Good Night, Maman

by Norma Fox Mazer

  They have one son, Thomas. They sent him to America a long time ago to live with relatives. Now he’s an American soldier. They had planned to follow Thomas to this country sooner, but the Germans arrested Mrs. Stein. They said she was a spy, but Mr. Stein says it was really because she was a Christian married to him, a Jew. She was in a concentration camp for six months before they let her go. He went into hiding.

  Anyway, Maman, now they’re here, and I’m glad they’re our friends. When I’m with them, I think it’s almost like being with Grand-mère and (although I never knew either one of my grandfathers) Grand-père.

  Good night, Maman. I love you more than anyone in the world.

  Your Karin

  18

  FENCH CLUB

  “Hello! Hi!” a girl said in English to me. We were in the mess hall. It was noisy and crowded as usual. The girl put down her tray and sat next to me. I moved closer to Marc to make room for her.

  “Very please to meet you,” she said. She took a biscuit, slathered margarine on it, looked first at me, then across me at Marc. “Your name, yes please? I, here, am Eva.” She tapped herself on the chest. She looked about Marc’s age, maybe a little older. She had a broad face covered with freckles, slanted green eyes like little green fish, and a head of tight curls.

  “Karin,” I said, pointing to myself. I waited for Marc to introduce himself, but he didn’t say a word, just looked down at his plate. So brave, my brother, everywhere except around girls.

  I pointed to him, thought for a moment to get the words right, and said in English, “Marc here, he is my brother. Older,” I added.

  Eva laughed. “Oh, yes, older. And what of this, ah, ah, quarantine, Karin and Marc? I think, phooey!” She leaned across me and blew the last word out in Marc’s face. His forehead turned red.

  “Does he talk?” Eva whispered loudly. “You guys—” Guys was another word the Americans used a lot. “You guys know the fench club?”

  “The French club?” Marc said. Now his ears went red, too.

  “Fench club! Fench club. You know, at the fench!”

  “Oh, fence,” I said.

  “Yes, surely. Fench club. To be friendship from town to us.” She leaned across me again. “So. Okay, Mr. Marc?”

  Poor Marc dropped his napkin and then a fork.

  “Always shy?” Eva said, in her big stage whisper. She gave him a gleaming glance. She asked where we came from. France, I told her. Paris. We were Jewish.

  “Ahhhh, ahhhh, Jude,” she said. She was Hungarian and Catholic. “Is okay with you?”

  “No,” Marc said.

  “No, not okay?” Her green eyes narrowed.

  “Marc!” I said.

  Now he leaned across me. I felt like a “fench” myself. “A joke, Karin,” he said in French. “Is it all right if I make a joke?” And then in English, to Eva, “It is okay. You like us. We like you. Okay, okay! All okay.”

  “Okay, okay. Okeydokey,” she said. “Friends.” She stuck out her hand to Marc and then to me.

  Volunteers came into the fort to teach us English and other things that would help us get along in America. The soldiers let the volunteers in, even though the quarantine was still on. But some people from inside were going out, too, despite the quarantine. Marc knew some older boys who had gone under the fence one night and hitchhiked to Syracuse. “They didn’t get back until after midnight,” he said.

  I didn’t like the way he was smiling, as if he thought they had done a great thing. After that, I kept waking up in the middle of the night and listening for Marc’s breathing.

  One day, Eva came up to me after English lessons and said, “Okeydokey! Fench club, now, friend! Let’s go.”

  “No, Eva. No. Thank you!”

  “Yes, Karin. Welcome very much. Fench club!”

  She grabbed my hand, yanked me along. I would have been mad if Marc had done it, but Eva was laughing. At the fence, she started talking to a woman on the other side. People jostled around me. I watched two town boys push a piggy bank through the fence to a boy on our side. I didn’t say anything to anyone, but after a while I saw that I had been wrong.

  Just like Eva said, “Fench club.” People came here to talk any way they could. They used sign language and body language, smiles and a lot of laughing, and presents, too. Town people were passing stuff like toys, clothes, and food through the fence, over the fence, under the fence.

