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Authors: Cathy Lamb

The First Day of the Rest of My Life (41 page)

BOOK: The First Day of the Rest of My Life
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Carman gave Annie and me tapes of Momma’s favorite songs. Six tapes each.
Trudy Jo gave us a set of Shakespeare books.
Shell Dee gave us models of the human body and framed pictures of our momma with her arms around us at Marie Elise’s French Beauty Parlor.
On a day when the clouds looked hysterical, ripping across the landscape, we climbed into the back of our grandparents’ rented car and headed out of town. We took Bob the Cat with us in a carrier. She was still limping.
“Why is everyone outside on the street?” I asked my grandparents as we rounded the corner into town. I was wearing the dress Steve’s mother sewed for me, my violin with the butterfly stain beside me on the seat.
My granddad stopped the car and stared at all the people lining the road, both sides. Grandma reached for his hand, and gasped.
I saw my teachers from school, our neighbors, the priests and ministers, all of our friends, and Steve. There was Steve, my snake-finding friend, with his parents, standing tall.
“Is there a parade?” I asked. I hadn’t heard of any parade.
My granddad cleared his throat. My grandma grabbed a lace hanky and dabbed at her eyes.
“There’s my violin teacher,” I said. “And Mrs. Cooks, the librarian. And Sheriff Ellery. There’s Shoney and his mom and Maggie Gee and her grandmother and Shell Dee, Trudy Jo, Carman . . . and all their kids . . . what’s going on?”
My grandma’s voice cracked. “They’re here for you. For you and Annie.”
“What? Why are they here for me?” I glanced at Annie. She was confused, too, but only mildly. She’d retreated pretty far back into her head again.
“They’re here,” Granddad started, then wiped a hand over his face. “They’re here, my darling granddaughters, to say good-bye to you.”
“Good-bye?” I said.
“Yes, honey,” Grandma said. “They’re here to say good-bye.”
We drove through town slowly, windows down. Everyone waved. No one was happy. I saw people with handkerchiefs wiping their cheeks. They had signs that read, “We love you, Madeline and Annie” and “We’ll miss you, Madeline and Annie.”
I stared right at Steve. He stared back, then ran to our car and handed me heart-shaped rocks, his face miserable.
I watched him and all our friends grow smaller and smaller until I couldn’t see them anymore and that was it and good-bye.
Good-bye.
We drove past the ocean. I thought of the storm that was furious that night, how it drowned my dad and sunk him. I thought of our boat, how Momma had dropped herself into the waves. Two people, gobbled up by that ocean. “I don’t want to see the ocean again,” I said. “Never.”
Beside me, Annie shook her head.
Good-bye, everyone.
Good-bye, Dad.
Good-bye, Momma.
Good-bye, Steve.
I love you.
Good-bye.
29
A
s I drove to The Lavender Farm that night after seeing a crushing load of clients, the lights of the city and the suburbs fading and giving way to the orchards, farms, and barns of the country, I thought about my and Annie’s conversation with Granddad on the deck.
“What do you mean, we’re not the real Laurents?” I asked.
He stared straight out into the darkness, an owl soaring from one tree to another, a dark moving shadow. “We had to get out of France or die. In my quest to save my family, I did something terrible. This reporter, Marlene, I am sure she knows what I did. She looked up the records at Drancy, at Auschwitz, on a whim, on a gut-level hunch, by chance, I don’t know. But now she has it.”
“Has what? What did you do?” Annie asked, pushing her hair behind her ear, not a curl showing, like me.
“I got us papers. All five of us. Your mother, Grandma and I, your grandma Madeline, and Ismael. I had tried for weeks to get us papers, to get us out secretly, in trunks or trucks, through different channels, and I hit a dead end. Try, that’s all Jews could do then, try. Try in the face of hopelessness and a marauding, murdering band of German thugs and a traitorous puppet government that turned their backs.”
“How did you get the papers?”
“Were they forged?” I asked.
“Yes, they were forged. A few people were trying to help Jews get out before they were rounded up like cattle and gassed.
Gassed.
Human to human, one human to another: Gassed.” He shook his head, the shock of that atrocity never going away.
“How did you get them?” Annie asked. “How did you get the papers?”
“How?” He looked at Annie and me, in turn, those old eyes a morass of raw pain. “I stole them.”
“You stole them? From—” I stopped.
“From who?” Annie asked.
Please, no.
“From a man who did not deserve what I did,” he said.
Please, no.
He didn’t.
“From a family who did not deserve their fate.”
He did.
He had.
Understanding dawned in Annie’s eyes.
I could hardly believe it. My granddad had never stolen anything in his life. Never. He gave millions of dollars away a year. He was kind and respectful to everyone, his generosity was established . . . he couldn’t have.
