by Monica Hesse
Josef stares at me. His pebbly eyes have never looked so deep or so clear. “What if he is dead?” He drops the reins now and leans forward heavily, elbows on knees.
“What if he is, Zofia? Do you think you could find a way to live the rest of your life?”
I wait to be angry at him for saying this. I want rage to unfurl in my chest and form a protective shell around my heart.
Do I think I could live the rest of my life if Abek were dead?
But instead of hot anger, I feel a chilling sort of calm.
What if? What if that’s true? What if the thing I’ve been guarding against actually happened? And what if, instead of using all my soul worrying about it, I had to devote my soul to living with it?
Could I do that? Is there any way I could do that?
Lost in thought, I’m only vaguely aware that Josef isn’t looking at me anymore. He’s staring off toward the horizon, lost in something of his own.
“I have a sister who died,” Josef says quietly. “Before the war. A long time ago. She was ten, and she was sick first.”
He deflates a little when he says this. He deflates like a balloon, and the sentence comes out raw like he’s unpracticed at delivering it. “I know it’s not the same; it’s not the same kind of thing,” he continues. “But it means I know what grief can look like when it has a chance to get old. My family had a long time to figure out what life would look like without her. How to do it.”
“How did you do it?”
“Badly,” he says, grimacing. “It wrecked my parents. It turned them into different people. Klara held the family together in ways we didn’t realize at the time.”
“What was your sister like? Klara?”
He draws his breath in sharply. “She was funny. Stubborn. Like, one day when she was about eight, she was mad at me for not letting her play with my friends, so she filed down the heel of my shoe. Only the left one. A little every day, for a week. I thought I was going crazy. Or maybe that I had some wasting illness because one of my legs was shorter than the other. I don’t think many eight-year-olds have that kind of patience or that kind of, I don’t know, deviousness.”
“You were close?”
He shakes his head. “We weren’t, really. I thought she was immature. But I guess I also assumed we’d become better friends when we were both older. Instead, she got sick.”
“Oh, Josef. I’m sorry.”
Without thinking, I rest my hand on his forearm. He looks down, and he doesn’t pull it away. He leans into it. Almost imperceptibly, but he does. I can feel the tendons and muscles of his forearm ripple beneath his sleeve as he starts the horses up again. Slowly, he transfers both of the reins into his left hand, resting his right one open on his lap, palm up. Slowly, I slide my own hand down his arm and lace my fingers between his. This exchange takes forever, whole minutes. Only when he lets out a little breath am I sure that this is what he was hoping I’d do, and only when he gratefully curls his fingers around mine, like they’re starving, like I am safety, do I realize he was afraid I wouldn’t. His fingers are cooler than mine, and they feel solid and real.
“Josef,” I say quietly. “What if my brother is dead—but what if he’s not? I’m not ready to give up yet. Do you think that’s stupid?”
He sighs. “I don’t know. I’m not the right person to ask about stupid things. I start fights with people bigger than me, remember?”
“I get on trains and cross countries,” I say.
“That’s not stupid. That’s brave.”
The word choice surprises me; it’s not one I’d choose to describe myself. The things I’ve done I haven’t done out of braveness. I’ve done them out of necessity.
“I think I’m just doing what anyone would do to find their family,” I say. “Wouldn’t you, if your sister were alive? Or your parents. If they were.”
His hand twitches in mine, and he shifts awkwardly. “I think they are still alive.”
I gape at him. “Really?”
“As far as I know. I think so. But we can talk about something else.”
He sets his face in a mask, the same kind of evasiveness from when I offered to repair his shirt. A closed-offness.
This revelation about his parents is unfathomable to me. How could you have living family and not be doing what I’m doing or what Miriam is doing, dedicating as many waking hours as possible to finding them?
“You’re looking for them, though, right?” I ask. “You’re still looking for them? Josef?”
Instead of answering, Josef coughs and abruptly releases my hand to cover his mouth. It sounds forced, though, high in his chest. When he finishes, he takes the reins in both hands again and shifts away. There’s a gap of cool air now against my thigh.
“I didn’t mean to pry,” I try. “I just wondered about your parents.”
“That’s not it,” he insists. “It’s just that it’s late. We were at the Wölflins’ longer than I think we meant to be. I think I should focus on the horses.”
“Oh. All right.”
Nothing he says is rude or even impolite, but it’s distant, a voice that could be measured in kilometers. I don’t know what I’ve said or done, but I’ve become a stranger to him again.
It’s late evening when we get back to Foehrenwald; most of the cottages are already dark. We pass a few vehicles, khaki-colored, official-looking ones, parked in a cluster by the camp entrance. They weren’t there when we left; they must be the broken ones, now repaired, that Mrs. Yost mentioned earlier.
Leaving Josef at the stables, I walk back to my cottage. When I get close enough, I see it’s one of the few that’s still bright, with the glow of a lantern coming from the curtains of my bedroom. I hesitate, debating whether to wait outside until the lights have gone out. I’d rather not talk to anyone right now; I’d rather just fall into my bed, curl my knees to my chest, and sleep.
