“In animal life the weak are quickly disposed of. So you must hide your weakness, Rebecca.”

Yes, Pa.

“When those others ask where you are from, whose people are your people, you must tell them ”The Yoo Ess. I was born here.“”

Yes, Pa.

“Why this world is a shit-hole, eh! Ask Him who casts the dice! Not one who is no more than dice. No more than a shadow passing over the face of the deep.” His scarred-scabby hand cupped to his ear in an exaggerated gesture, he laughed. “Hear? Eh? A whirring of wings? ”The owl of Minerva soaring at dusk.“”

Bleakly she smiled, yes Pa. Yes.

She would wonder: was there an owl? In the tall trees, yes there were screech owls sometimes, in the night: that high-pitched eerie cry of rapidly descending notes, that meant a screech owl. What “Minerva” was, she had no idea.

Pa’s breath, too, that stank of alcohol and something dank and sweetly rotted made her gag. His dirt-stiffened clothing, his unwashed body. His oily hair, unkempt whiskers. Yet she could not run from him. She dared not run from him. For of his children she, the little one, the unwanted one, was coming to be Jacob Schwart’s favorite. His sons had disappointed him, often he could not bear to look at them. Herschel was sullen and slovenly and resentful of working with his father in the cemetery, for no pay; Gus was growing into a skinny boy with spider-arms and-legs and a perpetual squint, as if fearing a blow out of nowhere. (When his mother disappeared into the bedroom Gus ceased speaking of her and, weeks later, when she reappeared, he averted his eyes from her as if the very sight of Anna Schwart’s raddled girl’s face was distressing to him, shameful.)

And so, those evenings Pa turned to her, the little one, taking her hands and pulling her to him, laughing, teasing, whispering to her of such strange fanciful things she could not comprehend, how should she resist, how should she run from him, oh she could not!

And there was Ma, who would seem never to change. For the remainder of Rebecca’s childhood she would seem never to change.

Though since her mysterious protracted illness she was ever more withdrawn from her family. Her sons, gangling clumsy boys, she scarcely seemed to see, and they, in turn, were acutely conscious of her, and embarrassed by her in that way of adolescent boys for whom the physical, sexual being is predominant. For Anna Schwart’s body was so fleshy, straining against the fabric of her housedresses; her breasts were so lavish, bignippled, and fallen; her stomach bloated, her varicose-veined legs and ankles swollen-how could her sons tear their eyes from her? Perversely, her face remained relatively youthful, her skin flushed and rosy as if with fever. Though Ma was morbidly self-conscious and fearful of being spied upon yet, to her sons’ dismay, she seemed oblivious of how she looked hanging laundry on the clothesline in wind that outlined her back, buttocks, thighs through her carelessly fastened clothes. In an agony of shame they saw their mother, invariably outside when funeral processions passed by the stone cottage, so very slowly. Herschel complained that Ma’s tits were like damn cow udders hangin‘ down, why didn’t she get a braz-zir like women do, fix herself up right? and Gus protested Ma couldn’t help it, her nerves, Herschel should know that. And Herschel said shit I know it! I know it but that don’t help none.

Rebecca was less keenly aware of her mother’s appearance. For Anna Schwart so fascinated her, alarmed and worried her, Rebecca scarcely knew what she looked like in others’ eyes. Rebecca felt the distance between them, even in the cramped rooms of the stone cottage. How even at mealtimes, even as she served them food, Ma’s damp heated face was vacant, preoccupied; her eyes were vague and dreamy as if, inside her head, she heard voices no one else could hear, of infinitely more interest than the crude, quarrelsome voices of her family. At such times Rebecca felt a pang of loss, and of jealousy. Almost, she hated her mother for abandoning her to the others. Her father, her brothers! When it was her mother she wanted.

For Rebecca no longer had a sister. Even in dreams she had lost Freyda. With childish logic she blamed Anna Schwart for this loss. What right had the woman to speak of my little nieces, nephew, your little cousins! What right to show them those photographs, and now to turn away aloof and oblivious!

Especially Rebecca resented her mother talking to herself. Why could Ma not talk to her, instead of these others? Ghost-figures they were, making Anna Schwart smile in a way her living family could no longer make her smile. In the back rooms Rebecca heard her mother murmuring, laughing sadly, sighing. Dropping an armload of wood into the stove, noisily pumping water out of the hand pump at the sink, running the carpet sweeper repeatedly over the frayed carpets, Anna Schwart talked to herself in a bright murmurous voice like water rippling over rock. She is speaking with the dead Rebecca came to realize. She is speaking with her family left behind in Germany.

One winter day when the men returned home, it was to discover that Ma had removed the curtains from all the windows. The very curtains she’d sewed with such excitement, back in July. In the kitchen there had been daffodil-colored ruffled curtains, in the parlor pale rose gauzy panels, floral print curtains elsewhere.

Why?-because it was time, Ma said.

Asked what the hell that meant, Ma said imperturbably that it was time to take the curtains down because she would be using them for rags and a rag should not be dusty because a rag would be used for dusting.

Into the rag-bag in the closet, that bulged with Anna Schwart’s spoils! Jacob Schwart joked to his children that one day he would wind up in their mother’s rag-bag, bones picked clean.

Herschel and Gus laughed, uneasily. Rebecca bit her thumbnail until it bled seeing how her mother stared smiling at the floor, silent.

Except then rousing herself to say, with a disdainful laugh, Why’d anybody want old picked bones in a rag-bag? Not her.

Calmly Pa said, You despise me, don’t you.

Calmly Pa said, Tell you what, Ma. I’ll buy a gun. Shotgun. You can blow Jacob Schwart’s head off, Ma. Spray his brains all over your precious wall.

But Rebecca’s mother had drifted away, indifferent.

Those lonely hours even after she’d started first grade. Following Ma around like a puppy. Hoping that Ma might say, Help me with this, Rebecca. Or, Rebecca, come here! And Rebecca would come eagerly running.

Those years. Rebecca would remember how they’d worked together, often in silence. From the time Rebecca was a little girl until the age of thirteen, when Anna Schwart died.

Died Rebecca would say. Not wishing to say Was killed.

Not wishing to say Was murdered.

And yet during all these years (preparing meals, cleaning up after meals, doing laundry, dusting and scrubbing and shaking out rugs) they never spoke of serious things. Never of essential things.

Rebecca’s mother became enlivened, a catch in her voice, only when she warned Rebecca of danger.

Don’t wander along the road! Stay away from people you don’t know! And even if you know them don’t climb into any car or truck! And stay away from that canal! There’s fishermen that come there to fish, and there’s men on the canal, in boats.

See, you don’t want anything to happen to you, Rebecca. You will be blamed if something happens to you.

You’re a girl, see.

At that school you be careful, things happen to girls at school. Plenty of things. Nasty things. Boys calling to you like from a cellar, or inside something, or hiding in a ditch you run away from them hard as you can, see you’re a girl.

Ma worked herself up into a passion, speaking at such length. Never, at other times, did Ma speak at such length. Warning too that Rebecca should not make the mistake of following her brothers, they were boys and they’d run off and leave her, you’re a girl.