Isabel’s War

by Lila Perl

  I’ve begun to pay attention to my mother’s conversation. This can’t be about Arnold. Her tone would be entirely different if anything had happened to my brother. It sounds more like one of her women friends. They’re always having operations, it seems, for one disastrous-sounding thing or another—dropped wombs, weak bladders, bleeding fibroids—mysterious ailments known as “women’s troubles.”

  I begin to hover around the telephone because I want to complain about my weird homeroom teacher, the horse-faced gym teacher who won’t let us do tumbling, French class only two times a week, and not having lunch hour with Sybil.

  But my mother keeps shaking her head and waving me away. “You know I would do that for you,” she says into the phone, nodding decisively. “No, it’s not too much trouble and it can go on as long as it needs to. Of course, it will be fine with Harold. Look, there’s a war on. We all have to do what we can for each other. Don’t give it another thought. Tonight, tomorrow, whatever is good for you. I’ll talk to you later and we’ll make final arrangements. Take care of yourself and don’t worry. Yes, I’ll tell her. She’ll be delighted.”

  The phone goes firmly back on its cradle and my mother looks up at me with a stern expression.

  “What’s happening?” I demand. Since those last two brief sentences I feel as though something is crawling on me. “Who are you going to tell? Who will be delighted? Who was that on the phone?”

  “Harriette Frankfurter,” my mother declares, getting to her feet. “She’s seriously ill. Must go to the hospital for a long stay. Helga needs a home for the time she’s away. Her uncle travels on business, you know.”

  “Oh,” I say, dragging myself across the hall into the kitchen. “Helga. I might have known it. She didn’t even answer my postcard. That’s how much she cares about us. Now she wants to come and live here, forever I suppose.”

  “She doesn’t want to do anything of the sort, Isabel. What would you like the Frankfurters to do? Send her back to England or, even better, Germany?” My mother bangs her fist on the white porcelain table and it makes a sickly clanging noise that brings me to my senses.

  “Where would she go to school if she lived with us?” I muse. “Would she go to ‘Simpleton’ Junior High? If they took her in, she’d be a ninth-grader…”

  “Well, of course, they’ll take her in,” my mother replies, ignoring my switch on Singleton. “She’s a refugee. She has to be taken care of and offered an education. Isn’t that the American way?”

  Eight

  Then next afternoon, Harriette Frankfurter is lying in bed in her private room in a Westchester hospital with Helga at her side when my mother and I arrive to pick up Helga and take her home with us. It’s been a long trip on a subway train and a bus to where the Frankfurters live, north of New York City in a pretty tree-shaded suburb.

  Mrs. F. is both tearful and delighted to see us. Her red hair is freshly dyed and her eyeliner is as crisply drawn as ever. If she is pale and sick, it’s hard to tell under her expertly applied makeup. She’s wearing a pink satin bed jacket embroidered with baby-blue forget-me-nots and, when I lean over to embrace her, I’m enveloped in the heavenly scent of her cologne.

  “No crying, no crying,” Mrs. F. says to the sad faces around her bed—Helga, my mother, and me. “I have the best doctors and a private nurse. After this operation, I’ll be perfectly fine and we’ll have the biggest party you can possibly imagine. I’m already making plans for it.”

  Nobody seems especially cheered up by this announcement. My mother tells Mrs. F. to simply rest and relax in preparation for the surgery, which is to take place the following day. Helga and I just stare at each other dumbly.

  “I guess you got my postcard,” I mumble. “We had to leave in a hurry because my brother enlisted in the Air Force. How’s your leg?”

  Helga glances down at her calf. “Ja, it’s better. Just a small scar.”

  I simply have to ask her about Roy. “Uh, did you ever see that sailor again? I mean after he brought you back to Shady Pines the morning you were bitten by the dog?”

  Helga blinks and looks confused. Does she know that I know she left our room and spent time with him that evening?

  “You could write to him and thank him, you know. If you had his address.”

  “Yes, yes,” Helga nods. “He is on a ship now in the Pacific…very far away, in the war with the Japanese. He was my rescuer and now I worry for him.”

