Briar Rose (7 page)

Oswego was on Lake Ontario, halfway between Rochester a

Syracuse. Editor and Publisher gave her the listing for the Palladi Times, As she dialed the number, she whispered "Lake Ontario" aloi thinking about the water behind the buildings in the photogral

"What am I doing?" she added, underlining the number of i newspaper with sharp heavy strokes in time to the ringing pho:

The second person she talked to was a reporter. She introdu(

herself.

"So, how can I help you, reporter to reporter?" the man aski

"Why do you suppose," Becca mused aloud, "that my grai mother would have kept a clipping from a 1944 Palladium-Time-, "Beats me," the man said. "Grandmothers can be real stran,, Take mine, for example. She collected wasp nests. Among od things.

"A clipping from the same date as her entry visa," Becca add~

"Entry visa?"

"Yes-is that important?" Becca asked.

"She was some kind of war refugee, you mean?" The m hesitated.

"Some kind," Becca said, a cold shiver going down her back, t kind of shiver she got whenever she was closing in on an importa detail of a story. "I just don't know what kind."

"Well, maybe it's not related at all," he said, "but Oswego W

the only war refugee shelter in America. Fort Oswego. Roosev, made it a camp and in August 1944 some one thousand people wE

brought over and interned here. From Naples, Italy. Mostly Je\

and about one hundred Christians. We ran a number of articl Briar Rose

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about it recently. It's quite a story actually. They're turning the Fort into a museum and-"

Becca found herself gripping the phone so hard, her fingers hurt.

"Can you send me copies of the articles?"

"Sure thing, honey. Just give me your name and address."

She let the honey go by and told him what he needed to know.

"By the way," he continued, "besides the articles I have a couple of addresses you might want.

Wait a minute . . ." She could hear him rooting around his desk, muttering some colorful curses.

"The

National Archives ... where is that frig-footed ... there it is. It's in Washington, D.C., and will have material on the shelter, documents and all. Under the War Refugee Board, I think it was. Or the War Relocation Authority."

Becca scribbled the names on her pad..

"What isn't in the articles, they might have."

"Thanks. "

"My pleasure. My grandmother died just last month. You wouldn't believe the stuff we found in her closet. Some of it well ... pretty surprising."

"I'm sure," Becca said warmly.

"In fact, incredibly surprising," he said.

"Can you send those articles soon?" Becca asked.

"They're already in the mail," he said. "Anything else, just give me a call. That's Arnie, with an i-e.

Professional courtesy and all."

"All around the castle," Gemma said, making tucking-in motions tho they were all in sleeping bags in the big tent, "a briary hedge began to gi with thorns as sharp as barbs."

"What's barbs, Gemma~" Syl asked. "You never tell us what h are, "

'Better you shouldn't know.

'But we want to know, Gemma, " Shana said. "We want to kn(

all. //

Little Becca, second flnger in her mouth, was already half asleep.

the smaller tent came the sound of Dr. Berlin and his wife talking C(

Ignoring the question, Gemma continued the tale. "Higher and high thorny bush grew until it covered the windows and it covered the doc covered the high castle towers and no one could see in and-"

"And no one could see out, Sylvia said. "But you didn't say abo barbs. ' /

"I want to hear the story, Shana said, nudging her sister.

"And no one could see out, Gemma said, oblivious to the two, wa the sleeping Becca as she spoke. "And no one cared to know abc sleeping folk inside. "

"I want to know about the barbs," said Sylvia.

"Shut up," Shana said.

"Gemma, she said shut up."

Gemma said pointedly. 'So no one told about them and neither will L

"Now you've done it, " Sylvia said.

"You did, too, " said Shana. "Please, Gemma. Pretty please. With strawberries on it. And roses.

"

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But Gemma could not be persuaded to flnish the story that night.

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'Did not.

"Did. //

"And no one cared to know about the sleeping folk inside,"

It was ten days before Arnie-with an i-e-sent the clippings.

prose was flat and Becca found she had to force herself t(

through them, underlining possible salient points with a ye marker. The National Archives had-surprisingly-sent a packet arrived the same day. Becca worked on them at the dining i table that evening.

