What World is Left

by Monique Polak

  “I’m mailing you,” she tells Theo in a teasing voice. Then I hear her make a ripping sound that is meant to be the sound of the brown wrapping paper coming off the roll. “I’ll need stamps,” she adds, and then I hear her smacking her lips as she pretends to lick the backs of the imaginary stamps. For a moment, I close my eyes and try to pretend I am back in Broek and that Mother is playing the game with me. But my imagination is not strong enough tonight. I’m too sad, too angry and too confused. Father is doing what he must to keep us all alive, but there is a cost. How shall we be able to live with ourselves if this propaganda film helps prolong the war and brings about the deaths of more innocent people?

  “Where shall I mail you to tonight?” Mother asks Theo. “Paris? New York, perhaps? We’ve never been to New York. They say it’s a grand city with buildings that reach to the sky.”

  At first, Theo doesn’t say a thing. He is considering his answer. “Broek,” he says at last. “Send me home.” I know exactly how Theo feels. I so want to go home. But I also know that if we ever do return home, everything will have changed. I will never see Father—or myself—in the same way. I tug at my necklace and study the tiny picture of Broek. But tonight it brings me little comfort.

  Father is sitting on the bench, staring at nothing in particular, his eyes glassy. I can’t hold things in anymore. I need to talk to Father. I need to tell him how I feel about what he’s doing.

  So I tap his shoulder, a little too hard. Father turns around. He looks surprised, as if I’ve awakened him from a dream.

  “Do you have to do it?” I ask him.

  “Do what, Anneke?”

  Now it’s my turn to be surprised. How can Father not know what I am talking about? It’s all I’ve been thinking about these last months. I watch Father’s face. He is scrunching his forehead. I think he knows.

  I feel a little dizzy, as if the floorboards beneath us have shifted. I’ve been angry at Father. I’ve blamed him and Mother for not getting us out of Holland in time, but I have never questioned him before. Never acted as if I understood more than him. But now I feel as if I do. As if I see things Father simply refuses to see. Because he’s too afraid.

  “You know,” I say, a little hesitantly at first, but my voice grows stronger as I speak. “Do you have to make those drawings for the movie?”

  Part of me already knows the answer. Yes, Father has to make the drawings. Just like Geron has to make the movie. If they refuse, both risk being sent on the next transport, along with their families. Which means us. Me. But at the same time, Father must know what he is doing is terribly wrong. If only he would at least admit it!

  When Father stands up, he towers over me. His blue eyes shine and his nostrils flare like a horse’s. I get a sinking feeling in my legs. Perhaps I’ve gone too far. But I can’t take back my question. It hangs between us in the air like the smell of something rotting.

  “You haven’t the right to ask me that, child!” Father says, his voice booming. “No right at all.” Then he lifts his hand, and for a second, I think he is going to slap me. In all my life, neither Father nor Mother has ever lifted a hand against me. The floorboards feel as if they are shifting again, only more quickly now. I take a step back toward the wall. Father lets his hand drop back to his side; then he sits back down on the bench. The bench lists to one side. He is breathing hard.

  I think about apologizing, but I don’t. Because I’m not sorry.

  No, I’m glad I’ve finally spoken up. Why won’t Father do the same? Why won’t he tell the Nazis he won’t draw lies? But already, I know the answer. He can’t tell them anything. He can’t speak up to them the way I’ve just spoken up to him. If he does, he risks everything. Everything!

  As I try to settle on my mattress, I feel my heart pump in my chest. My temples throb. But it isn’t a bad feeling. That’s because, for the first time since Franticek and Hannelore left Theresienstadt, I feel a little bit alive again.

  My sadness isn’t gone. But at this very moment, it seems as if my fiery red anger has somehow burned the old sadness to ashes.

  There are people who sneer when the film crew passes with its cameras and tripods and ladders and lights. Kurt Geron barks orders: “A little to the left! No, no a little more! Now there’s too much sun in your eyes! Haven’t you heard a single thing I’ve said?”

