The Other Traitor

by Sharon Potts

  He doodled on a napkin with his mechanical pencil, watching her without being obvious. She was ignoring her Dr. Brown’s root beer and plate of coleslaw and pickles, as she examined the yellowed newspaper clippings and old photos that hung on the wall. The ones of New York in the early 1900s seemed to particularly interest her. She had unzipped her ski jacket and left it on so he couldn’t tell what was underneath, but he had a feeling it was real nice.

  Annette sat back in her seat and frowned at him as though she was reading his mind. She had a small beauty mark just above her lip, kind of like Marilyn Monroe. Julian was a sucker for the actresses of classic films.

  “So did you grow up around here?” she asked.

  “Queens. Forest Hills.” He pointed in the direction of the cardboard cartons that were stacked almost to the ceiling in the east corner of the restaurant.

  “But you know the neighborhood very well.” She picked up the pickle and nibbled on its end.

  He forced himself to stop gaping at her and looked down at his sketch. “I used to visit Nana when I was a kid. Now I live over in the West Village.” He decided not to get into how he would be moving out sometime soon, probably to Brooklyn.

  “You must get to see your grandmother a lot.”

  “Not as much as I should,” he said. “What about you? Do you have family here?”

  Annette gave him a hard look, as though she thought he was going somewhere with the question. The restaurant door opened, letting in a few customers and a burst of cold air. She pulled her ski jacket closed and gave her head a little shake. “My mother’s in Paris. My dad’s up in Connecticut. “

  “Were they both French?”

  “I thought you were going to give me background on your grandmother.”

  “I was just curious, but if you…”

  “My dad’s American. He worked in IBM’s Paris office, but moved back to the U.S. when I was six. My mom’s a nurse.” She took a sip of soda, then put it back down on the fake-marble tabletop.

  Neither of them spoke. Julian shaded in the face—all frowns and pouts. It had been a mistake coming here. He didn’t need another complication while he tried to figure out what to do next with his life. Why hadn’t he just let her go her own way?

  “What’s with the doodling?” she asked.

  He covered the napkin with his hand. “Just something I do.”

  “It looked pretty awesome from what I could see.”

  No reason to hide it. He pushed the napkin toward her. He’d sketched out an action figure that resembled Batwoman.

  “This is amazing,” she said. “Are you an artist like your grandmother?”

  He was taken aback. In all the time he’d known Sephora, she had never remarked on his drawings or doodles. “I’ve done it for fun most of my life,” he said, “but I’m thinking of going professional.”

  “Doing what? Graphic novels?”

  “Possibly,” he said. He hadn’t taken it that far.

  “I imagine your grandmother’s been very encouraging.”

  “Actually, she hasn’t been.” He thrummed his fingers against the table. Did that have something to do with Saul? “My grandmother never pushed me in any particular direction, but she’s always been supportive of anything I’ve decided to do.”

  “And what have you been doing?”

  He smiled. “Is this going to be in the article you’re writing on my grandmother’s sculptures?”

  She blushed and pushed her hair behind one ear. A perfect ear like the inside of a small conch shell.

  What the hell was wrong with him? Only a few hours after Sephora walked out, he was already into someone new? Maybe he was an insensitive prick like she once said he was. But with Sephora, he was always on edge, and with this girl, he felt different. Almost like he’d always known her.

  “Two potato knishes,” the guy behind the counter called out.

  “I’ll get them,” Julian said, pushing out his chair. When he returned a moment later, Annette had her laptop open. He set the knishes on the table and sat down.

  “Sorry about getting carried away,” she said. “I promise to keep my questions focused on your grandmother. May I take notes?”

  “If you want.” He took a bite of knish. “But to answer your question, I got an MD when I was planning to practice medicine, then changed my mind and went for a PhD in biophysics. After two years hating my job, I decided to quit yesterday.”

  “Whoa,” she said. “I thought we were going to stick to your grandmother.”

