What the Night Sings

by Vesper Stamper

  “She was crushed against me completely. So I held her. What else could I do? She struggled to breathe; I could feel her chest heaving against mine. In any other situation, I would have enjoyed it. At first, I admit, I did. It was comforting, even a little thrilling. But it became…unbearable. For all those countless hours, I couldn’t escape her. I wanted her to go away. I couldn’t wait to peel myself from her, but she just clung to me. I remember, she gripped my shirt so tightly, her knuckles were white.

  “When she had to relieve herself, even then she wouldn’t leave me, so we rolled together to the bucket, kind of like a sheet through a mangler, you know? I couldn’t even turn away, so I at least gave her the dignity of closing my eyes.

  “The bucket became useless after a while, with a hundred people’s slop in it, and eventually there was nothing to do but go right where you stood. The heat, the stench—it was overwhelming. I just threw my head back to gasp at any amount of air. I couldn’t think of anything but how to detach myself from Shayna.”

  His mouth sticks; his words are punctuated with short, shallow breaths. I turn to face him. I don’t want him to have to say this into the air. I want him to tell it to me.

  “We finally stopped, and they pried open the doors. We practically fell out. I was grateful to take a deep breath, even though the air was just rotten with that…that smoke. But not everyone got off the train. Several children had suffocated. At least five, six old people had had heart attacks. Once the pressure was relieved, their corpses crumpled to the floor. They were dragged out and thrown in the mud like rag dolls. A woman went over to the body of her little boy, and they hit her in the head with the butt of a gun.

  “I’m not sure if I was imagining it or not, but I remember music. I wonder if it was your orchestra, or the men’s. It was a march, like at a town parade. My head was swimming. There was so much confusion and shouting, and the music made it seem like a bizarre circus. Right away, they started separating us: men to the right, women and children to the left. Shayna gripped my hand. Her eyes were panicked. They herded us into the lines, and she pawed at my arms. Her line was marched away toward that plume of smoke in the distance, and she was crying for me…she was saying, ‘Lev…help me…don’t leave me….’ ”

  He is mouthing the words more than saying them. Tears stand in his eyes but don’t fall.

  “I felt the hot wind go through my clothes, like hell. There were gray ashes everywhere, sticking to my sweat.”

  You can never get clean enough from that, I want to say.

  “It didn’t take long to realize what had happened to Shayna, my parents, my siblings. I held on to the memory of her body the whole time, as if she were slipped inside my own clothes, always with me. That was the last time I saw any girl or any woman alive—until they laid you next to me. Beautiful Gerta, with a song in your eyes, even through that fever…”

  For some reason, it doesn’t bother me that he said that.

  He finally looks at me squarely. “I’m not supposed to touch a girl I’m not related to, you know.”

  “I guessed that,” I say. “But you’ve fed me soup, wiped my sweaty forehead. Lev, you caught me when I fainted….”

  “That’s different. Those were emergencies.”

  “But you—you grabbed my hand.”

  “I know.” His face is full of pain. “That was a mistake, Gerta. I’m sorry. It all made sense in my mind—I just assumed you would say yes and that it would be all right. Now I feel…like I stole something from you.”

  “You didn’t steal from me, Lev. You were caring.”

  That doesn’t assuage his uneasiness. “But caring doesn’t feel like that to me,” he counters. “I don’t want to take anything, from anyone. Caring feels like letting you decide who to let in. And you’ve made it clear that it isn’t me.”

  “It’s not that, it’s just—”

  “I’m only telling you this because you let me, and you listen. But if you want me to stop writing, or if you want me to stay away—”

  “No, it’s okay. I don’t want you to go. We can keep it this way—letters, talking. Just…no pressure. No shoulds,” I say.

  “No shoulds,” he agrees.

  “Guess what?” says Roza as we’re walking to school. “I’ve gotten back almost all the Schumann songs! Even ‘Hasche-Mann,’—you know, the one with all those crazy runs? I can’t play it staccato yet, but I’ve got the notes down. Slow as syrup, but correct!”

