White Picket Fences (19 page)

Chase stopped packing his camera equipment. “Was he part of your smuggling ring?”

“No. He was the young father who asked us to smuggle out his son and newborn daughter.” Eliasz turned to Josef.

Tally looked at Chase. His questioning eyes met hers.

“Ah, yes,” Josef said, nodding. “I think you’re right.”

“You’re sure the father’s name was Aron Bachmann? And that he was a doctor?” Tally asked.

“Yes. Yes, I think so. His children were the last we rescued. Could that little boy be your grandfather? Is that what this means?”

Again Chase and Tally exchanged glances. It couldn’t be the same Aron Bachmann.

“I don’t see how,” Chase said. “When our grandpa escaped the ghetto, his mother was with him.”

“The little boy’s and baby’s mother died, right? You’re sure?” Tally’s brow creased in bewilderment.

“Yes. She had a terrible infection. Her husband had no medicine to save her,” Josef answered.

Tally quickly directed her attention back to Eliasz as a new thought seemed to occur to her. “Do you know where Aron Bachmann was from? What part of Warsaw?”

Eliasz rubbed his chin. “Can’t recall at the moment. People in the ghetto came from all over. I don’t know that I ever knew.”

Josef handed the photo back to her. “You look puzzled.”

“I was hoping you’d remember where in Warsaw the Bachmann family lived. My father is over there somewhere, and we don’t know where he is.” Tally slipped the photo into her backpack.

“But that’s not all?” Josef asked.

“If, in some wild way, this is the same Aron Bachmann, then the woman who escaped with our grandpa wasn’t his real mother,” Chase said. “But she pretended she was. For the rest of her life she pretended it. And our grandfather just let her.”

Josef stroked his chin. “Perhaps it was the best way for them
to leave the war and the ghetto behind them. We, each of us, had to find a way. Don’t judge her too harshly. Or your grandfather.”

For several seconds, no one said anything. An uneasy silence hung in the room.

Matt nodded toward Eliasz. “How come you never married, Eliasz?”

The old man grinned. “I never found anyone as beautiful as Helen.”

Matt laughed. “How do you know she was beautiful? You’re blind!”

“Ah, well. That doesn’t mean I cannot see. What do you see when you close your eyes, my young friend?”

Matt shrugged. “Nothing.”

“And you?” Eliasz said toward Tally. When she said nothing, he turned to Chase. “What do you see when you close your eyes? You, the thinker.”

“I… I don’t know what I see,” Chase mumbled.

“When you who see close your eyes, you become like me. You see with the eyes of your mind and your dreams, and they never rest. When you have experienced the very worst in man—and the very best—everything becomes very clear. I see my mother in my dreams. I see my sister whom she loved and surrendered. I see Helen, who took me into her home as if I were her brother. And yes, I see the Nazi soldier who shot my parents, and the guards who entertained themselves by urinating on us while we worked at the fence, and the young women from my old neighborhood that they took and raped. I see the perfect, and I see the atrocious. Close your eyes and tell me you cannot see.”

The air in the room seemed to freeze in a wordless moment. Chase’s voice felt useless in this throat, and he was aware of how very much he suddenly did not want to close his eyes.

“Okay, wow,” Matt said. “Well, that was, like, really deep.” He turned to Chase. “Too bad you’d already turned off the camera, dude.”

Chase grabbed the camera bag and tripod. Time to go.

twenty-three

M
att pulled into the driveway of the Janvier house, and Chase and Tally climbed out of his car and into the fading sunlight. “Hey, thanks for coming to soccer practice,” he called out to them. “Sorry it went long.”

Chase slung his camera bag over his shoulder. “It’s all right. I should’ve guessed we wouldn’t have gotten out of the nursing home in under half an hour. I should’ve just driven my own car.”

“Yeah, but then you wouldn’t have gotten to watch those awesome soccer plays.”

Chase closed the back door. “No. I would’ve gotten a paper written for English.”

“Sorry, dude.”

