Then Monika ran toward her, showing off a picture that she’d drawn.
“It’s lovely.” Ethel patted her head, then sat the children on the bench next to her as she waited for Franz. Line after line of children poured from the school before she finally spotted him. He moved toward her slowly, expressionless.
“Franz, are you okay?” Ethel asked, holding him at arm’s length.
He nodded and slumped out of the school yard. Even after three months together, Franz was still the hardest of the four children for Ethel to reach. As they walked the few blocks to their house, Heinz and Monika played a game that had them avoiding the sidewalkcracks, but Franz declined, walking behind them instead. Ethel decided to give him a little space.
When they reached home, she sent Franz to shower, while Heinz, Monika, and Anke sat around the kitchen table. Even though they did not have homework from school, she had obtained workbooks in English and now gave them two pages each to work on while she mixed the batter for the cupcakes. Once the cupcakes were in the oven, she sat down at the table to inspect their work.
As she was holding Monika’s hand, teaching her to trace the capital letter B, Franz burst into the kitchen crying. His copper-colored face had red blotches on the cheeks and chin.
“My dear, what happened?”
Franz was sobbing so hard he could barely breathe. Ethel pulled him to her chest and rocked him. “Talk to me, please.”
He took her hand and led her into the bathroom. In the sink was the scouring pad that Ethel had used to clean her skillet. Ethel looked at Franz’s face and arms and then at the soapy steel pad in the sink. She was horrified, and her voice trembled. “Franz, did you use this on your skin?”
The boy looked down at his feet.
“Why, honey?”
“To get this off,” he said, pinching the flesh on his arm.
“What off?” She examined him.
“The color. I want it pale like the others. Maybebleichen?” He looked up at her with hopeful eyes.
Ethel’s heart sank as she realized he wanted her to bleach his skin. She got low and looked him straight into the eyes. “Franz, God made you perfect. You were created in His image.”
“But I do not want this. I want to be like them.” He stomped his foot.
“But you look like Dad and me.” Ethel grabbed his arm and placed it next to hers, fighting back her own tears.
Franz pulled his arm away from her and doubled over, howling in pain.
“It’s okay,” she soothed, while rubbing his back.
He slowly released his arms by his sides. Ethel reached into the medicine cabinet for some Vaseline and gently pressed the petroleum jelly to his battered skin.
Franz trying to scrub the brown off his skin haunted Ethel as they went through their bedtime routine. She read two books to the children, watched as they brushed their teeth, and led them down on their knees to pray the rosary. Once she had tucked them into bed, she placed her black Continental typewriter on the kitchen table and punched out the heartbreaking story of Franz and the scouring pad in an article for theAfro-Americannewspaper. In her write-up, she used Franz’s shame and confusion as further proof of why these children needed to be placed in loving Negro American homes, and quickly.
She heard Bert’s key rattle at the door, and then he was standing in the arched frame of the kitchen.
“Well, aren’t you a vision of beauty.” He clutched the mail. “Come here, gal. Give your man some sugar.” Bert dropped the envelopes on the counter and opened his arms to Ethel. He was her ease and comfort, and just the smell of him dissolved the tension from her day.
“How are you?” she asked, touching her cheek to his.
“Better now.” His hands slid from her waist to her buttocks, and Ethel patted his greedy fingers away.
“Let me feed you first.”
The plate she had kept warm for him rested under foil in the oven. Bert unbuttoned his uniform shirt down to the waist, exposing a white T-shirt. “I’m hungry as a horse. They worked me like the devil today. We are planning our next maneuver. I’ll be away for atleast two weeks, training a platoon in land navigation.” He flopped in his seat and dug his fork into the pot roast. “I’m not looking forward to sleeping in tents in the woods.”
Ethel reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a cold bottle of beer that she placed in front of him.
He took a swig. “How are the children?”
“Mostly good,” she said, and then sat across from Bert and told him the details of Franz and the steel wool pad.
