“I don’t have any answers, either, Gerta. I want to rediscover what it means to be Jewish for myself, too. I want to learn again who I am, who we are. Who is going to teach it to us? We have to figure it out either way. Couldn’t we help each other do that, together?”
I push the food around on my plate. This is a veritable banquet placed before me. Just a short time ago, I would have given anything for one forkful of this meal.
“No,” I say, rising. I leave my plate on the table. “No, I’m not the one you want.”
Spring is finally burgeoning after the longest winter, and the birches’ new leaves turn their faces toward the sun’s warmth. Just around this time last year, I was starving to death here in Bergen-Belsen, doubting whether I would even live. The new greens and pinks on the trees are magnificent. Color seeps deeper into me now, and I can hear more distinct sounds. Bread no longer tastes like death. The scent of rotten corpses is gone from the air at last. The breeze whispers a hint of cool, perfumed blossom, and I have a red sweater, a yellow overcoat.
I’m beginning to thaw.
But I still can’t sing. I’m coming to realize that my voice must be gone for good.
Nights are hardest. It takes me hours to fall asleep. I focus on every muscle and bone, every reality of my own body, trying to get back into now. First I press my fingertips together as hard as I can and let the sensation run up my arm, to my shoulder, my neck, across my collarbone to the other side. I go all the way down, until I’m pointing and flexing each toe, one by one.
I can fill out my brassiere now, can’t count my ribs quite so easily. I run a hand over my stomach and recall Michah’s arms wrapping around my waist from behind, surprising me on my walk to practice, exploring my neck with soft kisses.
I’ve never had thoughts like this. It’s different from counting crumbs of bread with that wild, hollow look in the eyes, just trying to stay alive. The fantasies that run through my mind aren’t like the childish ones I had before the camps: dreams of wandering through cool, dark forests, catching fairies hidden among ferns. Now there’s someone hiding behind those trees, a boy with a dark, heavy brow and glittering eyes, always laughing, living loud and bright and magnetic, always there with the tang of smoke on his lips.
Days, I spend most of the time in school, in rehearsal with the musical society, or in the crowd surrounding Michah and his maps. But sometimes I walk by the grove and watch Lev pace with his prayer book. He looks transcendent as he rhythmically bows, murmuring the Hebrew prayers that he learned on his father’s knee.
* * *
—
Two men in woolen flat caps are sitting on a makeshift bench near the camp gate, talking over the headlines in Unzer Sztyme. Reports have started to calculate how many Jews have died since the exterminations began.
“Some are saying five, six million.”
“Impossible. Were there even six million Jews in the world?”
“They are saying it’s two out of every three of us across Europe—gone. Vanished.” He makes a gesture like smoke dispersing into the air.
At first I am as incredulous as the other man. How did any of us survive? Did anyone manage to stay hidden until the end? Papa tried to make us two of the invisible ones; Lev wore his identity on his sleeve. Neither of us knew anything different. What religion was to his family, music was to mine—but ultimately, we both got swept into the net. How is it that people very far away had calculated, in an arithmetic known only to them, what and who we were?
* * *
—
Tonight, as I come in, the girls in my room are setting each other’s hair with bits of rag and smoking cigarettes with the windows open.
“There’s something there for you, Gerta,” says Roza.
Wedged between my pillow and the metal bed frame is a letter. It’s been three months since Lev and I have spoken. I know his schedule and try to avoid seeing him. When we do see each other, there’s a quick smile, and I go numb. My chest gets tight and I just want to run. That letter. Those questions.
This one is different.
Dear Gerta,
Even with this distance between us, you’re still my closest friend.
I’ve been writing my memories down, the good ones…and the horrors, too. It helps—I sleep a little better. Not so many nightmares.
But I miss sharing it all with you. If we can’t talk, I’d like to write to you, unless you tell me to stop.
Look for my stories soon.
Lev
I can’t deny that I miss Lev, our talks in the grove. His stories—he’s told me pieces, mostly the good parts, as I’ve told him. Our favorite foods. Games we played as children. Songs our mothers and fathers sang. Pranks we played; the ways friends could be cruel. Things we would never have told our fathers.
“Which boyfriend is it from, Gerta?” asks Roza, with something of the old Roza in her tone.
I put the letter in the shoebox under my bed. “Mind your own business,” I say, and curl up to look at my photographs.
The stories of the living are all of one piece: a million colors along the same thread.
The air is heavy with an impending storm, and my head is throbbing. I can’t concentrate on my viola études. If Papa were here, he’d be snapping his fingers in my face to wake me up. The hall is empty and darkening. Suddenly I have an impulse to get up, stand at the edge of the stage and open my mouth to sing.
Just one note. I try to occupy the hall with my voice, but I can’t fill my belly with enough breath. My vocal cords feel like dried, crackled rubber bands. When I try to push my diaphragm down, my middle hurts and my legs begin to tremble. And then, something else.
