Mrs. F. makes clucking noises of disapproval when I tell her that Helga has gone on a pre-breakfast hike. “Oh dear,” she says. “It’s all that marching around, first in Germany and then in England.”
My mind flashes on the uniform-like wardrobe in Helga’s half of the closet.
“You mean she was in some sort of army over there?” I inquire.
Mrs. F. nods. “In a sense. In Germany, before they found out she was half-Jewish, she was in one of those children’s fitness clubs that later became part of the Hitler Youth. Then, of course, they threw her out. She was only nine. In England, she belonged to a youth group that was connected with the military. Long marches to build up the body. The child eats practically nothing, as you saw last night. I’m worried about her.”
Helga’s aunt sits down on the side of my bed. “So, tell me, are you two getting along all right? I hope you’ll turn out to be good friends, even if there’s a small age difference. Oh, and what I came to tell Helga this morning is that we’ll be going into the village after breakfast to pick out some pretty summer clothes for her. Maybe you’d like to come along, Isabel? I’m sure you could help us find a few stylish outfits for Helga now that she’s going to be living in America.”
Helga, Helga, it’s all about Helga. But, of course, I agree to go along on the shopping trip. What else is there for me to do? I know I’ve been mean and grumpy and unkind in my secret thoughts. Helga has had a hard time, surely. That picture of the mother and father and the three little girls. Where are they now? Was Helga one of them, and was she the only one who escaped the Nazis?
I’ll try, honestly I’ll try, to put myself in her shoes.
“So where’s our pretty young lady this morning?” Harry the waiter wants to know as he flashes his way around the breakfast table with bowls of steaming farina and creamy-looking scrambled eggs. The table is loaded with fruit juices, grapefruit halves, toast, butter, jam, coffee, as well as cottage cheese, herring, and sour cream.
Helga has not returned from her morning walk yet. Twice I’ve been sent back to the annex to look for her and once Mrs. F. has gone herself.
“She doesn’t know the countryside around here,” Mrs. F. laments.
Mr. F., Helga’s father’s brother, pats his wife’s hand. “Countryside is countryside. What’s the difference whether it’s over there or over here? The kid is an experienced hiker.”
Everyone at the table keeps reassuring everyone else that Helga is fine and will be back at Moskin’s any minute. But nobody is really convinced. “You should have gone with her this morning, Isabel,” my mother remarks. “Her first time in a new place.”
I throw an exasperated look in my mother’s direction. I could like Helga a lot more if I wasn’t constantly being reminded of something I should have done for her that I haven’t. “No, no,” Mr. and Mrs. F. break in, “it wasn’t Isabel’s responsibility.”
Breakfast ends, and people stand around in a tight little knot trying to decide what to do and where to look for Helga. Some of the male guests volunteer to drive up and down the roads that snake in various directions leading away from Moskin’s. Others offer to comb the countryside around the lake. Someone else suggests alerting the police in the nearby village of Harper’s Falls.
Ruthie joins me, and we go off to the annex to act as sentinels in case Helga turns up and heads directly for her room. “Such a fuss,” I remark disgustedly, as we actually go inside for another look around and then settle down on the steps of the porch. “I could be missing for three days and nobody would notice.”
“You know that’s not true,” Ruthie says. “And Helga’s been gone for close to three hours. Are you sure she was okay when she left?”
“Of course she was. You’ve got to get used to the fact that she’s one of those outdoorsy types from Europe. When she says a ‘morning walk’ she probably means a ten-mile hike. I don’t see why everyone is so worried. What could possibly happen to her?”
Ruthie glances at me sharply. “I never saw you in such a mean mood as this summer, Izzie. Anything could happen. Everything could happen. She could fall into a ditch and break a leg, she could start across a cow pasture and be charged by a bull, she could meet up with one of the inmates from the home for the feebleminded over in Boonetown and be...”
“Be what?”
“Well...attacked.”
“You mean raped, don’t you?”
“Not necessarily. Just, well you know, scared to death.”
“I can’t believe they’d let those people roam all over the place unless they were sure they were harmless.”
“Well, that’s what I mean. They could be harmless but Helga wouldn’t know that. They drool a lot and they hold on really tight when they grab you...”
My hands go flying to my forehead. This is beginning to sound serious. I can already see Helga screaming with pain in a ditch beside the road where no one can see her or hear her, or clutching her stomach which has been gored bloody by a mad bull, or wrestling with some slimy-mouthed retard in a lonely clearing deep in the woods. How could I be so lacking in imagination, so completely blind to the terrible possibilities lurking in this new world to which Helga has come from so far away to be safe.
In the midst of all my mental turmoil, Ruthie is suddenly nudging me urgently. “Look, look. Is that him?”
I take my hands away from my forehead and follow her pointing finger. There, just at the corner of the annex, walking with a comfortable swagger in his dazzling sailors’ whites in our direction, is none other than Roy. And beside him, trotting along rather slowly and with a bandaged left leg, is Helga.
Other people have also witnessed their approach. “Oh my goodness, it’s our Helga,” Harriette Frankfurter bursts out, tearing across the lawn from the main house. Ruthie and I are on our feet. People are coming together from all directions. Helga and Roy are soon encircled.
“You brought her back to us,” Mrs. F. exclaims. “Oh, you dear boy. Where did you find her? She’s limping and so pale. Helga, Helga, what happened to you?”
A chair is brought and Helga is lowered into it. Another chair appears and Roy gently lifts Helga’s bandaged leg to rest on its seat.
“She wasn’t hurt bad,” Roy, clearly the hero, tells the crowd. “It was a farm dog. They can get pretty mean, though, you know. So when we heard all the barking and growling over at our summer place across the road, I started off for the farm. Sure enough, she was on the ground and he had her by the calf.”
Mrs. F. is wringing her hands and Mr. F. is trying to steady her. “Helga is so frightened of dogs,” her aunt says. “The Nazis, you know. With their terrible killer guard dogs.” Mrs. F. lowers her voice. “But we won’t speak of that now.”
“Nein, nein,” Helga whispers to the concerned faces bending over her. “Not such a big dog as in Germany.”
Roy folds his arms and looks down on Helga with concern. “Big enough. And he really got his teeth into her. So I borrowed a car and took her into town. Got the doc to stitch her up and give her a tetanus shot. You never know with these farm dogs. He could have had rabies from a raccoon or even a bat. But the doc said no way.”
By this time, Harriette F. has fainted and is lying on the grass being fanned by my mother and Mr. F. I turn to Ruthie. “Could she really get rabies?”
Ruthie shrugs. “The doctor would know if there was any chance of that.” Her glance shifts to Roy. “Gosh, but he’s awfully cute, Izzie. And to think you were the one to find him.”
I roll my eyes. “A lot of good that does.”
Roy