  “That was your idea, not mine.” He gestured at her knish. “Eat it before it gets cold.”

  She cut off a piece and tasted it. “This is good.”

  “You don’t stay in business for over a hundred years making crap.”

  “I suppose not.” She smiled. She had a great smile that lit up her face like a kid getting a present. “You don’t look old enough to have completed an MD and PhD.”

  “I’m thirty,” he said. “Yesterday was my birthday.”

  “Happy birthday,” she said softly.

  “Thank you.” His throat closed up. No one had wished him a happy birthday quite as sweetly.

  “That’s still awfully young to have done so much.”

  “I finished college at nineteen,” he said.

  “Ah, I get it. You’re a genius.”

  “Good in school, maybe. Not so brilliant in life.”

  She looked down at her laptop. “Maybe we should talk about your grandmother.”

  He picked up on the brush off. “Fine.”

  She took another sip of soda. “So tell me about her.” She kept her eyes on her computer. “Her sculptures were influenced by the Great Depression, does she ever talk about what it was like growing up then?”

  Julian felt a strange letdown, but this was the reason she’d come here with him.

  “She talks a lot about her childhood,” he said. “She was very poor. Her parents died when she was young.”

  Annette nodded. “I read that. And she still went to college. She must be an amazing person to have done that with all the adversity in her life.”

  “Nana is amazing,” Julian said.

  She reached for the Barnes & Noble bag on the table and pulled out a book. Evoking the Great Depression. She opened and turned it so they could both see the page. It showed a photograph of a sculpture. Girl Playing Hopscotch. ‘This is a lovely piece,” Annette said. “I sense the girl is happy despite the difficult time she grew up in.”

  “Nana’s like that,” Julian said. “Always optimistic.”

  “Not so much in this piece.” Annette turned to the next page. “It’s called Boy Singing. I don’t know why, but it makes me sad. See how he holds his hands?”

  Julian had never seen this sculpture before, or even a picture of it, but she was right. The boy’s arms were extended in an embrace, but his hands were angled down, rather than up. As though he had given up hope of something.

  The back of Julian’s hand touched the Barnes & Noble bag. There was a second book. “Does this have more of her work?” he asked, as he reached for it.

  “No.” She tried to push the book back in the bag, but it was already out. A Soviet Spy in America by Boris Yaklisov.

  Julian picked it up. “Does this have something to do with my grandmother?”

  “It’s for something else I’m working on. A piece on American communists. Nothing directly related to your grandmother.” She rubbed the beauty mark over her lip. “Of course, she would have been a young woman when the communists were prominent in the thirties and forties. Does she ever talk about that?”

  Julian leaned back in his chair. Nana had been telling him about being a “red-diaper baby” and the influence of communism in her life, but why would a journalist writing about Nana’s sculptures care about that? “What do you really want from my grandmother?”

  Her face turned red. “I told you, I’m writing an article about her sculptures. Did you really intend to give me backgro
und on your grandmother or did you ask me here under false pretenses?”

  “I’m sorry, but your questions seem a bit off-point.”

  “I’m trying to get background and context. But maybe you don’t even believe I’m a journalist. Maybe you need to study my website and confirm my credentials before you’ll grant me an interview with your grandmother.” She stuffed both books back in the Barnes & Noble bag. “So please, go ahead and do that. Check my references. And when you’re satisfied, I hope you’ll call me.” She was definitely pissed at him. Even her beauty mark was quivering. “Because I would very much like to meet your grandmother. From what I’ve read about her, she’s a remarkable person.” She slammed her laptop closed and stood up with her books and satchel. “And I don’t have my own grandparents anymore. My grandmother just died and you’re damn lucky to have yours.”

  She left the restaurant.

  A cold wave of outside air rushed over him. And all Julian could think of was that he didn’t give a shit if Annette Revoir had some hidden agenda.

  He really wanted to see her again.

