The Length of a String

by Elissa Brent Weissman

  My hands shook as I put aside my mom’s letter and exposed the one behind it. It was typed and official-looking, and even shorter than I guessed it would be.

  This 24-year old black woman stands 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs 120 pounds when not pregnant. Her mother is living. Her maternal grandfather died young of kidney failure. She is allergic to tree nuts and has worn glasses for distance since the age of ten. Her pregnancy has been healthy and uncomplicated.

  I turned the paper over. That was it.

  I let out the breath I’d been holding. I had a weird, anxious feeling, kind of like when I lose a tennis match—let down, but still pulsing with adrenaline.

  The information about my birth mother, it was so . . . clinical. Her height, her weight, her tree nut allergy. The empty space—the purposeful lack of information—said more than what was there. It seemed to drive home the point about my birth mother not wanting me to connect with her. It hurt. I’d always assumed she was wondering just as much as I was, maybe even posting on one of those message boards, looking for me. In my head, she’s always regretted giving me up.

  Why did she want a closed adoption? Was it because she was happy to get rid of me? So happy she’d never want to look back? Or was it because the decision was as painful as Anna’s mother described, sending her daughter away out of necessity? Could she have just needed to put it behind her, to help herself survive? If so, how would she react if I did manage to track her down? Would I be some unwanted ghost from her past, messing with her life and ruining everything she thought she’d put to rest?

  I thought nothing could deter me from my decision, not even if it crushed my parents. But all this time, they were way more resilient than I realized, and now I was the one hesitating. It could be that this five-foot-six black woman changed her mind, and she does want us to find each other now. But what then? I might get some answers, but, like Mom said, it could also make things very complicated. And what if finding her doesn’t resolve anything? What if she doesn’t have information about my birth father? The social worker’s letter didn’t include anything about him, not even his height or health or race or ethnicity. Was it worth making things complicated if I’d still be left with unanswered questions?

  I rubbed my face with my hands. This was like a mental seesaw.

  My eyes wandered to Anna’s memory box on my desk, then to my closet. Stuffed between the dress I wore to Parker’s bat mitzvah and the blue shirt I wore to the funeral was Anna’s fur coat, heavy on its hanger. I remembered the way it felt when I tried it on, with the smooth silk lining on my arms and the warm, soft fur enveloping my body. I could see why Anna felt transformed in it, so glamorous and American. But I also understood her guilt, her desperate ache for information about her family in Europe.

  I heard some clomping downstairs, and my mom shouting for Jaime to take off his shoes. Mom’s phone rang with the ringtone reserved for Dad, and I heard my mom pick it up and say, “Hi, hon.”

  I stared at myself in the mirror. There was still so much to think about. I was nowhere near figuring out where I came from. But right now, I would join my family downstairs.

  CHAPTER 41

  After dinner, I chatted with Madeline online. The serious stuff would be easier to talk through on the phone after my thirty minutes of screen time, so for now, we just brainstormed ideas for my fun present.

  You could ask for lessons with some pro tennis player or something, she suggested.

  Yeah maybe, I said. Or a trip somewhere. That could be fun.

  Can I come?

  Yes! Where should we go?

  “Australia,” Jaime said from behind me.

  “Hey!” I tried to cover the screen with my arm, then realized I was being stupid and just clicked to minimize the window. “I thought you were in bed.”

  “Snack,” Jaime said. He held up a rice cake and took a bite. He held it out to me, but I shook my head. Jaime nodded toward the screen. “Were you talking about your bat mitzvah present?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You should ask for your own computer. Then we wouldn’t have to fight over this one.”

  I’d thought of that too, though coming from Jaime, the for-me-for-you element was obvious. But I didn’t say so. Maybe I was thinking that Jaime might have some good insight, or maybe this day had made me addicted to drama. Whatever the reason, I found myself saying, “I might ask to search for my birth parents.”

