That Wild Berries Should Grow (6 page)

“Tommy. What's yours?”

“Elsa. Do you help your dad?”

“Sure. I help let out the nets and then I help take them in. You want to see my calluses?” He held out his hands, and I could see where the skin was hardened. “I was out in a storm once with my dad and he had to tie me onto the boat so I wouldn't fall over and drown. I can't swim.”

“If you're out on the lake all the time, why doesn't your dad or your uncle teach you to swim?”

“They can't swim either.”

I thought that was really dumb. Off the top of my head I said, “I'll teach you to swim and then you can teach your father and uncle.”

“I don't think so. I don't like the water.”

“But you're out on it all the time. Aren't you going to be a fisherman like your dad?”

“Sure.”

I told him where I lived. “Do you work on Sunday?”

He shook his head. Besides his red hair he has a face full of freckles, and his watery blue eyes blink a lot. He's tall and scrawny, not fat like his dad.

“Well then, come on over to our beach around three o'clock.” I left him to go into the fish house. The fish house is a big building where the fish are cleaned and scaled. Mr. Meyer wears a long rubber apron. He has glasses that keep getting scales on them.

“Heads on or off?” he asked me.

“On.” Grandmama says the heads give the fish more flavor.

He wrapped the perch up in thick white paper and tied the package with string. By the time I got home, my hands smelled of fish. Grandmama rubbed my hands with lemon to take away the smell. I think they must use a lot of lemons at Mr. Meyer's house.

On Sunday afternoon I waited for Tommy on the beach. He came trudging up the beach about an hour late. “You didn't bring your bathing suit,” I said.

“Don't have one. I don't care if I get my shorts wet.”

“Come out where the water is deeper.” I began to wade into the lake. Tommy stayed on the shore. I knew how he felt. I used to feel the same way, but I worried that if he didn't learn to swim he might drown someday. “Come on,” I coaxed. He didn't move. “Just up to your ankles.” He shook his head. Suddenly I started running at him, splashing the cold water onto him as hard as I could.

He yelped and plunged into the water to chase me. I ran out deeper and deeper, calling him names. Soon we were both up to our necks. He suddenly realized where he was and began to squeal. I lay on my back and kicked my feet. “Let your feet go up,” I said. He watched me kick my way toward the shore, and then he did the same thing. He was kicking like crazy. I showed him how to float and how to do the sidestroke. He learned fast, but each time he couldn't wait to get out of the water.

Later, when we were lying on the sand drying off, Tommy asked me, “Who taught you to swim?”

“My dad taught me in the city. There's a park called Belle Isle near our apartment.”

“I'd rather die than live in the city. The city is full of gangsters.”

“It is not,” I said. “I've lived in the city all my life, and I've never seen a gangster.”

“You probably just don't know one when you see one. Your grandparents are Krauts, aren't they?”

“Krauts isn't a nice word. They came from Germany, but they're Americans now.”

“That's what
they
say. If we have a war with Germany they'll be on Germany's side, and they'll have to go to prison.”

I thought about how the people had stoned Grandpapa's car when he was on the way to the hospital because he was German. I thought about the Roths and how some of the Germans hated them because they were Jewish. I hated Tommy for saying such mean things. “I'm sorry I taught you to swim,” I screamed at him. “I hope you drown!” I ran up the steps to our cottage. Halfway up the stairs I bumped into Grandpapa on his way down to the pump house.

“What's all this shouting?” He held on to me. “Where are you running to? Who is that boy?”

“He's horrible. He called you a Kraut and said they'd put you in jail.”

“
Ach
, Elsa. Go and wash your face and tell your grandmother to put out a plate of cookies and some raspberry juice.”

A few minutes later Grandpapa appeared with Tommy. He brought him into the kitchen, where Grandmama had set the table. He said to her, “This young man needs a little something for his stomach. Pass him some cookies, Elsa.”

