Isabel’s War

by Lila Perl

  Today, though, there’s a November chill in the air and a gusty wind. And the way I see Helga is a whole lot different from the way I did then. I was so stupidly envious of her during our time together at Moskin’s. Everyone crowded around her with questions and compliments. Harry the waiter and the busboys treated her like a princess. And then Roy came along and rescued her from a vicious farm dog—and became her prince.

  “You mean Helga?”

  “Yeah. Frankfurter.”

  “I think that’s disgustingly mean. Those kids at school calling her Helga Hot Dog. I just hope, Billy Crosby, that you’re not one of them.”

  Billy’s right hand shoots up. “I swear I never called her that. You’re always pickin’ on me, Frenchy. What’d I ever do?”

  “Frankfurter just means her family once came from Frankfurt in Germany. Hot dogs do, too. But it’s still insulting. Also, she had to get away from Germany. Nowadays, they’d kill her over there in a minute. Because she’s half Jewish.”

  Billy nods. “So then she can’t be a spy, I guess.”

  “Did anybody ever really think she was? Did you? A fourteen-year-old girl, a spy? How dumb is that?”

  Billy has started throwing pebbles into the pond. “Not impossible,” he replies nonchalantly. “Don’t you read those girlie books like Nancy Drew or whoever?”

  I pick up a handful of pebbles and start throwing them at the fountain, too. The target in my imagination, though, is Billy. “Nancy Drew isn’t a spy,” I tell him sharply. “She’s a detective.”

  “Okay, okay,” he says, “calm down, Frenchy.”

  It’s pretty clear that Billy Crosby and I will never get along. The minute he turns smart-alecky I start getting mad at him. I get more and more furious until he sort of gives in without actually apologizing. I go along with that for a while until he starts to annoy me all over again. If that’s what goes on between men and women all through life, this might be a very good time to quit trying to be friends with a boy.

  I pull my knee-length winter coat tighter around me. I’m wearing penny loafers and socks, no stockings. “Listen, Billy, I’m cold. I’m going home.”

  Billy drops his handful of pebbles. “Aw, gee, Frenchy, don’t go. See, I knew we shoulda gone to the movies this afternoon.”

  “Oh, really? Guess I didn’t hear you. Or didn’t you know how to say that in French?”

  Ignoring my sarcasm, Billy has actually hung an arm around my shoulders and started to propel me out of the park. It seems like he’s going to walk me home, even though it’s not in the same direction as where he lives. But the next thing I know he’s steering me through the entrance of Hansen’s Drugstore and, a moment later, we’re both perched on tall wooden stools at the marble soda fountain.

  It always smells wonderful in Hansen’s. Chocolate syrup, malted milks, ice cream sodas and sundaes, even the delicious odor of toasted bacon sandwiches, mingle with the faint scent of pharmaceuticals that comes from the prescription department all the way in the back. It’s nice and warm in here, too.

  Billy orders a cherry Coke, so I do, too. I could really go for a banana split or a hot chocolate with whipped cream. But what if he’s going to pay and he doesn’t have enough money? On the other hand, why should he pay for me? Because it was his idea? What if it was Sibby and me? No matter whose idea it was, we’d each pay for ourselves.

  This is all so confusing.

  Anyhow, we sip our cherry Cokes without any more arguing, Billy pays, and I say, Merci beaucoup, to which Billy answers, Il n’y a pas de quoi. As dictated by Miss Damore, this is the correct response, meaning don’t mention it.

  Then we’re outside in front of Hansen’s in the early November dusk. Billy’s eyeglasses catch the fading light and he flashes me a smile that seems more like a warning. “See ya in homeroom on Monday, Frenchy.”

  I can’t think of another thing to say. Suddenly I’m terribly embarrassed at having spent an afternoon with Billy and gone to a soda fountain with him. Was this a date? Does his having bought me a cherry Coke mean that I am bound to him in some way?

  Am I no longer free to be me?

  I nod and waggle the fingers of my right hand at Billy. Then I feel like an idiot. Without a word, I turn and march off down the street toward home.

