The Thing I'm Most Afraid Of

by Kristin Levine

  The buildings that made up Prague Castle looked a bit like Schönbrunn, though in Prague they were arranged in a giant square with a cathedral in the central courtyard. We went on the one-hour English-language tour. We had lunch, and then Katarina’s Jewish cemetery was next. Felix read from his guidebook as we walked.

  “The Jewish community in Prague wasn’t allowed to purchase land for a new cemetery, so they put soil on top of the old graves and reused the same piece of land. In some parts of the cemetery, there are as many as twelve layers of bodies. So much dirt was added, walls had to be built to hold the graves and the soil in place. Some of the headstones you can see today are for bodies many layers down.”

  The cemetery was way more interesting than I’d expected. For one thing, Felix was right. The ground was raised several feet higher than the rest of the street. The tombstones were crowded extremely close together, leaning at odd angles, as if a child had stuck stones into the ground at random. Some of the grave markers were covered in Hebrew; others had names that were so worn with weather and time, you could barely read them at all. Dad and Felix and Sara went off to try to decipher more tombstones, but my feet were tired, so I sat down on a bench next to Katarina.

  “I’m glad we came,” she said, fanning herself with Felix’s guidebook. She wore a light silk blouse that looked like an impressionist painting, but it was hot. “I’ve always wanted to see the Old Jewish Cemetery.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Katarina shrugged. “I think it’s important to visit meaningful Jewish sites and places that memorialize history. I’ve been to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. I’ve even been to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.”

  “Are you Jewish?” I asked.

  “No.” She was quiet for a long moment.

  “Dad’s parents were,” I told her, “but they never went to synagogue. My mother was raised Methodist. We always just celebrated a little bit of everything.”

  Katarina was silent for a long moment, then added in almost a whisper, “I think my parents were members of the Nazi Party.”

  “What?”

  “We never talked about it,” she went on. “And they weren’t concentration camp guards or anything like that. But they were party members. When I was a child, I found the papers in the attic, on a rainy day when my brother and I were playing hide-and-seek. I tried to ask my mother about it last year, before she died. She waved a hand in the air and said, ‘It was just a piece of paper. It didn’t mean anything. It was what everyone did. We had to join.’

  “But it was wrong. My parents knew the Nazis were persecuting Jews and Romani and homosexuals. And they didn’t do anything.” She paused. “Do you know the word Vergangenheitsbewältigung?”

  “That’s one word?” I asked.

  “Yes, and it means coming to terms with the past. Learning what it meant and how to live with it. For me, it means . . . I can’t pretend I don’t hear the reports about the ethnic cleansing going on in Bosnia now.”

  “Do you think Sara’s family is okay?”

  “I don’t know,” Katarina said quietly. “I hope so, but . . . what I do know is that I believe it’s wrong to pass laws that make it nearly impossible to get asylum. You know, in Nazi Germany they passed laws so that it was ‘legal’ to require Jewish citizens to register, ‘legal’ to make them live in certain parts of the country. It was legal, but it was still wrong.”

  I thought about that as I looked around the graveyard. In the olden days, sure, sometimes laws were wrong. I mean, slavery used to be legal, and that was clearly wrong! But I’d never thought about it today. Modern societies had gotten rid of the bad laws. Hadn’t they? I mean, was it possible that things we thought were perfectly okay and legal now would be considered illegal, even immoral in the future?

  My thoughts swirled together like the yellows, blues, and greens in Katarina’s blouse. “I really want to go to your candlelight vigil,” I said. “The one in support of refugees. But I’m not sure Dad will let me go.”

  Katarina smiled and squeezed my hand. “I’ll speak to your father.”

  CHAPTER 30

  The Bridge, Part 2

  The last place we visited was the Charles Bridge. Felix read more facts as we walked. “The Charles Bridge crosses the Vltava River, connecting Prague Castle and the Old Town. Construction began in 1357. Legend has it that King Charles IV himself lay the first stone at exactly 5:31 a.m. on the ninth of July. King Charles was a believer in numerology and thought this would be an auspicious day and time, as it formed a palindrome: 1 3 5 7 9 7 5 3 1—year, day, month, and time.”

