While We’re Far Apart

by Lynn Austin

  “I need those. I always line the bottom of the birdcage with newspapers.”

  Esther looked at the size of pile compared to the size of the birdcage and wanted to laugh out loud. Grandma kept enough papers to bury the poor bird beneath a pile six feet deep. But Esther didn’t laugh. She felt sorry for Grandma. And even if she hadn’t needed a piano to practice on, she still wanted to help her. She put her arm around her grandmother’s sweaty shoulders.

  “You get a newspaper every week, right? How about if I count out enough pages to change the birdcage for a week? Then the rest of these could all go for the war effort. They need newspapers very badly, you know.”

  “They do?”

  “Yes. They have special drives for all sorts of things that they need – scrap metal, cans, rubber . . . If you donated some of your things, it might help us win the war.”

  “I wouldn’t know how to go about it.”

  “It’s easy. They have a place to drop things off over at the bus station where Penny works. She could help us bring stuff there.”

  Grandma kneaded her forehead as if it hurt to think. “Well . . . I suppose if they need it for the war . . .”

  Esther bent to give her a hug. She might be different than other grandmothers, but Esther loved her, junk and all. “Thanks, Grandma. I can help you get started right now, since I have nothing else to do.”

  Peter came inside a few minutes later and helped Esther bind the papers and magazines with twine so they could carry them to the collection center. When they found a box of old school notebooks and homework assignments and report cards that had belonged to her father and uncles, Esther coaxed Grandma to tell stories about Daddy when he was a little boy. It brought tears to Grandma’s eyes to talk about Uncle Joe, but Esther knew that it felt good to remember him, too. She had long been afraid that Mama would be forgotten entirely if no one ever talked about her.

  Later, they found two boxes filled with random pieces of cardboard. It looked years and years old. “Do you still need this, Grandma?” She was careful to ask gently, not in a challenging way.

  “I-I might . . . I’ll have to think about it.” The process would be slow. Esther would have to be patient. She couldn’t expect Grandma to change overnight.

  By bedtime they had cleared away a very small space. It might only be big enough for the piano stool, but it was a start. Eventually there would be room for a piano. Grandma turned off the radio and covered up the cage so the bird would stop chirping. She said goodnight and went to her room, taking the fan with her. Esther and Peter lay down on their makeshift beds. The house was quiet.

  Esther was almost asleep when she thought she heard a scraping noise by the front door. She sat up. “Peter? Did you hear that? Listen . . .” She heard it again, something scratching against the front door. Then she heard a sound that she definitely recognized – a dog barking.

  Peter heard it, too, and he scrambled up from his bed on the floor and ran to yank open the front door. Woofer raced inside, her tail wagging so hard she could barely stand up. Esther couldn’t believe her eyes.

  “Where have you been, you naughty dog? Grandma! Grandma, come quick!” she shouted. “Woofer’s home! She came home!”

  Grandma limped into the room in her nightdress, hair askew, groggy and flustered without her eyeglasses. “What’s wrong?” Then she saw the dog and smiled – a real smile. The first one Esther had seen since Uncle Joe died. “Oh my. I don’t believe it.”

  Peter was delirious with joy. Esther watched as he rolled on the floor, letting Woofer cover his face with sticky kisses. The dog’s return seemed like a tiny sign of hope to Esther, like the Hanukkah candles or the Christmas tree shining in the window. Woofer was home, safe and sound. And maybe Daddy and Uncle Steve and Penny’s friend Roy and Mr. Mendel’s family would soon be home, too.

  CHAPTER 40

  Budapest, Hungary

  Dear Mother and Father Mendel,

  We followed the Swedish diplomat’s car from the freight yard to a “safe house” in Budapest. There are more than thirty of these houses, all flying a blue and yellow Swedish flag in front. They have been declared a safe zone from the Nazis, protected by International Law. Thousands of Jews already lived in this protected district, but when I arrived with the other refugees from the evacuation trains, they quickly made space for more of us, sharing their food and giving milk to Fredeleh and baby –Yankel. He cries and cries for his mother – and when I am alone, I cry for mine.

