No Place I'd Rather Be

  Odessa was on edge. It was a frightening, tense time. The hatred against Jews was rising. There were shootings at the docks, strikes, chaos, demonstrations, and barricades. There were military patrols, and many schools and shops were closed. Police were attacked, and they attacked others, including shooting student demonstrators. Jews were insisting that they be treated as equals in all areas of life, and the clashes were fierce, deadly. There were rumors of revolution, a conspiracy, an upcoming attack.

  Ida heard horses neighing but thought nothing of it. She didn’t think anything of a crackling sound, either. Perhaps it was a neighbor starting a fire. But it made her nervous, those sounds, all the same.

  It was when she smelled smoke, and heard the screams, that she flew from the table and ran to her window, her hand leaning on her cookbook. Men. Men in military and police uniforms with guns who did not belong here and men in regular street clothes. Men with torches, setting her neighbors’ homes on fire, their roofs soon in flames. She heard them yelling, “Die Jews! Die Dogs!”

  She saw the Feldmans running from their home, her friend Raisa screaming as she carried her youngest son, Pyotr. Ida stared in shock as her friend was shot and then tumbled to the ground. Pyotr crawled to his mother and he was shot, too. Ida thought she might faint.

  “What is it?” Boris ran toward her, grabbed her. The second he reached her, she heard a whoosh and a boom as their bedroom went up in flames, straw and wood flying, black smoke filling the room.

  Their three oldest children, curled up in bed by the fireplace, woke up and started crying when they saw the circling black smoke, the leaping flames.

  “Get out!” Boris yelled at them, running toward the bedroom, to the baby Liev, in a crib. “Get out, now!”

  Ida grabbed Esther, Moishe, and Zino and shoved them out the door as sparks flew, flames climbed up the walls, and the roof started to smolder.

  “Run for the woods,” she yelled at them. “Stay together. Hide. We will come for you. Go Esther, take your brothers. Go!”

  They were hysterical, crying, but Ida did what she had to do. The flames were spreading, a hot roar, singing her hair and filling her lungs with heat and smoke. She shoved them, hard, out the door before they burned to death. “Now, now!” They turned and ran.

  “Get the baby!” Ida screeched to Boris. “Get Liev!” But she had already seen the blazing fire that had engulfed their bedroom. Boris had already tried to get Liev, but it was too late, too late, too late. Ida thought she heard the baby scream and on instinct she stumbled for him through the smoke, prepared to run through that wall of fire. Boris caught her and she struggled against him, her lungs burning. “Let me go! We have to get Liev, let me go!”

  “Ida, no, no.” Boris held on to his fighting, clawing wife, using all of his strength. “He’s gone. We can’t save him.”

  Ida was sure she could hear the baby crying as the roof over the bedroom made a whooshing sound and collapsed, wood chips flying. Boris forcibly hauled her out the door and into the chaotic night, her hands scratching, feet kicking. When she continued to fight him, hysterical, he threw her over his shoulder and ran. Ida looked back in horror as the rest of the roof of their home caved in, the fire leaping toward the sky, their neighbors’ homes suffering the same fate. She saw panicked horses bucking, children screeching for their mothers, and men going from home to home, torches in hand, burning them to the ground. Gunshots tore through the night.

  The black smoke, churning from a crime against humanity, hid Ida and Boris as he stumbled toward the woods. He dropped her from his shoulder behind a tree. “Liev,” she cried out, straining against Boris. “Oh, Liev. My son. Liev!” But she knew the truth: Liev was gone, gone in an oven made by evil men. Boris yanked at her, and they ran through the shifting shadows of the trees, panting, terrified they would not be able to find their other children, devastated beyond belief.

  They found Esther, Moishe, and Zino an hour later, hidden inside a log, crying. The five of them did not go home for two days, foraging in the woods for food, making sure the invaders were gone. Ida didn’t speak, staring straight ahead. All she could do was hold her children and rock back and forth. They had lost a baby. They had lost Liev. Their lives were ruined.

