Anne Frank and Me

by Cherie Bennett

  Her mom smiled. “Feeling fine, then? No dizziness, headache, nausea?”

  Nicole sat up. “I’m fine, Mom. Really.”

  “Good. Because you’ve got a visitor for breakfast.”

  Mimi appeared in the doorway, a loaded breakfast tray in her hands. “Excusez-moi, but is Sarah Bernhardt hungry?” She set the tray on Nicole’s nightstand.

  “Who’s Sarah Bernhardt?” Little Bit asked.

  “She was a French actress,” Mrs. Burns began, “who was famous for being so—”

  “Dramatic,” Nicole finished. “A theater in Paris was named after her, but the Nazis changed its name during the war because she was Jewish.”

  “What war?” Little Bit asked.

  “World War Two,” Mrs. Burns replied, regarding her eldest quizzically. “How did you know that, sweetie?”

  Nicole shrugged.

  “Maybe by mistake she actually listened in French class one day,” Little Bit theorized. “Mom, can you give me and Britnee a ride to the game this afternoon?”

  “I’m showing a house. But come downstairs and we’ll discuss it with your father.” Mrs. Burns’ cell phone rang just as she ushered Little Bit out of the room.

  Mimi sat on Nicole’s bed and pulled her legs into a lotus position. “So, Nico, how are you feeling? Really.”

  “Decent.” Nicole pulled a pillow onto her lap. “Yesterday feels like some parallel universe, though. I can’t get over that Doom didn’t do anything.”

  “Me, neither.” Mimi reached for an orange section on Nicole’s breakfast tray and popped it into her mouth. “We all just assumed—”

  “That was so messed up, Meem. We should apologize to im.”

  “Yeah. If he’ll even speak to us. So, are you up for telling me about Jack?”

  When Nicole finished explaining what had happened on the bus, Mimi just sat there, staring into space.

  “I say we put me up against the wall and shoot me,” Mimi finally said

  “Because—”

  “It’s my fault. I was so sure he was into you.”

  “It’s okay, Meem. Jack isn’t important.”

  “Excuse me. Did Girl X just say J isn’t important?”

  “Weird, I know.” Nicole searched for the hurt she’d felt when Jack had told her he was crazy about Suzanne. But it was like wiggling her tongue in the hole where her wisdom tooth had been before it had been pulled. She knew she’d been in the worst pain, but now that it was gone, it was hard to remember.

  “So, does Jack know how you felt about him?” Mimi asked.

  “Not unless you told him. And you didn’t.”

  Mimi cringed. “Well, at the museum yesterday I might have said something vacuous like, ‘You and Nicole make a cute couple.’ ”

  Nicole groaned.

  “I’m sorry, Nico.” Mimi twisted a finger into the love beads she wore. “Okay, there is only one viable course of action.”

  Nicole gave her a dubious look. “Which is?”

  “We go to the football game,” Mimi decreed. “You see Jack, Jack sees you, you act like he’s just some guy, no biggie. Fade to black. It’s the sure path to damage control. Trust me.”

  “I hate it when you say ‘trust me,’Meem. I really do.”

  The sun shone brightly, the temperature hung in the low sixties, and the streets leading to the stadium were clogged with cars. The annual East-West football game drew thousands of spectators. Nicole and Mimi walked uphill toward the stadium amidst the high-spirited crowd. “Doesn’t this seem weird, Meem, after what happened yesterday?”

  “I find life in general to be weird, but you know how skewed I am ... in a charming sort of way.” She scrutinized her friend. “You got that sweater in middle school, I remember when we bought it. I thought you threw it out.”

  “I guess I didn’t.” When Nicole had opened her closet to get dressed for the game, she’d had the strangest feeling of being overwhelmed. There were so many clothes—items she’d worn only once, some she’d never worn at all. Expensive outfits hung half-on and half-off hangers, while others were in a wrinkled heap on the floor entangled with dozens of shoes. She’d pulled on the sturdiest things she saw—the sweater and a pair of jeans.

  At the crest of the hill they joined the line to enter the stadium. “Got your ID card?” Mimi asked, as the West drum corps started their military cadence. Rat-a-tat-tat-rat-a-tat-tat.

