1.
Brooklyn, New York
September 1st, 1939
Though the American press haven't always publicised the goings-on around the world, Isabel Barnes remembers reading reports about violence against European-Jews in the papers as early as 1933, when she was in middle school. Stories of Jews being taken away on trains and never seen again floated throughout the community, and Isabel couldn't help but spike with fear at the very mention of it. Not that the Americans really did much about it, because they were in America. It wasn't an issue in the country, and it felt a world away. It was a problem, but everyone else had their own problems too.
One freezing day in early January 1939, when the nurse who was training Isabel was bundled up in a thick coat even within the hospital walls, Isabel tended to an old Italian man with beady eyes and a fractured wrist from a fall in his bathroom. He told her of the headline story from that morning's papers, the girl's eyes widening, her blood boiling and her heart plummeting.
"I didn't mean to scare you, dear," he added in thick-accented English.
"No, it's okay," she reassured him, plastering on a smile. She helped her patient to the discharge counter and helped him file the paperwork as his writing hand was bundled in a thick cast. He managed to sign his name with his left hand before saying goodbye, making his way from the ward. Isabel went about her daily routine at a bark from her instructor, but the thoughts never left her mind.
As she passed a newspaper stand that evening on her way home from her shift, she stopped on the sidewalk to read the front cover of the day's paper, the crowd of pedestrians diverting around her unhappily.
The man had already told her what the article contained, so Isabel scanned the report on Adolf Hitler's more than two-hour speech, which mostly recounted the glorious history of the Nazi party. She felt a lump rise in her throat as she read the transcript of his threat toward the Jews if Germany was dragged into another world war:
"Today I will once more be a prophet: If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!"
Isabel felt frozen as she read and re-read the quote, letting its full extent sink in properly.
"Hey!" A male voice bellowed, jolting her out of her frozen terror. "You gotta pay to read, lady."
Isabel threw newspaper down quickly, averting her eyes from the angry stall owner as she rushed past him and continued on her way home, eventually recognizing the building fronts typical of the Stuyvesant suburb of Brooklyn where her family's home was located.
When she'd walked into her family's apartment, she'd joined them at the dinner table, a vegetable stew between them. A copy of the paper was splayed open on the kitchen counter, wrinkled and creased from being read multiple times by the family members. The air felt heavy around the family, settling as a dead weight on their shoulders as they ate the rather flavorless stew. No one said a word of what had been reported, but Isabel could see the pain in her parent's eyes.
Nothing was said of that day. Whilst Isabel had heard the frantic cries and prayers of her parents late at night, neither of them had sat down to discuss the events overseas with their children, and so the matter was dropped. All seemed to have possibly blown over, and so life resumed some normality, though thoughts plagued everyone that what was happening in Europe was much more dangerous than anticipated.
On September third, a warm Sunday in fall, the Barnes' family sit in the living room listening to their usual station on the radio, George and Winifred dancing around the kitchen in a foxtrot style that includes quite a lot of stepping on each other's feet, running into the table by accident, and a whole lot of rambunctious laughter. Isabel sits reading a nursing textbook, distracted by watching with amusement as her parents waltz around each other.
Isabel and Bucky's mother, Winifryd Fridman, had come to America as a nineteen-year-old Russian-Jew seeking freedom from the anti-Jewish laws that had spread like wildfire across Europe. She'd spoken some English at the time, and had brought her tailoring skills with her, securing a job in a dress shop in Williamsburg to make ends meet. That was where she met George Barnes, a novice investor on Wall Street with a humble place in Long Island thanks to a family inheritance. Two years later they were married, and her mother took the Barnes name, as well as developing a preference for "Winifred", the English form of her Russian name.
