The Lost Wife

by Alyson Richman

  It reminded me of a funeral procession, these men, women, and children walking with the look of death and defeat on their faces. I couldn’t imagine how the ghetto, which was already overflowing with people, could accommodate a single person more.

  One evening, just before curfew, Rita confided to me that she had seen Fritta in her barracks the night before. He had come to draw the woman who was known as the Fortune-Teller, an ancient woman who always wore a tattered shawl.

  Rita lived in one of the attic dormitories, where, because of the pitch of the roofline, there were no three-tiered bunks. There were only mattresses and straw on the floor, and a few low wooden beds.

  Fritta found the Fortune-Teller in a corner, sitting next to a window lined with metal pots and pans. “He drew her quickly in pen and ink,” Rita told me. Her white hair tied with a rag, her spectacles, her slackened jaw, and her toothless mouth.

  “He said nothing as I watched him draw,” she said. “It was an amazing thing to see.” Within seconds, he had exaggerated the weight of her head on a narrow body, the length of her spindly arms, her two enormous eyes.

  She described how he drew the window where she was sitting as if it had been flung open, even though it remained firmly shut. He drew the brick wall that was next door as if it were broken down the middle. He drew the side of a rampart, an old sparse tree in the courtyard, and an iron gate on an ancient wall. Sweeping from one corner of the paper were three squares of laundry on a clothesline, dangling like white flags.

  “It took him less than an hour,” Rita whispered. “The Fortune-Teller asked if he wanted her to read his cards.”

  “And what did he say?” I was now riveted by the story.

  “He said that sadly, he already knew what lay in store for him.”

  I shook my head.

  Rita closed her eyes as if she, too, knew her fate. “The Fortune-Teller did not disagree.”

  I continued to hear whispers of the many paintings and drawings that Fritta and his colleague Leo Haas were doing in secret, but I saw only two of them, and that was by accident. One morning I had come to our drafting room early, as I had wanted to collect some materials for Mother before the others arrived.

  When I got there, the room was still dark. A single incandescent light was lit at the back. I moved closer, only to see a single figure hunched over the wash sink. It was Fritta.

  “Sir?” My voice sounded far louder than I had intended. At the sound of it, Fritta swung back. One of his hands must have jerked to the side, as a glass jar came crashing to the ground.

  “Lenka?” he cried as he whirled around. “You scared me!”

  “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, sir . . .” I must have sounded like a nervous child as I tried to apologize. I immediately rushed to the floor where the glass had shattered and tried to collect the mess with my hands.

  “Don’t, Lenka. Don’t.” He put up a hand to stop me. “You’ll injure yourself and what use will you be for me then?” He quickly went to the corner of the room to retrieve a short broom and knelt to clean up the shards of glass.

  “You should know better than to sneak up on someone before work hours.” He looked more perplexed than angry with me. “And why are you here so early? What if someone caught you?”

  He worked quickly and efficiently as he spoke to me, pushing the glass shards onto a piece of cardboard then dumping them in a waste bin near his desk.

  I followed him as he walked.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I should have known better.” I avoided his gaze. My words were caught in my throat as I struggled to come up with an explanation for my early arrival. “I . . . I just wanted to get a head start on those illustrations of the pipeline for the SS,” I lied. As I stood next to him, I could not help but see two fresh pen-and-ink drawings on his desk.

  The first was a drawing of a transport arriving. The second was of the old people’s dormitory in Kavalier. Three skeletal bodies, again sketched in pen and ink, were painted as seen through the bars of an arched window. Their bodies were ravaged by starvation—hollow eyes, sunken cheeks, and elongated necks, twisting underneath the flimsy blankets of their bunks.

  “You needn’t get here early, Lenka. The hours you already put in for the Germans are more than enough.”

  I nodded and looked again at the sketches on his desk. Fritta must have noticed this, for his eyes suddenly met mine and held my gaze, as if to say, Don’t question me about those drawings.

