If I Should Die Before I Wake

by Han Nolan

  "Baruch dayan emet, "whispered Oskar and Roza together. "Blessed be the one true Judge."

  We all stood silently and let the words live among us, a salve for our own sick hearts.

  Bubbe broke the silence at last. "Please, you don't have much time before your train; tell us about our friends in England. They are well?"

  "Yes," said Roza. "We'll need to be going soon—but they are very well indeed and look forward to having little Nadzia join them. They've turned their spare bedroom into a sunny little nursery. But you haven't changed your mind, have you?" she asked, glancing at Mama's uneasy expression.

  Mama smiled, but I saw the tears welling in her eyes. "No, she'll be safer with them," she replied. "They'll treat her as if she were their own, I know. Please give them our love and our deepest gratitude."

  Roza returned the smile. "You were so good to them while they lived here; they're just happy to be returning the favor."

  "I did so little, and they paid me for the Polish lessons. Really, I fear it is too much to ask."

  "Nonsense." Oskar handed Nadzia back to Mama. Mama drew her up to her face and then squeezed her in her arms.

  "You did more than give them lessons," said Oskar. "You were their friend and their guide. And this will not be for long—surely such a war as this cannot last."

  As I stood there in our living room, listening to this couple speak in a mixture of Polish and Yiddish, watching everyone smiling and hovering around Nadzia, I felt the floor beneath me begin to tilt, as though I were on board a ship. For the First time, all that was happening to us, had been happening to us, struck me like a rock hurled at my chest, crushing my sternum, taking my breath away. I moved unsteadily and unnoticed toward Mama's stool and sat down. It was all, suddenly, too much for me to take in. Nadzia was leaving and Tata was dead. Jakub and Mosze had tried to escape to Russia, and Jakub came back alone. And four blocks away the Germans had driven out the families living there and had taken them—where? Jakub had never said where. To the labor camps? Where were we going? What would happen to us? Would we ever see Nadzia again? I couldn't stand not knowing.

  My hands trembled as Mama called me forward to say good-bye to my dear baby sister. I took her in my quivering arms and hugged and kissed her good-bye. I was determined not to cry. My first tears were to be for Tata, and they had to wait until after the shiva, when I could play my violin. That was my rule; and in this crazy, frightening time, that rule became the only thing that kept me from walking the streets, screaming and raging against all that had happened.

  I stood back and watched Bubbe hand over the leather-bound photo album.

  "So our Nadzia will know us always," Bubbe said. "There are letters inside from each of us, and instructions for you, and pictures with our names written below them. She will need to know."

  She will need to know. Bubbe had said it with such meaning, such purpose, that I was struck again with so much fear I didn't think I could remain standing.

  "We'll take good care of your precious Nadzia, you can be sure," said Roza. "I only wish you could all come with us."

  I couldn't listen to any more. I gave Nadzia one last squeeze and hurried away into my bedroom, the bedroom I had shared with Anya and Nadzia. I had hated sharing it. I had hated listening to the baby crying and screaming half the night until Mama or Tata would drag in and remove her. And now I prayed that I would be given a chance someday to share my room again with my littlest sister. I fell upon my bed and prayed for emptiness. I didn't want to think, or feel, or hurt anymore. I just wanted to lie there, numb, until it was all over. Until Tata and Mosze and Nadzia could come back. Until we could all dress up in our finest clothes, light the candles, bless the wine and the bread, and sit down together with our friends for the Shabbos.

  There was a knock on the door and Bubbe came in.

  "They have left, Chana."

  I rolled away From her and faced the wall. "Good."

  "Yes. Good for Nadzia, but maybe not for Chana?"

  I rolled back over. "What did you mean, Bubbe, when you said, 'She will need to know'? Remember? When you handed them the album?"

  "I remember, yes." Bubbe sat down on the edge of my bed.

  I sat up. "What do you know? What do you see? You see something, you do."

  "No, I cannot see clearly. But I know Nadzia will need to know about her family and where she came from. That is always important, to have a history, a background."

