Lauren Yanofsky Hates the Holocaust

by Leanne Lieberman

  Dad is in the kitchen, drinking coffee and reading a brochure for a Holocaust Studies convention. Mom’s probably driving Zach to swimming lessons.

  “Good morning.” Dad looks up from his reading. “How about pancakes?”

  I yawn and lean on the counter. “Sure.”

  Dad puts down the brochure, and I pick it up and start reading. “Hey, Dad, can you please tell the Holocaust people to hold the conference in Hawaii next year?”

  “Hmm, not so many Holocaust historians live in Hawaii.”

  “Yes, but the Holocaustarians might like the beach.”

  “Right.” Dad sighs. “Can you get the pan for me?”

  When I reach down to open the drawer, the bandage on my hand peeks out from my sleeve.

  “What happened to your hand?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Let me see that.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  Dad grabs my hand and looks at the gauze. “Honey, what happened?”

  “It got a little burned.”

  “Burned? How did you get burned?” Dad’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead.

  “Oh, we had a fire at Em’s in the fireplace, and a log fell out and I grabbed it.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “It’s nothing, really.”

  He gives me a skeptical look. “That’s an awfully big bandage for nothing. I think we should get your mom to look at it.”

  “She’s a nutritionist, not a nurse. And she’s not even here.” I get up to leave.

  “Lauren.”

  “Yes.”

  “Unwrap your hand.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Lauren, now.” Dad has a look in his eyes I haven’t seen in a long time, not since I told Zach to fuck off in front of the rabbi during my bat mitzvah photographs.

  “Um, okay.” I lean on the island and peel off the bandage. I was too freaked out to even look at the burn this morning.

  Dad lets out a long whistle. “Get your health card and get in the car.”

  “What about the pancakes?”

  “Pancakes? Are you nuts?”

  “I’m hungry.”

  Dad’s voice gets louder. “Lauren, go get dressed, then get in the car.”

  We drive to emergency at Children’s Hospital and sit in the waiting room, not talking to each other. I try to read The Tempest for school, but I can’t concentrate. Dad focuses on his Blackberry, texting Mom the highlights of our wait.

  After an hour I say to Dad, “It’s not like they’re going to do anything about it.”

  “What, you’re a burn specialist all of a sudden?”

  “So I’ll have a little scar.”

  “Lauren, you’re missing the palm of your hand.” He says this way too loudly, and people stare at me.

  I start to cry. “It was an accident.”

  He puts his arm around me and squeezes my shoulder. “I know. I’m just worried. How are you going to dribble with your hand in a bandage?”

  This makes me cry harder. My hand is killing me now, absolutely throbbing. “You don’t have to wait, if you don’t want to,” I say through my tears.

  “Of course I’m going to wait.”

  I keep expecting him to ask me more about the accident. But he doesn’t. I feel guilty. I mean, I burned a book. I burned his book. I imagine telling him the truth: my friend went out with the guy I’m in love with while his friends were playing Nazi, and so I came home and burned a Holocaust book in the back lane. He’d take me over to the psych ward. Maybe I should be there. I start to feel panicky, so I focus on my breathing.

  When it’s finally my turn, the doctor who examines my hand looks like Whoopi Goldberg. She doesn’t ask me what happened, just cleans the wound, which hurts like hell, and prescribes Tylenol 3.

  “Denny’s for pancakes?” Dad asks as we leave the hospital.

  “No, thanks.” I want to curl up in bed, maybe listen to some music.

  Mom is waiting for us when we get back. I’m expecting an inquisition, but instead she hands me a glass of water and pulls back the covers for me. “We’ll talk later,” she says.

  I swallow the painkillers, pull the covers over my head and cry. I’m not sure if it’s because of the pain or because my parents are being so impossibly nice or because I burned a book. Mostly, I think it’s because I can’t get that image of Brooke and Jesse out of my head.

