Esfir Is Alive

by Andrea Simon

  After the girls slammed the door, I raced upstairs. I took Miriam out from under my bed and propped her up against my pillow. “Now Miriam,” I said, stroking her not-so-perfect hair. “I must tell you about yesterday. It was the most wonderful day of my life, except for one thing.”

  Seventeen

  I REMEMBERED THE date, Thursday, May 13. It was a rare day in that I was looking forward to going outdoors. Ania invited me to pick her up after school. We were meeting her oldest brother Erek at his gymnasium and then going to the park to watch him play soccer. On the way to the game, we walked through the New Market and were besieged by rioters. Since Erek wore his Polish school uniform, the rioters let us alone. The swell of the mob blocked our way. They surrounded the market. We watched, horrified, from a safe distance, but close enough to see gangs break into Jewish shops and overturn market stalls. They bashed barrels of herring and tossed torn sacks of food into a heap. A knot of thugs approached a blacksmith’s stall and crushed his instruments. His crying wife and young children stood by the entrance and were shoved inside. I waited but didn’t see them emerge.

  We managed to move a little and halted because of yelling and screaming. Instinctively, we hid in a nearby alleyway with a view of another scene. It was the most horrible thing; I couldn’t erase this memory. I was too terrified to move. Men hurled rocks at several Jews as they ran out of their shops. Three men were enclosed in the mob’s circle. Rioters hit them with rocks and sticks, and stomped on their bodies. A young man rushed in to help, crying, “Papa, no.” A mobster smashed a wooden beam over the son’s head. I shouted to stop but my voice was buried in the racket.

  Village peasants harnessed their horses and hitched their wagons to get away as fast as possible.

  Trying to escape from the violence, we crept in and out of alleys and slunk around corners as if we were the thieves. This mob had no such subterfuge; they attacked like feral animals. They ripped off locks and smashed shutters, windows, and doors to get into any Jewish shop or building. They walked out with merchandise and threw what they couldn’t carry into the streets. Locals pushed their way and picked through the goods, flinging wrecked items in the air and stuffing what they wanted into makeshift bags. The debris formed into miniature mountains, growing bigger by the seconds. There was glass all over.

  Enraged looters drenched piles of useless items with kerosene and set them on fire. Others shook flour over heaps of merchandise, whitening faces and hair—crazed ghosts at a ritual slaughtering.

  Finally, I saw Jewish men trying to ward off the mob. Most were workers—the carriers, wagon drivers, meat industry employees. I felt some relief that they would stop the violence. But the police stood observing, many of them laughing. Officers hauled off the Jewish defenders. The hooligans continued looting. They swaggered as they barraged. Some wore swastikas on the right side of their chests. I knew that symbol was very bad. Then they shouted slogans like, “Jewish property belongs to us,” “Nobody will stop us,” “The police are on our side.”

  We found a break in the action, and I asked Erek and Ania to walk with me on the side streets toward Perl’s. The marauding continued, only now it was happening to people’s homes. There were broken doors and windows. Shattered furniture, slashed mattresses, pillows, and bedding were piled in the street. Feathers flew like a blizzard. We didn’t know where to turn. Erek tried to lead us to a safe corner. I began to shake violently, certain now that Perl’s house would be missing.

  When we got to Perl’s, the house seemed unscathed. We pounded on the door until Perl eventually opened it. I fell into her arms and was sobbing. But there was no time for comfort. The looters were now entering our neighborhood. Perl insisted that Ania and Erek join us in the shallow cellar. There, the girls were already squeezed tightly; and we pressed into them, lying sideways so we could fit. I heard and felt nothing but the gurgling and rumbling and thumping of my insides. Sure that everyone could hear, I held my breath hoping to quiet myself, but I couldn’t hold it in. As the air burst from my mouth, pee released. I started to cry again, more like whimpering. I couldn’t see who was on my sides, but each scrunched closer to me and someone whispered, “Shh.”

