6

Uri and I walked outside the next morning to see how it was different. The tanks were gone. The Jackboots were strolling about just like us. They looked at the people and spoke to each other. I couldn’t stop staring at them.

A crowd was running. We turned a corner. There was a large truck with the back open. Soldiers were tossing loaves of bread. The people grabbed and scrambled. We munched our cheeses, watching. I was fascinated. I had not known bread could be given.

We walked on. We came to another crowd of people, gathered around something on the sidewalk. “Don’t,” said Uri, but I did. I squeezed my way to the front. There was a man in a long black coat on his hands and knees. He had a long gray beard. Beside him was a bucket of water. He was dipping his beard into the water and scrubbing the sidewalk with the beard. A pair of Jackboot soldiers stood above him, laughing. Some of the people were laughing too. The man in black was not laughing.

I came back to Uri. I tugged on his arm. “Come see. There’s a man cleaning the sidewalk with his beard!”

Uri smacked my head. “You are stupid.” He pulled me away.

Farther on we saw something else that made us stop. Two soldiers were standing in front of another bearded man in black. One of the soldiers had a pair of scissors. He was cutting off the man’s beard and the black hair that came curling down over his ears.

I ran up to the soldiers. “Bring him to our place,” I said. “We live in a barbershop. He can sit in our red chair. We have bottles of hair tonic.”

The soldiers stared at me. Uri grabbed me. He said words to them that I could not understand. The soldiers laughed. Uri yanked me away.

We heard the soldiers laughing behind us. I thought: Men in beards and long black coats do not laugh.

         

Later that day we sat on our beds eating chocolate babkas.

Uri said, “Stay away from Jackboots.”

“They smile,” I said.

“They hate you.”

I laughed. “They don’t hate me. They say, ‘Very good, little Gypsy.’ They salute me. I want to be a Jackboot.”

He smacked me in the face. My babka went flying. “You’re not a Jackboot. You’ll never be a Jackboot. You are what you are.”

I gathered up my babka. Still, I wanted to be right about something. “The people love the tanks,” I said. “They ran to see them. They watched.”

“They hate the tanks.”

“Someone threw a flower.”

He gave a snort. “Coward. If the Jackboots say, ‘Kiss the tank’s behind,’ some people will do it.”

I laughed, thinking of a tank’s behind.

         

As I lay in bed that night, Uri’s voice came through the darkness. “You need a name.”

“I have one,” I said.

“A real one.”

“Why?” I doubted him.

“You should have one, that’s all. I want to know what to call you.”

“Call me stupid.”

He laughed.

“You don’t remember what your parents called you?”

“I don’t remember parents.”

We were silent. I moved my fingertip over my yellow stone. I remembered a booming laugh and bright colors. The smell of horse and the taste of something sweet. Riding someone’s shoulder and hair glittering in firelight.

At last Uri’s voice came again. “I had a little brother.”

“Is he dead?” I said.

“Yes. I think so. He must be.”

“Did he have a name?”

“Jozef.”

“Was he little like me?”

“He was. And growing fast.”

“Do you remember your parents?”

“Yes. But less and less.”

I asked in the darkness, “Do you remember riding a shoulder?” but no answer came.

I closed my eyes and I thought over and over of Uri’s words: You are what you are.

Which is what? I wondered.

In my mind I saw the man in black scrubbing the sidewalk with his beard. And the other man and the laughing soldiers with the scissors—snip snip—and the hair falling to the sidewalk, black hair falling . . .

My eyes popped open, though in the blackness there was nothing to see. “They’re Jews!” I blurted.

Uri snorted. “Who says you’re stupid?”