The Belief in Angels (8 page)

“But how soon will you send for us,
Foter?”

“Soon. Soon, Szaja. Be patient and your patience will be rewarded.”

“Will I be able to go to school in America,
Foter?”

“
Ye
, ye, all my children will be scholars in America. Oy, we will talk many long discussions regarding important matters. It will put your sister Idessa to sleep.”

Idessa, the baby, is famous in our family for keeping us all awake with her fussiness.

“And I will learn to be a doctor,
Foter?
I will go to the University of America and study?”

“Ye
, ye, you will be the doctor, Szaja. Reizel will study, and Oizer will be a
milyon
merchant. Make sure Idel stays out of trouble. The boy has marbles in his head for brains.”

“I will make sure,
Foter.”

Idel, then eight years old, is a worry to me. A mischievous toddler, now he is a bit of a wild boy. He acted before he thought—if he thought at all. He is always getting into scrapes and the family is always bandaging him up.

Once, he decided to climb the tallest apple tree.

When my
mater
found Idel with his arm broken, on the ground and wailing with pain, she asked him, “Why did you climb the tree?”

Idel wept as he spoke. “To see the view.”

“But what were you thinking? It’s not safe,” insisted my
mater.
“Didn’t you think about how you might be hurt, or how you would climb down?”

“No, I wanted to see what I could see up there,” Idel cried.

“So, what did you see?”

“Nothing but more trees.”

“What did you learn?”

“I learned G-d doesn’t want me to see the view, because when I turned around to see more in the other direction, I slipped and fell.”

“G-d wants you to see, Idel. He also wants you to think carefully before you do things so you won’t become hurt.”

“Did an angel catch me,
Mater?”

“An angel? Why should you ask this question?”

“Because after I hurt my arm on a branch while I fell, I felt someone catch me and put me on the ground.”

That day, Idel’s angel became a sort of talisman to ward off anything bad and to protect us. If there is a storm brewing while we are out on the road, my
foter
summoned Idel’s angel to see the family safely home. Idel’s angel is enlisted for every family illness, for protection from the soldiers, and to ensure our orchards good production. My
mater
even used Idel’s angel to remember where she put her sewing basket.

The arm is set and healed quickly, but Idel still never listened. He is impulsive and carefree. I thought then it would take much more than a broken arm to lead Idel to reflect on his actions.

“Don’t leave me with him here long,
Foter.
Already he won’t listen to anyone.”

“Don’t worry, Szaja, it won’t be long. It won’t be long at all, you have my promise.”

My
foter
had no way of knowing that my escape from Eastern Europe would take another twenty-five years.

That
life, my boyhood life, is the sweetest time. The winters are long and harsh and the work tiring, but the reward of my family, together and laughing, is all I ever needed. I knew this, even then.

But my
foter
is excited and happy, and it is hard not to be happy with him. Standing there in the orchard with him, the late summer sunrise lighting everything golden as the sun began its slow climb into the day, I inhaled the scent of the ripe apple trees and the damp earth.

I stood there with a smile on my face, knowing with a dreadful certainty that I would never experience that kind of happiness again.

Jules, 8 years | April 15th, 1970

RECESS

I REACH FOR a swing on the school ground at recess when something hits me, hard, on the back of the head.

Whoever did this is going to be sorry.

The next thing I know, several people stand over me, watching me. As if I’m a bug. One of the playground monitors, Mrs. Hertiss, says someone has to walk me to the nurse’s office.

I hate nurses. I hate needles and shots. They go together. Besides, recess ranks as one of my favorite times of the day, and today spring finally came. I can smell it in the warming air. It’s the smell of old things heated and dried.

“I don’t need to go.”

I try to sit up but fall back again, dizzy.

“Oh, you’re going to the nurse all right, but wait until you don’t feel too dizzy to move. What happened anyway, Julianne?” Mrs. Hertiss asks.

“Something hit me on the head.”

Mrs. Hertiss interrogates the kids around me.

“What hit her?”

A boy named Larry speaks: “Don’t know. We didn’t see anything.”

“Were you standing near her?”

“Yeah, but we didn’t see anything.”

“How can that be? Maybe one of you accidentally hit her?”

There’s a whole bunch of “Nos.”

“All right—you,” she points to Larry, “take her down to the nurse’s office and make sure she doesn’t fall.”

Larry helps me up and walks me into the school and down the hallway to the nurse’s office across from the cafeteria. The fifth graders are finishing lunch and I’m embarrassed. I tell Larry he can let me walk the rest of the way.

But he insists on helping. “You could fall again. No way I’m gonna let you fall down.”

I’m surprised he’s acting nice to me. I don’t have any real friends at school. Friends are too much bother and kind of risky. I can’t bring people back to our house because I never know what Wendy will do to embarrass me. She loves taking off her clothes and stuff and walking around the place that way.

