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    Watermelon Syrup: A Novel
    Watermelon Syrup: A Novel
    Watermelon Syrup: A Novel
    Ebook378 pages4 hours

    Watermelon Syrup: A Novel

    By Annie Jacobsen, Jane Finlay-Young and Di Brandt

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Lexi, a young Mennonite woman from Saskatchewan, comes to work as housekeeper and nanny for a doctor’s family in Waterloo, Ontario, during the Depression. Dr. Gerald Oliver is a handsome philanderer who lives with his neurotic and alcoholic wife, Cammy, and their two children. Lexi soon adapts to modern conveniences, happily wears Cammy’s expensive cast off clothes, and is transformed from an innocent into a chic urban beauty. When Lexi is called home to Saskatchewan to care for her dying mother, she returns a changed person.

    At home, Lexi finds a journal written by her older brother during the family’s journey from Russia to Canada. In it she reads of a tragedy kept secret for years, one hat reconciles her early memories of her mother as joyful and loving with the burdened woman she became in Canada. Lexi returns to Waterloo, where a crisis of her own, coupled with the knowledge of this secret, serves as the catalyst for her realization that, unlike her mother, she must create her own destiny.

    Watermelon Syrup is a classic bildungsroman: the tale of a naive young woman at the crossroads of a traditional, restrictive world and a modern one with its freedom, risks, and responsibilities.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWilfrid Laurier University Press
    Release dateOct 22, 2009
    ISBN9781554587131
    Watermelon Syrup: A Novel

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      Watermelon Syrup - Annie Jacobsen

      Watermelon Syrup

      LIFE WRITING SERIES

      In the Life Writing Series, Wilfrid Laurier University Press publishes life writing and new life-writing criticism in order to promote autobiographical accounts, diaries, letters, and testimonials written and/or told by women and men whose political, literary, or philosophical purposes are central to their lives. Life Writing features the accounts of ordinary people, written in English, or translated into English from French or the languages of the First Nations or from any of the languages of immigration to Canada. Life Writing will also publish original theoretical investigations about life writing, as long as they are not limited to one author or text.

      Priority is given to manuscripts that provide access to those voices that have not traditionally had access to the publication process.

      Manuscripts of social, cultural, and historical interest that are considered for the series, but are not published, are maintained in the Life Writing Archive of Wilfrid Laurier University Library.

      Series Editor

      Marlene Kadar

      Humanities Division, York University

      Manuscripts to be sent to

      Brian Henderson, Director

      Wilfrid Laurier University Press

      75 University Avenue West

      Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5

      Watermelon Syrup

      a novel

      Annie Jacobsen

      with Jane Finlay-Young

      and Di Brandt

      We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities.

      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Jacobsen, Annie, 1946-2005

      Watermelon syrup : a novel / Annie Jacobsen ; with Jane Finlay-Young and Di Brandt.

      (Life writing series)

      ISBN 978-1-55458-005-7

      I. Finlay-Young, Jane, 1958- II. Brandt, Di III. Title.

      IV. Series.

      PS8619.A255W38 2007     C813’.6     C2007-902873-X

      Text © 2007 Estate of Annie Jacobsen

      Foreword © 2007 Jane Finlay-Young

      Afterword © 2007 Di Brandt

      Cover design and cover photograph by David Drummond.

      Text design by Pam Woodland.

      Every reasonable effort has been made to acquire permission for copyright material used in this text, and to acknowledge all such indebtedness accurately. Any errors and omissions called to the publisher’s attention will be corrected in future printings.

      This book is printed on Ancient Forest Friendly paper (100% post-consumer recycled).

      Printed in Canada

      No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

      For Eric and Susie

      Foreword

      by Jane Finlay-Young

      Watermelon Syrup is a fictionalized account of Annie Jacobsen’s family story. When Annie’s mother, Katherine Becker (née Goerz), was dying of cancer and Annie herself was fighting the same disease, she began writing vignettes to entertain her mother. The vignettes were based on stories Annie had heard about Katherine’s Mennonite childhood in Russia and Saskatchewan. These small stories grew and became this book.