  I can see that Helga is way ahead of me. I try hard to think of something else to talk to her about. “Did you and Ruthie spend much time together after I left?”

  “Ah, yes.” Helga actually smiles faintly this time. “We became good friends. She teached me the Lindy. I think also it is called the Jitterbug.”

  “Really?” I can’t think of another thing to say to this piece of news. So Ruthie and Helga had become close after my father ordered our immediate departure from Moskin’s.

  “Now, of course,” Helga adds, “the hotel is closed for the winter. Ruth lives in the town, where she goes to school. How beautiful it must be there and in the nearby mountains when the snow comes.”

  “It snows plenty in the Bronx, too,” I tell Helga. “You’ll see.”

  But she doesn’t seem to have heard me. My mother and Mrs. F. have started to say their goodbyes, and the tears really do start flowing. I give Mrs. F.—who I’ve come to like a whole lot—a parting hug, just managing to remain dry-eyed, and we go out into the corridor so she can have some final words with Helga. Then Helga comes out of the room carrying her suitcase and we pad our way to the elevator, walking as silently as the floor nurses in their white spongy-soled shoes.

  “Well, where is she?” Sibby wants to know.

  It’s the next morning and she has been waiting for me in the lobby of our building so we can walk to school together.

  “You look awfully dragged down,” Sibby adds before I can answer her question. “Is something wrong? Helga didn’t come back with you last night?”

  I roll my eyes heavenward. “She’s up there. But she can’t go to school until her uncle, Mr. F., gets here to enroll her. He’s her guardian. It seems he has to show all kinds of papers to prove that she’s here legally.”

  We start strolling down the street and Sibby shakes her head knowingly. “Oh, of course. I’ve heard about that stuff. They don’t let foreigners, not even refugees, into the U.S. just like that, especially in wartime. A lot of Jews from Germany and other places can’t get into the country at all. A few years ago a whole shipload of people tried to land over here and they were turned away. They went back to Europe and probably all dead by now.”

  “Really?” This seems pretty shocking to me. But what do I know?

  “You should try to learn more about what’s been going on in the world,” Sibby says sharply. “My mother keeps up with all the news from over there.”

  “I don’t know what you’re yelling at me for,” I complain. “I’m already in enough trouble because of Helga. She’s very hard to be friendly with, even though I’ve tried to do everything I was supposed to. Guess what happened last night. We got home to the apartment and I thought, for sure, she’d sleep in the dining alcove where Arnold’s bed was.

  “But, no, the first thing that happens is my parents move Helga into my room. She’ll have more privacy, my mother says. Well, what about my privacy? So now I have to share my bedroom with her. And not just for a short time like at Moskin’s, but probably forever and ever. Or, at least until Mrs. F. gets well and Helga can move back to Westchester.”

  “Oh,” Sibby says with mock sympathy, “poor baby. You know what your trouble is, Izzie? You’re spoiled, spoiled, spoiled. Actually, I’m very anxious to meet Helga and I just bet I’m going to like her a lot. And my mother wants to meet her, too.”

  Suddenly the light across the Concourse turns green and I make a dash for the other side. This isn’t the shortest route to Singleton Junior High, but I think if I don’t get away from my so-called bes
t friend we’re going to have an awful fight.

  “I just remembered something I have to buy for algebra class,” I call out over my shoulder. “See you in homeroom.”

  Sybil just stands there, her hands on her hips. Then she tosses her head and continues walking. I feel that everyone has ganged up on me because of Helga. She and Ruthie have become friends, and Ruthie hasn’t even bothered to write to me. Now, without even meeting Helga, Sybil is going over to her side, too.

  My parents have been making a fuss over Helga ever since they first met her and they’ve already started treating her like a princess since she’s moved in with us. My mother served flapjacks with real maple syrup for breakfast today. On an ordinary Wednesday morning. Unheard of! There’s really nothing left to pray for except a successful operation and a speedy recovery for Mrs. F. Scully, Deutsch, Marinello, Brody, Boylan, Damore…physical training, algebra, music, English, history, and French, not to mention buxom Mrs. Miller for cooking and skinny Miss Scanlon for sewing.