  When they finally returned to their home, smoke still rising from the rubble of their neighborhood, most of the other families were gone or dead. They heard from a wandering man, shell-shocked, who had hidden under his home in the muck that there were attacks in the city, too. Jews in Odessa were mercilessly beaten and killed, thrown out windows, women raped, even children and babies murdered. Homes and businesses were robbed.

  Even their water tanks, where they collected rainwater, their water supply too mineralized coming from wells so close to the ocean, had been destroyed. Ida and Boris could find few things that had survived the fire in their home. They had never had much, eking out a living, poverty at their door every day, but now . . . nothing. Ida couldn’t even find the crib where her baby had been sleeping, but she did find fragments of bones, which she held in trembling hands, her body racked with a pain she knew would never leave her.

  When Ida moved again, it was only because she saw her cookbook, the pink ribbon a beacon amidst the blackened destruction. She crawled toward it through the soot. Unbelievably, miraculously, it had survived. Perhaps it had been blown through the window when the house caught fire. The pages, along the edges, were singed, black and brown. The leather was dirty, the pink ribbon stained, but it was still there. Ida fell to her knees, clutching it to her chest, rocking back and forth, her tears soaking into the leather. The Shabbat candlesticks, however, were nowhere to be found. They were gone, too. Gone like Liev.

  Boris knelt with her, crying, too, along with their children. Then he said they had to leave immediately. Who knew when the invaders would be back to kill more Jews, to rape, to pillage and destroy. They buried the bones in the forest. She and Boris made a tear in their clothes, they prayed, Boris recited from Psalms. But they could not stay and mourn for seven days. They would be dead if the attackers came again.

  Boris blamed himself. They should have left earlier. He had seen the signs. But his business was here. He had six mouths to feed. He would live with the guilt of his mistake forever.

  Boris managed to find some of his tools for making saddles and bridles, and he slung them into a sac over his shoulder. On their way out Ida saw something shiny. It was their silver menorah, made for them by her grandfather, Aron Bezkrovny, as a wedding gift. She cried over that, too, her tears spilling from the menorah to her cookbook.

  The family walked for miles and miles, holding each other, hiding in the woods when they could, a barn one night when they thought they might freeze, in the back of a home of a rabbi who took pity on them. Two months later, on a pitch black night, Ida gave birth on the side of a dirt road. It was way too early. The baby, a girl, who they would have named Talia, was dead. Ida was too shattered to cry.

  The next day they buried her in the forest, as they had buried her brother’s bones, and then they moved on. They had to. It was move on or be caught back up in another pogrom. That night Ida drew a picture of the burial grounds of her daughter in the cookbook, the sun shining through the fir trees. She added a meadow, with flowers, and two deer, off in the distance. One deer for Liev, one for the baby, Talia. Her grief was crushing her.

  By train, now and then, but mostly on foot, sometimes by hiding in the back of a wagon, covered in hay, by begging, by starvation, by literally running for their lives, they headed to Germany. They had heard that life was easier there for Jews. It took them fourteen months to get to Munich, as they had to stop and let Boris work sometimes so they would have money for food and shoes, and time to rest.

  They never returned to Odessa, but Ida and Boris never forgot the beloved children they left behind.

  * * *

  School was not getting better for the girls. When we arrived each morning in the parking lot I dried tears and told them they w
ere brave and courageous Montana women. I watched them walk into school, gripping each other’s hand like they were holding a lifeline.

  Lucy got in a fight with a boy who said she resembled an ant with that “huge head.” The huge-headed ant stomped on his right foot, then his left, and said, which I thought was quite clever, her finger pointed up to the sky, “Now you know what it feels like to get stepped on like an ant, you stupid boy.”

  Stephi was sent to the principal’s office for letting the frogs out of the fish tank saying they needed to “be free.” She was not popular with that move, as the class loved Herbert and Crazy Ellen. Two girls and one boy cried when they realized that Herbert and Crazy Ellen were gone for good. She was called Frog Freak, and someone told her she should go to frog jail with her “weird rock collection.” She was still crying at bedtime. “I didn’t like seeing Herbert and Crazy Ellen trapped!”

