The Doll Shop Downstairs (11 page)

1870—F.A.O. Schwartz, the world-famous toy store, opens in New York City on Broadway and Ninth Street.

 

1860S—French bisque dolls become very popular in Europe and the United States.

 

1880S–1920S—German bisque dolls dominate the toy market.

 

1892—Ellis Island immigration station opens in New York. For millions of immigrants, this is the first stop in America. Like Anna's parents, many of these immigrants are from Russia, though they come from other countries, like Poland, Italy, Germany, Norway, and Ireland, too.

 

1898—Population of New York City reaches nearly 3.5 million, making it the second largest city in the world; the Lower East Side, where Anna and her family lives, is one of the most crowded neighborhoods in the world.

1904—New York City gets its first subway line; Anna's family often uses the subway, which costs five cents.

 

1904—The edible ice cream cone is introduced at the World's Fair in St. Louis.

 

1914—World War I begins in Europe.

 

1917—United States enters World War I.

 

1918—Peace treaty signed by the Allies and Germany; World War I ends.

D
ISCUSSION GUIDE AND ACTIVITIES

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Anna and her sisters ...

It all starts with the letters. Not that letters, all by themselves, are such an odd thing. Papa and Mama run Breittlemann's Doll Shop, where they make dolls, and they get letters all the time: from Mr. Greenfield, the buyer at the big, fancy toy store uptown called F.A.O. Schwarz, and from buyers at other stores, too. There are letters from suppliers of the different materials they use: velvet and cotton, wool and felt. Sometimes they get letters from people who have bought one of the dolls and want to know if there are any new models available.

But the letters I am talking about are different. They come all the way from Russia, where Mama and Papa were born, and they arrive in fragile envelopes that tear when they are opened. My sisters and I can't read what is in the letters, because they are written in Yiddish, which is the language both of my parents' families spoke back in what Mama calls the “old country.” Sophie, my big sister, can understand Yiddish when she hears it spoken, but even she—a regular smarty-pants, all A's and gold stars at school—cannot understand the words, which are written in Hebrew letters and crowded onto the thin, pearl gray sheets of paper.

First the letters come only once in a while. Then we begin to notice that they are coming every week, sometimes even twice a week. Mama rips the envelopes in her haste to open them—did I mention they are fragile?—and all the features on her face seem to draw together, as if pulled tight by a thread, as she reads. Sometimes she looks worried long after she has finished reading the letters. Tonight is one of those times.

“What's wrong, Mama?” asks Trudie, my younger sister. It is a Sunday in August, and we're all sitting together at our small, crowded table. Dinner—cold beet soup called borscht, with dumplings and bread—is over, and I am wondering if Mama will let us go downstairs and play in the doll shop. Even though we girls are getting older—Trudie is nine, I'm eleven, and Sophie is thirteen—we still like to play with our dolls.

“Nothing's wrong,” Mama says to Trudie. But the tone of her voice lets me know this is not true, and because of this, I don't ask to go downstairs after all. I decide to stay up here, so I can keep an eye on what is happening. And sure enough, after Sophie and I have finished doing the dinner dishes, Mama calls us all together in the tiny parlor that is just off the kitchen. Papa sits in his chair on one side of the room. Mama sits in her chair on the other. But instead of the sewing basket she usually brings out in the evenings, she has the letters—all of them it seems—fanned out in her lap.

“Girls, we are going to have a visitor,” Mama says.

“A visitor? Who is it?” Trudie asks.

“Is it someone we know?” asks Sophie.

“Not yet,” Mama says, glancing over at Papa. “But you'll get to know her soon. In fact, you'll get to know her very well.”

“Tell us who it is, Mama!” Trudie pleads.

“It's your cousin Tania,” Mama says.

“She's Aunt Rivka's daughter,” I say. Mama has told us about her. “She and I have exactly the same birthday and we're exactly the same age. You said it was a coincidence that you and your sister both had baby girls on the very same day.”

“That's right, Anna!” says Mama.

“So what's she like?” Sophie asks me, as if she didn't quite believe it when I said I remembered hearing about her.

“Well, she has blonde hair ...” I begin. I am not actually sure about this, but when I speak again, I try to make my voice sound very confident anyway. “Long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Blue as ...” I have to think for a minute. “Blue as forget-me-nots.”

“You've never even
seen
a forget-me-not,” says Sophie. She tosses her own shining brown hair—always brushed, always neat, and always perfect—back over her shoulders.

