Serendipity's Footsteps

by Suzanne Nelson

  “Oh, I could, if they’d agree to see me.” He laughed, but his smile bordered on a sneer. “Funny how polio can turn you into a social pariah overnight.”

  “Like being Jewish,” Dalya blurted, then sat motionless, numbed by what she’d said. Even Henry looked surprised.

  “Is that really what it feels like?” he asked.

  Dalya stared at the counter. “It did,” she said quietly. “In Germany, before…” She couldn’t say the rest, and an instant later, the shop owner brought over their egg creams, saving her from having to explain.

  She stared at the foamy brown liquid filling her glass, then frowned when Henry slid a pretzel rod into the middle of it.

  “Why’d you do that?” she asked.

  “There’s only one right way to drink an egg cream,” he said. “Take a sip…then a bite of pretzel.” He demonstrated. “Repeat.”

  She sipped, and creamy chocolate fizzed over her tongue. “Mmmm.” She smiled. The pretzel’s saltiness made the drink even sweeter. “That is good.”

  She took another sip, then heard her name being called. It was Ruth, arm in arm with another girl and heading directly for her. Dalya shrank into her stool, wishing she could disappear.

  “Dalya!” Ruth smiled, but the curl of her lips was slighter now, less enthusiastic than the last time she’d seen her, on the SS Liberty. “I’ve been waiting for you to write me.”

  Heat prickled her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I meant to, I just…” Couldn’t bear it was the truth. But she couldn’t admit that.

  “It’s all right,” Ruth said. “I’m sure you’ve been as busy as I have.” She glanced at Henry, and Dalya introduced them. Ruth introduced the girl she was with as Ann Blumberg, her foster sister, and Dalya noticed Ruth was speaking with some short, halting English phrases now, too. But she often slipped back into German as automatically as Dalya did, and she seemed relieved to realize Henry could understand her either way. “So,” Ruth said. “Where are you going to synagogue? We’re part of a congregation downtown. Do you have plans for Rosh Hashanah?”

  “Well, I—I haven’t found a synagogue yet,” Dalya stammered, then dropped her eyes in shame when Ruth raised her eyebrows in surprise. “I’m looking, though,” she lied.

  “You can come to synagogue with us on Rosh Hashanah,” Ann volunteered, and Ruth nodded enthusiastically. “You could join us for dinner afterward. My parents won’t mind.”

  Dalya’s heart constricted. “Thank you for the invitation.” She stumbled over the English words, hoping they sounded polite enough. “Can I let you know in a few days?”

  Ruth looked at her quizzically, but Ann nodded kindly. “Of course,” Ann said. “My mother loves to have company, so it’s no problem at all.”

  Dalya stared into her egg cream, desperately seeking a change of subject. “How are your parents?” she asked Ruth. “Have they arrived yet?”

  Ruth’s smile tightened. “I haven’t heard from them in over a month, but…I’m sure they’re fine.” Her strained cheerfulness was disquieting. “We got word that they’re being held by the French government at Camp de Gurs. It’s probably some ridiculous precaution because they’re German. I know they’ll be released any day.”

  “I hope so,” Dalya said, but doubt trickled into her voice. Ruth must’ve heard it, too, because panic pinched her face.

  “We have to go,” she said suddenly, uncomfortably. “We’re going to watch Rebecca at the Strand.” She glanced from Dalya to Henry, then added, “Would you like to come along?”

  Dalya hesitated. She hadn’t been to a movie here yet, but with the tidbits of English she was finally picking up in conversations, she’d understood from other girls’ chitchat at school that they were a wonder to see. She wasn’t sure she wanted to get to know Ruth any better, though. It would only lead to more questions, and more invitations she’d have to turn down. “No thank you,” Dalya said. “I should work more on my English before I see an American movie. I’ll enjoy it better then.”

  Ruth nodded. “Well, it was wonderful seeing you. Let us know about Rosh Hashanah.”

  “I will,” Dalya said. She wouldn’t, though, and she knew Ruth would be relieved.

  She waved as Ruth and Ann left the shop, arms linked companionably. But when she turned back to her egg cream, she found Henry studying her.

  “You lied,” he said simply. “About everything.” He leaned closer. “I think you’d be happier if you never saw her again. Why?”

