The Safest Lie

by Angela Cerrito

  Anna Karwolska has special prayers for certain times of the day, like me. The words to the prayers are different. I learn how to bless my food saying the new prayers in Polish and in German, and how to make a cross from my head to my heart.

  Frieda easily learns the prayers and has an angelic voice.

  Martin complains that the lessons are too hard. I try to make a game to help him learn the prayers line by line, but he can’t sit still.

  When Auntie has her attention on Frieda, I follow Martin and make up a clapping game to teach him the new prayers. We move from room to room until he finds a favorite place, under the kitchen table. He learns the prayers eventually, but gets mixed up making the cross.

  “Follow me,” I say, pushing away a chair to make a path. He does. We practice crossing ourselves while looking in the mirror by the front door.

  Miss keeps Rachel in her arms all day. She paces room to room, looking out every window, and only sets the baby down to clean her or to wrap her in a new blanket.

  “Is she sick?” I ask.

  “No, she’s healthy as can be.”

  Auntie brings three bowls of broth to the table. Martin, Frieda and I say our new prayer perfectly. The broth is just as good as yesterday. One bowl and a single piece of bread fill me as if I’ve just eaten a feast. Frieda and Martin lick their bowls clean.

  As soon as we finish eating a bell rings outside, three loud chirps. Martin crouches under the table. Frieda and I hide behind our chairs. The sound of the bell is frightening, yet familiar.

  “Children, don’t be alarmed,” says Auntie. “Three rings. Safe.”

  Auntie opens the door wide. An old lady on a bike is at the front door. A bike bell! I had one on my first bike, years ago. The woman is wearing a long black dress, black boots and a straw farmer’s hat. On the back of her bike sits a large basket. She steps inside. When she takes off her hat, long gray hair falls down past her shoulders. She rubs her hands together. “Bring me the infant.”

  Miss sets Rachel down on the counter. The old lady unbundles Rachel and examines her the way a doctor would. Then she unrolls her sleeve and removes a piece of paper. She unfolds the paper carefully, dips her smallest finger against it and rubs her finger on Rachel’s bottom lip.

  I creep closer. The old lady taps the end of her finger in some powder on the paper and brushes it against Rachel’s lip again and again. Rachel’s eyes begin to close. The old lady dips her finger into the powder once more and pops it into Rachel’s mouth. Rachel is soon fast asleep.

  The woman nods, carefully folds the paper and tucks it back into her sleeve. She wraps Rachel in a blanket and takes her outside. I stand in the doorway as she snuggles little Rachel into the bottom of her basket. She covers her with another blanket and nestles about twenty eggs on top. The woman wraps her hair up and tucks it under her hat. Then she climbs onto her bicycle and rides off without a word.

  The old woman rides off along the same path that I carried Rachel yesterday. I feel a tug at my heart, like I’m being pulled out of Mama’s arms, like Papa’s hands are slipping away from mine. “No. Stop.” I step away from the house. One step. Two steps. Three steps. And I’m off, running to catch the bike, running to Rachel.

  Miss’s arms surround me. She nearly lifts me into the air. “Anna.” Her voice is an astonished whisper. “What are you thinking? You couldn’t even walk that distance yesterday without collapsing. And today you’re fit to run?” She releases me and I fall to the ground, sitting on the dirt path. She stands beside me. I watch until the woman and her bicycle become a small speck, then disappear. Good-bye, Rachel.

  Miss holds out her hand. I take it and she pulls me up. “You must never leave the house, Anna. It is too dangerous.”

  Suddenly I want to cry. I want to kick and scream and shout. My feet fall in step next to Miss. But I can’t stop my thoughts from pouring out of my mouth. “I helped save her. And now she’s gone.”

  Miss nods. We approach the side door. Auntie’s hand is on the knob, ready to shut the door behind us. Her face is full of sympathy. She lifts her arms up as if she’s going to hug me, but I march past her. My sadness has grown so big it’s turned into anger.

  When Auntie and Miss unroll our bed mat at the end of the day, my head is full of new songs and prayers. I worked so hard to remember them all day, but now, at night, I want them out of my mind. Being another person isn’t just about remembering. It’s about forgetting. I don’t want to forget being Anna Bauman.

