The Length of a String

by Elissa Brent Weissman

  “Yes,” Walter said, “if you don’t mind.”

  Hannah squeezed my arm and said, “Oh, what a wonderful idea! Anna will look beautiful in this jacket.”

  Walter said, “I agree.”

  What could I say? No thank you? I think you have the wrong twin?

  Max held the coat out, and I slid my arms into the sleeves. Goodness! First, it was so heavy, I had to make an effort to stand up straight and not let the coat pull me down. But it was so warm and so soft! I now understand how bears can hibernate. With a coat like that, you could just curl up and sleep for months.

  It was big on me, but Walter paid that no mind. He asked me to step onto the pedestal by the mirrors and turn around. Facing the other way, I saw myself in the mirror and gasped. I looked like a movie star! Golly Belle, you would have fainted. In that moment, I closed my eyes and tried to transmit the sensation of being in this coat to you, all the way across the ocean. (I am doing it again now. Do you feel the warmth?)

  When I opened my eyes, I saw Hannah behind me in the mirror. She was beaming. She said, “I forgot how wonderful it is, the feel of your first fur coat.”

  Walter liked that and kept repeating it to himself. “The feel of your first fur coat.” He asked Max if he could make a coat that would better fit “this young woman.” He was referring to me! Young woman!

  Max said, “Of course.” Walter said he wanted it just like the coat I had on, but the right size. He said he could convince the store owner to buy a few. For “teenagers,” he said. He was talking quickly . . . figuring things out and getting excited, and Max kept saying “of course, of course.” I don’t know how much Uncle Egg understood, but he must have realized it was good news, because he was nodding like his head was on springs.

  Max made sure it was okay with me, to be the model, and how could I say no? It was all very exciting.

  Walter said a lovely English word that seemed to sum up the entire morning: “Splendid.”

  After he left, Max had me stand back on the pedestal to take my measurements. We decided that I won’t start school until after the High Holidays. This way, I’ll be more settled and my English will be better—and I’ll have time to go to the factory for fittings as the coat comes along. (Yom Kippur is at the beginning of October . . . perhaps by then, you will be here to go with me!) Hannah still wanted to stop at Macy’s for dresses, however. I followed her around in something of a haze.

  I simply can’t believe it . . . me, a model. It’s perfectly absurd! My stomach feels like it is back on the ship. If only you had come in my place . . . but I’m sure you can model when you arrive. We look exactly the same, after all! I am feeling dreamy and hopeful. If this is a success, and Walter buys lots and lots of coats, Max will make enough money to send for our whole family. All of you! Every single one!

  CHAPTER 18

  Five minutes, girls,” the librarian said, jarring me out of the past and back to school with Madeline. We’d taken the diary to the library again, and lunchtime was, apparently, over in five minutes.

  I shook my head, rubbed my eyes. I always picture Anna’s world in black-and-white—like episodes of I Love Lucy—so it was almost a shock to be once again surrounded by color. It also didn’t help that I’d stayed up past midnight last night. I was yawning like crazy.

  “Mr. Garonzik?” Madeline said. “Do you have any books about Luxembourg?”

  “Luxembourg . . .” Mr. Garonzik said. He clicked his tongue as he thought.

  “Specifically Luxembourg during the Holocaust.”

  That last word caught me off guard. Anna was finally starting to feel at home, and this last entry was so happy, I’d almost forgotten this was all happening during the Holocaust.

  “Let me check.” Mr. Garonzik went to the computer. When he came back, he was carrying three books. One about western Europe, and two about the Holocaust. “I don’t have any books specifically about Luxembourg, but these are a good start,” he said. “They have Luxembourg listed in the index, with at least a few pages to read. Do you want to check them out, Madeline?”

  “No,” Madeline said, “but Imani does.”

  “For my bat mitzvah,” I told him.

  He looked at me and started to laugh, then stopped when he realized I wasn’t kidding.

