The Priest -- 7

Leon's scooter looked a lot like this one, except it had larger rubber wheels and a wider and longer platform to stand on.

Jozef, the youngest of the six boys, sat at the breakfast table, squeezed between his brothers and cousins. The other boys, some already teenagers, were busy making plans, which, Jozef hoped, would not include him.

The maid brought in another plate of scrambled eggs. Leon, the oldest of the boys, helped himself to a spoonful, then said, “Let’s go to see Jarek. He is fun to be with and he has three sisters. Very pretty girls.”

Jozef saw his chance. “Girls!” he looked at the warm sunshine streaming through the window. “That’s boring. Can’t we do something else? I’d rather play with one of your roller scooters on such a pretty day than sit inside talking to girls.” If Leon or one of his brothers would let him have the scooter and not make him go with them, that would be perfect. He was good at riding a roller scooter, and Nina and he could go for a ride.

Leon turned to him. “You know what? I’ll let you have my scooter for the day and you can go and have your own fun. Wouldn’t you like that?”

Jozef made a face. He’d better not be too eager, or they’d suspect something and tell their parents, who had breakfast in the formal room. “But I wanted to go with you,” he said.

Januz turned to him. “You said yourself that would be boring. And Leon’s scooter is brand new. You’ll love riding it all through town.”

Leon broke in. “Right behind the plaza,where the circus is, the woods are starting. They have some wicked paths there to ride on. You’ll have so much fun.”

The woods. They could have so much fun there. Or, if she were scared of the woods, they could race through town and explore it. “Okay. I guess that would be a lot more fun than going with you to see some boring girls.”

“Good. It’s settled then.”

Chicken Soup

On my first time in an American grocery store, I browsed the meat section and found just what I needed. And it was so much cheaper than in Germany. I proudly carried home a package of chicken hearts, necks, gizzards, and livers to make a wonderful, warm soup for that night.

Again culture shock set in when I presented my new father-in-law with my home-cooked chicken soup. He appreciated it, I could tell, but his eyes were wide in surprise, and he ate very little. 

The next morning the sun shone onto two inches of fresh snow making the small town look as if it were covered with a clean, white feather blanket.

By the time Gary came home four months later, I had weathered a ‘baby shower,’ an unfamiliar custom during which I received gifts for the new baby and made new friends from the church and the neighborhood.

 

Verna is in the back, and Art is kneeling next to Daniel. Dennis and Marja are standing in front of their grandmother.

I had also gotten to know scores of my husband’s aunts, uncles, and cousins. 

And I had given birth to my firstborn son, not at all by myself, but with the help of my new parents. My new Mom and Dad, maybe as culture shocked as I, nevertheless stood by me, helped and guided me through the pitfalls of cultural assumptions, and until they passed away, were my American parents and my best friends.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about the baby shower.

Deciding my Future

 Thank you Alexandrea Zenne, for this beautiful picture of a tightrope walker! That's how I imagined a high wire walker to look when I was in fifth grade!

Germany, 1958 

My paper on Icarus and Daedalus had received an “A” in the fifth grade class I attended that week. In spite of my haphazard education and in my childish enthusiasm, I decided I would be a writer one day. And the first thing I would write about would be Mutti’s life. I ran home, full of excitement.

Mutti stood in the kitchen of our caravan home, stirring soup in a pot and listening to soft music coming from the radio in the living room.

Over the sound of the music I heard my siblings outside, helping Vati put up the merry-go-round. Good. I had Mutti to myself for a few minutes, and she seemed in a good mood. Now was the perfect time to do some research for my future writing career. 

I leaned against the counter opposite the stove. “Why did you join the circus Mutti? And how did you find it? What did you do in the circus?” I half expected her to brush me off, but she didn’t. 

A far-away look settled in her eyes, and she sighed. “That was a long time ago, child. I needed to get out of Berlin, and the circus seemed the perfect solution. It was a way out of all my trouble.” She stopped, turned the propane fire under the pot to low, and pulled a chair from the kitchen table.

