SEVEN
Germany, 1991
Julia gazed fondly on Anna trying to sleep stretched out across the compartment seat, her body rolling slightly back and forth with each twist and turn of the fast-moving train. One generation was all that separated her from the fiery horrors of the war that had painted the passing countryside blood red fifty years ago. Now, looking through the dusty train window at the wide autobahn running alongside the tracks, every lane as far as she could see was filled with hurrying motorists speeding back and forth to their own individual destinies. It was a scene Julia would have eagerly exchanged for all that she saw on her first train trip across Germany to Rotterdam. Then massive iron tanks and long cannons and marching green-clad men were everywhere, loading her young eyes with terror as she held two frightened children in her arms. How strange. A distant moment and a present moment separated by a space of time, yet inseparable as the future.
Anna’s generation and those that followed might care about history and the boundless magnitude of the human slaughter that took place along the passing countryside and elsewhere, but they would never feel its sorrow, Julia believed. And it is a feeling that becomes more silent each day, as the last days of the last warriors grow near. So it is with those whom fate let live in the death camps of Germany, like her cousin Abram. They will always feel it during some passing moment because they were there.
England, 1939
Anna was there, too, though she didn’t know it, nor did Julia: a seed in Julia’s womb coming alive the evening before she boarded the train for Rotterdam. Rushing to secretly meet Erich at Rabbi Loew’s grave, they lay together with muted emotions in the dark and stillness of the cemetery, each giving their love to the other for the last time. But Julia was never certain that the treasured moment was Anna’s time to enter history. Within two weeks after she left Prague and arrived in England, the British were rushing to mobilize what forces they could gather to wrestle with the German monster when the time came, which everyone knew would be soon. In the outskirts of London, all the streets around the temporary refugee camp where Julia boarded were cluttered with army trucks loaded with thousands of British soldiers, readying to depart for France. The exhilarating madness that always accompanies the rush to war before the killing and dying begins covered the city like a spreading plague. Julia provided no exception. Swept along by the mounting excitement, she would leave every night after bedding the young refugee children under her care and rush hurriedly to a nearby pub. There, struggling with her poor English, she would keep company with small groups of unnamed soldiers, listening the best she could to their history, laughing with them, but most of all reminding them of all that was still good in the world.
In time’s passing, many emotional and conscious human acts are blended with a mixture of good and evil. In one moment, all the goodness of humanity may flicker brightly then quickly dim when doused by its own polluted waters. So it was with Julia one terrible night when her own sense of right and wrong would be scarred. Leaving the pub late for the dark walk home alone, she reached the narrow path leading to her dormitory. Running alongside a wide green where children laughed and played unafraid each passing day, the winding path took her through a magical tunnel fashioned by rows of young common oak trees on each side, their long, fingered branches entwined like thousands of loving hands clinging to each other. The gang rape came swift and brutal from the shadows lurching forward from behind the trees. Torn and bleeding and violated, Julia lay face down naked in the dewy grass, hidden from every passing eye except God’s. Her rape by a drunken group of Her Majesty’s soldiers came not because of who she was, but because she happened to be there—an existential moment when a wrong seemed the right thing to do.
Hours later the cold wetness of a passing shower gradually revived Julia’s senses, and she made her way back to the dormitory, collapsing on the tiny cot in her room. Too hurt to cry, she stared blindly into the darkness hiding everything around her, including the terrible shame she felt. In the morning she would tell only Eva Stransky, her new friend, about the night’s horrors.
