Free Sing for Me by Karen Halvorsen Schreck Page A

there’s that. I won’t think about the fact that a family will be living here when there’s barely enough space for a single person.
    As Dr. Nygaard warned, there’s also no electricity. The shades are drawn over the main room’s two windows. The light is amber-colored at best. Sepia-toned to muddy brown in corners. I hear the sound of many little, brittle feet, skittering away into hidden parts of this small place. I have had dreams like this after a day of cleaning. Dreams of such light and such skittering. Tonight I most likely will have these dreams again.
    The place smells of something rotten. Something dead.
    I swallow hard, pray harder. I pray about calling and service. I pray about my life, Sophy’s life, Mother’s, Dad’s, and Andreas’s, too—all of our lives held in precarious balance. I pray that God weaves a net beneath us all. Then I choose my best weapons against the unknown—the mop and the broom—and step into the apartment.
    The little brittle-footed creatures have gone into hiding, so that’s a mercy. But the smell. The smell is out and about, taking full possession of the place. As does the garbage on the floor—newspaper, wax paper, unidentifiable bits and smears of dried food, open tin cans, and what looks to be the leavings of an animal.
    Gagging, I stumble back into the hallway, where the close air is at least not putrid. Before I bring in the rest of the cleaning supplies, I tie a scrap of old, rosy bedsheet around my mouth and nose. I must look like one of those people suffering through the Dust Bowl storms. If they can endure, so can I.
    Back to work.
    First thing I do is open the windows as far as they will go. They’ve been painted sloppily shut—Dad would never have done this; it must have been the work of the Nygaards’ previous superintendent—so I have to bang on them. Finally they give and lift. The cold air outside smells of the garbage cans lined up in the alley just below. Which is to say, in comparison to what I smell inside, the air smells fresh and fine.
    With the broom and the mop held aloft as a defense against rats or mice, I begin searching out the stinking thing. I think (though I can’t be sure, because the smell pervades the room) that the stench is caused by the rotting fish lying on a shelf in the warm refrigerator. From the long whiskers and sharp teeth, it appears to be a catfish, perhaps pulled from the filthy Chicago River. Its empty eyes stare balefully at me as, using the broom handle, I nudge the carcass onto a piece of newspaper that the tenant so thoughtfully left behind. I toss aside the broom. Holding my breath and the catfish, I run to an open window and drop the catfish into an open garbage can below. Then I plunge myhands into the bucket of water and vinegar and, to the best of my ability, wash them clean of eau de rot .
    Now I can really start cleaning, working from top to bottom as Mother taught me. Using the stepladder, I wash the ceiling first. Then the walls. Then the windows, which means having to close them. Closing them forces me to open the door to the hallway. Never mind who sees me cleaning. I need to breathe. Once I’ve opened the windows again, I decide to leave the door open, too. It helps with circulation. It’s cold in here now because of the draft, but the fresh air is life-giving. I clean the small kitchen and the smaller bathroom. Time is flying, and I’m not nearly finished. Never mind that I’m tired, I must work fast, faster.
    I try to pretend I am a machine. I try not to think or feel.
    This doesn’t help.
    I start to sing.
    This helps.
    Singing “Bringing in the Sheaves,” I pick up the litter from the floor. It takes a good while, especially since I have to keep emptying the trash bin into the garbage cans in the alley. We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. I don’t toss the litter out the window, because the wind tunneling through the alley would blow it hither and yon. I walk the bin down the