“At any rate, your task for the present is to make the rounds and find yourself some little girls to teach. Yes, it may not be pleasant business, but it is quite in the usual order of things. I did this what, three years ago? Four? When I first arrived.”

“What do you do?”

“Rule number one: Never introduce yourself on the doorstep. For a start, they know exactly who you are. Yes, news travels fast in this little neighborhood. I would presume that the moment you stepped foot over the threshold of your lodgings, word had already spread that a European lady had arrived.”

She threads her fingers together. “I see.”

“But don’t think it stopped there. They will have begun to make up stories. They don’t realize it, of course, they start off as conjecture, and then shift into truth, that truth becomes embellished with further conjecture and so on and so forth.”

“So I have no idea what they may be thinking about me.”

“Exactly. That’s why you have to get inside the door. Then you ask for a drink. They are a hospitable lot here, and the minute they give you something, they will soften. I am speaking from experience. I have developed quite the taste for this flower water…

“Rosewater?”

“Yes. Although at first, I had to force it down. And their beloved yogurts, which to me still taste rather strange, although I understand that there are nutritional benefits and it is good for the bones.”

“I see.”

“Rule number two. Ask them for help.”

“How so?”

“Tell them that you are new here and you don’t know how to mail a letter.”

“Ah.”

“Or… where to purchase a veil.”

She stiffens. “The director told me I may follow my own dress code.”

“With all due respect, the director is in Paris. What does he know about what goes on in the Ottoman empire?”

“As far as I understand, he knows quite a lot.” If he wants to talk politics, she will vanquish him. She has been in Paris far more recently than he. She knows all about the streams of opinion, the new director who is poised to take on the role, the philanthropists who back it — and their opinions. The girls thrash it out over dinner, selecting who they would support in a debate.

“Onward.”

The boys have finished eating now, and they sway and move their lips quietly as they bentsh.

“And then you share with them your wish to help them with their childcare. No teaching, mind you. Just a place for the little girls to keep occupied, while their mothers are busy with the babies, or maybe taking a little rest.”

“So I’m a nanny?”

“Absolutely. And then, in your capacity as a nanny, you wish to occupy not only their hands, but also their minds.”

“How surprising. Do you mean that little girls have minds?”

He laughs. “Your sense of humor will stand you in good stead.”

He stands up and gathers the empty plates. She wonders if he does the dishes, or is that his wife’s job.

“Five. Just a handful. That’s what you need to begin. Bonne chance.”

He waves to the boys and they file after him, three little ducklings following a mother duck, as they leave the room.

*****

“The little boy has no toys,” Felix announces when he arrives home at lunch time.

“He probably never had any toys. He doesn’t feel the lack,” Hannah says mildly.

“Children need toys.”

Hannah gazes at her son. Since when was he an expert on children? And why does he care so much about a little boy he has met only once?

“Jigsaw puzzles and little wooden balls and… yes, an abacus, to help him start learning numbers.”

Hannah puts the gleaming copper kettle on the fire and sets the teapot on a tray. “He is probably quite happy. He plays with whatever he finds. Sticks. Stones. Dirt. Children are very resourceful.”

The only toy she ever had was a rag doll Mama knitted for her. When Perla was around three or four, Mama asked her to give the doll to her little sister. Hannah had run, crying, to the copse of trees near the shtibel. One was an oak tree, with a hollow trunk. She had thrust her doll deep inside. When Mama realized that the doll was gone, she had scolded, “It’s not enough that you don’t want your sister to enjoy it, you have to punish yourself, too?”

She hadn’t really understood Mama’s complaint, just stood there, pretending Mama was talking to the wooden gate beside her. It was a good trick. Most of the time, it worked.

Felix shrugs. “Perhaps. But it would help keep him occupied.” He walks over to the door of the cellar. “This is where things are stored, correct?”

Hannah nods.

A feeling of disquiet comes over her as Felix opens the door, and disappears down the stairs into the darkness.

He reappears a few minutes later, grunting and slightly breathless. In his arms, as she knew and hoped and feared, is the rocking horse.

It is covered in a thick layer of dust and Felix goes to the kitchen and brings back a wet rag.

She gently removes the rag from his hand. “Not like that.”

She finds a soft, dry rag and wipes away the dust. Then, with a clean rag, she begins to oil it. First the face, those large eyes perfectly carved into the light birchwood. She moves on to the mane, slowly and carefully pulling the rag through the grooves.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Felix says, as he watches. She swallows. What is wrong with her? It’s just the endless winter. Just Emmy. Just Ernst. Just the unhappiness that has settled upon the house like a shawl.

Now, Felix touches her shoulders. “What’s wrong, Mama?”

She shakes her head, nothing.

She had thought that the next time she saw this rocking horse would be at the birth of her grandchildren. But this is a mitzvah, to give the little boy something to play with. “I only hope that he will take care of it.”

“It is precious to you.”

“Good memories.” As children, Felix and Emmy traveling the world on their horse while they stayed safe, under her protective eye, in the living room. The laughter as they rode, first Felix alone, then Emmy behind him, her little arms clutching his waist.

And there is the simple beauty of the toy, carved with skill and attention, maybe even love. She had never owned something like that in her life. The home she and Ernst had settled in never felt like it belonged to her: They filled it with the standard furnishings expected of their class, their status. The ottoman, the floor rugs, the dining room table — all part of a dwelling where she was a perpetual visitor.

It was only when she had dropped on her knees and placed a tiny Felix onto the rocking horse that she had felt certain. Yes, I know who I am and why I am here in this strange place, in this strange life that feels foreign to me, even though it is my own. It is because of my children. It is for this moment, putting little Felix onto a horse with so much grace and beauty and love.

She oils the legs. The hooves. And then winces at the memory that comes, as she had known it would.

When Felix was 11, she found him in the yard of the house, covered in sawdust, a look of triumph that ballooned his cheeks and added sparkle to his eyes. She dusted a smudge of dust from the tip of his nose, and then looked at what he was so proud of.

On the ground, in the corner of the tiny yard, was an axe, a saw, and a pair of wheels.

Something in her chest began to tighten, something that she might call anger if it happened in a man, but in her could only be called indignation. The rocking horse. The rocking horse, a gift from Ernst for the children — for her, really.

And he had… destroyed it.

There was heat in her face, up her arms, and a feeling had risen in her, an urge to slap this child, although she had never so much as raised a finger to him, and had always sworn that she would never pinch or smack any of her children, after all, they are not in the shtetl, and her children will grow up with gentle admonishments, like the children of gentlemen in the books she reads.

Felix had hung his head.

“But… .but why?” she asks, eventually.

He looked up at her, and there was bewilderment in his dark eyes. “I just did it for Emmy,” he says. “She said that a rocking horse that doesn’t go anywhere isn’t worth anything,” he said, eventually. “The most it will move is around in a circle.”

He scampered over to the injured horse, which lay on its side. He lifted a set of wheels, who knew where he has filched them from.

“She told me that if it had wheels, instead, it would go somewhere.”

She had knelt down beside the horse and run her finger along the cold, hard mane. It was like the horse was dead, and there was grief inside her, though she didn’t understand why.

Felix bobbed down beside her. He stroked her cheek. “Did I make you sad, Mama?”

Now, she watches as Felix bends over and gives the horse’s mane a pat. “It will be perfect for little Leib’le,” he says. He is quiet for a minute. “Though I think that Emmy was wrong.”

She looks up, and meets her son’s eyes. They are just as blue as they were all those years ago. “What do you mean?”

“A rocking horse doesn’t need wheels.”

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 691)