  “I’m Jewish,” I said, almost daring him to contradict me. “And my great-grandmother’s family was from Luxembourg. They died in the Holocaust.”

  “They did?” Madeline asked sadly.

  “Yes,” I told Madeline with a sigh. “All of them. My mom told me last night.”

  “Oh man,” she muttered.

  His face pink, Mr. Garonzik said he was sorry and told me to meet him at the circulation desk. The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch.

  I flipped to the next page in the diary to mark it with the green ribbon before putting it away. But it was such a short entry, I read it quickly.

  Saturday, 20 September 1941

  t. August 1950

  Oh Belle . . .

  I have the most terrifying feeling that something bad has happened to you, to our family. I was napping and awoke with a gasp. My forehead is so sweaty that my hair is wet. I don’t think I was dreaming, or if I was I don’t remember it. Were you having a nightmare, Belle, all the way across the ocean? I hope that’s all. That would be a comforting thought. After all, sharing our nightmares means the string connecting us might have frayed, but it has not snapped.

  Why, then, am I not comforted? I am afraid.

  I nudged Madeline with my elbow. “Read this,” I said, placing the diary in her hands before walking, zombielike, to the circulation desk.

  I thanked Mr. Garonzik as he slid the stack of books to me. The two Holocaust ones had classic photos on the cover: swastikas, cattle cars, prisoners with shaved heads and sunken chests. Stuff I’d seen six million times before. Only now, it was like I was looking at them for the very first time.

  CHAPTER 19

  Mrs. Coleman nearly fainted with happiness when I pulled the library books out of my backpack that afternoon.

  “Imani’s taking her research project very seriously,” Madeline told her. “She had our school librarian help her find these books.”

  “Emunah!” Mrs. Coleman clasped her hands together, like some non-Jew praying. “And your bat mitzvah isn’t even until June.”

  “Yeah,” I said, trying to shrug it off. “I’m actually finding my topic pretty interesting.”

  Mrs. Coleman sighed a happy sigh. “You are melting my Hebrew-school-teacher heart. Everyone!” she announced. “Take a lesson from Emunah!”

  Madeline grinned and pointed at me, in case anyone was unsure who to make fun of. I winced and batted her hand away. Everyone else was groaning, except for Ethan (Eitan here at Hebrew school), who clapped. That only made me duck my head more.

  “All right,” Mrs. Coleman said. “I will be calling you over one by one to hear how your haftorah portions are coming. You can practice while you wait or, like Emunah”—she smiled in my direction—“you can do research, using real books. Like Emunah.”

  Sheesh.

  Madeline wanted to find a corner and pull out the diary. “That is research,” she rationalized, “and it’s a physical book.”

  But now I had a reputation to live up to, and I was actually pretty curious to know more about what was going on in Luxembourg that might have made Anna wake up in a cold sweat. “I don’t think Mrs. Coleman could take it if I don’t read one of these books,” I said. “I just melted her Hebrew-school-teacher heart. I don’t want it to freeze over.”

  Madeline pursed her lips. We could hear Mrs. Coleman correcting Ben Adler as he stumbled, slowly, through the first line of his haftorah. “Fair enough,” Madeline said. “Can I borrow one of your books, then?”

  I motioned to the pile in my best game-show host impress
ion. Madeline selected the book with the biggest swastika on the cover. I shook my head. “I was going to use that one.”

  Madeline bought it for a second, which made me giggle. She elbowed my side and sat down with the book. I sat next to her and opened another. Remembering what Mr. Garonzik said, I went straight to the index and found Luxembourg. Two page numbers followed, and I flipped to the first of them. It took a minute to find any mention of Luxembourg on the page. No wonder; all it said was that Luxembourg offered refuge to Jews from other countries in the 1930s. The second page that referenced Luxembourg had a chart listing the approximate number of people who died from each country, and Luxembourg didn’t even get its own line. Its death count was lumped in with that from Denmark, Estonia, Norway, and Danzig.

