The History of Soul 2065

by Barbara Krasnoff

  Rachel opens her eyes and looks at her mother and aunt. There is a slight mist in the night air; it has begun to bead in her aunt’s hair, moistening her forehead.

  “This is how they spent their evenings?” asks Rachel doubtfully. “It seems boring. And unromantic.”

  “Your idea of romance is a bit different than theirs,” says Aunt Susan, smiling. “But listen—here comes the important part.” They all bend over the pond.

  Sophia moved a bishop. “I had tea with the Mitburgs yesterday. They are sending their oldest daughter to a rather nice school in Paris. She’s learning French and English, and making some excellent connections.” Her tone was casual, her eyes were on the chessboard, but there was a tension in the hand that smoothed the silk folds of her skirt.

  “And,” says Rachel’s mother, “she was learning to think. Because that school in Paris was a real school, run by people who wanted educated daughters, and not just a finishing school for fashionable nitwits.”

  Rachel giggles.

  Meyer’s hand reached over and placed the lit cigar on a small silver humidor next to the chess table. His hand rested loosely on the side of the chessboard. “Yes,” he said. “So?”

  “Isabeau is getting to be of school age. I would like her to go away to school as well,” said Sophia.

  A pause. “You told me,” Meyer said, “that you loved this town. Why can’t our daughter simply go to the local Volksschule like all her friends?” There was a bit of irritation in his voice.

  Sophia reached across the table and put her hand gently on his. “Of course,” she said. “I love it here. But Isabeau is a very bright little girl. In the Volksschule, she will learn just enough to keep the household accounts and read a recipe. In Paris, she will learn both scholarship and refinement.”

  Meyer pushed a pawn forward. “It is too expensive,” he said decisively.

  As Sophia reached toward a knight, he added, “Besides, Wilhelm is doing well in school and will attend the Gymnasium eventually, which will take money. Isabeau will do fine right here.”

  Aunt Susan takes Rachel’s hand.

  “Listen carefully,” she says. “Your grandmother loved going to school in Paris. She especially loved the arts, and as she got older—about your age, in fact—she began to associate with painters and actors. So later, when the Nazis came into power and things became dangerous for Jews and others, her friends smuggled her out of the country, at great risk to themselves.”

  “In fact,” Rachel’s mother adds, “One of those friends got arrested helping her get away. An opera singer, I think.”

  “What happened to him?” Rachel asked.

  Her mother shrugged. “He disappeared, like so many others.”

  There was a pause. Aunt Susan then continued, “Eventually, your grandmother found her way to Canada and then to America.”

  “So why are we here?” asks Rachel.

  “Watch,” says her mother.

  Sophia’s husband finally made his move; the cigar was now gone from the humidor and there was smoke drifting over the board. Sophia studied the board. One hand drifted over her ear; she tucked a stray lock of hair back into place.

  “I will make you a wager,” she said.

  Her husband laughed. “A wager? Our games have become so boring to you that you feel you need to add the excitement of gambling?”

  She laughed as well. “Not at all,” she said. “But I thought you might enjoy it. Just to add a bit of interest to the game.”

  He took a sip of sherry. “And what is the wager?”

  “If I win,” she said, “I would like Isabeau to attend the Paris school.” She stretched out a hand and moved a piece.

  “Things could have been very different,” says her mother, “if your great-grandmother lost this chess game. Your grandmother would have gone to the local elementary school, married a neighbor’s son, and lived in the same town as her parents. Until the Nazis came to power and rounded up all the Jews for deportation. Including your grandmother.”

  There is dampness against Rachel’s cheek. The mist has become thick, swirling about them in heavy white tendrils. The three women seem to be alone in a world made up of clouds and candlelight.

  Rachel looks at her aunt. “Aunt Susan?” she says hesitantly. “That wasn’t a good move she made just now.”

  “That is why you are here,” her aunt tells her. “To complete the story that your great-grandmother Sophia told your grandmother Isabeau, who in turn told it to your mother. To make sure that she wins this game. Because she can’t do it alone. She needs somebody who can play chess well and who has the knowledge and the ability to help. Somebody like you.”

