Other side, p.4
Other Side, page 4
I plant myself against the wall to let a cheery nurse and her sobbing patient pass, the cries getting louder, not quieter, as they roll away. The horrific sound makes me shiver. When they’re gone, I peek into Opa’s room: a nurse is replacing his bag of morphine that’s supposed to take away the pain. The pain of dying.
While I wait for the nurse to finish, I dig through my knapsack and grab the envelope the kids at school gave me, open it, and pull out their letter. It’s typed up, with the date and school address, even a signature line with everyone’s signatures at the bottom. Ryder. He obviously insisted on making the letter look like a letter.
Dear Mr. Reimold,
We hope you’re feeling well. We’re happy you thought Kane’s card was funny. Liam thought it would be okay to ask you some questions about World War Two. We hope you don’t mind answering.
Why did you fight in the war? Didn’t you know you were going to lose? Why would you fight for Hitler? He was such a bad man. How old were you? Didn’t Germany learn anything after World War One?
What’s it like fighting in a war? Was the food good? Where did you sleep? Did you feel good for protecting your country?
Did you get shot? Was it painful? Were you scared to die? Did you kill anyone? Were you sorry? How many people do you know who died? Would you do it again?
If you loved and fought for Germany, why are you in Canada? How did you get here? Were Canadians nice to you when they found out you’re German? Did you ever go back to visit?
Thank you.
Class 7B.
So much for a question or two. It’s like everyone asked one question and smooshed them all into one letter. Like they don’t think Opa will last long enough for a second letter, or maybe a second answer. The nurse comes out of the room and I head in. I’ll let Dad read the letter to Opa the next time he’s here.
Opa’s two roommates are asleep in their beds, one snoring like a foghorn, the other making this weird gargling noise, but Opa is wide awake and sitting up in bed. He’s been here for over a month already. The sun streams through the window onto his face, making him look a little healthier, if you can look healthier when you’re dying. The window faces over this garden that’s supposed to make people feel better. I suppose if Opa could stand up to see the garden, it might.
“Your mother let you come? I always liked her. A good person,” Opa says.
It’s lunchtime. I should be at school, but Mom and Dad did the consultation thing and said I could leave mid-day to watch Germany’s World Cup game with Opa. He’s the biggest soccer fan I know.
“She even drove me.” I turn on the television, drowning out the hum of the overhead lighting. Flick. Flick. Flick . . . The hospital’s got more channels than we have at home. Like patients have nothing better to do than watch TV all day. I guess they don’t. They’re all just waiting to die. They might as well catch up on all the crap shows. I finally find the game. The whistle blows. Germany versus Portugal. I hunker down in a chair and prop my feet on the corner of Opa’s bed.
“We need to talk about Calynn.” He says her name like he knows her. God, he knows her. Knew her. Dad shouldn’t have told Opa; he’s got enough problems.
“Opa, I’m fine.”
“Yes, the screaming in school proves that.”
Sarcasm. I stare at the television waiting for something, anything to happen to distract Opa from his mission to talk about Calynn.
“Death is hardest for the living, mein Prinz, but we must be brave; we must go on living.” He’s watching me, but I don’t turn to make eye contact, just rub my hands together to warm away the chills. “Do you know Irving ‘Toots’ Meretsky?” he asks.
I have no idea what this Meretsky guy has to do with Calynn, but if it makes Opa stop talking about her, then fine. “No, was he a soccer player?”
“A basketball player. He was the only Canadian athlete at the 1936 Olympic Games who was Jewish, a very brave young man. My father and I were at the opening ceremonies in a stadium much like that one.” He juts his chin toward the TV.
I’m so lost in this conversation. “So you saw this Toots Meretsky? That’s cool.” I glance at Opa. His fluffy white hair has the same bald pattern as Dad. His fluffy white eyebrows are close together as he stares at the tv, like he’s trying to find someone he knows in the stadium all the way in Brazil.
“Nein.” His eyes get squintier, his nose crinkles, his head lifts off the pillow to get as close a view as possible. “I saw Hitler.”
