“It can get loud when you’re too close,” Alicia said. “But I was an only child, and then I lived in a convent, so I’m accustomed to quiet.”
“Doll, I’m not an only child and it’s often too much for me. That’s why I live in Hollywood. My kids will grow up in Malibu, not here. Of course, I need to find a husband first.”
Pat ground out her cigarette and went to light another.
“You know,” she said, “I think you see more than most people do. I can tell you’re watching, and that you understand. You distract with the blond hair and the red lipstick, but you’re smarter than you let on.”
Alicia chuckled tightly.
“I’m not sure whether to take that as a compliment,” she said. “Perhaps I’m not so smart after all.”
“What I’m saying is, you’ll do okay.”
Pat stood, cigarette still dangling from her mouth.
“Hey. I’m in the mood for tennis,” she said. “Care for a go?”
“Sure,” Alicia said, and rose to meet her. “But, fair warning, I’m not very good.”
“Eh. None of us are all that hot.” Pat thought about this. “Well, Eunice is, I guess. We just act like we’re good. The trick is to hit hard, be aggressive, and make large movements. You’ll fool most people. As any Kennedy knows, it’s not about your game, but convincing others how well you play.”
* * *
Alicia walked downstairs in her tennis costume: white, scalloped-edged shorts with a white, tied-at-the-waist top that showed a hint of stomach. She’d purchased it solely for use in Hyannis Port, the getup heretofore unworn. Tennis was a swell sport, if it involved dressing like this.
As she rounded the stairs and veered toward the kitchen, she heard the staccato beat of a prickly conversation. Alicia slowed her steps. She recognized Joe’s large, booming voice. As for the second person, it was impossible to mistake the broken English of an Eastern Pole.
“Those are some hefty accusations,” Joe said. “Are you certain?”
Alicia grabbed the banister. Her entire body tensed.
“Tak,” Irenka barked. “Ya. One hundred of sure.”
“If what you say is true…”
Alicia didn’t wait for Joe to finish. She tore through the hall, to find Jack. Her heart pumped at full pace.
“Jeannette!” Alicia said, almost pummeling her old colleague, who’d been trying to exit a linen closet. “Have you seen Jack?”
“Yes…” she said, adjusting herself. “Miss Dee is trimming his hair in the sunroom.”
Alicia darted off, heaving when she finally set foot in the green-paneled room. She grabbed her side, which was now wound up and cramped.
Jack was in a chair, back to the door. Chunks of his hair littered the floor, and Janet was rubbing a musky-scented oil into his scalp. The scene seemed like a lie, but whose mistruth, Alicia couldn’t discern.
“Alicia, is that you?” he called out.
“Excuse me, Janet, but are you done? I need to discuss something with Jack,” Alicia said, her mouth running faster than her heart.
“Yes, we are through,” Janet said slowly, sweetly.
She whirled around and wiped her hands on a towel.
“I’ll send in someone to clean up the mess.”
“I need to tell you something,” Alicia said before Janet was out of the room.
Maybe this would be fine. Jack took news of her mother in steady stride. It compelled him to propose. This was probably for the best. A marriage shouldn’t start with secrets as big as these.
As Jack rotated toward her, Alicia crouched down and plucked a lock of his reddish-brown hair from the floor. She slipped it into the pocket of her shorts.
“Cute outfit!” he said. “Suddenly tennis is my favorite sport.”
“I was thinking,” Alicia said, sounding very much like she’d just played a vigorous two or three sets. “About what Bobby … your father said about us being godparents. You’ll do a fine job. But as for me…”
“Really, Alicia, don’t worry about it. You don’t need to do much. It’s more ceremonial than anything. You’ll be fine.”
“It’s not the duties. I’d be honored, no matter what. It’s the religious aspect.”
“The religious aspect?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “You see, a godmother should probably be Catholic. And that’s the problem. Because I’m a Jew.”
* * *
You know that we fled Łódź, and went into hiding in Radom.