  “Huh?” Jaime’s face contorted like his rice cake had gone stale. “Why?”

  If I was looking for another shock, his reaction did not disappoint. “Just to find out who they are,” I said. “Where I’m from. Don’t you ever think about your biological family?”

  “My biological family?”

  “You know, your birth parents. In Guatemala.”

  Jaime’s dark eyebrows rose up. “No, do you?”

  “Um, yeah.” I’d always imagined that the day Jaime and I finally talked about this, it’d turn into a heart-to-heart scene worthy of an Academy Award. As different as Jaime and I are, it never, ever occurred to me that we didn’t feel the same way about this. Was it because he was a boy? Or because he was only nine, and like Mom said, I was growing up? Was it because he knew his ethnicity already? Or was there something in his DNA that made him less inquisitive, more willing to go with the flow?

  “Are you serious, Jaime?” I asked. “You have no desire to know who you really are?”

  Jaime shrugged. “I’m Jaime Mandel.”

  “Well, yeah. But you never even think about your genes? Your DNA?”

  “What’s DNA?” he asked through bites of his snack.

  I was becoming exasperated. “DNA. You know, like, your genetic makeup.”

  He looked at me blankly. To be fair, I probably didn’t know much about DNA when I was in fourth grade. But this whole conversation was not going the way it should, and I had the sudden, urgent need to make him understand something. I pulled up the browser and googled “DNA.” A familiar picture of a twisted double helix appeared. I read aloud: “A molecule that encodes the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and many viruses.”

  Jaime looked more blank than ever.

  “Okay, that’s not helpful. But DNA is in your body. It’s passed down to you from your parents—your birth parents. It’s, like, the reason you look the way you do, and part of why you have the personality you have.” I frantically scanned the search results, trying to find something that would explain it in simple terms. And that’s when I saw the ad on the top.

  DNA test kit. Discover your ethnic heritage with DNA testing. Simple and easy with accurate results.

  “Oh my God,” I muttered.

  “What?” Jaime said.

  I ignored him and clicked the link. There was a big picture of a woman and a breakdown of where in the world her genes came from: 53 percent Iberian Peninsula. 10 percent North Africa. 10 percent Italy/Greece. 27 percent other.

  I scrolled down. A picture of a man, with a quote in large type: “People often look at me and wonder what I am.”

  “This is it,” I said. “This is exactly it!”

  “What is it?” Jaime asked, leaning in to look at the screen.

  I scrolled back up to the top. It was a “simple saliva test that you can do at home.” Ninety-nine dollars, and I could find out what I wanted to know, without having to decide anything about searching for my birth mother just yet.

  I printed it out.

  “This,” I said, “is exactly what I need.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Step two . . .” Dad read aloud. It was early May, and the four of us were gathered around the kitchen table, preparing to spit. “Fill the tube with saliva to the black line.”

  I held up my tube. “Just spit into it?”

  “Yep,” Dad said, showing me the dir
ections. “Spit until liquid saliva reaches the black line. Bubbles don’t count.”

  Mom smiled at me. “You go first, Imani. This was your idea.”

  It was my idea, but Mom and Dad had really run with it. They’d spent a whole week researching which company’s test kit to order, and then they ordered four: one for each of us. Once we mailed in the DNA samples, the results would take four to six weeks to arrive, so we’d waited to do the spitting until today, exactly six weeks until my bat mitzvah. If the timing was as advertised, I’d have this part of my present just in time for my big day.

  “Let’s all do it at the same time,” I said. “One . . .”

  “Pick up your tube, sweetie,” Mom said to Jaime.

  “Two . . .”

  “Prepare your saliva!” Dad announced.

  Jaime closed his mouth and swished.

  “Three!”

  We all spit forcefully into our tubes. Then we looked around and laughed, because no one’s was even close to the black line. It took a lot more swishing and spitting to collect enough saliva. When mine finally reached the fill line, I gave one final spit, for good luck. Then I screwed on the cap, which topped the saliva with some liquid to “stabilize the DNA.” It really was in there, I guess. Amazing that this small collection of spit could hold such big information.

