Isabel’s War

by Lila Perl

  There were so many other things, too…my envy of the attention paid to Helga at Moskin’s, how mad I was when she ended up with the dungarees I couldn’t fit into, my tattling to both Ruthie and Sibby about the night Helga sneaked out with Roy. Was I caring? Ha. Was I loyal? Hardly.

  I’m still trying to think of a way to denounce myself, to explain to Mrs. F. that, when it comes to Helga, I’ve been far from a model friend, when she utters a small, thin shriek. “Oh, my dear,” she says in a suddenly stressed voice, “I think the pain is returning.”

  But before I can get up to call the nurse, she grips my arm. “No, not just yet. There’s more. It’s about Helga. Herman has recently found out that his brother Josef, Helga’s father, died some time ago in Buchenwald, where he was deliberately shot to death. Her mother and two sisters, having been smuggled into Holland, have now disappeared entirely. Herman believes they were discovered by the Dutch Nazis and sent to one of the extermination camps. Martina, you know, was guilty of having married a Jew and produced “crossbreed” children.

  “But we’ve been afraid to tell Helga because something terrible is gnawing away at her. She is riddled with guilt. She doesn’t feel she should have been given a chance to survive. I’m very worried about…”

  Mrs. F. winces and this time her shriek of pain is much louder. I jump to my feet to ring the bell for the nurse. Probably she has been waiting behind the partly open door because she’s already in the room. I turn to say goodbye to Mrs. F. and, although only an instant has passed, her eyes are closed and her face looks like a mask.

  Words pass silently from my lips. Goodbye, goodbye, darling Mrs. F. Then I feel my mother’s hands on my elbows, guiding me from the room. As usual I’m expecting a scolding. I stayed too long. I talked too much. I wore Harriette Frankfurter out. If she dies as this very moment, it’s my fault.

  But no, my mother doesn’t say a word. She directs me toward the front of the house, where my father and Sibby are already getting into their hats and coats. But where is Helga and the small suitcase she took with her when she left us at Thanksgiving?

  My question is answered when Helga appears in the front hall with Mr. F. She isn’t dressed to leave and there’s no sign of her luggage. Mr. F., always so quiet and agreeable to almost everything, seems agitated. The three grownups look at each other helplessly. Apparently there’s already been a fair amount of discussion about the fact that Helga refuses to go back home to the Bronx with us.

  “When it is the right time,” Helga says with amazing authority for someone who’s always been so soft-spoken and polite, “I take the railroad from here to you. I have a timetable for all the trains. I know what is the correct route to follow to the Grand Central Station and then on the subway. I am not such, as you say, a ninny.”

  “Why Helga dear,” my mother exclaims, “nobody ever thought you were a ‘ninny.’ I can understand your wanting to stay with your aunt until the very end. It’s just that it will be so hard for you and so lonely here. It…it isn’t a very good atmosphere for a young girl who’s already been through as much as you have.”

  “And,” I cut in, “you’ll be missing a lot of school. It’s still a couple of weeks until Christmas.” I get a bright thought. “You could go home with us now and then, when the vacation starts, come back…”

  My mother taps me hard on the shoulder. I guess this is a dumb idea. How do we know Mrs. F. is going to live until Christmas? My trying to persuade Helga to come home with us now is probably more for my sake than hers, because I’m so racked with guilt toward her—more so than ever since my talk with Mrs. F.

  We drive home in silence, each of us afraid—I suspect—to open our mouths and say the wrong thing in the awesome presence of approaching death.

  Surely my mother is thinking of her long friendship with Harriette Frankfurter. They met in school when they were Sibby’s and my age and have been close ever since. My father, on the other hand, is probably still focusing on his fantasy of Arnold, triumphantly flying a bomber one of these days over Nazi Germany.

  Sibby, I’d guess, is mulling over the beauty and comfort of the sad house in Westchester, so different from her family’s spare apartment in the Bronx.

  And me…I’m still trying to puzzle out that next-to-last paragraph of Roy’s letter to Helga.

