The Loud Silence of Francine Green

by Karen Cushman

  We all gathered in the living room. "Now listen, all of you," Dolores said, peering at each of us, "Forrest will be here any minute. Please, please, behave, so he gets a good impression of you. Francine, push your bangs out of your eyes. Father, let me straighten that tie. And Mother, could you try and look a little more ... motherly?" She looked around the room. "Where's Arthur?"

  "He's using the bathroom," my mother said.

  The doorbell rang, and my father opened it. The eagerly anticipated Forrest was tall, with dark hair worn just a little bit long and deep, green eyes. He would have been a real dreamboat except for a slightly crooked nose and an Adam's apple that could put your eye out.

  At the curb was parked a car. A red Ford coupe with blue fenders. A hot rod. A real hot rod. Maybe Dolores thought that car made up for the Adam's apple.

  "Mother, Father, Francine, this is Forrest Fitzgerald," Dolores said.

  "Call me Jet," he said, sticking his hands in his pockets. Cool. Jet was definitely cool.

  "How do you do?" my mother said as Artie ran in, shouting, "Gas attack! Gas attack! Dolores went Number Two and didn't open the window!" He ran in circles around us, holding his nose, cap pistols bouncing in their fringed holsters and Rice Krispies flying everywhere.

  "Mother!" Dolores wailed.

  Forrest's Adam's apple bobbed like a cork in the ocean, and my father shouted, "Arthur Henry Green, to your room and stay there until morning. Now!"

  Artie went.

  "Never mind, Dolores. You and Forrest go on now," my mother said, pushing them out the front door.

  "Jet," he said, his Adam's apple bobbing.

  After they left, my mother turned to my father. "Fred, you can't keep Arthur in his room. It's time to leave for the Watsons'."

  "I'll get him," I said.

  At the door to Arties room, I called, "Artie, come on. We're leaving." I looked around. No Artie. "Artie?"

  "I'm here," said a voice from under the bed.

  "What are you doing there? You'll get your clothes all dusty."

  "I'm making a place for Chester to hide while I'm gone."

  "Why does your bear want to hide under the bed?"

  "He's afraid of commanisks and bombs." Artie crawled out. "Do you think he'll be safe under there?"

  I didn't think any place was safe, but I couldn't tell Artie that. Little boys shouldn't have to be worried about communists and bombs. Neither should bears. And neither should I, but I couldn't seem to help it.

  "He'll be fine," I told Artie. "Bears are tough. They can look after themselves." Unlike almost-six-year-old boys and their sisters, I thought. I brushed dust and lint off Artie's Hopalong Cassidy outfit. "Grrrr!" I shouted, grabbing for him. "I'm a tough old bear."

  "Growl!" cried Artie as he ran for the door.

  I called Sophie before I left, but there was no answer at her house. I never knew what a lonely sound it was, the ring, ring, ringing of a phone that isn't answered.

  "I wish you were coming with us, Francine," my mother said.

  "I know, but we have to get this project done. I'll be at Mary Virginia's if you want me."

  "Stay away from the Bowmans," said my father. "I don't want you—"

  "1 know. Getting involved. Don't worry. Mary Virginia never gets involved in anything that doesn't require volleyballs and whistles."

  We left the house together, my mother and father and Artie in the Buick and me heading west on Palm View Drive toward Mary Virginia's. Sophie's house was on the way and if I happened to be passing by and I could see someone there, well, stopping and asking "How are you?" wasn't getting involved, was it?

  There were no lights on at Sophie's and no car parked at the curb. The blinds were drawn, and no one had watered the roses that drooped in the yard. I sighed and walked on, resigned to an evening with Mary Virginia.

  "Hurry up, Francine," she called from her front porch. "There are going to be speeches and stuff at West Los Angeles Park. And there might be boys there!"

  "I don't know. I thought we were going to work on—"

  "Don't be such a stick-in-the-mud. Come on. Gert and Margie are waiting for us."

  We started the six-block walk to the park. "What kind of speeches and stuff?" I asked her.

  "It's a celebration for Flag Day."

  "Sounds boring," I said.

