

# The Blue Dress

## Dave Riese

Library of Congress Control Number: 3359851201

IBSN: print: 978-1533466969

IBSN: ebook: 978-1311681133

Copyright © 2016 Dave Riese

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permissions in writing from the copyright owner.

Selections from Echo from Mount Royal Copyright © 2015 Dave Riese

Author's Note

This is a work of fiction. The action of these stories was inspired by a real person, but events and characters quickly took on lives of their own, transforming themselves in ways that have nothing in common with anyone's family members or history.

This book was printed in the United States of America

First Printing: May 2016

For Riva Weiss

### Table of Contents

The Blue Dress

The Maid

Rebecca's War

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Echo from Mount Royal

Newspaper article in Le Monde de Sainte-Agathe, March 23, 1984

Prologue: Boston, 2014

One

Two

Three

Four

Special Offer

#

The Blue Dress

My mother tells me her brother is coming to visit.

"Uncle Wallace? The one from Texas?"

I wish she had a different brother. I don't feel comfortable around Uncle Wallace. He's very critical and thinks my dad and I read too much. And he always tries to tickle me.

"Your father is meeting him at the station tomorrow."

I go upstairs to my bedroom overlooking the front yard. At the open window, a breeze blows the curtains into the room. The yellow and red leaves from the maple tree twirl to the ground beside the fence. I don't like raking leaves. Now that my brother is in college, I'm stuck with that chore. And I'm only twelve! Last Sunday, my father came outside and helped me carry the leaves out to the street in a blanket. He showed me how to block the wind when lighting the match. When the fire burned too high, the neighbors looked out their front windows. I waved at them. Then Mom came to the door with a pail of water. She always spoils our fun.

I drag a chair over to the window and pick up my needlepoint. I've almost finished the pillow. Just complete the sky, stuff it with batting, and stitch on the back. I'm giving it to my reading teacher as a present. Mrs. Lefave is French, but she teaches our English class. I like reading even more than needlepoint. Mom sometimes tells me to go out and play. "Too much reading isn't good for your eyes." That's not true: Dad's eyes are fine and he reads _all_ the time.

From my window, I see my father walking home from work. Woolworth is only a quarter-mile away so he always walks in good weather. Our area of Montreal is called Outremont and I can walk from one end to the other in thirty minutes, if I don't stop to look in the store windows. Every day Dad lets me drop the streetcar fare he saves into a big jar. He once said he was saving the money for retirement. When Mom heard him, she said the car needed fixing before he worried about retirement. After she returned to the kitchen, he whispered that the money was really for my college education. "Our secret," he said. But that's a long way off. I only started seventh grade four weeks ago!

I hear the front door open.

"I'm home," Dad calls out. No one answers. "Anybody home?"

I drop my needlepoint on the bed and run down the stairs two at a time. He's waiting at the bottom to catch me in his arms.

"How's my best girl?" he whispers in my ear so Mom won't hear him. Once she was irritated hearing him say this and asked if she was only second best. "Jee-sus H. Christ, Edith," my father said, "can't you take a joke?" Mom hates it when he swears.

As my father puts me down, I ask, "How long is Uncle Wallace staying?"

"Not long. Don't you like to hear stories about his cattle ranch?"

"No. He always says I read too much."

"That's why you're so smart—"

"He says I'll have to wear glasses and then boys won't talk to me."

My father laughs and gives me a hug.

Uncle Wallace always visits alone because Aunt Vera never feels well enough to travel. I've only talked to her on the phone. In our photo album, we have a picture of my uncle standing on a beach wearing a funny-looking bathing suit. Aunt Vera leans against him, pouting at the camera. She's standing on tiptoes, but even so she only comes up to his shoulder. Mom says her bathing suit "cost a pretty penny. Well, Wallace knew what he was in for."

Right now, Uncle Wallace is in Toronto staying with his other sister. She married a man who runs a bunch of banks. He must own them because Dad says he's filthy rich. I wish my father was filthy rich. Then he could fix our car and drive to work. And I could have a nice wedding. I don't want my reception at the community center like everyone else. It has a funny smell like damp when you walk inside. I want mine in a restaurant in downtown Montreal with white tablecloths and real napkins. I saw a wedding like that in a magazine. Every chair had a big bow on the back. That would be nice if they don't cost too much.

While eating dinner, Mom asks, "What time will you and Wallace be back from the station?"

"The usual time. Unless the train's late."

"I want dinner on time. I expect Wallace will be hungry."

"Why does he wear cowboy clothes?" I ask my mother.

"That's what he wears when he's out with his cattle all day."

"There's no cattle around here." I turn to my father. "Dad, what's a 'drugstore cowboy'?"

My mother is suddenly angry. "Where did you hear that?"

"She must have heard me talking to Mr. LeClerc," my father says, not wanting me to get into trouble.

Mom gives Dad one of her looks that means she'll have something to say to him later. "Your father was trying to be funny."

"But I don't get it."

"You don't need to. It's NOT funny and you will not repeat it! Please take your elbows off the table."

"I hope he brings me a ring with my birthstone. He gave one to Emily last year."

"Your cousin's older than you are. And don't always expect a present." Mom gets up from the table. "I have Jell-O for dessert."

While getting ready for bed, I hear my parents talking downstairs. I sit on the top step to hear them better.

"I don't think Rebecca will get her ring," my mother says.

"Geez, he's filthy rich. Could he get her something she wants for a change?"

"He always manages to buy something nice for my niece. She'd turn up her nose if he didn't."

Don't get me wrong. I'm not greedy. Like most of my friends, we don't have much money, but we're not poor like people on Saint Urbain Street. I only read books from the library and Mom makes my clothes when she has time. She's always working on a dress for a rich lady in Westmount. At Christmas, I get a store-bought dress which I only wear on special occasions. Besides needlepoint, my mother is teaching me how to use a sewing machine. She knows everything about sewing. All she has to do is look at a sewing machine and new curtains are ready to hang. She's very practical.

Dad is not. He can fix some things around the house, but he usually makes them worse. Once he took his tools upstairs to fix a leaky faucet. He was in there a long time and finally I had to knock on the door. "I need to pee." I was desperate.

He unlocked the door and came out. "Be careful of the tools on the floor."

I closed the door and sat on the toilet. The first thing I noticed was a paperback on the counter next to the sink. A bookmark stuck out the book. I started to giggle.

"What are you laughing about?" he asked when I opened the door. I pointed to the book and he put his finger to his lips. Downstairs I washed my hands at the kitchen sink.

"Is your father finished up there?"

"Almost finished," I said. I didn't lie. He was on the _last_ chapter.

Suddenly we heard a dull thud. My mother went to the foot of the stairs. "What just happened?"

My father opened the bathroom door. "Call the plumber. The leak is worse."

Looking out my bedroom window, I see my father and Uncle Wallace cross the street in front of the Connellys' house. Dad walks fast to keep up with him. My uncle is wearing cowboy boots and a hat that's so big I can't see his face.

When the front door opens, I hear my mother running down the hall. From the top of the stairs, I watch my uncle pick her up and swing her in a circle. "Allemande left and a do-si-do."

She gives him a big kiss. "Now put me down." But I know she's kidding because she's laughing.

"Skip to ma Lou, my darlin'," he sings. He must be strong to pick up my mother.

When she returns to the kitchen, my father and uncle go into the living room. "I'm ready for a drink, Michael. That train ride worked my nerves. Bourbon, if you have it. Straight."

I don't want to go downstairs yet. He'll pick me up and swing _me_ around. My skirt always slides up and he tries to tickle me except it hurts. But it's worse after a few drinks. His breath smells funny and I don't want him to kiss me. I don't even like my father kissing me when he's had a drink.

Plus my uncle's armpits are always sweaty.

I wait until my mother calls me down for dinner. I flush the toilet as an excuse why I'm late and give them time to sit down at the table. Mom calls me again.

"I'm right here." Passing my uncle, I give him a quick kiss on the cheek. I escape his sudden lunge toward me.

"How's my favorite bookworm?"

"Fine. How are your cows?"

Mom gives me a look that says, 'Behave yourself,' but I don't think my uncle heard me. He's already in the middle of a conversation.

"Aunt Vera sends her love. She's sorry she can't be here."

My mother acts concerned. "How is she feeling?"

"Better. Still a little tired and depressed." My uncle clears his throat. "Fine cookin', Edith."

I'm bored listening to them, but I know I can't leave the table yet. I hear my friends playing in the street. Then Uncle Wallace gets onto his favorite topic.

"—need some get up and go. You can't be a store manager all your life. Your problem is you read too many books. Not me. I read magazines. And not just about cattle ranchin'—" He holds out his plate to my mother. "More of that delicious chicken." Then he starts in again. "Hell, Michael, it's 1951. You gotta read the _Wall Street Journal_ and _Fortune_. Get your juices flowin'."

"I look them over on my lunch hour at the library. Too conservative for my taste. I prefer _The Statesman_."

I know my father would _prefer_ to be alone in his favorite chair reading his book.

"That Commie rag! Those Reds'll take the banks over, along with everything else. Don't let your boss see you readin' that horse shit."

"Wallace!"

_That_ counts as swearing for Mom.

"Actually, my boss is very pleased with—" That's as far as my father gets before he's interrupted.

"That's all well and good, just don't get stuck there all your life. Think big. My sister deserves better. You won't get ahead readin' books. You don't see me on my ass—my butt."

Mom is stopped in her tracks.

"I hardly sit around," Dad says. "There's more to managing a store than you think. Besides, I read novels to relax."

"I don't have time to relax. You're gettin' harebrained ideas from writers like that Commie Sinclair."

"Upton or Lewis?"

"What?" Uncle Wallace is caught off guard. He looks around, suspicious that he's being teased.

I pipe up. "Are you talking about Sinclair Lewis who wrote _Main Street_..."

My uncle looks dumbfounded.

"...or Upton Sinclair, the author of _The Jungle_?"

"One of those guys. People need to wake up, goddamn it—"

Mom cuts him off. "Dessert anyone?"

My father gets up from the table. "We'll have it on the side porch."

Wallace stands, his napkin still tucked under his chin. "Let me get my bag with the presents and I'll be right down."

When my mother carries the plates to the kitchen, Dad winks and ruffles my hair. "I guess you showed him."

"He always says mean things."

"Half the time he doesn't mean it. Just likes to hear himself talk. Now go help your mother."

Mom and I wash the dishes while Dad and Uncle Wallace have dessert and talk on the side porch. I can't hear what they're saying, but I can guess. I don't know how my father keeps smiling.

"Try to be happy," my mother says. "He looks forward to seeing you."

Mom goes upstairs for her sweater. I open the front door and stand on the porch around the corner from my uncle and father. I can just see Dad leaning against the railing. The floorboards creak as Uncle Wallace walks back and forth.

The door at the other end of the porch opens. The floorboards stop squeaking. "There she is."

"Have you seen Rebecca?" my mother asks. "I thought she was out here with you."

I walk around the corner from the front porch. "I'm right here."

My uncle's carryall is open next to his chair. He places a bottle on the table. "Michael, I brought you some peach brandy. The best." He hands it to my father. "You can do the honors."

He passes a box to Mom. "It's made by Indians with stones from the southwest."

"It's lovely." She holds up a necklace. "Thank you, Wallace."

"And this is for you, bookworm. From your aunt Vera."

Unless a ring comes in a large package wrapped in brown paper, I know I didn't get the ring I'd hoped for. Pulling the paper back, I feel silky material with sharp points that sparkle in the light from the porch lamp.

"Stand up. Let's see how it looks," my mother says. I can tell she already knows what it is.

When I stand, the material unfolds and almost reaches the floor.

"Oh, Wallace, it's lovely. Such a beautiful color."

"Vera remembered that blue is your favorite color. She knew you'd like it."

Mom takes the dress from me. "Let's go inside where the light's better."

"It was Vera's—" my uncle starts to say.

My mother isn't listening. "With a few alterations it should fit perfectly."

"—and it's brand-new. She's only worn it once." My uncle takes my mother's arm to escort her into the house.

I'm so disappointed and angry; all I want to do is go to my room.

"Where are you going?" my mother asks.

"It's late. I have homework."

"Aren't you forgetting your manners?"

"Thank you, Uncle Wallace..." I hesitate, wondering if that is 'thanks' enough. Seeing my mother's expression, I decide it's not. "...for the dress."

"You're welcome, young lady. Don't stay up all night readin'."

Upstairs I shake with anger. I hate it! It's not even a new dress. I sit on my bed, holding the dress up to my face and feel the silk slide against my cheek. I smell powder at the neckline. Then I sniff the armpits. The smell isn't like my sweat but it's still musty and unpleasant. She didn't even have the dress cleaned! I throw the dress onto a chair and crawl into bed. I watch the strip of light from the hall under my bedroom door, hoping my father will come up and check on me so I can tell him how I feel. But I hear his quiet voice in the living room. Then the hall light is turned off. Now I have nothing to keep me company, except a smelly old dress. I bury my face in my pillow and try to cry, but I'm still too angry.

The next afternoon, I ask my mother to help me sew on the backing for the pillow.

"And then you'll try on Aunt Vera's dress, so I can see what needs to be altered."

I've already cut the backing from leftover velvet upholstery. I watch my mother's fingers glide back and forth, the wool thread pulling the fabric together to create an edge as sharp as a knife.

"Remember to take your time. It's not a race. You don't want to make a mistake and have to start over." She finished half of the first side. "Now you try it."

I push the needle through the canvas, the muslin liner and the velvet. "Ouch!" I prick my finger when the needle suddenly slides through.

"Right," my mother says, "you want to avoid sticking yourself. Make sure the thread isn't twisted. Now pull it tight. Excellent."

I can't help laughing, a big grin on my face. "It's not so hard when you know what to do." I finish stitching the side.

My mother takes the pillow back. "Straighten each corner to prevent the velvet from bunching along the seam. You don't want the corners curling when the pillow lies flat." My mother turns the pillow over and admires the stitching. "This is the best work you've ever done."

"I'm giving it to Mrs. Lefave for Christmas. It's a scene from _Little Women_. She always knows the best books to read. I think she's read every book there is."

"You're giving it away? After all this work?" my mother asks. "Well...you think about it." That means she doesn't think it's a good idea. "Or you _could_ donate it to the church fair. Now go upstairs and get your aunt's dress."

"We don't have time before dinner," I say, trying to distract her. "I need to set the table."

"We have plenty of time. Uncle Wallace is taking us out to dinner. In a taxi."

Mom leaves and goes downstairs. I place the pillow on my bed and stand back. It _is_ the best work I've ever done. I imagine Mrs. Lefave's surprise when she unwraps the gift. She'll probably have tears in her eyes. I want it to be the best gift she's ever received.

My mother calls up to me. "I bought a new package of cotton batting for stuffing the pillow. I thought I had enough left over, but I can't find it anywhere."

Downstairs I slip out of my school uniform. My mother holds the dress up like a tent and lowers it over my head.

"Ow, it's caught on my barrette."

"Careful! Don't rip it. Wait till I unbutton it."

I stand on a stool in the living room, while my mother kneels to pin up the hem. "You're as tall as your aunt. Blue is a perfect color for you."

I lean over and smell the underarms again. The odor is still there.

"Don't fidget," my mother mumbles, a pin in her mouth.

I slowly turn on the stool trying not to breathe too much. I look down at my mother. "Why doesn't Aunt Vera ever come to visit?"

"Some people don't like to travel. They're just home bodies."

"What's a home body?"

"Someone who's happy just staying at home."

"Is she sick?"

"She was for a while."

"Why don't they have any kids?"

My mother pauses while checking the hem with a tape measure. "They had a baby, but it died."

I reach down and pat my mother's hair as if she's the one to console. Why don't I love her as much as my father? She looks up and smiles. "Wait till you see yourself in the mirror."

I check my reflection in the living room window, but it's too faint. Instead, I see my father and Uncle Wallace climbing the stairs to the porch.

"They're coming." I try to step off the stool, but my mother is holding the dress. "We can finish tomorrow."

Too late. Before my mother can let go, the front door opens. I turn my back to the hallway.

"We're home. Are you ready—?" my uncle calls out. Then he's silent and no one says anything. "My God. Vera?" His voice sounds so strange, I turn around. "For moment, I thought Vera was standin' on that stool." He stands in the hall, beaming. "She's a beauty, Michael. A real heart breaker."

I feel my face go all red and hot. I don't like the way they all stare at me.

"It's a shame she can't wear it tonight," he says.

I jump off the stool, one hand clutching the dress. I don't stop to grab my needlepoint or my school clothes. "I'll be right down."

I don't care if I'm pretty like Aunt Vera. I don't want to be stuck in a house like her and I won't wear her dress. I yank it over my head, hoping I'll rip it. The dress catches in my hair. I bunch it into a ball and throw it into the corner. Sitting on my bed, I pound my knees with my fists. I want to scream. Then I stop hitting myself. I have two bruises and my legs hurt.

In the living room my uncle is studying my needlepoint pillow. "Did you do this all by yourself? You'll be as good as your aunt before you know it." He holds the pillow up to catch the evening light. "I'm afraid Vera's lost interest in her needlepoint. She'd love to see your work, Rebecca. It might encourage her to start again."

Before I can tell him about Mrs. Lefave, my father calls from the hall. "Taxi's here."

My uncle holds out his arm for my mother. "Your carriage awaits, my dear."

I walk behind them to the taxi. Getting into the cab, I suddenly feel powerless, my arms cold and stiff. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"That's a big sigh," my uncle says, leaning over the front seat.

"I'm just thinking." I lean against the back seat. My father gets in beside me and closes the door.

My father is late for dinner the next night. Mom says Uncle Wallace is feeling "...under the weather. Your father's visiting him at his hotel. We'll eat without him."

Mom and I are listening to Wayne and Shuster on the radio when my father comes home. He stands in the living room listening, but he doesn't laugh when something is funny. At the commercial, the two of them go out to the kitchen. I turn down the volume so I can listen. "Food poisoning," my father says. "He's feeling much better, but it took a lot out of him." I hear my mother fill the kettle and place it on the stove. "He's going up to Laval tomorrow." A murmur from my mother. "Business up there." Another murmur. "He swore me to secrecy."

When the show returns after the commercials, I turn up the volume and forget about them until the kettle whistles. They return with their tea. When the show ends my father turns the radio off. "That's enough for tonight. Time for reading." But he doesn't pick up his book from the coffee table. Instead, he sits leaning forward, massaging his forehead. He speaks without looking up. "Do you remember when Uncle Wallace was admiring your needlepoint?"

I don't answer.

"He says you're very talented." My father smiles when he looks up, but I can tell he's not happy. "He'd like to take your needlepoint back with him as a gift for your aunt."

I'm stunned. He isn't joking. "No, I won't."

"Michael, you didn't say she would, did you? She's giving it to her teacher."

It doesn't make sense. Why would my aunt care about anything I do? I've only talked to her three times on the phone in my whole life. "It's not fair. I've never even met her. Why should I give her anything?"

My father is embarrassed, but his voice is still calm. "Uncle Wallace has given you many presents."

"Nothing he ever made. He just buys things I don't want. He didn't even _buy_ that dress." I turn to my mother. "Tell him I don't have to. I don't have enough time to make another one for my teacher."

"Michael, tell my brother, she'll send Vera something at Christmas."

My father sighs, looking miserable. But I don't feel sorry for him like I do when he argues with Mom.

"I'll throw it away before I give it to him."

"No you won't," Mom says. "If you won't tell him, Michael, I will."

My father stands up suddenly and looks down on us. I've never seen him so angry. "She will give the pillow to him and that's final."

I burst into tears. "He can take his smelly old dress back. I hate it." I run up to my room and slam the door. I fall onto my bed. A cold numbness spreads through my body. A minute later I hear the front door slam. I feel betrayed. Why would my father do this?

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I hear is the front door opening and my father's footsteps in the hall. "No, I didn't talk to him." His voice is so loud I can hear him all the way from the kitchen. "Yes, if you must know, I had three drinks." There is a moment of silence. "You will not call him!" Then the porch door bangs against the house.

