The Sweetness of Forgetting

by Kristin Harmel

I arch an eyebrow at him, because I suspect he knows as well as I do that the coffee’s been on the burner for approximately the last two hours and is anything but fresh.

  “So, Mr. Keyes,” Annie begins. “You, like, help people and stuff, right?”

  Gavin looks surprised. He clears his throat and nods. “Sure, Annie, I guess so.” He pauses and glances at me. “And you can call me Gavin, if you want. Um, do you mean I help people by being a handyman? By fixing things?”

  “Whatever,” she says dismissively. “You help people because it’s the right thing to do, right?” Gavin shoots me another look, and I shrug. “So anyways,” Annie continues, “if something was lost, and it was really bothering someone, you’d probably want to help them find it, right?”

  Gavin nods. “Sure, Annie,” he says slowly. “No one likes to lose things.” He shoots me another look.

  “So, like, if someone asked you to help them find some of their relatives who they’d lost, you’d help them, wouldn’t you?” she asks.

  “Annie,” I say in warning, but she isn’t paying any attention.

  “Or would you, like, totally ignore them when they ask for your help?” she goes on. She looks at me pointedly.

  Gavin clears his throat again and looks at me. I know he realizes he’s been dragged unwittingly into our fight, despite the fact that he has no idea what we’re arguing about. “Well, Annie,” he says slowly, turning his gaze back to her, “I suppose I’d try to help find them. But it really depends on what the situation is.”

  Annie turns to me with a triumphant look on her face. “See, Mom? Mr. Keyes cares, even if you don’t!” She whirls around and disappears back into the kitchen. I close my eyes and listen to the sound of a metal bowl slamming into the counter. I open them again to see Gavin looking at me with concern. Our eyes meet for a moment, and then we both turn to look as Annie reemerges from the back.

  “Mom, all the dishes are clean,” she says, without looking at me. “I’m walking to Dad’s now. Okay?”

  “Have a nice time,” I say flatly. She rolls her eyes, grabs her backpack, and strides out without looking back.

  When I look up and meet Gavin’s gaze again, the concern in his eyes makes me uncomfortable. I don’t need him—or anyone—worrying about me. “Sorry,” I mutter. I shake my head and try to look busy. “So, what can I get you, Gavin? I have some muffins in back that just came out of the oven.”

  “Hope?” he says after a pause. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine,” he says.

  I blink and continue to avoid his eyes. “I don’t?”

  He shakes his head. “You’re allowed to be upset, you know,” he says.

  I must give him a harsh look without meaning to, because his cheeks suddenly flush and he says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  I hold up a hand. “I know,” I say. “I know. Look, I appreciate it.”

  We’re silent for a moment, and then Gavin says, “So what was she talking about? Is there something I can help you with?”

  I smile at him. “I appreciate the offer,” I say. “But it’s nothing.”

  He looks like he doesn’t believe me.

  “It’s a long story,” I clarify.

  He shrugs. “I’ve got time,” he says.

  I glance at my watch. “But you were going somewhere, weren’t you?” I ask. “You came in for pastries.”

  “I’m not in a rush,” he says. “But I will take a dozen cookies. The ones with cranberries and white chocolate in them. If you don’t mind.”

  I nod and carefully arrange the remaining Cape Codder cookies in the display case in a robin’s egg–blue box with North Star Bakery, Cape Cod written on it in swirly white letters. I tie it with a white ribbon and hand it across the counter.

  “So?” Gavin prompts as he takes the box from me.

  “You really want to hear this?” I ask.

  “If you want to tell me,” he says.

  I nod, realizing suddenly that I do want to tell another adult what’s going on. “Well, my grandmother has Alzheimer’s,” I begin. And for the next five minutes, as I pull miniature pies, croissants, baklava, tarts, and crescent moons out of the display case and pack them into airtight containers for the freezer or boxes for the church’s women’s shelter, I tell Gavin about what Mamie said last night. Gavin listens intently, but his jaw drops when I tell him about Mamie throwing pieces of miniature Star Pies into the ocean.

  I shake my head and say, “I know, it sounds crazy, right?”

