Paullina Simons - Lone Star

“So your mother tells me you’re wanting to go to some damn fool city in Europe.”

It wasn’t a question. It was just a beginning. And what a beginning! Chloe nodded.

“Why?”

Before Chloe could reply, Moody cut her off. “I don’t care why. Neither do your parents.” Her mother across from her and her father next to her didn’t have time to nod. “The question is, is this a good idea?”

Chloe knew better than to even pretend to answer.

“Your mother and father don’t think so. You plan to go with your friends? That boy you’ve been hanging around with?”

“Mason. Yes. I’ve grown up with them, Moody.”

“Did I ask how long you’ve known them? Did I ask their names? What does any of that matter to me? You could know them five minutes or fifteen years. None of it matters. What matters is they’re boys, and you want them to join you girls in some tomfoolery.”

“Not …”

“Chloe.” Moody raised her hand. “You’ll have plenty of time to speak briefly. Your time has not come yet. Let me ask you this. In broader terms, beyond the few weeks you’re hoping to grab on a beach, have you given any thought to what you want to do with your life?”

Now could she speak? Chloe glanced from her mother to her father. She answered. Yes, she said. She has thought about it. She was thinking of going into law. She was thinking of majoring in history.

“So what I’m hearing is you want to major in history, yet your first inclination is to head to a Barcelona night club?”

Chloe must have looked flummoxed. “It makes me wonder,” her grandmother said in explanation, “how serious you are about your life.”

“Moody, I’m not even eighteen …”

“Do I not know how old you are?” Moody exchanged a glance with Lang. “So to your parents, you declare that you’re almost eighteen, as if you’re so grown up that you can make your own decisions. Yet now you remind us of your insignificant age to excuse why you can’t be serious about the road before you.”

A squirming Chloe kept quiet.

“So which is it? Are you eighteen or are you eighteen?”

Chloe had no answer, except yes. She couldn’t look up.

“I thought so. Look at me, child. That’s better. Your mother tells me you’ve had your heart set on Europe.”

Not Europe, Chloe wanted to bleat. Barcelona. She wasn’t even brave enough to defend her one small dream to her grandmother.

“You can decide to visit any European country,” Moody continued. “There are nearly two dozen to choose from. You have a few precious weeks before college. An opportunity of a lifetime. And you choose—Barcelona?”

Why was this so frightening? Her heart drummed in her chest.

“Yes.”

Moody raised her strong, wrinkled hand. “Still not your turn, child.” Her gaze was unwavering, which was more than Chloe could say for her own. She’d rather look at her mother! What torture this was.

“Your parents tell me that Hannah talks a good game, but has not yet produced enough cash for your Iberian adventure. And the young men, having come into your dream belatedly, are even more broke. Is this true?” Moody stopped Chloe from replying. “I have a proposal for you,” she said. “A proposal I’ve talked over with your parents, and they agree. A way for you to get what you want. That’s why I came. Do you want to hear about it?”

Chloe couldn’t hear anything above the thumping in her chest. A way for her to get what she wanted! was all she heard. What could Moody possibly have in mind? That Lang and Jimmy go with them to Europe to chaperone? That they go to Canada instead, as her dad had suggested? Moody was speaking, but Chloe—bouncing up and down on the trampoline beat of her excited heart—missed the important part, and she knew she had missed it because the three adults around her had fallen silent.

Chloe blinked. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that? I don’t think I heard right.”

Moody sighed. “Riga,” she said impatiently. “ Riga .”

“I don’t know what Riga is.”

“The capital of Latvia. Also, where I was born.”

“Ah.” Chloe nodded, as if acknowledging that she vaguely already knew that.

The three adults waited for Chloe’s reply. Chloe waited for an explanation.

“Honey, so what do you think?” asked Jimmy.

“Of what?”

“Of your grandmother’s plan.”

“I don’t understand. You want us to go”—Chloe struggled—“to Riga?”

“Yes.”

“No! Why?”

“I have family near Riga,” Moody said. “I want you to visit them. I told them a lot about you. You can bring them a letter from me, and a package.”

“You know, Moody, there’s something we have in this country called the United States Postal Service—”

“Not interested. And don’t be fresh. Also, there is an orphanage in a Latvian town called Liepaja. The town has had a painful history with the Communists, and since the fall of the Soviet Union, the young people there have not been doing so well. Many American families sponsor children from Eastern Europe to come live, study, and eventually work in the United States. Your parents have been thinking of sponsoring such a child.”

“Don’t look so shocked, honey,” Jimmy said. “We meant to talk to you about it. We just didn’t get a chance to.” He glared at his mother who ignored him.

“Your parents would like you to visit this orphanage in Liepaja. Maybe you can find them a suitable boy. Age doesn’t matter, but it must be a boy. Older is better. Not too old. Six or seven. The four of you kids can stay with my relatives. It will make them happy and stretch your lodging budget. Riga is a wonderful historic city. You’ll love it. A win-win, if you ask me.”

Chloe shook her head. Lose-lose is what it sounded like. Worse, Moody wasn’t finished. There didn’t seem to be a finality to her words.

“And,” Moody continued, “after you finish helping your parents, I’d like you to do something for me.”

“Other than visit with your family?”

“You have it wrong. They’re doing you a favor, not the other way around. You won’t be forced to stay in places unsuitable for a young lady.” The old woman kneaded her creased and square hands. “A long time ago, before the war, I had a best friend like you and a sweetheart like you. When war broke out in Poland, we knew we were going to get squeezed by the Russians on one side and the Germans on the other. We ran from Riga and hid out in the countryside. Our plan was to get to the Baltic Sea, make our way to one of the Scandinavian countries and board a ship bound for the west. But we didn’t realize how much of the continent Hitler and Stalin already had in their grip. We were in Kaunas, northwest of Vilnius, when we got caught by the Soviets and taken to the Jewish ghetto. We were there two years, until 1941 when the Germans came. We all thought we were lucky we weren’t in Vilnius because there was a massacre there, near Ponary. Everyone died. They put us on a train bound for the Bialystok ghetto. A year later there was an uprising, crushed of course. But by that time, most of the Jews had been taken to a transit camp nearby. Do you know the name of that transit camp, Chloe?”

“Of course not.”

“Treblinka.”

No one spoke for a moment.

“What about you?” the girl asked her grandmother.

“I’m not Jewish,” Moody said. “Though I reckon that meant little to the Germans. What might have meant more is that I made boots for them. Footwear for the German soldier. I was quite good. Perhaps that helped me.” She spoke matter-of-factly, looking only at her gnarled hands that once had made boots for the Wehrmacht. “How little I understood life. I really believed after the war I would find my friends, see them again. I didn’t know then that Treblinka was like pancreatic cancer. No one survives.”