“Twelve.”
“Where did you go?”
“An old friend. She used to be a nurse.”
“She could have done a better job,” I said without thinking.
Lola looked like she was going to smile but held her face.
“It hurts, doesn’t it? How long will it take you to heal?” Months, probably, and with the scar so wide and deep, she would never look the same again.
“I won’t worry about it, Grace.”
I took out the can of Tiger Balm in my handbag. “This might help, or might not. I don’t really know. It’s not medicine, but its scents will soothe you. I hope you’ll like it.”
“Smells good.” She dabbed it on her forehead.
“No, no, not on your forehead. Let me.” I smoothed a tiny bit of the pale-yellow ointment on her wrist. Lola sniffed at it; she seemed to like it.
Sara, who was Lola’s sister, and Mrs. Schnitzler leaned over. Lola smeared some Tiger Balm on their hands. They smiled, sniffing the aroma, murmuring in German. Lola and her mother were tied by a strong bond of affection, I could tell, unlike my mother and me.
A girl in a pink ruffled dress whom I hadn’t noticed earlier appeared by Sara and said something in German. She had curly hair, expressive, large green eyes like Lola’s, and looked younger than Monto. Sara pulled her aside and covered her mouth with her good left hand, looking mortified. I looked at Lola.
“This is Eva, my niece. She needs to learn her manners. Eva, go to your room,” Lola said.
“Let her stay. What did she say?” I asked.
“Eva was asking if you ate foie gras every day.”
“Why would I eat foie gras every day?”
Eva studied me, my oatmeal-colored cloche hat, my pearl necklace, and my sage-green dress of chiffon and lace. “I see.” I told them about my awkward life as a diplomat’s wife in Vienna. I had once sat on a sofa at a ball attended by the Hapsburg royal family members and diplomats and their wives. To my puzzlement, the wives gasped and stared at me strangely. Seconds later, an official in a uniform with many golden buttons evicted me from the sofa. I was mortified; I had not known that according to the protocol, a sofa was reserved for a duchess only.
Eva burst out with more German.
“Eva!” Sara looked at me apologetically.
“What did she say?”
“She said you were very small. Why wouldn’t she share?”
I laughed. A little dynamite of a girl, who barely knew me, was defending me; if only Monto could do that.
Later, when it was time for me to leave, Lola saw me out to the door. I wrung the strap of my handbag and asked whether I could come to visit again.
“Of course, Grace, but you might not know this: non-Jewish Austrians are not allowed to visit us.”
The arrest in the park, the attack in the coffeehouse, the people in the park. I understood what her life was now. “But I’m a foreigner.”
“It’ll be dangerous for you.”
“We’re friends, aren’t we?”
Her green eyes glittered—the look she’d had outside the clinic when she looked up to stop tears from rolling out—and then she smiled. I stepped forth and hugged her.
I went to Lola’s apartment again a few days later, bringing a box of Swiss milk chocolates in colorful wrappers, another bunch of fresh lilacs, and roses. But soon, I realized they needed something other than flowers—they had run out of flour, cream, cans of fruit, and yeast because of the shopping ban. So for my following trip, I brought groceries, a loaf of bread, a bag of raisins, some baked strudels with meat and potato, more chocolates, and crackers from the shop where I had bought Monto pencils and candies. It now had a sign that said No Jews Allowed.
Lola’s family accepted my gifts with genuine happiness; they sat in a circle, passing the crackers, the raisins, and the chocolates. They appeared to be appreciative of anything I brought, including Tiger Balm. Mrs. Schnitzler claimed the fragrance of menthol did wonders to calm her nerves. Eva was sorry that it didn’t contain real tiger bones. All tried to speak English so I would be able to join their conversation.
The scar on Lola’s face was healing slowly, turning into a glistening red mound of skin. In her cheerful way, Lola taught me German, one word at a time. I repeated after her. Die Sonne, der Mond, die Blumen, die Lebensmittel, die Freundinnen. Foreign words, words with gusto, words like portals. I ate them up, filled my lungs with them, and felt larger with them, but I forgot them as soon as they were released into the air. In turn, I introduced Lola to Dickinson, whom she had never heard of. She had not read much poetry, she said, but she was fond of Nietzsche.
Mrs. Schnitzler, unlike my alcoholic mother, was a superstitious woman—I was told flowers must be given in odd numbers, for an even number of flowers indicated funerals. When Lola sneezed, Mrs. Schnitzler tugged Lola’s ear lest an evil spirit hear and latch on to her. To keep the evil spirits away, I was also told to step out of a house with the right foot first. There was a painful history behind this, she said, that went back to Spain’s Edict of Expulsion in 1492; during that time, many Jews left their homes with their left foot out first, and they were all either persecuted or forced to leave the country. Mrs. Schnitzler believed that this was a critical survival lesson for Jews and that their life depended on the order of the foot stepping out of the home.
Lola’s sister, Sara, was always busy doing housework, despite her deformed hand. She collected the dishes, picked up the chocolate wrappers, and wiped the banisters or rubbed the rug’s stains. She could knit with her feet—she was too modest to demonstrate but obliged at Lola’s insistence. Her toes clutched the thick sticks, in and out, in and out, making magic with the threads. She was a widow; her husband died of pneumonia a few years ago and left her with Eva.
Eva, a nine-year-old, was very different from Monto. She was curious, full of energy, and loved to dance and sing. She had a favorite toy, a music box with a ballerina that played Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. She wanted to be a dancer when she grew up.
I also met Lola’s brother, Josef, a typical Austrian, uptight, formal, enjoying operas and following the traffic rules. He wore the Austrian men’s trademark beard in the shape of a crescent curve, peered at me through his thick glasses, and always paused before he spoke. He had a reserved manner, rarely smiled, and smelled of pills. He was twenty-three years old, born in Vienna, and worked at a pharmacy that was said to be associated with Dr. Freud. He reminded me of a stuffy British diplomat I once met at a dinner table.
“Dr. Freud, is he a witch?” I couldn’t remember where I heard it.
“Oh, people have called him worse: a madman, an idiot, a psychopath, but as far as I can tell, he’s a doctor who treats your mind by looking into your dreams,” Josef said, his finger pushing his round glasses with silver frames.
Looking into your dreams. It sounded as though dreams were handkerchiefs that could be held in one’s hands. A novel concept I had never heard of before.
Sometimes Lola played “The Lark Ascending” on her violin. She had been scheduled to attend an audition a few weeks ago, but it had been canceled. She loved this piece, I could tell, and she explained how the composer created the serene melodies to evoke the image of a chirping lark, and indeed, when she drew her bow, the elegant melody resembled a divine trill of lively tunes of birds, leaping and diving. She had good skills; she should perform for the public.