The Night of the Burning (16 page)

“Sore,” I whispered with cracked lips. “Hot.”

Mr. Kagan slipped rapidly out of the door again and I heard him calling Mrs. Kagan with urgency.

Mrs. Kagan bustled in immediately, turning on the bright light overhead. I closed my eyes. A large hand was laid firmly on my forehead.

“Fever,” Mrs. Kagan announced. “Aspirin. Cold water. And some cloths.”

The light was too bright, the noise too loud, the cold cloths laid on my forehead too wet. I felt wretched.

“Mama,” I whispered.

“I’m right here, dear,” Mrs. Kagan replied in a glad voice.

But I shook my head miserably. “I want my mama,” I cried, despite my thirteen years. And cried and cried.

Now we were all wretched.

Abruptly Mrs. Kagan made a decision. “Nice cup of rooibos tea with honey and lemon. That’ll do the trick,” I heard her say decisively as she left. Mr. Kagan turned around twice in his helplessness and then he thought to turn off the bright lights. I pushed fretfully at the cloths trickling water from my forehead down to my neck, and he quickly removed them. Grateful, I reached out to him, and he sat close to my bed, his long, thin fingers holding my hand gently. The cloths must have cooled me down because I felt better. As I drifted into sleep, I felt a tear fall on my wrist.

It became terribly important to keep the fence up between Mrs. Kagan and myself. I had to show Mama that I wasn’t going to abandon her, no matter how hard Mrs. Kagan tried to be my mother. When I saw her fleshy, freckled hands setting the table for Shabbes dinner, I remembered how Mama used to call Nechama and me to join her as she stood quietly before the candles. Mama placed a white scarf over her hair and lit the wicks. Then she moved her beautiful slim hands above the burning candles in a circle once, twice, three times and covered her face.

“Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has sanctified us by Thy commandments, and commanded us to light the Shabbes candles,” she murmured, and we recited the blessing, too. But Mama wasn’t finished. She kept her hands over her eyes for what
seemed a long time, and sometimes tears slid between her fingers before she uncovered her face and kissed us.

“Why do you cry, Mama?” I asked once.

“I cry because I think how much I want you and Nechama to be happy and to be good; and I cry for my own mama and papa, may they rest in peace; and I cry for our people,” she answered. At that time I didn’t understand. Now that I, too, wanted to cry for the same reasons, it brought Mama and me even closer.

So when Mrs. Kagan put her arm around me after lighting the Shabbes candles, I kept my body rigid and unyielding. After a few weeks, she gave up pulling me closer.

Once Friday night dinner was over, it was obvious that the Kagans were not particular about the rules of Shabbes. Mr. Kagan would turn on the light at his reading chair, and Mrs. Kagan clicked her knitting needles busily.

“Would you like to learn how to knit, dear?” Mrs. Kagan offered brightly. “My mother taught me when I was much younger than you are now.”

Mama had promised to show me how to do fine embroidery when I grew old enough. It would be disloyal to accept Mrs. Kagan’s knitting lessons as a substitute. “No, thanks, I’ll just read my book,” I replied.

The uncomfortable chairs made my back ache, so I tried sprawling on the rose-patterned rug, but instead of feeling relaxed I simply felt childish and undignified. “Well, maybe I’ll go to my room,” I said after a few
minutes. “Good night.”

I’m so lonely, I realized as I closed the door and sat down drearily on my bed. If only Naomi were here, we could gossip about the other orphans at the supper table, and then in the bedroom we could laugh at Mrs. Kagan’s speeches. I closed my eyes and pictured my sister’s gay laugh and bright face. I always thought she needed me, I admitted ruefully. I didn’t know I needed her, too.

I leaned over to my nightstand and pulled out one of the three books I was reading at the same time. It took just a few moments to escape from my own life. When I had first started to read English, in London, the vivid, magical illustrations became my best friends; now, less than a year later, I needed only words to draw pictures for me of Toad, Ratty, and Badger. Then I discovered my bosom friends, two storybook girls who also didn’t have mothers: the little Swiss girl, Heidi, and the first American girl I met, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. The hours passed quietly, marked by the turning of pages.

1922

I didn’t know who was supposed to arrange my next visit with my sister. I think the orphanage assumed the adoptive families would take care of it, and maybe Mrs. Stein and Mrs. Kagan each thought the other should call and set up a date. Three months passed after I was adopted before I saw Naomi.

