A Papa Like Everyone Else Read online

  When Gisella came out again, Mama had left the garden and was sitting quietly in the lush green grass at the back of the house. Her hands were folded in her lap, and her face was as peaceful and calm as the Sabbath day itself. It’s good to have a Sabbath, Gisella told herself. It gives Mama a chance to rest.

  Nearby, their brown and white cow seemed to be celebrating the Sabbath, too. Weekday mornings, Andrus, the cowherd, drove the village cows to the pasture, returning them in the evening. But on Saturdays, their cow remained on their own ground. She ate leisurely of the grass, the bell around her neck responding with every slow swish of her tail.

  “I just want to say hello to the cow, Mama,” Gisella said. “Then I’ll go sit with Szerena.”

  The cow lifted her head as Gisella approached. Her brown eyes fixed themselves on the little girl. Gisella stroked the sleek furred head. “You nice sweet cow!” she purred. “You good cow!”

  The cow lowered her head and pulled away abruptly from Gisella’s caressing hand.

  “What’s the matter . . . ?”

  Gisella had no time to finish. The cow let out a loud, rumbling moo. Its head came up sharply, and the curved horns caught hold of Gisella’s dress. The next thing Gisella knew, she was being pitched high in the air! The trees—the sky—the whole world was toppling! She was falling—falling! Kerplop! Amazingly, right smack into Mama’s lap!

  For a moment, Mama and Gisella sat dazed, unable to comprehend just what had occurred. Mama finally found her voice. “Are you all right? Are you all right?”

  Gisella stared up into Mama’s astonished face. “I’m fine,” she uttered a bit shakily.

  “It’s a miracle!” Mama cried, throwing her arms around Gisella. “You might have landed on a stone, or even the fence! What’s come over that creature?” She jumped up and approached warily. But the cow was once again its docile self, munching away contentedly on a tender clump of grass.

  Mama stood there nonplussed. “She’s never done anything like that before.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t like me to pet her anymore,” Gisella said ruefully.

  “Oh, I know what it is!” Mama exclaimed. “Your dress! It’s such a bright red it startled her.”

  “But, Mama, I thought cows are supposed to be color-blind.”

  Mama laughed with relief. “I guess this one isn’t. Anyway, so long as you weren’t hurt, it doesn’t matter. But, hereafter, better keep out of her way when you’re wearing red.”

  The flax field lay just beyond the kitchen garden. It was bordered by a fence woven of cut branches to keep out the chickens and geese. Inside the fence, Szerena was sitting on the ground wielding a long switch to discourage any sparrow or starling from alighting.

  Gisella clambered over the fence, picked up another switch, and seated herself at the opposite end of the field. As she whipped her switch back and forth, she shouted across to Szerena the tale of her unexpected tumble through the air. It sent them both into gales of laughter.

  Next to the flax field was the plum orchard. Row upon row of umbrellalike trees were covered with delicate pink and white blossoms, their heavy sweetness perfuming the air. If I have to sit in one place, Gisella thought, how much nicer to be under one of those plum trees looking up at a lovely roof of flowers overhead. She heaved a bored sigh. In just a couple more days, the flax seeds would start sprouting. Then the thieving birds would give up. But now the field must be watched every minute until sundown. Back and forth, back and forth sailed the switch. No bird was going to get away with a single seed. Not while she was there!

  Swish, swish! To and fro, to and fro. Change from right hand to left. Swish, swish. Left hand to right. Minutes turned into hours. The afternoon dragged on endlessly. Weary of talk, the girls fell silent.

  Gisella’s head swung back in a wide yawn. Would the sun never set? Would the birds never go back to their nests to sleep? How lucky we had Imre chasing the birds while we were in the synagogue. I couldn’t have put up with this for the whole day, she thought.

  EIGHT

  June days were hot and sunny, and there was no need for shoes. Gisella and her friends Ilona and Juli sat on the porch wriggling their bare toes in the moist brown earth. “I know what we can do,” suggested Gisella. “Let’s go dangle our feet in the ditch.”

