I can’t bear the thought of walking through the front door and explaining why I’m back from school before lunch. I know there’s a back entrance through the fire escape and it’s my only chance of finding the quiet I need to sort out my boiling thoughts. What is the point of this life if I’ve overstayed my welcome?
TWENTY-SIX
NORA
CHICAGO, UNITED STATES, JANUARY 1947
The schedule the school administration gave me this morning was like the one I had in France and the classrooms are close by and on the same floor, thankfully. Aside from worrying about Arina, I had a decent first day.
I didn’t see her at lunch or in any of the hallways between classes, and she wasn’t outside the school doors after the last bell rang. My stomach is in knots as I consider where she could be.
No sooner than me rolling through the front doors of Amazing Grace, is Mrs. Vallentine storming out of her glass window office, charging toward me. “Nora,” she says with a forceful smile. “May we speak for a moment privately?”
A lump fills my throat. “I’ ev-ev-every’hing okay?”
“Follow me,” she says, either ignoring my question or not bothering to clarify what I asked.
I do as she says and follow her down the hall, not to her office, but another room, one with the door closed. The nameplate on the door reminds me this is Helena’s office. I’ve only seen her a few times briefly in the hallways since I arrived a few days ago. She’s been busy catching up on the work she missed while on leave.
Mrs. Vallentine knocks on the door before twisting the knob and pushing her way in. Sunlight pours out of the doorway and spills into the gloomy corridor. “I have Nora for you,” Mrs. Vallentine says.
My nerves simmer, only mildly since I’m still not sure what this is all about. Upon entering the room, I find Arina sitting on a chair to my right and Helena behind a desk. Mrs. Vallentine closes us both in the room, joining Arina and Helena.
“How was your day, Nora?” Helena asks. Her eyelids appear heavy, and her smile seems to be a struggle against gravity.
“F-f-fine,” I reply, peering over at Arina who won’t lift her gaze to look at me.
“Would you like to tell your sister or would you rather I do so?” Helena asks Arina.
Arina lifts her head and shifts her stare toward the ceiling. “I left school because I didn’t feel well, and I went up to the rooftop to clear my head and get some fresh air. Someone spotted me and now Mrs. Vallentine thinks I had ulterior motives.”
My brows furrow with confusion.
“One of the staff saw her standing at the edge of the roof, holding her arms out to the side. When they called up, asking her what she was doing up there, she made some disturbing threats—ones we can’t take lightly.”
“Wh-wh-wha’?” I question her.
“She was shouting: ‘What is the purpose of all this? Why are we all here?’” Mrs. Vallentine continues.
Those are questions, not threats. “I don’ un-un-under’and.”
“They aren’t threats,” Arina replies. “They were perfectly reasonable questions.”
“Were you planning to jump?” Helena asks, her words sharper than a paring knife.
I don’t know why Arina would pause before responding. The answer should be an easy no.
“If I say, I’m not sure or yes, you will have me sent away to a psychiatric facility, but if I say no, you will believe me, correct?” Arina toys with her words, creating an impossible situation for everyone in this room.
“Wh-wh-why are you be-be-being ’o ’elfish? A-a-all we wan’ed before la’ w-w-week wa’ ’o f-f-find each o’her and Mama and P-P-Papa. We w-w-were lucky. We a-a-are lucky. And you a-a-are ’hrowing i’ all o-o-off a roof like n-n-no big deal. L-l-look wha’ we lived ’hrough and ’urvived?” I’m not sure how much any of them understood, particularly Arina, but I would expect her to understand more than Mrs. Vallentine at least.
Arina twists her head to look at me, but not my face. She stares at my neck, almost like she can’t bear to make eye contact with me. “I don’t know how to live like this—in this world where all of our memories are filled with gore, and of our family bond that we might never see again.”
“We understand,” Helena says. She’s allowed to say that because she does, maybe even more than we do seeing as she lost her children and husband. She has no one left. We still don’t even know about Mama and Papa.
Helena rolls her sleeve up, her tattooed number a reminder of how she understands. Arina can’t argue with her. Mrs. Vallentine, however, appears very uncomfortable.
“I would not jump,” Arina mumbles. “I know I’m meant to live if I survived Auschwitz, but I wish I knew why, and searching for that meaning feels like an endless journey.”
“It will be an endless journey, but it will be a journey where you choose the paths,” Helena says. “Now, I believe you would not jump, which is a dangerous assumption because if I’m wrong, I will have to live with that along with the heartache I already endure each day.”
Arina peers over to me first. Shame swirls through her red-stained eyes. She shifts her gaze to Helena and nods her head. “I would not jump, nor would I do anything to cause myself or others harm,” she says.
Helena’s forced smile relaxes into one that appears more natural. “Okay. We received a letter from the Red Cross addressed to the two of you, and I thought it might be best if we read it together.”
My heart stops beating and my arms tingle into a state of numbness. My throat becomes dry like I haven’t had a drop of water in weeks.
“When did it arrive?” Arina asks, the sound of her voice hardly audible.
“With today’s mail,” Mrs. Vallentine says. There’s empathy in her response.
“Would you read it?” Arina asks Helena.
“Of course,” she says, swallowing hard against the clear dryness in her throat.
Arina reaches between us, waiting for my hand. I twist my chair so I’m right next to her and take her hand in mine.
Neither of us is ready for what’s inside that envelope and everyone is quiet, so quiet, I’m guessing they are all holding their breath like I am. The tear of the envelope sounds like a sticker being torn off plastic and the letter dragging against the inside of the envelope strikes a nerve in the back of my neck, causing me to tighten my shoulders. There’s another smaller envelope that falls from the paper and lands upside down on Helena’s desk.
“I’m afraid this isn’t an informal letter,” Helena says, palming the side of her face. With a long pause and stark silence between us all, she swallows hard before continuing, “It says:”
Henrik Tabor
Date of birth: The second of October 1904
Place of origin: Debrecen, Hungary
Relations: Husband of Danica Tabor and father of Arina and Nora Tabor
Details of physical status: Deceased—Henrik Tabor was pronounced deceased on the twenty-third of November 1944. The cause was blood-poisoning after sustaining an injury due to forced labor.