  “Roza, that’s fantastic!” I give her a quick side-hug. “Are you going to give a recital?”

  “Maybe in a couple of months, sure! I need more practice, though.”

  “You’re obsessed. All you do is practice. It’s really working, too. You’re getting very good.”

  She slows her pace. “I was always good.”

  “Well…” I’m not sure if I should tell her the truth.

  “What?”

  “I mean, you played notes, but that doesn’t mean you were good. It was just a little…mechanical. But wait, I don’t mean it like that,” I add quickly, trying to undo my blunder. “You’re fine now! You’re getting there.”

  She stops completely. “I didn’t know that’s how you felt, Gerta. We play together every day. Have you just been humoring me?”

  “N-no, of course not,” I stammer. “I was just trying to be encour—”

  “If you want to talk about ‘playing notes,’ ” Roza hisses, “you don’t really play viola. You just do it because you’re scared to sing.”

  “That’s different,” I protest. “I can’t sing.”

  “I don’t believe that for a moment. If you truly wanted it like you always said you did, you’d find a way to do it. I did.”

  “Right,” I say, remembering her gloating with the girls in Theresienstadt. “Because you’re perfect.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Even though we’ve been through the same exact nightmare, you find a way to hold that over me. Like you even survive better than me. You always have to be on top.”

  “That is ridiculous. Gerta, where is this coming from?”

  “Hmmph. Saint Roza the Overcomer.” I wave a benediction in the air.

  “You’re being a brat,” she says with disgust. “Play viola if you want. Don’t sing, then. I don’t care.”

  “I’m fine as is. You’re jealous because I have something you don’t.”

  She’s incredulous and puts her hands on her hips. “What do you have that I don’t?”

  “Michah.” His name feels like triumph.

  “You can’t be serious. You don’t have him. He never even says your name.”

  “That’s a horrible thing to say.”

  “But you know I’m right. You’ve got this other boy—what’s his name, Lev?—following you around like a happy puppy; meanwhile, Meee-chah sneezes and you run half a mile across the camp to bring him a tissue. He’s got other girls, you know.”

  “He’s not perfect,” I say defensively. “We have an arrangement.”

  “Do you?” she challenges.

  At least in my mind, we do. “Mind your own business, Roza. I don’t even know why we’re fighting. Let’s stick to music.”

  “Is this about Lev? Did he ask you again?”

  “No. Absolutely not. I don’t want Lev.”

  “Huh,” she huffs. “You don’t know what you want.”

  I slow down, kicking up a cloud of dust. Before I know what I’m saying, my heart speaks. “I want the orange trees.”

  “The what?”

  “They used to keep them in a greenhouse over the winter, but one day in spring they’d wheel out all the enormous pots and line the paths of the Residenz gardens with them. You’d smell perfume in the air for days until the petals fell off, like snow in spring. I used to pick up piles of them and rain them down over my papa’s head. But we weren’t allowed to pick the fruit. I would have given anything to taste one of those oranges.”

  “You want the orang
e trees.”

  “I want to taste the fruit.”

  “Gerta,” Roza says at the school door, “the viola isn’t the fruit. Singing is.”

  The clarity of this stuns me.

  “I never thought I was better than you, by the way,” she confesses. “I was scared of you. Because you were the real thing.”

  I sit down at my desk and stare at my hands, ashamed of judging her, of holding on to petty competitions that no longer exist.

  Finally, I pull a crumpled letter from my skirt pocket. This must be the fifth time I’ve read this one.

  Gerta,

  You’ve helped me discover something: I never would have guessed how much I love writing. When we were in the ghetto, my mentor used to tell us in the shop, “Yidden, schreibt un farschreibt”—“Jews, write it all down.” Words, Gerta, they’re proof of life. Having something written, or printed, means that what you thought was happening really did happen. That when the Nazis came with their new definitions, you could point to what was written down and say, “No, this is the truth. I’m not crazy.”

  Maybe you’re the only person who will ever read my story. That’s enough for me. At least you and I will know the truth together.

