The Tin Horse: A Novel (6 page)

Mama kept her grip on Barbara as she pushed through our front door and into the hall.

“Hee haw!”

Mama slapped her. Then she flung open the door to the hall closet and shoved Barbara inside. Coats and jackets were jammed into the closet, hanging on a rod. Barbara fell into them, and for a moment it looked as if the coats would push her back out. But Mama slammed the door, grabbed the key hanging on a nail, and locked her in.

“No!” Barbara pounded her fists against the door.

“I can’t stand to have you in my sight!” Mama yelled.

“Let me out!”

“Elaine!” Mama commanded, and I jumped. I hadn’t done anything, but that wouldn’t save me if her wrath turned toward me. All she said was, “We’re going outside.”

Trembling with the effort of not crying, I followed Mama into the kitchen. She got us glasses of water, then went into the backyard and lowered herself heavily into one of the beat-up wooden chairs Papa had found in the street and placed under the fig tree, next to our garden.

Fruit trees—figs, apricots, peaches, loquats, pomegranates—grew in the yards of many houses in Boyle Heights. Our tree was a Black Mission fig, with purplish skin and fruit that was amber with a touch of pink. I thought of the tree as Zayde’s. The tree was the reason he’d chosen our house to rent when he moved the family to Boyle Heights, he said, and he sometimes sighed in contentment and said something (which I learned came from the Bible) about dwelling under his vine and his fig tree. Zayde tended the tree carefully, checking it on summer afternoons for the wilting leaves that meant it needed water and harvesting the figs just when they were ripe, not letting them spoil on the tree.

I usually loved to sit beneath the fig tree, lounging on one of the chairs or, even better, sitting on the ground, where I’d find a perch in a crook of the twisty roots. When I began to read, it became one of my favorite places to retreat with a book.

But today I wanted to be anywhere but here. I could still hear Barbara screaming. And Mama said, “Sit down. Sit! And don’t you move, or I’ll put you in there.”

I sat.

Now that it was May, Mama, Papa, and Zayde often lounged beside the garden after dinner. The early evenings were pleasant, just cool enough for a light jacket or sweater, the air scented with night-blooming jasmine from the bushes along the back of the house. In the middle of the day, though, I was soon hot and uncomfortable. Mama had to be hot, too. She kept fanning her face. But she didn’t say a word; she just sat and stared at nothing.

There were things in the closet behind the coats, dark old things whose musty reek mingled with the sickly sweet odor of mothballs. And there
were spiders. Once Mama was getting her coat out, and she screamed at a giant spider on the sleeve. Thinking about it, I felt like it was me trapped in the dark, with horrid things I couldn’t see crawling on me.

And worse than that fear was the way I felt toward Mama. Like any child, I accepted the behavior of adults in my world even when it baffled me. But imprisoning Barbara in the closet on a sweltering afternoon … Yes, I knew that Mama’s upbringing had been harsh, and in the 1920s there was no such thing as “parenting”—parents simply reared their children, they didn’t have bookstore shelves filled with expert advice. Still, in what Mama had done, even my five-year-old self recognized a streak of irrationality that terrified me. A wave of dizziness sent me pitching out of the chair.

I crouched on the ground, drenched in sweat, and cast a frightened glance at Mama. Would she put
me
in the closet for leaving my chair?

But Mama’s eyes were closed. She was asleep.

Carefully, not making a sound, I stood up, planning to return to the chair.

She didn’t stir.

I took two steps away. Mama continued to sleep. Another step. Then, moving as silently as I could, I sneaked back inside the house.

Into the hallway. Something odd had happened. There were bits of white stuff on the floor. I got closer and saw that the bits were plaster. They had come from a hole in the wall about the size of a potato next to the closet door.

There was no sound from inside the closet, and for a moment I imagined Barbara had squeezed herself out through the potato-sized hole.

“Barbara?” I whispered. “Barbara?”

Two fingers poked out from the hole. I reached for them, and our fingers locked. Hers were clammy, as if she had a fever. And she hadn’t said a word.

I looked at the key, on its nail above my head. If Mama had thrown Barbara in the closet for sassing her, what would she do to me if I …?

I kissed Barbara’s fingers. She whimpered.

“I’m going to get you out. I promise.” I had to pull to loosen her grip.

I went into the kitchen to get a chair. Peeked into the yard. Mama
didn’t stir. I pulled the chair into the hall, climbed up on it, and got the key. Climbed down and opened the door.

