Anne Frank and Me Page 6

Little Bit shrugged. “Right after she hit her head, she started calling me Little Bit.”

  “Liz-Bette?” Ms. Zooms appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Please leave Nicole alone with her friends and come set the table. Hello, Jacques, Mimi.”

  “Madame Bernhardt? We brought you a present.” Mimi handed Ms. Zooms a cloth sack. “It is from our uncle’s farm.”

  “Oh, thank you, Mimi.” Ms. Zooms peered eagerly into the bag. “Vegetables. Tomatoes, zucchini, peppers. And cheese. How I love fresh cheese. I could eat an entire wheel of it by myself.”

  “No offense, Ms. Zooms,” Nicole said, “but you could stand to lose a few el-bees. Do you know how many fat grams there are in cheese?”

  “El-bees?” Mimi echoed.

  “Dear God, my daughter has lost her mind.”

  “Bazooms, for the zillionth time, you have to stop calling me your daughter.”

  “Bah-Zooms?” Jack asked.

  “She calls me Bah-Zooms,” the older woman explained. “I have no idea what this means.”

  “I am going to call you Bah-Zooms, too,” Little Bit declared.

  “Enough rudeness, young lady Come help me.”

  “But, Bah-Zooms, I want to stay here.”

  Mimi tugged on one of Little Bit’s braids. “Come, Liz-Bette, I will help, too. Bye, Jacques, bye, Nicole. Have fun.” She winked mischievously at them over her shoulder.

  Nicole couldn’t stop grinning. “Jack Polin,” she marveled. “Alone with me. On purpose.”

  “Jacques Poulin,” he corrected, making the J soft and changing the pronunciation of his last name. He sat on the couch and beckoned for Nicole to join him. “Do you think this is a Hollywood movie and I am some American movie star named Jack?”

  Nicole laughed. “Works for me.”

  “Mimi and I have been so worried. Your mother saw our mother last evening and told her that you’d hit your head. I wanted to ring you, but since you don‘t—”

  “Hold it.” Nicole held her palm up. “Are you telling me that you and Mimi have the same parents?”

  “It is usual for twins, don’t you think?”

  “You’re twins?”

  “I was born four minutes ahead of her, which is why I am smarter and better looking.” He looked at Nicole expectantly, then frowned. “That is what I always say to make Mimi mad. You really don’t remember?” Nicole shook her head.

  He gently pushed some hair off her face. “When I heard that you were hurt, my first thought was that you’d been arrested and roughed up. I was so worried. You take far too many chances, Nicole. You go out without your star—”

  “I do?”

  “You know you do. It is a foolish risk. Do you want to go to Drancy?”

  “What’s Drancy?”

  “The detainment camp outside Paris.”

  She shrugged.

  “It is the concussion,” Jack said sympathetically. “You don’t remember the Jewish regulations? Any of them?”

  Nicole shook her head so blithely that Jack grabbed her by the shoulders.

  “Listen, Nicole. You must relearn all the race laws for the Jews. It is extremely important. You cannot go outside after eight P.M. No radios, no bicycles, no telephones, no—”

  “Hold on,” Nicole protested. “What about you?”

  “Me? I am not Jewish.”

  “Well, neither am I.”

  Jack’s face darkened. “Nicole, you may think you are not Jewish because of your accident, but the Nazis and French police know that you are Jewish. Your father registered your family. It is stamped on your identity card. And it would not matter if you became Catholic tomorrow, because you have more than two Jewish grandparents and that is what the law calls a Jew Therefore, you must act as if you are Jewish no matter what you think. Do you understand me? Do not leave this apartment again until all the rules are clear and you are prepared to obey them.”

  “Whatever you say, Jack,” she joked. “I mean, Jacques.”

  “It is no joke, Nicole.” He regarded her pensively “If I asked you to do something for me, if it was very important, would you do it?”

  “Honestly? Yes. I’d do pretty much anything,” she confessed.

  “Until your memory returns, I am begging you to call your family and your friends by their proper names. A mistake at the wrong time could draw attention to yourself. These days, that is something you do not want to do.”

  “No way am I calling Ms. Zooms Maman,” Nicole protested. “I have a perfectly good maman who is making a fortune in real estate.”