From Bratislava, Eva had little in common with Julia except that they were both Jews; but they had become quick friends on the refugee train, sharing many stories about families and lovers during the long hours crossing Germany to Rotterdam. When Julia’s story of Erich and her deep love for him was told, Eva said nothing but only smiled and nodded. No judgments would ever pass between the two, even after Julia gave birth to Anna some nine months later. When the time came to complete Anna’s birth certificate, it was Eva who insisted to the government authorities that Anna’s father was a Jew hiding somewhere from the Germans in Prague now that the war had started. His name was Eli Kahn, Eva continued with her resolute lie, a young silversmith from Brno. Julia had sat silent, not with embarrassment at the flow of fanciful tales from Eva, but rather in awe at such boldness in protecting Anna’s honor. On paper at least, she would not be born a bastard, open to society’s silent judgments and hidden smirks. And so, Julia became the fictitious Mrs. Kahn, married by a fictitious Rabbi Thien, with Eva as a fictitious witness the day before she left Prague behind, much too late to have her visa corrected.
Months later Julia sat looking wishfully through one of the two windows in the small family quarters assigned to her after Anna’s birth. A cold, icy rain rattled the window with loud drum like rat-a-tats each time the gusting storm winds blew against it. Julia held Anna a little more tightly in her arms, as if the gods that had changed her life now wanted Anna as a sacrifice. With each wild rush of wind against the window, she would stir in her sleep before the gentle voice of Julia’s soft lullaby reassured her that all was well. Julia wondered silently if her father and mother too were searching now through such a similar storm, trying to find the same god to curse for what had befallen them. Two months after her arrival in England, she had received a one-page letter from her father. At first, she left the letter unopened on her drop-leaf table, as if it were some ancient scroll that would crumble into a thousand tiny pieces should she touch it. But Julia’s fears were its contents. Hitler’s goose-stepping green men had been in Prague since mid March, unfurling their swastika banners from every open balcony across the great city. Even Hitler himself came to Prague then, racing ahead of his advancing army to Hradcany Castle, where he posed triumphantly, as Caesar might have done in Rome centuries before, from a high alcove window, looking down at a defeated people.
What else could there be for her dear father to write? Julia thought. The day of the Jew in Prague would soon be over. Putting Anna in her crib, Julia returned to the table and picked up the letter. Gently caressing it, she brought the envelope to her nose, catching the faint aroma of jasmine, which her mother always dabbed across the top of her letters, and began to cry. Not openly, but in a whimper, like a lost child. Even with Anna by her side, she felt more alone than she ever remembered.
Dearest Julia,
We wait each day for the mailman to bring a letter from you but nothing comes. There is little we are allowed to say to you. I would like to hear from you—that, for me, would be the best thing. Sadness fills our empty house with you and Hiram gone. If only dear God would bring peace so we could be together again before it is too late. This month was Grandpapa’s yahrzeit. We lit the candle and you should too. You will remember to let it burn for twenty-four hours. If you have no picture of Grandpapa to put by the candle, pretend one is there and tell it everything you can remember about him, as we have.
Don’t forget us, or your precious homeland, and God will protect you.
Papa
There would be no more letters from home. “Don’t forget us,” is what dear Papa had said. “What could be more certain,” Julia cried aloud, startling Anna, who began to cry with her. Before Julia could think further about her father’s letter, Eva burst into the room, frantically waving in her right hand several papers rolled up like a scroll. Her enthusiasm quickly dampened when she saw Julia’s tears.
“
You’ve been crying.”
“Yes, my first letter from home.”
Handing Anna to Eva, Julia carefully folded her father’s letter, placed it on the table, and looked through the window again at the heavy cold rain forming large puddles of water in the small playground area next to the dormitory. If only Anna were older, Julia wished. They would play together in the small muddy oceans, having great sea battles with great armadas made of paper, as she and Hiram did a thousand times over when the heavy rains came to Prague. Like Ares, the Greek god of war, their father would watch over the titanic sea wars from high above on the back porch. There he would build more paper ships for whichever side had less so that no one could claim victory when the day came to an end. Those were the golden times of childhood, when nothing else mattered except the closeness of family, the kind old people think of as their mind slowly withers away.
Refusing to cry again, Julia turned back to Eva, who was walking back and forth holding Anna, singing softly to her an ancient Slavic lullaby.