I turn on the light by my desk and spread out the needlepoint. I don't even feel sad anymore, only hatred for all adults, especially Dad and Uncle Wallace. My mother has placed her cutting shears on my desk. I look around for the cotton batting and find it on the bureau. Picking up the unopened package, I see the blue dress neatly folded under it.

The next day everyone acts like nothing happened. Dad stays outside in the yard, although it drizzles all morning. I'm tired and thankful it's Saturday because I'd never stay awake at school.

I finish stuffing and sewing the pillow after lunch. Looking through my needlepoint catalog, I can't decide what to buy next. Every pattern I like will take too long to finish. I put the catalog back in a drawer and begin writing the note to Aunt Vera. When the letter is finished, I wrap the pillow in the same brown paper the dress came in. It seems only fair to use it for my aunt. I tape Aunt Vera's note on top.

Around three in the afternoon, an unfamiliar car parks in front of our house. The driver honks the horn. My parents are halfway to the sidewalk when my uncle steps out of the car. From my bedroom, I watch him speaking to my father and pointing to the car. My mother runs over and hugs her brother.

"There she is," my uncle says when I come to the front door. "How do like your Dad's new Chevrolet?"

He bought my father a car? For a moment I forget how angry I am. A new car! I drop the package on the porch swing and run up to my father. "Can we go for a ride?"

"Hold your horses, sweetheart," my uncle says. "You'll get your chance in a minute."

I slide one hand along the chrome and over the bumper. When I stare into the dark blue color, it's like looking at myself down a well.

"It's a beauty, Wallace. Thank you." My father is smiling so much his face is going to freeze that way.

Mom claps her hands. "We'll be quite hoity-toity driving around town."

"Nothin's too good for my baby sister."

"I'll make some coffee before we go to the station," my mother says.

We sit at the kitchen table. They drink coffee and I have a glass of milk. I'm impatient to ride in the car, but my uncle wants a second cup. Who wants coffee at a time like this?

My father looks at me raising his eyebrows and bobbing his head toward my uncle. I frown and shake my head. I don't know what he means. He does it again and mouths the words 'the present.'

I run out to the porch for my package.

"Uncle Wallace, this is for Aunt Vera. To thank her for my blue dress."

"Thank you, Rebecca," he says. "Your aunt will always treasure this. She'll know how much hard work you put into it."

He seems different now, really thankful. I still don't like him, but I don't hate him anymore. "There's a card to go with it."

He opens the envelope and takes out one of the small cards I use for thank-you notes. "Let's see." He squints even though I've written the words very carefully.

Dear Aunt Vera

Thank you for the dress. It is very pretty. I am sending you a pillow I made. It is a scene from Little Women. When you rest your head on my pillow, think of me wearing your blue dress.

Love, Rebecca

"Your aunt and I are touched by your kindness," my uncle says. "This is the nicest present she could get." He slaps his knee. "Now, where's my ride? I can't be late for my train."

I pick up the cups and carry them to the sink, but my mother says we'll wash the dishes later. "Put the bottle of milk in the fridge."

My father is already in the driver's seat when we come out. My uncle opens the back door. "In you go, ladies."

My mother sinks back on the soft cushions. "It's very comfortable, Michael."

"This is the life," my father says, starting the car.

My uncle gets in the car placing my package beside him. "A fair trade, don't you think, Michael?"

My mother leans over and pats my knee. "I noticed the new package of cotton batting wasn't opened when I changed your bed this morning."

My eyes widen until I think they'll pop out of my head. I'm afraid if I look up she'll guess my secret.

"Where did you find the package that was already opened? I'd looked everywhere for it."

I look at my mother, knowing I'll be in big trouble when we get home and she asks for the dress.

"Oh, and I found these on the floor." She holds up two scraps of the blue dress.

I'm so shocked I can't move.

She puts her finger on her lips. "Our secret."

My father releases the clutch and the car starts rolling down the street.

The Maid

I'm late for school, so I take the shortcut through the empty lot, jump over the culvert and climb the low fence. This is not easy in my navy-blue jumper which we have to wear to high school. I can't afford another rip. My jumper already has more patches than anyone else's at school. Mom says if I'm going to be so rough on my clothes, I'd better learn how to sew. "When I was fifteen, I was already making my own dresses," she said. I'm careful hitching up my jumper when I climb the fence. I don't want a boy or one of the teachers to see me.

It doesn't take much to get a bad reputation in high school and I don't want anything to distract me from getting good grades. When I graduate from Strathcona Academy, I'm applying to McGill. Mr. Robinson, my English teacher, has promised to help me with my application. He says girls will have a better chance of being accepted in 1950, once the war veterans graduate. I'm only a sophomore so that's almost three years away.

I skirt the soccer field and cross behind the gymnasium. In the corner between the loading dock and the cafeteria kitchen, I see a group of boys. They suddenly laugh. Something about that sound and the way they're standing in a tight circle makes me think they're talking about sex. I immediately remember what Jackie, my best friend, told me last summer. She has two older brothers, so she knows a lot about boys. They don't tell her much, but she overhears them through her bedroom wall. When she told me what her brothers did in bed, we both said it was disgusting, but thinking about it later, I thought it thrilling. I haven't looked at boys the same way since.

When the boys hear me, they turn around. At least they're not doing that. They're all wearing blue or black pants, but most of them look sloppy with their white shirts untucked and narrow ties loose. Some boys don't seem to care how they look. I see Michel Leclerc whose family lives in the other half of our semi-detached. At least he cares about how he looks. His mother won't let him out the door without giving him the once over. If he's in a good mood, he lets me tag along to watch him play hockey with his friends. And sometimes when his pals aren't around, he'll walk home from school with me. He's friendly, but he can be full of himself in front of his friends. He doesn't let you forget that he's a hockey star at school.

The boys look nervous until they see it's only me. Michel is holding something in his hand that he quickly puts behind his back. "Hi, Rebecca," he says. I want to ask him what he's hiding, but the second bell rings and they run toward the boys' entrance around the corner. Brushing off my skirt, I walk the other way around the building to the front door used by girls. I don't want to be late or look disheveled. It's too easy for a girl to get detention while boys seem to get away with murder. Ever since the school hired Mr. Perrott as the principal, girls can't get away with anything. It's like your mother is running the school.

Mr. Morgravé, my history teacher, is standing at the door, looking like an old crow in his black robe. He taught school when my mother was at Strathcona, so he must be a hundred years old. He has a funny eye that's always winking. Mom said it was like that when she went to school.

" _Un peu en retard, mademoiselle_ Wiseman?"

I paste a smile on my face and step around him. " _Oui. Excusez-moi_." I feel like I should curtsey.

I slip behind my desk just as the last bell rings. I notice that Jackie's seat is empty.

By the end of the day, I've forgotten about the incident behind the school. The boys have their own classrooms so girls don't see then during the day. Out of sight, out of mind. _C'est l'idée, n'est-ce pas,_ my mother says. If Jackie had been in school, I would have told her about the boys and ask if she knew what they were doing. I'll call her when I get home to see why she wasn't in school. I don't want to spend the money for two streetcars if she's sick and can't have friends over. Her family lives in the wealthy part of Outremont in a big house across from a private park. Some mean kids call it the 'Jewish suburbs.' My mother told me people say things like that because they're jealous and ignorant. Religion is something my parents don't discuss much. I'm Jewish because my mother's Jewish, but my dad's Catholic. I go to synagogue and church, so I hear both sides. The only thing I don't like is when Father Sabatine talks about the Jews going to Hell. How does he know?

Walking home after school, I see Michel looking in a drugstore window. His dark hair is immaculate, swept back in a D.A. His comb sticks out of his right back pocket. He's alone, standing with his books in one hand and the other in his pants pocket. When he sees me, he looks embarrassed.

"What are you looking at?" I ask trying not to sound suspicious.

He tries to block my view by moving in front of me. "Nothing."

I see a poster in the window advertising a live show at the Gayety Theatre. The woman in the photo has dark hair and a pretty smile. Her skirt is very short and her breasts are very large. The sign says she's Helen Kane, 'the one and only Boop-Boop-A-Doop girl.'

"She's beautiful," I say wanting to add 'in a slutty way.' "Maybe Mr. Francoeur will let you take the poster home. You can paste it on the ceiling over your bed."

He quickly takes his hand out of his pocket. A small packet slips out and falls on the sidewalk. We both stare at it as if it fell from the sky.

"What's that?" I ask, stooping to pick it up, but Michel grabs it before I can. "You showed this to your friends at school this morning." It was a wild guess.

He's too surprised to deny it. "Yah, so what?"

I have a feeling this is something I need to see. "Give it here." I put out my hand.

"You won't tell my parents if I show you, will you?"

"No, but I'll tell them you were playing with your thing in front of the drug store if you _don't_."

Another wild guess. He quickly looks down the front of his pants to see what has given him away. Boys are so easy to fool. He motions me to follow him. We walk past the hardware store and turn down the alley beside the laundry. A warm breeze smelling of soap comes from the exhaust fan hidden by tall weeds. Behind the laundry and out of sight from the street, Michel takes the package out of his pocket but hides it in his hand. "What do I get if I show you?" he asks.

"I already told you. I won't tell your parents."

Smirking, he shakes his head. "You wouldn't dare." But he watches me to see if he's right.

I realize I've lost my bargaining chip.

"I'll show you if you let me feel your breasts."

I'm taken off guard but not surprised. When a boy gets horny, he loses his memory and forgets who his friends are. "Forget it." I turn and walk back up the alley.

"Hey wait. One breast?"

I roll my eyes before I turn around. "Just one. But you have to show me first."

Michel opens his hand, and I see a small red package with a Greek helmet on it. He carefully peels back the foil on one side. It's obvious the package has been opened many times. A ring made of rubber slips out. I bend over to look more closely. My eyesight is fine, but I want to hide my ignorance.

From my silence, Michel guesses I haven't the slightest idea what it is. "A man puts it on his thing when he has sex."

"He does?" I jerk my head back, realizing now what I'm looking at. "That's a contraceptive! Where did you get it?"

"My uncle brought some back from the States. I found it in my father's bureau."

"The Catholic church says it's a sin to use them." I don't believe in the devil, but right now I expect him to grab me on the way home just for looking at one.

My saying it's a sin only makes Michel more determined to shock me. He lets the rubber unravel. Obviously he's done this before with his friends. And I am shocked! "It's awfully long."

Michel laughs. "This is only the small size." He points to the little bulge at the end. "The sperm ends up here. The factory makes sure there are no holes in it."

With so much to think about, I'm speechless.

"Now it's my turn," he says.

I'm determined not to show my reluctance. I quickly check to make sure we can't be seen from the sidewalk, then I turn my right side toward him and close my eyes. I'll call this my Jewish breast, so it isn't a Catholic sin. I feel him unbutton my blouse. His hand shakes so much fiddling with the second button, I'm afraid he'll rip my blouse. And how would I explain that? He slips his cold, damp hand inside my blouse. I gasp when he twirls his fingers over my nipple. What if he thinks my breast isn't big enough? He sucks in his breath as he flicks the nipple with his fingernail. Then he pinches it.

"Ouch!" I pull back and his hand slips out. "That hurts." I quickly button my blouse. When I see him smiling, I clench my fist. "You think it's funny?"

"No." But he's still grinning.

"If you ever tell anyone about this – even a hint – I'll say you forced me to do it."

I'm angry but satisfied he's no longer smiling. In his excitement, he's dropped the condom. It looks like a snake skin lying in the grass.

"Pick up that nasty old thing before someone sees it." I start up the alley swinging my book bag over my shoulder. On the sidewalk, I stop. Michel has come from behind the building to watch me. "Don't call my bluff," I warn him. Now it's my turn to smile. "See you in school tomorrow."

When I get home, I call Jackie. She isn't sick after all. She decided to take a day off from school and take the streetcar downtown to go shopping. Now she's busy writing a letter for school in her mother's handwriting. I tell her about the boys at the back of the school, about meeting Michel and about his fondling my breast. "Only one?" she asks. Jackie and I share everything.

"Boys are pigs," she says. "That's all they think about. Remember Alain at the dance?"

I do remember but that wouldn't stop Jackie from repeating the story.

"Whenever the chaperones weren't looking he rubbed his thing against my leg. He wanted to go in the janitor's closet so I could touch it. The janitor's closet? That place stinks! I wouldn't even touch it in a rose garden. I was insulted when I learned I wasn't the only girl he tried that with."

We spend another five minutes discussing some of the other things boys get up to. I could write a book!

"Come over to my house on Saturday," she says before hanging up. "My parents are driving to Brossard to see my aunt Evelyn in the hospital. Our maid will be gone by noon."

Thank goodness, I think. Their Austrian maid treats me like dirt as if my living in Outremont isn't good enough to be one of Jackie's friends. Because she speaks German, Jackie calls her Eva Braun. She left Austria after the Anschluss. I thought Brunnhilde was a better name, but she's not my maid, so I lost. "I think she was a Nazi prison guard during the war," Jackie told me once. We shouldn't joke about the Nazis but in her case it's justified. She's angry and bitter and mean. But only with Jackie and her friends. When Jackie's parents are around, she couldn't be nicer. And she does keep their home spotless.

Although Jackie's parents, the Adlers, live in Outremont, their home is on the way to Westmount so Jackie tells people she's from Westmount because it sounds more posh. Jackie isn't a snob, but sometimes she forgets that I don't get an allowance. She doesn't do it to be mean. It just doesn't cross her mind.

I get off the streetcar before it reaches the public park. The families in the neighborhood tried to keep the park private but were overruled by the city. Each home is surrounded by fir trees, pines and tall oaks which grow all the way to the edge of the lake. As children, Jackie and I were allowed to row Mr. Adler's boat on the lake if we wore lifejackets and the maid watched us. Jackie said Frau Braun agreed to do this only because she could sit out of sight of the house and read her book. We once tried to scare her by tipping the boat over, hoping she'd get soaked trying to rescue us. Instead she ran up to the house and called the fire department. By the time the firemen arrived, Jackie and I were out of the water and wrapped in our towels, wondering what all the commotion was about. That was the end of our boat trips.

When the bus stops at the end of Jackie's street, I'm surprised the maid isn't already waiting with her overnight bag. She's probably taken advantage of her employers' absence and left earlier than usual. She's not due back until Sunday night. "I think she has a boyfriend somewhere," Jackie once told me. "I have to figure out a way to follow her. That information could be valuable someday." She's eager to get Frau Braun fired.

I climb the hill toward Jackie's house, thankful it's not far. No shortcut through a neighbor's yard around here. Walking up the drive, I hear the water in the pink marble fountain surrounded by a bank of flowers. When the gardener looks up, I wave. He stands up, arching his back. " _Bonjour_ , Rebecca."

Instead of a door bell there's a brass knocker in the shape of a lion's head. The maid opens the door. "I should have known you'd show up," she says. I'm so surprised to see her, I hesitate. "Don't just stand there." She looks even more imposing in her 'going out' dress with padded shoulders. I'm always surprised when I see how short she cuts her blond hair. The braids she usually wears in a bun are fake. From behind she looks like a man with a fat ass.

I cross the hall hoping Jackie heard me at the door and is already on her way downstairs. But the maid is quicker and stands between me and the stairs. She shouts over her shoulder, "Jacqueline, your nigger baby is here."

She always calls me this whenever Jackie's parents aren't around because my black hair is stiff and crinkly, and my skin is darker than that of Jackie's other friends. My mother grew up in Palestine before immigrating with her family to Canada in her teens. The maid says she's only referring to the sugar-coated licorice candy. But she's a liar!

"I'm leaving now," she shouts again, walking to the front door.

"You've missed the bus into town," I tell her.

She looks at me as if I'm acting absurd. "I'm taking a taxi." She picks up her bag and closes the front door with a crash, the sound of the door knocker echoes in the hallway.

Jackie peers over the banister. "Thank God that bitch is gone. Come on up."

"She's a horrible person," I say, climbing the curved staircase. "Why do your parents keep her?"

"She's a hard worker when my parents are around and she'll do anything they want done. Plus she's cheap. My mother's friends would hire her in a minute if they thought they could get away with it."

"Sounds like you're stuck with her," I reach the landing, slightly winded. "What do you want to do?"

"I have a few ideas." Jackie laughs the way she does when planning trouble.

In her bedroom, she closes the door as if expecting someone might listen from the hall. "I think Eva Braun is reading my diary."

"How do you know?" Jackie always has something exciting happening to her.

Crossing to her bookcase, she pulls out a pink book with a lock on it. "See how the clasp is broken. She searches through my things."

Jackie seems so sure it's the maid, I don't ask her if she thinks it could be her mother.

"So that gave me the idea to turn the tables on her. I'm sure she's hiding something."

"In the meantime, you need to find a better hiding place for your diary."

"Oh, I'm not hiding it now." She places the book in my hands. "She can read it all she wants." Jackie points to the last entry. "Start here."

Jackie's handwriting is atrocious. I begin reading to myself.

"No, read it out loud. Start over."

September 25th

I have to write a story for my literature class—

We do?" I look up from the diary. "I don't remember the teacher assigning that."

Jackie sighs impatiently. "I'm only pretending. Go on."

The story is about a girl living in Paris when the Germans invade France. Her parents don't know their son is working with the Resistance, but she has guessed his secret. Her name is Jacqueline, and she will do anything to protect her older brother. Meanwhile, the parents hire a new maid. One day the sister overhears the maid talking in German over the phone—

This time Jackie interrupts. "I forgot to put in the part about the sister studying German in school like us."

—talking in German over the phone about a trap to catch the brother. When the girl warns her brother, they plant incriminating letters in the maid's room. Revealed as a spy, she is turned over to the Resistance. The night before her execution by firing squad, the sister steals her father's pistol. When her brother isn't looking, she sneaks into the room—

"Dammit. I meant to add that the brother is guarding the maid in a safe house."

My finger slips off the page. "Oh phooey, I've lost my place. Wait a minute—okay I got it."

—When her brother isn't looking, she sneaks into the room and shoots the maid three times in the stomach. 'Die, die, Nazi,' the sister whispers in her ear while she dies in a puddle of blood.

"What happens next?" I ask.

"Nothing. That's the end of the story."

"Does your father really own a gun?"

"What? No, he doesn't own a gun. It's only a story!" She shakes her head as if I'm a lost cause.

"I was only wondering. The story seems so real."

"You really think so." Jackie is no longer impatient with me. "Do you think she'll get the hint? Die, die you Nazi dog." She attacks a pillow as if stabbing it.

"Maybe using a knife is better than a gun," I suggest helpfully. "Then you can say her guts are on the floor. And you leave a kitchen knife in the drawer with your diary."

Jackie stops her attack and looks up, her eyes wide and shining. "Perfect. I knew you'd have the best ideas."

After a snack in the kitchen, we climb the stairs to the maid's room on the top floor. Jackie's plan is to search her bedroom from top to bottom. "She must have love letters stashed somewhere. I'm on the lookout for a secret compartment."

Her bedroom is twice as large as mine at home and has a view of the lake. All the furniture is dark and heavy. The room also has a tall cupboard with a full-length mirror on each door, two matching parlor chairs and an ornate chest at the foot of the bed. Against the wall opposite the cupboard is an enormous dresser. Jackie pulls out the top drawer. "Let's start here."

After a thorough search, we find nothing incriminating except some revealing underwear. Jackie struts around the room holding the lingerie in front of her. "Herr Hitler, you like my new bra and panties?" She shrieks with laughter, sashaying as she models the clothes.

I hold a finger under my nose and, with my other hand, make the Nazi salute. " _Jawohl mein kleine_ Eva."

" _Jetzt zeig mir deine_." Jackie tosses the panties over her head like a bride with a bouquet.

We laugh so hard we collapse onto the two large stuffed chairs. Every time we try to stop, Jackie tosses a bra or another pair of panties, yells " _Jawohl_ ," and we laugh even more. We stop only when our sides are aching.

"The place is a mess." Jackie sounds like it's a total surprise.

I sit up, blinking like I've woken from a dream. We haven't returned any clothes or other belongings back where we found them. "We better clean up before we look anywhere else."