  Even though I haven’t been walking that fast, my heart is still pounding as I step into the lobby of our apartment building. My afternoon with Billy has left me feeling perplexed and jittery. He’s only a twelve-year-old kid like me (although he made a point of letting me know that he was a lot closer to thirteen than I am), so why did I get such an odd creepy feeling when he slung his arm around me? Did his arm around my neck mean that he liked me or that he was the boss? Was the feeling nice or was it icky? Why can’t I just shake off this last encounter with Billy the way I have all the others?

  On top of that, I’m really upset with Sybil for the way she walked out on me right there in front of Judy Garland. I can’t believe that Sibby actually got on the train and went to Times Square to see Casablanca. It just isn’t the kind of thing she’d do without me. Probably she’s home by now and this would be a good time to straighten out whatever it was that happened between us.

  But when I ring the bell at the door of Sibby’s apartment, it’s Leona who answers. She’s in her housecoat, smoking a cigarette, and listening to soft music on the radio.

  “Oh, it’s you, Isabel. I thought you and Sybil were spending the afternoon together. Did you kids have a fight?”

  Suddenly I realize what a terrible mess I’ve gotten myself into by stopping off here. If Sibby really did go downtown all by herself and wasn’t supposed to, I certainly don’t want to tell on her. On the other hand, almost anything else I say will be a lie.

  “We…um…got separated.”

  Leona takes a puff on her cigarette and looks doubtful. “Whatever that means. Sit down anyway. I’m sure she’ll be home soon.”

  I flop down into one of Leona’s sagging but really comfortable chairs. “You know,” I say in the most normal fashion I can muster, “you and I never did finish our conversation on Thanksgiving. You were telling me about the concentration camps in Germany. You were going to explain…”

  “Poland,” Leona corrects me. “There are plenty of camps in Germany, of course, like the one they sent Helga’s father to. But the newer camps are in Poland. The Nazis are using them to carry out the ‘Final Solution.’ I told you about that the other day…”

  I pull myself forward and am sitting on the edge of my seat in Leona’s shabby armchair. “The ‘Final Solution’—it’s not the same thing as solving a math problem, is it?”

  “Well, yes. In a way it is. Question—what should we do to get rid of six million Jews from all over Europe? Answer—herd them together in concentration camps, put them to death with poison gas, and burn their bodies in the camp’s cremation ovens. The smoke from the ovens goes up the chimneys and is carried away by the wind…poof. Final solution!”

  I take a deep, painful breath. “Are you sure about this? Why aren’t there headlines in the newspapers?”

  Leona crushes the butt of her cigarette and exhales a last puff. “Because, sweetie, people either don’t want to believe it or they really don’t care. Haven’t you learned anything from Helga about hostility towards the Jews in Germany, in England, and even here where she’s taken refuge?”

  “Yes, but…do you really think Helga’s father and mother and her sisters might become part of the…the ‘Final Solution’? And does she even know about the poison gas and the ovens yet? It’s too terrible to even imagine.”

  Leona shakes her head. “I know this sounds harsh, but her father may already have died from overwork, starvation, disease, torture, in the labor camp in Germany. And she hasn’t heard from her mother or sisters in more than two years. Now there are transit camps in Holland from which captured Jews are sent to the gas ovens in Poland.”

  This discussion with Leona Simon is so horrifying that it’s actua
lly a relief when the apartment door opens and in walks Sibby. Her cheeks are flushed and she looks as if she’s been running through the dark November streets.

  Unlike my mother, Leona doesn’t let go with a shrill demand for an immediate explanation. She simply lights a cigarette and looks at Sybil critically with darting, inquisitive eyes.

  This is definitely the signal for me to get out of there. Besides, my mother will be looking for me as well. “Thanks for…for having me,” I tell Leona. “Our talk was so… interesting.” Leona nods, but Sibby just glares at me. I can tell she’s angry and that she’s also suspicious as to what I’ve been discussing with her mother.

  Well, guess what? I’m mad at her, too. Did she really think I had planned to dump her for Billy Crosby? I would never have done that in a million years if she hadn’t walked out on me and left me no choice. If she doesn’t know that, she’s no kind of friend at all.