  As I’m following at some distance behind Sybil on my roundabout route to school, I’m trying to memorize the names of my teachers and their subjects in this new “departmental” system. Whoever dreamed up such a mess is probably the same person who gave Simpleton Junior High its nickname. All I know is that if I ever lose my program card, I’ll spend the rest of the term wandering around the three echoing floors of the vast stone building like a soul in limbo.

  It’s midmorning now and I’m climbing the stairs to the first session of my intermediate French class, really excited at last about something in junior high, when I become aware of somebody hustling along at my side and muttering, “Isabel Brandt, what a snob.”

  I turn and it’s Billy Crosby from sixth grade who I haven’t thought about in months. After all, why would I? He’s just another wise guy twelve-year-old, with glasses and an irritating grin. He seems a mite taller than he did back in June at the end of the school year. But he’s always been such a know-it-all.

  “Oh, it’s you,” I say, sounding, I guess, disappointed.

  “You coulda said hello Monday or yesterday,” Billy remarks. “We’re in the same homeroom.”

  “Sorry,” I tell him as I hustle along the third-floor hallway looking for Room 322. “This place is so confusing.”

  “No it ain’t,” Billy contradicts. “What room you lookin’ for, anyway?”

  I’ve finally spotted 322 and I turn in the doorway, Billy still hovering at my side.

  “It’s okay,” I tell him. “I found it.”

  There are only a few kids already seated at their desks. I don’t know any of them. I slide into an empty desk and Billy takes the one next to me. “What, you’re taking intermediate French?” I remember now that Billy was in the special French class that Miss Le Vigne gave in sixth grade. And he wasn’t very good at it.

  “Yeah. Any law against that?” Those glittering eyeglasses and that everlasting grin are driving me crazy. I can’t help thinking that Billy’s lips must be curved into a perpetual smile even when he’s sleeping.

  “Didn’t know you cared that much about foreign languages,” I comment.

  “Shows how much you know,” he hisses back at me. “French, in case you forgot, is the language of diplomats. You could be lookin’ at the next ambassador to France.”

  “Fat chance,” I snicker under my breath.

  Billy is leaning far over toward my desk. “What’d you just say?”

  “Nothing, nothing.” I’m saved from further explanation by the entrance of our French teacher, Miss Damore.

  Forget about weird hollow-eyed Mr. Jeffers in homeroom, forget about horsey Miss Scully in physical training, petite Mrs. Marinello in music, bossy-faced Mrs. Brody in English. Miss Damore is, as they say, a vision of loveliness. Pretty, dark-eyed and dark-haired, with an adorable nose and full lips, she comes into the room practically beaming, as though she’s really glad to see us.

  She writes her name on the blackboard and asks if anybody can decipher its origin. I instantly raise my hand. “It means ‘of love,’” I say with modest pride, “except not in French but maybe in Italian.”

  “Très bon,” says Miss Damore. She explains that her family did come from Italy more than a generation ago but that she has been teaching French for many years and hardly speaks Italian, at which point I feel my ankle being kicked under my desk.

  But when I glare accusingly at Billy Crosby, he’s staring straight ahead and I can’t imagine how his foot could have reached that far.

  Miss Damore gently informs us that, as this is an intermediate French class, we’ll be starting out with a review so that she can be sure the seventh-and eighth-graders will be able to keep up. “Who knows,” she adds teasingly, “if we’re good enough we may even get to the subjunctive later this year.”

  I cast my eyes down and smile. No way will Billy Crosby be able to “keep up.” Not in a million years, if we’re going for the subjunctive in French.

  After forty-five minutes of Miss Damore, the world is a lovelier place. Horseface in P.T. doesn’t see me sneak in a whole series of forward and backward rolls while she’s putting out the rest of the mats. At lunch, Sue Ellen Porter and I sit with some eighth-grade girls that Sue Ellen knows from the pool where she swam last summer. And, in English class this afternoon, Mrs. Brody assigns a composition (only she calls it an essay) on the war and how it’s changed our lives.

  I can certainly do that. In just the last few months, the war has come closer than ever. In my very own home, Arnold has been replaced with Helga.

