Ghita Schwarz Read online

  They were all in her now. She got up from her cooking twice, leaving a pot simmering as she went to her room to read Bluma’s letter again. Already she knew it by heart, and still it said the same thing, over and over again. I have heard nothing. Fela’s letter had been posted by the British soldiers, thanks to Pavel’s dealings. Bluma had received it, and she had received no other.

  That night Fela could not play cards. Chaim was away, on an outing to the mountains for the refugee boys. Fela sat silently with Pavel in the garden, tapping her coffee cup. Then she got up, went into the kitchen. In the early weeks in the house she had found a lightweight cigar box. The box held eighteen loose cigarettes, not so stale that they could not be enjoyed. She returned to the garden with the box.

  Let us try them, she said to Pavel.

  They passed the first one back and forth, touching each other lightly as their arms stretched across the little table. They were used to American cigarettes now, bought on the black market, but these had a softer taste, unfiltered but still not as strong. They lingered over the one between them, taking care not to let any tobacco fall out from the crumbling paper.

  After a few moments she let her knuckles graze his palm and then his forearm, bare but for the blue mark above the wrist. He moved his hand to her hair, as if to smooth it. But then he moved it away and instead touched her face, his fingertips at her cheekbones and lips. She felt a familiar chill inside her ribs but said nothing, looked down, then got up to clear the coffee cups from the garden table. At the door to the kitchen, saucers in hand, she turned.

  Come with me, she said.

  He followed her into the kitchen, stood away from her as she washed the cups. Then they went into his bedroom and slipped under the blankets fully clothed, undressing each other lying down, without looking.

  FELA AND PAVEL WALKED arm in arm near the port. They had taken the train to the Bremen zone, where American soldiers stood on the docks to monitor shipments of coffee, flour, sugar, canned meats, used clothing, new wool, tin appliances, metal pans, medical bandages, syringes, pills, and serums. From Bremen a first wave of refugees had already sailed for Australia.

  Australia! Pavel had said. These people, no patience! We, my friend—he squeezed Fela’s arm—we will wait for America.

  She did not answer. The Americans did not give visas. But Pavel was convinced. Americans have know-how, he would say. They respect it in others.

  But she saw differently. In the Bremen zone the young American soldiers walked with German women, the widows or their daughters, desperate for a bite to eat from a man with power. On a corner near the piers she saw a redhead in a green uniform laughing and loud, poking at a plump German girl who gave a forced laugh herself. The Americans looked cold and large to her. They called and they joked, the young boys lumbering and wide, with open faces that in a moment might turn on the small fearful people who crossed their path.

  She looked carefully as she stepped into the street. A man and a woman were bicycling along the curb, coming toward them, wobbling on the cobblestones. A flash of black hair waved out from beneath the woman’s gray scarf. The man rode a little ahead of her, turning his head to the right and the left, vigilant. Fela stared at the man’s face as it came closer, the pointed chin and broad cheekbones, and felt her breath pull down into her abdomen and her heart knock inside her as she stared, blinked, squinted, to make sure she saw what she saw. It was Moshe, it was her love, on a bicycle alongside another woman, and his face stared back at her with a look of shock and something else—joy? an emotion she could not name in that moment—he leapt off his bicycle, letting it clatter to the street, his mouth opened, and she felt her arms move to her sides, her body small and terrified as he cried:

  Pavel!

  Already Pavel had stopped, his hand covering his mouth, the other outstretched as his friend came to grab it and embrace him. At last Pavel murmured, Fishl, Fishl. I thought—I had heard such things from there—I thought never—

  Fela stood still, her hands cold, blood rushing back to her face. She breathed in and out, looking at the two men. And now she saw—the sloped eyes of Pavel’s friend were brown, not green, his compact body was broader, his hips less narrow. How could she have thought? The men were embracing and pulling away, looking at each other’s faces, embracing again.

  So—are you not to speak to your wives anymore? It was the woman speaking. She had leaned her own bicycle against a brick wall, then picked up Fishl’s and nestled it against hers.