      Annie came from a line of storytellers and writers. Both her grandmother and her uncle kept extensive journals, even though they belonged to a predominantly oral, traditionalist community. Annie’s grandmother, Helena Goerz (née Regier), wrote an account of Mennonite life in Russia, of the family’s journey to Canada, and of settling in Saskatchewan. John Goerz, Annie’s uncle, wrote a more extensive account of the same events. Much of what is recounted in Willy’s notebook in Watermelon Syrup is cited directly from John’s journal. Both Helena’s and John’s writings are alive with detail and passion for the lands they worked and lived on and the communities they lived in. Katherine recorded stories of her childhood on tape with the help of her daughter, Kate. Susie Jacobsen, Annie’s daughter, conducted considerable research for the novel. Thus, four generations of writers have contributed to the story you are about to read.

      Annie Jacobsen (née Dorothy Becker) died on May 17, 2005. Annie and I had known each other for about seven years by the time she died, and during those years writing was a huge part of our friendship. We developed The Mini Writing Career, a series of writing workshops; we wrote with each other and we were readers of each other’s works-in-progress.

      Two weeks before Annie died she finished the third draft of this novel. Before she died, she asked me to work with the manuscript on her behalf, should the novel ever be accepted for publication. I said yes because I knew the manuscript was already whole, had already found its voice and the story was already fully developed. But, as with most manuscripts before they arrive on a publisher’s desk, it needed further revising and polishing before it was ready for print.

      Eileen Mercier, Annie’s literary executor and long-time friend, found the manuscript a home at Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Brian Henderson, director of WLUP, contacted award-winning author Di Brandt, who agreed to act as consultant during the revision process. Di and I worked closely together as I took the novel through two more drafts. Di provided generous and invaluable editorial feedback, including extensive information and insight on Mennonite history and culture.

      Working with Annie’s words has been a privilege, a pleasure and a most amazing journey. Working with Annie, I want to say, because there were many times during this last year of rewriting that I would close my eyes and invoke her—her laughing, sparkling, intelligent presence. It is hard now to let her go, to let this book go. I can only hope, Annie, that Di and I have done your beautiful book justice.

      I wish to thank Annie’s siblings, Kate Delmage, Helen Miskelly and David and Gordon Becker, who helped clarify many details and sent photos, family documents and support. And a special thank-you to Annie’s children, Susie and Eric, who enthusiastically supported the project throughout.

      On many levels, this book is about survival. It is the story of a family and a community and their dislocation from their homeland, and survival in the New World. It is also the story of individual survival, of a young woman’s fight for self-determination against restrictions imposed by her father and her religion. And, finally, it is the story of Annie’s survival. Annie wrote this novel as she was dying. Through pain and pain medication and chemotherapy and uncertainty, Annie wrote. Through her words, she survives still.

      Halifax, Nova Scotia

      May 2007

      Prologue

      Aleksandra pulls out the last of the old yellow notebooks as she waits for the nurse to call her in this kingdom of softly whirring machines. It had seemed a good idea to bring the notebook to pass the time, but now she’s not so sure.

      She glances, pen poised, at the pink waiting room wall. It’s the same colour as the watermelons she remembers from her childhood. White cake drenched in watermelon syrup. So sweet it made your teeth hurt. It made her think of her Oma’s garden in Blumenort, in southern Russia. The heavy board swing, the thick, frayed ropes burning her hands as she rocked back and forth, singing one of the many gorgeous spring songs they used to sing. Der Mai ist gekommen / die Bäume schlagen aus / da bleibe, wer nicht Lust hat / mit Sorgen zu Haus! May has come and the trees are blossoming. If you can’t be joyful now, keep your sorrow at home.

      Oma’s barn was so often filled with huge piles of watermelons, as well as baskets of apples and pears. She can still smell that sweet smell of fermenting hay and grain and fruit. Every summer she and her brothers celebrated the first juicy red pieces of watermelon with seed spitting contests.

      Aleksandra touches her chin. How clear her memory is of the feel of watermelon juice running down it. How clear all the memories are from those last few years, before they had to leave. Memories of prosperity, of their large homes and endless harvests.

      She was still so young when they left Russia for Canada, just nine, and her childish memories have mostly retained the beauty of the land and the joy of the community and the celebrations of their prosperity. But, like most things in this life, she thinks, and closes her eyes at the thought, like most things there’s another, darker side. It has never ceased to amaze and disturb her how something good can so rapidly turn sour. Like milk from one day to the next. Like her strong and beautiful body that is now crumbling.