  By nightfall, we crept out of hiding and crawled inside the house. Ania and Erek’s father came looking for them. “Where have you been all this time?” he asked. “Your mother is screaming to God.”

  Perl said, “Your children have been heroes. They probably saved Esfir’s life.”

  A religious and quiet man, Ania’s father beamed for a second and then turned serious. He was a civil servant and heard about the rest of the city. “I saw several beatings and stabbings. They were a bunch of animals.”

  Disbelief was written in giant letters on his lined forehead. He reported that synagogues, prayer houses, and Jewish cultural centers had been destroyed. Life as we knew it had ended.

  We turned off the lights and moved the sofa against the front door and the dining-room hutch against the back door, leaving a slight opening in case we needed to use the outhouse. We clung to each other in darkness and silence, terrified that any second, a frenzied mob would burst into the house. I safeguarded my two precious possessions, camouflaging my journal and Miriam in the farthest reaches of the attic. Sometimes our bladders and bowels defeated us and we snuck out in groups of three to the outhouse. The two outside scoured the periphery for signs of life.

  Night passed somehow. Peeking out from the curtains at dawn, we saw others do the same. One neighbor swept fallen branches from his stoop. An elderly, bent woman shuffled down the block, carrying a basket. Cautiously, we moved the sofa and cupboard back. People began to walk openly down the streets, hungry to get a newspaper, speak to a knowing source. Ania gave me a long hug and silently, she and her family left from the back kitchen door.

  By early evening, we learned that we were safe for the moment. Only after a call to central headquarters in Warsaw had auxiliary police been sent. That afternoon, they had ended the pogrom. Two Jews had been killed and many injured. The twenty-four-hour rampage was over.

  Though I lived through it, I heard how it happened from the radio, supplemented by word of mouth, and later from those who read the Jewish press. It had begun with one incident. In this case, the last straw had really been the last straw, on the floor of a butcher shop. Previously, the government had issued anti-Semitic laws that restricted the number of cattle that Jews could kill. This lower number was not enough to meet the needs of the Jewish community. The result was illegal killing of animals by local butchers.

  A governmental official, assisted by a policeman, would inspect meat at the butcher shops. If they found meat above the allotted quota, they would confiscate it. Often, the police accepted bribes.

  A butcher in the New Market stalls couldn’t tolerate these practices and protested. The policeman said, “You lying, bloody Jew” and pushed the butcher, who fell. Witnessing this, the butcher’s son stabbed and killed the policeman. Governmental leaders used this incident to stir up the public. All of Brest’s Jews had to pay for the butcher’s son’s crime with their “fortunes and blood.”

  Agitators had waited for such an incident. They had collected an army of peasants and hoodlums while the police stood by with their guns drawn. Police arrested the Jews who tried to resist.

  The instigators wanted to empty Jewish shops. They intended to prevent the Jews from carrying on their businesses, hoping that the locals would take over. But the plan failed.

  Jewish communities around the world responded immediately through local relief societies. They sent large sums of money, clothing, and goods. Anyhow, the Jews eventually replenished their shops.

  Our pogrom was not the beginning or the end. There were pogroms in neighboring cities and towns. Ida said we shouldn’t have been surprised. Everything for the Jews changed after Marshal Pilsudski’s death in May 1935. He had been kind to the Jews, “a benevolent dictator,” Ida wrote in my journal. After his death, right-wing parties, including the E
ndecja, had taken over the Polish government and anti-Semitism had increased.

  Perl was beside herself with fury. “Jealousy, jealousy. It’s all about jealousy,” she said. “The Jews of Brest managed to restore themselves to a full life. They had their trades, their newspapers, theater, schools, sports clubs. They all thought, ‘This would never happen here.’”

  You can imagine the talk that went on at the Tarbut and at the political organizations. Exile was the word of the day. Still, most people around us couldn’t believe such violence would last. Not me. One of the few times I had gone outside happily and the world had erupted. My worst fear realized. Oh My God. It was a POGROM. A pogrom! Only it wasn’t just a word in a history lesson, an event that happened in another city. A pogrom found us! I was never going out of the house again.

