Anne Frank and Me (27 page)

Nicole spoke to Paulette in her mind.
You have a nice son, Paulette.

“And now,” the man continued, “if you would permit me, I would like to share with you what my mother called her proof that she had defeated Hitler.”

He nodded to some people in the first row, who joined him on the stage. “This is my wife, Shira.” He put his arm around a woman with dark hair. “And these are our children, Paulette's grandchildren and her legacy. Benjamin, who is fourteen, Jacob, who is twelve, and Sarah, who is nine.”

An ache welled up in Nicole's throat. People were crying loudly, but she would not let her own tears come. She wanted to be strong, because a long, long time ago, Paulette had been so strong for her.

As the rabbi stood to hug each of Paulette's grandchildren, Nicole slipped out of the sanctuary. She had the strongest urge to be alone with Paulette's things before the crowd of mourners came to look at them. She had just found a sign that pointed to the social hall when a surprised voice called to her.

“Nicole?”

She turned around. David. He wore a dark suit and tie. “What are you doing here?”

Nicole laughed. He was looking at her as if she'd lost her mind. How could she possibly explain that, in fact, she'd finally found it?

“What are you doing here?” she countered.

“My family belongs to this synagogue. Seriously, you didn't come for Mrs. Litzger-Gold's funeral, did you? You had zero interest in her.”

“People change. Or maybe they find who they used to be. Like the me you knew in sixth grade.”

He smiled. “I liked her.”

“I liked her, too. See you around.” She waited for him to enter the sanctuary before she opened the doors of the social hall.

Nicole saw it immediately. Resting on an easel just inside the entrance was a blown-up photo of Paulette Litzger as a teenage girl in Paris. She had short, dark hair, and wore wire-rim glasses; an entirely different face from the girl with the golden hair at the Vel d‘Hiv and Birkenau.

She was another Paulette.

Nicole sagged against the closed door, no bones to hold herself upright, no blood coursing through her veins. It had all been a fantasy. There was no such thing as “signs.” The heart was just a stupid muscle that pumped away until it quit forever; it didn't know anything at all. She hated that Zooms was right. There had been no Nicole Bernhardt. She hadn't met Anne Frank on a transport from Westerbork. And she had never known Paulette Litzger-Gold. Her only real connection to Paulette had been as a student who had only half-listened in Ms. Zooms' English class. Which was really no connection at all.

Nicole heard a male voice chanting a somber melody from the sanctuary; the funeral service must be nearly over. But she felt numb, unable to contemplate the walk back to the bus stop. So she made her way to the long glass case in which Paulette's things were displayed. A few handwritten words on a file card identified each object.

There was a photo. Caption:
Paulette and Sam on their twentieth wedding anniversary at Niagara Falls. Sam died in 1985.

Another photo, older, in a brown leather frame. Caption:
The Litzger family in their Paris apartment—Paulette, her older brother, and her parents.

Nicole saw that the mother was tall and slender, with the same eyes as Paulette. No resemblance at all to the mother in the Vel.

Next to the family photo was Paulette's girlhood French identity card, stamped Juive.
Juive is French for Jew.

A set of United States citizenship papers. Caption:
Paulette considered the day of her citizenship one of the proudest days of her life.

A letter signed by Steven Spielberg.
Paulette was invited to videotape testimony for the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation.

A videotape.
Paulette's testimony for the foundation.

Nicole was about to leave when the room darkened slightly as the sun ducked behind a cloud. She saw there were a few more items in the case that had been hidden by the sun's glare. She went to see what they were.

A spoon.
Paulette's spoon from Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Next to the spoon Nicole saw a torn and much-folded scrap of paper, yellowed with age, with French handwriting too small and faded to make out until she pressed her nose against the glass.

Next to it, a translation:

Next to the translation, a file card:
This is the fragment of a letter that Paulette found on a Paris park bench in 1943; it gave her such hope that she made many copies and left them on other benches for people to find while keeping the original on her person until the moment of her death.

 

Nicole felt herself lifted skyward by a shimmering golden light. For she knew without a doubt that she was reading her own handwriting. In French. She was Girl X. And somehow Paulette had found at least one of the notes that Mimi had smuggled out onto the streets of Paris.

No, Paulette Litzger-Gold had not been the Paulette who had tried to save her life at Birkenau. Instead, she was a different Paulette, one who had known Nicole by her writing alone, and Nicole had helped to save hers. It had all happened. She really had been there. And with that knowledge, she left behind the earthbound girl who had believed she would always revolve around someone else. She was free.

Day 6, 8:36 p.m.

 

The magic counter on the Girl X website still stands at 000001. If you are reading this now,you are 000002 or above. If you care enough to e-mail me, I can explain anything you're about to read that doesn't make sense, such as:

 

One more thing. My name is Nicole.