  For a moment, Rachel can’t breathe, terrified at the responsibility. What if she makes a mistake? What if she can’t figure out the right move?

  Aunt Susan presses her lips gently against Rachel’s forehead. “Don’t worry,” she says. “You’ll do fine. Just watch.”

  “And if I win the game?” asked Meyer, sitting back in his chair. “What do I get out of this wager?”

  Sophia smiled knowingly and raised an eyebrow. Meyer laughed.

  “Well,” he said. He moved a knight and stared at his wife with fond confidence. “Your move.”

  Rachel looks down into the lake. She can see the board without effort—it is so plain, so real, that she almost reaches down to move a piece.

  “He’s not really a good chess player,” she says out loud, almost crying with relief. “He’s just following a classic pattern. I know this one—we did it in class! And it only takes one move to turn it around.”

  “Tell her,” says her mother.

  Rachel bites her lip. “How?” she asks.

  “You are wearing her earrings,” says Aunt Susan. “Look at her closely. Concentrate. Whisper to her. She will hear you.”

  Rachel bends down until her lips almost touch the water. “Queen to Queen’s Rook 5,” she whispers. “Mate in three moves.” Her breath creates ripples that dance outward, downward and backward.

  Sophia smiled, reached out and moved her queen. “Check,” she said. “Mate in three moves.”

  A pause. A chair scraped back. “Where did you learn to play like that?” asked Meyer, a bit annoyed.

  “By watching you,” said Sophia. “How else could I learn it?”

  He shook his head doubtfully and stood.

  Sophia stood too, and as her husband passed, she put out a hand and stopped him. “If Isabeau goes to a good school in Paris,” said Sophia, “she will not only get a good education, but she will make friends with other girls whose families have influence. Influence you can use. That alone will be worth the tuition.”

  “True,” said her husband, after a thoughtful pause. “That is an aspect of the case I hadn’t contemplated. But won’t you miss her?”

  “Yes,” his wife said quietly, “I will miss her very much.”

  He reached out and took her hand. “This is important to you,” said Meyer.

  “It is important to Isabeau,” said Sophia. She waited.

  Rachel and her aunt and her mother wait.

  “Very well,” said Meyer. “Far be it from me to renege on a wager. I will contact the school and find out whether there are any openings.”

  The night is clear; overhead, a half moon burns gently over the park. Rachel straightens, and looks at her aunt. “So everything turned out the way it needed to,” she says. “Grandmother Isabeau went to school in Paris and then came here. But what happened to great-grandmother Sophia and great-grandfather Meyer?”

  “After the war, your granduncle William spent years looking for them, but never found them,” Rachel’s aunt says. “Your grandmother Isabeau said that she knew they hadn’t survived, but never explained how. Even to me.”

  Rachel’s mother bends forward, but Rachel puts out her hand. “Let me,” she says, and takes the twig.

  Rachel carefully stirs the pond until her great-grandmother disappears.

  Husband and wi
fe walked sedately up the stairs toward the bedroom. On the way, Sophia pulled off her earrings and cupped them in one hand. “I think I will give Isabeau these to take with her to Paris,” she said with satisfaction.

  “And perhaps,” her husband said, as he slipped his arm around her waist, “they will teach her chess.”

  The Clearing in the Spring

  A story of Chana and Sophia’s great-grandaughters

  1999

  On a cloudy spring afternoon, two nine-year-old girls sat on the stoop of a Brooklyn building, throwing breadcrumbs at the pigeons that, attracted by the prospect of food, had flown over from the park across the street.

  The first girl had a long auburn braid and a thin, intense face; she was trying to get at least one bird to eat out of her hand by tossing the crumbs closer and closer and then holding some out in her open palm. Unfortunately, the pigeons, while obviously greedy for the food, didn’t seem interested in interacting with any humans.

