Journey to America

by Sonia Levitin

  “I don’t remember, exactly. I told him about Erica.”

  “What did you say about me?” Mother demanded fiercely. “Tell me!”

  “Just that you are sick and in the hospital. Just what you told me, and what Doctor Gross said. I told him you would get better soon. I told him you were getting special care and medicine to make you better.”

  “That Frau Feldin, such a scatterbrain. I never should have given her Papa’s address. It was only in case of an emergency.”

  “She probably thought it was an emergency!” I exclaimed. “With the ambulance coming and everything. Wouldn’t you have thought so?”

  “Lisa, for heaven’s sake, don’t argue with me now. I have to stop him. He says he’s making arrangements to come to Zurich. Listen,” she read from the letter, “Benjamin says I am a fool even to think of leaving, but I must come to you and take my chances. I can’t sleep for worrying about you, Margo, thinking of you alone in a foreign city and sick. No matter what happens, at least we’ll be together. I can’t stand …”

  She put the letter down, her eyes brimming.

  The very thought of seeing Papa filled me with such great excitement that I couldn’t think of anything else. Why couldn’t he come? Why couldn’t we all stay in Switzerland and make it our home? Why America?

  “Let him come,” I begged, half kneeling beside Mother’s bed. “Oh, please, don’t stop him.”

  Mother sat upright and snapped, “Don’t be foolish, Lisa. You just don’t understand. We can’t stay in Zurich. There would be no work for Papa here. Switzerland is a tiny country. They can’t take immigrants, and it’s too close, too close to Germany.”

  “You mean the Nazis might come here?” I cried.

  “I don’t know.” Mother shook her head, then took my hand gently. “I’m sorry, darling. It wasn’t your fault—that Frau Feldin, stupid woman! I’ll send a cablegram to Papa,” she said. “Ring for the nurse.”

  When the nurse came, she shook her head firmly. “You are not allowed to get out of bed, Frau Platt.”

  “Nonsense!” Mother scolded, swinging her feet onto the floor. “Hand me my robe, Lisa.”

  “It is against my orders,” the nurse said, standing in Mother’s way. “I’d have to check with Doctor Gross. Now you wait here, Frau Platt,” she said. “I’ll try to find him.”

  Mother sat back on the bed. “I’ll wait five minutes,” she said firmly. “That’s all.”

  “Now just relax,” the nurse soothed. “Look, you’ve another visitor.” She whispered something to Herr Werfel and he nodded, then strode over to Mother and took her hand.

  “Grüss Gott,” he said, smiling. “I hope you’re feeling better, Frau Platt. Oh, your Lisa is a jewel. We want to keep her with us, if we may, until you leave Switzerland. But you look troubled, and the nurse said I am to keep you here. What is it? What can I do?”

  When he had heard about the letter, Herr Werfel began to pace back and forth, frowning deeply. “You’re right, of course,” he said to Mother. “If he once leaves America, your husband may have a hard time reentering. In fact, I’ve just read in the newspapers about the quota system, and how many people are waiting to go to the United States.”

  “That’s exactly it,” Mother said quickly. “As long as my husband is there already, the girls and I don’t have to come under the quota system. If he were to leave now, the whole thing would have to be started over again, with new forms, new waiting lists. Now all he has to do is send one more certificate. Oh, Herr Werfel,” Mother said pleadingly, “we’ve waited so long. Everything we’ve waited for would be undone!”

  The nurse came to the door to announce, “Doctor Gross has left the hospital, I’m afraid. You just have to …”

  “Never mind,” Herr Werfel told her. “Frau Platt just wants to send a cablegram. I’ll take care of it for her.”

  He pulled the chair over beside Mother’s bed and took a small notebook and pencil from his vest pocket. “Now, take your time,” he said gently. “I’ll write down exactly what you want to say, and I’ll ask for an answer immediately, so you won’t have to worry. It will take a few hours, but at least you’ll be able to sleep tonight in peace.”

  Together they composed the message. “DO NOT LEAVE AMERICA. RECOVERING QUICKLY. ALL IS WELL. LOVE. MARGO.”

