From a Sealed Room

by Rachel Kadish

  Nachum, shepherding Tami around the gallery, pauses beside me. “I’ve never been to an art show before,” he confides. In his white shirt and dark pants, he looks as uncomfortable as a schoolboy on class-photo day. “Your boyfriend seems very nice,” he tells me. Then, to Tami, he adds, “It’s too bad your mother isn’t reaching Jerusalem until evening. She’d be in her element here. She could explain things to us.”

  Tami says nothing. She is staring at the portraits.

  Near Nachum is a young man who has been standing before a single drawing for minutes. The man is pale, with droopy eyelids and a bit of dark beard centered on his chin like a forgotten puff, of shaving cream. Smoke trickles from a corner of his mouth as he squints at the portrait of an elderly man. Under one arm he holds a notepad.

  “So why do you think he didn’t draw any happy ones?” Nachum asks.

  The man doesn’t take his eyes off the drawing, only breathes at it, his lower lip pushed forward although he has run out of smoke to exhale.

  “The religious know how to laugh like anybody else,” Nachum informs him amiably.

  The man is dressed in black jeans and a plain black vest over a white T-shirt, making his ashy skin look even ashier. His face wears an expression of practiced torment. He turns to Nachum and speaks with intensity. “These portraits ask an interesting question, don’t they?”

  “What’s that?”

  The man taps the bare spot above his goatee. “Are the blacks signified, or are they sign?”

  “Pardon?” Nachum leans forward.

  “What I mean is, does it matter who they really are and what they want, or does it only matter what they seem to represent?”

  Nachum wags his head in apology. “Once again?”

  The man gestures impatiently at the drawing. “Does it really matter who the blacks are, or only what they symbolize?”

  “I suppose that depends,” Nachum says in slow and friendly tones. “If you’re not one of them, then you can worry what do they symbolize. If you’re one of them, then you’re too busy worrying about your prayers and your children and maybe your political party and your mother’s health to think about what you represent, aren’t you?”

  The man rolls his eyes and ejects an avalanche of words. “Yes, but of course that’s beside the point, isn’t it? What I mean is, what are they asking of the world? What do they really want? Where do they fit in our paradigm? What does their presence ask of me?”

  Nachum blinks. “What do the blacks care about you? Other than they don’t like you particularly, or me, either. Other than they don’t want necessarily the same rules we want for this country. They care how you vote, all right, and whether you gun your motorcycle down their street on the sabbath. But I don’t think they care what you think of them.”

  Sucking his teeth in irritation, the man drifts away. Nachum watches him go, with undisguised bewilderment. “Who is that guy?”

  The faintness of Tami’s voice might hold irony, or simply resentment of her husband. “He’s an artist.”

  Nachum scratches his chin thoughtfully. “He’s a blockhead.” To me he says, “Tell your boyfriend next time he should draw one or two happy ones. To be fair.”

  Abruptly Tami addresses me. “Why are you all going to the desert in this hamsin? Shouldn’t you wait?”

  Her concern surprises me, and I answer, “They’re predicting it’s going to break soon.”

  Gil is beside me; he sets a hand on my shoulder. Nachum, Tami, the notepad man with his poetic pallor flee my mind. The paint-scented air of the gallery has released a lightness in Gil; he pivots me under his arm and leads me into the center of the gallery floor, where I spin and land on one knee to the scattered applause of guests. I can feel the flush of my cheeks, the wisps of hair hanging loose as I bow. “She’s a dancer,” Gil explains to several strangers beside him. He sounds proud. When he takes my arm and introduces the man with the notepad as the art critic from a Tel Aviv weekly, I smile so warmly that the man pinches the bridge of his narrow nose to hide his confusion.

  The heat doesn’t lift with the approach of evening, and when I return to the apartment I’m relieved to change my long skirt for shorts. I pack to the sound of the radio—hip-hop in French, Israeli songs with a fast, pattering beat, songs from last year’s American top ten. The music reminds me of Purchase and makes me giddy. I swirl, brush my hands along the walls, dance from the bedroom to the living room and back. How could I have forgotten how this feels? A step, a turn, a bag for me and one for Gil. Boots for hiking, bathing suits for Eilat. I pack water bottles and hats, sweaters for evening. Sabbath candle-lighting is only a few minutes away, and I brace for the sound of the siren. The gallery will be closing, Gil will be going out to celebrate with Roni and the gallery owner. I told Gil to stay out as long as he liked, and to remember to enjoy himself extra for me; I’d prepare everything for Sunday, since we’d be leaving so early. I want us to have Saturday to relax, just the two of us.