      What was it that her Mama said as she was dying? Try to erase bitterness. Yes, it is a precious piece of advice that Aleksandra has clung to all these years. How tragic that bitterness got the best of Mama.

      She writes down, Watermelon syrup. Summer. 1919. This is the event that started everything tumbling. She looks around the waiting room, her hand trembling, and writes: The whole house drenched in syrup, the pottery smashed, bags of flour ripped open, Mama’s skirt stuck to the floor.

      She closes her eyes. She didn’t see any of that awfulness. She was only three then. But she knows it. She knows every unbelievable detail. She didn’t see any of it because she was hiding in the barn. Willy’s written words, God bless him, are what she remembers. It’s through Willy’s eyes that she sees those terrible moments.

      Willy was always the writer in the family. His notebook full of their life in Russia and their journey to Canada. She was seventeen when she read it, but she remembers the words still. She shivers, thinking of that long, unbearable winter, reading late into the night by the stove, trying to keep warm, trying to turn the pages carefully so no one would wake. Willy’s words had been so shocking.

      The summer of 1919, when the Anarchists raided their beautiful homes and Mama was…

      She lifts her pen from the paper.

      They had been quite well off. It had been such a hardship to lose it all. How had they survived all that chaos? White Army, Red Army, Black Army, Bolsheviks, Anarchists, robbers, Czarists, Makhno…all these names and the terror that comes with them running around in her head still, after all these years. All that fighting, and then the famine of 1921.

      Those few years after the famine were the years in Russia that she remembers best. The years of watermelon syrup and plenty. But then there was the abolition of religion that had finally driven her family out of Russia.

      She knows all that with her head, but not her heart. If she’s going to tell her story she must start with what matters most, to her.

      So, how to start? Coming to Canada? Perhaps she should start there? Their struggle to settle in this strange and lonely land. Papa not able to make a living as a farmer, losing the house and the land. It all seemed so hopeless until he was given his teaching job and they moved into that shack of a house a mile and a half out of town. They were so isolated. Mama was so unhappy. And then the Depression. The Depression had almost broken them. The Mennonites who had come to Canada in the 1800s were of peasant stock, they had been poor forever, they suffered the Depression so much more robustly. But those that came in 1925, they were softer, more educated, used to an easier life. Could she write about that? Did she want to? Was that her story?

      Aleksandra lets her pen fall into the centre of the open notebook and laces her arthritic fingers together.

      No, it all feels more like Willy’s story, the story he’s already written down in his notebook.

      Mrs. Bauer?

      She looks up at the young girl in the maroon volunteer jacket standing in front of her. About sixteen or seventeen, she guesses. She’s wearing jeans and running shoes, a slim strip of slender white belly flashing in the gap between her jeans and her T-shirt.

      We’d like to weigh you now, if that’s, like, OK? Before the doctor sees you.

      Aleksandra pulls herself up and slowly follows her to the scale near the clinic reception desk. The girl reminds her of someone.

      You’re quite young to be a volunteer, aren’t you? she says.

      Well, actually, I’m almost seventeen.

      Oh.

      Aleksandra smiles, noting how pretty she is. The girl, who has longish blonde hair and blue eyes, is blushing bright pink. She wonders if she’s a Mennonite. The name tag says Susanna. That could be a Mennonite name.

      Well, I think it’s wonderful that you can do this so young.

      The girl smiles and helps her on to the scale. Aleksandra automatically reaches up to adjust the weight on the bar, her old training asserting itself, and then stops. She’ll let Susanna do it.

      Do you want to be a nurse? she asks.

      No. I’m hoping to go to medical school to become a doctor. You have to have volunteer experience.

      She fiddles with the weight.

      You’ve gained half a pound since last week, she says brightly. Can I get you anything before you go in?

      No, thank you, Susanna.

      If only she could put her arms around her.

      Back in her chair, she watches as Susanna calls another patient to be weighed.

      A woman in her early thirties, in jeans and a sweatshirt, is reading a movie magazine. A middle-aged woman furrows her brow and speaks into a cellphone in a low voice. A young mother fusses over her baby, who has begun to whimper in his stroller. The mother’s older child reminds her of Sally Oliver. Sally was just about that age when Aleksandra went to work for the Olivers in Waterloo. The child whines something incomprehensible, and the mother grimaces before shoving a cookie and an orange juice box at her. So like something Cammy would have done, though this woman has none of Cammy’s splintered craziness.