  Her friend, shorter and stouter with cropped, tousled brown hair, threw her last handful of crumbs at the birds so suddenly that several flapped away. She took a deep breath, pulled something out of her pocket and held it tightly within her two closed hands.

  “Rachel,” she said, without any kind of preamble, “I’ve got a secret. But you can’t tell anyone, especially not your mother, because she’ll tell my mom, and I’ll get in trouble.”

  Rachel gave up on her efforts to tame a pigeon and turned to her friend. “What kind of secret, Annie?” she asked, excited. “I love secrets.”

  “Well, I took something from my mom’s drawer that I’m not supposed to touch, but I’ll show you, if you promise not to tell.”

  “I promise!” whispered Rachel. “What is it?”

  Annie opened her hands to reveal a wooden box; the top decorated by fading red houses with green roofs on a wintry landscape. She pulled the cover off with one hand and held the open box toward Rachel with the other.

  There, on a piece of cotton batting, laid a short length of ribbon, worn and threadbare, a faded blue-gray with a bit of darker blue on the edges.

  “It’s just an old raggedy piece of ribbon,” said Rachel, disappointed. “It isn’t at all pretty. When I was really little, my grandma Isabeau gave me a shiny jewel once that she said was magic. It was gorgeous, but I dropped it on the subway tracks on the way home and my mom wouldn’t let me go on the tracks to get it back.”

  “It’s only faded because it’s really old,” said Annie, not at all fazed at her friend’s reaction. “It’s so old that my great-grandmother Chana brought it to America with her when she came here years and years ago. Mom keeps it in the back of her closet, behind a bunch of old albums. She said when great-grandmother was a girl, she got it from her best friend and kept it as a token for when she’d see her friend again one day, but she never did. See her, I mean.”

  “That’s really awesome,” Rachel said, her eyes wide. “The two friends separated forever, but always hoping that one day they’d meet.”

  Annie shrugged. She didn’t have quite as romantic a nature as Rachel. “All I know is what my mom told me. She told me a few days ago, because we’re going to your family’s seder tonight and she said I should know something about my own family’s stories so that I can tell one if I want to. And she showed me the ribbon and told me not to handle it too much, because it might fall apart. But I wanted to show it to you, so yesterday when she was running errands I took it out of the drawer.”

  “Can I touch it?” Rachel asked. “Just for a second? I never touched anything that old.”

  Annie looked doubtful. “Okay, but be careful. If anything happened to it, my mom would kill me.”

  She picked the ribbon out of the box and handed it to Rachel, who took it and stroked it slowly. “It feels nice,” she said. “Weird to think that it’s that old.”

  “You know,” Annie said in an almost whisper, “My grandma told me once that if I ever went to a wedding and took home a piece of the wedding cake and put it under my pillow, I’d dream about the man I was going to marry. Well, I thought maybe if I put the ribbon under my pillow, I might dream about great-grandmother Chana.”

  “And did it work?” Rachel asked fascinated. She paused as a small brown pigeon, possibly wondering if there was any more food to be had, came almost to her foot and stared at her for a moment. Its curiosity satisfied, it settled down and began to preen.

  “No,” Annie said. “I mean, I don’t believe that about wedding cakes, because they’d get all squooshed anyway and you’re much better off eating them. But this ribbon is really, really old, and I thought it might work. But I didn’t dream anything.”

  Rachel pursed her lips, thinking. “Maybe,” she said, “it’s gotten weak because it’s so old.”

  She thought for a moment and then leaned forward, her voice lowering dramatically. “What we have to do,” she said, trying to sound as mysterious as possible, “is to touch the ribbon at the same time, close our eyes and concentrate. That will double the power of the magic, even if it is so old.”

  Annie regarded her friend with admiration. “But what if it doesn’t work?” she asked.

  Rachel had become caught up in her role. “No, you have to truly believe it will work!” she said. She took one end of the ribbon and held the other out to Annie. “You take the other end. Then we’ll close our eyes and wish as hard as we can that we can find your great-grandmother’s friend.”