You know that my parents kept me safe in a convent school.
You understand that every action my father took, we took, these decisions all came with risk. But the risk was greater than I’d let you believe. Because while we were associated with the intelligentsia, and the resistance, we had a far worse label, in that we were Jews.
The danger started long before we left Łódź, when the Germans descended upon our city and began enforcing their rules. They confiscated family businesses, including ours, and cordoned us into separate living quarters, which were soon walled off. They forced us to wear armbands and expelled all the Jews from school. Father knew his family had to find another way.
Although he understood we were on a list and denial was not enough, when we got to Radom, he burned our armbands and said we were Jewish no more. Mother was horrified, because what did we have if not our faith?
“Our lives,” her father answered. “We will have our lives.”
In our apartment in Radom, I began to notice things were disappearing: all the valuables Father made us haul through the forest in the dead of night. The crystal, the artwork, the jewels, these things vanished, one by one. At the time, I assumed he sold them to buy food on the black market, as we rarely went hungry. But what happened to these precious items soon became clear.
One night, Father roused me from sleep. The clock read just past midnight. It was 1941. I had recently turned eleven years old.
“Are we moving again?” I asked, groggy from sleep but always with that constant, stinging knowledge that at any second I’d need to be wholly alert.
“A nurse is here to see you,” Father said. “You’re ill. Your fever is extreme.”
I touched my forehead. It seemed cool, normal.
“I’m fine, Father.”
“Sit,” he instructed, firmer than he’d ever been.
When I elbowed myself up, I noticed the dance of a candle flame on the table. Mother was weeping in her chair. Beside her stood a nun, dressed in head-to-toe black.
“Mamusia?” I said, but Mother would not meet my eyes.
I felt fine but Father was never wrong and Mother looked like someone was about to die.
“This is Sister Anna,” he said, and the nun stepped into the light. “She is a nurse, and is going to help.”
Before I could blink, the woman jammed a thermometer into my mouth. Father scooted beside me, and placed his arm around my shoulders, firmly, locking me down. His other hand slid beneath his cloak. The nun began speaking loudly about my “illness,” and explained that she would take me to see a doctor in the ghetto.
The ghetto!
The thermometer dropped to the floor. The nun frowned, picked it up, and shoved it back in.
Weren’t we trying to avoid the ghetto? That’s what I’d been told. There’s one way out of there, Father warned, though he never said what that one way was.
“The money is all here,” Father said, and removed a sack from beneath his clothes.
Her face a mask of stone, the nun took the package, and tucked it into her habit.
“And also, this.”
Father shook his arm, and removed his gold watch. My heart stopped. He was giving up his watch? It was once his own father’s, the first luxury purchased when my grandfather achieved business success. He gave the business to Papa, and then the Nazis took it for themselves. All that was left to represent it was the watch.
“In case we cannot make further payment,” Father said, and showed her the gift
in the palm of his upturned hand.
In that moment and for the first time, my dear father was not strong and proud but shaky and small. I would’ve cried out again, but I was gripping the thermometer too tightly between my teeth.
“Are you ready to go?” Sister Anna asked me. “To the convent?”
The thermometer fell from my mouth once more.
“A convent!” I said. “I’m not leaving my parents! And if I did, it certainly wouldn’t be to go to a convent!”
Now the nun showed alarm. She was used to a bit more compliance, but Father had taught me to speak up.
“Shhh!” she hissed.
“Myszko, my sweet baby mouse,” Father said, and crouched to match my height. “It’s time to go. This wonderful, kind sister will take you to a convent school, where you will remain safe until we can be together again.”
“I can’t go to a convent! I’m a Jew!”
Sister Anna slapped a hand over my lips.
“Never say that again,” she growled. “You must be quiet. You must be discreet. And, above all else, you must forget the life you once had. There are a thousand people willing to give you up. It doesn’t matter if these people were once your friends.”