  "Well, we're not going for the speeches." She rolled her skirt up shorter and pinched her cheeks.

  Lots of people were gathered at the park. Some young couples had spread blankets and were eating picnic dinners. Little boys ran around shooting each other dead with sticks and twigs. A man with a tray hanging around his neck sold little American flags, and a baby slept soundly in a buggy with "God Bless America" painted on the top.

  I also saw a group of gray-haired women chanting, "Better dead than Red," and a young mother holding her baby in one arm and, in the other, a large sign reading Down with Godless Communists! Holy cow. Was I "getting involved" just by being here?

  A black-robed bishop climbed up onto a platform, motioned the crowd to be silent, and said a prayer through a microphone. A deputy sheriff then led the crowd in singing "America the Beautiful." I missed Artie standing next to me singing, "for purple mouse's majesty," the way he always did, six-shooters swinging at his waist and Rice Krispies spilling from his pockets.

  The deputy then introduced some big shot from the city council. "I'm here to talk to you today about America. And Americans," the councilman said. People cheered and waved their little flags. "Real Americans, real hardworking, God-fearing Americans, like you." He unbuttoned his suit jacket and loosened his tie. "Tell me, do real Americans support foreign governments?"

  "No!" everyone shouted, waving their flags again.

  "Do real Americans protect known enemies of their country?"

  "No!"

  Mary Virginia next to me was examining her fingernails and humming. I looked around for the Bowmans. What would they say to all this?

  "Do real Americans think they're better than the government?" the councilman went on. "Do they question their government? Disagree with their government? Organize against their employers? Take part in strikes against their employers? Let Jews and Negroes and communists take over their country without a fight?"

  The No's got louder and louder and came faster and faster. People didn't seem to be thinking about what the guy was saying or even listening to him anymore. They just shouted "No!" Why was everyone just yelling in agreement? Didn't anyone else try to make sense of it all?

  Even if we really were in danger from a communist conspiracy, I was at that moment more afraid of the red-faced, shouting crowd than I was of communists.

  Mary Virginia yanked my skirt. "There's Gert and Margie," she said.

  They were carrying a flock of hand-lettered signs. "Look what we found," Gert said. "Somebody just dumped them behind the platform. Here, you can each take some." Commies, Go Back to Russia, one sign read. We Hate Communists, said another, and others screamed in red letters, Kill a Commie for Christ.

  I put my hands behind my back. "Holy cow, Gert. Did you read these signs? They're hateful."

  Gert looked at them. "So what?" she said. Margie and Mary Virginia shrugged.

  So what? I swallowed hard. Schoolgirls in saddle shoes and pleated skirts who thought it was all right to carry signs about killing. For Christ. Didn't they understand what the signs said?

  I was pretty sure Jesus never said, "Kill a commie for me." He said, "Love thy neighbor." And "Blessed are the merciful." And "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice." I didn't hear anyone talking about that or carrying those signs around.

  I should have said that to them. It was time for me to speak up. 1 knew it. But Gert and Margie were glaring at me. I just shook my head.

  "Come on," Gert said, trying to hand me a Go Back to Russia sign, "let's march in front of old red Sophie's house. It'll be fun."

  "Now that Sophie's gone from All Saints," Margie said, "you don't have t
o be friends with her anymore. Come with us."

  As we stood there, a voice called out, "Hey, girls. What's up?" It was Gordon Riley from the drugstore.

  Margie said "Hey" back, Gert smiled, and Mary Virginia giggled. I said nothing as I felt my face grow warm and prickly.

  "Can you believe this?" he asked, shaking his head. "Loonies, all of them, the bolshevik commie pinkos and the crackpots with signs." Mary Virginia, Gert, and Margie dropped their signs.

  "Modern thinking," he continued, "says the only way to destroy the Red Menace is through commerce. Capitalism. Good old American business know-how. Take Riley's Drugs..."

  I stared at him in disbelief. Los Angeles was going crazy, countries threatened each other with bombs, people wanted to kill each other, and Gordon Riley thought ice cream would save us?