  Twelve

  Zach has made nine plane lanterns, each in a different design and color, since he found me trying to make my star. My favorites are a red biplane, a yellow bomber and a helicopter painted bright turquoise. Each plane has a spot for a candle in the cockpit. Zach’s lined them up as if the workbench is a busy runway. Next to the planes are more drawings, each with Zach’s carefully drawn ruler lines. The wood Zach cut for my star is still neatly stacked on top of the design he drew for me, but I know I won’t bother to make it. The picture I drew looks boring next to Zach’s elegant planes, and I crumple the paper and shove it in the garbage bin under the bench. Maybe I’ll take Zach and his lanterns to the lantern festival next summer, although he hates crowds.

  I sigh and listen to the hum of the furnace and the other quiet noises of the house on a Monday afternoon. It’s pouring outside and windy: I can hear the rain blowing against the basement windows, funneling through the gutters. I rest my head on the worktable, still woozy from the painkillers, my burned palm pulsing like sonar. I almost fall asleep, but then my neck gets sore, so I go back to bed. When I open my bedside drawer for more Tylenol, I see the Nazi armband. I take it out and look at it. I should have burned it with the Mengele book and my bat mitzvah certificate. But I didn’t, and now it’s here, like a gory bit of evidence. I should send it to the Holocaust museum Dad volunteers at, further evidence of ongoing anti-Semitism in the modern world. Jews, take cover: the Holocaust lives on, even if just in the minds of ignorant teenage boys. Alexis still thinks I should tell the school or my parents. She’d probably call the Anti-Defamation League headquarters in New York and make it international news: Teenage Boys Play Nazi. But that’s not it, that’s not it at all. This isn’t about hating Jews; it’s about boys and their guns and their stupid games. Like Jesse said, it’s just a bunch of guys in the park.

  And it’s about Jesse, who isn’t a Nazi, isn’t my boyfriend, either, and possibly is not even a friend. He hasn’t texted me all weekend. I’m just part of a game of guys, guns and interchangeable, disposable girls. I roll over in bed and punch my pillow into a new shape. Nothing is sacred to them—not history, not relationships.

  I finger the armband—the staples, the thick white paper, the swastika drawn with a ruler and filled in with black markers. It makes me think of the Mengele book, even though that book is ashes in the lane. I twirl the armband around my finger, hold it up to the light, bend the edges until the paper becomes soft. What should I do with it?

  1. Throw it out and forget about it (except I won’t).

  2. Let it sit in my drawer and drive me crazy (except I’m already nuts).

  3. Turn it in, like Alexis says (except everyone will freak out, the boys will get in lots of trouble and great—the Holocaust will be front-page news again).

  4. Shove it in between the books in my father’s office amid the millions of words about Nazis, death and torture. Let it be another bit of tragedy, another bit of hate. No one will notice it there.

  I get out of bed and go down to Dad’s office. I look at the books and shudder, feeling surrounded by war, hate, hunger, disease and death. One day when I have my own place, I’ll have a library, or at least a bookshelf, with nothing on it but books on peace and novels about women.

  I hear the click of the front door and Mom’s heels on the tile foyer, followed by the squeak of Zach’s sneakers. I quickly shove the armband between two books on the Warsaw Ghetto and go into the front hall.

  I hear Mom say, “Then the Lego goes.” Mom looks supermad; her lips are pressed so tightly together that they form a thin, har
d line. She’s taking her coat off so fast, I think she might rip the buttons off.

  Zach stamps his foot. “That’s so unfair.”

  “Look, we had a deal and you’ve broken it. Study with the tutor, learn all the parts for your bar mitzvah, or suffer the consequences.”

  “You said I had to learn the Torah portion. No one said anything about leading the whole service. You keep changing the rules.”

  Mom puts her hands on her hips. “Do I need to spell out every aspect of what we expect you to do? All the kids lead the service; you know that.”

  Zach glares at Mom. “I’m not doing it.”

  “Then the Lego goes.”

  “Then forget the whole thing,” Zach mutters.

  “Fine. You can kiss your video games goodbye too.”

  Zach sits down on the staircase. “That’s so incredibly mean. I need my games.”

  “Well, maybe you should start thinking about making some compromises,” Mom snaps.

  There’s a long pause. Zach scrunches up his forehead and fiddles with the zipper on his hoodie. Then, very softly, he says, “No. Compliance is not an option.”

  “What’s that?” Mom says.

  Zach stands up. “Where are the sleeping bags?”

