The Puzzle King, page 12
He folded his hands in his lap. “You mustn’t worry. It’s a common thing when someone’s been so sick. It will grow back, to be sure.”
Edith sat up. “It didn’t fall out, Pappa. I cut it off.”
“Why would you do such a thing?”
“The others are bald,” she said. “If I hadn’t done it, I’d be the only Jewish kid in school with hair.”
He stroked her cheek. “This is a terrible thing, what they tell children these days. You mustn’t let that kind of foolishness go to your head.” He paused and smiled. “Well, it’s safe to say it’s already gone to your head.”
“Yes,” said Edith, banging her knuckles against her skull. “It has gone to my head. Or whatever’s left of it.”
“Your mother,” he said. “You must find a way not to startle her.”
“Okay, but what shall I tell her?”
“The truth,” he said. “Tell her that you did it so you could make a show about what Fräulein Huffman said about Jews and lice, that this was your way of pointing out her foolishness.”
“But it wasn’t,” said Edith. “I did it because the other Jewish kids in the class had to shave their heads. If they were going to do it, so would I.”
Her father leaned forward. “My Edith, I don’t know whether what you’ve done is stupid or brave, but you will certainly make an impression on Fräulein Huffman. Come now, I have to go to work. You have to face the music.”
Edith pulled the woolen scarf from under her pillow and wrapped it around her head. She would give her mother time to get used to the change. She dressed and came into the kitchen, where her mother was boiling water.
“Did you sleep well?” she asked.
“Oh very,” Edith answered. “Listen, I don’t want you to be mad at me, but last night I did something that you might find a little, um, strange.”
Her mother turned and saw her daughter sitting at the kitchen table, the woolen scarf tied around her head. “Are you cold?” she asked. Edith shook her head no. Her mother looked again. “You have a new hairstyle. Come, take off the scarf and let me see.”
Edith put her hand on top of the scarf and held it to her head. “I suppose I have a new hairstyle,” she said. “Though it’s not really a hairstyle at all. I mean, I guess it is a style, but not of hair.” Edith pulled off her scarf. Her mother stepped closer. “God in heaven,” she cried. “What did you do to yourself?”
As Edith explained, her mother’s eyes narrowed with a ferocity she had rarely seen. “Listen to me,” she scolded. “We are not wealthy people. Your father works hard at the store, and I do my best to keep up a good home for you. We can’t afford for you to do crazy things because you think they’re faddish or will keep you in good standing with the rest of your classmates. People like us have to be careful.” She shook her head. “There are these disturbances from time to time, but you mustn’t let them get in the way of your life. It’s nothing that you have to worry about. Believe me, no one could ever accuse us of being religious Jews.”
Edith wondered what her mother meant when she said, “People like us have to be careful.” She gathered up her books and coat. “Don’t worry Mama, I won’t get into any trouble.”
Outside the air was still crisp but without the bite of winter. It was the kind of morning when women threw open their windows and men pushed up their jacket sleeves. So people noticed Edith as she walked to school, still wrapped up in her blue winter coat and a woolen red-plaid scarf tied around her head.
With Frederick and Edith gone, Margot began to straighten up the house. As she made up Edith’s bed, she discovered spidery strands of hair scattered about her pillow. She thought little of it until she went to clean underneath the bed. That’s when her broom struck something that moved easily as if it weighed nothing. She gasped as she pulled the item from under the bed and saw that it was a bag stuffed with her daughter’s curls.
Staring at the hair, Margot thought back to how terrified she’d been to try and have another child after Gilda. She believed that getting pregnant again and giving birth to Edith was the boldest thing she’d ever done. She remembered Frederick kissing her and calling her “my brave little woman,” and how courageous she’d felt. Then she thought about how sick Edith had been and how hard it must have been for her to go back to school. She’d never complained about any of it. This business of her cutting off her hair was foolhardy, of course. But Margot understood that it was Edith’s way of ingratiating herself with the others. The school couldn’t possibly be singling out Jews like that. Anyone could get lice; it was the most common thing in the world. It must be the teacher. She was young and new and maybe a little stupid.
Edith was feeling anything but courageous as she made her way toward school that morning. Inside the classroom, she took her seat. As she had the morning before, she kept her coat wrapped around her shoulders. She removed her woolen scarf and deliberately kept her head down so no one would catch her eye. She waited for the other children to stare or laugh, but nothing happened until noon, just before lunch. Fräulein Huffman poked her on the shoulder and said, “You stay put for a moment. I want to speak with you.” Edith remained in her seat as the classroom emptied.
“So, what’s this all about?” asked the teacher, folding her arms in front of her chest.
“What’s what about?”
“Don’t play innocent with me, you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Oh this,” said Edith, touching her scalp. “I knew you would want to check my head for lice. I thought I would make it easier for you.”
“Young lady,” she said, staring at the top of Edith’s head. “Are you trying to provoke me?”
“No, I’m not.”
But Fräulein Huffman kept talking, as if she hadn’t heard what Edith said. “Because if you are, it won’t do you any good. The school has its policies and there’s nothing you can do to change them. It is only because you have been ill and I am a forgiving person that I am not reporting you to the headmaster. But let me tell you, should you pull any more shenanigans like this, I will have no problem taking you to his office in person and demanding your expulsion. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Fräulein Huffman.”
