My Bridges of Hope

by Livia Bitton-Jackson

  “And what about Bubi?” I ask.

  “Bubi should continue his studies,” Mommy answers with finality. I don’t argue, and she goes on: “We will be successful in America, you’ll see,” Mommy promises. America is big and ambitious, and so are Mommy’s plans. America will be our oyster!

  How can I tell them, my mother and brother, that I am dreaming of going to Eretz Israel, not America? How can I tell them that ever since Miki spoke of the secret ships across the Mediterranean, Eretz Israel is all I can think of? How can I dash their hopes?

  I keep my silence all weekend. Neither Mommy nor Bubi notices. In their excitement they are oblivious to anything beyond the America project. On Monday morning Bubi returns to school.

  In the afternoon Mommy sits down at the kitchen table to write a letter to Uncle Abish, to provide our vital statistics for immigration papers. I know that I must break my silence.

  “Mommy, I must speak to you.”

  Mommy raises her head, but her mind is still on the letter. “You wanted to say something?”

  “Not just say something, Mommy. I must speak to you.”

  “Now? Right now? I’ve just started the letter to Uncle Abish.”

  “Yes.”

  She puts down the pen and absently moves over to make room for me on the wooden bench. But I prefer to stand. I position myself on the opposite side of the table and look straight into Mother’s puzzled eyes.

  “Mommy, I’m not going to America.”

  Mother’s eyes widen, and her mouth opens a little.

  “I want to go to Palestine … Eretz Israel.”

  “Palestine? Why Palestine?”

  Before I can reply, she continues, her tone somewhat heated: “We have been making plans for America for a long time. We have been dreaming, Daddy was dreaming, about America for years. I believed you were excited about America.

  “Yes, Mommy, the prospect of America was exciting. It was Daddy’s dream, and it became our dream. But Daddy did not make it—he who wanted so badly to reach America. And I no longer want to go to America.”

  Mommy’s silence is deafening.

  I plead: “Palestine … Eretz Israel is part of us. That’s where we belong. Mommy, you can see that, can’t you?”

  Mother’s brilliant blue eyes search my face. “You’re a strange girl, Elli,” she says, and in her bafflement I detect a faint note of pride, a grudging admission of deference. “A very strange girl.”

  This is my cue to press on. “Mommy, Eretz Israel is our only home. The Jewish country is the only true home a Jew can have. After what happened to us here, in our birthplace, our fatherland, a Jew can never feel secure anywhere else. Eretz Israel is the only country where a Jew will not be a foreigner.”

  Mother shakes her head: “I don’t understand you, Elli. We’ve talked and talked and talked about America. You’ve never said a word. You were eager and hopeful, just like me, just like Bubi. And now, when it’s within our reach, you’ve suddenly changed your mind. With such finality. You have always been a strange child.”

  “You see, Mommy, last week Miki told me of secret transports to Palestine. And then I realized—I felt it in the pit of my stomach—going to America is wrong. After what’s happened to us. After what happened to Daddy. For us there is only one place—Eretz Israel.”

  “Your brother has gone back to Bratislava. We cannot reach him till next week. Why didn’t you speak up last night? At least we could’ve talked it over, the three of us.”

  “Oh, Mommy, believe me, we can be happy only in Eretz Israel.”

  Mommy picks up the sheet of paper and I can see the words “My dear Brother-in-Law, May God Keep You Till one Hundred And Twenty,” the latter phrase in a Hebrew acronym. Slowly Mommy pulls the drawer of the kitchen table open, ever so slightly, and lets the white sheet slide through the narrow slit. “It can wait till next week.” Then she rises to her feet, her face inscrutable.

  “Let’s heat up some potato soup.”

  Mommy puts the large white pot on the stove and goes to the cellar to get some wood. I place a few sticks of kindling in the stove and light a crumpled piece of newspaper under them. The crackling of the fire is reassuring. Mother stirs the soup. I watch her without a word as she ladles the steaming liquid into two white enamel bowls, and my insides fill with a sense of painful longing.