  He quickly spun around and flipped the drawings upside down.

  A second later, we heard the sound of footsteps. We both turned to look. It was Haas.

  “What the hell is she doing here?” he demanded when he caught sight of me.

  “I’m sorry . . .” I started to stammer the same excuse I had given Fritta, but Haas lifted his hand to stop me. He clearly had no use for my excuses.

  “Kish,” he barked. Kish was his nickname for Fritta. “We said no others.”

  I looked over to Fritta, who was staring straight into Haas’s eyes.

  “Lenka is so diligent, she wanted to get an early start on her work.” His eyes now widened as if to signal to Haas to stop.

  For a few seconds a silent exchange ensued between them. Haas raised one of his dark eyebrows, then Fritta nodded. They ended their silent dialogue with each of them staring intently at the other. Haas seemed to understand that the only crime I was guilty of was my arriving at an inauspicious moment.

  “Very well.” It was Fritta who ended the standoff. “I think Lenka now understands she shouldn’t get to work any earlier than she is expected.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We don’t want the Germans to know we were here, so let’s the three of us make a pact not to mention this again.”

  “Yes, sir.” I nodded. I looked over at Haas, who was now looking around the room for something.

  “Now let’s get you back to your barracks, Lenka.” He quickly lifted the book off the covered drawings and rolled them into a paper tube so quickly that I could barely see anything other than the swift movements of his hands.

  “Let’s not mention any of this again.”

  I nodded.

  Fritta turned to Haas. “I will be back in an hour when the others arrive,” he said.

  Haas was already at his desk, his back to us. He nodded.

  Fritta tucked the tube with his drawings under one armpit, and the two of us walked silently and briskly out the door.

  CHAPTER 39

  LENKA

  Rita is now in her seventh month. I look at her body through her dress, her stomach resembling a small melon. She is severely undernourished and no one would suspect that she is with child.

  She is exhausted. You can see that just by looking at her face. When I visit her this time at Lautscher, I see that her hands are shaking when she paints.

  Theresa looks sideways to me from her easel and shakes her head gravely. I nod. Rita does not look well.

  “I think we should go to the infirmary,” I tell her.

  She shakes her head no. She continues her painting as I talk to her. Her small, wispy strokes of watercolor are bleeding all over the page.

  “We won’t tell anyone you’re pregnant. We’ll say you’re just unwell.”

  “I would rather stay here than risk getting typhus, or worse,” she says, turning to me. She places her paintbrush down. “I have already told Oskar. So please just let me finish my work, Lenka.”

  The severity of her tone surprises me, but I try not to take offense.

  I watch as she presses her palms to the table where she’s working, her back slightly hunched forward, the small outline of her stomach against the cloth of her dress.

  And then I hear Theresa gasp.

  Beneath the low wooden stool, between Rita’s legs, is a swelling puddle of water.

  CHAPTER 40

  LENKA

  Theresa runs for Oskar. He and I carry Rita to the infirmary. There, the baby is born two months early amid the sick a
nd the wretched. Rita’s baby boy pulled out of her, his body no bigger than a newborn pup.

  He is alive, but barely. He is blue, and he is no bigger than my hand. When she lifts him to her breast, there is no milk.

  I will never forget the sound of his cry. A whimper, but so low it was almost imperceptible. But in its faintness, in the child’s desperation to live, it was thundering.

  Oskar is at Rita’s bedside. His skin is ashen and reminds me of the color of a seagull. His brown eyes are wet with tears.

  They call one of the rabbis, who suggests they call the baby “Adi,” which in Hebrew means “my witness.” Rita holds him to her breast, convinced that his suckling might bring forth her milk.

  I leave to afford them privacy. But within the hour I see a friend of Oskar’s standing in front of me.

  “They want you to do a drawing of the baby,” he says. He is breathless from having run to find me.

  “It is urgent,” he says. “There isn’t much time.”