I slipped into the converted bus seat Vati had screwed to the floor between the table and the wall. “Did you need to leave Berlin because of Hitler?”

“Yes. The Nazis were everywhere. I was lucky to find the circus.”

“Did you meet Vati there?” 

“Yes.” 

Enveloped by the enticing aroma of oxtail soup, we sat at the kitchen table. Mutti told me about how she met my father. I listened, as quiet as the circus audience when the tightrope walker performs. Mutti rarely talked about her life, but as long as I could remember, I knew she was half-Jewish and hid from Hitler during the war. I watched her, still so beautiful, talk about a past that was surely more bitter than sweet, and knew I would one day write the story of her life. 

And I have!

Tune in for more soon!

Pastries for two Hungry Little Girls

Tasty Pastries for Little Sonja and Josefa - The Amerikaner on top and the Berliner on Bottom!

Ever since my experience in Wiesbaden, when I was nine, I liked the police. That night, in the warm police station, the policeman didn't seem mad.

He smiled when he asked me where we lived. I told him I didn’t know. He shook his head and led us into another, smaller room.

A brown paper bag stood on a large table with six chairs around it. Along the wall, under the window, a heater hissed and clanked. Warmth radiated from it. The policeman helped us take off our coats and told us to sit in two of the chairs.

“You must be hungry,” he said. “Would you like a pastry?”

Josefa and I nodded in unison. My mouth watered. The policeman allowed us to choose a pastry from the brown paper bag. Josefa found a Berliner, and the bag even held an Amerikaner for me. It tasted sweet and flaky, and I swallowed and took another bite, looking around me. Everything would turn out all right now. The policeman ate a pastry too. While we ate, other policemen entered, took pastries and talked to our policeman.

When we finished eating, he said, “Do you feel better now?”

We nodded.

“Now tell us what your Vati does and how you live.”

“We are from the carnival,” I said.

“Carnival? I didn’t know there was a carnival this late in the year.”

“We just arrived here. We are in winter quarters,” I said.

“There is another caravan home too, and pack-trailers,” Josefa added.

“Mmm,” the policeman said. “I think I know a few places.” He got up from his seat. “Let’s go and find your family.”

He helped us from the chairs and into our coats. Our small hands in his big ones, he escorted us to a green and white police car. We drove in the dark. The large lighted road gave way to smaller, darker streets. Soon we couldn’t see much of the neighborhoods we drove through. I leaned against the window and craned my neck. I saw the moon, a shallow scythe, and a few stars. How pretty the dark sky was! Jesus lived up there, and He had helped me find a way home. I was sure the policeman would take us straight home now.

The car stopped. When we got out, we saw a lighted caravan home in the dark. I started smiling, but then realized it wasn’t our home.

Lost

On our first day in winter quarters when I was nine, my eight-year-old sister Josefa and I went into the town to get out of our mother's hair and to explore our new surroundings. We looked at things and when inspecting the goodies in a bakery, we got hungry and decided to go home again.
       I led Josefa to an intersection, where we turned into a street I thought would take us back. But when I looked around, nothing seemed familiar. The street was larger, not smaller, and traffic increased. In the gathering darkness, the lights in the stores along the street switched on. I swallowed a lump in my throat and pulled on Josefa’s coat sleeve. “Let’s go back to that intersection.”

Josefa looked at me with big, brown eyes and nodded. I bit my lip and surveyed the road as if I knew where to go. My sister trusted me. I was the leader and somehow I would find the way home. With renewed determination, I trotted back the way I thought we came. Josefa followed.

At the intersection I looked and looked, but couldn’t recognize anything familiar. How long had we been gone?

I suggested we turn another corner. “Maybe that’s where our winter quarter is.”

However, high buildings lined that street. Everything was dark. The buildings seemed to loom over us. Small windows dimly glinted in the light from the far off street lamps.

Josefa slowed. “Are you sure this is the way home?”

