Isabel’s War

by Lila Perl

  “Hey, Frenchy.”

  It’s the end of the last period of the day and I’m heading back to homeroom. I hardly need to turn around. It’s Billy again, his glasses glinting and a self-assured smile wreathing his face. “What did ya run away for? I wanted to thank you for savin’ me from Damore, at least until the bell rung. Boy, she’s got a nerve askin’ for a translation of a long sentence like that.”

  I shift my books to my other arm and sigh. “Well, you should have known better than to call out. Anyhow, what you said was wrong. Nobody on our side of the war is ready to invade France yet. A landing anywhere on the French coast is still a long way off.”

  “Oh yeah? Shows how much you know. I got secret information. My Pop’s on the inside.”

  Billy makes me so mad I could spit. “Why? Because he’s a police detective?”

  “And a Civil Defense air raid warden and on the bomb squad. You’ll be glad some day when he and his team save the whole neighborhood from an enemy attack. He’s also a blackout warden. So be sure to follow the rules for the next blackout.” Billy looks at me teasingly. “I know where you live, Frenchy.”

  I turn into the door of homeroom with Billy following, wondering how I could possibly be unlucky enough to attract such a person.

  “Hey,” Billy grabs my arm, “how about comin’ to the movies with me on Saturday? You know, to thank you for helping me out in French.”

  Speechless, I plop down at my desk. This is really too much. I’ve never in my life gone on a “date” to the movies with a boy. Even if I wanted to—and I certainly don’t with Billy—my mother wouldn’t let me.

  “Yeah, come on,” says Billy, as Mr. Jeffers indicates for him to take his seat. “It’ll be fun… The Commandos Strike at Dawn…you ain’t seen it yet, did ya?”

  “What was that all about?” Sibby wants to know as we start walking home together. Helga is staying after school today for some tutoring in English grammar.

  When I tell her, she starts to chant, “Boyfriend, boyfriend, Izzie’s got a boyfriend.”

  “Don’t you dare, Sybil Simon,” I exclaim. “I’m only telling you this because you saw him talking to me in class. I wouldn’t even admit it otherwise. Billy Crosby is anything but my type. He’s goofy-looking, and he’s stuck-up and dumb all at the same time. He’s fresh, too. He never takes his eyes off my chest. Can you just imagine how he’d act in a dark movie theater?”

  Sibby giggles. “So who is your type? What do you think about…Bing Crosby? You don’t suppose he might be a relative of Billy?”

  “No, I don’t. And to tell you the truth, Bing Crosby might be a good crooner but I don’t think much of his looks either. His face reminds me of a glass of warm milk.”

  “Boy, are you picky, Izzie. Oh, I know who you would really go for, especially if you were looking for ‘cute’…Frank Sinatra. My mom and I heard him on the radio last night singing ‘I’ll Never Smile Again.’ Leona said if she ever saw him in person, she’d probably pass out.”

  “You think? He’s awfully skinny from the pictures I’ve seen of him. More likely, he’d be the one to pass out.”

  “You’re so sarcastic, Izzie. I sort of agree with you about Bing Crosby. He’s losing his hair and he’s got an awful lot of kids. But Sinatra, wow… If he ever gets to be in the stage show at some big Broadway movie theater, my mom and I want to go. If my mom can’t take time off from work, will you go with me? Say yes.”

  “Yes,” I say wearily. “If it’s okay with my mother. And we’ll have to take Helga, too. Except she really makes me nervous these days. Did you notice how jumpy she is lately? She always seems to be looking behind her. Instead of relaxing now that she’s out of Germany and out of England, she acts like she’s getting more suspicious of people all the time.”

  “Well, you would be, too, if you had been separated from your family, thrown together with a lot of strange kids, and sent to a foreign country where people weren’t too welcoming. Then she came here and got put down at school, insulted at the USO, and picked up by the police. By the way, did she ever write that description for you of what happened to her after she got to England?”

