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work at it for hours daily, when not helping Mommy with the cooking, or playing with children, or standing in lines.
    At first I think Pinhas is watching me out of curiosity. But then I catch him watching me from behind the synagogue entrance when he is supposed to be inside, praying. I am not writing then. I am peeling potatoes.
    The next time I see him, I smile at him and he smiles back. I am in love. And when my best friend Bobbi says he looks interesting, I can barely contain my happiness. “Interesting” is top evaluation.
    Pinhas becomes central to my existence. I anticipatemeeting him in lines, watch for him as he goes to shul, look for him in the yard. A glimpse of Pinhas seems to pale everything else.
    I take to endless hair brushing, experimenting with new styles. My hair is my strong point.
    Mommy was disappointed when I turned out blonde. She had hoped for dark-haired, dark-eyed children, and both my brother and I are blonde with blue-green eyes. But at least my brother has curly hair, which Mommy had hoped for. My hair is as straight as freshly combed linen. “And as the rays of sun,” my Aunt Celia used to add. But that’s Aunt Celia, and not Mommy. Mommy had always been disappointed with my hair. It’s only recently that she has started to approve, even admire my hair.
    “Just let it hang down,” she advises. “It’s most striking that way. Just let it hang in two braids, it’s best. Nobody has hair as long as yours, or as rich in texture. Or as brilliantly blonde. Just let it simply hang down in braids.”
    She likes nothing else about me. But my hair makes up for it, I think. Thank God for my hair.
    I try to roll the braid around my head. It makes me look older. It’s not becoming, however. Finally, I hit on a style. I crisscross the braids in the back, tying each end with a ribbon to the other side at the neck. It’s quite striking. I wonder if Pinhas will notice the difference.
    He sees me a little later, on my way to the well. He stops in his tracks, and does a double take. And smiles. He stands without moving, and his eyes follow me to the line, and all the way as I carry the pail of water back to the stove. I almost drop the pail from excitement.
    My day is made. I help around the house cheerfully, notobjecting even to kneading the dough. The trough is set up in the yard and I can watch people while I work.
    “And people can watch my little sister and see that she’s working hard. Isn’t that the idea?”
    I ignore my brother’s remark. I’m anxious to catch another glimpse of Pinhas. My world is filled with newfound excitement. Perhaps next time he’ll speak to me. We will become friends. It’s all very, very exciting.
    Rumors reach the ghetto. Rumors of an impending “liquidation” ... of deportation to internment camps, labor camps, concentration camps. According to reports, other ghettos have already been liquidated and their inhabitants taken by train to camps somewhere in Austria.
    There are other rumors, too. Younger men, from eighteen to forty-five, are being rounded up and sent to the Russian front to dig ditches for the Germans.
    With every rumor Aunt Serena seems to shrink deeper and deeper into herself. She has changed since we left home. Her good-natured humor is gone. Her calm, patient smile is gone. And she has stopped singing. I used to love to listen to her voice—a soft, melodious, warm voice. Daddy used to tease her that she sang every song is if it were a lullaby.
    Now she is silent. Silent and sad, and withdrawn, like a singing bird snatched from her nest and locked up in a cage. The ghetto is her cage. The sudden veil of gloom which has settled over her every aspect seems to grow heavier with every piece of threatening news. She barely talks. On Friday nights she does not even seem to hear the kiddush, only stare silently into the candlelight. As if she left her soul in her nest, her simple, charming home on the outskirts of Somorja, my favorite