  The radio is now playing an old Billy Joel tune, and on the second verse the steady rhythm is joined by a knocking at the door. I zip the bags shut and go to the entryway.

  She is, inexplicably, smiling. A pained, dreadful grin. I wish I hadn’t answered the door. “What are you doing here?” is all I can think to say.

  She carries a suitcase. Understanding washes over me slowly.

  “You can’t come,” I stutter. “There’s only space in my cousin’s car for me and Gil and my cousin’s girlfriend. I’m sorry, there’s no room for you.”

  She says nothing.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeat. “You can’t come with us.”

  She doesn’t move. Behind me, the radio bubbles Cyndi Lauper.

  I wave my arm in exasperation. And as if this were a signal, she steps forward, her kerchiefed head bobbing in gratitude. There is a faint smell to her, stale and sour.

  In a burst of anger I run to the living room, snap off the radio. I turn back, only to see that she has followed me. I face her. “What do you want from me?”

  She says nothing.

  “Tell me, what?” My hands are wild in the air. I know I am overreacting, but I can’t help it. Fury crowds my vision. “Can’t you just let me enjoy my life? Things are going well with Gil. He’s not like what you saw.”

  Her silence is more than I can bear. At once all the joy I have felt in the last twenty-four hours drains out of me. I stand opposite her, desolate. And then the effort of standing is too great. I sink to the sofa.

  She sits down beside me, companion in sorrow. As she perches her hands politely in her lap, I know only that I hate her.

  “Leave me alone, damn you,” I mutter.

  The last of my words is obliterated by the sound of the sabbath siren, which charges the air in the apartment. I speak on through the sound but my voice is wiped clean of words. I believe I am telling her, I don’t want your cursed witnessing, your reminders of his rage, I believe I am saying, Take your godforsaken reminders and leave, but I cannot hear my own voice. My heart pounds as if I’ve summoned this unanswerable wailing from somewhere in my own body. In the heat the siren reigns uncontested, commanding us motionless.

  As the sound dies away I hear running on the street; the blacks are rushing to their homes, their synagogues, readying their children for candle-lighting.

  In silence she searches my face. Then the air shifts between uls—after this great storm, a first rustle of tenacious life. She speaks. In the wake of the siren’s blast, her voice is small and still and barely disturbs the silence. I can’t understand her words. I lean closer, until I feel her breath brushing my face.

  The jumble of her speech is steady, it is almost song. I don’t recognize the language she is speaking. Or perhaps it is several languages, the phrases splintering and dividing. Now and again a word emerges whole in English or Hebrew: Forest, gate. Dybbuk, actors. Her voice, quiet and reasoning, gains speed; soon it is a steady wind, tossing treetops. Hailstorm, window, plowing season. The garbled
insistent chant breaks from her throat, words surge forward, fall away softly: Beneath above, station. Thirsty. She speaks on and on in this language that is no language, a tender wash of sound. She speaks as if each treasured word burns her, her lips are scorched, tongue cleaves to palate and still she continues. Her voice has grown no louder, yet it blots out all other sound. Forest, hum, this life. Words tumble upon one another and I can find no order in them. Gate farmhouse their faces, saw. Window sticks please. Her words blur like the prayers of the blacks, but these are like no prayers I have heard. They are a gale tearing at the roots of trees; my own throat aches with her effort.

  Displaced Persons, she pronounces suddenly in English, in the middle of a ribbon of speech.

  She is a survivor of the Holocaust. How could I not have seen? Slowly my fists, clenched all this time in anger, loosen.

  Plank, bird, ship, she whispers.

  She isn’t going to cast a curse on my new happiness. She’s just struggling to tell me a story.

