Chapter 16 Sieg Heil
SIEG HEIL
“You’re late for breakfast,” Sophie informed us as we came through the front door.
“Mom is not going to be happy.” She was sitting on the landing of the stairs reading a book.
An odd place to sit, perhaps, in a house furnished so comfortably, or perhaps not.
It was a perch, and people who enjoy observing also enjoy perches.
Particularly if they can overhear interesting things from such a position.
I may have perched a time or two myself as a child, for the servants always had such fascinating things to say.
Joe said, “Well, good morning to you, too,” but in such a cheerful tone. I smiled at him, and he smiled back, helped me off with my coat, and hung it on a rack with his own.
Sophie said, “Maybe hurry it up a little, if you don’t want to be in trouble.”
Joe said, “Nope,” and waited while I removed my gloves and unpinned my hat. Then he led the way to the kitchen, where he said, “Hi, Mom,” and kissed her cheek.
Mrs. Stark was at the stove, flipping golden-brown slices of bread in two skillets.
She cuffed Joe affectionately on the ear and said, “Such trouble you’ve given today.
We thought you and Marguerite had been kidnapped by bandits.
” She was attempting to scowl, but when Joe took her shoulders and kissed her cheek again, she waved him away, laughing.
Joe said, “We’ve made everybody wait for their breakfast, huh? Guess we’ll have to do the dishes after all to make up for it. You didn’t let me show off my skills last night. I thought a mother was supposed to be proud of her son. I peel a pretty mean potato, too.”
Mr. Stark, who’d been sitting at the kitchen table with David, reading the newspaper and drinking coffee and appearing most contented, looked up, an expression on his face that I couldn’t quite read. Satisfaction, I thought, for he smiled before going back to his paper.
What a feast that breakfast was! The bread, Mrs. Stark explained with a bit more graciousness than she’d shown last night, was called “French toast,” and was made by soaking stale bread in a mixture of eggs and milk, then cooking it slowly, so it became like custard on the inside and golden-brown and a bit crispy on the outside.
That was something I possibly had the skill to do, if I paid careful attention.
The French toast was served with butter—real butter!
—jam, and something called “maple syrup,” and also apples cooked in more butter, with sugar and cinnamon.
I said, “But this is lovely. What is this syrup made of? I haven’t tasted this before. Is it a sort of caramel?”
“No,” Mr. Stark said. “It’s the sap of the maple tree, boiled down.”
“And it’s really expensive,” Sophie said.
“We’re only having it today because Joe’s here.
Golden Boy comes home from the wars and everybody pulls out all the stops.
Daughters, now—daughters don’t count for much.
You might think it’s for you, Marguerite, but I doubt it.
” She said the last three words in a singsong voice that I didn’t need to translate.
“That’s enough,” Mr. Stark said, “unless you want to go to your room.”
“Fine,” Sophie said. “I’m only saying what everybody else is thinking, huh, Barbara?”
Barbara said, “Don’t drag me into it. Joe was wounded.
It’s natural that Mom and Dad have a soft spot for him.
” Sophie rolled her eyes, and Barbara went on, “But maple syrup does cost the earth, especially now. I know that David and I don’t buy it.
It’s Hanukkah, though, and we’re all together. Family matters, Sophie.”
“I saw the new figures in the paper this morning,” David said. “Inflation’s at nearly eight percent for the year, and rising.”
“Terrible,” Mr. Stark said, helping himself to more of the griddled bread. “Hard to avoid, I suppose, with everyone rushing to buy after the war.”
“What is this word?” I asked. “Inflation? It means to fill something with air, is that correct?”
“It’s the rate at which prices are rising,” David said. “It happens when there’s more demand for something than supply.”
“But I am familiar with this!” I said. “This was the problem under the Weimar Republic, you know, in the early, uh … Joe, die Zwanziger?”
“The early 1920s,” Joe said.
