Between Worlds 8: A Father's Journey

“You have to sit still if you don’t want me to poke your eyes out!” Maria said to Elisabeth.

 

Elisabeth tucked her hands under her legs as she adjusted herself on her bed in the front room. Maria sat opposite her on a wooden chair she had turned around from the table. “Maybe I should sit on a chair, too, so I don’t bounce.” The straw in the mattress cracked as she shifted again.

 

“But it’s the perfect height,” Maria said. “In the hair salon in Temeswar, the hairdresser was as high as I was when she cut my bangs.”

 

Elisabeth released her hands and parted the hair that hung over her face to past her waist so she could see her best friend. “I don’t know if I can do it.” She studied Maria’s modern haircut. “But I love it on you!”

 

Maria grinned from ear to ear. “Then let me do it already!” She held the scissors up while Elisabeth pushed her hair over her face again.

 

Several months before, on a family trip to the beautiful city of Temeswar, Maria’s mother had allowed her to cut the hair at the front of her head, leaving her with “bangs” as the hairdresser said they called it in America. The look was fashionable with the rich families— likeMaria’s— and also in the big, modern cities, like Temeswar, where Maria had even seen telephones and electricity, two things that didn’t exist in their tiny village of Semlak. Maria still wore the rest of her hair in a braid attached to the top of her head, like all unmarried German girls in Semlak.

 

Maria lowered her hands. “But are you certain? Because once I’ve cut these, you’ll be old and grey before they grow back!”

 

Elisabeth’s heart thumped and her skin tingled. “Oh, I don’t know! What will Stefan think?”

 

Maria laid the scissors on the large wooden table behind her. “You’re asking this now?”

 

Elisabeth crossed her arms. “You did ask if I was certain!”

 

Maria sighed. “I’m nervous about being the one responsible for cutting your bangs! If you don’t like it, can we still be friends?”

 

Elisabeth squeezed her best friend’s hands. “Of course! But now that you’ve asked again, I do worry if Stefan will like it. That’s important.”

 

“Well, has he complained about my hair?”

 

Elisabeth tried to think of any objection mentioned during any of the many conversations she and Stefan had had over the months, and finally shook her head.

 

Maria continued. “Konrad has always liked mine even though he’s so traditional. He says he likes how my bangs make my face look.”

 

“But Mammi said they’re useless and will poke my eyes out when they grow too long.”

 

The girls giggled at Elisabeth’s mother’s comments. She sometimes worried about the strangest things, though Elisabeth suspected it wasmostly that she didn’t want things to change.

 

“But she said you’re allowed to do it nonetheless?”

 

Elisabeth nodded, and then her eyes opened wide again. “But what will Tata think?”

 

Maria considered the question. “He did write you a postcard and sent it to me in that magazine from America, right?” The magazine had been filled of pictures and drawings of modern American women.

 

“That’s true... and now that he’s lived in America since Advent of last year, he’s probably used to girls with bangs.”

 

Maria held up the large metal scissors. “So...?”

 

Elisabeth agreed, sat on her hands again, and told Maria to start. Maria brushed Elisabeth’s thick, blonde hair so that it hung over her face like a smooth curtain, with only Elisabeth’s nose poking through.

 

“This is how the hairdresser in Temeswar did it.” Maria placed her hand at Elisabeth’s eyebrow and trapped a few inches of hair between two fingers.

 

Elisabeth held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut once she saw the scissors coming close to her face. A few moments later, Elisabeth heard the snip and opened her eyes.

 

Maria held a lock of long hair in front of Elisabeth, and Elisabeth grasped it in her hands. Butterflies in her stomach wouldn’t stop fluttering. Had she made the right choice? She loved her hair, and holdingit this way, separated from her head, made her hold her breath for a moment.

 

Then she let it out. What she thought about her decision no longer mattered:she couldn’t well run around the village with only a chunk of hair missing!

 

She had placed the lock of hair next to her on her bed and had closed her eyes, readying herself for the rest, when Mammi burst into the room from the kitchen.

 

“What is it?” Elisabeth asked.

 

Mammi either stormed into rooms or entered quietly. Angry and serious were her two emotions. But this reaction was one Elisabeth had never seen: Mammi had tears in her eyes. Even when Mammi had had great difficulties with her pregnancy over the winter she had not turned to her daughter for help.

 

This was very important.

 

Maria looked away out of respect. “Maybe I  should go.”

 

Elisabeth grabbed Maria’s hand as though to say, “You can’t leave me liket his!” She returned her attention to Mammi and pushed the rest of her long hair out of her eyes. “What is it?”

 

Mammi held a small piece of paper. It looked like a telegram.

 

But didn’t telegrams only come when someone died? Elisabeth’s father worked in a cigar factory in America. What if there had been an accident?

 

Mammi couldn’t speak. Elisabeth’s stomach rose to her throat. Mammi never searched for words.

 

She handed the telegram to Elisabeth, who forced herself to read it.

 

A moment later she jumped up and screamed, startling Maria, and gave Mammi a tight embrace. Then she placed the telegram on the table and resumed her position: back straight as a board, hands nailed under her legs. “Quick! Finish cutting my bangs!”

 

“Can’ t I know?” Maria asked.

 

“If I tell you, that will make two of us who can’t sit still, and you’re the one with the scissors! But it is good news!”

 

Mammi wiped her nose using a handkerchief and a moment later her usual demeanour returned. She pointed at Elisabeth’s bangs. “Such a useless thing to do with your hair.” She left the two girls to return to her workshop to keep making shoes.

 

As the large scissors neared her eyes again, Elisabeth focusedon the crucifix that hung above the doorway. She prayed with all her might that Jesus would give her the strength to sit still.

