Five minutes, girls,” the librarian said, jarring me out of the past and back to school with Madeline. We’d taken the diary to the library again, and lunchtime was, apparently, over in five minutes.
I shook my head, rubbed my eyes. I always picture Anna’s world in black-and-white—like episodes of I Love Lucy—so it was almost a shock to be once again surrounded by color. It also didn’t help that I’d stayed up past midnight last night. I was yawning like crazy.
“Mr. Garonzik?” Madeline said. “Do you have any books about Luxembourg?”
“Luxembourg . . .” Mr. Garonzik said. He clicked his tongue as he thought.
“Specifically Luxembourg during the Holocaust.”
That last word caught me off guard. Anna was finally starting to feel at home, and this last entry was so happy, I’d almost forgotten this was all happening during the Holocaust.
“Let me check.” Mr. Garonzik went to the computer. When he came back, he was carrying three books. One about western Europe, and two about the Holocaust. “I don’t have any books specifically about Luxembourg, but these are a good start,” he said. “They have Luxembourg listed in the index, with at least a few pages to read. Do you want to check them out, Madeline?”
“No,” Madeline said, “but Imani does.”
“For my bat mitzvah,” I told him.
He looked at me and started to laugh, then stopped when he realized I wasn’t kidding.
“I’m Jewish,” I said, almost daring him to contradict me. “And my great-grandmother’s family was from Luxembourg. They died in the Holocaust.”
“They did?” Madeline asked sadly.
“Yes,” I told Madeline with a sigh. “All of them. My mom told me last night.”
“Oh man,” she muttered.
His face pink, Mr. Garonzik said he was sorry and told me to meet him at the circulation desk. The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch.
I flipped to the next page in the diary to mark it with the green ribbon before putting it away. But it was such a short entry, I read it quickly.
Saturday, 20 September 1941
t. August 1950
Oh Belle . . .
I have the most terrifying feeling that something bad has happened to you, to our family. I was napping and awoke with a gasp. My forehead is so sweaty that my hair is wet. I don’t think I was dreaming, or if I was I don’t remember it. Were you having a nightmare, Belle, all the way across the ocean? I hope that’s all. That would be a comforting thought. After all, sharing our nightmares means the string connecting us might have frayed, but it has not snapped.
Why, then, am I not comforted? I am afraid.
I nudged Madeline with my elbow. “Read this,” I said, placing the diary in her hands before walking, zombielike, to the circulation desk.
I thanked Mr. Garonzik as he slid the stack of books to me. The two Holocaust ones had classic photos on the cover: swastikas, cattle cars, prisoners with shaved heads and sunken chests. Stuff I’d seen six million times before. Only now, it was like I was looking at them for the very first time.