The Rose Garden, Chapter 7 – The Snow Fort

Snow fort, Author Andrew Wiseman (CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported)

“For He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth’; Likewise to the gentle rain and the heavy rain of His strength” (Job 37: 6).

Winter followed summer, and one year another.  With time I acquired logic and organizational skills from my grandmother.  From my grandfather, I learned to dance.

My grandfather reveled in music.  Where my grandmother’s taste ran to hymns, he enjoyed livelier music — polkas, waltzes, mazurkas, csárdáses.  I first learned to dance to these standing on the sofa, supported in Grandpa’s arms.

As I grew older, he chided me sternly to dance in a ladylike manner — “Small steps, small steps!” — something I never quite mastered.  Absorbing my grandfather’s passion for life more readily than his instructions on decorum, I was routinely swept away by the music.

Grandpa taught me the difference between pints and quarts, patiently pouring paint from one can to another for me.

Grandpa was, also, the one to part my hair on the left.  I would stand between his knees, as he carefully plied the comb.  “No, not on the right, Annalein.  Never on the right.  Hitler parted his hair on the right.”

It was my father who cut my hair.  Since it was usually kept short, I worried that strangers might mistake me for a boy.

Evenings the family would sit contentedly listening to my grandfather’s large collection of records or watching televised wrestling with him.

Sunday afternoons, we would all listen to Strauss on the radio with its rotating display of vinyl fish.  My sister and I would lie on the living room rug on these afternoons, drawing or coloring as the sun spilled through the windows.

My recollection of Grandpa is of a smiling, mustachioed man in a white cotton undershirt — a glass of beer and a box of crackers at his side.

The Deli

My mother was rarely present on these occasions, my father never.  Keeping their small delicatessen open — usually six or seven days a week, twelve hours or more each day — was paramount.

This point was not lost on us, though our parents viewed themselves as having no option but to work the long hours they did.

The family work ethic impacted even holidays, which were ordinarily the busiest and most profitable days of the year for the store.  Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and the rest were compressed into a few short hours for us, when the crush of business had abated and our parents could spare the time.

Never speaking of this directly, my grandmother did her best to offset it.  As devoted to hard work as she was, nevertheless, my Grandma made time at the holidays to bake.

She regularly crafted mouthwatering poppy seed and walnut strudels, her sleeves rolled up as she kneaded the dough, her expression intent.  The air was thick with the aroma of spices at such times, yeast rising in a covered bowl on the open oven door.

Farina and Palascinta

For breakfast on cold mornings, we had farina with cinnamon.

On special occasions, Grandma would make the thin Hungarian pancakes known as palascinta.  I can still remember the crackling sound of the hot oil as Grandma poured batter into the pan.  Grandma would make sure the rest of us had had our fill, before sitting down to eat, herself.

The Christmas Tree

It was with my grandmother more often than my mother that we trimmed the traditional balsam Christmas tree (ever mindful that our mother would have been there, had she been able).

My grandmother’s methodical approach was usually eclipsed by our enthusiastic, if haphazard, efforts.  Silver tinsel complemented favorite ornaments, the diaphanous tendrils of “angel hair” completing the picture.

Care Packages

At the holidays, my grandmother, also, put together care packages for relatives we had behind the Iron Curtain.  These packages would include used clothing, along with canned or dried food.

I knew nothing about Communism at the time, but vividly recall a letter we received thanking us for these meager items the year I turned seven.  Someone’s child had scrawled at the bottom, “And thank you for the chicken soup.”  Even at seven, I knew there was something inherently wrong with a system which deprived children of the essential of chicken soup.

Midnight Mass

That Christmas, I accompanied my mother to midnight mass.

I had received a white fur hat and matching muff earlier in the evening, since the family opened presents Christmas Eve.  Unaware that a rabbit had perished to provide me these items, I wore them proudly — occasionally holding the muff to my check or briefly letting go my mother’s hand to stroke the muff as we walked to church.

My mother, herself, wore a ruby red coat, with a brown fur collar which offset her dark good looks.

It snowed that Christmas Eve, a rare event for the Bronx.  By midnight the streets were white and still, the stars bright pinpricks of light against the dark sky.  I can no longer remember the service, but will always remember the walk through quiet streets alone with my mother.  Few things have ever felt so holy.

The Bald-Headed Doll

I have received many Christmas gifts over the years.  There was the music box Grandma gave me, Santa’s suit now faded.  There was, also, the bald-headed doll.

Because I so loved books, I did not receive many dolls.  Actually, the afflicted doll had not started life bald.  She was a large, curly haired doll, ungainly in my eyes.  The doll’s very existence was hateful to me; seemed to confirm that I was ugly, also.

How could I know my reaction to the doll related to the incest?  Unable to explain my father’s assaults on me, I had decided I must be too ugly to love.  In a fit of anger, I lopped off clumps of the unnamed doll’s hair with my grandmother’s shears.

Young enough to be concerned for the doll’s feelings, I experienced qualms of conscience.  The following Christmas it occurred to me that the rejected doll was now a year older.  I retrieved the doll from the alcove beside the refrigerator where she had spent much of her benighted life, and began singing “Happy Birthday” to her.

Unfortunately, my grandmother passed by at that moment.  “That song is for the Christkind, ja?” Grandma asked, smiling.  When informed of the true state of affairs, she reprimanded me sharply.  So ended any hope of a fruitful relationship with the bald-headed doll.

Surprises

By contrast, I received a little bug-shaped pin from my grandfather, for no reason at all.  I have enjoyed surprises ever since.  They imply we have been thought of with love, though out of sight and unaware at the time.

The Snow Fort

My grandfather, also, provided the snow fort the winter I turned seven.  To my amazement, a storm some time after Christmas dropped more than two feet of snow on the Bronx in a period of twenty-four hours.  The block on which we lived was transformed, recognizable landmarks obliterated.

My grandfather had the formidable task of clearing a path to the street.  My sister and I were, meanwhile, intent on exploring the wonderland that had magically appeared outside our door.   Bundled into snowsuits and wrapped round in scarves, we fairly exploded into the snow.

Responding to our joy and needing somewhere to pile the massive amounts of snow he was attempting to remove, Grandpa built us a fort — the highlight of the day for one and all.

Certainly, my grandfather had his share of grief.  My mother wrote of a serious illness he barely survived in Hungary.  Among other things, ants had been applied to his infected leg as a harrowing home remedy.  By the grace of God, the huge scar did spare him inscription during World War II.  He described it to enlistment officers as a wound incurred during World War I.

I still have photographs of my beautiful mother in her beautiful red coat, and of the snow fort.

Still conflicted over ugliness and beauty, I tend to avoid having photos taken of myself.  Without thinking, I almost invariably tilt my head to one side and place my hand on my hip, when my photo is taken.

Why I should do this was a mystery until I came across a photograph of my mother in the very same pose.

I never once saw my grandfather intoxicated.  Only much later did I realize that he had a problem with alcohol; that my mother’s compliant character was molded on that wheel.  Her codependence was the proof [1][2].

It would take that long for me to develop patience with the yielding aspect of my mother’s nature.  And of my own.

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[1]  Wikipedia, “Codependency”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codependency.

[2]  Mental Health America, “Co-Dependency”, https://www.mhanational.org/co-dependency.

Copyright © 2008 – Present Anna Waldherr.  All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60247-890-9

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