  He shakes his head, a strange expression on his face. “No, actually, it doesn’t. Yesterday was the first day of Rosh Hashanah.”

  “Okay,” I say slowly. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

  “Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year,” Gavin explains. “It’s customary for us to go to a flowing body of water—like the ocean—for a little ceremony called a tashlich.”

  “You’re Jewish?” I ask.

  He smiles. “On my mom’s side,” he says. “I was kind of raised half Jewish, half Catholic.”

  “Oh.” I just look at him. “I didn’t know that.”

  He shrugs. “Anyhow, the word tashlich basically means ‘casting out.’ ”

  I realize suddenly that the phrase rings a bell. “I think my grandmother said something like that last night.”

  He nods. “The ceremony involves throwing crumbs into the water to symbolize the casting out of our sins. Usually bread crumbs, but I guess pie crumbs would work too.” He pauses and adds, “Do you think that might have been what your grandmother was doing?”

  I shake my head. “It can’t be,” I say. “My grandmother’s Catholic.” As the words leave my mouth, I’m suddenly struck by the fact that two of the people I’d reached in Paris today suggested I call synagogues.

  Gavin arches an eyebrow. “Are you sure? Maybe she wasn’t always Catholic.”

  “But that’s crazy. If she was Jewish, I would know.”

  “Not necessarily,” he says. “My grandmother on my mom’s side, my nana, lived through the Holocaust,” he says. “Bergen-Belsen. She lost both her parents and one of her brothers. Because of her, I got started volunteering with survivors when I was about fifteen. Some of them say that for a while, they abandoned their roots. It was hard for them to hang on to who they’d been when everything was taken away. Especially those who were kids taken in by Christian families. But all of them eventually came back to Judaism. Kind of like coming home.”

  I just stare at him. “Your grandmother was a Holocaust survivor?” I repeat, trying to piece together a whole new side to Gavin. “You used to work with survivors?”

  “I still do. I volunteer once a week at the Jewish nursing home in Chelsea.”

  “But that’s a two-hour drive,” I say.

  He shrugs. “It’s where my grandmother lived until she died. The place means something to me.”

  “Wow.” I don’t know what else to say. “What do you do there? When you volunteer?”

  “Art classes,” he says simply. “Painting. Sculpture. Drawing. Things like that. I bring them cookies too.”

  “That’s where you’re always going with the boxes of cookies you pick up here?”

  He nods. I just stare at him. I’m realizing there are more layers to Gavin Keyes than I’d ever appreciated. It makes me wonder what else I’m missing. “You do . . . art?” I ask finally.

  He looks away and doesn’t answer. “Look, I know this thing with your grandmother, it’s probably a lot to take in. And I may be totally off base here. But you know, some people who escaped before they were sent to concentration camps were snuck out of Europe with false papers that identified them as Christians,” he says. “Is it possible your grandmother could have come here under an assumed identity?”

  I shake my head immediately. “No. No way. She would have told us.” But, I realize suddenly, this could explain why everyone on the list she gave us had the last name Picard
, while I’d always believed her maiden name to be Durand.

  Gavin scratches his head. “Annie’s right, Hope. You have to find out what happened to your grandmother.”

  We talk for another hour, Gavin patiently explaining all the things I don’t understand. If Mamie is indeed from a Jewish family in Paris, I ask, why can’t I just call the synagogues in Paris? Or aren’t there Holocaust organizations that help you track down survivors? I’m sure I’ve heard of places like that, although I’ve never had reason to look into them before.

  Gavin explains that it’s worth trying Holocaust organizations as a first step, but that he thinks it’s unlikely I’ll find all my answers there. At most, even if I can find the names on a list somewhere, I’ll only get a date and place of birth, maybe a date of deportation, and if I’m lucky, the name of a camp where they were taken.

  “But that won’t tell you the whole story,” he adds. “And I think your grandmother deserves to know what really became of the people she loved.”

  “If she even is who you’re saying she is,” I interject. “I think this sounds crazy.”

  Gavin nods. “I don’t blame you. But you have to go find out.”

