Free Upon the Head of the Goat by Aranka Siegal Page B

ingredients together, rolled the mixture into balls, and simmered them in the usual broth. ‘Babi, how can you make fish balls without fish?’ I asked her. ‘The same way I make them with fish,’ she answered. But what really surprised me was that they tasted just like real fish balls.”
    â€œYou see, Charlotte, what a good teacher I had,” Mother commented with a laugh.
    â€œHow is your mother?” Mrs. Gerber asked.
    â€œRozsi still writes and tells us that they are managing, and my mother sends us whatever she can spare.”
    â€œI don’t know how much longer the Stern brothers can bring us baskets from Komjaty,” Lilli said. “The fact that they look like two Ukrainian peasants helps them to keep from getting caught. It’s their activity in the black market that keeps their families alive.”
    I usually went to the train station when Rozsi wrote that one of them was coming. The first time Mother sent me on this errand alone was during the summer. She had told me that if anyone asked questions about who gave me the basket, I was to say that the man got right back on the train and that I didn’t get a good look at him.
    â€œWhy can’t Iboya do it?” I had asked fearfully.
    â€œBecause you are younger and smaller and won’t be noticed as easily.”
    When I met the 7:30 a.m. train from Komjaty that morning, my heart was pounding in fright. Shimi Stern was the third person off the train. He spotted me instantly and put down his bundles, hunching over them as though he were looking for something. As soon as I got close, he straightened up and stepped away, leaving a basket on the platform. I picked it up and he walked right past me with no sign of recognition. The basket was very heavy; a man’s tweed sport jacket was pulled through the handle and covered the contents. I hiked it up on my right arm and let the weight rest on my hips as I walked home. Mother, waiting at the gate, took the basket from me, and together we walked into the kitchen. After Mother had hung the sport jacket in Father’s wardrobe, she emptied the contents of the basket on the table—jars filled with lekvár, raspberry jam, and egg yolks; a small sack of barley and one of yellow dried peas. After that first time, meeting the train every few weeks became a game.
    Lilli’s remark about the possibility of the Stern brothers’ being caught was prophetic, though. A few days after the Gerbers’ visit, I came home from school to find Shimi in a gray prison uniform and a policeman sitting on our porch, each engrossed in a plate of food. Mother was standing over them on the kitchen threshold.
    â€œCome, Piri, you look hungry; I’ll fix you a plate, too,” Mother said nonchalantly as she walked with me into the kitchen.
    â€œYou mustn’t ask questions,” she said as she handed me a plate of mashed potatoes covered with giblet gravy. We both went back to the porch, and I sat down next to the men.
    Shimi looked up from his empty plate and smiled. “How is the schoolgirl?”
    â€œAre you in jail?” The question slipped out before I had thought.
    â€œYes, Piri, I’ll have to wait for a trial. I was allowed a visit to have some of your Mother’s good cooking.”
    I was about to ask another question when I remembered Mother’s warning, so I just nodded at his comment and continued to swallow my potatoes in silence, noticing, though, that there were slivers of chicken on the policeman’s plate. When the policeman finished, he stood up and motioned to Shimi, who stood up also. Then he handcuffed Shimi; they both thanked Mother for the dinner, and the policeman led Shimi away.
    As soon as they had disappeared, Lilli came up from the back yard.
    â€œWhat do you think will happen to him?” she asked Mother.
    â€œI think that they’ll let him go. They can’t lock up everybody who has a few extra ration