  I go to my barracks and find a scrap of paper. It is my largest one, but still no bigger than a dinner plate. Its edges are jagged, but it is clean and without any markings. In my pocket, I stuff two nubs of charcoal. I have nothing else, as I have given everything to Mother for Friedl and the children.

  When I get to the infirmary the baby is at her empty breast. “I have no milk,” she says, weeping. I put my sketchpad down and go over to embrace her. I kiss the top of her forehead, then Adi’s. I sit down and look at the two of them. My beautiful Rita, with her blond hair wet from perspiration, her cheeks flushed, her eyes cloudy with tears. The child’s features, without the padding of baby fat, are Rita’s in sharp relief. The high planed forehead, the sharp, upturned nose, and the sickle-shaped cheekbones. Rita’s face is bowed to Adi’s, her eyes fastened to him, his tiny body cradled in her shaking arms.

  The child’s face is exquisite and delicate; his skin is still rosy from what nourishment Rita was able to give him within the womb. But with each passing minute, the color in his little body begins to fade. The blue first appears at his fingertips, then spreads to his limbs, then to his face. I can see Rita’s face stiffen with pain as she tries to draw him closer to her, to warm him.

  “He’s turning blue!” she cries. “Oskar, he’s so cold! Don’t we have anything to warm him with?” she cries like a frightened animal.

  Oskar takes off his dirty shirt and tries to lay it on the baby. I see Rita wince. The dirt on the shirt is evident, and probably the smell is, too. There are no embroidered receiving blankets like I remember Marta being swaddled in. This wretched piece of cloth will be the first and perhaps the last thing to touch the child’s skin.

  Rita is now beyond grief as the baby’s breath becomes more labored, his color now no longer blue but china white.

  I start to sketch them. I see the first lines give way to an image of mother and child, their faces emerging on a piece of precious, stolen paper. I sketch Rita’s face nestled close to her child’s, his cheek against her breast, their features one and the same. I want to capture life—by adding even the slightest bit of color to the picture, but I don’t have a single stick of oil pastel or a tube of paint. The stick of vine charcoal is already dust in my hand. And then it comes to me, in an act of almost primal desperation. I look down at my ragged hands, my frayed cuticles, and pull at them. I tear the skin until the corners are leaking blood. I squeeze red droplets of blood onto various parts of the drawing: Rita’s cheeks, mouth, and breast, and the child’s limbs. My drawing, first intended to show the love between a mother and child, now becomes one of blazing defiance: cast in black and red.

  CHAPTER 41

  JOSEF

  I never told my children or grandson about Lenka. They grew up thinking their parents found each against the backdrop of a war, two misplaced people in a foreign country who married out of a shared longing to forget.

  I think Rebekkah would explain it as a longing to make a new start, a new family, because both of ours had perished like a whisper of smoke, a desire so loud it thundered in our chests and clouded our judgment.

  I think my son would say I married Amalia simply because it was better than being alone.

  And I would tell my children, had they ever asked for the truth, that it was a little of both.

  I learned when my daughter was in college that I was incorrectly listed among the dead on the SS Athenia. Rebekkah discovered this while scrolling through reams of microfiche one late night at her school’s library.

  She told me quietly during her spring break, when we were alone in the apartment, two cups of tea between us.

  The Xerox copy Rebekkah made of the newspaper now rested on the table. I glanced at it before touching it. The headline concerned Roosevelt’s signing of the neutrality proclamation for the United States. Below, next to a smaller article about the French army penetrating Germany, was a photograph of the Athenia and an announcement that 117 were confirmed dead. My name, my father’s, my mother’s, and sister’s were among those listed.

  “Are you okay, Dad?” Rebekkah asked me. I had been looking at the paper for several seconds but was struggling to believe what I was seeing was actually true. I knew that there had been tremendous chaos when the rescue boat landed near Glasgow. I had reported my parents’ and sister’s deaths to a clerk and the only explanation I could come up with was that when I told him my name, he accidentally included it along with the others as one of the deceased.

