“Oops!
So sorry.”
The
tall, thin man wearing a brown hat crashed into me in the crowded airport,
knocking me over; spilling me, my comic books and my colored pencils across the
floor. My chin throbbed from smashing it on the hard, slick ground.
“Are you ok, son?”
I
of course didn’t understand a word he said as he easily lifted me off the floor
by my arm and then picked up my books and pencils. His voice had a lilt to it,
like a glissando. I liked the way it sounded, but I just stared up at him with
a blank expression, noticing his moist blue eyes under his arched eyebrows. He
reminded me of Opa. I already missed him. I missed every one of them, terribly.
“Are you ok?”
He
kept standing there looking at me and wouldn’t go away. I started to worry that
he was angry, even though the expression on his face belied that. I dared not
rub my aching chin, lest it set him off. He looked at my comic books and
noticed that they weren’t in English.
“Ah. German?”
He
pointed at me.
“Dootch?”
I
nodded as my mother returned from the luggage carousel with our suitcases. I
ran up to her and grabbed her hand. He handed my comic books and pencils to my
mother and apologized to her.
“I’m afraid I knocked your son over in my
rush. I’m very sorry.”
My
mother answered in halting English.
“No problem. He iz ok.”
The
man pulled a dollar bill out of his pocket and crouched down to my height to
hand it to me. I looked at the strange bill in my hand.
“Zay sank you.”
I
looked up at my mother, not understanding the instruction.
“Sag danke.”
“Danke.”
“You’re welcome, son.”
He
patted my head, stood up and then rushed off, waving over his shoulder.
“Welcome to New York.”
I
rubbed my chin as I examined the bill the man gave me. It was green and white
and warm. I held it against my cheek. It smelled musty. My mother grabbed the
suitcases and headed down the corridor to join my father, brother and sister in
the customs office. She looked back and noticed me smelling the dollar bill.
“Komm schon, kindchen.”
I
caught up with her, trying to avoid the swinging suitcases and lunging knees
while I hopped and ran to keep pace.
We entered a small square office
that still had Christmas decorations up. There was a small silver aluminum tree
with large blinking lights on top of a tall grey file cabinet. Two red paper
bells in opposite corners and a long gold garland connecting them framed the
otherwise bare far wall. It seemed sadly austere to me, and hardly cheery. The
man talking to my father reminded me of the Great Leslie’s bald sidekick in The Great Race. I watched the movie with
my uncles and aunts at my grandmother’s house in Höchst, the week before we
left. I laughed until tears rolled down my face. Especially during the pie
throwing scene. Unlike Hezekiah, though, the man in the office had a thinning
crescent of blonde hair on his giant head that connected to his bushy mustache
via thick blond and grey sideburns. My father motioned to my mother.
“Heer ees.”
My
mother took over answering questions and signing paperwork, while my father
dealt with my fidgeting infant sister who’d just awoken and started crying. My
brother stood next to his chair, with his arms wrapped around my father’s legs
“What is the nature of your visit?”
“Ve arr nut visiteeng. Ve arr leeveeng heer.”
“You’re leaving?”
“No. Ve arr komming heer.”
“You’re returning from a trip?”
“Nein, ach… no. Ve hov movet heer.”
“Oh. You’re moving here?”
“Ja! Yes.”
“Hmm. Customs gave me the wrong information.
These are the wrong forms.”
He
then ripped up all the forms my mother had been signing and pulled new ones out
of his desk drawer. My father frowned at her.
“Was ist loss?”
My
mother shushed him.
“Here we are… Do you have your visas?”
“Ja.”
She
handed over all our visas. He held up my mother’s and father’s visas while
checking their faces against the pictures.
“This man is your husband?”
“Yes.”
“How long have you been married?”
“Ayt yeaz.”
He
bent his head forward to fill in the information on the forms. The blonde fuzz
on top of his head looked like the fuzz on top of my sister’s head. Though she
had more of it and her’s was darker.
“These are your children?”
“Yes.”
He
held up our visas and checked our faces against the pictures. He checked my
brother, my sister and then me.
“How old are they?”
“Von yea oold, feif yeaz oold und zex yeaz
oold.”
He
winked at me as he handed the visas back to my mother. I clutched my comics
closer to my chest. My mother stroked my hair and whispered that I should tell
the man what she taught me in Germany, before the flight. I shook my head.
“Komm schon… Bitte.”
“I EM eh NAYSE BOYee.”
My
cheeks turned red hot. I sounded like Bela Lugosi; putting emphasis on every
other syllable, as if the inflection carried the meaning… which was a mystery
to me. I could’ve insulted his mother for all I knew. My own mother beamed at
her polyglot son and the man raised his eyebrows in appreciation.
“I’m sure you are, kid.”
He
handed me a candy that he pulled out of the same drawer in his desk. I
unwrapped it and put it in my mouth, but then spat it out immediately.
Butterscotch. What a cruel trick. My father smacked the back of my head as my
mother distracted the man from my bad manners by asking a question.
My head hurt. Not merely from the
smack- though that didn’t help, nor the fall to the floor- which exacerbated
it. The unfamiliarity of everything overwhelmed me and I was terrified. The
bright white lights made my temples throb and my eyes burn. The cacophony of
beeping trams and rolling luggage and shouting travelers and stern staccato
announcements over the intercom… I wanted to go back home. I hated it here. I
missed my uncles and aunts and Oma and Opa. I missed my friends. How was I
going to make friends here when I couldn’t understand anyone? Everybody talked
like they were chewing gum. Ngow, ngow,
ngow, ngow… I bit my lip to keep from crying. I failed. Which set my sister
off again. Which angered my father. My mother snatched my sister from him and
balanced her on her left knee as she sealed our fate with a flourish of her
right hand. She slid the forms over to my father so he could do the same. It
was right then, with those signatures, that I realized that my parents wouldn’t
always look out for me. The packing, the goodbyes and even the flight over - it
all seemed reversible, but this action was as indelible as the ink. The
epiphany started me sobbing; and now, my brother joined in, making it a trio.
“Verdammt noch mal!”
My
father picked up my crying brother and yanked me hard, by the shoulder, towards
the door. My mother apologized to the man as he handed back our visas.
“Eet vas loong flate. Dey arr verry teyered.”
He
nodded like he understood. The door closed. My father, brother and I stood in
the bright hallway again. I could still hear my sister cry over my own wailing.
It sounded like she was being rocked: “Aa-yaa-yaa-yaa.”
My father jerked my arm. I looked up to see him glowering at me. I stopped
crying immediately; though my shoulders still convulsed as I sniffled.
“Halt’s maul!”
My
brother stopped crying as well; knowing, as I did, that it was the prudent
thing to do. My father sighed angrily and lit a cigarette. He ran his hands
through his hair as it dangled between his lips. It burned down to the filter
before the door opened again and my mother came out with my sister. She’d
stopped crying and was sucking her thumb.
“Welcome to the United States.”
“Sank you verry match.”
The
man waved goodbye to us in the hallway.
“Vertig?”
My
mother ignored my father’s question. Instead she handed him all the paperwork
along with my sister. She picked up my brother and stroked my hair again. I
took her hand as we headed down the long hallway towards our connecting flight
to our new life.