  All along the streets of Helmecz there were ditches for drawing off the rain to keep the roads dry. In front of each house, a small footbridge spanned the ditch, for they were seldom without water.

  The girls plopped themselves down on the little bridge and started splashing about. Juli reached down into the water and scooped up a handful of mud. “See!” she said. “There are snails in this ditch. Let’s sing the snail song.”

  When each girl had a snail in her hand, they began singing:

  Snail, Uncle Snail,

  Put out your little head,

  And I will give you

  A big piece of bread.

  Here come the Tartars!

  They’ll chop off your head,

  Toss you in a salty well

  And throw thorns upon your head.

  The snail in Gisella’s hand timidly poked its pale gray head out of the shell. Gisella was certain her singing had coaxed it out.

  The snail felt cool and soft on her skin, but a moment later, it retreated into its home. She held it up to her eye and peered into the narrow opening trying to discover what went on inside. She sang to it again, but the snail remained inside. After a while, she gave up and tossed it back into the ditch.

  Whistling cheerily, a young boy came sauntering up the street. “Hello, Cousin Kalman,” Gisella called out.

  “Hello,” he returned, grinning down at them. “What are you girls doing?”

  Gisella shrugged. “Oh, just splashing.”

  “Say, you ought to see our mulberry trees!” Kalman said. “They’re getting so full of leaves!”

  “You’ll have lots of delicious mulberries,” Ilona told him.

  “I wasn’t thinking about them. I was thinking about the silkworms. They’ll have plenty of juicy leaves to feed on.”

  “The man from the silk factory in Ungwar is bringing the worms tomorrow,” Juli said.

  “I know,” Ilona chimed in. “They’re opening the sehoolhouse especially so they can give them out.”

  “You going to take any?” asked Gisella. Ilona’s nose crinkled up snootily. “Not me!”

  “I am!” Kalman declared. “I’m going to take a whole bunch of them. They will pay good money for the cocoons.”

  “I wonder why they’re doing this?” Gisella said. “They never asked us before.”

  Kalman tried to lift a pebble with his bare toes. “Some kind of experiment, I guess. They don’t ask the grown-ups because they’re too busy. But it’s easy to take care of the worms, so they figure maybe the children can do it.”

  “Szerena wants me to help her raise them,” Gisella said. “But we have just one mulberry tree. Its trunk is long and skinny, and the leaves are way up high. It would be hard for us to reach them.”

  “You can always come and get some branches from our trees,” offered Kalman. “Or, if you like, I’ll climb up that old tree of yours and cut off some branches whenever yon need them.”

  “Oh, would you, Kalman?”

  “Anytime. I can climb a tree like a squirrel,” he boasted. “Well, I have to go. I have to fill up the wood pails for my mother.”

  “It’s getting pretty late,” Ilona decided. “I’d better get on home, too.”

  Juli scrambled to her feet. “I’ll go with you.”

  Her friends went away, but Gisella still idled on the little footbridge. From a distance, she could hear a fluttering chorus of cowbells approaching. Was it that late?

  Szerena came out of the house. Gisella went to meet her, and together they waited at the front gate for their cow.

  Gisella’s upturned face looked toward the horizon. Already the setting sun was sweeping a feathery scarf of rose and violet across the
sky. “It could never be as lovely as this in America, could it?” she murmured.

  “The sky is beautiful everywhere,” Szerena replied. “But Papa lives in New York City. Think of that! The largest city in the whole world! That’s what I would like!”

  Gisella glanced at her sister. She sounded so eager. “Szerena,” she asked, “doesn’t it bother you at all about leaving here?”

  Szerena smiled. “A big change is always a bit scary. Especially when you’re not sure what things are really like in the new place. Still, I wouldn’t want to give up the chance for anything! I don’t want to be stuck on a poor farm all of my life!”

  The cows came in sight, led by Andrus and his big staff, a large cloud of dust trailing behind them. Slowly they trudged past, each animal finding its own way home. Now their cow was nudging the gate with her forehead. Szerena lifted the latch and let her in.