Now even the people were gone. We were all alone. My throat hurt, and I balled my hands into tight fists. I was older and needed to be an example for Josefa. I couldn’t let my fear show.

I told Josefa we should return to the larger street. At least there we could see something.

I shivered. Josefa stuck her hands into her armpits. Her breath burst out in little puffs of steam. My hands and feet ached from the cold and my stomach rumbled. How good a butter and jam sandwich would taste! But first we needed to get home.

I led Josefa to the next intersection and surveyed the streets leading from it. I recognized nothing. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. My heart sped up to a gallop. I wanted to cry. People rushed around us on both sides, but no one noticed us, and nobody seemed to care.

Uncle Henrik

 Uncle Henrik (shown here as a young man working as a hired hand for the Nazi owner) was the lion tamer in the Circus Francesco. After the war in Poland, he became somewhat of a celebrity when he was the first person who successfully bred a lion with a tiger. The resulting cub is called a liger.

***

A year after I was supposed to go to Poland, our family received their second visit from a family member.

It was around Christmastime, and I had settled into going to the same school for the winter. One day I came home and found a stranger sitting at the kitchen table with Vati. In front of them stood a half-empty vodka bottle and two shot glasses. Vati was talking to the stranger in what I thought was Polish.

Mutti came from the livin groom and said, “Henrik, this is our second, Sonja.” She turned to me. “This is your uncle Henrik.”

I remembered that Vati had talked about his brother coming to visit from Poland, but had forgotten all about it.

I stretched out my hand and the stranger took it. “Hallo Sonja,” he said gravely.

Carmen and Josefa burst in after me, trailed by Franz. Mutti shooed me into the

living room and introduced my sisters to Uncle Henrik.

“And this is our son, Franz. He’s named after your father.”

Uncle Henrik rose and hugged Franz, who squirmed in the embrace of this stranger. When Henrik was about to sit down again, Mutti touched his arm. “Why don’t you and Colya go into the living room. I have to start supper now.”

Vati rose, and as he went through the open sliding doors into the living room, he stumbled against the edge of the door and mumbled something in polish. Uncle Henrik grabbed the bottle and the two glasses and followed him.

Mutti came after him. “Carmen, Sonja, Josefa, come here. You have homework to do. Eva, you come too.”

Uncle Henrik said something in Polish to Vati. “Franz, join us,” Vati called. “You’re the only man among all these women. You drink with us.”

Nine-year-old Franz stood in the doorway, not moving. Mutti took his arm and looked around him into the living room. “You will not give this child any vodka, Colya. You and Henrik can drink all you want, but Franz will stay here. He is a child, understand?”

Vati looked at Henrik who took another sip from his glass. “You women. Always meddling,” he mumbled and then slipped back into Polish. Soon he had forgotten all about it, and laughed and talked with Henrik while we sisters, and Franz, too, finished our homework, with Eva playing on the floor.

Mutti finished a large plate of open-faced sandwiched for us children and carried a smaller plate into the living room. We ate, listening to Vati and Uncle Henrik talk, hoping in vain to understand something.

After supper, Mutti got Eva ready for bed and shooed us off to sleep long before our usual bedtime. I heard Vati, Mutti and Uncle Henrik talk and laugh until I drifted off to sleep.

Uncle Henrik stayed a week. He was not talking much to us children, I assumed because he didn’t understand much German, but he was always friendly and sometimes a little too friendly, trying to hug and kiss us. Our parents never hugged or kissed us, so it seemed weird to me that a strange men, eve if he was an uncle, would do that. But somewhere deep inside I loved it!

 When Uncle Henry left, he gave Mutti several kielbasa hard sausages and other Polish food. I will never forget the wonderful taste of kielbasa in lentil soup, kielbasa sliced on a piece of bread, and kielbasa with sauerkraut.

I never saw Uncle Henry again after he left.

Food and New Year's!