  Eighteen

  I GAVE UP my chores around the house and spent most of the day in my room, except for eating and going to the bathroom. If I could have performed those functions without leaving my space, I would have. Even Ida couldn’t persuade me to go outdoors. She had asked me to come with her shopping, to go for a hike, to join her friends at a picnic. I had refused all offers.

  Then she thought she had something to entice me out of the house. She begged me to attend an upcoming soccer match between the Jewish Maccabi team and a Polish team; she had a special invitation from Freyde’s brother, Yossel. But all I imagined were evil people hiding in the stadium’s aisles, waiting, waiting to pounce.

  Ania also tried. She came and sat on my bed, telling me the news from school. Her big ploy was to bring one of her dolls, asking if we could enact a story with Miriam. Our two “girls” could have an adventure in the park. I was no fool. I wouldn’t endanger Miriam for a minute; she was safe in her hiding place.

  One late afternoon, about ten days after the pogrom, there was a knock on my door. I whispered, “Come in,” expecting one of the girls. I was in shock to see my mother. I had forgotten how her long honey hair wound into a graceful chignon lying softly at her nape, a few wisps falling from the sides. I had forgotted her extended elegant neck and high, rounded cheekbones. I had forgotten my mother’s dainty mushroom-shaped ears and aqua eyes that penetrated mine, daring the truth. I had forgotten my mother’s girlish appearance, looking years younger, embarrassing Perl when a neighbor once mistook her for Perl’s daughter. I had forgotten that my mother was so beautiful.

  All my life I longed for someone to say that I looked like her. Mostly, they said, “Mmm, who does Esfir take after?”

  It was fitting that my mother’s name was Sheyne, translated as beautiful in Yiddish. Esfir, a Russian version of Esther, meant, my mother once explained, “star in some foreign language.”

  “Esfele,” she said softly.

  I gasped.

  It was then that I noticed my mother’s hair showed gray strands, as fine as thread. It was then that I saw pronounced crow’s-feet fanning from her bloodshot eyes.

  “Tsatskele,” she whispered.

  I slid off the bed and stood fixed to the spot. She had not forgotten me. I was her “little treasure.”

  My mother inched toward me. She held out her arms and I ran into them. She kissed me on my head and crooned, “Mayn sheyne maideleh,” my little girl.

  I finally got to be sheyne, just like my mother.

  I buried my head into my mother’s chest and let her stroke my hair as I began to shudder and tremble until my pent-up crying came out in heaves. Then I thought of my father, and sobbed in another prolonged spasm. This was the first time I had cried for him.

  To be in my mother’s arms was everything. As soon as the trains resumed regular runs, she said, she had come to bring me home. I would have followed her anywhere.

  Perl came with us to the train station. She was carrying a pouch bag with fruit and cheese, and one of her shawls. “For you, Esfir. God forbid you should starve or catch a cold.”

  “Aunt Perl, we’re not going to Siberia.”

  “With these trains, you never know. Now give your aunt a big hug.”

  Perl enveloped me with her round arms and I pressed myself against her large breasts. “I wish you could come with us,” I said.

  “Me too, darling. But another time. I have the other girls to take care of.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Come, Esfir. We have to get on the train,” my mother said.

  Minutes later, I was looking out the train window and waving to Perl, my tears blurring my image of her scurrying form. She seemed to go forward in a backward motion. My mother patted the seat next to her and I snuggled, wrapped in Perl’s shawl

  IT WAS A strange homecoming. Rivke, Dvora, and Velvel acted as if I were a doll; actually, I was more honest with my doll, Miriam. They were polite, asking me if I wanted this or that. On the very first day, I heard my mother tell them when I was out of sight, “Be nice to her. She’s been through a lot, especially for someone so young. She is very frightened. Going outside is hard for her. So I don’t want to hear any fighting or bossing her around. Do you understand me?”

  I didn’t hear a response from my siblings so I assumed they had agreed with a nod or closed eyes or something respectful but shy. They were also young and frightened.

