by Lore Segal
Helene said, “No.”
“All right. We can play it out here. It’s a guessing game. You have to guess in how many days you will get a letter from your parents. First you guess and then I guess my letter, and the one who guesses too early has lost. Go on. You guess.”
Helene looked straight before her. “Go on,” I said, “guess how many days.”
Helene said, “Three.”
“All right,” I said, “you guess three days. Now it’s my turn, I have to figure.” I figured that the letter I had taken to the corner post box in the morning would take two or three days to reach Vienna, say four to be on the safe side, and they would answer the next day or the day after, say another four days, that makes eight, and then four days back, twelve, add two more days to make sure, that’s fourteen. “I guess fourteen days. Now let’s get under the table.” But Helene would not, and cried, and Mrs. Levine ran in to scold me and Annie brought our tea, and after that Mrs. Rosen took Helene home.
But on the following Monday the twenty refugee children who had been distributed among the families of Liverpool were taken to the Hebrew day school, and after that I saw Helene every day.
On Thursday I came in glory. I said that I had had a letter, which made it five days, and I had guessed fourteen days, so I had won by nine.
Next day at break, in the schoolyard, Helene said that she had won too and she had had a letter. “You didn’t win,” I said. “I won. Because you said three days and your letter took six so you lost by three days, see?” Helene did not see. She looked straight before her. “Let’s do it again,” I said. “I sent a letter today and I have to figure.” This time I figured so well that I made it twenty-one days. “Twenty-one days,” I said happily. “Now it’s your turn. You guess.”
“Two days,” said Helene. In all the weeks we played, she never did catch on.
A delightful thing had meanwhile developed. I had written my parents about my friend Helene Rubichek and how her parents were coming to England. My parents knew Anton Rubichek by name as a journalist and got in touch with him and arranged to send me a present, a box of sweets perhaps, a surprise. More wonderful yet, my parents were going to visit Helene’s parents on Saturday at the very time Helene would be visiting me. This intrigued me: I wanted Helene to describe to me the room in which they would be having their coffee, to give me an idea how the furniture was arranged, so that I could the better think of them sitting there, but Helene wasn’t at all good at giving anybody any ideas and I made up my own picture. The next letter from home destroyed this picture: It seemed my parents had never sat in that room at all. It was explained in an enclosed note, sealed and addressed to Mrs. Levine, who read it to her daughters. They were very excited, and then Mrs. Levine called Mrs. Rosen on the telephone and they talked a long time. I got a new picture of my parents standing outside Helene’s parents’ apartment door, which had been locked and taped and sealed off with an official seal. The neighbors said the Rubicheks had been taken away that morning.
This troubled me deeply: I practiced imagining what my parents were doing, and where, at the very instant that I was thinking of them and then trying to imagine that they were really doing something entirely different in quite another place. It made me giddy, and I went to Mrs. Levine and told her my stomach felt sick. She gave me some medicine and I vomited, and then I felt better. I sat down and wrote a letter home.
I posted it the next morning on my way to school. During break I found Helene and said, “This time I guess thirty days.”
Helene said, “I’m not playing any more.”
“Yes you are,” I said, appalled because I could not face the weeks ahead unless they were divided into periods of which I could see the end, with a letter to wait for, like the piece of chocolate that my mother had always put in the middle of the plate, underneath so many spoonfuls of rice pudding. “Don’t you like to play?” I said quickly, for Helene was laying her cheek on her shoulder. “I’ll show you how to win. Guess twenty days and then you won’t expect a letter and suddenly it will come as a surprise, you see?”
But Helene said, “I won’t get any more letters.”
“Yes, you might,” I said, but I knew that Helene had turned obstinate past recall.
