Too Jewish (25 page)

"I doubt that seriously."

"No, really," I said. "They both left from LeHavre the same day. There was only one ship."

Grammy looked really annoyed. "Honey, we were on the upper deck with an outside cabin. We didn't see your father."

I got up my nerve. We were in a place where she couldn't do anything about it. "Why don't you like my father?" I said.

"Don't be ridiculous," Grammy said. "Where did you ever get that idea?"

"I wasn't born yesterday, you know."

"You're a little too precocious for your own good, do you realize that?"

I told her no. And I told her I knew what "precocious" meant, too.

* * *

Everything about Bergen-Belsen made me cry. That didn't bother Grammy. I guess she thought she'd made a good decision, that taking me there was a good lesson because I was young enough to be affected, while she wasn't or something. She was dry-eyed. She'd made sort of a friend from America who'd walked alongside us on the tour. "I had no idea they didn't have gas chambers here," she was saying to Mrs. Gold.

Mrs. Gold didn't look like she wanted to talk. "This was a way station," she said softly. When I heard that, I started to cry harder. I could picture little kids coming here, not knowing what was going on, trying to adjust, only to get hustled off somewhere else to die. Though this was where Anne Frank died. She died from getting sick.

"How old is the little girl?" Mrs. Gold said. She was as sad for me as I was for the dead children.

Grammy said I was just thirteen, but very advanced for my age. Mrs. Gold caught up with me and put her arm around me. "This is a terrible place," she said to me.

"My grandmother might have died here," I said.

"What?" I heard Grammy say.

"I have two grandmothers, you know," I said. It felt good saying that.

"At least you never met her," Grammy said. "I'm your real grandmother." She sounded like she was trying to make me feel better, but it wasn't working at all.

Mrs. Gold stuck with us, even though the tour was over. She was somewhere between my mother's age and Grammy's. I wondered if I could stay with her until it was time to go home. "We can find your grandmother's name in the archives if you'd like," she said to me.

At first I was thinking I could bring it back to Daddy. Then I came to my senses. That was the worst idea in the world. Daddy said it was better not knowing about his mother. But that was almost the least of it. Daddy didn't know I was in Germany.

Before I could say anything, Grammy popped in. "Her father doesn't know we're in Germany. He thinks people shouldn't come here. I'm trying to broaden her horizons."

"He thinks Jews shouldn't come to Germany," I said. I had a feeling Mrs. Gold was Jewish and wasn't ashamed of it the way Grammy was.

"I agree with your daddy," she said to me. "I'm only here for one day, and I'm not spending any more money than for the gasoline in my car." We were walking into the administration building. "So tell me your grandmother's name, and I'll help you find her."

I started shaking all over. I was already not completely finished crying, and now I was terrified of learning something horrible.

"That sounds so funny, asking her grandmother's name. Darby, do you even know her name?" Grammy said.

I wanted to thank her. Grammy turned some of my fear into anger at her. "Of course I know her name. I'm named after her. It's Dora Kuper. K-U-P-E-R. I'm Darby. Darby Cooper. C-O-O-P-E-R. A man changed it on Daddy when he got off the ship. He wasn't trying to pull anything."

"You're a remarkable young lady," Mrs. Gold said.

"She is, isn't she," Grammy said. She didn't sound like she meant it.

I didn't want to stay in that building. It was a bad idea. "I don't think I want to find out about Grandmother Dora," I said. "She probably died of typhus." That's what the tour guide had said a lot of people died from at that camp. It's what most people figure killed Anne Frank.

"Probably," Mrs. Gold said.

"I mean, what if my grandmother died right when she could have been saved? I think she needed maybe a hundred sixty dollars, and she could have been saved. If she got it early enough. I don't want to know when she died. Daddy doesn't know, so I shouldn't know," I said. I finally put together the hundred-sixty dollar secret. I had to explain to Mrs. Gold. "He says we're better not knowing."

Grammy looked surprised that I knew anything. She jumped in. "No, don't you see? Your grandmother had an illness she couldn't be saved from. That's what you need to know. Your father thinks the Germans killed her, but she just got sick. I think you'll feel better about her if you find that out."