  “You have more than ten words,” Herr Werfel said. “You can omit the word ‘love,’ or pay extra for it.”

  “I’ll pay extra,” Mother said, smiling slightly. “It’s worth it.”

  “I agree,” Herr Werfel smiled. “I’ll ask for a reply immediately.”

  “Lie down again now, Mother,” I coaxed, and by the time Herr Werfel returned she was settled once more under the blankets, but I knew she would not rest easily until she had Papa’s reply.

  “We’d better leave you now, Frau Platt,” Herr Werfel said. “Try to rest. We’ll call you tonight. Oh, I nearly forgot, and Erica will be waiting to know. May I tell her that Lisa will stay with us until you leave?”

  “Of course,” Mother said gratefully. “You are so kind.”

  Erica and Frau Werfel were waiting in the car, and now we told them what had happened. “We’ll call the hospital right after supper,” Frau Werfel said. But it was not until after our third call that we knew Papa’s answer. “Will stay. Sending last form this month. Love to girls.”

  “It’s long past bedtime,” Frau Werfel announced, “and you two have school tomorrow.”

  But neither Erica nor I could sleep. I was thinking about going to a strange new school again, and about Papa. As for Erica, I didn’t know what was keeping her awake until she asked in the darkness, “What is a quota, Lisa?”

  “I think it means that only a certain number of people can get into a country at any particular time. America has a quota,” I told her.

  “Does Switzerland?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. But we can’t stay here anyway.”

  She was silent for a time, then asked, “Have you ever seen a Nazi, Lisa?”

  I sighed. “Yes.”

  “Are they really so terrible?”

  “Yes.”

  Again Erica was silent, and then she sat up to look at me by the faint light that shone through the window. “Lisa,” she said urgently, “I have to ask you something.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, I have never known anybody who was Jewish before, and it seems to me that you are—I mean,” she faltered, “are all Jewish girls as good as you? And are they all so brave?”

  I smiled to myself, and my heart beat faster. How strange it was that she asked me such a question, but no stranger, I realized, than my question to Mother that afternoon. I understood now why Mother had not answered. It was something I had to figure out for myself.

  “Some are good and some aren’t,” I told Erica. I didn’t say more. She would have to think it through on her own.

  After a long pause Erica spoke again. “You know, Switzerland is surrounded on all sides by high mountains. The German soldiers wouldn’t even try to come here. We’ve never been conquered. It couldn’t happen.”

  “Of course not,” I said, but to myself I thought, anything could happen. Hadn’t it happened in Germany?

  But even at school, in the geography and history classes, the teachers spoke of Switzerland’s natural barriers. When they introduced me to the class as having come from Germany, they spoke of the Nazis there, and I suppose I became somewhat of a celebrity in the little school, having escaped. At recess the other girls crowded around me, wanting to hear all about Berlin. I tried to tell them that Berlin was just a city, my home. I only wanted to remember the good things, before the Nazis. Finally the yard duty teacher came and started us all in a ball game. To me she said, “You don’t have to talk about it, dear.”

  There was talk about Germany every night on the radio that September. While Erica and I were doing our homework at the kitchen table, we would hear the news broadcasts in the background. Afterward Herr Wer
fel’s face was always very grave, and he and his wife would talk together in low tones.

  “It looks bad,” he would say, “very bad. Hitler’s going to make a grab for Czechoslovakia. The Czechs can’t possibly hold out against the German army. And what next? He won’t stop, that madman, until he’s plunged the whole world into war.”

  “Maybe not,” Frau Werfel replied. “Maybe other nations will help Czechoslovakia. What about England and France and even America? Don’t they have treaties? Maybe, if Hitler sees they are all against him, he’ll stop.”

  “Only force will stop him,” said Herr Werfel grimly. “And that means war, world war.”

  I froze in my seat. America at war? How, then, could we go there? Where else in the world could we go to be safe? My imagination gave me no answers. I could only picture countries the way they looked on the large wall map at school. The black boundaries, to me, represented walls, with gates to let people in or keep them out. If there was a war, I was certain, all the gates would be closed. People did not travel freely during war. Hadn’t we learned that in Germany?