Jackie sits up suddenly. "How stupid! Why didn't I think of this before?" She kneels beside the bed and, lifting the heavy spread, she crawls part way under. "Here's something." She pulls out a flat, leather case. But when she inspects it, she's disappointed. "It's only an overnight bag."

"Maybe there's a packet of love letters in there," I say, trying to cheer her up "Or a diary."

Jackie is carrying the suitcase to the middle of the room when it suddenly opens, spilling the contents. "It's not even locked," she said. "She wouldn't keep any secrets in an unlocked suitcase." Scattered on the floor is some costume jewelry, winter scarves, a pair of gloves—

"What's that?" I ask pointing to a bright red color almost hidden by the folded scarves. I push the clothing aside. "My God. It's one of them."

Jackie looks where I'm pointing and then at me, puzzled by my reaction.

"That's what Michel showed me."

Jackie grabs the packet. "He had one of these?"

"Here's another one." I lift a woolen sweater from the pile. "Look. There's more."

We find eighteen. With my fingernail, I carefully separate one end of one packet. The condom slides out onto the rug. "That's what they look like." For once, knowing more than Jackie, I feel quite superior. I point to the end. "The sperm goes there."

She drops the condom as if it's caught fire. "Michel told you all this?"

"He said they test them at the factory to make sure there aren't any holes in them."

A mischievous expression spreads across Jackie's face. "I have an idea. Wait here." She's gone only a minute and returns with her mother's sewing box. She slowly pulls a needle from the pin cushion.

I shake my head. "Jacqueline, no." In shock, I forget she doesn't like her full name.

She calmly picks up an unopened package. "Jackie, yes." She makes a hole in the middle of the package and reaches for another. "Are you going to help me or just sit there?"

"Why not?" I shrug, holding out my hand for the pin cushion. I take a pin and poke it through another package. "Voilà! Good as new."

Jackie smiles an evil smile. "Vous êtes incorrect. Almost good as new."

We spend an hour cleaning up the room. Jackie leaves a pair of panties on the bureau to give Frau Braun something to think about. "Two can play this game," she says.

I miss the next bus. My parents are already eating when I get home. "Did you have fun at Jacqueline's?" my mother asks when I sit down at the table. I nod 'yes' and quickly change the subject before I start laughing.

In bed that night, I have an attack of conscience. What we did was a sin – maybe even illegal – no matter how clever we thought we were. I hear a police car driving past our house, its siren blaring. My God, I think, they'll arrest me. My parents will find out what I've done. I decide Jackie must remove all the condoms from the suitcase. I promise myself to speak with her on Monday morning.

Jackie will have none of it. "If she gets pregnant, she'll have to leave. It's her own fault for being so mean to us." By the end of the week, the whole episode seems unreal. Nevertheless, I avoid the maid as much as possible when I visit. I can't look at her without feeling guilty.

But not Jackie. She goes out of her way to aggravate her: "How are you feeling this morning?" or "Sick to your stomach?" or "Do you like babies?" or "Any food cravings?" She even carries a doll around with her and talks to it whenever the maid is nearby.

Once she asked the maid if she knew how to change a diaper. "No, I don't. Why? Are you pregnant?"

"Are you?" Jackie shot back.

Eventually with the excitement of the holidays and the New Year we forget all about it.

After the Christmas vacation, Jackie meets me at my locker before our first class. She motions me to follow her to the washroom. We wash our hands until another girl finishes combing her hair and leaves. I can't imagine what Jackie is going to tell me.

"My mother's pregnant."

I gasp in surprise. We stare at each other, our eyes wide. I'm sure Jackie is also thinking about that afternoon in the maid's room.

"How did that happen?"

Jackie stares at me like I've lost my mind. "How do you think?"

"I don't mean that. Do you think it has anything to do with...When is she due?"

"June."

I quickly count backwards using my fingers. "Whew! That's impossible."

"Of course, it's possible. She's not making it up."

"No, I mean she got pregnant before we played that trick on your maid."

"Are you sure?" Jackie frowns and counts backwards. She isn't as good at math as I am. I have to reassure her several times that day.

Jackie becomes quite adept at changing diapers, but her social life is constrained by babysitting. Her parents name the baby after Jackie's Aunt Eva.

Rebecca's War

One

One of my first memories of WWII was watching my father dress for his meetings as a member of the Montreal Black Watch. "The oldest Highland regiment in Canada," he would proudly tell anyone who hadn't heard of them. Although still young enough to enlist in the Canadian Army, Dad was prone to episodes of cardiac arrhythmia. The Army turned him down. Disappointed and embarrassed, he joined the Black Watch, volunteering to enforce the blackout in our neighborhood.

He wore the traditional woolen tartan kilt with a pouch hanging in front. He called it a sporran and wasn't amused when I insisted that it looked like a purse. This was serious business. With Dad over six feet tall, the kilt was too short even after Mom let down the hem. His spindly white legs and knobby knees, which occasionally clicked when he walked, stuck out above the long, heavy stockings. He'd spend a long time in front of the hall mirror adjusting his uniform and cap, repeatedly asking my mother for her opinion. He wasn't satisfied until she said he looked dashing.

"I can almost hear the bagpipes. Can you hear them, Becca?" she asked me. I was ten years old and didn't know what bagpipes sounded like.

Dad would stand at attention, his head thrown back, a defender of Montreal. He wanted to make sure his cap wouldn't fall off.

When he left for his meetings, he was often followed by a raucous group of neighborhood boys marching behind him. They were in awe of anyone in uniform even when the uniform included a skirt. Dad rarely took himself too seriously, but the Black Watch was different. He enjoyed this attention, but the pack of boys, like stray dogs following me to school, soon grew bored and trotted home.

The Black Watch wore their regimental dress only on special occasions. During their neighborhood patrols, Dad had to settle for the ordinary 'uniform' of black pants and dark jacket or coat, depending on the weather. He was accompanied on his rounds by Mr. Leclerc, our next-door neighbor. Many times in the early morning, I was awakened by them climbing the metal porch stairs after their patrol.

One morning in mid-December, Dad was late. The snow storm was over and the plows roared down the street. Gas rationing was in effect so few cars were on the road. The sun was just below the horizon; blackout curtains were no longer needed. Mom and I were eating breakfast, wondering where he was, but not particularly worried. She was more concerned about getting me ready for school on time. In those days, a foot of snow was no excuse to close the schools. I was in fifth grade.

Mom became suspicious when Mrs. Leclerc knocked at our back door asking if we'd seen her husband. Mom offered her a cup of coffee. Mrs. Leclerc was afraid he'd had an accident in the snow storm. Mom said that was unlikely. "Michael isn't back either. I wouldn't worry," she told her, and Mrs. Leclerc left somewhat relieved.

"She's afraid her husband has stopped off to bend his arm on the way home," my mother said. Then, glaring at me, she quickly added, "You will not repeat that." I promised I wouldn't, but had no idea what 'bending an arm' meant.

The two men finally arrived at our back door, stomping the snow off their boots. The smell of beer filled the kitchen. Mom's face expressed, more clearly than words, her disapproval. They sheepishly admitted they'd stopped by the Armory on their way home to join some of their off-duty fellows for a nightcap.

Mr. Leclerc began singing a limerick:

A Scotsman who lived down in Wilts  
was prevented from walking on stilts.  
He would lose all his poise  
at the thought of small boys  
who might laugh when they looked up—

"That's quite enough," my mother interrupted. When my father couldn't stop laughing, she gave him a sharp look and steered Mr. Leclerc out the back door, telling him, "I won't have you making a scene on the front porch in front of the neighbors."

She firmly closed the door and faced my father. He leaned against the kitchen table, looking chastised. "I guessh I'm a bit pissched." If he was trying to act repentant, he was unsuccessful. "I'm a bit off kilter." Suddenly recognizing his unexpected wit, he began laughing again.

Mom was furious. "That's enough out of you. Carrying on like that in front of your daughter! You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

Grabbing the bannister for dear life, he clomped up the stairs to bed.

Mom turned her attention to me. "You should be on your way to school by now." She helped me into my coat and seemed impatient when I had trouble putting on my boots. "Off you go or you'll be late for school." I wondered what she'd say to Dad once I was out of the house.

That evening, coming downstairs from my room, I overheard my parents quietly talking in the kitchen with the door ajar. I was placing my library books on the hall table, when my father raised his voice. "Those goddamn bastards," he said. My father rarely raised his voice or swore. I stopped what I was doing, curious to hear what had happened.

"Not so loud," my mother whispered.

"They're killing them by the thousands." He had lowered his voice. My mother murmured something I couldn't hear. I moved closer to the door.

"I heard it on the radio this morning—"

My hand brushed against a book, knocking it off the table.

"Becca?"

"It's me, Mom. I dropped a book." I poked my head around the kitchen door.

Dad looked up from his newspaper. "I thought you were upstairs reading."

"I was, but I finished my book."

"Come down and give us a kiss when you're ready for bed," my mother said, concentrating on brushing crumbs from the table into her hand.

I knew better than to ask what they'd been talking about.

On Saturday, while my mother was visiting Mrs. Leclerc next door, I asked my father about what I'd heard. At first, he acted surprised, but putting his book down, he moved over in his chair. "Rebecca, sit up here with me." I settled in beside him and he put his arm around me. I felt safe sitting next to him.

Outside, the snow had stopped falling, but the wind rattled the shutters and blew snow off the roofs in great clouds. The living room was warm. The logs in the fireplace crackled, interrupted by sudden hisses and pops.

"You've heard Mom and me talking about the war. Many people are being killed..."

I knew that. Jonathan Weinstein's uncle who lived in England had died in France. When the teacher told us, I knew that I should be sad, but I wasn't. I was curious when Jonathan returned to class to see he if looked any different. Once, for no reason, he burst into tears. I felt sad then.

"...but the Jews are being rounded up," he continued. "Murdered just because they're Jews."

"Who's murdering them?"

"The Germans. The Nazis." My father spat the words out. "They're ordered out of their homes and taken away. Their relatives don't know where they are."

I nodded as if I understood what that was like, but I couldn't imagine losing a relative, even one I didn't like that much. "Can't they send a letter home?"

"They aren't allowed to write letters. And even if they could, with the war, many letters can't be delivered or are lost."

Another gust of wind blew snow from our porch against the window with a crinkling sound. The heat from the fire stung my bare feet. I tucked them under me.

"You remember what your mother's told you when you meet someone from Europe?"

"Not to ask questions?"

"That's right. Don't ask about their past. Wait for them to tell you. Your questions might stir up sad memories. Some people have lost everything in the bombing."

"Will we have bombs?" I asked, more curious than frightened.

He shook his head. "No, you don't have to worry about that. We're lucky to live here." He looked away and said nothing more. He held me close and I had to struggle to get down.

"What do you say about helping me shovel?" he asked.

"Can I push the snow off the porch?" I loved kicking the snow under the railings and watching it swirl to the ground. I ran to the closet to get my snowsuit.

Outside the air was cold and clear and clean. As the afternoon became darker, the streetlights came on, sparkling across the fresh snow. My father's words became more and more unreal, and eventually faded away.

That night my mother came up to my room to tuck me into bed. Instead of leaving after kissing me, she remained sitting on the bed. Her fingers brushed the back my hair. "Daddy told me he talked to you about the war."

"I wanted to know what he was so angry about."

"Sometimes he hears things about the war and it upsets him. He's not angry with you or me."

"I know..." When I stopped talking, my mother started to stand up. "...Is that why he was drunk yesterday?"

She seemed surprised by my question and sat back on the bed. "He heard news on the radio that morning. He's worried about his family in Poland."

"Does Mr. Leclerc have family in Poland?"

"No."

"Then why was Mr. Leclerc drunk?"

"Well," my mother hesitated. "He...he wanted to keep your father company."

"Okay," I said, snuggling under the blankets.

Mom kissed me again, paused a moment at the door, then closed it quietly as if I'd already fallen asleep.

Two

With so many immigrants coming from Europe, I didn't think about what might happen in the Pacific. That changed Christmas of 1941 when Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese and the surviving soldiers in the Royal Rifles of Quebec were captured. Everyone talked about it when school resumed in January. I was eleven years old and in the sixth grade. We soon learned that Paula Leveque in the fourth grade had an uncle who was killed in Hong Kong on Christmas Eve. Suddenly the war in the Pacific was very real and very close.

In June, the principal came to our classroom and asked Miss Jacobson, our homeroom and history teacher, to step into the hall. As soon as she closed the door, the class buzzed with questions. What had happened? Was someone in trouble? If anyone was, I guessed it would be Gloria Carlucci. She'd been held back a year and was a troublemaker. When I came to school that morning, I found her smoking behind a storage hut. When she saw it was only me, she relaxed. "Well, if it isn't little Rebecca Wiseman. Buzz off." She didn't have to ask twice: even being around a smoker could get me into trouble. When I looked around the storage hut, she called to me, "Hey, goody-two-shoes. Get back here."

"What do you want? The bell's going to ring any minute."

"If you tell anyone, I'll come looking for you."

"If you do, I'll tell my brother." Robert was a junior in high school.

"Ouuuwww. I'm trembling. Get lost," she hissed.

I was lined up with my class when the bell rang. Miss Jacobson counted us and then looked around. "Hurry up, Miss Carlucci. You've been late once already this week. You can't afford any more demerits."

With narrowed eyes, Gloria pointed her finger at me.

What? I thought. I hadn't said anything.

So when Miss Jacobson left the classroom, closing the door behind her, I expected the principal was calling Gloria down to his office. I hoped she wouldn't think I'd reported her.

When the door opened, Miss Jacobson had her arm around the shoulders of a Japanese girl. "Class, I'd like you to welcome Hazel Takahara. She's moved here with her parents from British Columbia."

Hazel had straight black hair with bangs cut perfectly straight across her forehead. I was jealous because my hair is too curly and I always wished it was straight. She wore a brand-new school uniform – white blouse and navy-blue jumper. I wondered if, like me, she had only one jumper.

The class was silent. The teacher brought Hazel to an empty desk in the row next to the window. She had a slight smile on her face, but didn't look at anyone. When Miss Jacobson went to the storage closet for a set of textbooks, Hazel took a fountain pen from a small bag. After unscrewing the top off her inkwell, she lowered her pen into the bottle. She seemed unaware that everyone was watching as if struck dumb by the astonishing sight of her filling a fountain pen.

"Stinkin' Jap." Gloria spoke just loud enough for everyone, except Miss Jacobson, to hear.

There were gasps from some of us. Other students began whispering together. Hazel didn't turn around and I wondered if she'd heard Gloria. She put her pen down and capped her inkwell. After wiping her fingers on a hankie, she folded her hands in her lap. She sat very straight in her chair.

Miss Jacobson came from the closet with a handful of books, but stopped halfway to Hazel's desk. Everyone had stopped talking. Maybe we were too quiet and Miss Jacobson suspected something had happened.

She placed the books on Hazel's desk. "Class, open your history books to page 390." There was the sound of books thumping and pages turning, some students making more noise than necessary. Patricia Gilmore dropped her book. Miss Jacobson waited for the noise to subside. "I want to review the causes of the War of 1812 before the test."

I looked at Gloria, wondering if she remembered anything about the War of 1812 – or any war for that matter. She slouched in her chair, her text book unopened. When she caught me looking at her, she pantomimed taking a drag on a cigarette, working her mouth as if blowing smoke rings. I quickly turned away.

After school, I didn't see Hazel. She apparently had slipped away without talking with anyone. When I met my friend Jackie waiting for me by the flag pole, I told her about the new girl. "I can't remember her last name. She's Japanese."

"I just saw her," Jackie said. "She's in your class? I didn't get a good look at her. Is she cute?"

"I don't know." I thought for a moment. "I suppose she is – in a Japanese way. She has nice hair." I didn't tell her what Gloria had said. I was embarrassed to say the words out loud.

For the rest of the week, I noticed that Hazel kept to herself. She might join a group on the playground, but said little and soon drifted away, her arms crossed against her chest. The most popular girls in the class avoided her as if their popularity would be diminished by talking to her. I overheard Roberta Shapiro telling another girl that she thought Hazel was stuck up. Roberta talked with a nasal whine that was annoying. She didn't like people who were smarter than she was, which included most of the class. But why would Roberta be against Hazel? Here was someone lower on the social ladder than her.

A week later, Japan invaded the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska. Then a Japanese sub shelled a lighthouse on Vancouver Island. Newspapers had huge headlines and pictures.

The next day, when we filed into our classroom, I noticed that Gloria was already there, wiping down the blackboards. This was surprising. She seemed especially interested in Hazel and stared at her while she took off her jacket. As usual, Hazel sat quietly with her hands in her lap, waiting for class to begin. I watched Gloria, wondering what she was up to. Maybe I was imagining things and nothing would happen.

Miss Jacobson was talking at the front of the room, but I wasn't paying attention. The crack of the ruler on a desk got my attention.

"Rebecca. Pay attention. You don't need to turn your head sideways unless you have a hearing problem."

The class laughed and my face went red. Miss Jacobson could be mean sometimes, but usually she left me alone.

"Thank you, Rebecca. Class, please take out your reading books. Miss Randall asked me to have you start reading the poem by Robert Service."

There was the usual squeaking of hinges as we took the book out of our desks. We waited for Miss Jacobson to tell us what page to turn to, but she was looking in Hazel's direction. Holding up her desk top with one arm, Hazel stared inside without moving.

"Hazel?"

She didn't answer Miss Jacobson. Instead she gently closed her desk, picked up her bag, and left the room. The class erupted into commotion. No one had ever done anything like this. Mildred Doherty once ran out of the classroom, but she was sick and didn't want to throw up on her desk.

"Quiet, class." Miss Jacobson walked over to Hazel's desk and raised the lid. She paused a moment looking at what was inside. Reaching in, she grabbed the newspaper page and held it above her head. "Who did this?"

I'd never seen her so angry. No one said a word. Not a sound. Suddenly the speaker on the wall crackled. The principal began his morning address. He'd been a radio announcer and sometimes students made fun of his dramatic voice. But now it was the voice of God who would reveal the name of the culprit at any moment. He finished his announcements. The hum from the PA system was cut off. I stared at the speaker. Surely, he must have more to say.

Miss Jacobson cracked her ruler on her desk. "Who did this?"

No one moved as if the slightest movement would be incriminating.

"If anyone has something to say, you can tell me privately, but I will not let this pass. Read the poem while I'm gone." She left the room heading in the direction of the principal's office.

"What was on the page?" Louise Benson asked. She sat at the back of the class, but never wore her glasses.

"It said 'Dirty Jap.' Something like that." This was from Patricia Gilmore who sat behind Hazel.

I pointed at Gloria. "You did it." Every head in the class turned to look at her.

Gloria's innocent expression didn't waver. "Says who? Prove it."

The principal came to the room alone and was angrier than Miss Jacobson. "This is unforgiveable. Hazel shouldn't be blamed for what Japan has done." He made a short speech about how our country welcomed all people, but he was distracted and didn't talk long. The morning classes continued.

At noon all the students gathered in the courtyard before going home for lunch. By then, the whole school knew what had happened. Jackie said her class had a substitute teacher for history instead of Miss Jacobson.

At home I told my mother. She wasn't surprised. She slowly shook her head. "I hope I never hear that you're involved in something so hateful."

"I would never do anything like that." I was shocked that she would even think such a thing.

"I'm just saying..." She took a deep breath. "That poor girl."

Miss Jacobson did not return after lunch for our history class. A substitute teacher tried to follow her lesson plan but she had so many questions that she gave up and told us to reread the chapter in the text book. Nothing was said about the incident.

On the way home, I thought about Hazel and, on the spur of the moment, decided to visit her. Jackie had told me that one of her friends lived in the same apartment building as the Takaharas. I didn't know if she would want to see me, but, in any case, I was curious about where she lived.

At the apartment house, I read the tags on the intercom inside the front door. The Takaharas' apartment was 509. Afraid I would chicken out at the last minute, I pressed the button.

"Hello." The woman's voice had an accent similar to Hazel's, but sounded much older.

"My name is Rebecca Wiseman." I spoke directly into the brass mouth of the tube. "I've come to see Hazel."