The house was quiet, Sylvia and Shana and their families h, at last gone home, more reluctantly than Becca could have po!

guessed. Shana had ~ made her swear to call if she felt eve: slightest bit blue and Sylvia had slipped a check for two hu~

dollars into her pocket, whispering, "Buy something for yoi Becca. Just for you."

As she sat shuffling through the papers, her father went p., his way into the kitchen. "You are going to wear that stuff ou commented wryly. "All those years your grandmother hc those documents and clippings and within two weeks of her they are going to crumble from overuse."

"Leave her alone, Jerold," her mother said, following hii the kitchen. "A promise is a promise."

They went into the kitchen and out the other door, a companionably about popcorn, while Becca settled back to th full of papers. Arnie Salembier's articles about the Fort C

shelter told her little that seemed important to her grandmother's past except that it gave her a possible starting place. The National

Archives, on the other hand, had sent a whole packet of forms relating to the Oswego shelter, including biographical data sheets.

They'd had no information about Dawna Stein or even Dawna Mandlestein or Genevieve Mandlestein. But they had hit pay dirt with Gitl.

BIOGRAPHICAL DATA CONCERNING ALLIED, NATIONAL, OR NEUTRAL headed the first sheet. Gid Mandlestein had been married, had lived last in Poland, was white, was Jewish, was able to work-all filled in with a steady hand. But the date of that marriage had been left blank, the village and district in Poland had not been noted, and employment and education questions had not been answered. Where it asked: HAS REGISTRANT A HOME TO

WHICH HE DESIRES TO RETURN? the answer had been left blank aswell. The sheetwas dated 1944.

"Gitl," Becca whispered. "Gitl Mandlestein. Your life seems to be mostly blank. How can I possibly fill it in nearly fifty years later?

How do I even know you are my grandmother? My Gernma?"

There was a loud braying laugh from the TV room. Her father always enjoyed himself to the
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fullest. If the laugh was an answer, it was not the one she wanted to hear.

WHAT IS YOUR TRUE AND CORRECT NAME? Gid Rose

Mandlestein.

"Rose?" Becca said. "Really? So-elementary, my dear Watsonstein!"

IF YOU ARE A &4ARRIED WOMAN WHAT WAS YOUR

06, ME,

MAIDEN NAME? Gid Rose Mandlestein.

"Didn't you understand the question, Gitl? Was the English too hard?" Becca asked.

BY WHAT NAMES HAVE YOU ALSO BEEN KNOWN: (IN-

CLUDE PROFESSIONAL NAMES OR ANY OTHER NAMES BY

WHICH YOU HAVE BEEN KNOWN.) Ksiqñniczka.

Briar Rose

"And Eve. Dawna. Gemma."

WHAT WAS YOUR LAST PERMANENT ADDRESS? The an-

swer was crossed out with a single dark stroke.

MALE. FEMALE. W HEIGHT: 5 foot. WEIGHT: 139 pounds.

HAIR: red. EYES blue.

"It has to be Gemma. Height, hair color, eyes. Weight ... that's RQ

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much too heavy," Becca thought, sighing. The rest of the questior were mostly left unanswered: father's name, mother's name, ag

Didn't she know them? Or had she been hiding something? Ar why should she hide, now that her war was over, now that she w safe in America, safe in Fort Oswego, safe in a shelter? It made i sense.

Under the heading IF YOU HAVE ANY LIVING CHILDREN, a peculiarly Germanic italic hand, someone had written "With ch, due any day."

"Maybe . . ." Becca said, standing, "maybe that explains weight." She stretched and headed toward the TV room. It w;

commercial break and her father had silenced the set with remote clicker. He was offering the bucket of popcorn to his when Becca came in.

"Mom-exactly when were you born?"

"Exactly August thirtieth dear. I thought you knew that. You me a present every year."

"I mean-what year?"

"Why, 1944. Is it important?"

The -ÌV clicked on again to the aggressive theme music of L.A

"'Due any day/ " Becca explained.

"What dear?" her mother asked over the sound of M

Tucker and his wife quarreling.