  I saw a bureau come over one day. Two big men on the sidewalk lifted it and tipped it over, and two skinny men on our side—one of them with rags tied around his feet—reached up and caught it. They staggered a moment, then got it down safely. Thump! The American men clasped their hands over their heads and danced, and our men did the same thing.

  Then one of the men on the town side untied his shoes, took them off, and threw them over to the man with rags on his feet.

  That man picked up the shoes. He bent over very slowly and picked them up, one at a time. He looked over at the town man, in his socks now, and the town man nodded. The man with rags sat down on the ground and, still slowly, put them on, one at a time, and tied them and stood up. He walked around in the shoes. They were a little too big, but he was smiling, and he was crying.

  19

  HATING MARC

  I kept hoping someone would throw a pair of shoes over the fence to me. I had heard we might go to the American schools when the quarantine was lifted. I couldn’t go barefoot! Marc went to the fence almost every day to practice his English, and I went with him to listen and to make sure I’d be there if someone did want to give me shoes.

  One day, a woman Marc had talked to before passed a book under the fence. “You said you liked reading.” She had a slow, drawling voice. She was pushing a stroller with a little child in it.

  “Yes! I like reading. Very much,” Marc said.

  “That’s a good book. Came from my book club.”

  “How long I may keep it?” Marc asked.

  “Oh, it’s yours,” she said. “I finished it.”

  I understood almost everything she said. I was getting better at that, especially if people didn’t talk too fast. I looked at the book. “The Grapes of Wath,” I read out loud.

  “Wrath, honey,” the woman said. “Not the w sound. Rrrr. Rrrr. Rrrath. Roll those rs, honey.”

  It was an American habit for people to use sweet names like honey and tootsie, even if they didn’t know you very well. Marc stood, smiling and stroking the cover of the book. “Pass it on to someone else when you’re done, honey,” the woman said.

  Marc walked around the rest of the day holding the book. He started reading it that evening, with the dictionary next to him. He’d read a page with the dictionary, then read it again.

  The next day, when it rained, Marc said we didn’t have to take our walk that day. Too gloomy. We could have a day off from studying. “Vacation time,” he called it.

  Oh yes, so he could read! But I didn’t mind. I had a book from the camp library called Daddy-Long-Legs. It looked hard but interesting. I could have checked out an easier book, but I didn’t want Marc to think I was reading baby stuff.

  We stayed in our room, reading, the dictionary between us on the table. It was cozy inside. Marc pulled the chain on the light hanging from the ceiling. We read quietly. I wasn’t doing too well. I’d work to get a few sentences, and then it would all sort of blur and I’d have to concentrate hard to get a few more sentences.

  Suddenly, Marc almost shouted, “This is a magnificent book!”

  I looked up. “What’s it about?”

  “A great story!” He went back to reading.

  “Tell me what it is. Tell me the story, Marc. Marc!” I was ready for a break from struggling with my book. It was written as letters from a lonely girl to someone she loved but couldn’t see. Almost like me and Maman.

  “It’s about this tremendously poor family,” Marc said. “The Joads. They have to leave their farm because there’s no water. Everything’s turned to dus
t. There’s a drought and they don’t have money and they lose everything.”

  “You know all that already?” I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t have told that much about my book.

  “They’ve got all their stuff piled in their car; they had to leave their farm—did I say that already?—and they’re sleeping on the road, poor but free, and—”

  “Who are these people?” I kept my finger in my place, so it wouldn’t look as if I was just trying to pass time. “I thought this was an American story.”

  “It is. They have poor people here, too.”

  “No, they don’t.”

  “Karin, poor people are here, just like everywhere. John Steinbeck, the author of this book, is probably a genius. Everything he writes is so real. The people are so real. You feel as if you know them and everything’s happening to you.”

  “I’ll read it, when I finish mine,” I said.

  “No, no, no.” He shook his head. “It has scenes that are too mature for you, and besides, you don’t have the vocabulary for it.”

  “Why do you talk to me like that?” I dropped my book. “You talk as if I’m a child!”

