“Poetry, music, art. This is how she spends her time. I assure you it’s being addressed.”
The inspector’s weary face lit up at this suggestion, like it was becoming clear to him that he was being hoodwinked by immigrants after all.
He explained that the program Herr had devised was hardly up to the standard of what the state prescribed.
Even as Herr invited the inspector upstairs to examine the attic, Anna having to scuttle up the stairs with her eavesdropping found out, the inspector was not impressed. Anna’s uncanny crafts, the entire days listening to music, the recitations of German poetry. No. This didn’t fit any course of study except in the imagination of Herr Miihlstein.
Anna tried to perk up before all was lost. She snuck away to the bathroom and splashed water on her face, tied a ribbon in her hair, to look better than she was, to fool the inspector. He was stout and spoke with a griping tenor. Anna tried to calm him to the ways of her education by speaking to him directly, instead of letting Herr misguide the conversation. Twice already Herr had misspoke that Anna heard, bringing up liquor and that she’d been trying to speak Hebrew. Her English wasn’t so great. She lagged far behind Karel since she was never out in public.
Anna suggested they move back to the parlor, where it would be more comfortable. There she’d show the inspector that she was being educated. That there was no problem.
She set her posture erect on the edge of the parlor sofa seat and played the violin. The inspector sat back and listened. Maria home then, with a plate of ginger snaps and a lemonade. There was no mention of doctored tea, just Anna playing her scales flawlessly, then a simplified étude of Schubert’s “Ave Maria.” And yes, another ginger snap for the inspector.
The inspector took notes in a book the whole time Anna played. What could he be writing about, all the notes he was taking? He’d ambushed them, showing up like this to observe and record. They were unprepared. It wasn’t fair.
“I had no idea this was such a special case,” he said once Anna was finished with the violin. “You’re going to cause me a lot of trouble. I can tell.”
“I assure you we won’t,” Herr said. “We’re not that kind of people.”
“Is the boy around?” the inspector asked.
“Karel? He goes to school. Not now. It’s summer.”
“Yes, I know. But there’s some notes about him here, from his teachers.” The inspector reached down and patted his briefcase. “Karel is a troublemaker, it says. A bad egg.”
“I don’t believe that. Karel’s a good kid. It’s his friends. They’re the bad egg.”
“He’s the ringleader. That’s what it says. It has no bearing on Anna’s situation, only gives a clearer picture of what’s going on.”
The strain of pretending for the inspector took a toll on Anna. She was exhausted. The bags under her eyes dropped low, were bluer, her hair hung in strings over her forehead. And now the inspector saying these things about Karel! Anna felt like she was going to collapse by the time the inspector said he had to leave.
“I’ll be back,” the inspector promised, packing up his briefcase. “You can expect me.”
“This did not go well,” Maria said. “God in heaven. What will we do?”
Anna hid in the cellar when she was home during the day. This hiding wasn’t too much different from her typical day. Working down in the cellar. Twisting around her metal works, until sometimes she overworked a piece and the wire snapped from being bent this way then that too many times. It was summer, though, and cool down below the floorboards. Nobody would see her, like they might if she was reading on the parlor sofa.
The state inspector stopped by on occasion, every few days. “We haven’t forgotten about Anna,” he’d say to Maria, who was the only one allowed to answer the door thereafter. “Is Anna at home?”
“No,” Maria would lie. “Anna isn’t expected back until dinner. She’s gone playing with her friends.”
“We’re processing her. Do you understand what that means?”
“Show me her file. Don’t come here and say things like that with no proof.”
The inspector wouldn’t show Maria anything, because he didn’t have to. Maria wasn’t a blood relative to the girl.
“Listen,” she said. “Don’t make me beg you. Something can be worked out to keep Anna at home. I’m no fool. I’ve seen how things work.”
“I don’t like that implication.”
“There’s no implication. The girl has friends.” Maria leaned her face out the doorway, lowered her voice. “A young man who lives here is a close associate of Tom Dennison. Does that mean anything to you?”
The inspector put his hat on and stepped back on the porch. “Ma’am. That name means plenty. None of it good, I’m afraid.”
And yes, the inspector promised, that too would go in the file.
If Anna wasn’t in the cellar, she was in the attic, staring out the window. Anna never quite knew what she was looking for. Just watching the street. How bustling things got at lunchtime. Cars bounding past and leaving behind clouds of black smoke. How most every kid in the neighborhood made his way home for lunch. Straggling boys most of the time, given a little hustle at that hour by the hunger pains in their guts. There were a few she knew. Michael Hykell and Nathan Shapiro and Louis Weaver. Boys who wore the same set of wool trousers year round. Cowlicked boys, dusky boys, boys who came skidding around the corner on the heels of their shoes like they were up to something. Until they came to the Eigler house and stopped to peek up at the attic window. And there Anna Miihlstein was. She saw the recognition in a boy’s eyes, how he loitered on the walkway to get a better look.
Anna wondered what it would be like to know these boys, to know all the kids on Clandish as Karel must know them. If she did go to school, she might not be so nervous around real kids. This was the way she thought of them, the real kids. Not dolls, like she was only a doll. It was quite possible that Karel was right about this—that the reason Anna stagnated physically was because she was trapped in the attic. She’d grow too if she went to school. She’d learn to take care of herself. To not have such thin skin. She’d run. She’d play in a juniper hollow. What else had Karel promised? A pet duck? A new lavender overcoat? A new hat?