Isabel’s War

by Lila Perl

  I check the other upstairs rooms, all of which appear to be empty, and limp back down to the main floor, definitely suffering now from a whopping bellyache. How right Helga was to have eaten only one hard-boiled egg, if even that.

  I advise my mother that Helga is on her way down. Then I head for the nearest bathroom and lock myself in.

  Twenty

  I’ve only been in the bathroom a short time, rinsing my face with cold water and—happily—not being sick after all, when there’s a loud knocking at the door. “Isabel, let me in.”

  It’s my mother. I expect her to be furious with me because I’ve made a pig of myself. But she doesn’t seem interested. Her expression instead is one of alarm.

  “It’s Helga,” she says, slightly out of breath. “You said she was on her way downstairs. But we can’t find her anywhere. Herman Frankfurter and your father have been searching the house from cellar to attic. Some of the men are outside now checking the grounds. We’re thinking of calling the police. Do you know anything at all about this?”

  “Me? I told you. She packed all her stuff. Not a thing was left in her room. What… Oh, you mean?”

  “Isabel, please pay attention. This is serious, very serious. Helga is missing.”

  I cringe inwardly with a pang of shame and guilt. I know the last words that Mrs. F. spoke to me about Helga—Something terrible is gnawing away at her…she doesn’t feel she should have been given a chance to survive. I know certain mysterious and perplexing things that Helga has said to me during the months I’ve spent with her—It is right that I should be punished…there is a lie that I will pay for all my life. And I know the puzzling words that Roy has written to Helga, revealing thoughts she expressed to him that evening at Shady Pines—You seemed so scared and not sure you would be able to stay with those people…I showed you where the key is hid.

  But I have never been able to put these bits and pieces together into a meaningful picture. Nor must anyone ever, ever know that I read Roy’s letter. Yet, because of what I have learned about Helga, I must take action. Slowly, slowly, a fuzzy plan begins to take shape in my mind.

  It’s a dark December morning, shortly before dawn. My parents refused to leave yesterday without Helga. So the three of us remained overnight at the home of Mr. F.

  Hour upon hour I’ve been lying uneasily in Helga’s bed in the perfect bedroom with the frilled curtains and the white wicker furniture. It’s impossible to sleep with the knowledge that Helga has vanished. Late into the night the police searched the neighborhood for her. They tracked the streets in and around the center of town and the nearby parks. They made inquiries at the railroad station, from which trains run into Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal.

  That is the way Helga would have traveled if she had decided to take the train from Westchester to New York City. But why would Helga have done that, when she knew we were about to drive her home?

  At last I’ve decided what I’m going to do. I dress as quietly as I can, creep down the stairs, and let myself out the front door into the bleak cold of an early Monday morning. It’s a ten-minute walk to the railway station. But I get there in about seven, running to get out of view of the Frankfurter house as quickly as possible and also to keep from freezing. In my New York City Sunday-best winter coat and hat, I’m not exactly dressed for extended outdoor activity.

  Even though it’s so early, a mixture of weekday commuters and of servicemen—who are forever on the move these days—are also heading for the station. When I get there, the open-air platform is half-filled with waiting passengers.

  There’s a coal fire burning in the pot-bellied stove in the station office, and the welcoming warmth envelops me as I step up to the ticket window. The clerk behind the window is a stout woman in a green eye-shade and a heavy wool sweater. She’s probably doing war work, having taken the job of a male station clerk who’s off to the service.

  “Y-e-e-s, young lady?”

  My voice is creaky. I’m still out of breath from running. “Um, if I wanted to go to Harpers Falls from here, how would I do it?”

  “Now ain’t that funny? Was somebody in here yesterday just before I went off duty, asked me the same question. Young lady a bit older ’n you. Don’t get many folks heading for Harper’s Falls in the winter. Something going on up there?”

  My heart leaps. Suddenly I don’t feel the least bit guilty that I read Roy’s letter. I showed you where the key is hid.

  I have just about enough money to pay for a one-way train ticket and I’m given instructions to change from the main line to the branch line at a place called Highwater Junction. The next train is due at 6:08. I buy a crumb bun and a small container of milk at the food counter and sit anxiously on a wooden bench near the hot stove.