  “I didn’t say that. But you are only—”

  “Don’t tell me only. I’m twelve. I’ve been through as much as you.”

  “All right.” He started reading again.

  “‘All right’ what? Don’t say things just to make me feel better! You don’t mean it. I know you don’t mean it! You order me around all the time; you’re always making up rules.” I picked up the rubber doll and threw her on the floor. “I hate you, Marc! I hate your rules! I hate your clock!”

  “I don’t know what’s the matter with you,” he said. I wanted him to shout back, but he kept his voice even. “I’m trying to take care of us. Of you. Like Maman said I should.” He bent down, picked up the doll, and put her on the table between us. “I’m just trying to do things right,” he said.

  I didn’t know why I’d yelled. If Maman had heard me—the thought made me ashamed. “I know you’re trying to help me,” I mumbled.

  He propped up his book. “So are we friends again?”

  After a moment, I nodded.

  “Say it,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Say we’re friends again.”

  “Marc …”

  “No, say it.”

  “All right. We’re friends again.”

  “Good,” he said. “Still hate my clock?”

  20

  SOUNDING AMERICAN

  “Hi, hi!” A blond, freckled girl was waving from the other side of the fence.

  “Hello,” I said.

  She tapped her chest, the way Eva had the first day we met. “Me, Peggy Bradbury. Who you?”

  “I am Karin Levi. Twelve years old. I have a brother. Do you have a brother? Or maybe a sister?”

  “Huh!” She twisted her ponytail. “You can speak English good.” She had a pudgy nose and big brown eyes. She took a small chocolate bar from her pocket and poked it through the fence to me.

  “Swell! Thank you,” I said. “Hubba-hubba!” I knew enough now not to add “GI Joe.” I broke off a piece of chocolate and pushed the rest back toward her.

  She shook her head. “No, Karin. Keep it!”

  “Keep it? Sure?” I said.

  “Yes!”

  “Swell!” I put it in my pocket. “Thank you once and twice!”

  “Don’t say ‘once and twice,’ Karin. You want to sound American?”

  “Oh yes, please.”

  “Okay. Say, ‘Thanks again!’”

  “‘Thanks again!’”

  “Good.” She smiled. “Know what these are?” She pointed to her feet. “Sneakers! Can you say that?”

  “‘Sneakers,’” I repeated, to be polite. I knew that word. I wanted a pair for myself.

  Peggy pointed to her heavy, dark blue pants. She wore them rolled at the ankles. “Dun-ga-rees,” she said.

  “‘Dun-ga-rees.’” I wanted a pair of them, too.

  Peggy pointed to her nose.

  “The nose,” I said quickly. I touched my hair and said, “The hair.” I touched my mouth. “The mouth.” My eyes. My chin. My arms. My feet. The sky. The trees.

  “Wow,” Peggy said. “That’s swell!”

  I pointed to the sun and then behind me to the lake. To the barracks and the fence and the grass and the windows in the barracks, and I said all those words.

  “You know a lot of stuff,” Peggy said.

  “You are correct. I am trying all the time.”

  “Don’t say ‘You are correct,’ Karin. It sounds drippy.”

  “‘Drippy’?” That was a new one for me.

  “You know. Dopey, dumb, dumbo!”

  I shook my head. I didn’t understand.

  “Stupid!”

  “Oh. Stupid.”

  “Well, not exactly. But sort of.” She wrinkled her nose. “When you agree, say, ‘You got it!’”

  “‘You got it.’”

  “No. Say it like this, Karin.” Peggy snapped her fingers. “You got it!”

  ‘“You got it!’”

  “That’s it. Swell!”

  “Swell!” I echoed.

  “And don’t say ‘Hello,’ when you meet someone. Say ‘Hi.’”

  “‘Hi.’”

  She shook her head. “More jazzy, Karin. Like this. ‘Hiii. Hiii, Peggy!’”

  “‘Hiii. Hiii, Peggy!’”

  “Super, Karin. You sound just like anyone, like a real American. Want to be friends?”

  “Yes, okay,” I said.

  “Super!”