He couldn’t have
. He wouldn’t have . . . and yet, and yet.
He had.
He had stolen the papers for his family. For himself and his wife, Grandma Madeline, their two sweet children, our momma and her brother, for his wife’s sister, a teenager, our Grandma Emmanuelle . . .
“I stole them from the Laurents,” he said, his voice ragged. “The real Laurents. His family had been in France for hundreds of years. He had two brothers, Meyer and Sagi. They were good men. I knew them. Her family was from Holland. She was one of eight children. They had three children. Those Laurents went to Drancy first, then Auschwitz.”
His eyes blackened with guilt and shame. “I stole from one family so my family could live.”
I coughed, feeling like I was being strangled with shock.
“We almost missed the train that day. I had to go by their house, after I knew”—his voice broke—“after I knew that Ismael and Madeline would not need their papers, because they were dead,
dead
, I put the papers under the Laurents’ door so two of them could get out, but it was too late. Too late. The Nazis had already been there.”
“Granddad,” Annie said, putting an arm around his neck as he wept.
“They died. They all died. I checked, from the safety of my farm and home in Oregon, from the safety of my fortune, from the safety of my business and the safety of my new American citizenship, I checked. I wanted to repay them, I wanted to give them all of my money, but they didn’t make it. I killed them. It was me. I killed them.”
“No, the Nazis killed them,” I said, aching for the Laurents, for their family. “They killed them.”
“I did. It was my family for theirs. I chose mine. I love my family, family is my everything. But was my family more
worthy
of survival? No. We were not. We were not better, we were not more exalted. We were not more loved by God. We were equals. And I chose my family over theirs. I chose. Like God chooses, only I did it for Him. I pushed the father to the ground, I hit him in the head. I knew he would have the papers on him and he did. The blood that poured from him. Poor man, poor man, and then I ran. I ran with his life, with the life of his wife and children. I ran and I left them there to die and I kept their name in my new country so we could start over, when they had no country at all, only barbed wire, barbaric living conditions, and ovens that never stopped burning.”
I envisioned a fallen France. Invaded. Overthrown. Jews trying to get out, Jews rounded up, shoved in cattle cars . . . and Granddad’s family,
my
family, knowing they would die, the children would die . . . and he going to this man’s house and . . .
“Granddad,” I said. So wrong, so wrong what he did . . . but...
That darn owl hooted again, haunting.
“You’ve lived with this forever—” Annie whispered.
“Every day of my life, I have thought of the Laurents. I see them in my dreams. I see them everywhere. It is the strangest thing. I see them
smiling
at me. All five of them. The family I murdered smiles at me. It makes it worse. They were good people. Smart. Kind. The father welcomed me into his home that day. ‘Come in, come in, friend, quickly.’ He hugged me and I cracked his head open. I have never been able to get rid of my guilt. It has stalked me, every day it has knocked me down.” He was openly crying, a man who did not like to cry. “ ‘Come in,’ he said.” He groaned, fisted his hands together. “ ‘Come in, friend.’ ”
We hugged him close. What to say? How to comfort? A vision of a man, a good man, being smashed by my granddad . . . all frantic, all needing to get out, to get out
right away
. . .
“Granddad, that’s why . . . that’s why you donate so much money, isn’t it? All the time.”
“Yes, to atone. To make up for my crime. Every time I give money away, I write it down in my leather journal.”
I knew that leather journal. Old and weathered, pages bent, it was in his office, in a drawer.
“I write down the name of the organization, I write, ‘For the Laurents. For the Laurents.’ Sometimes I list their names individually. Anton Laurent. Emmanuelle Laurent. Marie Elise Laurent. Johnna Laurent. Aaron Laurent. ‘Come in, come in, friend,’ he said.” He broke down again. “ ‘Come in, friend.’ ”
We let him cry. We sat and let him cry while that darn owl hooted again and we crumbled on the inside.
“Everything I give away, it is for the Laurents. I am not worthy to even be here. It should have been them, but I stole their lives. Stole it. As my entire family was stolen from me.”
Annie and I exchanged a glance, more confusion.
“As Grandma Madeline and Ismael were stolen from you,” I said, needing to clarify as I sensed another secret.
He kneaded his fingers together. “There are more, granddaughters.”
“More?”
More
secrets?
He inhaled, but it sounded like a mini, mangled scream. “Yes. When I say our entire family was stolen from us, I mean the
entire
family. I was born in Germany. So were your grandmas, Madeline and Emmanuelle. But all four of our parents left large families in Germany for France. We visited as children, back and forth the families went, from Germany to France and back. But things were so bad in Germany, years before they were bad in France. We tried to reach them and one by one, starting in the late nineteen thirties, we couldn’t. Some, I know, tried to get out, but they were too late. I heard through a friend that one family, our cousins, hid for about six months. They were betrayed, rounded up, sent to the camps. Another uncle and aunt, their three children . . . they went to a hidden cabin in the woods. No one heard from them again after the Nazis went through. Others were arrested. They were intellectuals, always a threat. Professors and artists and scientists. Many musicians. There were six violinists in the family in Germany. They were gone. Gone. When the war ended, there was no one left.
