Isabel’s War (16 page)

“Isabel!” my mother exclaims. “Where are your manners? Leave the table at once!”

My soaking napkin and I arrive in the kitchen, where I'm frantically rinsing my mouth with water when Sybil appears at my side. “Honest to goodness, Izzie, you're so unsophisticated. Didn't you know that champagne tastes like sour ginger ale?”

“No,” I say, between gulps of water. “You could have warned me. And anyhow that's a lie. It tastes
much
worse.”

Poor Mrs. F.—by the time she and Mr. F. leave, she looks haggard from crying her happy tears and drinking too many toasts in wine and champagne.

“Having the girls visit you this weekend, Harriette, is out of the question,” my mother states firmly, as Mrs. F. is being helped into her mink. “You're exhausted just from the effort of being out for the day instead of getting your usual amount of rest.”

Mrs. F., whose mink hat is sitting tilted a little too far
to one side on her curled coppery hair, protests that she is “fine, just fine.” But Mr. F., standing directly behind her, shakes his head to indicate that he agrees with my mother.

Then a last-minute decision is made. Helga will throw some clothes together and go home with the Frankfurters. It is, after all, her “real” home, and she can stay with her aunt and uncle until school opens on Monday.

“No need to take anything but a toothbrush, dear,” Mrs. F. calls out, as I follow Helga into our bedroom to help her pack. “We'll buy you an entire winter wardrobe on the weekend.”

“Sounds like you're going to have fun,” I say, as I watch Helga gathering pajamas and underwear to take along. “You really want to go, don't you?”

“
Ja
. It is good that I go. But she is very sick. You see that, don't you?”

“Um, well your aunt does look a lot thinner than before the operation. But that's normal I guess...”

My mother is at the door to hurry Helga up because Mrs. F. is waiting in her coat and Mr. F. has already gone to get the car. We walk Helga and her aunt to the elevator and wave goodbye. It would have been fun for Sibby and me to go up to Westchester with Helga for skating and horseback riding. But I guess it's not to be.

As the elevator door is about to close, I get a last
look at Mrs. F. and Helga. Mrs. F. is leaning against the railing for support and suddenly appears to be in pain. Helga stands beside her, tall and willowy, suitcase in hand, her expression empty and forlorn.

It's the Saturday afternoon of the Thanksgiving weekend and Sibby and I are at loose ends. After having had a disagreement about which movie to go to, it looks like we're not going to either. Sybil wants to go down to Times Square to see a romantic new spy thriller with Humphrey Bogart called
Casablanca
. I'm not sure we'll be able to get in because it's a first-run showing and Times Square is just overflowing with soldiers and sailors and everybody else who's having a holiday fling.

“So I suppose you just want to hang out in this boring neighborhood near home and see Judy Garland in
For Me and My Gal
. Or would you prefer something really juvenile like
Bambi
, the story of the adorable little baby deer?”

“You don't have to get nasty about it,” I tell Sybil. “Anyhow, what's wrong with Judy Garland?”

“She's too sweet and sappy. And those big cow eyes.”

“But she can sing, you have to admit that.”

I make one last suggestion. “How about we just go shopping?”

“With what? I don't have any money.”

“Window shopping. You know.”

Immediately behind me, I hear a high-pitched voice mimicking my own.
Window shopping, you know.
Somebody taps me hard on the shoulder. I turn around and find myself face to face with Billy Crosby.

“Uh-oh,” Sibby remarks. If she says the word
boyfriend
, I'll kill her right here in front of the movie theater, where Judy Garland is grinning at us from a huge color poster.

Billy's lips are curled into one of his exasperating smiles. “Girls! Nothing on your minds but shopping. There's a bunch of stuff you could be doing for the war effort.”

“Who asked you?” I demand.

Billy holds his ground. “Want a list?”

“No thanks,” I answer freshly. “We already rolled bandages, collected scrap metal, made tinfoil and rubber-band balls, bought defense stamps, and served sandwiches at the USO. I even tried knitting a scarf for
if
and
when
we invade France. What else am I supposed to do?” I poke Sybil. “Oh, and her mother is working at a defense job. In a shipyard.”

“Gosh, Frenchy,” Billy says, hunching his soldiers, his glasses glinting, “you don't have to be so mad about everything. What's eatin' you, anyway?”

“You are. You act like you always know everything, like you're ten miles ahead of everybody else. What makes you such a show-off?”

Sybil is shifting her weight from one foot to the other, hands on her hips, and staring down at the sidewalk.

“Honest,” Billy is suddenly pleading. “I'm not. I just thought if you wanted to get behind the war effort. But now I sorta see...”

“Listen,” Sibby suddenly explodes at the two of us. “If the both of you are just going to stand around here arguing, I'm going downtown to see the movie I wanted to see in the first place.” And, without another word, she turns and runs off toward the subway station entrance at the end of the block.

Before I can make a quick dash after her, Sibby is lost in the crowd. I stand there looking blankly in her direction.

“Aw, let her go,” Billy advises. “She's even more hot-tempered than you are, Frenchy. Anyhow, I got a suggestion.” Billy clears his throat.
“Voulez-vous faire une petite promenade avec moi?
”

What am I going to do now? Sybil has done one of the worst things a friend can do. She's run out on me and I'm stuck with Billy, who wants me to take a little walk with him.

Hmm...
une petite promenade
. Amazingly, Billy got the sentence right. And his accent wasn't bad either.

Why, I wonder, does everything sound so much better in French?

Sixteen

“So what's the story with the German girl?” Billy wants to know.

We're walking around and around the park, the one with the slimy fountain pond into which Sibby and I dipped our feet on that hot day when I'd just gotten home from Shady Pines, and where I told Sybil about Helga—and Roy.