The whistling air in the tube was cut off. I waited, but there was only silence. I hadn't been nervous walking to the apartment, but now I was surprised at the relief I felt. Was I afraid I'd be blamed for what had happened? Anyway, I'd tried to help, I told myself. I'd done my best to see Hazel.

Behind me, at the other end of the lobby, the elevator doors opened. Someone came quickly down the hall toward me, her heels clicking on the marble floor. "Rebecca?"

For a moment, I didn't recognize the woman. "Miss Jacobson!" She looked different outside the classroom.

"Have you come to see Hazel?"

"I want to, but the lady on the other end hasn't come back."

Miss Jacobson frowned at me as if I didn't make sense. "I've just come from her apartment. Perhaps they didn't under—"

The whistling sound came from the tube. "Take elevator to fifth floor. Number 509."

"I guess I'm visiting after all," I said, tension rushing back into my chest.

The apartment door was opened by an old woman. She was short and bent over. I couldn't see her face. When I entered, she motioned that I should take my shoes off. Then she shuffled down the hall. Looking around, I felt like I'd entered a strange world. Straw mats covered the floor. Looking into what I guessed was the dining room, I saw a low table surrounded by cushions. In the center of the table, a single lily stood in a clear glass vase. The cabinet against the wall was opened with white dinner plates stacked inside, its wood lacquered a deep red that reflected the light from the window.

"Rebecca?"

Mrs. Takahara was slender, about my height. She wore a plain dress of pale blue silk that hugged her hips. I was fascinated by her lack of makeup. I'd never seen a face so delicate and clear.

"I'm in Hazel's class at school."

"Hazel has told me about you."

This surprised me. I'd hardly said a word to Hazel in the few days she'd been at school.

"Come. I'll take you to her room." She was already walking ahead of me when she stopped and turned around. "Thank you for coming."

Hazel's room was like any teenager's: clothes draped over furniture, school books on the bed, magazine pictures taped to the walls, and stuffed animals everywhere. The bed and bureau looked more expensive than mine and not second-hand. Hazel sat at her desk, looking out the window.

Her mother spoke softly. "Hazel. Rebecca's come to visit." She closed the bedroom door halfway behind her.

Hazel didn't move for several seconds and then barely turned her head. The afternoon sun was shining directly behind her.

Embarrassed by her silence, I wanted to say something right away. "I came to visit you." How stupid, I thought, and then added quickly, "To see how you're doing."

When Hazel didn't answer, I moved my head trying to reduce the glare from the window to see her face.

"Why did you come?" she asked.

I'd already told her, hadn't I? "I'm sorry about what happened at school."

"I know it wasn't you. You don't have to apologize."

"Everyone feels bad about—"

"They don't need to feel that way," she said cutting me off. "I understand why people don't like me. Or my family."

"That's not true."

"Isn't it? People don't talk to me. They're nervous when I'm around."

"But you always leave school right away. No one has a chance to speak with you."

Hazel swiveled around in her chair, blocking the sun. She looked like she didn't believe me.

"I walk home quickly so I don't hear the bad things people say about my family."

"Who does that?"

"Gloria and her friends. At least I think they're her friends. They could be anyone for all I know. I'm used to not having friends. Then I don't worry about what other people think."

"I'd like to be your friend. I would never say anything against you—"

I stopped speaking because I hadn't meant to say this so soon. I didn't want to push myself on her. And what if she didn't want me as a friend? She seemed so unfriendly, I thought, it would be hard to be her friend. I wished I hadn't come. At least not alone.

"I want to have friends," she said, "but I don't trust people."

In the silence, I looked around her room and saw a photograph of her on her night stand. She stood alone in a garden with a sign with strange letters. Part of a building was visible behind her. "Was that your house in Japan?"

"In Japan? What house?" She saw me looking at the photograph. Getting up from her chair, she stretched across her bed to reach it. "My father took this photograph at a Japanese garden in Vancouver."

"When did you leave Japan?" I hadn't seen any refugees from Japan in Montreal, but there must be some. Most of them probably lived in British Columbia.

"I've never been to Japan." Hazel sounded impatient and annoyed. "I was born in San Francisco. I'm an American." She leaned against the headboard with her arms crossed as if daring me to contradict her.

Now _I_ was confused. I didn't know any Americans. "You were born in the States? Why did you leave?"

"My father heard that all Japanese people would be sent to a camp."

"But who would force you if you didn't want to go?"

"The American government. They thought we were spies and would help the Japanese attack San Francisco."

"Didn't you tell them you wouldn't do that?"

"Some tried, but it didn't do any good." It was Mrs. Takahara. She must have been listening in the hall. "No one believed us. And no one seemed to think it was a bad idea. We immediately left for Vancouver."

"We don't do that in Canada," I said. "My father would have said something."

Mrs. Takahara sighed. "Perhaps the Canadians in British Columbia are different, but my husband fears that it's only a matter of time. That's why we moved as far away as possible."

"I didn't know."

We were all silent after that. The sun had started to disappear behind the building across the street, but the room was still hot. Everything seemed upside down. I had come to make Hazel feel better and now I was feeling bad. "Will you be back in school tomorrow?"

"She won't," Mrs. Takahara said. "Miss Jacobson thought Hazel should stay home tomorrow."

"The principal is having an assembly for the whole school," Hazel said. "He decided it would be better if I wasn't there."

I nodded, not knowing what else to say. No one had told us about any assembly.

"It's only a week until summer vacation," Mrs. Takahara said. "Hazel won't go back until the fall."

I stood up. "I should go home now." I didn't think it was fair that she didn't have to go back to school.

"Hazel, show Rebecca out." While Hazel took her time getting off the bed, Mrs. Takahara touched me on the arm. "Thank you for coming. I'm happy that Hazel knows she can count on you at school."

Hazel stopped in the doorway. "Mom, I _won't_ be in school."

At the front door, I put on my shoes. Hazel leaned against the doorframe watching me. I don't know why, but I always mess up tying my shoes when someone is staring at me.

"I meant it when I said I wanted to be your friend." I wanted to convince Hazel – as well as myself – that everything would be better.

Hazel nodded, but barely smiled. "Goodbye," she said, slowly closing the door. In the hallway, I heard Hazel lock the door.

I didn't see Hazel during the summer. Her parents enrolled her in a private school before autumn.

Three

The day before spring vacation in 1943, Miss Zeigler, our eighth grade homeroom and science teacher, asked us to help her with a special project for "the Canadian troops in the war." She held up an empty duffle bag which was about two and a half feet long and made of green canvas.

She explained that every class in the country was filling a bag with socks and gloves, gum and candy. "When our bag is full, the school will send them downtown to the shipyard on the Saint Lawrence. From there, they'll be shipped to Europe for our fighting troops." She placed the bag on her desk. "Now class, I want you to think of what you can bring in to fill the bag."

All around the classroom, hands shot up. Some students waved their arms hoping to be the first one chosen. Miss Zeigler looked around. "Cynthia, what would you suggest?"

"If we send candy, then we should put in a toothbrush, so they don't get cavities."

Her father is a dentist, I thought, so she would think of that.

Before she had even finished speaking, hands were waving again. Mildred Doherty was half out of her seat, whispering, "Miss Zeigler, Miss Zeigler."

"That's an excellent idea, Cynthia," Miss Zeigler said. "Do you think your father can donate a few?"

"Yes, Miss Zeigler," Cynthia said, relishing her time in the spotlight. "I can also bring in some tubes of toothpaste."

"Oh," groaned Mildred, slumping back into her seat. "That's what I was going to say."

"What else can we bring in? Mildred? You had your hand raised."

Mildred was so surprised to be called on that she stuttered while trying to think. "Um...um...oh, I know. Shaving cream!" She was so pleased with her answer, she didn't wait to hear what Miss Zeigler would say. "And...and a razor...," she was only warming up, "...and..." She couldn't think of the word, but began patting her cheeks with her hands. "...like perfume."

"Aftershave!" Harriet Rollins shouted out the word. She ignored Mildred glaring at her.

"All right class. Settle down. This isn't a contest."

Hands shot up accompanied by a desperate chorus of "Me, me."

Lizzie Dunne didn't wait to be called on. "Gum! Packages of gum."

"Chicklets," someone said. "Wrigley's Spearmint," came from the back of the room. The class 'oohed' and 'aahed' for their favorite brand. "Bubble gum."

Miss Zeigler frowned and shook her head. "No bubble gum."

Cynthia spoke up. I knew exactly what she was going to say. "Bubble gum is bad for you. It can pull out your fillings."

What a show off, I thought. I wished I had a piece of bubble gum. I always chewed it for hours until my jaws ached or my mother told me throw it away before dinner.

I raised my hand.

"Rebecca? What would you like to bring in?"

"A paperback book. Something fun to read."

"An excellent idea, Rebecca. I would suggest a western or a mystery. But class, if you want to bring in a book, make sure you ask your parents to pick it out. Anything else? Yes, Gloria?"

The room was suddenly quiet. I wondered why Miss Zeigler called on her. Gloria Carlucci was older than others in the class and always seemed to be in trouble: late for school, homework not finished, passing notes in class. Once she was caught wearing makeup in the schoolyard and was taken to the lavatory to scrub her face. Then she was sent home. Maybe Miss Zeigler was giving Gloria a chance to redeem herself in the classroom's patriotic effort.

"Cigarettes."

At the back of the room, Alexandra Simmons let out a whoop of laughter which she stifled as soon as she could. We all knew that Gloria lit up a Parliament on her way home as soon as she was out of sight of school. When my friend Jackie and I wondered where she got the cigarettes, Alexi told us that she stole them from her father.

"Absolutely not." Miss Zeigler was annoyed. Honestly, it served her right for calling on Gloria. "No cigarettes. No letters or personal photographs. Everything will be examined very carefully."

Forbidding cigarettes didn't seem fair. Most of the pictures in the newspaper showed soldiers smoking cigarettes. Once Dad read an article in the paper about what soldiers wanted from home. "They ask for cigarettes, chocolate, chewing gum, nylons—"

"That's quite enough," Mom said, interrupting him. Dad looked over the newspaper.

I asked Mom why the soldiers wanted nylons. She glared at my father and, without looking at me, said, "That's a good question for your father."

The bell rang, ending the class. "And don't forget to bring in warm socks and mitts," Miss Zeigler said, raising her voice above the chatter. She hung the duffle bag on a hook beside the blackboard and gathered up her belongings, ready to leave the room for her next class.

"People, quiet—" No one paid attention. "Class! Please be quiet for one minute. Thank you. When you come back from vacation, bring in what you can, especially things that remind them of home. At the end of the week, I'll take the bag to the principal's office."

After school, I met Jackie and we walked to her bus stop, talking about the special project. I said I didn't see why we couldn't include a pack of cigarettes.

"Someone in my class asked about that," she said. "Our teacher said that smoking cigarettes will stunt our growth. What a joke," Jackie scoffed, pretending to take a drag on a cigarette. "As if a ciggy could make us short. Lynda Whalen said, if that was true, she'd start smoking tonight. She's afraid boys won't go out with her because she's so tall." Jackie shook her head. "Nah. The principal's afraid we'll smoke 'em on the way to school."

I wrinkled up my nose. "Who would want to? They're nasty and stink up your clothes. Gloria Carlucci always smells like she slept in a fireplace."

Jackie's bus was pulling over to let on passengers. "I think I have a foolproof plan to get cigarettes into that bag. Come over on Saturday and we can see if it'll work."

Jackie always had the best ideas.

On Saturday, I took the bus to Jackie's house. Montreal had been hit with a major snowstorm the night before. I trudged up the hill from the bus stop, walking in the street because the sidewalks were still covered with snow the plows had pushed over the curb. The weather was unusually mild and water rushed down the hill. I was almost sprayed by a car rushing past, but I jumped over the snowbank before the wave could hit me.

The huge trees behind the houses were bending under the weight of the snow. Some large branches had broken off. Just that morning, Mom had read in the paper about a little girl who'd been hit by a falling branch while playing in her backyard. It missed her head, but broke her leg.

Walking up Jackie's driveway, I heard the thump of snow sliding off the trees warming in the sun at the edge of the woods. The heated water in the pink fountain in their front yard steamed in the colder air. A pair of birds thrashed the water with their wings. I wondered if their feathers would freeze and they'd crash in midflight.

Jackie answered the door. She must have been watching for me from her bedroom window. She took me into the kitchen where the cook had left hot chocolate simmering in a saucepan. "She also made some egg salad sandwiches."

Eggs! I hadn't had an egg in months. Mom conserved her ration coupons and only bought eggs two at a time for baking a special dessert. Jackie's parents were wealthy, and I assumed they didn't have a problem with rationing. I knew better than to tell that to my father because he always had a fit when he read about people getting more than their fair share.

"I can't wait to show you my trick," she said, while we ate our sandwiches. "The cook's taking a nap so we won't be disturbed."

After lunch, she took a box from the back of a pantry cupboard and carried it to the kitchen table. When she opened the box, the first thing I saw was a pile of Parliament cigarettes. "Where did you get them?" I whispered, even though no one was around to hear me.

"I saw my mother filling the cigarette box in the den last night. She'll never miss them."

"You're as bad as Gloria, stealing from your mother," I said, pretending to be shocked.

"Where do you think I got the idea? The difference is I'm not smoking them. I'm giving them to the boys overseas. It's patriotic."

Jackie took out a small box with five rolls of LifeSavers. She had carefully opened the box so that it could be glued shut with no one the wiser.

"What are these for?"

"You'll see. Take off the hot chocolate and put on a pan of water."

I did what she asked. She carefully opened the other two boxes of candy with a thin knife. The water began to boil. With a pot holder, Jackie held the end of a roll of candy over the steam. "I haven't had a chance to test this part."

We watched the wax on the end of the roll soften and drip off. Without the wax holding it down, the tin foil opened in slow motion. "It's like magic" I said, "but why are you doing this?"

"Remember Miss Petterson teaching us about the Trojan Horse?" she asked, but didn't wait for an answer. "This is the Trojan LifeSaver."

"Watch out!" I pulled her hand away from the steam. "Look at the paper."

The steam had melted the glue off the wrapper and soaked the paper. The top part had torn away taking the word 'Life' with it.

"Oh, _merde_ ," Jackie swore. "Excuse my French." Angry that one of the rolls of candy was ruined, she stamped her foot.

"Next time," I said, "wrap a handkerchief around the end to protect the paper."

Before we parboiled another roll of candy, Jackie brought the newly-named roll of 'Savers' to the bread board. She took a lobster pick and delicately poked at the first candy. When it popped out, she handed it to me.

"Can I have the red one instead?" I asked.

"I suppose," she huffed, still angry about the damage to the wrapper. "You always have to have everything your way."

"And who's the spoiled little rich girl around here?" I teased her.

"Here. You get the red one out. Should be easy now."

It wasn't. The candy was packed tight and the heat had melted the edges so that the candy stuck together. "This is going to take forever," I said in frustration.

"Pay attention. We can't afford any more damage."

Finally the roll was empty. Jackie took a cigarette and dropped it in. "Oh, blast." The Parliament was too long. Its filter stuck out the end.

"Will they work if we break off the filter?" I asked.

Jackie looked at me as if I was hopeless, then grinned. "The maid smokes Marlboros. They're shorter. Come on. She has the afternoon off."

Up in the maid's room on the third floor, Jackie looked in the dresser drawers and carefully felt under the clothes. Finding nothing, she looked in the closet. Again, nothing. She looked around the room with her hands on her hips. "All right, Frau Eva. Where do you hide them?"

"Wait a minute. Look." I leaned across the dresser and reached for the mirror which hung by hinges between two posts. The bottom of the mirror was pulled forward slightly. When I tilted the mirror up, the vibration caused two cartons of cigarettes to fall onto the floor.

"BINGO!" Jackie clapped her hands in time to the song, "And BINGO was his name, oh!" One carton was already open. Taking two packages, she slipped them into her pocket. She hesitated, then pocketed a third.

She stacked the cartons behind the mirror and tilted it back the way we found it. She stood at attention and saluted the mirror. "All in the name of patriotism." Then singing "O Canada! Our home and native land!" we marched downstairs. In the kitchen, we bellowed the last line: "O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!" in two-part harmony. Our voices echoed and woke up the cook.

On Monday, Jackie came to my house and we walked to the center of Outremont. The weather was colder than on Saturday, and we had to be careful walking on the icy sidewalks.

"I only finished the second box of candy yesterday," Jackie said. "It took forever and, on the last roll, I burnt my fingers." She showed me the three Band-Aids she wore over her knuckles. "I held my hand under cold water for ten minutes, but they still ache. All that work for a few lousy cigs."

Once she finished complaining – although I did sympathize – she said that she had an even better idea. She steered me into the first Brunet's pharmacy we saw. In a rack by the cash register, she took down a box of Smith Brothers' Cough Drops.

"What are those for?"

"You'll see. Now over here," she said, turning to the left.

When I saw the Auto-Photo machine, I stopped. "Who are we taking pictures for?"

Jackie shrugged her shoulders, trying to look innocent. "Whoever gets our duffle bag, silly." She posed seductively in the store aisle. "Wouldn't you love to see his face when he finds our photos?"

"We'll be in big trouble if the principal finds them. Miss Zeigler said he's checking everything."

"We're not just throwing them in the bag. I'll hide them. Look. We'll cut the photos to fit inside behind the wax paper. If he opens the box, all he'll see is a bunch of cough drops. But he won't have time. He'll just shake the box." She demonstrated by giving the box a good shake. "If they rattle, it's off to battle." She laughed. "I thought that up last night."

I just shook my head, knowing it was hopeless to distract Jackie once she was determined to get away with something she shouldn't.

"Oh, poo," she said, pointing to the sign hanging on the curtain of the booth: 'Closed for repairs.' "We'll have to find another store."

"Can I help you?" A young man in a suit had come up behind us. His suit jacket was open and he jingled the coins in his pocket. He acted like he was important.

"We want to take some pictures, but now we can't." Jackie adopted her most forlorn look. "The machine's broken."

"What do you want them for?" he asked. I wondered why he was acting so suspicious.

"We need to send them to our dad who's fighting overseas. He lost the ones he had."

Jackie was the limit, I thought, expecting her to burst into tears at any moment.

"Now we don't know where to go." She ended with a pathetic sniff.

"I'll let you use this machine if you want some pictures for your father."

"But it's broken," I said, thinking we should end this masquerade as soon as possible. I expected him to suddenly say that he knew we were taking pictures for soldiers overseas. Maybe the school had alerted all the drugstores to stop students from using the machines.

The young man reached around the curtain to unhook the sign. "We've had to turn it off because some women came in and took pictures," and he lowered his voice, "with their clothes off." He shrugged as if to say _he_ wouldn't have stopped them. Jackie's eyes lit up, but I glared at her with my Don't-You-Dare look.

When he plugged it in, the booth came alive with strings of lights winking on and off. One set of lights looked like a comet travelling around the top in pursuit of its tail. He opened a panel on the side. "Okay, there's picture paper in here, so you're all set." He pulled the curtain back with a flourish. "Which of you young ladies is first?"

"Me," said Jackie, sounding as if she were afraid that, out of spite, the machine would fail halfway through her turn. "Hold my coat," she said. She dug in her purse for twenty-five cents, but the manager stopped her. "This is on me. Anything for the Dads overseas."

Jackie gave me a knowing smile and I knew I'd be listening to her all the way home bragging about how she got us the pictures for free. She whipped the curtain closed behind her. The young man started to put in the coin when he stopped. He peeked around the curtain. "Young lady, you're not taking your clothes off, are you?" He laughed and dropped the coin into the slot.

I looked straight at the curtain avoiding his eyes. Don't tempt her, I pleaded. Jackie wouldn't do such a thing, but I didn't want to put it to a test.

We saw three flashes behind the curtain. Then a whirring sound started in the back of the machine. Jackie pulled the curtain aside. "I can't wait to see them."

While we waited, I smelled the faint odor of developing fluid. When the photos slipped into the slot, Jackie grabbed them. We examined them with our backs to the manager. Jackie's expression in the last photo was not one a daughter would send her father.

"You're next," the man said.

