by Irene Butter
We arrived in Marseilles, and somehow ended up at the port. The largest ship was a white passenger ship held fast to the wharf ropes as thick as tree trunks. The sides were painted in tall letters spelling “Gripsholm” and “Sverige,” and with the Swedish flag. Gold and blue stripes ran up and down the ship. The Gripsholm was preparing to take Mrs. Eisenberg and others back to America.
We spent two days on a floating hospital ship before being split into two groups. I found myself in the smaller one. The bigger group was, like Mrs. Eisenberg, going to depart on the Gripsholm. She hugged me and then made her way up the gangplank with a wave.
My group walked to another wharf and onto the Citta di Alessandria, a dumpy, dirty Italian freighter. I ran my hand up the railing as we boarded, my palm turning red with rust. A man in a stained white uniform told us we were heading to Algeria, but not a word was said about why, what for, or for how long.
Beds lined the walls of the long room, their sheets and blankets tucked taut, their mattresses encased within low wooden walls, which, according to the pantomime of an Italian sailor, would keep us from falling out in rough seas. With his hands in a fist under his tilted head, the sailor rocked his body back and forth, then twirled his hands in the air, lower and lower until he spread out his fingers near the floor. Splat. He repeated the gestures until I nodded that I understood. With a satisfied smile, he tapped his white cap before backing away.
“Wait,” I called. “When do we eat?” I pretended to put something in my mouth, then pointed to his watch, which he held up in front of my face, pointing to the twelve with his right finger. Noon.
“Now? Can I eat now?” I poked at the nine and the six on his watch face, the current time.
He shook his head while making a pout and departing with a shrug.
So I sat on a top bunk, my belongings a small mountain on the floor. The room was stuffy and smelled musty with a far-off whiff of oil. My eyes fluttered. I fell back on the gray blanket, leaning to one side so I didn’t hit my head against the wall.
My stomach growled. I was already famished, though it had not been very long since breakfast. I could hear people mulling about. I kept my eyes closed. I should do something, I thought faintly.
You’re waiting for lunch. That’s good enough.
I didn’t want to move. Not for a thousand years, unless it was to join Mutti and Werner, or to eat. My heart and soul had thrown everything else off the lifeboat, so to speak.
Long ago when I had gone to school, Miss Pino had taught my class that the heart is a muscle. She had flexed her fist for emphasis. She had talked about the importance of exercise, of building strong muscles including the heart, but not to overdo it and pull something. My heart was pulled, ripped. It was trapped now, beating on my ribs like a hurt and frightened animal. Thump. Thump. Thump.
I heard a familiar voice and opened my eyes.
It was stout Mrs. Abraham, her smooth, dark hair pulled back from her high forehead. I hadn’t seen her since we had left Pappi’s wrapped body on the train station platform, when Werner and I were eating, and her husband chastised us: How can you eat when your father has just died? I turned my head to see if Mr. Abraham was here too, but there were only her two children, Hans and Ruth, behind her, and the pantomiming sailor. Behind them more people who must have been prisoners like me—judging by their clothes and skinny bodies—found their bunks and collapsed onto them.
I greeted Mrs. Abraham, but I didn’t want to talk. She looked at me like I was something she had lost a long time ago and had just found.
She had the same look that Mrs. Eisenberg had had: concerned. Was she going to make promises, too, that she couldn’t keep?
“We need to tidy up,” she directed at no one in particular.
When I didn’t move, she repeated herself two more times. Finally, I descended, hung my jacket on the hook on the door, and put my bag under the bunk. I climbed back up and balanced a photo of my parents on my bunk shelf—Mutti was as tall as Pappi in her heels. Then I opened Pappi’s razor kit with its long-gone scent of sandalwood shaving soap. As if in a trance, I folded my pink blanket and placed it at the foot of the bunk, flattening out all the folds and picking out slivers of straw nestled in the fibers—remnants of Bergen-Belsen.
Mrs. Abraham murmured something to her kids and left.
My hand continued flowing over my blanket; I mindlessly smoothed out every imperfection.
