The God who had taken everything from her? Why leave her with nothing? With no one. The man she loved, the baby she wanted so desperately, the essence of Hoppi. If it was a boy she was going to call him Josef, if a girl, Josefine. She had even lost his photos.
You’re so young, Jacob had said, and so had both chaplains, they all say the same: You’re so young, pretty, healthy.
What good is a long life with such memories? All the longer to relive the torment?
Jacob was a typical man, she thought. Didn’t want to talk about it. He described his trek, the hard days and cold nights, the destroyed towns and villages, the little joy of stealing his clothes, and his surprise, after expecting the worst, at seeing his own town almost untouched. But when she asked about Bergen-Belsen, nothing. Silence. He talked about leaving, about his new friend Benno who had said he might come to Frankfurt, nearby. But about life in the camp, a blank.
She remembered that he had a brother and asked after him. Immediately she felt the icy blast. His body stiffened. When at last he said, “He’s dead,” Sarah knew not to ask more. She had squeezed his hand and said, “I am so sorry.” Jacob had lain rigid, like a floorboard, staring at the ceiling. He gripped her hand so tight it hurt.
Now, lying on her side, she edged away from Jacob just a little, and pulled the blanket with her. He stirred and she felt a tug in response. She pulled back. He did the same. She wriggled back toward him until they both lay snug under the blanket. In his sleep he put his hand on her thigh. She sighed and let it lie there.
FIFTEEN
Heidelberg,
May 21, 1945
Another glorious day. The sun beat down from the blue sky and trees in the cobbled squares blossomed red and yellow and white. Their leaves rustled in the breeze.
In the shade of the thick branches, waiters set out tables and chairs, smoothed down checkered tablecloths and sealed them in place with rubber bands on the corners, and placed menus in thin metal holders. The occupiers ate and drank, the occupied served and watched.
Jacob, who guided American visitors around Heidelberg Castle, collected cigarette butts, and bartered ruthlessly, was running out of places to hide his cash. His cupboard was beginning to tilt. He needed larger bills, but they were hard to come by.
Every lunchtime he went for tea to the Schwartzer Bock, and for the first time since he found her on his bed four days earlier, Sarah went with him. On the way they stopped at one of the bulletin boards covered with requests for work, announcements of events, photos of missing people, and, his particular area of expertise, goods for barter.
“So what do you think?” Jacob said. “Anything you want?”
Sarah followed Jacob’s finger, reading as he drew it down the list of goods for barter:
A pair of men’s heavy shoes for pipe tobacco; a Siemens electric icebox for a Leica or Contax camera; food or cigarettes for an English dictionary or cigarette lighter of good quality; a rabbit hutch and a garden hose, both in first-class condition, for a stud rabbit; twenty Macedonia cigarettes for a pound of sugar; twenty-five cigarettes for a bottle of German brandy; tobacco for Russian lessons; a beautiful old china cabinet for an evening dress, evening shoes, and some opera music scored for a soprano.
“Leicas, that’s what the Amis want,” Jacob said as they walked away. “And watches. European, not Russian rubbish. Rings, bracelets … What did you think of when you read that?” he asked.
“I don’t know, what? I don’t really need a Chinese cabinet. Wouldn’t mind an evening dress.”
He sneered. “So this is what they got, the Nazis, for their thousand-year Reich. Twenty-five cigarettes for a bottle of brandy. And how many did they kill? To swap a pair of shoes for pipe tobacco. Look at my shoes.” He was quite proud of them, they were black and polished. “A perfect fit. I got them for two kilos of turnips that I got for a tin kettle that I got for twelve cigarette butts. And I got all that for three years of law school.”
“You should look out for a stud rabbit,” Sarah said. “You could swap it for a garden hose and what was it? A rabbit hutch? I’ve always wanted a rabbit hutch.”
“Don’t laugh. You’d be amazed what Amis would give for a rabbit hutch.”
“Yes. Two and a half cigarettes. Pall Mall.”
