The Gravedigger's Daughter

by Joyce Carol Oates

  The men listened avidly. Their eyes were fixed upon her. The Latino music continued. Hazel saw that the kitchen was vast, larger than any kitchen she had ever seen. The farther walls were obscured in shadow. Numerous stoves and all the stoves were mammoth: a dozen gas burners on each. There were large refrigerators built into a wall. Freezers, dishwashers. The space was divided into work areas of which only one was currently lighted and populated. The linoleum floor shone wetly, recently mopped. Plates were removed from carts and garbage scraped into plastic bags, the bags were tightly tied and placed inside large aluminum cans. The mood of the kitchen workers was heightened, jocular. Hazel might wonder if her presence had something to do with it. She’d taken the playing cards out of her pocket and stacked and shuffled them. Did they know gin rummy? Would they like to play gin rummy? Yes, yes! Very good. Gin rummy. Hazel shuffled the cards. Her fingers were slender and deft and the nails had been lacquered deep crimson. Skillfully Hazel dealt the cards to the men and to herself. The men laughed, their mood was exuberant. Now they knew Hazel was one of them, they could relax. They played gin rummy laughing together like old friends. They were drinking chilled Coors beer, and they were drinking from the miniature bottles Hazel had brought them. They were eating potato chips, salted nuts. Brazil nuts like those Gallagher had devoured up in the room. A phone rang, a hotel guest calling room service. McIntyre would have to put on his jacket, and make the delivery. He went away, and within a few minutes returned. Hazel saw that he was relieved she hadn’t left yet.

  Cards were tossed onto the table, the set was over. Who had won? Had Hazel won? The men didn’t want her to leave, it was only 3:35 A.M. and they were on room-service duty until 6 A.M. Hazel stacked the cards together and shuffled and cut and shuffled again and began to deal. The front of her trench coat had loosened, the men could see the tops of her breasts pale and loose in the silky champagne-colored nightgown. She knew that her hair was disheveled, her mouth was a cloudy smear of old lipstick. Even one of her fingernails was chipped. Her body exuded an odor of old, stale panic. Yet she supposed she was an attractive woman, her new friends would not judge her harshly. “D’you know ‘gypsy gin rummy’? If I can remember, I’ll teach you.”

  Epilogue

  1998–1999

  Lake Worth, Florida

  September 14, 1998

  Dear Professor Morgenstern,

  How badly I wish that I could address you as “Freyda”! But I don’t have the right to such familiarity. I have just read your memoir. I have reason to believe that we are cousins. My maiden name is “Schwart” (not my father’s actual name, I think it was changed at Ellis Island in 1936) but my mother’s maiden name was “Morgenstern” and all her family was from Kaufbeuren as yours were. We were to meet in 1941 when we were small children, you and your parents and sister and brother were coming to live with my parents, my two brothers and me in Milburn, New York. But the boat that was carrying you and other refugees, the Marea, was turned back by U.S. Immigration at New York Harbor.

  (In your memoir you speak so briefly of this. You seem to recall a name other than Marea. But I am sure that Marea was the name for it seemed so beautiful to me like music. You were so young of course. So much would happen afterward, you would not remember this. By my calculation you were 6, and I was 5.)

  All these years I had not known that you were living! I had not known that there were survivors in your family. It was told to us by my father that there were not. I am so happy for you and your success. To think that you were living in the U.S. since 1956 is a shock to me. That you were a college student in New York City while I was living (my first marriage, not a happy one) in upstate New York! Forgive me, I did not know of your previous books, though I would be intrigued by “biological anthropology,” I think! (I have nothing of your academic education, I’m so ashamed. Not only not college but I did not graduate from high school.)

  Well, I am writing in the hope that we might meet. Oh very soon, Frey-da! Before it’s too late.

  I am no longer your 5-year-old cousin dreaming of a new “sister” (as my mother promised) who would sleep with me in my bed and be with me always.