  CHAPTER 11

  No matter how you tried to hide from it, the past was always with you. Mariasha could see it in her grandson’s eyes, hear it in his voice. His lingering frustration at having a mother who didn’t know how to love him. But it wasn’t Essie’s fault. She had only the example of her own cold mother.

  But what was done was done. Mariasha couldn’t change the past. She could only let it taunt her with memories of how it all started. In innocence. An exciting adventure to camp. A bite from an apple. But that was how it had been between Adam and Eve—how could it have been otherwise for Yitzy and her?

  She closed her eyes. She could smell the pine needles, the freshly mowed grass, the turned earth in the vegetable garden. She could see his smile, hear his wonderful laugh. For a short while, she was a girl again. For a short while, she was still innocent.

  August 1932

  They took the subway into Manhattan. Mama, Saul, and Mari. Mari had reminded Mama that she was fourteen, old enough to go by herself, but Mama wouldn’t hear of it.

  Her mother had a small shopping bag over her arm. She was wearing an old felt hat and one of her high-necked dresses from when Papa had been alive. She had combed Saul’s hair, but Saul kept rubbing his head and by now, his orange curls looked like carrot salad.

  Mari clutched her bundle against her. Clothes for the week wrapped in a scarf. Shorts. Clean underwear. Blouses Mari had made herself cut down from old dresses. A bathing suit borrowed from Mrs. Silverman’s daughter, who was married and pregnant and had no need for it.

  At the corner, Mari looked in all directions. Tall buildings, way taller than the ones in Brooklyn, blocked the sun, but held in the heat. She felt as if she was standing at the bottom of a furnace.

  An old yellow school bus was pulled up in the street where the children who were going to camp had been told to meet. A few boys and girls were hugging their mothers goodbye and getting on the bus. They came from Arbeter Ring schules around the city and Mari didn’t recognize anyone. That was good.

  I can be anyone I want to be at Camp Kindervelt. Daring and exciting and interesting, just like the Campfire Girls.

  “I have to go,” Mari said.

  Her mother looked at the bus like it was a ship leaving for the other side of the world. When Mari had told Mama how much she wanted to go to camp, she’d been surprised when Mama had reached into the pouch she kept pinned to her brassiere. It held the ‘emergency money’ she’d gotten from selling their furniture. Once there had been five twenty-dollar bills, but now there was only one bill left. Was Mama sorry she’d given her the money?

  “Make sure you eat,” Mama said. “You’re already too skinny.”

  “I will, Mama.” Mari turned to her brother. “Goodbye, trombenik.” She hugged him hard, until he squirmed out of her arms. His face was flushed. “Try not to slide. At least not until I come back and can stitch up your knickers.”

  He grinned, showing his chipmunk teeth.

  “Okay, well, goodbye then.” Mari felt the tightness in her throat. Why did she want to cry when this was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her? She reached the bus and glanced back. Mama’s hand was on Saul’s shoulder. They looked small and far away.

  She bolted from the bus, ran to her mother, and hugged her, inhaling deeply her mother’s familiar scent of lilacs and talcum powder. “Thank you, Mama. Thank you for letting me go.”

  Then she hurried onto the bus without looking back.

  The bus drove along the East River. Mari sat on the right side, in the middle of the bus, on a seat by herself. Most of the other girls and boys seemed to know each other and sat in pairs. At least they were dressed like her in old, clean clothes. She clutched the bundle in her lap.

  She was going someplace new and wonderful. Away from hot sidewalks and drab brick buildings and laundry hanging from clotheslines behind the fire escapes. I can be anyone I want to be. Just as special as a Campfire Girl.

  Across the East River, she could see the smokestacks of the factories in Queens. She’d been to this other borough with Mama and Saul, and it had seemed very far from Brooklyn—practically the other side of the world. They went every year to visit Papa’s grave at the Mount Hebron Cemetery. There was a small cameo picture of Papa on his headstone looking very serious. Different from how she remembered him. It had been seven years since he died, and she was having a hard time holding onto the memory of him smiling. But she knew he would have been happy about her taking this adventure to Camp Kindervelt.

