By Kim Rauser

This place I love, didn’t think I would, but I do. I arrived here on a bus a week ago, and after being on it for two days I was glad to be off of it. For two days I had sat next to an old lady that smelled of ben-gay and moth balls, I thought that this is how my Aunt Mable and her house would smell and the thought of it filled me with dread. It doesn’t smell that way at all though. It smells of gardenias, she has them planted all around her house. Aunt Mable goes out early in the mornings and picks the older blooms that have already completely spread their petals, and the whiteness of the blooms have just barely been kissed with a hint of beige, speaking of their deaths that are just around the corner. She brought them into the house and placed them in delicate china bowls filled with water. The blooms float around on top of the water and seemed to me to be happy that they are being of use in the last days of their lives.

So, here I am sitting on the beach with my toes dug into the sand with nothing but my thoughts, the steady sound of the waves crashing on the shore, and the cries of seagulls calling out to one another. Aunt Mable’s house is further inland but within walking distance, and this has become a favorite spot for me since I have came here. The tall sand dunes give me a sense of seclusion. Privacy is something I don’t have much of, which is strange since I am the only child. My mother is always hovering over me. The way she acts you’d think I was going to disappear. Fact is there are times I wish I would. I just don’t fit in, and all the other kids at school are so much better than me. They are all perfect, perfect faces, perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect in everyway. I’m not perfect, far from it. I hate the whole thing, but mostly I hate myself. Saying so drives my mom crazy, I mean delirious out her mind crazy. I think that’s why she sent me here, but there wasn’t much of an explanation, just that I needed to know where I came from so I wouldn’t forget. With that I was packed up, put on a bus and sent to North Carolina.

When I got off the bus in town Aunt Mable was there to pick me up in her old beat-up pick up. Who would have thought that an old lady would drive a pick-up. As we headed to her house, I stole looks at her from across the seat. This was the only living relative on my mother’s side. I imagine my grandmother would have looked a lot like my Aunt Mable, had she have lived this long. What surprises me is that I look like her, I didn’t think I looked like anyone, but now I find that I do. For example, we both have the same long straight nose. I hate my nose! She also has the same curly mousy brown hair as mine, except hers has more gray than brown, but I can still tell it’s the same. I am not crazy about my hair either; I wish it was blonde and straight like the girl in that shampoo commercial. For some reason confessing this to mom makes her angry. She always says, “Leah, you should not say such things! Be proud of who you are!” That’s easy for her to say she has blonde, fairly straight hair (wavy she calls it). Well maybe it’s dark blonde, but it’s still blonde.

My grandmother died giving birth to my mother, and Aunt Mable raised her. Then mom went off to college, met my dad, and they got married. They moved to Boston, where my dad writes for the paper. We’ve lived there all my 14 years of life and until now have never met my Aunt Mable. The thing I noticed most about my aunt is that she has these gray eyes, and although they seem to be happy peaceful eyes—there is something else there…almost painful. Like they know things that shouldn’t be known. Any way mom is not at all like my aunt. Mom frets and worries all the time and always wants to know what I am thinking or feeling. When I do tell her she just always flips out, she just doesn’t understand me or what I go through at school. Anyway I don’t like to talk, people talk all the time and really don’t have anything to say that’s important they just talk to be talking. That’s what I like about Aunt Mable she’s quiet and doesn’t make me feel as though I always have to be talking or something’s wrong.

That is how the ride home from the bus station was, quiet and peaceful. Mable hummed a song and took in everything around her as if she was seeing it for the very first time. Strange. Later that night we sat together at the small dining table for dinner and talked, over our Lentil soup. I told her about my school, my friends, and my favorite band The Beatles. She smiled and chuckled saying that she had seen them on The Ed Sullivan Show last week, and remarked how “The drummer, Ringo whatever was a good looking young man.” I like John though; I think he’s my soul mate. It really flipped me out though; I mean my mother listens to Dean Martin and Perry Como. How lame is that?

After dinner, Mable began clearing the table, and cleaning the kitchen. I hate to do dishes, but if I didn’t help my mom would find out and I would never hear the end of it, so I got up too and told her that I would wash. She thanked me saying we could do them together, and added, “Many hands make light the load.” As I ran the water, swishing my hand through the water to make more suds, my aunt finished clearing the table and putting away the leftovers. When she finished she came over and rolled up the sleeves of her blouse, so that she could help rinse. That’s when I noticed it. Unable to stop the words that tumbled from my lips I asked, “What is that?” pointing to her wrist. Aunt Mable lowered her head to look and sighed heavily. I immediately felt stupid, leave it to me to open my mouth and insert my very large foot. I quickly apologized and said that it was none of my business. Aunt Mabel looked at me mournfully and patted my hand and said, “No Leah, this is your business, in fact it’s your legacy.” I was confused, what did she mean? She continued and explained, “This is a tattoo I received while at Dachau, a Nazi death camp for Jews.”

I was speechless. I knew my mother’s people were German, but it never occurred to me that this kind of thing was a possibility. My mother had never spoke of it. “Why was I never told?” I asked. “Because your mother thought it was my story to tell and we both wanted you to be older when you were told,” replied Aunt Mable. She took my hand and led me to the table, gesturing for me to sit, saying “Lets talk.” Aunt Mable went to the tall china cabinet in the dining room pulling out a drawer she retrieved from it a shoe box that had been cover in wallpaper with a small rose print, that was beginning to turn yellow with age. It was tied neatly with a wide lavender ribbon.

Returning to the table with her box she sat with me and began untying the ribbon as she explained, “Your grandmother Ruth and I were the only ones to survive in our family. After the war Ruth met a young man who also had survived but also had lost his family. They were married and your mother came along shortly after.” She carefully lifted the photos out of the box, as though they would blow away and never be seen again, like the ashes of so many of our people burned in the death camps. “These are all we have left from that time, everything else was stolen by the Nazi’s. We only have these because our father buried them in the rose garden for safe keeping.” I sat staring at the faces of my family who from across the years spoke out to me saying, “Remember.”

“Ruth had grown so weak in the camp, she was nearly dead when the Americans liberated the camp. Poor thing she never fully regained her strength or health, and I guess the strain of carrying a child and giving birth was too much for her.” she said with such sadness in her eyes. “Your grandfather, Markus—here he is” she said passing me a photo of a proud looking man, “he was killed in Korea. When we all came to the states he joined the army.”

All through the night we talked. As the story unfolded Aunt Mable cried and I cried with her. It was horrible what was done to my family and all because they were Jews. As my aunt spoke to me of these things everything about me that I had once hated became special to me. My hair that I had thought of as plain and mousy, was now my crown and glory, my nose once long and straight, was now proud, my great-grandfathers nose, and Jew was no longer a label that I despised, but it now the very thing that defined me. Funny thing is, that I had never realized that it was I that did not understand my mother, instead of the other way around. Laying in bed that night, I took in the fragrance of the gardenias feeling that this Saturday would be the first Sabbath that I actually was looking forward to, and for the first time in my life going to Synagogue was important.

So like I said here I am sitting on this beach. I am alive, I love my nose and I love my hair, and I will NEVER forget.