  Nineteen

  Sibby and I are in Hansen’s drugstore shopping for Christmas cards. “Stop looking around,” Sibby orders. “Just because he brought you here for a Coke a couple of weeks ago doesn’t mean you’re still going to find him sitting at the soda fountain.”

  “I’m not talking to you,” I snap. “I wasn’t even looking in that direction. What do you think of this card for Mrs. Boylan? Is it cold and icy enough?”

  I don’t know why we do this, but every year we buy Christmas cards to give to our teachers unless we absolutely, positively know that they are Jewish and definitely wouldn’t like the idea. We always used to buy presents for them, too. But junior high, with a different teacher for each subject, makes that awfully expensive.

  I would like to get something for Miss Damore, though. So after we finish up with the cards we go to the perfume counter and start sniffing the sample bottles.

  “Which of these do you think smells more French?” I ask Sibby, spraying her with a little of each. “Evening in Paris or Nuit d’Amour?”

  Sybil backs away, but not fast enough. “They both stink,” she says, waving her hands wildly in the air. “Leona says soap and water are the best perfume and a whole lot cheaper. Anyhow, don’t the names mean the same thing?”

  “Not at all. Nuit d’Amour doesn’t mean ‘Evening in Paris’; it means ‘Night of Love.’”

  “Oh, I see…a whole night of love all over France, not just an evening in Paris. Better get that one. It seems like more for the money.”

  Even though it costs a dollar over what I was planning to spend, I buy the fancy crystal purse-size bottle of Nuit d’Amour. I wonder if Billy Crosby will even think of getting a gift for Miss Damore.

  On the way out, I can’t help stopping to admire the Christmas-tree decorations. The prettiest of the fragile, colored glass balls glazed with silvery sparkles always used to come from Japan, along with China dolls, toy tea sets, and, of course, anything made of silk—pajamas, negligees, and sheer stockings. Now, of course, there are no Japanese imports aside from hand grenades and bombs being delivered to our troops all over the Pacific. And I don’t really know why I care about Christmas decorations because we never have a Christmas tree. As my father says, “It’s against our religion.”

  Still, it’s hard to keep from getting excited about the Christmas season. We’re singing carols in school assembly and the classrooms are decorated with pictures of Santa Claus, red and green streamers, and Christmas wreaths, all of which is very confusing.

  Even more confusing are the busy shopping streets, when Sibby and I emerge from Hansen’s with our modest packages. Even though there are shortages of so many gift items this year, from waffle irons to cocktail shakers, from rubber galoshes to ice skates, Christmas lures passersby into the stores.

  At the same time, reminders of the war are all around us. Signs with patriotic mottos mingle with the holiday tinsel—“V for Victory!”; “Win the War, Help the Boys”; “Uncle Sam Needs You.”

  Today was a school day, only one more day to go before Christmas vacation begins, so it’s already dark out when I softly turn my key in the door of the apartment. If my mother is home I’ll show her the cards I bought for my teachers. But should I also show her the coat-lapel ornament I bought, which I just couldn’t resist—a little snowman wreathed in miniature red berries and holding a tiny bell that actually tinkles.

  Sibby bought one, too. “Leona won’t mind, but what about your mom? You have to admit, it is sort of Christmassy.”

  “It’s not,” I insisted, carefully examining my trinket as I paid for it at the counter. “It’s wintry. That’s all it is, a symbol of the winter seas
on.”

  My mother’s voice calls out from the bedroom. “Isabel, is that you?”

  She’s home after all. But why are there so few lights on, and why is there such an air of exceptional quiet in the apartment? Before I can reach my parents’ room, my mother comes toward me, a handkerchief clutched in her hand.

  “Oh.”

  I know at once that the news we’ve all been dreading has come.

  “Harriette Frankfurter passed away this afternoon,” my mother says in a doleful voice. I can tell that she’s been weeping. “I’m waiting for your father. We’re going up to Westchester to help with funeral arrangements. I think you should stay at Sybil’s this evening if it’s all right with her mother.”

