The Belief in Angels (17 page)

Ruchel had already been frail and thin from the typhus. Sura, her twin, had been stronger, but now they are tiny mirrors. They lost light on that day. They became the ghosts of my sisters.

None of us talked about it. None of us dared ask any questions. It seemed too terrible, maybe as terrible as what happened to Idel and Berl. Maybe more terrible. They’d been killed by the attack as surely as if they’d been shot. This is how things are in those days. For women—girls, really, they are fifteen—to be raped felt the same as death.

Their ghosts died as well. The ghosts of my sisters left the world a few weeks later. They starved to death. Both of them. Both deciding they would refuse to eat the meager rations the soldiers provided us on our journey to the resettlement area. We begged the girls to eat the grains offered. Reizel, Oizer, and I begged. Nothing worked. They’d made their decision. Each day the walking contributed to the eventual loss of all energy. Their weak bodies gave out.

We woke one morning and found them clasped, arms around one another, under their coats, which we used as blankets on the cold ground. They had gone together in the same way they had been born.

Reizel led us in the prayers. We had no
Shomer,
no
Chevrah Kaddisha,
and no
Tahara.

They gave us five minutes to say the prayers. Five minutes more than I needed. More than I wanted. Five minutes longer than I could stand to acknowledge the pain of this loss without losing what remained of my mind.

The soldiers on their horses, waiting, ordered us to leave their bodies shrouded in their coats, and without a burial, by the side of the road. They told us they would assign soldiers to bury my sisters.

I did not believe them. I no longer believed anything.

Life began its bad dream. There is no color. Shapes are a deep, flat gray, shadow. Sounds are muted or clanging in distorted decibels. At first, everything hurt my skin. Then I no longer felt my body.

I could not tell you what we ate, how long we marched each day, what people we met, what the weather is like—nothing. None of these things can be remembered. It is as though I am sleepwalking.

To continue to live in a world where people behaved like these soldiers seemed impossible to me. I had great shame, guilt, and anger at myself for not being able to prevent the terrible murders of Idel and Berl. The deaths of my sisters had been as much my fault as the soldiers’. I had failed to do the one thing
Foter
had charged me with: protect my brothers and sisters.

After her breakdown upon Idel and Berl’s murders, Reizel grew much stronger than Oizer and me. She took us by the hands as we left our sisters there. She led us away from that place. She managed to follow
Foter
’s edict to survive and taught us how to do the same.

Reizel became the reason I didn’t join my ghost sisters in their starved exit from this life. In her strongest spirit, she led us through that terrible time and eventually to a place where we found peace.

Jules, 10years | September 17th, 1971

SEAGLASS

MY BEST FRIEND Leigh and I stroll to the school bus, after school. I half-listen to her going on about her newest crush while I focus on the magnificence of the tree leaf colors.

Withensea is filled with trees, and trees, in a small New England town, are serious business. The people of Withensea passed one of the New World’s earliest environmental laws when they voted against cutting down any more small trees on the island. (The island timber was being used to build homes in Boston.) The result of all the tree hoopla is that Withensea is a green paradise. Maple, balsam, oak, and white pine grow everywhere. They stand around homes and businesses, lining every roadside that doesn’t border the sea with its ferocious winter winds.

The fall beauty is particularly spectacular. All this week the colors have been coming, and the golden yellows, burnt oranges, and scarlet reds sparkle out against the old faded lime green leaves like they’ve been colored on. When the sun begins to set, its reflections light the leaves as if they have tiny light bulbs inside them. I drink in the intensity of the colors and remind myself to memorize its reality and its essence. I’m saving it all for when I’m older—for when I leave Withensea.

Beauty. If only I possessed a sliver of the gorgeousness. Wendy says although I’m not pretty, I’m not unattractive.

I have long, straight brown hair and dark, cucumber-green eyes with pale skin and freckles. When I’m scared the color of my skin gives me away more than my
eyes, because my freckles stand out like tiny brown pebbles on white sand. I don’t match the weight or height for my age in those standards charts—I’m in fifth grade and barely break four feet, plus I’m too thin. I get teased all the time as the smallest girl in my class.

My best friend, my one friend, is Leigh Westerfield.

One day after school, I had a fistfight with one of the girls in my class. It was one of those weather days where the rain comes in twenty-second pelts and then quits. I’d been having almost daily fistfights since school began, and I had learned to draw blood as quickly as possible. Best way to end it.

The girl grabbed my hair and swung her fist toward my head, but I caught a lucky break when she lost her footing. Her fingernail caught the edge of my ear as I pulled away, giving me a perfect shot at her face. She got a bloody nose, and I got a ripped earlobe. She called off the fight.

Leigh hung out as the small crowd of kids moved away after the fight ended. She’d moved into my neighborhood the week before school started that fall, but I hadn’t talked to her until then. All I knew was that she was one of the few girls in my class that was already wearing a bra. This is something I hope never becomes a necessity for me, despite the way my brothers tease me about my lack of breasts.

I knelt on the ground, searching for the tiger’s eye earring the girl ripped out of my ear. Leigh offered to help and began scrambling around with me in a muddy puddle.

She wore the coolest purple jeans I’d ever seen.

“You’re destroying those.” I jutted my chin at her jeans and spoke in an angry tone.

I expected her to take off.

