Chapter Two #3
Then, after five minutes of interminable silence, a knock sounded, this one on the side door for family visitors that led directly upstairs. Johanna put down her knife.
“I’ll get it.” She hurried from the room, grateful for a reprieve, no matter how brief, from the oppressive atmosphere. Would Mother ever relent? She would have to think of another way. Something, somehow; she would make her change her mind.
“Oh, it’s you.” Johanna could not keep an unwelcome note from her voice as she stared at Janos Panov, the knife grinder who visited all the houses and shops on Getreidegasse every few weeks with his grinding cart, colorfully painted and decorated with ragged bunting.
His dirty cap was jammed onto his greasy hair, and his smile revealed a set of broken, tobacco-stained teeth.
“Hello, Fr?ulein Eder.” His tone was ingratiating, and while Johanna usually felt pity for him, now she only felt irritation as she gritted her teeth.
“We don’t need any knives sharpened today,” she said, even though she knew her mother would be cross.
They always needed knives sharpened, but in her current mood she could not bear to humor the simple-minded knife grinder for even a few minutes.
His hangdog expression and ingratiating manner reminded her of all she would miss if her mother wouldn’t agree to her scheme—this was the only man she ever exchanged pleasantries with.
“Are you certain, Fr?ulein?” he asked. “It has been two weeks, after all.”
“I’m certain,” Johanna snapped, and then she closed the door in his face. She took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. For a second, tears threatened, and she blinked them back. She would not cry. She would not show such weakness, even if only to herself.
Hedwig came to the top of the stairs, one hand resting on her lower back, her stolid figure silhouetted by the fading sunlight from the kitchen. “Who was at the door?”
“Just the knife grinder,” Johanna answered dismissively, anger and frustration, and worse, a deeper despair, still pulsing through her. She turned from the door as she blinked back the last of her tears. “That idiot Jew.”
“Johanna!” Her father’s voice, sharp with both hurt and dismay, made her stiffen. “How can you say such a thing?”
Manfred stood in the doorway to his shop, looking stooped and sad, his brown eyes full of sorrow.
“Well, he is,” Johanna said defiantly, even as her cheeks began to burn. She knew she shouldn’t have said it, she wished she hadn’t, but the words had tumbled out along with her frustration. “He spits tobacco and he smells,” she declared. “I don’t like him.”
“He is a fellow human being,” Manfred stated quietly. “And our Lord and Savior was a Jew. They are God’s chosen people, Johanna. Never forget it.”
“It was just the knife grinder,” Johanna exclaimed. “Even Mama finds him dirty. Why do you care?”
Manfred was silent for a moment, the corners of his mouth drawn down in a look so sorrowful Johanna squirmed inside as she clenched her hands into fists to keep from twisting them in her apron.
Why had her father had to hear her? She hadn’t meant it, of course she hadn’t; she usually felt sorry for Janos.
She’d been speaking thoughtlessly, but what did it even matter?
Most people said far worse about the Jews.
“I care because there is much evil in this world,” her father finally said quietly, “and I know it can be easy to forget it.”
Johanna shook her head, unsure if she didn’t understand, or she simply didn’t want to.
“Besides,” her father continued, “Janos Panov was born into a poor family and orphaned at a young age, driven from Russia by ignorant people who hated him simply for who he was. He had no opportunity to educate or better himself. He has worked hard and found a way to earn his keep. For that alone he deserves our respect.” He paused.
“If he has done anything to upset you?—”
“Oh, he hasn’t,” Johanna cried impatiently. “But it doesn’t matter. None of it matters.”
Her father took a step towards her, the look on his face one of utter seriousness. “But it does matter, Johanna, mein schatz. It matters very much. And my greatest fear in these troubled times is that it will seem to stop mattering, when it never can. Do you understand?”
Johanna stared at him, the slump of his slight shoulders, the earnest yet serious look in his kindly eyes, the sad smile that curved his mouth. He looked frail, yet he had an inner strength that she realized she had always relied on.
“Johanna?”
She nodded, unable to fully meet his gaze. “I understand.”
Manfred regarded her for another moment, the probing look in his eyes making Johanna think of Father Josef when she gave her confession, the glint of the priest’s eyes barely visible behind the latticed screen. “Very well,” he said softly, sounding accepting but unconvinced.
Unable to bear his scrutiny any longer, Johanna turned away and hurried upstairs. Her mother gave her a grim nod of solidarity as Johanna came into the kitchen and picked up her knife.
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