As they began to live under Occupation, Sofia’s relationship with her mother changed.
Sofia had never spent much time with her mother in the daylight before the war. She didn’t even know who her mother might be in the mornings. But when she woke up one day, she was surprised to hear her mother in the kitchen. And she was even more surprised to see her up and dressed. Wide awake, ready for the day.
“Come along, Sofia. Have a little something to eat, then we will go out into the world. Get your clothes on.”
She had never been her mother’s primary companion. Ever. When they were together, her mother was perpetually focused on finding someone else to talk to. At which point Sofia was abandoned.
The change in Clara’s diet also seemed to make her more awake and alive. Before the war, she had existed on a diet of rich pastries and bowls of milky coffee. And she was often in a sugar-induced deep sleep after snacking on a large mille-feuille. Now she existed primarily on stale bread and tea and the occasional spoonful of Black Market jam.
Sofia was helping the maid clean the kitchen floor. When Clara walked in, kicked off her shoes, and picked up a rag. Sofia looked up. “What are you doing? Are you going to scrub with us!”
“What are you laughing at? Do you think I can’t clean floors like everybody else? If I could, I would have a photographer record this moment. I want people to know that when the war came, I was down on my hands and knees with the working women of this country, trying to save it.”
She tried to get down on her hands and knees, but then her stockinged feet came in contact with a puddle of soapy water. She began flailing her body around like a first-time skater on an ice-skating rink. Sofia and the maid stared at her as her body struck one angle after another, trying to restore balance. It was startling to see.
“Careful!” Clara said. “If I fall to the ground, my ass will cause this building to fall to the ground, even though the bombs didn’t.”
“Yes,” Sofia said. “It’s a pity the photographers aren’t here to capture Clara Bottom as Everywoman.”
Clara had a loud laugh at this. She tossed her soapy rag at Sofia. Who screamed when it landed in her lap.
To Sofia’s surprise, Clara had baked a little cake for her birthday. She was dressed in her father’s green velvet housecoat, with a silk kerchief covered in rose blossoms on her head. While Sofia sat in her old sailor’s dress, which now had holes under the armpits. Clara held the small lopsided cake, smeared with blue icing, out to her on a round tray. Sofia knew immediately that it had been baked by her mother and not the maid. It was too pathetic to have been concocted by the maid.
Her mother took out a little music box, wound it up, and put it on the table.
“I have a need to walk by myself. I miss that feeling of independence. I just want to be a young woman in the Capital, up to no good. It’ll be like when I snuck into nightclubs when I was a teenager. How exciting it was! To be in the city! I wanted to do everything I wasn’t supposed to do. We had such wild moves. I didn’t know any of the steps at first. But I learned them in no time at all.”
It wasn’t often that her mother reminisced like this. She didn’t believe in women being all reverent of their younger days, as though they were the high point of their lives. She thought a woman wasn’t even in her prime until she was in her fifties and had reached menopause.
“Show me,” Sofia said, standing in front of her mother with her arms akimbo—demanding things as though she were a soldier.
Clara looked at Sofia. She held her in her arms and began dancing with her. Sofia stood on her tippy-toes. Her mother was not a tall woman, but Sofia’s head still rested on her soft breasts.
Sofia could not remember the last time her mother had held her in her arms. Outside, the sound of a loudspeaker warned the citizens that curfew had begun and it was time to get inside.