The Choice

legs. My friend nudges me with her toe and I li my head to see our
coach walking straight toward me. We are half in love with her. It’s
not a sexual crush. It’s hero worship. Sometimes we take the long way
home so we can pass her house, where we go as slowly as possible
along the sidewalk, hoping to catch a glimpse of her through the
window. We are jealous of what we don’t know of her life. With the
promise of the Olympics when the war ĕnally ends, much of my sense
of purpose rests within the scope of my coach’s support and faith in
me. If I can manage to absorb all she has to teach me, and if I can
fulfill her trust in me, then great things lie in store.
“Editke,” she says as she approaches my mat, using my formal
name, Edith, but adding a diminutive. “A word, please.” Her ĕngers
glide once over my back as she ushers me into the hall.
I look at her expectantly. Maybe she has noticed my improvements
on the vault. Maybe she would like me to lead the team in more
stretching exercises at the end of practice today. Maybe she wants to
invite me over for supper. I’m ready to say yes before she has even
asked.
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” she begins. She studies my face
and then looks away toward the window where the dropping sun
blazes in.
“Is it my sister?” I ask, before I even realize the terrible picture
forming in my mind. Klara studies at the conservatory in Budapest
now. Our mother has gone to Budapest to see Klara’s concert and
fetch her home for Passover, and as my coach stands awkwardly
beside me in the hall, unable to meet my eyes, I worry that their train
has derailed. It’s too early in the week for them to be traveling home,
but that is the only tragedy I can think of. Even in a time of war, the
ĕrst disaster to cross my mind is a mechanical one, a tragedy of human
error, not of human design, although I am aware that some of Klara’s
teachers, including some of the gentile ones, have already Ęed Europe