  “Not yet, although she seems to be doing a lot of scribbling lately. Maybe it’s just her extra homework. I can’t keep asking her. She looks like she’s ready to cry most of the time.”

  Arnold’s two-day furlough went by so fast, it might just as well have been two hours. This time he had a travel pass from the Army and he took the train down to Grand Central Station and then the railroad to some place in Massachusetts. It doesn’t seem like he’s going directly to flight-training school after all. But who can ever tell with the Army?

  He had to leave the apartment at five-thirty in the morning, so our farewells were sleepy and confused and maybe that was all to the good. What do you say to someone you love and who you might not see again for a very long time, or maybe even…?

  We now have a blue star on the door of our apartment. Some people put them in the windows of their houses, but who’s going to look up at the fourth floor of an apartment building to make out a blue star in the window?

  Let’s just hope the star remains a blue one—it shows that a son or brother or husband is serving in the war. A gold star—and some have already begun to appear—means that someone who was serving has been killed.

  Mealtimes have been a downbeat affair ever since Arnold left. Tonight, my mother and father start arguing again about what plans the Army has for Arnold. “I’ll be just as happy,” my mother remarks, “if they forget all about putting my son into the cockpit of some flimsy airplane. He might be a lot safer on the ground.”

  “That’s the silliest thing I ever heard,” my father retorts, as my mother’s baked salmon loaf and mashed potatoes get passed around the table to Helga and me. “Don’t you know that the infantry is the most dangerous of all the divisions. It’s always the foot soldiers who get the worst of it in a war.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to see him in the infantry.” My mother shrugs and tosses her head with an air of annoyance. “There are lots of other important and useful jobs in the Army that don’t involve crashing an airplane or being shot at in the mud.”

  I can’t imagine what Helga is making of this conversation between my parents. It must sound so stupid to her after all she’s seen and been through, especially in Germany where her own father has been imprisoned by the Nazis in a labor camp.

  We’re just finishing our meal with a dessert of baked apples when the screeching wail of the air-raid siren down on the street beneath our windows goes off. This is the first blackout we’ve had since Helga came to live with us (they started last spring) and I can’t help wondering if it could possibly have anything to do with Billy Crosby’s warning of this afternoon. I know where you live, Frenchy. Ugh!

  The radio stays on but the blackout curtains are drawn and most of the lights will have to be put out, just in case it’s a real attack. Fortunately it never has been (German bombers have made it to England but not to the Bronx).

  Helga, however, immediately goes running off to the bedroom that we share and comes back with her coat, her school briefcase, and a sheaf of papers. “Here, Isabel, this is for you,” she says, shoving the loose pages at me. “You can read them in the cellar where we go now. It will perhaps be a long time. Where is your coat?”

  I’m completely confused. My parents have already made themselves comfortable in the living room beside the radio. I reach for Helga’s hand in the semi-darkness. “No, no, we don’t need our coats. We’re not going anywhere.”

  Helga shakes her head stubbornly. “Isabel, it is not safe to stay here. Always in England we go to the root cellar on the farm, or into the basement of the youth hostel. Perhaps that is the best place.” She glances toward the living room. “You must explain this to your parents. Here, so far above the ground, it is most dangerous to remain.”

  Since I can’t seem to convince Helga that this is just an air-raid drill and not a real
alert that enemy airplanes are on their way, I ask my father to explain it to her.

  “No, no, no, my dear,” he tells her with his usual air of authority. “The Germans haven’t got bombers that are long-range enough to hit the Eastern U.S. And neither have the Japs. So nothing to worry about. Just sit back and relax until the all-clear siren sounds.”

  But Helga still has questions. She retreats to the bedroom, murmuring, “If there is no possible danger of attack, what do we practice for? This I cannot believe.”

  I’m still holding the loose pages that Helga gave me. Can these possibly be the written account I’ve been waiting for of her first experience of England? I rattle the pages at her. “This is for me to read?”

  “Ja. But now we must remain in the dark. So you cannot.” And she reaches out to take them back from me.

