Over There

The fearful isolation and shocking upheaval of these last months reminds me of the years before World War Two.

My grandmother was living with us then. She and her friends were concerned about their families in Europe. Jews like us were being kidnapped. I was five, but I found my parents’ friends more interesting than my own. Their sense of alarm was scary as cowboy movies. Mr. Lindbergh said that the Nazis was a Jewish hoax. I did not want to be Jewish. Everything was our fault. It wasn’t much fun being Jewish anyway. Christmas and Easter weren’t something we could believe in. In America it was best to be like everyone else, meaning white and Christian. My father said it was harder to be colored or Chinese or Mexican. We had a big house and many dinner parties. My mother was an artist and pianist, she had no interest in the kitchen. In those days dinners had many “courses.” There was an appetizer, then soup, then meat and vegetables and dessert. Often Jello. Disliked.

Like eating neon.

It took a lot of work. We had seven people running the house, all African-American. They raised us and comforted us when doctors came to give us shots. You had to have a whole row of shots along your arm. What you were allergic to swelled up. I was allergic to chocolate, dogs, horses, and cats (not a problem, we didn’t like them). But there was always someone to talk to, even when our parents went to Palm Springs on weekends.

My room had a window seat looking out over a curved driveway on the hill. Just to the right were three birch trees which I loved. One for me, my sister Joy, and my brother Jeb who had a special flag with his name on the flagpole. He was named after the song. Jeb and I got along especially well because we both had asthma. All the doctors had keys to the house.

From this window, I’d watch my father driving away in the wooden station wagon, my mother sitting close. They’d gaze at each other like movie stars in love. You couldn’t have a better story than someone loving you back just as much. That was my dream, to fall in love. The end.

I watched my parents dance when Hoagy Carmichael came over and played “Stardust” on the piano. It was his big song.

One night when my parents were home, I woke up and saw a fire, not on the hill but in our own driveway. Four men in white hoods had dug in a big white cross there and lit it on fire. I ran to my sister’s room shouting and banged open the door to my parents’ wing of the house. My father was already throwing his robe over his nightshirt. My mother was wrapped in her robe. Donovan, who really ran things in our home, was talking to the police on the phone in the den.

The police took notes. I heard them say that Brentwood did not permit colored residents. My father said, “That will be changed tomorrow.”

“That was the KKK,” my father later explained, “the Klan.”

“Do they crucify people?” Jeb asked. No one answered.

Donovan had his arm around Mable’s shoulder, she was crying. We were all in robes. Ethel made cocoa for everyone except me, but I got tea with honey. After things settled down, Dotty put on a record in her room. She wanted to be a jazz singer. She poured me a little bit of Scotch. “So you’ll sleep this ugly thing out of your mind.”

There was a guard hired from then on to patrol the land around the house and keep us all safe the whole night.

Most evenings my father saw rushes and dailies after dinner in the projection room. He made notes to the film editor. But on some nights he’d sit with screenwriters and reporters, discussing news—meaning what was happening “over there.” There were tough talks about why we shouldn’t go to war, and some guys said Russia was changing. My father reminded them that we are here because our families fled Russia. Their talks were more exciting than watching tennis or polo games, even when I didn’t understand. It was better than sleeping.

They loved President Roosevelt even though all people thought he was too Liberal. But those weren’t my father’s friends. They’d eat deli sandwiches and listen to the late news coming in on the big dark wood radio standing by the table in the den like a severe warden. I never slept well then, wheezing always, and so I’d sneak downstairs and listen. Tonight was serious. My father sat me on his lap and said, “The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor.”

“Not Grandmas friend Pearl”? I said.

“No,” my father whispered.

Then Mr. Roosevelt said, “This day will live in infamy.” The screenwriters nodded to each other. We’d be all right. I heard that voice.

Where is such a voice today?