The Bookseller's Sonnets

by Andi Rosenthal

  I brought Minna to the door of the convent. The smiling nun opened the door, and with a kind gesture, she quietly slipped me an envelope from within the folds of her sleeve. This, I knew, would be the death certificate. I could not look at it, could not check to see if it was correct, or even if the forgery would pass inspection. I could not look at my child’s name on that paper.

  The nun had a young, pretty face. I watched as she laid a hand on Minna’s head. “Do not worry,” she said quietly. “We will care for her. She will be safe here until you come back.” Then the nun reached out and took my hand in hers. “May G-d bless you and keep you,” she said. “May He guard you and your child and may He guide your steps. My heart softened as I heard the words of her blessing. “May you depart in peace, and may you return in peace.”

  I bit my tears back as I crouched down to look into my daughter’s eyes. I told Minna to be good, that it would only be for a little while, that I loved her very much. I kissed her and let the nun lead her inside. She took the nun’s hand so trustingly. Before the door closed, Minna turned back and looked at me with eyes that seemed to know the future. I saw her trying to be brave for me, and then, she waved goodbye.

  Oh, my dearest child, my firstborn, with her doll’s face, her questioning eyes. I lost her that morning as surely as I lost my Aron.

  I stumbled home with her rose clutched in my hand. I went into the house and took the book that my mother had given to me, and I wrapped it an oilcloth that we used to protect the wooden table in our dining room. I placed it in an old metal box that had once held bread. Before I put the lid on, I kissed the rose that Minna had given to me, and laid it between the pages.

  And then, as the sun rose hot and bright in the sky, I carried the box out of the house and down the lane, to where the road leveled out into a wheat field at the edge of the woods.

  I had brought a shovel with me. As the sun grew brighter and hotter in the sky, I dug a hole in the field of wheat, and as I was digging I suddenly heard the trucks. I heard the trucks, and the German officers, and their voices as they ordered the Jewish prisoners out of the trucks. I heard them as they ordered the prisoners to dig the burial pits, and I heard them as they laughed at the men and women as they stripped naked, waiting to die.

  And then I heard the gunshots, and the screams, and the crying of children, and the prayers of old men and the pleas of young mothers, and the only answers to them were more gunshots, until there was nothing but silence. And when it was over, the Nazi soldiers poured lime and acid on the bodies so that they would decompose faster, and then they filled in the pits with dirt. I don’t know if anyone was left alive. It would not have mattered if they were.

  I stayed in the field, hidden by the stalks of wheat, until I heard the last truck drive away. It was only then that I was able to put down the box in my arms, the box that contained the only thing I had left to give to my daughter, if we both somehow managed to survive. I finished digging the hole, and buried the box within. Then I went back to the house and waited.

  And then the next morning came, bringing with it the convoy that would deport us. As I stood with my mother and my sisters, and the soldiers lined us up in rows before loading us on to the trucks that would take us to the cattle cars, which would take us to Dachau, I held fast to the one hope I had – what I had told no one – that I was four months pregnant.

  I passed each page to Aviva as I finished reading them, but when I reached the final sentence, I held on to the paper.

  She looked up from the second to last page when she was done reading. “Aren’t you done with that one yet?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said reluctantly. “But I’m not sure…” my voice trailed off.

  “Come on,” she said firmly, holding out her hand for the paper. “Whatever it is, believe me, I can handle it.”

  I reluctantly passed it over to her, and watched her face as she reached the final line. I watched her eyes as she looked at the sentence, and then looked at me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “That was the last thing I wanted you to read. It’s a mother’s story — having to hide her child, then finding out that she was pregnant.”

  “It’s all right,” she said tiredly. “Listen, if nothing else, it puts things into perspective.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “I’ve been waiting for this letter. I had been hoping for more information about the manuscript,” I said softly. “I said that to Michael last night.”

  Aviva nodded. “Jill, I don’t have a good feeling about this,” I said. “Based on everything I’ve ever read about Dachau, this doesn’t end well”

  “You’re right,” I said. “And it’s not about the manuscript anymore, is it?”

  20

  Aviva and I sat for a long time without speaking. She held the last page of the letter in her hand, and the other pages of the letter sat, face-down, on her desk.

  Finally she spoke. “Have you found the rose inside the book?”

  I shook my head. “Not so far. But I haven’t finished reading it yet. I’ll look for it tonight, though, when I get home. I hope it hasn’t fallen out or anything. Now I’m worried that somehow, during all of the times I’ve taken the book out and put it back, I might have lost it.”

  “If you find it,” she asked, “will you call me at home tonight and let me know?”

  I nodded.

  She stood, placing a hand against the small of her back as she stretched. “I’m going home,” she said. “If that’s okay with you. I’ve had enough for today.”

  “Of course. It’s almost five-thirty anyway.”

  “Since when have we ever left at five-thirty?”

  “True,” I said. “Although I left at five-twenty-five last night.”

  “Bad girl,” she grinned. “Don’t stay too late. I really want to know if that flower turns up.”

  “I do, too,” I said. “As sad as this story is turning out to be.”

