Margot Frank’s Aardvark: The Lion Serpent

Chapter One

Passover Celebration

Unlatching the silver key from her keychain and turning it in the small hole, Margot Frank locked the door of her law classroom. The inscription above the classroom door read Dr. Margret Frank, Professor of Law. Many things had changed since she fled Bergen-Belsen, including the spelling of her name. Peering in her classroom the last time for the day, Margret Frank started down the gray hall surrounded by white walls that led toward the exit.

            “Leaving so soon Margret?” asked Michael Exobonheson, professor of behavioral science. “You’re usually here till midnight.”

            “Passover, Michael. But I have got a meeting with Clinton tomorrow at Café in the Natural History Museum,” Margret reminded.

            “Well, goodbye Dr. Frank.” Michael said sweetly.

            “Farwell, Dr. Exobonheson,” Margret said in her down to earth way.

            Driving though heavy traffic on the bypass to Sliver Springs, Maryland, Margret opened the glove compartment and pulled out an old family album she always kept in her car. One Passover, Margret and her sister, Anne had been assigned to make the matzo ball soup, the main course at the Passover dinner. 

            Their parents were out. She and Anne were running around the house looking for ingredients. Margret poured in the broth while Anne cut carrots. As Margret searched rapidly for the matzo balls, she heard a wail behind her. Anne had apparently cut her left hand.  Finding the healing ointment was not easy. It appeared in the back of the medicine cabinet. MATZO OITMENT FOR CUTS it read. Margret thinking it was the matzo balls she had been searching for poured it into the soup.

            “Margret…No!” Anne screamed. “That’s the ointment!”

            What?” Margret said, puzzled.

            There followed a whole drama with dresses on fire and no matzo ball soup, but they lived to take a picture at the dining room table. Margret did not like to think or talk about Anne anymore. She had taken the man who shot her to court and won. Otto and Margret had always wished Anne had survived but now it was just a fairy tale, with no happily ever after. She had tried to make Anne’s happily ever after by giving as many speeches about her as she could. But many times like the play and the movie…she petered out. Nothing could make her cry harder than Miss Anne Frank of Frankfurt.

            Putting her thoughts aside she entered the house she lived in. Hanging up her coat, she got straight to work. Changing into some shorts and a shirt, she went through her recipe cabinet and found her recipe for apple pie: the dessert they would be eating this afternoon.

            As she was chopping ginger snap cookies in the blender, there was a knock on the door. After rapidly washing her hands in the sink, she answered the door. It was her son, Theodore. Theodore was a slim man with freckles covering his cheeks. His untidy hair was almost always covering his face though his green eyes stood out beneath the mass of hair. Helen, his wife, however, had no freckles and her hair only reached down to her ears. Her gray eyes were barely recognizable. Wendy, their child who was just an infant shared her mother’s chestnut hair color and her father’s eyes.

            “Theodore and Helen,” she paused, “what a surprise,” Margaret exclaimed giving them an uncountable number of kisses on both cheeks. “I did not you would be here so early!”

            “Neither did us, Margaret.” Helen said softly. “We ended up getting an earlier flight because we had Wendy and the other plane was all seniors.”

            “You can explain more to me when we get inside. It is a bit chilly out here.” Margaret suggested.

            While Helen and Theodore were unpacking, Margaret put the cherry pie in the oven. Soon after Theodore and Helen had changed into the same type of clothes Margaret was wearing and they were ready to help with preparations for the Passover Seder.

            “Theodore…could you please get the prayer books…Helen, be careful on the matzo ball soup. It could burn if you’re not careful…”

            The kitchen was a busy mess within the next few hours. As soon as Robert, Margaret’s husband got home from the printing office (he was a newspaper man,) he stepped into help. The kitchen was overloaded with sweet, sour and other kinds of smells before the second knock on the door sounded. Emily, Margaret and Robert’s daughter soon appeared, followed by Andrew, her son.

            Margaret and Robert then sent Theodore and Helen up to changed into their special occasion outfits. After this, Emily agreed to set the table. Her blond hair and blue eyes carefully made sure every object was in its correct place, while her thin fingers set the plates and cups down. Her mud-caked blue jeans scratched the table often. All within the process, Emily’s mouth was as thin as a fish and the only noise you could hear her make was her soft breathing.

            While Emily set the table, Margaret put the hot rolls in the oven. Andrew, a four year old child with green eyes like his mother Emily, walked over to the self-clean oven. Haphazardly pushing his blond bangs out of his way, his tough fingers longed to push one of the many buttons on the oven. Pushing the closest button to him which was LOCK UNTIL COOL, he proudly smiled. Following this, the oven said “Lock for an hour.” Everyone turned toward the oven to see Andrew clapping his hands.

            “No hot rolls tonight.” Margaret whispered to Emily.