Naked, on the Edge

Learning to Give

The mockingbird was singing, and it was morning. The bird was alone, but close by in a shrub, and its song was forceful and clear. From somewhere beyond the roof of the tool-shed, the baleful medley crossed the yard. It drifted in the stifling summer air and entered the tiny attic window where the flies and the gnats and the smoke came in.

Anna knew the song belonged to a mockingbird. Very long ago, her mother had told her of a bird that knew how to sing many different tunes. A bird that could change its melody in a heartbeat. This was a survival skill for the bird, and it flourished. Anna remembered her mother’s story clearly, although she could no longer remember her mother’s face.

As the bird sang to the sun, Anna and all Greta’s other friends sat in the sooty dust in a circle on the attic floor. They wore dirty, sleeveless summer tops and matching short pants, but they sweated just the same. Greta’s mother had sewn the clothes for the friends, a large set for Joseph, who was fifteen and the tallest, a small set for Margarette, who was nine, and sizes in between for the others. Anna was twelve, William ten, and Susanne eleven. No one in the circle spoke because they didn’t have permission to speak.

It was time for class.

Greta sat on a short-legged chair. She had her fingers linked about her knees, causing the hem of her pretty pink dress to hike up around her ankles, revealing pink embroidered socks. Her blond hair was curled about her chin. She smiled at her friends as she looked them over. She had an elegant smile. No living soul, regardless of race or class, could have seen that smile and not said it was elegant. The dimples on the smooth cheeks, the gentle parting of lips over perfect teeth. Greta gave the smile to the friends frequently, and it made their blood run cold.

“Good morning, children,” Greta said.

“In unison, the friends said, “Good morning.

Greta tilted her head and licked her upper lip with a slow motion of her tongue. Anna thought Greta must have had a teacher once who had used that very gesture. Greta was enamored of the adults in her life—her relatives, her parents’ acquaintances. Sometimes she talked to the friends at great length about the adults she knew: her father’s coworkers, her mother’s dressmaker, her grandmother and her uncle Geoff. Greta’s eyes danced, and her hands were dramatic understudies to her lively voice. When Greta talked this way, Anna would nod as if she were listening while throwing all her concentration to the sounds of the birds outside the window. She knew the other friends did what they could so they would not have to listen either. To hear of family, to think of family was to open wounds that would never heal.

“Joseph,” Greta said.

Anna felt her own body draw up in unison with Joseph’s.

“I see that your hair’s grown long. How could you come to class like that? You look such the ruffian, like a boy from the ghetto.”

Greta smiled a horrible and elegant smile.

Joseph, tall for fifteen and as lean as a willow branch, turned his good eye toward Greta and shrugged.

“What is that? What is that shrug?”

Joseph, now having permission to speak, mumbled, “I don’t know.”

“Hmmmm,” said Greta. Like Anna, she was twelve, but she already had gained the matter-of-fact conversational style of her father, Erik Bnimmer, the adult she admired the most. “How can we conduct class with a ruffian here on the floor? We should cut it, then, shouldn’t we?”

Joseph said, “Yes. We should.”

There was, of course, no other possible answer.

“Good,” said Greta, and she smiled her smile at them all.

She went to the small chest near the open window and lifted the top. From inside she brought her sewing set and from the set, a small pair of scissors. She stood and turned to face the friends in their circle on the floor. She smiled.

“I should like to be a beautician someday, like my Auntie Kate. She is a wonderful woman. She plays the piano as well as she can fix hair and polish fingernails.”

Little Margarette raised her hand.

“What do you want, little one?” asked Greta.

“Would you need help for the cutting? I could catch the curls.” Margarette sat still. Her tiny smile was not as elegant as Greta’s, but it was a true smile. Margarette was the treasure in the attic; she was the friend of the friends, and Anna knew if she would ever allow herself to use the word love, it would be for Margarette.

Greta, who because of Margarette’s youth was usually more patient with the girl, said, “No, you stay in the circle and see how it’s done. See the scissors, how sharp they are? Dull ones tear the hair. And see how they are short? Long scissors can snag and make a mess.

All the friends were silent. They had learned the importance of paying attention.

“Tip your head my way,” said Greta. She sat back down on her stool, and Joseph slid around on his bottom until his back was almost touching Greta’s knees. He stared straight ahead, and the other friends averted their eyes from his. It was best not to look and see the fear that had flared there. Joseph would have to handle the haircut as best he could. Whatever the haircut would entail.

“Head back,” said Greta.