  Martin and Frieda cry for a few minutes and then fall fast asleep. I listen to Auntie and Miss through the open bedroom door. I hear Auntie call Miss “Alicia.”

  I will keep calling her Miss, but I tuck the name inside my heart like a secret.

  As I’m about to fall asleep, I hear Auntie say “The brother and sister leave tomorrow.”

  “What about Anna?” Miss asks.

  I think I hear her say “A day or two more.” But I’m so sleepy, I can’t be sure.

  Chapter 12

  We wake to find three bowls of broth and three apples on the table. My apple is still wrapped in brown paper. I peel back the paper and hold it up to my nose. The apple smells so perfect and fresh. It smells too good to eat.

  I set the apple by my bowl. Knowing that it’s so close and all mine makes me feel like singing one of the songs I learned yesterday.

  Martin’s had a few bites, but Frieda is looking at me expectantly. Instantly, I remember the new prayers. “Martin, stop eating. We must bless our food.” We recite the prayer, remembering to make the cross before and after just as we were taught. I look up at Auntie and her eyes are smiling.

  My broth is even better than yesterday. With the apple on my mind and the smell in my nose, the broth tastes like apple soup. Martin and Frieda start on their apples first. Watching them eat makes me think of baby Rachel. Someday, when she’s big enough, she will eat apples. As soon as I finish my broth, I wrap my hands around my apple. I close my eyes. It smells more powerful than just one apple. I think I can smell the bark and the branches—maybe even hear the leaves of the apple tree rustling in the wind. My apple smells like the outside, like the whole free world.

  I am in two places at once. My body is in Auntie’s house holding an apple in my hands. But my mind is climbing the big apple tree at the park across from my home. The memories flood into my head the way sunlight pours into a room when the curtains are pulled back. I was six years old the first time I scrambled into that tree. It was the first day of school. Half of me wanted to climb high, to the very top. The rest of me was afraid of falling. Grandma’s warning rang in my ears: Don’t climb too high and you won’t have to fall. I sat on a sturdy bottom branch and feasted on apples. A voice brings my thoughts back to Auntie’s house.

  “Aren’t you going to try a bite?” Miss asks.

  I have to blink a few times to see the apple clearly. I’m holding it in both my hands above the empty bowl. Miss, Auntie, Martin and Frieda are all looking at me.

  “Of course I am!” I open my mouth and pause for a moment. I say the blessing quickly in my mind: Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, who creates fruit from the tree. Their eyes are all on me as I take a big bite. The apple is crisp and juicy. It tastes even better than I’d imagined.

  After breakfast, Miss whisks Martin and Frieda off to have their baths and to mend their clothes. Auntie sits down next to me and begins our lessons. I learn about holidays and church. Auntie asks me the same questions over and over again. Then she asks the most difficult question of all. “Tell me about your parents,” she says.

  At first I think she means my real parents. “My parents?”

  “Yes. How did they die?”

  That’s when I realize she is asking about Anna Karwolska’s parents. I chew on my bottom lip. This is a strange new feeling. Obviously Auntie knows everything. She knows where I came from. Otherwise why bother to teach me all of the new things? But Auntie and Miss are the same. They never say We want
to see how well you can pretend to be the new Anna.

  “How did they die?” Auntie asks again.

  “The war,” I manage to say. “They were killed in the war. Squished.”

  “Squished?” asks Auntie. “Like under a building?”

  “Yes, the building was bombed.” I remember a family whose house was bombed. They were sitting against a wall in the basement. When the bomb fell on the house, half of a wall collapsed. The mother and son survived. The father and two daughters died instantly. “I was sitting right next to my mother when it happened. The wall toppled on my parents, but not on me.”

  Auntie folds her arms around me and sways with me from side to side. I wonder why Auntie is comforting me. Because I pretended so well? Or does she think what I said about my parents is true?

  I bite my tongue until it hurts. I stop myself from blurting out It’s not true. I’m Anna Bauman. My parents are alive in Warsaw, in the ghetto.