On the day my sister turned ten, I asked Mrs. Kagan if I could call her on the telephone. “Certainly, dear … show you how to … this telly-phone … always trouble … Hello! Operator, do you hear me? Oper-rrrrrray-ter …”

Mrs. Stein answered. “Hello, Devorah, how nice of you to remember the date. We are cutting Naomi’s cake at this very minute. Hold the line, and I’ll let her talk to you just for a moment, as we’re all gathered around waiting. Oh, and Devorah, I’ve been meaning to call Mrs. Kagan—would you like to spend Sunday at our house? Mr. Stein
will be happy to get you in his car after his tennis match.”

At 11 a.m. on Sunday, I went downstairs and waited at the entrance to my building. My hands were perspiring as I clutched the little gift I’d made. A deep, rich growl announced the arrival of Mr. Stein’s motorcar and, resplendent in a snowy white sweater and long white shorts that reached almost to his long white socks, he jumped out of his seat and came around to open the passenger door for me.

“Devorrrah, menorrrrah!” he sang as he drove.

I smiled awkwardly. The trouble was that I never knew when I was supposed to laugh at his teasing. I was relieved when the big black car turned into the driveway leading to the Stein home. Naomi was waving excitedly from the front door.

We caught each other in a tight hug and I closed my eyes. How I had missed the familiar tickling of her soft hair, and especially the feel of her arms around my neck. Surreptitiously, I rubbed away the wetness on my eyelashes as I followed Naomi to the pink bedroom.

Photographs were strewn across the bed, ready to be pasted into a new leather photo album. “This is me at my ballet class,” Naomi pointed out. “I can’t really go up on my toes alone, so Mummy is holding my hands.”

I suddenly remembered Naomi on the day of the ballet performance at the orphanage. She was shining with pleasure and excitement. No wonder the Steins had wanted to take her home with them.

“And here I am with my cousins at a picnic,” Naomi continued, pointing at a photograph of a big merry crowd sitting among wicker baskets on a red-checkered cloth. I murmured politely, although the family pictures made my stomach churn.

My attention was caught by the labels on some school-books strewn on my sister’s desk. “Naomi Stein” was printed neatly on each one. Her adoptive parents hadn’t been stingy with
their
family name.

The loud brass bell rang for lunch. “Let’s go!” Naomi yelped, knocking over the photographs and pulling me by the hand. “It’s roast beef!”

I laughed, finding again the old exasperated love for my little sister. Naomi was still an ever-hungry puppy.

At lunch, Mrs. Stein put the choicest pieces of beef onto Naomi’s plate without even trying to hide what she was doing. Mr. Stein cracked more jokes, and Naomi laughed easily at all of them. Finally he got down on his knees, pretended to be a bear, and crawled around the table to tickle her.

“Help! Help!” Naomi squealed delightedly. “Devorah, help me!”

I smiled uncertainly. What was the right thing to do? Was I supposed to join in? I was saved from deciding when suddenly Naomi’s squirming knocked over a glass of water.

“Now, that’s enough,” Mrs. Stein said, but she was also smiling. She rang a little bell on the table and the maid appeared. “Mavis, will you bring a cloth and wipe up here,
please. Mr. Stein,” she ordered affectionately, “sit right back down or you won’t get dessert.”

Mr. Stein sat down hurriedly with a naughty face. Catching my eye, he winked. Embarrassed, I looked down at my beef and began to cut it carefully. I saw Mr. Stein lift a small silver jug and lean across to fill my glass. “How about some milk, Devorah?”

I almost choked, my eyes popping in amazement. How could I drink milk while eating beef? Surely he knew that Jews can’t eat meat and milk at the same meal. It was the Law.

“Umm, no, thank you,” I managed to mutter. Then I watched Mr. Stein fill Naomi’s glass with milk. Without any hesitation, Naomi took a long drink. I squeezed my lips together so tightly I bit them. Didn’t she remember anything at all from home?

It seemed hours until lunch was over and we were alone. Then I burst out, “How could you drink milk at lunch? You know we don’t eat meat and milk together.”

“We do here,” was Naomi’s casual answer as she sprawled on her lacy bed, surrounded by her photographs.

“We’re Jews; we don’t do that,” I said.

“Mummy says there’s no need to be too Jewish,” Naomi answered.

I stared at her. No need. Too Jewish. The strange words hung in the air.