  My wife—said Fishl—Dincja—Pavel—

  Pavel stepped back, gave a grave smile. And this is Fela.

  She stretched out her hand to the woman’s.

  Fela was in Russia, Pavel continued. Siberia, then—

  Fela interrupted. Siberia.

  The other three began speaking at once. Towns, camps, post-liberation hospitals. Pavel stopped for a moment at the name of one camp. My sister, he said to Dincja. I heard she had gone there after we lost contact—Hinda—Hinda Mandl.

  I knew a Hinda, said Dincja. Small, with brown eyes, not so large as yours, yes? Broad forehead. We were in the same barracks there.

  Fela watched Pavel’s hand cover his mouth again.

  They went east, most of the women there. Sent east after—I saw a friend from there a month ago—my friend was liberated in Landsberg by the Americans. You should write to her.

  God in heaven, whispered Pavel. God in heaven.

  They stood silent for a moment. Then Fishl said, How happy I am to see you, my friend. We thought of going to Australia. But now we are on the list for America—

  You got on the list?

  I got on the list. Fishl threw a look at his wife. Dincja has an uncle in New York—it is the only way, my friend, everything else is closed.

  New York, repeated Pavel. There was an uncle.

  She has an uncle, nodded Fishl. And I had stones to help the paperwork along. It was a match.

  I have not—Pavel glanced quickly at Fela, then looked away—I have not yet—

  Ah, said Fishl, nodding. They embraced again.

  Fela watched the men, a veil of sweat cooling on her brow. Pavel did not look at her.

  WHAT STONES? SHE SAID later, on the journey back to Celle. Pavel was looking out the window as the train rattled past the German towns.

  He meant money, answered Pavel. Fishl was always a good trader. He found someone to help him with the papers. We should do the same.

  Fela did not respond.

  But first, Feluchna, I write to Landsberg. I feel, I have a feeling. He took Fela’s hand into his lap without looking. Perhaps Hinda is alive.

  Pavel, said Fela. But then she kept quiet.

  I had six brothers and sisters, said Pavel. Now I am one. But perhaps we are two. He was stroking her palm with his fingers. Two is a stronger number than one.

  Two is a stronger number than one. It was true. Still she did not speak. Who was to say that Moshe, even if he was alive, did not think the same thought, did not find his own new woman to make a wife, to sail to Australia or Sweden or, God in heaven, South America? She was stupid, stupid, refusing to accept, wanting to interrupt Pavel’s thoughts and say, I still look too. I still look too. But she was sure he knew what she thought. She was sure he knew she still waited.

  She leaned her head against his shoulder, feeling the gesture itself was a lie to Pavel, a theft from Moshe. A chill of anger at both of them, at everything each wanted to take from her, rose in her face. She and Pavel now slept every night in the same bed, and she wanted her solitude back, the loneliness no one watched, the privacy of grieving.

  Go, she said. Go yourself to Landsberg.

  Will you not come with me?

  No, she answered. We will be two in the house, myself with Chaim. We are two. The poor boy should not be alone. Go. Take your bicycle.

  He looked at her, eyes almost begging, scanning her face for an explanation. His hand went to his breast pocket, tapped at his chest, touching, Fela knew, the
cloth that protected his photographs.

  Go, she repeated. Pretend I am with you, a bit ahead of you. Pretend. But go.

  PAVEL FOUND HIMSELF AWAKE in the night, no dream to remember. Fela slept next to him, breathing quietly, and Chaim, his things in a neat pile in Fela’s old room, would not return from his trip for at least another day. He got up to open his drawer and look inside. He did not dare take the stones out of the pouch. If she knew what he had, if she knew how he had it! But was it such a crime? Perhaps if he had come across the men now he would have stopped himself, he would have felt sickened at what he had, jewels taken from the murdered—but then he had been in a different world—and even then there were certain things—terrible things—that he had not permitted himself to do, not even in the most desperate of moments. And if he and Fishl had not taken, who would have had the stones instead? No, dirty gold and stolen gems had helped him take her into a home, make a warm place for Chaim. Now it could help him find his own. He still had a number of silver bracelets to leave with her, along with the money he had saved from trading.