  They were grieving, too, these poor girls. They missed their grandmother. They missed their school and friends in Portland.

  And I’d moved them. New home, new family, new school, and, as Lucy cried one day, “No friends,” and Stephi said, “No one likes me or my rocks.”

  I watched them walk in the front door of the school, my heart clogging my whole throat, then I raced to Larry’s Diner.

  * * *

  That night I heard a cough and I looked out my window. My grandma was in the doorway of the gazebo, wrapped in her coat and her blue scarf with white magnolia flowers on it, her head tilted back toward the shimmering stars. She smiled, then lifted a hand up and waved toward the sky.

  * * *

  The next week at work I handed out samples whenever I had a free minute. Small cups of blueberry cinnamon muffins, banana bread, scrambled eggs with cheese and sautéed mushrooms. I even handed out orange smoothies with a hint of vanilla, ice, and ice cream. That was popular.

  Kalulell is a small town, and it wasn’t long before word got out the food wasn’t slop-crap anymore, and we had a lot more customers. We needed more employees.

  “You need to hire more people, Larry.”

  “Hell no. I’m not a money machine. I got Dinah and Justin out front. They can do it.”

  “They can’t. The customers are waiting too long. Earl and I are cooking as fast as we can, and you’re not cooking half as fast as either of us.”

  His mouth dropped. I swear his gut had grown since I came to work there. He heaved himself up. “This is my restaurant and ya ain’t gonna talk to me like that, Chef Feisty, though I like ’em feisty. Ha-ha.”

  Some things I had to ignore or I’d clonk him. “I need to be honest with you, as the chef here, about how things are going, Larry.”

  “I’ll tell you when we’re hiring people, Olivia. You get your pretty self back in the kitchen where a woman belongs.”

  I thought I would lose it. I did. Every day Larry was worse. If I wasn’t broke I wouldn’t have stayed. I had gone from Carter to Larry. I had worked for so many chefs—men and women—who might have been temperamental and overly picky about what was produced in their kitchens, but they were kind people at heart, at least when nothing was burning on the stoves. But I’d had two strikeouts in a row.

  I didn’t like the way Larry yelled at Justin and Earl. “Move your butt . . . Justin, you take a shower this week? You smell like monkey breath.... Earl, your momma must have been surprised when she had you. I bet she felt those elephant ears when you were coming out of her privates . . . Your momma’s still single, right? I think I’ll pay her another visit.” Earl turned red and balled his fists.

  “What the heck kind of comment is that, Larry?” I’d said, slamming a pan down.

  “My momma doesn’t want you to pay her a visit,” Earl said, voice so low.

  “Oh, I bet she does. She’s a fine woman.”

  “She doesn’t want you to come over. She told me if you ever came over again, she’d call the police.”

  “No, she wouldn’t,” Larry drawled, but his face flushed. He was embarrassed. “Her son will be out of a job if she does that.”

  “That’s illegal,” I said, slamming the pan down again so I didn’t slam Larry’s face. “That’s a threat. You take that back, you oversized baboon. No woman wants you to come and visit. You apologize to Earl.”

  Earl stood right in front of Larry. He was ready to hit him.

  Larry smirked. He’s a tall, hulking, blubbery man. Fat, arms like beefsteaks. Earl is tall and thin, a kid. But no one insults someone’s momma in Montana and gets away with it.

  “Whaddya got, kid?” Larry said, his voice low, provocative. “I can’t say your momma is hot?”

  “No.” Earl said. “You can’t. You are disrespecting her, and me.” He punched Larry so hard and so fast in the chin Larry flipped up in the air and landed on his back, where he lay like a stuck pig, groaning.

  Earl stormed out after calling Larry a name he deserved to be called.

  Larry couldn’t get up. Blood gushed from his nose. None of us helped him. I leaned over Larry and told him, “You are obnoxious. You get your fat butt up and go home. Tomorrow you call Earl. Do not go to his home, or I will inform his mother, Carly Mae, whom I have known since second grade, to shoot you. You will give Earl a raise.”

  “I’m not givin’ him a raise,” he sputtered, blood spurting. “I’m calling the police and he’s going to the slammer.”