  “I don’t know.” She expected to find judgment in his face, but what she saw was curiosity. “Because…I can’t do any of it. It’s…too much.”

  She closed her eyes. Grief beat against their lids, but the warmth of Henry’s fingers closing over her own pulled her back from its abyss.

  “You’re a lot like me,” he said matter-of-factly. “People see us breathing, eating. They think it means we’re full of life, like they are. They don’t know that on the inside, we’re just dried-up souls.”

  He smiled at their shared secret, but Dalya shuddered, not wanting it to be true. She hated what he saw in her, but she knew it was there, all the same. Still, she liked the firmness of his fingers over hers, the way his eyes sent tremors of heat through her perpetually chilled skin. She realized, too, that a callused heart could still do its job, even if it beat stiffly, poorly. Maybe this was what she was now. This was the Dalya of After.

  So she let her hand stay in his as they talked of everything else—the city, his parents, egg creams. He made forgetfulness easier.

  That night, she slid her Shabbos candles back into their drawer in the Ashburys’ dining room. Then she tucked her father’s bag of shoemaking tools into the deepest corner of her bedroom closet, where the shadows would swallow it whole.

  —

  The Friday after that, on her walk to school, the Ashburys’ car pulled to the curb beside her. Henry peered out of the rolled-down window, his eyes bright with excitement.

  “No school for you today.” He jerked his head toward the car. “Climb in.”

  “My classes,” she started, but he held up a hand.

  “Don’t try to tell me that you care.”

  She wanted to argue that she did, but what was the point? Henry could see right through her, and he, of all people, seemed to understand the joke no one else did. She slid into the backseat to find him grinning mischievously. He looked more his age—the way he should’ve looked without his anger. She liked it much more than she cared to admit.

  “Where are we going?” She eyed him suspiciously. “And what about your tutoring?”

  “My brilliant and illustrious tutor thinks I’m at home in bed with a fever,” he said, “and we are going somewhere absolutely forbidden. At least, forbidden by my mother, that is. It’s a secret.”

  She peered into the front of the car, where Thomas was driving, his face solemn as usual. “What about Thomas?” she said softly.

  Henry leaned toward her, whispering conspiratorially, “Thomas is on our side. You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but he’s a big believer in renegades.”

  Dalya smiled. As they passed Dalton, she felt a delicious anticipation, knowing that wherever Henry was taking her had to be better than the solitude she faced among her classmates each day. The car wove through traffic for blocks as it headed away from the New York skyline that had become so familiar over the last few months. The landscape gradually changed to smaller buildings and less congestion, until finally Thomas turned into a grass parking lot full of cars. Before them stretched a sprawling fairground clustered with buildings and amusement-park rides, a large white dome and spire nestled at its center. The smoky scent of roasted peanuts and hot dogs wafted in the air. People’s chatter mixed with rumbling motors and music to create a magnetic chaos that made Dalya’s pulse sing.

  She glanced at Henry as Thomas helped him settle into his wheelchair. He beamed. “Welcome,” he said with a theatrical bow at the waist, “to the World’s Fair.”


  —

  It was something she never could’ve imagined until it unfolded before her eyes. The theme was “Building the World of Tomorrow,” and that’s exactly the way the fairground felt, like a dream of the future created for people to taste, touch, and explore.

  They wandered through the Town of Tomorrow and around the Lagoon of Nations, then wove their way through the gardens, which even in late September brimmed merrily with flowers. In the RCA building, they saw a demonstration of something called a television, which played a splendid picture on a screen with sounds at the same time. After watching a fashion show at the Special Events Center, Dalya ran her fingers over a pair of stockings made out of some silky material called nylon.

  Everything was so astonishing that she didn’t know where to look, which exhibit to choose next. She talked eagerly for the first time since she’d arrived, questions bubbling out of her as fast as she could think them. She stumbled over the English words dozens of times, but Henry waited patiently, then corrected her pronunciation and answered her questions with an enthusiasm she’d never seen in him before. His face had a passionate animation so different from the dullness it held when he was hunched over his schoolbooks or eating dinner with his parents. She wondered if this was a glimpse of what he’d been like before the polio.