  A jolt of anxiety shot up Nicole’s neck. “Why? What if I don’t have it?”

  “Then you don’t get in the game for free. You know that.” Mimi peered at her. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  The long line wended its way to the entrance of the stadium, splitting in two at the gate. “Students, have your ID cards ready,” a bored policeman repeated. “West students to the right, all others to the left!”

  The line edged forward, but Nicole didn’t budge. “Yo, babe, move it!” a guy down the line catcalled.

  “Move this!” Mimi shouted back at him, then turned to Nicole. “We can leave if you don’t feel good.”

  “It’s ... nothing. Free-floating anxiety,” Nicole added with a self-conscious laugh, forcing her feet forward. Mimi flashed her ID card at the guard monitoring the entrance. Nicole’s heart pounded as she flashed her card, too. It was so bizarre. Was this some weird aftereffect of her concussion?

  As they made their way through the bleachers looking for seats, she felt a little better. West’s marching band struck up the school fight song. Instantly, the crowd was on its feet waving blue and white pom-poms and singing lustily with the band. In retaliation, the East band started its fight song. The musical mayhem made Nicole dizzy. Mimi didn’t notice; she was scoping out the crowd for Jack.

  “There he is.” Mimi subtly cocked her head. “Twenty yard line, about twenty rows up from the field. Don’t look like you’re looking.”

  “I’m not,” Nicole said, her head clearing. “Let’s just go sit down.”

  They made their way past knees toward two empty seats. “Mobile ptomaine, a.k.a. Chrissy, just joined Jack and Eddie,” Mimi reported. “Uh, Suzanne is sitting next to him. Don‘t—”

  Nicole looked. And shrugged.

  Mimi regarded her. “Does my face by any chance read, ‘Deeply concerned for best friend’s mental health’?”

  “What do you want me to say, Meem? That I wish Jack was with me instead of with Suzanne? I do. But wishing won’t change anything, so I might as well accept it. How’s that?”

  “Frighteningly mature.”

  The crowd roared as the West Bears ran onto the field, and the band tore into Sousa’s “The Thunderer.” It was deafening. Nicole tried to swallow but felt like her throat was clamping up. It was awful. If she could just swallow, then maybe—

  She jumped up. “I’ve got to get a drink.”

  Mimi stood, too. “I’ll come with—”

  Nicole was already pushing past all those knees and heading for the water fountain at the top of the concrete steps. It was only as she waited in line for a drink that Mimi caught up with her. “What’s up with you, Nico? Are you sick?”

  It was Nicole’s turn at the fountain. She guzzled as if she hadn’t had a drink in days, months, years. “Leave some for the fish,” the next guy in line cracked.

  Mimi yanked Nicole’s arm. “Okay, you are acting truly strange. I’m calling your mom.”

  “No. I’m okay,” Nicole insisted, and she did feel better.

  just then, the old town air-raid siren sounded to signal the end of the pregame pageantry. “Attention, please! Ladies and gentlemen!” A voice boomed over the public address system. “Please rise to honor America and join in the singing of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’!”

  Nicole stood very still. She heard another amplified voice, making another announcement. In French.

  Attention, attention! Dans le cas d‘une mort subite, apportez le corps du mort vers la section deux cent au premier niveau du stade.

  N
icole froze.

  “Nico?” Mimi called. “Okay, you are officially weirding me out now.”

  Mimi’s voice seemed so far away. But the announcement over the loudspeaker was inescapable.

  Attention, attention! Dans le cas d‘une mort subite, apportez le corps du mort vers la section deux cent au premier niveau du stade.

  “In the event of an unexpected death, bring the body to area two hundred on the main level,” Nicole whispered.

  “You’re scaring the hell out of me, Nico.” Mimi guided her to the outer fence of the stadium. “Stay right here. Don’t move. I’m getting help. I swear, I’ll be right back.”

  In the event of an unexpected death, bring the body to area two hundred on the main level.

  Nicole huddled against the fence. She was there, and at the same time, not there. She was someplace else. It came to her, like flashes from some long-forgotten dream:

  Paris. The Occupation. The Vel d‘Hiv roundup. The black market. The attic. Drancy. The transports. The selection. The gas chamber.

