The Woodcarver's Daughter

by Yona Zeldis McDonough

  But there is no time to really look. We have to hurry to the waterfront, where the ship is waiting. The dock is filled with noise and confusion—so many people, so many boxes and bags and trunks and valises. We have to stand for hours in a tightly packed line that moves slowly up the gangplank. Finally, we’re on board, and the great boat, the SS Breslau, begins its long journey across the ocean.

  At first, I’m miserable; we all are. The boat rocks and heaves constantly, and we get sick to our stomachs. Mama finds us metal buckets, and we stick close to them, never knowing when the awful waves of seasickness will come again. Gittel and Avram look green; Sarah can’t stop moaning. But eventually, the sickness fades, and I begin to look forward to each new day. I love the glittering waves with their lacy tips and above them, the wide open sky. I also love having so much time to whittle. I finish the fish I started back home and go on to carve a gull, a cat, and a rabbit.

  One sunny afternoon as I’m sitting on deck whittling, Avram sits down next to me. My first thought is to hide my new animal—an owl—but he’s already seen it. So I keep working.

  “You’re good at this,” he says after a while. “Much better than I am. It should have been you in the shop alongside Papa. Not me.”

  “Do you really think so?” I ask, amazed. He’s never expressed admiration for me before, and I realize that it matters to me.

  “I really do,” says Avram.

  “You don’t like wood carving, do you?” I ask.

  “No,” Avram answered. “I don’t.”

  “Why not?” As we talk, my hands seem to move more quickly and confidently. Here is the owl’s beak; here are his wide, round eyes.

  Avram shrugs. “Papa is disappointed in me.”

  “Did he say that?” I ask.

  “He didn’t have to. I can tell.”

  “That’s too bad,” I say. I don’t like to disappoint Papa either. “If you really don’t want to be a woodcarver, you shouldn’t have to be one. People should get to do what they want.”

  “They should,” Avram says. “But that doesn’t seem to happen much. I don’t want to be a carver, and I’m supposed to be one. You want to carve, but you can’t. It isn’t fair.”

  “No, it isn’t!” I agree. I’m surprised to find that there’s comfort in just being heard.

  “Maybe it will be different in America,” Avram says.

  “Maybe,” I say. “Maybe not.”

  Avram turns to go below deck. The sun remains high, so I continue working.

  When I look up again, I see Papa standing there. “May I see?”

  I hand him the owl.

  “It’s a bit rough in spots,” says Papa. “But basically good. Keep going.”

  Papa’s words make me want to work even harder—to be worthy of his admiration. And I know I can improve, too. I make a promise to myself to whittle every day, even when we arrive in America.

  Papa goes back downstairs, and I sit looking at the owl. When I’m finished, I’ll give it to Sarah. Maybe it will cheer her up. Unlike the rest of us, Sarah hasn’t fully recovered from the seasickness. While the other girls her age run and play along the ship’s decks, Sarah sits watching, her eyes not focused on anything in particular. I know that Mama is worried about her too. I’ll finish the owl and give it to her as soon as I can.

  But that very night, Sarah suddenly comes down with a fever. The doctor on board the ship comes, but after examining her, he says there’s nothing he can do. He tells Mama he will return in the morning, and he leaves.

  Sarah remains huddled under her blanket in the cramped cabin we all share. Her eyes are closed; her breath comes in shallow gasps. She shivers as Mama sponges her down with cool water. Mama’s face looks so tired.

  “I can wash her,” I say. “Why don’t you take a rest?”

  “I can’t have you getting sick too,” she says. “Go.” But before I do, she kisses my forehead quickly. “You’re a kind girl.”

  I go looking for Papa. I find him on deck, near where we had our talk earlier. He’s leaning over the ship’s railing, staring out at the dark water.

  “She’s very sick, Papa, isn’t she?” I ask.

  “Very,” says Papa, turning his gaze to me now.

  “Will she be all right?”

  “I don’t know,” Papa says.

  “Do you think she might die?” It’s a terrible question, but I have to ask.

  Papa puts his arm around my shoulders and holds me tightly. We don’t say anything. Silently, I offer a prayer for my sister. And later, when Papa and I go below deck once more, I work on the owl as if Sarah’s getting well depends on it.

