Free The Tin Horse: A Novel by Janice Steinberg Page B

she had killed the soldiers by spitting at them, I would have believed her.
    Mama started walking again, but this time at a normal pace. “In Romania when I was a girl,” she said, “they made a law that only a few Jewish children could go to their schools. We tried to start our own schools, but they wouldn’t let us do that, either.”
    “How did you learn?” I asked, bolder now that she was calm.
    “Ah! You think, like your silly aunt Sonya, a person’s brain only works inside a building that says
school
on the front of it? Is that what you think?”
    “No.” Although I had thought just that.
    “I learned to read Yiddish and Romanian at home, and to do sums,” Mama said. “And English reading, I learned from your cousin Mollie, when I lived with Uncle Meyr in Chicago. You remember, I’ve told you about my brother Meyr? The happiest day of my life was when he sent for me to come live with him in America.”
    “Meyr the
fusgeyer
!” Barbara and I sang out together. The silly-sounding Yiddish word means “foot-wanderer,” and we had learned it from Mama’s favorite story, about her beloved brother Meyr.
    WHEN MAMA WAS EVEN younger than Barbara and me, it got so terrible for Jews in Romania that many of them wanted to leave for America. If they could reach the port cities of Hamburg or Rotterdam, wealthy Jews would pay for their passage on ships. But it was a long way to the ports, and most Romanian Jews were too poor to afford even the cheapest traintickets. Then some clever young people came up with a way to turn their poverty into adventure. They decided to band together and go on foot. Calling themselves
fusgeyers
, they built their strength with daylong marches through the countryside. “Imagine!” Mama said. “The Romanians thought all Jews were weak. They couldn’t believe it when they saw these Jewish boys and girls marching past their farms. Or when they heard that the Jews planned to walk all the way across Europe!” The
fusgeyers
didn’t actually have to go that far; once they crossed the border into Austro-Hungary, Jewish organizations gave them train tickets to the ports. But they would have walked every step, Mama said. Some groups made themselves uniforms with jaunty caps, like Scouts. And when they took to the road in Romania, they raised money by staging theatricals in Jewish towns. Bands of foot-wanderers formed in town after town. There was even a “Song of the
Fusgeyers
” that Mama sang when she was especially happy.
    One of the first of these bold pioneers was Meyr Avramescu, a strapping nineteen-year-old with a big, sweet laugh. Meyr was loved more than any young man has ever been loved by his baby sister, Zipporah—“That was my name, girls. It’s Hebrew for ‘bird.’ ” From the moment his finger wiggled over her cradle in the final year of the nineteenth century, Mama was captivated by her big brother. And he doted on her. He, the golden firstborn son, could have chosen any of his eight siblings to favor, but it was little Zipporah, the seventh child for whom no one else had time, who captured his heart. “From the moment I could crawl, I followed him everywhere. And he used to pick me up and throw me in the air. ‘My little bird’s flying!’ he’d say.” Mama laughed, and her eyes shone. I laughed, too, as if I were the one being tossed in the air. I loved hearing the
fusgeyer
story not only because it was exciting, but for the thrill of seeing Mama transform into a lighthearted girl whose soul brimmed with love.
    Zipporah was three when Meyr joined a group of
fusgeyers
in their village, Tecuci. She didn’t understand what it meant, but she loved the excitement when he got ready for an outing and the songs he sang when he came home. He played the accordion, and when he practiced for the group’s theatricals, she clapped her hands and danced.
    One Saturday night in the late spring, the whole village had a big party,and the
fusgeyers
entertained. Meyr played a