  “What do you need a sleeping bag for?”

  “I’ll be spending the duration of my hunger strike in the garage. So I’ll need a sleeping bag to keep warm. When you’re ready to abandon plans for my stupid bar mitzvah, I’ll be happy to eat again.”

  Zach goes down to the basement, presumably to find a sleeping bag.

  Mom throws up her hands. “This is ridiculous.”

  Mom makes grilled-cheese sandwiches for dinner to entice Zach to the table, but he has already gone out to the garage.

  “Just leave him,” Dad says. “I’m sure he’s got a stash of crackers or pretzels. If he doesn’t, he’ll be in soon enough.”

  “And in the meantime”—Mom crosses her arms—“what am I supposed to do? Miss a day of work?” She looks at me. “Am I going to have two kids at home tomorrow?”

  I swallow a bite of sandwich. “I’m going back to school.”

  “Feeling better?” Mom says.

  I nod.

  “Good. That’s one kid.” She hands me a mug of tomato soup.

  Dad helps himself to another sandwich. “Zach’s twelve. He can stay at home by himself. He’ll get bored eventually. Then he’ll eat and go back to school.”

  Mom taps her fingernails on the table. “We’re totally caving in to him.”

  Dad sighs. “Let’s wait it out. If he’s still out there tomorrow, then we’ll reconsider.”

  “I wish Zach didn’t see his bar mitzvah as such an ordeal.” Mom gestures toward me. “Lauren loved her bat mitzvah.”

  “Yes,” I say. “The gifts and party were a great finale to my Jewish education.”

  Dad gives me a warning look and gets up to refill his drink. Mom looks like she might spit at me.

  “Look,” I say, “I can tell you exactly why Zach’s freaking out. He doesn’t want to perform like a trained monkey in front of all of your friends.”

  “This isn’t about performing,” Mom hisses. “It’s about becoming a Jewish adult. It’s a rite of passage.”

  I can’t help snickering. “Fine, let him become a Jewish adult, just not in front of the entire community. It’s too scary for him.”

  Mom puts down her soup spoon. “But the community needs to celebrate all our kids, especially Zach.”

  “I don’t think Zach sees it that way.”

  Mom glares at me across the table. I glare back.

  In the morning, I spend at least five minutes trying to straighten my hair using my left hand. In the end, I ask Mom to help me, and because she’s my mom, she doesn’t say a word about me being rude last night. She just takes the straightener and quietly runs it through my hair, combing with her fingers. She even flips the ends under the way I like.

  Mom and I don’t say much at breakfast. She sips her coffee and tries to avoid looking out at the garage. Zach refused to come inside last night. I’m not sure why he has to stage a hunger strike in the unheated garage. Additional risk due to exposure? You never know with Zach.

  I nibble my toast and try not to think about sitting through biology between Brooke and Jesse. I’ll sit on the aisle, pop a painkiller to dull my general awareness and let them do their lab together. It’ll suck, but it won’t kill me, right? I mean, there are worse things in the world, like getting struck by lightning or drowning.

  I’m putting on my rain boots by the front door when I get a text from Jesse.

  Walk with me?

  What the hell? No thanks, I text.

  U still sick?

  I hold my phone in my hand, not sure what to write back. Does he think he can pretend he didn’t go to the party with Brooke, or that I don’t care? I feel anger creeping up my spine like mercury rising up a thermometer. The idiot probably thinks the world revolves around him, and maybe it usually does. I resist the urge to throw my phone through the window. Instead I write Y u care? Then I stick the phone in my bag.

  I feel hot in my jacket, my blood pounding in my head. Why aren’t people nicer? I jam the tip of my umbrella into my boot with my good hand. Ugh. I’m so sick of guys who think they can do anything without consequences. Pretend to be a Nazi and then apologize. No big deal. Kiss a girl and forget about her. Enough. Crap happens when you do shitty stuff—or at least it should.