“Hey, you’re learning.” Jacob laughed. He almost took her hand; grazed it with his but didn’t dare. Although they shared the same bed, they had not repeated the intimacy of that first night. Hoppi seemed to lie between them. Jacob had even thought of sleeping with his head at her feet, as he had slept in the camp bunks, two or sometimes three men to a bed. And Sarah, so used to being alone, felt crowded, imposed upon, and slept at the edge of the bed.
After that first unburdening, the relief of sharing, neither mentioned the past again. Jacob tried to avoid it, Sarah couldn’t bear it. She knew that to dwell on such horror would destroy her. And who knew what the future would bring? She must live for the present, today, now, and wait. That is already a great deal. To live and wait. But for what?
During the day each went their own way, Jacob bartering and guiding and earning money, and Sarah wandering the streets, hoping to meet someone she knew. She had agreed with Hoppi that they could also meet in the Church of the Holy Spirit. The Nazis burned down the synagogue, they reasoned, but they would never destroy their own church.
That morning she had risen early and gone there, as she did two or three times a day, after sitting on the bench by the river, and instead of Hoppi had run into Captain Monahan of the Sixth. She had hoped to meet him again, for even though he looked like a bull he had been so kind when she arrived. He had worried about how she would live, and she wanted to let him know that she had found a friend and where she was staying. She sent her love to Rabbi Bohmer. He gave her a big bar of chocolate, which she hurried home to share with Jacob.
“Wunderbar,” Jacob had said, testing the weight in his hand. “Wonderful. I can get loads of fruit and vegetables from the farmers for this, and I know someone who wants to swap a woman’s silver watch for food, and there’s this American officer who is looking for a present for his wife…”
But with a shriek of laughter that made Jacob start, Sarah snatched it back and tore the wrapping paper and popped a piece of chocolate into her mouth and broke off another piece and waved it at Jacob’s mouth.
“No, no, oh, what are you doing? It’s worth more in its original wrapping…”
“Ummm, ummm, so smooth, so sweet…”
“Stop, stop…” He tried to grab the bar but Sarah twirled around and threw herself onto the bed, hugging the chocolate to her chest, smacking her lips and rolling her eyes.
“Yummy, yummy, too late now … ummmm, uhmmm…” She put another piece into her mouth and sucked and chewed, and then another until a chocolatey goo dribbled from between her busy lips.
Jacob threw his hands up in despair. Um Gottes Willen! For God’s sake. “Imagine where we’d be if I smoked my cigarettes!”
Moments later there was a loud moan from Sarah, who clutched her stomach and bent over the sink, groaning and crying. “Ow, I feel sick. I feel so sick. Help me.”
Ignoring her, Jacob patted the bedclothes for the chocolate, hoping to rescue some. Even a half-eaten bar of Ami chocolate would get a kilo or two of tomatoes.
An hour later, as they approached Jacob’s lookout post, Sarah was saying, “I can’t believe it, I was throwing up, in agony, and you were looking for the chocolate to sell it.”
“What do you mean? You were pretending, you weren’t even sick.”
“But you didn’t know that. What if I was really sick, you’d just take my clothes and sell them, right?”
“Right off your back. They’re pretty good clothes.”
They passed a group of boys running in the streets, tugging at each other’s jackets, shouting and laughing. Jacob stopped to gaze after them and Sarah waited at his side. He was looking for rather too long. She said, “A penny for your thoughts.”
&nb
sp; He shrugged. “You don’t want to know.”
“Of course I do, or I wouldn’t ask. What were you thinking?”
Jacob snorted. “As a matter of fact, I was thinking of how to kill them.”
“What?”
“Well, you asked. I was thinking of how to kill them. How would I actually do it?”
“Are you crazy? Why would you think that? That’s horrid.”
“I don’t know. It just came to me.”
“I could never think like that,” Sarah said. “Not even after everything that happened. They’re just children. Jacob, that’s horrible.”
Jacob turned and said, “Here’s my café.”
At his side, Sarah said, “Mind you, I couldn’t hug them either.”
After ordering a sandwich and tea for both of them, Jacob excused himself, and entered the nearby hotel. Ten minutes later, just as the food arrived, he returned. “Good timing,” he said, sitting down and pouring the tea.
