Exodus, Revisited

by Deborah Feldman

  The men each introduced themselves; they weren’t all local but they seemed to be good friends of Gina’s. An academic, a mechanic, and a biker—it was hard to understand what made them a group. After Frederic poured us some of that deep red wine and brought out small plates of crispy octopus and pork croquettes, I relaxed a bit, and it was then that I must have switched to German without realizing it.

  “Deborah! You didn’t tell us that you speak German!” Gina said. “What a shame, I would have spoken to you in German as soon as you arrived.”

  “Oh no, I don’t really speak it,” I said, “or at least, I speak it very poorly.”

  “Not at all,” Gina said. “You speak it quite well. In fact, you should speak it more often. It would be a shame to waste it.”

  “You’ll see,” I said. “It’s not really German. If I speak it long enough, you’ll understand.”

  The biker smiled and emptied his glass. “This is a country of many dialects. You should hear me when I speak Bavarian.”

  “It’s true.” The academic nodded. “I can barely understand him.”

  “What is your dialect?” the mechanic asked. He hadn’t talked much since we had arrived and was still nursing the same glass of wine.

  “It’s really old,” I said, reluctant to explain. Instead, I invented. “My family is of Franco-German ancestry, and my grandparents spoke this dialect, which they must have inherited from their parents and grandparents. I don’t think it’s spoken in present-day Germany anymore.” Markus looked over at me then, a curious expression in his eyes. He had been busily consuming tapas as I had carried the conversation, in his typical reserved style. Now he sat with his arms folded and lips pursed in amusement, saying nothing.

  “Why didn’t you tell them it was Yiddish?” he asked me later, as we stumbled back to our room in the dark.

  “I guess I was afraid of their reactions,” I said.

  “I was wondering if that was it.”

  “There are no Jews here, Markus. Not one. I can actually feel it, like it’s something in the air that’s missing. And this scares me for some reason.”

  It rained then, for three days straight. On the third day, we gave up trying to go out. We were lying in bed, and we had the windows open for air, so we could hear the drops pinging off the metal drainpipe and bouncing off the clay-pot roof. They plopped onto ferns and broad-leafed trees and splattered into the muddy driveway.

  “I’ll sing you something, okay?” I said to Markus, who was lying next to me with his eyes closed. “Tell me if you understand it. It’s a lullaby from my childhood.”

  “Mmm.” He nodded, relaxed.

  I began to sing in Yiddish.

  Sleep my child

  Rest my soul

  Close your eyes

  In her arms

  A mother is holding you

  Do not fear

  Do not worry

  That the sun goes down

  A new morning will come

  Full of joy and happiness.

  “Sehr schön,” he said. “It’s a nice little song.”

  “Wait,” I said. “It’s not finished.”

  I continued:

  My child, you had a mother

  You barely knew her

  In the flames of Auschwitz

  They burned her.

  An evil wind blew then

  A cold, wet rain

  When I found you my child,

  In the wet forest.

  Both of us ran off together

  In search of a safe place

  We came upon some partisans

  and stayed with them. . . .

  Don’t worry my child,

  sleep well. . . .

  One day you will yet meet God

  And then you can ask him

  to avenge your mother’s blood.

  “That’s my lullaby,” I said, and turned to look at him. “That’s what they sang to children in my community.”

  His eyes were open now, and he raised his eyebrows. “Ja, that’s quite intense.”

  “I feel like that song sums up my whole childhood.” It was a kind of apology, and something of a warning at the same time. I wanted him to understand that I couldn’t help all these feelings that were whirling to the surface now, like a typhoon I feared would lash at him as they emerged from the depths in all their uncontrollable fury. Perhaps I was trying to tell him to retreat, to protect himself.

  * * *

  • • •

  Finally, the sun came out. When we opened our eyes in the morning, we jumped out of bed and scarfed down a quick breakfast. We were anxious to take advantage of the weather and do as much as possible, as the forecast was predicting more rain later in the week.

  “Where shall we go?” Markus asked once we were in the car.

  “To the mountains, of course!” I’d never seen the Alps up close, or any mountain range that could compare. I was thrilled at the prospect. It was a beautiful drive, the slopes a steady wall in front of us, never seeming to recede or shrink as we came closer the way I expected them to. We stopped at Mittenwald, the last town before the Austrian border, to catch a glimpse of the Isar River, a glacial runoff with waters the color of mint-chip ice cream, frothing around rocks and boulders, in a hurry to get somewhere. We stopped to take pictures at the riverbank, the Alps a splendid but still distant backdrop. Then came the sheer drops and sharp turns over the border, and finally, somewhat carsick, we arrived in Innsbruck, Austria. We walked through the old town, which was packed with tourists, and purchased a picnic lunch at a supermarket. Then we headed back out toward the less populated area, to a park with ancient willows and birches on the banks of the river Inn. Across its sparkling green rush, the brightly colored homes ascended the hills, and the snowcapped mountains soared breathtakingly above them. Spires and cupolas peeked playfully out onto the scene. We finished our lunch and climbed down some makeshift steps to the riverbank. Markus took off his shoes and socks and ventured in, and I rolled up my jeans and did the same. The water was ice-cold and sped furiously around my feet.

