1928
“Here we are, darling. Look—isn’t it exciting? This is where all the actors are when they’re not on the stage!”
Isabeau’s Papa and her big brother Willy have just taken her to what they explained is the backstage of the Berlin State Opera, and Isabeau (named, her mother told her, after a beautiful medieval Bavarian queen) doesn’t like it at all. She is just four years and six months and five days old, and although she is trying to be brave, there are too many strange adults around, some wearing bright costumes, some wearing ordinary clothing, some with their faces stiff and strange under heavy makeup. “Why is that man wearing lipstick?” Willy asks, and Papa says, “So he can be seen more clearly on the stage. He’ll take it off before he goes out of the theatre. Don’t point, Wilhelm, it’s rude.”
Isabeau doesn’t like it here. It’s loud and frightening. She wants to go home, which has deep carpets, and the servants speak in quiet tones, and she can play with her bunny and her music box and listen to Grandmama’s pet bird making comfortable noises in its sleep.
“This way, Isabeau,” and her father steers her gently through the confusing mass of grownups. Her brother, who kicked her under the seat when she started to cry during the third act of Hansel and Gretel, now stares around wide-eyed. Perhaps, she thinks, he won’t take the head off her new doll like he threatened, because he is now obviously very happy with this strange adventure.
“Look,” Willy says, pointing excitedly. “That must be the gingerbread house!” Four men carry a large, flat thing that looks like the front of a house. At least, it doesn’t look flat, but the men are carrying it like it’s flat. It makes Isabeau’s head ache.
Her father places her hand in her brother’s. “Wilhelm,” he says, and his voice has that slightly louder ring that means he’s about to give an order, “you hold your sister’s hand, and don’t move. I want to find you both here when I get back. Are you listening to me, Wilhelm?”
“Yes, Papa,” says Willy in that eager way that says that he’s really interested in what’s happening here, and he’ll even mind his baby sister if it means that he can stay a little longer. Isabeau isn’t happy about being left alone in this forest of adult legs with her brother, who is a big boy but sometimes can forget about her when something exciting happens.
“Willy,” she asks, “where did Papa go?”
Willy is so consumed by the activity around him that he temporarily forgets how much he hates to be questioned by his little sister. “He’ll be right back,” he says. But when she sniffles a bit, he reasserts himself. “Issa, don’t cry. Papa will take us home, and I want to see everything. Issa, if you cry, I’ll hit you.” But Isabeau can’t help it, she’s tired and frightened. In desperation, Willy looks around.
“Look Issa!” he cries, and bending quickly, picks something shiny off the floor and puts it in her hand. “I found a magic jewel. It probably fell off the dress of the witch. It will protect you, even when Papa isn’t here. Look, Issa, isn’t it pretty?”
Isabeau (who hates being called Issa) opens her hand and looks at a blue-green gem, glittering and reflecting the lights in the ceiling. There is a small loop on the back where it was sewn to the witch’s dress. “It really is magic, isn’t it?” she breathes.
“Yes. So you don’t have to cry now. Here.” Willy, impressed with his own ingenuity, reaches into his pocket and brings out a grimy piece of string. He puts the string through the loop and ties it around Isabeau’s neck. “Now you won’t lose it.”
“What kind of magic does it do?” Isabeau asks excitedly, but Willy is back to filling his eyes with the activity around him. “Look,” he whispers. “Look at that man with the toolbox swearing at all the actors. I want to be like that when I grow up.”
Isabeau is nothing if not stubborn. “Willy, what will it do?” She knows that if she pitches her voice just high enough, her brother will be forced to pay attention. He’ll either answer her question or hit her—and in a room full of grown-ups, he’s less likely to resort to the latter. “Willy, what will the magic jewel do?”
“It will tell you stories,” says Willy desperately. “But only if you keep quiet!”
Isabeau lifts the jewel on its string and puts it to her ear, but she doesn’t hear anything, not even as much as the sea shell that her Mama gave her last summer. “Willy!” but her brother is back to staring at the actors. She clutches at his hand.
He’ll long to become a stage actor but will instead act various parts as a prisoner and then as an undercover OSS operative, whispers the jewel. He’ll suffer a stroke at age 75, leaving behind a dying son and a suicidal wife with a faded number etched on the inside of her forearm.
“Willy,” Isabeau whispers. “The magic jewel is telling me stories. What’s a stroke?”
“Oh, isn’t she adorable!” A lady in a beautiful blue costume with sparkles around her eyes and filmy stuff in her hair crouches in front of Isabeau so that they are nearly eye to eye. “Hello. What is your name?”
Isabeau is too struck by the beautiful lady to say anything, but Willy pokes her in the side, and she says, “Isabeau.”