 

The bus ride home from Paulette's funeral took forever. I found my mom in the kitchen unpacking groceries while she talked business on her cell phone. All I cared about was finding my little sister. I found her standing in front of my mirror, modeling my favorite sweater and my new earrings.

“I was only borrowing them,” she said quickly. “You don't even take care of your stuff, anyway.”

I sat on my bed. “You want‘em?”

She was beyond stunned. “What?”

On second thought, I really loved that sweater. “You can keep the earrings.” I held out my hands for the sweater, and she gave it to me.

“You're actually giving me your new earrings? Why would you do that? You hate me:”

“I don't hate you.”

Little Bit folded her arms. “There has to be a catch:”

“There is.”

I knew it.”

“Little Bit, tell me one thing you want from me more than anything else in the world. I'll do it and throw the earrings in for free, if you do one thing for me.”

“What?”

“Come somewhere with me for a couple of hours.”

Little Bit looked skeptical. “That's it? That's all?”

“That's all. Name the one thing you most want from me.”

Little Bit bit her lip. “You can't laugh. Promise.”

“I promise.”

“What I want is for you to call me Elizabeth.”

How could I not have realized it meant so much to her? “Elizabeth,” I said. “All right, Elizabeth. Let's go.”

A half-hour later, Elizabeth stared out the window as our bus stopped at a light. “How much farther, Nicole?”

“A little ways.”

“Why won't you tell me where we're going?”

Instead of answering, I said, “ ‘I never utter my real feelings about anything.' ”

Elizabeth looked confused. “You don't?”

“ ‘My lighter, superficial side will always be too quick for the deeper side of me, and that's why it always wins.' ”

Elizabeth made a face. “You are acting very weird and I don't understand what you're saying.”

“I didn't say it. A friend did. I was quoting her.”

“Quoting who?”

“ ‘That's the difficulty in these times: Ideals, dreams, and cherished hopes rise within us, only to meet the horrible truth and be shattered,'” I quoted again.

“Your friend said that?” Elizabeth looked thoughtful.

“There's more. Actually, she didn't say it, she wrote it. It's from her diary.” I pulled Elizabeth's book report on Anne Frank's diary out of my pocket.

She looked embarrassed. “I didn't really read the whole thing,” she admitted. “Are you mad I used your computer?”

“No. But I'm mad about what you wrote in this book report, when you didn't know what you were talking about.”

“But that expert guy on the Internet said—”

“Anyone can call themselves an expert, Elizabeth. He's a liar. Anne Frank wrote every word of her diary. When we get back home, I'll show you the real proof.”

“Okay.”

I put my arm around her, Burb Girl in Training, currently hurtling down the highway toward Heatherville or Chrissyland or someplace I did not want her to end up. But maybe she could go a different way, end up someplace else entirely, if only I cared enough to try to show her how.

Maybe not shattered. I turned to my sister. “This is important, Elizabeth. We could have been in the Holocaust. You and me. Anne Frank could have been a friend of ours. Do you understand that?”

She looked up at me, her face more solemn than I had ever seen it before. And she nodded.

I nodded back. “Before we get to the exhibit, I'll tell you a little about Anne, okay? How she became a famous writer, and broke a million hearts.”

TIME LINE OF ACTUAL EVENTS

 

 

12 June ·
Anne Frank born, Frankfurt, Germany

 

30
January.
Adolf Hitler appointed chancellor of Germany

5
December. Anne Frank's family moves to Amsterdam, Holland

 

 

19 August.
90 percent of German voters approve dictatorial powers for Hitler

 

 

15 September ·
German Nuremberg race laws against Jews decreed

 

 

12
March. German troops enter Austria

24
April. Germany orders all Jews to register wealth and property

23
July. All German Jews over the age of fifteen must have identity cards

9-10
November. Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) Mobs attack synagogues and Jewish businesses across Germany

 

 

15 March.
German troops seize Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic and Slovakia)

1 September.
Germany invades Poland

3
September. France and Great Britain both declare war on Germany; United States stays neutral

 

10 May.
Germany invades Holland, Luxembourg, and Belgium

12 May.
Germany invades France

14
June.
Paris occupied by German troops

18 June.
Hitler tours Occupied Paris. Charles de Gaulle gives BBC radio address calling for continued resistance against the Nazis

22 June ·
German-French armistice signed. A portion of southern France remains under nominal French control with seat of government at Vichy

October
. French Statut des Juifs, a wide array of anti-Jewish laws, goes into effect

 

 

16 May.
Marshal Pétain approves collaboration with Nazis

22 June ·
Germany breaks treaty with Russia and invades that nation

22 July ·
French law permits confiscation of Jewish property

10 September.
Nazi posters go up in Paris threatening that 50-100 French hostages will be shot for every German soldier killed by the Resistance

7 December ·
Japan attacks United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. United States declares war on Japan on 8 December