Barbara flew out as if something were chasing her. I slammed the door to keep whatever it was inside. She was sour with sweat, her bangs plastered to her forehead. She still didn’t say anything.

“I’ll get you some water.” I took her hand and led her into the kitchen.

Oh, no! Mama was coming in! She was already through the door, and it was too late to hide.

But Mama wasn’t mad. Instead, she cried out, “
Oy, mein kind
!” and ran to put her arms around Barbara as if she hadn’t been the one who locked Barbara in the closet. Barbara flinched for a moment, but then started to sob and let Mama kiss her and smooth her sweaty hair.

That’s how it was between Mama and Barbara. Barbara challenged Mama more than I did, and Mama punished her more harshly. But she was also more affectionate toward Barbara. And it seems bizarre to call Mama
indulgent
, but how else could you describe the way she sometimes went along with Barbara’s fancies? Like when we went to the party Aunt Sonya and Uncle Leo gave in June to show off their new house.

Mama planned for us to wear our good Kate Greenaway dresses. She took the dresses out of the closet but left us to step into them and do each other’s buttons—she was now in her final month of pregnancy and had already packed a bag with the things she’d need for the hospital. I donned my dress happily; I loved the soft green color and the fancy smocked bodice. Barbara, however, left her blue Kate Greenaway lying on the bed. Instead she put on her white middy blouse with the navy sailor collar and matching navy skirt.

“What are you wearing?” Mama said the minute Barbara emerged from our bedroom.

“I want to wear my middy blouse.”

“This is a party. You don’t wear just a blouse and skirt.”

“It’s my
middy
blouse.”

“I’m not bringing my daughter to a party at Sonya’s fancy new house in a blouse and skirt. Go put on your good dress.”

“It’s my middy blouse!” Barbara stood with her legs planted.

Mama lurched heavily across the room, a storm gathering on her face,
and I tensed, sure that she was going to slap Barbara for sassing. Suddenly, though, her eyes went soft, as if her gaze were filled with honey, so warm and sweet I yearned for a taste of it. She shook her head and smiled at Barbara. “My headstrong girl.” She didn’t say another word about the middy blouse.

THE HOUSEWARMING PARTY
took place on a hot day, and all of the children—there were a dozen of us in those fecund times—were sent outside to the back. Anna, the daughter of Leo’s brother and the oldest of us at eleven, was told to keep us in the yard.

Anna was a bit strange. She rarely looked straight at anyone, and if any attention came her way, her face scrunched like she was going to cry.

“Let’s play hide-and-seek,” Barbara said.

“Where?” One of the boys scanned the yard, which was no larger than ours.

“We’re supposed to stay—” Anna tried. Even at twice our age, she was no match for Barbara.

“You’re it.” Barbara pointed to a girl.

“I don’t want to be it. You be it.”

“I’ll be it next time.” Barbara flashed the girl a dazzling smile. “What’s your name?”

“Judy. Promise you’ll be it next time?”

“Promise.”

Judy put her hands over her eyes and started counting.

I glanced at Anna. She’d retreated to the side of the yard.

“Five, six …,” Judy said.

The other kids were scattering, a couple of the littlest crouching by the back steps but the rest running around the side of the house toward the street. I ran, too. Glimpsing a bigger girl, I followed her down the block toward the new construction. We’d been forbidden to play around the construction because we might step on stray nails, but I had to find a hiding place! Besides, the rule about nails made no sense. As the daughter of a salesman at the best shoe store on Brooklyn Avenue, I was never allowed to go barefoot, not even on a hot day like this.

The bigger girl turned toward a house that was almost done, the stucco walls already constructed and framing set up for the porch. I made for a site two doors down that was still skeletal, just a slab and some wooden joists, with big stacks of two-by-fours over to the side. I squeezed between two piles of wood into a perfect hiding place, just the right size for a five-year-old. Judy would never find me here.

The wood, warmed by the afternoon sun, smelled intoxicating. Zayde always talked about the forest outside his village, how beautiful it was, how cool on a hot day. I had never been to a forest, but, hunkered in the shade of the fragrant lumber, I imagined I was in Zayde’s woods. My feet felt hot and itchy, and I took off my Mary Janes and my socks; I couldn’t step on any nails if I was just sitting.

The women had all baked for Sonya and Leo’s party, and I had three different kinds of cake in my stomach, all of them sweet and delicious and heavy. And it was such a warm, sleepy afternoon …

“
HEY
!
GIRL
!”