What I remember best about New Year’s Eve is the food. Even though it was the middle of the winter and money was tight, Mutti made canapés every year. When we were poorer, they consisted of square cut pieces of rye bread (the cheap kind we ate every day) spread with margarine and tiny cubes of the cheapest cheeses Mutti could find.

Eventually she added bits of ham, and when I was a teenager and we had a little more money, she added fish. Our canapés were covered with anchovies and pickles, pickled herring and boiled red beets, cheap caviar and sometimes bits of sardines. Besides the fish, Mutti still made cheese, ham and salami canapés, garnished with green and black olives, pickles and bits of apple and grapes. How I liked to taste the different flavors and let them melt in my mouth!

Today I still love to make my own version of canapés for New Year’s Eve. I just go easy on the fish, since that’s not so popular with my family.

As a child, I slept through many New Year’s Eve celebrations, but when I got older, I joined the family. At twelve o’clock, or a few minutes earlier, we went outside our carnival home to watch the spectacle.

If you’ve ever been in Germany on New Year’s Eve, you know what I mean. I’ll tell you more about what still happens in Germany at twelve o’clock on New Year’s Eve tomorrow!

Chicken, Potatoes, and Raisins!

Oh, the joys of eating chicken! Chicken Cordon Bleu with melty sweet Swiss cheese and crisp crumbs on the outside is one of my favorite chicken dishes. Chicken in yellow gravy, made from a can of creamy chicken soup and poured over potatoes can still make my mouth salivate.

That day so long ago, we ate chicken and self-picked dandelion greens with young nettles, and it seemed every bit as delicious to the little girl I was, as an expertly prepared Chicken Cordon Bleu would taste today.

After we ate, Mutti saved the rest of the chicken. The next day, she cut it into small pieces and heated them in a yellow gravy. We had boiled potatoes with it. What a delight!

We had potatoes every day. They were cheap and grew well in Germany after the war. I never got tired of them, and I still love them.

That evening, supper consisted of raisin bread with margarine and an apple. Carmen said, “Yuck! I hate slimy raisins,” and picked them out.

“Don’t be so dumb,” Mutti said. “Raisins are good for you.”

But Carmen pushed her little pile of raisins away.

Josefa watched with wide eyes. “Yucky,” she said, and picked out her raisins, too.

Mutti said, “Little brats.” She picked up Carmen’s raisins and ate one. “Oh, well. More for the rest of us.”

I, too, poked a raisin out of my slice of bread and tried it. Carmen was right. They were slimy and gushy and icky. But I wanted to make Mutti happy. I swallowed it.

Mutti smiled. “At least Sonja eats them,” she said. “She’s a good eater.”

Pride swelled my breast. I smiled at my sisters across the table.

Vait took a swallow from his coffee cup. “She eats so much, but never gains weight. Maybe she’s sick.”

I wasn’t worried about being sick. Mutti was pleased with me, and Vati was thinking about me. I resolved to always be a good eater, so Mutti would approve.

Today I have learned to love raisins, especially in hot oatmeal. And I do have to rein in my appetite so I can stay healthy!

Greens

One sunny autumn morning, when I was maybe four or five, Mutti turned to Carmen and said, “Watch Franz. I’ll have to find something green for lunch.”

She called Josefa and me, put on her gloves, even though it was warm outside, grabbed her shopping basket, and left. We hurried after her in the morning sunlight.

Mutti strode along the street of the little village we held our carnival in that week. We passed a big building that may have been the city hall. Long slats of wood were all over it, and they almost hid the big burnt hole in the upper story. People climbed all over the wood, working on the broken bricks.

When the sidewalk ended, Mutti turned into a path marked with grassy ruts. Josefa and I hurried to keep up with her. We tried not to stumble on the uneven ground. The damp grasses left cold streaks on my bare legs.

We reached a small pond, and Mutti stopped. Stinging nettles grew in profusion by the pond, their dark green fleshy leaves crowding out other grasses. Mutti checked her gloves and broke off the smaller nettles, piling them into the basket. Josefa was reaching out to copy Mutti, but Mutti slapped her hand away.