As I slipped between the taut, cold sheets, someone loosened the porthole window, swinging it open. I fell asleep to the sounds of seagulls, a distant laugh, the sea smell, a breeze across my neck, and finally the image of Pappi in his gray pinstripe suit. He was reclining in a large green-and-white striped beach chair with a drooping hood that offered protection from sand and sun. He was smiling, his hair parted like a fold and slicked back, his right leg thrown over the left. He had come directly from the office to see us, not even bothering to change into his bathing suit. He wanted to be with us that badly. In my dream, I started to come up from the surf where I was playing, but was bogged down by swirling sands that buried my feet. The hem of my short dress was wet and heavy, my legs were tugged forward and backward by the currents, my feet locked in the sand. A force so much bigger than me was pushing me around in every direction except toward Pappi.
I awoke startled and panting, my emptiness and hunger having returned. And I was shivering. I closed the porthole window and descended to the lower decks and followed some people to dinner.
We sat at wooden tables that had raised edges to keep the sliding dishes from flying off. Splat. As Mr. Abraham sat next to me, I stiffened, waiting for a rebuke of some sort. The kitchen door swung open with a bang—I jolted—as sailors strolled in with platters of hamburgers. I gazed at the pile of greasy miracles in the center of our table. Even the rolls glistened. I only started eating after Mr. Abraham took his first bite.
I tried to make Mutti proud and eat slowly, but I couldn’t. Like a wolf, I pushed in the food, taking messy bites before I had gulped the last, juices streaming down my chin that I didn’t bother wiping until the sandwich was gone. I inhaled water to force down the last choking chunk before grabbing another burger, and then the empty platter was swept off and another full one took its place.
“This’ll put fat on your bones,” Mr. Abraham said, and commanded, “Keep eating!”
As when we were on the train leaving Bergen-Belsen, my stomach was suddenly so big I couldn’t breathe. Barely excusing myself, I bolted topside, my hand holding my belly as if it were a dike trying to hold back a spring flood. On deck, I stretched out, my back to a wall, and looked at Marseilles and the silhouette of the church on the hill backlit by a deepening purple sky.
Light fell across the deck as a door opened and a cook came outside, his white apron stained brown, a cigarette clinging lightly to his lips. He carried a large steel bucket that pulled his body to one side.
“Buonasera,” he greeted me, making his cigarette bob.
At the railing, he lifted the bucket with a grunt and let dozens upon dozens of hamburgers splash into the sea. More meat than I had seen in two years. Enough to keep all of us healthy; enough to have saved Pappi. All that cooking, wasted. I got up and ran to the railing. This time I threw up over the side. The cook laughed, his cigarette falling to the deck where he ground out the orange glow with his heel.
“You sick already? The ship still in port. No big waves yet!”
Late the next morning I awoke to thrumming engines. The sea was glass-smooth. It was almost February, but it was warm, and I freed myself from my brown, frayed sweater once I was on deck. It hung in my hand looking filthy and grotesque, like a dead animal. I wanted to hurl it overboard, but knew better, because I didn’t know where I would end up.
“Hi, Reni.” It was Lex Roseboom. “Warm, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, I saw you take off your sweater.”
“It’s gross.”
“It’s not so bad.”<
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I didn’t say anything, so he cleared his throat and went on. “I’m sorry about your father. He was a great man. I mean, my dad says he was.”
I fingered my sweater, continuing my silence.
Lex said, “Look, I just wanted to say that. That I’m sorry.”
“Okay.” I managed to say.
“That’s it. See you around.”
My mood didn’t change. At lunch I kept my head down, creating the shortest distance between the food and my mouth. Even after three helpings of potatoes, I was scraping the empty platter with my spoon.
The crewman collecting the platters tapped my shoulder. “If you come to the kitchen, there is more,” he said in simple German. He had a pointy nose and chin, and heavy eyebrows.
“My name is Francesco.”
“Reni.”