  "Let's forget about all this," he said. "Come over to Riley's, girls, and I'll make you chocolate sodas. On the house."

  "Oh, goodie," said Margie. "That'll be more fun than going to the Bowmans'." She and the others walked over the fallen signs to Gordons side.

  "Are you coming?" Gordon asked me.

  I could go with him. "My hero," I could say, grateful as always for irony. "Take me away from all this nonsense to the real world—the soda fountain at Riley's Drugs." But I didn't. Sometimes you have to forget irony and just say what you mean.

  "No, thanks," I said. "I don't think I want to be friends with you. Any of you." Great. The first words I ever said to him were probably also the last. He shrugged and followed the other girls off to Riley's.

  "And I'm putting these in the garbage, where they belong," I said, picking up the signs, but I don't think anybody heard me.

  I put the signs in the trash can at the park entrance and left. The sounds of speeches and cheering followed me for a long way. I passed the Bowmans' house on my way home. Still no lights and no car. Still no Sophie and no Mr. Bowman.

  Searchlights lit up the sky. They made me think of a prison yard or a concentration camp. I would never look at searchlights the same way again. I shivered in the warm June air.

  33

  A Phone Call to the Pope

  A sin of omission is doing nothing when you should have done something. Mine was a sin of omission. I needed to go to confession.

  As I stood in line in the dark quiet of the church the following day I prayed, "Please, God, let it not be Chuckie."

  When it was my turn, I opened the door and entered the confessional. The purple plastic kneeler squeaked as I knelt down. When the panel between me and the priest slid open, I could tell by the smell of Old Spice and cigarettes who it was. Chuckie.

  "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," I said in the usual way. "It has been one day since my last confession...."

  "Go on," he said. "What kind of sin could bring you back again so soon?"

  "I'm not sure it was a sin, Father Chuckie."

  "Just 'Father,' Francine."

  "Yes, Father. I don't know if I sinned, but I saw people doing and saying things I thought were wrong, and I didn't say anything to stop them. Being grownups, they probably wouldn't have listened to me, but I didn't even try."

  "Francine, it is not up to children to teach their elders, whether they are right or wrong. Remember, 'Honor thy father and thy mother.' The child's job is not to correct but to obey, just as Catholics must obey Mother Church."

  "But they were shouting hateful things and carrying hateful signs. And my friends, Father, kids my age think it's okay to want to kill communists. Isn't that wrong?"

  "Perhaps your friends are frightened. They are afraid of communists, and instead of saying, T am afraid,' they say 'I hate you.' That doesn't mean they're evil. Be compassionate. Forgive them. And don't you worry so much about things. Leave it to your elders and the Church."

  "But Father Chuckie—"

  "That's enough, Francine. Say ten Hail Marys and a sincere Act of Contrition. You may go."

  I went. I wasn't feeling particularly cleansed and comforted. You'd think that Father Chuckie, being young and modern, could have given me more help than that. That's enough, Francine I could get at home.

  My mother and father were at the kitchen table, talking quickly in low voices.

  "What's up?"I asked, sitting next to my mother.

  "Luba and Nikolai Petrov have sold their store," my mother said. "They're going to live with their daughter in Mexico."

  "How come? Because Mr. Petrov is so sick?"

  "Someone broke into the store and poured red paint over everything. It just broke their hearts. We should go over there to see if we can help—"

  "I told you, stay out of it, Lorraine," my father said.

  "I know you're worried, Fred," she said, patting his hand, "but shouldn't we do something?"

  My father looked down at the table.

  I went and sat in the yard, next to the hole that probably would never be a bomb shelter. My father didn't talk about it anymore. Artie'd laid a blanket over the hole and was using it for a fort. And my mother had planted her tomatoes elsewhere.

  What would the Petrovs do in Mexico? Did they have baseball there? And cherry Popsicles? My eyes stung and watered, and I didn't know if it was from sadness or smog.

  That night I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about poor Mr. and Mrs. Petrov and the thirsty roses in the Bowmans' yard. What could I do? Who could help?

