Lauren Yanofsky Hates the Holocaust

by Leanne Lieberman

  “Aha.” Dad points with his fork. “The Holocaust was different because it was the first time technology was used to systematically kill people.” Dad has the annoying look on his face he gets when he thinks he’s winning a good debate.

  I put down my fork. “You think the Turks didn’t have weapons when they killed the Armenians? That’s a form of technology.”

  “What’s this about the Armenians?” Mom asks.

  “You see? Mom doesn’t even know about the Armenians. But everyone knows about the Jews.”

  “What’s your point, Lauren?” Dad asks.

  I feel my skin heating up, and I grip my fork. “I think the Holocaust is way overdone. I think people should move on. Forgive and maybe also forget, focus on something else.”

  Dad isn’t smiling anymore. “That sounds pretty dangerous.”

  I throw up my hands in frustration. “Great. We get to obsess about the past forever. Sounds like fun.” I get up from the table and clear my plate as quietly as I can, but my hands are shaking and I accidentally slam the dishwasher door, rattling the china. Both of my parents cringe. “Sorry,” I say, “and thanks for dinner, Mom.”

  I leave the kitchen and stand in the front hall, trying to decide whether to run down the street or go up to my room. I hear Dad telling Mom about the Armenians. He uses the word genocide instead of holocaust, and I want to go back into the kitchen and argue with him some more. Instead, I hide in the upstairs bathroom with my back against the door.

  When I calm down, I force myself to sit at my desk and do my biology homework and then some reading for history. It’s a relief to concentrate on something other than Brooke or Jesse or the crazy conversation with Dad. When I finish my homework, I head down to the kitchen for a snack. Beside the fruit bowl is the stack of books Dad was showing me earlier. I can’t help flipping through them as I eat yogurt. There’s one on the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and another about the Righteous Gentiles—people who saved Jews—in France. Another is about stolen art. I flip through the glossy pages to see the paintings. I pick up the book Dad wanted me to read. It has a black-and-white photo of a young couple on the front cover and a color photo of an ancient couple on the back. I read the book jacket. It sounds like the kind of book I’d like, not so much for the middle bit about death and destruction, but for the part about how they were reunited in Israel. No. I put the book down. It isn’t good for me to read this stuff. I need to keep my mind clear.

  The last book in the stack also has black-and-white photos on the cover. I look closely and realize they’re all twins. I feel my breath catching in my throat. Yeah, Hitler probably killed cute little twins too. I swallow the tickle in my throat. But it isn’t a book about just any twins: it’s about Mengele’s twins.

  I know Mengele was a creepy doctor who did weird medical experiments on concentration-camp prisoners, but I don’t know about the twins. I read the front and back covers, then sit down on the floor by the heating vent and read the introduction. The book is about the horrible experiments Mengele did on twins. I know I should stop reading. I’ll make myself sick again. I promised Alexis I wouldn’t read this kind of thing, but I can’t stop. It’s like I’m addicted to the details, no matter how horrifying.

  I take the book upstairs with me and brush my teeth and put on my pajamas. Then I climb into bed and continue reading, even though I’m tired and I want to stop. I have to read each detail so that maybe one day I’ll understand how such evil could exist in the world.

  It gets very late, and everyone else has gone to sleep. I am still reading, skimming for the most horrible parts. I read until my eyes ache, until my shoulders cramp from holding them so tight. Mengele chopped people up without anesthesia. He tried to make Siamese twins by sewing them together. Sometimes he did experiments on one twin and not the other, and one twin died. Most of his victims died from infection. I can feel my back tightening, my jaw locking, as I read. I can’t stop reading until I come to a section on experiments he did on women’s reproductive organs, how he made them sterile. Reading about Mengele doing stuff to women is way too freaky. I slam the book shut and shove it under my bed.

  I lie on my back in bed, my body stiff, my mind humming with an aggravating buzz. I try to remember being at the lantern festival, being surrounded by those paper-bag lanterns. In my mind I lie down on the grass, encircled in flickering light. Nothing can harm me here, not even scary thoughts. I imagine myself protected by light and slowly calm my self down until I drift to sleep.

