If a Tree Falls (20 page)

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Authors: Jennifer Rosner

BOOK: If a Tree Falls
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We had the perfect house for a chase: an 1800s New England house built around a central staircase. One day in snowy February, we ran round and round, through the dining room, the kitchen, the family room, the living room, then back into the entry—the “foyer” as the realtor had called it. Every time I raced into the kitchen, my toes knocked into the slightly raised threshold, bruising even
through my chunky blue socks, while Juliet galloped over the rise each time with the precision of a cat.
At one point the tea kettle whistled and I broke the chase for a quick hearing lesson. I stood still in the kitchen until Juliet knocked into me, catapulted from her whole lap lead, and as she caught her breath I pointed out the high-pitched whistle, blowing on and on, thick steam shooting up at the kitchen cabinets. “I hear it,” I said, pointing to my ears. Then I switched off the stove, moved the kettle to a cool burner and resumed the chase, offering Juliet the lead, trailing in the sea of squeal and laughter that floated in from the room ahead.
The run became a blur of changing colors—blue in the living room, gold in the kitchen—and a dance of white as we passed the wavy window glass. Time-out had to be called several more times because Juliet’s processor magnet slipped off a lot, dragged down by the weight of her processor, flapping in a pocket I’d hastily sewn onto her t-shirt.
Juliet took the Time-outs like a puppy halted mid-nip to scratch an itch. Her eyes sparkled each time the chase resumed, her reddish hair wispy and loose, slipping out of her top-knot. At one point, as I gained on her, sock skating down the burgundy stretch of dining room, I called out “I’m going to get you, Juliet!” and she turned her head to look at me.
I stopped in my tracks like Roadrunner.
“Juliet?” I ventured again. By now Juliet was smiling a huge smile—she had heard and recognized her name.
“Juliet!” I choked and I scooped her into my arms. “I got you, Juliet. I got you. I’ve gotten you.”
Juliet nuzzled me with her flushed cheek. Then she squirmed out of my embrace, and resumed running.
Massachusetts, February 2005
TO SUPPORT US IN OUR WORK with Juliet, we had a team of clinicians, many of whom had worked with Sophia, all by now our dear friends, our de facto therapists, our lifelines, our heroes.
Marilyn, Juliet’s audiologist, checked and updated Juliet’s implant mapping programs to ensure that she was hearing. Jan worked with Juliet on listening—attending to sound, discriminating, imitating, turn-taking. Jean worked with Juliet on all manner of communicating—vocalizing, signaling, and gesturing. Kathie worked with all of us on Signing.
Just as we’d done with Sophia, we focused our speech work with Juliet on single power words:
UP, DOWN, OPEN, CLOSE
. We talked incessantly.
“Do you want to come UP? I’ll pick you UP. Now you’re UP! UP, UP, UP . . .”
When Juliet had enough, we settled her into the center of a big blue blanket, took up the corners and swung
her back and forth, back and forth. She squealed with added delight when Sophia climbed in too, and we swayed them together in a heavy heap, steady and low. Their laughter drowned out our expertly articulated counting, our overlyannunciated “
wheeees.
”
No matter how eagerly we awaited Juliet’s first spoken word, it would (evidently) come in its own time, regardless of our prompting and prodding.
At nighttime, when I wrote in my journal, I could see my uncertainty steering the way. We’d crossed worlds for Juliet, yet with no sense of what lay ahead. No sense of what she was hearing, or when she might speak, or how she experienced this new world of sound that we turned on and off with the flick of a magnet. In the universe of my ancestors, of Nellie and Bayla, I had no more certainty about what they experienced. Only my hopes and my fears. My need to forge on.
New York, 1885
 
 
 
