Not wanting to risk a protein bar interrupting our lunchtime diary-reading again, Madeline and I ate quickly and went to the school library. I was feeling a little guilty about reading by myself last night. I wasn’t actually sure if I was going to tell her or not—maybe I’d just reread the part I read so she wouldn’t know. But before I could decide which page to open to, Madeline opened her backpack and took out a folder.
“I did some research for you,” she said.
I could see the librarian’s ears prick up at the sound of the word research.
“On Luxembourg?” I asked. If I was going to do my Holocaust project on Luxembourg, I was eventually going to have to read something besides this diary.
“Not that,” Madeline said. “Your other bat mitzvah project.”
I looked at her blankly. “My Torah portion? My haftorah? Oh! Are you going to write my speech for me?”
Madeline knocked on my skull. “Your gift, O wise one.” She opened the folder and took out a list of websites. She’d printed the whole thing out, knowing that a text with links would have done me and my dumbphone no good. “Adoption resources,” she explained. “Organizations that will help you find your birth family.” She slid it across the table to me. “But they all say that you need your parents’ permission if you’re under eighteen.”
“I know.” I mean, duh. If my parents’ permission weren’t required to find out more, I’d have, like, had brunch with my birth mom last week.
I skimmed Madeline’s list of information. It was nice of her to put all this together for me. Or was it just practice groundwork for her journalistic investigation? Either way, it would definitely be convenient to have—if I ever worked up the nerve to talk to my parents, that is. I definitely didn’t have the stomach to keep searching behind their backs. “Thanks,” I said.
“You’re just nervous about this, right?” Madeline asked. “It’s not like you’ve changed your mind.”
“Right,” I said.
Then, “Well.”
Finally: “I don’t know.”
“What’s making you so nervous?” Madeline asked, and I could tell she was picturing us in some NPR recording studio, wearing headphones and speaking into microphones.
“Have you met my mom?” I said. “This will crush her.”
“She can handle it, Imani,” she said in her trademark practical tone. “She’s a grown adult. And she adopted two children. She must know you’re going to bring this up someday.”
“I don’t know,” I said again. As crazy as it sounds, sometimes I wonder if my mom even remembers that I’m adopted. I once heard some moms with strollers in the park joking about how your hormones make you forget the pain of childbirth. Could my mom’s loving-mom hormones have made her forget that she didn’t physically give birth to me or Jaime? Even though we all look nothing alike?
“She’ll love you no matter what,” Madeline added, and her voice was so sincere, I rested my head on her shoulder.
“That’s exactly the problem,” I said with a sigh. I thought about Anna not wanting to appear ungrateful to her cousins. She knew her first family, and had a reasonable expectation to see them again. I don’t even know who or where mine are, yet I still think about them all the time. It only makes me feel even guiltier. So guilty that I was willing to make Madeline mad at me, just to change the subject. “I have a confession to make: I read the diary without you last night.”
“Imani!” She shrugged my head off her shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I said, smiling because my subject-changing worked. “It’s just so tempting. And I can’t promise I won’t do it again.”
Madeline frowned, but I could tell she knew she couldn’t really protest. This was my great-grandmother’s diary. She was just along for the ride.
“I told myself I’d just read one page, to see what the next entry would be about,” I explained, “and then I got sucked in.” I filled her in on Anna’s new home, Hannah’s kindness, Max’s uncertainty, the grumpy uncles and the delicious Chinese food. “Do you want to read more now?” I asked. “Together?”
“Yes,” she said graciously. Her hand hovered over the printout of adoption resources. “Do you want this stuff?”
“Yes, definitely, thank you.” I folded the website list in quarters and stuck it in my bag.
“Do you want me to keep bugging you to talk to your parents?”
I looked at her hard, but my mind was picturing my dad handing me a Chipwich from the ice cream man, totally unaware that minutes before, I’d been trying to find information about my other dad. If Madeline hadn’t been constantly on my case about this, maybe I wouldn’t have done something so traitorous.
“No,” I answered her. “I’m officially taking you off the case. I’m going to talk to my parents—honest—but I need to do it in my own time.”
Her shoulders fell, but then her eyes flashed with hope. “You told me to not let you off the hook. Is this a test? Am I supposed to refuse to stop bugging you about it?”
“No,” I said with a laugh. “You can really stop. I won’t chicken out, I promise.”