Tears filled my eyes. Although I was only eleven, I understood my misstep. We were alone in this room, but who might be spying, lurking nearby, could not be known. The government offered five hundred zlotys and a kilogram of sugar for the capture of any Jew. Everybody was needy, wanting in those times. Would you sacrifice another to save your own family? Many did.
“You trust me, don’t you, sweet girl?” Father said.
He was crying, too. I bobbed my head, unable to speak.
“We will leave,” Anna said, slipping the watch up her arm. “With only the clothes on your back.”
She looked at Father.
“The girl will be properly outfitted with her uniform and other essentials once we arrive at the school. You are doing the right thing, Mr. Kopczynski.”
I went to protest, but could not speak. I wanted to accuse Father of being a bad parent. He didn’t love me if he was sending me to live with Catholics. Through it all, Mamusia sat there, quivering, saying nothing. How could a mother give up her child?
“You are Catholic,” Father whispered, and held my hands. “Do you understand that, myszko?”
I nodded again, lips trembling, for now I did understand. He was sending me away because, for the first time in his life, Father was scared.
“You are a Catholic student,” he said, “and—this is very important—you must scratch out the memories from any other religion. Forget the prayers. Forget the synagogue. Forget Yiddish. You know six languages now. Erase the seventh.”
From the corner, Mother began to speak. She was convinced this was a malevolent plot by the Catholics, who were trying to make money from the suffering Jews. It didn’t help that there were stories from the eighteen hundreds about the church abducting Jewish children and baptizing them without their parents’ consent.
“We should accept our fate,” Mother said, “along with the rest of our people. It’s immoral, what you’re trying to do. Using money and lies to secure a better fate. Sacrificing our Jewish souls.”
Through it all, Sister Anna stood patiently, knowing that Father would win the day.
“If I can save my daughter,” he said, “our only child, then my own soul be damned.”
And so, it was decided. Anna wrested me from my parents, and our makeshift home. Although my heart shattered into a million pieces, I was certain this was temporary, that I’d see my family again. Father always had a plan, and his plans always worked.
As we hurried out of the city, the nun took my hand. It was soft, but cold. My chest felt heavy and my eyes watered to the point of near-blindness. Sister Anna told me that if I loved my parents, I shouldn’t look back, only forward. I followed her advice.
At the convent, they changed my name to Helena and bleached my hair. They gave me Aryan papers and a baptismal certificate. Eventually, I took my first communion. I lived the life of a Catholic girl.
Though we were not safe from Gestapo raids, and there remained danger at every turn, I found solace in the traditions of the Church, in the rhythm of the hymns and prayers. It was the Catholic Church that sheltered me, the Catholic Church that saved me, with help from my knack for languages. My ability to recite Hail Marys, Glory Bes, and the Apostles’ Creed in perfect Latin diverted countless suspicions, and “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti” dropped from my tongue so easily it might’ve been the first sentence I ever spoke.
My feelings about the religion remain addled. I think of myself as Catholic on some days, and in some situations, and at other times decidedly not. In the end, my religious identity is displaced, same as me. I’ve attended mass many times since leaving the convent, in Europe as well as in the United States. The Church sponsored my passage to America, yet I struggle to balance the sense of being rescued and that which I was rescued from.
“I am Catholic.”
This is the truth and a lie at the same time. I am Catholic, and have the papers to prove it. But I suspect I’m not the sort of Catholic you want.
* * *
Jack refused to look at her. His mouth was locked in a scowl. It was the same expression he made when battling through the worst of his pain.
“I understand why you’re upset,” Alicia said. “But where do we go from here?”
“Please. Give me a second.”
Alicia nodded, though he couldn’t see. She waited, twisting her hands, as Irenka’s words wended through her mind.
A filthy Jew.
“I appreciate the expectations of your family,” Alicia said, for she could not abide the silence. “And your political position.”
“Alicia. Stop. Talking.”
