While We're Far Apart (28 page)

“Grandma? Did Mama’s family come to her funeral?”

“No,” she said softly. “No, they didn’t.”

“Why not? . . . Didn’t they know about Peter and me?”

“Good night, Esther.”

“Good night,” she said with a sigh. She might have to give up for now, but she was determined to try again in the morning.

She lay down, waiting for her eyes to get used to the darkness. Grandma’s piles looked spooky in the shadowy room, like rubble from the bombed-out buildings in Mr. Mendel’s newspaper pictures. Esther wished she and Peter were back home in their own bedroom. Jacky Hoffman had invited her to go to the movies with him tomorrow, but she’d had to turn him down. He was still walking home from school with her and protecting Peter from the other kids. She didn’t know why Jacky had called Mr. Mendel names that time, but she liked talking to Jacky on the way home from school and then visiting Mr. Mendel afterward. Both of them were her friends – the only friends she had.

Esther rolled over onto her side and looked down at Peter. A shaft of light from the streetlamp filtered past Grandma’s sagging drapes, making it bright enough to see him. He had the dog beside him, holding her like a teddy bear.

“Peter?” she whispered. “I don’t want to stay here for Christmas, do you?” He looked up at her and shook his head. “Remember how Penny said her friend Roy would take us to Times Square if we wanted him to? I know I told Penny that I didn’t want to go – but maybe I do now. And maybe we could stay at our own house next weekend. You want to?”

Peter nodded. Esther gazed down at her brother, clinging to the dog on his makeshift bed, with stacks of newspapers and cardboard boxes towering over him, and he looked so forlorn that it brought tears to her eyes. Mama would cry, too, if she could see what had become of them. Grandma’s threadbare blanket looked much too thin to keep Peter warm and safe, so Esther pulled the crocheted afghan off the back of the couch and draped it over him.

“Peter?” she whispered. “Do you think you’ll ever start talking to me again?” He lifted his palms in a helpless gesture. Esther lay back down and sighed. “I miss you, Petey.”

Esther had never seen a crowd as huge as the one that jammed Times Square for the War Bond rally. Thousands of people stood in front of the stage to listen to the musicians and singers perform. Famous movie stars told jokes and urged people to buy war bonds, while beyond the stage, a gigantic cash register kept track of all the money they’d raised for the war effort. Penny had linked arms with Esther as they’d shuffled on and off the jam-packed subway, and for once Esther didn’t mind having Penny right beside her. Her friend Roy, the marine, watched out for Peter, carrying him piggyback when he got tired of walking and hoisting him onto his shoulders so he could see the stage over everyone’s head.

“I’ve never seen a real live movie star in person before, have you?” Penny asked.

Esther shook her head. “We should have come earlier so we could get closer.”

“Next year,” Roy said with a wink. But Esther hoped with all her heart that Daddy would be home by next Christmas and that the war would be over and nobody would need to buy war bonds.

They listened to Judy Garland perform, and they sang along with her on some of the Christmas carols. They laughed and cheered with the rest of the crowd at Abbott and Costello’s antics. All the while, the numbers on the giant cash register kept going higher and higher. The show was fun and exciting, but for Esther it seemed to end much too soon.

“What do you say we go over to Macy’s department store and look at the window decorations?” Roy suggested. Peter hopped up and down with excitement. He’d been so happy all day that Esther thought for sure the words would burst out of his mouth any minute. He really liked Roy and his corny jokes. She hadn’t seen Peter this happy in a long, long time.

“Okay, let’s go,” Esther said. Penny looked surprised and pleased when Esther linked arms with her again. But Esther only did it so that she wouldn’t get lost in the vast crowd.

Everything looked glittery and pretty as they walked around the outside of the department store, admiring the decorations in the windows. The joy of Christmas began to bubble up inside Esther like the fizz in a soda bottle. She began to wish the day would never end.

“Where to next?” Roy asked when they’d completed their circuit. Peter pointed to a five-and-dime store across the street, then pulled off his mittens and wrote on his piece of paper:
I want to buy some presents
.