  “O‘er the land of the free, and the home of the bravel”

  The crowd cheered as the national anthem ended; Nicole barely heard it. As West kicked off to East, and its players ran down the field, Nicole ran, too—all the way out of the stadium.

  thirty-eight

  Nicole stood under a canopy of autumn-hued leaves only blocks from the football stadium, staring at a tidy white frame house with drawn shades. Everyone knew who lived there. But no one she knew had ever been inside.

  She rang the bell beside the front door. No answer. She rang again, more insistently this time. Finally, the door opened With a book in her hand and reading glasses dangling from her neck, there stood Ms. Zooms.

  “Miss Burns,” the teacher said. “Good to see you hale and hearty, though I can’t say I expected you at my front door. Perhaps you’ve heard that even God took a day of rest?”

  “I’m sorry for bothering you at home, Ms. Zooms. But just now I was at the football game and I got this weird feeling, you know? No, how could you know. I’m babbling, right? Right. What I’m trying to say is, I remembered. So I had to come find out the truth.”

  Ms. Zooms looked at her curiously. “Remembered what, Miss Burns?”

  “The Holocaust. What happened. I was there.”

  Her teacher put a bookmark into her book, then opened the door wider. “Come in,” she said.

  The living room was surprisingly feminine looking, the couch and matching chair covered in shiny floral material, the carpeting pale rose. Ms. Zooms motioned Nicole to the couch, as she took a seat on the chair. “Now, please explain.”

  “This is going to sound crazy, Ms. Zooms, but I swear it isn’t a prank or anything like that. While I was unconscious I remembered I was a French girl. I was born in Paris in 1927. My father was a doctor—”

  “And your name was Nicole Bernhardt,” her teacher filled in impatiently “You’re smart but you don’t like school, and you play the piano.”

  “I’m not crazy, Ms. Zooms. I know that’s from the biography you gave me at the museum. But the thing is, I really was there. My little sister’s name was Liz-Bette and my father looked just like Mr. Urkin. And you were my mother.”

  Ms. Zooms blanched. “Highly doubtful.”

  “Then why do I remember things that weren’t in the biography?”

  “Maybe you were paying better attention to our guest speaker than I thought.”

  “No, I wasn‘t,” Nicole insisted. “So you have to tell me. Nicole Bernhardt actually existed, didn’t she? You couldn’t have made her up.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “I knew it!” Nicole jumped to her feet, trembling. “I was—”

  “Sit down, Miss Burns.”

  “But—”

  “Sit. And I’ll tell you all about Nicole Bernhardt. Excuse me one moment.” Ms. Zooms disappeared into the back of her house briefly, then returned with a massive book in her arms. She set it on the coffee table in front of Nicole. French Children of the Holocaust, A Memorial, by Serge Klarsfeld. On the cover was a French identification card with the photo of a pretty young girl.

  Ms. Zooms opened to the author’s preface. “Read the first paragraph, Miss Burns. Aloud.”

  “The eyes of 2,500 children gaze at us from across the years in these pages. They are among the more than 11,400 children whose lives are chronicled here, innocent children who were taken from their homes and put to death in the Nazi camps. Here are the names, addresses, birth dates, and the truth about what happened to all of these children. Their biographies are brief because their lives were brief. On behalf of the few survivors of their families, this book is their collective gravestone.”

  Nicole looked at her teacher. “I’m in this book?”

  Ms. Zooms opened the book at random and turned her head to read the page number. “Page five hundred. Suzanne Berger, a teenager. Born in Paris, deported August 7, 1942. She looks rather like you.”

  Nicole frowned. “I don’t understand. You said—”

  Her teacher moved ahead a few hundred pages, passing pages filled with photographs and brief biographies. “Ah, look. This girl’s name is Nicole. Her photo was taken with some other students. That could be you, too. Born June 5, 1927. Deported January 20, 1944.”

  Faster and faster, Ms. Zooms flipped. “This girl had a sister a few years younger. This one must have loved to dance, she’s dressed for a recital. And here are lists of thousands more children who have no photographs.”