  I’m not convinced, and I look away as he explains that the synagogues might have better records, that they might be able to point me to other survivors who remember the Picard family. Besides, he says, even though the Holocaust happened seventy years ago, some of the record keepers are reluctant to give out information over the phone. While there had been many efforts made over the years to open things up, for many of the people who’d been alive during the war, giving away names was like giving away lives.

  “Plus,” Gavin concludes, “your grandmother obviously wants you to go to Paris. There must be a reason.”

  “But what if there isn’t a reason at all?” I ask in a small voice. “She’s sick, Gavin. Her memory’s gone.”

  Gavin shakes his head. “My grandpa had Alzheimer’s too,” he says. “It’s awful, I know. But I remember his moments of clarity. Especially about the past. And from what you said, it sounds like your grandmother was completely lucid when she gave you the names.”

  “I know,” I admit finally. “I know.”

  By the time I lock up and we walk out, daylight is waning, the blue of the sky starting to deepen. I shiver as I pull my denim jacket a little tighter around me.

  “You okay?” Gavin asks, pausing before he turns to the left. I can see his Jeep parked along Main about a block down.

  I nod. “Yeah. Thanks. For everything.”

  “It’s a lot to take in,” he says. “If it’s true,” he adds as an afterthought, and I know the words are for my benefit, not his.

  I nod again. I feel numb, as if the things he explained to me this afternoon completely overloaded my system. I simply can’t bring myself to believe that my grandmother has a past she’s never spoken of. But I have to admit that everything he said made sense. That chills me to the bone.

  “Well,” Gavin says, and I realize I’ve been standing on the street, staring blankly into space.

  I shake my head, force a smile, and stick out my hand. “Listen, thank you again. So much.”

  Gavin looks surprised by my extended hand, but he shakes it after a moment and says, “My pleasure.”

  His hand is calloused and warm, and it takes me an instant longer than it should to let go. “I hope you enjoy those cookies,” I say, nodding to the box in his left hand.

  He smiles. “They’re not for me,” he says.

  I feel suddenly awkward. “Well, take care,” I say.

  “Take care,” he repeats. And as I watch him walk away, a sense of loss rolls in from nowhere.

  Chapter Nine

  I toss and turn all night, and when I do fall asleep, I have nightmares of people being rounded up in the streets, right outside my bakery, and marched off toward train cars. In my dream, I’m running through the crowd, trying to find Mamie, but she’s not there. I awake in a cold sweat at two thirty in the morning, and although I don’t normally leave for work until three forty-five, I get out of bed anyhow, pull on some clothes, and head out into the crisp air. I know I won’t be able to sleep another wink.

  The tide must be low, because as I walk to my car, I can smell the muddy salt from the bay two blocks away. In the stillness of the early morning, I can hear the faint sound of waves rolling into shore. Before I get into the driver’s seat, I stand there for a moment, breathing in and out. I’ve always loved the smell of salt water; it reminds me of my childhood, when my grandfather would come over after a day of fishing, the scent of the sea still on his skin, and swing me high into the air.

  “Who’s my favorite girl in the world?” he’d ask while he flew me, Supergirl-style, around the room.

  “Meeeee!” I would reply with a giggle, delighted anew each time. I’d already figured out, even at that age, that my mother could be cold and moody, and my grandmother terribly reserved. But my grandfather smothered me in kisses, read me bedtime stories, taught me how to fish and play baseball, and called me his “best pal.”

  I find myself missing him terribly as I start my car engine. He’d know what to do about Mamie. I wonder suddenly whether he knew the secrets that she kept. If so, he’d never let on. I’d always thought they had a decent marriage, but can a relationship really survive if there are lies wrapped around its roots?

  It’s a few minutes past three by the time I walk into the bakery. I mechanically pull out yesterday’s frozen muffins, cookies, and cupcakes, which will go into the bakery cases once they’re defrosted. Then, I sit down to spend an hour online before I need to start the day’s baking.

  I log on to my e-mail and am startled to see a message from Gavin, sent to the bakery’s online orders address just past midnight. I click to open it.

