by I V Olokita
Heidi was no ordinary adolescent. A few years ago, she had sailed to Palestine with her mother, running the British blockade, after the Nazis had retreated from the death camps, leaving the Jews to struggle for survival in a war-devastated Europe. She perfectly remembered everything she and her mother endured in the war, and, despite being under six when she set foot in the Holy Land, she knew that Matilda, her mother, lived on borrowed time. Upon arriving at Palestine, mother and daughter found a new home in a small community west of Jerusalem, occupying one of three rooms of a small stone house. Heidi never liked staying in that house. As far as she was concerned, whatever happened between those walls bothered nobody but the grownup inhabitants. However, she was quick to realize that the grownup world might significantly affect the life of a little girl of her age. Thus, one night, after she had taken care of her dying mother and before retiring to her own bed, an elderly, tall man entered her room and put a finger over his mouth. She recognized him: he was the landlord, who harbored her and Matilda in his house just a year before, following the Jewish Agency’s instructions. Closing the door, he went to the mother’s bed, standing there and looking at the elderly woman who slept on her back. Then, he sat down on the bare mattress next to her, caressing her hair with a sad expression. Heidi lowered her head, keeping silent. She found nothing strange in his act since she remembered similar acts of compassion from the Camps in Poland. Back then, people used to care for children not their own, and for their starving adult relatives, sharing with them all the scarce food they managed to obtain. Yet now, that elderly man rose, approaching her own bed. He looked at her silently, with a look she had never seen in his eyes. She closed her eyes, frightened. “Darling,” he said, turning around. He kept standing in the middle of the room for another minute and then got out. When she woke up the next morning, Heidi saw her mother was still asleep. “Sleep on, mother dear,” Heidi bid her farewell, caressing her hair. Then she got dressed and ran outside for her daily roaming around. Coming back that evening, she saw her mother was gone, as well as her few belongings. Heidi was searching their room for any clue as to where they might have gone when he came in. “You don’t talk much,” David stated as if he was in a position to lecture her.
“So young,” he remarked, “and so pretty.”
Heidi withdrew a little. Such words, with such a tone, too, she had heard back then, in the Camp, shortly before she lost her innocence.
“Where’s my mother!?” she enquired defiantly, yet the massive man disregarded her. He just kept closing in on her body, forcing her to the wall, his belly blocking any retreat.
“Where’s my mother?!” Heidi screamed with all her might.
“Your mother’s gone,” David said, smiling. “But don’t you worry, darling. From now on, I’ll care for you, just as I do for everybody else.”
David grabbed her chin, raising it until his eyes met hers. She looked at him, smiling suddenly. “She’s still so young…what can she know about the agonies of passion?!” he thought, smiling back at her. He withdrew a little, and, with no further hesitation, he pulled down his pants bringing her face close enough to his thighs for her breath to warm up his body. He raised his head, uttering a sigh. He hoped she’d never to take him for an evil man, despite realizing this would be inevitable. In just another minute he finished his business with her, letting her face go, pulled up his pants again, turned around and left the room. That very night, while everybody was asleep, Heidi left that hostel, making her way to a place she had never heard of.
She had a rest between two barren hills. Having no water to drink, she started feeling her feet were exhausted and that she was overwhelmed with thirst once the sun emerged from behind the hills. She stopped for a moment to wonder how her mother could have left her to the mercies of that monstrous man, yet she moved on again right away. Years later, she believed it was rage and compassion that drove her to move on, until she reached that large stone building, in the middle of nowhere.
“Shalom,” Heidi announced her presence while opening the door and stepping inside.
“Shalom,” a childish voice replied, from the front of the house.
Heidi sighed with relief, stepping forward. “Where there are children, evil cannot last,” she assumed, disbelieving her own thought.
“Shalom, you little cute thing,” Heidi said, noticing the child who sat all alone, playing with a pair of shoes by far larger than his feet. “Where’s mom and dad?” she asked on, in a polished European accent, yet he just kept looking and smiled at her.
“Are you alone?” a voice from behind her back made her heart stop.
“Yes,” Heidi said hesitantly, slowly turning around.
“Good,” the boy who stood in front of her said. “Because we have no food for any more guests.”
“Who are you?” Heidi asked in broken Hebrew.
“Who are you?” the boy replied in German, ignoring the question.
“Heidi,” she replied, smiling, stretching a hand for a greeting.
“Many kids who survived the war came here,” the boy said, walking around her, as if examining her, while her hand hung in the air, awaiting a gesture on his part. “We’ve got many kids to care for, with no adults,” he went on.
“I’ll care for you,” Heidi said, noticing other kids who gathered around them.
“How exactly, you little girl?!” somebody teased her.
“I can grow vegetables,” Heidi declared, raising her head and looking straight at her. Then, turning around, she observed the youths surrounding her. “Please,” she begged, “I’ve nowhere to go!”
