by Mark Helprin
She believed strongly that all dreams are remembrances of circular time, windows into a future which has once passed. In this instance it may have been true, for when she finished secondary school she left for Leningrad to study at a conservatory there. And she did walk in the markets, where she met a university student with whom she fell in love almost as if it had been a repetition of the dream. His name was Lev: he was good-natured and naive. She had hardly begun to know him, when he was taken for the Army. Imagining that she would never see him again, she took it in stride because she was young and paid little heed to changes. After all, she had been used to looking at the trees in moonlight, and when she came to the city the electric lights seemed harsh and unnatural. But then she learned that in electric light the trees cast beautiful shadows as they wave and sway, and that the light washes the green into a very strange, almost new color. In the conservatory garden the leaves were like newly split emerald. There, lessons in the softest summer music were often shattered by the railroad whistles of a new military branch line which went right through the gardens, making the old professors despair of war.
Graduating in the late spring of 1941, she was sent to Riga for service in teaching violin and theory in a new Jewish secondary school. She had been put in charge of a summer session, which she determined to finish despite the threat of invasion. The children seemed extraordinarily beautiful. Their smiles and motions were her own depth unveiled. She watched them, loved them, and stayed with them even though she knew that they were all going to die. She taught violin in the little school (which had its doors flung open and was surrounded by planters and pots of searing red geraniums) as if no one would ever do so again. The students were just as intense; it was as if everyone had gone constructively mad, and they worked until all hours of night.
8
THEY PASSED slowly through the hot parts of June when boats seem not to move on the water, when old men lean on their chairs, when black spots on the screens are flies too hot to move. Nothing stirred. Lovers sat silent and still with their eyes upon one another. On the first of July the Germans entered Riga.
For the Latvians it was liberation, and they were happy. But for the Jews it was no liberation. They waited, debating in the councils about which was the best course, knowing full well that if they turned left or right, went forward or backward, or did nothing, the results would be the same. This frustration, powerlessness, and anxiety prompted the Sonderkommando to spread rumors that the Jews would be relocated somewhere in the Ukraine. “Why the Ukraine?” some asked. “Riga is a beautiful city. Why can’t we stay? At least,” they said, “we will not be sent to prison in Germany.”
Katrina began to go to synagogue. It was quite unfamiliar to her, the girl who had convulsed with the greatness of God in a Christian cathedral empty but for grain, who had been outstretched on the wheat, stiff and trembling, a total prisoner of the light. There was no practical reason suddenly to become religious. Indeed, some deliberately stayed away. But she and many others joined together at a little synagogue on the outskirts of the city.
It had a red roof, Latvian decorations, a lot of warm-colored woods, and a brass chandelier from Holland. A fine sky could be seen through the windows; clouds passed smoothly and quietly; every now and then the nicest, gentlest breeze would arise and swing the door on its hinges just a little bit, always taking care to move it back again. When the rabbi spoke and when the cantor sang, the magic of the language made her sleepy and comfortable like the summer outside, like the child she had been not so long before in the little pines fragrant around her room under the roof. The candles were burning bright. Some dripped wax onto the floor, and no one cared. Everyone was happy and content; much love was to be found there.
Suddenly a man arose and ran down the aisle. He whipped around and faced the people, and he began to speak tightly and quietly. His eyes were twitching. He could have been a madman. “Can’t you see?” he finally shouted, “can’t you see that the air ... I can feel the air; the air is starting to burn. The air is burning, burning, burning black.” He moaned with a painful and dreadfully familiar sound, a cry from a long, long history, and they joined him, lamenting in the disordered remnants of their contentment, moaning in a frightening way which froze the children in fear and which became for them an initiation into their religion as they had never dreamed it would be.
Clutching a wooden rail, the rabbi had tears in his eyes and could not speak. The women began to weep, but a young man jumped up and walked to the door, kicking it open with such force that it sounded like a gun. He was more angry than they were frightened, the type to draw fire. “Let us go home,” he said strongly, “and eat our dinners.” It became quiet, and they filed out. Katrina Perlé sat motionless and afraid. The door was still open and through it she could see an evening star, a planet really, shining silver in soft fading blue. She felt love rising within her, and she kissed her hands and grasped the dark wood as so many of her people had done so many times before.
9
SHE CONTINUED to hope that summer would return and that the sea would again be like glass, even in a cold fiery autumn, a time for starting school or work or love, a season she had treasured. One afternoon on a bright day when she wore a white dress and shirt which glowed in the sun, and she looked as beautiful as she had ever looked—sunburnt, golden, and silver—she came upon a sign posted on a building.
To all Jews. In order to populate the sparsely settled regions of the Ukraine, all Jews living in Riga on streets where this notice appears, and those with no established residence must appear at the Riga main station on October 5, 1941, at five in the morning, Berlin time. Each Jew can bring baggage not to exceed forty pounds in weight, including food for two days. Food will be provided in stations en route by the German authorities.
