Let It Shine (5 page)

“Girl, I just knew there was more to you than that Miss Prim and Proper,” Henrietta said with a relieved sigh. “Sometimes you just got that little extra edge in your voice, and I knew it couldn’t be gas all the time.”

When Sofie’s eyes flashed back to Ivan, they were sparkling with challenge.

The door to the common room flew in and a young man, lanky and high yellow, called out, “Come see the news. Come! It’s horrible.”

The scenes on the small black-and-white television looked like something out of a war film. The camera panned over a mob of white men surrounding an interstate bus, ravening as they broke out windows with pipes and rocks and attacked the people inside. On the outskirts of the crowd, women dressed in skirts and dresses cheered them on, their faces contorted into masks of hatred. Some of them cradled infants in their arms. A shell-shocked news reporter tried to explain what was happening behind him. “They say that they’re going to burn them alive in the bus. Folks at home, remember that these are six members of a nonviolent protest group and there are innocent passengers who have nothing to do with the protest.” A man ran by and shoved the reporter, and then there was a loud whoosh, like the sound of a lit matchmaking contact with the gas from a stovetop burner. There were even more screams as flames shot out of the back of the bus.

All of the air seemed to disappear from the room around them as they surrounded the small television. Ivan heard an ugly sound from next to him and saw that Lemuel, the man he had been practicing with, was fighting against the sobs rising up in his throat. He realized that the black students had moved together unconsciously, leaving a buffer zone between him and them. Between the person who looked like the attackers on television and those who looked like most of the protestors being beaten. Sofie still stood beside him. Her expression was unreadable. She didn’t cry like the man on the other side of him, but there was something infinitely sadder in the way she regarded the screen. He thought of how he’d felt when shown pictures of emaciated concentration camp survivors, knowing they had committed the same crime as him: being born Jewish. When it came to the pictures of the piles of bodies, he’d always closed his eyes, afraid of seeing some familiar feature that revealed his grandparents or his aunt Ilona or any of the other Friedmans who hadn’t escaped the machinations of the Third Reich. Seeing those images in black and white, and in the black ink tattooed on some of the worshipers at synagogue, had made everything real in a way his imagination could not.

“They’re not allowing the Riders to exit.” The reporter talked slowly as if considering whether each word could actually be true whether his eyes were deceiving him. Ivan felt something wrap around his arm—Sofie’s hands had clasped his biceps, seemingly just to hold herself up. They all stared on as the fire engulfed the bus. Another explosion sounded and the mob cleared from around the bus, allowing the passengers to escape.

“Shit.” Ivan didn’t know who said it. It could have been him. The moment of elation for the people escaping was short-lived as the mob closed around them and began beating and kicking and tearing; they were out for blood, and they got it. The crowd surrounded a white man with thick horn-rimmed glasses as he stumbled off the bus coughing; a man teed up with a metal pipe like he was at baseball practice and swung at his face, laughing as the man with glasses crumpled to the ground. As if on signal, the police finally moved in.

David shut the television off. His shoulders heaved, and for a moment Ivan thought he was preparing some kind of rousing battle cry. Instead, his voice was broken when he turned to the other students and spoke. “This is what we are fighting against, brothers and sisters. Do you understand that these people see us as subhuman? Or worse: humans who might be just as good as them.” He glanced at Ivan. “They’ll see you as a race traitor. They’ll want to give it to you good.”

“Consider me Judas, then,” Ivan said. “I’ve heard all the stories of how my people knew Kristallnacht and the purges and something even worse were coming, but everyone hoped it could be avoided somehow. Hope alone can’t change things in this country. You’re trying to do that, and I intend to help.”

“I’m still in,” Sofie said. “I imagine that after seeing that, you’re going to have a lot more volunteers.”

“And a lot more enemies,” Henrietta added.

“Do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God’s,” David said. His voice was strong again, and the vehemence of it raised goosebumps on Ivan’s arms despite his neutrality when it came to religion. “Everybody join hands,” David said, and the students obeyed. “Let’s sing, together, and know that just as our voices are joined, our will shall be joined, too.”