Joseph put his head back. Anna could see, from the corner of her vision as she looked at the barren bookshelf beyond the soft tousle of Joseph’s hair, the thin fifteen-year-old put his head back. She could see his blind white eye, but not the good one. She was glad because the blind eye was dead to emotion. Emotion was a dangerous commodity.

Greta slid the scissors’ tips into the mass of black curls. They came together. A curl dropped to Greta’s lap, and she brushed it off with the brusque movement of someone slapping a fly away. In a matter of minutes the haircut was done. Anna let herself look at Joseph then. The haircut was poor, but no other harm had been done.

“Now, isn’t that much better?” Greta said. No one moved except for Margarette, who nodded slightly.

“Isn’t that much better?” Greta’s voice held a sudden, sharp edge.

Everyone on the floor nodded vigorously and said, “Oh, yes.”

“Good, then,” said Greta. “And I hope you watched carefully and listened to the lesson because I will ask someone to cut hair very soon, and it best be done the right way.”

No one moved.

“Joseph,” said Greta.

Joseph glanced over his shoulder. “Yes?”

“You may go back to the circle.”

Greta stood and shook the remaining hair from her lap. As soon as she was gone down to her family for lunch or for piano lessons or for whatever else she did when she was not in the attic with her friends, Anna and the others would scoop up every strand and throw them from the open attic window. Listening was a lesson they had learned well, and so was cleanliness. Not so much cleanliness of themselves; Greta did not see much use in giving soap and water to the friends in the attic. Greta believed as her father had taught her; children such as these were used to being dirty. They liked being dirty.

“Now,” said Greta. She walked to the open window, fanned herself with delicate motions of her hand, and then moved back to the chair. “I’d like to hear a story. William, you tell the class a story. A story about a day at the beach because it’s so hot in here. A cool day by the lake where the children go swimming and the parents sit under umbrellas and talk about their work and their duties in the world.”

William, who had been a pudgy little boy when Erik Brummer had first selected and gathered the friends together for his daughter, rubbed his face frantically. The palm of William’s hand bore a shiny burn scar. William had a nervous tic in his right cheek.

Anna looked at William, then at Greta. If it took long for William to tell the story, Greta might get angry. William, Anna feared, had never been to a beach, had never seen a lake, because William’s family had been poor.

“William,” said Greta. Anna felt her shoulders pinch. Her lungs hurt in the heat and hurt in anticipation of what might happen if William could not think of a story. She grit her teeth. Panic swirled in her gut, and she fought it down. In a gentle motion, Margarette leaned over and squeezed William’s hand.

“There was a lake,” said Margarette.

“There was a lake,” said William, and Anna’s lungs heaved a burst of air in relief. She hoped Greta did not hear it.

“A big lake and with a lot of water,” said William. “And a lot of fish.” He rubbed his face again. It was stretched and scarred with so much rubbing. His eyes were rheumy with torment. “There was a family, a big family with lots of children, very pretty children in nice clothes. Pink dresses and blue trousers. They all went to the lake on a hot afternoon and sat down and took off their shoes.”

Anna looked at Greta seated on her low chair. The girl’s lips were pursed, but she didn’t seem dissatisfied with the story. If William told a good story, and a long story, Greta would be happy and would go back downstairs to her family and leave the friends alone. If William did not tell a good story and made Greta angry, she would teach a new lesson to the class. It was the angry lessons that had, just days before, made Joseph climb into the tiny open window where the flies and the gnats and the smoke and the mockingbird song came in and try to squeeze himself through to fall to the dog-guarded yard four stories below. Only Margarette could talk him back inside by promising him silly but lovely things when the bad days were over and they could go home again.

“The children went swimming and they swam for a long time,” said William. And then he stopped. It was obvious he couldn’t think of what to say next. He did not know the beach of the lake and could not even imagine it well. William rubbed his face and looked around the circle at the friends. Susanne looked at the empty bookcase. Joseph licked his lips and folded his hands. Anna looked at William for a moment before looking away. She knew about lakes but was afraid to speak up and help William with his story. William’s burned hand was the result of a music lesson Greta had given one morning. William had no rhythm, and Greta had insisted on all the friends clapping to her song. Try as he did, William could not keep the rhythm. When Greta had come back with the friends’ daily meal, she had also brought one of Erik Brummer’s cigars. William still could not clap in rhythm, but now he bore the rightful sign of the failed lesson.

“And what then?” asked Greta.

William’s eyes squeezed into red slits.

Margarette’s hand went up. Greta turned to her, the smile gone. “Now what, little girl?”

“Please, I’d like to tell some of the story, too.” Greta crossed her ankles like her mother must have done. Her eyebrows strummed a rhythm of irritation across her brow, but then she said, “All right.”