  He fingered his parents’ pictures in their brown envelope. If he should find Hinda—he dared not think it even—if he should find her, he would show her what he had preserved—no, he would not think it.

  He should tell Fela about the stones. He should give them to her for safekeeping. But even as the thought moved through his head, he wrapped his parents’ pictures in a paper and slipped them inside the velvet pouch of diamonds.

  I will carry them both, he thought.

  Quarantine

  October–November 1945

  IN THE LITTLE MOUNTAIN cabin a child began to cry. After some minutes another child began to shout at him, and then another. Be quiet, stop this sniffling and weeping, let us sleep, let us sleep. Chaim got up from his cot. He really was too old to be with this group, but the counselors had taken him on the youth trip, thinking he could help keep watch.

  Yosl, he said. Yossele.

  The boy turned away from him, coughing through his tears.

  Yosl, come with me outside. You will feel better.

  Yosl continued his weeping, trying to muffle the sound with a blanket.

  Go! Go! shouted another child. Just go out and let us be! Give us peace for a moment! Another boy laughed.

  At last Yosl got up and followed Chaim out. The night was not too cool. Chaim stood straight, took in a breath, and exhaled.

  This is mountain air, he said. I never had it before. Did you?

  Yosl said nothing, then wiped his nose with his hands. The crying had stopped.

  Do you need to take a piss? Chaim said. Go. I’ll make sure no one comes along.

  Yosl trotted a few steps, then turned around and looked back, tears welling up again.

  I’m right here, said Chaim. I won’t let anything happen. Then he hated himself for saying it. But they were safe here, the two married counselors asleep with the three girls in a cabin a few feet away, the American soldiers’ base a few kilometers distant in the Bremen zone. They would hike back in the morning after eating bread and cheese, return to Belsen by early evening, in time for a meal.

  I’m right here, repeated Chaim. If I hear something I’ll come to you right away. If you hear something, just cough, don’t shout. I’ll come.

  Yosl returned calmer.

  See? said Chaim. Sometimes that’s all you need.

  The child was quiet after they returned to their cots. But now Chaim could not sleep. His belly had stiffened in the moments outside, and he felt a needle at his abdomen, poking and sewing, bunching his insides together. On his back, he took in a deep breath, then let it out. A little better. But still the sewing continued. He was no longer hungry at every moment, but the sight of food, sometimes even the memory of it, aroused in him something painful, a stabbing he felt in his abdomen when he passed by a line of refugees waiting for soup, or at night when he awoke from a dream of bread. He renewed his food coupons every week and watched the soldiers mark off his name on lists for sugar, flour, salt. Watching them made him feel relieved. If he had not yet eaten his share, the marks let him know that he would receive. It was after eating, just before sleeping, that the fear, worse than hunger, began to thrash at him, a small animal scratching at his insides, struggling to get out.

  He moved his knees to his belly, stretched his legs again. A little better. He thought of the face of the woman counselor, her skin brown and healthy from her life in Palestine, her walk confident and poised. Her legs, bare underneath a narrow skirt or lightly covered in blue trousers, were slim, not skinny, but athletic and lean. The couple had come from their kibbutz to volunteer among the refugees—the displaced persons, as the soldiers now called them—to prepare the lot of them for a life in the promised land, their true home, the place to transform themselves from diaspora victims, shamed and hungry, into masters of their own destiny. It was the woman counselor who said those words. Her husband spoke Yiddish only haltingly and no Polish at all. He had some fluency in Hungarian but addressed the children in Hebrew and depended on his wife and Chaim to translate the pains and fears of the little ones into simple language he could understand.

  WHEN CHAIM RETURNED FROM the trip the counselors recommended him to work as an aide in the school the camp was building. Not like the others, the woman counselor said. A boy who looked to the future. The Polish boys did not like the sound of children crying, they could not tolerate it—but Chaim was very calm. Perhaps in two weeks he could begin, when they were ready for him. He could take his classes in the evening, play with the children in the morning.

