Stolen Secrets

by L. B. Schulman

  Oma looked at me blankly.

  I inched forward with my questions like a soldier through a minefield. “When did you move to the United States? Did you meet my grandfather here?”

  “Herbert’s a soldier. He comes to visit me when I’m sick, and he stays a very long time.” She frowned. “Belsen wasn’t such a nice place, after all.”

  Belsen? “Why not?” I persevered.

  “Potato peels!” She pounded her fists on the signpost, laughing at a joke that made sense to no one but her. “Potato peels and turnips!”

  Her hands would get bruised if she didn’t stop, but if I grabbed them, she’d freak out. I tried to keep my voice calm. “Oma, if you’re hungry, we can …”

  “The sister, Margaret, wants bread, lots of it. Not me. I prefer bean soup. It’s cheap and good to eat. But Herbert says we have plenty of money now. We can eat whatever we want.”

  The disjointed babble blurred in my head. “It’s okay, Oma. I’m here. It’s all good.”

  She lowered her fist from the sign. “Did you have a nice day, Gretchen?”

  I laughed, not because she was confused, but because her shifting moods threw me off balance. “I’m fine.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “To school.”

  “That’s good. I went all the way to the eighth grade. Are you in the eighth grade?”

  “Eleventh.”

  “Oh, aren’t you a smarty!”

  “Would you tell me about your sister?” I prodded gently. “Her name was Margaret?”

  “The war made her disappear. Do you think she left on the last train out? Perhaps she escaped. Perhaps they both did. Perhaps I did, too.”

  Maybe Oma had kept her sister a secret from Mom, but I couldn’t figure out why she would do that. I considered how Mom had lied to me about my grandmother in the first place, and an uncomfortable thought came to mind: Was keeping secrets a family trait?

  “Who escaped?” I demanded.

  “Oh, no, the train’s leaving, heading away from hell. Hurry, get on it now!”

  The word train shook a memory loose. Hadn’t Mom mentioned leaving that way to the East Coast, the last summer she’d visited her mother? Maybe Oma remembered, on some level, that the woman who took care of her now was the college student who left her all those years ago.

  “Gretchen’s come back to take care of you,” I said, watching for a reaction.

  “Oh, are you Gretchen?”

  I sighed. “No, I’m Livvy. Your granddaughter.”

  A woman walked by with her dog. He sniffed the signpost. I cringed, afraid Oma would start shouting Scheisshund! Instead, she leaned back as if she was afraid that the poodle was going to bite her. Her teeth began to chatter. She gripped her chin, leaving an angry mark with her fingernails. I gently pulled her hand down, blurting out the first thing that came to mind. “I met a new friend named Franklin D., Oma. He gets in trouble sometimes because he blurts out whatever’s on his mind.”

  The good thing about Alzheimer’s—if there was anything good—was that Oma’s fear vanished once I got her mind off the dog. I kept talking as the woman walked the poodle up the hill. “Our teacher doesn’t like Franklin D. much, but what he says keeps the rest of us from slipping into a school-induced coma.”

  A furrow lodged between her eyebrows. “Tell that friend of yours not to say too much.”

  “I meant that he asks questions that most people don’t have the brainpower to answer,” I clarified.

  A tiny smile cracked her hard exterior. She rarely smiled, but when she did, it changed the entire landscape of her face. She looked like somebody’s sweet grandmother. My grandmother.

  “What’s his name?” she asked.

  “Franklin D. Schiller,” I repeated.

  “Jewish?”

  I thought about when Franklin D. had defended himself in debate class, telling everyone about his great-grandfather, Hymie Lipschitz. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “God bless his soul,” she said somberly.

  As we headed up the hill again, I couldn’t stop myself. “You’re Jewish, too, Oma, right? Just like …”

  “Shh,” she whispered, her head whipping around. “They might hear you. Hide your jewelry! They like gold and diamonds. In the middle of the night, they come and steal it.”

  “Who? Who steals it?”

  She wrapped her arms around a parking meter. “I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know!”

