Begging (from the Munich Tales)

BEGGING
By Michael Kroetch

She wasn´t going to beg. She´d done enough of that. Never again. If they wanted to leave, fine. Let them. She had had enough. She pulled her hair back and put it in a ponytail. She would be at work soon. Time to smile. She could take their tantrums. She could take anything they threw at her. She wasn´t going to bend. Or beg. This was their new life now. If her sisters weren´t happy here with the money she gave them and the nice apartment, what was she going to do about it? She loved them, of course she did. Like a house on fire. Sometimes she knew she could not go on for even one minute without them by her side. Other times they drove her crazy with the noodle-nagging and gossip and endless prattle of which boy they wanted more from some soap opera. She couldn´t let herself think what it would be like in the new city without them, without that terrible music of theirs coming over her little stereo while they danced and giggled in the kitchen with their hair in curlers. They could be so annoying and adorable at the exact same time—and always, somehow, they cajoled her into joining their crazy shambly kitchen dance. She hated them for wanting to go back home. But she stiffened her back and pressed her uniform flat down against her hips—she would not beg. She was the oldest. She had had to be the strong one. She had done what was right by bringing them here, even if they could not see it that way now. She slipped on her shoes. They thought she was cold and mean. They said it was killing their mother for them all to be so far away. She had not responded to this. She didn't know how to. She couldn't tell them what she had told her mother. She looked again in the mirror, pursed her lips, checking her lip line to make sure the gloss looked right. When she had told her mother, it was instantly denied—but a bit too easily and too quickly. She suspected in some part of her mother´s brain that her mother already knew. How long her mother had known? That was another question, one she did not want to think about. One she could not let herself think about. She turned away from the mirror and picked up her purse. If her mother had known, why had she not stopped it? That was the question which had most haunted her and while still back home had made her realise that if she left, she could not leave her sisters behind. They would not be any more safe than she had been. And with her gone, who would protect them as she had all those years, begging and pleading and offering up herself instead? But she could not keep them here against their will and could not, never, tell them what had happened. They were safe here. And innocent. Why would they not just listen to her and stay? She had let them call home a few times, but only after they promised not to reveal anything about where they were. This had confused and frightened them, but they had obeyed. She didn´t think they would obey much longer. They were not only missing their mother and their friends, they were also missing him—that man who called himself their father. She did not want to think about him or his face. It was far too disturbing. She put her hand on the door knob. She prayed that her sisters would be here when she got back from work. If they did not leave, she knew she would have to tell them that night. There was no choice. It was the only way to keep them with her. Begging didn´t work anymore. She hoped and hoped they would listen to her and stay just this one more day.