  Who was the most powerful man in the world? The pope, of course. I would telephone the pope. Probably they wouldn't let me talk to him, but I could leave a message with his secretary or something.

  I crept downstairs, rehearsing what I wanted to say:

  "Holy Father, the world seems all messed up to me. What we learn in religion class is not the way things really are. Neighbors accuse other neighbors of being communist spies. Perfectly nice people have to run away and hide because they came here from Russia. They came for freedom and they got trouble. A nice old man is dead because he wouldn't tell on his friends. My little brother is afraid of the bomb, and he isn't the only one. I am supposed to obey my elders, but they are the ones who invented the bomb in the first place. Girls in saddle shoes carry Kill a Commie for Christ signs. Thou shalt not kill,' God said, but is anyone listening? Can you maybe sort this out before we are all dead?"

  Of course the Vatican phone number was not in the Los Angeles telephone book, so I called the operator.

  "I'd like to be connected to Pope Pius XII in the Vatican in Rome, Italy, please," I said.

  "Who is this? Some wise-guy teenager?" the operator asked me. She cracked her gum a few times. "I know you juvenile delinquents. Next you'll be calling stores and telling them if they have pop in a bottle, to please let him out. Wise guys."

  She hung up.

  It was a stupid idea anyway. I never would have had the nerve to call. What if the pope had answered?

  34

  Palm Trees Overboard

  I stopped by Sophie's house on my way to school the next day. No one was there. I found a hose around back and watered the roses.

  School passed in its dreary, Sophie-less way. I called her number every day but got no answer. I was surprised how much I missed her. When your thumb has a bandage on it and you can't pick up anything and nothing feels right, that's how it was with Sophie gone. Nothing felt right.

  We practiced marching for graduation. There was a gap in the line where Sophie should have been, like a missing tooth in a big grin, until Sister, with a smile, rearranged us.

  One afternoon I stopped by the library at lunchtime, looking for Sister Pete. "Sister," I said, "may I talk to you?"

  She put down her book. "Of course you may, Francine."

  "Since Sophie's father lost his job, I've been thinking a lot about communists. People keep telling me that communists in Russia and China want to use A-bombs and H-bombs to destroy us and our immortal souls. I don't know exactly what to think. Is it true that communists are evil people who want to kill us, or are they just people who believe different thi
ngs? And how do we know if someone is a communist? I mean, the bad kind of communist?" I knew now how Sophie felt, bedeviled by questions that pushed and shoved to get out. "You know, people say, 'He is a communist and therefore an evil and destructive person.' Or 'He is not a communist and therefore not an evil and destructive person." But no one says, 'He is a communist but that doesn't mean he is an evil and destructive person.' And what if that's the truth? Oh, not awful people like Stalin in Russia, but ordinary communists. And is it right to report your neighbor for maybe being a communist if it will make him lose his job or something? And what if-—"

  "Whoa, Francine. Sit down." I sat. "I know we live in frightening times, with so many things to be scared of and so little certainty as to right and wrong. Monsignor Sheen says that although communism is evil, we need not fear it as much as we should fear being Godless. So I let others fight the political battles while I struggle to keep God in my heart, follow the teachings of Mother Church, and pray for the conversion of those who do not know or have forgotten God."

  I leaned forward in the chair. "You mean you just ignore what is happening in the real world?"

  Sister Pete smiled. "God is in the real world, Francine. I have chosen God."

  "Yes, Sister." I stood up to leave, disappointed. This wasn't any help. But I sat right down again. Something else was bothering me. "Sister, I can't find Sophie and I have to see her. I feel so awfully guilty." Sister raised her eyebrows. "I let her down. When the other girls teased her in Red Rover, I didn't do anything. Or when they called her names. And the other day, when they wanted to march to her house with horrible signs, I still did nothing. Sophie will never forgive me."

  "Saint Peter denied Our Lord three times and still was forgiven, Francine. I'm sure Sophie understands."

  Maybe, I thought, but I wasn't sure I did. "Sophie means a lot to me, Sister. I know she acts up and doesn't always use good judgment, but she helps me think about things. She's my best friend, and I didn't do anything to defend her."