  Even though it’s been a pretty good day, it’s a relief to return to homeroom, rearrange our lockers, and get ready for dismissal. Mr. Jeffers is pacing up and back at the front of the room with his long-legged stride, waiting for everyone to settle down because he usually has end-of-the-day messages for us.

  Sibby acknowledges me with a hunch of her shoulder and a blank expression. I don’t know whether we’re still on friendly terms or what. Also, I see now that Billy Crosby is seated behind me and to my left. I turn around. There’s that silly grin again and, I could swear, a wink. Or maybe it was just the light glinting off the right lens of his eyeglasses.

  A horrible thought seizes me. Suppose, just suppose, he likes me. I was sure I saw his eyes lingering on my chest when we were walking alongside each other looking for Room 322. Ugh, what a disaster. Suppose a boy does decide he likes you, and you don’t like him…at all. How do you get him to un-like you?

  “Uh-hmm, class.” It’s Mr. Jeffers getting ready to say something. He always starts by clearing his throat loudly. Then he walks across the front of the room and opens the door to admit someone who appears to have been waiting out in the hall. It’s our assistant principal, Mr. Lockhart, a short, dapper man with clipped gray hair, who is leading by the hand none other than Helga.

  A wave of absolute silence sweeps across the room. Mr. Lockhart steps forward and says, “Class, I’d like to present to you a new student who has just entered our school. She is from Europe, actually from Germany, where she was born and grew up. So English, especially spelling and writing, may still be a problem for her. Therefore, we will start her off here at Singleton in a seventh-grade homeroom.

  “Please give her a warm welcome. I introduce to you, Helga Frankfurter.”

  The silence that has held throughout Mr. Lockhart’s brief speech is broken by applause, whistles, and somewhere from the back of the room a deep-voiced utterance of the chilling salute that loyal Nazis offer to Hitler himself: “Sieg Heil!”

  Nine

  We’re out in the schoolyard with a cluster of other kids from our homeroom, and Sibby is angrily pummeling the chest of a big kid named Danny Brill with her small freckled fists. Danny just stands there and grins. He doesn’t even bother to back away. Sibby’s fists might just as well be a pair of fleas.

  “Why did you say Sieg Heil and give the Nazi salute? Why did you do that? How could you do that?”

  Danny Brill has
already received a reprimand from Mr. Lockhart while we were all still in the classroom.

  “Now, now, young man, we’ll have none of that.”

  But somehow Mr. Lockhart hasn’t ordered Danny to the principal’s office, or said what would happen to him if he ever tried any Nazi shenanigans again.

  “Do you even know what Sieg Heil means?” Sybil demands. “It means ‘victory for Hitler,’ who wants to kill the Jews and all his enemies so he can take over the world.”

  “Gee,” Danny says helplessly. “I only saw it in a movie. It was some kind of a German thing. I don’t know what you’re gettin’ so upset about.”

  “Aahh,” Sibby groans, turning away disgustedly. “You’re nothing but an ignorant slob.”

  Danny likewise turns his back and goes galumphing off with some of his friends. They laugh and hunch their shoulders, and one of them calls back at Sibby, “Hey, Red, don’t look now but your pants are on fire!”

  Because of the scuffle between Sibby and Danny Brill, I haven’t had a chance yet to introduce Helga, who by the way has retreated toward the playground fence, as though she wasn’t even the reason for the fray. Which has kept me tracking Helga like a nervous puppy dog, while keeping one eye trained on Sibby.

  Suppose Danny took it into his head to punch Sibby back. I couldn’t let her fight Helga’s battle alone because, even though she started the fight, Helga is my responsibility. So it isn’t until Danny and his gang have disappeared through the playground gate that I am able to bring them together and say, “Sybil this is Helga, Helga this is Sybil.”

  Sybil enthusiastically grabs both of Helga’s hands, which have been hanging limply at her side. “I’m so glad to meet you after hearing so much about you from Izzie. Well, um, a lot anyway. Gosh, what you must think of us here in America. First that stupid Mr. Lockhart puts you in seventh grade and then that ape, Danny, yells out those disgusting words in German.”

  “Ach, it’s no matter. I am happy to meet you, too.”