  Into a plastic bag, then a padded box, and off to the post office.

  I still hadn’t decided if I was going to search for my birth parents or not. I went back and forth almost every day. Short of some sign from the universe about what to do, I was putting all my faith—my imani—in this DNA test. Either the test kit would answer enough of my questions, or I’d be more determined to find the people who’d given me these genes.

  But for now, mailing that box felt like turning in a final exam at the end of school. I didn’t know the results, but the questions were out of my hands, and for now, out of my mind.

  CHAPTER 43

  My Hebrew school class was shrinking every week. A few parents—like Ethan’s—made their kids keep coming after their bar or bat mitzvah, but most didn’t, so almost everyone whose thirteenth birthday had passed was no longer around. Parker showed up every now and then, but I wished she didn’t, since she spent most of the time walking around and saying things like, “At my bat mitzvah . . .” It didn’t seem to bother Mrs. Coleman, though. In fact, she seemed to grow younger with each passing week, as though every successful mitzvah reversed a wrinkle from her face. She must’ve been particularly worried about Jeremy Weintraub pulling it off, because last Saturday was his service, and today all of her gray hairs had been dyed brown.

  I was in good shape for being three and a half weeks out. I could read my Torah portion smoothly, and I could chant most of my haftorah without mistakes. My speech still needed work, but I couldn’t add anything else until I got the results from my DNA test. I decided to search for some pictures to include in my Holocaust project, which was basically done. (Mrs. Coleman had relaxed her rules about using the computer too. She was becoming more lenient as she got younger!)

  I googled Luxembourg in the Holocaust, like I’d done ten million times before. But before I could click to view images, I noticed something. There was a new page in the search results. One I’d never seen before.

  Luxembourg marks 75th anniversary of German invasion.

  I clicked on it. It was a newspaper article about a new memorial in Luxembourg to honor the Luxembourgers who lost their lives in World War II. One part of the memorial was dedicated to the Jews who’d died in the Holocaust. About three-quarters of the way down, there was a photo of the dedication, which I enlarged.

  The memorial itself looked similar to the one at our temple, with a plaque under metallic flames, surrounded by Hebrew words. An old white man and two brown-skinned teenagers stood next to it. The caption read: “Holocaust survivor Oliver Christmas, 78, and his grandchildren, Regina and Theodore, traveled from England to help mark the 75th anniversary of Germany invading Luxembourg.”

  My heart twitched. I looked closely at the photo of Oliver Christmas. He was seventy-eight years old, exactly the age Anna’s little brother would be today. But it couldn’t be him. Anna’s Oliver was Oliver Hirsch, not Oliver Christmas. Oliver Hirsch died more than seventy years ago.

  And yet.

  I scanned the article for any more mention of Oliver Christmas. I found it about halfway down.

  Born in Luxembourg City, Oliver Christmas was just three years old when Germany invaded in May of 1940. His family was forced from their home and deported to Lodz shortly after his fifth birthday. Young Oliver jumped from the train on the way to Poland and found his way to a convent, where he was discovered on Christmas Day in 1941. The nuns took to calling him Oliver Christmas.

  “A little boy shows up on Christmas Day, the sisters thought it was a miracle,” Christmas says with a chuckle. “I suppose in some ways it was. I never saw the rest of my family again.”

  He stayed in the convent for a few months, then lived in numerous homes before settling with a family in England when he was seven. Christmas was raised Anglican, but he knows he was once Jewish because he is circumcised.

  “I don’t remember very much about those years. I was so young. But I know I am from Luxembourg,” he said.

  Christmas says he brought Regina, 15, and Theodore, 17, to the memorial to honor the memory of relatives he barely remembers. “It’s important for my grandchildren to know about my past, and to feel a connection to it,” Christmas said. “They are Christians who live in Surrey, but this is part of their heritage. We are all connected.”

