Of course! Nicole had felt a connection to Paulette when they’d met after Zooms’ class. Now she felt giddy, electrified, vindicated. Zooms was wrong. Nicole really had been there, with Paulette. She had to call Mrs. Litzger-Gold immediately; she ran to get the phone directory from her closet.
Litwin, Martin
Litza, Charles
Litzger-Gold, P
She reached for her phone and glimpsed at her clock. It was past midnight, far too late to call. What would she say: “Sorry to wake you, Mrs. Litzger-Gold, but could we chat about how we went through the Holocaust together?”
She’d have to wait until tomorrow. What she could do now, at least, was record everything she remembered. She went to boot up her computer. The printer caught her attention. Its power was off, but she never turned it off. Obviously someone else had been using her equipment without permission. Guess who?
She turned the printer on and its red malfunction light blinked—that was why Little Bit had shut it down. Nicole opened the printer. A tiny wad of paper was jammed in the rollers, preventing them from turning smoothly. She plucked it out with her tweezers and closed the cover. What Little Bit had been writing printed out.
THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK
A BOOK REPORT BY ELIZABETH BURNS, GRADE 5 (Miss Nolan—this book report is for extra credit)
This book is a diary of a Jewish girl named Anne Frank who hid in an attic in Holland so that she wouldn’t get caught by Nazis. She was there with her whole family. There were other people there too. She had a cat and kisses a boy named Peter. This was a very good book with a lot of emotions. But many people don’t know that some very intelligent scholars think that Anne Frank did not really write this diary and it is a big fake.
Nicole was enraged. How could her sister write this drivel? But she knew how. Little Bit had been right there when she’d chatted online with Dr. Butthole Bridgeman, too ignorant to refute a word he’d said. She felt like putting her fist through a wall. Better yet, through Bridgeman’s face. In a blind fury, she hurled her math book at the wall, cursing at the top of her lungs.
“Nicole, sweetie, are you all right?” Her mother hurried into her room, her father close behind.
Nicole sat on her bed, gingerly rubbing her foot. “I’m fine,” she fibbed. “I stubbed my toe.”
“It’s not your head?” her mother probed, tipping Nicole’s face to hers. “No pain, nausea, double vision—”
“No. I’m fine, Mom. Really.” Suddenly she felt galvanized, and jumped to her feet. “I have to talk to Little Bit—”
“She’s not here.” Her mother still looked concerned. “She’s sleeping over at Britnee’s.”
Nicole sank heavily onto her bed again. She couldn’t tell Little Bit the truth until tomorrow. It was maddening.
“Are you sure your head doesn’t hurt in any way?” her father asked. “Because your behavior is very erratic, Nicole.”
“Maybe I’m just weird.”
“Are you on drugs?” her father asked sharply.
“No, Dad, drug-free.” She held up Anne Frank’s diary. “In fact, I’m the only girl in the neighborhood doing homework on a Saturday night. You should be proud.”
After five more minutes of parental quizzing on the state of her head and mental health, they left. Nicole stared at Anne’s photo on the book cover for a while. Then she reopened the diary and started to read it again, from the beginning.
NOTES FROM GIRL X
CAUTIONIII WEBSITE UNDER CONSTRUCTIONIII
Day 5, 2:56 a.m.
Frightening Thought du Jour: Time ticks away. Days, years, entire lifetimes. Amazing things happen to people. Then they die. If no one remembers their stories, the memory of who they were and what they did blurs, like watercolor paintings left in the rain. Until, finally, nothing is left on the canvas.
People Who Suck: a. Chrissy Hair-Toss Gullet
b. Dr Martin Bridgeman at the Center for the Scientific Study of ull. Denier of the truth. Memory stealer. Thief. Liar.
People Who Don’t Suck but We Never Tell Each Other the Truth: a. My mother: Sweet and clueless.
b. My father: Judgmental and clueless.
c. My sister: Future prom queen and clueless.
d. Me: So clueless I didn’t know I was clueless. So now I ask myself, “Girl X, just who is it you want to be?”
000001 MAGIC COUNTER
thirty-nine
Nicole awakened to birds singing. The clock read 7:45, which meant she’d slept less than five hours, yet felt as energized as if she’d slept for ten. She showered, pulled on some jeans and a flannel shirt, and tore out the phone book page with Paulette’s number and address.
Her father was at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper and sipping coffee, when Nicole walked in. “My eldest is up before ten on a Sunday morning? What’s the occasion?”
“None.” As if she could even begin to explain. Nicole poured herself some coffee and checked the time again. Eight-thirty. She planned to call Paulette at nine. How slowly time passed when you wanted it to speed up; how quickly it fled when you wanted it to linger.
She could already imagine her fingers pushing Paulette’s number into the phone, imagine the miracle of their conversation. Yes, she’d say, I understand now about things unspoken, things only the heart knows.
“Dad,” she began, sitting across from him. “Did you ever read Anne Frank’s diary?”
He was momentarily taken aback. “I’m sure I must have. Years ago.”
“Meaning you don’t remember? How could you not remember?”
