In a perverse way, cousin Minna came to my rescue. Ever since I arrived on her doorstep she had been unsparing in her criticisms of my mother. The news of my mother’s death brought not even a respectful silence but a greater barrage. I can see now, through the prism of experience, that guilt drove her as much as anything: she had hated my mother, been jealous of her for so many years, she couldn’t admit now that she’d been unfeeling, even cruel. She was probably grief-stricken as well, because her own mother had also perished, all that family that used to spend summers talking and swimming at Kleinsee; well, never mind that. It’s old news now.
I would come home from walking the streets, walking until I was too exhausted to feel anything, to Minna: you think you’re suffering? That you’re the only person who was ever orphaned, left alone in a strange country? And weren’t you supposed to give Victor his tea? He says he waited for over an hour for you and finally had to make it himself because you’re too much a lady—“die gn?dige Frau”—Minna only ever spoke German at home—she had never really mastered English, which made her furious with shame—and she curtsied to me—to get your hands dirty doing work, housework or a real job. You’re just like Lingerl. I wonder how a princess like her lived as long as she did in such a setting, with no one to pamper her. Did she tilt her head and bat her eyes so that the guards or other inmates gave up their bread to her? Madame Butterfly is dead. It’s time you learned what real work is.
A fury rose up in me greater than any I remember since. I smacked her in the mouth and screamed, if people took care of my mother it’s because she repaid them with love. And if they don’t care for you it’s because you’re utterly loathsome.
She stared at me for a moment, her mouth slack with shock. She recovered quickly, though, and hit me back so hard she split my lip with her big ring. And then hissed, the only reason I let a mongrel like you accept that scholarship to high school was on the understanding that you would repay my generosity by taking care of Victor. Which I might point out you have failed utterly to do. Instead of giving him tea you’ve been flaunting yourself at the pubs and dance halls just like your mother. Max or Carl or one of those other immigrant boys is likely to give you the same present that Martin, as he liked to call himself, gave Madame Butterfly. Tomorrow morning I’m off to that precious headmistress, that Miss Skeffing you’re so fond of, to tell her you can’t continue your education. It’s time you started pulling your weight around here.
Blood pouring down my face, I ran pell-mell across London to the youth hostel where my friends lived—you know, Max and Carl and the rest of them: when they turned sixteen the year before they hadn’t been able to stay in their foster homes. I begged them to find me a bed for the night. In the morning, when I knew Minna would be with her great love, the glove factory, I sneaked back for my books and my clothes—it was only two changes of underwear and a second dress. Victor was dozing in the living room, but he didn’t wake up enough to try to stop me.
Miss Skeffing found a family in North London who gave me a room in exchange for doing their cooking. And I began to study as if my mother’s life could be redeemed by my work. As soon as I finished the supper dishes I would solve chemistry and math problems, sometimes sleeping only four hours until it was time to make the family’s morning tea. And after that, I never stopped working, really.
That was where the story ended, sitting on a hillside on a dull October day overlooking a desolate landscape, listening to Lotty until she could talk no more. It’s harder for me to figure out where it began.
Looking back now, now that I’m calm, now that I can think, it’s still hard to say, Oh, it was because of this, or because of that. It was a time when I had a million other things on my mind. Morrell was getting ready to leave for Afghanistan. I was worrying most about that, but of course I was trying to run my business, and juggle the nonprofit work I do, and pay my bills. I suppose my own involvement began with Isaiah Sommers, or maybe the Birnbaum Foundation conference—they happened on the same day.
I
Baby-Sitters’ Club
They wouldn’t even start the funeral service. The church was full, ladies were crying. My uncle was a deacon and he was a righteous man, he’d been a member of that church for forty-seven years when he passed. My aunt was in a state of total collapse, as you can imagine. And for them to have the nerve to say the policy had already been cashed in. When! That’s what I want to know, Ms. Warashki, when was it ever cashed in, with my uncle paying his five dollars a week for fifteen years like he did, and my aunt never hearing word one of him borrowing against the policy or converting it.”
Isaiah Sommers was a short, square man who spoke in slow cadences as if he were himself a deacon. It was an effort to keep from drowsing off during the pauses in his delivery. We were in the living room of his South Side bungalow, at a few minutes after six on a day that had stretched on far too long already.