  Eight

  On Monday morning I shower, moisturize, blow-dry my hair and then discover my straightener doesn’t work. I push the on-off switch a dozen times, but the little red light won’t come on. This is a disaster of the highest order. My hair is a giant poof of poodle frizz. I swear and smack the straightener down on the counter.

  Dad knocks on the door. “What’s up?”

  “Hair issues.”

  “Make a ponytail and call it a day.”

  “It doesn’t work that way!” I try French braids, but my hair looks lumpy, and frizz starts to erupt through the braids almost instantly. I try adding a hair band, then rip it out and throw it against the door. I need the straightener.

  Zach bangs on the bathroom door. “Hey, I need to pee.”

  “Fine.” I yank my hair free of the braids, get back into bed and pull the covers over my head.

  Mom knocks on the door. “Aren’t you getting up?”

  “I can’t. The straightener died.”

  “Oh, how bad is it?” I pop my head out; hair is springing around it. “Oh. Not so bad.”

  I pull the covers back over my head. “You’re a terrible liar.”

  “I see. Well, how about a hat?”

  “You have to take a hat off inside school.”

  “I see.”

  I think I might kick her if she says that again. “Could I please get it chemically straightened?”

  Mom sighs. “I’ll see what I can do.” She leaves the room and I hear her making breakfast for Zach, and then the car pulls out of the driveway. The house is quiet.

  Okay, so it’s not just my hair. It’s Jesse the Nazi. And Brooke the traitor. What the hell am I supposed to do? Ignore the game and hope the boys don’t play again? Rat them out and hope they get in trouble?

  Mom comes back twenty minutes later with a straightener in a plastic bag.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “I borrowed it from Shayna Shuster. Rebecca doesn’t use it much.”

  I make a face. She raises her eyebrows. “Shayna says it gets really hot, so don’t burn yourself.” She checks her watch. “If you hurry, I’ll drop you off at school.”

  “Don’t you have to be at work?”

  “I cancelled my nine fifteen.”

  “Oh, thanks.”

  “I understand hair. Do you want me to take you to get a new straightener after school?”

  “No, that’s okay. I can walk up to London Drugs myself.”

  “Fine. Put it on your debit card, and I’ll pay you back.” Mom gets up to leave. “Do you want a bagel to eat in the car?”

  “Yes, please, with cream cheese.”

  Sometimes Mom is all right.

  It’s a raw, wet day, the kind where the rain seems to fall sideways and the dampness gets into your skin. Mom wears one of those plastic old-lady rain kerchiefs over her hair to walk from the house to the car. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I say.

  “I wouldn’t say a word about frizz, if I were you.”

  I close my mouth and get in the car.

  I’m late for biology. Mr. Saunders takes my late slip and nods for me to sit down. I don’t dare look at Jesse or Brooke. As soon as the bell rings at the end of the period, I hustle out of class. Even so, Jesse catches up to me in the hallway.

  “Hey, what’s the rush?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “I’m going to English.”

  Jesse grabs my shoulder. “Hey, c’mon, I
apologized.”

  “Yeah, thanks.” I stop a moment and look at him. He looks genuinely sorry, and I don’t know what to say. “I have to go.” I pull away, holding the shoulder he touched.

  At lunchtime Chloe, Em and I walk to the convenience store for chips. When we get back to our lockers, Brooke is chatting with Jesse. She’s leaning against her locker with her arms crossed under her boobs to make them look bigger.

  Chloe grabs my arm. “What’s up with that?”

  “Nothing.” I focus on getting my shorts and T-shirt out of my locker.

  “That is so not nothing.”

  I head for the bathroom and lock myself in a stall so no one can see the tears forming in my eyes. Em and Chloe follow me and stand outside the stall. “What does Brooke think she’s doing?” Chloe asks.

  “It’s complicated,” I say from inside the stall.

  “It’s not complicated. She’s a man stealer,” Em spits out.

  “Complicated how?” Chloe asks.