  I try to recall what I know about survivors; I recall slogans. Never again, never forget. When we’d finished studying the Holocaust in third grade, our teacher invited a survivor to our Hebrew school class. For once, we sat through the hour without fidgeting. The man talked about cattle cars and camps, showed photos of his lost wife and daughters. He showed us, too, the number tattooed on his forearm. Afterward, satisfied with our stunned expressions, the teacher coached us in the ways of memory. Our job was to help people remember after Mr. Cohen was gone. Never forget. Mr. Cohen is a walking memory. You are his witnesses.

  This woman who has haunted the space under my footsteps, this woman I’ve longed for and scorned, is a walking memory. I have no idea what to do.

  She isn’t here to lecture me about Gil. I allow myself to concentrate momentarily on my relief. Beneath it, I sense, is an undertow of fear. She doesn’t have any advice for me; she’s just an ordinary person with a terrible past. If things go wrong again with Gil, she won’t have any power to save me. If worse comes to worst—I allow the thought for only an instant—I’m completely alone. Looking at her as she speaks, I think: I wanted you to be magical.

  But nothing will go wrong with Gil. I tell myself I’m simply relieved. Gradually I relax my hunched shoulders. I concentrate on her.

  She is entranced by her own speech, an unbroken chain of sighs.

  I sit opposite her a few minutes more before I realize what she is asking of me. She doesn’t want to ruin my life, she isn’t here to accuse Gil or drag me away from him; she is asking only that I listen, and remember what she tells me. She wants me to be her witness.

  “I’m listening,” I tell her, but she doesn’t seem to hear. She talks on. I reach for her hand. “Tell me slowly so I can understand.”

  She doesn’t alter her unintelligible speech in the slightest, and the respect with which she addresses me makes me panic. I think of my mother at the Center, the echo of the dark offices at night. The glitter of shattered glass on the street. I think of the letters she writes, sitting in her small upstairs room. Trusting me.

  I touch my fingers to this woman’s dry cheek. Then to her thin chapped lips. “Show me how to make your words,” I urge.

  Her lips move on as though she doesn’t even feel my touch.

  I take both of her hands in mine, and they are impossibly cold in the throbbing heat. Her eyes shine feverishly. I don’t know how long we sit like this. Evening darkens to night, the black men pass slowly along the street on their way from synagogue, climb steps, and are greeted at sabbath dinner tables. It isn’t long before I hear singing. Still this woman speaks, and still I understand nothing.

  “It helps to talk,” I say to her. But my words are more question than statement.

  “You must start it again,” she says in Hebrew. “It must be healed. You must bring it.”

  It’s no use. Even when I understand her speech it makes no sense to me.

  Before me sits a life smashed, a cracked hull of a woman. A cracked hull of a girl, telling stories no one will understand. Her fervor rivets me. And I recognize now the waif from the picture—the girl who might float above her family like a figure in one of Chagall’s paintings, sailing above the partygoers crowding on the porch. With horror I recall my anger as I hid the photograph away.

  At last she falls silent. The only intelligible word of her last sentence hangs in the air: suitcase. She has finished.

  Outside, the night breeze ruffles the palm fronds, and this time it is not the sound of rain, but of weeping. It is a sound of words lost, worlds lost and never regained.

  We sit together on the sofa, exhausted. Then a joy steals over her. I have never seen such serenity. Or rather, I’ve seen it only once—in the peculiar drawing Gil hung at eye level in the gallery.

  “What is it?” I whisper.

  She looks at me. “Now you will make it whole,” she says.

  “How?”

  “Bring future,” she explains.

  Trite phrases run through my mind: Time heals all. Sharing it with someone is good. I dismiss them—TV talk shows won’t help me. I dredge lessons learned in Hebrew school: We will remember the six million, we will preserve the memories, in our hearts we keep them alive. I shake my head with confusion. How pallid, how insulting these phrases seem. Always remember, never forget, the Hebrew school teachers urged us. I want to ask them, What can that possibly mean?

  No one has ever looked at me with the sort of adoration that lights this woman’s face.

  “Maybe it helps to remember,” I choke out.

  She tilts her head, the single motion dismisses my words.

  Or perhaps she’d rather forget?

