Emma Grogan, DSHA '18
Hope's Kitchen
“Now, Ms. Schiller, could you please demonstrate the proper way to set a table?”
Elizabeth, known to her friends as Birdie, shoots her classmates a withering glare as they attempt to hide their giggles. If there is one thing Birdie Schiller is famous for, it is the fact that she had barely scraped by with a D+ in Etiquette for the past two years of high school. To her parents’ chagrin, Birdie just doesn’t think etiquette is very conducive to the life of adventure her reckless heart desires. “Um...well...you start by laying down the tablecloth,” Birdie attempts when Sister Mary Rita rushes into the room.
“Quick!, the principal wants everyone gathered in the chapel immediately! She says it’s an emergency!” exclaims the small, wide-eyed nun. Although apprehensive whispers fly around her head, Birdie’s own heart feels relieved at this message; she is willing to face any danger to avoid Etiquette. Little does she know what the next six years will bring her world.
…
Das ist verrückt thinks Miriam Schiller as the crowd of young women surging past her to reach the chapel jostles her long golden curls. “This is crazy!” she shouts above the ruckus to her best friend Liesel Schmidt, “it’s only the first day of school and the nuns are already calling an assembly to probably share more useless information with us!” Liesel nods her agreement as they enter the hushed chapel. Miriam catches a glimpse of her sister through the throng and unconsciously shakes her head at her sister’s hair. Although Birdie had cut her sleek dark hair short about a month ago, the rebellious style still causes Miriam to cluck her tongue in disapproval.
…
As the girls find their seats, Sister Clare Josephine marches to the front of the chapel. A kind soul hidden behind a strict disposition, the running legend among the students is that one can only tell the stoic principal is nervous when she starts fiddling with the rosary that hangs out of the pocket of her habit. As she speaks, Sister Clare Josephine grips those beads so hard the girls fear she will break them.
“Ladies of Holy Angels Academy, I have some unfortunate news to share with you,” says the sister, the faintest note of her mother’s Irish accent leaking into her voice. She hesitates for a moment, then speaks again, “There is no easy way to say this. The Nazis have invaded Poland.”
A collective gasp fills the small space, and Birdie instinctively grabs the hand of her friend Kalina Gregorski as she bursts into tears. Birdie knows that Kalina’s grandparents and cousins still live outside of Warsaw in the countryside. What’s worse, Birdie knows that Kalina is not the only girl in the room to have family in Poland. Muffled sounds of sobbing accompany Sister Clare Josephine’s next words, “Students, I assure you that we will do everything we can to support those families most affected by this devastating news. At this time the US has not entered into war with Germany. Classes are dismissed for the day. Stay alert on the way home, girls. We are living in dangerous times.” With a murmured “Lord, bless this world,” and a genuflect, Sister Clare Josephine leaves the chapel.
…
At the words “war with Germany,” Miriam feels her stomach drop. The thought of such an awful situation makes Miriam feel like she is going to be sick. She mutters an excuse to Liesel and pushes her way into the bathroom, her mind a mess of emotions. Of course she feels for her Polish classmates and she despises that Adolf Hitler, but she is still proud of her German heritage, at least her heritage before the Third Reich started ruining things. Her father works at the Pabst Brewery, and bratwurst, sauerkraut, and black forrest cake frequent her table. German was even her first language. The prospect that her beloved America might take arms against the place that had been her family’s homeland for centuries frightens her to no end, and Miriam is not a girl prone to fear.
At the root of her anxiety is worry about what will happen to her family if the US joins the war. Would her friends of other ethnicities look down on her? Milwaukee is a very German city, but that hadn’t stopped Miriam’s grandmother from changing her name from Adela to Adele to avoid some of the anger directed at German-Americans during the Great War. Miriam resolves then and there to do all she can to support the USA during this tense time so that no one can question where her family’s loyalties lie.
…
“Papa?” Birdie hesitantly pushes open the door to her father’s study where she sees him hunched over a telegram, head in his hands. In the weeks since Sister Clare Josephine’s announcement, Mr. Schiller had fallen deeper into despair as reports of German brutality in Poland came back to the US. America seems to be tilting dangerously towards war with his homeland, and his worry shows in the dozens of new frown lines on his once smooth face.
“Elizabeth, my dear girl,” he manages through his now apparent tears, “I received a message from Tante Helga. Clemens and Walter have been drafted by the Nazis.” Birdie’s own eyes well with tears as she imagines her sweet cousin Clemens holding a gun...or being fired upon.
“Oh Papa, what will we do?” she cries.
“My darling girl, what can we do? I don’t want war as much as the next German-American, but Hitler will only lead this world into ruin and must be stopped at all costs. You must be strong and pray, pray hard my Bird.”