“It’s cool. I’ve got a Red Bull in the fridge in the garage. I’ll get the paper done tonight. See ya.” Chase turned and began heading up the flagstone steps to the front door.

Tally was about to follow him when Matt called out to her. “Hey, Tally!”

She turned back around.

Matt leaned his torso toward the open passenger window and cocked his head. “Would you want to go out sometime?”

“Out?”

“Yeah.” Matt grinned. “Out.”

“Like, just you and me?”

He laughed. “Like.”

“But I don’t know how long I’m going to be here,” she said.

Matt continued to smile at her. “You’re going to be here on Saturday, aren’t you?”

“Probably.”

“Well, you want to go out Saturday?”

Tally turned to see if Chase had already gone inside the house, but he was waiting for her on the front porch, looking at her with his hand resting lightly on the doorknob. There was no way to guess what he thought of Matt asking her out. And she had no idea what Amanda and Neil would say. Tally swung back around.

“I’ll check,” she said.

“Cool.” But Matt’s tone was pensive. “Catch you later.”

“Okay.”

The tires on Matt’s car made a slight squealing sound as he pulled away from the curb. Tally turned to face the front door. Chase was still looking at her. Her face felt warm.

“What are you looking at?” she mumbled as she closed the distance between them.

“What’s the point of going out with him if you’re only going to be here a few weeks?” Chase’s hand was still on the doorknob

“Does there have to be a point?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Besides, I didn’t even say I was going.”

“If my parents say you can, will you?”

Tally studied his face. Perhaps Chase thought she would say
something to Matt about what Chase had told her in secret. She would never do that. “Will they?” she said.

“If they base their decision on what they think your dad would say, well, knowing Uncle Bart, they’ll probably say yes.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean, knowing Uncle Bart?”

“You know what I mean.” He turned the doorknob.

“No, I don’t.” Tally reached for his arm.

“Don’t worry about it. You should take it as a compliment. Uncle Bart’s always fascinated me.” Chase opened the door. She tightened her grip.

“Wait! You don’t think I should go out with Matt?”

Chase hesitated for only a moment. “Does it matter to you what I think?”

She stared at him. “Does it matter to you if I go?”

Chase looked at her and did not answer.

“I wouldn’t say anything,” she said softly, releasing him.

“About what?” Chase replied. But he stepped into the tiled entry and headed for the stairs without giving her a chance to answer.

Plates of sweet and sour chicken sent pungent, tangy odors spiraling around the dinner table. Neil offered a quiet table grace, and they began to eat.

After a few moments of silence, Amanda cleared her throat. “Neil, those men at the nursing home that Chase and Tally have
been interviewing knew an Aron Bachmann in the Warsaw Ghetto. He was a doctor.”

Neil looked up from his food. “Really? Not your grandfather, though?”

Amanda shook her head and glanced at Chase. “Well, I don’t think so. This one had a wife who died right after giving birth to a baby girl. So…” Her voice trailed off.

“Interesting, though. That there could be two Aron Bachmanns in the ghetto who were both doctors. I wonder how many people lived there.” Neil took a sip of water.

“Four hundred thousand,” Chase said without looking up from his plate.

“Really? That many?” Neil set his glass back down. “Well, then maybe it’s not so odd that there could be two of them.”

“It could’ve been him.” Again Chase spoke without looking up.

“Pardon?” Neil said.

“No, it couldn’t,” Delcey chimed in.

Chase lifted his head. “It could’ve been him.”

“Well, I don’t see how,” Amanda began, looking from son to husband. “I mean, the Aron Bachmann your friends knew had a wife who died in the ghetto. So it couldn’t be.”

“But what do you really know about your grandmother?” Chase replied. “I mean, the woman who said she was your grandmother. You told me she never wanted to talk about the war, the ghetto, her life before the war, not even her dead first husband. And Grandpa didn’t either.”

“That doesn’t mean she wasn’t really your grandmother and that there weren’t two Aron Bachmanns in the ghetto, Chase.”
Neil placed a forkful of food in his mouth. The cashews made a crunching sound.