      Not even Willy, whom she was so close to, knows the story of Gerald and Cammy Oliver. She’s put it away all these years, put it into a corner of her mind, just as she folded Cammy’s dresses and left them in a pile on the pink chenille bedspread when she left.

      Aleksandra looks at the blank pages of the tattered yellow notebook and picks up the pen. She’s carried a yellow notebook, one of the ones Papa brought from Russia, around with her since she first left home in 1933 to go and work for the Olivers. Since then she’s been jotting things down, small scraps of moments like pieces of cloth for a quilt. So many moments.

      And then she remembers that last line in Willy’s notebook, written in his flowing handwriting: After all, she’s only a girl. It makes her heart race, still. Even though she and Willy had talked about it many times afterwards and Willy had apologized for having written it, even though they had, in the end, been able to laugh about it, even though those very words had, in fact, spurred her on to claim her life…still those words existed, and they had hurt so deeply.

      Well, if those were the last words in Willy’s notebook, they would be the first words in hers. She would write that young girl, that innocent, into her life. She had to, for her children and grandchildren. But also for her Mama. She still had time, she was seventy-eight, the doctors said she was healthy enough, yet.

      one

      Waterloo, Ontario. 1933. She was only a girl. A seventeen-year-old girl on a hot, still day, standing at the threshold. The sweat trickled down her back. A thin woman wearing an orange shirt and white pants stood staring at them, holding open her front door and flicking her limp brown hair away from her face. She didn’t look like a Christian, more like a strange, twitchy bird. And when she smiled and raised a lipstick-smudged cigarette to her lips, Lexi could barely contain her shock. A Jezebel.

      "Ja, Frau Doktor, you remember me? said Tante Gertie, her voice nervous, her German accent stronger than ever. Gertrude Peters? I am bringing Aleksandra… we call her Lexi… to work. Ja?"

      Tante Gertie’s fat cheeks were flaming like the towers of Babylon. Lexi’s cheeks were beating up into red too.

      Sure. Come on in. The woman’s voice was slow. Deep and gravelly. On the edge of a cough.

      But she didn’t move. The three of them stood there, the Frau Doktor’s eyes burning into Lexi’s battered cardboard suitcase, then relentlessly making their way from her black shoes and stockings to her ankle-length gathered black skirt and plain blouse, her tightly pulledback hair.

      Her slanted green eyes stopped when they met Lexi’s.

      Aren’t you hot in that outfit? she said.

      Lexi opened her mouth to speak but there were no words in her head. There was nothing in her head. She couldn’t even remember the Frau Doktor’s name.

      I always wonder how you Mennonites stand the heat in those clothes. All those layers in those black skirts of yours! Her mouth gashed into a grimacing smile. Oh, never mind. She laughed, looked down at herself and flattened her orange shirt against her belly. "You’re just what the doctor ordered."

      Lexi stared at her, at the thin, frail hands against all that orange. The hot end of the cigarette was dangerously close to setting the woman alight. Sweat was crawling under Lexi’s arms. She could smell its tart sweetness. Oliver, that was it. Could Mrs. Oliver smell her? She turned to Tante Gertie, who seemed to be unable to stop smiling like a village idiot. Neither of them knew what to say.

      "Ja, well, I am going now. Tante Gertie’s plump breast was fluttering. She patted Lexi’s arm. See you in church on Sunday," she whispered.

      Lexi nodded, making a huge effort to look confident and calm even though something about Mrs. Oliver was making her want to turn and run. "Ja, go," she whispered back.

      What was Mrs. Oliver thinking of them? Two Mennonite peas in a pod in their long, heavy skirts. For the first time in her life, Lexi felt uncomfortable in her clothes.

      Mrs. Oliver led her up to a tiny garret on the third floor of the house. A narrow iron frame bed covered with a threadbare pink chenille bedspread stood with its head under the window. A battered dresser leaned crookedly against the opposite wall and over the dresser hung a picture, geometric shapes in yellow, red and orange. She stared at it. It was a naked woman, arms and legs and breasts like a crazy quilt, stuck together at random. Mama and Papa would be horrified. She imagined her father ripping the picture down from the wall in a fit of righteousness.

      Mrs. Oliver went over to the one small window and tried to pull it open. I had no idea it would be so boiling up here, she said. I’ll have to get Gerald to open it when he comes home. Unless you can. Her hand with the cigarette rested on one hip, stuck out at an angle, and the other rested at the top of the windowsill.