“Don’t do that,” she said. “They’ll sting you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You don’t know anything.”

Josefa kicked my leg. I screamed and hit her. She started crying.

Mutti ignored us.

I ran from my sister, being careful not to touch the nettles. Josefa quit crying, sat in the grass, and played with a dandelion.

When the basket was almost full, Mutti turned toward the meadow on the other side of the path. She picked the dandelion leaves and piled them on top of the nettles. Some of the blooms had turned a gossamer gray and Mutti left them alone. When I picked a gray one and blew on it, the gray dissolved into many tiny parachutes, which floated softly in the breeze.

Josefa and I ran around the meadow, picking dandelions and blowing them, until Mutti yelled at us. We trudged back after her past the bombed out city hall to the grassy commons, where Vati had already put up the back and sides of the shooting gallery in front of our caravan.

Vati stopped working, picked something white from the ground next to the half-erected shooting gallery, and followed us to the caravan home. He held up a dead chicken, his broad hands grasping it firmly by the feet. Its head dangled from under its white, feathered body, wings half-spread. The eyes were closed and its beak stood open. I thought the chicken looked sad.

“I exchanged this for free tickets,” Vati said and smiled.

Mutti put down her basket and clapped her hands.

“We’ll have a feast today,” she said and took the chicken. She shooed Carmen and Franz from the caravan, but left the door open. Franz sat down by the steps and played in the dirt. Josefa and I watched Mutti.

Mutti put the chicken in the wash bowl. Its head dangled over the rim and she tucked that into the bowl too. The feet were sticking straight up. After she heated water on the coal stove she took the chicken outside and poured the boiling water over it. Then she left and let it sit on the caravan steps for a while.

Josefa and I turned to play with Franz who drove an imaginary car through the dirt, making car noises.

When I looked up again, Mutti sat on the steps, plucking the feathers off the chicken. They fell in an untidy heap next to the caravan home’s wheels. When she was done, she cut the belly of the chicken open and dug out the insides.

I watched, eyes and mouths open.

Josefa joined me. “Yuck,” she said.

Mutti pulled out the intestines. “Most of this isn’t good to eat. But the rest will taste great.” She looked at Josefa. “If you don’t want it, we’ll eat it for you.”

“I want it, I want it,” Josefa said, but she sounded doubtful.

Mutti rose and took the chicken inside.

For lunch we had potatoes with green stuff, made from the greens we and Mutti had picked that morning, and parts of the chicken.

Carmen and Josefa each got a foot. Mutti showed them how to strip the scaly skin off the foot and lower leg and eat the meaty gristle from between the bones. I got the head. I cracked it open and ate the brains out of it. It was delicious, much better than the greens we helped Mutti pick.

***

Many years later, in my spacious kitchen in America, I remind Mutti of the chicken head. “I couldn’t eat that now. But then it tasted delicious.”

“I remember,” Mutti says. “We did what we had to. My children never went hungry.” She sighs and helps me finish washing the dishes.

Food for Christmas

Oh, the joys of Christmas feasting! Turkey with all the trimmings, pumpkin and apple pies, fudge and cookies in all kinds and shapes, eggnog and chocolates!

In Germany, when I was a carnival child, the foods were different, but the joy was all the same.

***

By the time late October came around we settled down for the winter. Vati’s little Deutz truck tuckered into the chosen location. Vati moved our home caravan to the most sheltered spot under the threshing roof, or wherever else we wintered that year, and connected the electricity. And we children got ready to attend school regularly for a few months.

December started with the advent calendar. Mutti always bought one at the end of November. Behind the little windows, tiny pictures of toys waited to be discovered day by day, and we children fought over who would open one every morning.

On the night of December 5^th, Mutti didn’t need to remind us to shine our boots. Saint Nicklaus would come in the night and place goodies into one shoe or boot for every child. He might also bring some coals for the more naughty child, so we all did our best to be good the whole day on December 5^th.

