The Doll Shop Downstairs (6 page)

One night, I am unable to fall asleep. Even though it's late and I'm tired, I just can't settle down. The bedroom is hot and stuffy, and Trudie snores. I hear rustling in the dark and say, “Are you up?” to Sophie.

“I'm up,” she says.

There is more rustling and then Trudie says sleepily, “Me too.” In a minute, though, she is snoring again.

“I'm worried about Papa and Mama,” I confess.

“So am I,” Sophie says.

“But what can we do?”

Then I hear a click and someone opens the door. Mama.

“Girls, aren't you supposed to be sleeping? Why do I hear voices?”

“Sorry, Mama,” says Sophie. “It's just too hot to sleep.”

“Would you like to sleep on the roof tonight, then?” asks Mama. Instead of answering, Sophie and I start bouncing up and down on our beds.

The noise wakes Trudie, who looks up and says, “Why are you bothering me?” But Sophie and I are already gathering pillows and blankets and following Mama out the window and up the fire escape. Trudie drags herself out of bed and stumbles behind. This is not the first time we have slept on the roof, but it's always a big treat when we do. It's much cooler up there, and we love the view of the streets below. Sometimes, other families join us, but tonight, we have it all to ourselves.

Mama goes back down to get the big, soft feather beds she had when she was a girl in Russia. We love to hear stories about her little village in “the old country.” Mama used to tend geese, and the feathers in our beds come from the fat, noisy birds that lived half a world away.

When we are all settled into the cozy beds she makes for us, she plants a kiss on each of our foreheads and says, “Now go to sleep! Papa and I will be up soon.”

Trudie falls back to sleep right away, but Sophie and I wait until Mama has been gone for a few minutes and then start talking again.

“Maybe we could get jobs,” I say.

“What kind of jobs?”

“We could help out some of the ladies Mama sews for. Wash the dishes or run errands. Mrs. Kornblatt has a baby. We could watch her sometimes.” I have seen the baby with her white bonnet, white booties, and plump, pink cheeks. It would be fun to look after her for a little while.

“Anna, that is not going to help,” Sophie says in that I'm-so-much-smarter-than-you tone that always stings. “We need to make some real money, not pocket change.”

“It was just an idea,” I say, feeling snubbed.

“Well, it's not a very good one, so keep thinking.”

I don't say anything but just look up at the sky. I can see the stars and the pale, white dime of the moon. At first, Sophie was so grateful that I was able to persuade Trudie to agree to the tea set, she was really nice to me. But it seems that's over now. After a while I realize that Sophie is asleep. I am the only one awake until Mama and Papa climb the fire escape to join us. Papa. How to help Papa. How? The question keeps circling around and around in my mind until my eyelids start to feel heavy, and I drift off into dreamland.

5

P
ITCHING IN

The next morning, I am the last one to sit down to breakfast. Mama has already poured Papa's coffee and filled our glasses with milk. “Come and eat,” Mama urges, passing the plate piled high with freshly baked bread. She was up late last night, kneading the dough and letting it rise. The smell fills the room.

“Thank you, Mama,” I say. I start to butter a slice, but I am so eager to talk to Papa that I end up getting butter all over my fingers and have to lick it off.

“Papa,” I say excitedly. “Papa, I know
exactly
what we can do in a doll repair shop without dolls or doll parts.”

“And what would that be?” he asks with a small smile. I can see that he doesn't believe I could have thought of something that could actually work.

“We should make some dolls! But not dolls out of bisque or china or anything else that comes from Germany. And then we could sell them.”

Papa is all set to chuckle, but I guess something about my expression stops him. “Make dolls?” he asks.

“Yes, Papa! Make them!”

“Out of what?”

“Cloth, stuffing, felt. Things we have or could get.”

“Well, it's very sweet of you to want to help, but I don't think—”

“That's a very good idea!” Mama says before Papa can finish. “I was actually thinking about it myself. After all, I can sew. And I did make those rag dolls for you girls, remember? We could start with something simple. It would be better than sitting here and worrying about what we're going to do next.”

“We could all pitch in, Mama!” says Sophie. “I know we could!” She looks at me as if to say,
I'm impressed.

“I'll help,” I say.

“Me too!” Trudie chimes in.

“Well, maybe we
could
come up with a simple pattern for a doll. Dress her in clothes Mama makes. The hair could be yarn....” Papa says, as though he is thinking out loud.

We talk about the dolls we want to make all through breakfast, and when we are finished eating and washing up, we march down to the doll shop while Papa prepares a shopping list that reads:

 

2 rolls buckram

1 roll muslin

2 sheets felt—different colors

1 skein brown wool

 

I know that muslin is a kind of cotton, but I've never seen the word
buckram
before, so I ask Papa what it means. He explains that it's coarse linen, useful for bookbinding, and, in our case, dolls. Trudie thinks it a funny word, and she repeats it a few times. Pretty soon it sounds like nonsense, and we are all giggling as we say it with her:
buckram, buckram.

Papa leaves to go shopping, and we girls sit down at his workbench. Goldie tweets and twitters madly when we get near him; he's been lonely. Mama gives each of us a large sheet of paper. From a drawer behind the counter, she pulls out her long, flat tin of colored pencils.

“Are we making paper dolls, Mama?” asks Trudie.