  “I can’t tell you now.”

  “Can we talk after school?” Em asks.

  I open the stall and daub my eyelashes to stop the flow of mascara. “That would be good.” Chloe and Em both hug me, and we stand in the bathroom ignoring other girls until the bell rings. I stay in the bathroom until I’m sure Brooke and Jesse are gone. I’m late for phys ed and have to run laps, but I don’t care.

  Chloe and Em are waiting for me by the lockers after school.

  “We feel bad. We’ve been so busy, we didn’t even know something was going on with Brooke,” Chloe says.

  “Man stealer,” Em whispers.

  Chloe elbows Em in the ribs. “Wanna come over?” she says to me.

  I nod, and we head out into the drizzling afternoon. At Chloe’s house we settle in the TV room with popcorn and cranberry juice. I feel like doing something mindless—watching TV or even playing video games—but Chloe and Em want the dirt.

  “So, what happened?”

  “Well, Brooke says she’s in love with Jesse.”

  “But he’s yours,” Em wails. “He even writes you poetry.”

  “We’re just friends.”

  Em stuffs her face with popcorn. “Could you please stop saying that? We’re writing a musical about you two.”

  “You are?”

  “Yeah, want to hear?”

  Em and Chloe look at each other and then sing, “Oh he’s a goy and she’s a Jew and they don’t know what to do. Teen lo-o-o-ve.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  Chloe flops back on the couch. “Okay, we just made that up after school, but c’mon, what happened?”

  I sigh. “I guess you didn’t see, but when we were at the park the other night, the guys, including Jesse, were dressed up as Nazis. And I totally freaked out at him about it.”

  Chloe sits up. “Wow, that’s really bad.”

  Em crinkles her brow. “Nazis? As in the guys who killed all the Jews?”

  “And lots of other people too. Anyway, I guess Brooke can laugh it off, but I can’t. And she’s ‘deeply in love’ with him.”

  “Did you say ‘deeply’?” Chloe asks.

  “Yep.”

  “I think I’m going to barf.” Chloe holds her hand over her mouth.

  “You could write it into your musical instead.”

  “Ooh.” Em rubs her hands together. “Now we’ve got conflict. A Smoker girl is trying to break up the young cross-cultural lovers. What will Lauren do?”

  “I don’t think anything rhymes with cross-cultural,”

  Chloe says.

  “How about interracial?” Em suggests.

  Chloe cocks her head to the side. “They’re not technically interracial or even mixed ethnicities.”

  “Guys, please.”

  “Sorry,” Em says.

  “Anyway, I want to—I don’t know—disappear for a while. I can’t watch them at school. And I sit between them in biology. But I can’t be there.”

  “That’s so crazy,” Chloe says.

  “What would you do?” I ask.

  Chloe and Em look at each for a moment and then Em says, “Well, I would pray about it.”

  My eyes open wider. “Look, guys, I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t think that’s my thing.”

  “No, you should try it,” Chloe says. Both of them are looking at me earnestly.

  I take a deep breath. “C’mon, it’s not like if I pray for Brooke not to like Jesse she’ll stop. The world doesn’t work that way.”

  “No,” Chloe says, “but it might make you feel better.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

  We sit quietly for a moment, eating the last of the popcorn. “I’m going to pray for you tomorrow at Bible study anyway,” Em says. “If that’s okay.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Me too,” Chloe says.

  “You go to Bible study too?”

  “Yep. Every Tuesday morning at seven thirty.”

  “Wow. That’s early. What exactly do you do there?”

  “Well, we usually read a section of the Bible and talk about it, and then we have a short prayer session and maybe a talk from Cathy.”

  “Who’s Cathy?”

  “She’s our group leader.”

  “Hey, you should come tomorrow morning.” Em grips my hand. “It’s at my house, and my mom’s making pancakes for everyone.”

  “I’d feel awkward.”

  “We’ll have a special prayer for you, except we won’t say your name or anything.”