  Your “lost” cousin

  Lake Worth, Florida

  September 15, 1998

  Dear Professor Morgenstern,

  I wrote to you just the other day, now I see to my embarrassment that I may have sent the letter to a wrong address. If you are “on sabbatical leave” from the University of Chicago as it says on the dust jacket of your memoir. I will try again with this, care of your publisher.

  I will enclose the same letter. Though I feel it is not adequate, to express what is in my heart.

  Your “lost” cousin

  P.S. Of course I will come to you, wherever & whenever you wish, Freyda!

  Lake Worth, Florida

  October 2, 1998

  Dear Professor Morgenstern,

  I wrote to you last month but I’m afraid that my letters were mis-addressed. I will enclose these letters here, now that I know you are at the “Institute for Advanced Research” at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.

  Its possible that you have read my letters and were offended by them. I know, I am not a very good writer. I should not have said what I did about the Atlantic crossing in 1941, as if you would not know these facts for yourself. I did not mean to correct you, Professor Morgen-stern, regarding the name of the very boat you and your family were on in that nightmare time!

  In an interview with you reprinted in the Miami newspaper I was embarrassed to read that you have received so much mail from “relatives” since the memoir. I smiled to read where you said, “Where were all these relatives in America when they were needed?”

  Truly we were here, Freyda! In Milburn, New York, on the Erie Canal.

  Your cousin

  Palo Alto CA

  1 November 1998

  Dear Rebecca Schward,

  Thank you for your letter and for your response to my memoir. I have been deeply moved by the numerous letters I’ve received since the publication of Back From the Dead: A Girlhood both in the United States and abroad and truly wish that I had time to reply to each of these individually and at length.

  Sincerely,

  Freyda Morgenstern

  Julius K. Tracey ’48 Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, University of Chicago

  Lake Worth, Florida

  November 5, 1998

  Dear Professor Morgenstern,

  I’m very relieved now, I have the correct address! I hope that you will read this letter. I think you must have a secretary who opens your mail and sends back replies. I know, you are amused (annoyed?) by so many now claiming to be relatives of “Freyda Morgenstern.” Especially since your television interviews. But I feel very strongly, I am your true cousin. For I was the (only) daughter of Anna Morgenstern. I believe that Anna Morgenstern was the (only) sister of your mother Dora a younger sister. For many weeks my mother spoke of her sister Dora coming to live with us, your father and your Elzbieta who was older than you by 3 or 4 years and your brother Joel who was also older than you, not by so much. We had photographs of you, I remember so clearly how your hair was so neatly plaited and how pretty you were, a “frowning girl” my mother said of you, like me. We did look alike then, Freyda, though you were much prettier of course. Elzbieta was blond with a plump face. Joel was looking happy in the photograph, a sweet-seeming boy of maybe 8. To read that your sister and brother died in such a terrible way in “Theresienstadt” was so sad. My mother never recovered from the shock of that time, I think. She was so hoping to see her sister again. When the Marea was turned back in the harbor, she gave up hope. My father did not allow her to speak German, only English, but she could not speak English well, if anyone came to the house she would hide. She did not speak much afterward to any of us and was often sick. She died in May 1949.

  Reading this letter I see that I am giving a wrong emphasis, really! I never think of these long-ago things.


  It was seeing your picture in the newspaper, Freyda! My husband was reading the New York Times & called me to him saying wasn’t it strange, here was a woman looking enough like his wife to be a sister, though in fact you & I do not look so much alike, in my opinion, not any longer, but it was a shock to see your face which is very like my mother’s face as I remember it.

  And then your name Freyda Morgenstern.

  At once I went out & purchased Back From the Dead: A Girlhood. I have not read any Holocaust memoirs out of a dread of what I would learn. Your memoir I read sitting in the car in the parking lot of the bookstore not knowing the time, how late it was until my eyes could not see the pages. I thought “It’s Freyda! It’s her! My sister I was promised.” Now I am sixty-two years old, and so lonely in this place of retired wealthy people who look at me & think that I am one of them.