I slipped behind the curtain and heard the quarter roll into what sounded like an empty cash box. I was a little insulted he didn't ask me about my clothes. I wasn't prepared for the first flash. In the last picture, I accidently blinked.

Once my pictures were finished, the man disconnected the machine. The lights went out and the machine sank back into its mechanical hibernation.

"I hate my pictures," I whispered to Jackie.

Putting on her coat, she thanked the manager and followed me to the door. I was outside before I realized she wasn't behind me. I looked through the store's front window, shading my eyes to block the glare. Jackie soon came out of the store, waving her strip of photos.

"Where were you?" I asked.

Instead of answering, she held the pictures under my nose. They reeked of perfume. She'd quickly spritzed the pictures when she passed the samples on the perfume counter.

I wrinkled my nose. "You could have at least used Chanel No. 5."

"The bottle was empty."

"It must have been used up by all those naked ladies!"

The night before the duffel bags were due in the principal's office, I was awake a long time worrying about being caught. It would have served us right if our flouting the rules had been discovered. But we heard nothing until the principal, during a morning address over the PA system, told us the bags had been loaded on a boat for Europe.

And that might have been the end of the matter.

One Saturday in late May, I was visiting Jackie when the mail arrived. In the pile of letters, we found an envelope mailed from France. Jackie and I looked at each other, wondering what it could be. The name on the envelope was 'Jacqueline Whitley.'

"Who's that?" she said, annoyed that someone had sent a letter belonging to another person to _her_ address. Not that this prevented us from opening and reading the letter.

Dear Jacqueline Whitley,

First, let me say how sorry we are that your brother Bob was killed. Everyone liked him a lot. I know his personal belongings were sent to your parents from headquarters a couple of weeks ago. But we missed something. He kept some personal stuff in a small bag that fell in the mud behind his bed. Everything was ruined except this picture he kept safe and sound in a box of cough drops. We decided the safest thing to do was return this picture directly to you. Sgt. Melcher was afraid it could get lost.

We don't get many letters from home so Bob was real happy to have your picture. He showed it to everyone so they could see what a beautiful sister he had. Please accept our sincere condolences. I will always remember Bob Whitley.

Pvt. John Sumner

I turned the photo over and saw where Jackie had signed her first name. Underneath, she had printed her address. Jackie dropped the letter. She started to laugh, but choked up, and ran to the stairs. When I followed her, I found her bedroom door closed. I knocked once. When she didn't answer, I opened the door.

Jackie lay on her bed, crying into her pillow. "I thought it would be fun to see if anyone wrote back." She was speaking and sobbing at the same time. "I wanted to know who got the duffle bag."

I sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her back. I tried to picture the young man who had died. Instead, I kept seeing the man on the recruitment posters. Eventually she stopped crying. Thinking she'd fallen asleep, I tiptoed out of the room. As I closed the door, she looked up, her face streaked with tears.

"Rebecca, do you think I'm beautiful?"

Four

During those years, thousands of Jews escaped the rising anti-Semitism in Europe and settled in Canada, primarily in Toronto and Montreal. Some arrived with little more than the clothes on their backs.

Once a week, my mother collected used clothing for Jewish immigrants. When she started collecting, I was ten years old and accompanied her. Later as a thirteen-year-old, I became too self-conscious. When some people acted suspicious or rude, I was embarrassed, convinced that they thought we were keeping the clothes for ourselves. I refused to go again, but I helped Mom to sort and clean the clothes. She and I packed them in cardboard boxes and carried them on the streetcar downtown to the Baron de Hirsch Institute on Sherbrooke Street.

I've always been proud of Montreal's treatment of immigrants who arrived with only hope. The wealthy people of Westmount generally gave money directly to charities; the rest of us gave time, food, clothes, and the spare change we saved each week in the blue tin boxes from the synagogues. There's no doubt that parts of Montreal were, and still are, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic, but most people were, above all, anti-suffering, and they did what they could to help.

Mom's work with the Baron de Hirsch Institute brought her into contact with many refugees. She was the type of person people trusted. They confided in her about things they wouldn't share outside their family. Although they didn't talk about what they'd seen or heard in Europe, most spoke about their worries for relatives and friends left behind. Despite promises to come as soon as possible, those, remaining in Europe, believed that if they kept to themselves, they would survive. Once they realized this was impossible, it was often too late.

It wasn't easy for those of us who had lived in Montreal for many years to imagine the sorrow one suffered leaving behind everything that meant home, and fleeing for one's life. My father was sympathetic. Being an immigrant himself, he understood the shock of finding oneself in a foreign country. Coming from Poland as a young man, he too had left everything behind, but it was his own decision to leave and not one forced on him by war. His youth and optimism had given him the courage and confidence to start at the bottom and work his way up.

My mother worked hard making dresses at home for some of the rich women who lived in Westmount. Now with her added responsibilities for the clothing drive, Dad felt she was working too hard and doing more than she could handle. I think he was also concerned that she'd neglect her sewing business, the income from which was not large, but nevertheless, an indispensable addition to the family income. After dinner, when she sewed in the living room listening to the radio, he made it a point to ask if her sewing was for the Institute. She often said that it was. "It helps me relax and I'm grateful I can do something to help others."

One evening, she announced that she'd invited an immigrant family for Sunday dinner.

Dad was not enthusiastic. "When did you decide on this?"

"I met Mme. Boulanger two weeks ago. She's from France with her son."

"Is this something volunteers usually do?"

"I'm sure some do." Mom told me later that she had no idea if they did or not. "The Institute found her a one-bedroom with a small kitchen. Her son sleeps on the sofa in the living room."

"When is her husband joining her?"

"Her husband was rounded up. He's in a camp somewhere in Poland, she thinks."

"And the Germans left his wife and son behind? That's hard to believe."

"They were visiting an aunt in the country when he was arrested. They never returned home. Relatives hid them until the underground helped them escape."

Mom had become friends with Mme. Boulanger after learning that she had worked as a dressmaker. "I'm trying to find work for her on St. Urbain Street."

"I hope you didn't promise anything. There may not be much available."

"I haven't said a word about it."

"Don't take on more than you can handle," my father concluded, returning to his newspaper. "You're only one person."

The next morning, my mother told me about Sunday dinner with the Boulangers.

"Who are they?" I was suspicious that they were more boring relatives I'd never heard of.

"They're immigrants. A mother and her son from France."

"And they're coming here?"

I often forgot that my own parents had been immigrants only thirty years before.

The Sunday the Boulangers came for dinner, my mother went all out to make it special. I cut up raw vegetables and made my favorite dip with minced onions and sour cream. I spooned the dip into the center of a large dish and placed the vegetables around it in a pinwheel of colors. I set the dining room table with the china and cloth napkins Mom used when we had guests.

They arrived on time. I spotted them on the sidewalk from the window in my bedroom. I'd never seen them before but I knew they were the people Mom had invited. They looked like all the other immigrants I'd seen. Their clothes might be spotless, starched, and ironed but they still looked foreign and old-fashioned. That night, Mom told me that she'd given Mrs. Boulanger several skirts and blouses.

"Why didn't she wear them?" I asked. "Why would she want to look poor?"

"Becca, she _is_ poor. And the clothes she escaped with are the only personal things she has." My mother looked past me, blinking her eyes. She didn't like to be sentimental but sometimes she couldn't help it. "Of course, she's happy to be in Canada, but it's only natural that she misses the good parts of her life in France. Those clothes remind her of that. It takes time."

I still didn't understand why anyone would want to be so plain. I always looked at the dresses other girls wore and pestered my mother to buy one for me. Instead, she'd find a pattern and make it herself. I didn't want a homemade dress. Store-bought was the height of fashion.

I answered the door. I was just beginning to find boys attractive so I immediately noticed Albert. He was the most handsome boy I'd ever seen. He was a foot taller than his mother who seemed stooped under her heavy coat. He had thick, black, curly hair, long enough to cover his ears. Although I hated my curly hair (long straight hair was movie-star glamorous), I liked curly hair on a boy. He was thin, and his wool sweater hung on him as if his arms were clothes hangers. I noticed his pants were bunched together at the waist where his belt cinched them to stay above his hips. He seemed ill at ease.

Mme. Boulanger looked tired with dark circles around her eyes. Her hair was white. I wondered how old she was. Could she only be my mother's age? She wore a plain black dress with a white lace collar.

Coming into the hall, my mother hugged the woman. "Welcome. I'm so glad you came. Helene, I'd like you to meet my husband Michael and our daughter Rebecca." She turned to Dad. "This is Helene Boulanger and her son Albert. Excuse me just a moment," and she hurried back to the kitchen.

Dad busied himself serving wine. Sometimes tongue-tied in social situations, he felt more comfortable as the observer. Mom liked being in the thick of things and could carry any conversation single-handedly. I knew she was itching to know what we were talking about. But she hadn't missed anything yet.

Dad gave Albert and me small glasses for the special occasion. " _À votre santé_ ," he said, raising his glass.

" _À la votre_ ," I said, smiling at the Boulangers. I was excited to have a glass of wine. I passed around the vegetables and dip, and then put the plate on the table next to Albert.

My father did his best to make Mrs. Boulanger feel at home, but he seemed not to know what subjects were safe to talk about. Even though Mom had already told him, he asked where in France they'd come from.

"Lyon," Albert said. At first, he acted like he was reluctant to speak. He was too busy eating the vegetables and dip. "We lived there for two years, but mother only picked up enough French to get by."

Albert translated for his mother, but Mrs. Boulanger seemed distracted looking around the living room as if memorizing everything to tell her friends back in Europe.

"She stayed close to the house." Albert spoke as if apologizing for his mother. "She's only comfortable speaking Yiddish."

Mom spoke Yiddish, but Dad did not. "And before Lyon?" he asked.

When Albert mentioned a town in Czechoslovakia, his mother looked up and spoke rapidly. "My mother says she lived in that town all her life, but we had to leave."

"When the German's invaded?"

"Yes," Albert said.

Dad relaxed once my mother came in to join us.

"I'm sorry our son isn't here," Mom said. "He's practicing with the high school hockey team."

I wondered if that were true. My brother Robert always claimed to have an 'important' practice whenever he wanted to avoid something. "My brother's crazy for hockey," I said. "All he and his friends talk about is hockey. They're undefeated. If you want, he can borrow a pair of skates for you."

Albert looked embarrassed. "I don't know how to..." He used his hands. "...to make the skating."

"Oh, don't worry about that, my brother can teach you. He'd live on skates if he could."

My father coughed. "Rebecca, don't make promises for other people."

"I'm sure we can find some place that provides lessons," my mother said. "That is, if you'd like to learn."

Albert said he would, but seemed hesitant.

My mother began speaking Yiddish to tell Mrs. Boulanger the location of the best places to shop on the Main and St. Urbain Street. This was boring and I rolled my eyes. Albert didn't notice because he was staring at the console with the record player and radio standing in the corner. He quietly asked me if we had any records.

"Yes, of course."

"Do you have the jazz? Something with Lester Young or Clifford Brown?"

I knew nothing about jazz and had never heard of these people. "Dad?" I spoke before I realized I was interrupting his conversation with Mrs. Boulanger.

He turned to me with annoyance, but didn't correct me.

"Excuse me. Do you have any records by–" I looked at Albert for help and he repeated the names.

My father said he didn't. "But there's something with Miles Davis." He resumed his conversation with Albert's mother.

"Do you want to see them?" I asked, surprised to find that Albert had suddenly come to life as if he'd been shipwrecked and had just heard a horn from a ship.

"Please. Yes."

I took out a stack of records from the cabinet. They were heavy 78s. Near the bottom, we found two records with jazz. I opened the album on the rug and we read the liner notes together. I felt his shoulder touching mine.

"Maybe you can play them after dinner," Mom said. "Take Albert upstairs until dinner is served."

Relieved to be away from our parents, we went upstairs to my room. Albert was amazed at the number of books in my bookcase. He scanned the titles on the shelves. I recognized the look in his eyes. My father had that same look whenever he walked by a bookstore downtown.

"They're mostly from the library," I said. "I borrow books every weekend. I'll take you there if you want."

We sat on the floor looking at the books. I moved closer to him so that our shoulders touched again. I wondered if he noticed. "Do you have a library at your school?" I asked.

He didn't know. He'd only recently started attending classes offered at the Baron de Hirsch Institute. Children of immigrants could not attend public schools until their parents started paying the annual school tax. He'd been out of school for over a year. Afraid he couldn't keep up with other students his age, the principal at the Institute had placed him in a lower grade.

"I'm embarrassed in the class with younger students. The desks and chairs are too small. My teacher said she will find a higher desk for me, but there are none available now."

He didn't sound happy at school. I wanted to be his friend and wished he could attend mine.

A dog barked outside. Albert looked up with alarm, his body tense. "I not like dogs," he said. "A German Shepard bited me on the ear a year ago. We were hiding in the barn." He told me he wore his hair long enough to cover the tops of his ears.

"Can I see?"

He hesitated at first and then pushed up his hair to give me a look. His left ear was missing the top where the skin was dark red and shiny. The sight of it made me feel sick. Then he combed the hair back with his fingers.

"Does it hurt?"

"Not now, but when it happened, yes. The blood was everywhere."

His uncle had got word to a member of the underground, a veterinarian, who stitched the wound. "Lucky for me the dog had no rabies."

I thought he was very brave. His ear was like a war wound.

From the bottom of the stairs, Mom called us down to dinner.

Mme. Boulanger and Albert hesitated when they entered the dining room. My mother had outdone herself. Even I was impressed. She had wanted to make it special and from Albert and his mother's reaction, she was successful. My father pulled out a chair for Mme. Boulanger and then one for Mom.

"You sit over here next to me," I said to Albert. I had put us together so we could talk without disturbing our parents.

My father said a prayer and began to serve the food. Mom had made her special recipe for stuffed cabbage. She'd also prepared mashed potatoes with garlic, grilled Brussels sprouts, and squash with brown sugar. There were cinnamon rolls and banana bread, sweet relish and sour pickles. Dad gave Mme. Boulanger a serving of each. The plate was heavy when I passed it to her.

When he served Albert, he placed two cabbage rolls on the plate. He pointed to the bowls of vegetables. "Some of each?"

Albert nodded. He watched Dad's hand go back and forth between each bowl and his plate.

"Everyone start eating, please," my mother said, "Don't let it get cold."

Albert began eating so fast that I almost laughed. His mother touched him on the arm. He stopped, looking guilty, and began eating more slowly.

Mom and Mme. Boulanger continued to talk in Yiddish, with Dad commenting occasionally when Mom brought him up to date. I only picked up a few words here and there about shopping, her apartment, the Institute. Enough to know I wasn't missing much. Albert was too occupied with his dinner to pay any attention. I waited in vain for him to look at me so I could signal to say we'd never get a word in.

Albert's mother ate slowly, taking small bites. She'd put her fork on her plate when she answered my parents' questions. Give her a chance to eat, I wanted to tell my mother. I wondered how long she'd take to finish her meal.

My father turned to Albert. "How are you getting along in class? My wife tells me they have an excellent school at the Institute."

Albert had to finish chewing and swallow before he could speak. I answered for him. "The principal put him with younger students when he should be in a higher grade."

"I'm sure it's only temporary," my father said. "Once the teachers get to know him, they'll sort it out. I'm sure the principal knows what he's doing."

"One of the volunteers is to give me extra help with the mathematics and the English," Albert said, finally able to speak. "He says I'll be prepared in the fall."

"I'm sure you will. The same thing happened to me when I started school in Montreal. By the way, I could use some help at the store on delivery days. Would you be interested?"

"I'd like that."

"Plus you get a discount in the store the days you work."

By this time, my parents and I had finished our meals. Mme. Boulanger had only eaten half of hers. Dad was waiting to offer her more but I could see he wondered if she didn't like the food. Mom looked at me as if I could explain the situation. Mme. Boulanger put her silverware down, leaned forward and quietly asked my mother if she and her son could take the rest of their food home with them.

After her initial surprise, my mother's eyes filled with tears. "Of course you can," she said. "But I've already made up a box of food for you to take home."

Mrs. Boulanger sank back in her chair as if she'd used all her energy to ask the question. Albert began eating again as fast as he had when he'd first sat down. Mrs. Boulanger took a few more bites and put her fork down.

Dessert was two layers of Jell-O – the red and white of the Canadian flag – cooled in a maple leaf mold. The day before, Mom had warned me not to suck it through the gap in my teeth. The Jell-O quivered on the plate. "I hope it doesn't slide apart," she said.

After dinner, Mom asked me to bring down the box on the chair in her bedroom. When I returned, she nodded for me to give it to Albert. "This is for you," she said, hardly able to contain her excitement.

Albert didn't take the box at first. It was as if he'd misunderstood that it was for him. But when I placed it in his lap, he relaxed. He held the box like a child at Christmas who wonders if this is the gift he's asked for. Opening the box, he and his mother gasped. Inside were a pile of shirts and pants, socks and gloves, and a light-weight jacket. His voice was thick and he could barely say, "Thank you." He looked at his mother as if she could express how he felt. His excitement was contagious and we all laughed. I was seeing the real Albert.

"I'm on the look-out for a pair of shoes and a winter coat," my mother said. "Try on the pants and let me see if I need to alter them."

Albert translated for his mother who shook her head, pointing to herself. "I can do," she said, beaming, proud of her English words.

The afternoon ended with my father playing Miles Davis. I could tell Albert wanted to play along with all the instruments. I decided I could learn to like jazz.

Once they left, Mom went back into the dining room. "The next time I have someone in, I'll serve less food. That way, they won't feel out of place. I think they were ashamed to eat so much."

She slumped in the chair and, resting her elbows on the table, she put her head in her hands. She shook her head back and forth answering a question only she heard. Dad and I stood on each side of her and patted her back. She didn't like to show so much emotion. We said nothing.

Five

By the end of the war, all the Jews of Montreal, no matter their background or present circumstances, shared one thing in common: many of those left behind in Europe or those who had served in the armed forces were dead or missing. Long after the war, many Montreal Jews searched fruitlessly for answers.

The Cohens arrived in our neighborhood in the spring of 1945, when I was fifteen. My mother, who knew most of what went on in the neighborhood, told us what she'd learned while collecting clothes. She said the Cohens had lived in Poland before the war. Although they had relatives living in other parts of Canada, they had no family in Montreal.

Like many immigrants, they were helped financially by local Jewish charitable organizations and by neighbors who welcomed them with food and household necessities. Mr. Cohen thanked his neighbors profusely, but he never invited them inside his home. No one ever saw his wife, and Mr. Cohen rarely alluded to their life in Poland during the war.

The neighbors assumed that, like other refugees, the Cohens had suffered terrible hardships and loss. Respecting their privacy, the neighbors stopped dropping by and left them alone. When my father, who had emigrated from Poland after the First World War, met Mr. Cohen in the neighborhood, they conversed in Polish. Even with my Dad, Mr. Cohen never referred to his past. He told my father that his wife was unwell.

I'd seen Mr. Cohen occasionally during the spring on weekends when he passed our house walking his dog, but we never spoke to each other beyond the generic _Bonjour_. I first talked to him during the summer vacation before my sophomore year in high school. On that hot August day, I was reading on the front porch when he walked by with his dog. I put my book down and leaned over the railing.

"What's your dog's name?"

Startled, he looked around, unable to locate who had spoken. I thought he must be hard of hearing. The first thing I noticed was the long-sleeved shirt he wore despite the heat. He was a short man with sparse gray hair, combed flat against his head. The strong sunlight reflected off his eyeglasses, turning the lenses opaque. I waved my hand to attract his attention.

"Oh, there you are!" he said. He spoke with a heavy accent, but his English was perfect. "I was daydreaming and didn't know if I'd heard a real person." His small, tan and white dog sniffed around a bush, pulling at his leash. Despite his size, the dog was strong, and Mr. Cohen leaned backward to keep his balance. "What did you ask?"

"The name of your dog." I descended the porch steps to the sidewalk.

"Burek." He explained that his dog was a Yorkie. "That's short for 'Yorkshire terrier.' Would you like to pat him?"

I hesitated. "Let him smell your hand," he said. Burek smelled my outstretched fingers, then licked them with his scratchy tongue.