  Growing more and more indignant as I go, I stomp up the two flights of stairs and down the long corridor to my own front door.

  Mrs. Boylan, my seventh-grade history teacher, is a tall big-bosomed woman with—excuse me for saying it—a bulldoggy face.

  “Yes, Isabel, did you have a question about the Third Crusade?”

  It’s Monday morning after the Thanksgiving weekend and nobody is really happy about returning to school. But, I, on the other hand, am full of enthusiasm because ever since Saturday there’s something I’ve been anxious to talk about in history class that has nothing to do with the Middle Ages.

  It’s not about landlords and peasants, or nobles and vassals, or Christians and Muslims smashing each other to smithereens during the Crusades, of which there were at least four, if not more. As I see it, that all happened a long, long time ago and there’s nothing anybody can do about it today.

  “Not the Crusades,” I announce, getting to my feet. “I know we’re supposed to study the Middle Ages. But there’s something happening in the world right now that not too many people know about and…and if they did maybe something could be done about it.”

  Mrs. Boylan looks at me with curiosity. I’ve never even raised my hand in class before.

  “Do you mean the war, Isabel?”

  “Well yes, in a way. It’s…it’s about the concentration camps the Nazis are building in Europe so they can gas the Jews and burn their bodies. It’s called the ‘Final Solution.’ As I said, there’s only a little being reported in the papers. We’re just beginning to find out about it.”

  Mrs. Boylan gives me an almost pitying look. “Yes, well of course there have been atrocities committed by Hitler against all sorts of people. But what you suggest sounds extreme unless you have strong evidence to back it up. Why don’t you bring in some newspaper clippings and do a special assignment on these concentration camps you talk about. I would give you extra credit, Isabel. And that would be very helpful toward your final grade.”

  I know this is the signal for me to say, Yes, ma’am, and sit down. But stubbornly I remain standing. “If you don’t believe how terrible things are in Germany, there is a person in this very school who could tell you. The last she heard her father was in a prison camp called Buchenwald, although he’s probably dead by now, and her mother and sisters…”

  “Isabel dear,” Mrs. Boylan breaks in, “I’m sure the class would like to hear more about this situation, but we really have a great deal to cover regarding the Third Crusade. We are mandated, you know, to teach the Middle Ages in seventh grade. It’s part of the curriculum.”

  The eyes of every person in the class are on me as I grumpily take my seat. But who cares? Let them snicker and pass snide remarks among them. This is nothing compared to being threatened with a knifing by the Hitler Youth, sent away from your family forever on the Kindertransport, being stoned by English schoolchildren for being a Jew and hanging out with an “idiot.”

  For the rest of the period I keep my head down and refuse to even turn the pages of my textbook. What can Mrs. Boylan do to me? Throw me in jail, torture me, stuff me into an oven like the old witch in Hansel and Gretel? This is the U.S.A. It’s a free country.

  Seventeen

  “I heard,” Sybil says, “that you got into trouble in Boylan’s class.”

  Apparently, even though she and I walked to school separately this morning, she isn’t as mad at me as she seemed to be on Saturday when she found me in her apartment talking to Leona.

  But I’m still feeling pretty ticked off at her. “I didn’t get into trouble,” I reply icily. “I just asked a question. And got a stupid answer. It’s not my fault if Mrs. Boylan prefers to be living during the Third Crusade and the kids in the class are a bunch of goofballs.”

  “Yeah,” Sybil muses, “I heard you brought up something about the Nazis. You’re getting even more like Leona than I am…”

  It’s just after last period and we’re standing in the hall near the door of our homeroom, being elbowed by kids passing through. Also, any minute now Billy Crosby will be coming by and I don’t want to get into another tangle with him and Sibby.

  “Listen,” I break in, “I’ve got a bone to pick with you. And it’s about Saturday. And you know why. If you want to walk home together after dismissal, we can talk about it then.”

  Sybil is waiting for me at the main gate looking even more apologetic than before.