  I tried to unknot my shoulders, hoping to look calm and in control. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter—your religion, I mean.”

  “What’s going on here?” Vickie, a grocery bag on her hip, glared at me. Where had she come from?

  “Oma and I are taking a walk.”

  “I can see that.”

  “I’ve lost everything,” Oma murmured. “Everything. Everything. Everything.”

  I rubbed the headache pressing against my temples. Vickie pried my grandmother’s arms from the parking meter. “You shouldn’t talk about the past. It upsets her, Livvy.”

  Oma slipped her hand into Vickie’s like a compliant child. I watched helplessly as they continued up the hill. A bewildering sense of guilt spread through me.

  “I’m sorry, Oma,” I whispered to myself.

  SUMMER 1945

  For weeks Herbert held washcloths to her forehead, dabbing at the stubborn fever that wouldn’t let go. She didn’t say much, so he talked, and she listened, smiling at his dreams for the future and frowning when he ventured to the past.

  “I’ve lost everything,” was all she would say. “I can’t talk about it.”

  He soon stopped asking.

  It was eight weeks later, under a blue moon, that he placed his calloused hand on hers. “I must know. Do you think you will ever be capable of loving again?”

  Could she? The hatred mixed black as coal inside her blood. She wasn’t even sure what or whom she hated anymore. “If you can accept me as I am right now, you will never be disappointed,” she told him. Had it been so long since she’d believed that everything was rosy with the world?

  He pondered her response. She saw the flash of hesitation, an uncertainty. Silence pressed down on her lungs, leaving little room for air. “I’ll take my chances,” he said at last. “Hope is all we have to rely on, anyway.”

  It was that same hope that carried Adelle from her birth country to Brooklyn, New York. Her new husband, always a gentleman, averted his eyes from the abyss of the past, and in doing so, permitted them a future.

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  I CALLED MOM FIVE TIMES. HER PHONE RANG UNTIL it went to voice mail. Darkness seeped through the apartment, deepening my sense of dread. To take my mind off my worries, I began researching an assignment, but ended up looking up terms other than Arthur Miller and The Crucible.

  Belsen, I typed into my laptop.

  Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was the first to pull up. A link took me to a black-and-white photograph, where a room full of sad female prisoners gazed into the camera lens. A barrack block at Belsen, the caption read.

  My grandmother had been in a concentration camp. Oh, God, how could I have been so stupid? I thought about what I’d said to her about camping. Swimming. Canoeing. Stars. Then I remembered Oma standing in the kitchen, frying pan in the air. You missed roll call!

  A metallic taste climbed up my throat. I clicked and read, then read some more, before ending up at the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum website.

  During its existence, approximately 50,000 persons died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp complex including Anne Frank and her sister Margot …

  I’d read The Diary of Anne Frank in the eighth grade. After the Frank family and the other residents in hiding had been discovered by the Nazis, Anne ultimately ended up at Bergen-Belsen. The website said that she and her sister had died only weeks before British soldiers liberated the camp. How horrible that she hid for two years in an attic, only to die right before the end of t
he war.

  I navigated to an old newsreel on YouTube that showed the British liberation of the camp. The images turned my stomach: Bodies strewn across the ground like branches after a storm; Jews with sunken eyes peering into the camera lens; impassive Nazis forced at Allied gunpoint to haul human remains. I watched in disbelief as a female Nazi officer and a guard lifted a dead body by its hands and feet and swung it like a jump rope, tossing it into a mass grave.

  It.

  It was a human being. A him. A her. A murdered Jew.

  I closed my laptop, not wanting to think about Bergen-Belsen anymore. I connected my iPod to the stereo and cranked the volume, hoping the music would chase away the images that threatened to burn into my memory.

  The music cut out, then thudded back. I crawled around the red-and-white striped armchair we’d bought at a garage sale last weekend to push the loose stereo plug into the outlet.

  And there it was. An empty vodka bottle. Correction, almost empty. A few drops of liquid remained, too valuable for its owner to throw out. I crawled back out and collapsed against the chair, propping the bottle between my knees. Damn it.