  I knew that Mrs. F. was dying when I last saw her, but this is a shock. Although the world is full of death these days, with the war on—and more and more gold stars appearing in people’s windows—I haven’t ever really been close to anybody who died. What is it like to say goodbye to someone forever? Will I have to go to the funeral? Will I have to see Mrs. F. in her coffin?

  “No, of course, Sybil can’t go. What’s happened to you, Isabel? Are you using Sybil as a crutch? Aren’t you thinking at all about Helga? It’s your duty to be supportive of her at a terrible time like this,” my mother reminds me.

  It’s early Sunday, two days after Christmas, and the morning of Harriette Frankfurter’s funeral, which is to take place at a cemetery not far from the home of Mr. and Mrs. F.

  First, however, we go to the funeral-home chapel where there will be a service conducted by a rabbi. People, sad-eyed and dressed in somber colors, arrive in great numbers and stand around whispering to one another in grave tones. Mr. F. is surrounded by men and women offering their condolences. My father explains to my mother that many of them are business acquaintances who have come with their wives to pay their respects. There are also neighbors and friends, but not many relatives because Mr. F. left Germany many years ago and Mrs. F. came from a very small family.

  I stand beside Helga, who lingers at the fringe of the crowd, looking out of place and uncomfortable. From time to time, people approach her and say, “Ah, so you’re the niece who Herman Frankfurter brought over from Europe. So sorry for your loss, dear.”

  Helga just nods and says, “Thank you.”

  “I guess you don’t know many people here,” I comment sympathetically

  “I know nobody,” Helga says with an unusually bitter edge to her voice. “These are all strangers. Everywhere people are strangers.”

  I nudge her arm in a show of solidarity. “Well, we’re not. You aren’t alone, Helga. You’re coming home with us right after the funeral. I hope you packed everything.”

  In deep solemn voices, attendants in black suits now request that everyone file into the chapel for the service. Men who are not already wearing skullcaps are offered the round black head-coverings, in keeping with the laws of the Jewish religion. The few females who have come to the funeral hatless are given small black head veils. Helga is among them.

  I’m walking next to Helga behind a slow-moving group of mourners, when another man in a black suit pulls her away from me. “Family members in the first pew. Family members only.”

  I look around. My parents, already seated a few pews back, are beckoning to me. My mother hisses in a stage whisper, “Where were you going?”

  I slide in beside my parents. “You told me to stay with Helga. I don’t know the rules around here. I was only following the crowd.”

  “God forbid,” my father explains in a more patient manner than usual, “you should sit in the first row.”

  “It’s bad luck?”

  “Sure it’s bad luck. It means you’ve lost someone close to you, a family member by either blood or marriage.”

  How stupid I am. Suddenly I’m returned to the reality of why we are here. What with the hubbub and the anxiety of trying to behave correctly in this strange place, I’ve almost completely forgotten about poor Mrs. F.

  And now my eye lights on the burnished wooden coffin that rests on a bier at the front of the chapel, where the chief mourners are seated. Sadly, there are only two—Mr. F., his balding head covered with a black skullcap, and Helga, whose long honey-brown hair glimmers beneath its gauzy veil in the subdued light of the chapel.

  My eye returns to the coffin. Is it forbidden, I wonder, to think of what Mrs. F. looks like lying beneath its closed lid? I’d like to imagine that she has her eyeliner on once again, that her scarlet lipstick and matching rouge are applied with as fine a touch as always, that her coppery hair is curled to perfection. And that she is wearing something lovely from her well-chosen wardrobe.

  A hush settles over the crowd and the rabbi begins the service. He is black-bearded and stern. He speaks of Harriette Frankfurter as “the departed” and as a “good and righteous woman,” which could be anybody and doesn’t tell you the least little thing about her. The rest of what he says is mainly in Hebrew, which I don’t understand, and is interrupted by chanting and by several requests for those present to rise.

  Then it’s one of the “black suits” again, up at the podium, giving instructions to all of those present that are planning to “attend the interment.” They will follow the hearse, with their headlights on, to the cemetery gate and then on to the gravesite.

  I glance questioningly at my parents. Must I really see Mrs. F., in her lovely shining coffin, lowered into the earth? Perhaps, I think to myself, I could just wait around here and be picked up later on the way home.