  "That is all? You do not see anything for me, maybe, Bubbe? Where are we going? What is going to happen to us? I'm scared! Aren't you ever scared?" I threw myself into her arms and tried to think of my violin so I would not cry.

  "Yes, my sweetest one." Bubbe stroked my head. "I see something, but I do not know if you want to hear."

  I sat up and looked into her eyes. "Oh, yes, I do, please."

  "It is an assignment I have for you."

  "An assignment? What could it be?"

  Bubbe held my chin in her hands and studied my face as though she were trying to make sure something was there, something one could not see, only feel, only know. "Remember, Chana," she finally said. "Remember everything. Remember, and have faith in God, always have faith."

  I pushed away, slid off the bed, and stood before my window. "Bubbe, anyone could have told me that. I wanted you to use your gift. I wanted you to tell me what is going to happen to us."

  "I've told you what you need to know, and it's all I know. The rest we all know, or can guess. Bad times are here, and worse are yet to come, but not tonight. Jakub is wrong about tonight. They will not come for us tonight."

  "Remember everything," I said, more to myself than to her. "Remember, and have faith in God." I turned around but Bubbe was gone.

  Again, I faced the window, and there on the other side was the girl I had seen just before Tata was shot. She had the same pain in her eyes and again she recognized me, knew me better than I seemed to know myself, and again I tried to understand. Who was she, staring in at me through the windowpane? Was she someone I should remember?

  "Remember, and have faith in God," I whispered to her. "Always have faith."

  CHAPTER SIX

  Hilary

  THE OLD LADY'S STANDING in front of me like she's waiting for me to say something. I don't. I just watch her and try to remember. I can see the layers of skin beneath her eyes sagging into her cheeks. Her arms dangle at her sides like a couple of dead trout hooked to her sleeves. I know she should be in bed.

  Hey, where do you belong? Are you from the psycho ward? You're sick. Stop watching me and go lie down.

  Okay. Okay, don't. What do I care anyway?

  Just so you know, it's not a dream. Yeah, I figured that out.

  It's all this fear, and not knowing, and dying. It's real, it's ... I won't be going back there, I can tell you. No one controls me. Got that? I'm holding on, right here.

  Hey, that's not my life. I'm not scared like that. I don't care about those people. I don't care! They're nothing to me. So stop looking like you know something, old bag lady. You don't know anything.

  Why is this happening?

  Hah! I know what Mother would say. "It's God's way of punishing you, baby. He's teaching you a lesson, and when God's moving His hands through your life, you had better sit up and take notice."

  Ever since Tata died—I mean Daddy—since Daddy died, she's gone all religious. Everything is God's will, God's lesson, God's just punishment. Thing is, how come He's never punished her? How come she does something wrong and I get punished for it the rest of my life? How come all she has to do is get in good with the Lord and say "I'm sorry" and she's forgiven and I'm left still suffering?

  It wasn't a dream. It was real with Mama and Bubbe and Zayde and them. Too real. It's like being out trick-or-treating and going into this haunted house and you tell yourself you're not scared 'cause it's Halloween. But then you find out it's not really Halloween at all and the house is for real. All those ghosts and all that evil—it's real. Al
l that evil's for real.

  You ever feel like your whole body's made of chalk? Chalk dust puffing inside your mouth? Your bones like teacher's brittle chalk sticks, and your heart just a hollowed-out chalky chamber?

  Ever feel like that? Know what that's like, that emptiness?

  Well?

  Until Brad, I felt like that every stinkin' day of my life. Ever since I was five.

  My father was the only one who understood me. He was the one who taught me how to scramble eggs and how to spell my name and how to whistle through my thumbs and pick up sticks with my feet. He loved me and took care of me, not my mother.

  Yeah, my mother spent the first five years of my life dragging around the house in her bathrobe. It always smelled like mustard and she had toilet paper crammed in all the pockets. She would take some of it out now and then and use it to dab at her eyes or blow her nose, especially after visiting with me. That's what they called it, my father and Grandmama—visiting.