I shoved the plate of cookies at Tommy, but I wouldn't look at him. Grandmama poured him a big glass of juice. He wolfed down about five cookies and drank two glasses of raspberry juice. “Those cookies are good,” he said. The whole time he was eating he kept looking around the cottage as if he expected German spies to poke their heads out of closets.

“Doesn't your mother make you cookies, Tommy?” Grandmama asked.

“My mom took off. It's just Dad and me, and he don't cook. Even if he did, we don't have a lot of food like here.”

“Well, at least you must have plenty of fish for dinner,” Grandpapa said.

“I hate fish. It's about all we got to eat. When do you have supper?” he asked.

“Another hour or two,” Grandmama said. “We would be happy to have you stay.”

“Thanks,” Tommy grinned.

“Go and show Tommy the orchard and your garden, Elsa,” Grandpapa said.

I headed for the front yard, not even looking to see if Tommy was following me. I didn't understand why my grandparents were so polite to Tommy when he said such awful things about them. If they wanted to kill him with kindness, I wished the killing would come first and the kindness later.

Tommy was tagging along behind me. When we got outside he said, “I'm sorry I called them Krauts. They're OK.”

Out in the orchard I said, “I'll bet I can climb up this tree before you can climb up that one.” He started shinnying up the tree I pointed to. Unfortunately, he saw the hornets' nest before the hornets could get him, so he didn't get stung. And he ate like a pig at supper. And he promised to come back.

Chickens

I liked visiting the chicken farm
.

I liked watching chickens

in their white ruffled dresses
,

yellow kneesocks
,

red hair bows
,

gabbling like schoolgirls

fenced in at recess time
,

until one day we found

the farmer's wife
,

a pot of scalding water

between her knees
,

her hands full of feathers
,

grinning, “You'll never

get a fresher one than this.
”

On Sundays we have chicken for dinner. Grandmama's chicken is always perfect: golden- brown on the outside and tender on the inside. Every Saturday we go to the Tolkens's farm to buy the chicken. We buy butter and eggs there, too, and thick whipping cream. My grandmama calls the cream
schlag
and heaps it on all our desserts.

Mrs. Tolken keeps the butter and cream in the spring house, which is just a stone shed over a little stream. The stream comes up from the ground. It is so cold that everything in the shed is chilled even on the hottest day. While my grandparents talk with Mrs. Tolken, I wander around the farm. I watch the chickens take dust baths, which seems like a strange kind of bath. I listen to them talking to one another. “Gabbling,” Mrs. Tolken calls it, a good word to keep. In the barn there are two horses, Andy and Ben. I feed them lumps of sugar I've sneaked. In back of the barn is the sty. I always go there to see if the pigs have any new piglets.

Of course I
knew
it was a chicken we were buying from the Tolkens, but I never connected the newspaper-wrapped package we carried home with the chickens that I loved to watch running around in the yard. Then one day we got to the farm a little early. Mrs. Tolken called to us from her back porch. “Just about to pluck your chicken,” she said. “I'm a little behind myself today.”

She had one of the beautiful feathery white chickens by the throat. It was dead. She dipped the dead chicken into a pail of scalding water. Then she pulled at its feathers. They came out in her hands like the petals off of a flower. The scrawny chicken was left naked. Its skin looked like it had goose bumps.

On the way back to our car I wouldn't look at the live chickens running around. I promised myself I'd never eat another chicken as long as I lived.

The next day Grandmama baked the chicken as usual. Every time Grandmama opened the oven to baste the chicken it gave off a heavenly smell. But I told myself I wouldn't touch it. We were just going to sit down at the table when we heard a car in the driveway. It was my Aunt Fritzie and Uncle Tim.

Even if there isn't any money for her clothes, Aunt Fritzie always wears something fashionable. She can cut up old clothes, or dishtowels, or slipcovers and turn them into a wonderful outfit. That day she wore something pale blue and gauzy that Grandmama recognized right away. “Fritzie, those are your living-room curtains!”

