until it looks like an almond paste cloud.
To bake the cake:
Preheat the broiler for a few minutes.
To make the layers, use a ⅓ cup measuring spoon to scoop a heaping mound of batter into the prepared springform pan. Use a pastry brush to spread the batter all over the bottom of the pan, right up to the edges. Place under the broiler and cook until browned. The key is to get the batter deeply browned so that the layers show when the cake is sliced; this takes about a minute per layer for me. As the cake gets taller (and closer to the broiler), the layers cook quicker so adjust accordingly.
Every few layers, brush on 1 tablespoon of apricot jam (save half the jar for later). Continue in this way until all the batter is used up. Let the cake cool to room temperature in the pan, then wrap in plastic and refrigerate overnight.
To decorate the cake:
For the glaze, melt the butter, rum, vanilla extract, and corn syrup together in a small pot. Simmer for one minute, then remove from heat and add the chocolate. Cover and let sit a few minutes. Meanwhile, run a knife around the edge of the cake and release from the springform pan. Spread top and sides with remaining apricot jam to seal the crumbs.
Whisk the chocolate glaze until smooth and glossy. Working over a cooling rack set over a baking pan, pour the glaze on top of the cake and spread evenly over the sides. Decorate with ground almonds by pressing a palmful onto the sides of the cake. Alternatively, sprinkle them over the entire cake.
Chill to set the glaze. Serve slices with hot tea or coffee. A bit of whipped cream is a nice touch.
Enough for 10 to 12
CHAPTER 5
Fallen Branches
MICHAEL AND I MIGHT HAVE PLODDED along relatively unscathed through childhood; certainly Mom’s inventiveness kept things upbeat. But my mother tends not to hold her tongue when convention defies her notion of logic. And she will not sit silently on the sidelines, despite the repercussions.
Mom made a point to question even the most conventional wisdom. Gingerbread cookies weren’t just for the winter; in July and August, she’d make them into ice cream sandwiches that we’d enjoy after a run through a spraying fire hydrant.
She insisted that no child of hers was going to wear a seat belt. “If we’re in
an accident, we need to be free to jump out of the car to protect ourselves. An uncle of mine did that, and lived. The person wearing a seat belt didn’t. I won’t have you living with a false sense of security,” she declared. If Mom got a parking ticket for taking the only open spot by our apartment, thereby blocking a handicap ramp, she scoffed at the court clerks: “I am handicapped, I have kids!”
Nothing was sacred. Everything could and should be questioned.
Mom kept me away from kindergarten, saying it was much too soon to take a child from her mother. She’d tried it with Michael and hated how they’d forced him to lie down when he’d refused to take naps years earlier. “There’s no humanity in the system,” she’d say. “Why can’t they just let the energetic kids out to play instead of treating them like mummies?”
But by the mid-eighties there was no more putting off school; I was six years old. It should have been a wonderful experience: Great Aunt Fina helped pay for Michael and me to attend the small Catholic school around the corner, Our Lady of Lourdes. This was a luxury Mom could never have afforded on her own, and one that her father would not have offered (being of the very Hungarian mind-set that now she was in her 40s, she should pull herself up by the bootstraps).
Even in this homogeneous environment, where uniforms and French braids bobbed in neat rows along the waxed hallways, I stood out as different. For first grade, Mom lowered and fringed the hem on my pinafore until it fell clear down to my calves, asserting that anything above the knee was for “hussies.” She didn’t let us buy the school lunches, either; they were, she explained, charity for people who didn’t know how to cook.
At every turn Mom challenged the school principal, Sister Margaret, a tight-lipped, round-bottomed schoolmarm who spent most of her days holed up in a shuttered office. At the end of the year, when Mom challenged her for allowing sex education videos into elementary school, the resulting hollering match echoed through the halls. Mom said she didn’t want her six- and eight-year-old learning about sex at school; that was family business.
Word traveled fast: When Mom showed up to the next PTA meeting, she was met with whispers and sidelong glares. One of my classmates told me that her mother said my mother was a troublemaker.
Mom couldn’t catch a break. Her unconventional way of seeing the world was misunderstood by our neighbors and the authorities; the same went for her tone, Italian and insolent. As though to exact vengeance on my mother for her apparent transgressions, Sister Margaret called the Department of Social Services during the last week of school and slapped Mom with a 51A, reporting her for child endangerment as an unstable mother. A trim social worker in a tweed suit plucked Michael and me from our classrooms right in the middle of final exams. She said she was taking us to see Mom, and then drove in the opposite direction.
Michael detected the lie first. He unfastened his seat belt, twisted in his seat, and kicked at the car door. I held my breath, wondering if it would swing open or the glass would shatter, but nothing happened. Without slowing the car, the social worker reached back and refastened Michael’s seat belt. Michael slumped in defiance, fighting the tears that spilled down his cheeks. “You’re a liar!” he yelled.
When I realized what was happening, I pressed my face and hands against the window and began to cry, watching as strange houses flickered by. I blubbered that I didn’t want to go; I wanted my mom. She was going to wonder where we were; she needed us. The lady just pursed her lips and kept on driving.
We ended up a mile away at a turquoise town house with plastic-covered sofas. Our room was in the attic. There were four beds with sagging middles, two of which were already claimed by other foster children.
