Novic Sara - Girl at War

“I think it’s more complicated than that.”

“Of course it is. But if there’s ever a time you get to draw the moral line in the sand, it’s the Holocaust. I mean, his father was in the Wehrmacht.”

“That’s not his fault, what his father did.”

“It’s not. But it still makes things…thorny.”

“Which makes the book good.”

“Or ethically objectionable.”

I kissed him to make him stop talking. “You’re just grumpy because I’ve read a book you haven’t. Don’t worry — you can borrow it when I’m done.” I tried to smile and held my hand out to him.

“Fine, I’m stopping,” he said, and we locked pinkie fingers in what had become our signal for a truce. “But only because I’m starving.”

People’s use of the word starving when they obviously were not had always bothered me, but it was especially irritating at college, where every night was a buffet of excess. I thought of the piles of roast chicken and potato salad and fluorescent yellow corn bread the school was likely serving for Sunday dinner, then throwing away.

In Croatia I had been a normal-size fifth grader. In America I was skinny. When I went for my first physical, I didn’t hit the minimum on the growth charts for weight and height. The doctor instructed Laura to give me nutritional milk shakes twice a day along with my regular meals, so that night after dinner she poured a cup of gritty chocolate liquid and sat me down on a stool at the counter. I told her I wasn’t hungry, but she put on her sternest expression and told me to drink. I saw a flash of my own mother’s impatience in Laura’s irises and drained the whole cup. But when I stood to place the glass in the sink I was alarmed by an unfamiliar bubbling in my stomach. My limbs were heavy and my throat contracted. I was suffocating. I ran out to the back porch and threw up over the railing.

“The doctor said that might happen,” Laura said when I’d calmed down. “You were just full.”

I told her feeling full was awful and I never wanted to do it again. I panicked and threw up every night for the rest of the week.

“Well, if you’re on the brink of death we can just go to the dining hall,” I said to Brian.

“Don’t you be grumpy now.” He squeezed my pinkie finger, a reminder of our pact.

We boarded the train, and he slouched picturesquely beneath the DO NOT LEAN ON DOORS decal, hands in the pockets of his army surplus jacket.

“Hey, I got you something,” he said.

“What for?”

“No reason. Saw it and thought of you. Some vintage store.”

He unfurled his hand to reveal a sun-bleached shell fragment strung on a bronze chain. He dropped the necklace into my palm. “It’s a piece of the moon.” He smiled the mischievous, crooked smile I’d come to love.

“It’s perfect. Thank you.” Fumbling with the clasp, I put the necklace on and tried to draw myself from the depths of my foul mood. We came up from the subway where the remnants of Little Italy converged with Chinatown, and headed to my uncle’s restaurant.

Uncle Junior had been called Junior for so long that Jack could not remember what the name of the “original” had been. Even uncle was an approximation of things; he was probably more like a great-uncle or second cousin. With his parents gone, no one wanted to admit to him that we couldn’t remember his name, so we never asked.

The restaurant was called Misty’s after his dead dog, a name everyone in the family did remember because of the time Misty took a shit under the table during Thanksgiving dinner. Inside Misty’s was dim and warm, and the hostess recognized me and let me have my pick from the row of green leather booths along the wall. Junior appeared shortly thereafter in pinstripes, a red carnation pinned at his breast pocket.

“Hello, beautiful,” he said, kissing my forehead. “And who is your gentleman caller here?” I introduced them and Junior planted a wet kiss on his cheek while Brian tried not to look surprised. “Welcome to my place,” Junior said, and poured us red wine from a carafe. “The seppia ’s fresh tonight. You want that?”

“Sounds great,” I said. Brian ordered pasta and Junior yelled something in bastardized Italian back through the kitchen doors, then pulled a Yankees cap from behind the bar and went outside for a smoke.

“So that’s the infamous uncle,” Brian said. “How have you never brought me here?”

I hadn’t wanted Brian to meet Junior; I had been keeping him away from all my family, afraid of what they might let slip about my past. But now I was half-hoping Junior would say something that would force me to tell the truth.

“I didn’t want to scare you off.”

“I didn’t realize you were that Italian.”

“I’m not,” I said. Then, when he looked confused, “I mean, he’s kind of exceptional.”

Brian made some Godfatheresque gestures and laughed, then kissed my hand.

“Watch where you put those lips,” someone whooped from the corner booth, where a group of men were hunched over their tumblers playing cards. Brian gave them a sheepish smile and dropped my hand.

“I don’t know them,” I whispered.

The group laughed. Junior poked his head back in the door. “That sounded too happy. You up to no good?”

“No, Jun,” was the collective response, morose, like a pack of schoolboys in trouble.

“They bothering you, Ana?”

“We’re fine,” I said.

“Yeah, well, just knock it off in there or I’ll make you pay for the drinks this time.” The men returned their focus to the card game.

“You know,” said Brian. “Maybe next time you take off to go home you could invite me.”

“Why? I’ve told you how awful Gardenville is.”

“I don’t care about Gardenville. I’d just like to go with you. Maybe meet your family or something? You met mine last fall.”

“I know, but—”

“Why don’t you want me to meet them, Ana?” His use of my name made me feel like a child.

“Why do you want to meet them so badly?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” He was rubbing his temple the way he did when he was frustrated. He sighed, then grabbed at my hand again across the table. “Just — I don’t want to fight. I’m graduating in two months. I need to start applying for jobs. Decide if I’m going to stay in the city. I was thinking, maybe, you might want to move in with me.”

Something was happening to my face, a tingling at my cheeks, and I couldn’t tell if I was blushing or going pale.

“We could find a place, a studio or maybe a loft, probably in Brooklyn, but we could look for something close to the train so it’d be easy for you to get to class—”

We had talked about living together obliquely before, but not like this. Not with a real plan.

“Brian—”

“You don’t have to make a decision right away. But I wanted to bring it up before your housing deposit is due—”

“Brian,” I said. He looked startled. “I just—”

“You don’t want to live with me?”

“It’s not that. I have to tell you something.”

My throat was dry. I slipped my hand out from under his, took a gulp of water, and tried to think rationally. Once, another time when I’d almost told him, I’d brought up the war, just to see if he’d heard of it. He had, of course, had even read a book about it, some journalist interviewing Bosnians in concentration camps. He knew what a bloody and complicated thing it had been. Surely he would understand why I’d kept it from him. Plus, he was my best friend; more than that, we were in love.

“Look, on Friday when I left your room I didn’t go straight to Pennsylvania.”

Now it was his turn to pale. It occurred to me that he probably thought I was cheating on him.