It begins with a very slight, warm sensation, something I haven’t felt in three years. It feels like I’ve wet myself, but no—this is not a stream but a pool. I know what this is. I grab my sweater and tie the sleeves tight around my waist. I can’t risk running, but I walk as fast as I can to the latrines. There are many women there, and they give me knowing looks. And there, also, is Roza.
“You too, hmm?” she says. She gestures toward the sweater around my waist while I shiver in the drizzling rain. She chews her nails as she waits for a stall. “I don’t know whether to be happy or sad about it.”
“Me neither, if it’s what I think it is,” I say.
“They must have…you know, things for us in the medical building,” she offers. “I can wait for you if you want to go together.”
“Okay.” My neck is starting to sweat. I just want to get into the stall and not talk about this anymore.
“I was kind of resigned to it,” Roza says. “Never having babies, I mean. I guess this is a sign of hope, right?”
“Right,” I say vacuously, tightening the knotted sleeves.
Thankfully, I catch it early enough that I don’t completely ruin my clothes. My belly is cramping hard, and I’m aware of long-dormant places within myself.
Roza’s waiting for me, and we head to see the nurse.
“You all right?” she asks.
“What?” I dismiss the question. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. I can tell. I mean, you’re always quiet, Gerta, but not this quiet. And you’ve always got this look.” She stops and shows me: furrowed brow, down-turned mouth, shoulders hunched to the ears.
“Do I really?” I had no idea it was so obvious; I straighten up. “Sorry. I, uh, tried singing today.”
“Oh. Not good, I take it?”
“It’s gone. Just gone. Something must have happened from the typhus. Scarring, infection, I don’t know. But my voice isn’t coming back.”
She sidles up and nudges me sympathetically. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s true. I have nothing. I have this viola, and I can’t even play it right. I’m terrible.”
“You’re not terrible! You live and breathe music, Gerta. You’re going to be okay. You’ll at least be able to find work.”
She doesn’t understand. The past a
nd the future are clouding together, and I don’t know what’s real.
“Maybe, in some small-town orchestra somewhere. But I’m realizing that my life isn’t going to be anything like I thought. Nothing like I thought.”
The morning is dark and I’m in bed too long. Outside, the rain pats the muddy walkways between the buildings. The other girls in my room don’t seem to want to go out, either. The room is warm, the air is clean, and my mind is clear. From under the blanket, I’m watching the drops catch each other on the windowpane. There’s a knock at the door.
At the other end of the long room, one of the girls answers it, and a figure stands in the doorway. His silhouette shows a full beard and curly sidelocks. He has a letter, but he does not hand it to her directly, instead putting it down on a table by the door and saying something to her, as hushed as the rain. He leaves, and she comes to my bed and hands the letter to me.
There are thousands of people in this camp. Many of them have gone back to their religion. There are rabbis—why doesn’t Lev talk to them? He’s probably seen me with Michah. I don’t know what he expects from me now.
And yet there’s this letter—and the daylight seems to have gotten a little brighter.
Dear Gerta,
Nothing I write must surprise you. We’ve been through similar things, but I want you to understand where I’ve come from.
I don’t know if you’ll even read this. Maybe you’ll just throw it away. But if you do read it, maybe you’ll know me a little better.
I had just turned thirteen and become bar mitzvah when I started my apprenticeship at the Yiddish newspaper in Kielce. Ever since I was little, my father and I had read the newspaper every morning, and we both knew that was the trade for me. Whenever he would take me with him to the print shop, the smell of the ink, sharp and sweet, made me dizzy, and I was addicted to it. The giant rolls of newsprint, the rhythmic clacketing of the press—I loved it all. It was work I could feel. Do you know what I mean?
You said you thought I was a scholar. Well, I didn’t do that well at yeshiva, but copying the passages down in class felt kind of holy, the same kind of magic as the letters appearing on the press. And I had some ideas about getting the newspaper out beyond our community to others in Poland someday. I grew up hearing my father’s friends talk about religious divisions in the town, but I thought there must be more that unifies us than divides us. Maybe if we had a newspaper for the whole region, people could exchange their ideas and have a chance to make up their own minds.
I was only a year into my apprenticeship when the ghetto was formed. My mother and sisters were at the height of Passover preparations. Dishes and linens were everywhere. They gave our whole town an hour to pack as much as we could carry. Then they crammed us all in together. My family of ten was shoved into half of our house, and another family, which had about a thousand little children, moved into the other half. We felt like canned fishes, and it was awkward to sleep and dress in a room with my sisters. We had to take shifts, waiting outside the door, to let them have privacy. The other family’s daughters lived in my father’s library, where I had always escaped when my siblings got on my nerves. There was no place to be alone now, no place to collect my thoughts or immerse myself in words.
It wasn’t long before food became scarce. Hunger caused a lot of fighting—people weren’t thinking straight. Jews were shot in the street every day for no reason, and I was scared to even raise my eyes to look at the SS. I still worked at the print shop, but we didn’t get to print what we wanted. I’m sure you can imagine.