  The northbound express is almost completely filled with servicemen, soldiers on their way, most likely, to one of the upstate training camps. If I were with Sibby, or even Ruthie, I guess we’d consider this a fascinating experience. As it is, though, I feel shy and uncomfortable.

  “Where ya goin’, sis?”

  The soldier on the seat beside me has rosy cheeks and his skin is so smooth that I doubt if he even shaves yet. Still, I feel uneasy talking to him. My plan has to remain totally secret. I’m making this wild journey purely on a hunch. I could be so wrong. I could get into so much trouble.

  “Upstate,” I tell him hesitantly, “to visit a friend.”

  “Hear they’ve got some snow up there.” He gazes down at my “dress” shoes, flat-heeled black pumps with straps. “Better get yourself some boots before you go trek-kin’ around the countryside.”

  I really don’t want to continue this conversation. I have entirely too much on my mind. So I don’t ask him where’s he’s from or anything about his family. Although I’m sympathetic to everyone who’s in the service, and I think of Arnold every time I see a uniform, I don’t feel up to acting like a friendly USO hostess at the moment.

  By the time I’ve changed trains at Highwater Junction and gotten off at the Harper’s Falls station, it’s late morning. Sure enough, it’s been snowing up here. The countryside is blanketed in white, I can’t tell how deep. But most of the streets in town are passable.

  At least I’ve gotten this far and I know where I’m going next.

  The house is exactly as I remember it from two or three seasons ago, when we were at Moskin’s and had occasion to come into town. “Here’s where I live in the winter,” Ruthie had said. “My mom and I are downstairs, my aunt and uncle and their kids on the second floor.”

  I mount the steps to the broad wooden porch with its twin doorways. The door on the left, I recall, is Ruthie’s. The one on the right leads to the upstairs apartment. I take a deep breath and say a prayer as I press the stained brass door bell. Suppose Ruthie’s gone somewhere for Christmas vacation. We’ve only exchanged two letters since last summer. If she is here, she’ll be completely surprised. Will she even be glad to see me?

  Moment pass…I stamp my feet in the cold. The door starts to open slowly, cautiously. Then Ruthie’s beloved moon face appears, gray eyes, shortcut taffy-brown hair. Before she can react, I throw my arms around her and scream her name.

  “Isabel!” Ruthie cries out. “Izzie, what are you doing here?” She peers around beyond me toward the street. “Your folks?”

  “Uh-uh. I’m alone. I came on the train. Ruthie, you have to help me. It’s about Helga.”

  How different everything looks here in winter, especially to someone like me who’s strictly a city person. We’ve already walked the half-mile to Shady Pines, the hotel shuttered and lonely-looking in the gray-white landscape, its shade trees bare and only the grim, towering evergreens on view.

  Ruthie has supplied me with knee-high boots, an extra sweater, and a knitted wool scarf and cap. We crunch along on the newly fallen snow, past the entrance to Shady Pines and beyond it to the road that curves away from the lake toward the summer bungalows that are hidden in the surrounding woods.r />
  “So,” Ruthie muses, “let me get this straight. You’re sure that Helga bought a ticket for Harper’s Falls at the railroad station yesterday. And the reason she did it was so she could disappear from the world by hiding out in Roy’s family’s summer cottage?”

  I flap my arms against my body, as a stiff wind comes whooshing at us off the icy lake. “Yes.”

  “Excuse me for saying it. But that’s crazy. Did she ever even see the bungalow colony? It has maybe twelve or fifteen cottages. How would she even know which one was Roy’s?”

  “Sure she could have seen it. When that dog bit her over near Roy’s place, he borrowed a car from one of his neighbors to take her to the doctor. So afterward he returned the car. That gave him a chance to show her the cottage. Then he walked Helga back to the hotel.”

  “I still can’t imagine her picking a place like this to run off to in the middle of winter. How long does she think she can hold out?”

  “I told you, Ruthie. Helga is just not thinking right. She runs away from anybody who wants to take care of her. Not because she hates people…because she hates herself. Gosh, from here the lake looks like it’s frozen solid. Do people go skating on it?”