  Nicole slumped down on the couch. “You made your point. You’re telling me that Nicole Bernhardt didn’t exist.”

  “On the contrary, I’m telling you she did. Pieces of her are in hundreds, thousands of children recorded here.” Ms. Zooms closed the book, her hand resting on the cover. “All murdered.”

  “It’s not the same. I was going to ask you for the other envelope, where you said what happened to me. But I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m sorry to have bothered you.” She stood; her teacher walked her to the door.

  “Something about the experience yesterday touched you so deeply that it felt real to you,” Ms. Zooms said to her at the doorstep. “That’s a good thing, Nicole. I suggest you embrace it.

  Nicole found her father and Mimi in the kitchen, on the verge of calling the police. Neither of them believed her when she told them that she’d been at Ms. Zooms’ house. She apologized for worrying them, and promised Mimi she’d call later. Then she went up to her room, where she lay on her bed, trying to fathom the unfathomable.

  If Zooms had invented Nicole Bernhardt, why were so many things about Nicole Bernhardt so vivid? How could she, Nicole Burns, know the things she knew? How? Her eyes lit on Anne Frank’s diary, which was on her desk. She stood to get it, and blood rushed to her head in a sudden hot burst. She bent over, hands to knees, temples pounding, a fevered freight train rushing headlong into the tunnel of her mind. Things melted away to other things; another time, another place.

  ‘All that suffering and death. I can’t make any sense of it. So I really want to know, where is God now?”

  “Right here. Right beside us.”

  “We’re in a cattle car!”

  “But we can still see the stars.”

  “Anne, are you scared?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even though you have faith in God?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nicole, I want to ask you something. If you really are from the future, and you read my diary, then you must know what happens to me.”

  “No—”

  “You can tell me. Please.”

  “I never finished it.”

  Nicole searched her mind for more. But the train had passed. It felt so true, that she had known Anne Frank, been on a transport with her. But how could it be, when none of it was real?

  When she stood again, the world remained intact. She got Anne’s diary from her desk. It wasn’t very long; she could read the entire thing tonight. She opened
to the first page. Whether or not what she thought had happened to Nicole Bernhardt was real, at least she would know everything that had happened to Anne.

  She read for hours. When her mother called her for dinner, she said she wasn’t hungry. When she finished the actual diary, she read an afterword that explained what had happened to Anne and her family after their arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau. There was also a lengthy appendix, a report by an independent Dutch commission, proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that the diary was genuine.

  She fell asleep with the book in her hands.

  I am so scared. Thousands of us are crammed inside some kind of arena. No food, no water; a terrible stench from people relieving themselves in every corner. How did I get here? An old bearded man in a tallis is praying, a woman croons to her sick baby. A beautiful girl with golden hair takes care of her mother. Her name is Paulette. How do I know this? She looks at me and says, I know you.

  But she is too far away for me to hear, so how can she know—

  “Nicole? Where is my sister? I lost my sister!”

  “Here, Liz-Bette. I’m here!” I take her hand. We’re on the platform at a place called Birkenau.

  “Schnell, Juden, Schnell!”

  A skeletal prisoner calls across barbed wire. “Vel d‘Hiv girll I know you!” It is Paulette.

  “You had golden hair!” I call back.

  “Go to the right!” Paulette cries. “Always go to the right!”

  “What do you mean, to the right?” Liz-Bette lets go of my hand. She runs to the left.

  “No, Liz-Bette, no!”

  A plinking. I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can‘t—

  Nicole woke up gasping, soaked with perspiration. From down the hall she heard her parents’ television, the laugh-track from a sitcom. She was completely safe, at home in her own bed, in the burbs of America, in the twenty-first century.

  But she had been there, too. She had.

  “Always go to the right!”

  Nicole closed her eyes again. She could still see Paulette, with her long golden hair. It was so clear in her mind now. The girl who had tried to save her life at Birkenau had also helped Claire escape from the Vel. Against the darkness of Nicole’s eyelids, Paulette’s face aged, like a time-lapse photograph, until she became a woman in her seventies standing before a tenth-grade English class.