The Mascot

by Mark Kurzem

  “One of the officers caught sight of us and ordered us back indoors, telling us that we’d be put to work digging as well if we didn’t disappear.

  “The sound of the digging went on till first light. That’s when I sneaked a look through the window.” He indicated the window behind him. “I couldn’t believe my eyes—there was an enormous gaping hole in the earth where the square had been.”

  The man rose unsteadily to his feet and shuffled to the edge of the veranda and closer to us. Slowly he raised his arm and pointed in the direction of the slope we had descended earlier with my father.

  “They came from there,” he said. “Women. Children, babies, old people. Jews, they were. Hundreds of them. The queue led all the way back up the hill as far as the eye could see.

  “The babies were wailing and many of the children were in tears. Their mothers were trying to calm them, but the soldiers showed no patience. They prodded at the little ones with their bayonets, screaming at them to shut up.”

  His finger shifted in the direction of where my parents were still seated on the bench. “The soldiers pushed and shoved them down there. And over there, near the memorial, that’s where the officers stood. You can see that it’s higher than the square, so it gave them a good view over the crowd. They were German; their uniforms were different than those of the soldiers.”

  The memorial to the martyrs of Koidanov at the site of the massacre.

  The man paused for a moment.

  “At the base of the hill, the Jews were put into groups of about ten or twelve. Soldiers forced them to undress and then lined them up in front of the pit. Then another group of soldiers—with rifles—stepped forward.

  “I knew by then why the earth had been dug up, and those Jews knew what was going to happen to them. Not a single one of them made any effort to fight back or run away. True, there was nowhere for them to flee in the face of those men and their weapons. But better that than give up the way they did…

  “The soldiers raised their rifles and fired into the line so that the people fell backward into the hole. Sometimes if a body didn’t fall in the right way, a soldier would step forward and kick it the rest of the way in.

  “They didn’t waste their bullets on the babies or children; they simply used the bayonet. A quick sharp lunge and that was the end of that one.”

  Throughout his description, the man’s voice had remained low-key and the expression on his face blank so that it was impossible to tell how this had affected him.

  “This was repeated several times,” he continued. “A new group was shot and shoved into the pit. Like clockwork. Even though you could see that many of the soldiers were drunk, they were efficient.

  “And all the way up that slope the Jews queued in silence, watching what was happening below—to their friends and neighbors, members of their family—and waiting for their turn.”

  The man turned away from the open space before him. If it had once been the village square, it was now a derelict place used by children unaware of its poisonous history.

  “It was then that the strangest thing happened.” His hand trembled as he raised his arm to the sky. “Without any warning at all, I swear, the sky turned black and the heavens opened. Not just rain, but a deluge. A flood of such power.

  “In seconds the square turned into a muddy mess. The soldiers and the Jews were drenched and slipping all over the place. The Jews began to panic. I could understand why—I did, too, from the safety of my house. It was mayhem. I could see the officers giving orders for the soldiers to control the crowd.

  “And then the thunder began, and bolts of lightning began striking so close to the ground. It was as if God himself had descended and was going to destroy us all.” The man crossed himself before continuing.

  “Even the soldiers became spooked: some of the firing squad had put down their rifles. They didn’t want to continue with the killings. The commanding officer must’ve made the decision to stop because next thing the Jews were being forced back up the hill and into their houses. Even the ones who were already naked and about to die were forced to dress—they grabbed at any piece of clothing from the pile that had been dumped by the pit from the previous victims—and then ordered up the hill.

  “After that I saw the remaining soldiers gather their weapons and packs and head off. They left the pit just as it was: open and piled with bodies, and filling up with water. The rain didn’t cease all day, not for a single moment, until nightfall.”

  In the background was the sound of children laughing and playing in the square.

  “When it was completely dark,” the man said, “I crept out onto the porch. I stood there for some time. At first I thought it was silent. But soon, I detected the sound of movement coming from the pit.

  “I was petrified. I ran back inside and told my father, who gave me a clip around the head for disobeying the soldiers by going outside. He told me that it was the sound of the dead bodies as they shifted around on top of each other. I’d heard groans, too, and told my father that some of the people were still alive. But he only laughed. ‘It’s just the ghosts departing from their bodies,’ he told me. ‘Leave them alone or they’ll take you with them as well.’

  “That put the fear of God into me. I went to my room and closed the curtains, not even having the courage to look out the window anymore.

  “The next morning I was woken early by the sounds of gunshots. I parted the curtain a fraction and peered through. It was the same scene as the day before—the killing had begun again. It must’ve been going on for some time because the hill was by then half-emptied of Jews. I crawled back into my bed and covered my head so I wouldn’t hear the cries and wails that had begun to reach my ears.

  “As I lay there I wondered what the Jews had done the previous night. I’d dropped off to sleep despite my fear of the ghosts, but they must have been awake all through the night knowing what was going to happen to them in the morning.”