“Yes,” I said. “At this time, prices rose very high, very fast. In this case, because the government printed so much money to pay its war debts. People pushed wheelbarrows full of Deutschmarks to the shops just to buy a loaf of bread. At last they could hardly buy at all, only trade. What is this called, Joe?”
“Barter,” Joe said. “Trading one good for another.”
“Yes,” I said. “The barber cut his customer’s hair, and the customer gave him eggs, and so forth.”
“How do you know?” Sophie asked. You wouldn’t even have been alive.”
“I learned it,” I said. “It was history. This period was very difficult, and then, later, there was a very great lack of employment. This is one reason Hitler was able to come to power. Here, you don’t have such a person, but Mr. Truman instead. This is very lucky.”
“Not so much luck,” Mrs. Stark said. “We voted for him. Or rather for Roosevelt.”
“Yes,” I said. “Of course. Very sensibly, I think, for Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill were much hated—and feared, I believe—by Hitler, and he was right to do so, was he not?”
“I’m glad you approve,” Mrs. Stark said.
“Would you rather she didn’t approve?” Sophie said.
“Honestly. And you learned about that stuff in school, Marguerite? We never learn anything interesting. It’s all the Pilgrims and the Revolutionary War and the pioneers and so on, which nobody remembers and nobody cares about, until you die of boredom.
I mean, we just had a Great Depression and two world wars.
Do you think we could learn about that? Oh, no, let’s admire Squanto and the beans and corn one more time, or the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
I certainly haven’t heard enough about that. ”
“I didn’t learn most of this in school either,” I said. “School under the Nazis was all propaganda and sport and memorizing. Perhaps even worse than your school.”
“Sophie attends an excellent school,” Mrs. Stark said.
“Yes,” I said, “but the beans and corn are very humorous, are they not? For me, before I went to Gymnasium—uh, Joe?”
“High school for more intellectual students,” he said.
“Yes. Before this, I had an English governess, and she had a most logical mind. This is why my father chose her, for he believed very much in reason. He said reason was like a muscle, and one had to train it.”
“So you were rich,” Sophie said. “I don’t know anyone who ever had a governess, only in books. But Mom and Dad said you were poor, and that’s why you married Joe. Something’s fishy here.”
“Sophie!” both her parents said together.
The adults all looked so horrified, I had to laugh.
“I’ve been many things in my life. It was that sort of time.
Now, with Joe, I have all I need, and, yes, life is much better.
It’s important that I know, however, that the cost of food will be rising.
I’ll begin looking for a job tomorrow. Joe and I have agreed on this. ”
Joe said, “I wouldn’t have chosen to make the announcement quite like that, but yes, we have agreed on it.
Marguerite reminded me that she was working when she met me, and working, in fact, almost until she stepped onto the ship to come here.
She didn’t say she’d be bored stiff sitting around the apartment, but I definitely got that impression. ”
“But of course,” I said, “one must occupy oneself.”
“So not a gold-digger,” Sophie said.
“That’s enough,” Mr. Stark said. “Go to your room, young lady.”
Sophie crammed a last bite of French toast into her mouth and stood. She turned, though, in the doorway, and said, “You do realize, Mom, that you’re going to have to put on that reception for Joe and Marguerite after all, because I don’t think she’s going anywhere.”
“Upstairs,” Mr. Stark said.
“Fine,” she said. “I’m just pointing it out.
Do you want your friends to think she’s feeble-minded, so you have to hide her away?
Or maybe she’s a hunchback. Or she has a harelip.
A clubfoot. Maybe all three. Or—oh, this is the best—she greets everybody with ‘Sieg Heil!’ or is Eva Braun’s little sister.
That’s what they’re going to think, you know, if you won’t even give a party for them.
Practically all Jews do is go to weddings and give presents, and here you are, making sure that poor Joe isn’t going to get a single one.
Barbara got two toasters and three waffle irons and a vacuum cleaner!
She had to return all sorts of things, but she bought an automatic washing machine with the money.