  People whisper that Geron’s big belly looks even bigger now that it is swollen with pride. “Perhaps Herr Directeur has been eating wienershnitzel with his good friend the commandant,” someone adds.

  Several cameramen have been assigned to work with Geron, including a Czech Christian who was hired by Commandant Rahm for the project. And Father is usually hovering somewhere nearby with his sketchbook, comparing the scenes Geron is shooting with the ones in the sketchbook Commandant Rahm approved.

  Geron and his crew film children playing in the newly constructed playground. Of course Geron is fussy about which children can appear in his film. “They have to look Jewish—and robust,” I hear him say when he is rounding up children for that scene.

  “Not her,” he says, when he sees me. “Too blond and too bony.”

  Of course, there are few robust-looking people in Theresienstadt. When a woman suggests that if we children had a little more to eat we might look stronger, Geron pretends not to hear.

  That is when I realize that though Geron is directing the film, he, too, is playing a role. He’s been cast as the great film director. In that way, he is as much a puppet as the rest of us. The thought makes me feel angry with Geron and sorry for him, all at the same time. It’s how I feel toward Father.

  It is decided that a concert, performed by an orchestra of prisoners, will make another fine scene in the film. After all, what better way is there to show the world that the population of Theresienstadt is exposed to high culture?

  Geron has asked Father and Mother to sit in the audience. Because he plans to seat them near the front of the café where the scene will be filmed, they’ll have to wear their best clothes.

  Mother pinches her cheeks to make it look as if she’s applied rouge. Father dusts off his coat collar. “You and Theo and your opa must come too—to hear the music,” he tells me the evening of the concert.

  “I don’t enjoy pretend concerts,” I mutter under my breath.

  Father polishes his eyeglasses. When he speaks, he doesn’t lift his eyes to look at me. “You know,” he says in a quiet voice, “on some level, all art is pretend. You should consider that, Anneke.”

  I don’t feel like considering it. “It’s still dishonest.”

  “Anneke.” The sound of Father’s voice tells me he thinks I have gone too far. He wants me to apologize. But I don’t. I won’t.

  In the end, I go to the concert, but not for Father. I go for Opa, who is convinced that listening to music will take our minds off how hungry we are. We have to drag Theo away from his soccer game.

  The three of us stand off to the side of the room since Geron doesn’t want children or old people in this part of the movie.

  “Listen to the music,” Opa whispers, moving his finger in the air as if he is the one conducting.

  But I can’t listen. I can only watch Father and Mother, sitting side by side in the audience, their necks a little too straight, their faces a little too concentrated on the performance. When the camera lands on them, their faces tighten.

  “Take two!” Geron shouts, and the musicians lay down their instruments on the floor beside them.

  Father and Mother eye each other nervously. The camera was on them when Geron called for the second take. I can see they are worried they have done something wrong. And by now, Geron is known for having a temper when the filming doesn’t go according to plan.

  But Geron doesn’t yell at Father and Mother. He yells at all of us, his voice ricocheting off the walls like gunfire. “This is all wrong!” he shouts. “All wrong! You people have to cooperate to make this film a success. You have to do something about the express
ion in your eyes! For God’s sake, it looks as if you’re all dead behind those eyes!”

  It is a problem that even with all his shouting and carrying on, the great director cannot fix.

  Fourteen

  “I won’t be long,” Opa tells me. “I’m just going outside to empty the pot.” My throat is too sore for arguing. Mother insisted I stay home from work. Rather than going all the way to the latrine, she has suggested I pee in a tin saucepot she found at the store. And now, probably because the day is so hot and humid, the sharp smell of my pee seems to take over the whole apartment. I can’t blame Opa for wanting to empty the pot.

  When someone raps at the door, my first thought is that something bad has happened to Opa. Perhaps he fell on the cobblestone street and hurt his head. I can already picture the bloody gash on the middle of his forehead. Who will bring him to the infirmary? So I open the door without even bothering to ask who is there.

  When I gasp, the pain in my throat gets even worse. Three Nazis soldiers in gray uniforms and black boots push their way through the narrow doorframe. One kicks the wall, leaving behind an angry scuffmark.