At the house after school, I had begun to write my autobiography, to let the English know, as I had promised my father, what had happened to us under Hitler. But when I came to write it down, I felt a certain flatness. The events needed to be picked up, deepened, darkened. I described with gusto the “horror-night” of Schuschnigg’s abdication—not mentioning how unsolemnly rude my mother had been to Tante Trude. I wrote how, the next morning, “the red flags waved like evil ghosts in the wind and I stood still and held my hands in horror before my eyes, having already an inkling of the charm of the darling Germans.” (“Die lieblichen Deutschen” were the words I had heard my mother use.) I wrote, “The sun shone in the cloudless blue. Was it for us it shone or for our enemies? Or was it only for the happy people in distant lands who would surely come to our aid?” I showed it to Sarah.
Sarah must have been fifteen years old at the time. By far the most intelligent, spirited, and imaginative of her family, she was the Elizabeth Bennet of the Levines. She was constantly irritated with everyone, trying to bully her father into asserting himself, her mother into being better informed, her five sisters into greater awareness and elegance. To me, she was the touchstone of everything English. My book became our common project. She encouraged me to finish it, and she was going to help me translate it and publish it. Together, we would expose Adolf Hitler to the world.
In bed at night, I dreamed about Sarah, but in the daytime I sought out the comfortable sanctuary of Annie’s kitchen. I liked to watch her trip busily about, like the good sister in the fairy tale my father had taken me to see in the children’s theater. She looked so tidy in her linen dress and long apron. Her eyes were lowered demurely, but her little round nostrils stared outrageously. There was a game I played: I would stalk her around the kitchen, trying to maneuver myself into positions from which I could get a good look into the inside of Annie’s nose.
Annie never made me finish up my cups of nauseating tea with milk, or told me to cheer up and do something, like Mrs. Levine; she never corrected my Viennese table manners or pulled me up when I used a German word instead of the English one I didn’t know, like Sarah. Mostly, Annie was not particularly listening to me, and this gave me a certain freedom in talking with her.
I would say, “Annie, do you like Mrs. Levine?”
And Annie would say, “Yes. Mrs. Levine is a very nice lady.”
I said, “I like her. I didn’t like her in the beginning, but now I do.” And I would discuss with Annie my impressions of the daughters of the house and ask Annie which one she thought was the prettiest. I said I thought Sarah was beautiful. I liked her the best—the others continued to confuse me. I knew that there were six. It took me weeks to figure out which of them lived in which of the rooms on the second floor, and which of them were married and only came to visit. I did not dare to talk to any of them, because their names and faces were interchangeable. Then I would say, “And Uncle Reuben, he is nice,” surprised to come across him in my mind, just as I was always surprised to come into a room and find him in it. This house full of women was inclined to forget Uncle Reuben except at mealtimes, to feed, or at times when his eyes were bad, to fuss over. But whenever I did recall his existence, I liked him. “He is kind,” I said. “He gives me sixpence every Sunday. I like him very much.”
Annie said yes, Mr. Levine was a very nice man. I liked talking things over with Annie. And if Annie winked her eye and made me laugh and I wet myself, I would say brazenly, almost carelessly, “Annie, look what that silly Barry did.” Annie would say, “That dog, he’s getting just terrible,” and she would get a cloth and wipe up the pool.
One day the dog must have had a cold in his insides, because he really did make a pool. I watched him do it, and I was
so pleased that I cried, “Hey, Annie, guess what? The dog made a pool. Look, behind the settee in the sitting room.”
Annie said, “Miss Sarah, there goes that dog again. You see what I told you, he’s getting worse and worse.”
Sarah said, “Barry, come here at once.” She took hold of his collar and said, “Lore, was it Barry who made that pool?” and looked me straight in the eyes.
“Right behind the settee; nobody could even have got in there except Barry,” I said, with all my heart because it was the truth.
“Well, then,” Sarah said, “don’t you think he should be taught not to do it? He’s been living in our house long enough, don’t you think, Lore? Maybe he needs to be punished. Hand me his lead.”
I stood and watched her spank the dog—not very hard or very long, but he laid down his front legs and raised his head, gave three high-pitched howls, and fled into the kitchen.
Later I heard the visitors in the sitting room. I didn’t know if I was supposed to go in. Barry was alone in the kitchen, and I didn’t want to go in there, so I went up the stairs looking for Annie.