“You just beat up the toughest girl in our class. I thought you were way too small to take her.”

I ignored her.

“You won’t have to fight anyone else again now you’ve shown you can beat her up.”

“You think?” I asked.

“Absolutely. I wouldn’t mess with you.”

I thought she might be making fun of me, but a goofy smile spread over my face. I couldn’t keep it in.

Leigh smiled back, offering the kerchief she’d been using to tie back her wavy, strawberry-blonde hair.

“Your ear is bleeding. Wipe it off unless you’re trying to look
really
tough.”

I never found the earring, but that was it. We were best friends. And she nailed it: no one ever bothered me again. Leigh’s smart about people. I’m happy around her in a way I’ve never been before. I’m still like an alien, but with Leigh beside me it’s okay, even wonderful, to be different.

After the bus drops us off, we stop at her neighborhood playground for hours, swinging on the swings and talking. We wait until the sun begins to drop behind the big oak trees that tower over the playground before starting the walk back.

“Watch out. He’s got a water gun and a big crush,” Leigh warns me about the boy riding his bike toward us.

“On you?” I ask.

“No, not on me. On you!”

“He does not. He hates me. He punches me every time he walks by me in the hall.”

“Exactly! When he develops a vocabulary, he’ll ask you out.”

I laugh. “You’re loony. He loathes me.” I pronounce “loathe” in a way that rhymes with “cough.”

I have gotten into the habit of sprinkling words I’ve read—but have never heard spoken—into my speech. The result is something Leigh labels the Jules Finn “Say-It-Like-It-Looks Dictionary.”

Leigh peers at me oddly. “Huh?”

“I think he hates me cuz I fought him in the third grade and threw him over the cliff in front of my brother and all his friends.” Leigh laughs.

The boy, Jeff, rides by us, circles, and squirts me until I’m soaked and screaming. Leigh steps over to his bike and wrestles the water gun out of his hand while he tries to keep his balance on the bike. She grabs it, and he peddles away, cursing, after she turns it on him.

“Thou lump of foul deformity!” I shout after him.

“What did I tell you? He wants your attention,” She squirts the water gun into her mouth.

“Well, that was fun, now I’m totally in love,” I say. “How come only the weirdos like me?”

“Anyway, what I was gonna tell you … Andre asked me to the all-school dance at the high school tonight!”

“No way. Are you gonna go?” I ask.

Neither of us has been to a school dance before.

“Duh! What do you think? And you’re coming! We can go together and meet him there.”

“No, it’d be way too freaky. You go.”

A plane coming out from Boston Logan flies overhead, nearly drowning out our conversation.

“No, come on, it’ll be fun,” Leigh shouts over the noise. “I stole cigarettes from my sister, and we can bum more at the dance.”

I think about it as the plane moves farther away, leaving a streak of puffy white across the sky. We stand in front of her house.

“Okay?” Leigh asks.

“Okay,” I answer.

“So you can sleep over tonight and we can walk to the dance from my place,” Leigh says, moving across her lawn to her porch steps.

“Great,” I call out.

She lives in one of the ranch houses built by the developer who bought the land Howard sold. With the exception of the land supporting the O’Connells’ home, my grandfather purchased all the available land around our house. The land was cheap at the time, and he saw the potential in the real estate of the neighborhood long before the developers who came later making offers to Howard. The developers built the ranch homes well, but with no imagination: they’re clad in different colors of aluminum siding, but they’re built exactly the same.

The spicy, sweet smell of Leigh’s mom’s tomato sauce sneaks out the door as Leigh holds it open. The juices in my stomach give a gurgle and my mouth waters instantly.

Eggplant parmesan—my absolute favorite!

“So, are you gonna go home or do you want to eat over first?”

Leigh knows that, 90 percent of the time, our refrigerator holds two staples: nail polish and film canisters. The film canisters alternately hold Jack’s film and various drugs that Wendy insists are vitamins.

Wendy started a lifelong diet at fifteen, and she figures the best way to avoid overeating is to avoid grocery shopping. The fact that she has three growing children clearly doesn’t stand in her way.

My brothers and I, not coincidentally, befriend people with generous families who feed us regularly.

“I gotta go back and see what I can feed my brothers,” I say. “And I gotta grab nicer clothes. This isn’t a good thing to wear, is it?” I say, motioning to the farmer jeans I’m wearing.

A few months ago, Wendy started modeling clothes at trade shows for a friend who owns a clothing design business. She gets to keep most of the clothes she models and she’s collected an enormous wardrobe of trendy clothes, like the
stuff rock stars wear on shows like
The Midnight Special.
Leigh loves coming over when Wendy leaves because we can open her closets and dive into the rayon, paisley-printed blouses with billowy butterfly sleeves, glittery, multicolored, rhinestone-studded denim shirts, and crushed velvet jackets. The bellbottoms drag the floor on me, but Leigh can almost get away with wearing them when she’s got Wendy’s high-heeled black vinyl boots on. Leigh even borrows some of the clothes from time to time. Left to my own devices, however, I choose plain, ordinary clothes and wear the same things with great frequency. This is the second time this week I’ve worn the farmer jeans.

“You should wear that purple suede vest your mom has with the beaded fringe. Do you think I could borrow the one with the American flag on it? I’ll fix you up, it’ll be fun.”