Page 34 of One of Them

“I understand.” And she did. Her father had talked about how Jews in Germany, Austria, and France had all thought of themselves as German, Austrian, and French—they had lived and worked in those places for generations, and fought in past wars.

Overnight they became outcasts. Reviled.

Shunned. Delia had talked about what had happened to her family a few years ago in Paris.

They had been lucky; because they were Americans, they could escape.

The Jews of Europe didn’t have an easy way out.

When they tried to flee, no one wanted them.

Anne remembered what happened to the MS St. Louis because her father had been glued to the radio while the drama played out.

The ship was carrying over nine hundred Jewish refugees and was refused landing in Florida.

Jacob Bishop had put his face in his hands and wept when that was announced.

Anne had never seen him break down like that before; it was a terrible thing to witness.

“Daddy, why are you crying?” she’d said.

“Why?” He looked up and dug for his handkerchief.

“I’ll tell you why. I’m crying for those terrified passengers, gazing at the lights along the coastline.

I’m crying for what it was like when they were turned away—their bitterness, their disappointment.

And I’m crying about what I think will happen to them when they’re sent back. ”

Anne began to sense that this conversation with Drew was heading somewhere unfamiliar and even frightening, somewhere she might not want to go. Or did she? Her heart started to beat more quickly. It was possible she did want to go there. Yes, all at once she realized that she did.

“I guess I’m looking at this with a certain bias.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is that I’m Jewish.” There, she’d said it. The words had weight, like dense stones dropped in a pond.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m Jewish. Jewish parents, Jewish girl.”

“Really? I would never have guessed—not with the last name Bishop. It just hadn’t occurred to me.”

“That was my father’s decision. The law firms where he wanted to work wouldn’t hire him, so he changed his name to get a foot in the door.”

Drew seemed to be studying her now, evaluating her through a new lens. “You don’t exactly look Jewish.”

“What does that mean? That I don’t have dark skin, or curly hair?” Anne bristled, instantly wounded. “Or maybe you mean my nose—that it’s not particularly big, or worse, hooked ...” To her own dismay, she felt tears rising up and threatening to spill.

“Anne, I’m sorry.” Drew looked stricken.

“That came out all wrong. I didn’t mean to be rude.

I would never want to hurt you.” He put his fingertips under her eyes where the tears were pooling.

“Your being Jewish doesn’t change how I see you.

.. or how I feel about you.” He took his hands away.

“But I’m a little surprised that you hid it from me.

It makes me wonder what else you’re hiding.

Don’t you trust me?” They sat in silence for a little while until he said, “Maybe we should go now.”

“We haven’t had dinner.”

“That’s all right. I don’t have much appetite anyway.” He signaled to the waiter and paid for their wine before escorting her out of the restaurant.

Anne was miserable on the walk back to the dorm; she had mistimed her revelation, and now she’d gone and ruined everything.

He thought she was a liar, not trustworthy, not someone he wanted to spend time with anymore.

Or he was anti-Semitic, like those vile girls at Vassar.

And he was leaving soon, so there might not be time to patch things up before he left.

He would forget about her, forget that he’d ever liked her at all.

That thought made her feel terrible—shredded inside—and she had to fix it. Or at least try.

“I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner that I was Jewish.” They were almost at the dorm, but she stopped walking and turned to face him.

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know.” But she did. “Maybe I thought that it might put you off, and I wanted to wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“Wait for you to like me better, so that when it did come out, it wouldn’t matter.”

“I do like you. A lot. I even thought...” He hesitated, and in that taut silence between them, Anne felt the hope floating up inside her.

“Thought what?” she asked softly.

“Thought that I might be falling in love with you.”

In love with her! Was she really hearing this?

And when he pulled her into his arms to kiss her, she knew that she was in love with him.

The kiss was gentle, a question, not a demand, and it lasted for a long time, long enough for Anne to luxuriate in the sensation of their two mouths pressed together.

The kiss completely wiped out that abomination at Yale, and everything surrounding it.

The kiss seemed like a promise, and even a pledge.

Finally he stepped back and smiled. Did he see the stars in her eyes? Hear the whoosh of her heart? But all he said was “You know what? I’m suddenly hungry. Starved, actually. Do you want to get something to eat?”

She laughed; this struck her as funny. Then he started laughing too, and they went hand in hand, still laughing, to a nearby café.

Later that evening she told Nancy about the kiss. “Finally!” said Nancy. “He’s been talking about you for weeks. I told him that he really needed to make a move soon, or some Parisian boy would sweep you off your feet.”

“There’s something else,” Anne said. “Something I told your brother that I should probably tell you too.”

“You look worried,” said Nancy. “Is it something bad?”

“I hope you won’t think so. It’s that I’m Jewish.”

“You are? When we went to Chartres, you seemed so affected by being there. I thought Jewish people didn’t go to church. Or if they did, it didn’t mean anything to them.”

“Who told you that?” Anne was relieved that Nancy didn’t seem angry or judgmental.

But it was frustrating to have to explain or defend her response to one of the most beautiful cathedrals in all of France, if not the world.

And one that Jewish art historians had written about with such sensitivity and insight.

“Well, no one told me,” Nancy said. “I just assumed.” She too looked at Anne as if she were seeing her with fresh eyes. “I don’t know many Jewish people.”

“So,” Anne asked. “Now that you know one, what do you think?”

“I think she’s the same girl I knew and liked before she told me that. Should I think anything else?”

Later, when Anne got undressed and into bed, she realized she was a bit agitated, and not at all sleepy. “Nancy?” she said quietly. “Are you up?”

“Uh-huh.” Nancy shifted in her bed so that she was facing Anne. “Something on your mind?”

“It’s Drew. He’s leaving, you know. He’s going to Palestine.”

“Yes, he told me. But Paris is his home base. They’ll want him to come back soon. I’m sure of it. You’ll see.”

“I suppose.” Anne was not convinced.

“And you can write to each other. It will be very romantic.”

Anne remembered a line in a John Donne poem she’d read in her British poetry class: letters mingle souls.

But she didn’t believe it would be enough, at least not when things were so new between them.

She was quiet again, and closed her eyes as she relived the evening—the revelation of her secret, Drew’s response, and the kiss, the kiss, the kiss.

And then—Palestine, and his imminent departure. She was awake until dawn.

It was only after she’d reluctantly responded to the insistent sound of the alarm clock a scant two hours later and was walking to her morning class that she saw a possibility that hadn’t occurred to her during those fitful, fretful hours.

Drew had said that he was leaving in a couple of weeks.

In a couple of weeks her winter break would start; classes wouldn’t resume until the third week in January.

She and Nancy had talked about taking a trip together, maybe Spain, maybe Italy, but then Nancy had been invited on a ski trip to Switzerland.

“You could come too,” she told Anne. “I’m going with Rosalie Barnes.

Her parents rent a chalet, and there’s plenty of room.

” Rosalie was another exchange student; maybe she went to Radcliffe, or was it Mount Holyoke?

But it didn’t matter, because Anne didn’t ski and had no interest in learning.

What she was interested in, now, was Palestine.

Drew said it was a Jewish homeland, an impassioned, zealous response to the wholesale destruction of Europe’s Jews during the war.

What would such a place look like, feel like?

She wanted to know. Then she thought of Delia.

Of course. Delia’s mother was in Palestine.

Delia had a reason to go to Palestine. So did Drew.

And now she did too. Perhaps she and Delia could go to Palestine together .

As soon as the thought came to her, she understood how necessary this trip would be.

How important, how right. Now she just had to figure out how to make it happen.