  After that first selection at Auschwitz, I was miraculously reconnected with my mentor. They put him in charge of a floor in the munitions factory because he was so precise. When he saw me, he took an enormous risk: he pointed at me and shouted, “That boy—he is my apprentice! I need him! He is the most skilled and talented machinist I have ever employed.” He was lying, of course. But I had to learn quickly. Both of our lives depended upon his words becoming true.

  I was in Auschwitz for two years. I only survived because I was on a good assignment, like you—not hard labor hauling stones or digging ditches in the snow. But toward the end, they needed a machinist to keep the elevators from the gas chambers to the ovens running smoothly. When the “processing” was getting too slow, they made me help put the bodies in. I thought I would lose my mind.

  Then my mentor was finally selected. Gassed. He was like a father to me, Gerta, the last person I knew from Kielce. He kept me alive, moving me forward, teaching me more than I ever needed to know.

  I was on duty the day he was murdered. I saw him on the pile and put his body in the oven myself. Usually they put them in three at a time to burn faster, but I rushed him in by himself to make sure he had the dignity of his own cremation. And is that “dignity”? Is that what that word came to mean?

  It was the best I could do for him.

  We do the best we can for each other, don’t we?

  Lev

  * * *

  —

  That night, I go to Roza and sit on the edge of her bed in the moonlight.

  I gently pick up her gnarled hand and put her fingers up to her face. “Do you see these?” Then I bring her fingers to touch my throat. “Do you feel this? This is what it cost us to survive. We all paid with some part of ourselves. None of us escaped unbroken.”

  “Of course not.” She shakes her head. This is something she’s already discovered.

  “And Lev doesn’t ‘follow me around.’ He fights for what he cares about—in ways even you and I can’t understand. He’s my friend. I’ve earned the right to be friends with whomever I want. Even with you.” I chuckle.

  “Oh, thanks.” She laughs back.

  “It’s amazing when you think about it, isn’t it? Even through all we’ve lost, somehow we keep living. You choose to keep playing with your twisted fingers. I choose to keep playing my papa’s viola. Lev—he chooses to keep praying. We just all have to do it broken.”

  A couple of weeks go by. I’ve had a great rehearsal, a beautiful Beethoven string quartet. The workday is over, and Lev is washing ink off his hands. I decide to wait for him outside the print shop. He comes out smiling, straightening his new wide-brimmed black hat.

  “Do you like it?”

  I laugh. “You look like an old man.”

  “What do you mean? This is a good hat. My father had one just like it.”

  “Exactly,” I say, smirking. “But it’s very distinguished, Lev, really.” It’s hard to suppress my smile. It feels good to walk with him, even if he does look like a grandfather.

  “It reminds me of who I am,” he says. “Who I used to be—maybe who I can still be.” The spring breeze blows on our faces, gentle and warm.

  “Thanks for your letters,” I say. “You know, all through the winter, I was worried you wouldn’t want to talk to me anymore, after I asked you—after what happened. I was sure you were mad at me.”

  “Impossible. I could never be mad at you.”

  “Oh, yes, you could.” I laugh, swinging the viola case. “Give it time.”

  “Why, because of that boy you’re with?”

  A sting hits my chest and I’m…ashamed. “I wondered if you knew about that.”

  “I do,” he says plainly. “You always said that’s what you wanted, didn’t you? A carefree lover.”

  “Is that what I said?” I cringe. “It sounds terrible when you say it.”

  “You’re my friend. I want you to be happy. Who am I to judge? You and I, we’re just not meant to be.”

  When I hear him say that, it feels wrong. Lev, of all people, deserves to be happy—it just can’t be with me.

  “Are you?” he asks. “Happy, I mean.”

  We’re walking so slowly; Lev walks heel to toe with great deliberateness. My legs feel suddenly heavy as sandbags, and minuscule particles float in front of my eyes.

  “I think we both know the answer to that,” I say. “Are you happy?”

  “No,” he admits. “But—I think I could be. Someday.”