  All that month and into the next we waited. Even at school, where the teachers gathered in the halls to whisper together, there was a shadow over us, the same feeling we had known in Berlin. People would forget for a time and go on about their business, but then someone would ask a question or make a remark and we would remember that everyone waited, as if for a time bomb to tick to an end. And then the news changed. It was nearly winter, the news announcers said. Hitler wouldn’t move in winter. He would wait at least until spring. Perhaps, they added hopefully, the big scare was over.

  Mother got out of the hospital as Dr. Gross had promised and I visited her two or three times a week at the rooming house. On Sundays we were all together at the Werfels, the whole family except Papa. Annie simply went wild over the rabbits and chickens. She promptly named them all Susan.

  On Sunday afternoons Frau Werfel never seemed to stop serving food, smiling and saying, “This house should be filled with children.”

  “But with such noisy children?” Mother would protest, chuckling.

  “Oh, let them run and shout,” Frau Werfel would say. “That’s what childhood is for.”

  Even Ruth, who usually considered herself too grownup for such things, romped with us in the hayloft and took leap after leap onto the stacks. She swung higher and longer than any of us on the rope swing that Herr Werfel had tied to a huge oak.

  But there were other times when Ruth sat apart from us, thinking troubled thoughts, I guessed, for she wound a lock of hair around and around her finger.

  “Leave Ruth alone,” Mother would say, when the three of us tried to make her join in some game. “She needs some time to herself. She’s growing so fast. In Berlin she would be going out with other young people, going to parties and dances.”

  Erica and I couldn’t understand Ruth’s sullen moods, or her sudden temper when we interrupted them. Once Annie, holding one of the bunnies in her arms, ran toward Ruth, who was sitting under a tree in the garden.

  “Leave Ruth alone, Annie,” I called teasingly. “She’s in one of her ‘moods’ and doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

  I knew that Ruth had heard, but she ignored me, just as she ignored Annie, who sat down beside her.

  “I love it here,” I heard Annie say. “Don’t you love this little bunny? Don’t you want to hold him?”

  “No,” Ruth replied shortly. “He smells.”

  “He smells nice,” Annie insisted, burying her nose in the soft fur. “I love him. I can’t take him to America, can I?”

  “Of course not,” Ruth retorted.

  “Maybe we won’t go to America,” I heard Annie say. “Maybe Papa won’t send for us. Maybe Papa’s dead and we’ll never see him again.”

  Suddenly Ruth’s hand shot out and Annie lay screaming on the lawn. Everyone rushed over. Ruth made another grab at Annie, shaking her furiously, shouting, “She’d rather have that rabbit than ever see Papa again! She wishes Papa were dead!”

  “Ruth, Ruth,” Mother cried, “stop it! She’s just a baby. She didn’t mean that. Leave her alone. Just look what you’ve done. There, there, Annie, Ruth didn’t mean it. She didn’t mean it.”

  On Annie’s cheek there was a large red mark, where Ruth’s hand had struck.

  “She did mean it!” Annie cried. “She hates the bunny. She hates me, too.”

  “No she doesn’t hate anybody. She’s lonesome for Papa, that’s all. She’s upset from waiting and wondering.” I knew that Mother was speaking more to me than to Annie. “Still, it’s dreadful to make such a scene,” she said to Ruth, “and especially when you are a guest here. What must Frau Werfel think?”

  But Frau Werfel had gone into the house and not a word was said about the episode. It was so like her to pretend that nothing at all had happened. In all the weeks I was with them, I never saw Frau Werfel lose her composure—except one terrible day in November.

  Passport to Freedom

  WE HAD JUST SAT DOWN to breakfast early that Sunday morning when the telephone rang. Frau Werfel went to answer, looking perplexed that anyone should call so early. We all knew, I think, that something dreadful had happened, even before we heard Frau Werfel’s outcry and saw her face creased with sorrow and pain.

  “Oh, dear God!” I heard her exclaim. “But of course you must come to us right away, my dear Frau Platt. Let us help you. My husband will leave immediately. No, no—of course it’s no trouble. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes, my dear.”

  My heart was beating frantically. I couldn’t speak. I only looked at Frau Werfel, my eyes asking the question.