  “Nicole, please. This is not funny. I love you. I want you to promise.”

  Everything in Nicole resisted. But this was Jack, the boy she had loved forever and who now pledged his love for her.

  “All right,” she said grudgingly. “Nicole Bernhardt, Mme. Renée Bernhardt, Dr. Jean Bernhardt, and the consistently annoying Liz-Bette Bernhardt. How’s that?”

  “Thank you.” He glanced toward the kitchen. When he saw that no one was in the hallway, he turned back to her again, a sly glint in his eyes. “If you really do not remember anything, then if I kissed you right now, would it be as if we were kissing for the very first time?”

  “Yes. But I’m a quick study.” She closed her eyes and lifted her chin. Finally, it was really going to happen.

  His lips met hers. Whatever world she was in didn’t matter anymore, because there was nothing except this moment and this boy and this perfect kiss—

  “That is disgusting!” Liz-Bette shrieked from the hallway. Nicole and Jacques flew apart, embarrassed.

  “There you are, Liz-Bette,” Mimi declared, rushing into the hallway. “Were you spying on them?”

  “They were kissing. With spit”

  “Liz-Bette, come here this moment!” Mme. Bernhardt’s voice thundered from the kitchen.

  “Everyone is always ordering me around.” Liz-Bette pouted, but she obediently trudged away.

  Mimi watched her go, then waltzed into the room. “Apologies for that unplanned interruption of your romantic interlude. But you didn’t tell me, Nicole. What do you think of my star of solidarity?” She hit a modeling pose. Pinned to her blouse was a six-cornered yellow star like the one Nicole had worn the day before. But unlike Nicole’s star, Mimi’s was festooned with gaudy beads, sequins, and glitter.

  “I see you added a typical Mimi touch,” Nicole said. “Frankly, it’s quite the fashion risk. So how come you’re Jewish if Jack—I mean Jacques—isn’t?”

  “I’m not Jewish, and it’s illegal to wear a star if you are not. That’s why it’s a political risk, you see,” Mimi said proudly. “Some of us are brave enough to defy the lousy Huns and show our solidarity with you.”

  Nicole peered at Mimi’s star again. There was hand-lettering in the center. “What’s G-O-Y?”

  “Goy,” Jacques replied. “Yiddish for someone who is not Jewish.”

  “Yiddish?”

  “The language of many refugee Jews,” Mimi explained. “This is very bizarre, Nicole, your not remembering anything.”

  “I totally agree with you.”

  “Promise me you won’t walk home with that thing on, Mimi,” Jacques said.

  “Oh, you,” she scoffed, then strode to the window and looked out. “It’s so strange. It still looks like the Paris I love, but it has been taken over by maniacs. I hate the Boche!”

  “Why not just shout it out so all of Paris can hear?” Jacques asked sarcastically.

  Mimi shot him a defiant look. “I wish I was in the Resistance.”

  “Very smart, Mimi. Our brother is a cop and you want to be in the Resistance.”

  “André is a French cop, not a Nazi.”

  Jacques threw his hands up in disgust. “He has to work with the Boche, doesn’t he?”

  “Well, he shouldn‘t,” Mimi insisted. “He works for Pétain the imbecile and that madman Laval; they’re both in the Nazis’ pockets.”

  Nicole didn’t understand. Who was Pétain? And Laval? She clo
sed her eyes and pressed her fingers against her temples. The whole thing just made her headache come back.

  “Nicole? Did you hear me?” Mimi asked.

  “What? No, sorry.”

  “I said that unfortunately we have to leave because Maman gets nervous these days if we are not home early.”

  “Because of your foolishness,” Jacques chided.

  Mimi rolled her eyes. “I don’t know how you can stand him, Nicole.”

  Nicole walked them to the door. Mimi kissed her on both cheeks, then went downstairs first so that Jacques could say good-bye to her alone.

  “Do not misunderstand. I detest the Germans, too,” Jacques told her. “I just want to keep my sister safe. And you. Your mother told me before that it is fine for you to go to school tomorrow so long as you stay with us. Mimi and I will meet you downstairs in the morning and we can walk together.”