  “Is this the quarters of the artist Joseph Van Raalte?” the first soldier barks. Before I can open my mouth to say yes, the other two have already begun to turn the apartment upside down. One kicks over the mattresses, the other brushes his hands across the kitchen shelf. Mother’s sugar bowl falls to the floor, breaking into a hundred pieces. My body shakes with fear. Even my fingers are trembling. If this is how they treat our things, what might they do to me?

  I feel the soldier who seems to be in charge eyeing me, and I wish I was properly dressed and not in my torn flannel nightgown. I try to fasten the buttons near the collar. “To your knowledge,” he asks, “does Joseph Van Raalte have any drawings in this apartment?”

  “N-no,” I stammer, “not to my knowledge.”

  I know Father sometimes keeps drawings he plans to sell on the black market beneath the mattress he and Mother share, but the officers have already looked there and found nothing. Then I remember the drawing Petr Kien made of me. Father stores it in his suitcase for safekeeping. “Th-there’s a sketch of Petr Kien’s. In Father’s suitcase. It was a g-gift,” I manage to say. My lips feel stiff and it’s hard to form the words.

  “Show us,” the first soldier says. He stands, with his hands on his hips, while I drag the suitcase out from behind the bathroom door. My arms feel weak.

  “Have you ever heard of a man named Strass?” the officer asks.

  My hands tremble as I lay the suitcase on my mattress. “The name Strass means nothing to me,” I whisper.

  “He’s some Bohemian Jew, who, before the war, collected art. Apparently the dirty Jew is still collecting, and some of the art he has depicts conditions here as less than ideal.” The soldier laughs. “That Strass is a no good moneymaking meddler, like all you Jews. Now open that suitcase!”

  Though my head is spinning, things are beginning to make sense. I have heard of Herr Strass, and I am almost sure that Father has sold him sketches. I fumble with the buckle on the suitcase. Please God, I pray silently, don’t let there be any of the kind of sketches these men are looking for inside.

  “Open it! Now!” the soldier barks again.

  When I open the suitcase, I feel the tension begin to drain out of me. There is only one sketch: Petr Kien’s. Surely there is nothing criminal about it. The first soldier grabs the piece of cardboard, gives it a quick glance, then turns it over to check there is nothing incriminating on the other side. I half expect him to tear the sketch to shreds. But he doesn’t. Instead he lets it fall to the floor, right near the heel of his boot. Then he steps on it, leaving the same scuffmark he’s left on our wall.

  “You let your father know,” he says, his voice hard and angry, “that we are watching him.” I can tell the soldier has noticed my trembling and it is only making him shout harder. But I can’t stop. I’m so afraid.

  “You let him know that any artist who has been producing what we deem inappropriate images will be punished. Severely!”

  I am too frightened and too horrified to move. The drawings these soldiers are looking for tell the truth about Theresienstadt. That’s why the soldiers are so angry! They’re afraid that somehow, one day, people will see the drawings—and know the truth. But if the drawings are destroyed, no one will ever know the truth. There will be no point to all our suffering! It will be as if none of this ever happened. The thought makes me reach for my throat. People have to know! Otherwise, things like this—murders, lies, soldiers terrifying girls— will happen again. It’s so unfair. I feel like falling to my knees and weeping. I feel like giving up. If no one ever learns the truth about Theresienstadt, what difference will it make if I do give up?

  But the first soldier isn’t yet through with me. He removes one of his thin black leather gloves and sticks his hand down the front of my nightgown. One of my buttons pops off and rolls along the floor, only stopping when it gets caught in a crack.

  Then I feel his warm clammy hand squeeze my breast—hard. And then, he pinches my nipple. I want to cry out, but I don’t. Something tells me that will only make him pinch me harder still. He has a wild leering look in his eyes.

  No one has ever touched my breasts before, not even the doctor. When the soldier guffaws and pulls his hand out of my nightgown, I can still feel his touch. My nipple burns. “Not bad tits,” the soldier says, “for a Jewess!” The other two join in his laughter.