Three years later, by the time Gabriel entered that stone building she had made her home, Heidi turned into the mother that “family” needed so badly. The other adolescents, who stood beside her that sunny day, waited for her orders as to what to do with that man who entered their property. They obeyed her decision: during the two months to come, Gabriel has been working their garden, tilling, sowing, planting and reaping. He found a new purpose in life, all thanks to her. Even though he never forgot what had brought him to that plot of land, or his mission in life, he used to spend the warm summer nights beside her, caressing her hair, while she was telling him about her old country, how she handled her small orphanage and the children’s challenging life in their new land. Both had no doubts about their feelings: she knew he loved her, while her sentiments were devoted to him only, of all the few people she had in the world. One night, when she asked him to take her with him to the Land of Unlimited Opportunities, he promised her to do so once the opportunity presents itself.
“Gabriel? Brigadier General Gabriel Balaguer?” a loud cry sounded one day from across the plot.
“It’s me,” he shouted back, having no idea where that call came from. The house dwellers heard the cry as well, which made them come out and form a long line behind Heidi. Heidi looked at him, her beloved who walked away, facing the group of strange-looking soldiers who approached him with jubilant cries.
“Gabriel!” she cried one last time before he disappeared behind the corner, yet he didn’t heed her call, only raising his hand, as if gesturing he’ll be back soon, to pack their luggage, take her with him and say goodbye to all his young friends. Yet it wasn’t his fate. He approached his fellow-servicemen close enough to touch their camouflage uniform, which he used to wear once. She saw a large vehicle behind them, which he mounted, by force, as if he didn’t want it to end like this. When the vehicle was driving away from that farm which had been his home for the last few years, Gabriel believed it was the saddest moment of his life.
Chapter 5
Reconnecting
A few years later, when my home phone rang, I had no idea that Carmela died in the hospital that night. By then, I was preoccupied with Klara. Even though she hardly met my standards for a whore, I liked her comely body. She shared my native tongue in more than one sense and in this, among ma
ny other things, she was unlike Carmela.
“Senhor Esperança, do you hear me?” a somewhat impolite clerk persistently asked me over the phone, waking me up from my contemplations.
“Yes, Senhora,” I replied politely.
“Senhor Esperança, it took us very long to find you,” she went on telling me off.
“I know,” I replied, attempting to correct her way to pronounce my name. “I guess that if I wanted you or any other carioca bureaucrat to find me, you wouldn’t be calling me so late.” I made my own scolding to illustrate her ignorance.
“Anyway,” she chattered on, “Your son is waiting here for you, with me, to take him home.”
“My son?!” I exploded, “But I have no kids!”
“I’m calling from the orphanage on 33 Rua Santa Anna,” she said at last, after choking, and then clattered, with a commanding tone: “Senhor will come soon.”
“I don’t know…,” I tried to get away.
“I’m not asking you, I’m telling you!” she set the record straight, hanging up on me.
Hanging up the phone, I sat down on the small chair in the corner of my neat and tidy living room. “Can it really be my son, or maybe that tricky whore just betrayed my info to a midwife, once she realized her end was near?!” I wondered. I rose abruptly, throwing my keys into my pocket and got out. Since the orphanage was rather close to my house, I took a walk, contrary to my habit. Many thoughts crossed my mind while I covered that short distance. I always thought in German, not in that dirty natives’ language. “German makes the process of thinking more orderly, as opposed to their tongue,” I thought while walking.
Reaching the large gate of the orphanage, I opened it, with a rusty screeching sound. I entered a spacious, tidy patio, with a vast bush- covered lawn welcoming me. I walked to the large door and knocked on it. After a short wait, a massively-built woman opened the door. I took my hat off and bowed my head to greet her.
“I came to take my son home,” I told her, quietly.
“Your son?!” she laughed. “We’ve got many sons, of many people. Most of them are dead, by the way. Are you dead?” She asked, struggling to hold her laughter.
“He was born six years ago, in Hospital Sagrado Coracao de Jesus, on March the third, if my memory serves me,” I said, with a demonstrative disregard for her laughter.
That woman stared at me as if waiting for me to speak on. Her lips straightened, turning her laughter into a mild cough, and finally to silence.
“Follow me,” she ordered with a gesture, entering the building. I obeyed.
I was in a quiet lobby. It was misleadingly quiet, I suspected. No one knows better than I do that humans, let alone children, cannot be forced into such a silence unless their only reason to live is just surviving another day. She stopped, pointing at some children playing silently in a corner.
“See that kid? He’s your son.”
I looked at him. He was a small, emaciated child, whose pale face reminded me of that starving dog, back in the Camp, who used to scavenge the garbage cans for food each morning.
I returned her look. “Are you sure?” I expressed my doubts.
“No,” she erupted with another loud laughter, yet this time it stopped when she spoke on. “However, since you only gave me meager info about your son, I, too, decided to provide you with a meager child.”
I grew red with fury: “You have no right, Senhora, to do that! These are children, that is, human beings! You cannot just hand them over like some garage sale items!” I was about to yell at her, yet my own thoughts frightened me into silence, contrary to my habit.
