Anne Frank and Me (10 page)

Now, everything had changed.

“Nicole, is that you?” her mother's anxious voice rang down the hall as Nicole pushed open the apartment door.

“No, it's Scarlett O‘Hara,” Nicole muttered under her breath, naming a character from a favorite American novel.

Mme. Bernhardt hurried to the door and embraced her. She wore an apron over a beautiful dove gray dress that was much too big. Funny. Nicole had hardly noticed before. Because there was so little to eat, even her plump mother was growing slender.

“Where were you?” Mme. Bernhardt asked sharply.

Nicole sighed. Why did her mother always sound as if she were interrogating her? “With Jacques and Mimi. The lift is stuck again, I had to walk up.”

“I told you to come straight home from your exams, Nicole.”

“Am I not even allowed to have a social life?”

Her mother smiled sadly. “Later on, I'm sure of it. But now, not so much of one.”

Nicole looked away. Mme. Bernhardt put her hand to her daughter's chin and gently turned Nicole's face to hers. “Listen to me. I care more about your safety than I care about your fun. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Maman.”

“Good. I managed to get some beans. I cooked them with vermicelli for dinner.”

“I'm not hungry.” Nicole went to sit on the couch. Her mother followed, maternal antennae on full alert.

“Something happened today,” she concluded.

“Nothing happened.”

“Tell me.”

M. Courot told me, in front of my friends, to leave the cafe. FORBIDDEN
TO
JEWS.

“I told you, nothing.” Nicole jumped up. She couldn't bear just sitting there. “I'm going down to Claire's.”

Mme. Bernhardt folded her arms. “You are telling now instead of asking, young lady?”

“May I go downstairs to Claire's?'

“Yes, you may.” Her mother smoothed hair off her face. “Try not to take everything so hard, my child. The Occupation will not be forever.”

“I'll try.” She kissed her mother on each cheek, then headed for the door.

“Take your identity card,” Mme. Bernhardt called.

“I'm only going—”

“Nicole ...” Her mother's voice held an unspoken three-part warning, one that Nicole had heard voiced many times before.

It's always dangerous.

You must always carry your identity card.

You must always be careful because you are a Jewish girl.

Irritated, Nicole got her book bag. It contained the identity card that said that she was a French citizen and had the word
Jew
stamped on it in disgusting red letters. Then she ran down the two flights to the Einhorns' flat. At least going to Claire's meant going somewhere, which Nicole figured was better than staying locked up in her own flat like some kind of caged animal.

According to Mme. Bernhardt, she and Claire had once been good friends, but had drifted apart when Claire's parents sent her to a Jewish academy several years before. Nicole found Claire immature and unsophisticated, compared with her “real” friends. But at least Claire understood what it felt like to be singled out as a Jew.

Nicole knocked. Mme. Einhorn opened the door. Her thin face broke into a smile. The Einhorns' dog, an annoying toy poodle named Bon-Bon, began barking, jumping up and down with excitement.

“Down, Bon-Bon. Bad dog!” Mme. Einhorn scolded the dog, then kissed Nicole on each cheek. “You are a mind reader, my dear. Claire is in her bedroom feeling quite tragic. Even her bubbe can't joke her out of it. Go cheer her up. But say hello to Claire's bubbe first. You know how she loves you. She's in her room.”

Claire's tiny Polish bubbe, which was Yiddish for grand-mother, was so fond of Nicole that she had asked Nicole to call her Bubbe Einhorn. Since Bubbe Einhorn spoke only Polish and Yiddish, Claire had translated this request into French.

Nicole couldn't figure out why Bubbe Einhorn liked her, since they could barely communicate. Still, she dutifully stuck her head into Bubbe Einhorn's room. The old woman was sitting in a chair, knitting a sweater.

“Hello, Bubbe Einhorn.”

“Hello, Nicoleh,” Bubbe Einhorn responded fondly, smiling at Nicole.
“Ze gut tsu zen a shayn maideleh.”

Nicole smiled and nodded. The only words she recognized were
shayn maideleh,
which meant
pretty girl
in Yiddish. Still, she nodded again politely, excused herself, and walked down to Claire's room, where she tapped on the door.

“Claire? It's Nico.”

“Come in.” Claire was lying on her bed, her thick red braids spilling onto her freckled arms.

“Your mother said you were feeling tragic.” Nicole sat on the wooden chair at Claire's desk. “Me, too.”

“I can't stand my mother.” Claire scowled. “She's such a hypocrite. The world is falling apart but in front of me she pretends it isn‘t, as if I am a stupid child who must be protected from reality.”

“My mother treats me like a child, too.”

“Well, all I have to say is that when I am a mother I will respect my daughter's intelligence,” Claire said. “Once she turns thirteen, I will allow her to make decisions for herself. Of course, I'll probably never get married because no boys even like me.”

Usually Nicole tried to talk Claire out of her negativity, but today she didn't feel like it. She got up and wandered aimlessly around Claire's room. Her eyes lit on a magazine photo taped to the wall, of the American movie stars Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. Fred was dipping Ginger—her wavy blond hair almost brushed the floor.

Nicole touched the picture. “I wish I could go dancing.”

“By the time they let us Jews go dancing again, we'll be too old to want to,” Claire predicted.

Irritation crept up the back of Nicole's neck. “You always look at the dark side, Claire.”

“I face facts.” Claire examined the frizzy end of one braid. “Everything is getting worse. There is one Nazi decree after another. And no decent food.”

Why did Claire always go on like this? Nicole felt even more restless. She didn't want to be home but she didn't want to be here, either. Yet there was no place else she could be. She decided to go back upstairs and read. Maybe she'd reread
Gone with the Wind.
For quite a while, Scarlett O‘Hara hadn't had any decent food to eat, either.

