“Many have done this,” Simone said. “There was a thought back then, in some, a fear that it could happen again, and that this time it would spread to the United States. That we would all be rounded up again and sent off, and maybe then we would meet the same fate as our parents, as Matias and Lea.
“It was not entirely popular, but it was not perfectly rare, either. We knew some refugees, friends of Cousin Girard, who suddenly were no longer refugees, but first-generation Americans. Born one week in Kolberg, Germany, and the next in Scranton, Pennsylvania. This is where Angeline got the idea. They convinced her it was the only safe way.”
“And at some point, you told her—”
“When we were finished with high school and talking about moving to New York together to find jobs and an apartment, I told her I intended to tell my real story once we got there. I had gone along with her fairy tale for some years, but when we arrived in our new city to start our new life, I would be taking our family with us, not leaving them in Pittsburgh, where she had hidden them below Cousin Girard’s basement without a second thought.”
“And that discussion didn’t end well,” Markie said.
“It ended with me on a train to New York and her staying behind.”
“And marrying Edouard?”
Simone nodded. “He was willing to go along with her charade, you see. He loved her so much he would have done anything for her, including allowing her to fabricate an entire story that caused both her family and his to evaporate for all time. Suddenly, they were French Canadian sweethearts who had moved to America for work.
“He was okay with this, or I should say, he was not so very okay with it at all, but he would allow it. He would pretend along with her about it. But at the same time, he knew her real truth. And I believe she needed that, to have someone who would go along with her new future and yet truly understand her past. I would not do this for her. Edouard would.”
“And she thought you were coming here now to ask her forgiveness for deciding not to go along with it any longer, all those years ago?” Markie asked.
“No. She thought I was coming to grant her forgiveness for betraying our parents. Our brother and sister. Our entire family, for generations. Our culture, our religion, our traditions. She thought I was coming here to forgive her for turning her back on everything we were, everything our parents were so proud for us to be.
“Everything they struggled to protect when they left our most special things, our entire life, behind in Germany and paid their life savings for train tickets to France. When they hid inside a smelly barn, terrified every moment for fear of what would happen if they showed their faces—for fear of what did happen.
“For turning her back on all that Edouard’s family had done for us. Because surely, if we were not refugees, then Ginette and Lucien could not have been our saviors, could they? They could not have risked their lives, their children’s lives, for our sake. Theirs could not have been names worth carrying on through our own children.”
“But she didn’t let you say it,” Markie said. “She didn’t want to hear you say it. She thought forgiveness wasn’t yours to give. That only God could grant it.”
Simone let out a long breath. “I am not sure I would have gone through with it anyway. Even if she had let me.”
“You wouldn’t have forgiven her?”
“Non.”
“Oh . . .” Markie wasn’t sure how to respond. Angeline had acted terribly, but if one twin sister wouldn’t forgive another when she was dying, wasn’t that the end of everything?
“The other night,” Simone said, “when we were in the hospital, Frédéric and I, he told me what my sister has done for all of . . .” She waved a hand, indicating the group gathered in the family room, and in that motion, she reminded Markie so much of Mrs. Saint that her chest felt like it might collapse. She had never seen anyone say as much with finger flicks and wrist movements as these two European/Canadian/American Jewish/Catholic twins from Breslau/Le Chambon/Pittsburgh.
“How she took them in,” Simone went on, “when they had no place else and no one else.” Her eyes shining with tears, her lips forming a quivering smile, Simone reached for Markie’s hand and squeezed it hard in her own. “And oh! Markie! You cannot know how it made me feel to hear this! To hear how she has been spending her life!
“Because is this not precisely what Edouard’s family did for ours? Is this not a way of honoring our history, our family, as well as anyone could? Is opening her home to people who are not so welcome by the rest of the community not the perfect way of showing her respect for our religion, our heritage, the way our people were treated back then?
“Is this not everything our parents would have wanted for us to become: people who help others in need? Since the two of us lived because of the way other people helped us when we were in need? Is this not the most wonderful way to honor our brother and sister?”
Tears slipped one after the other down Simone’s cheeks, but instead of trying to wipe them away, she smiled through them as though they were as welcome to her as the news about what her sister had done.
“I came here to forgive Angeline for not being more like me!” Simone laughed. “Big, important me! Because I have been a pillar of the Jewish community in New York. My husband and I both. We have given money every year to Jewish causes, both here and abroad. So much money! Are we not so special!
“I am sure our money has gone to good use, of course. And the fancy galas we dress up for, those have been for good causes, too. We have flown to Jerusalem many times, to see Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum. We have given money there, attended ceremonies. So significant are we! But have we taken a single person in off the street? Given them a job in our home, a meal at our table? Non, we have not.
“And meanwhile, Angeline! Pretending still to be French Canadian. Pretending still to be Roman Catholic. Pretending still to be ten years younger than she is so no one will think she saw any part of the war. Pretending none of what happened to us, to our family, actually happened. Pretending, even, that our family did not exist. No brothers and sisters for her, only fictional parents in Quebec.
“But so what? She has been helping while she has been pretending. Doing good things for real people. Giving them refuge. Food. Work. Pay. Companionship. I should not have come here to grant my sister forgiveness. I should have come here to ask for hers. I have judged her all these years for refusing to lead a life that is true to who she is, to what our family was. For refusing to honor them. And all this time, she has been honoring them far better than I.”
Chapter Forty