“You too, girl,” said Frau Taubman. “What took you so long?”
“I —”
“Come along now,” Frau Taubman said. The clanging of the iron gate made Johanna’s heart sink. What have I gotten myself into? she wondered. She followed Frau Taubman along the path and through a heavy wooden door.
They passed through a large foyer where an enormous painting of the duke hung. Bare spaces on the walls indicated places where other paintings had been removed. A richly carved pillar supported the ceiling, painted with religious scenes. Johanna had never been in such a grand room before.
A large-boned, rather plain girl of about sixteen approached them. “Monica, this is Johanna, one of the new girls,” Frau Taubman said. Monica stared at Johanna but didn’t answer. “Johanna will start work in the morning. Show her to her room.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Johanna followed Monica up two flights of stairs. “Do you come from Hamburg?” Johanna asked.
“None of your business,” Monica snapped. “I’m here to earn money. Not to make friends.”
At the top of the stairs was a narrow hall with doors on either side. Monica opened the third door on the right. “This is your room.”
The walls were covered with faded black and white striped wallpaper, which looked like the bars of a prison. A worn eiderdown quilt lay on the narrow bed. A small chest, table, and chair completed the furnishings.
“There’s a chamber pot under the bed,” Monica said. “The housemaid will empty it every morning. You must keep the room tidy.”
“I will. I —”
“We start at 6:00 a.m., when we relieve the night girls. I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow.” Monica turned her back on Johanna and left the room.
Johanna began to take her meagre possessions out of her bag — clothes, handkerchiefs, toiletries. Just when she thought the bag was empty, her fingers grazed something else. At the bottom of the bag, she found Mama’s lace kerchief, the one she wore when she lit the Sabbath candles on Friday evening. A note was attached to the kerchief, in Mama’s childish script:
My dear daughter Johanna,
May you find light and luck in your new life.
Be a good Jewish daughter. Keep the commandments.
Stay warm and dry.
Always keep a handkerchief in your pocket.
With a heart full of love,
Mama
For a moment, Johanna held the kerchief against her cheek. She could smell the faint scent of Mama’s soap. She was suddenly overcome with homesickness. She had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, the one she got when she knew she’d made a terrible mistake. She desperately wanted to escape this strange place and rush back home.
Johanna gently placed the kerchief back into her bag. I dare not light the Sabbath candles. If someone finds out I’m Jewish, I’ll be fired. She shivered. Even worse, I might have to leave Hamburg forever because I pretended to be a Christian. Then a thought struck her, like a blow to her stomach. I am doing exactly what Grandfather Samuel did. I am hiding my Jewish identity in order to survive.
She gazed out the window as she ate the bread and cheese she had brought with her. The spires and domes of the nearby churches — St. Michaelis, St. Jacobi, St. Petri, St. Nicolai, and more — towered above houses and shops stretching away from the harbour on the banks of the Elbe River.
Johanna tried to shake off her feeling of uneasiness. It was strange being alone in this room, in a bed she didn’t have to share with Mama, in a room all her own. For a long time, she had trouble falling asleep.
— Chapter Three —
At the Orphanage
Johanna woke to the sound of shouting outside her room.
“What do you mean you did not have time?” Frau Taubman’s voice seemed to bounce off the walls. “When I tell you to do something, I mean do it, and do it now.”
“Yes, Frau Taubman,” a girl said in a quivering voice.
“Why are you standing there, gawking at me?” A loud slap jolted Johanna fully awake. “Now go!”
“Yes, ma’am.” The girl’s sobs faded away down the hall.
Trying to shake off a feeling of foreboding, Johanna stood up and groped for the chamber pot. In the near-dark, she walked to the washstand and poured cold water from the pitcher into the basin. She washed her hands and face, and dried them with the rough linen cloth hanging from a hook on the wall. Johanna shivered. The room still held last night’s chill. She got dressed as quickly as she could. She ran a comb through her thick hair, attached it in the back with a leather clasp, and walked down to the foyer in search of breakfast. Following the clatter of pots and pans and the smell of porridge cooking, Johanna found her way to the spacious kitchen.
A stout woman was standing in front of the stove. She was stirring something in a large copper pot. She looked up and noticed Johanna standing at the door.
“Come in,” said the woman, gesturing with a wooden spoon. “You must be the new girl.”
“Yes, ma’am. My name is Johanna Richter.”
“I’m Frau Hartmann. Sit down over there. I’ll give you your breakfast in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” Frau Hartmann pointed to a rough wooden table with a bench on each side where two girls were already sitting. Monica glanced up at Johanna.
“Johanna!” The other girl said. Her eyes lit up when she recognized Johanna.
“You’re —”
“Cecile.”
The girl nodded. “From the town hall.”
Johanna sat down opposite Cecile. “When did you get here?”
“The day before yesterday. And you?”
“Last night.”
Frau Hartmann placed a steaming bowl of oatmeal in front of Johanna. “Here. Eat. It looks like you need some fattening up.”
Johanna remembered the old story of the witch who lured children into her cottage. She fed them cakes and cookies — and maybe oatmeal? — to fatten them up so she could eat them. But Frau Hartmann didn’t look like a witch. Johanna shook off her overactive imagination. She blew on the oatmeal, poured some milk on it, and started eating while Cecile cut slices of rye bread.
“So, what is it like here?” Johanna asked Cecile as she reached for a piece of bread. She felt famished — yesterday she had been too nervous to eat much more than the bit of bread and cheese she’d brought with her.
Cecile glanced towards Monica. “It’s fine,” she said.
“How many babies are there?”
“Ten, so far. Six girls and four boys.”
“Why are there more girls than boys?” Johanna asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I do,” Monica said, banging her spoon on the table. “Because girls aren’t worth as much as boys.”
“What are you talking about?” said Johanna. “Of course we’re worth as much!”
“And more,” added Cecile.
“That’s what you think!” said Monica. “Some people think that girls are