Esther had a quick discussion with him, whispering and writing notes, and they decided to buy Penny a new lipstick and Grandma a box of her favorite talcum powder. “We’ll meet back here in half an hour,” Roy decided. He and Peter went in one direction to get the lipstick, and Esther went the opposite way with Penny to buy the powder and also a present for Peter. She began to believe that this Christmas might be a good one after all. What was it Mr. Mendel had said?
“Happiness is something that comes from our own hearts, not from other people.”

Late that afternoon they took the subway back to Brooklyn, then rode a bus to their own neighborhood. As they walked the last few blocks toward home, Peter halted in front of a shop with Jewish writing on the windows. Inside were things like Mr. Mendel had in his apartment: leather-bound books and silver cups and brass candlesticks. Peter took out his paper and pencil and wrote:
I want to buy something for Mr. Mendel
.

“He doesn’t celebrate Christmas, remember?” Esther said.

More candles
.
We used his all up.

“Okay, come on.” They went into the store and picked out a box of candles that looked as though they would fit in his candleholder. Mr. Mendel had told them that it was called a
menorah
. She and Peter paid for the candles with their own money.

“It’s starting to feel like Christmas,” Esther said as they came out of the shop again.

“You know what we really need?” Roy asked, halting in the middle of the sidewalk. “A Christmas tree. What do you say we buy one? There’s a vacant lot about three blocks away where they’re selling them. Remember, Penny? We pass it every day on our bus route.”

“How in the world would we get it all the way home?” Penny asked. “I don’t think they allow Christmas trees on city buses.”

“We’ll just have to use some good old-fashioned manpower, I guess.” Roy held up one arm to show his muscles. “I’ll bet Peter will help me out. Right, buddy?” Peter nodded and struck a muscleman pose like Roy’s. Esther couldn’t help laughing.

“You have any decorations at your house?” Roy asked.

Esther hesitated. “We do, but . . .” She knew they had two boxes full of decorations in the hall closet upstairs. Daddy hadn’t bought a tree last year because it had been too soon after Mama died and everyone still felt sad, but now Esther felt pulled in two directions again. Peter looked so happy and excited about the idea – and she was, too. Yet it seemed wrong to be happy when Mama was gone and Daddy was so far away. She felt like a traitor celebrating Christmas without them or being happy with Penny taking Mama’s place, doing all of the things that Mama used to do for them.

Peter tapped Esther’s shoulder, then folded his hands as if in prayer, silently pleading with her. “Oh, okay,” she said with a sigh. “Let’s get a tree.”

They hopped on another bus and rode the short distance to the Christmas tree lot, looking at about a dozen trees before Roy and Peter finally picked out one. Everyone helped carry it home. Esther’s mittens got sticky with sap, but the tree smelled wonderful, like pine and happy memories. She smiled all the way home, watching Peter trying to show off his muscles and listening to Roy do his imitation of Abbott and Costello.

Let’s put it in the front window where everybody can see it
, Peter wrote when they finished hauling it up the apartment stairs. That was where Daddy had always put their Christmas trees. Esther remembered how Mr. Mendel had placed his menorah in the front window, telling them how it symbolized Hashem’s miracle. And hope. Wasn’t Christmas about a miracle, too? God sending His son?

While Peter and Roy wrestled the tree into place, Esther pulled the boxes of decorations from the upstairs closet. Penny helped her carry them down to the living room, and as Esther opened the first box, the memories fluttered out like moths. Each ornament she hung reminded her of Mama and Daddy and how much fun they used to have as the four of them decorated the tree. There were fragile ornaments that had to be handled carefully, along with colorful, gaudy ones that Esther and Peter had made in school out of construction paper and glue and plaster of Paris. Mama said she treasured the homemade ones most of all. Esther glanced at Peter and wondered if he remembered, too.

Penny went out to the kitchen and made popcorn for them to string into a garland, but they ended up eating most of it rather than stringing it together. Esther ate an entire bowl of popcorn herself, while Peter and Roy had a contest, trying to toss the popcorn into each other’s open mouth. Later, Peter sat on the sofa next to Roy, writing notes to him, and it seemed wonderful to see Peter smiling and “talking” instead of slouching in his room, reading his comic books over and over. She was glad that he felt comfortable with Roy. She sat down beside them to see what Peter was saying.