  I am not one to cry. But I wept on many pages of your memoir though I know (from your interviews) you wish not to hear such reports from readers & have only contempt for “cheap American pity.” I know, I would feel the same way. You are right to feel that way. In Milburn I resented the people who felt sorry for me as the “gravedigger’s daughter” (my father’s employment) more than the others who did not give a damn if the Schwarts lived or died.

  I am enclosing my picture taken when I was a girl of sixteen. It is all I have of those years. (I look very different now, I’m afraid!) How badly I wish I could send you a picture of my mother Anna Morgenstern but all were destroyed in 1949.

  Your cousin,

  Palo Alto CA

  16 November 1998

  Dear Rebecca Schwart,

  Sorry not to have replied earlier. I think yes it is quite possible that we are “cousins” but at such a remove it’s really an abstraction, isn’t it?

  I am not traveling much this year trying to complete a new book before my sabbatical ends. I am giving fewer “talks” and my book tour is over, thank God. (The venture into memoir was my first and will be my last effort at non-academic writing. It was far too easy, like opening a vein.) So I don’t quite see how it would be feasible for us to meet at the present time.

  Thank you for sending your photograph. I am returning it.

  Sincerely,

  Lake Worth, Florida

  November 20, 1998

  Dear Freyda,

  Yes, I am sure we are “cousins”! Though like you I don’t know what “cousins” can mean.

  I have no living relatives, I believe. My parents have been dead since 1949 & I know nothing of my brothers I have not glimpsed in many years.

  I think you despise me as your “American cousin.” I wish you could forgive me for that. I am not sure how “American” I am though I was not born in Kaufbeuren as you were but in New York harbor in May 1936. (The exact day is lost. There was no birth certificate or it was lost.) I mean, I was born on the refugee boat! In a place of terrible filth I was told.

  It was a different time then, 1936. The war had not begun & people of our kind were allowed to “emigrate” if they had money.

  My brothers Herschel & Augustus were born in Kaufbeuren & of course both our parents. My father called himself “Jacob Schwart” in this country. (This is a name I have never spoken to anyone who knows me now. Not to my husband of course.) I knew little of my father except he had been a printer in the old world (as he called it with scorn) and at one time a math teacher in a boys’ school. Until the Nazis forbade such people to teach. My mother Anna Morgenstern was married very young. She played piano, as a girl. We would listen to music on the radio sometime if Pa was not home. (The radio was Pa’s.)

  Forgive me, I know you are not interested in any of this. In your memoir you spoke of your mother as a record-keeper for the Nazis, one of those Jewish “administrators” helping in the transport of Jews. You are not sentimental about family. There is something so craven to it isn’t there. I respect the wishes of one who wrote Back From the Dead which is so critical of your relatives & Jews & Jewish history & beliefs as of post-war “amnesia.” I would not wish to dissuard you of such a true feeling, Freyda!

  I have no true feelings myself, I mean that others can know.

  Pa said you were all gone. Like cattle sent back to Hitler, Pa said. I remember his voice lifting NINE HUNDRED REFUGEES, I am sick still hearing that voice.

  Pa said for me to stop thinking about my cousins! They were not coming. They were gone.

  Many pages of your memoir I have memorized, Freyda. And your letters to me. In your words, I can hear your voice. I love this voice so like my own. My secret voice I mean, that no one knows.

  I will fly to California, Freyda. Will you give me permission? “Only say the word & my soul shall be healed.”

  Your cousin,

  Lake Worth, Florida

  November 21, 1998

  Dear Freyda,

  I am so ashamed, I mailed you a letter yesterday with a word misspelled: “dissuade.” And I spoke of no living relatives, I meant no one remaining from the Schwart family. (I have a son from my first marriage, he is married with two children.)

