The Postcard

"Tell me again," the child whispered, after the boots had passed by and we could almost breathe again.

"Tell me again--the story?"

My tongue flicked across stone lips. I shouldn't do it, I knew--shouldn't risk even a sigh with soldiers still on our street.

The brutal fists were hammering a door down the alley--the Ellman's? Were the Ellmans still alive? It was hard to know who wasn't dead; people were too scared to hold funerals.

Silence was how we survived.

My child was snuggling into me in that persistent, guilt-inducing little way, and I could hear the telltale crinkling of that accursed postcard emerging from her pocket.

"Tell me, please?"

The picture pressed into my hand. I felt sick. I couldn't look at it; I didn't need to. We had stared at the postcard together, night after night, for months. The image of the faraway land had been memorized long ago, back when our books were first confiscated.

The pounding on the Ellman's door was getting worse; God help them.

"Mama?"

God help us all.

I gave in and bent close to her ear, the ill perfume of our broken city's brickdust rising from her innocent head.

"Once there was magnificent queen who was very beautiful--"

"And very brave!"

"And very brave! And she lived in a castle in the middle of a sparkling lake."

"Were there sea turtles?" She asked, as always.

"Sea turtles live in the sea, dear," I answered, as always. "But I suspect there were lake turtles."

She settled happily against me. "Do you think Miriam saw the lake turtles?"

I gulped. Miriam: the signature on the postcard she'd pulled from the side of the railroad tracks one day, after the prison train had gone by, and I had shied from explanations to a six-year-old.

'Tell Josef I love him always,' it read. 'Miriam.'

I often wished we'd never touched the thing, but now, I forced a smile. "I'm sure Miriam saw lake turtles."

"And the Great Eagle?"

"Yes--but you are getting ahead of our story," I whispered, receiving a muffled giggle in reply. "The castle was also home to a Great Eagle, who was so large that the girl could ride him through the skies--which they both enjoyed, especially at sunset, when the clouds turned red and pink and--"

"And violet! And--"

Boots were on the street again. We both jumped.

"And then?" She mewed.

Pausing beside our door.

"Mama?"

Just pausing. Just stopping. One of the men had probably dropped something! They'd move, in a moment. I was certain.

"They lived happier ever?"

The story wasn't supposed to end yet.

Thunder struck: the fatal beat of angry fists fell upon the door--our door. The child tucked her head against my neck, trembling.

She whimpered: "They lived happily--"

BOOM!

I tried to sound sure: "Happily--"

BOOM!

The whole house seemed to slide off its foundation.

BOOM!

"Happily ever after!" the child cried, finishing it.

BOOM!

But it was too soon for our story to end!