  Like a night watch, but in the day, Chaim said.

  The woman counselor stared at him. He had said something odd and shameful, and wished he could take back his words and swallow them. He wanted to say, I was only joking, but already she was answering him.

  Yes, I suppose you could say that.

  The British authorities gave him a new identity card when he changed jobs. Chaim Traum. He looked at his name in its clean typed letters and thought: new, new. He rolled the English words around his tongue. “Displaced Person,” he said. “Di Pi. D P.”

  The camp had changed since he and Pavel had first received their documents and food cards. The barracks were new, rebuilt, each with a clean entrance, and some had gardens in the back where refugees tended vegetables and trimmed mint weeds. Inside, Chaim knew, the bodies were still crowded in and stifled, the latrine buildings spilling with overuse. But some of the more settled refugees had their own apartments inside the camp, their own new families. When they stamped his new card, a man and a woman stood behind him with a newborn. He had turned to look at it, and reached out to touch it in its gray blanket, but the mother had pulled her arms back and drawn the child in closer to her chest, then murmured something softly at Chaim.

  He did not hear her words. More than once a man in the print shop had shouted at him, What is wrong with you? You hear like an old man! It was true. Often he got up to leave his workstation because the thickness in his hearing so distracted him; he felt his head to be muffled, wrapped in a blanket that blocked out the noise but also warmed him. It was true; he heard like an old man, in fits, the result, he feared, of a long-ago blow to the side of the head that even now on occasion made him sense a ribbon of pain, the ghost of a bruise, moving through his skull just before he fell asleep. He should be brave and go to the camp doctor. He should be brave.

  Eventually he did make his way into the line of sick people and new arrivals at the clinic. The nurses and doctors themselves were clean and quick. He whispered his complaint in his rehearsed English to a broad redheaded woman.

  “I do not hear,” he whispered. The words seemed loud inside his mouth, but he knew he spoke softly. “Hitted in head.”

  The nurse narrowed her eyes, then pulled him toward her and looked inside one ear, then the other. Then she laughed.

  “Nothing a good cleaning won’t fix, my dear!” She grabbed a bright metal instrument and tilted
his head toward her breast, the better to scoop out the wax and dirt.

  He walked out of the clinic with a soreness at his ears and temples, but within a day he heard more clearly. The world did more than become louder; it changed. Fine noises were easier to pick up, and ordinary speech seemed suddenly sharp and blared, as if the background buzzing had been cleared from a wartime radio broadcast. In the house he could hear the soft rasping under Fela’s words; he could make out the clucks Pavel made under his breath as he played cards. In the last week of his work at the print shop the noises of the ink machines chugged in an even rhythm, a low drumbeat to the tune his workmate hummed to himself.

  He came to the school with a songbook of freshly printed Yiddish tunes.

  HE WATCHED HIMSELF AND his reactions around the children when they played roughly or became upset. A child’s cry could scratch at him, a table knife scraping a half-closed wound. But he pushed his discomfort down. It was possible, he thought, that the infirmary had taken too much out of him. Had they removed a barrier that had helped him to walk around in some sort of peace? But nothing showed. Sala, the classroom teacher, patted his shoulder. You have a way, she said.

  It was true, the children liked him. They spoke to him in Polish when they did not want the teachers from Germany and Palestine to understand and in Yiddish when they did not want the soldiers from Britain and America to understand. Others in the camp looked at the little ones as foreigners, to be feared. He could see in the camp streets a refugee take in his breath as the orphan beside him stumbled and cried out in pain. He accompanied a child who had fallen to the infirmary; a bone from her elbow pushing up, almost ready, Chaim thought, to poke through the skin. She had whimpered as he carried her there, but broke into full wails as she saw the lines of gray adults lifting their arms to be sprayed with disinfectant. Even in the weeks since he had had his ears cleaned the clinic had become cleaner, whiter. He looked at the floor, its new bright tile.