The Earth Is Singing Read Online Free Page B

talking about. Mama pours her a cup of strong black coffee and gets out a tin of biscuits.
    “Mama,” I say, with more insistence in my voice this time. “Why did they take Mrs Rubinstein away?”
    My mother looks like she is wrestling with something in her head. She plays for time by dipping a caraway biscuit into her coffee and chewing on it in a very deliberate way.
    “Tell the girl, Kristina,” says Omama. “She’s not a baby any longer.”
    “Thank you,” I say, indignant.
    Mama gets up and looks out of the window again. Then she turns around and stands behind me with her hands on my shoulders.
    “They are shooting Jews,” she says. “And they have taken Mrs Rubinstein away because she too is a Jew.”
    She brushes my fringe off my forehead and rakes her fingers through my hair.
    I nod. Mama is expecting me to be brave and understanding, so I try to look serious.
    “Is there some other reason, though?” I say. “I mean – has she done something wrong, other than just being a Jew?”
    Mrs Rubinstein is a very gentle, nervous lady. We saw her nearly every day, outside supervising her children in the small back garden of the apartments or hustling them down the street to the kosher butcher’s shop. She had the same large, dark worried eyes that could be seen on the faces of her children.
    “Oh, Hanna,” says Mama. She drinks the dregs of her coffee and sinks her head into her hands. “She has done nothing wrong. As you say – she is just a Jew.”
    “But you are a Jew,” I say. I can hear my voice rising up a bit in panic. “So why didn’t they take you? Or Omama?”
    Omama snorts. I can almost hear her saying, “Pity the soldier who tries to take ME away. I’ll hit him with my stick!”
    “Because I am lucky this time,” says Mama. “Because I pray every night to God that He will leave me here to look after you. Because I promised your father” – and here she swallows back tears – “that I would always protect you from harm.”
    I feel sick. I push my cup away and hang on to Mama’s hand.
    “First the Soviets hate us because we are proud to be Latvian,” I say. “And now the Germans hate us because we are Jews. What have we ever done to them?”
    Mama sighs.
    “It is complex,” she says. “But it is not all Germans who hate the Jews. Just the Nazis. They are working for Hitler and he hates the Jews.”
    “Why?” I say. I know that my questions are wearing Mama out and Omama is flashing her eyes at me, which probably means that I should stop, but I can’t seem to hold the words back. It’s like a whole new section of my future life has just started up without me even wanting it to.
    “He blames them,” says Mama. She sounds so matter-of-fact, like she’s discussing the Sabbath dinner menu.
    “For what?” I say. “I promise that is my last question.”
    Mama gathers the cups and helps Omama from her chair. When she turns back to me her eyes have taken on a haunted expression I’ve never seen before. I can trace back her family and her family’s family and even ancestors before that, in those pain-filled eyes.
    “For everything,” she says. “He blames the Jews for everything.”
    The next day is Friday.
    I am not allowed to attend school, just as I had predicted. The streets are too dangerous.
    Mama goes out on her own after breakfast to get the ingredients she needs for the Sabbath dinner tonight and the meals we will have tomorrow. In the new paper, Tēvija , published every day in Rīga, there is an announcement for Jews. It says that we are banned from shopping anywhere that has a queue of people outside it. We are not supposed to mix with the rest of the population now.
    Mama takes this piece of news with a shrug.
    “We need to eat,” she says. “I’m sure that our Latvian neighbours will turn a blind eye.”
    She ties a scarf over her head first and pulls on her shapeless coat and her stout brown lace-up shoes.
    “I look like a good Latvian woman, no?” she