That made no sense. She wouldn't have gotten typhus sitting in her living room.

Mrs. Gold put herself where I would look her in the eye. "I think you're being very wise. You could come back when you're old enough. How about that?"

I could see Grammy was sorry she'd ever bothered to make a friend. "No, look. Over there. You just give them the name. Dora Kuper? What year? Never mind. I know the year. Darby, just sit on that bench. I'll be back."

I looked at Mrs. Gold for help. She had nothing to lose. I still had a couple of weeks left with no one to protect me. "Don't you think that's a bad idea?" Mrs. Gold said.

"Excuse me?" Grammy said. She was acting like Mrs. Gold was the hired help.

Mrs. Gold knew when she'd lost. "Baby, I'll wait here with you," she said to me.

Grammy was back far too fast. She looked pleased as she could be with herself, and for a second I thought that meant my grandmother had survived the war. Grammy had a slip of paper. "Well, I don't exactly know how she died. It just says she was shipped out."

That sounded good to me.

"Don't tell the child," Mrs. Gold said.

"She already knows she's dead," Grammy said.

I didn't really. Well, not a hundred percent. Grammy handed me the piece of paper.

Mrs. Gold put her hand on my shoulder before I could turn over the paper. "I'm sure your grandmother wasn't scared. Try not to be upset."

I looked at the paper. I could read the German, but I didn't need to. I knew what Oswiecim meant. That was one way of spelling Auschwitz. I'd read enough.

I went right in Grammy's face. I was too furious to be sad right then. "I bet you think I don't know what this means. But I know it's Auschwitz, and I know all about it. We did history in Mr. Kenyon's class, and Daddy couldn't protect me from that. There are a lot of Jewish kids at Newman, even if they don't know they're really Jewish. The school can't exactly ignore Nazi Germany."

Grammy was so calm. "But, Darby, I'm sure nobody knew that that meant the gas chambers. Including Dora." She sounded like she knew her personally, which only disgusted me. She wouldn't have invited her into her house. "Don't feel bad. You never even met her. Look, this will be one of our secrets we won't tell your daddy, all right? I'm your real grandmother. We're friends. Let's see if there's a souvenir you want."

That was when I started crying uncontrollably. I think it happened when I pictured a fat little woman who looked like my father coming up the front steps at Grammy's house and being turned away by Louise because she couldn't speak English.

Mrs. Gold had tears running down her face. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and walked away. Only after she was gone did Grammy slip the piece of paper into my purse.

* * *

I think I was a sort of robot after Germany. Grammy had taken away my spirit, and all I wanted to do was get along with her so I could get home soon. I wasn't going to be able to march into my house and announce that I had been what Rena would have called Grammy's six bits change. I kept my hair neat, and I let her have my nails done in Rome, and each morning I let her tell me what clothes to put on, even though it was as hot in Italy as it was back in New Orleans. When you're thirteen, and your father is from Europe, you have to sneak to shave under your arms and buy deodorant, which makes you really self-conscious in the summer about perspiring, but Grammy didn't care if she made me wear blouses that were all one bright color, so you could see stains when I got hot. I didn't care about strangers. I didn't care about Grammy. I put on those shirts and tried to pretend my head wasn't floating around on top of an embarrassing body.

I had to admit that the Ponte Vecchio was interesting looking, well worth seeing. I had a feeling it would show up in my dreams later on, and I wanted to go into a souvenir shop and buy something for my parents to show them what I thought was interesting about Europe. But Grammy had taken me to Florence because Florence was for shopping for jewelry. "We did not come all the way here to buy junk," she said.

We were standing in the middle of the little roadway in the bridge. There was no shade. I had this huge sense that I was there at the wrong time with the wrong person. I could see the city across the water, and I could sense the history of the bridge, and I could know how wrong it was to be an American with a lot of money. Grammy pointed to a shop that I had to admit was very elegant. "If we go in here, I'll get you something really beautiful," she said. "All your friends will be jealous." She started walking into the shop. She knew I had no choice but to follow her.

"Why'd I want that?" Making people jealous was stupid.

"Everybody at Newman wants that."

I told her that Catherine had just said that if I got her sugar cubes with weird restaurant names on the wrappers that would be a really good present. So far I'd gotten three.

