sixteen

Every day the leaves became more golden, the sky the color of fall: sharp blue, and cloudless. I found the materials for Mrs. Koch’s hat in a store called A. T. Stewart, and used Elise’s pattern, except that I formed the base with buckram, which was stiff but not so rigid that I couldn’t bend the edges to frame her face.

I had to laugh when Mrs. Koch told me no one else would have a hat like it. Of course not, since the bent edges were a mistake.

It was such a happy week, working on that hat, finishing it, trying it on Barbara and then on myself.

I tried not to think about the smallpox disease that so many people in our neighborhood had. On one of my trips to the park, Johann told me some people were being vaccinated against it.

A strange word, vaccination. I nearly fainted when I heard it meant to puncture the skin with a needle filled with the cowpox disease. How terrible, even though I heard that the Prussian soldiers had all been vaccinated during the war.

One morning I awoke uneasily, thinking about the day ahead. The Uncle was leaving, driving Mrs. Koch in her carriage to a lake somewhere in New York. Even though it was out of season, she wanted to take the waters for her constitution. They would be gone at least a week.

Taking the waters I understood. In Baden, people took the waters all the time for their health. I wished Barbara and Maria could do that, too.

Maria had been sick for a few days, now her face flushed with fever, and the night before, Barbara’s face had been red, too, her eyes heavy as she bent over the little girl, checking her arms, her legs, her stomach for signs of the pox. But “Nothing,” she told me with relief. “Not one mark.”

I dressed and went into the kitchen, planning my day: Run up a few pairs of trousers to make the Uncle happy before I began a second hat for a friend of Mrs. Koch. Sweep the apartment, which gathered grime from outside every moment. Go downstairs for water and wash Maria’s diapers. It was going to be a busy day.

The Uncle was still in the kitchen, his hand on Barbara’s hair, looking worried. The Uncle, worried! We could hear Maria screaming in her crib. She sounded very much like the Uncle. I had to smile. Maria was much more appealing than he was.

“I’ll bring her a bottle,” Barbara said.

“She is like you, Dina, that baby,” the Uncle said.

And as I stared at him in shock, he sighed. “I must leave now.”

He said goodbye to them in the bedroom as I took a scoop of the meltwater to give Barbara’s plant a drink. I looked carefully for the buds that Barbara promised were coming, but all I saw was a sturdy green stem with a few pale leaves.

The Uncle came back to the kitchen and hesitated. “If something should happen . . . ,” he began, “I will not be here.”

I caught his eyes. “I will,” I said.

He stood there, chewing the edge of his lip, and then nodded. “All right. I know you will do well facing trouble.”

For a moment I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me.

I listened to his footsteps going down the stairs and went to the bedroom door. Maria was asleep already. Barbara sat on the edge of the bed resting her head on the iron bars of the baby’s crib, her eyes drooping, almost asleep herself.

I tiptoed in, touching her hair the way the Uncle had, moving her feet up onto the bed and covering her with the blanket. She nodded at me, whispering thanks, and I went back out to tackle the apartment.

The window over the air shaft in the kitchen was the worst. Nailed shut, it was always covered with an oily soot. I wondered what would happen if I removed the nails. Thinking about it, I went downstairs and lugged up the water, enough for a pailful of diapers and nightshirts.

I put the water on to boil and then I worked with one of the Uncle’s tools to pry the nails out of the window. At last it slid open, letting in a whoosh of air, papers, and soot.

A terrible idea! But after a few minutes the dust settled and air came into the apartment, and as I bent over, scrubbing at the glass with a cloth, light!

I worked all that morning, stopping to look in the bedroom every once in a while. And later, I told myself, I would take a quick walk to the park, just once around and back.

I did that, and saw Johann at his table, bent over a piece of fabric, intent on what he was doing. I wished I had the courage to knock on the window or to walk by a second time, but I saw his father standing there looking out, and I scurried past, going home to Barbara.

On the way I saw the health department cart, the horses raising one hoof and then another as they waited for the men to carry out still another person on a stretcher. A person with smallpox, a person destined to die in the hospital.

I forgot about Johann then and raised my skirt to my ankles to run home. I never stopped until, breathless, I reached the top floor and our apartment.

I leaned against the door for a moment to catch my breath, then went into the bedroom. Both of them slept on, and as I tiptoed to the crib, I saw the first small mark on Maria’s cheek.

That night, I stirred weak soup filled with vegetables and spooned it slowly into Barbara’s dry mouth. I held a bottle for Maria to suck. She had several more pockmarks, and they were beginning to ooze. I washed her face gently with a soft rag, and then Barbara’s, and at last threw myself on the sofa, still dressed, to doze.