  My blood was rushing so quickly, I thought it might gush out of my veins. “Oh my God,” I muttered. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  Madeline slid into the chair next to me. “What is going on over here? You look like you’re about to hyperventilate.”

  “Oliver,” I spluttered. “He’s—it’s Oliver and—” I gave up and pointed to the screen.

  I watched Madeline’s jaw drop as she read. Soon it seemed like we were both about to hyperventilate.

  “It’s him!” Madeline cried. “It’s definitely him.”

  “You think so, right?”

  “It has to be.”

  “I thought he died,” I said. “Anna thought he died.”

  “He didn’t die! He jumped from the train.” Madeline removed her reading glasses, looked me in the eye. “Imani, he’s still alive!”

  My thoughts were like firecrackers. “Should I contact him? I could contact him. How can I contact him?”

  Ethan came over. “What are you guys so excited about?”

  “Imani’s great-grandmother—her brother,” Madeline explained, sort of. “He didn’t die in the Holocaust. He survived, in England!”

  “What?” Ethan gasped.

  Mrs. Coleman came over too. “What did you find?” she asked.

  Madeline pointed to the screen, and both of them read it. “No way,” Ethan said when he was done. “That’s Imani’s great-grandmother’s brother!” he told Mrs. Coleman.

  “I thought he died in the camps,” I explained.

  Mrs. Coleman put a hand to her heart. “You’re sure that’s him?”

  “I really think so,” I said. “If I contact him I can find out for sure. But how can I contact him?”

  “Is there, like, an online directory for England?” Madeline said.

  “You could google him,” Ethan tried. “Get his phone number or address.”

  “You could write to the group that put up this memorial,” Mrs. Coleman suggested. “Explain the story and ask for his contact information?”

  Then it hit me. “His grandkids,” I said. “I’ll see if his grandkids are on Facebook.”

  I pulled up Facebook and logged in. Mrs. Coleman and Ethan and Madeline all leaned in. The few kids left in our class were gathering arou
nd too. It was pretty obvious that something big was happening.

  “Regina Christmas,” I said as I typed. It took a few seconds to load. But then half a page of results came up, and there she was. The fourth one down. The girl from the photo, her skin dark like mine (I might have cousins who are black!). Regina Christmas, fifteen years old, Surrey, England.

  “This is awesome,” Mrs. Coleman said.

  I clicked on her, and the first thing on her page was the same photo from that newspaper article, with a link to the story, and a note: “I love my granddad!”

  CHAPTER 44

  I spent most of that night drafting my message to Regina Christmas. I didn’t want to sound creepy (“I have something your grandfather wants”) or ditzy (“We might be cousins!”). I wanted to make sure my case was convincing, but I didn’t want it to be so long that she’d get overwhelmed. My mom tried to weigh in, but I kept shooting down her ideas until she announced that I had to do this on my own and finally left me to figure it out. Close to two hours later, I had a one-paragraph message that wasn’t perfect, but was as close as I was going to get. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and hit SEND.

  I didn’t expect a reply instantly. England is five hours ahead of Baltimore, so my message arrived in the middle of the night there. But I was bummed when there was no reply the next morning, or at lunchtime, or after school. Mrs. Coleman even called my house around dinnertime, and I could hear her disappointment when I said I hadn’t heard back yet. Another day passed, and another. Had Regina deleted my message, or flagged it as spam? Did she think I was a lunatic?

  On day four, I googled her brother, Theodore Christmas. He wasn’t on Facebook, but I tracked down what was probably his email address. How much longer should I wait before trying my luck with him? Or would that only make me seem like more of a psycho?

  As the days dragged by, my anxiety spilled over to the other decision I still had to make, about whether or not to try and find my birth parents. Would trying to contact my birth mother be like this? Waiting and waiting and checking and hearing nothing and losing hope drip by drip?