  The following day Gisella and Szerena brought home a bowlful of silkworms. “We can keep them in here,” Szerena said, leading the way into the storage room, which at this season of the year was the summer kitchen. “Bring the long tray,” she added. “The one with the little legs.”

  True to his promise, Kalman had supplied them with enough leaves and twigs to completely cover the tray. They carefully sprinkled the worms over this greenery.

  “You’d never think they were worms!” Gisella exclaimed. “They look more like poppy seeds.”

  “Wait till they start growing. They’ll look like worms then all right,” replied Szerena.

  “Won’t they climb off the tray and fall on the floor? There’s nothing to hold them.”

  “No. The man said they would cling to the twigs and just eat and eat.”

  Thereafter, first thing every morning the girls ran to examine the tray. It was amazing how quickly the teeny specks were turning into wriggly threadlike worms. The leaves were eaten full of holes. Again and again they had to be replenished with fresh ones. By the end of the month, the worms had thickened and grown tremendously.

  Kalman came around one afternoon to inspect their batch. “Hmm! They’re way bigger than mine.” He scratched his head. “Why is that?”

  On hearing this, the sisters paid a visit to his house to see for themselves. Indeed it was true. Kalman’s worms just couldn’t compare in length and fatness to theirs.

  Kalman scowled down on his trays. “Here I’ve been giving you the best of care, the finest mulberry leaves in the whole village, and just look at you!”

  “It is odd,” Szerena made her voice sound sympathetic, but over Kalman’s head, she shot a triumphant glance at Gisella.

  Kalman frowned down on the worms. “Maybe I could stretch them a little.”

  “Oh, no!” protested Gisella. “You’ll hurt them!”

  “I’ll he careful.” Gently Kalman tried pulling on a worm. It was no use. It stretched just so far, and when he let go, it immediately settled back to its original shape. Kalman appeared baffled. “You girls were just lucky, I guess. Your batch of worms was probably healthier to begin with.”

  The sisters did not bother to contradict him. They just smiled. They were convinced that they could raise silkworms better than any boy.

  By about the end of the fifth week, the girls hung the branches from a shelf. The worms, transformed into nice fat caterpillars, had stopped eating. As they hung from the branches, each wiggled around and around. With silken threads which exuded from their mouths, they were spinning cocoons about themselves. Shaped somewhat like peanut shells, they were mostly white, but a few were a delicate pink-orange or egg-shell blue.

  On an appointed day, the man from the silk factory came trundling a large barrel and scale. Szerena and Gisella held their breaths as he weighed their pile of cocoons.

  “Well,” the man smiled at Mama, “your daughters have done a fine job!” Into Szerena’s palm, he laid a koruna.

  “Oh, thank you!” the girls gasped. They could hardly believe their eyes.

  Szerena proudly gave Mama the money.

  Gisella laughed happily. “Next year, Szerena, we ought to raise two trays instead of one!”

  “Next year?” For an instant, Szerena had a faraway look in her eyes. “Next year at this time, we will be in America.”

  Gisella didn’t say anything. She didn’t even want to think about it.

  Another letter from Papa said things were going well. Soon they would all be together again. . . .

  Gisella gazed up into Mama’s careworn face, now transformed with the brightness of hope. Papa was forever holding out the dazzling promise of their going to America. Would they? Somehow Gisella could not quite believe it.

  There were times when she even doubted that there was a Papa. She wondered about that. Was it because she had been too young to remember him? Or was it that through all the troubled years, they talked so little about him? Always he seemed unreal to her.

  But America seemed real enough. The way people were always talking about America, it must be a wonderland! The marvelous things that Papa sent them from there!

  Gisella stretched out on the wooden settee. Head hanging back over the edge, she lay with half-closed eyes, dreaming about America.

  NINE

  In the broad fields to the east ot town, each villager had his own small plot where he grew wheat, rye, barley, corn, and potatoes. Mama would trek to her field regularly throughout the hot summer days. Often Szerena and Gisella went along to help with the weeding. But mostly, the girls busied themselves around the house and barn and tended the kitchen garden at the back of the house. As the weeks rolled on, the blazing sun gradually burned their skin and bleached Gisella’s hair to an even lighter gold.