  Annie shook her head doubtfully. “That doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Even when my mom was a kid, my great-grandmother’s friend would have been so old. Like over 100 or something.”

  Rachel just continued to hold out the piece of ribbon. Annie sighed, and gingerly took the other end.

  “Now close your eyes and concentrate,” Rachel instructed. “Concentrate on your great-grandmother Chana and her best friend and wish as hard as you can.”

  The two girls squeezed their eyes shut. After a moment, the pigeon, encouraged by the lack of movement and attracted to the small piece of material, edged closer. It cocked its head for a moment, examining the pale little piece of material, and then reached out and snatched it out of their hands.

  The two girls jumped up. Annie ran forward and tried to grab the pigeon, but all she succeeded in doing was to frighten it into flight—it took off, wings batting at the warm Brooklyn air, and soared across the street and into the park. Annie, dismayed, watched it go.

  “My mom’s going to kill me!” she moaned.

  “Then we’ve got to go catch it!” Rachel said decidedly and ran to the curb. “Come on, we’ll lose it!”

  “We’re not supposed to cross the street without permission,” Annie said, hesitating on the stoop. She looked up. “And it looks like it’s going to rain.”

  “This is an emergency, so it doesn’t count. And if it rains, we’ll run back. Come on!”

  Annie paused for another moment, and then grabbed the box off the stoop, pushed it back into her pocket, and went to the curb. Rachel seized her hand, waited for another moment while several cars passed, and then dashed across the street, pulling Annie behind her.

  Once safely on the other side, the two ran into the park, dodging mothers with strollers, dog-walkers, and other passersby. They followed the main path past a playground, filled with children battling for precedence on the slides and swings; past the park’s inner road, filled with bike riders, joggers, and the occasional car; and down a short slope to the lake, where geese and swans paddled frantically around, snapping up the bits of bread and bagels that were thrown at them by picnicking families.

  “We’ll never find it,” Annie muttered, nearly in tears. A few pigeons strutted nearby, but none of them resembled the one that had grabbed the ribbon—and the ribbon itself was nowhere to be seen.

  “I bet I know where it went!” Rachel said suddenly, pointing over to the left. “I saw it fly into those trees. There’s a path there; we can follow it and maybe find the pigeon.”

&
nbsp; The two girls ran past the lake and into the small wooded area. They immediately slowed to a walk, examining the ground and trees to see if they could catch sight of a pigeon with a faded ribbon in its beak.

  As they walked, the concrete beneath their feet became a packed dirt path, and the city noises quickly faded away behind them. Instead, all they heard was the rustle of the freshly leafed trees above, until a mockingbird sang out a warning to its mate. On the ground, new weeds pushed up from the dirt on either side of the path, while bees and flies and spiders around them went about their business of hunting, eating and mating.

  Rachel led the way confidently, remembering the walk her mother and Aunt Susan had taken her on only a few months before. Annie followed, almost forgetting her anxiety in the growing feeling that she was having a real adventure.

  Suddenly, Rachel stopped.

  “I remember that tree!” she said excitedly. It was the old oak tree that had caused her to pause last time; there was still that one large, lower branch, now decorated with bright green leaves, stretching parallel to and nearly touching the ground. She put her hands on the rough wood and leaned over to look beyond it. “There’s a path there!” she cried out. “A hidden path!”

  “Like in The Secret Garden?” Annie asked. Annie was a dedicated reader of Victorian and other old-fashioned children’s literature, and had always wondered whether something exciting like in one of those books might happen to her.

  “Maybe,” said Rachel who, unlike her best friend, preferred movies to books. “We need to see where it goes.”

  “But what about my great-grandmother’s ribbon?” Annie asked dutifully, although she was as curious about where the path led as Rachel was.

  “Maybe the pigeon went this way,” Rachel said, now completely dedicated to exploring the new path. “Maybe we’ll find it here. Come on!” And without waiting for a reply, she hoisted herself onto the fallen branch and slipped down onto the other side. Seeing herself without any kind of alternative—and now equally as eager to explore what she now saw as a storybook quest—Annie followed.