The Baby Experiment Read Free Page B

pot under the bed,” Monica said. “The housemaid will empty it every morning. You must keep the room tidy.”
    â€œI will. I —”
    â€œWe start at 6:00 a.m., when we relieve the night girls. I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow.” Monica turned her back on Johanna and left the room.
    Johanna began to take her meagre possessions out of her bag — clothes, handkerchiefs, toiletries. Just when she thought the bag was empty, her fingers grazed something else. At the bottom of the bag, she found Mama’s lace kerchief, the one she wore when she lit the Sabbath candles on Friday evening. A note was attached to the kerchief, in Mama’s childish script:
My dear daughter Johanna,
    May you find light and luck in your new life.
    Be a good Jewish daughter. Keep the commandments.
    Stay warm and dry.
    Always keep a handkerchief in your pocket.
    With a heart full of love,
    Mama
    For a moment, Johanna held the kerchief against her cheek. She could smell the faint scent of Mama’s soap. She was suddenly overcome with homesickness. She had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, the one she got when she knew she’d made a terrible mistake. She desperately wanted to escape this strange place and rush back home.
    Johanna gently placed the kerchief back into her bag. I dare not light the Sabbath candles. If someone finds out I’m Jewish, I’ll be fired. She shivered. Even worse, I might have to leave Hamburg forever because I pretended to be a Christian. Then a thought struck her, like a blow to her stomach. I am doing exactly what Grandfather Samuel did. I am hiding my Jewish identity in order to survive.
    She gazed out the window as she ate the bread and cheese she had brought with her. The spires and domes of the nearby churches — St. Michaelis, St. Jacobi, St. Petri, St. Nicolai, and more — towered above houses and shops stretching away from the harbour on the banks of the Elbe River.
    Johanna tried to shake off her feeling of uneasiness. It was strange being alone in this room, in a bed she didn’t have to share with Mama, in a room all her own. For a long time, she had trouble falling asleep.

— Chapter Three —
    At the Orphanage
    Johanna woke to the sound of shouting outside her room.
    â€œWhat do you mean you did not have time?” Frau Taubman’s voice seemed to bounce off the walls. “When I tell you to do something, I mean do it, and do it now .”
    â€œYes, Frau Taubman,” a girl said in a quivering voice.
    â€œWhy are you standing there, gawking at me?” A loud slap jolted Johanna fully awake. “Now go!”
    â€œYes, ma’am.” The girl’s sobs faded away down the hall.
    Trying to shake off a feeling of foreboding, Johanna stood up and groped for the chamber pot. In the near-dark, she walked to the washstand and poured cold water from the pitcher into the basin. She washed her hands and face, and dried them with the rough linen cloth hanging from a hook on the wall. Johanna shivered. The room still held last night’s chill. She got dressed as quickly as she could. She ran a comb through her thick hair, attached it in the back with a leather clasp, and walked down to the foyer in search of breakfast. Following the clatter of pots and pans and the smell of porridge cooking, Johanna found her way to the spacious kitchen.
    A stout woman was standing in front of the stove. She was stirring something in a large copper pot. She looked up and noticed Johanna standing at the door.
    â€œCome in,” said the woman, gesturing with a wooden spoon. “You must be the new girl.”
    â€œYes, ma’am. My name is Johanna Richter.”
    â€œI’m Frau Hartmann. Sit down over there. I’ll give you your breakfast in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” Frau Hartmann pointed to a rough wooden table with a bench on each side where two girls were already sitting. Monica glanced up at