“You tree. Dare. Stay dare. Later for you.”
Mrs. Edelstein flaps her arm at the side of the pool, indicating we should take a seat on the edge. Three of us sit down at the spot where she pointed, feet dangling into the deep end. Me, Ben Zielinski, and Tony DeMarchi. We are hugging our arms and shivering. The non-swimmers.
Learning to swim at the YMCA is the worst way of all to learn. I don’t care if the Y is closer than the lake. In a lake you can wade in a little at a time. You can hang on to an inner tube and float, pretending you can swim. The sun warms your back. You can fake it and still have a good time.
I used to love that kind of swimming at the lake. It didn’t matter to me that I couldn’t really swim, and Mom didn’t seem to know the difference. But then Andrea Soboleski’s cousin caught polio at Cass Lake, and now he’s in an iron lung, and I’m stuck with swimming lessons at the YMCA, where the frost grows on the windows so thick you can’t see the sun, and the chlorine makes my eyes burn. I tug at the strap on my bathing cap and wait. My kneecaps quiver. I watch Mrs. Edelstein coach the other kids through swimming widths across the deep end. She’s wearing a whistle around her neck and a gold bracelet on the same arm as her tattoo.
I remember the first time I saw a woman with a five-digit number tattooed on her arm like Mrs. Edelstein. It was Mrs. Schwartz from the bakery. We were in the locker room here at the Y, after a family swim night last fall. That was the night Mom caught on that I couldn’t really swim and signed me up for lessons.
I’d never seen Mrs. Schwartz’s bare arms before, and I asked her why she had a price tag on her arm. Mom threw a towel over my head.
“Oh, Mrs. Schwartz, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I apologize for her. She doesn’t … I’m so sorry.”
“No harm,” said Mrs. Schwartz.
I pulled the towel down, and Mom put it right back.
“I’m just so, so sorry.”
I was having trouble breathing. I pulled the wet towel off again. I didn’t understand. Why did she have numbers on her arm? Why was Mom apologizing? Why wasn’t I ever allowed to ask any questions? Mom wedged herself between Mrs. Schwartz and me, hiding me like I was embarrassing her.
Mrs. Schwartz patted Mom on the arm. “Enough, already. No worry.”
Then she bent down to where I was peeping out from behind Mom’s elbow and looked me in the eye. “One day, my darlink.” She touched my face. “One day.”
Lucky I never said anything like that to Mrs. Edelstein. She doesn’t have time for questions or to look kids in the eyes. She’s the type who steps on your fingers if you won’t let go of the side of the pool.
After I said that price tag thing to Mrs. Schwartz in the locker room, Mom made Daddy explain to me about the Nazi concentration camps. I sat on a footstool in the living room, and Dad sat on the very edge of his chair and told me how his tank knocked down the wall of one camp and they found all these Jewish people in there. They were like skeletons just wandering around. He said the GIs knew the Nazis had put people into prison camps. “But we weren’t prepared for that,” he said, almost whispering. He wasn’t looking at me, he was looking at a place far away.
“Were you scared?” I asked. He shook his head.
“You fed the people, right?”
Dad didn’t answer me right away. He bit his lip. For a few seconds, he closed his eyes. Just when I thought he might be done talking, he went on. I could tell he was pulling the words from deep inside. He told me that the soldiers starting passing out their K rations, but it made the starving people sick. Some of the people even died because they’d been hungry for so long, their stomachs couldn’t handle food.
“They died?” I asked. This was the worst thing I’d ever heard. It made my heart hurt and my eyes burn. “You tried to help them, and they died?”
“We didn’t know.” Dad lowered his eyes.
Then he told me how the nurses who traveled by bus arrived and told the GIs to switch and start the people in the camp out on chewing gum and soup that was hardly more than hot water.
I wanted to know what kind of bus? And why did the Nazis lock up all the Jewish people? Where did the people sleep in the concentration camp? How did they find their way home again? But Daddy just looked at me and shook his head. “Later, kid, when you’re older. That’s it.” He slapped both knees, stood up, and went outside to wash the car.
With grown-ups like Dad and Mrs. Schwartz telling me that I would find out what happened in the war later, when I’m older, it made me wonder if I wanted later to come. But then later came—this year, sixth grade, when Mrs. Kirk showed us a newsreel about the concentration camps. And after seeing the pictures of bunks and ovens and barbed wire, I can’t forget them. They’re printed in black and white in my mind. And when those pictures flash though my memory, I smell chlorine. Just like the locker room at the YMCA.
Finally, Mrs. Edelstein turns to the three of us. Ben, Tony, and I practice reach and pull in the air while sitting on the side of the deep end. We practice like crazy, tipping our heads from side to side. Mrs. Edelstein goes over to the wall and grabs her long bamboo pole.
“Okay, you tree. Girl first,” she yells. I slip in the water and cling to the side of the pool like a baby hugs its mother’s leg. This is my second round of beginner swimming lessons. I know the routine. What I haven’t figured out is how to swim across the pool. When I see Mrs. Edelstein pick up her bamboo pole and start to walk toward my fingers, I take a deep breath and let go.
I forget reach and pull because I am too busy with splash and gasp—trying not to drown.
I do. I kick like there are pythons at the bottom of the pool. I kick and splash as fast as I can, until I start to choke and my legs won’t work anymore. I can’t breathe. Just when I know I’m about to die, I see the bamboo pole and grab hold.
I hug my freezing arms, sit on the side of the pool, and shiver through Ben and Tony’s splashing. Both of them finally make it across the pool without grabbing for the bamboo pole. As soon as I hear the whistle, I dash to the locker room, Mrs. Edelstein yelling after me, “No run, no run.”
Mrs. Edelstein comes into the locker room after class to talk to Mom. Mom’s sitting on a bench with her winter coat in her lap. I’m struggling to pull clothes over my ice-cold legs with shivery hands.
“This girl?” She points at me. “Too tin. She sink.” She picks up my arm and holds it out for Mom to check, then drops it. “Cannot teach.” She throws her other hand up and waves it back and forth like she’s trying to erase me from where I am standing.
Mom forces a fake smile. “Marjorie is quite healthy, thank you.”
“She’s not have enough meat on her bones to float. You feed her good and take classes in summer.” Mrs. Edelstein nods. “At city pool. You take her dare.” She turns, and exits, leaving me still standing with one leg in my corduroy pants and my arm hanging where she dropped it. Mom’s mouth gapes open. The fluorescent bulb frizzles overhead.
“Sorry,” I say to Mom after Mrs. Edelstein’s gone, the swinging locker room door swishing behind her.
“Just get dressed, honey,” Mom says. “It’s all right.”
But it’s not. I’ve just been kicked out of the library and swimming lessons in the same week.