“Where were you?”
“In that hotel.”
“I could see that. I mean, what took you so long? What were you doing?”
Jacob wanted to tell her. But he didn’t know how. She’d never understand.
In the camp life was simple. Yes, it was mindless, the beatings, the torture, the terror, the killing, the starvation, the sadism, all insane. Yet life could not have been clearer, it was reduced to its essence: surviving until the next morning, like a common housefly. We hardly saw or heard, we were automatons, fluttering flames that at any instant could be snuffed out by the slightest wave of the guard’s hand. The immensity of our world could not be grasped. The scale of the evil was incomprehensible. Everything was insane. And so it made perfect sense.
The only thing worse than what he had lived through was people not believing him. When he had begun to tell people on the road a bit of where he had come from and what had happened there they had all looked at him in disbelief, as if he was crazy. It was like being violated again. And so he couldn’t tell Sarah. Not yet. Not all of it. But some. He had to say something, to someone.
“There isn’t much cheese in this sandwich,” Jacob said, opening it and closing it, and before Sarah could answer he said, looking down, “There’s something I haven’t told you. Maxie, my little brother, the way he died. A prison guard killed him.” He swallowed. “In front of me.”
Sarah put her cup down, she didn’t move.
“I looked after him for as long as I could, he wasn’t very strong, Maxie. He fell sick all the time, and we always had to hide him, whenever they made us all stand to attention outside, for hours on end, in the rain, in the sun, all night sometimes, we always hid Maxie in the hut. There was a pile of wood by the stove, which never worked by the way, and even the kapo liked Maxie too, everyone did, he didn’t rat him out. We built a frame and stacked the wood on top and he lay inside. As long as I could, I looked after him. Maybe you knew, he was always sick as a child. Asthma. Couldn’t breathe.”
Jacob chewed on his sandwich. Long after he had swallowed the last piece his jaws were still tensing.
Sarah laid her hand on his. He sighed and looked away, and shrugged as if to say, what can you do?
Sarah knew that look. How often had she felt the same? And if she told him what that beast of a Russian had done to her in the basement? Should she? What would he say? What difference would it make? But all she heard herself say, after a long pause, was “And what happened?”
Their eyes met, until Jacob looked away. “What happened was I couldn’t look after him anymore. There was one guard, he had it in for Maxie. Made him stand barefoot in the snow all night, always made him carry the heaviest load, whipped his legs when he couldn’t stand up, he’d take food from Maxie’s plate and throw it into the earth and stamp on it. And can you imagine, when he’d gone, we’d give each other bloody noses for that dirty scrap.”
If it hadn’t been for Isak, Sarah thought, he would have raped me again, and not only him. He’d wanted to bring more men, that’s why he’d brought Isak. What had made her cry out the Hebrew prayer? Shema Yisrael, Adenoi Elohenu, Adenoi Echad—Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Those were all the words she knew. They saved her.
“Do you ever pray?” she asked Jacob.
He laughed. “Yes, that he’ll come home.”
“What? Who?”
Jacob shook his head. He shouldn’t have said that. “Nothing.”
He thought, See? I came home. Sarah came home.
Everyone comes home in the end. Unless they’re dead. Or if there’s no home. Or if it isn’t the end.
SIXTEEN
Heidelberg,
May 21, 1945
It was dark when they came home and Jacob read the sheet of paper slipped under the door. “It’s for you,” he said. They were tired and Sarah’s legs ached from their long walk.
After leaving their table, which Jacob now called Lookout Point, Sarah had gone with him to the bus station, where he wanted to sell his pocketful of butts from the castle. They were mostly Pall Mall, Americans loved them and they were the longest. But when they reached the big square that was once Bismarck Square and recently Adolf Hitler Square and was now unclaimed, they saw a tram.
“Hey, it’s working again,” Jacob said. There seemed to be more people hanging on the outside than sitting inside. “I wonder where it goes.”
As luck would have it, the first tram to run in Heidelberg after the war stopped half a kilometer short of Leimersdorf, near Sarah’s home.
