Anne Frank and Me

by Cherie Bennett

  “What is she talking about?” Zooms asked, as Urkin took a little light from a black bag and shined it in her eyes.

  “A concussion,” he concluded. “It can be very disorient ing. I do not know if she even knows where she is.”

  “Of course I know where I am,” Nicole insisted. “I’m in the state museum. Now, what happened to Mimi? And Doom?”

  “Doom?” Zooms echoed. In a flash, Nicole realized what was going on. Bazooms didn’t know who Doom was.

  “Richard Hayden,” she explained. “We all call him Doom.” Zooms still looked at her blankly How could she be so dense? Nicole lay there, frustrated, her head throbbing, as the sirens diminished and finally stopped. The silence was a gift.

  “No more sirens, they must have got him,” Nicole concluded. “Can I go now?”

  “John, this is breaking my heart,” Zooms said. John? Since when did Zooms call Urkin by his first name in front of a student?

  Urkin took a pocket watch from his vest and timed her pulse. “Seventy beats per minute. Your heart is beating wonderfully.”

  “Great to hear. It’s really nice of you to be so concerned about me,” Nicole told him. “But can we just go? Everyone must think we’re dead.”

  Zooms’ hand flew to her mouth as if Nicole had just let fly a string of colorful profanities in class. That was it. Nicole couldn’t take any more. “Let’s go!” She pushed Urkin’s hands away and stood up. Sharp pain exploded in her head. She moaned and slumped back down.

  Urkin began to stroke her hair. Very strange. It felt good, though. “Just rest now,” he told her.

  “But—”

  “Rest.”

  “At least tell me what happened, please.”

  “You fell and hit your head,” Zooms explained.

  “I know that. I mean, what happened to everyone else?”

  “I think her brain is damaged.” Zooms gave Urkin a look of pure anguish. “She talks about this doom like it is a person.”

  Nicole felt like screaming. “Not an it, a he. I told you, Richard Hayden.”

  Zooms touched Nicole’s hand. “Do you know your name?”

  “I’m wounded, not stupid. My name is Nicole.”

  “Good.” Urkin nodded, and a strange thought crossed Nicole’s mind. A teen on a shooting rampage at the museum would be a big story. And she’d been shot. Did that mean she’d be interviewed on CNN?

  “And your last name is—” Zooms coaxed.

  Nicole sighed irritably. “Burns.”

  “Bernhardt,” Zooms corrected. “I am your mother, and this is your father.”

  Nicole had to laugh, even though it hurt. They were definitely not her parents. And Nicole Bernhardt was the name on the biography sheet that Zooms had handed her when they were still outside the museum.

  “Why are you laughing, little one?” Urkin asked.

  Little one? “I am laughing,” Nicole began deliberately, “because you are my principal, Mr. Urkin. And she is my English teacher, Ms. Zooms. And Zooms named me Bernhardt. For the museum thing.”

  Zooms turned to Urkin. “Do something,” she demanded.

  “Do you have any idea where you are?” her principal asked. “Do you know that you’re in Paris?”

  “Paris? Paris, France?”

  “Very good.” Urkin sounded relieved. “See, Renée, she knows where she is.”

  “Right. If this is Paris, France, what language am I speaking?” Nicole challenged.

  “French, of course.”

  “Ha! I’m practically flunking French.”

  The two adults stared at her blankly.

  “Okay, that’s it, I’m gone.” Nicole tried to stand again, but the pain was overwhelming. “My head’s killing me,” she moaned.

  “Liz-Bette?” Urkin called. “Bring some ice for your sister!”

  “Wait a second,” Nicole protested. “My sister isn’t here.”

  “Of course I’m here,” a familiar voice responded. “I have ice. I chipped it from the icebox.”

  Her sister was standing before her, carrying a towel-wrapped bundle. “Little Bit?” Nicole asked, stunned. “What are you doing here?”

  “Liz-Bette,” her sister corrected, as Zooms took the bundle from her. “Is she all right?”

  “A concussion, your father thinks,” Zooms said. She pressed the ice to Nicole’s forehead. Nicole winced.

