Free No One Must Know by Eva Wiseman Page B

could remember. The woman’s round face brightened when she saw me.
    As Mom made her way to the counter, the toast popped up with a loud ping. She spread butter and homemade strawberry jam on it, then handed a slice to me.
    “Would you like a piece of toast, Olga?” Mom asked.
    “Don’t mind if I do,” Olga said, sitting down beside me.
    Before she joined us at the table, Mom poured steaming hot cocoa into my mug and filled her own cup and Olga’s with rich, black espresso.
    “Good strong coffee,” Olga said. “It wakes you up. Not like weak coffee my Canadian ladies make.”
    Olga had immigrated to Canada the same time as my parents did. She made her living cleaning houses in our neighborhood.
    “How many ladies do you clean for, Olga?” I asked.
    Olga took a sip of her coffee before answering. “I busy,” she finally said. “I have four ladies. They like me.”
    “I’m not surprised. We like you too, Olga,” Mom said.
    “Thank you. Mrs. Wallace on Queenston Street, she ask if I work for her new neighbor, Mrs. Pearlman.”
    “I know the Pearlmans,” I said. “Their son, Jacob, is my friend.”
    Olga frowned. “I refuse job at their house.”
    “I guess you don’t want to work every day,” Mom said.
    “It’s not that. I need money. But Mrs. Wallace tell me Mrs. Pearlman is Jew. I Christian woman. I don’t work for kikes.”
    “What are kikes?” I asked.
    “Hush,” said Mom. The blood drained out of her face. “I never want to hear you using such language!”
    Olga scratched her head. “What you mean, Mrs. Gal? You think Christian woman should work for kikes?”
    Mom stood up so quickly that her cane fell to the floor with a loud clatter. I picked it up and handed it to her. She grasped its handle so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “I’m sorry, Olga. I won’t be needing you today after all,” she said in a quiet voice.
    The cleaning women stared at her, her mouth wide open. “What is matter, Mrs. Gal? I always come to you on Mondays.”
    “Not today, I’m afraid.” She made her way over to the drawer where she kept her shopping money and pulled out a handful of cash. She shoved it into the pocket of Olga’s apron. “This should cover what you would have earned here today.” Suddenly, she seemed to notice that I was still there. “Alexandra,” she said, “please leave for school immediately.”
    “I don’t have to. It’s still early.”
    “Do what I say!”
    She was using her “I will be obeyed” voice, so I did as I was told without any further argument.
    When I got home in the afternoon, there was no sign of the cleaning woman.
    “What happened with Olga?” I asked.
    “She’s gone,” Mom said, a stern expression on her face. “She won’t be coming back.”
    “You
fired
her? But she’s been working for us for as long as I can remember!”
    She cut off my words with a wave of her hand. “Never mind,” she said simply, then she walked to the door and closed it quietly behind her.

Chapter 11

    T he Saturday morning sun streamed through the kitchen window and warmed our faces. Mom and I had arranged Tupperware bowls and wooden spoons on the kitchen counter. Now we were measuring out the ingredients my friends and I would need for our baking session. I put a dozen eggs into a glass bowl and placed a slab of butter on a wooden chopping board.
    “Could you please check if the mail has arrived?” Mom asked as she dipped a measuring cup into a large brown flour canister decorated with daisies.
    I took the key off a hook by the door and went to open the mailbox. There was only one envelope, a thin one with Mom’s name written on it in a spidery handwriting.It was addressed to 39 Ash Street. Our house number was 43. I turned it over. It was from somebody called Judit Weltner.
    By the time I got back to the kitchen, Mom had poured flour into one of the bowls. She’d also taken a cookie sheet and a couple of baking pans out of the cabinets.
    “Everything’s