I followed him. The relative calm of the dining hall disappeared in the din of the kitchen where men in white pants, t-shirts, coats, and hats were pivoting and maneuvering around each other, all the while swinging plates, cleavers, boiling pots, and huge sides of meat. Every movement seemed a preamble to disaster, only to be averted by inches. It was as smooth as a Shirley Temple dance scene. Francesco guided me to trays and trays of cut meats, eggs, fried potatoes, and loaves of bread.
“Eat.”
I hesitated, remembering back to the camp. Food was power. What if he wanted something from me in return, like some of the guards at Bergen-Belsen wanted from girls?
“I’m full,” I said, “I need to go.”
“Really? But you look so hungry? It’s okay,” Francesco said, “nobody will hurt you. You eat what you want and we go back.”
A jacketed, high-capped cook came over, looking at Francesco from over the top of his glasses. They talked, hands moving until the cook smiled, nodded, and extended his open hand to the feast. Once I started eating I couldn’t stop. He started to ask questions, but I wasn’t sure if he was directing them at me since he seemed to be talking to himself. How did I get so skinny? Where was I from? I didn’t respond because I didn’t want to. I met his eyes after each question, but kept chewing, the food devouring my thoughts and feelings.
Rebirth
Camp Jeanne d’Arc, Algeria
1945
40
Philippeville, Algeria
February, 1945
For the next two days, that was my routine: eat, sleep, and worry about my Mutti and Werner. Then someone on deck called out that he saw land. For the next few hours I watched the smudged horizon grow into hills, white buildings with orange roofs, and trees with sweeping trunks and brushy tops as if ready to paint the sky. This was the northern coast of Africa, then it was Algeria, and finally, the port of Philippeville. A small tugboat glided out and led the Citta di Alessandria through the maze of harbored ships until we hugged a pier, and we were tied in place. It was dinnertime, too late, we were told, to leave the ship.
The next morning we ate and packed. Sun-reddened British soldiers in caps and rolled-up khaki pants, and bronzed Algerian men in robes with their heads wrapped in long white scarves, swarmed the jetty. With yells, commands, and laughs they brought our belongings ashore in their hard hands and on their broad backs. The Algerians’ voices and words were deep-throated and fast as if they were singing along with a tune I couldn’t hear. The air was heavy with the smell of engines, fish, new spices, and fires. I merged into the throng of people walking down a bobbing gangplank that was so steep I had to watch every step. I steadied myself as I crossed the swaying wooden plank, suspended above the sea, and onto the continent of Africa.
Soldiers guided us toward a string of cars and military ambulances. I’d never seen land like this except on muted postcards. We passed rows of palm trees that lined the road as if at attention. Our route through the city began by passing densely packed, white-arched buildings, then moved on to jumbles of earth-colored houses outside the city center. The flat, gray town roads turned to tracks of red gravel. On our right a never-ending beach swept up the coast, running between the turquoise water with endless whitecaps and growing cliffs. Our driver slowed for cattle, goats, and men on weaving bicycles. The heat was intense even with all the windows open, and I blinked in the dust.
The hills grew and became steeper. We headed higher. Once we veered and stopped to let a convoy of trucks pass. A group of people were coming down a hillside trail, their faces and bodies covered in long, faded robes, edged in red dust. As they got closer, I saw they were women, with scarves encircling their foreheads and faces. How could they stand being so covered up in the sun, I wondered. Their bare toes poked out of their flowing garments with each step forward. I saw the tiny toes on tiny feet before I saw the children gathered within the folds of the group. Eyes stared at me as they went by. How I longed to be among them, to be a child, protected.
We turned at a small, white metal sign that read “Camp Jeanne d’Arc.” Above the name was an arrow, pointing further up a hill speckled with scrubby bushes and lonely trees. Long, rounded metal huts lined the dry landscape. Parts of the curved buildings had been bent up, windows open. One hut had a hospital cross on it, which is where the ambulances stopped. There were no fences and no barbed wire anywhere.
We squinted in the sunlight as we left the bus and grouped in what shade we could find. I opted to be alone, settling under a tree that had a large, twisted, and ropey trunk. Leaning back against it, I felt the roots. I looked up and saw little green fruits among the thin leaves that leapt at even the lightest touch of wind. Nearby, dirty sheep with their heads down nibbled at grassy patches. Jeanne d’Arc had been burned at the stake in her teens; that used to seem far-fetched, dying so young in such a horrid way.