“Maybe you’ll really do it just to prove that I can stop bugging you about it,” Madeline said slyly.
Maybe she was right. Maybe I was reverse-psychology-ing myself into overcoming my fear. Or maybe, now that I knew that, I’d reverse-reverse-psychology myself into not doing it. Now I was confused. “Let’s just read the diary.”
Madeline rubbed her hands together, the hint of that sneaky smile still there. “Yes,” she said, “let’s read.”
Wednesday, 10 September 1941
t. August 1950
Dear Belle,
I may have made my first American friend. It happened yesterday, when I was feeling most horrid and needed a pleasant distraction. You would know why I was so distraught. (You are a better sister than I.) Yesterday was Oliver’s birthday. He turned five. It hadn’t even occurred to me to send him a card or a gift, even though I have been very aware of the date because of writing in this journal and could have mailed a gift last week. Suddenly it was the 9th of September, and he was five, and by the time I realized, it was too late to do anything but lie in bed with Bier pressed to my nose, crying. My selfishness still turns my stomach.
I was terrifically upset this morning when I sat down for breakfast, and Hannah could tell. She suggested I go for a walk, and gave me money to buy chicken thighs from the butcher. It was sunny and warm. The streets were quiet except for the old women who always sit in folding chairs outside my building, gossiping about everyone who enters or exits. Another group of old ladies were playing cards at a folding table, and some women were pushing babies in prams. I started walking to the butcher, but when I was on the far side of 63rd Street, I heard a boy shout, “Strike three!” I was curious, but I just kept walking, and a moment later that same voice said, “Watch out!” and I looked up to see a small ball coming right at me. I put up my hands to block my face, and the ball fell right into them, a perfect catch.
I knew this boy was impressed because he said, “Yowza! Nice catch!” He was standing in a narrow alleyway, and wet clothes were hanging above him, pinned to a line stretching between the two houses on either side. He asked my name and I said it very quietly.
He shouted, “WHAT?” He was wearing a big leather glove on one hand (not for warmth . . . I learned it is a special glove for a sport called baseball) and waved with it to tell me to step into the alley. I took a small step closer and repeated my name a bit louder. He said his name was Freddy and held out his glove for me to toss the ball to him. I threw it very nicely, and he caught it in the baseball glove. Then he said, “Are you ill?” and at first I was insulted, because I thought he meant my throw was very weak, but that wasn’t it . . . he wanted to know why I wasn’t at school. “It is because you’re ill? Sick?” He held his stomach and stuck out his tongue, as if to demonstrate.
I said, “No. Are you ill?”
This was funny. He said, “You bet. I’m allergic to spelling tests.” Then he asked if I saw any truancy officers on the street. I didn’t know what he meant, so I just said no. And he said, “Good. I’ve been dying for a hot dog.” He started walking down the street. I wasn’t sure if I should follow, but then he waved his glove and said, “Come on, Anna,” using my name and everything.
We went down the street and around the corner to a Jewish “deli.” Freddy gave the man one coin (I am not good at telling American coins from each other) and told the man to put lots of ketchup on his hot dog. He said, “Load it up.” Then he said to me, “You want a dog?” A dog is a frankfurter, I realized. I said okay, even though I’d only just had breakfast, and the man “load it up” the ketchup on mine too.
Belle, I wish you could see what Freddy did with his dog. First, he licked off all that ketchup. Some of it stuck to his teeth and made them red. Then he ate the bread. He went bite by bite down the roll . . . he kept pushing the frankfurter out of the way until it was hanging from just a centimeter of bread, which he pinched between his fingers. Once the bread was all gone, he put the frankfurter itself in the pocket of his trousers! It wasn’t wrapped in paper. It was just in there. He said, “Keeps it warm for later” . . . He tapped his head too, like he has such a big brain. Then he asked, “Are you going to eat yours?”
You would have said, “Not like that!” but I only said it in my mind. I ate my frankfurter all together (the Luxembourgish way, I suppose?) . . . end to end, with some bread, meat, and too much ketchup in every bite. It wasn’t Chinese food, but it was good.
We talked as we walked back to 63rd St. Freddy had lots of questions, especially because he’s never heard of Luxembourg. He was concerned when I told him where it is, until I assured him that we hate the Germans.
I must say that it was enjoyable spending time with Freddy, despite his horrid manners and the fact that he’s only 11. (He swore it’s true, but I wish you could see a photograph, because he doesn’t look nearly 11. He’s very short . . . he only comes up to our shoulder.)