  "You must wash your hands extra well this morning, your mother will be down for her visit soon. You wouldn't want to put a grubby little hand in hers, would you?"

  I don't think she ever noticed what my hands were like. Whenever I tried to take her hand she'd pretend she didn't see and stuff hers in her pockets with her soggy tissues.

  Still, I always scrubbed them till they were pink and my nails were practically see-through, cause I always figured that someday she'd stop watching herself crying in the bathroom mirror and notice me, and when she did I wanted my hands to be ready.

  "There is nothing but oppression within her.

  As a well keeps its water fresh,

  so she keeps fresh her wickedness;

  violence and destruction are heard within her;

  sickness and wounds are ever before me."

  Do you hear her?

  That's my freakin' mother. She's still here, still reading her Bible. I can't see her, but I can hear her.

  Can you? Can you see her?

  She's mad at me. Can you tell? She never comes right out and says it. She's never said, "Hilary, I'm mad at you for what you did." Instead she quotes the Bible, or better yet, just ignores me.

  What the hell's she doing here, anyway? I don't need her. I've never needed her. Get rid of her!

  Did you hear me? I don't want to hear her!

  "Hear this, O foolish and senseless people,

  who have eyes, but see not,

  Who have ears, but hear not.

  Do you not fear me? says the Lord;

  Do you not tremble before me?"

  If I keep talking, maybe I won't hear her. I'll just look at you and talk to you, all right?

  Am I dying?

  Why do I see only you?

  Why is there nothing in this room?

  Everything is white. The room is all lit up in bright whiteness and yet I can't see anything—except you.

  I'm dying.

  It wouldn't matter except for Brad.

  You think he's here yet?

  Oh, you don't think he's coming? Mother's full of it. He'll be here. Brad and me, we're the same, you know? Like after I hooked up with him all that chalk dust inside me just disappeared. Like it was just waiting for the right person to come along and blow it all away. Mother found religion and I found Brad. We're both looking for something to fill us up. What did she think, I'd choose her way? Can't get over it that her little Alice in Wonderland is hanging out with the neo-Nazis. Like I've shamed her or something. I don't owe her. I don't owe her!

  What's that? Hear that? That squeaking? It's moving around me.

  "So how's the patient this morning?"

  The nurse?

  "The same, I guess. She doesn't move. Poor baby doesn't move."

  I'm not a baby. I'm not your freakin' baby.

  "You approve of this neo-Nazi thing she's into?"

  "No, but what can I do?"

  "She must have picked it up somewhere. Must have learned it from someone."

  "Well, not from me. I've never ... We've never really understood one another."

  "Ah! There's the problem."

  "Yeah, always the mother's fault."

  Silence.

  "Actually, she probably joined up with her little gang of hate mongers just to get my attention."

  It's always you, isn't it, Mother? The world revolves around you. To get your attention? A stick of dynamite up your—your—nose wouldn't get your attention. You were always too into yourself to notice anything else. I was always knocking at your bedroom door to see if you needed anything—remember? Your spells? Right after Daddy died? Right after you gave me that speech about never leaving me again. Remember?

  ***

  "Mommy, can I get you anything?"

  "No. Go away."

  "Are we going to eat dinner?"

  "Later."

  "But it's been dark a long time. I'm hungry."

  "Later!"

  "I'm hungry."

  "Hilary, please, not now. Go away."

  "Should I call the Reverend?"

  "No, just get away from the door, okay?"

  It always ended with me kicking her door and calling up the Reverend "Hi-call-me-Jonnie" Johnson. That's what I call him. It freaks my mother out. Hey, I learned how to dial his number before I learned how to spell my own last name. It was always Hi-Jonnie to the rescue.

  "What could the good Lord have been thinking, leaving the two of us together?

  "You know, when her father died she wore white to the funeral. She said it was what he wanted. I believed her. I believe he communicates to her from his grave—honestly.