There were guards in the gray-green color of German uniforms, but with small caps that looked delicately perched on their slicked hair. They all had little mustaches, as if sketched in with a soft lead pencil.
We were called to the hospital. I stood in line and listened as adults shared information. I learned that the soldiers were Yugoslavian. The French people who lived in Algeria were facing uprisings by the Algerian people, which was to say the guards were not there to keep us in as much as to keep possible trouble out. The camp was a “displaced persons” camp and was run by the UNRRA, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. One woman said that the UNRRA was a new and improved League of Nations. One man said that the League had failed miserably and was responsible for starting the war. It was all so confusing and made me feel small.
Inside, a young doctor, his hair tossed, poked and prodded and listened to my heart and lungs and peered into my ears and mouth. He had me step up on a scale. A nurse followed our every move, and silently handed the doctor things and took things away.
“How can someone who has survived so much, and is so malnourished, have such thick hair?” the doctor asked, though it wasn’t clear if he was asking me a question, so I didn’t respond, and he didn’t repeat himself.
I glanced at my face in the small mirror above the sink. He was right. My hair was as unruly and big as ever, making my face look thin. Shadows under my eyes made my blue eyes look like shards of clear sky. I wasn’t sure I liked that. I didn’t want to stand out.
“You’re here without your parents,” said the doctor, peering into both ears and slowly combing through my hair. “Is there anybody else I should talk to about your health?”
I ignored him, asking, “Am I okay?”
“Well, you are malnourished, but otherwise okay. Have any questions?”
“Are my eyes okay?”
“Are you having trouble seeing?”
“No, it is just that they seem more blue than I remember.”
He grabbed something that looked like a big pen and put it near my eye. I flinched.
“It’s okay. This is called an ophthalmoscope. That’s a mouthful, yes? Or an ‘eyeful’ in this case. Keep your eyes open and relax.” He peered into the scope. “You’re fine,” he remarked. “Nothing wrong.”<
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“How does my heart sound?”
“Sound?”
“I mean, is it okay?”
“Your heart is fine. Very strong.”
“I was worried it could just, I don’t know, stop.”
“It’s not going to stop. Not for a long time.”
I was assigned to a barracks for children whose parents were too sick to care for them, or who didn’t have parents. The nearby bathhouse smelled of fresh paint, and there were showers with hot and cold water. I turned the knob until it was steaming. I closed my eyes as I washed my hair over and over, and then I just felt the water flow over me until a voice yelled for me to get out and leave some water for others.
At the dining hall I approached a large bench lined with other children without adults. Bowls of peanuts and large prune-like things sat in the center. I sat down next to a small girl a few years younger than me. Her straight hair was wet and hanging almost onto her plate.
She looked at me, smiled, and said, “I washed it four times. It was wonderful! I’m Mieke,” she said. “Mieke Wolf. My brother is Jaap. Our dad’s the dwarf. That’s how people remember us.”
“I know,” I said.
“Hi, Reni,” said a boy, Werner’s age. Thin. “I’m Jaap. You should try these. They’re soooo good.”
“I think they’re bugs without legs,” said Bob Joski, another kid from Bergen-Belsen who was about my age. He had dark brown food caught in his teeth.
“Gross, Bob!” said Mieke.
“Great-tasting bugs,” said Bob.
A voice from the neighboring table yelled over, “They’re called dates!”
I took one of the dates and it clung to my fingers. I sniffed it and it smelled like molasses and spice. I popped it in my mouth. It tasted like heaven. I added the pit to the small heap of them in the middle of the table. I learned that Bob’s parents and older sister Ellen were in the hospital. Mieke and Jaap were staying in the kids’ barracks because Mr. Wolf spent all his time caring for their mom, who had cancer. We had goat meat soup with carrots and potatoes, and hot tea. Once the food and plates were cleared, we were given a care package of toilet paper, toothpaste, a pencil, paper, and soap.