My parents tried to keep the family’s spirits up, my mother forcing herself to sing as she struggled to make food out of air, and my father and I still secretly studied the forbidden Torah and prayed in whispers. My brothers became very creative in the black market. It was amazing what a bit of scarce butter could do to bring a family together.
That’s all for now. I’ll write again,
Lev
I slowly put the letter down and picture Lev’s life before I met him, going backward in time.
I think of him running down the street, a little red-haired boy in a sweater-vest. Sitting in class. Playing keep-away with his sister. Wrestling with his brother. Falling asleep in the arms of his mother.
People of Lev’s, people I will never know.
It’s all so completely…unfair.
The rain has stopped. I need to get out of here.
“Michah!” I call, running across the puddle-specked courtyard. He is standing at a table covered with maps, talking to other men but surrounded by girls, prettier ones than me. Their clothes are hand-me-downs, too, but somehow smarter than mine. They’ve got too much makeup on and their hair is up in curls and twists, and I can see the lean, hungry look in their eyes, for Michah. They all jostle each other for a closer position. But they don’t know what I know: the spicy scent of his skin, the feeling of his slight whiskers on my cheek, the rhythm of his warm breath in my ear—and I need that now, to feel like I’m inside my own body.
“Michah!” I call again, this time looking at the girls as I say it, smiling and narrowing my eyes at them. They have nothing on me. He finally looks up and catches my stare. He tells the men to wait and elbows past the girls as he comes toward me.
“Hello, you,” he says, putting his arm around my waist. He ushers me to a dark passageway out of sight. The afternoon sun doesn’t reach us, and it’s chilly back here. He pushes me against the brick wall of the bunk hall and begins kissing my neck. It is delicious, and I drink it in like nectar. His kisses are masterful and require nothing of me. His arms surround me and I let myself, for this moment, forget where I am.
“Come with us, honey,” he says, between nibbles on my ear. “It’s almost time. We’re leaving for Eretz Yisrael soon.”
How easy he makes it sound. “All right, when do we leave?”
“That’s the spirit,” he whispers. “Just a couple more months. I’ve got the route mapped out and a guy making up papers for everyone.”
A thought tugs me back. “Wait—” I stop and put a hand on his chest. “I have a friend…he might want to come, too.”
“No stowaways, little girl. I handpick my passengers.” Suddenly his breath is too hot on my neck. I look at his eyes. He is somewhere else, not with me. He is trying to kiss me again, but he looks like a bird trying to peck for a crust of bread.
“I have to go,” I say, slipping out from between him and the wall.
“Come see me again, honey,” he calls. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him straighten his jacket and run his fingers through his hair.
I’m not sure where I’m walking—just away.
* * *
—
When you’re angry and you’ve just had a kiss that you somehow wish you hadn’t, you might not look where you’re walking as carefully as you should. I smash into him.
Not Michah.
Lev.
“Gerta! I’m so sorry. Are you all right?” He’s holding my arms to steady me. Not two minutes ago, I was this close to Michah. I’m dizzy and I just want to run.
“Sorry, I was…just leaving. Sorry, Lev.”
He takes a step back and straightens his kippah. “Wait, Gerta—I’ve been leaving some letters for you. Have you…gotten a chance to read them?”
I stop short. His eyes are wide, searching, depending on me to say yes.
“Lev,” I say, “I’ve read them all. Over and over.”
“Oh, good,” he sighs. “They weren’t too…intense?”
I chuckle. “Too intense? What could possibly be too intense?”
“Well, the way I…never mind. It’s not like you don’t know these things for yourself.”
I fall inward: a sad smile, a subtle, resigned shrug. “I only know my own story. Not yours.”
“True,” he acknowledges, clasping his hands behind his back.
“Please write more, Lev.”
“Really?” His question is quiet, guarded. “You w
ant me to?”
“There’s something about the way you write. It’s…how do I describe it…It’s important.”
Wordless, we instinctively walk toward our grove.
“Lev, I have to tell you, I’m sorry we—”
“There’s something I left out of the last letter,” he interrupts. “About my life before.” He draws a long breath. “I was engaged.”
“What?” I ask, too loudly. “Lev, how is that possible? What were you, twelve?”
“Fifteen. In my town, they found you a trade, they found you a wife, you studied. It’s just what you did. Her name was Shayna.”
The name of this unknown girl makes me hold my breath. Questions want to tumble out of me. Was she pretty? Why do I care?
“Were you really going to get married?”
“I know, I know, we were just children. But no one knew if they had tomorrow. It just made everyone feel like they had to move faster.”
“What was she like?” I ask, trying to sound nonchalant.
“Well, I’m not sure, really. I didn’t really know her. Do you remember the family with the thousand children I wrote about living in my house? She was the oldest. I started to like her. Of course, we didn’t come close, just spoke across the table. But everyone could tell we were looking at each other in that way. I was already starting to see her as my future.”
“She must have been hard to resist.” My cheeks start to warm.
“She was beautiful. Consumed my imagination…” He trails off. “We managed to stay together on the transport. Once we were on the train, we were pressed together, a hundred people to a car.”
“I know how that was.”
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