  “That’s cool,” I said.

  “Over fifteen hundred feet long and over thirty feet wide, the bridge is decorated by thirty statues placed at intervals along its span.”

  I stopped listening once we arrived at the foot of the bridge. It was late afternoon, and the sunlight was golden, giving all the stone a shimmery glow. The bridge was made up of sixteen stone arches, stretching gracefully across the river.

  “Oh, it’s a pedestrian bridge,” I exclaimed. “Like Kärntner Straße.” Along the edges of the bridge, I could see artists painting views of the river, vendors selling snacks, and people hawking souvenirs.

  Felix, Katarina, and Dad rushed ahead, eager to see the view from the middle of the bridge. I was about to join them when I glanced back at Sara.

  She stood frozen on the edge of the riverbank. “Come on,” I said. “I bet Dad will buy us ice cream.”

  “I tired,” Sara said. “I wait here.” She pointed to a bench.

  “We can sit on the bridge,” I insisted. “Come enjoy the view.”

  Sara shook her head.

  I didn’t know what was going on with her. I was about to go join my father when a little white dog ran onto the bridge. It barked once, twice, and then began to whine in fear.

  And I remembered.

  In Sarajevo, there was a bridge outside of Sara’s apartment. The bridge where she’d seen a dog get shot. The bridge where her mother had died in her dream.

  I went and sat down with Sara on the bench.

  “You not have to stay.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I want to.”

  I couldn’t find any more words, so we just sat and watched people stroll on and off the bridge. Dad looked back at us, but I waved and he didn’t come over to investigate.

  The little dog sat down in the shade of one of the statues. A moment later, an old woman rushed up to him, scolding loudly in Czech. The dog jumped up and licked her face.

  Sara was watching the dog too.

  “Do you want to try?” I asked.

  Sara nodded.

  I took her hand, and we stood up together. Slowly, step by step, we made our way to the edge of the bridge. Sara paused. There was a musician playing a violin, his case open before him. I threw in a couple of coins, and we took a few more steps.

  Felix glanced back at us then, and I guess he understood the look I gave him, because he ran back and took Sara’s other hand. “Sara,” he said, “there’s a man on the bridge selling surplus Soviet Army items. It’s so cool! You have to see it. He’s got these gigantic fur hats. And Mama said she’d buy me one!”

  We were on the bridge now. Sara was trembling, but she kept walking as Felix chattered on. I looked over at a woman painting. Her picture was beautiful—the bridge, the river, the red roofs of the houses, the green dome of the cathedral. Then I glanced up, and it was as if the drawing had suddenly sprung to life.

  The late-afternoon sun sparkled on the river. The cathedral spires reached into the sky, almost touching the wispy clouds. The statues of the saints stood protectively over us as we walked in and out of their shadows, approaching the center of the bridge.

  Dad and Katarina were waiting there, next to a man with a portable freezer. “Do you want some ice cream?” Dad asked.

&nbs
p; Of course we did. Sara let go of our hands to take her cone, getting ice cream on her nose with the very first lick. We all laughed, and as I handed her a napkin, Sara squeezed my hand and whispered, “Thank you.”

  And so the spell of the other phantom bridge was broken, and it was just a normal afternoon, and we were just a normal family. Felix wore his new Siberian hat until sweat ran down his face. Katarina got into a long discussion with one of the artists and decided to purchase a painting. The man carefully removed the canvas from its frame, rolled it up, and placed it into a cardboard tube for Katarina to take home. Dad bought an old-fashioned pocket watch and kept popping it open to check the time. Sara and I watched the people stroll across the bridge; no one felt the need to run.