  I think I will vomit. Only my stomach is too empty for that.

  When the soldiers leave, I try to tidy up the apartment, but I can’t figure out where to start. With the mattress or the bits of sugar bowl? My mind’s not working right. My nipple is so sore. I can still hear the soldier shouting at me!

  “Oh my God, child,” Opa says when he comes back and sees the mess. “What’s happened here?”

  By now, I am picking up what is left of Mother’s sugar bowl from the floor. Already there are a few small cuts on my palms, but I don’t care. I don’t feel the cuts. It’s as if my body’s gone numb.

  I tell Opa what the Nazis were looking for, but I leave out the part about my nightgown. I’m too ashamed to discuss such things with an old man. Nor can I imagine ever telling Mother. What would she think of me? If only I’d been well enough to go to work. If only I’d buttoned up my nightgown to the top. No, I know what I have to do: I must pretend it never happened. It will be easier that way.

  “Here,” Opa says, handing me a bit of rag, “use this to collect the shards. So you won’t hurt your hands.” Then he picks up Petr Kien’s sketch and blows on it hard so some of the dust from the soldier’s footprint disappears. Carefully, as if he thinks the sketch is something very valuable, he lays it back in the suitcase.

  That is when I notice the other drawing. It is caught behind the felt-covered divider meant to separate shoes from clothing. My heart thumps hard in my chest as I take the drawing out and study it. The sheet is divided into two parts: on the left, a Nazi officer strides down a wide empty lane, a briefcase dangling from one of his hands; on the right is a thick throng of Jews, their shoulders hunched as they struggle to move forward on their side of the street. The picture captures how certain lanes in Theresienstadt are reserved for the Nazis and how we Jews are herded together like cattle.

  I know Father made this drawing. Although he hasn’t signed it, I recognize his small, neat lines and the way he likes to draw people from behind. I also know this is precisely the kind of drawing those Nazi officers were searching for.

  For the first time I understand that though Father often draws exactly what the Nazis tell him to draw, there must be other times, times I’ve never known about until now, when Father draws the truth. He must think it would be too dangerous for me to know about all this.

  So not all art is pretend.

  Opa’s hands are shaking. Like me, he understands how dangerous this drawing is. “We need to destroy it—burn it—in case the
y come back and search the apartment again,” he whispers.

  I shake my head no. The drawing is too precious. Not only because it tells the truth about Theresienstadt, but also because it has helped me learn the whole truth about Father.

  I wedge the drawing back behind the felt-covered divider. No one will find it there.

  The next day, nothing Mother says can keep me home. The memory of the three Nazis storming into the apartment, and of the one grabbing my breast, is too strong. I’ve wiped and wiped until the footprint came off the wall, but when I pulled my nightgown over my head, I saw blue marks across my left breast: the officer’s paw print. Though I know it wasn’t my fault, I feel ashamed. If only I’d gotten dressed yesterday morning.

  All day, I try not to think about what happened. Only it isn’t so easy to do. No matter how hard I scrub, my mind keeps landing on the memory.

  At the end of the day, when I go back to the apartment, I feel more tired than I have ever felt. Not just because my throat aches and I’ve worked hard and eaten so little, but also because I’ve been fighting with myself all day, trying to control my thoughts. If only I can get a little sleep. Maybe then, I’ll feel stronger tomorrow. And perhaps by then, the ugly blue paw print will begin to fade.

  But I have not seen the last of the Nazi soldier who left his mark on me. When I walk into the apartment, Father is sitting on the bench, shifting nervously. I see shiny black boots, and my legs go weak. A Nazi is standing over Father, interrogating him, rattling off questions in quick succession.

  I recognize the angry voice. It is the same Nazi who shoved his hand inside my nightgown. He sees me come in. When he winks, the sick feeling in my stomach returns.

  My first impulse is to hide in the bathroom. But what if Father needs me? So I hurry to the corner of the room where Mother and Opa are huddled. I am glad it is still light outside. Theo will not be home during the interrogation.