“Good then,” she said. “We understand one another.”
When Edith got home from school that day, her mother was waiting for her with a cup of tea and some of her favorite butter cookies. They sat down together at the kitchen table.
“So how did it go today?” asked her mother.
“Well, I am a member of the Baldies Club.”
“And what did Fräulein Huffman have to say about your hair?”
“She said she thought I did it to get under her skin,” Edith said.
Her mother’s eyes softened as Edith related the teacher’s words. Then Edith let the tears come. “She was so mean. She hates me. I know she does.”
“You are not the kind of child one can hate,” said her mother. “It might be that Fräulein Huffman is scared about something in her own life. For all we know, she feels guilty about sending you home on your own that morning.”
Edith’s tears plopped into the tea. “I know she hates me and she hates all the other baldies. But I don’t understand why.”
“Some people are just like that,” said her mother. “You can’t take it personally.” Then she got up and walked into her bedroom. When she returned, she kept her left hand behind her back.
“I found the bag of your hair under your bed this morning,” she said, taking her seat. “And while I don’t necessarily think you did the right thing by cutting off your hair, I think I was able to put the hair to good use.”
She pulled her hand from behind her back.
At first, Edith didn’t understand what she was seeing. It was a small pillow made from muslin in the shape of a heart. Across the heart, in bright green thread, was embroidered the word “Courage.”
Edith recognized the muslin. It was the same material her mother had used to make all of the curtains that hung in the house, the same beige material she’d found in her mother’s sewing box the night before.
“My hair,” cried Edith, getting up from the table and throwing her arms around her mother. “You made me a pillow filled with my hair!”
“I don’t know who’s a bigger fool, you or me,” said her mother, hugging her back.
Edith rested her head on her mother’s shoulder, and her mother rubbed her cheek against her daughter’s head. It felt soft and tender, like a flower bud. Like a newborn baby.
Part 3
Coney Island: April 1923
The seagulls flew along the horizon and were nearly indistinguishable from the flock of clouds that scuttered across the sky.
“Those birds, they’re so loud and angry,” said Flora. “What’s all the fuss about?”
“Food. Territory. Pecking order. What’s it ever about?” said Simon.
It was the first temperate day of April, a Saturday. Flora and Simon, as they did every year at this time, marked the change of season by a drive down to the beach at Coney Island. She looked smart in her summer navy-blue suit, a pair of spectator heels, and a new plum-colored hat with white petals. He looked distinguished in his gray, double-breasted, light wool coat and felt fedora. They nodded at the other couples strolling the boardwalk that day, all of them infused with the promise of spring.
They watched the gulls, eyes closed and chests puffed as they perched on pilings and let the sun bathe over them. When Flora and Simon came to a nearby bench facing the ocean, they sat down and pretty much did the same as the birds. The sun seeped through their clothes and warmed their bones, which had become weary with the cold winter months and the worries that they carried. Simon let his head drop against Flora’s shoulder and fell into a half sleep. Her softness became his mother’s arms. She was covering him with blankets so gently it was as if the lapping sea were embracing him. Flora placed his fedora in her lap and kissed the top of his head. He smelled like camphor and brine. She noticed his graying sideburns and how his hair was thinning on the top. He was only forty, still a young man. The thought that they could have forty more years together, that she would be there when his hair was white and the top of his head bald and smooth, settled over her and made the world seem smaller and safer than it had in a long while.
Flora hadn’t heard from Margot or her mother in nearly two months. The mark had become so devalued in Germany that sending a letter to America cost nearly a billion marks. In her last letter, Flora had suggested that Margot and Frederick let young Edith spend the summer with her and Simon. Edith was still recovering from her pleurisy, and her parents thought that the fresh air and open lawns of Yonkers might be good for her. Besides, the news out of Germany was alarming. There were reports in the newspaper that middle-class parents were allowing their daughters to hire themselves out as prostitutes so long as they were paid in butter. Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist Party was doing field exercises and parading down the streets of Munich. Meanwhile, people were starving, and Hitler was using the desperate economic conditions as an excuse to pound away at the upper-middle-class Jews and Jewish “financiers.” In America, the wealthy automaker Henry Ford was publicly and financially supporting Hitler’s party. Reportedly, there was a photograph of him on the wall of Hitler’s office. True or not, Simon bought a Buick that year instead of a Ford, which would have cost him half the price.
“Simon and I are no political experts, and we don’t know what to believe from the newspapers,” Flora wrote in her best German. “But for certain we know that, should you allow Edith to come, we would do everything in our power to make sure that her stay is exceptional. We urge you to consider our offer.”
Edith had been only ten years old when they had visited Margot in Kaiserslautern two years earlier, but Flora and Simon had fallen in love with her. She was bright and funny and, like Flora, loved clothes and even had a predilection for modern hats.