  Instead of walking out the front door, I find myself marching to Dad’s office and my hand going up to the shelf and pulling the armband from its hiding space. Then I write the names of all the Nazi boys on the inside of the armband. Mike, Tyler, Mac, Justin, Jesse. I add the words pretended to be Nazis after their names. I’m using my right hand, even though the burn hurts like hell and I can feel my scab breaking open, oozing pus into the gauze. I shove the armband into my pocket and let my anger fuel me out the door without saying goodbye to Mom. I run down the street, boots clomping on the pavement, and then across the field. I don’t stop until I get to school, where I lean up against the wall, breathing hard and sweating inside my rain jacket. I should throw the armband out, just rip it up and stick it in the garbage. My phone buzzes again, but I ignore it.

  I walk into the school—it’s early still and not many kids are around—and head toward the guidance offices. I slip in and pull a university calendar off a shelf, pretend to be interested in it. I hear two of the counselors talking in the hall and then see them walk toward the office. Ms. Chung, one of the counselors, has left the door to her office open. I look around, pull the armband from my pocket, drop it on her desk and then dart back to the hall.

  I trot up the stairs to biology class, even though the bell won’t ring for another thirty minutes and Mr. Saunders isn’t there yet. I sink to the floor, still wearing my boots and jacket. My hand is throbbing now, and a wet stain has leaked through the bandage. My phone buzzes again, and I sigh and check my messages. Jesse, the idiot, is still texting me: miss u.

  I write Y u care?, and his response is miss u.

  My breath catches in my throat. I imagine Jesse with his phone, his hair hanging in his eyes, his tongue out the way it is when he’s concentrating on taking a shot in basketball. Wait a second. Who cares if he misses me? He’s still an idiot. But I miss him too, even if that makes me an idiot as well. And a loser. And a doormat. I’d let him walk all over me; I know I would. All weekend, when my hand hurt so bad I wanted to scream, I kept thinking about kissing him, about the way it felt when he wrapped his arms around me. Even when I thought about him leaving the party with Brooke, I still missed him.

  I put my phone back in my bag. I don’t know what to text back. Maybe miss u 2 even tho u r an a-hole?

  Brooke and Chantal slip into class just as the bell rings. Brooke doesn’t even look at me, and I don’t turn her way. Jesse arrives after the bell rings and receives a glare from Mr. Saunders. Jesse sits at the end of the row,
beside Chantal, and doesn’t look at either Brooke or me. When biology is over, I try to leave class quickly, but Jesse is right beside me.

  “I came by your house this morning, to see if you wanted to walk together.”

  “I left early today.” I stare straight ahead.

  “Hey, what happened to your hand?”

  “Nothing.”

  He grabs my arm. “Why are you so mad at me?”

  I stop. “You have to ask?”

  “Look, if this is about the party, I can explain.”

  “Oh.” I start walking again, too embarrassed to look at him.

  “What happened to your hand?” he asks again.

  “It got burned.”

  “How?”

  “I can’t tell you now.”

  We arrive at English class. “Let’s talk at lunch,” Jesse says. He gives me his old cocky smile, and I feel myself melt a little.

  “Not then. Maybe after school.”

  “Okay, I’ll wait for you.” He smiles again, but it’s a small smile, kind of nervous. He looks almost shy.

  We go into English class and I take out my phone and look at the miss u message again. I’m a puddle on the floor. I’m a rag doll he can arrange anyway he wants. I’m a chocolate melting in Jesse’s pocket.

  Then I think about the armband in Ms. Chung’s office with the names on it—with Jesse’s name on it. I squeeze both of my hands into fists, and the edge of my burn rips a little more. I bite my lip as pain ricochets across my palm.

  At lunchtime I sit with Chloe and Em, trying to copy notes from yesterday’s classes. Jesse sits down the hall, listening to music on his phone, with his head buried in a math textbook. Since it’s not only raining but windy and cold as well, Chantal, Kelly and Brooke are inside too, looking bored. Brooke doesn’t glance my way, but I notice she isn’t looking at Jesse either. I can’t concentrate on the notes because of what Jesse might say later and because of the armband sitting on Ms. Chung’s desk. Maybe she’ll curl her lips in disdain and sweep the armband into the recycling bin. Maybe she’ll think it’s a bad joke, not worth following up. I tip my head from side to side, trying to unlock the kink in my shoulders. My palm pulsates like a kick drum.