“How do you know?” I say hotly. Sophie and I get along pretty well most of the time, but every now and then she acts like she knows everything and I know just about nothing. I don't know why it's important to me to insist that Tania is blonde and blue-eyed. Maybe it's because I know Sophie wishes she were both.

“That's enough, girls,” says Mama. “Tania does have blonde hair, or at least she did when she was a baby. It might have gotten darker by now. And Rivka says her eyes are very blue. But that's not what's important right now.”

“What
is
important, Mama?” Trudie asks. She is clutching her favorite doll, Angelica Grace, to her chest. “The reason she's coming here?”

“Yes, that's it,” says Mama. “The reason that she's coming here.” Mama puts her arm around Trudie. “You see, her papa died when she was a baby, and she has no brothers and sisters. So for a long time, it was just Rivka and Tania, living together in their little village. But now Aunt Rivka wants to move to the city. She's going to be a maid in a very fine house in Moscow.”

“Isn't that a good thing?” I ask. I know about the Great War that is still going on in Europe. Papa has said that jobs are scarce, and so I would think Aunt Rivka is lucky to have found one.

“It is, except the house where Rivka will be working has no place for Tania.”

“Then where will she live if she can't live with her mother?” asks Trudie. She is holding her doll and runs a finger across the smooth, painted face.

“That's exactly why she's going to come to live here,” says Papa, leaning forward in his chair. “And if she lives here, she'll be able to go to school, like you girls do. She'll learn to read and write and add and subtract. That means she'll have some choices about what she wants to do when she's grown up—just like all of you.”

“I'm going to be a teacher,” Sophia declares.

“And I'm going to be a ballerina!” adds Trudie. Trudie does love to dance.

“You can't just decide to
be
a ballerina,” Sophie says. “You have to study for a long, long time.”

“Oh well,” says Trudie. “So I won't be a ballerina. I'll be an actress then. Or a singer.” She seems to consider the possibilities. “I know—a nurse! Just like Nurse Nora.” With her jaunty little outfit and sweet, caring expression, Nurse Nora is the most popular of the dolls we make in the shop.

I can see that Sophie does not believe any of this. She has that I'm-so-grown-up look on her face. Maybe I shouldn't even say what I want to be. Sophie will find some way to make me think it's not possible. Or that it's silly. But I decide I don't care.

“I'm going to be a writer,” I announce boldly. “I'll write stories and poems and maybe even plays.” Everyone turns to look at me. “My books will be published in beautiful leather-covered volumes with gold lettering on the front. People everywhere will read them. They'll be in libraries all over the city. No, all over the country.”

I happen to love libraries. Once a week, I walk up to the Tompkins Square Library on Tenth Street where I can check out books. I have my very own library card. The librarian, Miss Abbott, is so nice. She sets aside things she thinks I will like. She's always right, too. What if one day Miss Abbot were able to give a book
I
wrote to some other little girl coming through those doors? Wouldn't I feel proud!

“Those are all fine dreams,” says Mama. “If you work hard in school, you'll make them come true. And Tania—we want her to have a chance to dream, too.”

“How long will she be staying?” Sophie wants to know. “Will we have enough room for her?” I have to admit these are good questions. Our apartment has only four small rooms—kitchen, parlor, and two bedrooms.

“Your mother and I have talked about that,” Papa says, glancing over at Mama. From that glance, I can tell that some of the conversations haven't been so smooth. “Tania will be here with us for about a year,” he continues.

“A year! That's a long time,” says Sophie.

“Aunt Rivka needs that much time to make the money for her own passage,” Mama says. “And then she'll come over, too, and we'll help her find an apartment of her own nearby.”

“It's going to be crowded,” Trudie says. Sophie nods vigorously.

“Yes,” Mama says, lifting her chin a little. “It will be. And it may not be easy to have another girl living in your room.”

“We'll manage,” I tell Mama. “You can count on us.” Sophie and Trudie don't say a thing. “When will she be here?”

“That's what Rivka and I are trying to arrange now,” says Mama. “I'll let you know as soon we've figured it out.”

Shortly after that conversation, September starts and with it, school. Trudie is in fourth grade now. She has the same teacher I had back when I was in that class. Sophie is in eighth grade, her last year in our school. Next year she'll be in high school, which seems impossibly grown up to me. And I'm in sixth grade, right smack in the middle, where I always am.