  “You were dancing down the stairs from the roof,” Urkin told Nicole. “The railing broke; you hit your head.”

  Nicole barely heard the explanation. Instead, she stared at Little Bit, who looked truly strange. First of all, her hair was neatly braided. Little Bit would rather chew glass than wear braids. Then there was her outfit. Little Bit had a closet full of trendy clothes. But she now wore a calf-length plaid skirt and a white shirt buttoned to her neck, under a navy cardigan. On her feet were very worn shoes. With white socks.

  “It serves you right, Nicole,” Little Bit admonished. “Dancing on the stairs after Maman told you not to a hundred times was extremely immature.”

  “Different clothes, same brat. And what is that thing?” She pointed at a yellow star sewn over the heart of Little Bit’s sweater. It was fist-sized, but it didn’t have five points like the one that went on top of a Christmas tree. It had six points. On the star were the letters Juif.

  “Ha-ha, very funny.” Little Bit smirked.

  “It’s the Nazis’ star for the Jews,” Zooms explained. “You have one, too.”

  “There is no way I—” Nicole looked down when she felt something sewn to the left side of her sweater. A star just like Little Bit’s. On a gray sweater she didn’t own.

  Pain pulsed again inside Nicole’s head. “Just a minute. Do you mean to tell me that I’m Jewish?”

  “Of course,” Mr. Urkin replied. “We are all Jewish.”

  Nicole held both hands to her head. The pulsing grew louder and louder; she didn’t feel as if her skull could contain it. “You have to tell me.” Her own voice sounded distant to her ears, like she was at the bottom of a well. “What year is it?”

  The moan of the sirens began again. “Nineteen forty-two, my darling child,” Urkin said. “Nineteen forty-two.”

  eight

  June 15, 1942

  Possibilities for What Is Happening to Me

  1. . Doom shot me and I am dead and in Hell.

  2. Doom shot me and I’m alive but in a coma and my mind is playing tricks on me while I’m unconscious.

  3. Doom did not shoot me, but I got crushed trying to get out the exit, am unconscious, see #2 above.

  4. It is still the night before the school trip and this is all a dream. Correction. A nightmare. The kind where you tell yourself to wake up only you can’t wake up so you think it’s real, but it isn’t.

  Nicole sat at the grand piano and plunked out a melody with one finger. She had no idea what it was. “What I’m experiencing here is a Close Encounters of the Third Kind moment,” she muttered to herself. “A really long one.”

  Thinking about Close Encounters gave her an idea, though. The night before, she’d lain on a feather mattress in a strange bedroom with cabbage-rose-patterned wallpaper. Bazooms had insisted it was her room. But it wasn’t. Not only did it look nothing at all like her bedroom, but this room was neat and her room was a disaster area. Sleep was impossible because of the sirens, which her sister claimed were warnings about British bombers. So she’d made a mental list of what was happening to her. Now, even as she tinkled the piano keys, she added a fifth possibility.

  5. I have been abducted by aliens.

  She’d been certain that if she could only fall asleep, she’d wake up in her own bedroom in the twenty-first century. But when she’d actually awakened to warm sunlight streaming through her window, she was still in the other place: Paris, during the Nazi Occupation, living the life that Ms. Zooms had assigned her for the Anne Frank in the World exhibit.

  Logically, she knew that couldn’t be true, which gave her another ide
a.

  6. At the exhibit I was drugged and am now being used as a guinea pig in some weird social-science experiment. Hidden cameras are videotaping me all the time.

  That could be it. She jumped up and began to look behind the living room paintings, in search of hidden cameras.

  “Nicole? What are you doing?” Ms. Zooms looked up from her newspaper.

  “Finding the hidden cameras.”

  Ms. Zooms patted the couch next to her. “Come here, Nicole.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks.” Nicole moved a still life oil painting. There was nothing there.

  “Nicole, I will tell you once again. I am your mother, Renée Bernhardt.”

  “I heard you the last ten times. Want proof? Mr. Urkin is my dear old dad, only his real name is Dr. Jean Bernhardt, a doctor at the Rothschild Hospital on something called rue Picpus,” she recited. “What is a Picpus, anyway?”

