“Not see me at the concert?” she swiftly considered. To listen to Bartok with Karl would be pleasant. Without him....
“Why don’t you come to dinner with us Thursday night?” she said. “Then we can all go together.” She smiled, not a little pleased at her brilliant inspiration.
“I don’t like to barge in on your parents. They don’t know me—”
“That doesn’t matter. Mother adores me to have company. You see, we never fuss.”
“Well, if Uncle Yahn doesn’t feel deserted, it’s a deal. I’d love to know two such artists as John and Minna Lurie!”
When he was long out of sight, Judy recalled she didn’t even know his name or his uncle’s. She thought how she would inform her mother. “I’ve asked Karl whose uncle owns the Swiss Shop to have dinner with us.” “Karl who?” her mother was sure to ask. “Oh, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” Judy’s solution to any vexing problem.
She went back to the bench. There was still an hour or more before her mother would arrive home. With considerably less enthusiasm than usual, Judy took out pen and paper to continue the letter to her grandparents begun the day before. She was filling pages, so she imagined, but the pen remained quiet in her hand. Her thoughts were of Karl. What was his life like, living with strangers who took him in out of pity? And his father! She shuddered. She knew something of those vague, unbelievable horrors of the Nazis. But it was all so long ago. Nobody seemed to remember any more. Why?
She folded the still unfinished letter and put it in her bag. Tomorrow, she promised herself, she would write a real letter to them—tell them about Karl. They will understand his sufferings. They will love him.
They will love him! Why only “they”? Why not—“There I go letting my imagination run wild.” And smiling to herself, she collected her possessions and walked leisurely toward her home.