The Length of a String

by Elissa Brent Weissman

  Pushing that memory aside with a quick shake of my head, I pressed ENTER to see what imani faith kwanzaa celebration was all about.

  Kwanzaa is an African-American holiday that celebrates the seven traditional values of African culture: Umoja (unity), Kujichagulia (self-determination), Ujima (collective work and responsibility), Ujamaa (cooperative economics), Nia (purpose), Kuuma (creativity), and Imani (faith). Each of the seven days of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of the principles.

  “What are you looking at, sweetie?”

  I didn’t panic that my mom was there, but I didn’t not panic either. I guess the dishwashing party ended early tonight. “Um,” I said. Just tell the truth, right? This could be a test to see how she might react to tougher questions, questions about my birth parents. “I was looking up my name,” I told her. “Did you know that imani means ‘faith’ in Swahili?”

  I watched Mom’s face to see if her eyebrows would go up or down. It was like I was in science class, recording the color change of a piece of litmus paper. This result was better than I could have hoped: One eyebrow up!

  “Really?” Mom said, sounding genuinely interested. “Your Hebrew name means ‘faith’ too. They must come from the same root.”

  “Yeah!” I said. “They probably do.”

  Mom kneeled down and squinted at the screen. “What’s this?”

  “Kwanzaa,” I replied, without even a twitch of nerves. If this conversation continued going this well, I might have the courage to go all the way and bring up my controversial bat mitzvah gift request. It felt so much better in this moment than when I was underneath the desk, snooping and lying. Had I totally misjudged my mom? Maybe I’d been so nervous for nothing!

  I said, “Did you know that imani—well, faith—is one of the seven principles of Kwanzaa?”

  Mom read aloud from the screen: “The Imani principle teaches us to have confidence in ourselves, our parents, teachers, leaders, and community.” She paused, then looked at me and smiled. “Neat.” Then she stood up, kissed my forehead, and started to walk away.

  Have confidence in ourselves and our parents . . . “Hey, Mom,” I called.

  She turned back around.

  Just say it, Imani. “For my bat mitzvah, I was wondering if maybe . . .”

  Mom waited, both eyebrows up. Her face had brightened at the mention of my bat mitzvah, like all her pride and dreams and hopes and imani were wrapped up in her little girl continuing this Jewish family tradition. And sure, she was cool about me looking up the meaning of my name, but looking up the meaning of my name was totally different from looking for the mother who gave it to me, and bringing that up right now would sucker-punch all of the joy right out of this mom—the one who takes care of me every single day.

  All of that confidence from a few seconds ago was gone. I couldn’t ask to find my birth parents. Not right now, anyway.

  “For your bat mitzvah, you were wondering . . .” Mom prompted.

  “I was wondering if I could learn more about . . . Luxembourg,” I finished. “Like, research it for my Holocaust project.”

  Mom looked happy before, but now she was a full-on hearts-for-eyes emoji. “Because of Grandma Anna?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s where she was from, right?”

  “Yes, Luxembourg.” Mom’s hand was over her heart. No joke. “I think that’s a wonderful idea, Imani. I know hardly anything about Luxembourg myself.”

  “Me neither,” I said. I turned back to the computer and replaced the page about Kwanzaa with a search for Luxembourg. Mom came and tapped for me to slide over so we could share the chair.

  Together, we found Luxembourg on a map of Europe. It was a small dot of a country squished between France, Belgium, and Germany. Then Mom took over the mouse to pull up some facts: the population (549,680 people), the size (998.6 square miles), the languages (Luxembourgish, German, and French).

  “Here, I have an idea,” I said. I went back to Google and clicked to see images. “Now we’re talking.” The pictures were like something straight out of a fairy tale. Stone castles on lush green hills. Winding streets lined with skinny yellow and pink houses. A long stone bridge with dramatic arches under it, crossing a glassy river.

  “Breathtaking,” Mom said.

  It would have sounded cheesy if it weren’t true. Who knew places actually look like this outside of Disney World? It was like the people who lived there should be permanently dressed for the Renaissance fair.

  “How old was Grandma Anna when she left?” I asked, trying not to let on that I already knew the answer.

  “About your age, I think. She came to America all by herself. Can you imagine that? Being your age and going to a new country all by yourself?”

  I got a sudden pang of nervousness, like a pinprick in my side. I could tell that Mom knew something about Grandma Anna’s family, and I didn’t want to know what it was. Not yet.

  “She came to escape the Holocaust, you know,” Mom said. “She got out just in time.”

  The pinprick got sharper, and I realized that deep down, I already knew the ending, and I didn’t want Mom to confirm it. But it was too late. I’d opened the can of worms, and Mom was going to take the slimy things out.

  “The rest of her family died in the camps.”

  I closed my eyes. There it was.

  Mom took in a breath, and I waited for her to start crying. But when I opened my eyes, I saw that the breath was actually a gasp. She’d enlarged a photo of the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg and was marveling at her gown. “This dress is beautiful, don’t you think? I love the color.”

