by Monica Hesse
As I’m basking in the long-dormant sense of feeling useful, Breine taps my shoulder.
“I’ve found it!” she squeals, holding up a wrinkled garment from the bottom of a box.
Yellow silk, butter not marigold, the bodice dotted in tiny seed pearls. She holds the dress against her body, swaying back and forth so the fabric swishes at her calves. “Isn’t it perfect?”
This dress isn’t remotely close to the gown Breine described wanting, and it won’t look right on her at all. It’s cut for someone with a much bigger bust than Breine’s, and wider shoulders. Someone older, too. The color of the fabric is youthful, but the style is for a matron. It’s the kind of dress an older woman would order if she didn’t want to admit her age.
“Feel the silk; it’s so delicate,” she says. “I think Chaim will love it.”
Quickly, I scan the rainbow of fabrics on the table for something better to suggest. But most of the dresses are shirtwaists or practical housedresses, nothing a woman would want to get married in. The only other formal option I see is a dark-colored, strapless velvet, appropriate for an American cocktail party but not a wedding gown.
Besides, Breine’s eyes are shining. She pulled it out of the crate and declared it perfect, but I know if the dress had been green or brown, or if it had lace instead of beads, she would have said that was perfect, too, because Breine wants to get married.
The other women see the same thing I do—the light in Breine’s eyes—and they tell her it’s perfect. The mood is gay and laughing, like the day each year when the women in my family would all go to the factory to preview the spring line. Or on special-occasion shopping trips, when my mother and Aunt Maja and I would go to Kraków and accept the glasses of champagne at the department store.
“Isn’t it perfect?” she asks again.
“If that’s the dress you want,” I say, smiling, “then you’ll be the most beautiful bride.”
Breine continues to admire her gown, and I turn back to the piles of fabric on the table. Breine was right earlier. More would-be shoppers are continuing to appear, scooping up garments, and the table is quickly becoming bare. If I don’t get something for myself now, there won’t be anything left.
I grab a dress in plaid, another in plum, a sturdy sweater, socks, and a pair of gloves. The gloves are impractical—they’re made of soft kid, the leather so supple it ripples like silk. My father bought my mother a pair like this once. She wore them to go shopping, but only when she didn’t have to carry home meat or cheese or something that could leave an odor. Only when she was buying nice things.
“Zofia?” Breine is looking at me curiously. I’ve pressed the glove against my cheek. I’m holding it there like a memory, like a memory that needs to be tied down.
My mother was wearing those gloves when we went to the soccer stadium. I can see that now, clearly. And she was wearing them after we left the soccer stadium. She smoothed back my hair with them; she used them to mop Abek’s brow. I know this happened. I know this is a true memory.
What happened next?
I push a little further. My hands start to shake. My head is pulsing. The monster at the door is stirring; I don’t want to push anymore.
I LEAVE BREINE AND ESTHER THE NEXT MORNING WHILE IT’S still dark. Breine’s bedsheets are tangled and half falling off the bed frame while her nose whistles in a snore. A few feet away, Esther sleeps with her pillow over her head.
When I get to the stables, Josef is hitching up the horses to a wagon that looks at least twenty years old. The ends of his curls are still wet from his morning washing. A drop of water clings to the back of his neck and then slowly rolls forward, tracing the curve and sinew of his skin as he works on the wagon, until it finally disappears down the open collar of his shirt. I picture it rolling down his collarbone. Rolling down his chest, rolling over his stomach.
“Hi,” he says, but there’s an element of surprise to the greeting. Maybe he wasn’t sure I’d actually show up. As early as I am, he was still almost ready to leave, and I can’t help but think he wouldn’t have waited long to find out if I was coming or not.
“Good morning,” I say. “Thank you, again, for taking me.”
“Technically, I’m not taking you,” he says, loading a crate of what look like canned goods onto the back of the wagon, the same crates that yesterday held donated dresses. “You’re just coming along on a preplanned route.”
“I guess this means that if the wagon gets crowded, you’ll leave me by the side of the road instead of the C rations.”
“Well,” he grunts as he shoves the box toward the back. “I can’t eat you in an emergency.”
When he’s hooked up Feather and the other horse, Josef nods to the spring seat at the front of the wagon, and I climb on. At the last minute, I decided to pack everything I own in case I don’t return. It’s a few more things than what I arrived with on the train, but I can still carry it all in the valise under one arm.
Josef points to a pail of food on the floorboard and then falls silent. The sun is still rising, but I know our trip is several hours long. The horses seem unhurried and unbothered; Josef drives them with the reins in one hand, a slight curve to his spine, his lean body rhythmically giving in to the movement of the wagon. Several hours of sitting next to Josef.
“Mrs. Yost says you go on supply runs,” I offer after a few kilometers of silence. “Foehrenwald trades with other camps?”
“Sometimes. Right now, the administration is worried about housing all the people from Feldafing when they arrive.”
“How often do you go?”
“Every couple of weeks.”
“I heard her say we needed blankets. And we’re bringing food?”