“They liked to go fishing, these children,” said Margarette. “They caught many colors of fish, red and blue and green and gold. Some they caught with nets and some with hooks.”

Greta said, “Did they eat the fish?”

“Oh, some of them they did. Some they cooked and ate on the beach. They made a fire and cooked them, and the smoke went up as high as the clouds. Everyone sang songs. There was a girl named Greta, and she could sing better than any of the other children.”

And the story went on. It wound around the bitter air of the hot attic, in Margarette’s lilting, little-girl voice, laced with distant bits of Margarette’s memory, embellished with daydreams.

After some time, Greta held up her hand to halt the tale, and she left the attic. She promised, in reward for the story, to come earlier with the daily meal. The dust and soot swirled where her footsteps had been. The door closed with a click. No one spoke. Margarette closed her eyes, and shivered.

Then Joseph said, “Thank you.”

All the friends looked at Margarette and whispered, “Thank you.”

Anna said, “I’ll give you half my meal,” although she knew Margarette would refuse, and she knew that was part of the reason she offered.

The friends stayed in the circle for a while longer. Then, slowly, they fell apart, moving to their own spots on the attic floor where they rested between lessons and dreamed their own dreams and fought their own nightmares. Anna curled up beneath the tiny window and looked at the crude beams of the ceiling. Outside, the mockingbird sang the tunes of the robin, the jay, the chickadee, the sparrow.

After a few minutes of silence, Joseph said, “The children sang as they sat on the beach. They sang as they sat with their parents in the boats and fished. They sang the same song as their parents, and there was no harmony, just melody. The melody was flat and ugly.”

William grunted as he turned to face Joseph.

“The fish were not different colors,” Joseph continued. “They were all the same, silver and blue, like shining gems. But some were big and some were small. Some had twisted fins, and some were blind. The parents drew the fish in on the lines and put them into buckets. When they got to shore, they put the buckets on the muddy bank.”

Anna turned her head slightly, her nostrils blowing the soot on the floor beside her, listening.

Joseph’s voice was tight, and it trembled. He said, “The parents only fished for sport, to see the creatures struggle out of the water. The big fish with no flaws were sorted into one bucket. The fish that were not perfect went into another. The baby fish were taken from the parent fish and given to the children as pets.”

Margarette said, “Joseph, I liked my story better.”

Joseph said, “This is a good story. So listen. The fish with flaws were tormented then set afire. The fish with no flaws were kept longer, but were set afire as well. The smoke did not rise to the clouds, it was so thick it hung low and made the sky stink with soot and death. The little fish were tormented by the children, and flopped in the buckets, trying to find the air they needed.”

Susanne, by the empty bookshelf, whispered, “Margarette’s story was about fish, Joseph. Don’t do this to us.”

“And my story is about fish. Haven’t you learned the listening lesson? I am telling about fish. This is a little story about people at the beach. People playing and having fun, nothing more, and of the worthless fish they caught.”

Anna stared at Joseph. The badly cut hairs of his head were wild beneath the linked fingers of his hands as he lay on the floor. He looked like a prophet; he looked like a mad lion.

“No more story,” said Susanne.

“Please,” said William.

“I want to kill her,” said Joseph.

No one answered. Anna lay, listening to her heart, listening for the mockingbird that had grown silent, watching the fine mist of gray gossamer smoke drift through the window over her head.

Margarette began to sing a nursery rhyme, and Anna faded into sleep.

The opening door woke them all on cue. They sat abruptly, having learned the lesson of quick attention. Anna’s head spun but her eyes were open wide to appear alert. Greta was in another dress, this one green with a White collar. She had brushed her hair up and back, and it was secured in silver. She sat down on her low chair, and the friends scurried to their places in the circle.

“Good news!” she said.

The friends waited.

“My father has found a new friend to join us. He is a little boy, younger than you, Margarette. I had asked my father for a little boy, but my father is a very busy man. But this morning he said he’d found a nice one during the selection, and shall bring him to us tonight after he’s been checked over.”

The friends watched and waited. Obviously Greta had forgotten her promise of bringing the meal early.

“Are you happy?” asked Greta.

All the friends nodded.

Joseph’s fingers slid upward along his neck, found the ragged ruins of his hair, and began to play with them. Anna glanced at him then looked quickly back at Greta. Joseph’s good eye had been hard, bright, and twitching.

“Today’s lesson will be a math lesson,” said Greta.

“I have cards here that I borrowed from my uncle.” She pulled white cards from the pocket of her blue dress. “I’ll hold up the cards and you will tell me the answer to the problem.”

Anna balled her fists in her lap. She was not good at numbers. If Greta would only give her an easy problem.