  “This is unbelievable,” I said. My stomach was doing somersaults and I thought I might be sick.

  “It’s as though you were given a second life,” she said. There was a youthful quality to her voice, and at the same time a depth of understanding far beyond her years. I remember that she reached past the cup and saucer and touched my hand.

  But I was not thinking about my daughter and her compassion. My head was instead swimming with thoughts of my beloved Lenka. She would have read this in the Czech papers. She would have believed that I was dead.

  I remember I excused myself and told my daughter I needed to lie down. I felt dizzy. I felt as though I might choke. Lenka. Lenka. Lenka. I saw her pregnant, dressed in widow’s black, believing herself to be abandoned. Terrified. Alone.

  My guilt was suffocating me. I had felt its unforgiving grasp for years. Letters to the Red Cross. Searches that led to dead ends. Letters that stated that Lenka had been sent to Auschwitz and was presumed dead.

  Is this what it means to be in love? To mourn for an eternity for a mistake I foolishly made? How many times did I revisit those last hours in our apartment? I should have insisted that she come with me. I should have wrapped her in my arms and never let her go.

  And my naïveté pierces like an ice pick. A painful, slow, bleeding wound.

  I close the door to my bedroom while my daughter finishes her tea. I stretch out my arms, imagining Lenka. All these years and all I want is to hold her, comfort her.

  Ask for her forgiveness.

  But all I hear is quiet, then the sound of Rebekkah carrying our dishes to the sink.

  I wrap my hands together like a knotted ball.

  Air and memory. I press them deep into my heart.

  CHAPTER 42

  JOSEF

  After the war, I began to search for Lenka through more official channels. The Red Cross had created tracing centers across the country, so I registered at one on the Upper West Side. I would go there once a week, whether it was blustering cold or a torrential rain, to see if they had located Lenka.

  I made an official request and filled out form after form.

  At my first visit, the woman who was helping me urged me to be patient. “We are working with Jewish organizations throughout Europe,” she said. “Give us time. We will contact you immediately if we discover any news.”

  But I did not wait for her to contact me. I continued to come back week after week, every Wednesday at noon. The regularity of the visits made me feel that I wasn’t giving up. I never missed my
weekly appointment.

  Month after month.

  Soon it became a year.

  “Every day, the list of survivors grows,” I was told. “We’re constantly receiving new names. So there is hope.”

  Over the course of the first year, I came to know nearly every person working in the office. Geraldine Dobrow became my assigned caseworker.

  One afternoon in February, we began what had evolved into our typical weekly meeting. “Mr. Kohn . . .”

  “Josef,” I said. “Please call me Josef.”

  “Mr. Kohn,” she repeated.

  I felt she wasn’t listening to me. I wanted to scream. I had been given the same answer every time I saw her.

  “I NEED YOU TO HELP ME FIND HER.” My voice was louder than it should have been. Ms. Dobrow’s back straightened against her swivel chair. She wrote something on my file. I was sure she was going to recommend that I see a grief counselor, or worse, abandon my case altogether.

  “Mr. Kohn,” she said firmly. “Please. You have to listen to what I’m telling you.”

  “I’m listening.” I sighed and fell back into my chair.

  “I understand your frustration,” she said. “I really do. We’re trying to find her.” She cleared her throat. She pointed outside the glass window of her office to the line that snaked down the corridor. “Everyone who comes here is looking for a loved one.”

  “It’s just that I need to find her.”

  “I know.”

  “I have to find her.” I realized I sounded desperate, but could not help myself. “I made a promise to her.”

  “Yes, I know. Many people made promises . . . But you have to believe me when I tell you we’re doing all we can to help you. To help all the others like you.”

  I wanted to believe in the kindness of this woman. But I couldn’t help myself. She infuriated me.