Oh. Oh God. Oh God, oh God. This is worse than talking about Calynn. As a kid with a German father and a Jewish mother, there are things we don’t bring up. Did Dad know this is why Opa wanted to spend time with me? Did Mom?
“Opa, we really don’t need to talk about the war. Mom said it’s hard for people—”
“It’s been almost seventy years I haven’t talked about it. If I don’t talk about the past now, how are you going to change the future? If I don’t talk about it now, right now . . . ” he pauses, like he wants me to fill in the rest. “Then when?”
Opa coughs and I hand him a glass of water from his side table. He chugs it back with a bit of a shaky hand, some of it dribbling down his chin and onto his hospital gown. I open the side-table drawer to look for tissue. It’s filled with Popsicle sticks and mini containers of jam and margarine and peanut butter. What in the world is he saving them for? I check the second drawer. It’s got a small container of paint and a paintbrush. Okaaaay. I hand him a piece of paper towel and drop in the school glue.
“There were a hundred thousand people in the stadium, and when Hitler announced the games were open, almost everyone saluted.” Opa speaks slowly, like when he used to read us picture books. Or maybe like he’s watching it all happen again in his head. “I can only imagine what Herr Meretsky thought—felt—at that moment.”
“Did you salute?” I let slip. Why did I ask that? Who wants to know if their grandfather saluted Hitler?
“Mensch, no. Do you think your parents would have married if I had any respect for Hitler?”
My parents told me they got a lot of strange looks when they started dating after meeting at work, even stranger looks when they got engaged. Like no one could believe it, even though the war was a thousand years ago. My dad makes a joke out of it; he says the German–Jewish thing is easier to deal with than the Toronto–Montreal thing. He’s probably right. I’ve gone to soccer games in Toronto and Montreal with them. That’s all-out war.
A thunderous roar takes over the room and, though it’s freakishly noisy in here between Mr. Snorer and Mr. Gargler and my heart pounding from this Hitler talk, the roar is definitely coming from the TV. On the replay, I catch Thomas Müller scoring off a penalty kick, bottom left-hand corner of the net, putting Germany in the lead! I high-five my nonexistent teammates.
Opa smiles but isn’t distracted from his mission, whatever that is. “The war had not yet begun, but Germany was still very dangerous. Hitler cleaned up Berlin for the Olympics, took down the ‘Jews Not Welcome’ signs, told his thugs to stop the attacks during the Games. But if anyone even inquired about the Jewish people, they would be sent to talk with the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police. The Olympics visitors, they would then be closely watched. The rest of us … anyone who fell into Gestapo custody disappeared forever.”
Mr. Snorer, in the bed across from Opa, wakes up and turns on his tv to some movie with a lot of explosions, which is even louder than his snoring and my heart-pounding.
“Herr Meretsky left the athletes village and headed into the city. And he did so alone. My father saw him, watched him knock on certain doors. Those doors opened only so much that a letter could pass through. And that’s exactly what Herr Meretsky was doing. He was delivering letters from Jewish families in his hometown who were worried about their families in Berlin. Very brave.” Opa takes another shaky sip of water. “Herr Meretsky was doing a favor and wound up in a dangerous situation. Fortunately, it had a happy ending, including a silver medal in basketball.”
I sit on my hands to keep them from shaking. I wonder what I would have done. Would I have even gone to the Olympics, to a country that hated me just because I was Jewish, just so I could hopefully win a medal? And if I did go, would I risk letting people know who I was, to help people from home, maybe even disappear?
“Why was your father watching him?” I ask quietly. I need to ask questions, even if I don’t want to hear the answers. Because if not now, then when? “What was he doing following a Jewish athlete? How did he even know?”
“He was a very inquisitive man,” Opa says, eyes on the TV.
“So, he wasn’t, like, Gestapo or anything, on orders to watch Mr. Meretsky?” Why did I ask that? I really don’t want to know if my great-grandfather was in the Gestapo. Who would want to know that?