  “Would you swim in this?” I asked Markus. “It’s probably dangerous because of that strong current.”

  “I’ve been watching that big branch out there in the middle, and it keeps coming back in circles. It’s like there’s a circular current out there, or two separate currents going in opposite directions.” I followed his gaze, and sure enough, a large branch was whipping back and forth in the middle of the river, seemingly tossed between two opposing forces. I stared at it fixedly now, wondering if it was a sign. Was I that branch, doomed to whip forever back and forth between the forces of my own instincts and the inculcated beliefs of my past? Would I remain essentially trapped in that state for the rest of my life?

  “So,” Markus said, once we had our shoes back on. “Where would my Jewish princess like to go next?”

  I was looking at the map. “Did you know we were so close to Italy?”

  “You want to cross another border?”

  “Since we are already here, it feels like such a shame not to. Who knows if I’ll ever be in this part of the world again!”

  “How far is the drive?”

  “An hour, maybe an hour and ten,” I fudged. Most likely he knew that I was lying, but he didn’t say anything.

  * * *

  • • •

  In Bolzano, I noticed that the signs were printed in both German and Italian. We parked in front of a big church and walked across the street, where Markus ordered some pizza from a street vendor in German. We stood at a tall table under an umbrella to eat. Sparrows began to crowd around us hoping for crumbs. After eating his fill, Markus started to feed them.

  “Look at this,” he said, making the sparrows fly to his fingertips to eat the bits of bread
he held out. I watched as they approached him tentatively, batting their wings as they hovered near his hand, trying to take some bread back with them. Most of the piece would crumble to the ground, and they would be left with only the crumb in their beak.

  I threw some of my crust at the sparrows perched on the hedge near us.

  “Don’t do that,” Markus scolded. “Make them come to you.”

  “I’d rather not. It feels wrong to make them do that just for my entertainment.”

  He scoffed. I watched as he continued to coax the birds to his outstretched hand, grinning triumphantly each time a sparrow flew awkwardly out to meet it. He had mentioned to me many times how much he loved animals, and I’d seen him stop for every cat and dog on the street, but this struck me as a peculiar way to express that love.

  A pigeon approached and I tossed some crumbs its way, remembering how my grandmother had always left food out for the city birds on our porch.

  “Ach, don’t feed the pigeons!” Markus said. “They’re just stupid.”

  “Does that mean they’re less deserving of a meal?”

  A crowd of pigeons descended then, and the scene quickly turned to chaos. Markus had been right in a way. I watched the pigeons stumble blindly in circles, seemingly unable to see the food in front of them. Then a sparrow flew into their midst so quickly I almost didn’t see it. It left in a blur with the food in its mouth.

  “See?” Markus crowed. “They’re too stupid to even eat what you throw at them.”

  We walked around the city for a bit, stopping at every gelato stand until we had stuffed ourselves silly. Then we embarked on the long drive back, stopping at Hall in Tirol for an aperitif and then Seefeld in Tirol for a very late dinner. On the way home, I brought it up, trying to couch my own insecurity in dark humor.

  “You know, you may not have realized it, but that story with the birds was kind of a metaphor for the whole idea of survival of the fittest,” I said. “You singled out the intelligent birds as the ones deserving of being fed, and then made them dance for their crumbs. Kind of fits with your whole Übermensch thing, doesn’t it?”

  He shook his head impatiently. “We already agreed on this, no? That’s why I’m with you, for some Wiedergutmachung, right?”

  “I don’t even feel that that’s funny anymore.”

  “I should stop joking about it?”

  “I remember reading about Katrin Himmler, who married an Israeli Jew, the son of Holocaust survivors, and she used to say that everything was great until they argued, and then she was a Nazi and he was a Jew who couldn’t get over it.”

  Markus’s face showed no expression. His hands remained on the wheel as we sped down dark roads.

  “Of course I don’t see you like that, as Himmler’s descendant. I know you’re not like that; it’s just that sometimes the voice in my head that screams All Germans are evil, that voice I grew up with, it just kind of takes over.”

  “Genau. Understandable.”

  I leaned over and kissed him and stroked his neck. He had the most beautiful face. How could I be so horrified by my relationship with him in these odd, random moments when my whole body seemed to thrill in his presence?

  The next day I felt a bit off. It was raining again. We decided to nap after lunch. I fell asleep for thirty minutes and awoke in the midst of what felt like the peak throes of a panic attack. I had never woken up in such a state. Before I even opened my eyes, I could feel my heart racing, my body trembling from the force.

  I lay paralyzed with fear and shock for a few minutes before I was able to whisper to Markus, who was lying next to me reading a book. He had not noticed I was awake.

  “Markus.”

  “Yes, my dear?”

  “Can you feel my pulse?” I asked. I didn’t want to seem crazy. I assumed that I must look ordinary on the surface, as I was lying still on the bed. One couldn’t see a racing heart.

  “Ja, natürlich,” he said and took my hand, looking at his watch.

  After a minute, he looked over. “Quite fast, ja, especially since you’re lying in bed, no?”

  “Markus, I, I—” I faltered. “I feel really sick.”