In the morning, we jumped out of bed, not heeding the freezing cold, and slipped into our clothes before running through the living room compartment, where Mutti and Vati slept on the pull-out sofa, to inspect our treasures.

I grabbed my boot and pulled out a tangerine and an apple, and under them I spied a handful of mixed nuts, still in their shells. I shook them onto the kitchen table, next to my sister’s treasures, and found a piece of hard candy among the nuts! Hurriedly I ate my buttered roll and drank my breakfast milk, put on my coat and stuffed my nuts and the candy into my coat pockets.

“I’ll keep the fruit for you, children, until you’re back from school,” Mutti said and shooed us on our way.

The apple and tangerine made a wonderful snack after school.

A week before Christmas, Mutti baked a Stollen, a kind of dry, yeasty Christmas bread with candied fruit. I came home from school and could smell the sweet smell of baking. But we couldn’t eat it until the next day, since it had to sit and age. We had Stollen slices with margarine for breakfast and often for supper, until it was gone.

A few days later, I came home from school and could already smell the wonderful scent of baking cookies before I opened the door. The kitchen table was dusty with flour on which Mutti had rolled out a sugar cookie dough. She cut out shapes with her old cookie cutters and placed cookies in the shape of stars, bells, and Santa Claus on a cookie sheet, while another baked in the oven, as I could smell. Mutti pulled one sheet of cookies from the oven and placed the other one in. she allowed us to each have one cookie, and the rest she wrapped in butcher paper and stowed them in the highest closet in the kitchen, for Christmas, as she told us. We never frosted the cookies. They appeared again on our goodies plate on Christmas Eve, when we received our presents from the Christ child.

As I grew older, Mutti added some Marzipan and chocolate to our goodies plate, but when we were little, we probably couldn’t afford such delicacies, since our money had to last until spring, when the carnival circuit started again.

Spinach Part Two

Margot sat in front of the mess on her table, not moving. If she’d try again, she’d throw it up again. But what else could she do? Eventually she took the spoon again, scooped up a fresh, smaller part of the mess and swallowed it quickly. Her stomach heaved, but she took a deep breath and it stayed down.

Mutti glanced up from her paper. “There you go. Now eat the rest and don’t be so stubborn.”

Margot didn’t dare to eat another bite. The spinach in her stomach felt as if it wanted to crawl up her throat. There must be something wrong with her. Other people ate spinach, why couldn’t she? She hung her head.

Brigitte’s cries from the hallway faded. She must have fallen asleep again.

Margot stared at the spinach for an eternity. Finally the front door slammed.

Mutti rose. “Is that you, Max?”

Max came in. A raindrop glistened on his nose. “Hi Elfriede, hi Margot.” He put his lunchbox onto the table and kissed Mutti on the cheek. “What’s going on? It’s after four. What’s Margot doing still eating?”

Mutti’s forehead creased. She glanced at Margot, eyes hard and cold like ice. “You know how she is. She’s determined not to eat her spinach, no matter what. And I’m determined that this time, for once, she will.”

“But I don’t like it,” Margot wailed.

Max came closer, staring at Margot’s plate. He pointed. “Is that throw-up?”

Margot shrunk tighter into her chair. In spite of her efforts, hot tears squeezed from her eyes. “I’m sorry.  I couldn’t help it. It just came up again. I tried to eat it. I really tried.”

Without another word, Max turned, took Mutti by the elbow, and pulled her into the hallway. The kitchen door snapped shut.

Margot swallowed. Maybe this was her chance to rinse the mess into the sink. But if Mutti would catch her again, she’d beat her with the wooden spoon, besides making her eat it. She couldn’t risk it. She stared at her plate without seeing it. Her bottom was hurting from sitting in the hard chair for so long.

The door to the hallway opened. Max came in.

Faintly, Margot heard Mutti in Brigitte’s room, talking to her in that soothing, sing-song voice she used for the baby.

