ESTHER COULDN’T STOP THINKING about the story of Queen Esther that they had read tonight. Penny was trying to hurry her and Peter along because it was past their usual bedtime, but Esther didn’t want to rush off to bed. She knew she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep right away. While Peter brushed his teeth in the bathroom, Esther packed her schoolbag and set it by the front door, ready for the morning. She wished she didn’t have to go to school tomorrow.
As she stood at the top of the steps, she suddenly heard a crash downstairs and glass breaking. Then Mr. Mendel let out a heartrending cry. The sound quivered through Esther like an electrical current, pinning her in place. Another crash followed.
Esther dropped her bag and ran down to the foyer to knock on Mr. Mendel’s door. “Mr. Mendel . . . ? Mr. Mendel, are you okay?”
No answer. She could hear his radio playing inside. She knocked harder. Panic swelled inside her, filling her chest.
“Mr. Mendel!”
She tried the knob, but his door was locked. Esther threw herself against it with all her might, calling his name over and over. It wouldn’t budge. Why didn’t he answer? As her fear spiraled out of control, she remembered that Mrs. Mendel had once shown Mama where she hid an extra key.
Please let it be there . . . please let it be there, Esther pleaded as she felt along the edge of the stair risers for the key.
She found it! Her fingers shook so badly she could barely fumble the key into the lock, but the door finally flew open.
Mr. Mendel lay in a heap on the floor with his eyes closed, his face as pale as a ghost’s. Shattered glass, crushed cookies, and a toppled lamp lay all around him. Esther ran out to the foyer and yelled with all her strength, “Penny! Penny come down here! Hurry!”
Penny thundered down the stairs, followed by Peter in his pajamas. Penny took one look at Mr. Mendel and grabbed for his telephone. “I’m calling an ambulance.”
Esther sank down beside him, ignoring the shards of glass that lay scattered everywhere, and lifted his head into her lap. Peter knelt to hold one of his hands. All of them were crying, including Penny.
“Mr. Mendel . . . please wake up . . . please,” Esther begged, stroking his face. The little skullcap he always wore had fallen off, and she tried to put it back on his head. Please, God, please! she silently prayed. Don’t let him die!
At last, Mr. Mendel groaned softly. His eyes fluttered open. Esther could tell that he didn’t know where he was or what had happened. His face still looked as white as paper.
“Are you okay, Mr. Mendel? I think you fell. Are you hurt anywhere?”
“My chest . . .” He drew a gasping breath. “Hard . . . to breathe.”
“An ambulance is on the way,” Penny said. “Don’t try to move.”
He looked from one of them to the next and whispered, “No tears . . . I will be fine.” Esther wished she could believe him.
“Is there anyone else we should call?” Penny asked.
“Rebbe Grunfeld . . . his number . . . is on my desk.”
Esther heard Penny calling him, asking him to come over right away. By the time she hung up, a siren had begun to wail in the distance. Peter heard it, too, and he scrambled to his feet as if he wanted to run away from it. He pressed his hands over his ears. He hated the sound of ambulances. Esther did, too. Penny pulled Peter into her arms, hugging him tightly, comforting him.
The siren screamed louder, closer. A flashing red light shone through the front window. Penny ran to open the door for the medics, and a moment later Esther heard footsteps and men’s voices. They hurried inside and crouched down to examine Mr. Mendel, talking to him, listening to his heart. Esther closed her eyes and prayed. When she opened them again, she saw that the man with the stethoscope looked worried.
“We need to take him to the hospital,” he said. The other medic went outside to retrieve the stretcher. As they lifted Mr. Mendel onto it, the rabbi arrived. Esther recognized the white-bearded man from the night of the fire.
“How is he?” the rabbi asked. “What happened?”
“I think he fell,” Esther said. “I heard a crash and I came downstairs and found him here.”
“The radio . . .” Mr. Mendel murmured, pointing to it. Music still played from it in the background, and Esther thought he wanted her to turn it off. But as the medics hoisted the stretcher, Mr. Mendel gripped the rabbi’s wrist and said, “Nazis . . . in Hungary.”
Esther didn’t understand what he was trying to say. “I want to go to the hospital with him,” she said.
“It’s very late,” the rabbi told her. “I think it would be better if you stayed here. I will ride with him to the hospital and call as soon as I have news. I promise.” Esther grabbed a piece of paper from the memo pad on the desk and wrote down her telephone number to give to him.