I tiptoe through the front room where Judith and Miriam are sleeping, hoping that the light in our room is on by accident. Or maybe Breine and Esther just left it on so I wouldn’t have to fumble when I returned. But when I put my hand on the knob, I hear the scrape of wood and then a shriek of laughter—my roommates are unmistakably awake inside.
Opening the door, I blink a few times at the sight before me: Breine in her wedding dress, standing on a chair so she’s tall enough to see her full length in the one mirror on the wall. Esther, standing behind her on Breine’s bed, holding up a handkerchief meant to mimic a headpiece. Both are laughing hysterically.
“It’s—it’s so hideous,” Breine chokes out, wiping a tear from her eye.
“Shhhhhh.”
“It’s so hideous,” Breine whispers this time, and she grabs the handkerchief-veil to toss playfully at Esther’s head.
The dress fits Breine about as well as I’d thought it would, which is to say, not at all. The darting in the bodice that should define her breasts stops not at her nipples, but halfway down her midsection, sticking out obscenely around her waist. The neckline is too high, the waist is too low, and the hemline cuts at the most unflattering part of her calves.
“It’s not that bad,” Esther says loyally, grabbing a fistful of fabric from the back, pulling it to one side, then another, unsuccessfully trying to find a more flattering cut. “You’re beautiful.”
“It’s—why did I ever think I could get married in this?”
“You still can,” Esther starts optimistically but falters when Breine gives her a look. “Oh, Breine. Why didn’t you try the dress on when you first found it?”
“I didn’t think it mattered. I kept telling myself anything that didn’t smell like manure would be fine.”
As I close the door behind me, Breine and Esther notice my presence.
“Oh, Zofia, come and witness the horror of this,” Breine encourages. But as she beckons me in, a string of beading comes loose, flies off the sleeve, and drapes itself over the lantern. Esther’s and Breine’s eyes lock in the mirror. Esther maintains
a dignified expression for approximately two seconds, then the sound of beads clanking against the lantern glass makes them helpless again with laughter.
“Come on, step down.” Esther extends her hand. “Let’s get this dress off before it murders someone.”
“Let’s get this dress off me and murder it,” Breine agrees.
“Wait!” They both look up at me and freeze in an awkward tableau, Breine halfway off the chair. “Do you mind if I take a look?” I ask quietly.
“At the dress? I don’t mind if you take it and burn it.”
“Could you step back on the chair, please?”
Breine exchanges a look with Esther. They think my request is odd, but Breine obediently steps back onto the chair.
I walk around her first, taking note of where the dress is too baggy and where it’s too tight; where the stitching is uneven, and how much of it could be taken apart without having to remake the whole garment. They see a dress that is hopeless. I see a dress that needs help. The kind of help I know how to give… or once did, at least.
Once I’ve made a complete circle, I step closer and feel the material between my thumb and forefinger, examining the thinness of the silk, wondering what size needle I would need for how delicate the fabric is. Pleating the silk between my fingers, I try to see what it would look like if it were taken in or gathered differently—the same way Esther had, but with better results since I’m practiced at this sort of thing and she isn’t.
Dresses are different from soldiers’ uniforms. It’s been a long time since I’ve sewn anything beautiful.
Breine and Esther have stopped laughing. I see them look at each other and then back at me with expressions somewhere between surprise and awe. I realize, in the short time they’ve known me, they haven’t seen me do anything I’m good at. Or anything, really, that was part of what made me myself.
Adding a sash might help the baggy waistline. The previous owner of this dress was obviously much thicker around the middle than Breine. Taking it in enough that it fits Breine’s waist would require ripping out almost all the stitches, and I don’t think the fabric could withstand that. But if I made a sash, I could gather the middle without much additional sewing.
Next, I move to the bottom of the dress, flipping over the hem to see if there’s any extra material that I could use to make a matching sash. There is. And, there would be even more extra fabric if the hemline were raised a few centimeters, which would also make the garment look more youthful and appropriate for a twenty-two-year-old woman like Breine. I wish I had a sewing machine. But maybe this work would be better by hand. I wish, at least, I had Baba Rose’s good set of needles and a spool of yellow silk thread.
Still, my fingers feel tingly and alive again, the way they did riffling through the donation box. I feel purposeful. A problem needs to be solved, and for once, I know how to solve it.
“I could fix this,” I say.
“Really?” Breine asks.
“The material is too fragile for me to completely remake it, but I could raise the hemline and do something to fix the waist. Maybe rework the neckline, and rearrange some of the beads so it looks a little more modern.”
“You know how to do all that?”
“I do. We owned a clothing factory.”
“You never said it was clothes,” Breine says. “My mother taught me to fix a button, and that’s all I’ve ever managed. She said maids would do the rest.”
“I can’t even do that,” Esther offers. “My father wanted me to come work with him at his newspaper. He told me editors don’t need home economics.”
“For private clients, we’d do fancier work, sometimes by hand,” I say. “I haven’t made anything like this in a while.”
“But you have before?” Breine asks.
I nod. “If you trust me, I can try to fix this. I can at least make it better.”
“Oh, Zofia, honestly. If you can even make it look like I have two breasts instead of four, I’ll love you forever.”