  The next day Sarah is still shivering with the fever. Her skin turns waxy, and I can see the pale blue veins beneath its surface. The doctor just shakes his head. He can do nothing. Mama looks worn to the bone, and even big, strong Papa seems to have shrunk.

  But on the third day, the fever breaks. The shivering stops, and Sarah is able to sit up in bed. She greedily drinks the tea that Mama offers her, holding the cup with two hands. She is thin and weak, but she is alive.

  Gittel and I cover her with kisses. Avram scoops her up in his arms and tosses her high. I show her the owl, and she claps her small palms, then reaches for it eagerly.

  It’s only later that we realize what’s changed. She doesn’t answer to her name or respond to noises of any kind. When the fever left, it took her hearing along with it.

  The doctor returns. He takes his silvery instruments from his black bag and checks her eyes and ears, her nose and throat. Sarah just smiles. The doctor takes out two metal rods and bangs them together. The sound makes me cover my ears. Sarah doesn’t even turn her head.

  “There’s nothing we can do,” says the doctor, putting his instruments back in the bag. “You’re just lucky you didn’t lose her.”

  “You mean that she’ll never be able to hear again?” Mama asks. The doctor shakes his head, and Mama presses her face to Papa’s chest. Gittel and Avram hold hands.

  I can’t look at any of them; instead, I look at Sarah, who is busily making the owl swoop and fly. Up and down, up and down. She is the only one in this cramped room who doesn’t seem unhappy. The wooden owl seems to be bringing her so much joy that she doesn’t pay attention to any of us. I’ll carve you another owl, I silently promise my sister. I’ll carve you enough owls to fill a whole forest.

  Chapter 5

  Brick

  It is September when we arrive at Ellis Island. We pass another island first, the one where Lady Liberty stands, but Mama and Papa don’t seem interested in her. They’re too worried about other things—like the doctor who examines us and, when he discovers that Sarah is deaf, almost sends her back to Russia. Mama is eaten up with worry. Finally, after poking and prodding every bit of poor frightened Sarah, the doctor decides that she is well and signs the paper that will allow her entry into America.

  Then there is our name: Breittelmann. Papa pronounces it slowly and carefully so that the immigration official can write it down correctly. But the line of people waiting behind us is long, and the official is in hurry.

  “Too many letters!” he says impatiently to Papa. “Let’s call you Brightman—no, that’s still too long. How about Bright? Yes, that’ll do.”

  “But—” begins Papa. It’s no use, though. The official calls “Next!” and waves Papa away. Papa gathers his papers, peering down at his new name. Not that he can read the letters anyway; none of us can. “Bright,” he says, trying it out softly. He sounds as if he has just lost something, something precious.

  From Ellis Island, we travel into New York City. I could not have imagined such a place. So big, so crowded, so noisy. New York City makes Riga look small. I hear people speaking Yiddish, but many people speak American too.

  “Not American. English,” Papa corrects me.

  Everything’s so strange to me. No wooden houses, no thatched roofs, no trees, no brooks, no woods. Instead, wherever I look, I see hard surfaces: brick
and stone, metal and glass. To me, they seem cold and ugly.

  For the first few days, we stay with our cousin Chana, sleeping on the floor and trying to get used to our new surroundings. Chana helps us find a small apartment on Stanton Street, in a neighborhood full of other immigrants. Many, like us, are from Russia. But others come from Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, or Germany.

  The new apartment is up two flights of steep and narrow stairs. The rooms are dark and small; the few windows face the dingy back courtyard. I’m thrilled to have running water—back in Russia, we drew water from a well in a heavy, wooden bucket—but not about sharing the bathroom with the two other families who live on our floor. And I don’t like how cut off I feel from the outside; it’s down two long flights every time I want a breath of air.

  Even worse is that Papa can’t find a job carving wood. The shops he hears about are very far away, in places like Connecticut or New Jersey. And they’re not interested in hiring a newly arrived Russian Jew who knows only a few English words. Every morning, Papa goes out looking for work, and every evening, he comes back looking discouraged and tired. Finally, he gets a job, but not as a woodcarver. He works at a grocery store, keeping the shelves stocked and helping customers.