Flora smiled as she thought about that. If she’d ever had a daughter, she would have liked her to be like Edith. Daughters become best friends, and she missed having a best girlfriend. She and Seema saw each other about once a month now. Seema had a steady boyfriend: Oliver Thomas, one of her blue-eyed boys, as she liked to call him. She lived in a fancy apartment house on Park Avenue, and she and Oliver gave lavish dinner parties. She was still pretty, but in a way that was more mannered and brittle. When she laughed, she threw her head back so that the alabaster nub of her throat was all you could see. She smoked cigarettes that dangled from Bakelite holders and she called everyone “darling.” Flora was sure that Seema didn’t intend to make her feel like a hick, but each time Seema called Simon “that cute little man” or where they lived “your cozy little house,” Flora couldn’t help but feeling somewhat diminished.
The sky suddenly became overcast and the air chilly. Simon woke abruptly, as if someone had snatched away his blankets. They sat on the bench staring out at the ocean when they caught sight of some boys on the shore. They were laughing, throwing stones at the gulls, who were still stirring up a ruckus. Flora thought she saw one of the stones nick one of the gulls’ wings, but she couldn’t be sure. All she said to Simon was, “I wish those boys would quit doing that.” He took her arm and they left the bench, continuing their stroll down the boardwalk at a slightly brisker pace.
When the wind stirred up and the sky got molten, they decided to turn around and head back. As they neared the bench where they’d been sitting, Simon was first to notice the gull. The other birds were gone now, and his solo cry sounded plaintive as he spiraled toward the water. One of his wings was outstretched like a leg in a cast. The wing was first to hit the water and he landed gently, as if in a parachute. Flora saw what Simon was seeing and the two of them stood on the boardwalk, speechless and helpless. The gull was silent, too. He kept turning his head to look at his broken wing, opening and closing his orange beak as if with disbelief.
Gamely, he tried to lift himself out of the water, but his flapping became weaker. He was beginning to list to one side. “Stupid kids,” shouted Flora, turning away. But the boys were well out of earshot, way down the shore, still throwing stones at the sky. They had hit their mark here and didn’t even know it.
Simon kept staring out at the water.
“Make them stop,” cried Flora, so agitated that she was walking in circles. “We should do something.”
Simon buttoned up his jacket and turned up his collar. “You’re right, we should do something,” he said, as he watched the gull sink out of sight.
Kaiserslautern: April 1923
Oliver Thomas. What kind of a man has two first names? Not a Jewish man, I think.”
Flora and Simon finally received a letter from Margot two weeks after the walk on the beach. She’d written it on onionskin stationery in a disjointed hand. It was dated March 12, 1923.
You say she lives in a house with marble floors and crystal lights that hang from the ceiling. It is not something I can imagine. Is this Oliver Thomas a nice man? Will they be married? Frederick is so kind. Without him my life would be vacant. I hope Oliver Thomas is good to Seema.
The situation in Germany is hard but we are fine. We eat well. Always meat once, sometimes two times a week. Frederick works hard. Germany will recover soon and be stronger than ever. When I told Edith that you and Simon wanted her to come to America, she jumped up and down and said how much she would like to come. It’s hard for me to believe that she has not yet met Seema. I think Seema would get a kick out of her lively young niece who, by the way, is healthy and does well in school. She is a strong-willed girl who goes her own way. We would like her to come to America to visit with you and Simon when the time is right. She has such good memories of your visit here and cherishes the jewels from her Aunt Flora.
Margot finished the letter by saying:
Sometimes I look at Edith and wonder if we were ever that young and without cares. It is hard to imagine now. She has her whole life ahead, and her nature is more like yours than mine, which for her is a fortunate thing. Edith and Frederick send their best regards. We speak of you and Simon often and still have some of the peanut butter and Juicy Fruit gum that you brought from America.
Your loving sister,
Margot
Margot wondered if Flora would guess how long it had taken her to write that letter. Writing did not come naturally to her, nor did the casual, cheerful tone she tried to affect. It was important that she not reveal the truth. Frederick would not have allowed it. The cold made her fingers so numb that she could barely grip the pencil. Her words looked like a litter of matchsticks. She hoped that her worries had not slipped through.
The situation at home was frightening. Frederick still had his job, though Rinehart had cut back his wages. Businesses were closing every day. She knew people who had lost everything. She’d report one apocalyptic story after another to her mother, who would brush her off by saying, “You don’t have to believe everything you hear.” At night, Frederick would reassure her: “Whatever happens, people always need to eat meat. Germany without wurst? It’s not conceivable, is it?”
But that was the trouble: everything was starting to be imaginable to Margot. She didn’t know whether Frederick was pretending to be calm or whether he honestly believed that all this would pass. His was such a good heart that perhaps it rejected the kinds of negative thoughts that occupied her. What would happen if Frederick lost his job? What if they couldn’t afford to put food on the table? What if they froze to death? Edith was so thin that her hipbones practically jutted through her skin. She was twelve and as flat-chested as she had been at ten. Her hair had grown back, only it was thinner now, and there were spaces where you could see patches of her scalp. Margot found it hard to look at her own daughter; the sight of her only stirred up more worry. What if she got sick again? What if, this time, they didn’t have enough money or food to take care of her?