  I’ve learned that the man who saved us is a young Swedish diplomat named Raoul Wallenberg. He came to Hungary for the sole purpose of saving as many Jews as he possibly could. At first he set aside a special section for Jews in the Swedish embassy, but after more than seven hundred people fled there for protection, he began renting safe houses and claiming them as Swedish property. He also buys food and medicine for us with money from America. He said that Jewish people in America are raising money to help us, and that the United States sends this aid to us through neutral nations, such as his.

  Mr. Wallenberg knows that the Nazis respect official documents and identity cards, so he designed the Swedish identity papers that his men passed to us on the train. He bluffs the Nazis with seals and stamps and signatures, claiming that those of us who hold these papers are Swedish nationals. He has saved countless lives this way. His staff works around the clock to print the documents and distribute them to us. Meanwhile, I’m told that Mr. Wallenberg never sleeps. He surfaces everywhere in Budapest – the way he did at the freight yard – doing everything he can to rescue more Jews. He somehow finds food and medicine in a city plagued with shortages. He operates soup kitchens and clinics, since Jews are banned from all of the hospitals, working with the Swiss embassy and the Swedish Red Cross. When the wife of one of Wallenberg’s Jewish workers was about to give birth, he took her to his own apartment and brought a doctor there to deliver her baby.

  No one knows how much longer our Swedish friends will be able to bluff the Nazis this way, and so I knew it was time to hide Fredeleh in the Christian orphanage where she will be safe. My mother said good-bye to me so that I could go free, and Dina Weisner said good-bye to little Yankel. Now I had to say good-bye to my daughter so she will live.

  Before I had time to change my mind, I asked one of the men from the Swedish embassy to help me take Fredeleh and baby Yankel to the Catholic convent. The Swedish man agreed to go with me, pretending to be my husband, showing his identification papers to any soldiers who stopped us. It was the longest journey of my life.

  An elderly Christian woman who runs the orphanage met us at the door. I told her about the evacuation train. “My husband said that you would hide my daughter here. Please, can you take Fredeleh? And this little boy, as well? The Nazis took his mother away.”

  I gave Fredeleh’s papers and your address in America to the Christians. I told them Yankel’s name and his mother’s name. Then I hugged Fredeleh and kissed her good-bye. She clung to my neck crying, “Mama! Mama!” She didn’t want to let go of me, but I pried her away against both of our wills. I knew how she felt, not wanting to leave her mother. I also knew how my own mother felt, wanting her daughter to be safe. And so I pushed Fredeleh away and turned my back on her, just as my own mother had turned away from me.

  I don’t know why I have survived this long when so many, many others have not. Here at the Swedish safe house we ask each other that question every day, wondering how it can be that we are here when all of the others were taken away on the trains.

  Today we learned that the deportations have stopped for now. The Nazis need the trains to transport soldiers as the Soviet army marches closer and closer to us.

  I live day by day, trying not to think about the past or the future. I have no idea what has become of Avraham or if I will ever see him again.

  But if Hashem is willing, Fredeleh will survive. And for that I am grateful.

  Love,

  Sarah Rivkah

  CHAPTER 41

/>   AUGUST 1944

  PENNY SAT IN THE BLEACHERS on a stifling August afternoon, cheering as Peter’s baseball team tagged out another player. Peter hadn’t made the play – in fact he made very few winning plays. But his team was winning by a score of seven to three.

  Penny nudged Esther, seated beside her. “He looks a little lonely out there, doesn’t he?”

  “He’s guarding left field. He’s supposed to stand way out there in case the other team hits a fly ball.” Esther had smiled as she’d said it, and Penny realized how far they had come since she had begun taking care of Esther and Peter nearly a year ago. In those first few months after Eddie went away, Esther had barely spoken a civil word to Penny. Now they sat side by side, content with each other’s company.

  “I hope Peter stops looking up at the clouds,” Penny said as she watched him, “or he’s likely to miss one of those fly balls.”