“Nein, mein Prinz, nein.” Opa turns his head toward me and smiles his big Opa smile. “My father was religious in his tolerant ways. But that was dangerous, too.” The smile disappears. Opa closes his eyes. He’s so quiet I think maybe he’s . . . Oh God. Oh God. I lean over the bed and bring my ear to his face. I feel and hear breathing. Coming. Going. Coming. Going. I sit back down. A tear falls from his right eye and rolls onto his pillow.
“When I was eleven years old, my father was a schoolteacher, and he was teaching our class about adjectives.” Opa stares at the television screen again. The cheering is loud, but Opa’s quiet voice cuts right through it. “We had to stand up and give an example. Klaus said, Oranges are juicy. Karl said, My brother is mean. Herman said, The English are cowardly. My father, he told Herman that the English were not cowardly, that they were just as brave and worried and upset about the war as everyone else. But he also told Herman that he understood adjectives well and to sit down. Herman was very embarrassed, and he told his father.”
My skin goes clammy, giving me goosebumps. I didn’t know Opa’s father was a schoolteacher. I don’t know anything about him. I get the feeling I don’t want to know any more. I glance at Opa. He’s still looking at the screen. Squinting again. Searching. For Hitler? For words? I look at the television, too, but I’m blind to what’s happening.
Opa takes a deep breath. “Herman’s father was in the Gestapo,” he says in a slither-whisper, pulling his blanket up to his neck. Oh God. Oh God, oh God.
I walk over to the window and lean my forehead against the pane. The sun streams through the glass, warming me up. The garden below has all sorts of flowers I can’t name, massive trees, walking paths, even a small waterfall. I imagine birds are chirping and bees are buzzing out there, but I can’t hear them over the noise in the hospital room, over the thoughts in my head.
“What happened to your father?” I say, so quietly I can hardly hear myself. I turn to look at Opa, his now-wide eyes catching, holding mine.
“He disappeared forever.”
The final whistle of the soccer game blows. We turn to look at the screen. Four-nothing for Germany. We saw only one goal. On replay.
“Sometimes we only know what is dangerous when it is too late,” Opa says in a drowsy whisper. “I wish George and Calynn didn’t visit. I wish I didn’t ask George to go to the garage.”
The garage? The garage is nowhere near the lake. And who’s George?
“Opa, why did she go—”
A soft snore fills the air. I close my eyes and sigh. The most important detail about Calynn, and Opa falls asleep. I’m not going to wake him up, though. Not after that story. He needs his rest. I kiss Opa on the forehead, cross the room in large steps, and slip into the hallway. Calynn, Toots Meretsky, my great-grandfather. All in dangerous situations. Two lost their lives. Meretsky, the one who knew the risks, knew he was stepping into danger, survived. But Calynn’s situation shouldn’t have been dangerous. She shouldn’t have even been there. What favor was this George supposed to do and why did Calynn do it instead?
“Hey, champ.” Opa’s doctor finds me breathing hard against a wall. He’s got huge eyes, tall puffy hair, and suntanned skin. He looks more like a surfer than a doctor. “Not much into hospitals, are you?” That’s supposed to be a joke. Supposed to be. Pancreatic cancer isn’t funny.
“Is my grandfather going to make it?”
He looks into Opa’s room.
“Is my grandfather going to make it till the end of the World Cup?” I figured Doctor Burakgazi would avert his eyes or tell me to talk to my parents. He doesn’t.
“You understand what pancreatic cancer is?”
“A death sentence.”
“At this stage, pretty much.” He smiles sadly. Like he’s happy I understand, but also unhappy I understand. “But there’s a good chance he’ll make it to the end of the World Cup.”
“What about my birthday?”
“When’s your birthday?”
“September 1.”
“We can hope.” He puts his hand on my shoulder, then moves to the next room.
I look at Opa through the open door.
Hope.
I don’t have much.
Chapter 8
Tuesday, June 17 – Toronto
Alessia is sitting on my porch again when I get home from not-talking to the therapist. I’m fine. This time she’s reading Elijah of Buxton, also not for school. She’s so focused on whatever it’s about she doesn’t notice me. I tap her side with my foot.
