Breath (9781439132227) by Donna Jo Napoli Page B

master.”
    â€œThe mother died in my arms this afternoon; the master says she’s mine.”
    So it’s finally happened: A person died. My brothers look stricken, especially Bertram.
    Father’s hand spreads wide and heavy on the wood table. “This is what comes of posing as a healer at your age,” he says slowly. “You can’t even see what you’re doing. You can’t watch a child as small as that one. We’ll have to …”
    â€œI’ll watch her.” I step forward and take the girl’s hand. It feels like Eike’s and Hilde’s and Gertrude’s. It feels like every girl’s hand I’ve ever held.
    â€œYou?” says Melis. “Don’t think I’ll be taking over that girl whenever you cough.”
    â€œI won’t ask you to,” I say. “Besides, I’m not going to be sick anymore.”
    â€œHow’s that?” asks Bertram. “How will you keep from getting sick?” His eyebrows come together and his whole face wrinkles. “What are you up to?”
    â€œStop your bickering,” says Großmutter. “Hedidn’t mean anything by it. He just wants us to keep the girl. And we will. There’s no choice.”
    â€œAh, who cares, anyway?” says Bertram. “We’ve got important things to dwell on.”
    Let it go, Father
, I am thinking.
Listen to Bertram
. I squeeze the girl’s hand.
    She doesn’t look at me. She says nothing. Her arm is limp.
    The others go on about their business. It’s happening. They’re really letting her stay.
    And she’s my charge.
    Oh, Lord, let me not be like the people the piper spoke so bitterly about that day in the woods: let me deserve this child.
    My knees feel weak. It’s just as well; I kneel so that my shoulder is at the girl’s eye level. She looks at Kuh and blinks. Her lips form a perfect circle. I know she breathes “Ooooh,” even if she makes no noise.
    The world changes quietly.

Beer
    We’re pouring beer from barrels into jugs and sealing them good with wood pegs. The six of us work together while Ava perches on a bench watching, Kuh in her lap. Ava and I won’t get to drink it, of course, but the rest of us are growing happy at the very idea of the beer. And the smell of it alone makes me a little tipsy. We laugh, as though this is the start of a beer festival like any other, in any other year.
    Only it’s totally different. Laughing these days feels like blasphemy. But even in the face of illness it should be no sin to recognize little pleasures. We should be allowed that much. We have to be allowed that much. Our laughing becomes almost defiant.
    The beer smells clean and strong—just like it should. We still haven’t used this year’s grain harvest for our bread; we’re giving the fresh grain to the animals. But we had to use fresh grain for this beer. There was no other way—there simply wasn’t enough of last year’s grain left to make a whole year’s worth of beer and still have old grain for bread for all the farm families. Besides, the animals are dying in spite of the new grain. And the monasteries are using fresh grain for their beer. Yesterday the monastery pub started serving this year’s beer from fresh grain. So no one will buy our beer if it isn’t as tasty as theirs.
    We finish the job and put the beer jugs on the wagon. We’ll drive them to market tomorrow. Our beer is so loved that it’ll all go in one day. It always does.
    The beer for home consumption remains in barrels in the cellar beside the piles and piles of apples. There’s plenty left for our family and for any festivals we want to contribute to.
    Then we sit down to the evening meal. Soup of so many different vegetables I can’t even guess at them all. Großmutter chopped them alone when she took a break from the beer work, but I stayed with my brothers and Father,