      Lexi walked over to the window and, after a couple of hard pushes on its top sill, shoved it open.

      You don’t look that strong, said Mrs. Oliver, exhaling a long stream of smoke and again surveying her from top to bottom. You’re so slim, not like the rest of them. Do you have any sandals?

      Sandals? She shook her head and had a sudden thought of Jesus and the disciples. She’d never seen real sandals.

      Well, at least get out of those awful stockings. Bare feet are fine for today. It’s too hot for shoes. Mrs. Oliver looked down at her own bare feet, at her widely spaced toes. Her toenails were the colour of red currants.

      Mama’s face rose before her. A withering look. Mennonite women could get in trouble with the elders if the material in their sleeves was too thin. And painting nails, like lipstick, was strictly verboten. She had secretly wondered what it would be like to put on lipstick, but had never thought of painting her toenails. It would be like desecrating nature, like painting the tops of stones, like some uncouth farmers did to mark the corners of their fields.

      It’s so much healthier, you know, said Mrs. Oliver, puffing on her cigarette.

      Lexi glanced at her shoes. Taking them off seemed impossible. And yet she’d been given this order. And Mrs. Oliver was waiting. As she sat on her bed and unlaced her right shoe, she said a small prayer, asking Jesus for understanding. She glanced up at Mrs. Oliver. Was she going to stay and watch her take off her stockings too?

      In a few minutes, after you’ve unpacked, I’ll send the children up, Mrs. Oliver said, turning to leave. I want you to call me Cammy. None of that Mrs. Oliver business. As she descended the narrow stairs to the second floor, Lexi heard her mumble something and then gasp out a small laugh.

      Lexi closed the door, one shoe on and one shoe off, and swatted a tear off her cheek. Where had that come from? She could not allow herself to cry. She’d make herself laugh instead. Mrs. Oliver was like the skinny orange cat that used to slink in and out of their garden at night. She imagined the cat leaning against the fence by the cabbages, smoking a long cigarette, and smiled.

      There was a tree outside the window. A huge tree. The biggest tree she’d ever seen. Its leaves were green and plump. There was nothing like this at home, especially now with the drought. Last year they’d had a plague of grasshoppers, and now everything was such a wasteland, with dust and Russian thistle blowing across the fields and piling up against fences. Cattle and horses were dying in the fields because they were so hungry they had eaten the thistle, which then tore their poor insides out. They died in agony.

      There were giggles outside her door and scratching, as if a real cat were trying to get in. She took off her left shoe, got up off the bed, and opened the door. A little boy with red curls, who appeared to be about five, stood there with his hands on his hips, and a smaller child of about three in a mustard yellow sundress crouched in the corner of the hall, her panties showing.

      Come in. My name’s Lexi. I’m just unpacking.

      You’re our new maid, said the boy, whose name was Simon.

      She nodded and opened her suitcase.

      Both children now stood in the doorway as she took out her three blouses, two white and one purple, a long black skirt, and her two flowered summer cotton dresses. She laid them on the bed and then flushed when she realized that the children could see her underclothes lying in the suitcase on top of her yellow notebooks. She dropped the lid closed.

      Aren’t you going to put those clothes away too? asked Simon, staring at the suitcase. What kind of suitcase is it, anyway? It looks old.

      "Well, ja, it is old. It came from Russia."

      Where’s Russia?

      It’s very far away, on the other side of the world. There was a war and my family and I had to run away.

      We run! exclaimed the girl, Sally. She had brown ringlets and a square face with small, deep-set blue eyes. Outside, when Daddy plays tag with us. We run away, too.

      "Ja?" she said, looking at their expectant faces. They were probably sweet children, like her sisters at home. Hildy, now four, and Renate, who was six, had been born in Canada, the last of her seven brothers and sisters. Maria had been born in Russia. She was only three when they’d left Russia and now was going on thirteen. Lexi had carried all three of them around when they were babies, in some ways more of a mother to them than Mama was.

      But Papa would certainly never play with them, let alone run around and play tag! Sally would no doubt follow her around just as Hildy did. And Simon too, although she wasn’t sure about him. She’d never looked after a small boy before, and it looked as if Mrs. Oliver was going to give her the job without even asking one question. That was a relief.

