We're in America Now - Fred Amram

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to visit grandparents in the countryside. They show off how they break in their new baseball “mitts.” We can’t afford any of these things. But somehow Papa saved up the money for the World’s Fair. On the subway we talk about spending money. He tells me that food is most important. Then education for his son. Then giving to worthy causes. “Tikkun olam,” says Papa. “That’s Hebrew for ‘repair the world.’”

      “That’s the Jewish way,” he adds.

      When we finally arrive at the fair, we follow a long line of people toward a window. Papa buys our admission tickets. I hold them while Papa carefully puts his change into his pants pocket. “Someday soon I’ll buy a wallet,” he mumbles to himself. He’s wearing a dark gray suit and a white shirt. For Papa’s first birthday in America, last December, Uncle Max gave him a tie, the tie he’s wearing today. I’m wearing tan slacks and a green, long-sleeved dress shirt open at the collar.

      I give our tickets to a uniformed man who directs us through a turnstile. We’re at the fair. Buildings tower, paths lead to other buildings and then to still more buildings. Signs are everywhere—in English. The Fair is huge and we are small. We hold hands all day. We hold tight. With the little English I’ve learned in six months of American schooling, I’m in charge of reading signs. Papa can sound out some words and we translate what we can. I often have to say, “I don’t know” when I really don’t understand. Pictures and imagination help our translations.

      Papa explains that we’ve been to four countries: Germany, Holland, Belgium (for just a few days) and now we’re in the United States. We’re about to visit other countries. We step into a building representing Japan. I’ve never seen Japanese people. I like them. They’re short like Papa and me. We sit on the floor and drink tea. Papa explains that the people in Japan drink lots of tea. Mutti likes tea. Papa prefers coffee. I favor milk. A thin woman in a dress that reaches almost to the floor pours a second cup for Papa.

      The Holland building shows off lots of paintings by famous Dutch artists. Lots of people in the building wear costumes just like in the paintings. Papa sees the word Palestine on a sign and rushes us to the Jewish Palestine building. We learn that the Jewish people want to build a homeland for the Jews. I worry that I will have to move again and learn still another language. Papa speaks Yiddish with several men. A woman gives me a flag and a map.

      We view a typewriter display with machines old and modern. Papa explains what they do. He adds that if I ever want a typewriter of my own, I will have to know how to spell. And then I see a cow named Elsie, almost the same name as one of my grandmothers, Omi, still living in Germany. Mutti has been worried because we haven’t heard from her in a very long time.

      Many of the buildings give away posters and picture postcards. We collect them all for Mutti. At a souvenir stand, Papa buys a little booklet of pictures to bring home.

      We see a radio with pictures; it’s called “television.” We see a sleek train, several sporty cars, some art on a wall made with magically moving colored lights and a display showing what the future city will look like. I hope that one day I can fly the little airplanes that go straight up and down and sideways. We’re invited into a free air conditioned movie theatre. I can read the sign that says “cool air” and I feel the chill inside. The movie shows how a car is manufactured in a modern auto plant. I notice that “auto” in English and in German are the same. In the movie, I see lots of jobs that I want when I grow up.

      Between us, Papa and I have had four and a half years of schooling. We don’t know much geography. Many of the exhibits—art and science—mystify us. And yet we’re inspired. Papa keeps saying, “This is what a peaceful world can be like.”

DuPont mural at 1939-’40 World’s Fair

       DuPont mural at 1939-’40 World’s Fair

      Many large businesses have their own buildings where they show off what they manufacture and what they plan to create in the future. One such building has a huge mural two stories high. On the left side of this enormous picture is a scene showing a family from an earlier agricultural time. They struggle under the weight of hard work and poverty. On the right side of the great mural we see a family living in the new, industrial world of comfort and happiness. At the bottom of this mural is a banner with the words, “Better Things For Better Living Through Chemistry.” We translate “things” to “Dinge.” I can translate “Better Living” to “Besser Leben.” The German and English words sound alike. And from Mutti I learned that “Chemistry” is a science. I translate to “Wissenschaft” and “Technik.” I understand.

      I promise Papa right then, at that moment, that I will study “Wissenschaft” (whatever that means) so that I can help create “better living.” Papa calls it “tikkun olam.” Repair the world.

       XIV. THE BROWNSHIRTS ARE COMING

      WHEN MY PARENTS have a little more income we can sometimes afford a double feature at the neighborhood cinema. The theater provides a few hours of relief from the summer heat. Of course our tenement has no air conditioning in the summer of 1941. Windows at both ends of our flat offer just a little circulation, thanks to a fan at the living room end.

      The front door opens into the kitchen. We have a ritual for entering our dark apartment and this Saturday night is no different. Mutti unlocks the door with her key and steps back. Papa takes off his right shoe and holds it as if he would hammer a nail with the heel. The seven-year-old that is me hides behind Papa. We all take a deep breath in anticipation.

      Suddenly Papa opens the door, reaches around for the light switch and bam, wham, bam. He is pounding roaches.

      Thousands scurry for shelter in the baseboard and the cupboards. They’re on the walls and floor and ceiling—everywhere. Roaches flee from the table and the chairs. Skwoosh, skwoosh, skwoosh as one after another is crushed by Papa’s heavy rubber heel. Sometimes Papa accidentally steps on one or two of the disoriented, frightened beasts with his stockinged foot. Brown, stiff-backed, multi-legged, monster-faced roaches who had been in total control of the darkened apartment are now escaping my father’s wrath. Fat bugs, some over two inches long, seem to fly short distances, or are they hopping? I hold on to Papa’s belt and hide my face in his back.

      When no more live roaches can be seen, Papa cleans up. On a good night Papa kills more than thirty. When each living roach has found shelter from Papa’s shoe and each dead roach has been dropped into the garbage can, Mutti enters the room as if nothing has happened. My heart races. I am terrified. Surely these roaches reproduce faster than Papa can kill them.

      The cockroach chase fills my mind, even replacing the memory of the movie. Before undressing, I check under the sheets and inside the pillowcase. I know that once the lights are turned off for the night, our creepy tenants will reappear. I fear I will dream about the roaches—and I do. Do I dream that they walk on me during the night or do they really?

      In the morning I check my body and inside my pajamas. I turn my slippers upside down and bang them, individually and carefully, against the bed frame. Too often a roach falls to the floor and scampers away.

      Concern about roach droppings becomes an obsession and prompts careful daily washing and inspection of my body. I welcome my weekly bath and I wipe each dish before I allow it to cradle my food.

      There are cockroaches everywhere. I don’t mean just everywhere in the apartment. I mean all over the city. New York is a city of roaches. We have been living in the United States about sixteen months, escaping from Germany via Holland and Belgium, a step ahead of the Nazis. The next-door commercial bakery, where Papa works, provides food for much of the big city and for the roaches. Poison around the baseboard does not have a big impact. There are way too many millions of them to control. Surely, I imagine, there are at least 1,000 roaches for each of New York’s seven million residents.

      My dreams become ever more frightening and, as the weeks pass, the roaches seem to grow larger. And they feel heavier when they walk on

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