“Ow! What did you do that for?” she asks, rubbing the spot I hardly touched.
“Seemed like the right thing to do.” I smile and sit next to her. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to tell you about my investigation.” She bookmarks her page and picks up a small notebook, one of those flip ones like you see TV cops use.
“Why are you doing this?” Everyone wants me to stop thinking about Calynn. Alessia keeps bringing her up.
“Seriously? One, it’s boring in the County when you and Elvy aren’t there, and this gives me something cool to do.” My parents have skipped the last few weekends in the County, said they were too busy to go. Dad is never too busy to go. It’s practically law that we go every weekend. Went every weekend—until Opa moved to the Veterans Centre. The weekend I found Calynn was the first time we’d gone up since. They think I’ll have some sort of freak-out if I’m there. I won’t. I’m fine.
“And two, I don’t like seeing you sad.”
“I’m not sad.”
“Upset.”
“I’m fine,” I mutter.
“Yeah, for sure,” she says straight, not a bit of sarcasm in her voice. “But if we figure out what happened to Calynn, you’ll be even more fine.”
Maybe Opa will be more fine. He’s sick and dying and shouldn’t be thinking Calynn’s death is his fault because he asked for some sort of favor. How can it be his fault? He’s more than two hours away from home and can’t even get out of bed by himself. And besides, he asked this George guy for a favor, not Calynn. According to Mom, George is an old friend of Opa’s from the County—and Calynn’s grandfather.
Calynn must have overheard the favor when they were both visiting and decided to do it herself. Or together? But she was at the lake, not the garage. What could Opa want in the garage? I close my eyes to picture the inside but only see Calynn. I gulp some air and bite my bottom lip, feel a hand on my arm.
“I’m fine,” I say again.
“I know.” She flips through her notebook. “Anyway, I went to your grandfather’s house. I wanted to tell you yesterday, but you left school early.”
“So what did you find?” I ask, grabbing her notebook. If I can’t go, Alessia might as well. She gently removes it from my hands and gives me a new laminated newspaper article instead. Why do I feel like a kid who just got in trouble for playing with their mom’s precious new phone? The kids across the street climb their plastic jungle gym and slide down the red slide that’s no longer than my leg, shrieking and giggling the whole way.
Elvy shows up with two glasses of water. She hands one to Alessia, looks at me like she’s considering whether she should hand the other one over, then sits down on the step and starts sipping.
“I kayaked over to see the cliff, check if anything looks messed up.” Alessia turns back to her first page of notes. “You have, like, a dozen soccer balls stuck up there.”
So many soccer balls have gone over the cliff, some managing to skirt the sideways-growing trees and dribble all the way down the rock face, hitting just the right marks to land on the beach. Goal! But others are stuck behind fallen trunks or between rocks and will stay there for all eternity because we’re not allowed to climb the cliff—erosion and all that. A graveyard of soccer balls.
“What did you find about Calynn?” I ask. Elvy moves off the porch and goes to work on handstands.
“Right, so I beached the kayak and walked along the shore to work the scene.” She flips a page and waits until the kids stop their supersonic squealing to talk. “Then I checked out the broken step.”
“So, you could just walk around? No police tape or any of that stuff they use to secure a scene?” Sherlock and all the other detective shows have me sounding like a cop, but TV cops react to a dead body all wrong. There’s nothing cool about finding a dead body. It’s gut-wrenching, stomach-turning awfulness.
“None of that stuff. And the whole last set of stairs, with the broken step, has been replaced. I walked up, looked for traces of fabric, shoe prints, drag marks, vomit, feces . . . ”
“Ew!” Elvy and I say at the same time.
“It’s basic physical evidence. I read that perps always leave traces of themselves at the scene of a crime.”
“And you think a possible perp—even though the cops said it was an accident—would take the time to take a dump?” I say this more like a statement than a question. Elvy does flip after flip after flip.
