Isabel’s War (12 page)

The moment the police officer lets go of Helga, she dashes away to our bedroom and shuts the door firmly. I look around doubtfully, wondering if I should follow her. I imagine, though, that she has collapsed in a flood of tears and ought to be left alone to work through her shame and terror at having been delivered to our door by a member of the New York City police force. Even though American cops are very different from the Nazi police, I know she's scared stiff of authority figures in uniform.

Instantly, we're all cackling at the policeman, demanding to know where he found Helga and if she's been in any sort of trouble.

“Calm down, ladies,” he advises. “She was in the subway station wandering around on the platform, seemed pretty confused. I noticed her watching the trains, kind of nervous and not sure about getting on. I figured her for a runaway.”

My mother throws her hands in the air in a wild gesture. “Where could she have been going, and at this time of night? To her Aunt Harriette? Harriette's still in the hospital. She's had a slight relapse. Helga knows that.”

A runaway! We're all pretty baffled. I know that Helga isn't happy here with us. She isn't in the right grade in
school, and some of the stupid kids in our seventh-grade homeroom have started calling her “Helga Hot Dog.”

She wasn't even happy when we were at Shady Pines, except for Roy. And now he's off fighting in Guadalcanal or some other Japanese-infested island in the Pacific. But for Helga to plan on running away? Where would she run to? Would she really do such a thing?

“I'm gonna leave the girl with you, ma'am,” the policeman says to my mother. “But let me give you a word of advice. She might be a so-called refugee with the papers to prove it. But she's a German national and we're at war with Germany. Keep close tabs on her. There's talk about spies getting in the country. If she finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time, she could get into a lot of trouble.”

“Well, I never...” my mother begins.

Leona Simon steps forward. “That's good advice. We're really grateful to you, officer.”

Sibby and I glance knowingly at each other. Thankfully, nothing has come out about the ruckus at the U.S.O., which was exactly the sort of the thing the policeman was referring to. But I'm still unclear about where Helga was intending to go when she ran down into the local subway station.

My mother is actually serving tea to Leona, and milk and cookies to Sybil and me, when my father's key turns in the
lock and he bursts through the door like a charging bull.

“Well, any news? What is this, a tea party? I looked everywhere within a radius of twenty blocks. The girl's lost...lost, abducted, kidnapped into the white slave trade, who knows what! And we're going be held responsible. Herman Frankfurter will never speak to me again. And he'll be right, right, absolutely right....”

All this time, my mother is waving her arms and entreating my father to put a stop to his tirade. “She's here, here, Harold. A police officer found her and brought her home. He left not ten minutes ago. Everything is all right.”

My father collapses into a chair. “Well, for crying out loud, why didn't somebody tell me?”

When I go to my room a little later I knock softly on the door first. It isn't really my room now that Helga is sharing it, and I'm always afraid I'll interrupt her or embarrass her—or myself—if I don't behave formally. She's different from somebody like Sibby; I'm sure that if we two roomed together, we would go around stripped to our panties without thinking anything of it. Everything would be, as the French say,
au naturel
.

Helga is still fully dressed, sitting on her bed and looking through some school assignments. She's been working hard on her English grammar. But I wonder how she can study at a time like this.

“
Ach
, Isabel,” she says, “I am ready to go now and apologize to your parents for the terrible trouble I caused. I will explain that I came into a panic when the fighting began in the U.S.O. and I could think only that I must run away from it. Perhaps otherwise I would be arrested for being the cause of this trouble...”

Helga is already getting off the bed and putting her shoes on so that she can go into the living room to explain things to my mother and father. She is so proper that heaven forbid she should walk out of here shoeless.

“No!” I hiss at her urgently. “You mustn't say anything about the fight at the U.S.O. You'll only get Sybil's mother in trouble for having taken us there in the first place. Besides, none of that was your fault.”

But Helga is stubbornly continuing to fasten the straps on her shoes, when there is a sharp rap at the door and my mother slides into the room.

“Are you two all right in here? How are you feeling, Helga? Will you please promise not to frighten us like that again? It's very dangerous for a young girl to go wandering around on the subway stations at night. Why did you do that?”

I give Helga a warning look. “She panicked,” I answer for her as hastily as I can. “It became so crowded at the U.S.O. She couldn't breathe. So she started to walk home without telling us. But she got lost. That's why she went into the subway, to see if she could find a policeman.”

My mother frowns at me. “Isabel, would you mind letting Helga tell it herself. She's perfectly capable of doing so. Helga?”

“
Ach
,
ja
, Mrs. Brandt, it's true what Isabel says. It became so hot in that place. I thought I would faint. Only, once out in the street, I became confused and lost my way. So then I thought of the subway station...” Helga's voice has become choked with emotion and it seems for a moment that she is going to cry.

“Now, now, dear.” My mother perches on the side of Helga's bed and pats her shoulder. “It's nothing to get upset about. As long as you're back, you know that you're safe here with us. I'm so glad that police officer was wrong when he said that he spotted you as being a runaway.”

My mother advises us that she and my father are going to bed. She reminds Helga that she's left milk and cookies for her in the kitchen. Helga and I are alone once more.

To my surprise, Helga undoes the buttons at the back of her dress and lifts it off over her head, something she wouldn't ordinarily do in front of me. Standing there in her slip, she says, “I am a good liar, Isabel,
nein
?”

I'm dumbfounded. Helga's tone is so different from her regular one. There is a bitter ring to her voice and it is more high-pitched than usual. Now I seriously am wondering if Helga is going to become hysterical.

