Watermelon Syrup: A Novel

eighteen

And she’d been angry too. She’d blamed her mother. Two more mouths to feed, more work for her as well as her mother. If Mama hadn’t had Renate and Hildy, she could have gone on in school. She glanced at Hildy, sitting in the corner with her doll. How could she think such sinful things? But maybe Renate and Hildy had been a comfort for her mother, a new start, though she hadn’t shown them any more affection than she’d shown Lexi or her brothers. In a fit of impatience she shoved the yellow notebook back under the cutlery tray, jammed more logs into the stove which was already roaring, then pumped the large kettle full of water and put it on the stove. First she’d mix the yeast for tomorrow morning’s bread, then pluck and cut up the scrawny chicken Papa had killed this morning, reducing their small flock to only nine laying hens. And while the chicken was cooking, she’d have to bring in more snow to melt for tomorrow ’s washing. She hated bringing in snow. Hildy could help her fill the buckets, then. “After supper, will you play checkers with me?” asked Hildy as they got their winter coats on to go out to get the snow. She wanted to yell, “No, I’m sick and tired of stupid checkers,” but instead, having vowed that she would no longer be like her mother, said, “Ja,Liebchen. But I’ll win.” “No, you won’t. You’ll let me win. Maria always does.” “We’ll see about that. Aren’t you getting good enough to beat me on your own? Hildy giggled and whispered something to her doll. eighteen The real world disappeared in the depths of February. Outside, the snow was like the sea, white foam crashing endlessly off their cabin, keeping Lexi off balance and disoriented for days at a time.The temperature was dropping daily. Her boots on the snow were like squeaky Watermelon Syrup 143 jacobsen_text 8/27/07 10:05 Page 143 mice.Trips to the outhouse were Arctic expeditions. Papa, Maria and Renate, bundled up with every scarf and mitten they could find, went off each day into the brittle stillness where breath hung like gossamer , and returned in the afternoon dusk to hold their trembling blue fingers over the stove. Lexi and Hildy were prisoners. Once, at Lexi’s suggestion, they went for a walk after the others were home, but it was so cold that they returned to the house after only a few minutes. Lexi taught herself to bathe Mama, to make the right consistency of floury vegetable soup to warm her, to comb her hair without invoking too much irritation. “Ach, Lexi,” her mother sighed. “Why does He make me wait so long to go home?” “You want to get well, Mama, no?” Mama turned her head slowly and looked out the small window near her bed. “I have had enough, ja?” Lexi felt sick inside, but she nodded. Now that she’d read the notebook she understood. “Ja,” Mama said again, and closed her translucent eyelids. In the evenings, Papa gathered the sisters to sit by Mama’s bed and sing hymns, but mostly he read the Bible or devotional books, hunched in the chair beside Mama’s bed or prayed with his head in his hands. Once or twice a week, if he could make it, exhausted Dr. Douglas dropped in to check on Mama’s condition. He took her temperature, laid his hand on her head and listened to her heart. The whole house went perfectly still when he performed these things.The house was so silent they could hear the frozen crystals of snow ticking against the windows.They could hear the wind running across the frozen grasses and flatlands of snow. And they could hear Mama’s difficult, watery breathing. She sounded like she’d been running for days, like Willy and Gerhardt had run from Hierschau to Blumenort, and she could go no further. Her chest seemed ready to burst. Mama closed up even more when Dr. Douglas was there, even though he’d delivered both Renate and Hildy. She seemed ashamed of 144 Annie Jacobsen jacobsen_text 8/27/07 10:05 Page 144 being sick and turned her head away, refusing to speak unless absolutely necessary. Dr. Douglas would sigh...