"Maybe," Becca said, raising her voice a little, "from Aug to August 30 was simply 'any day. ly

"So you think Gid Mandlestein was your grandmother a came from somewhere in Poland," Stan
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said the next m running a bony hand through his hair. He pursed his E

thought a minute. "And that other name by which she was Ksi~iniczka-any ideas?"

"No. I've never heard it before."

"Is it Yiddish?" he asked.

"Probably Polish." She shrugged. "At a guess."

"Don't guess. Find out. It's your only lead." He stared fully at her.

Becca had to look away.

Stan went into his office and closed the door and Bec back in her chair. The comforting, familiar sounds s~rrou

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61

helped her think. In between writing a story on a local factory strike and organizing the list of the Best of the Valley poll, she'd worked on her grandmother's papers. In her mind she could hear Howie's nasal voice warning, "Obsessive-compulsive!" and her father cautioning her against wearing out the tattered forms. But Stan had been the one to urge her to continue, When he saw her hunched over the papers that morning, he'd sat on her desk and leaned forward. "Stories," he'd said, his voice low and almost husky, "we are made up of stories.

And even the ones that seem the most like lies can be our deepest hidden truths. I don't think you're going to be happy until you find out who your grandmother was, Becca. Just as I couldn't be happy until I found my birth mother.

She picked up the phone and called the Town Hall.

When the clerk answered, Becca greeted her warmly.

"Sorry abbut your grandmother," the clerk said.

"Thanks. It's about her, actually," Becca answered.

"What about?"

"She was called Ksi~iniczka at one time. I think that's Polish and I know you spoke Polish at home." She spelled it.

The clerk chuckled. "What an awful hash you've made of the pronunciation."

"Too many c's and z's," Becca said by way of excuse. "Is it a common name?"

"Not a name, really. It's pronounced Kshen-zhnich-kah. With a nasal W like in French. Means princess."

Becca was stunned. "It means princess4" she said at last.

"Like in king and queen and the clerk said. "A young princess, actually. There's a different word for an old princess.

Ksi~iniczka. "

"Gesundheit!" Becca answered. They both laughed. But as Becca put down the phone, her heart was pounding. Gemma's middle name had been Rose and her other-nickname? alias? code name?-

had been princess.

"So, Watsonstein," she said to herself, "what's so elementary now?"

She stared at her grandmother's papers for another hour, but could get nothing more from them and, at last, pushed them reluctantly to one side to work on the strike story instead. There she had more

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facts than she needed; everyone involved had wanted to talk a the issues. It was the focus she hadn't got yet.

By noon, her brain felt scrubbed, as if she had already worki entire day.

Taking her yogurt out to the side of the waterfall, she sat on the still-cold ground. The pounding of the water over the blocked out everything except the quarreling of two housefti over yesterday's crumbs.

"I'd give you this," she said to the birds, holding out the finished yogurt, "but I don't think it's your style."

"Why not? I like yogurt." Stan squatted down by her sid noise of his arrival having been disguised by the water's ins boom. He took the container and spoon from her unresisting and spooned some of the strawberry yogurt into his mouth, Startled, Becca found herself blushing unaccountably.

"Not much left," he said, looking ruefully into the cup. "I I'll have to go to Monty's and buy my own." He grinned slow handed the container back. "How's that story?"

"Lots of facts, no focus," she said.

"Thought you didn't have any real leads."

For a moment, she was confused, then realized he was I

about her grandmother. "Oh-that story. I found out that niczka . . . " she stumbled over the pronunciation, "means prir

"Gesundheit!" he said.

She giggled.

"Princess. Hmrnrnmm. I think I'm liking this story mo more. But I don't think we can talk about it at work. Can'.

over this evening and look at the papers with you?"

"No. Yes. I mean. . . " The flush on her face deepened; shi tell just from the generated heat on her cheeks.

"Good," he said, not seeming to notice. "I'll be there after About seven?"

"Sure," she began, but he was already standing and i across the lawn toward the street. She watched until he wa.~

sight. When she looked down at the yogurt container, she was empty. That didn't stop her from running her finger aro, inside and popping the finger into her mouth, licking it sen and thinking about nothing at ail.

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