“You,” said Greta to William. She held up a card that read “5 + 12.”

“Tell me, what is the answer to this?”

William rolled his lips in over his teeth. The tick in his cheek was vivid. Then he said, “Seventeen.”

Greta had to check the back of the card, and said, “Yes, good.” She put that card down and held up the next. To Susanne she said, “Tell me this answer.”

Susanne looked at the card. It said, “18 — 9”

“The answer is nine,” Susanne said immediately. She was good with math.

Greta checked. “Fine,” she said. Then she looked at Joseph. “Your hair looks nasty.”

Anna looked at Joseph. His hair, where his fingers had clutched and pulled, sat up in pointed strands. Joseph flinched and began to rub it down again.

“No, no, no, no,” said Greta. “I think it needs doing again. I think you’ve played with it and ruined the cut. I best cut it over.”

Joseph rubbed harder, trying the flatten the spikes against his scalp. The bright twitching of his eye had become a nervous flutter. His mouth opened as if to say, “No,” but it closed again then, silently.

Margarette said, “I can do a problem. Please show me one.”

Greta stood, the cards falling to the sooty floor. She said, “Joseph, come here and I’ll do your haircut again.”

Joseph looked from Anna to Greta to Margarette. His teeth began to clap together.

“Please let me do a problem,” said Margarette.

Greta opened the chest by the window and took out the sewing kit. She lifted the lid and stared inside.

Joseph licked his lips. William’s tic picked up speed. Susanne looked in confusion between the friends. Margarette folded her hands and trembled. Anna’s heart leapt into a fear-driven arrhythmia.

Greta stared into the open sewing case. Then she slowly lowered the lid. She turned to face the friends.

Margarette said, “Please, let me do a problem. I like numbers.”

Greta said, “You have all been my friends for many weeks now. I’ve brought you good food and have taught you good lessons.” She pressed her fingertips together into a steeple of consideration and control. “Music lessons, art lessons, things other children of your station would beg for.”

Greta walked to her low chair and sat, smoothing down the hem of her green dress with the white collar. “If not for me, you would not have learned to listen, you would not have learned manners at a meal. I have been a good teacher.” Her face clouded over then, darkening storms growing at the corners of her eyes. She said, “But oh. You are still very selfish, selfish children.”

Anna needed to cough, but she swallowed it down. The hairs on the backs of her hands were prickled and alert. She looked at the window and back at Greta.

“My father has told me that I shouldn’t expect very much of you. I don’t want him to be right.”

Joseph began to groan. It was a soft growl that, by the twist of his face, Anna could see frightened even him.

“Joseph,” said Greta. “Is it you who has been selfish?” Joseph’s growl grew louder, a pinched animal sound almost musical in its intensity. Susanne put her hands over her ears; Margarette held a hand up as if to quiet him.

“Joseph,” Greta said. “I asked you a question. Answer. Is it you who stole from me?”

And Joseph stood suddenly, driving his hand into the waistband of his filthy short pants and pulling out the hair scissors. He screamed and lifted the scissors into the air, pointing them at Greta. His good eye was wide and ready. Greta stood from her chair and backed up a step.

Joseph took a step forward, the scissors poised.

Greta said, “Children, if he hurts me none of you will eat for a week, perhaps two weeks. And you know I never lie. I was taught not to lie. Lying is a sin.”

Joseph took another step forward, but Greta did not move. She knew she was safe now. At once, William, Susanne, and Anna were up, taking Joseph’s arms and wrestling them down. William pulled the scissors from Joseph and presented them to Greta like a kitten presenting a prized mouse to its owner.

Greta brushed a tiny strand of hair from her face. She went to the chest and returned the scissors to the kit. Susanne and William and Anna sat down in the circle. Margarette took Joseph gently by the hand and helped him sit.

With her hand on the rough wall, Greta stood for a moment and looked out the tiny window. Anna looked at Greta, at the slice of shed roof outside the window, at the dark tops of the smoke stacks beyond the yard of Greta’s home, at the smoke that hung, like the smoke in Joseph’s story, too thick to reach the clouds.

Greta went to the door. She did not turn back as she whispered, “Selfish children.”

When she was gone, Margarette said, “This won’t be forever. We won’t be here forever.”

Anna did not sleep for a long time that night. She listened as William and Susanne tossed restlessly on the floor. She listened as Joseph buried his face in Margarette’s little-girl arms and, with her words and lullabies, she tried to soothe the insanity away.