Sofie’s hand was warm in Ivan’s as the song began, but her voice was low as if she had muted herself. He wanted to lean down to hear her, but just being able to touch her was enough. “Let the circle, be unbroken, by and by, by and by.”

Ivan hadn’t known what he’d expected when he volunteered, but as the words of his new compatriots mingled with his own deep voice, he was reminded of the sense of connection and unity he only experienced on the high holy days or on those trips to synagogue that had grown few and far between.

“We’ll meet here again tomorrow night,” David said. He pulled Henrietta close, and they swayed there, supporting each other. “Would you mind leading a session at tomorrow night’s meeting?” David asked. “I would appreciate it. Fisticuffs aren’t my forte.”

Ivan nodded. The pride that surged through him could have been considered a sin, but then again even the Talmud conceded that a scholar must possess at least an eighth of an eighth of pride in his studies. It wasn’t often that people looked at what he had spent years studying, as diligently as any Torah scholar, as something useful to the greater good. His own father compared him to a common thug, as if the Jewish boxers who’d dominated the sport for years had meant nothing. But now Ivan had a chance to help people, and one person in particular.

Sofie hugged her arms around herself, her earlier vim and vigor gone. “I—I can’t come tomorrow night. I have to have dinner with my father. He’s not happy about me coming here and…” She shrugged, and her full mouth compressed into a thin line as she held back some emotion. Ivan didn’t know what words she struggled for in trying to describe what was happening with her father, only that he felt them, too.

“You busy in the afternoon?” he asked her.

She regarded him suspiciously, and Ivan hated that she didn’t trust him, but loved that she was smart enough not to.

“I have a class in the morning, but I’m free in the afternoon. Why?”

“Because if what we just saw is any indication of how bad things can go, you’re going to have to learn how to take a hit.” He looked at the other students. “And if you can’t come tomorrow night, you’ll be missing some important information.”

He knew that last line was a little manipulative. The Sofronia he’d known hated missing out on anything, and hated not having all the information available to her. She’d even refused to read their children’s books out of order because she wanted to know what happen in the rest of the series.

“Do you want to swing by my place after your class? Or would you prefer I come to you?” He tried to make the interaction as normal as possible, like it made complete sense for the two of them to be alone.

“I’m not sure about being alone in a house with you,” she said.

Ivan ran a hand through his hair. “I guess I can pretend to attack you outside and we can see how that goes.”

“The same way it always goes when a white man attacks a black woman,” she said, a hand dropping onto her hip. “No one would do anything to help me and you could go on about your day afterward.”

Ivan felt her words like a hard right to the jaw. He knew that the bond they shared was based on childhood friendship, and that many things had happened to them both in the intervening time. But for her to lump him in with
them
, with men who would hurt her because they could, was a low blow. The fact that everyone around them was not pretending to be otherwise engaged meant they felt the sting of her words too.

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair to you when you’re just trying to help.” Her lips pressed into a line. “Do you still live…” She paused and Ivan filled in the blank.
Where Miss Delia died?
“…at the same address?”

He nodded.

“I’ll be there around three,” she said. Ivan realized he had expected her to say no, and tried not to show how surprised he was by her response.

“I’ll be waiting,” he said.

Chapter 6

Dragging your feet wasn’t very ladylike, but Sofie was second-guessing her decision as she walked down the tree-lined street leading up to the Friedmans’ house. She didn’t want to see Ivan and his mother and be reminded of all that she’d lost—and what more she might lose if her father continued to greet her with a stony silence.

She hated that a part of her was looking forward to being visiting the scene of the most awful moment of her life. She’d never returned after her mother’s death; that meant she’d never gotten to taste Mrs. Friedman’s delicious food again, or to tell her how Mama had loved the challenge of mastering the specialized cuisine.