  I expected pretending to get easier. But instead my secrets grow bigger every day. Now they seem so big that they might burst out of me.

  Chapter 13

  Martin and Frieda sit at the table. They do not look like the same two screaming children I first saw two days ago. They aren’t pale and frightened. They are calm. They are clean. And they are talking. “What’s this?” Frieda asks her brother, pointing to her plate.

  Martin looks at Auntie.

  “It’s cheese,” Auntie says.

  “Cheese,” repeats Martin.

  “Have I eaten it before? Do I like it?” Frieda asks.

  Martin looks a bit uncertain. He nods. “You had it once. You loved it. You asked for cheese all the time. Don’t you remember?”

  Frieda tries it. And she likes it.

  Before the table is cleared, a horse and cart stops in back of the house. Auntie rushes off to talk with the driver. Miss gathers Martin and Frieda in her arms. “It’s time. Remember everything we talked about.”

  Martin takes his sister’s hand and walks with her to the back door. In the doorway, he stops and turns to me. “So long,” he says.

  The driver is at the back of the cart waiting. He lifts Frieda up first, then Martin. Next he shakes out a dark blue blanket. The blanket covers Martin and Frieda, just as the blanket on the old lady’s bicycle covered Rachel.

  My head is exploding with questions. My stomach is full of thunder. I watch the horse and cart drive away. Miss stands close as if she’s afraid I’ll run after them like I ran after Rachel. The cart shrinks in the distance. When I can’t see it anymore, I walk to where Auntie is sitting at the table.

  “Auntie, can I still remember my old songs? My own prayers?”

  “You may remember them, Anna. But you mustn’t speak them. Not to anyone. Not until after the war.”

  “I won’t. I promise.” Auntie sounds like Papa, always talking about after the war, always believing that the war will really end. “I like the new songs. I even like the prayers. But which one, which religion, is right?”

  “Right? What do you mean right?”

  “Which religion is right . . . about God?”

  Auntie brushes both of my braids off my shoulders and looks straight into my eyes. “This is what I know,” she says. “I know it is right that the world has both religions.”

  Chapter 14

  I lie awake a long time. Rachel is gone. Martin and Frieda are gone. Tomorrow I will be gone too, sleeping in another place, away from Auntie and Miss. Just thinking about it makes me feel alone.

  I concentrate on each room in Auntie’s house. In this bedroom I could hide in the closet, curled into a ball. In the kitchen I can slide behind the large chest that holds Auntie’s dishes, my back flat against the wall. The bathroom has no hiding place, but there’s a low window for escape.

  I’m growing sleepy, but I toss and turn because I can’t imagine tomorrow. I bring up memories of the past. I know what to expect there. My mind has been buzzing with every new detail about being Anna Karwolska. It crowds out my memories of Anna Bauman. I don’t want to forget. I make a promise to myself: I won’t forget.

  I imagine every holiday with Mama and Papa, each room of my old house. I think about my grandfather’s voice, strong and rumbly, as he prayed. I can see each photograph framed on my grandmother’s mantel. Tonight the memories don’t make me sad. They don’t even make me feel homesick. Instead, I feel rich. Every memory, every word is a part of me.

  I hear Grandma’s voice in her special language: You can’t grow corn on the ceiling. If you can’t do as you wish, do what you can. When I asked her if she wished she could play the piano like Mama or act onstage like Uncle Aleksander, she said, “If I would be like someone else, who will be like me?”

  If I’m becoming Anna Karwolska, who will be Anna Bauman?

  I must be both. Anna Karwolska all day and whenever anyone is near. And Anna Bauman at night, when I’m alone.

  In the morning, the same horse and cart stops behind the house. I know it’s my turn to say good-bye. When I hug Miss, a lump grows in my chest. I mean to say “I’ll never forget you.” But instead, “Don’t ever forget me” comes out of my mouth. I don’t try to correct it, because as soon as I hear the words I know they are truer than true.

  “Never,” says Miss, hugging me tightly. She places an apple in my hand. Auntie kisses my cheeks three times and presents me with another apple.

  With an apple in each pocket, I walk to the cart. The man scoops me up. He tells me to be still and covers me with a blanket. In less than a minute there is a tug and a bump and the cart is moving, taking me away.