  “No.” I hold onto them tightly. “I’ll keep them till the lights come on. Or…” I hop onto my bed, “I’ll read them by flashlight under the covers.”

  Helga’s voice is choked and low. “I am ashamed to write and complain about these things that have happened. Others have suffered more and surely died because of me. You must promise me, Isabel that, after you read what I have written, you will not ask me any questions and we will never talk about this again.” Her figure looms over me in the dark.

  I clutch Helga’s confession to my chest. “Why are you ashamed? It’s Hitler and his Nazi murderers who should be ashamed.”

  “No, Isabel, you don’t understand. That is not the way it works.”

  I shake my head in bafflement, grab my flashlight, and dive under the covers to start reading the story of Helga’s life as a Kindertransport child on an English chicken farm, far from her home and family.

  Fourteen

  Isabel,

  I already told you about the Kindertransport train to the port in Holland and then the ferry to Harwich. Mutti said that soon our entire family would come together again in England. I knew this could never come true. What about Papa? Since the autumn of 1939, he was a prisoner in the Buchenwald camp in Germany, working in the stone quarry with his bare hands to build roads for the Nazi commanders. So much we knew.

  We Kinder arrived at last to the assignment center. Some children already had sponsors who came to take them to their homes. Other people came to look at us with judging eyes. Were we clean, healthy, obedient-looking…and young? Even babies were chosen. But those of us who were taller like me, or older, were not.

  By darkness, we were six or more left, mostly boys. The officials in charge of the refugee children said they would take us to an orphanage. A man and woman came in as we were putting our things into an Army truck to be transported. She was tall, with thin lips and black hair pulled into a tight knot. He was stout and gray-bearded with tiny watery eyes.

  “How old is this one?” they asked. I told them I am twelve. “You look older,” they said. “Have you finished with school?”

  “No,” I told them, in German. “I want to go to school so I can learn English.”

  The refugee officer translated for them and they went away to talk between themselves. Then they returned.

  “We’ll take her,” they said. “She can help out on the farm and go to school in the village.”

  “Do you agree?” the officer asked. I said yes. I did not want to go to the orphanage. My things were taken off the Army transport and I went into the farm truck with the Rathbones. That was their name.

  The farmhouse was old and dark, with stone floors and small windows. My room was under the eaves. I went up the ladder with candlelight and I was very homesick and unhappy. All that first night I wept. Better to be with Papa in Buchenwald, or hiding in a coal bin with Mama’s relatives.

  The next day I learned my duties. I must feed the chickens before walking three miles to the village school. After school I must sweep and dust and scrub the floors. Also, I must look after Tim. Tim is their son. He is born with a defect. He has slanting eyes like a Mongolian and a broad face. His body is short, thick, and heavy. He is ten years old.

  Tim is not bad or wicked and he likes to hug and wrestle, not knowing his own strength. Yet he must be tended all the time. Slime and drool must be wiped from his nose and lips. Often he soils himself. Soon he follows me everywhere, even when I walk to school, sometimes even to my room where I try to do my homework.

  There is also the problem of the school…

  Helga’s writing trails off and I hurl myself out from under the covers. My flashlight has begun to dim and, with that, the all-clear siren goes off. The blackout is over. Lights flash on everywhere, in the apartment and the street below.

  “Helga!” I exclaim, “I can’t believe you lived like that for such a long time. And what happened at the school? You didn’t finish writing your story.”

  All this time Helga must have been lying quietly on her bed. “It is too much to tell, Isabel,” she says softly. “And looking up every word for correct spelling, I got so tired. Let us now forget all about it.”

  “No, we can’t. You must tell me the rest if the writing is too hard. The school that was three miles away in the village…what about it?”

  Helga is sitting on the edge of her bed and I on mine. Our knees are almost touching. To my relief she starts to talk.

