They had put both of them into this ward a week ago. They had not known each other before. Rachel lived in the ghetto, and Liza was from the camp known as Kailis.*1 Liza had given birth yesterday and had not yet seen her child. She was quite weak and did not speak, only moaned. She had not spoken before but had slept or pretended to be asleep. She said only that her name was Liza, that she was from the camp known as Kailis, and that the Jews there lived just as they did here in the ghetto.
Rachel then asked, “Did they take children from your camp to be inoculated?”
Liza nodded.
“They took my Moishele then, too. How was I to know?”
True, no one then knew.
A large bus pulled up, yellow with a red stripe and bright windows. Such a bus had never before been in the ghetto. If a bus did come, it was usually a black windowless truck.
Schoger had climbed off the bus.
“Mothers! Listen, mothers!” he shouted. “There’s a diphtheria epidemic in the city. Bring your children. We will take them to a military hospital and inoculate them. You work very well, and I don’t want your children to die. Mothers, bring your children!”
That bus was beautiful, yellow with a red stripe, not at all like the heavy black windowless truck.
When David returned from work, he did not find his son.
Liza listened silently, but her eyes burned.
“You see,” Rachel had said then, “I’m going to give birth again. If it’s a son, I’ll give him the name Moishele, again.”
“Moishele,” Rachel whispered now as she pressed her lips to the child’s wrinkled forehead.
After that she turned to Liza, looked at her baked lips, and said, “Bear the pain. Bear it for just a little while longer. This is my second time, and it’s easier for me, while it’s only your first. The first birth is always difficult.”
Liza moaned quietly.
“You have to be happy,” Rachel said. “It’s forbidden to give birth in the ghetto. All the children born in the ghetto have to be killed; you know that. But they let us. Do you understand? Only ten women in the whole city, that’s what they said then. You have to be happy. You’ll suffer a little, moan a little, and then everything will be all right. They won’t touch our children if they let us give birth. The front’s approaching, and they want to be good.”
“I don’t want the baby,” Liza answered. “I hope he was born dead. I want him to be dead.”
She smiled, and her lips cracked: “You see how long it’s been, and they’re not bringing him. He must be dead. I would kiss the ground if he were dead.”
“Shut up!” Rachel became frightened. “You’ll curse your child. It’s easier for you now. Can you compare your pains now to those during the birth? You have to be happy, and you…. Neither God nor destiny will listen to you.”
Her Moishele let go of the breast and fell asleep.
The hook on the window frame clattered monotonously. The gauze curtains billowed like sails, and the sky was as blue as the sea at Palanga.*2 All she had to do was get up, take off along the sandy shore, holding Moishele firmly by the hand, and then stop by the water and dig through the cast-up seaweed and silt, looking for small beads of amber.
“David,” Rachel whispered quietly, “we have a son once again. He lies on my breast and breathes as lightly as a swan’s feather. Do you see?”
Silence.
“He will live for a long time, much better than we live. And Liza’s baby will live. She’s young and doesn’t know what she’s talking about. A person who has come into the world amidst such pain has to live.”
Silence.
“You’re not talking, David. I know that they took you to Paneriai, too. But I didn’t see how they shot you, and in my eyes you’re still alive. Do you want to be alive?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Did it hurt very much?”
“No. I’m alive.”
“Yes, but you’re so far away. That’s why God or destiny gave us a son and let him be born. It was only a week later that they took you away, and I didn’t know it. Schoger took me to the hospital then; there were some professors there from Berlin; they examined me for two weeks. But that’s not important. They told me I was going to be a mother, and Schoger let me give birth in the ghetto. Are you satisfied? Only ten women from the entire city were allowed to give birth.”
Silence.
“I walked through the ghetto with a swollen belly and knew I would have a son. I didn’t have to hide; I was proud of my destiny, though somewhat afraid of it. And the people—it’s not important what the people say. They were jealous, and I understand. I would have been blindly jealous too. Right?”
The hook on the window frame clattered monotonously; the wind billowed the curtains like a sail, and the cloudless sky was as blue as the sea at Palanga.
Liza no longer moaned. She turned onto her left side, looked at Rachel and at her son with burning eyes, and said softly, “Mine will be dead, I know.”
“Don’t curse so. Fear God and the people. You’re not in pain. You don’t moan. To talk like that is the greatest sin.”
The door opened, and the nurse entered carrying something small, swaddled, silent. She drew near Liza’s bed. She was silent. All three women were silent. Only the hook clattered on the window frame; the curtains billowed like sails, and the many-fingered wind walked through the tiny ward, cooling foreheads, curling around necks, refreshing hot breasts.
Liza slowly sat up, pushing herself with her hand, leaning against the pillows.
She was really very young, Liza. Just a girl. Her face was small, cheeks pale, sunken, her chestnut hair disheveled and spread—like a wide frame around a miniature portrait. Only her lips were baked, swollen, and her eyes were large, burning, like two lanterns, with high surprised brows, like strings, above.