“A little young for you, isn’t she, Lena?” says a thin man passing by, and the lady says, “Shut up, idiot,” in a voice totally unlike her other. She turns back to the children.
“Isabeau is such a lovely name! Just right for such a lovely little girl.” She leans forward. “Will you give me a kiss, Isabeau?”
Isabeau nods, puts the jewel to one ear, and leans forward to press her lips against the lady’s cheek. She tastes of perfume and a strange chalky substance, and there is a small mole just under her ear. The jewel whispers. She will become the mistress of a reasonably successful SS officer and travel with him to Paris, where she will live well until they escape to Berlin under less-than-ideal circumstances. She will be shot trying to protect an emerald earring from two Russian soldiers.
“Isabeau!” It’s her Papa’s voice, and the lady smiles at her once again and goes away. Isabeau eagerly looks around. Her Papa kneels down next to her. “Remember the witch in the opera? The one that frightened you so much?”
Isabeau nods. “She was mean. She tried to hurt the children.”
“And you remember I told you that she was only acting? That it was just a story? That she was just pretending to hurt the children?”
He reaches over and strokes her hair. The voice whispers. He will die, naked and terrified, clutching the hand of his beloved wife Sophia, flung into a hole in the ground by the force of the bullets. His last thought will be gratitude that his children have escaped.
Isabeau starts to cry. She throws herself at her father, clutching desperately at his neck.
Her father sighs. “God in heaven. Children,” he mutters, gathers her up and stands, holding her in his large, strong arms. “Darling, listen to me. You trust your Papa, don’t you? Well, I’m going to prove to you that the witch you saw isn’t a real witch, but just somebody play pretending to be a witch. But you have to be a nice, quiet little girl, and not get upset, or scared. Remember, nothing bad can happen as long as you’re with me. All right?”
“Yes, Papa.” How about you? Isabeau wants to ask, still gulping back her tears, but her father is calling for her brother, and telling him to get over here, now, Wilhelm! Her father is so big and firm and real, so in charge of everything around him, that Isabeau decides magic can be wrong sometimes. Perhaps, she thinks, if she tries to take care of her father like he takes care of her, those bad things will go away.
They pass through the crowd of strange costumed women and men to a small hallway, through a door and into a room with a lot of tables and mirrors and lights. Somebody is sitting at one of the tables, pulling the nose off his face, and Isabeau would run away but she is still being held by her Papa.
“Isabeau,” her Papa says, “This is Herr Weisskopf. He is a famous actor and singer. You remember the witch that scared you so much? He was pretending to be the witch. Now, say hello politely.”
He puts her down, and Isabeau makes her best curtsy. She knows she does it well; Grandmama has told her so. “Good evening, Herr Weisskopf,” she says.
Herr Weisskopf spins in his chair and smiles at Isabeau. His face is a different color than his nose; he has funny drawn-on eyebrows and bright red lips, and a big black spot drawn on one cheek. He is wearing a bright green robe, and his hair is flat against his skull. Isabeau knows about that; when her Papa wears his Shabbat hat and then takes it off, his hair looks funny in the same way, pressed against his head by the weight.
“Hello, Isabeau,” says Herr Weisskopf. “I’m very pleased to meet you. I hope I didn’t scare you too much.” He has a pleasant voice, low and musical, and his eyes look kind. Isabeau doesn’t know why her Papa thinks this man was pretending to be the witch; he doesn’t look anything like the witch, who was gigantic and mean and had a high, evil scream.
Herr Weisskopf extends his hand to her, saying, “Would you like to shake hands and be friends?” Isabeau takes two of his long fingers in her fist and surreptitiously presses the jewel to her ear with her other hand. In a sleeping compartment on a train heading south from Paris, whispers the voice, he will calmly lie to the guards while, in the false compartment below, a 17-year-old girl with a magic jewel around her neck listens as the jewel tells her to stay silent. She will eventually make it to the United States. He’ll die in a work camp, deliriously croaking a song to an illusionary audience, “Nibble, nibble, little mouse! Who’s nibbling on my little house?”
“Nibbling on my little house!” Isabeau mimics, desperate to dispel the scary story, and the two men laugh. “That’s right,” says Herr Weisskopf. “Very good, young lady. We’ll make an opera singer of you yet.”
“So you see,” says her Papa, “it’s all just a story.”
“Just a story,” repeats Isabeau. She puts her arms around her Papa’s legs and doesn’t want to ever let go.
On her granddaughter Rachel’s fifth birthday, Isabeau will take her to a performance of Hansel and Gretel at the New York City Opera. When the witch opens the oven door and little Rachel clutches at her arm, Isabeau will reach into her pocket, and put a cheap pasteboard jewel into the child’s trembling hand. “It’s a magic jewel,” she’ll whisper. “It will tell you stories and protect you. I promise.”
