If I Should Die Before I Wake (3 page)

Hide behind bushes? What does she know?

"Figures—he escapes the accident with hardly a scratch and here you are lying on death's dark doorstep.

"It's God's will, I suppose.

"I'd just like to know how this accident happened. Of course Brad was most likely drunk. Takes after his drunken father, that boy does, and he'll be just as violent with his own family, too, mark my words."

Shows what you know. And like you're the perfect parent? At least his father's always there. His father didn't run away and leave Brad all alone for three freakin' days when he was only five freakin' years old. And anyway, he didn't have anything to drink that night. It was too important a night for drinking.

 

After the kidnapping Billy and Chucky drop him off at his house and he gets on his bike and picks me up. Just like he said he would, out in front of the 7-Eleven. Ridesup on his Harley, his white teeth shining out of the dark, and I know right away it went okay. And we're laughing at each other, just happy, you know? I hop on and hug him around his waist and we go tearing outta there over to Chucky's.

When we pull up outside of Chucky's house and Brad turns off the motor, I can hear the shouting coming from the basement. Brad grabs my hana and we charge into the house. The shouting's louder now, and it's like that first night when I joined the Warriors, 'cause they're going to initiate another girl into the group and everyone's real hyped. We go down into the basement lit up with red lightbulbs and black candles, and there's everyone with their robes on and facing the poster on the wall. We slip into our robes, blood red with these black patches on the shoulders that show swords bent into the shape of swastikas. We find our places in line and join them.

"Heil, Hitler! Heil, Hitler!" we shout.

Hitler's face stares back at us, larger than life, just like the man himself. We just keep shouting, and I can feel the goose bumps crawling all over me as I feel the excitement, the unity, the thunder in the room. There's like twenty of us there, and we don't stop shouting until the Great Warrior arrives, and by then my voice is so hoarse I'm not even sure I'm making any noise. When Hack makes his way up to the front of the room, we sit down and the ceremony begins.

Meg O'Toole is called up to the front and is handed two unlit candles, one for each hand. Brad goes up, rolls out the Nazi flag, and drapes it around her waist, tucking it in so it stays up. Then Hack commands the rest of us to stand and form a circle. The room's real quiet when we do this, no shoving and giggling. Then Hack unrolls the female initiation scroll and begins.

"Do you, Megan Reese O'Toole, promise to uphold the principles of white supremacy and the purity of white womanhood?"

"I do!" she shouts through strands of yellow hair hanging in her face.

"Do you take the Aryan race to be your one and only religion?"

"I do!"

"Do you recognize all Jews as children of Satan?"

"I do!"

"Do you promise to do your part in bringing about the Final Solution—the destruction of all Jews and the creation of a united Aryan nation?"

"I do!"

"Do you acknowledge that you are a seed bearer and life giver of the white race, and in so being you will do no race mixing, upon pain of death?"

"I do!"

"Do you acknowledge yourself to be a woman, and therefore the weaker vessel and servant to the one man given to you in marriage?"

She looks over at her boyfriend, just like I did with Brad during my ceremony, and shouts, "I do!"

"Do you swear to uphold the secrecy of these meetings and the activities of the Aryan Warriors?"

"I do!"

"Megan Reese O'Toole, your ultimate role will be that of wife—serving your husband—and of mother, giving birth to our future. By accepting this role in the race wars, you will achieve a place in history. No higher honor can be so bestowed upon a woman.

"As a member of this den, you may attend and participate in all general meetings. You may wear the armband and the robe on such occasions as is necessary. Participation in 'outings' is at the discretion of the Great Warrior."

Then Hack lifts his head up from the scroll and nods to Chucky. Chucky steps forward, pulls out his plastic lighter, and lights Meg's candles. Meg steps forward and we pull back so she can walk through the circle and over to the table, where a cross made out of two broken branches tied together with a strand of rawhide stands in a pewter mug.

She lights one branch with the red candle and we all say, "The blood of all Jews shall burn." Then she lights the other branch and we say, "Their ashes shall become crusts in hell."