  We stayed on the bridge for a long, long time, until the sun started to go down. Felix, Sara, and Katarina were huddled over the guidebook, trying to decide where to go for dinner. Dad and I stood still by the edge, looking out over the water, a breeze cooling our faces. Maybe I was feeling good from helping Sara; in any case, I turned to my father and asked, “Dad, do you ever wish that I didn’t worry so much?”

  “What?” He turned to look at me, the setting sun making half his face glow, the other half in shadow.

  “I mean, I know you love me. And we had such a great time today! But sometimes, I feel like you wish that I . . . that I was a girl who didn’t need a Doomsday Journal.”

  “Rebecca, that’s not true,” he said gently.

  “I know,” I said, embarrassed, staring at the stones of the bridge. “It’s silly of me to—”

  “It’s not silly of you either,” Dad sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I just thought I’d done a better job hiding my frustration. Becca, I was a lot like you as a kid. I worried about everything! And my parents were so impatient. I swore I’d never be like that. It’s hard to see you worry, to not know what to do or say to make it better. So you’re right—sometimes I am upset, but it’s never at you. I’m only frustrated with myself.”

  “Oh.”

  Dad put his arm around me, and we looked up at the castle on the hill. It felt like we were in a fairy tale. “Becca,” Dad said. “You can worry as much as you want. You will always be my most special girl.”

  That night as I crawled into the twin bed across from Sara, the last thing I whispered to her was “This was a day full of pig.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Drinks on a Train

  The next morning, Dad and Katarina were long gone by the time the rest of us woke up. Sara, Felix, and I got to the station an hour before our departure time, so we had plenty of time to buy sandwiches for lunch and pick out a bunch of postcards. The train wasn’t full, so we had a compartment to ourselves. Sara and Felix pulled out the seats and pushed them together to make a little bed. We were all lying flat on our backs as if we were in a sleeper, giggling, when the train pulled out of the station.

  “Let’s call Mai and Rasheed when we get home,” I suggested. “Maybe they’d like to go see the opera movie at the Rathaus tomorrow.”

  Felix made a face.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You want me to tell you all the things wrong with that plan?”

  “You like Mai and Rasheed!” I pointed out.

  “Yes, but . . .”

  The Czech conductor came by to check our tickets. Sara showed them to him, then tucked them back into her green purse. Once he was gone, Felix and I continued our discussion. “I’m trying to make more friends at school, Becca,” he argued. “I can’t invite them to some lame event full of grandmas and tourists!”

  “It looks fun!” I insisted. “And you liked that opera!”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Felix.

  “Yes, you did!”

  “Kinder!” Sara interrupted. “Time for lunch. Let’s get drinks from the café car.”

  “Fine,” Felix said. “I’ll stay here and watch the bags.”

  Which meant I had to go help carry the drinks. I wobbled a bit walking down the corridor. Why is Felix still so hesitant to make new friends? It’s sort of annoying. When we got to the end of the car, Sara pushed a big metal button, and the door slid open. In the space between the cars, the train tracks whizzed by beneath our feet. I stood still, watching for a long moment. What if I fall?

  “Gap is too small,” Sara said, as if she had read my mind. “Come.” She tugged at my hand, and automatically I stepped over the gap. I felt a little dizzy, but Sara kept walking and I followed her. There was a second door to open, followed by a second gap to jump. This time, I didn’t look down and it wasn’t quite as scary.

  Finally, we reached the café car. Instead of compartments, this car had little booths by the windows and a bar serving drinks. Sara ordered a Coke (for me), an Almdudler (for Felix), and einen kleinen Braunen (coffee with milk) for herself. The sodas came in glass bottles. I watched as the saleswoman popped off the bottle caps before handing them carefully to me. Sara paid with money from my dad’s envelope and put the change back into her purse. Then she picked up her coffee.

  “Becca, you get door,” she instructed. “Be brave. Jump over quick.”

  I had just opened the door between the cars when a small child of five or six came barreling through the passageway and ran right into me. We both fell to the floor, knocking Sara down as well.