  Mom’s keys jangled in the door. I tightened my grip on the bottle neck in case she tried to snatch it away. One slipup I could justify. She was stressed, worried about money, exhausted from the move, with a sponsor who lived in another state. But drinking twice was a different story—one I didn’t want to hear.

  “Hello!” she called out. “Hey, what are you doing over there? Why’s it so dark in here?” She switched on the lights. They were way too bright.

  Her eyes landed on the bottle. She exhaled a groan. “I’m sorry, Liv. I tried not to let it happen again. It’s just … life’s so hard right now. And my mother’s so … but excuses don’t change anything, do they?”

  It was nice to know she’d learned something at her AA meetings.

  “Speak to me, Liv.”

  “What do you want me to say? You made a promise and you didn’t keep it.” At the word promise, tears I hadn’t even known existed tumbled down my cheeks.

  “Alcoholism is a disease I have to fight every second, every hour, every—”

  “Don’t,” I said, borrowing Oma’s Do it now! tone. I couldn’t bear to hear the cliché. Drinking wasn’t like other illnesses. A disease caused deterioration, but alcoholism could be stopped.

  Mom’s mouth was open, but she couldn’t retrieve the words. She slumped to the ground and cried instead.

  I knew there’d been a moment when Mom had considered how this would affect us, what drinking might do to our lives, and yet, inexplicably, she’d brought the bottle to her lips. Her tears couldn’t soften my heart. I wouldn’t let them.

  “I only have two more years until college,” I said, my voice whittled to a sharp point. “Couldn’t you have waited until I was out of the house before self-destructing?”

  “I know I can stop. I’ve done it before—”

  “No! I won’t listen to promises you’re going to break tomorrow. I’m moving out, Mom. I’ll get legally emancipated if I have to.” I had no idea what I was talking about. Realistically, no court would set me loose without a way to support myself, but that was my story, and I was committed.

  Mom took a ragged breath and wiped away her tears. “You don’t know how hard my life’s been lately,” she said. “I used the last of our savings to rent this hellhole, to try and support you, to—”

  “You won’t have to pay for me anymore. That should free up some money for a Costco liquor run.” I swept my foot back, knocking the bottle over. It spun across the floor, clinking against the couch leg.

  Mom turned her face to the wall. “I need to get out of here. I can’t take this right now.”

  “Are you going to a seedy bar somewhere?”

  She opened her mouth to deny it, but a plaintive sigh escaped. “I don’t know.”

  No, I wouldn’t feel sorry for her. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.

  I jumped up and ran into the bathroom, where I spun the shower faucet to the hottest setting.

  “To Adelle’s, okay?” she called through the door. “I’m going to sleep at my mother’s. I need time to think.”

  I dropped down onto the toilet. The steam swirled to the ceiling, where it clung to the ventilation fan before dropping tears on my head. I stayed like that until the mirror fogged over. I felt totally drained. All I wanted to do was curl up into a ball and go to sleep. No! I told myself. That was the old Liv. This one has to fight back. For myself. For Mom.

  For Mom. Despite the hardened shell I’d built around me, my center was soft. I loved her, flaws and all. It hurt like hell to see her like this.

  I turned off the shower and opened the bathroom door. A blast of steam rolled into the living room.

  Mom was gone. I picked up the list of Bay Area AA meetings, the grid-like wrinkles giving away the number of times she’d opened it, then folded it back up. The sight of her cell phone made my stomach inch up into my throat. Oh God, what have I done? There’d be no talking her down from a drinking binge now. I looked closer, hoping to find her wallet under the pile of receipts, but she hadn’t forgotten that. I scooped up my keys and ran out of the apartment. Jogging down the hill, I headed toward the part of Fillmore where liquor stores were more common than restaurants. Three within a four-block area. Mom wasn’t in any of them.

  At the foot of Fillmore, I called out, “Mom!” Then, “Gretchen!”

  “Shut up!” someone yelled back.

  Maybe she had gone to Oma’s. I needed to bring her home—and then call Tom to beg for help. He’d know what to do.