  At first, I was happy to have my family jump up and attend to my needs. Then, it got on my nerves. I was itching for a good argument; I wanted them back to the way they had been. Luckily, my siblings could be nice for just so long. Within a week, Rivke was bribing me to do her chores; Drora was chasing me away when her friends came over; and Velvel, well, he was rarely home. I was beginning to think that he was becoming like most males I knew, totally absorbed in activities outside the home.

  One day in June, he walked inside wearing his HashomerHatzair outfit: shorts and a neck scarf. His face was flushed and sweaty, his curly hair stuck to his forehead. There were wet ovals underneath his shirt’s armpits. He was out of breath as if he had been in a long-distance running event.

  My mother was sitting at the sewing machine in the living room. I was her “assistant,” feeding her the proper thread and fabric. Velvel stood in the middle of the room, panting.

  “What?” she asked, taking her foot off the pedal.

  “I have the most exciting news,” he said between gulps of air.

  “What is it?” my mother asked insistently. “You’re giving me a heart attack.”

  How could my mother say those words? I snorted and wheezed, holding in my breath. The noise must have got my mother’s attention. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean a real heart attack.”

  Velvel flopped on the couch, gulping water until he emptied the glass. “I’m going,” he said. “I’m finally going.”

  “Going where?” my mother asked, swiveling her stool around to face her son, barely eighteen years old.

  “I’m finished with school; it’s time for me to get on with my life.” Velvel had attended the ORT trade school to become a carpenter.

  “Okay, I agree,” she said. “Your father and I wanted you to have skills for real work.”

  “I have experience already. You know I did some building for Kibbutz Shacharia and now I’m helping in the farming. They all come to me to fix the machinery.” He hunched toward his knees.

  “This is not what your father and I had in mind.”

  “Why? This is good, honest work, and for a real cause. Not to build a cabinet or chair for some rich person.”

  “There is nothing wrong with building furniture. People get satisfaction from this.”

  “Mama, you don’t understand. I’m not interested in personal satisfaction or frivolous pursuits. I want to make a difference, for you to be proud of me.”

  My mother’s voice softened. She moved toward the couch and sat next to her son. She rubbed the back of his head. “Velvel, I am very proud of you. It isn’t easy to be the only male in a family. You have been my rock. I don’t want to see you waste your life on dreams. We Jews need practical skills to make us necessar
y.”

  “This is just my point, Mama. I want to teach these practical skills to make more of us Jews necessary. Necessary to ourselves and not to a country that makes us prove ourselves over and over, changing the rules arbitrarily and dangling false hope like a sadistic monster.”

  My brother was sounding familiar. Then I remembered listening to Mendel speak at the meeting and during Lag b’Omer. He had that same fiery, overblown manner.

  “You are young, Velvel. You don’t know the world. You think what you read, what you hear others say, is right. It’s good to be idealistic, to believe in the value of human life and nationalistic pride. I don’t want to squash your enthusiasm. But we live in hard times. We don’t have the luxury to get lost in ideas. We have to feed our children. We have to live.”

  My mother’s voice was congested and the whites of her eyes reddened. She stopped herself as she didn’t like us to see her upset, especially to cry.

  “I am not speaking in the abstract here,” Velvel said, taking the sarcasm out of his tone. “I want you to understand how much I love my country, my home, and my family. But love is not enough. Love doesn’t allow us to be. We cannot remain like sheep. We have to act. And that is why we have to make our home elsewhere, and this is why I’m making aliyah.”

  “No!” My mother held her hand over her heart. She didn’t say “heart attack” again, but when she pressed her fingers deeply into her chest, she made it clear that Velvel’s words were having a lethal effect. “You can’t go to Palestine. We need you here.”

  “You’ll be all right. Drora is old enough now to help you in the shop. Grandpa Yankel and Grandma will also help out. I’ve spoken to them. Rivke can take care of herself. And Perl is only too happy to care for Esfir.”

  “I see you have it all figured out.”