Free One Eye Laughing, the Other Weeping by Barry Denenberg

does — none of it has happened and everything is just like it was. But then I realize that the dream is a dream. This is real and I have to get up, get out of bed, and face another horrible day.
It’s really quite curious, as Alice might say.
One day you’re worried whether you should cut your hair short or leave it long, part it in the middle or off to the side, use a barrette or no barrette.
And then, the next day, you’re worried that your family is going to be rounded up by the Nazis and taken who knows where.
Now the thought of doing anything at all with my hair makes me laugh out loud. I wear the same thing day after day, and caring what I look like is a distant memory.
     
The first thought I have in the morning and my last thought when I shut my eyes at night is, How long can this go on?
     
“‘I can’t explain myself , I’m afraid, sir,’ said Alice, ‘because I’m not myself, you see.’”
     
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 1938
Last night the doorbell rang, and I was certain I would be taken away. I promised Daddy I wouldn’t answer if he wasn’t home but I couldn’t stop myself. “Who is it?” I whispered, and it was Mr. Graf, the butcher.
He was having trouble speaking and had a bottle in one hand and a big gun in the other.
He had come to stay the night to protect us from “Hitler’s hooligans.” He said that The Doctor has al-ways been a good man, taking care of people when they are sick even if they don’t have the money, and he was going to make sure that nothing happened to him.
I had quite a time convincing him that I would be all right and that he should go home.
     
FRIDAY, APRIL 15, 1938
Mother is dead. She killed herself.
I long to go to sleep but I am afraid to shut my eyes for fear I will see her coffin.
I held Daddy’s hand the whole time but I didn’t cry. I was the only one. Daddy cried. Max cried. Mr. and Mrs. Heller cried. But not me. I didn’t want to cry.
The sun was shining and the sky was a brilliant blue — just the kind of day Mother liked best.
The kind of day we would all go to the Prater. Mother liked to go to the Prater — it was the only time I saw her laugh. She went on all the rides: the merry-go-round, the giant Ferris wheel — she even went on the roller coaster.
The only place she wouldn’t go was the sideshow because she didn’t like to see the calf with two heads or the lady with no stomach.
Sometimes we would have ices, eat outdoors in one of the gazebos, and even stay up late for the fireworks.
When it was sunny Mother would come alive, like a flower unfolding.
     
She hated the rain. “What a gray day,” she would re-peat throughout the day, as if somehow, if she said it often enough, it wouldn’t be true.
Max found her.
He called Daddy at his office and told him to come quickly.
I went into her room. It was cold and dark. She was lying quietly on the bed.
Her pillboxes and little glass vials were all empty.
I whispered, “Mother,” but she didn’t move. She looked like she was sleeping very, very soundly.
I heard Daddy calling people and telling them that she died of pneumonia. No one was surprised. No one asked any questions. No one said, “I didn’t know she was so sick. Was it sudden? Wasn’t there anything you could do?”
When he got off the telephone, he must have known what I was thinking.
“It’s better this way, Precious Jewel. The truth will serve no purpose.” That’s what he said.
(The truth will serve no purpose. Maybe I have be-come Alice.)
My hand is shaking badly — I can hardly write. It doesn’t feel like pen on paper but knife on stone.
     
I wish I could be like Sophy. I wish I could believe that there really is someone up there, and if you pray long enough and hard enough he will listen to you.
Even though I didn’t believe there is anyone, I offered up a prayer. Please, God, I said, take my mother as a sacrifice. Be satisfied; let her life be enough. Spare us any further suffering. Let us live.
I listened in absolute