“I'll just be going...” Nicole started for the door.

“Don't leave!” Claire begged. “I thought you might want to stay for supper.”

“No, I don't think so.”

“Oh, come on. Whatever my mother prepared will be awful, so none of us will mind eating less. You could spend the night, too.”

Nicole considered the offer. She couldn't go out with Jacques or Mimi because of the Jewish curfew. Being with Claire would be better than spending the night with her sister.

“My mother will want me to eat at home,” Nicole decided. “She won't want me to share your rations. But I suppose I could come back down after.”

“Wonderful!” Claire beamed. She jumped up and hugged Nicole.

Nicole felt guilty that she didn't like Claire nearly as much as Claire liked her. Why is it that people never love or like each other equally? she thought. There's always one who cares more. A terrible thought hit her stomach, so physical it felt as if she had been punched: I love Jacques more than he loves me.

“I'm so glad you're my best friend now,” Claire said.

Nicole smiled to be polite. Really, though, she wasn't thinking about Claire at all. She was still thinking about Jacques, thoughts she would not dare confess to a living soul, not even to Mimi.

I can't go to cafes with Jacques, or to the movies or concerts or to the park, or anywhere, anymore. So why would Jacques want to be with me, anyway?

Why would he want to be with a Jew?

thirteen

They gathered around the radio in the Einhorns' living room and quietly hummed along to the familiar tones that opened the British Broadcasting Corporation's nightly shortwave radio transmission,
The French Speak to the French.
Nicole loved that the broadcast always began with the first notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, as if the BBC was saying to the Nazis, “Look! Look how far you have fallen from the best of what is German.” She also knew that the
dit-dit-dit-dah
of those four notes spelled out the letter V in Morse code: V for victory.

Listening to the London-based BBC was the only way for French people to get honest war news. All the French newspapers had been transformed into outlets for Nazi propaganda. So, though Jews were forbidden to have radios, both the Bernhardts and the Einhorns had decided to risk it.

“Move the antenna,” Claire urged her mother. “I can hardly hear.”

“Shhh!” her bubbe admonished, as Jean Oberle, the popular French voice of the BBC, began to speak. As he did, Mme. Einhorn whispered a translation into Yiddish for her mother-in-law

A burst of loud static interrupted the broadcast. “The lousy Huns are jamming the BBC again,” Claire fumed.

“Don't say lousy,” her mother corrected her, fiddling with the radio dial. All she got was more static.

Claire rolled her eyes as her mother searched for the signal without success. “Let's go to my room, Nicole.” They said good night and went to look through some of Claire's old movie magazines. Then Claire wanted to plan the weddings they'd have one day, down to each morsel of food and drink that would be served—smoked salmon, roast chicken, champagne—food that hadn't been seen by ordinary Parisians in more than a year.

“My wedding gown will have to be fabulous since I'm so plain,” Claire declared. “If I am ever able to convince a boy to marry me, he'll probably be homely.”

“Claire Einhorn, you are the most negative person I know.”

Claire pulled apart some split ends on one braid. “If I said I was going to marry the handsomest boy in Paris, you would find me ridiculous and I would find myself ridiculous. I prefer to be mature about it. Now, back to the food. Perhaps I would prefer roast duck to chicken.”

They kept up their chatter even after Claire's mother came in to tell them to change for bed. Finally, Nicole told Claire to stop, it was making her too hungry. They both changed into their nightgowns. When Nicole reached into her book bag for her toothbrush, her journal slipped out.

Claire eyed it curiously. “What is that?”

“It's private.” Nicole quickly stuffed the journal back into her bag.

“Best friends aren't supposed to keep secrets from each other, you know,” Claire said.

You are not my best friend, Claire, Nicole longed to tell her. It took all her self-control not to do so. The two of them crawled into Claire's narrow bed as Claire's mother opened the door.

“All tucked in, girls?”

“Maman, I asked you to knock before you just barge in,” Claire said imperiously.

“I'll try to remember,” her mother said. She kissed them both good night. “Sweet dreams, you two.” She closed the door softly behind her. Nicole turned over, trying to get comfortable.

“Nico?” Claire's voice was small.

“What?”

“Do you suppose we'll have our weddings in France?”

“Of course we will. Go to sleep.”

“I'm not so sure. I heard my father telling my mother that we should have gone to England when we had the chance. But now it's too late.”

Nicole rolled over and stared thoughtfully at the shadows on the ceiling. “That can't be right. America is in the war now, so it's just a matter of time. I imagine your father is simply a worrier like you, Claire. Where is he, anyway?”

“I'm not supposed to say.”

“He shouldn't be out so late. He doesn't have an Ausweis.”

The importance of a German Ausweis had been hammered home to Nicole by her parents. The official pass allowed the holder to be out after curfew and instructed any patrols to let the holder travel unhindered. It was more valuable to a Jew than gold. Nicole's father had been issued one because his hospital was under the auspices of the UGIF, the Union Generale des Israelites de France, the organization the Nazis had mandated for the Jews to administer Jewish affairs. Nicole and her family felt safer because of it.

Nicole studied Claire's profile. “Do you know how dangerous it is for him to be out?”

“Of course I do. Besides, he's not out, exactly He's ...” She turned to Nicole. “Do you promise not to tell?”

“I promise.”

“Cross your heart and hope to die?”

“Claire, we're Jewish. We don't cross our hearts.”

“It's just an expression, silly.” Claire sat up. “I'm only telling because you're my best friend. My father is doing something top secret.”

Nicole was shocked. She sat up, too. “You mean he's in the Resistance?”