No one.
”
“You checked.”
“As best I could.” He wrung his hands. “I hired a man there. We had the names of our family members. My uncles and aunts, cousins, the grandparents. Young children, old people, teenagers. They were shipped off to various camps all over Germany. And that was it. They were gone. Disappeared. Eradicated.” He wiped his eyes. “You know how they got out of the camps?”
I didn’t move. My lack of breath wouldn’t allow it.
Annie clenched her jaw to keep the you-know-what in.
He pointed a trembling, old finger up to the sky. “That’s how they got out. They were burned, their ashes shot through the sky, then scattered, and out they went. They went by ash. Their bodies, their bones, their blood, their minds, their talents and skills, their love and compassion, their memories and dreams, all burned. They floated in the wind, all over Germany, all over Europe. Who knows where they floated to after that. Who knows? Did their ashes land in Berlin? Did they land in another camp, where another relative was starving to death, being experimented upon, digging a ditch to fall into? Did they land on a Jewish friend’s shoulders as they were moving rock, as they were packed into cattle cars, as they were marched through the snow? Did they go farther, to Russia, where the soldiers were freezing to death on their makeshift battlefields? Did they travel to Poland where the Nazis treated all Poles as subhuman? Or did my relatives catch a current of air and make it to America? Do they see my life now, this home, my business, our family? Are they glad for me? Do they miss me? Do they resent me, that I lived but their children did not? Are they ashamed of me? Have they disowned me for what I did?”
I squeezed his hand, wordless. What do you say to this?
“My relatives, your relatives, they became ash.” He held his head. “And I caused the other family to become ash, too, the Laurents. Jews were turned to ash.”
“Granddad, I’ve never seen you . . . you’ve never practiced your faith.”
“No.” He shook his head. “We came here and I told God I would no longer practice my faith. I am unworthy. I am unforgiveable. My guilt has near killed me
.
” He laughed, no humor. “We even bought Christmas trees, bought into a holiday that wasn’t ours. I tried to put the past behind me, not talk about it, shut it out, because the pain was going to kill me, kill your grandma. Kill us both. Some pain is so grievous that talking about it does not alleviate it, only exacerbates the physical agony. But your wonderful grandma and I shared our love for Madeline, for Ismael, and we were determined to provide a happy life for your momma.”
He was tormented, so tormented.
“Did our momma later, when she was an adult, know about the papers, about the Laurents?”
“No, she didn’t know about the Laurents. When she was older, and asked about our escape, I told her I had the papers forged, but I didn’t tell her I stole them. Why would I do that? Why would I burden her?” He groaned. “She was burdened enough. She had lost her mother and brother, her grandparents, her homeland, her family in Germany, her home.”
I thought about our momma, playing her violin outside, speaking in French to someone. “Did our dad know about this? About your escape from France? About Grandma Madeline and Ismael?”
“Yes, he knew. Your momma told him. She had to. It explained why she cried at unexpected moments, why she talked to Ismael, why your name had to be Madeline, after her mother”—he nodded at me—“and why your name”—he nodded at Annie—“had to be Anna. Your momma’s real name was Anna. Before she wore a blue coat with blood on it and became Marie Elise Laurent.”
Anna.
My momma’s real name was Anna, not Marie Elise. What was her last name, then? Her real last name? What were Granddad’s and Grandma’s real last names?
“Your momma needed your dad to help her,” Granddad went on, “to understand, to hold and comfort her, and he did. He was a real man, strong enough to carry your mother’s losses.”
I put my arms around him on one side, Annie on the other, those broad shoulders bent, almost doubled over.
I remembered what Grandma had said, though. She did know, she had always known about the papers, about what her husband had done. She had kept that from him, so her knowledge would not be another weight for him to carry. “I love you, Granddad.”
“I love you, too,” Annie said.
“How can you?” he rasped. “How can you possibly now that you know who I am? A murderer, a taker, a betrayer, a coward, a man who sent a fellow Jewish family to ash.” His shoulders hunched, his sobs wrenching.
“Granddad, I have always loved you, I will always love you. No matter what,” I said.
“Me too.” Annie rubbed his shoulders. “How could we not love a man who is a sex-god lover to Grandma, who thinks hospitals are boring, boring, boring, chops wood each year like a maniac, and has good, minty breath when given CPR?”
BOOK: The First Day of the Rest of My Life
13.87Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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