Before the social worker left, I asked how Mom would know not to pick us up from school. The woman assured me that someone would call her from the courthouse. She put her hands on my shoulders and added that everyone really did have our best interests at heart.
We lived there six weeks. One of the other foster kids was moved almost immediately, leaving us to bunk with a 14-year-old boy who’d just been released from a mental institution. “He’s in transition,” the social worker told us, “so be nice to him.”
At night I’d wake to the boy pressed against me, muttering. One time I saw him climb in Michael’s bed. I didn’t sleep much after that.
During the day Michael and I took to playing stickball with fallen tree branches and rocks. One day Michael’s rock landed square in the center of our roommate’s forehead. Michael said it was an accident. The boy left for stitches and never came back. For punishment, the man of the house, José, handed Michael a bar of soap and told us that from now on, if we wanted a bath, we should run through the fire hydrant. Michael didn’t talk back; he’d seen a gun on the man’s mantel.
We were always hungry. One afternoon Michael and I wandered into the kitchen and asked José for a snack. His enormous back was to us, his fat pressed into the crevices of a small vinyl chair. At the sound of my voice, he ran his hand through his black hair, narrowed his eyes, and started yelling in Spanish. He reached into the basket on the table and began throwing apples at me.
Though he didn’t stand much taller than me, Michael didn’t run. He puffed up his little chest and half-rushed the man, who stood up, dwarfing Michael. When José came at him, Michael grabbed an apple off the floor, took my hand, and pulled me outside.
When she heard about the incident during visitation, Mom turned the tables and filed a 51A on the foster home. She won. It was almost unheard of for a parent to fight the system, let alone successfully. In light of Mom’s determination to hold the foster home accountable, accusations that she was unfit no longer held water; the judge agreed to move us in with one of our Italian cousins as a stopgap measure until justice could be served. In late fall, four months after Sister Margaret had us pulled out of school, the court finally allowed Mom to bring us home—but not without assigning a court-ordered therapist to our family.
Mom requested that Michael’s therapy be supplemented by weekly sessions with a priest at our local church. “The boy needs all the fatherly influences he can get,” she said. “I want his spirit to be tended, not just his mind.” But shortly after the sessions began, Michael warned me to stay away from open confession with “that priest.” When I asked him why, his eyes were stormy. “Just don’t Sash.” He was in tears when I ignored him. I couldn’t understand why—the priest had me in and out of his office in a few quick minutes before ushering in the next boy.
That year we attended a large public school on the other side of Jamaica Plain, but the challenges continued. One night in March, Michael and Mom had a big blowup over some stupid no-big-deal thing, as kids and their parents are wont to do. Michael stormed out of the house in his pajamas and plunked himself down on the icy curb, arms crossed, fuming. He had no socks or shoes on. Mom wasn’t bothered. She said he needed to cool off, and that he’d come back in when he realized it was 30 degrees out. A few minutes later a social worker drove by on his way home from work.
The man asked my brother why he was outside. “My mom’s mad at me,” he huffed, leading the social worker to believe Mom had sent Michael outside with malicious intent. In a moment that Mom later told the court was tantamount to kidnapping, the man sped off with Michael, called the authorities, and filed another 51A. The operator instructed him to bring Michael back to the house, though, and we went to bed assuming all had blown over.
In the meantime, the Department of Social Services must have pulled up our history. Later that night, we woke to three bangs on the door. Two police officers and two social workers rushed in. One officer hoisted me from bed and grabbed Michael with his other hand. “Emergency removal,” the officer said, “for the children’s safety.”
Michael yelled and Mom hollered at the officer until her voice cracked, but she was fighting in quicksand; her outburst all but guaranteed a longer placement and more thorough inquisition.
Over the next seven months, we would be placed in
three different homes because of this one incident. Each foster home was worse than the last. Mom—who by now had traded her flowing tunics for stiff blazers and calf-length pleated skirts—proved this in court, successfully filing 51As on the last two.
When I asked Mom during one of our weekly supervised visitations why it was taking so long for us to come home, she said, “They’ve got it all backward. They make the parents guilty until proven innocent. Plus they’re dragging their feet, setting the court dates two months apart. But I’m going to get you kids home.”
Even after we came home, Mom still had to update the courts. Long days were spent on wooden benches outside massive courtrooms, waiting for the heavy gavel of judgments. The eyes of the state were everywhere, monitoring our every move. We couldn’t even play in the rain without having paperwork filed.
At night I’d fall asleep to the hum of Mom’s sewing machine while she rushed through odd jobs to keep the little money we had flowing. In the middle of the night, I’d wake to the tap of her thrift shop typewriter. I’d see her at the kitchen table, surrounded by papers, crafting arguments for the next morning’s court sessions. She used her courses in childhood psychology to argue our case in 50-page documents. “If they think I’m not working for welfare, they’ve got another thing coming,” she once declared. “I’m earning it!”
One time, Michael and I crept into the last row of the marble-paved courtroom to watch one of the cases unfold. I held my breath, afraid that the echo of our steps might upset the wrong person and destroy our chances of staying with her. But no one noticed us. Amid a lot of mumbling and paper shuffling, Mom talked about my good grades and Michael’s creativity.