He nods but doesn’t elaborate out loud this time, and the line of conversation seems exhausted, anyhow. Scrambling for another subject, I look at the horses’ reins, easy in Josef’s hand. “What’s the other horse’s name?” I picture something that would go with Feather, something like Smoke or Coal.
Instead, Josef’s mouth tugs at the corner. “Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”
I laugh. “The American president?”
“The Americans donated the horse.”
“Franklin Delano Roosevelt,” I repeat.
And then suddenly, like a swift kick in the stomach, this name brings forth a memory: a dark movie house, a newsreel, grainy footage, an announcer’s voice saying the Americans had reelected their president for another term.
K is for the KinoTeatr, where I take you when Mama needs rest, where we sit in the balcony and count the hats of the men below, where we watched the inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, because Mama needs rest, so we go to the KinoTeatr, because it has a balcony, where we watched the Inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt because Mama needed rest.
“KinoTeatr?” Josef repeats.
I snap back.
Damnit. Damnit. Shit and piss. My face flushes a deep magenta as I realize with complete horror that I’ve said at least some of that out loud. I wonder how much.
“KinoTeatr?” he asks again.
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“What were you reciting?”
“Nothing.” But obviously, it wasn’t nothing. “It’s just an alphabet game my brother and I used to play. A name for every letter. I don’t know why I said it out loud. Sometimes my brain gets stuck.”
“You said that when I met you,” he says. “It was one of the first things you said—that your mind must have been playing tricks on you.”
I flush again, even deeper red if possible. “It’s—it’s hard to explain,” I stammer. “Sometimes timelines get mixed up in my head. Or I’ll think I remember something that didn’t happen, or I’ll forget something that did. I’m better, though. They wouldn’t have discharged me from the hospital if I wasn’t better, and I’m still getting better every day.”
Even though I’m trying to put Josef at ease, I’m realizing, with fragile pride, that the sentiment is true.
I have gotten better. I arrived in Foehrenwald two days ago, and before just now, my brain has gotten stuck only once: when I watched Josef get in that fight. I don’t know whether it’s because I’m in a new place that’s not haunted by memories or because I’m on my own, but until now, I managed not to act crazy in front of Josef, or anyone else for that matter. I made him laugh. He saw me be quick-witted. He saw me be a person. “I’m getting better every day,” I repeat.
“You don’t owe me an explanation,” he cuts me off indifferently.
I wince a little at his nonchalance. “I’m sorry. I apologize for boring you with my health.”
“All I said was, you don’t owe me an explanation.”
“Well, I don’t owe you anything, apparently.” This, I meant to sound like a joke, but it comes out caustic, too. He looks at me quizzically. “What you said yesterday,” I explain. “That you didn’t want us to feel beholden to each other.”
“That’s true.”
His answer doesn’t sound as though he’s trying to joke. His tone of voice is serious, which I find both reassuring and frustrating for reasons that are hard to articulate. I shouldn’t want to feel beholden to him, after all. I should be glad he’s specified that I don’t owe him anything. But at the same time, I just did something strange in front of him—I recited something odd about an old movie house—and told him I’d been in a hospital. Shouldn’t he want an explanation? Even if I didn’t want to give one, shouldn’t he be concerned or at least curious?
“The horses. How did you learn to work with them?” I ask now, trying to find a thread from before.
“I grew up working with horses,” he says.
“Did you grow up on a farm?”
“No. I grew up in a city.”
“A city in Germany?”
He hesitates a bit. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“Where I’m from, the people who still drove wagons were mostly the farmers who came into the city on market days.”
“It wasn’t a farm.” It’s clear he means that to be the end of his answer, his eyes are back on the road, and I’m still trying to put my finger on what it is about Josef and this conversation that’s throwing me so off-kilter.
“I’m sorry if I’m—I’m really not crazy,” I tell him.
“So you said. I just prefer to keep to myself.”
“Because I know I was odd the first day we met, and if you’re afraid of me, then—”
“My family had stables,” he interrupts. “All right? That’s how I know horses. At our summer house, where we would go on holidays. I took riding lessons, and the groundskeeper used to let me drive the wagon when he did chores.” He turns to me and raises an eyebrow. “Happy? I’m not afraid of you or worried about you. I don’t think you’re going to tear off your clothes and run screaming down the road or do something else insane. My family had stables, and I used to help the groundskeeper.”
This is the first interaction I can remember having in months where someone didn’t ask if I was okay. That’s what was confusing to me. That’s what made me feel strange and off-kilter. Josef is responding to my prying questions as though they’re legitimately prying questions, not like they’re symptoms that my brain isn’t working.
Josef is not acting like I’m something that needs to be worried about.
Mentally, I fill in the blanks of what he’s just said. The “house” where he went on holidays must be a grand estate. Only the wealthiest families would keep stables and employ groundskeepers. And his family had a house in the city, too.
“The summer house sounds nice,” I say.
“It was nice. Summer was my favorite time of the year.”
“Why don’t you—” I start to ask.
“Why don’t I what?”
Why don’t you go home, is what I was about to say. Nazis didn’t burn down estates. They occupied them and preserved them; they loved the art. Josef could have tried to go home. But there’s such a defensiveness in his response that I back off without finishing my sentence. “Why don’t you like to eat with other people in the dining hall?”