  I couldn’t believe it. A sappy commercial would make Mom sniffle, but the sad fate of Anna’s family—her own family—barely registered a blip. I wondered about my other mother, the one I came so close to bringing up just a few minutes ago. Did that mother feel sad when she thought about me? Or did none of it even register anymore?

  “I could see you wearing something like this for your bat mitzvah,” Mom said.

  The weight of everything I’d just learned was piling up, and I suddenly felt very tired, like Anna sleeping-sleeping-sleeping on the ship. The very last thing I wanted to do was look at clothes. Especially with my mom—shopping with her is the worst. I groaned.

  Mom chuckled and patted my knee. “Okay. But we will have to go dress shopping eventually.”

  “I know,” I said with a sigh.

  Mom stood up, and the whole chair was once again mine. The spot where she’d been sitting was warm. “I’m glad you’re researching our family history,” she said.

  I thought of the journal in my Converse All-Star box, hidden under my bed. How seventy-five years ago, Anna was starting a new life while the rest of her family was going to die in a concentration camp. And I thought about that blond girl I played in singles a couple weeks ago, the obnoxious one who said, “You might have this amazing history you don’t know about.”

  “Me too,” I told Mom.

  Saturday, 13 September 1941

  t. August 1950

  Dear Belle,

  It is Shabbat.

  Our cousins observe the Sabbath, not like our family. On Friday nights before supper, Hannah lights candles and we drink wine and eat challah, saying prayers in Hebrew with Uncles Egg and Onion. Then on Saturday mornings, all the men walk to shul. I don’t mean only Max and his uncles, but rather all the men in Bensonhurst. I watch them out the window, filing down the street in suits and hats, probably talking about business, even though it is supposed to be against the rules to do any sort of work on Shabbat. The women break the rules too. Today, Hannah drew the curtains and is using the Hoover on the floors!

  She said, “I hope this doesn’t offend you, Anna. Does your family observe the Sabbath very strictly?”

  I assured her it is fine and said I used to go to the cinema.
I searched for the words to describe that sometimes we’d see two films in a row, and Hannah laughed when she figured it out. Here is how you say it: double feature.

  Hannah explained that the neighborhood is very religious, so we must “keep up appearances.” She warned me not to tell the uncles, though I know better than to do that. I never speak to the uncles anyway.

  Now we sit in the dark apartment with freshly cleaned carpets. Hannah has put on the radio (quietly, so the neighbors won’t hear) and is looking through a magazine. I write in this journal and wonder how many neighbors are just “keeping up appearances.” Are they pretending to observe Shabbat for our sake, when really we don’t mind?

  I wager God doesn’t mind either. He has his hands full with everything going on in Europe. I hope he’s not wasting his time with Jews who Hoover the floor on the day of rest.

  CHAPTER 17

  I closed my eyes and had a hard time opening them again. It was super late—almost midnight—and it must have started to rain. I could hear the soft tapping on the roof. I needed to go to bed. I shouldn’t have been reading without Madeline again anyway.

  Diary closed and lamp off, I lay there with my eyes closed, trying to fathom how despite everything, Anna still believed in God. She thought He had his hands full in Europe . . . she didn’t even know how true that was. At this point, the rest of her family was still alive, or at least she thought so.

  My eyes opened again, into the dark. Would Anna discover, in the course of this diary, that everybody died? My mind flashed to this tote bag Parker sometimes carries, with a quote in glittery letters on the side: “It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” (Parker loves that bag, so Madeline and I have this joke about her losing it.) But now I wondered about that quote for real. Anna loved her family for twelve years before she lost them. Would she agree that it was better to have loved and lost? Or maybe she’d have envied me, since I left my birth family without ever knowing what I was missing.

  Maybe she did envy me, I realized, reminding myself, again, that Anna had been a real person. My great-grandmother. She knew me. She knew I was adopted. What did she think of that?

  Maybe she’d left me her books on purpose. She knew I’d find the diary and hoped it’d help me find a way to talk to my parents about my past. After all, look how well things had gone tonight, when my mom and I talked about my name and Kwanzaa. I just needed to keep taking tiny steps, testing the water as I went.

  Some words were already forming in my mind as I drifted off to sleep. Next-step words to gently let my parents know that I’ve always wondered about my roots.

  Thursday, 18 September 1941

  t. August 1950

  Dear Belle,

  What a day! I thought Hannah had so many fur coats because she and Max are rich. But no . . . it’s because Max makes them! He is a furrier. But I will start at the beginning and tell you everything. (I can just see you on our bed, cross-legged and leaning against the wall, begging me to do just that. “Anna. Tell me everything!”)

  This morning while I was eating breakfast, the telephone rang. Hannah said to me, “What do you wager this is Max?” Then she picked up the phone and winked at me because she was right, it was Max.

  When she hung up, she laughed and said, “He left his lunch in the icebox! He could eat out, but then he’d be getting an earful about it all afternoon from those cheapskate uncles.”