He put the paper down. “Is this an interrogation?”
She stirred sugar into her coffee. “Maybe. You interrogate me about school all the time.”
“What has gotten into you, Nicole?”
She had no idea. But she did know this: She felt reckless and brave enough to say things she usually only thought.
“I’ve just been thinking, Dad. We don’t ever talk to each other. Not really.”
“That is entirely untrue. We spend more time together than any other family I know.”
“That’s not what I mean.” She had to make him understand. “Dad, you don’t even know who I—” She paled. Her eyes had caught a small teaser at the bottom of the front page of the Sunday newspaper.
LOCAL HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR
LITZGER-GOLD, 74, DEAD. P. F-12.
“What is it, Nicole?”
Nicole rifled through the sections on the table, searching frantically for section F. “She can’t be dead.”
“Someone you know died?” her father asked gently.
“It just can’t be.” Nicole found the obituaries. There was a small photo of Paulette and an article about her. She had died the day before of a heart attack. The funeral was set for ten o‘clock this morning at Congregation Beth El. Nicole noted the address. It was on the other side of town. She’d have to take two buses to get there. She lurched up from her seat, looking around for her backpack. “I have to go.”
“Where?” her father asked, bewildered. She spotted her backpack in the corner and grabbed it. “Nicole,” he repeated, “where are you going?”
“To see my friend.”
forty
Nicole stood outside Congregation Beth El and watched several conservatively well-dressed latecomers scurry inside. She glanced down at her jeans and flannel shirt—maybe they wouldn’t even let her in dressed like that. Maybe it didn’t even matter. Paulette’s body was in there, but Paulette wasn’t.
Unbidden, the lyrics to a retro song her mother always sang when she was doing the bills filled Nicole’s head, a song Nicole didn’t even like. Something like, “Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention.”
Funny. She had almost too many regrets to mention: not listening when Paulette spoke, missing the chance to tell Paulette that she finally understood about things the heart knows, about their connection. Paulette had helped Claire escape from the Vel. She’d tried to save Nicole’
s life at Birkenau. But Nicole would never get to thank her. She’d have to carry her regrets around forever, because the only person who could ease her burden was now dead.
A man in a rumpled suit started to close the synagogue doors. Impulsively, Nicole hurried past his surprised face into the building. The main hallway was flanked by recessed windows and office doors. Beyond that was a circular foyer and the rear doors to the sanctuary.
She went in and stood in the back. The ceiling soared to a great height, inlaid with stained glass streaked by the sun. Near the front wall, above the raised stage, hung a burning orange light. Paulette’s closed casket was on a stand below the stage. It was unpainted pinewood—plain and stark.
The seats of the synagogue were filled by hundreds of people. Nicole recognized Ms. Zooms in the crowd, even from the back. Everyone listened intently as a man spoke at the podium. He looked to be about the age of Nicole’s parents.
“I can’t remember exactly how old I was when my mother first told me about what had happened to her,” he was saying. “She was a Jewish girl born and raised in Paris, a teenager during the Occupation. She lived a most extraordinary life. There is too much to tell, so the family has gathered some artifacts from her life for you to see and contemplate. They are displayed in a case in the social hall.
“Maman told me so many stories from the war years. Many of them were tragic, to be sure, but she would want you to remember her for so much more than that. She was very beautiful, and, by her own admission, quite a flirt. I remember her recounting how she had been madly in love with a Gentile boy named Charles. Because Jews were forbidden to attend movies, she used to cover her yellow star with her book bag so that she could sneak into the cinema with him. She was most afraid of getting caught not by the Nazis, but by her very strict mother.”
Sad chuckles rippled through the sanctuary.
“She also used to tell me that when things got very bad, when she was the most scared and wanted to give up, some little thing would come along to give her hope again. Signs, she called them.”
Nicole spoke to Paulette in her mind. You have a nice son, Paulette.
“And now,” the man continued, “if you would permit me, I would like to share with you what my mother called her proof that she had defeated Hitler.”
He nodded to some people in the first row, who joined him on the stage. “This is my wife, Shira.” He put his arm around a woman with dark hair. “And these are our children, Paulette’s grandchildren and her legacy. Benjamin, who is fourteen, Jacob, who is twelve, and Sarah, who is nine.”
An ache welled up in Nicole’s throat. People were crying loudly, but she would not let her own tears come. She wanted to be strong, because a long, long time ago, Paulette had been so strong for her.
Sarah has your golden hair, Paulette.
As the rabbi stood to hug each of Paulette’s grandchildren, Nicole slipped out of the sanctuary. She had the strongest urge to be alone with Paulette’s things before the crowd of mourners came to look at them. She had just found a sign that pointed to the social hall when a surprised voice called to her.
“Nicole?”
She turned around. David. He wore a dark suit and tie. “What are you doing here?”
Nicole laughed. He was looking at her as if she’d lost her mind. How could she possibly explain that, in fact, she’d finally found it?
“What are you doing here?” she countered.
“My family belongs to this synagogue. Seriously, you didn’t come for Mrs. Litzger-Gold’s funeral, did you? You had zero interest in her.”