  “School?” Nicole groaned.

  “Just the other day you were telling me how glad you are that the Nazis still allowed Jews to go to school.”

  “Now, that had to be someone else.”

  “Stay safe, Nicole, I’ll see you tomorrow,” he whispered. He gave her the softest, sweetest kiss. Then, like a dream, he was gone.

  ten

  Nicole sat cross-legged on her bed, the journals Mme. Bernhardt had brought her that afternoon spread atop the bedspread. It was torture without a computer, because she really wanted to write. On her desk, along with her school-books, was an old-fashioned fountain pen and an inkwell. Well, it wasn’t like she had a choice. She figured out how to fill the strange pen with ink, opened the 1942 journal to a blank page, and sat down to write.

  June 15, 1942

  Frightening Thought du Jour: Sometimes when you’re dreaming, it feels real. But if you’re trapped in a dream—really trapped—how do you know if you’re really dreaming at all?

  Welcome to My Nightmare:a. My name is supposedly Nicole Bernhardt.

  b. It is no longer now It’s 1942.

  c. I was born and raised in Paris. My family is French on both sides for many generations. We live in the sixteenth district at 8, avenue de Camoëns.

  d. I’m Jewish.

  The Good, the Bad, the Ugly:a. The Good: M is here. So is J, the boy I love who barely knows I exist. Only here he loves me and he kissed me. Let’s go to the videotape. Oh, yeah. HE KISSED ME.

  b. The Bad: The Nazis are here. They hate Jews so much that they don’t even consider them people; also, they want to take over the entire world. Even in a dream, it’s very scary.

  c. The Ugly: My so-called father looks like my principal, Urkin. He’s one of the few Jews still allowed to practice medicine and is a doctor at the Rothschild Hospital. He also has an office upstairs from our apartment, where he writes. And my so-called mother looks like my English teacher, Zooms.

  Nicole took one last look in the mirror over her mahogany dresser. She’d brushed her hair with the silver-handled hair-brush and selected an outfit from the closet. She knew vintage stores that would pay a mint for all that retro chic. The gray sweater she found was cashmere, with delicate pearl buttons. She loved it. But all the skirts were calf-length, and the ugly shoes with white socks? Excruciating.

  At breakfast that morning, a friend of her father‘s, Dr. Windisch—a brain specialist no longer permitted to practice medicine—had come by to examine her. Dr. Windisch had declared her to be fine in the physical sense, which Nicole was happy to hear. But he’d frowned when she’d told him that she was a twenty-first century American. And definitely not Jewish.

  “It’s a curious case,” Dr. Windisch had mused. “The best thing is to send her back into her normal routine and wait for her memories to return. They inevitably do.”

  Nicole gave her hair one last swipe with the brush, grabbed her books, and headed for the living room. “At least you look exactly like my daughter,” Ms. Zooms teased when she walked into the living room. No, not Ms. Zooms. Mme. Bernhardt. Maman. She’d promised Jacques.

  They walked downstairs and out into the sunshine to wait for Jacques and Mimi. So what if she was still stuck in the dream? It was a glorious morning. The boy she loved was on his way over to meet her. How bad could things be, really?

  “Now, Nicole, remember. I have written your name and address on a scrap of paper and put it in your left shoe,” Mme. Bernhardt said. “If you forget where you live—”

  “I won‘t,” Nicole interrupted gently, touched by the obvious depth of concern for her welfare. “I remember yesterday and the day before just fine. It’s only before that...”

  Mme. Bernhardt sighed. “Yes. Before that.”

  “Nicolel”

  David Berg, clad in truly geeky knickers, was coming toward her. He had the same handsome face she remembered, and the same serious look in his eyes.

  “David Berg!” she said happily. “Or is your name different here like everyone else’s?”

  “David Ginsburg,” he corrected, removing his cap. “You know that.”

  “Hello, David,” Mme. Bernhardt said. “Are you well?”

  David nodded respectfully. “I heard you hit your head, Nicole.”

  Nicole shrugged. “So they tell me.”

  “Are you all right now?”

  “Sure,” Nicole said breezily.

  David turned to Mme. Bernhardt. “May I talk to Nicole for a moment? Privately?”