She wept silently. Soon came the patter of slippered feet. Alicia glanced up to find Joe, who had in his eyes something more than derision. It was a palpable, spitting hatred. How could this be the same man who so lovingly cradled Kathleen?
“Jack, we need to speak,” Joe said, without acknowledging Alicia. “Come to my office.”
He turned and walked away.
“You should probably go,” Alicia said. “No one refuses Joseph P. Kennedy, right?”
Jack continued with his silence, and rose to his feet. Alicia stood, too, desperate to reach him, her nose and eyes hot with tears. He gave Alicia a slow once-over, then crammed both hands into his pockets, and staggered out of the room.
* * *
After Jack had been with his father twenty-seven, twenty-eight minutes, Alicia couldn’t wait any longer. They were debating her history, the person that she was. Surely in this country one had the right to be present at one’s own trial. If Alicia waited for them to come to her, she might wait forever.
“A fling is one matter,” Alicia heard Joe say as she approached. “But romance is another. Did you learn nothing from dating that Nazi spy? The decision on whom to marry must be made with your brain, and not your groin.”
“You think I didn’t put a great deal of thought into this? I love her, Dad.”
Alicia shivered. She had this, at least, the love of Jack.
“Love is not the point,” Joe said. “You think you’ll be president by accident? You’re not going to even get Lodge’s Senate seat with a Jew on your arm. How do you expect to oust an old blue blood without the proper wife? Things don’t happen, boy, things are made to happen. Have you not learned that by now?”
“It’s a new world, Dad. People don’t care so much about religion and background. I’d prefer to get elected on my ideals, not who I sleep with.”
“Who you sleep with is very much part of your ‘ideals.’ You almost had me, Jack.” Joe released a thin, papery laugh. “You almost had me on board with this girl. Sure, she’s Eastern Bloc, but I thought it was workable with her aristocratic pedigree and the fact she speaks so many languages. She went to convent school and your m
other saw her at mass. We could’ve spun it. We could’ve made people read her the right way. A Viennese artist does have a certain cachet. But now it comes out that she’s a Jew? You’re never marrying this girl.”
“I was surprised, too,” Jack said. “But Alicia was raised Catholic. She knows all the doctrine, and considers herself of the Catholic faith.”
Alicia frowned, for she’d told him the opposite, that she didn’t see herself as belonging to any particular religion. Was Jack softening the news for his father? Or had he heard what he wanted to, and not what she said?
“She’s a Jew,” Joe barked. “You cannot marry her.”
Jack exhaled loudly.
“I’ll talk to her,” he said.
Alicia jumped back and at once saw what was to come, a play she’d watched a dozen times. Jack would apologize on his father’s behalf. But, not to worry, he was his own man. They’d do their own thing, together. That is, if Jack even dared go to such lengths for a Jew.
Every good intention and bold assurance didn’t matter, though, nor did every secret he’d forgiven her for. Sure, Alicia could marry Jack, but he’d remain under Joe Kennedy’s command, and therefore so would she. Alicia loved Jack, like nothing she’d known, but she didn’t want to marry them all. The Kennedys would never be satisfied, and therefore neither would she.
“Excuse me,” Alicia said, and stepped into the room.
Jack rushed toward her, yammering apologies, tripping over his mouth and his two big feet.
“I’m not sure what you heard.…” he rambled, or something along those lines.
Alicia tried not to listen.
“I’m leaving,” she said. “Your family won’t need to worry about Alicia Darr, anymore. Mr. Kennedy, I couldn’t agree more. Jack needs a proper wife, someone who meets your standards. To that end, I wish you the best of luck.”
“I want to marry you, Alicier,” Jack said in his Boston clang.
Oh, how she’d miss that voice.
“You need a good American girl,” she said. “A debutante. A social-register type. What about that darling Markie from the party the other night? Or her sister, Alex? Either would be perfect for you, and your family. Of course, whomever you choose…”
She stopped, and suppressed a laugh.
The Summer I Met Jack Page 24