PIERCE WALKED to the door of my room without entering. “All settled, Mr. Bergen. We’re taking the girl into Memphis.” Then he gave me a nod. “Better pack a few things.”
“How long will she be gone?”
“Don’t know, sir. She’d better take a few changes.”
I got the smallest of the three suitcases out of the closet and began putting in some clothes like a robot who feels nothing. I wasn’t even conscious anymore of wanting anything except maybe to be left alone, and I wasn’t even strong on that. Living was too big a deal and dying too much trouble.
When I snapped the case closed the agent asked, “Ready to go?”
“Yes.”
My father was shouting into the phone, “... Well, get Mr. Kishner out of conference. This is an emergency. Let the Hardwood Dealers of America wait! .... No, it’s not about my business. I guess I oughta know what kind of a lawyer I need. ... Less than an hour? Have Mr. Kishner call me back collect at number two five five, Jenkinsville, Arkansas. Got that? Number two five five.”
“We’re ready, Mr. Bergen,” said Pierce.
“I can’t leave. I want to be here when the lawyer calls.”
“No problem. It’s only a couple of blocks to our car. McFee, get the suitcase, will you?”
As I walked past my father I said, “Good-bye,” but maybe he didn’t hear. At any rate, he didn’t answer.
The sidewalk was too narrow for three, so Pierce and McFee walked a few steps behind me. Across the street Freddy Dowd looked up from his worm diggings. “Where you going? Someplace?”
“Memphis.”
“Boy, oh, boy,” he said, letting out his widest grin, “I sure wish I was you!”
I laughed inside. “There are better wishes to wish for, Freddy.”
As we came close to my father’s store I saw people milling in front. Too many people for a weekday unless today is dollar day. Suddenly, the FBI men were walking at my side. “Stay close to me,” whispered Pierce. There were ten, more than that, at least fifteen people and all with fixed faces. They know about me. How could they have found out so soon? Then I spotted Jenkinsville’s leading gossip merchant, Mary Wren, holding onto the arm of Reverend Benn’s wife.
The agents maneuvered me away from the sidewalk and into the center of Main Street. The crowd followed. A glob of liquid hit me in the back of the neck and when I saw what my hand had wiped away I gagged.
Suddenly a woman’s voice called, “Nazi! Nazi!” Other voices joined in. A man’s voice, one that I had heard before, shouted, “Jew Nazi—Jew Nazi—Jew Nazi!”
When we reached the car, the mob blocked the doors. “You people are obstructing justice,” said Pierce. “Please move back.”
“Jew Nazi-lover!” screamed the minister’s wife.
Tires screeched to a stop. A car door opened and Sheriff Cauldwell shouted, “Get away from that car. What’s the matter with you folks, anyway?”
People slowly moved away from the car, crowding into a huddle on the sidewalk. Sheriff Cauldwell opened the back door of the car for me, and then, whipping out a small black Bible from his shirt pocket, he pressed it into my hand. “Times when I was down this helped lift me up. God bless you.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling the tears stinging at my eyes.
McFee drove in second gear all the way down Main Street before taking a right turn onto Highway 64. As we passed McDonald’s dairy, I looked down the long dirt road leading to the prison camp. But I knew I wasn’t going to find him there or any other place on God’s earth.
I was already awake when the phone first rang downstairs at a quarter to eight. By nine there had already been three or four incoming calls. I wondered if they concerned me.
At nine thirty I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer. I would go downstairs and face my grandparents. Last night it was pretty late when the agents brought me here, and Grandmother Fried said that I looked very tired and she took me straight to bed. This morning, though, it might be different. She might get around now to the questions she hadn’t asked.
I saw her at the kitchen table, stirring a cup of coffee with one hand and holding the phone with the other. “You sure about Harry selling the store? Things blow over. People forget. ... Pearl, I’ll talk to Poppa. ... Didn’t I say I would? If Harry had been maybe a little nice to us all these years then I know Poppa would say, sure. Now, I don’t know....” My grandmother looked up as I entered the kitchen. “Pearl, I have to go now. Patty just woke up.... Yes, Pearl, I’ll talk. I’ll talk! Tonight, after supper. Good-bye.”
“My father has to sell the store?”
“Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. Who knows? My daughter always makes a gontzeh tsimmes out of everything.”
“And my father wants to go to work for Grandfather?”
“Your mother wants it; only Gott in Himmel knows what your daddy wants.”
Grandmother brought me a perfectly oval omelet. “I’m sorry to cause you all this trouble,” I said.
“Trouble? An omelet is trouble?”
“Well, that and having to stay up to let me in last night.”
“It’s nice having you—” she said, patting my cheek—“even if it’s because of this mish-mosh.”
“Mish-mosh?”
“What else? Does a person have to ask for credentials before they can give food to a hungry man? Are you responsible because you gave nourishment to a bad man? The whole business is a mishegoss.”
“I’m glad you’re not angry with me.”
