Isabel’s War (13 page)

“Most people wanted the younger boys and girls, six-and seven-year-olds. Helga was twelve and tall for her age. So she sat waiting in the assignment center until she was almost the last one remaining. That made her feel so...unwanted.

“Then this farm couple came in looking for an older child. They said Helga could live with them and they would send her to school if she would do some light chores in the farmhouse. So...”

I'm leaning forward, listening eagerly, when Mrs. F. stops short and flashes a quick smile at Helga and Mr. F., who have just entered the room. “How was your lunch?
Herman, bring a chair here for Helga. Tell me what you've been up to. Tell me about school.”

I get up abruptly and give Helga the chair I've been using. What was Mrs. F. about to tell me? Now I'll never know. I still feel like the whole world—war and all—is resting on my shoulders.

Mr. F. passes around the box of chocolates that's been lying enticingly on the bedside table behind me all this time. I take one and excuse myself to go to the bathroom. Afterward, I wander up and down the hospital corridor a bit, peering nosily into some of the patients' rooms.

When I come back, the nurse has returned and tucked Mrs. F. back into bed. She looks tired, not nearly as fresh as when we first arrived. Some of her eyeliner is smudged and I wonder if she's been crying while talking to Helga, who has a blank expression and doesn't say much. But Mrs. F. urges us to stay just a little longer.

Mr. F. drives Helga and me home to the Bronx. My mother's invited him to stay and have dinner with us in honor of Arnold's being home on furlough. The moment I see my brother, I bury my head in the coarse khaki wool of his uniform jacket and I don't let go until he laughingly shakes me free.

If only we could stop the clock. Bring the world and all its mad, crazy, and evil carryings-on to a halt right here and now...even for a little while.

The table is set in the dining alcove with my mother's best china. The soup bowls are brimming. We all sit down and my father and Mr. F. raise their wine glasses across the table at each other. “To the health and safety of our boys and to VICTORY!”

“To PEACE and to the defeat of Hitler!” I add, raising my water glass so vigorously that it splashes a fountain of drops onto my mother's hand-embroidered linen tablecloth.

“Why, Isabel,” my father remarks with an air of surprise, “I didn't know you could get so worked up about the war.”

“So what do you think of my brother? He's pretty handsome in his uniform, isn't he?”

It's late, after our evening of celebration, and Helga and I are in my room getting ready for bed. Mr. F. has left to go back to his empty house in Westchester, and Arnold is sleeping in his usual place in the dining alcove.

“
Ja
,” Helga agrees. “But better I think not in the uniform.”

“Oh, of course, you're right. It would be wonderful if everything could go back to the way it was before the war...” I stop myself abruptly, remembering that Helga's memories of men and women and even children in uniforms goes back almost all her life to the time of the
Hitler Youth in the 1930s.
And when Jewish blood spurts from the knife...

There is silence for a while, until Helga murmurs, “And so, good night.”

But I'm much too occupied with thoughts of my interrupted conversation with Mrs. F. about the chicken farm, and it's impossible to close my eyes.

“Helga?”

“Ja?”

“Are you asleep yet? Could I talk to you for a minute?”

“Ja?”

“You know that paper I wrote for my history class about the
Kindertransport
?”

“Ja?”

“Well, my teacher Mrs. Boylan liked it very much. She wants me to write more about it. Like what happened next. You know,
after
the refugee children from Germany arrived in England.”

This is all a terrible lie. In seventh-grade history we're studying the Middle Ages and Mrs. Boylan has never seemed to me to be the least bit interested in anything that has happened in Germany in the last few years. The so-called assignment that I wrote for her has been sitting in a box of letters, pictures, and souvenirs that I keep hidden under my bed.

“For example, where did you live when you first arrived in England? Your Aunt Harriette mentioned
something to me about a...a chicken farm. I didn't even know they had chicken farms in England. Although that's silly, isn't it. Where else would they get eggs? And chicken?”

“Isabel, please,” Helga interrupts my lame attempts to get her to describe her life as a twelve-year-old child separated from her family and in a strange, new setting. “I am worried so much about the health of Aunt Harriette. I cannot talk about this sad place that I was sent. I never want to talk about it.”

I plop my head down onto my pillow in a mixture of disappointment and annoyance. “I don't mean to upset you, Helga. But, you know, if it was awful for you, you might feel a lot better if you talked about it.”

There is no answer from the other bed. Now what am I supposed to do? What if I've only made things worse for Helga with all my nosy questions? But it really is more than just empty curiosity on my part. What
does
happen to somebody who is sent away from home and family, probably forever, and comes to a “sad place?”

What if it had happened to me? The very least I would want was for people to know about it. Helga's story, I believe, should be told.

“You know,” I say as casually as I can to the continuing silence in the other bed, “if you don't want to talk about it, Helga, maybe you could
write
about it. Sometimes that's easier. And then we'd have a written report in your
own words. How does that sound?”

I hold my breath in the dark. Is Helga asleep or just not speaking to me anymore?

“
Ach
,” a soft voice finally replies, “maybe someday I write it in German.”

“German?” I'm up on my elbows and leaning over toward Helga's bed. “No! In English. And not ‘someday.' Now. It doesn't matter how many mistakes you make. In fact, it will be good practice for school. Do you want to be stuck forever in seventh-grade English when you're supposed to be in ninth? Answer me, Helga.”

“I think about it,” Helga murmurs. “But there will be so many mistakes. Always, always there are too many mistakes.”

Thirteen

Allons enfants de la patrie/Le jour de gloire est arrivé
. We're learning the words to the
Marseillaise
, the national anthem of France, in our intermediate French class.

Of course, as Miss Damore has already been forced to admit and has explained to us, there is no independent country known as France at the moment. The Nazis invaded it in 1940, along with Holland and Belgium (as well as Luxembourg, Denmark, and Norway).