  My heart sinks a little.

  “It couldn’t have worked out anyway, Lev.”

  “I know, you’re right. I picture a certain life—an observant wife, a Jewish home. Quiet, simple. Printing papers by day, coming home to a family at night. My dream hasn’t changed.”

  “You should have it, Lev,” I say, looking at him solemnly. “Every part.”

  “As you should have your dream, Gerta.”

  “My dream…”

  “Your music. I watch your face when you play. There’s something there. It’s not happiness, exactly. It’s…joy. Pain too. But joy.”

  “I’ll have to think about that.” I squint at the late sun. “I never thought about joy.”

  “It’s like watching you live a lifetime in each piece you play.”

  He’s right about that. “A hundred lifetimes, really.”

  “Your whole being sings. That’s how I feel about Torah.”

  “I know. I watch you praying sometimes.” He stops. I can’t tell if he’s embarrassed or not.

  “You have your father’s instrument,” he says. “I have my father’s faith. It’s the best part of us. We survived with the best part of us still intact.”

  I’m still not sure about that. The best part of me feels torn and sloppily stitched back together. We’re standing here with our hearts too open, and I have to do something with this cavernous sensation.

  “Come here, Lev. I want to show you something.” I lead him to a bench and open my viola case. “Hold this.” I hand him the viola and start rosining the bow.

  “What am I going to do with this?” He laughs.

  “You’re going to play it. Hold it with your left hand, and rest it on your shoulder, like that. Nice and soft, under your chin. Right. Now hold the bow, like this. Put your pinkie on top so it doesn’t flop around.”

  An awkward grin spreads across Lev’s face. The viola shakes in his hand.

  “Here, you don’t have to hold the neck. Don’t worry, I’ll make the notes. You just move the bow back and forth. When I touch the tip of the bow, tilt it up or down, and that will make you play the different strings.” I stand a little to the back of Lev’s shoulder and hold the fingerboard. “This is a piece I used to play with my papa. It’s Schumann’s ‘Träumerei.’ It me
ans ‘Daydream.’ You’ll like it.”

  We play the slow melody together. I’m surprised that the bow doesn’t squeak on the strings as Lev pulls it.

  “You have a sensitive touch, Lev. Good rhythm.” I play in time with Lev’s breath, breathing in the warm trace of printer’s ink on his skin. The nervous laughter is gone, but his lips quiver.

  We finish the last note; I take the viola from his shoulder, and we just look at each other.

  “Beautiful,” he says. “I could do that forever. The way it kind of…hums through your heart…”

  “I know. I know.”

  “Gerta.” I see how he’s looking at me, and I have to change the subject. I just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.

  “I had this dream almost every night in Auschwitz that I had a whole barrel of water to myself. It was this huge, golden vessel, and I had a silver cup, and I’d just dip the cup in and pour the water all over my head, in my mouth, spilling it over my face and clothes. Then the water would rise and soak me up to the knees. And it was crazy, because it was always icy cold and refreshing when I drank it, but warm and soothing like a bath when I was standing in it. Isn’t that strange?”

  He starts laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I—I don’t know—” He has this rapid, musical laugh, like a little boy’s, and I see him like that, a little boy with a big hat, and it’s as if we’re in the wrong bodies, in the wrong lives. His laugh is so contagious that I can’t help laughing, too. We’re losing our composure, doubling over, our bellies and faces aching.

  “Warm and cold. Young and old,” he says, still laughing, wiping hilarious tears from his eyes.

  I’m trying to catch my breath, and I realize I don’t even get the joke.

  “Lev, what are you talking about?”

  “It’s just—we’re so young, but we’re ancient, you know? We’ve grown as old as it’s possible to get. Oh, Gerta,” he sighs and laughs at the same time, “I wanted to grow young with you.”

  All of a sudden, I’m looking into Lev’s eyes. They see me, and somehow they know me. They are unwriting my careful script. They’re the eyes that broke my fever. I can’t escape this…this knowingness of his.