  She placed a hand on my shoulder. “Jill,” she said gently, “we deal with stories like this one every day. I don’t have to tell you that.”

  “I know,” I said. “But somehow this story feels different. It makes me wonder how, for all of these years, I’ve managed to maintain a distance between myself and the things we hear and see every day.”

  She considered my words for a moment. “I wonder about that sometimes, too. Sometimes I think I’m a terrible person because I don’t get emotionally involved with the artifact donors, that I’ve helped to create all of these guidelines to make the interview process run smoothly – you know, only ask for the facts, don’t engage a survivor or their family in discussions about how they feel about their artifact, don’t linger when you say goodbye. But if we got emotionally involved – if we bore the burden of every story, every name, every face, every piece of testimony that we hear – how could we possibly do what we do?”

  I nodded. “No, you’re right.”

  She continued. “Remember how bad it was here after the Towers were destroyed? You’d think it was bad enough that we were here, we watched it happen, we saw those buildings explode, heard the impact of the planes, the sound of the engines so low overhead, and then seeing those poor people jumping from the upper floors. Maybe we thought that because of working in a Holocaust museum, we’d never see anything as bad as what we’ve already encountered in preserving this history.

  “But we were wrong. Seeing three thousand people murdered right before our eyes on a beautiful summer morning was as bad as anything I’ve ever seen in our archives. People don’t often realize it, but history protects us. Those black and white photographs of the Holocaust, of what happened in the camps – they’re separate, part of the past. We can draw a line between ourselves and what happened then, because it didn’t happen to us. What this woman went through, the one who sent us the manuscript – remember, for her, these memories are real. She can see them in color, she can touch their surfaces. We know what that feels like now.

  “Remember how, after
September 11, when the victims’ names and obituaries were being published, we sent out The New York Times’ Portraits of Grief as an email to the entire staff every single day, because we felt it was another way to bear witness to what we had watched that morning? That was a perfect example of not being able to separate ourselves from what had happened. And after I saw the toll that it took on us, on our staff, on how we were able to function as custodians of history, it was never more apparent to me that we need to know how to draw that line.”

  “I know that,” I said. “But the problem is that this manuscript has become personal. There’s something about getting these letters, about the sense of responsibility. Knowing, for some reason, that this person wants me to hear her story.”

  “And that’s entirely possible. But you don’t know why she chose you. It could be because you shared some of your own family’s story; it could be because she had your business card in her wallet. You don’t know. But you can’t let it completely define your relationship to this artifact, which, for better or for worse, has to remain professional. I know you know this, but sometimes I think you are so committed to your job that you lose sight of the boundaries that make you so good at it.”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled. “And you’re right – I’ve let this get to me, way beyond the normal professional boundaries.”

  “That’s understandable. Because of your family’s history – and listen, I could say the very same thing – because of my family’s history — we chose this line of work because we wanted to be curators and we wanted to bear witness to the Holocaust, which is a good thing, and obviously you’ve done that with the best of intentions. Bearing witness is one of the most sacred obligations of Jewish life.

  “But Jill, what kind of witnesses will we be if we’re blind to the rest of the world around us? The whole point of this museum is that there was life before the Holocaust, and life after the Holocaust, and even – when you consider how hard people fought to survive, and to maintain their identity - life during the Holocaust. And what it comes down to is the fact that both you and I are here because life went on. So, you can’t beat yourself up for maintaining a respectful distance from these stories. You’ve chosen to hear them, but hearing them also means you have to survive, too.”

  “Thanks, Aviva.” I told her. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

  She smiled as she reached for her bag. “I’m glad,” she said. “Don’t forget to call me if you find anything.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “See you tomorrow.”

  After she left I picked up my phone and dialed Michael’s cell phone number. I heard the voice mail pick up immediately, which meant that he was probably still in a meeting.

  “Hey,” I said. “It’s Jill. Listen, there’s something going on with the manuscript. Something may be hidden in it that we haven’t found yet. I’m leaving now, but I don’t want to do this without you. I’ll have my cell phone on, so leave me a message and let me know when you’ll be home, okay? Love you. Bye.”

  I had the manuscript out when Michael turned his key in the door.

  “Hey,” he said, “did you get my message?” He put his briefcase down and shut the door behind him.

  “Yeah, I did,” I told him. “I was on the subway when you called.”

  “I figured.” He took off his coat and came over to kiss me. “How are you doing?” he said, as he tousled my hair. “You sounded stressed in your message.”

  “Rough day,” I said.

  “Sounded like it. I see you have everything ready to go.” He indicated the manuscript, already laid out on the paper that covered the dining table. “What’s going on? You mentioned that something might be hidden in the manuscript?”

  “I got another letter today,” I told him. “And it’s not that I expected it to be a happy story, but what I read today was just…very sad.”

  I felt Michael’s eyes on me. “What did it say?”

  I motioned for him to sit with me on the sofa. I told him about the story of how the little girl Minna was taken to the convent to be hidden, how this person had experienced the horror of listening to a mass murder in the woods where she had buried the manuscript in an old metal box, and finally, about she was deported to Dachau knowing that she was pregnant.