  “A terrible thing has happened,” she said weeping, “in Germany.”

  Inwardly I sighed with relief. At least it wasn’t Papa! Frau Werfel’s voice was choked with sobs, and she would not look at any of us. “The Nazis,” she began, “they have murdered …”

  “What is it?” her husband cried. “Tell me!”

  “They have murdered many—Jews—many,” came the halting reply. “We must go to Frau Platt. You girls stay here,” she said, throwing off her apron and wiping her face with it. “We’ll be back in half an hour. Stay here,” she said again, and then in silence Erica and I went into the living room to wait.

  My hands were icy cold, but I didn’t notice until Erica said, “Lisa, you’re shivering,” and she gave me Frau Werfel’s knitted shawl to put around my shoulders.

  As we sat there, only one vision was fastened in my mind—not of murder, for murder is something too shocking to be realized even in the imagination—but of the young Nazis in their brown shirts and black ties, stamping through the streets singing in loud, bold voices, “When the blood of Jews …”

  Before the Werfels’ car had stopped, we were outside, and in a moment I was in Mother’s arms.

  “Lisa!” Through all the bad times and fearful moments, I had never seen Mother look like this. “Do you know? Did Frau Werfel tell you?”

  I shook my head, and beside me Frau Werfel murmured, “No. I couldn’t.”

  “Come inside, Lisa.” For several long moments Mother could not seem to begin. I only looked at her, waiting, not wanting to hear, yet needing to know.

  “Lisa, there is no way I can prepare you,” Mother said. “Your Uncle Arnold is dead. And Tante Helga too.”

  “How?” My voice sounded strange to my own ears, hollow and high.

  “The Nazis.”

  “No.” Again that toneless voice. “You must be wrong, Mother.” I shook my head and covered my ears. It’s a mistake, something inside me cried; it’s someone else she’s talking about, not my Aunt Helga, not Uncle Arnold. I love them, and they’re alive, alive.

  “It’s true. Lisa, my darling come here to me, please.” But I couldn’t move. Helga, my beautiful aunt who was always so gay, making jokes even on the day of parting.

  “I know what you are feeling,” I heard Mother’s voice as from a distance, “and I cannot spare
you the pain. You would know someday, you would hear of it. Look at me, Lisa! Grandmother telephoned me from Berlin. They didn’t suffer, Lisa. Remember that. It was fast, and it is over for them.”

  Mother must have telephoned Ruth, for later she came, and we all sat together in the parlor, and through that whole long day I could not get warm, even when I stood by the fire wrapped in the knitted shawl. Late in the afternoon the sun came out, but still the room seemed gray and dim. Somewhere people were going on about their ordinary day, making plans, doing work and taking pleasures. But for us time had stopped, and we stood still looking backwards, only backwards to this thing that had happened even without our knowing.

  Yesterday. It was yesterday, and I was playing then, playing ball with Erica, while in Berlin the madness had already begun. Little by little, then over and over again it was told, as if by telling we could understand. It had begun with a small, angry mob, rampaging through the streets, smashing windows, smearing paint on doors and windows, hurling bricks. As night fell there were more men in the streets, some with guns, some with knives, and some with kerosene.

  But there had to be a reason. It couldn’t just have begun so suddenly, this killing of Jews.

  Mother told us, and we heard it again and again on the radio all through the day. “A German official was killed in Paris. The Nazis have taken vengeance on the Jews in Germany.”

  Because someone in Paris had been shot, Uncle Arnold and Aunt Helga had paid with their lives. All our talk about it still left us with the same impossible question, “Why?”

  They didn’t suffer. Someone had thrown a homemade bomb into their house. An explosion ended everything. But how could we be sure? How many moments are there between life and death?

  “Just believe it, Lisa,” Mother said, holding me close. “It was fast and final. We will learn to live with this, somehow.”

  That night I went back with Mother to the rooming house, but the next day I returned to school and to the Werfels. I was glad for the routine of school, for the girls all around me at recess, and for Erica with me after school and in the evening. I did not want to be alone or idle, but at night there were always those minutes before sleep, when I had to think of it.