Читать книгу We're in America Now - Fred Amram - Страница 18

XI. THE EYE PATCH

1940 STARTS WITH MUTTI finding a job in a flower factory. She makes flowers out of paper and hates it. But she earns some money.

Then Papa finds a job as a helper in a large commercial bakery. He fills in wherever he’s needed. He earns a little money, is delighted to be working and loves the camaraderie of the large bakery. Every night he comes home dirty and has to take a bath. Mutti insists that he walk directly from the front door to the bathroom. Then she makes him leave his clothes in a bag.

One evening, the HIAS lady visits and tells Mutti that she has made an appointment with an eye doctor. Mutti takes a day off from work and we go to a very fancy office with framed pictures on the walls and leather chairs and magazines all around. The doctor insists that there is nothing wrong with my eye. “It’s just lazy.”

The doctor gives me an eye patch to cover the good eye. “This will strengthen the weak one.” With my left eye covered, I’m totally blind. I bump into walls and chairs and into Mutti. I cannot see anything but a tiny bit of light through my right eye. I cry. I scream. I throw the patch on the floor. “I won’t wear this. Ever.”

The doctor and Mutti persuade me that it’s for my own good. I should try. One day my vision will be perfect because I tried. At dinner I spill everything. I can’t find the food. Mutti believes that I’m sabotaging the plan for a cure. I eat a piece of bread. Then I’m sent to bed.

The next morning Mutti puts the eye patch on my face as soon as I wake up. I can only eat a piece of bread for breakfast. Our landlady, Mrs. Strauss, suggests an apple. That works.

Mutti and Papa go to work and tell me to be careful when I walk to school. I hold on to the railing as I feel my way down the steps. Somehow, from memory, I get to the first corner without falling. Then I’m stuck. I know there is a traffic light but I can’t see it. I don’t dare cross against the light. I wait and think. Finally I decide to remove the patch.

Once across I have to make a difficult decision. Shall I cheat by simply keeping the patch off until I get to school—or even until I get home at the end of the day? I can’t cheat. I replace the patch after orienting myself carefully. I reach the next corner without any great calamity. I bump into just one person.

I remove the patch to cross the next street and continue to school. After several bumps and falls, I find my way into the school building. A classmate guides me to the correct room. The teacher wants an explanation and half in English, half in German, I try to explain.

I sit quietly at my desk. I can’t read. I can’t find my own way to the bathroom. I certainly can’t jump. During the first few days the children feel sorry for me. “Poor Freddy.” “Can I help you with your lunch?” “I’ll help you find your coat.” After a few days my classmates lose interest in helping me. Then I become bait for teasing. They taunt me by reciting Three Blind Mice over and over.

And I’m not learning. I alternate between sulking and crying. One evening I ask our landlady’s son, Walter, clearly older, wiser and more experienced, if I should cheat. We sit on his bed with the door closed and I ask if it would be OK to put the patch in my pocket when Mutti isn’t watching.

I’ve never seen happy-go-lucky Walter look sad. However, his response to my question is a sad look. He seems about to cry. His lip quivers. “Manfred,” he says, speaking to me in German and using my German name, “We German Jews are different. Our parents have suffered a great deal and they are starting a new life in a strange land. They have left their hopes and dreams, their families and friends, in Hannover. We are the only children they have, the only family they have, and we have to be extra good. It isn’t fair to us but we are their future. They’ve placed all their dreams in our laps. You and I have to be extra good and extra smart and extra successful.”

Tears come like a sudden torrent. I don’t understand everything Walter said. But I feel the enormous burden he has put on me. The weight makes me feel small—compressed. I sob.

Walter puts his arm around me and holds me close. He’s much taller than I am. He’s taller than Papa and Mutti. “I know how you feel,” he says. “I’ve tried to cheat, but I couldn’t disobey either. We’re destined to be good boys. Blame it on the Nazis.”

The next day is no different, nor is the next week. I listen as the lessons continue and I hear the other children at their many activities. I refuse to leave my seat and, of course, I can’t read or write or draw. The teacher assigns different children to help me with lunch and with my coat. She assigns one boy who lives near me to walk me home.

After a month, I know some tricks to survive. I count steps. I learn to walk along walls to find the end of a hallway. I learn to dress and eat by feel. I learn to recognize voices. But I’ve pretty much stopped learning language and I’m very unhappy. The teacher tries to cheer me up, but I’m deep-down sullen. I won’t talk much and I sit with my head on the desk and I cry. I blame myself for being lazy. The lazy eye must be my fault.

About two months into the torture, Mutti visits with the teacher. The HIAS lady is there to translate. “I’ve called you in because we can no longer keep Freddy in our school. The principal agrees that Freddy is a disruption to the class and is unable to learn while he cannot see.” She explains that before the eye patch I was bright and cheerful and a fun addition to the class. “Freddy was learning to speak English at an amazing pace and his reading skills are—or were—far above the other children.” She apologizes over and over that I can’t stay in her classroom. I am to be sent to a special school for special children.

When the HIAS lady hears “special children,” she reaches over and removes my patch. “Give me a week.” She says lots more stuff to the teacher but I only understand that I can’t go to this school with my eye patch and the HIAS lady is planning to figure something out. They negotiate lots of mystifying plans that I don’t understand in English or in German. The outcome is that I have a one-week grace period in the school—without the patch. Hooray!

The HIAS lady fishes a notebook out of her fat briefcase. She writes really fast. Mutti keeps insisting that not wearing the patch will set my progress back. The teacher insists that there has been no progress and that with the patch I am both blind and unhappy. The HIAS lady ignores my mother and just keeps writing. Then she snaps her notebook shut and walks out, leaving Mutti and the teacher arguing in different languages.

A few days later we’re in an eye clinic that has several doctors who are “specialists.” I practice saying the word over and over while I sit in the waiting room. I visit with several of the specialists, sometimes one after another and sometimes in pairs. They aim their little flashlights into my eyes until I see pretty dots floating by. Everyone seems amused that the dots only float past my left eye. When the examinations are all over, two tall doctors wearing white coats sit with my mother. The older one speaks German. He tells Mutti that he was raised in Germany and came to the United States as a boy, “Just like your son.”

“Oh doctor, I’m so happy we can talk,” Mutti bubbles.

Then the doctor who momentarily brought joy to my mother changes the mood. Bluntly he announces that my right eye is blind, that it will always be blind, that I am not lazy nor is my eye lazy and that Mutti is to stop torturing me. My mother tries to argue by reviewing what an earlier doctor said about the need for a patch. The younger doctor explains very slowly and scientifically in English that the earlier doctor was wrong, that my left eye is almost perfect, that I’ve already made great progress toward living with one eye and that I will continue to adjust.

The HIAS lady is translating like mad. When she catches up, the younger doctor adds, “The boy’s right eye will never improve. Blind!” We all watch as he throws the eye patch into a waste basket. With that, he and his colleague stand up and leave the room.

As my mother starts to reach for the patch, the taller, stronger HIAS lady grabs Mutti’s arm and guides her out the door. I follow. When we reach the sidewalk, the HIAS lady points us to the nearest subway station and tells us that she has other business in this neighborhood. On the subway train home, it is Mutti’s turn to sulk. I’m overjoyed and I know that tomorrow kindergarten will be wonderful. I start to sound out some words on a red, white and blue advertising placard: U-N-C-L-E S-A-M.