Is it fun being a soldier?

“I can’t say that it’s fun,” Roy replied, “but it certainly is an honor. I keep thinking of all the brave men who fought in wars before me, making sure our country remained free. And now it’s my turn.”

Our daddy is in the army.

“So I’ve heard. You should be very proud of him. He was very brave to sign up when he didn’t have to. You read in the paper all the time about the cowards who pretend they’re sick or shoot themselves in the foot so they won’t have to fight. But your dad stepped right up to do his part.”

I didn’t want him to go.

“I know. But he must have decided that this was something he had to do. Imagine how he would feel if he didn’t go, knowing all the other men were fighting to keep our country free and he didn’t help out. That would be very hard to live with.”

So our daddy is brave? Like Superman?

“Yes. Braver than Superman. And now it’s your turn to be brave and keep things going here at home while he’s far away. He wouldn’t want you to be sad, would he? He’s going to want a happy family to come home to.”

Penny began gathering up the empty cartons and tissue paper, and when Esther got up to help her, she found the little wooden stable and the figurines from the Christmas story in the bottom of one of the boxes. Every year Daddy would read the Bible story out loud while Peter and Esther put the wise men and shepherds and the holy family in their places. But this was one tradition that Esther didn’t want Roy or Penny to do in Daddy’s place. She quickly unpacked the stable and set it on the top of the piano, then put all of the figures in their places herself. As she laid baby Jesus in the manger she recalled what Mama had always told them every year:
“Jesus is God’s Christmas present to us. We’re His children and He loves us.”

Suddenly Esther needed to get away. “I’m going outside for some air,” she said. She grabbed her coat and mittens and hurried down the front stairs. It was so hard to believe that God loved her when so many terrible things had happened to her. Yet Mama wouldn’t lie. If she said that God loved her, then He must.

She knocked on Mr. Mendel’s door, needing to ask him what he thought. He didn’t celebrate Christmas, but maybe he could tell her if it was really true – that God or Hashem, or whatever He was called, really did love her, even though it didn’t look that way. She knocked again, but there was still no answer. Mr. Mendel had said he would be very busy from now on, attending meetings and raising money to help people like his son and granddaughter, who were trapped in the middle of the war.

At last Esther gave up and went outside to sit on the front porch, brushing a light dusting of snow off the glider so she could sit down. The metal felt wet and cold beneath her, and the swing gave a harsh metallic squeal as she glided back and forth on it. The evening grew dark and cold. She wouldn’t be able to wait for Mr. Mendel for very long.

Esther finally got up to go back inside. But before she did, she decided to cross the street to see what their Christmas tree looked like in their upstairs window. As she stood looking up at it, Jacky Hoffman sauntered up the street toward her with his jacket hanging open and no hat or mittens on, as if the weather were balmy, not so cold you could see your breath.

“Hey, beautiful,” he called to her. He raked his unruly hair from his eyes like a pirate. “What are you doing out here all by yourself?”

“I wanted to see what our Christmas tree looked like.” She pointed to the window across the street. Jacky glanced up at it, then looked back at her.

“You gonna be around while we’re off from school for Christmas vacation?” he asked.

Esther’s heart thumped wildly. “Most of the time. We have to go to our grandmother’s house for dinner on Christmas Day.”

“You want to go to the movies sometime?”

“Yeah,” she said with a smile. “I would like that.”

She would like that very much.

C
HAPTER 25

D
ECEMBER 31, 1943

“O
H MY
. T
HIS ISN’T AT ALL
what I expected.” Penny stood in the doorway of the USO lounge on New Year’s Eve, staring into a room jam-packed with soldiers and sailors and marines in uniform. She had agreed to volunteer at the dance with Sheila while Esther and Peter stayed overnight with their grandmother. Now she regretted her decision.

Lively music played somewhere inside, but the rumble of conversation and laughter nearly drowned it out. Through the haze of cigarette smoke that hung in the room like fog, she glimpsed a crowded dance floor filled with swaying couples. Several pretty girls stood behind a counter on one side of the room, serving coffee and punch. But the majority of people who had crammed into the room were servicemen from all branches of the military, outnumbering the women by at least three to one.