Then she sets the candles in the holders placed on either side of the burning cross and turns to face us.

Hack raises his right hand out in front of him and shouts, "Sister! Heil, Hitler!"

"Heil, Hitler!" the rest of us shout, including Meg. Then we all step up to the table and pass around this sharp pocketknife. We each cut a slit in our palms and squeeze out the blood. Then we go back to our circle, with Meg in the center, and she goes up to each of us, one at a time, and presses her bloody palm to each of ours and we say, "Sister, welcome," and she says "Brother" or "Sister" back. Then when she's gone all the way around, Brad removes the flag and Hack hands her her robe.

After she puts it on and joins our circle, Hack says to her, "You are a member of the Great Aryan Warriors. This is now your family. You belong to us and we to you. As long as you follow the laws of this den, we will protect you. Heil, Hitler!"

I can't help it, I'm standing there crying just like I did during my own ceremony, but then, as our shouts get louder and stronger, I can feel the atmosphere change and it's like a party, everyone standing close and proud.

Then we start chomping on chips and M&M's and telling each other about our victories that night, laughing and shouting and carrying on. And then at the end, we're shouting "White Power" and "Death to Jews" and more "Heil, Hitlers," and you never felt such power. Like we owned the world. We owned it. I swear we held it in the palms of our hands and it was up to us whether we were going to crush it or hold it up.

That's our power, Mother. We're together, united and strong, like a real family.

Yeah, being in that room, with all the shouting and the ceremony and having Brad's arm around me, I knew I'd die for any one of them if I had to. I'd die for the cause. I could tell, too, just by looking at all the faces, the shining eyes, that everyone felt like that. That's our power. We didn't need to drink. We were drunk with our own victories, our power.

So get it straight, Mother, it wasn't any drinking that caused the accident. It was the stinkin' rain. By the time we left the meeting and made our way over to Burleigh, it was pouring and we took a skid going around Bishop's corner. Brad's good on a bike, Mother; he couldn't help the rain. Anyway, he wasn't drunk.

***

"I just pray to God that you had nothing to do with the disappearance of that little Schulmann boy. It's all over the papers."

He's still missing? Brad said he was screaming loud enough to wake the dead. How long have I been here? Hey, Grandmaw, how long I been in here? Well, it can't be too long. It just seems like forever 'cause I can't move, right?

Now don't go giving me that suffering-cow look again. Look at me. Mother says I'm on death's dark doorstep and you know what? I feel like death, so don't be giving me that suffering look. Jews always think they've got a monopoly on suffering or something. Hey, I know suffering. I don't need to be a part of someone else's. They'll find the stupid kid. Besides, how bad could it be, being shut up in one of those big old lockers? How bad could it be? So it's a little dark. And hot, I guess, or maybe it's cold. Do they leave the heat on over vacation? The kid's probably out by now anyway, right? While Mother's been giving me her phony see-how-much-I-care speech, the police have been rescuing Simon. Right?

I guess if he's got to go to the bathroom he'll just do it in his pants. Well, so what, right? Worse could happen. He can breathe. The locker's got vents. Who the hell cares about him anyway? Jew boy. Who the hell cares?

"I won't disturb the others if I read to you, will I? I'll just read to you quietly.

"I suppose I can use this chair. Now let's...

 

"God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble with its tumult."

 

Grandmaw? Hey! It's happening again. You can stop it, I know you can.

I'm falling back into that dark place, spinning away, spinning down. I can see the darkness and the pinpoint of light where the old lady's face stares out at me. The pinpoint begins to grow, letting in more light, shutting out the darkness, erasing Grandmaw's face and bringing into focus a room, square and small.

THE SIGHTS AND SOUNDS
before me were instantly clearer than the last time I had visited this other world. The colors, the images, were sharper. As I looked about the room, with its high ceiling and creamy white walls, empty fireplace, and furniture in shades of blue and brown worn into comfort, I knew immediately who, and where, I was. I knew this time that I was thirteen years old, living in Poland, and that this was my living room. The people gathered there with me were my family. I knew, too, that we were still "sitting
shiva,
" in mourning, for my father. The two plain mirrors facing one another on opposite walls were covered with white cloths, and I understood, as if I had always known, that this was part of the ritual of the
shiva.
The circle of low stools upon which my mother and Bubbe, my grandmother, and Zayde, my grandfather, sat were also part of this seven-day ritual of mourning my father.