It was hard to believe that it would take place the very next day. Everyone was to be assembled and ready at five, meaning that they had to pack that evening, go to sleep early, and arise at four. Hurrying through the streets, she saw the white signs posted everywhere, and when at last she reached the synagogue, it was full. To see so many people in one place might have been encouraging had even one of them known how to avoid the deportation. No one, however, could think of anything. Fearing a pogrom by the Latvian auxiliary police if the order were not followed, they decided to cooperate. A student in tennis shoes pointed out that from a military-strategic point of view it seemed logical for the Germans to populate areas over which they had made lightning gains, and that undoubtedly the Jews would be used to farm and to run factories which the Russians had been unable to torch.
When everyone had departed and the Torah had been moved to the rabbis house in preparation for the journey, the rabbi came to the empty synagogue. It occurred to him how very very beautiful it was, how wonderful it had been, how many clear nights and days he had spent there. He loved that hall greatly. With a pounding heart, he put out the candles for the last time.
For a day and a half the train went southward as they had expected but at about noon it pulled into a long siding next to a halfbuilt factory and some sheds. Everyone was ordered off. Near the building were three ditches, each about one hundred feet long and twelve feet deep. Under watch of the SS Teilkommando detachment, armed Ukrainian militiamen herded the Jews into groups. All in all, about 1,800 had been on the train. An SS soldier with a whip forced Katrina's group to undress, after which they were made to put their clothing in piles which had been started long before and which lay partly covered with canvas tarpaulins. The pile of shoes was like a little mountain and would have filled a railroad car. Without weeping or crying the Jews undressed and stood together in families embracing each other and saying goodbye while waiting for a sign from another SS soldier who stood at the edge of the ditch, like many of his fellows, with a whip. There was not a single complaint or plea for mercy. They had been removed into a dream and they were dazed. The unfamiliar, half-finished place was hardly real. Katrina watched a man and a woman o
f about fifty who were surrounded by their children—an infant, a boy and a girl of about ten, and two girls in their middle twenties. An old woman who was obviously the grandmother held the baby in her arms, rocking it, and singing it a song. The baby was crying aloud with delight. The father held the ten-year-old boy, stroking his head. The mother grasped the girl so tightly against her stomach that it must have caused the child pain. The father seemed to be explaining something to the boy when the SS man near the ditch signaled to his counterpart. He in turn apportioned out a number of people, including the family and Katrina, and made them move to another part of the field. Katrina kept saying her number, “Thirty-three.”
They waited for several hours during which they numbly watched other groups being formed and then marched to the ditches. In these ditches tightly packed corpses were heaped so close together that only the heads showed. Most were wounded in the head and blood flowed over their shoulders. Some still moved, raising their eyes a little and turning their hands. The man who carried out the execution was seated, legs swinging, on an old weathered board which ran over the ditch. An automatic rifle rested on his knees and he was smoking a cigarette.
More people, completely naked, climbed down a few steps cut in the wall of the ditch, and stopped at the spot indicated by the SS men. Facing the dead and wounded, they spoke softly to them. Many said the Sh’ma—then the monotonous rapid cracks of the automatic weapon. The bodies contorted. Their heads, already inert, sank onto the corpses beneath. Blood flowed from the napes of their necks. And this went on and on.
Finally the ditches were full, and Katrina’s group was still alive. They stared with motionless eyes at the sky and the sun, which was going down behind smoke. It was getting cold, and they had no clothes. Then the SS man came around to them and half of the group was ordered to lie on the ground. This included the father, the mother, the boy, the girl, and others. Katrina watched with the two young girls, one of whom was holding the infant, as the rifle cracked and those on the ground convulsed. Then the girls and Katrina were made to lie on top of the corpses. By this time it was almost dark and the rifleman had begun to spray the bodies without really seeing them. He fired. Katrina was wounded in the leg, but nowhere else. When all became quiet there was a pile of bodies, like firewood, and just a few were still moaning. Katrina was trapped by the weight of those above her and could not move her arms. She blacked out.
In the morning she awoke to find herself in the same position, covered with blood. Those still alive stared into space with a set look, seeming not to feel the coolness of the morning air. Three peasants passed by, assessing the dead. They came to Katrina and pulled her out. It took all three to do it. Others who could begged feebly for the same assistance. Katrina tried to thank them. But she did not have to. They had pulled her out to rape her. And that was just the beginning.
10
WHETHER OR not by design, and it seemed certainly so, a cardinal policy in keeping together the British Empire was the disposition of two types of force. The garrison, or police station, or, as they said, Tegart Fortress, was one half of the equation. It was found from the Hindu Kush to British Columbia, serving as an England in a box—the thick walls, bars, and peepholes for guns not unlike those of castles embedded deep in the English countryside and in history too. From these strongpoints embarked patrols riding victorious each time they rode, whether on horse or in armored cars or in trucks, up and down the traveled roads, through the villages, and over the wilderness. They could always return to the solid buildings whence they had come. However, as mighty as they were these bases were mostly small, manned only by a few, and not always as alert as they were supposed to have been. In short, nearly any one of them could have been taken by a determined force gathered from the several localities they were assigned to subdue. But then the rebels, or the peasant militia, or whatever, would have had to deal with the mobile character of the British forces drawn from other small points until they reached an impressive number. Of course, if the native populations had organized by country instead of by region, they might have succeeded in besieging each small unit and in preventing every one from either giving or receiving aid. But then they would have been confronted by forces from other colonies and from England itself. Fractious populations could not accomplish national rebellions, much less world revolution. Thus the Empire lived. In co-opting local notables, making British justice felt in the interest of Britain, keeping alert to challenges which were likely to spring up anywhere at any time, and faithfully quashing tiny uprisings with reserve forces drawn from surrounding areas, a very small number of good-humored men was able to control the world, in their rapid actions surrounding and suppressing both unrest and general cognizance of it. If anyone was aware of this, they were; that is why they were so keen to do their duty and so punctilious about it. And as the Empire declined and they were pressured from all sides they often rushed to their stations with the eagerness and lack of complacency which marks devotion to an almost extinguished dream.