  “But he’s happy,” Esther said. “I’m so glad Mr. Mendel talked him into playing.”

  “Me too.” And she was relieved that he was finally out of the isolation of his room and away from the fantasy world of his comic books.

  “Mr. Mendel is paying for this, isn’t he?” Esther said. “And he’s paying for me to go to the music conservatory, too. He won’t admit it, but I know it has to be him.”

  Penny simply shrugged. She hated secrets and longed to tell Esther that it was her grandmother who had arranged everything. Secrets had caused so much damage in Penny’s own family. “Mr. Mendel loves you two kids, you know,” she said instead.

  “I know. We love him, too.”

  Penny looked around at the other families in the crowd. Some of the men wore beards and little beanies like Mr. Mendel did. She couldn’t help smiling to herself. Here she was, watching a baseball game with Jewish people, at a school for Jewish children. Her parents would have a conniption fit if they knew about it. But Peter had blossomed this summer. He was no longer such a thin, spindly-looking boy but had grown strong and tan from the sunshine and fresh air and exercise. And best of all, he was happy. Maybe he would even start talking again, one of these days.

  “Do you think Mr. Mendel will ever see his son, Avraham, again?” Esther asked suddenly. Penny couldn’t reply. “Tell me the truth,” Esther added.

  Penny sighed. “I wish I knew. I think we have to keep hoping . . . And I know we have to keep praying. Like Mr. Mendel says, we have to trust God, even when things don’t turn out the way we want them to.”

  “So you think they might be dead? Like Mama and Mrs. Mendel and Uncle Joe?”

  Penny had read the accounts of the deportation camps in the newspapers. She held only a slender thread of hope for Mr. Mendel’s family. And after attending so many meetings with government officials, Mr. Mendel surely knew the chances of their survival even better than she did. She struggled to form an answer for Esther. “Remember how we were all ready to give up hope with Woofer? But she came home safe and sound, didn’t she?”

  Esther looked up at her and smiled, nodding silently.

  Peter’s team won the game by two runs. He looked hot and sweaty and exhilarated as he and his teammates thumped each other on the back. “Good job, Peter,” the coach said. Peter needed a bath and a change of clothes, but Penny didn’t want to go straight home to the apartment. “We need to go to the duplex first,” Penny told them. “I need to check on my parents. And your grandmother. They really suffer in this hot weather.”

  “Can we buy a newspaper on the way home?” Esther asked.

  Penny hesitated. Esther hadn’t seemed as obsessed with the news now that she spent so much time with her music. But deadly battles still raged all around the world, and Penny always feared news of a catastrophe. “I guess so,” she finally replied.

  They bought one at a corner store, and the three of them divided up the various sections to read on the bus ride. Peter asked for the sports section, of course. Penny ended up with the front page and nearly missed their stop, engrossed in the news that the Allies had liberated Paris. She read every article and studied every picture, trying to imagine Eddie over there, taking part in this drama. She did the same thing when she read an article about the Marines fighting in the Pacific, picturing Roy fighting bravely alongside his comrades. In the battle for Saipan, twenty-five thousand Japanese soldiers had been killed. Penny couldn’t imagine that many people dying. She folded the paper closed and climbed off the bus, thinking of Mr. Mendel’s family and Esther’s question as they walked to Grandma Shaffer’s house.

  The moment Peter opened the back door, Woofer rushed forward to meet him. Penny had to smile. “I think you’re feeding Woofer too much,” she said. “She’s getting so fat! Look at her, waddling around like a penguin.”

  Penny went inside to see if Mrs. Shaffer needed anything, then went home to check on her parents. Her mother began to scold Penny as soon as she walked through the door.

  “Look at your face! You got too much sun today. You should wear a hat. Your father should, too. Every day he stands out there, fussing over that ridiculous garden you coaxed him to plant – in the hot sun!”

  Penny went to the kitchen window and watched her father putter around outside. “He looks content, Mother.” The garden had been a big success. Peter’s plants had blossomed and flourished just as he and Esther had this summer.