He shrugs. “I told you. I just prefer to keep to myself. Not all of us in Foehrenwald hope to make new friends. Some of us are trying to leave as soon as we can. Like you. You’re going to get your brother, and then you’ll probably want to go back home and try to run your family’s factory.”
I bite the inside of my lip to hide a smile. I didn’t tell him about my family’s factory; he must have asked Chaim or Mrs. Yost.
“Look for him,” I correct.
“What?”
“You said we were going to get my brother. But I’m going with you to look for him.”
“You don’t know that he’s at the Kloster Indersdorf?”
“I have reason to believe it’s a logical place to start looking for him.”
“Then I hope he’s there,” Josef says. “And that he wants to be found.”
The last half of his sentence catches me off guard. “Why wouldn’t he want to be found?”
Josef keeps his eyes on the road. “Lots of reasons. He could have painful memories of before the war. He could want to start completely over. He could decide that’s easier to do if he’s not around you.”
The back of my neck bristles. I shift a little on the wooden bench. “Of course he wants to be found. He’s a little boy.”
Josef presses his lips together.
“Josef, of course he wants to be found,” I repeat. “Why would you say something like that?”
“Have you at least thought about it?”
“Thought about whether my brother might not want to see me? No, I haven’t, Josef. I don’t think it’s a thing most people would consider.”
“Suit yourself.”
“And I don’t think I want to continue this conversation.”
“Okay,” he says again. “I just—”
“I said, I don’t think I want to continue this conversation,” I spit. “He was a little boy. He still is.”
“Not all people want to be found.”
I can’t tell what is infuriating me more now—what Josef is saying or the even tone he’s saying it in. The fact that he isn’t even looking at me. The fact that he’s just said horrible things to me but pauses now to click something softly to the horses.
“You’re an ass, Josef.” He winces but glances over only for the briefest second before returning to the road. “Look at me, Josef. You’re an ass. You’re such an expert on what people want? The day I met you, you were attacking a man.”
Still, he doesn’t respond, his mouth set in a firm line.
How could I have been so stupid before? Bathing in Josef’s curtness because it reminded me of being normal? Pressing on with a conversation because I like the color of his eyes, the sheen of sweat on his neck? Convincing myself he was mysterious when I should have realized he was just rude.
“Stop the wagon,” I order. “I need a rest.”
He hesitates and jerks his chin upward. “There’s a little village in about a kilometer. I usually water the horses there.”
“I’d like to stop now.”
“It’s just a kilometer.”
“Fine. Don’t stop. I’ll get out now by myself and walk.” I’m already standing, wobbly on my bad foot. My knee bashes painfully against the seat as I eye the distance to the ground. “I don’t want to ride with you another second longer than—”
But then he does stop, pulling swiftly on the reins—and I lurch forward, grabbing the side of the wagon to steady myself. Part furious, part embarrassed, and part throbbing from where I’d hit the seat, I straighten my dress and climb down onto the dirt road. Knee stiff and aching, I start down the path, desperate to put distance between me and Josef.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him pause for a moment, deciding whether to come after me. He doesn’t. He unhooks the horses and leads them for a drink, one bridle in each hand, toward the stream we’ve been following.
Josef
doesn’t know my brother, I tell myself as I hobble down the road. Josef doesn’t know me. Josef doesn’t know how any of this works any better than I do. Josef is an ass.
Josef is an ass. But if he’s right, then I have no hope.
I stop in my tracks, doubling over with nausea by the terrifying prospect of hopelessness. This wish, to find Abek, to find one person in millions of people—it hangs together by the finest of threads. All it takes is for Abek to not add his name to one list, to decide he doesn’t want to be found.
This thinking isn’t good for me; this thinking will burrow into my mind like a worm. It already has. My hands shake; I feel as if I can hear the bones rattling inside my skin. If Abek doesn’t want to be found, then I won’t be able to find him because he doesn’t want to be found, and if I don’t find him, then I won’t find him because he didn’t want to be found and I will never see him again, and I failed, I failed, I failed.
I fold my hands together to keep them from rattling and try to think of something concrete that I can do, something that will occupy my brain. Josef said there was food. Walk back to the wagon and get the food, I instruct myself. One foot in front of the other.
The tin pail is still on the floorboard, where Josef pointed to it earlier. The food is neatly wrapped, two of everything. I divide it, leaving Josef’s portion on the driver’s bench, where Josef should see it when he gets back, and then take my own portion to a stump by the side of the road, forcing myself to sit and put pieces of bread in my mouth.
In the distance, I can see him by the creek with the horses. He coaxes them down the steep bank, and while they drink, he wets a grooming brush, brushing the sweat from their backs. Josef is too thin. It’s easier to think of his flaws when I’m as angry at him as I am. He’s too thin, and his eyes are a little close together, and they’re weary like an old man’s, with dark circles and crinkled lines.
Josef is broken like me.
I have no evidence for this. It’s not an excuse for anything. But it’s what hits me, watching Josef intently pour himself into these small actions with the horses.