Free The Old Brown Suitcase by Lillian Boraks-Nemetz

the sand.
    Occasionally, Mother sent me to the grocery, two blocks down the street. One day the grocery had a “closed” sign on the door so I decided to walk to another store. I turned into the street, along which our taxi rode that first day, and walked and walked without any luck.
    After half an hour I came to the downtown area, where the main intersection was busy with Saturday shoppers. There was a bank on each of the three corners. The movie house was showing “Night and Day,” and I wished I had enough money to see it. But I just had enough for a loaf of bread, butter and tea, so I kept walking till I came to Schmidt’s supermarket. It had rows upon rows of grocery-packed shelves, and it took a while to find what I wanted.
    The store buzzed with people who spoke mostly English. I felt conspicuous. Did the people around me notice I was a foreigner? I was nervous when the time came to pay. Would I understand what the cashier said? At the checkout I showed her the money and she gave me change. We exchanged no words. I walked back through the side streets near the supermarket. The houses here looked much nicer than the ones in our area. They looked freshly painted and their lawns were like green velvet. I looked into the windows wondering about the lives inside.
    When I got home, Mother was upset with me because I’d been gone longer than ever before. Father told me never to disappear for so long without letting them know, at least by telephone.
    I asked Mother if I would have to be called “Elizabeth” in school.
    “Yes,” she replied, “it’s a very nice name.”
    But it wasn’t. I hated it. I would feel strange as Elizabeth, and not Slava. I was beginning to feel a split in myself already. Slava on one side, and the wretched Elizabeth on the other.
    Monday morning. I felt the old growl of fear in my stomach as I stood with my father in line at the principal’s office. I looked down my sweater, skirt and shoes. They were far from new. I didn’t have many clothes, and none that were pretty.
    Just as our turn came, the shrill bell rang. The secretary looked up at us from her papers and said, “It is nine o’clock This girl will be late for class. What grade is she in?”
    Father had prepared some English phrases on a piece of paper, and tried to explain that this was why we had come to see the principal.
    “We do not know what grade Elizabeth is in,” he answered the secretary.
    It was the first time I’d heard Father call me Elizabeth. It sounded so unnatural.
    At this point, the principal came out of his office and motioned us in. He was grey-haired, with a long thin nose and round glasses.
    “My name is Dunshill,” he said jovially. “What can I do for you folks?”
    “I am Stefan Lenski,” replied Father. “And this is my daughter, Elizabeth. She is fourteen years old, and has not been to school because of the war in Poland, except for six months afterwards. She can read, speak and write some Polish and French but not much English.” He spoke with difficulty, but confidently. I almost understood all he said.
    Mr. Dunshill took a sip of coffee.
    “I will try to place Elizabeth in grade nine,” he said slowly, “but I don’t expect that she will pass into grade ten, considering what you have told me. It is already late; I will take your daughter up to her classroom now.”
    Father thanked him.
    “You’re in good hands now,” he said to me in Polish, and left.
    While I sat quietly, dreading the trip to the classroom, Mr. Dunshill wrote something on a piece of paper. Then he picked up his coffee, which he slurped all the way upstairs. In front of the door to a classroom, he handed me the piece of paper.
    “Give this note to the teacher,” he said, still gulping his coffee, and left me standing alone by the closed door.
    I opened the door very slowly and stepped just inside. There I stood for a long time until the teacher finished what she was saying. She beckoned me to the front of the