The other reason I don’t have any friends is I’ve been having trouble getting along with people. People make me mad. Kind of in general. Like Jo in
Little Women,
“I am angry nearly every day of my life.” When anyone makes me mad, I slug them, which gets me in lots of trouble. I end up spending lots of my recesses standing against the punishment wall instead of running around. Once I even got in trouble standing
in detention
because I tried to talk to one of the girls in detention with me. She told me her name was Lily and she was “emotionally disturbed.” I’m not sure what this means, but I’m curious if I might be too. I got fascinated talking to her. The teacher who watches the detention kids charged over to us and told me to stop bothering her.

I argued with her. I hadn’t been bothering Lily; she was happy that someone was talking to her. The teacher kicked me out of detention anyway. I became afraid to talk to Lily after that, but I looked up
emotional disturbance
in one of Wendy’s psychology textbooks (she was taking a psychology class at college). I decided I could have
emotional disturbance,
too.

When we walk into the office, the nurse, Mrs. Dougherty, asks what we want. Larry and I speak simultaneously.

“I got hit on the head with something, but I’m fine now.”

“She got hit on the head and fell down and couldn’t talk for a little while.”

Mrs. Dougherty asks me if I think I lost consciousness.

“Huh?”

“Do you remember falling on the ground?”

She feels the back of my head, which now has a big, painful knot.

“No, I don’t.”

She leans over and peers into my eyes with a tiny flashlight.

“Do you know what hit you?”

“No, uh, I don’t… Can I go back to recess?” I ask.

“Larry,
you
can go back to the playground,” Mrs. Dougherty says.

Larry leaves and Mrs. Dougherty makes me lie down on the hospital cot in her office. I worry she might give me a shot or something.

“I’m fine, and I’m going to miss my class if you keep me here any longer. Can I go back now?”

“How old are you Jules?”

“In exactly one month I’ll be nine”

“What’s your address?”

“Ummmmh.” I start to tell her, but then I worry about why she needs the information. Luckily she drops it.

The back of my head doesn’t sting until Mrs. Dougherty dabs
mercurochrome
on it. There must be a big cut back there. I’m mortified and infuriated because I’m sure I have a big red stain, like a weirdo.

“No. I’m sorry, but—I think you may have a concussion, and the lump on your head might grow bigger and more painful if you don’t let me put ice on it.”

She fixes an ice pack and puts it under my head on the pillow. “Jules, what’s your telephone number? I need to call your mother.”

“Um, I don’t remember.”

She stares at me, trying to decide if I’m telling the truth.

Calling Wendy is not an option. She’s probably gone to a friend’s to party.

Probably high.

She’s doing most of her partying at her friends’ houses lately. She leaves for long weekends—pretends she’s going to be gone for just one night, then calls the next day to check in and tell us she might stay another day.

When she parties on a night before a school day, she calls and pretends she’ll be back the next morning to check on us and make sure we’re at school. Then she shows up at dinnertime with fast food so we won’t be mad at her.

We love fast food. Wendy loves it because it gives her an excuse to drive to the next town, where the new Burger King and McDonald’s are—off the island.

Wendy is a terrible cook.

Anyway, when Mrs. Dougherty can’t pull my phone number from me, she finds it in the school directory. I can hear the phone ringing. I pray she isn’t there.

“Hello, this is Mrs. Dougherty, Julianne’s school nurse. I’m calling because Julianne had an accident. She’s been struck by something on the school grounds, and I think she might have a concussion. You may want to bring her to your pediatrician.”

I hear Wendy’s voice screeching through the phone. Loud music blaring in the background. “Can’t you send her back to class?”

“No, she’s not well enough to go back to class.”

“We live a block away. Tell her to walk home.”

“I see. I can’t let her walk home, regardless of how close you live. You’ll have to come and pick her up.”

“I can’t come.” Wendy says.

“Do you have a car?”

“Yeeeees. I have a car.” She sounds mad, and I could’ve told Mrs. Dougherty if she pisses Wendy off she can forget about her ever coming to take me.

“Well, I don’t understand,” Mrs. Dougherty says. She keeps rolling her eyes and winding one hand tightly around the telephone cord like she wants to use it to strangle Wendy. I’m worried she can tell that Wendy is high.

“It’s all right,” I say. “I really do live close by. Approximately five minutes. I don’t mind walking.”

“You sit tight, sweetie,” Mrs. Dougherty says to me. “Mrs. Finn, you need to come and pick up Julianne.”

“For God’s sake, if you think she needs a ride, why don’t you drive her?” Wendy screams.

“I can’t drive her. I’m still on duty and I need to stay here on school grounds. You need to …”

Wendy must have hung up on her.

Mrs. Dougherty hangs up the phone and stares at it, not saying anything. Finally, she smiles politely at me. “Does your mother have a car?”