  I tell her about Helga, who isn’t in school today because she’s staying up in Westchester with Mrs. F. for a while longer. And then I let her have it about deserting me in front of Billy.

  “I thought you wanted to be left alone with him,” Sibby exclaims defensively. “Why don’t you face it, Izzie? You like it that he’s running after you.”

  “I don’t, I don’t. He tries to boss me around. He makes me feel…helpless.”

  “Well, then there must be something wrong with you. That’s what girls are supposed to like. They want to be chased after. And finally captured.”

  “Do you?”

  “How should I know? I haven’t got a boyfriend.”

  “Please don’t say that word,” I implore Sibby. I can see that this conversation is getting us nowhere. “So,” I say, “tell me what you really did on Saturday. You never went downtown all by yourself, did you?”

  Sibby switches her books to her other arm and sighs. “I did. Thanks for not telling Leona.”

  “You did? What was it like? Did you get to see Casablanca?”

  “Of course not. There was a line all the way around the block. Police all over the place, soldiers and sailors everywhere. You had to be eighteen to get in.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “Walked around. Hung out near the big Broadway USO, the Stage Door Canteen on 44th Street, hoping I’d see some movie stars or famous singers. Bought myself an orangeade and a hot dog with mustard. A couple of sailors, really young-looking, called me “Red” and followed me for half a block.”

  “Hmm. Sounds like fun.”

  “It wasn’t. It became sort of weird, even a little scary. So I got back on the subway and came home. Doing stuff alone isn’t that much fun. Tell me about you and Billy.”

  It’s a little over a year now since December 7, 1941, that terrible Sunday when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor in far-off Hawaii. “Over two thousand Americans killed in surprise attack on naval base, ships and planes destroyed,” my father read out loud from the newspaper. “A date which will live in infamy,” said President Franklin D. Roosevelt. And in no time at all we were fighting the Japs, the Italians, and the Germans in World War II.

  At first, the war didn’t mean that much to me. I have to admit that I saw it as more of an inconvenience than anything else. So I’m actually surprised at how far I stuck my neck out in history class the other day.

  Now there are notes on my desk and whispers in my ear every time I walk into Mrs. Boylan’s room. “Hey, Isabel, heard anything from the concentration camps lately?”

  “Psst, I think I just smelled some of that Nazi poison gas. Did you?
”

  Day by day, as we grope our way through the dark and dreary Middle Ages, I’m becoming more and more infuriated. I may not be able to convince Mrs. Boylan of Hitler’s recently devised Final Solution, but I have pretty good evidence of how bad things already were in Nazi Germany in 1939 when Helga left.

  So, for the second time this term, I raise my hand. Mrs. Boylan lifts her eyebrows and says, “Yes, Isabel. What is that you’re holding up? If it’s the special assignment we talked about, please leave it on my desk.”

  “No.” I get to my feet. “It’s something else. It’s about the Jewish children in Germany who were sent to England to escape being killed by the Nazis. They left their families and probably will never see them again. It was called the Kindertransport.”

  I wave the paper I’ve been holding above my head. “This is a real-life story. If you don’t believe it, there is a person in this school who was a Kindertransport child and she can swear to you that every word is true. The school ought to pay some attention to things like that, especially in history class.”

  Mrs. Boylan appears a little nonplussed, and the rest of the class is looking from the teacher to me and back, just waiting to see what is going to happen next.

  “I’m sure this is very interesting and important, Isabel,” Mrs. Boylan says, “and I’ll be happy to read your paper and consider giving you extra credit for it. But, as far as taking up the Kindertransport in class, I think that might be a better subject for your homeroom teacher.”

  Mrs. Boylan does walk over to my desk, though, and I hand her Helga’s story.

  “I’d just like to mention something that explains why people were so scared in Germany that they sent their children away,” I add. “It’s in the report.”

  “Yes, Isabel?” I can tell Mrs. Boylan is getting impatient with me.

  “It’s the Hitler Youth marching song. They’ve been singing it for years and years, ever since Hitler took over Germany. It’s sung in German, of course. But here’s how it goes in English: And when Jewish blood spurts from the knife, then things will again go well.”