  Dearest Maman,

  I have so much to tell you. The Red Cross got in touch with Aunt Hannah in Del Rey, California, and told her we were here. She wrote to us right away, the best letter! She said if the doctor allows her to travel such a long distance—she has a bad heart—she’ll come and visit us. She doesn’t know yet when that will be. But imagine this: It takes five whole days and nights by train to cross this country just one way, and

  21

  TRUDI AND MARIKA

  “Are you coming with me?” Marc asked. He was rubbing Vaseline in his hair to smooth it down and make it shine.

  I covered my notebook with my arm. “No, not tonight. You go.” There was a sing-along in the big hall, but I wanted to stay in and finish my letter to Maman.

  “Tomas is going to sing solo,” Marc said. “Don’t you want to hear him?” Tomas was Marc’s age, short and handsome. “I know you like him,” Marc added.

  Now I was sure I wouldn’t go.

  “What are you writing, anyway?”

  “Nothing.” I got up and put my notebook under my pillow.

  “Tomas is serious about his voice. He wants an audience. I promised I’d bring anybody I could.”

  “‘Anybody’?” I sat down on the cot and fussed with the rubber doll. I’d finally given her a name, an American name: Betty Lou. “‘Anybody’ is who I am? You can’t promise me like that to someone else. I’m not a dog.”

  “Don’t get dramatic, Karin. Come on, you’ll have fun.” He picked up Betty Lou. “Tell her to come,” he said to the doll. He pestered me until I agreed.

  “Remember to clap good and loud for Tomas,” he said as we walked over.

  “What if he’s a bad singer and I don’t want to clap for him?”

  “Clap anyway.”

  “That’s so fake, Marc!”

  “Sometimes it’s better to be good to your friends than worry about being pristine.” He waited. He knew I didn’t know what pristine meant, but I wasn’t about to ask.

  Inside, there were rows of folding chairs. Marc found a seat with friends in the first row. I sat down next to a blond girl with thick bangs, who stammered out her name. “T-Trudi.” Beside her was a girl with a ribbon in her dark hair, and a little pointed face. She said something in Greek. What I caught was her name: Marika.

  The singing began. An older boy played the piano. The lyrics of Americ
an songs were flashed up on a screen, with a bouncing ball beneath the words to help us keep the place. We all especially loved one American song called “Don’t Fence Me In,” about being free to go anywhere under the stars. It was practically the Fort Ontario theme song. Land, freedom, no fences. Especially no fences.

  Later, Tomas, wearing a fedora and suspenders, soloed. A Spanish song. His friends shouted and whistled. I saw Marc on his feet, cheering. Maman, I thought, would be surprised to see him so boisterous.

  After Tomas came the real surprise. Trudi sang, and she had a great big voice that went right down my spine. Marika and I looked at each other and smiled proudly, as if we were the ones responsible.

  “Glad you went?” Marc asked later. He knew I was. He just wanted to hear me say that he had been right.

  22

  THE BIKE RIDE

  I was rich in friends. Eva, Peggy, Mr. and Mrs. Stein, and now Marika and Trudi. It had been years since I’d had friends my own age. I hardly even remembered how to act like a friend, but I pretended I did. I was never sure I was doing it right. Marika, Trudi, and I were all Jewish, all twelve years old, and we all talked only about now. No sorrows. No sad stories. No speaking about anything that had happened to us, to our families before we came to the United States.

  Our friendship was a happy one, an American friendship.

  We learned to call the big hall the “rec” hall, and on Friday nights, we went there for movies. We walked around the fort together, arms linked, singing and talking. We scooted under a break in the fence and swam in the lake. No bathing suits. We went in wearing our clothes, then dried out in the sun and the wind.

  When Jewish women from a city called Rochester brought boxes of clothes to the fort, the three of us went together and picked out wardrobes for each other. I got sneakers and dungarees, a blue dress called a jumper, two blouses, and a sweater. Now I was rich in clothes.

  We talked about going to school again. We were all a little nervous about it. None of us had been in a real school for a long time. Trudi was afraid she was too far behind and would never catch up.