She was really very young, Liza. Just a girl. However, through her opened shirt could be seen breasts, not like those of a girl, but large, swollen with milk, with two stiff nipples browned like ripened fruit.
Liza stretched out her arms and took that swaddled lump from the nurse’s hands. She took it, trembling: alive or dead?
“A boy,” the nurse said, and left.
Like a swan’s feather, Moishele’s rapid breathing tickled Rachel’s breast, and as she looked at Liza and her baby, Rachel said, “You see, he’s alive. Your body and your blood.”
Liza began to shake.
“Ah! God!” she moaned.
From among the swaddling clothes peered two gray unseeing eyes and a face as wrinkled as an old man’s, a small nose, white eyelashes, and long white hair, which, against his red skin, looked as if he had suddenly gone gray.
Liza pulled back her hands as if she had burned them. She quickly buttoned her shirt.
“Look,” she said to Rachel, afraid to touch that staring swaddled lump “Look, it’s alive!”
“Your husband was light, wasn’t he? Light haired?”
Liza shook her head, shook it for a long time, as if unable to stop, then said quietly, “I don’t have a husband. I don’t even know what it is to have a man. I have only been kissed once. But children are not born because of that.”
Blood rushed to Rachel’s temples, pounding like a loose window shutter blown by the wind, but she swallowed hard and asked slowly, “Liza…Do you have a fever, Liza?”
Liza shook and shook her head.
“Do you think that people were telling the truth? Liza!”
Liza lowered her head, and then nodded and nodded.
“Yes. It’s all artificial,” she said. “I knew that already nine months ago. Now they’ll examine us again, will try other experiments—on us and on these newborns. I know German—I understood them then.”
The billowed curtains seemed to congeal on the window. The way a sail congeals when the wind p
uffs with its final breath before it calms. After that the sail collapses, flattens, and hangs lifeless. The sky congealed, that blue sea. It began to withdraw. It would withdraw completely and disappear, but the hook clattered and pounded constantly on the window frame and deep in her breast, her heart.
Rachel stared at her child and at Liza’s child—not at her child and not at Liza’s child. They really were like twins. The same sort of white hairs, with the same sort of expressionless gray eyes, narrow pointed noses, and old red wrinkles. Like chicks from an incubator—all white.
“A strange seed and a strange fruit,” said Rachel. “Strange seed; strange fruit. Ha, ha, ha! They let us give birth!”
She stretched out her hands, circled that living lump’s neck, and squeezed. The child grunted and wheezed, and Rachel drew back her hands. She was disgusted.
Then she stretched out her legs, put the child down next to her, threw a pillow over him, and pressed down on it with her breasts, ripened, swollen with milk, with large, hard nipples, browned like mature fruit.
“A strange seed, and a strange fruit, Liza. Ha, ha, ha! Do you hear, Liza?”
“I hear,” answered the girl, the eighteen-year-old, who had been kissed only once.
Then Rachel whispered. So quietly, like the light, many-fingered wind in the curtains, like a soft feather, like a swan’s feather.
“David, do you hear me?”
“I hear you, Rachel.”
“You didn’t want a son, did you, David?”
“I didn’t, Rachel.”
“You didn’t want such a son, I know.”
“You’re right—I didn’t.”
“Wait…. Wait, David…. And what if this is really our son? And what if it’s our son, David? You’re silent…. All right—stay silent…. You can see how I’ve pressed on the pillow. Do you see?”
“Yes, I see.”
“I know you’re satisfied.”
“I’m satisfied.”
“Will you come to me again?”
Silence.
“David! Come, David…. Come!”
Silence.
*1 Lithuanian: “skin, hide”
*2 A Lithuanian resort town on the Baltic Sea
The Thirteenth Move
• 1 •
Schoger did not understand the sacrifice.
He knew that Isaac was worried, and he found pleasure in sweeping that pawn from the board, feeling safe and secure and anticipating his opponent’s surrender.
Today was his day.
Today he had to achieve two simultaneous victories—win the match but not lose his partner.
Today in a mute circle stood the crowd which had to feel Schoger’s victory.
There had never before been a match like this.
“Do you know why it will never come to pass that you sit in my place and I in yours?”
Isaac did not respond.
“If you don’t know, then I’ll tell you. The chess pieces are wooden and lifeless, but they’re like people. There can be only one king. The other has to surrender. We are Aryans—kings who triumph. I’m very sad that you are the one who was born to surrender.”
Isaac was silent.
“Did you understand? That is an elemental truth, and that’s why today each of us sits in his own place. You on your stool and I in my armchair. It can be no other way.”
I can’t bear what he’s saying and will not listen at all anymore. Let him say whatever he wants to. He knows no one will argue.
He’s a king….
His word is the king’s word….
My concern is chess.
It’s too bad that I don’t have the right either to win or to lose, but only to force a stalemate…. Will there ever be one? How I would like to stand up, sweep the pieces from the board, and run from here to the wide meadow!