  She is intent on my every movement, my slightest shift in expression. I cross then uncross my ankles, and she makes a sound like the hesitant burbling of an old and long-unused fountain. When she repeats this strange sound, I record the crinkling of skin around her eyes and understand that this is laughter. Her expression is peace, her breath a rough murmur. I shift my weight on the sofa and she is instantly silent, rigid with attention. She nods encouragement, then casts her eyes down and smiles coyly at some secret joke.

  Abandoning memories of Hebrew school, I try to recall something useful from the psychology course I slept through at Purchase. I scroll through my mother’s soft Hebrew lullabies, but it seems to me that my neighbor is looking for some other kind of comfort.

  I have no idea what to do for this woman.

  “What’s your name?” I ask her.

  She looks up at me, and she speaks in Hebrew with perfect clarity. “I am here,” she says. “I am here.”

  At the sound of the ram’s horn I cried out to You.

  At the blast of the siren I called Your name.

  American.

  I spin down the stairs, twirl to the floor. American.

  Why have You not answered my cry?

  You have forsaken me.

  But You promised, the words came from American lips. We will make you whole, the soldier said. America will come and time will begin. Past will be erased, future will arrive.

  You have not made me whole.

  America America, always future, how can You reach out empty hands? You touch my words but do not heed them, touch my heart but refuse to heal.

  And how could I have been unworthy? For I told You everything, as I promised. How Mother and Father arrived at the concentration camp, suitcases clutched tight. How they endured the three days with this warm blanket, this crumpled hat, this book of photographs held close in the crush of despairing bodies. They stepped off the train optimistic. Our lives have been a battle, Mother whispered in my ear. Also this we will weather. How transport workers dove onto the hurled suitcases, scattered clothing and paper on packed earth in the search for food or jewels, in the single minute before the soldiers approached Mother and Father stood side by side and Father took her hand.

  American, why have You forsaken me? You have seen soldiers march the yet-standing fr
om train to train, camp to factory to camp. You have seen Lilka running late across the courtyard, a guard no older than she indicating with his finger her end. American you have heard Halina’s words, You have listened with me to her story. Before you knew Karol, Halina clutched my shoulder in camp as she confessed, he spoke to me. He came to me he said I know your people have reason to fear Catholics. But I want to talk to your sister Shifra, only to talk. A Gentile, tall as summer corn, addressing me in the open streets as if it were a regular thing that a Catholic speak with a Jewish girl about her sister. I have seen the two of you walking together by the river, he said. If you would, if it is all right, will you tell me about her?

  I knew about Gentiles, Halina told me. I knew what the Catholics had done to Uncle Hayyim. I told this boy, Know that your love will bring ruin on my sister. Let her alone and your fancy will pass. He said quietly, No, this does not pass. He drew his breath, he said, Will you consider what I have asked? I told him, My sister Shifra’s life is pained, if you court her they will beat her and make her life misery. He said, I understand. He said, I will stay away for now, only tell me about her. So I told him. I told him your riverwitch stories, Shifra I told him your fairy tales and I looked into the attention on his face and my heart grew soft toward him, I told him your very words. And he listened, he thanked me like a gentleman. I never knew a Gentile could tip his cap and speak gratitude. He agreed to come back in a year. Perhaps then? he said. It will not change, I told him. But he said All the same. I will not speak with her without your permission, he assured me. I understand it is important in your families. The Gentile bowed his head to me. I would ask your parents, he said, but I do not think they would be pleased. For the first time I laughed with him and he smiled, dimples in his broad Gentile face. In a year you will forget, I said to him, so I wish you farewell. No, he said, I will not forget.

  Halina’s shallow breath drawn with difficulty. I said to her, Halina, what is it that pains you so? I understand, you wanted to protect me from Karol. You did not know him at first, just as I did not. Halina knocked my reaching hand aside, such strength in her bony wrists. I thought I was doing the best thing for you, she said. Bitterness twisted her mouth. I thought, It will cause my sister only harm, this Gentile who does not understand our troubles or our ways. I thought, Perhaps in a year, perhaps I will send him to talk to her in a year when she is older, when Mother and Father cannot afflict her so. Then she can choose for herself.