There was no one on the green-carpeted landing. All the doors were shut and blind. I stood listening, and I wondered about those five maids in their caps and aprons. I never had seen any of them again or ever stopped expecting to. (It must have occurred to me at some point that there never had been any maid but my own Annie, but mystification had become a habit of mind. Only now, with this writing down, is it obvious how Annie’s curiosity had taken five separate peeks at the little refugee that first night; only now does Auntie Essie finally merge with the ugly old woman in fur; now I understand the word “taimtarais,” which Annie said every morning when she came to wake me and which my father never did find in any dictionary.)
Annie’s dustpan and broom leaned outside my room on the top floor. Annie was inside, but she wasn’t cleaning. She was standing at my dressing table eating my chocolate. I heard the small rustle of her finger poking choosily into the box of sweets my mother had hidden in my suitcase for me—saw with my own eyes how Annie lifted one out and put it into her mouth. I dared not breathe in case Annie should turn around and know that I had seen her. With a beating heart, I backed away, wondering how I should ever face her again, or what I would say to her when we met. I crept down the stairs.
From the drawing room came the happy squealing of a little child. I opened the door and walked self-consciously in. One of the married daughters had brought her small son to visit. The baby was running around in circles. Mrs. Levine said, “This is little Lore. Look who’s come to play with you, Lore. This is our Bobby,” and she caught hold of the child and she squeezed him and hugged him and said that she would like to eat him up.
“Oh, Ma!” said Sarah. “You spoil him.” Mrs. Levine said, “Say hello to the little girl. Go and shake hands.” But the child escaped from his grandmother’s grasp and slipped past his mother and his Aunt Sarah and continued his crazy circling, making airplane noises the while, and wouldn’t stop to look at me.
Little Bobby had a pair of those peculiar ghetto eyes—as if a whole history of huckstering and dreaming were gathered in the baby’s deep eyes. His cheeks were soft and round. I thought he was the most beautiful child I had ever seen. I yearned toward him.
So did his grandfather. Uncle Reuben kept curling his beckoning finger and holding out a silver shilling, which the little boy caught from him like a relay runner snatching the baton, not staying to see his grandfather wink and put a conspiratorial finger to his lips. Bobby’s mother said, “Now say thank you to your grandfather and come here at once. Come when I tell you. I’ll put your shilling in my purse for you, or you’ll lose it. Take his hand,” she said to me, “and bring him here.”
I put my hand out gladly, but the baby ducked and yelled and ran. I ran after him a little way, but I felt foolish and stopped. I thought, He’s only little. I don’t run around like that any more. I meant to stand there watching him smilingly, the way grown-ups watch children, but I did not know how. I rubbed the back of my hand to and fro against my temple in an agony of self-consciousness. I wished I had my little footstool to curl up on, but it was on the other side of the fireplace and it was impossible to think of walking so far with them watching me.
Now they had begun to talk about me. “That’s all she ever does,” Mrs. Levine was saying to her married daughter. “Write letters home or she just sits around. I tell her she should occupy herself. She’s got to try and be happy with us here. But she doesn’t even try.”
“Leave her alone, Ma,” Sarah said.
“But I am,” I said. “I am happy.”
“So why do you sit around all day just moping?” Mrs. Levine said, looking at me through her spectacles.
“I’m not moping,” I said. The truth was that I never exactly understood the word “moping.” After the first days, I had lost my capacity to cry whenever I felt like it, and now I didn’t even feel like it any more. Often when I giggled with Annie in the kitchen, I would stop in horror, knowing I must be heartless: I had been enjoying myself; it was hours since I had even remembered my parents. I used to go and look in the mirror to see what Mrs. Levine saw in me.
“You are so moping,” she said.
Little Bobby, who could not brook divided attention, crept between his grandmother’s knees and pushed his shilling into her chin, saying, “Look what I got, Grandma! Grand-maaa!”
“I’m not moping,” I said. “I just like sitting by the fire.”