  “Uh-uh, not this early in the season,” Ruthie cautions. “It’s only December.”

  “Well, the weather feels cold enough to me,” and I start walking faster as we enter the woods. I figure we’re probably not far now from the spot where I tumbled to the ground after thinking I’d spotted a rustling snake, and where Roy found me and helped me up. So it can’t be much of a distance to the bungalow colony itself.

  Ruthie is panting behind me. “Hold up, Izzie. You’re going the wrong way. There’s a turn in the path here.”

  “How can you tell? Everything’s covered with snow.”

  “Ah,” Ruthie smiles. “That’s why I’m a country girl and you’re a city girl.” And she starts walking ahead of me with an occasional look back and a grin.

  Sure enough, after tramping through the woods for a while, I can make out the first of the cabins, painted dark green with white shutters. The cabins would be hard to spot in the summer among leafy surroundings, but they stand out clearly against the snowy background.

  I’m filled with nervous anticipation as we start investigating one cabin after another. We tramp through the snow, knocking at the doors and trying to peer into the shuttered windows. But every single cottage appears to be locked and vacant, and a ghostly stillness lies all around us.

  “I’m awfully afraid,” Ruthie remarks with a patient but practical air, “that you and I are on a wild goose chase, Izzie.”

  Deep down, I’m almost ready to agree when, as we’re approaching the eighth or ninth of the cottages, she suddenly thrusts out her arm as a signal for me to come to a dead stop.

  Obediently, I remain stock still behind Ruthie. “What?”

  “Don’t take another step, Izzie. Look.”

  “Where?”

  “Down. Look at the ground directly in front of you.”

  I can just make out the disturbances in the snow to which Ruthie is pointing. “Footprints?”

  “Yes, boot marks. Leaving the cabin. If they’re Helga’s she may have come out after the snow stopped. And gone…”

  “Where?”

  Ruthie suddenly grabs my arm so hard I spin around. “Stay right behind me. From here on we walk in single file. Don’t take even a tiny step on your own. I think I can follow these prints.”

  “To?”

  “To the shortcut to the lake.”

  Peering anxiously through the bare trees as we approach the lake shore, I keep telling myself that Helga has to be here, somewhere, in this wintry desolation. It is so exactly the bleak and lonely setting she would choose in her distracted state of mind. I don’t even know if Helga is in control of herself anymore. All I know is that time is passing and I need to find her…soon.

  “Look!” Ruthie’s eyes are sharper than mine. I forget my marching orders and rush up to where Ruthie is standing, on the bare shoreline. Far out on the lake, a figure is flitting gracefully on the ice, forming lazy circles and figure-eights, moving with ease and lightness and complete indifference.

  “Oh, no!” I shout hoarsely.

  The next moment Ruthie and I are both cupping our mouths and bawling her name. “H-e-l-g-a. H-e-l-g-a.”

  But Helga doesn’t respond. She turns away, does a jump, whirls around again. I know that she skated a lot as a little girl in Germany, and I can see that she’s good on the ice. But does she know how thinly frozen this lake is?

  “Doesn’t she see us?” Ruthie asks with a desperate air. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She’s acting really strange, Ruthie. I’m going after her.”

  “Oh no, you don’t.” Ruthie, usually so placid and always polite, tugs hard at my sleeve. “You could both go through the ice. I told you the lake isn’t safe yet.”

  I tear free of Ruthie’s grip. I’ve come this far and I’m not letting Helga go now. I know I haven’t the power to pull her back to shore, but maybe once I get closer and can talk to her she’ll listen to me.

  “Izzie, be careful. Watch out for thin spots,” Ruthie pleads from the shore, her voice growing fainter as I step out onto the lake with it’s thin covering of recent snow. The ice beneath is rough and edgy in some places, smooth in others. I don’t know which parts of the surface are safer to walk on.

  As I get closer to Helga, I realize that I do have her attention. But she simply lifts both arms and waves me away.

  “Helga,” I cry out, “don’t do this. Don’t run away from me. I have to talk to you. Please, please come closer.” On skates, I might actually be able to catch up to her. But in my clumsy boots, I stumble along, slipping and sliding, as I try to move faster and at the same time keep my balance.