The so-called Free French are hiding out in the mountains of southern and eastern France, trying to hold off advancing German control. They blow up trains and munitions factories, and their snipers shoot the German sentries that guard them. But things are looking pretty grim nevertheless.

So, on behalf of the Free French, our class is chanting with military gusto,
Aux armes, citoyens! Formez vos bataillons. Marchons, marchons, qu'un sang impur.
Miss Damore has decided that we're going to learn as many verses as we can, and then translate them into English.

Without even raising his hand, Billy Crosby blurts
out—like the show-off that he is—that France will be free before we even finish translating the
Marseillaise
. Because, he says boastfully, “the U.S. and the Brits are going to invade it any day now.”

“
En français
, Billy,” Miss Damore cautions him in her charming accent.

I glance across the aisle at Mr. Smiley-Face. Aside from the fact that Billy is dead wrong (we're still struggling to push the Germans out of North Africa so we can invade southern Europe sometime next year), he is hardly up to saying all this in French, a rule that Miss Damore made the first day of the term. I console myself with the fact that even if we
don't
get to the subjunctive, maybe Billy will flunk out of the class just for being a wise guy.

It's agony sitting across the aisle from him twice a week. He's forever leaving stupid offerings on my desk...sticky peppermint candies and pencils with no erasers that are decorated with colored feathers. He draws dumb pictures of the other kids in the class and passes them to me with little “guess who” hints.

How do I know he isn't sending drawings of me around the room to other people...elongating my nose and exaggerating my breasts, which he never seems to stop looking at. If he just wants to annoy me, that's one thing. But if he actually
likes
me, then I've got to find a way to get rid of him. Why is it so hard to tell?

Billy is now struggling with the French words for
before
,
finish
,
translate
,
free
,
invade
, and the verb forms he needs to repeat his misinformation in French. With my eyes fixed on the wooden grooves and inky smears on my desk, I'm actually enjoying listening to him struggle with something as easy as “Before we finish...”
(Avant de finir...)
.

In fact, fool that I am, I'm quietly mouthing the words to myself when Miss Damore calls my name and asks me to help Billy get his sentence started.
“Pouvez-vous, Mademoiselle Isabel, aider votre ami?”

“
Ami
”...my boyfriend? Hardly! I turn to Billy almost crossly and supply him with the French words, in response to which his eyes sparkle and his mouth grows more smiley than ever. Only the chiming of the bell announcing the end of the period saves me from further embarrassment. Grabbing my books, I flee into the corridor and gallop down the staircase.

“Hey, Frenchy.”

It's the end of the last period of the day and I'm heading back to homeroom. I hardly need to turn around. It's Billy again, his glasses glinting and a self-assured smile wreathing his face. “What did ya run away for? I wanted to thank you for savin' me from Damore, at least until the bell rung. Boy, she's got a nerve askin' for a translation of a long sentence like that.”

I shift my books to my other arm and sigh. “Well,
you should have known better than to call out. Anyhow, what you said was wrong. Nobody on our side of the war is ready to invade France yet. A landing anywhere on the French coast is still a long way off.”

“Oh yeah? Shows how much you know. I got secret information. My Pop's on the inside.”

Billy makes me so mad I could spit. “Why? Because he's a police detective?”

“
And
a Civil Defense air raid warden
and
on the bomb squad. You'll be glad some day when he and his team save the whole neighborhood from an enemy attack. He's also a blackout warden. So be sure to follow the rules for the next blackout.” Billy looks at me teasingly. “I know where you live, Frenchy.”

I turn into the door of homeroom with Billy following, wondering how I could possibly be unlucky enough to attract such a person.

“Hey,” Billy grabs my arm, “how about comin' to the movies with me on Saturday? You know, to thank you for helping me out in French.”

Speechless, I plop down at my desk. This is really too much. I've never in my life gone on a “date” to the movies with a boy. Even if I wanted to—and I certainly don't with Billy—my mother wouldn't let me.

“Yeah, come on,” says Billy, as Mr. Jeffers indicates for him to take his seat. “It'll be fun...
The Commandos Strike at Dawn
...you ain't seen it yet, did ya?”

“What was that all about?” Sibby wants to know as we start walking home together. Helga is staying after school today for some tutoring in English grammar.

When I tell her, she starts to chant, “Boyfriend, boyfriend, Izzie's got a boyfriend.”

“Don't you dare, Sybil Simon,” I exclaim. “I'm only telling you this because you saw him talking to me in class. I wouldn't even admit it otherwise. Billy Crosby is anything but my type. He's goofy-looking, and he's stuck-up and dumb all at the same time. He's fresh, too. He never takes his eyes off my chest. Can you just imagine how he'd act in a dark movie theater?”

Sibby giggles. “So who is your type? What do you think about...
Bing Crosby
? You don't suppose he might be a relative of Billy?”

“No, I don't. And to tell you the truth, Bing Crosby might be a good crooner but I don't think much of his looks either. His face reminds me of a glass of warm milk.”

“Boy, are you picky, Izzie. Oh, I know who you would really go for, especially if you were looking for ‘cute'...Frank Sinatra. My mom and I heard him on the radio last night singing ‘I'll Never Smile Again.' Leona said if she ever saw him in person, she'd probably pass out.”

“You think? He's awfully skinny from the pictures I've seen of him. More likely, he'd be the one to pass out.”

“You're so sarcastic, Izzie. I sort of agree with you about Bing Crosby. He's losing his hair and he's got an awful lot of kids. But Sinatra, wow... If he ever gets to be in the stage show at some big Broadway movie theater, my mom and I want to go. If my mom can't take time off from work, will you go with me? Say yes.”