We tossed his baseball back and forth and against the wall in the alley. He tried to do some tricks with his yo-yo, but mine were more impressive. (I did the Eiffel Tower one you taught me. He was most impressed but of course he wouldn’t admit it . . . he kept saying, “I know that one, I’m just out of practice.”) He did so much talking that I didn’t have to speak very much. But I understood everything he said, and when I did talk, he understood my English. I am proud of how far my English has come. I hope you are practicing at home.
Freddy thought it was neat that I’ve only been in Bensonhurst a couple of weeks. “I’ve lived here 11 years,” he said proudly. “I’ll show you around.” Tomorrow we are supposed to meet again to play marbles and buy “shoe leather.” (This shoe leather is very curious. It’s a big roll of sticky candy that a man sells from a cart, cutting off pieces with a sharp knife.) And one day he wants to ride to the end of the subway line, to a place called Coney Island. He said we have to do that in the afternoon, once school is out, because there are always truancy officers waiting at Coney Island.
It was such an enjoyable morning that I almost forgot to stop at the kosher butcher for Hannah. I remembered just before I climbed the stairs to the apartment. Luckily, they still had chicken thighs. When Hannah asked if the walk improved my spirits, I replied honestly that it did. I’m smiling right now. That frankfurter is probably still collecting dust in Freddy’s pocket!
With love from Bensonhurst,
Anna
Friday, 12 September 1941
t. August 1950
Dear Belle,
Freddy’s older brother found out about him “playing hooky” from school, so he hasn’t been around in the mornings. It seems to me that Freddy really looks up to his older brother. His name is Milton, and he’s 17. Milton has a very pretty girlfriend named Enid, and the two of them are always walking around arm in arm. Freddy says they are a “gruesome twosome.” (My English vocabulary is growing every day!) Anyway, Milton has been making sure Freddy goes to school in the mornings, so I only saw him in the afternoon. We played something called “stoop ball” on the steps outside one of the houses nearby, and some other kids joined in. I wasn’t very good at it, but I played anyway. Hannah is “thrilled” that I have been spending time with kids my age. She sends me out of the apartment to play every moment she can. It’s too bad Freddy won’t be there when I start school. He is still in the elementary school, but I will go to “junior high.”
Here’s something else. Last night, after dinner with the uncles, Max took out a game called Chinese checkers. (Chinese food . . . Chinese checkers . . . I thought I was moving to America and not China!) This is Max’s favorite game. He taught me to play, very patiently, and it’s simple, really.
The board is shaped like a Jewish star, and it’s covered in holes for marbles.
You start with your colored marbles in one point of the star, and you try to be first to move them all the way across the star to the point opposite yours, which Max called your “home.”
A marble can move just one space on a turn, unless there’s another marble in its way, in which case it can jump over.
The trick (I discovered this quickly) is to build a string across the star, so long that your marbles can jump all the way home, one after another.
I lost the first game, but I won the second.
When Hannah saw, she winked at me and gave Max a kiss on the top of his head. She said, “Anna is a worthy opponent. Does this mean I am relieved of my Chinese checkers duty?”
Max said, “It appears so,” and Hannah practically danced her way out of the room. Max explained that she is not one for board games. He said, “She’s a sport to play with me once in a while, but I could play Chinese checkers every night.”
So I asked, “Do you want to play tomorrow?”
Max looked surprised and almost shocked when I said that. No wonder, it was probably the most words I’ve ever spoken in his presence. But I’m grateful he didn’t say something stupid, like “It talks!” like Kurt’s friend used to say when I opened my mouth around him and Kurt. (Pierre, of course . . . it’s just as well his family moved to Vichy.) Max . . . who is kind and polite, unlike Pierre . . . just considered my question and said, “Yes.”
So tonight, we played Chinese checkers again . . . two games. Without Hannah there, we sat in silence, putting all our attention on the marbles and holes and building a long string to home. It wasn’t uncomfortable, though. It was pleasant. I hope we play again tomorrow.
Between Freddy and Cousin Max, it seems I have two new friends here in America. Today I even got a letter from Frida in Chicago, so that makes three. Four counting Hannah! They are no replacement for you and the rest of the family, of course, but they are something. Since this is my home now, I am happy to have something.
Love,
Anna