  “Helga, Helga!” Suddenly I’m sprawled on the ice. The snow-sprinkled patch where I’ve fallen is so smooth that I manage only briefly to get to my feet and then fall down hard again with a resounding thud. I lie there stunned, unable for the moment to even crawl on my belly. When I look up, a slender figure is looming above me.

  “Oh, Helga, thank goodness. Why wouldn’t you listen to me before? How could you run away like this? Do you know how worried everybody is about you?”

  But even as Helga helps me to my feet, she remains stony-faced and says nothing.

  “Helga, answer me. You’re making me really angry now. No matter what troubles you have, you still have to talk to me. Answer me, why won’t you?”

  Helga’s gray-green eyes appear strangely luminous. I can’t tell if she’s about to cry or if the luster is merely reflected light off the surface of the lake.

  “I am not Helga,” she says slowly and distinctly. “I am never Helga. You must not call me that again, Isabel. There is no Helga.”

  “All right,” I say slowly, with a worried but patient air, as I link my arm through hers and steer her firmly toward the lake shore. “If you aren’t Helga, who are you?”

  “I am Lilli,” she says pointedly. “My name is Lilli. I am the elder sister of Helga.”

  Twenty One

  The passport that lies on Minnie Moskin’s kitchen table bears a photograph of a shy-looking eleven-or twelve-year-old girl. Her hair, which appears dark in the photo, is cut short and she wears a jacket with a white Peter Pan collar. Her expression is solemn, her eyes turned slightly away from the camera. The face could easily be that of “Helga-who-is-now-Lilli/kpmm

  °np” roughly three years ago.

  “So,” Ruthie says gently, “you say that this girl isn’t you. It’s your sister Helga.”

  “Ja.” The girl we must now call Lilli is sitting across from us, clutching a large moist handkerchief and sipping the hot tea that Ruthie’s mother has just poured for her. “There was only room for one of us to go on the Kindertransport to England, so it was arranged for Helga, the middle child, to make the escape from Germany. She had Papa’s dark eyes and hair. I, Lil
li, one year older, and, of course, Elspeth, the youngest, must remain with Mutti, and seek some other means of escape.”

  Mrs. Moskin brings a platter of her thick cinnamon-and-sugar-sprinkled cookies to the table and urges one on Lilli, who shakes her head politely. “So you went instead of her,” she says consolingly, “You still saved one life for your family, for sure. Is that so bad?”

  “Ja, it is bad. It was not for me, Lilli, to go free and to leave the others surely to die. I made it so that Helga could not go. That is my terrible sin.”

  “What do you mean, you ‘made it so?’” I’m leaning across the table with a doubtful air. Lilli (as it’s so hard to think of her now) is always so dramatic, so full of self-blame over things that are really not that terrible. “What’d you do to Helga? I ask with a touch of sarcasm, “break her arm?”

  Lilli gives me a startled look. “How could you know that? It was so. Her arm and her shoulder had to be set and put in a cast. We knew the Kindertransport would refuse her. The time of departure was too close for it to heal. It was late August 1939. The final transport left on September 1, the day that the war began between Germany and England. So, Mutti made me go instead.”

  “Oh, Lilli,” says Ruthie, “I’m sure you never broke your sister’s arm on purpose.”

  Lilli turns away and buries her face in her handkerchief. “We were fighting,” she sobs. “All the time we were fighting that summer. Helga would climb under the garden wall to go skating in a small park near the house where we were hidden. It was not safe. Nazi youth often came there, shouting and throwing rocks.

  “One day she came home with her forehead bleeding. Another time she ran away, and I ran after her to take her home. I pulled her arm too roughly because of so much danger and how angry I was at her foolishness. She fell down hard and her shoulder, too, was broken.”

  I stare down once again at the Kindertransport passport, with its three stamped images of the German national symbol, an eagle with its wings outspread, its claws clutching a large ring encircling the Nazi swastika. Helga, the real Helga, looks so mild on the photo. But perhaps, after all, she was the one who was the most ready to fight for the right to live freely, the last to bow to the new rules of Hitler’s Germany.