      A stone of terror lay in her stomach as she looked at these strange children. This job was to be her escape from Saskatchewan, the beginning of a new life. Perhaps years of housework and looking after children loomed ahead of her, just as they had at home, but then she sternly reminded herself that here she was going to get paid. And, one day, in spite of having to send most of the money home, she was going to have enough saved to finish high school. And then, perhaps …

      I want to go outside. Now! said Simon.

      She stared at him, shocked at his impetuous voice, and said firmly, We’ll go outside when I’ve unpacked. She shooed them out the door as if they were unruly chicks and closed it, ignoring their surprised looks. She held her breath as she rolled her stockings down. Her legs and feet did feel cooler and freer as she stepped back and forth on the smooth wooden floor. At home she would have worried about getting slivers, but this floor was as polished as a table. Before she left the room, she placed one of the empty yellow notebooks under her pillow.

      The children were shuffling outside the door with subdued yet expectant faces.

      Where do you want to go? she asked, taking their hands.

      Ice cream! shouted Simon. Did he always shout?

      Well, I….

      Mommy said we could, he whined.

      Well, then, let’s find your mother, she said, surprised by the lamb’s wool softness of the thick rug between her toes as they descended the main staircase.

      During the children’s afternoon nap, Mrs. Oliver showed her the broom closet, the kitchen cupboards and the fruit cellar in the dark, mildewy basement, its earthen floor flecked with yellow mushrooms in the corners. Taps and sinks everywhere, even a tap in the basement wall. No more hauling in snow in buckets in the winter. Three bathrooms, one of them hers. No more trips to the outhouse. And an icebox and a gas range. Instant hot water and a Hoover carpet sweeper. She’d never before imagined that people could have so many instruments and gadgets and live in such a palace. So much gleaming chrome and silver, all of it alive and useful.

      Of course, it was sinful to have so much. Think of everyone back home scraping out a living. Not enough money for food or doctors or gas for the cars. But Mama and Papa had once been wealthy, hadn’t they? Before Lexi was born, Papa had made so much money teaching that he had been able to buy a house on the south coast of the Black Sea. And Mama had had a maid. And then they lost all that in the First World War. Of course, she couldn’t tell Mrs. Oliver that.

      Mrs. Oliver plugged in the Hoover and Lexi jumped at its horrible noise. It drove itself across the carpet like a dragon, sucking up dust and making wide, pale streaks in its wake. Mrs. Oliver shouted over top of it, made a big point of explaining that the carpet was oriental, very expensive, and that Dr. Oliver wanted it cleaned every day. She imagined that Dr. Oliver would be tall and thin and, like her father, terribly severe.

      As Mrs. Oliver whizzed about, confiding how much she detested housework, which was obvious since there were spiderwebs in the corners, Lexi was fascinated by the constant stream of smoke pouring out of her nostrils and mouth. She was like the seven-headed, ten-horned beast rising up out of the sea in Revelation: Upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

      The tour ended back in the kitchen.

      I guess we have to think about supper, Mrs. Oliver said, sighing.

      Lexi stared at her. Didn’t she think about supper every night?

      Mrs. Oliver opened the icebox and they both peered inside. The dried edges of sliced salami showed through an open brown paper package, and a can of peaches, with floating blue mould, sat next to it. Partly finished bottles of milk with curdled yellow cream on top were crowded in beside a half-eaten pie and several slender re-corked bottles of something. Mrs. Oliver slammed the door shut and looked around. Most of the food in the icebox, thought Lexi, was only fit for pig slop. Perhaps even these people didn’t have enough money for food.

      A basket of carrots sat on the floor beside the cupboard. You can cook these for supper, Mrs. Oliver said, brightening. And bring up some potatoes from the basement. Do you know how to make potato salad?

      She nodded. What kind of question was that!

      Mrs. Oliver looked around, pensive. Then I’ll get us a roast of beef! she said, hurrying out of the kitchen as if she were setting out on some reckless adventure. In a few minutes she returned wearing a crumpled short-sleeved pink cotton dress and red high-heeled shoes, rattling keys. Her lips were painted bright red, too.

      Be back soon, she said over her shoulder, walking out the back door to the garage.

      Lexi watched out the window as Mrs. Oliver backed a gleaming yellow car out of the garage, its long pointed nose like a collie’s. At the end of the nose on the flat hood, between two dish-like lights, was a silver flying fish that looked

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