She rang the bell, then adjusted the plate of cookies she had baked the night before when thoughts of Ivan and sit-ins and bloodied students had stolen her sleep. She often turned to the comfort of her mother’s recipe box when she was unsettled. She knew it was strange, but the notes were so detailed she felt like her mother had channeled some of herself into those family secrets, as if she had known that she wouldn’t be around to show Sofie just how long to simmer the collards or how much sugar she meant by “to taste.” Sofie sometimes pretended her Mama was with her as she whisked and chopped and folded, only it didn’t always feel like pretend.

Ivan pulled the door open then, and the smile Sofie had plastered on crumbled away. He stood before her freshly showered and smelling of ninety-nine point forty-four percent pure goodness. His hair was still wet, his face freshly shaved. That was all well and good, but her gaze was drawn to his body: the ropy muscles of his arms, the broad chest—Sofie’s lingering sense of decorum didn’t allow her to look any further down than that.

“Hey! Come on in.” He stood aside, and she was forced to pass close to the warmth that radiated off him. She didn’t know why he was affecting her this way. She’d been close to him more than once already, but there had been other people around before. The delicious smell of onions and garlic was emanating from the kitchen, and she realized it was Friday. His mother was probably making the stew for Shabbos. His mother or whomever they had hired in place of hers. Sofie felt a little bit nauseated at the thought of stepping into the kitchen and seeing another black woman working there, as if her mother were easily replaceable.

“I made some cookies,” she said. “Is your mother in the kitchen? I can bring them in to her.”

The door slammed shut and the effortless sex appeal Ivan had exuded shifted as he hunched in on himself. He cleared his throat. “Mom died two years ago. Cancer.”

“Oh! Oh.” Tears pressed at her eyes suddenly. She hadn’t seen Mrs. Friedman in years but the news still hurt. Another part of her childhood, gone. Ivan been there for her in those awful moments when she’d lost her own mother. Who had been there for him?

She lifted a hand, but it hung in the air between them, not quite able to span the distance. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

He nodded, then lifted the plate of cookies from her other hand and walked toward the kitchen. She followed behind him, searching for something to say to make up for her atrocious error. She was surprised to see him place the cookies on the table, pick up a large knife, and begin chopping potatoes. Her arrival had obviously interrupted him. “Sorry. I just need to throw this stuff into the slow cooker. Dad still hasn’t learned how to make cholent, and if I don’t cook it, he just won’t eat tomorrow.”

She pulled up a seat at the kitchen island, warding off memories of so many years before. It was strange to remember the young, frail Ivan who would sit next to her at this very counter and listen to her mother’s stories as she looked at him before her, all grown up and cooking for the family himself. “That’s nice of you,” she said. “Sometimes I think the same thing about my father. I try to make something good most nights. Otherwise, he would just survive on TV Dinners.”

Ivan chuckled, then reached behind him with the knife and used it pull open the freezer, which was stuffed to the gills with the distinctive frozen meals. Sofie gave a bittersweet laugh.

“Women from our synagogue cook extra food and bring him their ‘leftovers,’ but he hates eating that. He says it makes him feel ungrateful when he thinks their food isn’t as good as my mom’s.” Ivan dumped the barley, potatoes, and beans into the slow cooker, then took the onions off the stove and scraped them in as well. “The only person who could ever match Mom in the kitchen was Miss Delia. She never stopped talking about her, you know. Even on her death bed she said, ‘If Delia were here she could show these di skeynes how to make some real matzah ball soup!’”

Sofie smiled. She remembered how hard Mrs. Friedman had been on her mother during the first few weeks. Mama came home complaining about the woman every night. But when Mama had shown her she was no one’s fool in the kitchen, they’d developed a type of friendship. As much friendship as could exist between a servant and the woman she worked for.

Ivan washed his hands and wiped them off on his jeans. “Okay, you ready to get to it?”

Sofie nodded, and felt the oddest trembling in her stomach as he approached her. She didn’t think she’d ever paid much attention to the way a man walked before, but she watched the play of muscle as he took each step and how his arms swung in a way that projected an unconscious self-confidence. He gave her his chip-toothed grin as he stopped in front of her and nodded in the direction of her hands. “You should take those off. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for sullying your gloves.”