  Mama gets a job too. She works in a factory where she makes silk flowers, and she takes in sewing for extra money. Gittel can help her, but my sewing isn’t good enough. So I offer to iron the mended clothes.

  I scorch a delicate cotton nightdress, leaving a dark brown mark on the front that no amount of bleach will remove. I feel terrible. Mama has to pay for the ruined garment. It costs as much as all the money she made from the mending. The worst part is that Mama doesn’t even scold me. She just doesn’t let me iron again.

  To make up for it, I keep Sarah entertained. Now that she understands that she can’t hear, this is not an easy job. Sometimes she kicks and yells; other times she cries. I try to soothe her, but it’s hard.

  The High Holy Days arrive. Our kitchen is too small for Mama to cook for any guests, so we have our erev Rosh Hashanah dinner with Chana, the cousin who let us sleep on her floor. The next day, we go to services at the brick shul on Eldridge Street. It’s nice, but I feel out of place. I can’t help thinking of our shul back home in Russia. I knew every face on every bench. And I knew every bench too! And every column and the lions at the front and the bimah, because Papa helped carve them all.

  I miss our cottage, the shop, the village, and everything we left behind when we crossed the ocean. Why, here in America, I can’t even whittle. I used up all the bits of wood I had brought with me on the boat, and I have no way to get more. And even if Papa were able to get me wood, I would have no time anyway. I have to get up early, quickly drink down my tea while it’s still hot enough to burn my tongue, and then hurry off to school. After school there are lessons to do at home. Soon it’s night, and I climb into bed exhausted, only to start all over the next day.

  Back in our village, only the boys went to school, where they studied Torah and prepared for becoming bar mitzvah. I used to be jealous that Avram got to learn while I had to stay home and do chores. Sometimes I would sneak into the schoolroom after the boys had left. I touched the pages with the mysterious squiggles that I knew were words. When Papa found out, he didn’t get angry. No, he sat me down beside him and taught me to read.

  I love reading almost as much as I love carving, and I used to read the few books we owned—a Bible and a book about talking animals called Aesop’s Fables—over and over again. So when I first found out I would be going to school, I was happy.

  But school is not what I thought it would be. Since we don’t speak American—no, English—Gittel and Avram and I are put in a class with very little children, some almost as young as Sarah. Gittel and Avram seem to pick up the language right away and are soon moved to another class. Not me. The new words and new sounds are baffling. I can’t say them, understand them, or read them. I was so good at reading in Yiddish—Papa was proud of how quickly I caught on. And Mama always praised the way I expressed myself. But now I’m stuck here with the babies.

  The teacher, Miss Flannery, is a kind woman with gold-rimmed glasses and a tidy gray bun. She gives me a book filled with big, colored pictures. A single word is printed below each one. I can’t read the words, but I can understand what they must mean from looking at the pictures. Dog. Ball. House. Pear. My cheeks burn as I turn the pages. This is a book that would be perfect for Sarah. I’m too old for this book. Can’t Miss Flannery see that? Or maybe she thinks that with my too-small dresses and my strange foreign words, I’m so unlike the rest of the girls that I won’t mind.

  And I am unlike them. At recess and at lunch, they ignore me. So I sit alone, chewing on the jam sandwich Mama has packed for me. At the end of the day, I grab my books and hurry home. I would run, but the narrow streets are too clogged with pushcarts and people.

  Back in Russia, I had so many friends. But here, I have no one. I beg to be allowed to stay home with Sarah, who spends her days in the apartment, playing with the animals I carved and making pictures on day-old newspapers. But Mama and Papa say no; here in America, children have to go to school. “Education is a gift, tochter,” Mama says. “You are a lucky girl.” But I don’t feel lucky.

  I envy Sarah—but also Gittel and Avram, who seem to be adjusting to this new life. Avram has a friend, Max, who’s teaching him to play a game called stickball and to ride a bicycle. With her perfect braids and the dresses she has started sewing for herself, Gittel is popular and sought after. All the girls in her class invite her home at lunchtime or after school.

