“Where do you live?” She recited the Italian phrase. “I would like some pasta. I need a pound of cheese.” She skimmed through the easy phrases, her finger slipping down the page as she read, and stopped to review a few of the more difficult verb structures.
The lessons had begun when her older brother, Fritz, came home from work one day, lamenting how he couldn’t communicate with the other workers, who were nearly all immigrants, and very many Italians. The Interborough Rapid Transit Company was developing the new subway system, and if he couldn’t talk to them and be understood, he couldn’t very well be promoted to the position of foreman. Alma had suggested he learn the language, promising to help him practice, and soon after, they’d met Father Rodolfo, a priest on Mulberry Street in the Italian section of the Lower East Side. Delighted by their request, the priest spent several hours every week teaching them after mass. Alma’s mind preyed on the fascinating new sounds and rhythms, enlivening her dull days, and she quickly surpassed her brother’s skills. She hadn’t had any schooling since she was a young girl, and learning again felt like a kind of freedom.
She turned the page in her journal to a dialogue she’d written a few days ago, changing her voice when the speaker changed. She chuckled softly to herself as she attempted to sound male. Several minutes later, she tucked the journal in the cupboard. Her stepfather had looked on with disdain during those months she and Fritz had begun to learn Italian, and eventually he’d forbidden it. There was no use for learning the language of vagrants, he’d said. Alma’s parents’ feet were planted firmly in German tradition and the ways of the past, and they expected the same of her. The expectation weighed on her—their eldest daughter—pressing against her own desires until they all but disappeared somewhere inside her. Rather than argue with her parents and bring everyone distress, she remained silent, as was expected of her.
She joined her mother, and in quiet contemplation, Alma pounded pork fillets and stirred the silky batter in which they would be dipped before frying. As she churned the thick liquid, it splattered on her apron and dribbled down the pot. She grunted in frustration. Why did she always spill everything? She cleaned up her mess, peeled a mountain of potatoes for boiling, and steamed a vat of sauerkraut steeped in beer, onion, and pork grease. Next, she threw together a mixture of vinegar and herbs, added water and black pepper, and ladled it over a beef roast to marinate for three days. In three days, there would be sauerbraten, oxtail salad to make, and piles of carrots and turnips to serve.
In three days, she would drag herself from the bed she shared with her sisters, the same as each and every day, and work through the monotony of another week.
Monotony and mundanity. Insanity.
The last few months, the walls of the bierhaus seemed to close in around her a little more each day until something buzzed inside her. A need. The need knocked against her ribs like an animal against a cage, desperate to be set free. And as she chopped another carrot, another turnip, another onion, her thoughts turned to the one thing she knew she wanted above all else: the escape into her studies, where she didn’t have to be ashamed of being plain and timid, curious and studious. A place where her mind could roam freely, where she could dream of a different life. A grander one.
“It does you no good to have dreams,” Mama always said with a kiss on the forehead. “They leave you dissatisfied with your lot.” Alma didn’t understand how her mother could accept her life without question, without looking to the future with some hope of change, even if a small one. Tradition was more important, Mama would say. It was a known aspect of their lives, comforting in its predictability.
And dull as dirt, Alma had thought more times than she could count.
She dropped the ladle on her foot, startling herself from her thoughts. She bit her lip to keep from cursing.
“Maybe you should wear gloves with grips on them,” said Fritz, who swept through the room and grabbed the last apple. The fruit made a satisfying snap as his teeth sank into its flesh.
She tossed a carrot at her older brother, but he swiftly dodged the projectile and it crashed against the wall.
“Looks like you need to work on your arm, too,” he said with a wink.
Alma adored him, even if he was stubborn as a mule and quick to anger at times. At least he never took it out on her. “Oh, shut up!” she shouted as he ducked outside, taking their youngest brother, Klaus, with him.
“Gehe zum markt,” Mama called from the larder. “I need sugar, eggs, and three pounds of bacon. Take Greta with you.”
Alma perked up. She might have time to slip away to Mulberry Street afterward to meet the priest. “Can Else help with the potatoes? After the market, I’d like to visit Emma.”
A little white lie never hurt anyone. She hadn’t spent time with her friend in ages.
“For one hour, before Robert returns,” Mama called. “We have a lot to do today still.”
Alma’s stepfather had traveled uptown to look at property, a place they might move to that was larger and in a better neighborhood. One that was primarily German. Should Robert return to find her gone before her work was finished, she’d be in for it. He looked for any reason to chastise her, remind her of her age, and complain she was not yet married. She was lucky, he’d say, that she could continue to rely on his hospitality. Robert Brauer couldn’t be more unlike Wilhelm Klein, her beloved—and deceased—Papa.
“Else!” Mama called to Alma’s youngest sibling. “Help with the peeling.”
“Do I have to?” The seven-year-old whined and stuck her nose deeper into her book. Her list of chores had increased lately, as her arms grew stronger and her legs longer. In time, she’d be as tall and as capable as her sisters.
“You know what whining will get you. A switch to the backside! Now put that book down and get on with it.” Johanna Brauer wiped her forehead with her apron and continued washing the beer mugs. She threatened a switch, but in truth Alma knew Mama had a soft spot for her children. She expected them to work hard, but she indulged their wishes when she could.
Alma smiled as she saw the book Else was reading, and whispered, “We can read together tonight before bed.”
Else brightened, always happy to read with her big sister. Alma winked and slung her bag, filled with her precious journal, lead pencils, and a dictionary, over her shoulder.
“Let’s go, Greta!” she called as she entered the main room of the bierhaus.
Her fourteen-year-old sister knelt on the floor, scrubbing a particularly grimy spot. “What is it?”
“We need some things at the market.”