The room was cold, or perhaps it was just I who was cold, sitting on the bare wooden floor next to my mother's stool. I tucked my legs and feet up under my dress and huddled in closer to Mama. I wanted her to pat my head, thinking her touch, her love, would warm me, but she was not thinking about me.

I was aware of the peace, the dead quiet in the room, the way one is aware of it after a loud, long, crashing clamor has ended. There is usually that sense of relief; the body relaxes and one continues with what one was doing before the noise began. This time, however, was different. I remained tense. My muscles ached with readiness, my eyes were tired of the ever alert, almost unblinking vigilance I kept over the house, the family, myself. Yes, there was peace, but what came before it, and what was sure to come again, made that peace hover over the room like the blade of a guillotine. I tried to calm my nerves by reading to my six-year-old sister, Anya, who sat beside me, restlessly playing with Nadzia, the baby of the family.

"Sit still, Anya," I reprimanded. "You are missing the most interesting part.
Shiva
is almost over, you can be still for just a few more hours."

"I know, but I cannot wait to get some fresh air. Can you, Chana? Can you not wait?"

I looked toward the window by the piano. The curtains were closed, but I had peered out earlier and knew what the weather was like.

"It is too cold and gray outside. Even when the rabbi comes, I do not think I will want to go out."

"It is not the cold you are afraid of, it is the Germans." Anya turned to Mama. "Will the Germans come to get us when we go outside, like Jakub said?"

"Hush, Anya!" Mama said. "No more talk of the Germans. Your brother has filled your head with too many horror stories."

"But Tata—his story is true. What Chana said was true. They shot Tata, hanging from the tree."

"Hush, Anya," Mama whispered.

Zayde looked up from his lap. "Jakub is wrong, Anya. His mind is so full of killings and burnings, it has got him running this way and that, and he goes nowhere. He should be here with his family. It is a disgrace to us all and to your father that he is not here sitting
shiva.
"

I watched as Zayde's face grew redder and redder, his head again bent low over his lap. He was like my father that way. We always knew how angry Tata was by the shades of red his face turned. Looking at Zayde now, I knew he was very angry indeed. I tried to change the subject, but before I could get two words out, my brother walked through the door.

"Bad news," Jakub said as he hung his hat and coat up on the rack by the door. He turned to face Zayde, the now familiar challenge in his eyes.

"We must pack our things, only what we need most, and be ready by six o'clock tonight."

Zayde stood up and stretched. "This nonsense again, Jakub. And where is it now we are going?"

"Nonsense, is it? Only four blocks down, the houses are empty. Not a person is left. The Germans have taken them!"

Zayde's eyes darted about the room. Mama stood up and collected Nadzia up off the floor and held her close to her face.

"God, grant that they come here in time," she whispered as she began rocking the baby in her arms.

"Who, Mama? The Germans?" Anya asked, alarm sounding in her voice.

I grabbed Anya's arm. "No, silly, the people who are coming to take Nadzia away. They are coming today, remember?"

Anya jumped up off the floor and threw her arms around Mama's legs. "Why are they only taking Nadzia? Do I not need protection from the Germans, too?"

Mama patted Anya's head. "Of course you do, and I will protect you. When Nadzia is gone Mama paused and closed her eyes. "When Nadzia is gone, I will be able to pay extra attention to you and make sure nothing and no one ever hurts you."

"You promise, Mama? Truly, truly promise?"

"Of course I do."

Anya buried her head in Mama's dress and began sobbing. "Oh, Mama, poor Tata. Poor, poor Tata. How could it be he is not with us?"

Bubbe, who had been silent and still through most of these seven days, called Anya to her.

She held both of Anya's hands in hers and spoke in a firm, knowing voice. "He
is
with us, Anya, as God is with us."