Max marched up to her, took her by the elbow, and pulled her out of the chair. “Go into your room and don’t come out again for the rest of the day. I’ll bring you a sandwich in a while.”

Margot turned to him. “And I don’t have to eat that spinach anymore?”

“No, you don’t. Your mother will be fine in the morning. Just stay out of her sight today.”

Margot threw her arms around his waist. “Thank you! Thanks so much.”

Max disengaged himself from her embrace. “Hurry up now. I’ll see you later.”

Margot tiptoed past Brigitte’s open bedroom door and gently shut the door to her room behind herself. She threw herself on the bed and buried her head into her pillow. She might be a bad girl because she couldn’t please her mother, but if she ever had children, she would never make them eat stuff they didn’t like, especially not spinach.

***

And she never did.

Spinach, Part One

Oh, the joys of good food! The first time I tasted a hot artichoke spinach dip with celery, I thought I'd never eat something that tasty again. But different foods mean different things to different people.

Even if they had artichoke spinach dip in Germany, I know my mother would never want to even try it. Here is the story of little Margot (my mother's name) and her relationship to spinach.

Margot unlocked the door to the apartment, slipped in, and shrugged her satchel from her shoulders. She sniffed the air and her stomach tightened. She was hungry, but that smell!

She stood in the hallway, coat still on her slight ten-year-old frame. Maybe Mutti was in a good mood today and wouldn't make her eat it. 

“Is that you, Margot?” Mutti’s voice came from the kitchen. “Hurry up, food’s on the table.”

Margot stretched to hang her coat on the hook, pushed her satchel under the coat rack, and hurried down the hallway to the kitchen.

Little Brigitte sat in her wooden high chair, waving her spoon in the air. Mutti looked up from putting mashed potatoes onto the plate in front of Margot’s chair. “How was school?”

Margot pulled the chair out and sat down. “Fine.” She shrugged. “What are we having?”

“Mashed potatoes, spinach, and eggs.”

Margot’s shoulders slumped. She’d hoped against hope…

Mutti ladled a large glob of pureed spinach onto her plate.

Margot suppressed a shudder. It looked like a fresh cow patty and smelled like one too. She looked up. “Can I just have eggs and potatoes, please?”

Mutti placed a fried egg on top of the unappetizing mess. “No. You need to eat your spinach, too.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Oh well. I’ll take some off.” Mutti scooped a tablespoon of spinach from under the egg and plopped it on her plate. “But you need to eat the rest of it.” Mutti turned and put a plate with a cut up egg, some spinach and mashed potatoes in front of two-year-old Brigitte, next to her at the table.

Margot carefully removed the egg from the cow patty of spinach and ate it. She stirred a little spinach into her mashed potatoes and put the mix into her mouth. If she concentrated on the taste of the potatoes, it wasn’t too bad. Before she knew it, though, the potatoes were gone, and the pile of spinach looked even larger than it had before. She opened her mouth to ask Mutti if she couldn’t get up. After all, she ate some of the spinach.

At that moment, Brigitte waved her pudgy arm and swiped her bowl onto the table. It hit her glass of milk on the way down and milk spilled all over Mutti’s apron and dress.

Mutti jumped from her seat. “Darn brats,” she muttered and wiped her face with her cloth napkin. She jerked Brigitte from the chair. Brigitte wailed.

“You’re done eating,” Mutti hissed. She dragged the soggy napkin over Brigitte’s face and hands, and left the kitchen with her. Brigitte’s screams faded into the hallway.

Margot looked around. Maybe she could rinse the spinach down the sink while Mutti was gone. As she rose and grabbed her plate, Mutti stormed back in. “What do you think you’re doing?” She grabbed Margot’s plate and pushed her back into her seat. “You stay here and eat your food.”

“But Mutti! I don’t like it!” Margot wailed.

“I don’t care. You stay here and eat, if it takes the whole day.”

Maybe if she sat really quiet and didn’t move, Mutti would let her go eventually.