Morning came with rain outside the tiny window and stale, humid air in the attic. The mockingbird’s call was faint, as if he had found shelter from the rain in the branches of a distant tree, somewhere outside the yard. Anna lay awake for a long time. Her neck ached from the hard floor and the change of weather. No one spoke. Joseph was up, standing by the empty bookshelf with his face pressed against the slat of one shelf. His eyes were closed. Susanne and William were still asleep, or trying to be asleep. Margarette was making play shadows in the gray, rain-shrouded light on the attic floor.

The door opened and Greta came in, wearing a smile and a yellow dress with big front pockets. She did not push the door shut, but stood in the center of the room and put her hands on her hips. The friends moved quickly to their circle spots.

“A new lesson and a new friend today!” Greta said. She smiled individually at each friend on the floor. Her hair was in yellow ribbons. “First the new friend! Michael!”

The friends looked at the partially ajar door. They saw tentative movement, and then a small boy was standing in the doorway. He was no more than five. His dark eyes huge and numbed.

“He was to go with his mother, but my father brought him to me! My father is a good man to do this for us. Michael, sit with the others. We have many lessons in the circle. Susanne, make room there for Michael.”

The little boy did not move. Greta’s smile faltered.

Margarette said, “Michael, come sit with me.” She patted the floor. Michael shuffled to her, and she eased him down. Margarette touched his hair as if in apology.

“I have a new lesson today,” said Greta. She sat on her chair. “The selfishness yesterday was a surprise to me, though father would say I shouldn’t be surprised. And so today the lesson is learning to give. I have given to you many things, and unselfishly so. Today you will learn to give to me.”

No one spoke. The bird outside the window, far away in its tree beneath the rain, changed tunes from bluebird to wren to starling.

Greta pulled a revolver from one deep dress pocket. She made a sweeping circle, pointing it in turn at each of the friends. Then she trained it on Joseph. “You were very selfish yesterday. Ah, such a bad boy you were, Joseph. I could have my father take you away but I’ve decided there is still a chance for you to become good. Today you will learn to be good. You will learn to be unselfish. I want you to give me something you treasure.”

Joseph’s good eye blinked at the revolver.

Greta then took a small white-handled pistol from her other pocket. She smiled and held it out to Joseph.

“Take it,” said Greta.

Joseph’s lips twisted into a silent, numbed grimace.

“Take it,” Greta said.

Joseph took the pistol.

Greta said, “Give me who you love most, and I will forgive your selfishness.”

Joseph stared at the pistol. His hand did not shake. “Give me who you love most,” said Greta. She nodded at the revolver in her own hand. “And if I think you want to turn it on me, if it even looks as if you are thinking of turning it on me, I will use this on everyone here. Now, give me your treasure.”

Joseph turned the gun toward his face and lowered his mouth to the barrel.

“Ha!” Greta barked, leaning over and smacking Joseph on the side of his head. “You don’t love yourself! Look again. I know your silly little heart, boy, and know what you love. You cannot fool me. And if you act incorrectly, all here will suffer for your stupidity.”

Joseph looked around the room. His good eye batted crazily, as if a gnat had gotten inside. Then, he raised the gun to Margarette, across from him in the circle.

Greta clapped her free hand to her cheek. “Yes! Give me who you love most.”

Joseph did not pull the trigger.

Greta said, “If you don’t give her to me, I will kill her and then Anna and William and Susanne and you. My father sees hundreds just like you every day. I can watch from my bedroom window what goes on beyond our house, beyond the high fence. Many silly, weeping children are sent off with their parents, passed over by my father and gone in the blink of an eye. There are more friends if I need them. More than would fit here in the attic. I can have as many as I want. There are always more of you to be found under any stone.”

Joseph slipped his finger into the trigger loop. Anna put her hands to her ears, her face into her knees. There was a crack, and a squeal of delight. Anna drove her face into the hairs on her legs; her jaws ground together. Then Greta said, “Cleanliness! Haven’t you learned? Clean up this mess and I’ll teach you some new ballads and you can clap with me.”

Anna lifted her face. She went with Susanne and William to the chest where the rags were kept. They wrapped up the mess and put it outside the attic door. Joseph spit on the floor to wash up the red stains. It was futile, but the effort seemed to please Greta.

Back in the circle, Greta sang new songs to the friends; Michael threw up and cried, but Greta, for the moment, was too happy with her songs to notice. She would see it after the music was done. For the moment, however, she was the magnanimous queen in a pretty dress and the friends the willing servants of her humid court.

Even William clapped, his enthusiasm almost masking his inability to keep a beat.

And Anna sang her heart out. Her voice was forceful and clear. And her song rode the damp air and sailed out to the yard among the flies and the gnats and the smoke. Her melodies skipped effortlessly from one to another, and the mockingbird had met its match.