  The other book was just as unhelpful. Didn’t anybody care about Anna’s homeland? I know it’s a small country, but from these books, you wouldn’t even know it existed, let alone that Jewish people lived there. If only Hitler hadn’t known.

  I was giving my stack of books the stink-eye when Mrs. Coleman called my name. I got the photocopy of my haftorah portion from my backpack and took it up to her desk.

  “How’s your research coming?” she asked excitedly.

  “Not so well,” I admitted. “None of the books I got have anything useful to say about Luxembourg.”

  “Luxembourg!” Mrs. Coleman was clearly surprised, but I could tell it was at my choice of topic rather than the fact that it was overlooked in history.

  “It’s a small country near France, Germany, and Belgium,” I explained.

  “Ah, yes. And what made you interested in Luxembourg?”

  “My great-grandmother was from there. She moved to New York, but the rest of her family all died in the Holocaust.”

  Mrs. Coleman’s expression softened. I pictured her heart collapsing into a puddle. “I know I insisted you all use books,” she said, “but in this case, I’ll permit you to try the internet. Legitimate websites only, of course. Do you have the list of websites I handed out with the assignment?”

  “Oh,” I said, hoping my face wasn’t as blank as my brain when it came to remembering this handout. “I don’t think so.”

  Mrs. Coleman opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out a paper I’d seen before. I’m pretty sure it was in the same folder as my haftorah portion. Whoops. She flipped this new copy over to reveal a list of “Suggested Resources,” then ran down the list with her pen, drawing little stars next to a few of the websites.

  “Yad Vashem . . .” she said, pointing at it with her pen. “U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum . . . Holocaust Research Project . . . I’d start with those. Search for Luxembourg.”

  “Okay, cool,” I said. “Can I do it now?” There’s only one computer in the temple library, and ever since Mrs. Coleman caught Parker using it to look up cat memes, no one was allowed to touch it.

  “As long as you stick to these sites,” Mrs. Coleman said.

  “I will. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. Let me know what you find.” She smiled and slid the paper to me. Then she looked at her class list and called out the next person in line. “Leah Mintz!”

  It wasn’t until I was waiting for the computer to boot up that I realized she’d forgotten to hear my haftorah. That was good, because I can’t remember the last time I practiced it. I guess being a model researcher has its perks. I opened the browser and typed in the address of the first website Mrs. Coleman had starred.

  “What are you doing?” Madeline asked in a low voice. She was kneeling down right by my chair, but I saw that almost everyone else was stealing glances my way from wherever they were.

  “Mrs. Coleman said I could do research online. She loves me now.”

  “Seriously. Are you hanging out with her this weekend too?”

  “Are you crazy?” I said. “She can’t wait till the weekend. We’re hanging out tonight.”

  Madeline laughed, and I tried to shush her without laughing too loudly myself. She went back to the table, and I turned back to the computer. “Come on, Luxembourg,” I said under my breath as I typed it into the search box on the Yad Vashem site. “Jackpot,” I whispered when the results popped up. Ten pages! Something here had to have answers. I clicked on the first link and found a neat summary of Luxembourg at the time of Anna’s diary.

  On May 10, 1940, the Germans invaded Luxembourg, meeting little resistance and being helped by local Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) . . . About a month after the installation of Simon’s government, the Nuremberg Laws were introduced. More anti-Jewish decrees followed and the wearing of the Jewish Badge was ordered in September 1941. Around that time, Jews were placed in the Fuenfbrunnen transit camp, near Ulflingen. The camp was organized along ghetto lines, and later became the point from which deportation trains left for the East.

  My eyes kept staring at September 1941. It shouldn’t have surprised me that the timing of the diary and these events would line up—that was the whole point of this research, right?—but it still did. The word camp scared me too. A quick search for Fuenfbrunnen transit camp in another tab told me that it wasn’t a concentration camp, but more like a temporary holding place, so that all the Jews were together and ready to be stuffed into cattle cars that would take them to a concentration camp. Good grief, the Nazis were organized. Was Anna’s family headed there soon? How long would it take Anna to find out?