  Early in the summer wild strawberries grew in abundance on the slope near the sehoolhouse. There the girls would scramble about of an afternoon with the other village children, filling pails with the tiny fruit to bring home.

  Summertime—it was wonderful to sink one’s teeth into the delicious yellow-pink fruit from their lone peach tree, or munch on juicy purple plums from the orchard. There were small red currants and furry soft raspberries ready to be picked. These they ate to bursting, then helped Mama turn the rest into mouth-watering conserves and jellies.

  Sometimes, when chores were done, Gisella would slip off by herself to the back pasture. She would stretch out on the tall, velvety grass, dotted with golden buttercups. Enveloped in drowsy peacefulness, she would gaze up steadily at the clear blue sky. The only sound invading the stillness might be the occasional buzz of an insect flitting by. Or she and Szerena would climb up to the low flat branch of the quince tree. It was pleasant sitting there in the shade, looking out over the garden now ablaze with color. There were asters in all shades—white, blue, purple, and fuchsia—and bright red bleeding hearts. In one corner was a little bush which people called Isten Faja (God’s Tree). When its evergreenlike leaves were pressed between the fingers, they gave forth a heavenly scent.

  When the day was especially torrid, Mama allowed them to go swimming with their friends in the river which meandered along the edge of the village. They would splash and tumble about in their pinafores, whooping with delight. At the shallow end, a crude bridge of wooden planks spanned the river. It shook and bounced perilously with each step. Though she tried not to show it, Gisella was frightened every time she had to cross it. She envied Szerena, who could skip back and forth with unconcern.

  On the opposite side, the river was banked by some high mounds of yellow clay. Someone would shout, “Come on! Let’s go sliding!” Immediately the youngsters would wet down a clay hill until its smooth surface made a perfect slide. As they coasted down, pinafores and bottoms would turn a bright yellow. “It doesn’t matter,” Gisella would cry. “Slide, slide! It washes off!”

  Late in July a dealer drove up from the city with his wagon and helpers to pick the plums in the orchard.

  “Oh, Mama, did you sell him the whole crop?” Gisella asked anxiously.

  “Of course not,” Mama assu
red her, laughing. “I left two laden trees for us. That should be plenty for you. We’ll start drying the plums and making lechwar tomorrow. Imre will bring us some heavy roots and tree stumps for the fires.”

  “Is anyone coming to help?” inquired Szerena.

  “Zali Neni, of course. And Muncie Neni, too.”

  Gisella gave a joyous little skip. It was always great fun when Zali Neni and Muncie Neni came to help.

  The following day, right after lunch, the girls trudged to the well at the foot of their street with their water buckets. The round, moss-covered wall of the well barely reached to Gisella’s waist. Fearfully she peered down. A person could easily topple in. She made sure to back away as Szerena lowered the bucket.

  The constant drawing of water always kept the earth around the well soggy. It was a sunny day, and clouds of little butterflies of an exquisite blue hovered above the wetness. Gisella watched them, fascinated. They made the ground look like a piece of sky, she thought.

  When they got back, Imre was already digging out the drying pits. Along came Zali Neni and Muncie Neni hauling a huge cauldron between them.

  “I appreciate your bringing the big kettle,” Mama said.

  Zali Neni waved her hand. Her round face dimpled. “Of course, Muncie Neni and I are expecting a tiny bit of lechwar from you in return.”

  “Me, too,” added Imre.

  “Naturally,” Mama replied. “It should only turn out good.”

  “You know your plum preserve is always delicious,” Muncie Neni said.

  Zali Neni rolled up her sleeves. “Enough of talk. Let’s get to work.”

  Mama brought out a nest of baskets. Then all proceeded to the orchard to pluck the plums from the trees she had reserved. Next they carried the filled baskets to the drying pits. At the bottom of the first pit, Imre had set a stump to burning, banking the fire with heavy roots to keep it smouldering. Across the top, flush with the ground, Mama set a bed of tightly woven branches, and on this, the women piled high a heap of plums.