  He looked at me with concern, and immediately my anxiety let loose like a racehorse at the sound of a pistol shot. My heart was pounding even harder, and now I could feel my hands and legs getting numb. I started to hyperventilate.

  He got up and came over to my side of the bed.

  “I’m scared, I’m so scared,” I cried as I thrashed under the sheets, trying to shake off the sensation.

  “Calm down,” he said, holding my arm and looking into my eyes. “What are you feeling?”

  “Everything’s numb. What’s happening to me?”

  “Just breathe,” he said.

  I followed his breathing, deep and slow, even though it didn’t feel like it was helping. After about ten minutes, I started to feel a bit more like myself, although still woozy. I sat up.

  “You’re okay?”

  “Yes, I think so. I need some air.”

  He went back to his side of the bed and resumed his reading as if nothing had happened.

  Outside on the patio, I reflected that no one had ever looked at me when I felt my craziest and made me feel that normal. Although I had been diagnosed with anxiety shortly after my arranged marriage at the age of eighteen, this had been my first panic attack in years, and it had happened, also for the first time, during sleep. What was my body saying? Was I betraying my grandmother by neglecting her journey and replacing it with a tryst with the enemy?

  And what was it that frightened me so much about this place? I wondered. I knew only that it was time to leave. No matter how many beautiful visions I had encountered here, I was too uneasy to really enjoy them. Perhaps the fact that it was so lovely was the very thing that was disturbing me—did it have any right to be such a picturesque, fairy-tale-like region when it had been the birthplace of one of the greatest horrors in the world? As if I were looking through the lens of a Grimm brothers’ tale, I wanted the forests to turn dark and gnarled, the sky to be an angry purple. This place, I thought, should reflect what happened. To appear so innocent and calm was a wrongdoing on its part, an unforgivable betrayal.

  * * *

  • • •

  We checked out the next morning and drove to Frankfurt, stopping only for lunch in a tiny town in Hessen. I had to move on to Berlin very soon, from which I had booked my return flight, but I decided to stay in Frankfurt for a day or two because Markus had arranged for me to meet his mother. I was curious to meet her because she had been raised by real Nazis. Although Markus had told me that she had always had a very troubled relationship with her family and their beliefs, I still wondered if I might detect any trace of her background imprinted on her character, the way mine was no doubt imprinted on me.

  Ada had recently been widowed and was now living in the small apartment she had used as her private sanctuary throughout her marriage. It had a lovely garden out front and another in back with a little terrace, and that’s where we sat. Young pink climbing roses were carefully tied to the terrace railing; the plants were immaculately tended in attractive ceramic pots. Ada had pure white hair, large pale blue eyes, and very fair skin. My eyes swept over the garden, and for an instant it was as if I was looking at that garden in my memory, so similarly was this one constructed; it was as if I had come to visit my own grandmother. As we made small talk on the porch, I realized for the first time just how much I missed having an older person in my life, the way I used to.

  “I wanted to ask you about your parents,” I said eventually, after we had licked clean a bowl of strawberries and cream. “I’m really curious what it was like being raised by them, and how you were able to turn out so differently and raise a son like Markus.”

  “My parents hated everyone who wasn’t German, not just Jews. Even
on his deathbed my father expressed no remorse. My mother could never stop talking about the time she kissed the Führer’s hand. Come, I’ll show you a picture of them.”

  We walked into her little office, and there was an old sepia photograph taped to the side of a curio, showing a surprisingly diminutive couple walking their German shepherd in the rain, smiling from underneath their shared umbrella. His face seemed to disappear under his squashy hat and large, thick-rimmed glasses, but I could detect a decidedly prominent nose. He looked like the average middle-aged Jewish man buying a bagel on the Upper West Side. She was no different, with a narrow forehead and thick, dark eyebrows.

  “They look more Jewish than most Jews I know!” I said.

  “Right?” Ada laughed. “And with their German shepherd, so proud of themselves. They looked nothing like the ideal Germans they had in their fantasies.”

  “But you do,” I said before I could help myself. “You’re so fair and blue-eyed. It’s interesting—Markus looks nothing like that.”

  “Markus looks like his father.” Indeed, he had a tall, broad forehead but a large nose and dark hair. His eyes were hazel, but his smile was distinctly German to me, the upper lip coming out slightly over the lower, which lent him a look of perpetual haughty bemusement.

  “My generation was different. Back then, everyone was rebelling against their parents, against what they had done. We didn’t want to be anything like them. It didn’t help that my parents were brutal to me as well. My mother used to stick my finger in the electric sockets as a way of disciplining me. I tried to accuse her of it when I was an adult, and she wouldn’t even discuss it with me. It was clear she knew it was sick.”

  I remembered seeing all those photos of Hitler cavorting with children, reading how Nazis would go home and hug their wives. It never occurred to me that some of them might have been as cruel to their own offspring as they were on the job.

  * * *

  • • •

  Markus drove me around Frankfurt for a short tour of the city. I asked him if any of his siblings had turned out anti-Semitic, wondering if these patterns were in any way genetic, like Ada claimed, skipping generations and then popping up again out of context.