• 2 •
Here, in the ghetto, there are no flowers.
Flowers are forbidden.
They can’t be grown, and they can’t be brought in.
They are forbidden.
Why are flowers forbidden?
I think about that for a long time but can’t understand it. If I were the greatest villain in the world, I would still allow people to grow flowers. People would quickly find seeds. Roots would sprout. People would tear up the sidewalks beneath their windows and throw the rocks out from the edges of their yards, and everywhere peonies would raise their heavy heads of various colors, supple lilies would blossom, low-growing nasturtiums would exude their passionate smells. They would be everywhere, as if scattered by a loving, generous hand.
If I were the greatest villain in the world and did not allow flowers to be grown, I would nonetheless allow them to be brought in from the meadows and grasslands as people came home from work in the camps. The columns would march wearily through the city, but no one would see a lowered head. Above the columns would be flowers, many bouquets, and then one could believe that there weren’t any people there at all, that flowers had gone out for a walk. They wouldn’t have to hurry; they could walk forward slowly, step by step. It’s only five in the evening, and they will certainly get to the ghetto by six.
Everyone understands about weapons. We don’t have to discuss them.
I understand why it’s forbidden to bring food into the ghetto. Schoger wants us all to go hungry.
I understand why we are not allowed to bring in clothing. They want us to be ragged and tattered so we will be cold.
Buy why has Schoger forbidden flowers?
I can’t understand that.
A flower. A thin stalk, colored blossoms, and an affecting smell.
Who can forbid flowers?
* * *
—
When I sit with Esther in our yard, I on the log and she on the wooden box, when the two of us are alone and stare at one another as we sit silently, Esther hunches over and looks for a small weed flower that has hammered its way up through the stones. She finds one and, whispering something, plucks its tiny petals. There aren’t many of those petals, and Esther does not hurry. With her sharp fingernails she gracefully pinches off a petal, holds it in her hands, then lets it drop. It floats the way a small bird flutters its wings.
I know what Esther needs.
Esther needs a camomile blossom.
Esther wants to hold in her hands a common white meadow flower, to pluck the petals of its blossoms and whisper something so softly that I cannot hear.
She works right here, in the ghetto; she helps her parents; she’s a nurse. Esther hasn’t been in the meadows for a long time, and she has probably forgotten how flowers look. But she still wants a camomile. I know. Today she is as pale and white as camomile.
* * *
—
“Don’t look at me like that,” Esther says. “I’m very pale now, right? It’s nothing. I’ll recover quickly. Today my father operated on a boy, and he needed blood. Usually everyone gives blood. It’s nothing special. But today my type matched, and my father called for me. He said that it’s not good to take so much blood at one time, but I’m healthy and nothing will happen to me. The boy was very sick, but now he will surely recover.”
She looks at me, but I keep quiet and say nothing.
“You’re not angry that I’m so pale, are you?”
“Come on! Can I be angry because you gave a boy blood?”
That’s how I answer, and my thoughts are already somewhere else.
I close my eyes. I imagine that we are far, far away. We wade through tall grass into a large wide meadow. Esther sits with her arms braced against the ground while I run through the grass and pick flowers. There are unusually many. The flowers are white and yellow, red and blue. Some have a subtle fragrance; others ring their bells. I already have an armful of flowers, but I am still not satisfied.
“Shimek!”
That’s how Buzia calls me.
“I’m coming!” I say.
“Enough! Shimek!”
“Two more, one more, and it will be enough.”
“Enough…. Let them grow…. They’re so beautiful….”
“All right; that’s enough.”
Then I hear, “Isia…”
I open my eyes. I see our yard, lined with stones. I sit on the log, and Esther sits on the wooden box.
* * *
—
We come home from work. The gates of the ghetto are right here, and my heart beats irregularly. It pounds quickly, then stops, pounds and stops again.
In my shirt is a bouquet of flowers.
I asked the guard, and he let me wade into the meadow, and it sparkled with camomile, like a green tablecloth with white and yellow spots. I tore up handfuls of flowers together with the grass. I thought I’d pick the entire meadow and carry it away. Then I remembered that it was forbidden to carry away the meadow. And I scattered all the flowers. I was sad to scatter them, but I could pick only a small bouquet, so it had to be very beautiful, of the prettiest flowers.
Now we’re returning home. The gates of the ghetto are right here, and my heart beats irregularly. It pounds quickly, then stops, pounds and stops again.
* * *
—
The men were angry when they saw my flowers. I know that usually they would not get angry. But today they have the right. Today they’re carrying back into the ghetto the German machine gun they managed to steal from the warehouse in which we work. They took it apart and hid the pieces of that machine gun for two days. They unscrewed what they could, broke what they had to. That’s nothing. The ghetto’s locksmiths will fix it. Today they divided everything up and are carrying the gun back to the ghetto.
I know why they’re angry. They’re afraid: If someone notices my flowers, they may initiate a body search and some part of the machine gun might be found.
Stalemate Page 4