I look seriously at him now as the laughter slows. “But I can’t come with you, where you’re going.”
“Where am I going?” he asks, with this mixture of confusion and hope.
“To your faith. To God.” I start slowly wiping down the viola with a soft cloth. “I can’t go there.”
He traces the scrolled top of the instrument with his finger. “You don’t think so, but with your music—you’re closer than you think.”
“I mean, I guess, but—what has He done for you, for all your faith? He took away everything, everyone we loved….”
“I’m not sure who took them, Gerta,” he says, suddenly sober. “Who? Hitler? The SS?”
“Obviously,” I answer, somewhat perplexed. I nestle the viola and bow back in the case. “I mean, maybe. But He let it—”
“Or was it our neighbors? The ones who wanted your house, or your silver, because to them you were already as good as dead? The boys in town who made fun of you for being different? Or was it the Kapo who shut the gas chamber doors? The guard who dumped in the Zyklon B pellets? The Sonderkommando who threw our parents’ bodies into the ovens? Who, Gerta? Who killed them? You think it was God? A lot of people got in line to butcher us before ‘God’ had anything to do with it!” His voice breaks. He is getting hysterical. “I don’t know who. I don’t know. I don’t—”
My eyes are fixed, dry and hot, on the swirling orange clouds ahead of us.
“It’s okay, Lev. It’s all right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
But he is beginning to sob and punch his thigh and cough, and he can’t stand up straight. He’s still thinner than he should be: the hollow of his stomach, the caved-in cheeks. Before I know what is happening, my arms come up under his, and he falls into me, heaving hard into my neck, washing my skin with answerless tears.
“I’m sorry, Lev. I’m sorry.” I hold him, but then he is gripping me around my shoulders and clenching the back of my blouse, my hair. “I’m here, Lev. Right here.”
And he just can’t let go of me. Right now, I am his mother, his sister, his Shayna, and he can’t let go. So I hum “Träumerei” again and I sway him, rocking, a lullaby, a prayer. He lets me, and I feel that vibration in my stomach—that presence.
I feel like I could do this, falling into each other, forever. With Lev. Singing to him, holding each other’s sorrow. He begins to calm, with just the barest catch in his breath, and he releases my blouse, my shoulders.
Lev looks at me close, his eyelids puffy and red, his pale lashes disappearing around hazel pools. He lifts his hand and touches my eyebrow. He traces the bone beneath my eye, my cheek, my upper lip, trembling like he did holding the viola.
It’s then that he remembers himself and retreats, a look of terror in his eyes, as though waking from a trance, his eyes shifting back and forth as he stares at me in fear.
“I have to go,” he says. Lev pulls down on his vest and wipes his eyes. He smooths his clothes and his short beard and backs away.
“Goodbye, Gerta.”
Slowly, at the camp high school, I’m learning about where I come from, the peculiar yesterdays of my people. I learn songs, foundations of religion, a prayer or two. As unfamiliar as Judaism still is, there’s a feeling of homecoming about it all. I have hazy dreams of my mother every night.
Tonight there’s been some lecture in the dining hall on medieval Jewish history, and it’s gotten out late. Crowds of people are standing around, passionately arguing philosophy and social theories.
Lev’s already sitting at our table when I walk in for supper.
“Hi there,” I say, surprised to see him. I thought “goodbye” meant goodbye.
“I spoke to the rabbi last week,” he says abruptly. “I got some perspective.”
“All right…”
“Here’s the thing. I know we’re too young. I know we come from completely different worlds. But one of these days, somehow, we’re going to get out of here—and we both know there’s no one left. Other than running a printing press, I don’t know how to do anything I should have learned by now; I only know how to…not die. You think you’re going to go to conservatory? How? Do you know how to apply to one? Find an apartment? Open a bank account? Even cook a meal? I don’t.”
“No. I don’t, either….”
“I’ve been searching, writing to relief agencies, looking for someone. Family. Anyone I can ask these questions to. And no one’s left, Gerta. They’re all gone. I can’t wait around for the perfect Kielce girl to come along, because they’re all dead. The only thing to ask is, Which way is forward? We’ve got to go out there, and I don’t want to go alone. Do you?”
“You’re hoping I’ll come around and be this certain kind of person.”
“I’m hoping you’ll be you, and let me be me. We can still be ourselves. Just together. Maybe we’ll even realize we have some ways in common. I’m willing to see anything as a miracle.”
“Lev, I can’t talk about this anymore. You’ve got to stop with this pressure. I’m still with Michah. I’m leaving with him. He’s right—there’s nothing for me here. He’s my way forward.”
“All right, Gerta,” he concedes. “I understand. He’s what you always imagined. Just ask yourself one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Maybe he was right for the old Gerta,” he says, rising to leave. “But you’re not the same girl I met a year ago. Maybe that person is gone. Maybe—just think about it—maybe the new Gerta is emerging. Just like your butterfly.”
He slides a letter in front of me on the table and disappears into the crowd of lecture-goers.
* * *
—
My walk home after dinner is so slow, I can see the stars rotate in the night sky. Lev has this way of talking about these things—stars, futures—it resonates within me like music. Why? Why does he seem to know me better than I know myself? But I shake it off. It’s too close. He assumes too much. He assumes I want him.