"He thinks you might have a treat for him." He handed me a biscuit shaped like a bone. "Give him this."

I held it out and Burek lunged for it, jumping right off the ground. I pulled my hand back thinking he would bite me. But when I looked down, the biscuit was missing and Burek was licking the crumbs off the sidewalk.

"Naughty dog," Mr. Cohen said, pulling back on the leash. "She won't give you another biscuit if you scare her." His eyes fixed on my hand, Burek sat on his haunches, ready to spring, should another biscuit magically appear. "He won't hurt you. He's just overexcited to have a new friend. Especially one with a treat."

I tried to pat Burek on the head but it was hard because he kept leaning back to keep his eyes on my fingers. "I don't have any more dog biscuits, Burek," I said. I turned to Mr. Cohen. "Can I give him a cookie?" I took a cookie out of my pocket and brushed off the lint that had stuck to it.

"Does it have any chocolate in it?"

"A little."

"You'd better not. Chocolate will make him sick."

"Sorry, Burek."

"Thank you for offering, but Burek can wait to eat until he gets home."

Burek snapped at a fly, then turned his attention to the hedge bordering the sidewalk and lifted his hind leg.

Mr. Cohen tugged at his leash. "Come along, Burek. We don't want you killing their bushes."

I returned to the porch and watched them cross the street. I only opened my book after Mr. Cohen and Burek had disappeared around the corner.

That was the beginning of my friendship with Mr. Cohen. I waited on our porch every day with a book, looking up whenever I turned a page to see if he was coming around the corner.

One day, Mr. Cohen asked me what book I was reading. When I said _Darkness at Noon_ , he became very serious. "That's not a book to read on a bright summer day."

"My father finished it last night and gave it to me. He takes me to the library every Saturday. Sometimes I think he's read every book there is."

Mr. Cohen laughed. "That's a lot of books, young lady. What grade are you in?"

"I'll be a sophomore at Strathcona next month."

"What are your favorite subjects?"

"I like reading the most, but second best is history. Last year we learned all about Canada."

"It's important to learn about history, but it's a sad subject. The same things happen over and over." He spoke softly and looked up at the rooftops and trees along the street. "People never learn to live peacefully with one another." He spoke slowly, as if he didn't want to say anything more, but couldn't stop himself. "Someone always wants more than they have and will grab it from others." Then he looked down and smiled. "I taught mathematics at a gymnasium in Warsaw."

I laughed, thinking that was a funny place to hold a class, but he told me it was like my middle school. "It's called a gimnazjum. A very strict school."

"I'm not very good at math. Do you teach it now?"

"Not mathematics, but I help people learn English and French. People who are new to this country need someone to help them."

"But English isn't hard to learn."

Mr. Cohen smiled. "Yes, it is, young lady. English is very difficult."

That was how we began discussing books and history. When he passed my house, I'd run out to walk with him and his dog. One unusually hot day, I asked why his wife didn't walk with us.

Distracted by his dog, he didn't answer right away. He pulled on the leash as Burek clawed the concrete, straining to jump after a butterfly. "She has trouble walking."

For me, being stuck inside a house all summer seemed sad. "Is it too hot outside for her?"

"That's part of it," he said. "Her eyes are sensitive to bright sunlight. She gets headaches."

"Why doesn't she wear sunglasses?"

"She can't see very well with them. She might fall," he added.

I could hear my mother telling me to mind my own business, but I was sure that I could solve the problem and figure out a way to help get her outside.

"What about using a wheelchair?"

He shook the leash to get his dog's attention. "I need all my strength to handle Burek."

"I could walk Burek."

"No." He spoke sharply like my dad when he ran out of patience. "He's too strong for you."

"He's not that–" I stopped, embarrassed that I had made him angry. But I was surprised that he didn't seem to want his wife to come with us. To change the subject, I talked to Burek. I must have sounded foolish, acting as if the dog understood me.

We walked two blocks in silence. While we waited to cross a busy street, Mr. Cohen reached into his back pocket for his handkerchief and mopped his forehead.

"You should wear a cooler shirt," I said. "My dad always wears a short-sleeved shirt under his suit jacket in the summer." I was always so sure that I could solve everyone's problems. "Why do you wear a shirt with long sleeves when it's so hot?"

My question seemed to disturb him. He instinctively pulled his cuffs lower, as if he were a magician preparing for his next trick. He said he caught cold easily, but I didn't believe him. I said nothing more. I'd asked too many questions for one day.

At the next intersection, Mr. Cohen stopped and said he'd walked too long and had to hurry home. He turned down the street instead of swinging by my house as he had always done before. I walked home alone.

Although I waited on the porch the next two days, Mr. Cohen did not come by. The first day, I wondered if something was wrong with Burek. The next day, I convinced myself that he had to stay at home with his wife. Then, I thought he must be sick. Mr. Cohen had never missed a day before and I knew he would pass our house unless he was unable to do so. But I was nagged by the thought that I'd offended him in some way and he'd decided not to walk past our house anymore.

I asked my mother if I could call his house. She had to wait until Mrs. Leclerc finished her call before she got the operator on the line. "The number for Mr. Cohen in Outremont, _s'il vous plait._ " She covered the phone with her hand. "Becca, what's his street?"

"Ste-Laurent Boulevard."

The operator didn't have a listing. Mom said he probably didn't have a phone yet.

I was disappointed. What could I do now? He'd disappeared without warning.

The next morning, before Mom left to canvas her assigned territory for used clothes, I helped her bake several dozen almond cookies called _mandelbrot._ She added chocolate to the batter – her own innovation – believing that any recipe was only a first draft. She placed the cookies on wire racks to cool on the kitchen table. While I washed the dishes, she went upstairs to look for a sport jacket that my brother had outgrown. Robert had started a new job in Ottawa working in the administration of the prime minister.

"Becca, have you seen Robert's gray blazer?" she called from the top of the stairs. "I hope he didn't take it with him. It's much too small."

Other than his closet, I had no idea where it would be. I knew she was asking more from exasperation than any expectation that I'd know where it was.

"I don't have time to search the house. Becca, don't forget to get the money from the box?"

I hung up the dish towel. In the living room, I reached up for the blue tin box on the mantelpiece. My father put his loose change in that box for charity. It was heavier than I expected and I almost dropped it.

Mom came downstairs to the kitchen. "Your brother is the limit. He stuffed the jacket in a box on his closet floor."

I followed her out to the kitchen. She filled the kettle and put it on the stove.

"Hold the jacket while I brush it."

"Who are you giving it to?" I asked, placing the blue box on the kitchen table. Taking the jacket, I held it up by the shoulders.

"Ben Shapiro. His mother said he can't go to a dance unless he has a jacket and they don't have the money to buy one." She brushed the back of the jacket with such force, it was all I could do to hold it.

"I hope I won't have to shorten the sleeves." She turned the jacket around and then attacked the front with her brush.

The kettle began to whistle. Taking the jacket, my mother held it over the steam. "This will remove some of the wrinkles."

Once Mom left on her rounds, I poured a glass of milk. The cookie smell was too mouth-watering to ignore. She made them my favorite way: thin and crunchy, and I ate five cookies before I stopped myself. It was then that I had an idea. I took a pretty dinner plate from the cupboard, arranged eight cookies on it and covered them with waxed paper. I rearranged the remaining cookies on the racks to cover my tracks. I waited on our front porch, hoping Mr. Cohen would pass by with Burek. When he didn't come after an hour, I decided to walk to his house.

No one answered the bell. I shifted from one foot to the other, looking out at the street. It was cool on the porch sheltered from the sun, but the leaves on the trees drooped in the heat. My forehead was damp with sweat. After ringing twice more, I knocked, gently at first and then louder. Surely Mrs. Cohen was home, but what if she couldn't come to the door? I heard Burek barking on the second floor. If Mr. Cohen wasn't walking Burek, why didn't _he_ answer the door?

I should have left the plate and cookies on the doormat, but it was one of the plates Mom used for company. She'd never forgive me if something happened to it. I could have simply turned around and gone home, but I was too curious about the Cohens. Bringing a gift had been the perfect excuse to satisfy it.

I opened the front door; no one locked their doors in those days, even at night. "Mr. Cohen?" My voice echoed in the hallway. "Mrs. Cohen?" If she called down from upstairs, I'd tell her I'd leave the cookies on the kitchen counter. There was no answer.

Burek appeared at the top of the stairs and barked once before recognizing me. His whole body began to wag, expecting me to take him for a walk or give him a treat. He trotted down, his nails clicking on the wooden stairs. I knelt down to pat and kiss him. "No," I said, pushing him away, "you can't have any cookies. They have chocolate in them." I picked up the plate and walked into the kitchen, the dog trotting behind me, convinced I'd relent and give him one. Burek jumped up and down trying to reach the plate on the counter. "No, Burek, go away. These are bad for you."

I was arranging the cookies on one of the Cohen's plates when the dog suddenly pricked up his ears and looked back toward the hall. I had heard nothing. Only then did I consider that perhaps I shouldn't have come into the house. We both listened, but there was no sound. The dog tilted his head to hear better, then suddenly ran out of the kitchen, through the dining room and around the corner. The clicking of his nails on the hall floor stopped. He whined, his tail whacked against the wall. Someone was out of sight at the bottom of the stairs. "Mrs. Cohen? I brought some cookies—"

A woman in a bathrobe came around the corner. I will never forget her look of hatred. She had black rings around her eyes and her white hair was longer than any I'd ever seen. She brandished a baseball bat above her head. I couldn't move, hypnotized by her sunken eyes that stared straight through me.

She swung the baseball bat above her head, babbling in a language I'd never heard before. I didn't need to understand the words to know what she was saying.

She shouted another stream of words that seemed impossible to pronounce. She spat on the floor.

I stepped back, afraid to look away.

Howling, the dog ran in circles around her feet.

She was halfway across the dining room when the dog tripped her. She lunged forward, the baseball bat flying out from her hand. It crashed against the wall. I screamed and ran to the back door.

I pushed open the screen and stumbled onto the back stoop. The sun was blinding. I ran directly into Mr. Cohen coming up the steps. I was so frightened, I didn't realize I'd dropped my mother's plate until I heard it smash on the concrete walkway.

"Rebecca? What are you doing here?" He reached out to prevent me from falling. As he did so, the sleeve of his shirt exposed his left forearm. I noticed a series of dark blue numbers. Without waiting for an answer, he pushed past me. "Go home, please. Go home."

I ran all the way. I must have looked a sight, crying hysterically, dodging around pedestrians. I was still half-blinded by the sun. I was only vaguely aware of a woman grabbing my arm and pulling me against her. I heard a car's brakes and a man shouting. I'm surprised I wasn't hit by a car. I knew I was in real trouble for breaking my mother's best plate. And I was still frightened by the crazy woman. Every time I tried to help, something went wrong. But I also cried because I was tired of hearing about the war, the concentration camps, the bombs, the families who had lost relatives, the people who had lost everything. The war had gone on forever. So long, it was all I'd ever known. And now, for the first time, I understood that the war would never end for some people. It would be part of us for the remainder of our lives. I didn't believe that anything would ever change.

I stopped running and dried my eyes when I turned the corner onto my street. Mom was on the porch shaking a rug when she saw me. She went white as a sheet and hurried down the porch steps. "Becca, what happened? Are you okay?"

Afraid to tell her that I'd gone into the Cohen's house, I said a dog had chased me.

"Did it bite you?" she asked, checking my arms and legs.

I shook my head.

"Whose dog was it?" She wanted to call the police. I said I didn't know, I'd never seen it before. I ran up to my room. I heard her on the phone frantically telling Mrs. Leclerc that she needed her to get off the line. "There's an emergency. I have to call the police."

The afternoon was chaos. The police doctor examined me to make sure the dog hadn't bitten me. My knee was skinned and bloody, but the doctor assured my mother that it was from the pavement and not a dog. A young policeman questioned me about the dog. I was terrified telling a lie, but it was too late to change my story. I made up a description that I prayed would not match any dog in the neighborhood.

Meanwhile, to be safe, neighbors called their children indoors. The street was eerily quiet. Concerned friends came by the house to comfort my mother, who was so agitated she couldn't sit still. Our living room had the atmosphere of a funeral home except for the corpse pacing back and forth, wringing her hands.

It was all over before my father came home. He entered the house expecting the usual quiet evening. My mother became upset all over again. I hoped I gave my father the same description of the dog.

After dinner, while washing the dishes, I heard my father talking to someone in front of the house. I still hadn't told my mother about her plate. He came into the kitchen, looking very solemn, and asked me to come outside with him. He said Mr. Cohen had stopped by. Now I'm in trouble, I thought.

"I'm sorry I went into your house," I said, before he had a chance to speak. I was almost in tears. "I promise I won't do it again."

"You're not to blame," Mr. Cohen said. "It's not your fault."

"Rebecca knows better than to do something like that," my father said.

Mr. Cohen gently put his hand on my shoulder. "You were kind to bring the cookies." He laughed. "I had to fight Burek for them." He apologized for his wife and also for shouting at me on the back steps. He shook my father's hand. "Thank you again for understanding."

"Stay for coffee," my mother said, looking out through the screen door. She acted as if this were a random meeting of neighbors in the dusk of a summer night.

"I shouldn't leave my wife alone. Some other time perhaps. I must get home now." At the end of the walk, he called back to me. "See you tomorrow, Rebecca."

My mother and father sat with me on the porch until the street lamps turned on. Dad explained how surviving the war was not the end of a nightmare and how fear can poison the mind. "Millions of people all over the world will have painful memories for the rest of their lives."

Left unsaid was any reference to my lie about the dog. Perhaps they had forgotten, but I guessed they must have realized I'd learned my lesson and would punish myself more than they ever could.

A week later, my mother chipped one of her best coffee cups. "How stupid of me," she said, heartbroken. "One by one they break." She sighed. "Oh well, if that's the worst thing that happens..."

I said nothing, then or later, relieved, but feeling guilty.

But I didn't see Mr. Cohen the next day, or any day that week. Once I returned to school, I wasn't home when Mr. Cohen walked by with his dog. School activities kept me busy after school and on the weekends I worked in the library.

By chance, I occasionally met him walking Burek and I'd walk along with them. But it wasn't like old times. The war of my childhood had changed all that. I was older now and my eyes were open.

_Thank you for taking the time to read_ _The Blue Dress_. _If you enjoyed the stories, please_

consider telling your friends, promoting them at your book club, or posting a short review.

Word of mouth is an author's best friend and very much appreciated.

_Thank you,_ **Dave Riese**

You are invited to read the first five chapters of _Echo from Mount Royal._

The novel picks up Rebecca's life in 1951 when she is 18 years old and in love.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e6pk2RYiFc>

Praise for Echo from Mount Royal

A great choice for anyone who enjoys smart romances novels. Riese has done his homework on the history of Montreal and weaves it through this steamy romance. – _Meghan Ryanon_

The] narrative has a tone of suspense...There is a complex and poignant quality to the writing style that keeps the story alive long after the book is finished. – [Rhoada) Wald

The author does a terrific job of putting you under the skin of this young woman who has fallen in love...Great book for beach/vacation reading. – Maureen) Barstow

A realistic story of love, hope and the fight to gain acceptance and independence...This book speaks volumes and really touched my heart. – Linda Marie Marsh

It's a love story, a poignant reminder of the fragility of life...[Riese] has written a very moving romantic tragedy...A well-crafted story. – Emily-Jane Hills Orford, Readers' Favorite

A sweeping saga about young Rebecca who finds herself head over heels in love...From the opening pages, I was hooked on her narrative. – _Malka Ahmed, Contemporary-Books.com_

Echo from Mount Royal
Newspaper article in Le Monde de Sainte-Agathe, March 23, 1984

SAINTE-AGATHE-DES-MONTS – Fifty-three passengers and four crew members died when Air Canada Flight 593 crashed on February 7 during a snow storm in the mountains north-west of Montreal. There were no survivors. The cause of the crash is still unknown. Members of Laurentian Mountain Rescue and Recovery (LMRR) temporarily buried the bodies found at the site until major recovery efforts are mounted in late spring. The 'black box' was turned over to the Canadian Transportation Safety Board last night. Identifiable personal effects found in the wreckage will be delivered to family members of the victims.

The leader of the team, Pierre Raquin of Sainte-Agathe, said the recovery effort was delayed by avalanches in the region. When asked about the physical hardships of mountain recovery, Raquin said, " _Sans surprise_ , the greatest difficulty for team members is the emotional toll." Burying bodies and recovering personal belongings, he explained, are stark reminders of the fragility of life. As an example, he spoke about a damaged photograph dated 1952 found at the edge of the debris field. The image is of a young woman standing by a wall on what appears to be Mount Royal in Montreal. " _San nom ou de l'adresse_ ," Raquin said, "so we are unable to return this keepsake to the next of kin."

Do you recognize this woman?

Prologue: Boston, 2014

Before I've finished my morning coffee, I hear the squeal of brakes in the driveway. My 12-year-old grandson. Then a light tap when he leans his bicycle against the house. He knocks on the screen door.

"Morning, Joshua."

He carries the heat of summer into the house, the edge of his hair damp with perspiration. "Pour yourself some juice," I tell him. Sunlight coming through the kitchen window sets his blond hair on fire.

"Ready for your first computer lesson, Bubbe?" he asks, taking the orange juice from the refrigerator.

My daughter has haunted me to buy a computer for almost a year. When I accompanied her to the mall on Saturday, she steered me into an electronics store and signaled to a salesman. "I want to look at a computer for my mother."

Not again, I thought. How many times must I tell her I can't afford one? That's my excuse when 'encouraged' to buy something I don't want. I'm too busy reading a stack of novels to spend time learning about computers.

She smiled at the salesman. "It's for her birthday."

Now what could I say to that?

Joshua gulps down his juice while I rinse my coffee cup in the sink. "What's on the docket today?" I ask, leading the way into the den. He turns on the computer and adjusts the monitor, all business now. Teaching his 81-year-old grandmother is a serious matter. He shows me how to create an email for his sister. He sends it, including a picture of me sitting beside him at the computer. How does he take a picture without a camera? Before I can ask about this mystery, he demonstrates how to 'bring up the Net.' "Hold your horses, Joshua. You're going too fast."

I hear a musical ding coming from the computer.

"Look. Shirley's already replied to us." My granddaughter includes a short message: 'hi C U 2morrow lol.' The grinning red face at the end of the text reminds me of a devil. Maybe this computer stuff isn't so difficult after all.

"Where did you live when you were a teenager?" he asks me.

"I've told you enough stories, Joshua. Montreal."

"Oh, I forgot." He types 'montreal' in a box and clicks on a line. Then, on the monitor I see photos of Montreal – government buildings, stores, and synagogues I'd forgotten about long ago. I haven't been back in over fifty years. "Oh, there's Reitmans!"

Joshua looks up. "Who's Reitman?"

"A women's clothing store. Very expensive. My father once sent me there to buy the most luxurious slip I could find. I thought he wanted it for my mother." Little did I know at the time he'd end up in court.

"Why did he want it?"

"Never mind. I'll tell you later when—look, Eaton's. That's where I shopped." The store reminds me of the day when my friend, Jackie, and I bought satin nightgowns to wear to a wedding. We were so excited to find them. What were we thinking? I sigh. I lost touch with Jackie years ago.

"Joshua, can I send an email to a friend?"

"What's the email address?"

"I don't know if she has one."

"Everyone has email, Bubbe," he says. "What's her name?"

I give him Jacqueline's maiden name. "I don't know if she's married. I hope she still lives in Montreal. Her cousin was a famous Canadian writer. Does that help?"

Joshua types for ten minutes. Google, Facebook, a genealogy website and Canadian census data narrow the choices to three women. I look closely at the small pictures beside their names. This can't be right, I think, they're much too old. Then I remember I'm no longer an 18-year-old girl myself. One of the women has the same birthday as Jackie. "That must be her," I tell Joshua. I dictate while he types.

My dear Jackie

I don't know if you are the Jacqueline who was my friend so long ago in Montreal. Hopefully, you are and will remember me, Rebecca Wiseman, from Hutchinson Street.