Startled awake, I started to jump up, but someone grabbed my shoulders to stop me.

“Don’t, you make fall.” The boy’s accent was like Zayde’s, but his English wasn’t as good.

I sat up, careful not to disturb the wood, and stared at the boy crouching next to me. About my age, he had cat eyes, their irises weirdly light compared to his olive skin and black hair.

“What you do here?” he said.

“I’m hiding.”

Fear leaped into his eyes. “Why? Pogrom?”

“No, silly. Hide-and-seek.” I’d heard the word
pogrom
from Zayde and Mama, and I knew it was a very bad thing. But it only happened in the old country. What a strange boy, to think of that. Was he one of Anna’s many cousins? Except he wasn’t wearing dress-up clothes, like all the other kids at the party. This boy’s thin shirt looked the way our clothes did when Mama said they’d gotten too old to mend and we should give them to the poor.

I noticed a sack behind him. “What’s that?”

“Nothing.” Suddenly furtive, he shifted his body so I couldn’t see the sack anymore. “You Elaine?”

“How do you know my name?”

“They call. You don’t want they find you?”

“Don’t you know how to play hide-and-seek? What’s your name?”

“Danny.”

“Do you live on this street?”

He looked secretive again but then declared, “Going to. This house, here. My father builds. Big house.” Prouder and prouder, as if with each word, the house became more solid, his future life in it brighter. “You live over there?”

“My aunt and uncle. They’re having a party.”

“Ela-aine!” I heard from my hiding place. It was Barbara. Why was
she
looking for me, when Judy was it? And why the note of urgency? “Elaine, are you there?”

“Over here,” I called in a whisper-shout. “Here! Here!” I crept to the edge of the stack of wood and waved. I couldn’t go out until I put on my shoes.

“Everybody’s looking for you. Are you okay?” She came and stood at the end of my hiding place. And spotted Danny. “Who’s that?”

I looked at him. He was staring openmouthed at Barbara, who sparkled in the bright sunlight in her middy blouse with its jaunty sailor collar.

“Just a boy,” I said. Not wanting to share him. Thinking of him, already, as “my boy.”

Someone yelled, “Barbara! Did you find her?” An adult voice.

“She’s here,” Barbara called back. And said to me, “Hurry.”

I scrambled out from my burrow. A woman screamed, “Thank God, she’s all right!” Then a pack of people rushed at me, and Papa hugged me so tight I couldn’t breathe. He carried me back to Sonya and Leo’s, he and everyone else yelling at me.

“Where were you?”

“Didn’t you hear everyone looking for you?”

“Look at your dress, filthy.”

“Where are your shoes?”

“Did you want to kill your poor mother?” a woman scolded, and when they brought me into the house, I was terrified I had done just that.

Mama was lying back in a chair, her legs splayed and her arms limp over her huge belly. Aunt Sonya was fanning her with a magazine, but Mama didn’t move. Her face looked yellow-white like old candle wax.

“Mama!” I howled, and ran to her. And then stopped, horrified by the puddle of water on the floor by the chair. Had Mama peed herself … like I was doing now, wet shame squirting down my legs even faster than the tears gushed from my eyes?

“Lainie.” Mama opened her eyes and took my hand. I steeled myself for her fury, but something must have been terribly wrong. She smiled at me.

Then she was gone, driven by Leo to the hospital.

I hadn’t hurt Mama, Pearl assured me. Her water had broken, and it meant she was going to have her baby.

But I didn’t stop crying until Barbara came and blew on my face to cool me down. When the adults weren’t looking, she took my hand and we snuck back to the house under construction to get my shoes. She acted like I’d done something bold and exciting, and I stopped feeling guilty and came to see that day as an adventure. For the first time, I saw a little something bold in myself.

AFTER OUR BABY SISTER
Audrey was born, we didn’t go as often to Aunt Sonya’s. Still, every Monday afternoon, when Sonya had “the girls” over to play cards, Mama carried Audrey, and we walked there. All of the women brought their children. They put the babies down in Sonya and Leo’s bedroom, and the rest of us played in the yard. By August, the house where I’d hidden was completed, and a family moved in. I walked by and watched for my boy, Danny, but I never saw him. He had appeared so fleetingly, with his cat eyes and his air of mystery, that I thought I might have dreamed him, except that when Barbara had taken me back to get my shoes, I saw that he’d left his sack; it held a few pieces of scrap wood and some nails, and I took one of the nails. I hid it in my treasure box, a gift from Aunt Pearl.