  The man took another break from what he was saying and this time lit a cigarette.

  “Just one more thing,” I said.

  He looked at me innocently.

  “What did you think about what you saw?” I asked.

  He shrugged and rubbed the back of his head. I couldn’t tell whether it was out of embarrassment. “They say not a single Jew survived,” he said with finality.

  But he didn’t answer my question.

  With the clarity of his recollections, this man had unwittingly solved a mystery that had fostered doubt in the Oxford professors: it was possible that my father had begun to make the journey down the slope in the company of his mother, holding his little brother’s hand, only to be turned back by the eerie storm before he faced his own death.

  That would explain how his mother knew exactly what was in store for herself and her children when the storm was over. She had gathered her young son onto her knee and told him that they would all die the following day, prompting him to flee during the night.

  The man had retired to his seat once again and covered his knees with his rug. I thanked him so profusely for speaking with me that he was taken aback.

  “Nothing at all,” he replied, still smoking.

  He hadn’t the slightest inkling about the burden he had lifted from me. Even though I had trusted the general sweep of my father’s story, the Oxford professors had planted in me a seed of doubt.

  Galina and I walked back slowly toward the bench. All around us was silent apart from the laughter of my parents and Erick as they chatted with the children.

  Although it could never be proved beyond dispute, two days in Belarus had already reinforced the truth of what my father had claimed. Later, after I had returned to Oxford, I wrote to the professor who had been most insistent that my father had concocted the incident with his mother. I explained to him what I had learned “on the ground” in Koidanov. He never replied.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CONNECTIONS

  We were seated in
a café not far from the site of the extermination, where Erick had brought us for a lunch of plov, a Russian specialty akin to pilaf. “My mother never cooked anything like this,” my father said to me, making a sour face. “I’d never have forgotten it.” After lunch my father became immersed in conversation with Erick, telling him further details of his story and of his life in Australia.

  I’d heard these stories many times and decided to take a walk around the neighborhood. Within minutes I was surprised to find myself back where the visit to Koidanov had begun—on October Street.

  To my right I recognized the house that Erick had insisted was my father’s. Then I began to make my way along October Street in the opposite direction. I had gone only a short distance when, unable to resist a plov-induced torpor, I located a patch of grass by the side of the road and sat down. I let my eyelids droop shut. As they lowered, I could just make out the staring face of a babushka at a window in the house opposite. I raised my head slightly to look, but, caught spying, she snapped the curtains shut.

  I must have drifted into a half-sleep momentarily; a sharp cackle and snorts of laughter close to my ear roused me. Still on the ground, I was surrounded by four elderly women, all wider than they were tall, dressed in head scarves and colorful skirts over trousers. The one who’d cackled in my ear gave me a broad, toothless smile, then eyed me suspiciously. She stretched herself upright and began to chatter with the other babushkas, who shuffled around me on their heavy feet.

  Then she spoke. I didn’t understand a single word she said.

  She spoke again, and I could tell that she was repeating herself. Another joined in, saying the same thing.

  Then I recognized one of the half-dozen words I understood in Russian.

  “Foreigner?” she asked.

  I looked up, shading my eyes against the sun, and nodded my head vigorously. “Yes,” I said. “Foreigner.”

  The women clapped their hands together. “You speak Russian!” one of them exclaimed with delight.

  “No,” I laughed, waving my hand in front of me. Spurred on by the breakthrough, such as it was, I began to explain in English, “I’m here with my father.”

  They looked at me blankly.

  “He’s looking for his village,” I went on. “The home he grew up in.”

  They exchanged glances with each other and then burst into roars of laughter, shaking their heads at me.

  “Papa,” I said, banging my chest. I was fired up now and tried another strategy. I jumped to my feet and began to mime that I was searching for a house. I held my hand above my eyes, walked over to the fence of a house, and peered intently into its garden. Then, putting on a sad expression, I shook my head, before moving on to the next house and miming the same actions.

  The women continued to stare at me, open-jawed, as if I were an alien who had just descended on October Street. I was on the verge of giving up, when all of a sudden one of them caught on.

  “House of father?” she asked.

  “Yes.” I was delighted. “Yes.”

  The others nodded and made comprehending noises. “October Street?” another chimed in.

  “Yes, yes,” I repeated.

  “Name?” Another Russian word I could understand. The ringleader looked at me shrewdly.

  “Which should I try, Galperin or Panok?” I wondered aloud to myself. One of them immediately picked up on what I had just said.

  “Galperin?” she asked. “Galperin?”

  I nodded. “Galperin house?” I asked, pointing in the direction of the house we had seen that morning.

  They shook their heads in unison. One of them pointed in the opposite direction, farther down a section of the street I’d not yet seen. I followed the line of her finger, but I couldn’t see where she was pointing. Good-naturedly, she took my hand and led me along the street with the others in tow until, about a dozen houses down, we came to a stop outside a neglected-looking green building.

  “Galperin,” she said, pointing.