  “Come on,” he said, urging Thomas to push him faster and motioning for Dalya to hurry, too. “We have to see everything.”

  He led them into the Amusement Zone of the fair, right up to the base of the Life Savers Candy Parachute Jump. He lifted himself out of the wheelchair, shrugging off Thomas’s help, and walked haltingly toward the entrance to the ride.

  “Dalya.” He waved her closer. “Ride it with me?”

  “Henry.” Thomas had hardly spoken over the course of the day, except to marvel at exhibits along with them. Now his voice held a warning.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Henry snapped, and Thomas sighed, giving up. Henry focused on Dalya. “Are you coming?”

  Dalya looked up at the metal tower, taking in a parachute as it rose, pulled by a cable, hundreds of feet into the air. Once at the top, it bulleted down as passengers suspended in their seats shrieked with delight. The Dalya of Before would’ve thought it looked fun. She might’ve begged her parents to let her ride it. But these days, fun didn’t seem right, or fair, anymore.

  “I don’t think I should,” she said.

  A grimace clouded Henry’s face, and his eyes were cobalt cyclones. “Not you too.” He jabbed a finger at the tower. “This is why Mother never let me come here. Dangerous rides aren’t meant for people with my…condition.” He shook his head, and the sadness in his eyes made her falter. He spoke again, this time with pleading. “Don’t you want to remember what it feels like? To be the way you used to be? Just for a few minutes?”

  Remember. Remember being normal. Yes, she wanted to remember what it felt like to laugh without guilt, to have nothing to grieve over except some silly homework assignment, to have a ridiculous argument with her mother over a skirt she wanted to wear. She desperately wanted to remember, but she wasn’t sure she could.

  “Yes.” She stepped to his side. “I do.”

  The cloud on his face disappeared, and his smile came back, but it only lasted until they reached the front of the line.

  “Sorry, kids.” The ride operator nodded at Henry’s braces. “Can’t let you on.”

  It took a few moments for Dalya to mentally translate what he was saying, but by the time she did, Henry was exploding. “Why?” he barked. “I might have an accident? Maybe it would cripple me for life? That would be awful.”

  “Henry.” Heat rose to her cheeks as people stopped to stare at them. Every muscle in Henry’s body was clenched. She’d seen him angry, but this was the first time she’d seen him looking dangerous, and it terrified her.

  The ride operator held up his hands. “Hey…”

  “Here.” Henry yanked a fold of bills from his pocket. He hurled them in the operator’s face. “I’ll pay you to let me kill myself.”

  The man flinched as the bills hit him, but then, seeing how much they were, he mumbled a grudging “Get on.”

  Henry stormed through the gate, his chest and arms swinging wildly in his effort to move his legs faster. Suddenly, he lost his balance, and Dalya lunged to catch him before he fell.

  “I can do it!” He straightened, roughly grabbing her shoulders like he might push her away. She shrank back, and instantly his grip softened. He blinked and breathed, the fury on his face thawing to shame.

  “I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly. “Thank you.”

  Her heart was thundering and she could still feel his wiry tension, but she offered him a cautious smile. “It’s all right.”

  They climbed into the seat of their parachute in silence, and it shot rapidly upward.

  “You didn’t have to be so…so rude,” she said. “That man didn’t do anything to you. It doesn’t help to treat people like that.”

  Henry stared out at the buildings below as they receded into miniature. “I know. I just…” He sighed. “I used to be able to run. Run fast. And now I can’t get the wrongness of what happened to me out of my head. Sometimes I want other people to feel it, too.” There was an icy hardness in his gaze. “Don’t you think that way sometimes, about what happened to you?”

  “No,” she said quickly, shuddering. “I don’t ever want anyone to feel what I did.”

  “Then maybe we are different,” he said. “More than I thought.”

  The parachute stopped at the top of the tower, swaying in the cool breeze. Dalya stared out in wonder. Rising into the cloud-flecked horizon, the city gleamed. From here, New York looked like a magnificent tomorrowland of its own. Henry had been right. There was a lovely liberation in being suspended above reality, if only for a moment.

  Then the parachute plunged, and even though she hadn’t thought it possible, her body reacted the way any other seventeen-year-old’s would have. She shrieked with exhilaration, clinging to Henry as her stomach sprang to her throat.