Winifred never vowed to forget her Jewish beliefs, but didn't make it an active part of her life either. She didn't hide it, but rather de-emphasized it to the point where it was nearly non-existent, and so it wasn't passed onto her children. The idea of Jewish people being persecuted was terrifying enough to convert an entire family. Winifred was terrified of her children's heritage being discovered, and them being punished for it. She wanted them to fit into American society, wanted them to be "American" and not the children of immigrants. There was safety in blending in, and if that meant them not learning part of their heritage, then so be it. George Barnes was raised Catholic, and so the family went to Church on special occasions and celebrated Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving. In turn, the children knew very little about the Jewish religion, besides a vague understanding of its meaning and maybe a few prayers. They weren't Catholic, and they weren't Jewish either. They were in between religions, knowing only a small amount about each, learnt from their family, school and friends.
Rather than dwelling on this, religion just didn't play a large role in the family's lives. Instead, they concentrated on music, art, books, and culture. All of the Barnes children could play the piano (or were in the process of learning, like the twins), had a mountain of their favorite books piled around their bedrooms, and knew how to dance the foxtrot and lindy-hop.
When George had been drafted into the Great War in 1917, he left behind his wife and their firstborn, James, who at the time was only a newborn. Upon George's return, he threw himself into work and became a successful business man who could provide for his growing family of four after Isabel's arrival a few years later. That was until the stock market crash of October 1929. His investing business was wiped out entirely and the family had headed for bankruptcy. After selling the family home and many of their possessions, they'd moved to a cramped apartment in Brooklyn.
Isabel can't remember much of her first home. It seems she had spent most of her life in the city, in the apartment where they all crowd into now. There are memories of their past life that linger in their current home, in that their furniture is upmarket, moved from their Long Island home, but seems out of place in the rundown apartment. The walls and ceiling of the home are cracked and water stained, in need of painting, the wooden floorboards needing desperately to be re-stained. The apartment only has two bedrooms and one bathroom, and so the Barnes parents sleep on a mattress in the corner of the living room, hidden from sight by one of the sofas, their wardrobes stuffed into an ottoman-like box near the head of the bed and important clothing items hung up in the children's wardrobes.
Still, while the apartment may have been run down and small, it was theirs and it was home. Much of their lives have been spent within these walls, reading books and listening to music and making memories together as a family. The living room is where the rickety piano sits in the corner, the crooning melodies coming from it on a daily base. The bookshelves overflow with novels and textbooks, six lifetimes of reading and knowledge on display. In the far corner, some of Winifred's tailoring equipment sits, a sewing machine permanently docked on a small table for mending clothing and making more. The living room floor producing the sounds of feet stepping along it, the place where Bucky and Isabel had practised their dancing so that Bucky could woo the girls at the dance halls and so that Isabel, according to Bucky, could dance with and impress the older boys, not that that had ever been done.
So far, most of Isabel's life in Brooklyn had mainly centred around going to school, both regular school and nursing school, and following Bucky around, especially after he made friends with Steve Rogers. Bucky helped the sickly-looking kid out of the dumpster behind the school when he was ten and Steve was nine, and they've been following much the same process ever since. Truthfully, they were destined to be friends. They're both nice without trying to be, real gentleman who will make their lucky ladies extremely happy one day. Bucky is sensible with his head screwed on tight but with a mountain of emotions within him that he struggles but manages to maintain. Steve is passionately hot headed and throws himself into fights if it is for a good cause, fights that Bucky fishes him out of. Bucky's also a ladies' man, a terrible flirt, and luckily Steve's rather unfortunate ability to repel women helps to calm Bucky down. It's a delicate balance that Isabel doesn't think could be purposefully recreated in any other pairing.
Isabel and Bucky had gotten jobs as soon as they were finished their schooling and old enough to contribute to the family's bills. Bucky was lucky enough that George Barnes still had many contacts throughout the city despite losing his job, and Bucky was also strong, young and polite – he could talk his way around anything, including a job interview. Isabel, on the other hand, was fortunate enough that nurses were in demand, mainly due to the threat of a second World War and the Depression. Sarah Rogers, Steve's mother, also practices as a nurse and secured her a training position as soon as she was of age. Isabel's training was now nearing completion, and in less than a month she would be a qualified nurse.