  A group of girls in the back of the bus had begun singing the Ruth Etting song about eating an apple every day and taking good care of yourself.

  Mari hummed along. Yes, Papa would have been very pleased about this adventure.

  One of the counselors called out that they were passing Yankee Stadium and several of the boys and girls rushed to Mari’s side of the bus to look out.

  There it was in the distance, towering over the nearby brownstone apartment houses. The curved facade reminded her of pictures she’d seen of the Coliseum in Rome. Next to it loomed what looked like a giant baseball bat.

  She remembered how excited everyone had been when the new stadium first opened, just before Papa died. Mari chewed on the end of her long braid. Saulie wanted to see a game at Yankee Stadium. Why shouldn’t they go? Now she knew where it was. She’d been out in the world. An adventuress.

  The bus left the smokestacks and dense brick buildings of the city behind. It felt as though they were driving through a magical forest, everything green. Little houses appeared on the tree-covered hills. The girls had stopped singing. A few of them were sleeping, their heads resting on their neighbors’ shoulders.

  The bus got off the main road. Its windows were open wide and the air smelled different. Fresh and earthy like Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Branches scratched the side of the bus as it bounced over potholes, making its way down a winding unpaved road.

  The bus came to a stop. “We’re here,” one of the counselors called.

  Mari got off the bus, dizzy and disoriented after the three-hour ride. It was warm in the sun, but there was a cool breeze. She stretched her arms and neck. Tall trees everywhere—oaks, maples, and pines, and many she didn’t know the names of. Several unpainted wooden buildings encircled an open, grassy area. In the distance, Mari could see a large lake reflecting thick woods and the blue sky.

  She held her bundle tightly as the counselor called out names and organized the girls in small groups. Mari was in the Emma Lazarus Bunk. It looked like a broken down shed where really poor people lived. Even Mari wasn’t that poor. Had she made a terrible mistake coming here? A week in the country. But this was nothing like the Campfire Girls books.

  Everyone changed into shorts and went to a big wooden community house to eat. It smelled awful. Worse than the cafeteria at school. Mari always brought her own lunch to school, afraid of getting sic
k if she ate what someone else had prepared. Use separate plates, cups, and silverware, so the germs don’t spread. That’s what the doctor said when Papa was sick.

  She sat at a picnic-style table with two other girls. She said hi, but the girls ignored her. Everyone seemed to know each other. Mari picked at the grayish green beans on her plate. She felt sick inside.

  Grownups were making speeches, welcoming everyone to camp. In a corner of the room was a bust of Lenin, bearded and stern, like the poster in the classroom at the Arbeter Ring. It was the only thing familiar to her.

  She sensed a change in the energy around her. The boys and girls were touching each other’s arms, whispering and gesturing.

  A tall, narrow boy with a jumble of blond hair marched to the front of the room, head high, shoulders back. Golden legs extended beneath his khaki shorts.

  Several of other boys cat-whistled and began to chant. “Yitzy. Yitzy.”

  The girls joined in, banging their hands against the wood tabletops. “Yitzy, Yitzy.”

  The boy turned to face the group. He was probably fourteen or so. She could see that he didn’t shave yet. With his upturned nose and blond hair, he didn’t look anything like the other boys she knew. Was he Jewish? If not, what was he doing here?

  He frowned at the boys and girls, his hooded eyelids making him look half asleep.

  “Yitzy, Yitzy,” everyone chanted.

  Suddenly the boy smiled widely, waking up his face with shiny white teeth. He nodded, raised his pointer finger and began to sing in the sweetest voice Mari had ever heard.

  Arise ye workers from your slumbers,

  Arise ye prisoners of want

  For reason in revolt now thunders,

  And at last ends the age of cant.

  The Internationale. The song of the Socialist movement.

  Her father once sang it.

  The other boys and girls joined in, locking arms and rocking from side to side. Mari got goosebumps. She wasn’t alone.