“In a way,” she says. “First, we have to have an idea of what our dolls are going to look like. So you are all going to draw your ideas for dolls on the paper. Then we'll pick out the ones we like best and see if we can sew them.”

“I don't know what to draw,” says Trudie. Uh-oh—that whiny sound again. But then I remember that Trudie looks up to me now. I can help her.

“Anything you like,” I explain. “It can be a character from a book or a song or a play. Or something you make up, like a mermaid or a fairy.”

“Oh, I see ...” Trudie says, and I receive a grateful smile from Mama. We all take pencils and begin to sketch. When Papa returns, we are eager to show him our drawings.

“Look at mine first!” crows Trudie, waving the paper in front of Papa's face.

“Let me put my packages down,” Papa says. He sets his bag on the floor; I can see the muslin and the brown wool sticking out from the top. He takes Trudie's drawing and studies it.

“I see ... a queen,” he says, studying the drawing.

“Actually, she's a fairy, Papa. See her wings?” Trudie says.

I'm pleased; I guess she liked my idea well enough to use it.

“A fairy. Of course,” Papa says, and Trudie smiles.

“
Mine
is a queen,” says Sophie.

“Yes,” says Papa. “What a fine crown and ermine-trimmed cloak she has.” Then he turns to me. “What did you draw, Anna?”

“A nurse,” I say, handing him my drawing.

“A nurse?” Papa asks.

“Yes, Papa, you know. A nurse like the brave nurses who care for the wounded soldiers.”

“Oh yes, I see,” says Papa, looking at Mama thoughtfully. “A nurse. That's very original. And timely.”

By this time, it is already past noon and we are all hungry, so we go upstairs for lunch, which is borscht—cold beet soup—and bread. After we have eaten, Mama and Papa want to look at the drawings again, so Mama lays them all out on the table. There they are—the fairy, the queen, and my nurse, with her white pointed cap and navy-blue cape.

“I think we should make the nurse doll,” says Sophie. I am stunned. I thought she would want to do the queen, because it was her idea.

“Why?” asks Papa.

“Because she's so original. You said so yourself, Papa. No one else will think of making a nurse doll.”

“Let's make the nurse!” Trudie chimes in.

“So you like her, too?” Papa asks.

“I do. Anna has good ideas,” Trudie says, and comes to stand next to me. I don't say anything, but inside, I am brimming with pride.

“Well, I think it's an excellent place to begin,” Mama says firmly.

“So we have a plan....” Papa says thoughtfully. “See if we can make a nurse doll that doesn't use any parts we can't get.” He looks at all of us. “What do you say, girls? Do you think we can do it?”

I look at my sisters and we all nod.

“Yes,” I reply. “I know we can.”

6

D
OLL FACTORY

For the next few days, the doll shop is busy, busy, busy. It turns out that Papa knows a lot about making dolls' heads. All his years of fixing dolls have given him a good idea of how to do it. He started out back in Russia, in his uncle's shop, where he repaired plates, vases, and platters made of bisque, porcelain, and china. Occasionally someone would bring in a bisque or china doll with a cracked head. Papa would try to fix that, too. He became interested in how the bisque dolls were made by pouring raw materials like clay and water into molds and then firing the molds in a hot oven. When he started his own shop, he decided to mend just dolls. And now, all his experience has helped him figure out how to make a doll, even one that isn't bisque.

Papa begins to experiment. He sculpts faces from a clay he mixes from flour, water, and a little olive oil. Then he wets a sheet of buckram and drapes it over the clay form, leaving an opening at the back so he can slip the molded buckram off when it has dried.

“But the dolly will have a space at the back of her head,” says Trudie, clearly bothered by the idea.

“We'll cover it with hair,” Papa says.

The first doll Papa makes doesn't turn out too well—her face has a strange, flattened look.

“Like someone punched her in the nose,” says Trudie, and she's right. So Papa tries again. And again. The fourth time, he finally makes one we all like: even without her painted features, we can see that she has full, round cheeks, a pert chin, and a nicely curved forehead.

Mama works on the pattern for the bodies, and we help with the sewing. We all know how to sew, even Trudie, though her thimble is too big and she has to wrap her finger with a bit of cloth to keep it from slipping off. We try different kinds of stuffing: tissue paper and straw by themselves are too crinkly, sawdust is too stiff. Finally we settle on a mix of all three: tissue paper at the center, then some straw, and finally the sawdust. After the stuffing process is done, there is more cutting as well as more sewing, pasting, and painting. Using the felt Papa bought and snippets from Mama's scrap bag, we make the nurse doll's outfit: a long, red and white striped dress; white apron; and a navy-blue cape. Best of all is the little white cap Mama makes from a piece of an old cloth napkin that she folds and starches. Trudie and I sort through Mama's button jar for the smallest buttons we can find. We use a shiny brass button for the cape and three pearly white ones for the dress.

Mama paints the face, and Papa attaches the yarn that is the doll's hair. He glues the long brown strands, and when they have dried, he twists them into a neat bun. The open space at the back of her head is now invisible. After we are all finished, we make two more nurse dolls, using the first one as our model. By the end of the day, we have three twelve-inch dolls all ready for some little girls to love. Even though Sophie is the one who usually comes up with the best names, I have the idea to call the doll Nurse Nora, and to my surprise, everyone likes the name.