Gerta,
I overstep all of my own boundaries when I’m with you. Seeing you pass the shop every day has made me hungry. All I’ve felt these past few years has been metal, splinter, dirty straw. The only flesh I touched was dead flesh. The only touch I received came as a beating.
But your face—it was so soft. I felt the warmth of blood rush to your cheek, the fine structure of your jaw, like a bird’s light bones. The heavy ground peeled away underneath my feet, and air came back into my lungs. When I walked away, I realized that was the first time I had cried in years.
I won’t cross the line again, but I have no regret—except to think I pushed you further away.
Lev
Every day I take the same route: out of my bunk hall to the main road, flanked with poplar trees; past the dining hall to grab an afternoon piece of bread and an apple; around the left side of the medical building, where the print shop is. I try not to turn my head toward where I know Lev is working, but I can’t help sneaking a glance just to make sure he’s there. It’s been a week since that last letter, and the days feel empty without them to look forward to.
Michah works in the building across from the shop, doing odd jobs. I wave at him, and he comes out and pulls me aside for a quick kiss—I know Lev can see me through the window—and then I walk past a few more buildings to the meeting hall for orchestra practice. It’s become nothing more than a routine. There is no luster on it anymore. Plans for Palestine don’t seem to be moving forward. And though my lips meet Michah’s every day, I never hear my name pass through his.
But something new has appeared on my way. A crew of villagers is brought in to work, alongside the DPs, on a building project near the stream. This is unusual—now that most of us are feeling well and strong, we want to do the work ourselves, because there’s a big push by those who want to leave for Palestine to learn skills they can use there. What could warrant the need to bring in outside help?
A woman and I stand watching together. Her ha
ir is covered and she is wiping away tears. “What are they building?” I ask.
“It is a mikvah,” she says in a French accent. “Didn’t you know? I thought they announced it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say. “I’ve never heard that word before.”
She seems shocked. “A mikvah—you know, the bath? For purity? There are so many weddings, one of the rabbis here convinced the British to help engineer one. And now they have brought Germans in to help dig it. Imagine….”
“But I still don’t understand,” I say. “What is it for?”
“Every month, if you are married, you go to the bath after you finish your cycle. I used to run a mikvah back in France. Are you married—what is your name?”
“Gerta. No. I’m not.” I chuckle. “I’m only seventeen.”
“That’s nothing here,” she says. “Well, when you are ready, make sure to come and immerse. It is such a beautiful tradition. I can’t believe we have it back.” Her voice trembles.
“Oh, no, I’m not going to get married. And I—I’m not really Jewish enough to do that kind of thing anyway. I mean, I’m not religious.”
She turns to me with a look of great pity. “ ‘Gerta,’ you said, yes? What do you mean, not Jewish enough? I daresay you were Jewish enough to wind up here.”
“That’s true,” I explain, “but I’m a musician first.”
She nods. “Oh. What do you play?”
For some reason, I trust her. “I play viola…but I’m really a singer.”
“That’s not really what you are,” she says frankly.
Her directness startles me. “What do you mean?”
“It may be what you do. But even a voice can be taken from you.”
If she only knew.
“Think of our families,” she continues. “Their voices are silenced, but their memory lives in us, no? Something lives far below the surface—the essence of you. That is what remains.”
“What does that have to do with…a bath?”
She ponders how to answer.
“I’m Hélène,” she says, holding out her hand. “I stay in the barracks behind the kindergarten—by that huge sycamore tree that all of the children climb.”
“Yes, I know it.”
“Why don’t you stop by sometime, and we can talk? When the mikvah is completed, I will show it to you. Maybe you will think better of it then.”
“Thank you,” I say. “I’ll keep it in mind. Nice to meet you, Hélène.”
“A pleasure, Gerta. À bientôt.”
I continue on my way. She remains, watching Jews and Germans digging together.
Suddenly a memory comes back to me—something I hadn’t thought about since I was little—of my mother reaching into the wooden chest at the foot of her bed and taking out a tiny book, wrapped in white tissue. I remember her reading from it, whispering rhythmically in a language I didn’t understand.
I can’t stop thinking about what Hélène said. What is it about me that runs deeper than voice? Than ideas? Than blood?
It is two in the morning, a week later, and I bolt awake from a dream of endless running and falling. All of a sudden, I just want out of this camp. I don’t want any more questions about who I am, or am not. Michah can get me out of here, and when I get to Palestine, I’ll be truly free. My Carissimi and me, letting a new life open out before us.
I run to his tent, practically still dreaming.
“Michah,” I whisper-shout, flinging aside the tent flap and ducking in. “Are you in here?”
He bounds up to a sitting position on his cot, his body silhouetted against the moonlight.
“Yes—who is that? Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Gerta.”
“Who?”
“Gerta!” I try to whisper louder. Maybe he didn’t recognize my voice this quiet. “My mind’s made up. I’m going to Palestine with you. You’re right. There’s nothing for me h—”
A groan rises from the bed as another figure turns over and reaches a slender hand toward Michah’s shadow. The violin-like profile is that of a girl’s hips.