So lucky. And there Joe and Marguerite will be, scrounging in the corners for a spare piece of dried-up cheese, eating off paper plates because nobody gave them any china, with not a monogrammed towel to be seen, while the world shuns them and Marguerite works her fingers to the bone to nobly support Joe, like the Little Match Girl.
A person could cry. I’m practically crying just imagining it.
Well, I’m not, but that’s because I’m terribly unsentimental. ”
Her father rose, and she said, “I’m going, I’m going. And look! I’m not even going to have to help with the dishes!”
We heard her on the stairs, and Mr. Stark sat down again, rather red in the face. The others sat frozen, Mr. and Mrs. Stark staring at each other as if they had no idea how to recover from this one.
I tried to control myself. I really did, but a bubble of laughter rose up all the same from my chest. I put my napkin hastily to my lips and tried to disguise it as a cough, but I didn’t succeed.
My shoulders shook, and I was making noise.
I knew better, truly, but I must have been a proletarian for too long, for I was laughing.
I did the only thing I could think of. I jumped up, flapped a hand, pointed to my face, hoped I looked like a person having a coughing fit, and ran into the kitchen. On the way there, a whoop escaped. Maybe they’d think it was whooping cough?
In the kitchen, I let the door swing closed, leaned against the counter, and lost all control. Joe burst through the door at that moment, stared at me, horrified, and said, “Marguerite. Darling, she’s just making trouble. I’m sure Mom and Dad didn’t say—”
I flapped my hand at him. I couldn’t do more; I could barely draw breath. He stared some more, then started to grin. Slowly. “Are you laughing?”
I nodded and fought for control, finally managing to say, “I think it was the . . . the clubfoot.” Unfortunately, Joe began laughing, too, and that set me off for good.
There was no question of controlling ourselves. We staggered around the kitchen, laughing like a pair of lunatics. Occasionally, one of us would gasp something, like, “a harelip,” or, “Sieg Heil,” and off we’d go again.
By the time we finished, I was rather tear-stained, and we were both still shaking a bit with the echoes of laughter. Joe’s arms were around me, too, somehow. Which was when all the others came into the room.
It was a big kitchen, but not that big. Joe and I retreated to let them in, while I used my napkin to wipe my tear-stained cheeks.
“I apologize for Sophie,” Mrs. Stark said, her voice rather tight. “That girl has the most atrocious manners.”
“Sit down, Marguerite,” Barbara said. “Let me make you a cup of tea.”
“What a mess,” Mr. Stark said. “What a …”
“Schemozzle,” Joe helpfully supplied. “Marguerite’s not crying. She’s laughing.”
“Well, yes,” I said, looking up from my napkin.
I’m afraid my hair was terribly disarranged.
“I’m sorry; it was very rude of me to laugh.
It was just …” I did some more napkin-waving.
“Just so terribly funny.” My voice broke a little on the last word.
“I didn’t think I’d be popular with Joe’s family, precisely, but the harelip, you know … the harelip was really too much.”
“You were laughing,” David said slowly.
“But of course,” I said. “How can one not? And yes,” I decided to add, “I have a bruise on my cheek. This is not because Joe has been brutal to me, but because he flung out his arm during a dream and his hand caught me on the cheekbone. I’m afraid it must be quite evident now, so it’s better to explain.
You, who have known Joe so long, will know that it couldn’t be otherwise.
I bruise easily, and I love my husband—my most gentle husband—with all my heart. ”
Joe was grinning, his earlier unease gone, at least for now. “You see, folks, it takes more than a few words to get Marguerite down. She’s not very big, but she’s got the heart of a lion, and after what she’s been through, what’s a little hatred among family?”
This elicited a chorus of, “Nobody said hatred,” and, “How ridiculous,” and then Joe said, “I haven’t even managed to finish my French toast. How about another pot of coffee, Mom?
I’ve got a full day of studying ahead of me, and coffee’s probably up eight percent too.
Better to drink somebody else’s.” He put his arm around her waist and kissed her cheek again.
“It’s not life and death,” he told her. “Just a few growing pains. You’re going to love her when you know her, I promise. And we don’t care about the reception.”