 

As Maria cut her hair, Elisabeth’s cousin Georg came to mind: this news would make him very happy. Only a few years younger than Mammi, Georg had fought in the great war that had almost torn Europe apart. He now suffered from nightmares. But in her father’s absence, Georg had almost become like a father himself. Perhaps sharing this news would offer him some relief.

                                                                     ...

 

A moment after Maria announced she was finished, Elisabeth grabbed the telegram, bolted from her chair, and darted out the house door without even inspecting her new appearance in a mirror.

 

“What’s the good news?” Maria called after her. “And where are you going?”

 

In her excitement to share the news with Georg, Elisabeth had forgotten Maria.

 

“Lissika!” Maria called as she chased her friend. “Your hair isn’t up!”

 

Something else Elisabeth had forgotten in her excitement.

 

By the time Elisabeth reached the second gate, Maria had caugh tup with her and grabbed her by the wrist. “What did it say?”

 

Elisabeth began jumping up and down but then stopped when two older women walked past her house, their curious eyes focused on the girls. She whispered the good news to Maria, who promptly grabbed both of Elisabeth’s hands and jumped up and down with her. The older women scowled at them.

 

“I have to tell Georg!” Elisabeth said and bolted again. “He needs something happy!”

 

“But your hair! What if Stefan sees you?”

 

“I don’t care!”

 

As they ran down the gravel street, lifting their ankle-length skirts just enough to let them run, heads turned. Yes, it was improper for any girl or woman to leave the house with her hair down. Elisabeth imagined her new haircut also met with disapproval. But she was going to explode if she didn’t share the news right away.

 

Georg’s wife, Eva, who was only a few years older than Elisabeth, had become a good friend to her. She was expecting their first baby and was scared because Mammi had lost her last one only a few months before. She had to tell Georg and Eva now, not only because Elisabeth herself was excited but because she was certain the news would make Georg and Eva happy, too.

 

Elisabeth turned a corner, running past a row of houses almost identical to hers. Most German homes in Semlak, in fact, looked similar to one another: a three-room house (front room, kitchen, back room) with a cellar at the back followed by a summer kitchen, stalls for horses and cows, a summer shelter for animals, and finally the outhouse. On the other side ofthe property were the gardens; the hambar for storing corn; stalls for the pigs; a shed for the wagon; coops for ducks, geese, and chickens; and the manurepile. Farmland lay outside the village, on parcels of land with their own dwellings called salasches.

 

As Elisabeth turned another corner, Maria’s footsteps disappeared behind her. A few steps in and she could see her destination: the other Schuhmacher house. But whereas Elisabeth’s property had a shoemaking workshop tucked into the summer kitchen, this Schuhmacher home had a blacksmithing workshop, with a forge inside and a chimney at the top, separate from the house.

 

“Georg! Eva!” she called as she opened the first gate to her uncle and aunt’s property. As was customary, Georg, the oldest son of four grown children, and his wife lived with Georg’s parents. Samuel, the younger son, lived with his wife outside the village on the family salasch. Georg’s sisters, Susi and Gretche, lived in the village with their husbands.

 

Usually, Elisabeth preferred to not draw her aunt and uncle’s attention — they were mean people — but today the happiness inside her silenced her dislike for them.

 

“Georg! Eva!” she cried again.

 

Georg came running out of the workshop .A large, powerful man, he wore a heavy leather apron, and his face was stained with soot. That a man his size could move so quickly never ceased to surprise Elisabeth.

 

“What is wrong?” Georg asked.

 

Before Elisabeth could answer him, she wrapped her arms around him, startling him.

 

Eva shuffled out the door at the side of the house, careful of the baby she was carrying inside her. “Elisabeth? What is it?”

 

Elisabeth gasped for air and her throat burned. Why did God make it hard to speak after running, especially when one had good news to share? She might look that up in the Bible later.

 

The telegram slid out of Elisabeth’s fingers while she still had her arms wrapped around her cousin. “Can I read it?”  Eva’s voice was gentle.

 

Elisabeth released Georg from her embrace and nodded, still catching her breath.

 

Eva’s eyes opened wide as she passed the telegram to Georg. Elisabeth hugged her friend, mindfu lof her bulging belly, while Georg read the telegram.

 

“That is indeed good news.” A gentle smile on his face, he opened his arms for Elisabeth again and she gave him another hug. Georg rarely spoke or smiled, so Elisabeth took no insult in his quiet reaction ,though others often did.

 

Maria, out of breath and feet dragging, arrived just as Konrad-Bátschi stormed out of the workshop, also wearing a heavy leather apron over a linen shirt and pants.

 

“Where’s my turtle of a son? Get your lazy hands back in here and get to work.”

 

Georg swallowed and turned away from Elisabeth. Her blood boiled knowing the shouting and insults Konrad-Bátschi paid his son every day. Elisabeth had heard it many times and she had also seen her uncle hit his son when his fits and nightmares over came him.

 

“Well?” Konrad-Bátschi said. “Or do I need to set off a bomb under those pants of yours?”

 

Elisabeth and Maria exchanged looks: Georg had once mistaken a children’s ball flying through the air for a bomb and had pulled Elisabeth and Stefan to the muddy ground to protect them. Was his father trying to cause a nightmare?

 

Before Georg could answer, Margarethe-Néni, his mother, came out of the house. “What’s all this noise about?” she asked. “Georg! Why aren’t you helping your father?” Upon seeing Elisabeth, she clapped her hands together in amazement. “Goodheavens! Elisabeth Schuhmacher! How could your mother let you leave the house like this? And what have you done to your hair?”

 

Elisabeth didn’t care. She would not let her aunt and uncle steal her joy today. She blurted out the good news: “Tata’s coming home in two months!"