  I have bought other books of yours. Biology: A History. Race and Racism: A History. How impressed Jacob Schwart would be, the little girl in the photographs was never gone but has so very far surpassed him!

  Will you let me come to see you in Palo Alto, Freyda? I could arrive for one day, we might have a meal together & I would depart the next morning. This is a promise.

  Your (lonely) cousin

  Lake Worth, Florida

  November 24, 1998

  Dear Freyda,

  An evening of your time is too much to ask, I think. An hour? An hour would not be too much, would it? Maybe you could talk to me of your work, anything in your voice would be precious to me. I would not wish to drag you into the cesspool of the past as you speak of it so strongly. A woman like yourself capable of such intellectual work & so highly regarded in your field has no time for maudlin sentiment, I agree.

  I have been reading your books. Underlining, & looking up words in the dictionary. (I love the dictionary, its my friend.) So exciting to consider How does science demonstrate the genetic basis of behavior?

  I have enclosed a card here for your reply. Forgive me I did not think of this earlier.

  Your cousin

  Palo Alto CA

  24 November 1998

  Dear Rebecca Schwart,

  Your letters of Nov. 20 & 21 are interesting. But the name “Jacob Schwart” means nothing to me, I’m afraid. There are numerous “Morgensterns” surviving. Perhaps some of these are your cousins, too. You might seek them out if you are lonely.

  As I believe I have explained, this is a very busy time for me. I work much of the day and am not feeling very sociable in the evening. “Loneliness” is a problem engendered primarily by the too-close proximity of others. One excellent remedy is work.

  Sincerely,

  P.S. I believe you have left phone messages for me at the Institute. As my assistant has explained to you, I have no time to answer such calls.

  Lake Worth, Florida

  November 27, 1998

  Dear Freyda,

  Our letters crossed! We both wrote on Nov. 24, maybe it’s a sign.

  It was on impulse I telephoned. “If I could hear her voice”�the thought came to me.

  You have hardened your heart against your “American cousin.” It was courageous in the memoir to state so clearly how you had to harden your heart against so much, to survive. Americans believe that suffering makes saints of us, which is a joke. Still I realize you have no time for me in your life now. There is no “purpose” to me.

  Even if you won’t meet me at this time, will you allow me to write to you? I will accept it if you do not reply. I would only wish that you might read what I write, it would make me so happy (yes, less lonely!) for then I could speak to you in my thoughts as I did when we were girls.

  Your cousin

  P.S. In your academic writing you refer so often
to “adaptation of species to environment.” If you saw me, your cousin, in Lake Worth, Florida, on the ocean just south of Palm Beach, so very far from Milburn, N.Y., and from the “old world,” you would laugh.

  Palo Alto CA

  1 December 1998

  Dear Rebecca Schwart,

  My tenacious American cousin! I’m afraid it is no sign of anything, not even “coincidence,” that our letters were written on the same day and that they “crossed.”

  This card. I admit I am curious at the choice. It happens this is a card on my study wall. ( Did I speak of this in the memoir, I don’t think so.) How you happen to come into possession of this reproduction of Caspar David Friedrich’s Sturzacker�you have not been to the museum in Hamburg, have you? It’s rare that any American even knows the name of this artist much esteemed in Germany.

  Sincerely,

  Lake Worth, Florida

  4 December 1998

  Dear Freyda,

  The postcard of Caspar David Friedrich was given to me, with other cards from the Hamburg museum, by someone who traveled there. (In fact my son who is a pianist. His name would be known to you, it’s nothing like my own.)

  I chose a card to reflect your soul. As I perceive it in your words. Maybe it reflects mine also. I wonder what you will think of this new card which is German also but uglier.

  Your cousin

  Palo Alto CA

  10 December 1998

  Dear Rebecca,

  Yes I like this ugly Nolde. Smoke black as pitch and the Elbe like molten lava. You see into my soul, don’t you! Not that I have wished to disguise myself.