Esther hands me a pencil so I can make some markings for alterations, and then she and I slide the dress over Breine’s head, while Breine stands with her arms straight up and tries to remain motionless. But the fabric is old and fussy. She giggles every time a bead hits the floor and then apologizes, but then Esther starts giggling, and then I do, too.
“You know what, it doesn’t even matter,” I say. “We’ll remove most of them anyway.”
“Really? Remove the beads?”
“Really, truly. They’re not doing you or the dress any favors.”
“Be free, beads!” Breine yells, shimmying her shoulders until a dozen come off at once, and then we’re laughing again.
When we finally blow out the lamp, it must be two or three in the morning. I sink into my bed, and my pillow has never felt softer.
Then I’m thinking of everything. Of Hannelore and Inge. Of Josef and his sister. Of the conversation we had on the way home, about hope and happy endings and sad endings. And of Abek, always Abek, and all the last times I’ve dreamed I saw him.
I would like them to be better stories. Happier stories about last times. The problem is, my last times are inherently sad: The last time I saw my brother. The last time my family was together. The last time my city was Sosnowiec and not Sosnowitz.
I suppose there are stories about the last times of bad things. The last German uniform I had to help make. The last night I had to sleep, frozen in the barracks, before the Red Army liberated us. The last time I ate a raw potato with my bare hands, so starved I almost swallowed it whole. Do those count as happy last times? I don’t know. The absence of pain is not the same as the presence of happiness.
And what if the times I think are last aren’t really over? Some last times are open-ended. When I find Abek again, then our separation will no longer be “the last time I saw Abek,” it will only be “the last time I saw him before the war.”
I think of all this as Breine and Esther stop giggling in the dark and eventually fall asleep.
But I also think about a dress. A dress, and measuring tape, and tangy pins that leave indentations on my index finger, and the methodical work of putting something right again. It feels like a balm, a cool balm for my brain, to fall asleep thinking about a dress.
HIS BLURRY FACE APPEARS IN FRONT OF ME AGAIN. HIS VOICE IS so sad. And this time we’re not in a memory, not one I can identify. We’re sitting together in a dark space that could be my bedroom, or it could be my father’s office, or it could just be a dark space. And this time, somehow, I’m aware from the beginning that it’s a dream. Even while I’m in it, I’m aware it’s a dream.
“Is it time yet?” he asks. “Is it time to think about the last time you saw me?”
“I’m trying,” I tell him. “I’m trying.”
“You’re getting closer,” he says. “You’re getting closer, so please make a promise to me, Zofia. Make one guarantee: that this is the last time you lie about the last time you saw me.”
“How can it be a lie if I don’t know what the truth is?” I ask. “The absence of the truth is not the presence of a lie. I’m trying. I’m trying. I’m trying.”
TWO WEEKS LATER, THE PEOPLE FROM FELDAFING HAVE arrived. That’s why the extra cars were near the camp entrance when Josef and I returned—they carried the first round of Feldafing transfers. Over the next few days, the cars and a few trucks shuttled back and forth, bringing hundreds of new displaced persons to the camp.
In our cottage, the front room was rearranged to fit a third bed next to the sink. A young Austrian woman now occupies it. She slips off her shoes whenever she enters the front door. She walks on the balls of her feet more quietly than anyone I’ve ever seen. Later, someone told me she spent the war hiding in a crawl space under a neighbor’s floorboards. She didn’t see sunlight or stand up straight for three years. Now her spine crooks forward like an old woman’s, and her voice is an unpracticed whisper. I left a pair of socks for her on her pillow because I thoug
ht of how Breine made sure to share the rug with me my first night here, because she said we all stumbled through this together. I’m not the new person anymore.
Josef left again. Two days after we got back from the Kloster Indersdorf, I saw him drive out of camp, in a car this time, with a male camp employee. At dinner that night, Chaim mentioned vaguely that Josef had volunteered to help with something near the border of British-occupied Germany. But Chaim didn’t offer details, and I was too stung that Josef left without bothering to tell me to ask for more information.
The camp is becoming more organized. Mrs. Yost announced at dinner one night that they were transforming an unused room into a library, a central place to store all the books we receive as donations. The next time, she told us the telephone lines are back. Spottily, she said—but theoretically back.
For a few hours a day, we can now stand in a line that weaves out of her office and down the hallway, waiting to call a loved one or a relief organization or to inquire after an apartment. We talk fast and try not to waste too much time with pleasantries, hoping to finish our business before the line goes dead again.
“Miss Lederman?” says the fuzzy voice on the other end of the telephone line.
“Yes!” I shout into the receiver at the clerk from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee I’ve got on the line. “I’m still here! Can you hear me?”
“Hold one moment; what I said is, I was just about to check the files.” He disappears, and while he’s gone, the phone starts crackling again, which is usually a sign that it’s about to break down again. Come back, come back, I silently beg.
There’s a clattering as the aid worker picks up the receiver again. “Miss Lederman? I have your letter here. Unfortunately, we don’t have any matching records for an Abek Lederman.”
I close my eyes, trying to drown out the chatter coming from the queue outside the door. “What about Alek Federman? Did you check that, too?”