One such officer, impressed deeply by the miraculous character of a small nation exploring, discovering, and colonizing what had been an unknown world; devoted to conceptions of quality, responsibility, and fairness; a man not unpleasant in his demeanor or in his speech; a good and often tender man, was Captain Keslake of the Royal Navy, of the British destroyer Shackleton, of the General Naval Headquarters in Palestine, of a small office in a huge fortress high on a hill in Haifa.
His windows overlooked the sea, which he was able to scan for many miles. Being on a promontory next to Stella Maris, he could see Syrian mountains, Jebel Druse, Jermak, and others, and the Lebanon to the north beyond a vast windy coast of rising dunes. To the south was a long white beach flanked by small mountains. The winds whistled around the radar and the wire. At night a huge light played over the sea to guide ships to the harbor. Servants brought him lemonade on a silver tray—the lemon juice, sugar, and iced water unmixed. He had a positive sense of well-being there, high up in the thin air, suspended in blue, clean strong sunlight like that of the mountains penetrating a light beige-colored room, and yet all within the precinct of the sea. If he listened hard he could hear the white waves below. His ship, manned and ready, rested in Haifa port.
When not aboard Shackleton, he chose to stay at a rest center for officers, a building south a little down the coast road. He was a good-natured man but he liked best of all to be alone. Mornings saw him on the porch having his breakfast early, looking out at the sea. He would often walk down the glassine sparkling beach, wandering in and out of the hills and dunes. Once, a Bedouin who had brought his flocks to lick salt asked Keslake the time. Keslake replied in Arabic, “Ten after eight,” at which the Bedouin was completely confused. Reacting quickly, Keslake corrected his answer to “Eight and a quarter,” which the old man understood. The low mountains were good for wandering. When occasionally he would meet an Arab or a Jew he did not act arrogantly, as he might have, but smiled and made a little bow, and there was some fellowship. He wandered in the cemeteries too, for many of his friends had fallen and even at home he had been drawn to tombs as small stories of lives, encompassments terribly inadequate and yet calling for homage, respect, and not a little thought.
In the Muslim cemetery across the road from the rest center he felt entwined by the tendrils of Arabic script. He read the inscriptions, but it was as if no one were buried underneath. It was the same in the Jewish cemetery—he could not even read Hebrew. All these people and their aspirations perplexed him, for he had been too shy to fall in love with one of their women and he had not had the time to become enveloped in their culture as he had felt enveloped by the mere script on the Arabic gravestones. He could only respect them, and no more.
But a quick leap across a young hedge into the Commonwealth War Cemetery transformed him. There, were his people, though they were not all English or even Australian or Canadian. Buried under the Union Jack in immaculate garden splendor, as opposed to the sensual free
-flowing vines and aromatic flowers scattered loosely beyond the hedge, were English and Scots, Irish, Sudanese, Indians, Egyptians, Muslims, Jews, Poles, Greeks—all the Allies except the Americans, whose wealthy government had transported them elsewhere. These were his brothers, fighting on his side in the great wave of war, participants in fleets and armies and the global span of the English endeavor. There were inscriptions which moved him as he went from grave to grave: 8351 SOWAR RAFI MUHAMMED, 13TH DUKE OF CONNAUGHT’S OWN LANCERS, 24TH OCTOBER, 1943, AGE 22. H. BELLEHE, SERGEANT MAJOR, GREEK ARMY, 14TH SEPTEMBER, 1944 (a Jew, with a great Star of David under the Cross of the Greek Army), CAPTAIN M. C. KISSANE, THE ROYAL IRISH FUSILIERS, AIRBORNE, 29TH JUNE, 1946.
It was quiet in that cemetery. Once in a great while a truck went by on the sea road. A goat was tied up outside the hedge, his nibblings on the rich grass vaguely discernible. The sea shimmered beyond. Behind Keslake were rocky green hills, and palms where the water collected in basins and curvatures. At night he watched the sky from a wooden bench, standing guard over the fallen men, alone in the close-cropped darkness. They were young and would soon be forgotten. But under the night sky he knew that he would not forget, that he would be strong for them, that he would uphold that for which they died, that he would guide his ship through the waters traversing and cutting like a mighty hound. He would be ever faithful to the sea for them; he would be faithful to the quick flash of their wasted lives which he felt in the open air above them, and even though he stood in wide open night under a vast ocean sky, he felt suffocated.