  “And all these tomatoes,” Mother grumbled. “I don’t know what he thinks we’re going to do with all of them.”

  “I’ll take some to work with me. The other drivers loved the last batch I brought to the station. Do you want a salad for supper? I’ll cut everything up for you.”

  “Somebody has to start eating all of these vegetables.”

  Penny got out a chopping board and a knife and began to work. A year ago she hadn’t understood her mother’s bitterness or why she hid inside the house like a hermit, terrified of strangers. But the secrets that had grown beneath the surface all these years had been unearthed like a crop of potatoes, giving Penny a new understanding of her parents.

  They had never mentioned Hazel again. Nor did they know that Penny had visited her or that Hazel hadn’t been raped after all. Perhaps that truth would come to light in the future, but for now Penny was content. She and Hazel wrote letters to each other, sharing all their news. But Hazel mailed them to Eddie’s apartment to avoid more arguments.

  Penny saw her parents differently now. She would help them and be kind to them, but they no longer held her hostage with guilt. She had broken free from all the things that they feared: She drove a public bus and talked to strangers – and Jews. Penny smiled again as she remembered sitting in the bleachers at Peter’s baseball game.

  “What’s so amusing about cutting up tomatoes?” Mother asked.

  “Nothing. I was just thinking of something else.”

  Her parents had raised her the best that they could. Rearing children was a daunting task – as Penny had discovered with Esther and Peter. Penny hadn’t had any idea what she had volunteered for nearly a year ago when she’d naively told Eddie she would take care of his children while he was away. She never could have done it alone. Mr. Mendel, Grandma Shaffer, even her father had helped Penny raise them. And now the children’s Jewish grandmother. Penny smiled again, thinking of how God was always at work behind the scenes.

  Mrs. Shaffer’s screen door slammed shut with a bang, jarring Penny from her thoughts. Mother clucked her tongue. “I wish those kids wouldn’t slam that door all the time. They never listen.”

  A moment later, Esther pounded on the kitchen door. “Penny, come quick! Something’s wrong with Woofer. I think she’s dying!”

  Penny dropped the knife and wiped her hands on her apron. Her father came up the porch steps behind Esther with two green peppers in his hands. “What’s wrong?” he asked before Penny had a chance to.

  “Woofer is just laying on the kitchen floor, panting! She won’t get up.”

  “She’s probably overheated,” Father said. “All dogs pant when the
y get hot.”

  “No, something’s really wrong, I can tell! She’s whimpering, too.”

  Penny didn’t know what to do. The children didn’t need any more sorrow in their lives, especially now that they were finally happy. “Will you come with us, Dad?” she asked.

  “I don’t know anything about dogs.” But he set down the peppers and followed them into Mrs. Shaffer’s kitchen. Woofer lay in the corner on one of Mrs. Shaffer’s old rugs. Her tongue lolled from her mouth like a long, pink sock, and her sides heaved up and down like a bellows. She did, indeed, look as though she was dying. Penny knelt down and stroked the dog’s head.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Esther asked. “Should we call a doctor?”

  Penny looked up at her father for advice and saw his shoulders shake as he began to chuckle. He tried to cover his mouth to hold it inside, but his laughter grew louder and louder until he was laughing out loud. She couldn’t recall the last time he had laughed this way. “Dad? What is it?”

  He wiped his eye with the heel of his hand, grinning. “There’s nothing wrong with that dog. She’s having puppies!”

  And much to everyone’s surprise, she did – four of them, sleek and squirming and beautiful.

  CHAPTER 42

  SEPTEMBER 1944

  JACOB TURNED OFF HIS RADIO, too disheartened to listen to any more news. He gazed out his living room window, staring at the trees that lined the street. Summer had ended, the children had returned to school, and now the trees were changing with the seasons. Today the vivid orange and scarlet leaves reminded Jacob of flames. Flames rising from American ships in the Pacific after Japanese Kamikaze pilots smashed into them. Flames in the cities of Europe as the Americans battled to liberate them. Smoke and flames rising from Nazi death camps.