  Hey Hope,

  Thought I’d send you the links to the organizations I told you about. www.yadvashem.org and www.jewishgen.org are the best places to start your search. Then you might want to try the Mémorial de la Shoah, the Holocaust memorial, in Paris. They have good records for French victims of the Holocaust, I think. Let me know if I can help.

  Good luck,

  Gavin

  I pause and take a deep breath, bracing myself, then I click on the first link, which takes me to a database of Holocaust victims’ names. Below the search box, it’s explained that the database includes records of half of the six million Jews murdered during World War II. My stomach lurches suddenly; I’ve heard the figure before, but now it feels more personal. Six million. My God. I remind myself that Gavin’s probably wrong about Mamie anyhow. He has to be.

  The text on the main page also explains that millions of victims remain unidentified. I wonder how this can be the case, seven decades later. How can so many people be lost forever?

  I take a deep breath, enter Picard and Paris, and click Search.

  Eighteen results are returned, and my heart pounds as I scan the list. None of the first names match the names Mamie gave me, and I don’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed about that. But there’s an Annie on the list, which makes me feel suddenly ill. I click on her name, not realizing until I do so that my hand is trembling. I read the scant text; the girl was born in December 1934, it says. She lived in Paris and Marseille and died on July 20, 1943, at Auschwitz. I do the math quickly. She didn’t even live to see her ninth birthday.

  I think about my Annie. On her ninth birthday, Rob and I took her and three friends into Boston for an afternoon tea party at the Park Plaza. They dressed up like princesses and giggled about the little tea sandwiches with the crusts cut off. The picture I took of Annie, in her pale pink dress, her hair long and loose as she blew out the candle atop a pink cupcake, is still one of my favorites.

  But little Annie Picard from Paris never had a ninth birthday party. She didn’t become a teenager, fight with her mother about makeup, worry about homework, fall in love, or live long enough to figure out who she really wanted to be.


  I realize suddenly that I’m crying. I’m not sure when I started. I quickly close the page, wipe my eyes, and walk away. It takes fifteen minutes of pacing the kitchen before the tears stop.

  I spend another thirty minutes clicking around the first site Gavin sent me, horrified by nearly everything I find. I remember reading Anne Frank’s diary in school and studying the Holocaust in history classes, but there’s something about reading about it as an adult that has a completely different impact.

  The staggering numbers and facts swim before my eyes. Two hundred thousand Jews lived in Paris in 1939 when war broke out. Of those, fifty thousand perished. The Nazis began arresting Parisian Jews in May 1941, when they rounded up 3,700 men and sent them to internment camps. In June 1942, all Jews in Paris were made to wear yellow Stars of David marked with juif, the French word for Jew. A month later, on July 16, 1942, there was a massive roundup of twelve thousand Jews—mostly foreign born—who were taken to a stadium called the Vélodrome d’Hiver, then deported to Auschwitz. By 1943, the Nazis were going into orphanages, retirement homes, and hospitals, arresting those who were the most defenseless. The thought makes my stomach lurch.

  I enter Picard into the second database Gavin sent me. I find three surviving Picards listed in a Munich newspaper, and three others—including another Annie Picard—listed as survivors living in Italy. There are three Picards listed in the death book of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, another eleven listed at Dachau in Germany. There are thirty-seven Picards on a list of 7,346 French female deportees who perished. I find the eight-year-old Annie Picard again on this list, and the tears return. My sight is so blurred that I almost don’t notice when two familiar names come up on the screen. Cecile Picard—the second name on Mamie’s list—and Danielle Picard—the last.

  Heart thudding, I read the details listed for the first name.

  Cecile Picard. Born Cecile Pachcinski on May 30, 1901, in Krakow, Poland. From Paris, France. Deported to Auschwitz, 1942. Died autumn 1942.

  I swallow hard a few times. Cecile Picard would have been forty-one when she died. Just five years older than I am now. Mamie, I know, was born in 1925, so she would have been seventeen in 1942. Could Cecile have been her mother? My great-grandmother? If that’s true, how is it that we’ve never spoken of this before?