Amelia must have been listening to me talk longer than I thought she was yesterday. "I did what I could after being away from her for so long."
"Were the doctors in New York able to help her?"
My throat tightens at the question. "Oh ... I wouldn't know."
Chapter 38
New York City, NY
"I'm proud of you, sohn," Mama said as I was leaving the apartment for another school lecture. More and more schools were agreeing to hear my presentation. Most instances went well.
"Thank you, Mama. Do not even think about cleaning my apartment again, please. Just take it easy while I'm gone."
"Yes, Charlie," she said, shooing me away. I wasn't sure how she had the energy to keep moving around the apartment, dusting and baking. I did my best to keep her rested, but she refused to comply. It had only been two weeks since she arrived in America, but she was happy being in New York.
I would bring meals home from nearby restaurants so that she could taste the local cuisine, and she would set a chair near the window to people watch. The way to Mama's heart was always food and fashion, though fashion took a back seat in her life as she became sick.
The school I was visiting was only a mile down the road, and I took to walking rather than the subway. Fresh air was the key to clearing my mind before a presentation. I found that my speeches were always clear and concise, but it was the questions I received after that threw me for a loop. Children do not have much of a filter, and their curiosity sometimes got the best of me. Many of the children wanted to know what it was like to shoot a gun, or if I had killed someone. One child even asked what happens right after a person dies. Do their eyes close or stay open and stare back at the person who killed them?
While I knew my speeches were of good merit to teach about hate crimes, I was having more and more flashbacks and nightmares. It was my toll to pay.
This particular school had a different crowd of children. It was as if the administration wasn't as organized or strict as some of the other schools I visited. It was as if the children were running amuck, taking over the school with their idea of rules. I had mostly visited junior high schools, but this was a high school. The questions would be more challenging, but I knew that walking inside.
I was set to speak in their auditorium at a podium with a microphone. There I stood, waiting for silence—silence that would never come. None of the children would quiet down, even when I tapped my finger against the black foam of the mic.
"Pardon me," I spoke up. "It will be difficult to speak over all of you."
A boy, one of the older looking boys, stood up and waved his arms at everyone. It appeared that he was trying to quiet the crowd down for me. "Everyone, shut your mouths. The Nazi wants to speak."
I hated being called a Nazi. It symbolized everything I didn't believe.
However, the word, Nazi, seemed to bring along a muttering hush throughout the room. "Yes, I was called a Nazi," I began.
"Jew killer," a student shouted. I wouldn't know where it came from as the words bounced off the walls.
"Go home, Nazi," another shout.
"Candyass!"
I tried to tune out the name-calling, but it was distracting. "It began back when I was a young child, much younger than all of you, in fact. I wasn't given a choice in the matter of following our vicious leader."
"Ring a ding, ding!" Yet, another student yelled.
I knew I wasn't going to get far with this lecture.
"I'm sorry, but I have a question." At least this student stood up to talk. I usually didn't take questions until the end of my presentation, but maybe it would help wrangle the others.
"Of course," I responded.
"So, someone told you killing Jews was a good idea, and you did it. Is that like someone telling you that everyone is jumping off a bridge and you should do it too, so you do it?"
A roar of laughter heckled through the auditorium.
"I'm Jewish. Do you want to kill me?" A girl spoke up. "Can I request a gas chamber though? I don't want my head blown to smithereens."
It was all I could take. I hadn't felt the urge to run away like I did that day, but I stepped away from the podium and walked right out of the auditorium, then out the front doors. I vomited in a trash barrel out in the front of the school and told myself I was through with the presentations.
The walk home felt much longer than the walk to the school. Images of gas chambers and executions were vivid in my mind's eye. I had seen it all and would do anything to forget everything. I was beginning to think no one would ever be able to understand why I was in that situation. I was put there. I was forced to be there. If I left, I would put my family in jeopardy. If I ran away, I would be imprisoned—like I had been.