  “You’re babbling again, Nicole.”

  “Yeah. Like what you’re saying makes perfect sense. I’m telling you, I’m American. I live in the twenty-first century.”

  “I am trying not to worry. It is difficult,” Ms. Zooms told her. “Your father says it may take some time for your memory to return. But when my daughter believes she is an American from the future, this is not a concussion. This is insanity.”

  “Look, Ms. Zooms, you’ve got to stop calling me your daughter.” Nicole sat at the piano again and plunked out the same melody. “I mean, think about it. You don’t even like me.”

  Ms. Zooms—Ms. Bernhardt—whatever her name was—gasped, even though Nicole could tell she was trying to do what Mr. Urkin—Dr. Bernhardt—whatever his name was—had told her to do in front of Nicole: Act as normal as possible.

  “Why not really play the Smetana?” Zooms asked.

  “Because I have no idea what Smetana is. Also, not knowing how to play the piano kind of gets in the way of actually playing it.”

  “Of course you know how to play the piano.”

  “No, I don’t. I used to play flute in the geek-fest school orchestra, but I sucked so bad my parents let me quit.”

  “I shall prove to you that you know how to play the piano. Do not go anywhere.” Ms. Zooms hurried from the room.

  Nicole stared at the piano keys. She vaguely recalled that the ninth-grade orchestra teacher had taught her how to play a major scale. You had to start on the note C, but she had no idea which key was—

  Her index finger pressed a key. C. She knew it, though she didn’t know how she knew it. Then, even though she felt ridiculous, she cupped both hands over the keyboard.

  Too bad this isn’t one of those player piano things, she thought. Music would just float out of the piano—

  Music began to float out of the piano. But it really was her playing. She stared bug-eyed at her fingers as they moved fluidly across the keys. What she was playing, she had no idea. It certainly wasn’t the melody she’d tapped out all morning. But she recognized it from somewhere ... yes. It was from a perfume commercial on television. This impossibly gorgeous model danced through a field of flowers while an impossibly gorgeous guy in a tuxedo chased her, and this music played.

  Ms. Zooms ran back into the room. “You are playing, you do remember!”

  Nicole stopped. “I really wanted that perfume.”

  “What perfume?”

  Nicole sighed. “Never mind.”

  “Oh, my darling child.” Before Nicole could stop her, Ms. Zooms was embracing her. “It’s Beethoven’s Für Elise. It is so beautiful. Beethoven was a wonderful German, not like the horrid Huns out there.”

  Being pressed to Bazooms’ bazooms? This was over the top. Nicole closed her eyes. Please, please, please, she prayed. I don’t care what this is, please let me go back to my real life. She opened them. Ms. Zooms was still squishing her.

  “I brought some of your journals, Nicole. There are programs inside from your recitals. I thought perhaps it might trigger your memory to see them.” She handed Nicole several thick notebooks bulging with newspaper and magazine clippings. “Look through them while I boil our rutabaga for supper.”

  “Rutabaga?” Nicole made a face.

  “Yes, rutabaga.”

  Nicole saw Zooms’ anxious expression. “I know this can’t be fun for you,” she acknowledged. “I’m sorry.”

  “Read the notebooks, Nicole, before your friends come over.” Ms. Zooms nodded quickly, then, as if to hide her emotions, took off for the kitchen. Nicole moved to the couch, plopped down, and put her feet up. She might as well be comfortable. She opened the notebook that had 1940 written on it to a random page. It was dated 20 October 1940. The handwriting was undeniably her own.

  Today is the date by which all Jews in Paris must have registered with the French police. There are no exceptions. Posters all over Paris declare this. When Mimi and I walked home from school today, we must have passed at least ten of these posters.

  When Papa came home from the hospital, he and Maman had another discussion about whether to register with the police. Maman was saying that we had no choice but to follow the Nazis’ rules, and Papa was saying that he did not like the idea of the Nazis having a list of all the Jews of Paris. Maman asked him what did he want to do, run away from Paris and leave his patients in the hands of imbeciles? And what would happen if the Nazis took away our food ration cards because we did not register? In the end, Papa agreed to register us.