  When she opened her eyes, her head was tucked protectively into the nook of Henry’s arm, her face inches from his. His fingers held tightly to her waist, kindling her skin to a blaze. “Sorry,” she murmured as the parachute slowed to a lazy drifting. Embarrassed, she pulled herself away.

  “Don’t be,” he said quietly, and she saw something new in his smile, something that made her heart quicken all over again.

  They left the fair at dusk, tired but also energized by what they’d seen. She and Henry chatted easily on the ride back, recounting every detail of the day. They were smiling when they walked in to find Mrs. Ashbury waiting in the parlor, frowning.

  “What do you think you were doing, disappearing like that?” she snapped. “What if you’d been injured?” Her glare was leveled at Henry, but Dalya immediately stepped forward with apologies. Henry interrupted her.

  “It was my fault, Mother,” he said. “Dalya didn’t want to come along, but I made her. Don’t be angry with her.”

  Mrs. Ashbury’s eyes bored into Dalya’s in an unspoken reprimand. It was the first sign of disapproval Mrs. Ashbury had ever shown her, and Dalya felt humiliation at disappointing her. How could it have slipped her mind that Mrs. Ashbury might worry about Henry? Especially after all Mrs. Ashbury had done for her.

  “Very well, then,” Mrs. Ashbury said. “Dalya, please leave us, and close the door on your way out.”

  Dalya paused in the doorway, not wanting to leave Henry with the brunt of the blame. She glanced at him uncertainly, but he gave her a confident wink and grinned. Dalya nearly laughed from sheer nerves, but after Mrs. Ashbury stiffened, she didn’t dare. Instead, she closed the door and instantly heard Mrs. Ashbury’s voice grow louder and Henry’s rise to match it.

  Upstairs, she sank onto her bed, staring at the ceiling. For a few minutes, she relived the day, and it brought a smile to her lips. But as darkness stretched from her window across the fl
oor, fear scuttled into her. Fear that she’d never get out from under her own wrongness, the wrongness she felt over staying alive. Fear that even a day like the one she’d had with Henry couldn’t erase.

  BEA

  Bea pulled her legs up into the folds of her bathrobe, turning to stone. She made her toes rigid, then her feet and legs, moving upward until even her eyes were frozen, unblinking. It was all part of Princess Bea’s fairy tale, the one her father used to tell her every night before bed. Princess Beatrice was turned into a statue by an evil sorceress. Trapped in a labyrinth with impossibly high walls, Beatrice waited, in her stone body, for a prince to find her and break the spell with his love.

  When her father had been alive, they played the game in their tiny backyard in Ohio. Bea made herself still as a statue in the grass, waiting for Prince Daddy to find her, grab her, and tickle her back to life.

  But Daddy was gone now, and her new father, Benjamin, didn’t play fairy-tale games. He never wanted to rumple his suits and dirty his shoes. So Bea played the game by herself. Their new house in Connecticut was so big, it was a labyrinth. The morning they’d moved in, her mother had galloped her through the empty, echoing rooms on piggyback, neighing like a horse and declaring, “What a fine castle for Princess Bea!”

  She was trying to play the game, and Bea didn’t have the heart to tell her she wasn’t anywhere near as good at it as Daddy had been. But when the two of them burst, prancing and laughing, through the doors of Benjamin’s study, he’d looked up frowning from his desk.

  “This room is for conducting business,” he said. “It’s off-limits, Bea. Understood?”

  Bea glanced at her mother in confusion. Her mother planted a playful peck on Benjamin’s cheek. “We were just taking a tour of the kingdom, right, Bea?”

  When Benjamin’s face didn’t soften, her mother dropped her arms from around his waist and ushered Bea quietly out of the room.

  “He’s too grouchy,” Bea blurted when the study door clicked shut.

  “Shh.” Her mother knelt to her eye level. “We’re so lucky to have Benjamin in our lives. Without him, we’d be…” She bit her lip, then smiled. “It’s only that he hasn’t been around children much before.” She smoothed Bea’s hair from her forehead. “This is a big change for all of us. I’ll help you through it, and we’ll both help Benjamin. ’Cause we’re partners. Princess Bea and her trusty steed. Okay?”