  “No, you won’t,” I said. “Because what I saw was you shoving Earl, hard, right here in this kitchen, against the wall, after you insulted his mother. Then you raised your fist and swung at Earl and Earl ducked.”

  “That’s what I saw,” Dinah said. She flicked her hair back. She had dyed the ends lime green. “You attacked Earl.”

  “I saw it, clear as day,” Justin said, crossing his arms. “It was self-defense. Earl should call the police on you. In fact, I think I will. That was assault.”

  Larry kept panting. He was cornered. His nose was broken. He swore.

  “You will give Earl a raise. I need him here. Did you hear me, Larry?”

  He grunted. He tried to get up, lay back down. We didn’t help him.

  “Get out. You’re getting blood in my kitchen. And do not go to my mother to fix you up. I am calling her right now and telling her to refuse.”

  He glowered at me. “You’re not always goin’ to win, Olivia.”

  “I don’t want to win. I want you to treat people with respect and stop trying to club them into the ground with your boot because for some inane reason you think you can smash people.”

  He lumbered out, cloth to his smashed face.

  We cooked.

  Earl came back the next day. He got a raise. He hugged me. “My mother says hello.”

  Larry didn’t say anything about Earl’s mother again.

  I hired six more people, some part time. Two single mothers, four college students. We were humming right along.

  * * *

  On Tuesday, Chloe ended up on the front page of the state’s newspaper. A car had flipped completely over, the engine was burning, and she’d hauled out two kids, one under each arm. I saw a video of it made by a bystander. She was a hero but she was pissed because the driver, the kids’ father, was drunk. Her comment, “Dumb (expletive) people who drive drunk with kids in the car should go to jail. That’s it. Lock that (expletive) up. He could have killed those two kids.”

  There was unilateral agreement.

  Chloe is popular in Kalulell. She tells it like it is.

  * * *

  On Sunday night Stephi got the flu. I was up all night with her and drove Lucy to school. I brought Stephi with us because I didn’t want her alone at home. Lucy did not want to go to school without Stephi, so she cried. Stephi threw up in the truck on the way home. I got Stephi to the bathroom, washed her up, got her on the couch, and went to clean up my light blue truck. It was snowing.

  The school called. Lucy threw up in her classroom. I packed Stephi back up and we went to get Lucy. I brought the girls home. The
y both threw up.

  It was going to be a long day. I made them chicken soup. We read stories and played Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders. I hate Chutes and Ladders. It’s enough to make a mother lose her mind. As soon as you think the game is finally over, no, you’re zapped back to the beginning.

  We all took a nap in the afternoon. When they woke up they wanted to talk about their grandma, Annabelle, and how she used to make them brownies when they were sick. I made them brownies.

  I was up most of the night with Lucy hanging out by the toilet.

  No one can prepare you for parenthood.

  * * *

  I met Annabelle, Stephi and Lucy’s maternal grandmother, when I moved into an apartment building in Portland after leaving Montana in my truck, my mind a shattered mass of pain.

  It was a pre-war building, all brick, the awnings green. It needed updating. It needed new floors, new lighting, a new entry. It had an old-world, traditional charm, though. It had a cool Portland vibe. It was clean.

  There was one apartment available, top floor, fourth floor, corner, and I jumped at it. I unloaded my truck and moved in.

  The apartment building, with sixteen apartments, had a mix of people. Some seemed pretty affluent, a couple of attorneys, two doctors starting out, a few businesspeople. But the building also had “affordable housing,” which meant there were some people there who were struggling. We were all colors, all faiths and no faiths, with one family newly arrived from Ethiopia and one from Iran.

  Being in Portland, but not in the busy part of downtown, made it a peaceful, but interesting, place to live. I knew the area because of the years I had spent in culinary school there.

  The apartment building was up on a slight hill, one block off a street filled with restaurants and shops. I could catch the streetcar, the light rail, and go anywhere.

  Not that I wanted to go anywhere.

  What I wanted to do was to crawl into bed and not come out for several years. Maybe I’d get a pile of cats and stay inside all day forever.