Sitting up, Naomi looked defiantly at me and said in a small, determined voice, “Maybe Mama and Papa and
everyone else wouldn’t have died if they weren’t so Jewish.”

I gasped. My brain felt paralyzed and I shook my head to clear it. I needed time to work out what she was saying, to understand how she could say such terrible things. I perched uncomfortably on the pink kidney-shaped stool of the dressing table set. Naomi wouldn’t meet my eyes. There was silence. Then, with a huge effort, I started on a completely different subject. “How do you like your teacher?” I asked formally.

Naomi brightened. “I love her. She reads books and poetry to us and she talks really quietly. All the girls want to be her pet. Her leg is shrunken from an operation that went wrong, but she’s very pretty.”

Before I could stop myself, I said, “Mama’s legs were shrunken. Before she died.” My voice trailed off. Naomi wouldn’t want to talk about that.

But Naomi asked with genuine interest, “Is that what she died of?”

“No, she died of typhoid fever … and hunger, I suppose.” It was almost too painful for me to say the second part.

Naomi was quiet. Then she asked another question. “Is Daddy Ochberg our uncle?”

“Of course not. He chose us at the orphanage in Pinsk, but we hadn’t met him before then. How can you not remember that?”

Naomi’s lip quivered at my sharp tone, but she persevered. “We don’t have any real uncles?”

I flicked scornfully at the album photos of Naomi being held by smiling men and women.

“Everyone’s dead, Nechama!” I snapped. “Everyone’s dead.”

Perhaps it was my use of the old name; perhaps Naomi couldn’t bear the anger in my voice. Burying her head in her lacy pillows, she sobbed loudly.

“Shh, don’t cry,” I said quickly, moving over to the bed and patting her shoulder. It was the way it used to be when I was the strong older sister drying Nechama’s tears. I was glad to be back in that role.

But Naomi wasn’t the same little girl. Shaking off my hand, she pulled away, snatched a lace handkerchief, and blew her nose. Then she turned to me, her swollen eyes blazing. “You make me feel bad. Like I’ve forgotten my family,” she stormed. “But I only remember Papa a little bit, and Mama when she was sick in the bed. I’ve got my own mother and father now, and my own room and my own pretty things.”

I opened my mouth, but Naomi wasn’t finished. “I’m happy now!” she cried. “Even if you don’t like it, Devorah, I’m happy here.”

There was a sudden silence. Then I realized Mrs. Stein was standing in the doorway. I couldn’t tell how much of the conversation she had heard, but her voice was very quiet as she said, “I think I’ll take you home now, Devorah. Where did you put your coat?”

1923

In January 1923, when I was close to fourteen, I began attending the enormous local high school, with ivy softening its gray stone walls. Fortunately, a few students from Miss Rosa’s school moved there together. We were all scared of the mazelike corridors, the blur of rushing bodies on the stairways, the loud shouts of mockery tossed like hard balls among the older students. For the first few days, we shuffled from classroom to classroom in a tight little group like a flock of sheep.

Gradually the high school revealed its wonders. Its library was almost as big as the public library branch near my home. The science laboratory had a mysterious little gas tap for each high table. Fragile glass pipettes stood like ballerinas in a row,
en pointe
, each supported at the waist by a strong wooden arm. There was an auditorium with a real stage for school plays, framed by rich red velvet curtains. And the tree-dotted lawn where we sat during lunch
stretched green and immaculate down to the sports fields.

“So much homework,” Shlayma complained one morning at the end of the first month. “They’re giving us double the work we used to have at the old school.”

Zeidel nodded. “I worked so late last night that Matron turned off the light. I wasn’t even finished.”

I was silent. They would think I was strange if I told them that I loved the challenge. Schoolwork was clean and straightforward: if you worked hard, you did well. It was my secret aim to earn the second- or third-highest grades in my class: that was where I would be happiest. And I was getting closer and closer as my English improved.

Often I made the long walk to school with a scrap of paper in one hand, reading a list of new words over and over again. In the other hand I carried my hard little school case, which grew heavier and heavier with each step. I wished I could carry my books in one of those backpacks that hung by straps from the shoulders. But only boys wore them, the popular boys slinging them casually over just one shoulder. When Mr. Kagan saw the calluses on my palm and fingers one night, he showed me how to tape a thick sponge around the handle of my case, and that made it a little more comfortable.