Mutti finished her plate, then cleaned up the mess Brigitte had made and washed the dishes.

Margot fidgeted. “Mutti…”

“Don’t you say another word. You finish your plate. That’s that. No more discussions.” Mutti wrung out the dishcloth and wiped the table around Margot.

Margot shrunk into her seat, staring at the spinach. It seemed to glare back at her. She glanced at Mutti. Spinach couldn’t be too bad. Mutti ate it. The green goo on her plate seemed to grin. Margot grabbed the spoon, scooped up a large spoonful, and stuck it into her mouth. The stuff was slimy, as expected, but now it was also cold. I’ve got to eat this, Margot thought and swallowed. The gooey stuff slid coldly down her throat. Suddenly an image of a cow doing its business came into her mind.

Her stomach convulsed and without being able to help it, Margot threw the spinach back up onto her plate.

Mutti dropped the dishcloth into the sink, and stormed to Margot’s chair. Her hand connected with Margot’s wet cheek. “Darn brat! You did that just to spite me. You will eat this, no matter what!”

Margot bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut. Crying would just make Mutti madder. She shrank into her chair and wrapped her arms around herself.

"Mutti, Mutti," A sleepy voice sounded from the hallway.

“You stay there and eat this,” Mutti yelled. “I’ll be watching.” She grabbed the newspaper and sat opposite Margot, ignoring Brigitte’s cries.

Food

The next few entries will be about food. About Mutti and food when she was little, about food after the war in Germany, and about food in our little caravan when I was a child.

Let's start with an account of Mutti's and my relationship to food. This is a dialogue between Mutti and me when she visited me in the States a few years back.

 I’m in the kitchen, preparing a late breakfast. I’m frying bacon and eggs.

“Oh God, no,” Mutti says. “I can’t believe you are eating that for breakfast. You have to watch your figure. You’re not skinny anymore.”

“It’s common in America. When you eat breakfast late, you make bacon and eggs and skip lunch,” I explain.

Mutti sighs. For her, breakfast consists of bread or cereal and coffee. “Sure you’ll skip lunch,” she says. “Please, none of that for me.”

Mutti wasn’t raised in the Jewish faith. She doesn’t disapprove on religious grounds. Many times, when I was small and we could find and afford it, we had pork chops for lunch.

I smile and assure her she won’t have to eat eggs and bacon.

An hour later, after we finished eating (Mutti had Müsli and coffee, while Ken and I enjoyed our bacon and eggs), my 17-year-old gets up. She comes from her room and rummages in the refrigerator. “What’s there to eat?”

“We already ate, just a little while ago,” I answer. “Eat whatever you can find.”

After some more rummaging, Liesel settles on a peanut butter sandwich. She gulps it down with some milk, then grabs her purse from the table and kisses me on the cheek. “I’m going now, Mom. I’ve got to be at work in ten minutes."

I hug her. Her hair tickles my cheek.

“Bye, Mom, bye Oma,” she says and is off.

“I didn’t have time for hugs and kisses when you were small,” Mutti says. “But I did cook you a hot lunch every day.”

I rinse the egg off a plate and think back. I can’t remember going hungry as a little child. But I still remember Mutti pushing me away when I tried to hug her and she was at the kitchen stove, or feeding the new baby.

“Once, at the end of the winter, we ran out of money. We only had bread and jam left to eat,” Mutti reminisces. “I think that was in Weilburg, in 1954, the year your little sister, Eva, was born.”

I was seven then and remember it well. Toward the end of that winter, before we went out again to run the carnival circuit, we eventually had bread to eat every breakfast and supper, and often also for lunch. Mutti bought the cheapest rye bread and spread it with margarine and Vierfrucht, a jam made from four different types of fruit.

We ate margarine and Vierfrucht sandwiches seemingly forever. I still remember the taste. Or we had rye bread with lard and salt, or rye bread with margarine and sugar. I never got tired of rye bread, but I did miss a hot meal at times. I never went truly hungry, though.