  “Galperin?” I asked.

  She nodded firmly, folding her arms.

  “It might be the house,” I thought. There was a driveway that ran alongside the house that matched my father’s description. I wanted to know who, if anybody, lived there now. I needed to get a closer look.

  I tried to explain this to my companions but failed. Then I remembered Galina. I made a gesture to the women that they should wait for me and, without waiting to check whether they understood or not, dashed off in the direction of the café.

  Everybody was just as I had left them. My father was still involved in an intense conversation with Erick, gesticulating dramatically to make his childhood Russian clear.

  Neither of them noticed my breathless arrival, and I didn’t want to disturb them. Galina was chatting with my mother.

  “Can I borrow you for a moment?” I asked Galina.

  “Something the matter?” my mother asked, looking up at me.

  “Nothing,” I replied, not wanting to build up anyone’s hope at this stage.

  Galina questioned the women while I waited beside her anxiously.

  “They insist that this was the Galperin house from before the war until sometime in the seventies,” she said excitedly. In her short time with us, Galina had generously become caught up in our search.

  “Are they certain about this?” I asked.

  Galina turned to the women and asked them again. In response they nodded their heads resolutely.

  “Ask them who owns it now.”

  “A woman from a nearby village,” came the reply. One woman was certain that it was a place called Fanipol, about ten miles from Koidanov. She also knew the woman’s name.

  “Gildenberg,” she said. “Dina Gildenberg. She’s from one of the old Jew families of Koidanov. She bought the house in…when did old Solomon Galperin die? It must have been 1976…no…1975. The son…what was his name? Erick, that’s right…from Minsk, sold it to Dina Gildenberg about ten years ago. The house was deserted for years.” Then she added, “She’s in Koidanov now. I’ve seen her. She does casual work in the canning factory up the road from here.”

  “I want to meet her now,” I declared. “Will she be there?”

  “Probably. I don’t know her,” the woman answered.

  It seemed typical of village life that the women knew all about Dina but didn’t actually know her.

  “Where is the factory?” I demanded.

  The women volunteered to lead me there. As we made our way to the factory, they remained in high spirits and fired questions at me about who I was. At one point, one of them said, “You’re not a Yid, then, are you?” only to be hushed by the others.

  I answered their questions as best I could, but all the while I was thinking about Erick. Had he led us to the wrong house? Why?

  Galina volunteered to inquire after Dina while I stood in a huddle with the women outside the small factory. As the minutes passed, they became restless. There was a mumbled discussion and suddenly they moved off, giving me a cursory wave. I was startled. I didn’t know any of their names. I hadn’t even thanked them. But before I could make a move to go after them, they had disappeared into the next street. Just at that moment Galina reappeared at the factory door accompanied by a woman whose appearance surprised me even more than the babushka’s hasty departure.

  She was stockier than my father, but she had his kind and jolly expression, his rosy, chubby cheeks, and the same intense, watery blue eyes. In the center of her face was the same slightly bulbous putty nose and impish smile. It was her persona, though, the same inflection of shyness in her demeanor, that convinced me that she had to be related to him.

  Galina introduced her to me, and she took my hand. Dina had been allowed to leave the production line for a short time and agreed to take us back to the house and let us inspect it.

  On the way, Dina volunteered as much information as she knew about the family history on her side. She explained that she was related by marriage to
the Galperin family. Her father was Boris Gildenberg, and Boris’s younger sister, Hana, had been married to Solomon Galperin. They had lived together in the house on October Street. Dina’s aunt was the Hana Galperin Erick had spoken of as my father’s mother. Dina and my father were likely first cousins. Confirming the babushka’s account, she told us that she had bought the house from Erick, who had made the sale in an effort to raise funds to buy a printing press for his business.

  Dina’s family had been lucky: they’d escaped the Holocaust. Her father and mother moved to Moscow in the late 1930s and Dina had grown up there. She moved to Belarus in the 1980s, after Solomon had passed away. She’d never met him and knew only that his three children had died along with Hana and other family members in the mass killings. Only Solomon had survived the war, but Dina had no idea how.

  It appeared that Erick had not even told Dina of our existence, let alone our visit. She was not aware that another of the Galperins, her cousin—if my father was that—had survived under incredible circumstances and that she was about to meet him.

  “Erick Galperin could tell you much more about the history of the family and the house,” she said.

  I remained silent.

  We came to a stop outside the house the babushkas had led me to, number 12, October Street, but I wanted to go no further without my father and mother. Galina set off in a hurry to fetch my parents. I told her to say nothing of our discovery. I wanted my father to reach his own conclusions once he had seen the house.

  Meanwhile, Dina led me to the door at the side of the house. She pulled out a large key and was about to place it in the lock. I gestured for her to stop. I was reluctant to enter. If this was my father’s home, then he should be the first to enter.

  “Father,” I uttered, hoping that Dina would understand. She must have, as she agreed to wait.