  Chapter 15

  I wonder if I will be taken to the same place as Martin and Frieda. I’m in the same cart, under the same blanket, being pulled by the same horse and driven by the same driver. I curl my arm under my head to keep it from hitting against the bottom of the cart with every bump. I count the nights away from Mama and Papa. I spent one night alone under a desk and three nights with Miss and Auntie. Only four nights, yet everything is different. I wonder what Mama and Papa are doing right this very moment. Are they inside the small room? Out on the streets? Do they have enough food?

  Stop it! It’s daytime. You are Anna Karwolska.

  I wish I could imagine my next home. Every time I try, Auntie’s farmhouse comes up. I wonder if I will be with another mother and daughter. Maybe I will study more. Maybe I will actually go to a real school.

  I practice answering questions in case we are stopped by soldiers or police. I will be able to say my name, my birthday and saint’s day, talk about my parents. I can even talk about holiday decorations and say prayers.

  What if someone asks Why are you hiding under a blanket? For that question, I have no answer.

  Here in the dark, I feel like I’m being watched. The man driving might be turning around to check on me. Someone may pass by us and peer into the cart. I must keep perfectly still. Each time the cart stops, I think we’ve arrived—or we’re being stopped by soldiers. My heart leaps into my throat and pounds like a giant drum. I take a deep breath, force my heart back into my chest and feel the strong tug of the cart moving forward again.

  It’s cool outside but hot under the thick blanket. My hair sticks to my forehead. My throat is so dry it hurts to swallow. My stomach rumbles. Eating three times a day has taught it to be hungry more often. I feel for the apples in my pockets. My stomach is only complaining. I’m not hungry, not really.

  I practice everything Auntie and Miss taught me. When I get to the end, I start from the beginning again. Over and over I say each prayer and sing every song in my head at least ten times.

  Finally the horse stops for a long time. The man pulls the blanket from me. He holds out his hands and says, “Down we go.”

  I leap from the cart. When my feet hit the ground I feel the shock all the way up to my knees. We’re surrounded by forest except for a giant white wall. It’s so tall and so long, I don’t realize at first that it is part of a building. The building is
large, bigger than a hospital. The man marches ahead and I follow. As we get closer to the wall, I see that is connected to a tall, beautiful church.

  The man stops by a wooden door. “Please, not a sound while we are inside. And act your very best,” he says. His voice is thin and sounds a bit nervous. He knocks and a woman’s voice calls out. We enter an office with dark furniture. A woman in a brown smock and white hat sits behind a desk covered with papers.

  “Sister Maria,” says the man. “I’ve brought you Anna. All of her papers are in order. Here is her birth certificate, her baptismal certificate, and she has a valid ration card for food.”

  Sister Maria stands but ignores the man. Instead, she speaks to me. “The other children are eating at the end of the hall. There isn’t food to spare. But there’s enough. Please join them.”

  “Thank you.” I leave the room and turn in the direction Sister Maria pointed.

  Before I take three steps, I hear Sister Maria say, “I told you last time we have no room. The children are lined up ear to ear with hungry bellies. What am I to do?”

  “I brought food,” the man says. “A great deal of food. Have pity, Sister. There are so many children. We depend on you.” I hurry down the hall. I don’t want anyone to think I am listening to their conversation on purpose.

  Statues line the hallway, giant men and woman in colorful clothes with golden circles over their heads. The statues don’t look across the hall at each other, they all look down. As I walk, it feels like their eyes follow my every step. A huge statue faces me at the end of the hall. It is a woman with a kind and caring face, a face like Auntie’s. A chubby child clasps his arms around her neck but the woman holds both of her arms out, as if wanting to welcome a lost friend into a tender hug. For a moment I forget my hunger. I even forget that I’m in a strange new place. I look up at the woman and wish I could fly up to that statue and let myself be wrapped in those loving arms.

  Two large wooden doors stand on either side of the statue. I’m not sure if I should open the door on the left or the door on the right. I look back at the statue. The woman is smiling at me. Her face seems to say Everything will be all right. Don’t be afraid.