  "But then she kept on wearing white. She wore it until she was fifteen. Until she met that awful Brad boy. Every day. Every stitch of clothing had to be white, not cream, not ivory, but winter, ghostly, white. I know what you're thinking. I should have said something, done something about it. Thing is, I didn't feel I had the right."

  That's because you didn't have the right. You left me! You left me! Can you believe it? Daddy dies and she has some kind of nervous breakdown and just walks out the door in the middle of the night and drives off with me screaming out my window after her.

  "No, I didn't have the right. I never had the right to tell Hilary what to do. I never realized what a weak coward I was until she was born. And she's just like me. She doesn't know it, but she is."

  I'm nothing like you! Nothing! I'm an Aryan Warrior, aren't I? I'm not going to listen to this crap.

  "When she was born they put her in my arms and I looked down into that tiny face, that delicate pink face, and I knew I wouldn't be able to protect her. I knew that she'd get hurt someday and I would have no power to stop it.

  "Truth is, she scared me. So tiny like that. Scared me so much I couldn't go near her. Roy got his mother to come live with us. Just until I got over my fears. But the longer his mother stayed and the more she took over, the more frightened I became. I was no mother to Hilary. She didn't need me. None of them did. And when Roy died I begged her grandmama to stay on. I begged her to take care of Hilary, but she was too ill, too old."

  Yeah, I remember that sweet scene. You and Grandmama start fighting after the funeral. Right after the stinkin' funeral. The taxi's waiting to take Grandmama away and you're fighting over the stupid luggage. You're tugging on the suitcase like you want to make a trade—you'll keep the luggage if she'll take me. But both of you want the luggage. Too bad you lost, huh, Mother?

  Then like two nights later you run off to some hotel for three days. Three days! And I'm left alone in that house with just your crusty old jar of mustard, less than half a loaf of bread, and some old sour milk for food. And get this, Grandmaw, she leaves me a note on the refrigerator door. A note! If she knew anything about kids, anything at all, she'd know a five-year-old can't read some letter written in cursive.

  I spent the whole time staring out my bedroom window, singing and talking to my stuffed dog, Whimper. Really. I still remember the songs. One was about Daddy's flowers ben
t over crying in the backyard, and another was about Grandmama's sweater with the hole hole hole left in my room room room, and at night I sang about Mr. Funny Sunny Sun.

  I stayed up through the first night right there in that chair and watched the furniture and toys grow so big I thought they'd swallow me. The flowers on my wallpaper turned into these lips with fangs that dripped blood, and the toys and dolls on my shelves became live, breathing spiny creatures that whispered and laughed: You're all alone, there's no one left. No one.

  By the third day I knew she wouldn't be coming back, but I couldn't leave my place at the window. I was waiting for Daddy. I just knew he'd come. He always came. Always when I needed him. I knew he'd come back before I finished all the bread. But then the hours of that third day passed and I was so hungry I just kept eating. I was down to a little square of bread and I was just picking at it, eating just a crumb at a time, giving Daddy time to get there. But then she comes back. She comes rushing into my bedroom and finds me staring out the window.

  I was watching this little boy, this baby, laughing and clapping hands with his father. They were the new people who had moved in behind us. I couldn't look away. Mother kept grabbing me and shaking my arms, but all I wanted to do was watch that baby—baby Simon and his father with the funny little beanie cap on. I kept trying to twist away from her. I knew if I didn't keep watching they'd disappear, and while she was holding me, holding my face, they did, they disappeared. That happy laughing father just disappeared.

  She didn't care. What the hell did she care? She wanted me to listen to her. She kept talking, with her eyes all shining like silver spoons and telling me all about some Gideon's Bible in a hotel room and something about suicide, like I knew what that meant. Telling me how the Lord made her see the light and how she was forgiven and how she was going to make it all up to me. How she was never going to leave me again.

  Right. She could never make that up to me. Never. She can't get off so free and easy-breezy like that.