“Both doctors?” Chase continued. “Both smuggled out a young son? Both sent to Treblinka? Both died there? That sounds a little too coincidental.”

“But… but who would that woman be, then? The woman I knew as my grandmother?” Amanda frowned.

“I don’t know. A neighbor, one of your grandmother’s friends, or a cousin, or a sister. There were probably lots of people who would’ve taken your father in. He was just a little kid. Six or seven years old, right?”

Neil leaned forward on his elbows. His fork dangled. “And so you think your grandpa didn’t remember his real mother? And that this other woman just let him think he hadn’t lost both his parents?”

Chase shook his head and lifted a piece of pineapple to his mouth. “No. I don’t think that at all. I think he remembered who his mother was. That wouldn’t be something he’d likely forget. Just because he was a little kid doesn’t mean he wouldn’t remember.”

Next to Tally, Amanda coughed. She reached for her water glass and nearly knocked it over. Chase didn’t seem to notice.

“He probably had to go along with it because of the war and the danger of being labeled Jewish,” Tally said.

“Okay, but what about after the war?” Neil said. “Why keep it a secret after the war ended? It wouldn’t have mattered then.”

“It obviously mattered to them,” Chase said.

Neil took a drink from his glass but kept his eyes on Chase. Tally couldn’t read the expression on his face.

“But what’s the purpose of the secrecy after the war, or even years later, when they were both here in the States and this woman, Marta Bachmann, remarried?” Neil asked as he set his glass down. “I don’t see the need for secrecy then.”

Chase shrugged. “It wasn’t your secret.”

Amanda coughed again. “Well, I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure, and I, for one, am quite happy to believe what I’ve always believed, that the woman I knew as my grandmother was my biological grandmother.”

“Of course you are,” Chase whispered to no one. But Tally heard him.

“What?” Amanda asked.

“Nothing.”

Tally chanced a glance at Amanda. Her aunt’s face was slightly ashen.

“Well, it’s not like it makes a difference now.” Neil wiped his mouth with his napkin.

“Okay, so do I or do I not know who my great-grandma was?” Delcey asked pointedly. Her cell phone vibrated, and she pulled it out of her pocket.

“I think it’s safe to say you do, and put that phone away, please.” Neil looked over at his daughter. “You know how your mom and I feel about your phone at the table.”

Delcey huffed and stuck her phone back in her pocket. The stretch of silence that followed made Tally uncomfortable. She looked over at Amanda, the only one not chewing. Her aunt stared at the plate in front of her, raised her head to look at Uncle Neil, and then lowered it again. She looked lost.

Tally decided to change the subject. “Eliasz, the blind man at the nursing home, says he can see in his dreams.”

Four heads looked up. A tiny grin appeared on Chase’s face.

“He can see in his dreams?” Neil asked.

“Uh-huh. And when he closes his eyes.”

Neil finished chewing the food in his mouth and swallowed. “I think this man was teasing you, Tally.”

Tally looked at Chase. He cocked his head slightly.
You going to let him get away with that?
his look said.

“No, he wasn’t,” she countered.

“Is he blind from birth?” Neil asked.

“Yes.”

“Then he was just teasing you. I’m sure it’s impossible for someone blind from birth to conjure images in his head of things he’s never seen.”

Delcey dropped her angry frown over missing her phone call and turned to her father. “How do you know that?”

“Well, let’s think about it.” Neil sat back in his chair. “How could his brain assemble an image of, say, a red apple if he’s never seen the color red and he’s never seen an apple? He has no raw materials to work with. He would have to have the real image in his mind already to imagine it or dream it.”

Tally opened her mouth to say that Eliasz certainly didn’t sound like he was teasing, but Chase’s voice next to her filled the quiet space after Neil finished.

“But what if it’s not uncomplicated things like red apples that he sees but deeply complicated images?” Chase said. “Images that shaped him, changed him, nearly killed him?”