“People change. Or maybe they find who they used to be. Like the me you knew in sixth grade.”
He smiled. “I liked her.”
“I liked her, too. See you around.” She waited for him to enter the sanctuary before she opened the doors of the social hall.
Nicole saw it immediately. Resting on an easel just inside the entrance was a blown-up photo of Paulette Litzger as a teenage girl in Paris. She had short, dark hair, and wore wire-rim glasses; an entirely different face from the girl with the golden hair at the Vel d‘Hiv and Birkenau.
She was another Paulette.
Nicole sagged against the closed door, no bones to hold herself upright, no blood coursing through her veins. It had all been a fantasy. There was no such thing as “signs.” The heart was just a stupid muscle that pumped away until it quit forever; it didn’t know anything at all. She hated that Zooms was right. There had been no Nicole Bernhardt. She hadn’t met Anne Frank on a transport from Westerbork. And she had never known Paulette Litzger-Gold. Her only real connection to Paulette had been as a student who had only half-listened in Ms. Zooms’ English class. Which was really no connection at all.
Nicole heard a male voice chanting a somber melody from the sanctuary; the funeral service must be nearly over. But she felt numb, unable to contemplate the walk back to the bus stop. So she made her way to the long glass case in which Paulette’s things were displayed. A few handwritten words on a file card identified each object.
There was a photo. Caption: Paulette and Sam on their twentieth wedding anniversary at Niagara Falls. Sam died in 1985.
Another photo, older, in a brown leather frame. Caption: The Litzger family in their Paris apartment—Paulette, her older brother, and her parents.
Nicole saw that the mother was tall and slender, with the same eyes as Paulette. No resemblance at all to the mother in the Vel.
Next to the family photo was Paulette’s girlhood French identity card, stamped Juive. Juive is French for Jew.
A set of United States citizenship papers. Caption: Paulette considered the day of her citizenship one of the proudest days of her life.
A letter signed by Steven Spielberg. Paulette was invited to videotape testimony for the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation.
A videotape. Paulette’s testimony for the foundation.
Nicole was about to leave when the room darkened slightly as the sun ducked behind a cloud. She saw there were a few more items in the case that had been hidden by the sun’s glare. She went to see what they were.
A spoon. Paulette’s spoon from Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Next to the spoon Nicole saw a torn and much-folded scrap of paper, yellowed with age, with French handwriting too small and faded to make out until she pressed her nose against the glass.
NOTES DE JEUNE FILLE X
le 10 septembre 1943
Au peuple de Paris,
Cher lecteur, si vous parcourez ce document et n‘êtes pas un collabo-idiot, merci de le glisser sous la porte de quelqu’un qui le soit. Merci.
Salut Collabo Idiotl Je suis une jeune fille juive à qui les parents interdisent de sortir de la maison. Mais vous ne pourrez pas me réduire au sil—
Next to it, a translation:NOTES FROM GIRL X
10 September 1943
To the people of Paris,
Dear reader, if you are reading this and are not a collabo idiot, please put this under the door of someone who is. Thank you.
Hello, Collabo Idiot! I am a Jewish girl forbidden now by my parents to leave our home, but still you cannot si(lence)—
Next to the translation, a file card: This is the fragment of a letter that Paulette found on a Paris park bench in 1943; it gave her such hope that she made many copies and left them on other benches for people to find while keeping the original on her person until the moment of her death.
Nicole felt herself lifted skyward by a shimmering golden light. For she knew without a doubt that she was reading her own handwriting. In French. She was Girl X. And somehow Paulette had found at least one of the notes that Mimi had smuggled out onto the streets of Paris.
No, Paulette Litzger-Gold had not been the Paulette who had tried to save her life at Birkenau. Instead, she was a different Paulette, one who had known Nicole by her writing alone, and Nicole had helped to save hers. It had all happened. She really had been there. And with that knowledge, she left behind the e
arthbound girl who had believed she would always revolve around someone else. She was free.
NOTES FROM GIRL X
CAUTIONIII WEBSITE UNDER CONSTRUCTIONIII
Day 6, 8:36 p.m.
The magic counter on the Girl X website still stands at 000001. If you are reading this now,you are 000002 or above. If you care enough to e-mail me, I can explain anything you’re about to read that doesn’t make sense, such as:a. why I went to Paulette Litzger-Gold’s funeral;
b. why I wrote down what happened afterwards; and
c. why you should care.
One more thing. My name is Nicole.
The bus ride home from Paulette’s funeral took forever. I found my mom in the kitchen unpacking groceries while she talked business on her cell phone. All I cared about was finding my little sister. I found her standing in front of my mirror, modeling my favorite sweater and my new earrings.
“I was only borrowing them,” she said quickly. “You don’t even take care of your stuff, anyway.”
I sat on my bed. “You want‘em?”
She was beyond stunned. “What?”
On second thought, I really loved that sweater. “You can keep the earrings.” I held out my hands for the sweater, and she gave it to me.
“You’re actually giving me your new earrings? Why would you do that? You hate me:”
Anne Frank and Me Page 19