  “I see,” he said sadly, “but you still haven’t told me what you think might be hidden in there.”

  “The letter said that while they were on the way to the convent, Minna picked a white rose and gave it to her mother. Just before she buried the manuscript, she put the flower inside.” I looked at him. He touched my hand without saying anything. “It might still be there,” I said. “And I didn’t want to look for it without you.”

  Together we walked to the table and put on our gloves. I carefully turned to the page that we had finished reading the night before, and I saw that there were still quite a few more pages left in Margaret’s story.

  I delicately turned the remaining parchment pages that lay beyond where we had stopped reading. There were only two pages left, when, tucked between them, I spied the brittle stem, the tiny dark leaves and pressed yellowed petals, as fine and fragile as the paper itself.

  Michael and I looked at one another wordlessly. I made no attempt to remove it from the book, and neither did he. There didn’t seem to be anything to say, so we sat, silently, looking at the small dead flower.

  “I have to call Aviva,” I said finally. “I told her I’d let her know if we found it.”

  Michael went into the bedroom and returned with the cordless phone and handed it to me without speaking. I dialed her number.

  A man’s voice answered. “Hello?”

  Surprised, I took the phone from my ear and checked the digital display to make sure that I had dialed the right number.

  “Um, hello,” I said, putting the receiver back to my ear. “Is Aviva there?”

  “Yes, but she can’t come to the phone right now.”

  I recognized Jacob’s voice. Aviva hadn’t told me that he had returned. I wondered if I had interrupted a fight, or an attempt at reconciliation.

  “Okay,” I said awkwardly. “Could you give her a message for me?’

  “Sure.”

  “Could you please tell her that Jill from work called? And could you tell her,” I chose my words with some care, “that I found what we were looking for?”

  “I’ll tell her,” he said curtly. “Bye.”

  I heard the click of the phone as he hung up. I hoped he would give her the message, but more than that, I hoped she was all right.

  “Jacob was there,” I told Michael. “She never told me that he came back.”

  “Maybe he didn’t come back until tonight,” he reasoned. “How did he sound?”

  “Like he always does. Cold. As if he doesn’t want her talking to anyone.”

  “And you’re basing this on the two or three one-minute phone conversations you’ve had with him,” Michael reasoned. “Or the fact that you don’t like what he’s doing to her?”

  “Both,” I admitted. “I really don’t want her to take him back.”

  “It’s hard to say what she’ll do, considering all of the pressure she’s under to conform to her community’s standards,” Michael said.

  “But Aviva’s not like that,” I said. “She’s not like some brainless little girl who got married at eighteen and lets her husband take over where her parents left off. Aviva doesn’t take any crap from anyone.”

  “But when it comes to keeping what she has – her home, her life, even, perhaps, her baby,” Michael pointed out, “she might be willing to compromise.”

  “I think she’s making a huge mistake, if that’s what she’s doing.”

  “Listen, I agree with you, and I’ve never really talked to the guy. Then again, I suppose that I’ve never met William Roper, except through Margaret’s side of the story,” he nodded towards the manuscript, “and I don’t like him, either.”

  “You never know,” I said. “He co
uld redeem himself in the last couple of pages.”

  Michael smiled. “My eternal optimist,” he said gently, and we turned back to the page where we had left off.

  Regard the apple crush’d beneath the foot

  Of Eden’s curse. A new hell waits -

  A father bows his head to force and fate -

  A daughter’s slender neck below the boot.

  blossoms have been severed at the root.

  I wander’d through that garden of delight

  Finding that serpent clothed in garments white -

  A father found a son; a daughter mute.

  This woman’s bridal slippers walked the path

  Where learnèd feet have trod. The answers sigh

  In futures which shall relive Eden’s glory.

  O cursèd trap - O autumn aftermath

  The vines are twined and tethered as they lie -

  In paradise false; thus ends Margaret’s story.

  It is with sorrow that I relate the final chapter of my dear father’s life, for I know nothing of it as it should have been, or indeed the way it was; I know only the evil fate which befell him at the hands of that false king clothed in the robes of Judas.

  With my father departed, imprisoned in that Tower which has interred the souls of so many innocents, William had unchallenged rule of the house; of the servants, of my stepmother and sisters, and of me. When he was at home, he barely looked at me; I was nothing to him but a contemptuous woman, and now that he had a son, he no longer sought me out for the satisfaction of his physical desires.

  This was not surprising; and I certainly did not miss him when he was away. I welcomed his rise at court, for it meant that he was frequently in the company of that evil and corrupt Monarch, where I hoped against hope that he could in intercede on my father’s behalf.

  But it did not appear that he would, for he was too engrossed in the rise of his own fortunes to worry about the man who had sheltered him for most of his life. Instead, William ignored my father’s case, curried favor with Henry and set about reaping the fortunes of his own traitorous dealings. At court William had fine rooms; he was intimate with the king and courtiers, and it was said that he had a mistress with whom he spent long nights when he did not come home.