“What is there to be angry about? I have messages for you. I’m going to drive you to Lawyer Kishner’s office at quarter till eleven, and he’s going to take you himself to the FBI. Also a friend called.” She began searching through a pad of paper. “I wrote it down myself. Here! It’s a Miss Charlene Madlee. She’s coming by tonight to see you.”
Mostly, I told the FBI everything they wanted to know, and I told it about a dozen times to four different agents. One question they seemed keen on asking was if anybody else knew. Sometimes they’d just ask, “Who else knew?” or “Why are you taking all the blame?” Things like that. But always I gave the same answer—“Nobody else knew. It was only me.”
It was after four in the afternoon when the boss agent, Mr. Wilhelm, told one of the younger agents to drive me back to my grandmother’s. “I don’t believe we’ll be needing you anymore, Patty, but you’d better stay here in Memphis for a while. Things are unsettled in Jenkinsville.”
“Unsettled?”
“Well, I understand your parents are being harassed.”
“How?”
“Telephone calls, a store window broken, things like that.”
“Why would they bother them? Can’t you tell people that they had nothing to do with it? They didn’t even know.”
Mr. Wilhelm scratched his forehead like he was trying to come up with an answer for me. “When people’s emotions are involved they don’t want to listen.”
At eight o’clock my grandmother opened the door for Charlene as I stood at the top of the stairs, waiting for my trembling to subside. Would she hate me?
“It was kind of you to let me come tonight, Mrs. Fried.” If there was any hate in Charlene’s voice I couldn’t catch it.
“Our pleasure, Miss—”
“Madlee. Charlene Madlee.”
“Yes, well, Miss Madlee, Patty needs all her friends now. You saw the evening paper?”
“Oh, yes, I read them as well as write for them.”
“You write? For newspapers? You told me you were a friend of Patty’s. Friends we need; reporters we don’t.”
“Believe me, Mrs. Fried, I am a friend. When we met during the summer, Patty told me that her grandparents lived in Hein Park. Also I came here tonight to bring you encouraging news.”
As I walked down the stairs, Charlene gave me a real smile. Still my friend. My grandfather pulled out a dining room chair for Charlene. “My wife makes the best strudel in the world. Wait’ll you taste!” He smacked his lips.
Charlene ate a forkful. “You know, Mrs. Fried, I think your husband is right. You do make the world’s best strudel.”
“It’s wonderful,” I said. “I remember reading somewhere that kissing doesn’t last, but cookery does.”
My grandfather jumped up from the host’s chair to give Grandmother a noisy kiss on her cheek. “Does that answer your question, young lady?”
“Sam!”
We all laughed, then abruptly turned to Charlene as if hoping she might give us something of substance to laugh about.
“I talked today to Charles Hammett,” said Charlene.
“He’s the editor of the Commercial Appeal?” asked Grandfather.
“He’s our publisher. Well, Mr. Hammett had lunch with a high official from the Justice Department, which would be the agency responsible for initiating legal actions in such cases as Patty’s. The feeling is that the government would be very reluctant to prosecute a twelve-year-old under the Treason Act. Also he mentioned that our allies would consider us barbaric if we did such a thing.”
Grandfather clapped his hands. “Thank God! I knew this American government was 100 per cent O.K. After all, what did my granddaughter do that’s so terrible? She’s only twelve, so she didn’t act wisely, O.K. But she meant good, you have to admit that. And do you think for one minute that fellow, alevasholem, told Patty that he was an escaped prisoner? Also one other point, excuse me for bringing this up, Miss Madlee. I recognize that you aren’t of our faith, but do you think that if we were Protestants there would be all this hullabaloo?”
“I’m certain there wouldn’t, Mr. Fried. There’s no question that this gave some people an excuse to parade their anti-Semitism. But all the interest isn’t anti-Semitic. Some people may find love and brotherhood in the story. The Memphis bureau of United Press sent it over the international wires, which means that tonight people throughout the world will be reading about how a Jewish girl befriended a German boy.”
“I pray to God,” said Grandmother, “that when they read about Patty they’ll feel a little closer to their brothers no matter what faith or nationality.”
“I’m just glad it’s over,” said Grandfather.
Charlene looked confused. “I’m sorry if I implied that all charges against Patty will be dropped; I meant only the serious charges of treason. The man from the Justice Department felt that if there was a public outcry the state of Arkansas might wish to prosecute Patty on a lesser charge.”
“But I’m not guilty of a lesser charge! They can call it treason, but they can’t call it anything else.”
“At best, Patty, all charges will be dropped,” said Charlene. “But if the Arkansas politicians are pushed to move against you they could easily get you on, say, a delinquency charge. In that way the Federal Government is off the hook, and people will still feel that justice has been served.”
Grandmother clasped her hand to her heart. “You don’t think—it’s not possible that they would send my granddaughter to jail?”
“It’s only the slightest of possibilities,” said Charlene slowly, as though she were choosing her words with inordinate care. “But there does still exist the chance that Patty might be sent to reform school.”