  “Of course. I will be just inside until you are finished.” She went into the front hall of the building.

  David edged toward the stone staircase a few feet away and motioned for Nicole to follow. She did. He looked very nervous. “I have to talk to you, Nicole.”

  “Yeah, sure. What’s up?”

  He gave her a sharp look. “How can you even ask me that? I came to say good-bye.”

  “But Mimi and Jacques are on their way over. You can walk to school with us.”

  “I’m not going to school, Nicole.”

  “Why? Where are you going?”

  “I have word that soon—I don’t know when, exactly—there is going to be a big roundup of foreign-born Jews.”

  He looked so sad. “Don’t worry. None of this is real, David,” she assured him. “I’m dreaming it all up.”

  “The whole world is in on it, then. And the whole world has gone insane.” The intensity with which he spoke raised the hairs on her arms. “My family is going into hiding.”

  “Amazing. Like Anne Frank.”

  “Who is Anne Frank?”

  “She lived in Amsterdam during—it’s not important. Is there anything I can do to help you?”

  He looked down at his worn shoes. “At first I told myself not to come tell you ... what I’m about to tell you, because I would look so stupid. But then I thought, What difference could it possibly make anymore?”

  “To tell me what?”

  He wouldn’t look at her. “Jacques always says that he has loved you since the third grade. And I ... share his feelings.”

  She was touched. “You do?”

  “I only want to say this to you, Nicole.” He raised his eyes to hers. “Wherever I go, whatever happens to me ... when I close my eyes, I will still see your face.” He reached up and ripped the yellow star from his vest, stuffed it into Nicole’s hand, and bolted down the stone staircase.

  eleven

  July 15, 1942

  Mimi ran ahead down the rue de Passy “I’m free-eee!” she cried, whirling around in a circle. “I think if I had to take even one more exam, I would scream.”

  Nicole caught up and linked arms with her. “You’re already screaming,” she pointed out nervously. “Everyone is staring at you.”

  “Let them stare, I don’t care. I’m free-e-e!” As Mimi began whirling again, a passing older couple regarded her with disapproval.

  “You’re also insane,” Nicole said. Mimi might not feel self-conscious on the street, but Mimi didn’t have a yellow star sewn to her vest, either.

  In the past month, Nicole had learned
many things; from reading her journals, from family and friends, and from her own experience. It was hard living under the Occupation, but it was hardest of all if you were a Jew. Above all, you did not want to call attention to yourself.

  They continued down the fashionable boulevard, idly looking into shop windows. They had walked this street together hundreds of times. Now, though, because of the Nazis’ requisition of French goods for their war effort, there was little for the stores to display and even less for them to sell.

  “Nicole, look at this.” Mimi pointed to the window of a favorite boutique. Its single display mannequin wore a beautiful silk outfit, topped by an oversized, elaborate black-and-white hat. “Incredible,” Mimi breathed, her face pressed to the glass. “What do you think, Nico?”

  Nicole shrugged. “I think the dress is for show and not for sale. And if it was for sale, only the Nazis and their friends could afford it.”

  “I suppose,” Mimi agreed reluctantly. “The hat is nice, though.”

  “Not worth the ration coupons. Come on.” Nicole gently tugged Mimi away from the window.

  “When this stupid war is over, I am going to be the best-dressed girl in Paris,” Mimi vowed. “I’ll never wear the same clothes twice. Instead of washing them, I’ll toss them away like the Americans do.”

  Nicole laughed. “Americans don’t do that.”

  Mimi rolled her eyes. “Oh, that’s right. You still think you were an American and that you—”

  “Lived in the future,” they said at the same time.

  “Nico, I admit I take pride in my own flights of fancy. But that dream of yours was the most bizarre thing ever.”

  Nicole bit her lower lip. “Sometimes I don’t think it was a dream. Even now.”

  “What an imagination. You should become a science-fiction writer. I Was a Twenty-First Century American— what was it you called your dance group again?”

  “Fly Girls,” Nicole replied, feeling ridiculous.

  “Exactly! I Was a Twenty-First Century American Insect Girl, by Nicole Judith Bernhardt, as recorded in her Paris journal on 15 July 1942.”