…
Unlike most people, Miriam typically loves winter in Milwaukee. The thin snowflakes remind her of sugar crystals floating through the sky, and she wonders at the power of the crisp air to wake her up on her walk to school. But on the morning of January 30th, the cherry red doors of Holy Angels fail to warm her spirits for the first time in forever. It is also the first time in forever that Miriam had not walked to school with her sister. Different though they may be, Miriam loves Birdie with that inexplicable love only sisters can share. The closest thing she can compare it to is a summer sail on Lake Michigan: joyous, exhilarating, silly, and sometimes bumpy.
And boy oh boy had she and Birdie hit a big bump. Yesterday in all the literature classes, the nuns had read a letter from a Maryknoll missionary, Sister Matthew Marie, who is now working in a Polish orphanage. A Holy Angels alumna, she is begging the school to raise money for her children. Several of her classmates started crying as the letter described the horrors of the Nazi regime; the more practical girls opened their pocketbooks, and Miriam sat there trying to clamp down her emotions. “America first, America first,” she whispered to herself,”Show them whose side you’re on.”
That night, however, talking across their beds, Miriam and Birdie had gotten into the fiercest argument of their young lives. Birdie could not see why her sister would not support Sister Matthew Marie’s cause. As she started shouting about the poor, parentless, destitute Polish children, the terror of Kristallnacht and questions about what was really happening to the Jews in Europe, the German U-boats lurking in the seas once again, and everywhere fear of the Nazis, Nazis, Nazis, Miriam felt something in her snap. Finally, the months of tension, stress, anger, and fear of people accusing her family for this terrible war built to a peak within her. She never had expected her own German sister to put her over the top.
“I AM NOT A NAZI!” Miriam screamed at Birdie, “Europe’s problems are not America’s problems. Are there battles on Lake Michigan? Is Holy Angels being bombed by the Luftwaffe? You are bananas, Birdie, do you know that? I see no war in America, so why should we care about some Polish kids? Don’t you understand that it’s safer if we don’t get involved at all? Then no one can associate us with the enemy!”
Birdie stared at her older sister, her role model, with a look of utter disappointment in her eyes. “How can you be so heartless? You may not be a Nazi, but you sure aren’t doing anything to stop them.” And with that, Birdie walked out and slammed the door.
Miriam’s memories of her sister’s words feel like icicles stabbing her skin as she trudges up the stairs to Trigonometry. As the hours tick by, Miriam grows more and more panicky. She fears that Birdie is right, but she still believes that focusing on America is the best way to help her family. At lunch, she avoids her friends who are hoping to guess about the upcoming Oscars and escapes to the one place in Holy Angels where she can find peace, the chapel.
To her shock, someone is already there. Miriam rushes forward when she realizes that it is her sister’s friend Kalina Gregorski, crying into her hands.
“Oh, Kalina! What’s wrong?” Miriam asks as she hugs the girl’s bony frame.
“My grandparents were shot yesterday for resisting the Nazis,” she manages between sobs. Her words hit Miriam like a bag of bricks, and she loses her breath. To her further surprise, Kalina squares her shoulders and wipes her eyes right in front of her. “But I have to be strong,” she states, “It’s what Dziadek and Busia would want. War is suffering, Miriam, but people like us, we have the power to send a bit more goodness into the lives of children whose childhoods are destroyed by hatred. America is far from perfect at protecting freedom, but still nothing is more American than uniting to protect freedom. And now, with the money we send for food, blankets, and toys, those Polish orphans might be just a bit more free to be kids in the midst of all this devastation.”
…
Kalina’s words change Miriam’s life. She miraculously catches Birdie in the hall before class and tells her to meet her in the nuns’ kitchen after school. Birdie, still filled with anger, has an urge to turn away from her sister, but a new sparkle in Miriam’s eyes makes her agree.
…
As opposed to the school kitchen’s usual scent of fresh-baked cookies, Birdie’s nose finds itself awash in a world of different spices and flavors when she pushes open the doors to see the nuns and some of her classmates, including Miriam, hard at work inside.
“Come join us, Birdie! We need your expertise on the bratwurst,” her sister cheerily calls. Miriam dries her hands on a dishtowel before touching Birdie’s shoulder. “You were right all along, Bird. We do need to help the Polish children. It is our duty not as Americans or as people of German descent, but as moral citizens of the world.”
“That’s why we’re having an ‘Around the World’ bake sale tomorrow to raise funds for Sister Matthew Marie,” Kalina chimes in as she looks up from a pan of kielbasa, “It was all Miriam’s idea!”
Miriam responds, “As inspired by you, Kalina, and you, too, Birdie, none of this would have happened without your passion for helping others.”
Birdie smells the warm scent of couscous and the spice of tamales, hears the sizzle of spaghetti, sees a Yorkshire pudding start to crisp, samples an Udon noodle, and jumps out of Sister Clare Josephine’s way as she rushes to get a loaf of Irish soda bread out of the oven. As she pulls Miriam into a tight hug, Birdie feels a small flicker of a flame she thought she lost long ago: hope.
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