  The word “cheapskate” brought to mind a bad memory. Remember how the shopkeeper at the toy shop near school used to let me borrow boxes of puzzles to do at home? I would put them together quickly and return them with all of the pieces, then he would seal the box again and sell it. But once the Nazis invaded, he stopped letting me borrow them, saying (in German, though before the occupation he always spoke Luxembourgish) that I had to stop being a “Geizhals” Jew and buy them like everyone else. I never told you that before . . . I never told anyone. Oh Belle, the sting I felt when he said it! I left with my head low and my eyes burning. I wish to this day that I had stood up tall instead. (You would have, I know.) That’s why I stopped going to his store, even before he put up the NO JEWS ALLOWED sign.

  “Cheapskate” sounds sillier than “Geizhals,” though. And I know Hannah didn’t mean it hurtfully. . . . In fact, I think it is exactly right to describe those uncles!

  Hannah decided that I would go with her to Manhattan to bring Max his lunch. She said, “The factory isn’t far from Macy’s, so I thought we might do some shopping too. We can get you some dresses for when you start to go to school.”

  I had been wondering when I will start school! The thought of it makes me both excited and anxious. There was no time to think about it then, though. We dressed quickly and off we went for my very first trip into Manhattan.

  We took the subway (the Sea Beach Line) and it got more crowded with each stop. When we got off at 34th Street and emerged from Penn Station . . . oh my! I cannot say enough how tall the buildings are, and the street was filled with cars and taxis, and there were so many people, and they were all in a rush, hurry hurry hurry. The bustle was catching. Walking to 7th Avenue, it was as though Hannah had exchanged her high heels for roller skates. We wove our way through the sea of coats and hats, usually on people, but not always . . . a group of men hurried past pushing a rack of gentlemen’s suits! Hannah explained that we were in the garment district, “the clothing capital of New York.” Max’s factory is in the fur district, which makes sense, and Hannah said just south of us was the flower district. She pointed and said, “Smells divine!”

  New York is so new, Belle. There are no stones or arches, and not a single castle, not even in the countryside, I wager. Just steel and glass and skyscrapers with pointy tops. Compared to America, Luxembourg is positively old.

  Hannah stopped at an enormous gray building that looked like all the others. She pressed a button at the entrance . . . there was a crackling noise, then a man’s voice, probably Max’s, said, “Schoelstein Furrier.”

  Hannah said both our names, smiling at the way they rhyme. The voice clicked off, then a loud buzz, and Hannah pulled open the large glass door. We took the elevator to the 15th floor and then down a long hallway, the ticking of Hannah’s heels echoing as we went. We came to a door with a sign that said “Schoelstein—Furrier,” and Hannah knocked a happy rhythm before opening it up.

  I’m not sure what I expected to find, but this was not it. First came a small, carpeted room with a couch, a desk, and mirrors against the wall. This room was empty and quiet, though we could hear sounds coming from behind a door to the left, which Hannah opened next. Inside was the factory where they make the furs. It was messy and loud. There were some large machines in one corner of the large room. Near them were a long rack of fur coats on hangers. On the other side of the room were three long tables, with one man on each end, working with strips of fur. A third man was removing a large, wet fur from where it was nailed to a board. The nails dropped to the ground as he pulled them out, and this must be a common practice . . . the floor was covered with nails! Two women were at a table of their own, sewing. The uncle whose head is shaped like an onion was walking between the tables, looking over their shoulders and grumbling in Yiddish. The one whose head is shaped like an egg was seated at a desk, frowning over a ledger book. Cousin Max was standing in the corner behind a large table. He was arranging strips along the table by color, then stepping back to look at them and consider.

  Max and Hannah are such an oddly matched pair. She went over to him right away and kissed the side of his head, but he didn’t take his eyes off the fur. He only looked away when she placed his lunch sack in his hand. He did, finally, look up and give Hannah a small kiss on the cheek. I really do wonder how he and Papa are in the same family. Papa would never give such a reserved peck. He would wrap Mama up and plant a big kiss right on her lips! I always used to look away, but now I wish
I hadn’t.

  Soon the door buzzer sounded because someone named Walter was downstairs. Hannah used a great saying, “We’ll get out of your hair,” but Uncle Egg stood up and said, “Warten.” He mumbled some more Yiddish, and Uncle Onion began nodding. You see, Walter is a buyer, and the uncles wanted Hannah to stay in case Walter requested to see what one of the coats looks like on a woman. So we stayed, and you won’t believe what came next . . . just wait!

  Max and Uncle Egg and Hannah and I went to the smaller, quieter room (the one with the couch and the mirror) to meet Walter. He shook hands with Max and his uncle. Max introduced Hannah, who seemed to be embracing her role as a model—she smiled like she had never been happier to meet someone. She looked truly ravishing.

  Max showed Walter a short brown jacket. He gave some details about it, and Walter examined it while he listened, running his finger over the fur. Max asked him if he wanted to see what it looked like on. He said, “My wife can model it for you.”

  Walter smiled politely at Hannah, and then turned his head to look at . . . me! He said, with a perfect American accent, “How about this model?”

  I thought I didn’t understand his English . . . Me? Model?

  Max didn’t understand either. He said, “Anna?”