  “The village is small and the school is only for the early grades. Because I speak such poor English I am put in the lowest grade with the youngest children. This makes me feel very stupid. But the schoolmaster says I must start at the beginning because I have to be taught not to think in German. And also because I am late many days.

  “Some days I cannot come at all. The Rathbones have so many chores for me to do. More than feeding and watering the birds, they want me to clean out the waste from the chicken coops.

  “They never smile. We eat our meals in silence. The only people who come to the farm are the sellers of eggs and chickens who buy what they raise. For company I have only Tim who stays close to me more and more. So I cannot drive him away.”

  I don’t want to stop Helga but I can’t keep myself from interrupting. “They sound like terrible people. They’re not even kind and loving to their little boy.”

  Helga shakes her head. “They are not really cruel. Just silent and disappointed, I think, that their child is defective. I am a refugee in England—no other country will take us—and it is not my place to speak against them.”

  I think about this. True, the Rathbones rescued Helga from a terrible fate if she had remained in Germany between 1939 and 1942, when her uncle was able to bring her to America. As Leona Simon has told me, only a small number of Jewish children were admitted to the U.S. at that time, as compared with 10,000 Jewish and non-Jewish Kindertransport children taken in by England.

  “One day,” Helga continues, “when Tim follows me to school, the children who live near the village begin to throw pebbles at us. This has happened before and they are only small pebbles. Tim laughs and tries to throw some back. He is, after all, looking for playmates.

  “This time, though, the pebbles become stones. I try to shelter us and start to run back to the farm with Tim. The children are of all ages. They are shouting at us, The idiot and the Jew, get off with you! No one wants you here. Get off with you.

  “Tim is clumsy and also he doesn’t want to run away. First I pull him and then I try to push him from behind. But he thinks this is fun. Now the children are throwing larger and heavier stones and they are chasing us. Some of the stones are hitting our shoulders and the backs of our legs. Tim is starting to become frightened. He runs and trips and nearly falls.

  “I try to hold him up. This slows us down. It is too late to escape our attackers. One of the older and bigger boys heaves a heavy rock. It strikes Tim in the head and he falls to the ground. There is blood everywhere.”

  “They really said that…the idiot and the Jew! I would have punched them in the mouth, every single one of them, even the littlest kids. It’s never too early to learn a lesson about
not calling people names. Oh gosh, Helga, I wish I was there…me and Sibby and…and Leona. We’d have smacked them around but good.”

  The door to our room opens abruptly and my mother is standing there with an exasperated expression. “What is all this shrieking about, Isabel? Your father would like to know. He can hardly hear the radio.”

  Suddenly I’m back in our apartment in the Bronx, a long way from the narrow country road somewhere in England where Helga and Tim were stoned by the local children. “It’s…it’s nothing. Just something that Helga was telling me about the…the Kindertransport. You remember?”

  My mother looks at Helga, who is pale and quiet. “Well, I hoped you two weren’t fighting. Did the blackout upset you, Helga?”

  Helga shakes her head. “Ach, nein.”

  I can’t wait for my mother to leave so I can hear the rest. Finally she does.

  “What happened to Tim?” I gasp in a loud whisper.

  “I got him back to the farm. His head wound healed, but he became more sick in many other ways. His parents blamed me for what happened to him and I took care of him from then on all of the time, working also on the farm. I never went back to the school. About a year later, Tim died. After that, I went to live in the hostel near the Army camp. I told you before that it was right that I should be punished when I arrived to England. And that is what happened.”

  “But why, Helga? What did you do that was so horrible? Why should you have been punished?”

  “No more questions, Isabel. You promised.”

  “Creamed onions and cauliflower au gratin,” Sibby informs me. “My mom says to tell your mother that’s what we’re bringing. And thanks a lot for inviting us to dinner.”

  The month of November has slipped by and everybody is getting ready for the first wartime Thanksgiving. The whole country is in a tizzy about the holiday this year. Because of rationing, it’s hard to get butter for mashed potatoes or sugar for pies and desserts. Even turkeys and chickens are a little on the scarce side.