“Promise you’ll call right away?”
“Yes, I promise.”
The front door opened and cold air rushed inside. Then the men were gone. The flashing light and wailing siren grew fainter and fainter. “You kids go on upstairs,” Penny said. “I’ll clean up this mess and take care of the dishes.”
Esther shook her head. “I want to help you. Mr. Mendel keeps his dishes separated and I already know how to do it.” She bent to straighten the lamp, not waiting for Penny’s reply. Together, the three of them cleaned up the broken glass and washed all the dishes. They had just finished putting everything away, and Esther was about to turn off Mr. Mendel’s radio and go upstairs when the nightly news aired once again:
“Nazi occupation forces marched into Hungary earlier today, invading that nation. As the Nazi troops stormed into Budapest and the surrounding countryside . . .”
“Hungary!” Esther shouted. “That’s where Mr. Mendel’s son is! That’s what he was trying to tell us.”
“That must have been what upset him,” Penny said.
“Hitler is just like Haman. He hates the Jewish people. But who will be Queen Esther? Who will stop him this time?”
She saw Peter writing something. He held it up for her to see: Daddy will.
Esther covered her face. She couldn’t stop her tears. For the first time she understood why her father needed to go to war and what was at stake. She felt Penny’s arms around her, pulling her close, rubbing her back, letting her cry.
“Come on,” Penny said when Esther finished crying. “Let’s go upstairs and wait so we can hear the telephone.”
They all got ready for bed, then settled on the couch to wait, wrapped up in one of Grandma Shaffer’s crocheted afghans. Esther couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose Mr. Mendel. He had become like a grandfather to her. She felt a little of the fear he must face every day at the thought of losing his family to the Nazis.
Peter began to doze after a while, but Esther couldn’t sleep. When the telephone finally rang, she leaped up to answer it. “Mr. Mendel is doing much better,” the rabbi told her. “The doctors don’t believe he had a heart attack, but his heart did get out of rhythm. He has suffered a terrible shock and – ”
“We heard the news on the radio. The Nazis invaded Hungary.”
“Yes. He was able to tell us. His
doctor would like to keep him in the hospital overnight, and if all
goes well, he will be allowed to come home tomorrow or the next
day.”
Esther felt very tired the next morning. She didn’t want to go to school, but Penny said that she had to. “I have to go to work, and I don’t think you should stay here all alone all day.”
“Can we visit Mr. Mendel in the hospital if he doesn’t come home?”
“Yes. We’ll all go together, I promise.”
Esther knocked on Mr. Mendel’s door the moment she arrived home from school and was relieved when he answered it. She wanted to hug him, but he looked so frail she feared he might fall over if she did. “I need rest, that is all,” he said. “I am so sorry for frightening you last night.” He held the door open only a small crack, not inviting her and Peter to come inside.
“Would you like me to cook for you or something?”
“Thank you, but the women from my congregation have been showering me with food once again. I will eat like a prince.”
“We heard the news about the Nazis in Hungary,” she said softly. “The announcers keep talking about it on the radio and it’s in all the newspapers.”
Mr. Mendel reached for Esther’s hand. She saw tears in his eyes. “I cannot talk about it just now. I am sorry.”
“Is there anything we can do?”
He thought for a moment. She wondered if he would tell her to pray, but instead he said, “Will you play the piano for me, upstairs? I would like to hear it. Then I am going to rest again. We will talk tomorrow.”
“I’m glad you’re okay, Mr. Mendel.”
“Thank you.”
Esther took the stairs two at a time and went straight to the piano bench to get out her practice books. She would play every piece she knew for him. She sat down on the bench, propped the music on the stand, and played through her entire repertoire, hoping Mr. Mendel would enjoy it and that it would make him well.
When she was too tired to play another note, she closed the lid and sat on the bench for a long, long time, thinking about her mother. Mama would be proud of her, she thought. Mama’s music had made everyone happy, too, whenever she’d played.
Thinking about her mother made Esther happy and sad at the same time. She wished she knew more about her and why she had decided to get married instead of studying music. And why Mama’s parents had gotten angry with her for that.
“I will search the world to find the people I love,” Mr. Mendel had told them last night. “I will never give up.” But with the Nazis in Hungary, she wondered if he ever would find them again.
Now more than ever, Esther longed to find her mother’s family.