  Nicole stopped reading. This was so bizarre. She flipped the pages toward the front. Throughout, it was definitely her handwriting.

  14 June 1940

  Today is the blackest day Paris has ever known. The Nazis were marching in the city I rode around on my bicycle and I shall never forget what I saw: columns of German soldiers, with their tanks and armored vehicles, their artillery and their supply wagons. Their uniforms gleamed. People stood and watched, awestruck. Already I saw French girls who speak German and German soldiers who speak French talking and flirting. You would never think that for the last six weeks tens of thousands of our soldiers have died fighting them. I admit, there was a moment or two today when I wished we had gone to Toulouse or to the countryside, but I know that Papa must stay at the hospital. When I came home, Maman was angry that I took my bicycle without asking her permission. But I am glad that I did it.

  Nicole turned the page.

  18 June 1940

  Today I saw Adolf Hitler with my own eyes. He was sightseeing in my beloved city like any other tourist might. He stopped on the esplanade at the Palais de Chaillot. Mimi and I were riding our bicycles and we saw him there, surrounded by Boche swine, admiring the view of the Eiffel Tower. He had the proudest look on his face. It made me want to retch. This evening on the BBC we heard a broadcast from London of a French general named de Gaulle urging France not to give up the fight against the Germans. I asked Papa if he knew who de Gaulle was, and he just shook his head.

  Dazed, Nicole put the notebook down. She picked up the next one, dated 1941. Sheets of paper fell out—newspaper clippings, movie advertisements, and the like. One was a handwritten playbill for a piano recital featuring Mme. Goldsteyn’s students. Nicole looked at it closely. The third student scheduled to play was Nicole Bernhardt.

  She picked up the movie advertisements. The titles were unfamiliar, and so were the stars: Viviane Romance, Albert Préjean, Danielle Darrieux. On one of them, she had crossed out Danielle Darrieux’s name and scrawled Nazi swastikas all over it, along with the word collabo.

  Collabo? What was that? From the swastikas she guessed that it wasn’t a compliment. As she looked through more of the clippings, there was an enthusiastic knock on the front door.

  “Take my key and please answer,” Ms. Zooms called from the kitchen. “It’s your friends.”

  More knocking, louder. Nicole put the journals and papers on the coffee table, got the key, and went to open the door. “This is just a dream. A really terrible dream.”

  She opened the door. Standing outside was Jack P
olin.

  “Nicole!” he exclaimed, and wrapped his arms around her. “I was so worried about you.”

  “On the other hand, I’ve had worse dreams.” Nicole smiled wildly, as he held her at arm’s length.

  “What are you saying about dreams?”

  “This is all just a little confusing. Uh, what are you doing here?”

  His eyes searched hers. “Please say you remember me, Nicole.”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “You must remember me. After all, I’ve been in love with you since the third grade.”

  nine

  You?” Nicole asked incredulously. ”In love with me?”

  Jack laughed. “You say it like it is news to you.”

  “It is.”

  “Very funny, Nicole,” said someone standing behind Jack.

  Nicole peered around him. “Mimi! I’m so glad to see you!” She hugged her friend. “Are you okay?”

  “Of course I’m okay, you nut.”

  “But at the museum you—”

  “Nico, I’m fine.” Mimi kissed Nicole on both cheeks and sailed into the living room, Little Bit and Jack trailing in her wake.

  “Now you see what I mean,” Little Bit told them.

  Jack took Nicole’s hand. “Your sister said that as of this morning you still had not recovered your memory. Are you feeling any better now?”

  Nicole gazed into his eyes. “Better and better all the time.” Her fingers were entwined with his and he was look ing at her the way she had always dreamed he would.

  “Are you going to kiss her now?” Little Bit asked.

  “Perhaps,” Jack teased.

  “What a great idea!” Nicole exclaimed.

  Little Bit made a face. “That would be extremely disgusting. As well as immature.”

  “You know, Little Bit, this part of my dream would have been too perfect without you.”

  “Little Bit?” Jack echoed. “As in, a small morsel?”