Suddenly, the upbeat jazz music stops, breaking Isabel out of her thoughtful reverie. Robbie, the second youngest of the Barnes clan, only beaten by Becca who came two minutes later, gets up and experimentally bangs the radio box to see if it's broken. A broadcast cuts through the silence, causing dread to settle in the pit of everyone's stomachs.
"Emergency news just in from Great Britain. At 11.15 this morning, Prime Minister Chamberlain broadcast to the nation the following statement announcing that a state of war now exists between Britain and Germany."
The voice then changes to that of British Prime Minister Chamberlain, his British accent harsh compared to the American broadcaster before him. The family all slowly take a seat on the sofas to listen, their knees threatening to give way beneath them.
"This morning, the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock saying that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany. You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed. Yet I cannot believe that there is anything more or anything different that I could have done and that would have been more successful. Up to the very last it would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honourable settlement between Germany and Poland, but Hitler would not have it…"
At the mention of Hitler, Winifred stands and walks into the kitchen to cry away from young prying eyes, hiding her face from her children. The broadcast continues in the background, informing them of the attempts to peacefully diffuse the situation.
"His action shows convincingly that there is no chance of expecting that this man will ever give up his practice of using force to gain his will. In turn, he can only be stopped by equal forces. We and France are today, in fulfilment of our obligations, going to the aid of Poland, who is so bravely resisting this wicked and unprovoked attack on her people. We have a clear conscience. We have done all that any country could do to establish peace in a situation in which no word given by Germany's ruler could be trusted and no people or country could feel themselves safe. It has become intolerable.
And now that we have resolved to finish it, I know that you will all play your part with calmness and courage. At such a moment as this the assurances of support that we have received from the Empire are a source of profound encouragement to us. The Government have made plans under which it will be possible to carry on the work of the nation in the days of stress and strain that may be ahead. But these plans need your help. You may be taking your part in the fighting services or as a volunteer in one of the branches of Civil Defence. If so you will report for duty in accordance with the instructions you have received. You may be engaged in work essential to the prosecution of war for the maintenance of the life of the people - in factories, in transport, in public utility concerns, or in the supply of other necessaries of life. If so, it is of vital importance that you should carry on with your jobs. Now may God bless you all. May He defend the right. It is the evil things that we shall be fighting against - brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution - and against them I am certain that the right will prevail."
The broadcast crackles to a stop, and the music from before rings out again, a terribly upbeat contrast, and no one makes a move. Everyone is silent, the words from the British Prime Minister repeating over and over. The right will prevail. Against brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution, the right will prevail. But will it? Isabel couldn't help but think.
"Becca, Robbie, I think it's time for bed," George Barnes says, his authoritative voice cutting through the silence in the cramped living room. Leaving no room for argument, the two eight-year-olds get up and make for their respective rooms.
Isabel waits only two minutes before her sister's small head pops back out of the doorway. "Issy, can you please read me a story?"
Isabel looks to her father, who nods for her to go, that the conversation will begin when she returns. Isabel allows Becca to pull her to their shared bedroom, settling on Becca's rickety child-sized bed beside each other. Becca has a copy of "The Little Engine That Could" between them, and Isabel reads slowly, allowing Becca to read along despite both of them knowing the book back to front. Isabel savors these ten minutes of calm, when Becca's childish naivety soaks into her system and calms her immensely, the stress of the previous broadcast melting away momentarily.
Until, of course, Becca asks what it had all meant. "I'm scared, Issy."
"I know. Everyone is scared, baby."
"The man on the broadcast – I didn't understand, what was he saying?"
"He was saying that there are bad people in the world and they're doing bad things. He's asking all the good people to come forward and help him stop them," Isabel replies carefully, stroking Becca's dark hair.
"Who are going?" Becca asks, her storm grey eyes wide and terrified.
"Right now, only the French and the British."
"Will we have to fight?"
"I don't know, honey. We'll just have to wait and pray that we don't, okay? Try not to think about it."