Isn't it amazing we're both still alive? First let me apologize for not staying in touch. It's unforgivable. I always thought of you as my soul mate. As you'll remember, my last year in Montreal was difficult. I tried to forget everything that happened before moving to Boston.

My grandson is teaching me about computers. I have 2 children and now 3 grandchildren. Tell me about yourself. So much to tell each other.

Love, Becky

When Joshua clicks 'Send,' I shiver with excitement, but also fear. What if she doesn't reply? Maybe she's never forgiven me.

I sense Joshua is bored. "Are there pictures of Montreal from the 1950s?" I ask.

He types 'photos montreal 1950s.'

"I'll be damned." The word slips out before I can stop it. A series of old photos appear in a slideshow – _a_ vant et après. I recognize parks and streets I knew as a child. Each photo of 1950 Montreal fades to a photo of the same location today. I stare at my grandson with amazement. "Where did you learn all this?"

"It's simple, Bubbe. Everything you want to know is on the web."

I'm transfixed. Some photographs don't spark any memory, but then others startle me with recognition. I'd forgotten how people dressed in those days. The computer is a time machine. Why didn't I know about this? Oh right, my stubbornness.

Joshua wiggles out of his seat. "I'm gonna get a Coke."

I nod, barely listening to him. I could look at these pictures for hours. And then—

The photograph is just another city block, but the sign 'Carpets, Linoleum, Wood Floors' catches my eye. Something familiar about the style of writing, scrolling beneath the name of the store: Gottesman & Sons. I can't breathe. My heart fills my chest until I think it will explode. The present day photo appears. The store is still there! I stumble, trying to stand. My chair snags on the carpet and falls over.

"Bubbe, what's wrong?" Joshua is beside me holding my arm.

My voice is only a hoarse whisper. "I'm tired..." I pull myself together enough to pat his shoulder. "I'm fine. Really. I never realized how the past..."

He helps me into my recliner and brings me a glass of water. I drink it slowly and force myself to smile.

"Are you sure you're okay?" He acts frightened as if I might drop dead.

"Of course. We old folks don't have the get-up-and-go we had as kids." Keep smiling, I warn myself, or your daughter will be over to find out if anything's wrong. "Come back tomorrow and teach me more."

He's reassured and kisses me. Through the window, I watch him ride his bike home to his friends and the rest of a beautiful summer day.

I close my eyes. Memories stampede through my brain. No sooner does one appear then it's gone, and another takes its place. I'm dizzy and feel the recliner lifting off the floor and revolving in space. I grip the armrests—

I hear a musical sound from the den. What's that? I struggle to my feet, disoriented. Then I remember the computer. Is my daughter already worried and emailing me? So that's why she wants me to have a computer.

In the den, I find an email on the computer screen. I click on it the way Joshua showed me. It's from Jackie. I breathe deeply, hardly daring to open it. I can't help thinking it's like speaking with the dead.

Dearest Becky

Oui, c'est moi. It's a miracle to get your email. Just last week I was thinking about the day you helped me with the birthday party for my sister. Where did we find the energy? I'm out the door in a minute. Eva is driving me to the doctor's, but I PROMISE to write more tonight. We must plan a visit. Vous me connaissez, I want to hear all the details.

Love Jackie

PS: Did you read about the plane crash in the mountains up north about thirty years ago? The bastard is dead.

How many of my memories of 1951 are real and how many are only the imaginings of an old woman? How many false memories has my mind created to protect me during all the years of repression? Nothing can protect me from the past now.

## Part One: October – December 1951

One

Of all the events that happened in the months after I met Sol, the first I remember is the day he sent me twenty-five roses. The bouquet was the first gift I received from him – in fact, the first flowers from any man. When Sol didn't call me after the incident in the library, I worried that my angry outburst had given him second thoughts. For three days, I waited in agony for his call. I blamed myself and once again regretted how I often acted without thinking.

Later in our courtship, Sol gave me a brooch once belonging to his maternal grandmother. I loved the ivory brooch, but it was never the thrill of finding roses when I arrived home from my class at the university, when I thought all hope was lost. Roses, unlike jewelry, are living things and, like all living things, are here for a short time and then are gone. I doubt he ever told his mother he'd sent me roses, but she eventually learned he'd given me the brooch. I've never forgotten her words when she saw it.

My mother was at home that afternoon working on a dress for a wealthy client in Westmount. Thinking back, I imagine her kneeling on the floor cutting out a pattern with her large shears, her tongue poking out to the side from between her lips. The doorbell rings. She stands and smoothes her house dress, wondering if it is Mrs. LeClerc, our next door neighbor. Opening the door, she sees a truck with a sign 'Robichard _Fleuristes de Montréal_.'

" _Fleurs pour_ Rebecca...ah,' the delivery man examines the invoice, "Wiseman. _Signer ici_."

Of course, I don't know if the man hesitated, but in my imagination he does. My mind always enhances my memories until sometimes I can't remember what is real and what I make up. I blame this exaggeration on my life-long habit of reading one or two books a week.

My mother tried to act as if nothing unusual had happened. I could see she was excited, but guessed she had a new commission for a dress. "Come," she said and taking my hand, led me into the dining room. I smelled the roses before I saw them. The bouquet filled a deep blue vase in the middle of the table. The late afternoon sunlight, coming through the windows, seemed to illuminate only the roses. The red color of the delicate petals was hypnotic.

"From Dad?" Had I forgotten my parents' anniversary?

She looked at me as if I'd asked a stupid question. "No, they're for you. From Sol."

"Sol Gottesman?"

My mother laughed, clasping her hands under her chin in delight. "Of course. How many Sols do you know who'd send you flowers?"

My hands trembled as I took the card from its place between two roses. I was annoyed I couldn't be calm and sophisticated as if this gift were only to be expected.

Rebecca

A rose for each day of our budding friendship.

Sol

In my confusion, I dropped the card. My doubts about our last date vanished. I couldn't wait to call Jackie. In fact, I wanted to shout the news from our front porch so all Montreal would hear.

"I'm sorry I didn't leave them in the box," I heard my mother say. "I wanted to put them in water as soon as possible."

We stood side-by-side staring at the flowers without speaking. I heard a radio through the open window from the house next door. A CBC news reporter was describing the crowds lining the streets to welcome Princess Elizabeth to Canada. I pretended the people were cheering for me.

"I've never seen roses so perfect," my mother said, shaking her head as if unable to comprehend such extravagance. "The flowers at my wedding weren't as beautiful." Then she turned to practical matters. "Remember to save the petals in a linen bag for your bureau."

I hugged my mother, unable to resist teasing her. "Only you would think of that." She saved everything and still had remnants of material from dresses she'd made years before.

"Why not? You'll remember this day for the rest of your life."

"I'm so happy," I whispered, burying my face against her neck.

"He must like you very much," she said softly. Then pushing me to arm's length, she saw my tears. "Now, none of that. Enjoy them." I nodded, pressing my lips together to stop the trembling. "You're young only once," she said, lifting her apron to pat my cheeks dry. "I hear your father."

"I don't want him to see me like this. Don't show him the flowers until I come down."

Upstairs I washed my face in cold water. I remembered what she had said about the flowers at her wedding. She'd struggled since coming to Canada as a 10-year-old from Safed, a small city in Palestine. With her sister and parents, she travelled in steerage on ships to Marseilles, Lisbon and Cobh, Ireland. Learning that Cobh was the last port of the Titanic that had sunk the year before, she was terrified crossing the Atlantic, waiting for the grinding crunch of an iceberg despite travelling in the August heat. Disembarking in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she swore she'd never board a ship again.

I dried my face and brushed my hair. After taking a deep breath on the landing, I smoothed my skirt and returned downstairs. I kissed my father as he washed his hands at the kitchen sink.

"We're eating in the dining room tonight," my mother said, steering my father, thin and over six feet tall, back toward the living room.

"Go relax in the living room," I said.

"I'd rather stay out here and talk with my girls."

"No, you're tired." Mom was insistent. "Put your feet up and read the paper."

He looked at me with a quizzical expression. "Okay, okay. Don't push me out the front door."

Mom and I took out the good china and cloth napkins and giggled, little girls playing house.

"You're not fooling me," he called from the living room. "You're up to something out there."

Finally, we allowed him into the dining room. He looked suspiciously at his place at the table, checking his chair before sitting down. My mother said a prayer and started serving the soup. My father frowned and looked from one of us to the other. "I give up."

"Michael, you wouldn't see a bear till it bit you. I'm surprised customers aren't shoplifting right and left under your nose." My father was the assistant manager of Woolworth's on Park Avenue.

Passing him a bowl, she caught his eye and tilted her head toward the center of the table.

"What?" he said.

When that didn't work, she pointed to the roses. "Sol sent these roses to Becca. Can't you smell them?"

I half expected my father to ask "Who's this Sol?" He could be absent-minded, especially when Mom wanted him to fix something around the house. "Your new beau, eh?" He whistled.

"He's only a friend," I said.

"Pretty fancy gift for 'a friend.'"

My mother nodded in agreement. "That's what I told her."

"Nothing's too good for my girl."

I pulled a rose from the vase and snapped off the end. I walked around the table and slipped the stem through the button hole of my mother's sweater. I kissed the top of her head. She looked away from us, her voice thick and tight. "Eat your soup now before it gets cold."

My mother wasn't against sentimentality. She just didn't like it in herself, especially when it crept up behind her unexpectedly. A childhood in Palestine and the scarcity of the Depression had honed a sharp edge on her view of life.

I never thought of our family as being poor when growing up. Only later, I realized money was a constant worry. My mother supplemented my father's income with her talent for sewing. She could take a generic dress pattern and transform it into something beautiful and unique. Even becoming overweight in her mid-fifties, she never stopped getting down on her knees to hem a dress or cut out a pattern on the living room floor.

She always looked youthful. Her hair, once reaching halfway down her back, remained a silky black, well into her sixties. One day, without warning, she had it cut short. "I'm tired of combing it out every day." My father was quick to hide his shock and said he liked the new style. Throughout her life, she wore a scarf over her hair, a habit begun in childhood. I was so accustomed to her wearing one that, when I saw her bareheaded, I needed an extra second to recognize her.

Her skin was darker than that of most people, with a clear and smooth complexion. Her eyes were small and piercing; her teeth slightly crooked which discouraged her from smiling. This and her thin lips often gave the impression of disapproval, which was rarely the case.

When she became frustrated by her failure to lose weight, my father reassured her by saying he liked her 'pleasantly plump.' "A man's got to have something to hold on to when he twirls his woman across the dance floor," he'd say, grabbing my mother and swinging her in a circle. She'd tell him to put her down before he hurt his back, but her smile and repressed laughter proved her delight.

My parents rarely argued. When they did, the subject was, usually, one of my father's business ventures. He'd have an idea, like opening the first store to sell television sets. He'd be full of confidence, talking about his plans, but when he hit an obstacle, like failing to raise the necessary capital, he'd soon lose interest. We'd never hear about it again. My father was a dreamer, but my mother, practical and down-to-earth, always fought to make life better for my brother and me.

Before I went to bed that night, I crept back downstairs to look at the roses. The house was dark except for the light from the streetlamp through the living room windows. The pale light revealed no color, no delicacy, only form and structure. Only a fragrance hinted at the fallacy of sight.

Returning upstairs, I met my mother coming from the bathroom. "I'm too excited to sleep," I said. "I had to see the roses again."

"Sol is a wonderful young man who cares about you very much."

"I like him more than anyone I've ever met."

Kissing her goodnight, I returned to bed, relieved she hadn't asked me if I loved him. I knew she wouldn't have done so, but it was a question I had begun to ask myself.

Two

I met Sol at a Young Men's Hebrew Association dance on a Saturday night in early October, 1951. My older brother insisted that he'd introduced us, but I'd had my eye on Sol long before Robert showed up at the dance on his way into Montreal. Later, who-said-what-when didn't matter.

Whoever scheduled the dance for that evening hadn't checked the sports pages. The Montreal Canadiens were playing the Boston Bruins at the Forum – the sold-out second game of the season. One thing you must know about Montreal: we're crazy for hockey. 'Rocket' Richard and 'Boom-Boom' Geoffrion were our heroes.

At the dance, those of us who couldn't get a ticket to the game grouped together to commiserate. Jackie, my best friend, had a fate worse than death: trapped at home babysitting her sister Eva. She'd been desperate to attend the dance. "Where else am I going to meet boys?" she wailed. "My parents never consider my social life." I planned to tell a white lie when I called her the next day to say she hadn't missed a thing. Since grade school, we'd always shared our grievances and secrets. When one of us was sad, the other did the cheering up. We balanced each other, although it seemed like our lives, at times, were lived on a seesaw.

The DJ compensated for the low turnout. Who could stand still when he played _Tennessee Waltz_ by the great Patti Page or _Glory of Love_ by the Five Keys? I couldn't have stopped tapping my feet if my life depended on it. I loved dancing and practiced in my bedroom with my bureau mirror tilted forward so I could watch my feet. I was wearing my felt skirt with poodle appliqués along the hem. I was one of the first girls in high school to have one, my mother making it for me after she saw one in a sewing magazine. I also wore black and white saddle shoes with pink socks, a pink cotton chiffon blouse and a pink ribbon in my curly hair with its poodle cut.

I didn't know many people at the dance and the pickings looked slim. I wasn't keen on dancing with a girlfriend. Some girls who danced together pretended not to care if boys ever asked them. No surprise then when the boys didn't ask. I was relieved when Michel LeClerc waved to me on his way to request a song from the DJ. An excellent dancer, Michel, at six feet, was three inches taller than me and as thin as a stick, but playing hockey made him strong enough to lift and swing me around. The LeClercs lived on the other side of the semi-detached house, and we were more like brother and sister. I guess that was the reason he never asked me to dance when the music was slow. A priest probably told him slow dancing with a sister was sinful. Those days, in Quebec, Catholics still believed everything the priests told them.

Michel asked the DJ to play some boogie-woogie. The minute I heard the Andrews Sisters, I began snapping my fingers and swaying in time to the beat. Michel escorted me to the center of the dance floor. Once we found our rhythm, Michel lifted my arm so I could twirl in a circle and let my poodle skirt flare out. He signaled when he was ready for me to jump so he could lift me above his shoulder. At the end of the song, I skipped toward him, letting him slide me along the floor between his legs. He stepped over me, and turning around, lifted me back up. We earned a round of applause when the music stopped.

The next song was a slow one. "Let's get something to drink," he said, leading me to the refreshment table at the side of the hall. But after a few sips of punch, he said he'd see me later and went over to talk with his friends.

Alone again, I watched the boys standing around, hoping to catch the eye of someone who wanted to dance. Not easy to do when their eyes didn't want to be caught. I knew some of them from our four years at Strathcona Academy. Others I recognized from college, but when I smiled, they merely nodded and looked away. Maybe they were self-conscious after watching Michel. I couldn't blame them. I tried to be tolerant of sloppy dancing, but wasn't always successful in hiding my impatience.

I swayed my hips in time to the music, emulating Rita Hayworth, my favorite movie star. Whenever I saw her at the cinema, I studied the way she walked and then practiced at home. When I showed Jackie, she advised me to tone down my hips because 'You look like a slut-in-training.' I was becoming bored to the point where I'd dance with anyone who could walk straight and not step on my toes. Of course, I hoped a handsome guy would ask me. A good-looker could have two left feet and limp for all I cared.

That's when I saw him standing in a group of men on the other side of the dance floor. He looked older, more mature, like he'd already graduated from college. Even from a distance, his good looks stunned me. I don't remember a thing about the other men.

I couldn't keep my eyes off him, tall with blond hair that appeared almost white in the semi-darkness. Listening to the man next to him, he suddenly laughed, his smile boyishly lopsided. His face gleamed in the revolving lights from the ceiling.

A desire to touch his face was so strong, my fingers tingled and a lethargic numbness crept up my arms. Even if I had the courage to walk over to him, I doubt I could have unstuck my tongue to speak.

At that moment, an eager couple rushing to dance to Mario Lanza singing _Be My Love_ bumped me 'sideways to Sunday,' as my mother would say. Regaining my balance, I turned back to find him looking directly at me. I looked away. Has he been watching me all this time? I felt the exciting queasiness I'd experienced reading _Lady Chatterley's Lover_ last summer. Jackie had found a copy of the banned book hidden under her brother's bed. He had conveniently broken the binding at the sexiest parts.

When I dared to look up, the man was still staring at me. I smiled, but his expression didn't change. Instead, he craned his neck, turning his head from side to side as if searching for someone coming in the door. Don't look over there, I thought. Recognizing someone, he raised his hand. "Dammit!" With my luck, I'd find a beautiful girl waving back. But there was no one, beautiful or otherwise, with her hand in the air.

He spoke to his friends and left them. I had no time to waste if I wanted to reach him. Polite but insistent, I pushed through the crowd. He veered to the left, moving toward the doors of the auditorium. I changed direction so abruptly a man behind me stepped on my shoe. With no time to shuffle my heel back into my shoe, I slid it along with my toes, limping like someone with one leg shorter than the other. Hopeless! I wouldn't reach him in time. He held his hand out – toward another man? They shook hands like long-time friends, clapping each other on the back. When the newcomer turned around, I saw my brother Robert.

Why is he here? I wondered. Years before, when he entered high school, my brother made it clear I was not to bother him when he was with friends. "Don't butt in where you're not wanted."

I complained to my mother but received no sympathy. "It's not appropriate for an eight-year-old girl to hang around high school boys." Dad was no help either.

"Robert? What are you doing here?"

Now it was my brother's turn to be surprised. Before he could speak, I introduced myself. "I'm Rebecca, his sister." The man stepped forward. His hand was thin and delicate but strong and warm. "I'm Sol Gottesman. Pleased to meet you."

He looked into my eyes when he spoke. I noticed his long eyelashes. God, he was handsome. I blushed like I had when a boy picked me up for a high school dance and, with my parents in the hall watching us, fumbled with the corsage. Sol released my hand and stepped back.

"Do you work with my brother in Ottawa?" I asked.

Robert frowned as if asking what I was up to. "Sol works for his father here in Montreal."

I was about to ask what business that was when Sol said, "Your brother and I shared the same residence at McGill." His voice was clear and strong. His blond hair fell across his forehead, and I almost reached up to brush it back with my fingers.

"I'm a freshman at Sir George Williams." I couldn't think of anything else to say. Did he even care?

A darkness under each eye made his pale face look long and narrow. I didn't want him to stop looking at me.

"What curriculum are you taking?" he asked.

"I haven't decided—"

"She's a great one for reading," my brother interrupted. "Carries a book wherever she goes." I shot him a look: Mind your own business. "Always with her nose in a book," he scoffed.

Sol grinned. Was he going to tease me too? "She doesn't have a book now..."

I noticed his teeth, perfectly straight except for a chipped tooth. Ah, Sol isn't perfect after all, I thought, relieved. What other imperfection is he hiding?

"...you're an excellent dancer," he said.

So he'd been watching me after all. I would have asked him to dance if my brother hadn't nudged him with his elbow. "Sol, we'd better be going or we'll be late."

"Robert, will you give me a ride home?" I asked, hoping my brother would say yes. A short ride home with Sol was better than nothing. I imagined maneuvering Sol away from the front seat and into the back with me. No! Change that. In my fantasy, he chooses to sit beside me. Would I have the courage to touch his hand?

"Sorry, Rebecca, no can do. We're meeting some other friends and heading downtown."

"Where are you going?"

My brother laughed. "Aren't you the curious cat."

"I suppose you're going to the Gayety."

Robert pretended shock. "From the mouths of babes," he said and turned toward Sol. "Ready? We need to head out." Then back to me: "You have a ticket for the streetcar, don't you?" When I said nothing and glared at him, he added, "See you tomorrow."

"It was nice to meet you, Rebecca." Sol shook my hand again before turning toward the door.

I heard my brother's voice in my ear: "What are you up to, little sister?"

"Let me come with you—"

"You're too innocent for that kind of show. Besides, Mom would kill me if she found out."

How would she find out? I thought, angry at his dismissal. I followed them outside. Standing at the front door, I watched them leave the parking lot in my father's car.

