The Singing Fire by Lilian Nattel

sleighs carried men of substance home from their factoriesand offices. In the evenings they took their fur-cloaked wives to the theater, where the choice of the season was Italian opera, the Italians being hot-blooded as everyone knew, hoping that some heat would waft from the stage to the audience. Whoever could afford to burn coal kept their cellars full, and their stoves blew smoke at the wind as it knocked bricks from chimneys. But in the garden on Moskovskaya Street, the ghost of the first wife didn’t feel the cold. She sat high in the apple tree, shaking the branches as if it were imperative to get someone out of the warm house into her garden.
    Emilia sat in her mother’s dressing room, glancing now and then at the window while she read Russian poetry aloud to please Father, who could hear it from his room. She wished that she looked like Mama, but she was nothing like either of her parents. Mama said it was a family trait to take after an aunt or uncle or great-grandfather, each generation following a circuitous path through its descendants. Emilia was golden-haired and gray-eyed like one of her aunts. She hadn’t met any of them—the daughters of a rich man are sent far and wide when they marry for the family’s honor.
    “They say your cousins look like me,” Mama said, putting down the letter from her sister while Freida twisted her hair into intricate knots. She picked up the silver-backed mirror. “A little more curl here, if you please.”
    “Emilia!” Father called. “What are you doing in your mother’s room?”
    She turned to the Russian verses again, but it was too late. As sure as the moon is jealous of the sun, he was coming out of his dressing room, buttoning his high collar. “Are you telling the child stories?” he asked.
    “Only about deportment at dinner.”
    “She’ll be eating in the kitchen,” Father said.
    “Yes, but she won’t be a child forever.”
    “Just don’t give her any of your ideas.” He wasn’t looking at Emilia, his eyes were all for Mama. On the wall above her dressing table, there was a painting with a hawk hovering high above the goats, as if considering which one would make its dinner. “Who do you think the child looks like?” he asked, switching from Russian to Yiddish. The despised mother tongue was suitable for such discussions.
    “My older sister. Exactly her,” Mama said, as if she hadn’t answered the same way a thousand times before. She began to rise from her chair but sat down when he shook his head. Father preferred her to be seated. She was taller than he, but his suit was cut by the tailor who clothed the count.
    “I believe the child looks a lot like the editor of the Minsker Journal,” Father said. “He used to be our guest much too often, I think.” Sometimes it was an editor. Sometimes their old lawyer. Or a physician. They had to have a different doctor every year. Emilia’s neck began to itch. Soon her feet would itch, too, but she didn’t dare scratch.
    “Don’t be ridiculous,” Mama said. Why did she have to argue? It only made Father worse. The apple tree beat harder at the window. It was the first Mrs. Rosenberg, but Father took no more notice of her now than when she was alive.
    “So I’m ridiculous.” Father’s voice got quieter.
    “You know what I mean,” Mama said nervously. The maid edged toward the door. “What have your guests to do with me?”
    “So I’m asking myself.” He picked up Mama’s mirror as if to see her true face in it. Emilia tried not to breathe. He seemed to have forgotten her.
    “I’m busy with the house,” Mama said. “Such a large house needs more than one servant. If you gave me a bigger allowance, I might have a minute free to go out, but as it is …”
    “So now I’m an idiot and a miser, too. Very good. But blind, I’m not. I saw the way you looked at the lawyer. And he’s old enough to be your uncle. It’s disgusting.” Emilia wasn’t sure what was disgusting about it,