  I was gasping for air when I reached Oma’s house. I ran my hands through the fake palm and unlocked the door with the key. From somewhere inside, I heard Oma snoring. The door to the sitting room was open. I peered inside, expecting to find Vickie conked out on the futon couch, but she wasn’t there. I’d tell Mom this, I decided, before remembering that I had bigger problems than Vickie sneaking off during her shift.

  I crept down the hallway. A new sign, in my mother’s cramped handwriting, was taped to a door—Adelle’s Bedroom. Two of the saddest words I’d seen. My grandmother needed a map to her own home.

  I peeked inside. Oma was curled on her side, hands braided under her chin. Sleep smoothed out her skin, making her seem younger. She’d kicked off her blanket, so I tiptoed in to cover her up. Then I went to the kitchen to look for Mom. She wasn’t there. Not in the living room, either. The library was also empty.

  I texted Tom, because it was too late to call. Mom had a relapse, need help. I read it again, adding, We’re both okay. That would be his first question.

  A vibration under my feet broke the stillness. I froze in place, listening. Outside, the garage door groaned open. I ran to the sitting room window, which faced the street. The headlights of a car cut through the curtains, blinding me. I swept the sheer material to the side. Oma’s old Mustang reversed into the street with a jerk as if the driver didn’t know the difference between an accelerator and a brake. As the car idled, Mom lowered the bottle from her lips. Our eyes locked. I darted from the room to the porch and then leaped to the sidewalk, my knees buckling when I hit cement.

  I managed to open the back door before she came to life. The car lurched, and I dove inside, landing a full belly flop onto the cool white leather. I grabbed the front bucket seat to steady myself while shutting the door with my free hand. Mom tore past the stop sign. She spun the wheel to the left, flinging me against the side of the car. She made two more turns, then gunned it up the steep hill.

  “Mom, stop! You’re going to kill us!”

  She slowed down long enough for me to yank the old-fashioned seat belt across my lap. Gurgling sobs rose from her as she swerved around a trash can, nicking it with her back tire. It tipped over and skidded down the hill a few feet.

  “Mom, please,” I begged. An unwelcome fact popped into my head: Every fifty-three minutes an American dies in an alcohol-related crash.r />
  “I’ve screwed up everything!” she said. “I couldn’t even take care of a helpless old woman or my own kid. I trashed five years of sobriety. Couldn’t pull it off. Just a drunk at heart. A damn drunk!”

  She wrenched the wheel around. We spun in the opposite direction, heading downhill in a zigzag pattern, even though the road was as straight as a balance beam. Red-and-blue lights flickered in the rearview mirror.

  Thank God, I thought, a moment before coming to my senses. Shit, we’re in a world of trouble.

  Mom steered with one hand while burrowing through her purse with the other.

  “Keep your hands on the wheel!” I shouted.

  The police turned on the siren. Mom pulled out a pack of Listerine breath strips, freed one, and slapped it on her tongue. We heard a warning blast from the cop’s horn. Thankfully Mom slowed. The patrol car inched behind us for three blocks, until she turned into a church parking lot.

  As the officer walked up to our car, Mom snapped on her seat belt. “Keep your mouth shut, Livvy. I’ll do the talking.” Whatever. I was too stunned to speak.

  He tapped on the window. Mom rolled it down and gave him a cheesy smile. “Yes, officer?”

  “May I see your driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance?”

  Her hand trembled as she reached for Oma’s glove compartment, found the cards, and handed them to the officer. She took her wallet out of her purse.

  “My license is here somewhere,” she mumbled, rifling through a wad of balled-up cash, mixed with an assortment of credit cards. “Whew, here it is.”

  “Ma’am, that’s a Macy’s card. I asked for your driver’s license.”

  She took it back and handed him another one.

  “Is this your car, ma’am?”

  “It’s my mother’s. Her name’s Adelle Friedman. I was picking up groceries for her.”

  “Do you know why I pulled you over?”

  “No, sir,” Mom said, sweet as corn syrup. “I don’t suppose you’re here to ask me out?”