He’d seen her a couple of times, though usually from a distance, in the halls at school—she was in the year above him at Thomas Jefferson High. But getting a good look now, and in this particular way, Richard forgot all his English.
She was about his height and very slight, with a narrow face and a pointy chin. She played with the braid on her shoulder, her lips pursed, then encouraged him to hurry inside before he got sick. She took his umbrella and wet jacket, trying to assess whether he’d need to change, and touched the shoulders of his shirt. He tried to hide his incredulity, and berated himself for not bringing flowers.
“Let me give you a tour!” she said, taking one of his empty hands.
They walked to the kitchen, where a Jewish lady prepared a meal.
“This is Ima,” Rebecca said, and she squeezed Mrs. Friedman’s shoulders like her mother was a favorite doll. Mrs. Friedman turned around and smiled.
“Welcome, Richard!” she said, her laughter just like her daughter’s. As if he were her own son, she embraced him.
They continued to the living room, where a man listened to the radio report.
“This is Abba,” Rebecca said. “He’s worried about the battle in Kharkov.”
“Richard,” said the man, looking distracted. “We’ll get to talking, soon as the report is over.”
They climbed the stairs. “My bedroom!” Rebecca said with delight. Her bed was so high off the floor that he strained to imagine how she climbed onto it, and there were so many novels strewn across the bed that he wondered if she slept with them in her arms.
When Alan returned, they gathered in the dining room and watched Mrs. Friedman light the candles and say the Hebrew prayers.There were prayers for each of the young people, and Mr. Friedman offered another for the wine, but Richard was so distracted by the amused way Rebecca smiled at him and by his own hunger that he barely paid attention.
“It’s your people and my people,” said Mr. Friedman when they’d begun to eat. “Of course, the whole world’s in chaos. But think,thinkof the millions of our people back in the old country. Our people are in the gravest danger.”
“There’s so much intolerance, so much cruelty in the world,” piped in Rebecca. “It’s the opposite of the Jewish way. Have you been to a seder, Richard?”
He shook his head.
“We should invite him, Abba. Yiddishkayt asks that we devote ourselves to tzedakah—charity and justice.”
She was president of a club called Students for the Protection of European Jewry. Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the members had written letters to Roosevelt encouraging him to intervene in the war on behalf of the Jews of Europe—and for the Chinese, too, she said, glancing at Richard. Now that Roosevelt had answered their prayers, they knit clothing for Brooklyn’s soldiers and held fundraisers for Jewish widows.
Richard knew he should have been listening and responding, but he was no longer his American self—jovial, loud, and eager to tell a joke. He felt weak and famished, and the more chunks of challah he stuffed in his mouth, the more he realized that bread would not satisfy him. He wanted to go upstairs with Rebecca and kiss her.
Looking up at the wall, Richard noticed that within the frames of the Friedmans’ family photos, his own ancestors were creeping around: rope-chinned Bak Geng nestling his face against the fair cheek of a wispy-haired blond woman, toothless A Bak butting her head between two bearded men in ushankas. Richard gritted his teeth as a whole bunch of rice farmers tromped into a Friedman family portrait, the farmers’ garments as shapeless as potato sacks, theirfaces sun-splotched, their straw hats consuming too much space, making a further spectacle of themselves as they sat cross-legged in front of the heavily garmented Friedmans.
Your people and my people.
Richard wanted to snap at them.Scat!
“Whaddaya think, boychik?” said Rebecca, and she leaned over and pinched his arm. He looked up at her, no notion of what she’d just said, but that hardly mattered. It seemed to him that, unlike any girl he’d ever met, she was eager for his attention. He nodded, smiling, and looked down at his plate.
He grew bold enough to call every weekend. He and Rebecca would sit at the kitchen table, and she would talk about her ambitions to become a history teacher, or she’d read aloud Alan’s letters. Alan was with the troops in Italy. Alan had tried, unsuccessfully, to stop the execution of a Jewish family.
“Don’t worry about Alan,” Richard said after they’d read this. “He’s got the best eye on the field.”
She stared at the kitchen clock like it would tell her when Alan would come home. Richard was envious of Alan’s eloquence. With each week, he felt increasingly miserable, knowing life after he finished high school would be just the same as always, his days spent toiling in the kitchen, wiping up soy sauce spills. The counselor at school had said he wasn’t “college material.” Even his father had stopped pretending.
Unless—he realized on his walk back to the restaurant—unless he fought in the war.
He was sixteen. If the war held out just two more years, he’d be eligible for enrollment. He’d enlist in the air force and take down Japanese warplanes, or maybe the navy, to torpedo Nazi submarines. He’d come back taller and smarter: a hero. He’d make Rebecca proud.
LINA
When Lina and Tyrell reached the school on Blake Avenue for HPD’s community planning meeting, there were already a fair number of people gathered. Entering the school gymnasium, she recognized staff from the family health center and a few tenant leaders. Yet the longer she looked around the gym, the more she wondered: Who were all these others?
At the registration desk, Tyrell was assigned to table 4, and Lina to table 5. There were six others at her table, including a girl from the Department of Parks who asked each participant to introduce themselves.
“My name is Lina Rodriguez Armstrong. I’m a retired art teacher. I’ve lived in Brownsville since I was eleven years old, and I’ll do anything for my people.”