“It's much more stylish these days to have bare windows,” Aunt Fritzie said. She put her arms around me, and I could smell the perfume she always wore. “Well, Elsa, don't you look terrific. We went to see the movie
Little Women
last week, and I said to your Uncle Tim, ‘Amy looks just like Elsa.'” The thing about Aunt Fritzie is that she always makes you feel good, even if you know the nice things she says aren't the truth.

She is artistic, too. She cuts out pictures of sleeping babies from magazines. She pastes them on tiny silk cushions and dresses them in handembroidered bonnets and little shawls trimmed with bits of lace. When the pictures are finished, she frames them and sells them.

Uncle Tim is Irish. He is handsome, with slick black hair and a black mustache. Before the Depression, they had money, and Aunt Fritzie loved to dress him up just like she dressed up the pictures of the babies. She bought him silk shirts and golf knickers and black-and-white shoes. One Christmas she gave him blue satin pajamas and matching blue satin sheets. But the satin sheets and pajamas were so slippery that each time Uncle Tim turned over he slid out of bed. Even now, when he had been out of work for months, he was wearing a straw hat and a white suit that looked new.

They acted surprised that we were just sitting down to dinner, but they ate an awful lot. There was plenty, though, because Grandmama always cooks extra. During dinner Uncle Tim did tricks, like pulling out a napkin from under a glass of water without spilling any water, which made Grandmama nervous.

After dinner Uncle Tim played records on the Victrola. He has a fine tenor voice, and he sang along and got us to sing, too, even Grandmama. Before they left, Aunt Fritzie asked me to show her all the things I had collected from the beach. She took a long time looking at them, and she said when she was my age she collected all the same things. As we came downstairs I heard Grandpapa say in an angry voice, “You spend money on a new suit, but you want to borrow money for groceries.”

Uncle Tim said, “If I want to get a job I have to look prosperous. No one will hire a salesman who looks like he's down on his luck.”

Grandpapa sighed and took out his wallet. There wasn't much in it. Grandmama got up and went into the pantry. In a few minutes she was back with more money. Aunt Fritzie threw her arms around Grandmama and Grandpapa and cried a little. But soon she was laughing and Uncle Tim was making jokes and they were in their car waving cheerfully to us as they drove away.

“Will they ever learn, Carl?” Grandmama said.

“They have a way of forgetting unhappy things,” Grandpapa said. “Maybe that's not so bad.”

It was only then that I realized I had forgotten all about Mrs. Tolken. I had eaten the chicken. Two helpings!

Grandfather

He paints pictures

with blood-red roses
,

their petals

thick as meat
,

orange lilies
,

open-mouthed

and yawning
,

pink peonies

fat as pigs
.

When he finishes

a painting
,

he walks

around the garden
,

grumbling

at how dull

real flowers are
.

I like to watch Grandpapa paint. His painting clothes have little smears and dabs of paint on the pants and shirt. You can match the colors of the spots with the pictures he has painted.

On the porch he sets up his easel to hold his painting. He squeezes a little paint from nearly every tube onto his palette. When the colors are all arranged, he opens a book that has pictures of flowers in it. First he draws the flowers from the book, then he paints them. In the book the flowers never look real. They never look real in Grandpapa's pictures either. The pink flowers are too pink and the blue flowers too blue. And everything is too large.

With the yard full of flowers, I don't know why my grandpapa paints flowers out of a book. This morning I asked, “Grandpapa, why don't you pick some of the flowers in the garden and paint them?”

“
Ach
,” he said, “they're nothing special. I can't do anything with them.”

Grandmama, who had been listening, laughed. “You mean you can't make them do what
you
want them to do.”

“In Berlin,” Grandpapa said, “my teacher said you must learn to paint by studying the paintings of famous painters. I used to go into the Old Museum with my easel and paints to copy the pictures. That museum had twenty paintings by the great artist Rembrandt. Imagine!”