  But one return look from my mother and I know the answer…Helga. I’m expected to be there for Helga, Helga who suffers so many woes, and whose sorrows I am obliged to witness and to support as a penalty, I suppose, for my own good fortune.

  Of all things, we seem to be having a party at the home of Mr. and Mrs. F. on our return from the cemetery. The house is cheerfully lit, after the chill and the early winter darkness of the burial ground. Two hired servants as well as the housekeeper of Mr. and Mrs. F. have set a laden buffet table.

  Ice cubes clink in glasses as cocktails and highballs are poured. Salty smoked fish, cheeses, eggs, salads, and fresh rolls are the main fare. This is a custom that Helga says she is not familiar with. My mother explains that the funeral foods are symbolic of both the tears that are shed (the salty fish) and the renewal of life (the eggs).

  Smoked fish isn’t exactly to my taste. But there is also an array of cakes, pastries, and cookies. After the horror of watching Mrs. F.’s coffin lowered into her open grave and covered by each mourner with a shovelful of raw earth, I need to drown myself in as much sweetness as I can stand. So I concentrate on the dessert table, helping myself to baby cream puffs and eclairs the size of a pinkie finger, jam tarts and nut pastries, buttery cookies dipped in thick chocolate. Where does Mr. F. get such luxuries during wartime?

  After a while, the dining room gets extremely noisy, so I retreat with my cache of goodies to the cozy den off the living room, with its lit fireplace and book-lined walls. Some of my favorite authors are here…Louisa May Alcott, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain…including titles that I haven’t read yet. I wonder if I could ask to borrow a few.

  Contentedly I sip my lemonade, munch on a delectable pastry layered with flecks of chocolate, and stare into the fire. The war that is raging throughout the world seems very far away. Even the most dreadful moments at the cemetery—the black-bearded rabbi’s droning voice, the slowly sinking coffin, the clods of earth landing on its polished surface—are beginning to recede in memory into little more than a bad dream. And the fire, with its leaping licks of flame, is so mesmerizing that I slump back against the cushions, my eyelids growing heavy.

  I have no idea how long I’ve been here half-stupefied, half-asleep before the fire. Voices, though, seem to be coming closer. “Where is she? I haven’t seen her for a while now. Probably she’s in here. The child must be so worn out.”

  I look up into the face of one of the strange women I
remember seeing in the funeral parlor. The person she seems to have been discussing me with is my mother, who is standing beside her.

  “Oh, sorry.” I stretch and yawn, thrusting my arms above my head. “Here I am. Are we leaving now?”

  “Isabel,” my mother says with a slightly irritated twist of her head. “We were not looking for you. But get up anyway because we’ll be heading for home very soon. Where’s Helga?”

  “Helga?” I sit up straighter. “How should I know? The last time I saw her she was talking to some people in the dining room. I think she was eating a hard-boiled egg.”

  My mother exchanges glances with the other woman and tsk-tsks.

  “What? I stayed with her all through the burial part, which by the way was horrible and made everybody feel just terrible. There should have been some other way…”

  “Stop it this instant,” my mother orders “You’re positively rude. I’m completely ashamed of you. Now go and find Helga this minute.”

  “Really!” I answer back, as I get to my feet. “I’m not her keeper.” I don’t mean to sound nasty toward Helga, but my mother’s nagging always makes me surly.

  I drag myself up the stairs to the second floor. My stomach is starting to feel queasy and my legs are wobbly. All those sweet, whipped-creamy pastries seem to have done a job on my digestion. “Helga,” I call out, as I approach her bedroom at the end of the corridor, “it’s time to leave now. Are you ready?”

  The bedroom door is closed. I knock softly at first and then a little louder. Maybe Helga, too, has dozed off. But there’s no answer and, on instinct, I toss polite behavior to the winds and throw open the door.

  The bed is neatly made and the ruffled curtains hang gracefully. Helga’s bureau drawers and her closet are empty, so it’s obvious she’s already packed her suitcase and has probably taken it down the back stairs, the ones that the housekeeper uses.