Today, though, there's a November chill in the air and a gusty wind. And the way I see Helga is a whole lot different from the way I did then. I was so stupidly envious of her during our time together at Moskin's. Everyone crowded around her with questions and compliments. Harry the waiter and the busboys treated her like a princess. And then Roy came along and rescued her from a vicious farm dog—and became her prince.

“You mean Helga?”

“Yeah. Frankfurter.”

“I think that's disgustingly mean. Those kids at school calling her Helga Hot Dog. I just hope, Billy Crosby, that you're not one of them.”

Billy's right hand shoots up. “I swear I never called her that. You're always pickin' on me, Frenchy. What'd I ever do?”

“
Frankfurter
just means her family once came from Frankfurt in Germany. Hot dogs do, too. But it's still insulting. Also, she had to get away from Germany. Nowadays, they'd kill her over there in a minute. Because she's half Jewish.”

Billy nods. “So then she can't be a spy, I guess.”

“Did anybody ever really think she was? Did you? A fourteen-year-old girl, a spy? How dumb is that?”

Billy has started throwing pebbles into the pond. “Not impossible,” he replies nonchalantly. “Don't you read those girlie books like Nancy Drew or whoever?”

I pick up a handful of pebbles and start throwing them at the fountain, too. The target in my imagination, though, is Billy. “Nancy Drew isn't a spy,” I tell him sharply. “She's a detective.”

“Okay, okay,” he says, “calm down, Frenchy.”

It's pretty clear that Billy Crosby and I will never get along. The minute he turns smart-alecky I start getting mad at him. I get more and more furious until he sort of gives in without actually apologizing. I go along with that for a while until he starts to annoy me all over again. If that's what goes on between men and women all through life, this might be a very good time to quit trying to be friends with a boy.

I pull my knee-length winter coat tighter around me. I'm wearing penny loafers and socks, no stockings. “Listen, Billy, I'm cold. I'm going home.”

Billy drops his handful of pebbles. “Aw, gee, Frenchy, don't go. See, I knew we shoulda gone to the movies this afternoon.”

“Oh, really? Guess I didn't hear you. Or didn't you know how to say that in French?”

Ignoring my sarcasm, Billy has actually hung an arm around my shoulders and started to propel me out of the park. It seems like he's going to walk me home, even though it's not in the same direction as where he lives. But the next thing I know he's steering me through the entrance of Hansen's Drugstore and, a moment later, we're both perched on tall wooden stools at the marble soda fountain.

It always smells wonderful in Hansen's. Chocolate syrup, malted milks, ice cream sodas and sundaes, even the delicious odor of toasted bacon sandwiches, mingle with the faint scent of pharmaceuticals that comes from the prescription department all the way in the back. It's nice and warm in here, too.

Billy orders a cherry Coke, so I do, too. I could really go for a banana split or a hot chocolate with whipped cream. But what if he's going to pay and he doesn't have enough money? On the other hand, why should he pay for me? Because it was his idea? What if it was Sibby
and me? No matter whose idea it was, we'd each pay for ourselves.

This is all so confusing.

Anyhow, we sip our cherry Cokes without any more arguing, Billy pays, and I say,
Merci beaucoup
, to which Billy answers,
Il n'y a pas de quoi
. As dictated by Miss Damore, this is the correct response, meaning
don't mention it
.

Then we're outside in front of Hansen's in the early November dusk. Billy's eyeglasses catch the fading light and he flashes me a smile that seems more like a warning. “See ya in homeroom on Monday, Frenchy.”

I can't think of another thing to say. Suddenly I'm terribly embarrassed at having spent an afternoon with Billy and gone to a soda fountain with him. Was this a date? Does his having bought me a cherry Coke mean that I am bound to him in some way?

Am I no longer free to be me?

I nod and waggle the fingers of my right hand at Billy. Then I feel like an idiot. Without a word, I turn and march off down the street toward home.

Even though I haven't been walking that fast, my heart is still pounding as I step into the lobby of our apartment building. My afternoon with Billy has left me feeling perplexed and jittery. He's only a twelve-year-old kid like me (although he made a point of letting me know that he
was a lot closer to thirteen than I am), so why did I get such an odd creepy feeling when he slung his arm around me? Did his arm around my neck mean that he liked me or that he was the boss? Was the feeling nice or was it icky? Why can't I just shake off this last encounter with Billy the way I have all the others?

On top of that, I'm really upset with Sybil for the way she walked out on me right there in front of Judy Garland. I can't believe that Sibby actually got on the train and went to Times Square to see
Casablanca
. It just isn't the kind of thing she'd do without me. Probably she's home by now and this would be a good time to straighten out whatever it was that happened between us.

But when I ring the bell at the door of Sibby's apartment, it's Leona who answers. She's in her housecoat, smoking a cigarette, and listening to soft music on the radio.

“Oh, it's you, Isabel. I thought you and Sybil were spending the afternoon together. Did you kids have a fight?”

Suddenly I realize what a terrible mess I've gotten myself into by stopping off here. If Sibby really did go downtown all by herself and wasn't supposed to, I certainly don't want to tell on her. On the other hand, almost anything else I say will be a lie.

“We...um...got separated.”

Leona takes a puff on her cigarette and looks doubtful. “Whatever that means. Sit down anyway. I'm sure she'll be home soon.”

I flop down into one of Leona's sagging but really comfortable chairs. “You know,” I say in the most normal fashion I can muster, “you and I never did finish our conversation on Thanksgiving. You were telling me about the concentration camps in Germany. You were going to explain...”

“Poland,” Leona corrects me. “There are plenty of camps in Germany, of course, like the one they sent Helga's father to. But the newer camps are in Poland. The Nazis are using them to carry out the ‘Final Solution.' I told you about that the other day...”