I returned inside, but all the excitement – and possibilities – of the dance had drained away in Sol's absence. I no longer wanted to dance. I no longer wanted to talk to anyone unless they could tell me more about Sol. But everyone looked dull and plain. How would they ever know someone as exciting as Sol? I imagined I was the unhappiest girl at the dance. I found my coat in the cloakroom.

Taking the Van Horne streetcar home and looking out at the couples walking arm-in-arm on the sidewalk, I decided I _was_ the unhappiest girl in Montreal.

Three

My brother Robert, six years older, was home on vacation from his job in Ottawa, his first visit since Christmas. I was annoyed at the way my parents fussed over him. I wanted to say, "He only works for the prime minister. He's not Louis St. Laurent." Our mother made all his favorite meals. He slept late. No one complained when he clomped up the stairs at odd hours in the early morning. Two nights after he'd arrived, we argued over our father's car. My parents decided it was only fair, with Robert home so seldom, that he should have the car to visit friends. My brother turned to me with a grin. "I guess it's the streetcar for you, little sister." He and my father laughed. "I'm almost as tall as you are," I said, storming up to my room.

My mother yelled from the kitchen. "Who's making that racket?"

"I am," I shouted, slamming my bedroom door. I wasn't angry about the car. Instead, my childhood belief that our parents loved him more always surfaced when he came home.

When I returned from the dance, my parents were already in bed. I brushed my teeth and sat at my desk, trying to finish a chapter in my biology textbook. After reading the same page three times, I finally gave up. I decided a novel would be more successful in distracting me from my disappointing evening. I climbed into bed and finished reading _Washington Square_ by Henry James. The revenge Catherine Sloper took on Morris, her would-be lover, was satisfying. 'You treated me badly,' she tells him. 'You made a great change in my life. Please don't come again.' Good for her, I thought and turned out the light.

I woke when Robert came home. My bedroom door always rattled from the suction when the front door opened. I heard our mother come from her bedroom and quietly speak to him as he climbed the stairs. "You shouldn't wait up," he said, forgetting to whisper. "You need your rest." The sound of a kiss on each cheek. I pictured her hugging him until he pulled away. "I don't need anything to eat. Go back to bed."

My parents' bedroom door closed. A moment later the toilet flushed. Then a hesitant tap on my door, and he slowly pushed it open. The hinges creaked. He blocked the hall light, his shadow thrown against the wall.

"Are you awake?"

"What do you think?" I said. "You'd wake the dead climbing those stairs." I struggled into a sitting position. "Close the door and keep your voice down. You'll have Mom in here." Was he drunk? In the darkness, I couldn't see his face. "What time is it?"

"Only 1:30. When we heard the Canadiens beat the Bruins, we had to celebrate." He closed the door, gripping the doorknob so it wouldn't shut with a loud click. "The Canadiens will win the Stanley Cup this season. You can bet on it. Bouchard will keep them in line."

"Robert, lower the volume or go to bed."

"What do you mean?" After a burlesque show, a hockey celebration and a couple of beers, he didn't realize he was practically shouting. "You made quite an impression, little sister," he said, trying to whisper. "Sol couldn't stop talking about you."

The excitement and desire I'd felt earlier that evening swept over me, but I kept my voice nonchalant. "What did he say?"

"What a great dancer you are."

No, I thought, correcting him. Sol said I was an _excellent_ dancer.

"He can't dance for beans, but he enjoyed watching you. You're not like the other girls he usually meets. All your practicing hasn't gone to waste."

"What else did he say?"

"How pretty you are—"

"I'm not that pretty." My nonchalance was shameless.

"Don't sell yourself short. He said you reminded him a little of Maureen O'Hara. Except with black hair. I don't think so. Do you?"

"Uncle Max once told me I looked like—"

"Uncle Max? I wouldn't go by what he says."

"Don't say anything more, if you're going to be insulting."

"And he thinks you're smart—"

I laughed. "How would he know how smart I am?"

"No, he did. I told him you're a big reader. People who don't read think people who do must be smart. But don't worry," he teased, "I didn't let on you're as dumb as mud."

Was Sol putting on an act for my brother? That didn't make sense. Sol wasn't a high school boy who wanted to show off. "What else did he say?"

"I didn't keep notes, you know. It's embarrassing when someone blabs on and on about your own sister. I didn't think guys could be so mushy. And he wasn't even drunk."

My brother said Sol had always been the quiet one at college and shy around women. Robert had the impression his mother had been strict about whom he played with as a child.

"After meeting his mother I'm not surprised. He's the baby in the family. His brother Ezra is eight years older. They both work for their father. You know Gottesman and Sons."

His words took me by surprise. "The big store downtown? He's one of those Gottesmans?"

"Big bucks, little sister. But you'd never know it. He doesn't act rich."

"He's cheap like you?"

"No. In fact I tell him to stop paying for everything when we're together. People might think we're on a date!" My brother stopped talking.

"And?" I prompted.

He sat on the edge of my bed. "At the bar, he became the Sol I recognized from college. Shy and quiet. Something was on his mind."

I could hardly breathe. My brother had become so serious.

"When I dropped him off, he didn't get out of the car right away. I turned off the engine and waited for him to say something."

I forced myself to remain calm.

"You know what he said?" my brother asked.

I thought I did, but I couldn't trust my voice. I shook my head, pretending I had no idea.

"'Do you think Rebecca would go on a date if I asked her?' That's what he said."

When I remained silent, he spoke quickly, unsure of himself. "You would, right?"

"Yes." My voice croaked.

My brother heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank God. I was afraid you'd be angry. What would I tell him if you said no?"

"The truth?"

"The truth would crush him. Anyway he asked me to feel you out—" Then realizing what he'd said, we both started laughing.

We were no longer whispering. "Quiet," I said pushing down with my hands as if that could lower the volume. With the tension broken, I realized how upside down all this was. Was I threatening to men? Nonsense. How silly was that? Then I had an awful thought: what if I was?

"He said if you agreed, he'd call tomorrow." My brother stood up. The bedsprings squeaked and I felt myself falling back. "I'll never play matchmaker again. It's in your court now, little sister."

As he opened the door, I had one more question. "Who did you see at the Gayety?"

Startled by my question, he said, "Lili St. Cyr. Why? Applying for a job?"

"Promise you'll take me next time?"

"No chance." The light from the hall illuminated the grin on his face. "Ask Sol to take you."

After he left my room I fell back on the mattress, my arms stretched out to either side. My brother could call me 'little sister' all he wanted. I didn't care. I closed my eyes trying to picture Sol at the dance. I was surprised when I couldn't remember exactly what he looked like. What did it matter? I'd see him again soon enough. I tried to imagine falling in love with Sol. Instead feelings of desire overwhelmed me. Burrowing under the covers, I shivered with excitement. I don't remember how long it took me to fall asleep.

Robert returned to Ottawa the next afternoon. Sol telephoned that evening.

Four

The granite steps of the Outremont Public Library were cold in the shadow of the building. I moved into the sun and spread a paper bag over the stone wall before sitting back down. I didn't want a dirty dress on my first date with Sol. The warmth from the stones relaxed me and reduced some of the nervousness I'd felt all day: would what had seemed like an exciting fantasy four nights ago become an unexpected disappointment?

Switching my evening work schedule at the library for an afternoon shift meant skipping Economics, my most boring class. I hadn't told my parents about missing school and, instead of telling them about my date with Sol, I said I was meeting a friend after work. They wouldn't be happy knowing I was on a date with a man I'd met for only five minutes. Living at home didn't mean my life was an open book. But, it was too late to tell them now.

The rose-colored bricks of the library glowed in the setting sun. I looked down the street toward the streetcar stop. No sign of Sol. Although he said we'd eat first, he warned me dinner might be delayed until after the film if he had a last-minute problem at work. To be safe, I'd eaten a late lunch of salad and pommes frites, but I was still hungry. Sol was already fifteen minutes late.

Yesterday I'd splurged on a new dress, despite needing every cent I earned for textbooks and streetcar fare. When I saw the dress, white with red polka dots, on sale at Eaton's, I convinced myself this was a special occasion.

A streetcar from downtown stopped at the corner, but Sol wasn't on it. For an instant, I wondered if he'd forgotten, but immediately pushed the humiliating thought from my mind. After all, he had insisted we meet as soon as possible. When he called, he wanted to go out the next evening. I told him I couldn't until Thursday: too much school work to finish before then. He seemed disappointed.

I took a deep breath, convincing myself to relax. He wouldn't forget. But I must have had a twinge of doubt. I hadn't cut off all the tags on the dress.

When my shift ended, I'd put on the new dress in the bathroom, planning to leave my skirt and blouse on a hanger in the employees' room. I applied cherry red lipstick, eyeliner and a touch of blush and then brushed my hair for five minutes, hoping to straighten the most intractable curls. Finally, I turned sideways to view my profile in the mirror, raised one shoulder and practiced looking sultry. My Uncle Max had once told me I reminded him of a movie star. "Don't let anyone say you're not—"

"Rebecca?"

I jumped up from the wall, startled by his approach from the opposite direction. I brushed off the paper bag stuck to my dress. Sol looked older and more serious than he had under the colored lights in the dance hall, but his good looks were undiminished in the unforgiving glare of the sun. He wore a pale yellow cashmere sweater over a light blue shirt opened at the throat. The creases in his dark wool pants were razor-sharp. He stood with the studied pose of a model in the catalog of a high-end department store. I couldn't help grinning as he leaned forward to shake my hand. I'd noticed a thin band of white skin below his hairline,

"You're laughing at me already, are you?" His gaze did not allow me to look away.

"I only wondered if you always get a haircut before a date."

He frowned at my unexpected observation. "And I wonder if you always wear red Revlon lipstick when meeting a man on the street?"

I blushed, wondering if I'd overdone the Rita Hayworth look. "Only when I think he's handsome." I shrugged, raising my eyebrows. "If I change my mind, I can always wipe it off."

I never expected to feel this comfortable talking with Sol so soon. We began walking toward the Outremont Theatre four blocks away. I held out hope we'd stop for dinner along the way. Looking up at him, I studied his profile – the full lips, a straight nose with a slight downward turn—

Something in the street caught my eye! A black car rolled five or six paces behind us. I instinctively took hold of Sol's arm and walked faster. "You were very mysterious about where we're going tonight."

"I want it to be a surprise."

I looked behind us hoping the car was gone. Instead, it was now even closer. "Sol." I pulled him away from the curb. "A man in a black car is following us."

"I couldn't decide what movie to see."

Sol hadn't heard me. "Let's go into this store," I said, becoming alarmed.

"There's a double bill." He stopped to think. "An American Western and a thriller."

"Sol, listen to me. A man in a car is staring at us!"

Sol grinned like a kid playing a joke. "You noticed. He's our family's chauffeur."

"Your chauffeur? He scared me to death. He looks like a pirate."

"His scar is from a knife fight when he worked on the docks in Barcelona years ago. But Carlos is a sweetheart. He's been with our family for over twenty years."

I was transfixed by the silver hood ornament with the double Rs. "It's a Rolls Royce."

"I hadn't noticed," he teased squeezing my arm.

I clapped my hands in delight. "This is a surprise."

"I thought we might walk together for a while but I see we're attracting attention. Let's get in the car."

He nodded toward the Rolls pulling up beside us. The front door opened but before Carlos was out, Sol waved him back. "I'll take care of this." Sol opened the back door and helped me into the car. The smell of leather seats! The car had a bar with glasses and bottles, tinted glass, a carpet. A vase, hanging beside the rear door, held a miniature rose.

Sol rapped on the glass partition. "We're ready, Carlos."

The buildings on either side of the street slipped off their foundations and slid past us. I couldn't believe we were moving. No sound from the engine, the pedestrians, or the other cars beside us. Utter silence. We floated down the street as if the cracks and holes in the pavement no longer existed. I'd never felt so carefree. Nothing to worry about. Nothing expected of me except to be myself.

"Don't get too used to this," Sol said. "My parents are home entertaining, so Carlos was free."

Riding into downtown Montreal, I was unprepared for the evening's extravagance.

My family was lower middle class although I never thought of us in those terms. My parents emigrated from Europe long before WWII, so we were better off than most of the Jewish families who came to Canada during or just after the war. Many worked in the needle trade around St. Urbain Street. _They_ were poor. Few of my friends, like Jackie, came from wealthy families. Strathcona Academy was the neighborhood melting pot with students of all religions – Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu – except the Catholics who had a high school for themselves. A Catholic boy once told me a nun had said that Strathcona was for non-Christians. I guess that put the Protestants in their place.

As one of the managers at Woolworth's, my father made enough money to buy a car. Nevertheless, we always took the streetcar for family trips into Montreal to visit the botanical gardens or a museum. We never went downtown to a restaurant or the theatre. We ate at restaurants within walking distance and watched movies in the balcony of the Outremont Theatre for fifteen cents.

Carlos stopped the car in front of a restaurant recently opened in the most luxurious hotel in Montreal. When Sol took a blazer from the trunk, the doorman approached to help him put it on. In the lobby, Sol paused in front of a mirror to put on a tie. Looking at my reflection, I realized, even in my new dress, I wasn't as chic as I hoped. And I had used too much lipstick.

Sol explained to the maître'd we were earlier than expected. When he gave his name, the man almost snapped to attention. "Pas de problème, Monsieur Gottesman. La table est réservée pour vous toute la soirée." He gave a small bow. "This way s'il vous plaît."

Walking to our table, I stared at the other diners. Most of the men wore suits; one elderly man was in a tuxedo. The women's jewelry shimmered in the candlelight. I guessed their dresses were from New York or Paris. When the maître'd pulled back a chair for me, I found a bouquet of mums and asters beside my place setting. Sol stood while I was seated. "Permettez-moi," the man said, moving my chair closer to the table. Distracted by the flowers, I almost missed Sol slipping something into the man's hand. I felt sophisticated watching this sleight of hand. " _U_ n menu pour la dame." The menu with a leather cover was so heavy I almost dropped it on my plate. He left a wine list next to Sol.

"Thank you for the flowers. They're lovely. But, Sol, why didn't you tell me? I'm underdressed for this restaurant." I was annoyed. He'd remembered to bring a jacket and tie for himself, but hadn't thought it necessary to tell me, if doing so had even crossed his mind. "I stick out like a sore thumb."

"And a very attractive thumb, I must say." Sol leaned forward. "Your dress looks elegant in the candlelight," he whispered. " _Très jolie_." I knew his flattery was an apology, but the compliment gave me pleasure. And confidence. "Rules can always be suspended with money."

"Like what you gave the man who seated us?" Everything was so new to me, I hadn't stopped to think if my remark was rude.

Sol raised his eyebrows like a teacher surprised at having to explain a simple math problem. "It's a way to say thank you." He shrugged. "Think of it as a down payment on future service."

He picked up his menu and studied it, his lips moving as if sampling each entrée. I tried to concentrate on the menu but kept glancing up, happy just to watch him. He seemed more handsome each time I looked at him. Finally turning my attention to the menu, I realized something was wrong. I frowned and checked the rest of the pages.

Sol peered over his menu. "Is there a problem?"

"Where are the prices?" I asked.

"There aren't any," he said, enjoying my confusion. "A lady's menu never has prices."

"I get to eat for free?" I assumed a breathless innocence. "How thoughtful."

He tapped his chin with the top of his menu. "I can't wait to see what happens when you leave without paying."

We both laughed, looking around to see if we had attracted any attention. I felt like we'd known each other for months.

A waiter in a short red jacket came to the table. " _Bonsoir, madame, monsieur_." Sol ordered the vichyssoise; I chose the Waldorf salad. I'd never heard of it but, with sliced apples, raisins and walnuts, it sounded delicious. I ordered steak au poivre; Sol decided on salmon glazed with a fruit I'd never known existed. "Is it fresh?" he asked the waiter.

"Bien sûr, monsieur." The waiter sounded offended. "All our fish is fresh."

Sol selected the wine: a Chardonnay for me, a Malbec for himself. When the waiter left, Sol looked contrite. "Do you think I insulted him? I'll leave a little extra for him."

"The waiter called me ' _madame_.' He thinks we're married."

"More likely, he thinks we're having an affair and is being _discrète_."

Sol took so long examining and tasting the wine, I began to perspire from the tension. Unperturbed, the wine steward stood motionless until Sol signaled his acceptance. The meal and service were exquisite. Whenever the waiter approached our table, we stopped talking as if to watch a short performance. I felt like I'd sneaked into a theatre without paying.

Sol asked me about school.

"My favorite subject is literature, but I like the lab work in biology."

Sol made a face. "Autopsies on worms and rodents?"

"You're right," I laughed. "Not a tasteful topic for dinner." I wasn't used to being the center of attention. Usually, high school boys talked about sports. Or themselves.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

I was taken by surprise at his off-handed question. Was he only taking me out to dinner because I was Robert's unsophisticated kid sister? If that were true, then everything was ruined. I suppressed a smart aleck comeback: When I grow up, I want to be a rich man's wife.

"What's wrong?" he asked, tilting his head, but showing no real concern.

"I don't know what I want to be. But, for your information, I am grown up."

He frowned as if puzzled by my sharp response. "Oh..." He leaned back in his chair. Then he understood. "Rebecca, forgive me. That sounded terrible. I didn't mean it that way."

"I know you didn't," I said, now embarrassed by my flare-up. "It's only that my brother always treats me like his little sister, and I'm sick of it."

"I'd never do that."

I believed him. His expression wasn't that of a big brother and I felt reassured. He rested his chin on his folded hands and grinned at me, looking impish with his chipped tooth.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked.

"I suppose I shouldn't tell you how cute you look when you're angry."

"Right. You shouldn't."

We ordered crepes for dessert. The chef cooked them at our table. When he struck a match, the dessert burst into flames, and I jumped back. My wine glass rolled off the table, the delicate stem cracking when it hit the floor. Without a break in his ritual, the chef raised his hand and snapped his fingers. One waiter brushed the glass onto a tiny silver shovel; another was already pouring me another glass of wine.

How stupid of me! I always did something awkward to spoil things. I looked down at my dessert, blaming it for my mistake. Sol reached across and lifted my chin. "These accidents happen all the time. A broken glass is the least of their worries. They're happy if we don't steal the silver." When I looked shocked, he nodded, "Believe me, I've seen it."

After dinner, Carlos drove us to Loew's on Sainte Catherine Street. I'd only seen a theatre like this in magazines. Gold trim, mirrors and chandeliers everywhere. Even the ceiling had a painting with cherubs reclining on clouds. Now I knew why they were called palaces. The balcony tickets had different prices depending on where we sat. Sol chose a section called the horseshoe. Armed with a flashlight, a woman in a black dress and white lace collar escorted us to our seats. Sol tipped her. " _Merci, monsieur_." He reached up, pulling the side curtains closed to prevent a patron from looking in.

Before sitting down, Sol pushed his chair against mine. I wondered what he had in mind and if he would be like a high school boy with sweaty hands. I could only hope so. I'd have been happier ignoring the movie and kissing him in the dark.

But Sol didn't do anything. I was so surprised by his passivity I forgot the point of the movie. I didn't care for Westerns. I laughed when it wasn't funny and caught myself yawning during the Indian attack which had everyone else in suspense. Sol sat straight in his chair, his hands on his knees. Enough of this, I decided. I reached over and placed my hand over his. A mere touch and he turned his hand over to hold mine. My brother wasn't kidding when he said Sol was shy. He acted confident and charming in public, but in private he retreated. I'd have to take control, I decided, if this relationship were to make any progress.

In the car, he remained polite and respectful, sitting too far away for a casual touch. When he walked me to my door, he hesitated on the wrought-iron steps to the porch. He seemed distracted and at the front door, reached out to shake my hand. I had a better idea. I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek, but he turned toward the living room window and I kissed him on the ear. Without moving his lips, he said, "Your father's watching us."

"Where?"

"He's looking through the living room curtains—don't turn around." Sol shook my hand and raised his voice. "Thank you for an enjoyable evening."

I watched him get back into the car. I was embarrassed and angry at my father for feeling it necessary to spy on me. I opened the door to reveal my father standing in the hall.

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