No,” I whispered. “Oliver can’t have . . .”
I read the entry again, and my own issues seemed like tiny pieces of fluff. Why did I want to read the rest of this diary on my own?
I jumped out of bed and opened the door. My brother was in the hall, about to go into his room.
“Jaime!” I shouted.
He flinched. “Geez, Imani. You scared me.”
“Sorry. Can you read something really quick? From Grandma Anna’s diary?”
“Um. I guess?”
I shoved the open diary in his face. “Right here. Just this entry.” I stood there while he read. My fingers drummed against my thigh impatiently.
“Who’s Oliver?” Jaime asked when he was done.
“Her little brother,” I said. “What do you think happened to him?”
“It sounds like he died.”
“But maybe he didn’t, right?”
“It sounds like he did.”
I pulled the diary back from him. He didn’t know. He hadn’t been reading the whole thing. He didn’t even know who Oliver was. Why’d I even ask him?
I went into my room and got my phone. But this was too urgent, too important, to talk about by text. I sent Madeline a quick message—I’m coming over—then slipped my phone into my back pocket, stuffed my feet into my sneakers, and ran downstairs.
Outside, I held the diary tightly in one hand. Madeline would definitely say Jaime was wrong. I sprinted the two blocks to her house.
Madeline opened the door as I ran up the front steps. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
I opened the diary to the page I’d marked with the ribbon and rushed it into her hands. “Read this,” I said. “Now.”
Her eyebrows flew up. “Oh no.” She disappeared inside for a second and returned wearing her reading glasses and a pair of flip-flops over her socks.
I shifted from foot to foot while she read. My hands were shivering in my pockets. My quick breaths formed clouds of fog as they came out of my mouth, then evaporated before my eyes.
When she finished reading, Madeline sat down slowly on her front steps. “Oliver,” she said quietly. “He couldn’t have . . .”
“He couldn’t have, right?” I said desperately. “I needed you to read it, but I don’t think it means that he . . . I don’t believe it.”
“Anna’s upset,” Madeline reasoned halfheartedly. “She’s depressed. But not enough. She’d be much more upset if Kurt’s letter said Oliver—”
“Don’t say it!” I shouted.
Madeline frowned at me. “Oh, Imani.”
I was like Anna. I flat-out refused to believe it, and so it could not be true. There was no way—no freaking way—that Oliver had died.
Sunday, March 8, 1942
Dear Belle,
I still feel sick with shame at how selfish I am.
My nightmares have returned, each night worse than the last. My clothes are hanging loose on me because I have not been hungry one bit, not even for Chinese food. Mme. Veron invited me and Miriam to eat lunch with her in the teachers’ room, and she prepared a French meal that brought back memories of summers with Mama’s family. But I could not eat, and my baguette turned to stone.
I read Kurt’s letter every night. It can’t be helping with my sleep, but I cannot stop myself. Freddy’s parents get the “Jewish Daily Forward,” so Freddy brings me old papers and translates the Yiddish. I don’t know if he is being considerate or just being a boy, but he doesn’t try to comfort me at all. He just sits there in his helmet and armband and reads me the news from Europe.
Something truly awful is happening to you and everyone else—whoever is left of you, wherever you are. I am sure of it. Do we still have a twin connection, Belle? It is becoming more difficult to have faith. If you knew what a horrid sister I have been (happily spending our birthday apart . . . oh I disgust myself) you would probably snip that string in two and leave the pieces to sink to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean . . . until some German U-boat comes along and blows them to bits.
Saturday, March 28, 1942
Belle,
I haven’t been going to the factory lately, and I haven’t been playing Chinese checkers. But tonight, Max convinced me to play, and during the game, he told me that everything is changing. Many of the workers have left to join the service, and now the government has requested that the factory make army fatigues instead of fur coats.
I was in shock when he told me. My little white marble was suspended in my hand. I forgot where I was going to move it.
Max said, “It’s all right. No one is going to buy a luxury like a fur coat during wartime anyway.”
I suppose he’s right, and I’m glad the factory can play some part in helping defeat the Germans once and for all. But all of the progress we made with the pelts is not going to amount to anything now. I have let you down again.
Why would I think that solving that puzzle would help bring you here? There were so many obstacles I refused to see. If all of Papa’s and Grandfather’s savings could only afford to send one of us, how could my meager salary at the factory pay for nine? Even the millions I’m convinced are squirreled away in the uncles’ apartment (hidden in shoes . . . in old cereal boxes . . . in mounds under the mattress . . .) even if I had every dollar of that, how would I get it to Mama and Papa? Mail a parcel full of coins? Ask Western Union to wire money to your ghetto? So much for being the thoughtful twin. So much for being 13. How childish my plan was. I am not only selfish, I am also stupid.
I was a dunce to think that any of you might join me here at all. Mama and Papa picked me to send away, probably because I am stupid. They didn’t want me anymore. And now you are all together even farther away, in Poland. Except for Oliver.
I was stupid to write to you in this book. It did nothing to bring us closer. I do not have the heart to keep writing you notes you will never receive in a language you will never get to speak. The news about Oliver has changed everything. I am so hopeless against it all.
IT IS ALL SO UNFAIR. Why did those horrid uncles get to see their sister again, when it’s clear I will never see mine?