Jacob elbowed his way up and stood on the back fender. He pulled up Sarah, who wedged one foot next to his, and hung on to his arm while he held on to the roof’s metal lip. She pressed his biceps and mimed: I’m impressed. People crammed against them from both sides. After five minutes they had gone three blocks. “It would have been quicker to walk,” Jacob said. The tram took about twenty minutes to cover the five kilometers. Half that time Jacob spent persuading Sarah this was a good idea.
How many times, hiding in a cellar or cooped up in a room for days on end, terrified to show her face, had she daydreamed of going home? Where she had swung from a rope in the trees and helped tend the vegetables and collected the eggs? Their little cottage meant family and freedom, the two things she most missed, most wanted, most treasured. Yet what would she find? Who had stolen their home? Why go? They hate us there.
But Jacob’s right. How can I come to Heidelberg and not go home?
The tram stopped when the track ended at a bomb crater.
They walked the last stretch where the brick homes became fewer, the gardens bigger, and the fields closer to the road. A chicken strutted regally before them, as if looking for the red carpet, followed by a chick struggling to keep up.
“I think I recognize that chicken,” Sarah said. “I’m sure it was mine.”
“Really?” Jacob said.
“No, of course not, city boy.” She told Jacob about the policeman and the stolen chickens. She forced a laugh but it was too bitter to work. He nodded and they walked a little closer together. Sarah looked straight ahead. Without Jacob, she thought, she would never have come. She was born in this house but she had nothing here now. What would she say if there was anyone there? Jacob had tried to reassure her. “We have to go—maybe they know something about your family. It’s worth a try.” Too late to back out now.
She had not been expecting to find many people in her hamlet just outside Leimersdorf; instead, it was crowded, with foreign refugees not permitted to stay in town.
At the end of a lane, Sarah came to a halt. Her eyes fixed on a low house a hundred meters on, one of three by a giant elm tree, with a garden bursting in color. “It’s spring, it’s always beautiful in spring,” she said in a wondering voice. “Most of the year, actually.”
“Which is yours?”
“The middle one.”
Sarah went silent as a couple approached. The strangers walked by without a glance, but after they passed the man looked over h
is shoulder at Sarah, who had been studying the woman. Jacob glared at him.
Jacob set off but Sarah stayed him with a hand. He looked back. “Let’s go and have a look.”
“No. No.” Sarah’s eyes were red, she seemed about to cry. She shook her head.
“What is it? Are you afraid?”
“I don’t know. It isn’t that. I saw something…” She turned around. “Let’s go. I knew I shouldn’t have…”
“After coming all this way? Go back now? No way. You stay here, then. I’ll go and have a look.”
Sarah looked after the couple, and turned back to her house as if it would bite. “Wait here,” Jacob said.
Jacob walked up to the house and put his hand on the gate. At that moment the front door opened and a stout blond middle-aged woman in an apron walked out with a trowel in her hand. She had a square blunt face and thin lips that spread into a smile. “Hello, can I help you?” she asked. Jacob was taken by surprise and all he could think of was “It’s a nice garden you have.”
“Thank you. I’m just going to pick some tomatoes. It’s a bit early but some of them are ripe. They’re delicious. Sweet. Would you like one?”
“What do you want for it?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What, for nothing?”
“Of course. We have lots.” She was talking as she bent down to work in the garden. “I can see you’re not from around here, are you?” She turned the earth around some plants. “Don’t open the gate, please, we have puppies, they’re always running away. I’m just moving this cucumber plant to get more sun … it’s strong, my best one.”
Jacob looked up the lane at Sarah, who was watching, sitting at the foot of a tree.
“I was just wondering,” Jacob said. “Do you know Sarah Kaufman?”
The woman was digging a hole for the cucumber and continued for a moment before looking up. “The people who used to live here?”
“Yes.”
The woman placed the plant into the hole, patted earth around it, watered it from a pail, stood, put her trowel into her apron pocket, walked into the house, and slammed the door.
Jacob's Oath: A Novel Page 13