That gigantic Senhora approached me, pressing a finger against my face. “Oh, Senhor self-righteous, I know exactly what’s on your dirty mind! You want to lecture me on how inappropriate this whole thing is!”
I stepped back. “No, not at all…,” I tried to stand up to her, yet she rudely interrupted me, as if to prevent me from speaking for my defense.
“For years, you had no idea you have a child at all! Or, maybe you had, yet conveniently pretended he didn’t exist. So, let me tell you something,” she went on with a fiery face, her finger waving against my face like a flag on a stormy day. “This, senhor, is my domain! Here, it’s I who make the rules, and these kids are exclusively mine, under the law of the land! So, would you like a kid?” she barked a question at me, like some watchdog.
“I would,” I replied with a very uncharacteristic stuttering, yet she didn’t bother to answer, turning around and walking away. Forcing my feet off the ground, I followed her to a little office, with a sign on its door that read “Senhora Dias’ Kingdom! No Kids or Pets are allowed!” She sat down on a chair behind a desk covered with a colorful pile of children’s drawings.
“You didn’t answer my question,” that mustached she-creature surprised me.
“Well, yes,” I answered hesitantly.
“Yes what?!” the she-hippo cried.
“Yes, I would like a kid,” I said, casting my eyes down.
“When did you say he was born?” she asked, letting me keep standing in front of her in the absence of another chair in the room.
“March the third, 1949,” I recalled. “Nearly six years ago.”
“Deus!” she cried with joy while browsing through a thick log she had placed on top of the scattered drawings.
“What has God got to do with that?!” I wondered.
“Not God,” she responded with a laugh. “Maybe the Devil.” She smiled, revealing a mouth full of teeth. “Your boy’s name is Deus since this is the name the dumb bitch who bore that thing chose for him!” the mustached lady explained, and added right away in an apologetic tone, seeing my amazed expression: “Dear Senhor, I owe you a big apology. Deus is the most willful child I have ever seen since I have been working here.” Slamming the log shut, she blew a cloud of dust straight at her own face. “Ugh, ugh,” she coughed, and all her body seemed to shake. “Well, Senhor….,” she looked straight at my face, sitting up.
“Esperança,” I told her.
“Well, Senhor Esparaparta, you’re taking God home today,” she laughed again, exposing her teeth, and corrupting my name once again.
Rising suddenly, she walked away, with me following her. When we reached the center of the building her laughter grew stronger, resounding all over the building.
“Deus!” she gave a loud cry, to which all the kids stood at attention as if inspected by a general.
The place fell silent, with only the tapping of her shoes on the wooden floor pounding in my ears. Senhora Dias stopped to listen. The tapping of bare feet was heard down the wooden stairs, getting closer. Looking upwards, I first saw a pair of skinny long legs, and then the upper part of a shirtless, brown slender boy. Finally, I saw his face: unmistakably, he got Carmela’s face. However, I could tell from the very first sight he was no son of mine since he had none of my distinct racial features. He had a coal-black hair, brown complexion and eyes, completely the opposite of my appearance. His height was the only possible indication to the presence of Arian genes in him, yet this could have been blamed on any other male immigrant in this country.
“Padre?” the boy asked, stopping in front of me, interrupting my thoughts.
The senhora nodded in approval, her multiple chins shaking from side to side before I could react, so I just smiled at my son.
Dios gripped my hand tightly, nearly crushing my fingers. That moment it felt like he was much older than he looked. Stamping his feet, he started advancing to the door, dragging me.
“Suitcase?” I whispered a question.
“Let’s go!” he whispered back, resolved.
When we got home, the main door was narrowly open. Deus pushed it, forcing it wider until it opened fully. I remembered locking my door before leaving and got on the alert. I have already heard of “Nazi hunters” lookin
g for “fugitives from justice” like me all over South America. I froze still, but then a reassuringly familiar voice rose from inside the house.
“Did you get lost, my boy?” Klara asked.
Her habit of breaking into my house at will slipped my mind for a moment. Instead of changing the lock whenever she played this trick, I just gave her a key, allowing her to make my house her own. In return for this favor, she used to grant all my wishes, in the kitchen, but most importantly, in the bedroom.
“What’s your name, boy?” Klara asked him, interrupting my contemplations.
“Deus,” he responded with fear, and then, as if recalling all the decorum he was taught, he stood at attention, crying “Nanny!”
Klara looked at him compassionately, dashing towards him. “Oh, dear, you shouldn’t be afraid of me. I’m not your nanny. I’m…,” Klara tried to speak on, yet I immediately interrupted her, roaring:
“Your mother! It’s Klara, your mother!” I said, walking right away to my living room, submerging in the lonesome leather armchair facing the large picture window.
Klara kept standing silently in front of the child, while he kept giving her that wary look, for many minutes.
“Madre,” Deus finally addressed her, coming near her, to put his arms around her waist. She caressed his little head, and then bent down towards him.