Isabel tucks Becca in, ensures she's warm enough, kisses her sister's forehead goodnight and closes the bedroom door behind her. She peeks her head into her brothers' shared room, saying goodnight to Robert who is already buried beneath a pile of thin, holey blankets. He doesn't seem as worried as his sister, for which Isabel is grateful. They're both much too young to worry about such things.
Isabel slowly makes her way back to the lounge, hearing her parents' frightened whispers from the hallway. They've moved from the lounge to the kitchen area, sitting around the wobbling kitchen table. She enters the kitchen quietly and takes a seat at the table beside her older brother, who, despite showering and changing clothes, is still covered in dirt and oil from working a weekend at the dockyards.
"Nothing will come of it, dear," their father is saying, placing steady hands on his wife's shoulders. "There will be no war. It will last a few days at most before England or America puts a stop to it. It will be dissolved. Hitler will back down when he sees how outnumbered he and his men are. We will all be safe."
Their mother sighs, looking unconvinced and defeated, and sits heavily opposite her eldest children. "What if there is a war?" Winifred asks, the Russian accent still heavy on her tongue, looking worriedly at her oldest child. "Bucky is of age. He will be called up to fight."
Bucky shifts uncomfortably at this thought, looking to their father for reassurance that would not be the case. George walks around the table to stand behind Bucky, putting comforting hands on the boy's shoulders.
"The world has suffered through an economic depression for the last ten years, and that was only a decade after another world war. No one has enough money to fund a war effort, and even if they do, I doubt we will be involved," George responds calmly, always the voice of reason.
"And the Jewish people being taken?" Winifred asks.
"It's being more publicised now. I'm sure it will be stopped, Mama," Bucky answers, reaching across the table to take his mother's hand. She smiles at him and pats the top of his hand, holding it in her own.
A strained silence settles around the four. Somewhere on the distant streets, the wailing of a passing siren can be heard. George clears his throat, cutting through the quietness.
"Now that we've reassured each other, I don't want to hear any more talk about this," he decides, throwing the newspaper in the trash can to enhance his point. "Understood?"
There is a chorus of affirmatives, and Isabel and Bucky stand from the table, Isabel kissing her mother and father's cheeks on the way out. The siblings walk down the short hallway, the sounds of their parents' talking once again filling the room behind them.
Isabel pauses by the door to her and Becca's room. She turns to Bucky, who has just reached his own door further down the hall, and has a hand on the doorknob to close it behind him. "What do you think of it all?" She asks quietly, careful not to let her father hear.
Bucky turns to his sister, his eyebrows drawn in deep thought. "I'm not sure."
A/N: So here is the first full chapter and an introduction to the Barnes family.
I've seen quite a few posts on Tumblr regarding the head cannon of Bucky and his family being Jewish, and I just loved the idea so I decided to use it. Admittedly, my knowledge of Judaism is severely limited, which is a shame, so anything I do mention in this story will be researched, but I can't guarantee it's accuracy. If I get anything incorrect, please feel free to tell me and I will make the changes accordingly.
Since I love history, I'm trying to incorporate the historical events into the plot and see how these events influence the characters. Obviously, the Barnes family having a connection to the Jewish religion will have an effect on them throughout the entirety of this story, and while they do hide their origins, it will likely come up again. The dialogue from Adolf Hitler's speech and the British Prime Minister's broadcast are taken directly from their transcripts. I suggest checking them out if you want to learn more. I would have provided the link but this site doesn't allow it.
Also, if anyone knows the story Isabel reads to Becca, The Little Engine That Could, you'll see the significance of it when compared to Steve. The basic plot is that a small steam engine agrees to the task of pulling a heavy load over a high mountain, and with determination and courage, succeeds in the seemingly impossible feat. The children's book was first published in 1930, and a Disney version was published in 1976. There have also been multiple films made. Just a little Easter Egg for anyone that caught it.
I hope you liked the chapter, reviews are always welcome! :)