“There will be no more, Eva, letters from home.”
“Maybe. Some may have come through before the war began.”
“Yes, we can hope that happened,” Julia said wishfully. “Now tell me, what is the news? It must be monumental, the way you rushed in here yelling.”
“It is!” Eva cried, bursting with joy again. “Colonel Moravec is forming different groups from the Czechs now in England to return to Czechoslovakia and join the resistance there.”
“Colonel Moravec?”
“Yes, Frantisek Moravec, the Czechoslovak military intelligence chief who escaped to England the day before Hitler arrived. He is a hero to everyone back home.”
Eva put Anna in her crib, gently tucking her in, then turned to face Julia.
“We must go, join together, and go back to fight,” she said deliberately, trying to rein in her excitement.
“What of Anna?”
“Do you think Anna is any different from the thousands of children left behind in wartime?” Eva asked, surprised by Julia’s question and hesitation.
“No, but she is such a little baby.”
“My sweet Julia, there are 10,000 mothers waiting with open arms to care for your Anna,” Eva said, taking Julia in her arms.
Julia broke away from Eva and walked over to the tiny makeshift crib she had fashioned using one of the dresser drawers and looked at her sleeping child for several moments.
“Anna is a Jew. Have you forgotten? What if they can’t find any Jewish family to take her and she’s placed with a Protestant—or even worse, a Catholic?”
“Do you think God gives a shit who clothes and feeds and loves little children, so long as they do it?” asked Eva, amused at Julia’s surprising innocence.
Stunned by Eva’s brashness, Julia turned away momentarily to gather her thoughts. She had never heard Eva use such a vulgar word before, but each day brought a new dimension to their growing friendship, whether she wanted it or not.
“I care, Eva. I care whether God does or not.”
“You should, but the caring ends there. Wars have a habit of mixing up all sorts of faiths and then telling you yours doesn’t count anymore if you try and go solo.”
“What if the foster mother is an atheist? Anna would be an atheist if I shouldn’t come back. I couldn’t stand that,” Julia pressed, fighting to hold back new tears forming in her eyes.
“There are no atheists in war. Some like to brag they are, but they’re as scared as you and I will be, once the fighting starts,” Eva said. Putting her hands on Julia’s shoulders, she added, “We will fight together and come home to Anna together, I promise you.”
“We will see,” was all Julia could think to say.
Every time Julia looked at Eva, she envied without shame her beauty and richness for life. She had felt that way about life, too, until the terrible night of her rape. Something was stolen from her, swept away and lost in the changing winds of fate. Fearless, Eva would fight Beowulf’s monsters barehanded should she have to. Yet she was draped with a simple peasant grace few people would ever know. Their deepening friendship began at the crossing of their lives the moment the refugee train chugged away from Prague headed for Rotterdam. Entering the car where Julia and Hiram were desperately trying to calm the mounting fears of twenty or so crying children, she immediately took over the scene. Gay lilts burst forth from her husky voice, unending for over an hour. With calmness restored, she walked back and forth in the aisle, laughing and making funny faces at the younger children and pouting and winking at the older ones. There was no end to her energy. Later she sat down next to Julia who was holding a sleeping child and simply announced, “My name is Eva. You and I will be good friends.”
Now, as Julia looked at her friend, whom she trusted greatly, she found herself being asked to go to Colonel Moravec’s headquarters and give him her life.
“Two Czech women who want to be heroes, is what we will tell him,” Eva said, laughing loudly.
“Perhaps by chance we will find Erich in Prague and he can join us. He would, you know.”
Eva stopped laughing, looking in amazement at Julia.
“Erich is our enemy, a German, until the war is over. We shouldn’t forget that.”
“No, he is different. You will see when we are together after the war.”
“Perhaps, but we must get to Prague first. We will go to Colonel Moravec tomorrow early, to begin our journey.”
***
A Perfect Madness Page 7