  I was overcome with this awful sense of dread. It wasn’t fair that I should be able to know this when Anna didn’t. It was like that time Madeline and I had tried to watch a horror movie. We knew the killer was hiding behind the door, but no amount of shouting at the screen could stop the actors from opening it.

  Jewish emigration was encouraged until the spring of 1941, and many Jews went to France and Portugal. On October 13, the Consistoire (Jewish Community) reported that 750 Jews were left in the country, and 80 percent were over the age of 50.

  I knew who 9 of those 750 Jews were. It sounds stupid, but it only now struck me for the first time that the other 741 were real people too. As real as Belle and Oliver and Kurt. And they all had people who cared about them just as much.

  I scrolled down, knowing I’d find what happened to them, and when.

  The first and largest transport left for the Lodz ghetto on October 16, 1941, with 324 persons. Seven more transports followed, the last of which left on September 28, 1943. In total, 674 Luxembourg Jews were deported. Only 36 of those who were deported survived.

  I pushed back in my chair and sat there in silence for a while. At some point, I don’t know how long, I reluctantly emerged from my fog. I printed out the page, stuck it in my folder, and went back to Madeline’s table. She closed her book the second she saw me take out the diary.

  Friday, 26 September 1941

  t. August 1950

  Dear Belle,

  Yom Kippur is on Wednesday, which means I will begin school the following Monday! I must get better at writing English, so I have made a decision for the Jewish new year: Beginning with my next entry, I will write only in English. I am feeling confident speaking English, and I’m proficient at reading it on signs and in newspapers and even books that we borrow from the library. I will leave blank pages first, to translate my earlier entries from the Luxembourgish later, for more practice. Then, when you arrive, I’ll give you this journal so you can read about all of my experiences in English, and you can practice too. I am terrifically pleased with this idea. New year, new friends, new language! Signing off in Luxembourgish . . .

  Love always,

  Anna

  Monday, 29 September 1941

  Dear Belle,

  Here I go . . . English! I will to make this entry short . . . I should not be nervous but I am. My fingers shake actually and my brain is soapy water with nothing to write! I am being slow and careful to make certain my words are correct
and also my verb tense. It can be easier then speaking because I can take time to be correct without making slow the conversation.

  Here is something comes to mind. I am starting to like Max. We have continue to play Chinese checkers, many games after Rosh Hashanah dinner. We are most silent during our games still, but we do to talk a bit. He is starting to like me too, I can tell.

  You hope I come soon. You will like it here.

  “Oh my God,” Madeline said with a laugh. “And this is with her writing slowly and carefully to make sure she’s doing things right.”

  “It’s her first time writing in English,” I said. “She’s nervous. Cut her some slack.”

  “She needs some pretty big slack. I mean, ‘You hope I come soon’?” Madeline laughed again.

  “Maybe you say it that way in Luxembourg,” I snapped defensively. Sure, Anna’s English was a little rough. But Madeline didn’t have to be so obnoxious about it. “English is Anna’s—what?—third, fourth language? How many languages do you speak?”

  Now it was Madeline’s turn to get defensive. “Come on, Imani. I was just joking. Her English is fine.”

  “It’s more than fine.” I crossed my arms. “And she clearly got even better at it quickly. Look how perfect all the translations are.” I didn’t realize that my voice was rising until Mrs. Coleman said my name and put a finger to her lips. “Sorry,” I told her. But Madeline just made fun of my great-grandma, I added silently. Even thinking it made me realize how lame I sounded.

  Madeline put up her hands to surrender. “Okay, okay,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I insulted Anna’s English. Let’s keep going.”

  “Are you sure you’ll be able to understand her writing?” I whispered, fully aware that I was now the one being obnoxious.

  Madeline crossed her arms. “I said I’m sorry. Can we please move on?”

  Thursday, 2 October 1941

  Dear Belle,