  The drinks flew everywhere. Coffee stained the front of Sara’s shirt; the sodas missed me but spilled onto the table of an elderly woman sitting in a booth by the window. “Ach du meine Güte!” exclaimed the woman, standing up to avoid getting wet.

  “I’m so sorry!” The boy’s mother came forward. She spoke English with a thick accent. She jerked the boy by the arm and handed him off to a man who was standing behind her. “I tell him not to run.”

  Sara pressed a handful of napkins to her shirt as the boy’s mother and I grabbed some paper towels and helped the old woman mop up the mess. The soda was all over her table, soaking into her newspaper. She folded it into soggy squares and threw it into the trash.

  The child came back again, running into his mother this time. His mother grasped his wrist hard. “Nein!” she snapped at him. “My apologies. I pay for drinks.” She threw down a hundred-schilling bill and marched the boy off.

  We finished wiping down the table for the old lady. Sara exchanged a few words with her in German. The woman shook her head. “Nein, danke,” she said. “Bin schon fertig.”

  “What’d she say?” I asked.

  “I asked if she wanted another newspaper. She said no, she was already done.”

  “That’s lucky,” I said. “But your shirt’s all stained!”

  Sara shrugged. “I have a clean shirt in my bag. Let’s get new drinks now.”

  We waited in line—again—and used the hundred-schilling bill to pay. I opened the doors more carefully this time, and we made it back to our compartment.

  Felix had slid the seats back into their normal positions and gotten out our bag of sandwiches. “What happened to you?” he asked, gesturing to Sara’s shirt.

  “A little boy ran into me,” Sara said, shaking her head. “Very naughty.”

  I handed Felix his Almdudler and took a sip of my Coke.

  “Sandwich?” Felix asked gruffly.

  “Sure.” He tossed me my ham and swiss on a baguette. Fine. If he wanted to be grumpy, I’d just write a few postcards.

  Sara sat down and took a long sip of her coffee. Then suddenly, she jumped up. “Where’s my purse?” she asked.

  “What?” I asked.

  “My purse.”

  “You had it in the café car,” I said.

  “Maybe I drop it,” she sighed and put her coffee down on a little ledge. “Stay here. I go look. Be right back.”

  “Okay.”

  Felix and I ate our sandwiches in silence. After a few minutes, the train slowly came t
o a stop. “Are we at the border already?” I asked.

  “I guess,” he said.

  “Where’s Sara?” I asked. “Doesn’t she have to be here?”

  “No,” he said. “They can just check her passport in the café car.”

  “I’d rather go get—”

  At that moment the door to our car slid open. “Pässe bitte. Passports, please.”

  Felix and I dug our passports out of our backpacks and handed them over.

  “Traveling alone?” the conductor asked me, opening my passport.

  “No,” I said, my heart beating just a little too fast. “Our au . . . friend went to the café car.”

  He nodded and glanced at Felix’s passport before handing them both back to us. “Gute Reise!”

  Then he closed the door and was gone.

  Felix picked up his sandwich again, but my stomach was churning. I wished Felix would talk to me. I’d never thought I’d have to go through passport control by myself. It hadn’t been that bad, but I would have been less anxious if Sara had been there. Wait a minute . . .

  “Where’s Sara?” I asked.

  “She went to the café car.”

  “It’s been a while,” I said.

  Felix shrugged. “Maybe she had to stop by the restroom on the way back.”

  “Maybe.”

  The train jerked and started moving again. Felix pulled out a book, but he didn’t open it. I tried to focus on my postcards, but I kept glancing at my watch. Five minutes crept by. Then ten. Then fifteen.

  “I’m going to go look for her,” I said.

  “She told us to stay here.”

  “You stay here in case she comes back.”

  “Fine!”

  I wasn’t sure what we were arguing about anymore. I picked up my purse and put my hand on the door.

  “Becca?” Felix said more gently.