  By now, it’s winter. There’s snow, though not much, and it quickly turns to ugly gray slush. I think of the snow-covered roofs and branches back in Russia. When it snowed, the meadow was covered in white. Often, mine were the first and only tracks to cut across it.

  I’ve grown since we left Russia. I’m now taller than Avram, and my old winter coat no longer fits; my wrists poke out of the sleeves, and the buttons don’t close. But Mama is so busy with sewing for other ladies that she doesn’t have time to make me a new coat. So I go to school in the old one, with a shawl of Mama’s tied over it to keep me warm. I often lag behind, letting Gittel and Avram go ahead. I’m in no hurry to get there.

  I make my way through the crowded streets, stopping to stare at the sights along the way. A vendor has posted a sign with a picture of a pickle. Beneath it are some words. I can’t read them. But passing the sign day after day, I become familiar with the look of the words, and when I see one of them in a newspaper ad, I say to Mama, “Look. It says pickle.” Mama, who can’t read it either, asks Avram if that’s right. When Avram says yes, I actually laugh out loud. Pickle—the first English word I recognize all on my own.

  After that, I study the signs even more closely. A shop whose window is crammed with spools of thread, pincushions, and packets of needles has a sign that says Sewing Supplies. Another shop that displays petticoats and garters is Ladies’ Undergarments. Little by little, I teach myself to read the signs. I can read the picture books at school with ease and say the words aloud too, though with a thick accent. But it doesn’t matter. I’m reading—and speaking—English.

  Soon I’m better at speaking than Mama and Papa and even Gittel and Avram. Now, if someone in the family doesn’t understand an English word, I’m the one they ask. How proud that makes me. Miss Flannery suggests that I move ahead to a class with children my age. Finally!

  But the best day comes when our class splits into two groups. The girls are going to a room where we will learn to baste, embroider, and sew. The boys are going to something called woodshop. Woodshop! My heart leaps at the sound of the word. I get one of the boys to tell me where the room is, and after school has ended for the day, I go there myself.

  I don’t know if I’ll be allowed to trade sewing for woodshop. In Russia, girls couldn’t learn to work with wood. But doesn’t Papa always talk about the freedom we have in America? No pogroms,
not here. Maybe it will be different with woodworking too.

  I look around the room. Tables, benches, and tools. Several saws, stacked planks of wood, and a sandy-haired man—the teacher, I guess—wearing a leather apron. Papa once owned such an apron too, but it’s gone now, burned in the fire.

  “Did you want something?” asks the teacher pleasantly.

  “I want to come to woodshop. Not sewing. Woodshop. To carve.”

  “Only boys come here,” says the teacher. He doesn’t sound unkind, only puzzled.

  “I know. But I am girl who wants . . . to carve,” I say.

  “I’m sorry,” says the teacher. “No girls. Just boys.”

  “Oh.” I turn away, disappointed. No different than Russia after all. As I walk out the door, my foot brushes something. I look down to see a block of wood.

  I kneel to pick it up. It must belong in the woodshop. I should take it back.

  But I don’t. Instead, my fingers close tightly around the wood. It’s the first piece I’ve held in a long time.

  At home, I hide it in the round metal biscuit tin where I keep my treasures—the first tooth I ever lost, a perfectly round white stone, and a shining, green-blue feather I found while walking in the woods. This little piece of wood is a treasure too, and one day, I’ll know what to do with it. Until then, it will be safe in the box.

  The day after my talk with the teacher, I ask Avram if he has to go to woodshop.

  “I’m supposed to,” he says. “All the boys are. But I managed to get out of it.”

  “How did you do that?” I ask.

  “Woodshop is always at the end of the day. I told the teacher that I have a job and need to leave early.”

  “A job? What job?” I ask. He hasn’t mentioned a job before. Do Papa and Mama know?

  “I’m making deliveries for a man who sells buttons. Max lets me use his bicycle, and I can get back and forth really fast. Three deliveries a day, sometimes. They pay me ten cents for each, and sometimes there’s a tip, too. Think of it, Batya—if I make enough money, I can buy a bicycle of my very own!”