NELLIE CLASPS HERSCHEL’S HAND and yanks him out of the way of the morning stampede as men in black hats and coats, white fringes billowing at their sides, rush through the streets to work. When the foot traffic slows, Nellie and Herschel resume their walk, dawdling down Union Street. Herschel is calmer when they are outside. Inside Lill’s apartment, he rages: “Mama, Mama, Mama.” He fusses and cries; he even kicks the little wood blocks that Samuel gave him. Nellie can’t seem to calm him.
Now just a few feet from Lill’s building, Nellie thinks: perhaps one more time, they can walk around the block. But no more buying! They already spent on a little cake at the bakery and a bag of roasted chickpeas from a pushcart peddler. She’d have to steer him away from the steaming sweet potatoes, the open cracker barrels. Just fresh air this time around.
At the street corner, a mail carriage passes by. Nellie wonders how long it will take for a letter to arrive, how long before
she will get word that Bayla and the others are journeying to America. Nellie imagines Bayla in a cramped dormitory room with unknown schoolmates and strict schoolmasters. No one like Rayzl, with a writing tablet tucked under her arm.
Instead of looping back to the apartment now, Nellie lifts Herschel and carries him on her hip, past the butcher, past the tailor, and even past the bookbinder. Elish told her of a factory several blocks to the east with lots of girls, sewing. If she can get work there, and do a fine job, perhaps Bayla will be welcome, too, when she arrives. Nellie rushes along, her eyes fixed on the tiny metal shards embedded in the sidewalk. At the edge of a small park, in the center of the next city block, Nellie looks up, then stops abruptly. Herschel nearly falls from her hip.
Up on a park bench, a girl stands at her mother’s shoulder height. Her hands soar in fast, intentional flight. Nellie can see that the girl’s movements are not just gestures accompanying speech, but signs, a language. Nellie stands unmoving. She watches for several minutes, trying to decipher the dialect of the girl’s hands. But now the girl stops. It is the mother’s turn and she seems to be chastising her daughter: the girl mustn’t throw the crumbs they brought for the pigeons upon storefront steps, nor should she throw them at dogs being walked in the park. The mother’s young face is kind but stern as she sets out the breadcrumb rules, and the girl signals that she understands. Growing restless, the girl turns away, pivoting
nearly in a full circle, when her eyes brush past Nellie and lock onto Herschel.
Nellie takes a breath and sets Herschel down. The girl jumps down from the bench and faces him. Together, but almost as if they are carrying bundles between their legs, the children inch closer until they are just a few feet away. The mother turns to them now, and as the two children stare widely at each other, Nellie signs to the woman. The woman signs back
—
her name is Sylvia, and she is pleased, very pleased, to meet Nellie!
When they part, Sylvia invites Nellie to meet them again later in the week. With Herschel re-hoisted up on her hip, Nellie reels. She feels larger in her body than she has in months. She tightens her clasp around her little brother, inhaling the sweet oil of his hair, the soft floury smell of his cheek.
Approaching the factory door, Nellie sets Herschel down and motions for him to wait outside. A saggy man with tired grey eyes and unkempt grey hair looks Nellie up and down as she walks in. Nellie pantomimes sewing. She points to the tiny, delicate stitches on her shirt, then at her own hands and again gestures a stitch. The manager begins talking, but Nellie cannot follow what he is saying. She scans the room helplessly. Girls look up from their tables, then glue their eyes back to their work. The man is used to immigrants. He takes Nellie’s arm, squeezing a little too tight, and walks her to a sewing table with an empty chair. He hands her a scrap of lacy cotton and
a threaded needle. Nellie carefully stitches a seam in close, even stitches. The man nods and motions for her to remain seated. Nellie settles into the seat, then abruptly she stands, suddenly remembering that Herschel is waiting outside for her. She must go. Boldly, Nellie shakes her head apologetically and rushes out the door. The man watches from the doorway as Nellie sweeps Herschel into her arms and runs down the block. In heaving breaths, she returns twenty minutes later, and claims her seat. The manager frowns, but places a large wire frame and a bolt of white cotton fabric on her table. Nellie will learn to sew corsets.
Late at night, Nellie practices writing Yiddish words in a loopy hand. She longs to tell Bayla all about her new job and about Sylvia
—
how they meet at the park most evenings; how Herschel chases little Sarah around the fountain. They throw crumbs at the silvery blue pigeons that approach haltingly, never blinking their sharp, pea green eyes. In those dusky hours, with fountain water misting Herschel’s black curls and flushed cheeks, the glaze lifts from his eyes, and his heart isn’t so heavy with longing for Mama and Papa. And Nellie is hopeful then that things will be all right, that she can manage until they arrive.
Nellie sets aside her practice sheet and places a piece of fine writing paper on the wobbly table near her bedside. Her hand shakes as she begins her letter.
dear Bayla,
I wait wait you.
Here buildings to sky! People everywhere, moving fast.
Lill and Samuel let us stay, their home our home also.
Job I got. what? sewing. I one of many girls, all of us sewing.
Met woman, deaf also. Name Sylvia.
Last I saw you, crying. Horse-driver-man took you from carriage.
I wrote to Mama letter, need Mama, Papa, family join us here.
Need Bayla with me here.
Biggest hugs,
Nellie
Nellie inspects her crooked, ugly penmanship. She knows that the language of her hands doesn’t match up with written language. If only she’d had more time with Rayzl, to learn. She carefully folds the letter into an envelope
—
for Bayla it is all
right
—
and in the morning, she presses it into Samuel’s hands as he leaves for work.
Weeks later, Samuel hands Nellie a wrinkled envelope. Nellie stares for a moment at the writing, so pretty and curved, in the center. She smoothes it out. Then she rips it open.
dear Nellie,
Letter from you arrived here. Happy!
Letter from Mama not yet.
Last I saw you, man in carriage took me.
I stay at school. Cry.
Teacher brought to me doll baby. Try feel better.
I wait wait letter from Mama. I wait. I patient.
Want soon I see sister Nellie.
Biggest hugs,
Bayla
Nellie reads and re-reads Bayla’s letter, then tucks it into her skirt pocket. Soon, surely soon, Bayla will receive word from Mama and they will journey together to America! Nellie rushes to work now at the corset factory. All afternoon, she will feel the flat, folded letter upon her thigh as she sits at the sewing table, her fingers moving deftly, her head lost in thought about Bayla.
It is dusk by the time Nellie looks up from the sewing table. She walks home quickly, breathing in the chilly, autumn air. As she passes by the park, she sees Sylvia walking toward her. Beside Sylvia is a young man, tall and handsome with black wavy hair. As he comes closer, Nellie can see that his chin has a small cleft in it, his eyes are round and dark like chestnuts. His hands make large, graceful strokes in the air.
“Hello. My name is Mordechai.” His eyes dart to the ground, a sweet crinkle of a smile in his eyelids.
Nellie signs back: “I’m pleased to meet you.” The three walk together in the direction of Lill’s apartment, Nellie with a flush in her cheek and a thump in her chest.

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