"Is this girl on scholarship or something?" Grammy said.

As soon as we were in the door, a salesman came up to us, but Grammy waved him away so we could talk and wander around and look at the merchandise. Though the shop was really small.

"I don't know," I said. "I don't think so." That was true. I wasn't exactly sure why people got on scholarship. If it had to do with being smart, Catherine qualified. If it had to do with being poor, she didn't. "She's really smart. But her house is twice as big as yours, only it's wood, like mine."

"Oh, she's not Jewish," Grammy said. Right there in that small shop, where I was sure the salesman spoke English.

"So what?" I said.

"Does your father know?"

"He thinks Catherine is wonderful," I said. "He says she's not a hypocrite. And I know exactly what that means."

Grammy gave me this sickening smile. She wasn't in front of anyone she wanted to impress. "I guess I have nothing to add to that."

I was still a little robot. I had no feelings, not even fear. "You know, it wouldn't be hard for you to like my father. He's a very nice man."

"I like your father," she said.

"I'm not a little kid. I pay attention."

"Then pay attention to those necklaces." Grammy eased her way over to a display case, as smoothly as you please. The salesman had been tracking us, very discreetly. I was sure he trusted us because we looked too distracted to be criminals; he was just lining himself up to be ready to serve this difficult American woman. "Could you take those three out for me, please?" Grammy said.

I saw what she was pointing at, though it wouldn't have mattered. A necklace was a necklace. I told her I was never going to wear one.

"In a couple of years, you'll be glad you have this. Trust me."

My father would be furious. "Daddy wouldn't approve," I said.

"So don't tell him. By the time you're sixteen, he'll think you got it at Woolworth's."

That was a double insult if I ever heard one. I started to cry. It was my fault for mentioning my father, but it didn't make any difference. I had Daddy and his murdered mother all mixed up in my mind. He was sort of murdered.

"What's the matter with you?" Grammy said.

I told her I was homesick and I needed to go home. It was sort of the truth. The salesman was looking at me with something close to pity.

"Don't be ridiculous," Grammy said. "You'll be home in a little over a week. I'm not wasting all that money because your feelings are a little hurt. And they're hurt because I want to spend almost two hundred dollars on a piece of jewelry, of all things!"

"Please, don't," I said.

Grammy acted like I wasn't there. She picked up the one in the middle. It had rubies in it, which I didn't know anything about, but at least it didn't have diamonds. The other two had diamonds, and strangely enough they cost less. "I'm giving it to her for her birthday," she said to the salesman as she handed it to him. My birthday was nowhere near, which Grammy knew because she'd picked out the date. My mother always told me that. How Grammy wanted to go on a trip, so the doctor had induced my birth, no matter how much my mother didn't want him to. His wife was Grammy's friend. "By the time your birthday rolls around," she said, "you'll be glad we got it."

I thanked her. That was what I needed to do.

Mama and Daddy were surprised, but really not as surprised as I was when I said I wanted to go to Mississippi with my grandparents a couple of weeks after I got my freedom from Grammy. I was having a good time letting myself go back to being real, watching my nails grow out until they broke, then cutting the broken ones with scissors so they weren't all the same length, washing my hair and tucking it behind my ears, leaving all my new clothes in my suitcase in the hall and wearing only my old sleeveless tops and shorts. I wasn't a messy girl; I was a comfortable girl. I hadn't seen Grammy in two weeks, and when she invited me to the beach, I wanted to go, not so much to show I'd recovered, but more because I wanted to go to the coast, and I knew she couldn't do any harm in two days. Besides, I was old enough to invite a friend, and if Grammy wanted me to come, she'd have to admit I really couldn't be expected to be amused for a weekend watching her and my grandfather fuss.

All my father saw was that I was going with my grandmother right after I got back, so she must have bought my soul or something. "This is exactly what I expected," he said when I asked permission to go. "You haven't even unpacked. That woman thinks she owns you."

That made me mad. "She does not," I said. "Look at me." I gave myself a little dramatic twirl around the room, acting goofy on purpose, so Daddy could see that I was back to my normal self. "The second Grammy sees me, she'll know that all her civilizing didn't work."