I am sitting cross-legged on my bed, staring at her. “That was only a white lie, Helga. And thank you for backing me up and saving Mrs. Simon from having to take all the blame for what happened tonight.”

Helga shakes her head stubbornly. “It was a lie, Isabel. I have told lies before, and one very big lie that I will pay for all my life. I promised myself that after I came to America I would never lie again, not even for the smallest reason. Never! But, you see, now I have done it. And whatever happens to me for this, it does not matter. I deserve it.”

Helga grabs her bathrobe and pajamas and runs off to the bathroom. I can't tell whether she is really crying this time or is simply in a frenzy of self-anger. Most baffling of all, what is Helga talking about when she says,
One very big lie that I will pay for all my life
?

Twelve

“Are you okay, Helga? You don't feel sick or anything?”

A week has gone by, and Helga and I are sitting side-by-side in a subway train that is taking us to the very last stop in New York City. From there we'll get on a bus that will drop us at the hospital in Westchester where Harriette Frankfurter is making a slow recovery from her operation.

Ordinarily, my mother would be with us. But today, she's expecting Arnold to arrive on his furlough and she's busy preparing all the food goodies she can with her limited number of ration coupons. So she's designated me to be Helga's guide because I'm sort of an “old hand” at getting around the city.

Helga seems especially nervous today. Maybe it's because there are so many soldiers and other uniformed men on the trains. Maybe she's worried about meeting the policeman who brought her home last week suspecting that she was a runaway.

Anyhow, I can't help noticing that she keeps her head down most of the time and looks up only when the doors
open to admit new passengers, and then very cautiously.

“I still don't understand,” I say as gently as I can. “If you don't like the trains, and the people on them scare you, what were you
really
doing in that subway station all by yourself last week?”

Helga shakes her head and I can't even see her eyes. She is wearing one of the khaki-colored caps with a visor that she brought with her from England. “I already explained to you, Isabel, after these lies I tell I don't care what happens to me. If it is something bad, it is my punishment. That one time, when the policeman comes over to me and says where do you live, I tell him. That one time and that time only.”

“So,” I say, twisting my neck at an uncomfortable angle to try to see Helga's half-hidden face, “you really were planning on running away. But where would you have gone? Would you try it again? You can't do that, Helga. Something terrible could happen to you.”

There is a fierceness in Helga's reply. “I already told you what is the reason. It's for me to suffer what happens.”

I'm suddenly gripped with the fear that Helga may actually be having thoughts of throwing her life away. All week she's been like this, secretive and talking in riddles that are very scary.

When the train comes to a halt at its final stop at the city line and everybody gets off, I clutch her hand as tightly as I can. I watch her nervously as we wait at the
bus station. When the bus comes, I push her on ahead of me and sit beside her until it's time to get off.

“Oh, my darling girls are here!”

Harriette Frankfurter is seated in a chair in a sunny corner of her hospital room. She is wearing a long white silk dressing gown with sequin appliqués of butterflies in delicate but dazzling colors. Her hair and makeup are perfect as usual.

A white-uniformed nurse and Mr. F. are also present. Fresh flowers fill every corner of the room, and a box of sumptuous chocolates lies open on a bedside table.

Helga embraces her aunt. I follow with a gentle hug and am enveloped in Mrs. F.'s lilac-scented cologne. I tell Mrs. F. how well she is looking, and I learn that she'll be going home soon with the private nurse, who's now in the room, to take care of her. Mr. F. looks on approvingly.

“I want a nice long visit this time,” Mrs. F. declares. “But first, you girls must be hungry. Uncle Herman will take you down to the coffee shop for lunch.”

“Honestly,” I say, the palms of my hands encircling my stomach, “I couldn't eat a thing. I had such a big breakfast. But Helga ate almost nothing this morning...”

The plan I've been cooking up for this visit works. Mr. F. goes down to the hospital's coffee shop with Helga, the nurse takes a break from her duties, and I'm alone with Mrs. F.

Why do I get along so much better with other grown married women, like Leona Simon and Mrs. F., than I do with my own mother? The moment we're alone I can see that we're on the same wavelength. Mrs. F. leans forward and her black-rimmed mascara-brushed eyes take on a concerned look.

“Why is Helga wearing that depressing military cap and those awful khakis they gave her at that dreary hostel in England? She has much nicer things. And, please understand that this isn't meant as any sort of criticism, dear, but why does she look so thin and seem so nervous?”

This is just the opening I've been hoping for. I know my mother would kill me for worrying her good friend Harriette Frankfurter with reports about Helga. But I think it would be wrong to hold back. It's important to tell Mrs. F. how Helga's been acting lately, and some of the scary things she's been saying.

So I blab the whole story from
Sieg Heil!
and “Helga Hot Dog” at school to the U.S.O. fight over the soldier who called Helga a Kraut and a spy. I tell Mrs. F. about Helga running away from the dance and being brought home by a policeman who found her in the subway station. I ask her if she knows what Helga means when she talks about deserving to be punished for telling lies. And I ask her if she knows anything about the
one very big lie that I will pay for all my life
.

Mrs. F. listens with a mixture of pity and alarm. “Oh, the poor child. All this after what she went through in England. Did she tell you about her life on the chicken farm and then in the hostel? But lies...telling lies she should be punished for...I don't know about any such thing...”

I pounce at the mention of the chicken farm. “Was that where she lived when she first arrived in England? No, she never told me.”

Mrs. F. sighs deeply. “She wants to forget it. It was just very bad luck. Most of the German refugee children are being treated well over there from what we hear. But, you know, when Helga arrived in England she waited a very long time with the rest of the Children's Transport for someone to offer her a home.