“Always an answer,” Mrs. Levine said. “I never saw such a child for arguing. And you think I can get her to go out for some fresh air?”
“Look, Grandma!” little Bobby said. “Look what I can do!” And he tipped his head back and laid the shilling on his forehead.
“My little Bubele!” cried Mrs. Levine. She squeezed his face between her hands and kissed him on the mouth.
“I will go,” I said very loud. “I will go for a walk.”
“You want to go now?” Mrs. Levine said. “Will you go with Annie?”
I blushed furiously, thinking of Annie and the chocolate, but I was committed to saying yes. I was almost glad I was going for a walk with Annie. I wanted to be angry with her.
I decided not to talk to Annie. We walked through the park gates. I knew that Annie was bad. I removed my hand from hers in a gesture of disassociation. I looked up from time to time with horror and awe at this Annie who had stolen my chocolate, but she was walking very straight, her nose pointing upward. I started kicking little stones; Annie let me. My freed hand kept getting in the way. I put it in my pocket, but it felt as if it didn’t belong there and I took it out again. Presently I held it up for Annie, and she took it and swung it as we walked. I helped her swing it higher.
“You know,” I said and looked up expectantly, “where I come from Jews aren’t allowed to go into the parks?”
“Aren’t they, now,” Annie said. We walked on.
“You know what! You know what I’m going to do with my money? I’m saving it for when my parents come here.”
Annie said, “How much you got?”
“Three shillings. Uncle Reuben gives me sixpence every Sunday. He gives Bobby a whole shilling, and he doesn’t even say thank you,” I said in a mean voice. “He’s spoiled,” I said, for the anger that was working in my chest and had bounced off Annie now found its mark. “All he can do is run around and make noises. He’s just a baby, isn’t he, Annie! I bet he doesn’t even know what to do with all that money.”
“Oh, well,” said Annie comfortably, “there’s always something you can do with money.”
That very night, Annie knocked at my bedroom door. She was all dressed up in a navy-blue uniform with a red collar and red-ribboned bonnet, and she looked very smart and strange, almost like somebody I didn’t know at all. She said could she come in, and did, and stood just inside my door.
I was proud to have her in my room in her uniform. “Where are you going in that?” I
asked, making conversation.
“It’s my Salvation Army day. We got a meeting,” Annie said. “We have a band and hymn singing. We sing hymns and sacred songs and we have this collection to give food to the poor people and bring them the Word of the Lord.”
I listened intelligently. Annie had never spoken such a long sentence to me before. I was flattered. She was even coming over and sitting down on the edge of my bed.
“Today I don’t know if I’m going, because I don’t have any money to put in the collection. So I don’t know if I’m going.” Annie looked down at her immaculate black shoes and gave them a dusting with her black-gloved hand.
I noticed absently that her stockings were black, too. There was a brand-new thought working in my mind. It was so tremendous it made me dizzy. I blushed. I said, “If you like, I can lend you some money.”
“Oh, no,” Annie said. “No, that I never would. I wouldn’t borrow money from you, though you are a darling child, that you are, and I’ll pay you back every penny come payday—half a crown if you can spare it.” I was shocked at the largeness of the sum, for though I valued friendship above money, I had an attachment to the silver coins that had accumulated over the weeks. I counted five of the six into Annie’s upturned palm and watched her take out her black purse and drop them in and clap it shut.
Then Annie asked me if I would like to come into her room. I blushed again, because Annie was taking so much account of me, and because I wanted so very badly to go into her room I said no, and immediately regretted it, especially after Annie had gone and her footsteps sounded away down the stairs.
* * *
—
It was, I think, on the following afternoon that I came downstairs and found Mrs. Levine sitting by the window just where she had sat the first morning, and she was sewing a blue dress for me. I remembered with a shock of remorse how I had not liked her and how I had written about her to my mother. I suddenly liked her enormously. I was glad that she was old and ugly so that I could love her forever, even if nobody else did, and was casting about in my mind for something to say to her so that I could address her as “Auntie Essie,” but she spoke first.