  “Well…”

  “Think of it as a learning experience.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  I leave soon after to walk home. It’s pouring now, and the rain runs off my jacket, soaking my jeans. I’ve never thought much about prayer. To me, it’s the chanting you have to do at Hebrew school while your teacher makes sure you’re not daydreaming. And if I did pray, what would I ask for? For Jesse not to have dressed up as a Nazi? No, I’d pray not to be Jewish; then I wouldn’t care what Jesse wore.

  When I get home, my parents are pacing the kitchen. “What’s going on?” I say. “Don’t you guys work anymore?”

  Mom taps her long burgundy fingernails on the counter. “No one can find your brother.”

  “Oh.”

  Dad leans on the counter, brow furrowed. “Do you have any idea where he might be?”

  I shake my head. “Did he go to school?”

  “I dropped him off this morning,” Mom says, “but he left at lunch and no one knows where he is.”

  I listen to the rain drumming on the skylight. “Well, I’m sure he’ll show up when’s he ready.” I quickly head down to the basement, in case Mom and Dad start fighting. They used to argue a lot when Zach was still at Hebrew school and hiding all the time. Zach would hide if his phys ed class was too loud or if his schedule changed unexpectedly. He hated fire and earthquake drills. Even a class party would throw him out of whack. Every time Zach hid or, worse, ran away from school, I’d end up sitting with him or looking for him until Mom left work to get him. I’d hate how Zach looked when I’d find him hiding in the equipment closet with his hands over his ears, or under the librarian’s desk with his eyes closed. I’d always want to hug him, but I knew that that would be too much contact for him when he was feeling overwhelmed. Instead I’d sit quietly beside him until he was ready to come out of hiding. Zach’s been much happier since he transferred to a special private school a couple of years ago.

  In the basement, I sit on the stool at the workbench. I’ve decided to make a star lantern. It’s got a lot of straight lines, so it shouldn’t be too hard. I’ve made some sketches, and now I’m trying to cut the wood, but the saw keeps slipping. Maybe I’ll figure out how to suspend a candle in a cheese grater instead. I saw a few people with lanterns like that last summer, and they looked pretty cool too, but not as cool as the dragons, cupcakes and aliens.

  I think the real reason I’m having so much trouble making a lant
ern is that when I close my eyes and imagine myself at the festival next summer, I’m not walking around with a lantern, I’m spinning a burning hula hoop around my waist, around my arms. I’m surrounded by flames, yet not burning.

  This will definitely not happen. I’m not the performing type. Not even with an unlit hula hoop.

  I pick up the saw to try again, and then I hear a tapping sound. At first I think it’s the furnace, or maybe the water heater, but then I hear it again, coming from the laundry room. I think of mice and yank my feet up onto the stool, but it’s not really a scurrying sound. I have a moment of panic, and then it occurs to me: Zach. “Who’s there?” No response. “Hey, Zach,” I whisper, “is that you?”

  I get a cough in response.

  “Cough twice if it’s really you.”

  Zach coughs twice. I breathe a sigh of relief and stick my head into the laundry room. “Where are you?” The closet door slides open a bit, and I see two eyes peeking out from behind the ski suits.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.” Zach’s eyes blink in the darkness. I hear his toes tapping on the linoleum.

  “Oh. Wanna come out?”

  “No, thanks.”

  I cross my arms and tap my toes back at him. Then Zach asks me, “What are you doing down here?”

  “Trying to make something.”

  “What?”

  “Just this art project.”

  Zach steps out of the closet, his hair full of static. “Can I see?”

  “Well, sure.”

  He follows me to the workbench and stares at the mess of wood and sawdust.

  “I’m trying to make a lantern.”

  “A what?”

  “A lantern—you know, something you put a candle in. It’s made out of tissue paper, wire and wood.”

  “Oh. So what’s the problem?”

  I hold up the two uneven pieces of wood. “I can’t saw straight.”

  “Did you use a vise grip?”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s this thing that holds the wood steady.”

  “I don’t think Dad has one. How do you know about that?”

  “Shop class. I actually like shop class. Did you know the lathe in the shop at school can turn a block of wood into a baseball bat in less than five minutes?”