“Mmm…darling,” she moans. “Not now. No business now. Tell her to come back in the morning.”
I see with complete clarity:
She is me.
Within a matter of months—maybe weeks—I would be in Michah’s bed, getting annoyed at his new recruits, especially the pretty ones. My focus shifts from the forms of Michah and the girl, and I notice the mound of their discarded clothes, scattered paper bits, maps full of pinholes. A pistol is carelessly tossed beside a cold, unlit lantern. Michah shrinks; he’s just a boy in a man’s body, no more certain of the future than I am.
I thought I was in charge of this. I thought I could pick him up and put him down when it suited me. But this was never what I wanted. He was never interested in my music, or me. I’d be following him around, waiting for him to give me my next move.
“Never mind,” I say, backing out of the tent. It is the last time I’ll let my eyes turn in his direction. Michah, like Palestine, is a closed door.
I run back toward my barracks. Even in the middle of the night, there are women at the new mikvah. They emerge as from a chrysalis, silently, their faces turned up toward the bright moon. They may walk back to their quarters with a friend, but they say nothing on the way.
I sit on the bench across from the building; it’s dark enough to let my tears fall. Everything is in shambles. Someone approaches silently and sits down next to me, and I try to blot my eyes with my sleeve.
“Hello, Gerta. I was hoping I would find you here some evening. It’s quite late.”
“Good evening, Hélène.” We have remembered each other’s names. She puts her hand on my shoulder. I try to resist the urge to fall into her arms like a little girl.
“Gerta, I have been thinking about you. I wonder how many other girls are walking in your shoes. So young, coming of age with no family, no sense of who you are. You keep to yourself, not wanting to lose anything more, not knowing what’s next. Is that right?”
“No, I’m fine. I’m all right.” I sniff and look away, toward the clustered stars.
“Well, that may be so. But I would like to do something for you. It is not typically done for an unmarried girl. But I think it would help you. I would like to help you immerse in the mikvah.”
“But—I told you. I’m not religious. And I’m not married, not planning to be. Ever.” Why can’t I control these stupid tears?
Hélène breathes deeply, slowly. “Come with me, Gerta.”
She takes my hand—I don’t resist—and leads me inside. No one is in this room at the moment, though I can hear two watery, echoing voices speaking rhythmically in the next. In the large mirror on the wall, the red rings encircling my eyes give me away, but Hélène doesn’t mention it.
She listens for the voices to become silent. A lady in a robe comes back into this room, dresses behind a curtain, and greets us as she goes back out into the darkness.
“She was the last one for the evening. I’ll dismiss the attendant. It’ll just be us.”
I’m reluctant, but I accept. Before I go in, I shower in warm water and wash away the mortification of finding Michah with that girl. I step out, realizing this is the first time I’ve seen my whole self in a mirror since I was fourteen.
I hardly recognize this girl.
This is the body that almost starved, that was ravaged by typhus. These are the breasts that barely developed before falling flat into my ribs. I raise my hand to my face: these are the lips that have been selfishly kissed by one boy; this is the cheek that has been tenderly caressed by another. This is who I am, Gerta Rausch. This is the body I almost gave away.
Hélène takes me into the next room and faces away as I unwrap my towel. The room is small, tiled white with a border of tiny blue mosaics. It’s the most pristine place I’ve been to in years—since the children’s choir sang for the Dutch queen in that marble and gol
d-leafed hall. I step into the small pool.
“You will immerse once, then twice,” she instructs me. “Make sure you go completely under, including your hair. Go slow. Take your time. Call anything to mind that you want to wash away.”
I release my muscles and sink down into the collected rainwater. Call to mind what I want to be washed away? If I did that, I would never come up; I would drown under it all. My papa limping toward the chimney. Maria standing in the doorway, watching us being arrested. The baby being thrown against the wall, the guards laughing, the crumpling mother. I dart up to the surface and shake off these thoughts.
“All right. Now repeat this prayer after me, and go under again. This time, welcome holiness upon you.”
I plunge under again. Something comes over me this time. Instead of water, I feel arms surrounding me. I open my eyes. Before me is the butterfly, flapping its blue wings through the current.
Roza and I have just finished playing for a wedding here in the concert hall. It’s a beautiful evening, almost June now, and the wedding party files back to the dining hall for their reception just as the sun is setting. Roza’s playing a line from this American song we love:
To think that we were strangers a couple of nights ago,
And though it’s a dream, I never dreamed he’d ever say hello.
Oh, maybe tonight I’ll hold him tight when the moonbeams shine;
My dreams are getting better all the time.
We used to sing that kind of song in Auschwitz to remind ourselves of the world outside, where people fell in love, held each other, made plans for the future.
In a strange contrast to the wedding party that’s just left, out by the side window a woman begins to wail, “My babies, my babies,” as the realization finally overcomes her, so many months too late. Roza doesn’t look up, but keeps playing. There’s nothing to be said or done for the mother anyway. There are no words in this part of the song, so she hums instead. I sit next to her on the piano bench and harmonize.
What the Night Sings Page 10