  We eat in silence. The warm soup courses through my body and stills my agony somewhat. Mommy has not rejected the idea of Eretz Israel outright. I believe my argument has made a dent in her American aspirations. Perhaps a truce has been reached. When Bubi comes home next weekend, the issue will be presented fairly, and the three of us will make a decision together. There is a basic condition, a nonnegotiable principle we had agreed upon shortly after liberation from the concentration camps: Wherever one goes, all will go.

  The three of us shall never be separated again.

  Destination America

  Šamorín, January 1946

  Since that magical evening a week ago when he revealed the secret of his work for Briha within the framework of Aliyah Bet, the “illegal” transports to Palestine, Miki smiles at me when our eyes meet over the dining room table. His gaze lingers, and I feel my face turn crimson. The others have begun noticing the change and stare at us in fascination. I am mortified, but Miki does not seem to care.

  More and more often after his tea he spends time helping me with homework. Miki has opened a whole new universe of feeling for me. A thrilling new universe.

  When Bubi comes home for the weekend and Mommy informs him of my sudden change of heart, my brother is flabbergasted.

  “What made you change your mind?” he asks with consternation.

  “It’s Miki,” Mommy interjects. “He’s working for Aliyah Bet. They have become fast friends, Miki and your little sister. He wants her to go with him to Palestine. Don’t you think he’s a little too old for her?”

  “He’s twenty-seven,” I say quietly. “That’s not too old.” I am aware of the trembling in my voice. “I never said he wanted me to go with him. Miki has nothing to do with my decision. Mommy, don’t you know how I feel about Eretz Israel?!”

  Bubi listens with attention, and his eyes fill with sadness. “I knew about the transports,” he replies with a deep sigh. “I was also thinking about them. For weeks I could think of nothing else. But then I realized, what would Mommy do in Palestine? Eretz Israel is for young people.”

  Mommy is silent. She knows that the severe spinal injury she suffered in Auschwitz prevents her from doing heavy physical work.

  “What will Mommy do?” Bubi presses. “In Eretz Israel she cannot make a living sewing dresses. Who among the pioneers needs new dresses? Who among the pioneers can afford new dresses?”

  The three of us carry on our discussion late into the night. I can no longer present my case with my earlier passion. How can I jeopardize Mommy’s health in the harsh conditions of Eretz Israel?

  At the conclusion of the weekend the decision is final: We will go to America together.

  Mommy and Bubi accept my resignation with sympathy, with concern. With pain.

  The decision has changed our lives. Now we live on the emotional verge of departure. Letters to and from Uncle Abish, to the U.S. Embassy in Prague, to the Czechoslovak Passport Authority in Bratislava, and local clearances, permits, and applications are at the hub of our existence.

  Secretly, selfishly, I am praying for a miracle that would bring Eretz Israel back into our agenda. After all, the documents have not yet arrived. Our passport application has not yet been approved. The U.S. visa has not been granted. We may end up in Palestine by default.

  I keep postponing a confrontation with Miki. I don’t want to jeopardize our relationship. Will his feelings change toward me when he finds out our family decision? Will he again become distant and aloof?

  The Barishna

  Šamorín, September 1945—April 1946

  As it turned out, my relationship with Miki did chang
e, but not because of our decision. The shift was caused by a rather unexpected turn of events.

  About five months ago, right before the High Holidays, a tall, husky young woman in Soviet army uniform drifted into the Tattersall, looking for someone who spoke Russian. I was doing my homework in the dining hall when she came in, so I volunteered. As it was a month since the beginning of school and my exposure to Comrade Alla Drugova’s teaching blitz, I had no trouble communicating in Russian. The barishna, meaning “soldier girl” in Russian, said she was Jewish and wanted to spend the holidays among Jews.

  I became the barishna’s interpreter and mentor. The reluctance of the others to embrace her into the Tattersall family was caused less by the language barrier than by her robust temperament, which they considered somewhat aggressive.

  She was a strange girl, the barishna. Her enormously fat legs bulged out of high boots into which they had been permanently compressed. She said it had been years since she had taken off her boots—she even slept in them. When I asked why, the barishna shrugged in reply. She said she was eighteen but looked much older. She also said she had been in the army for over three years, two of them on the front lines. We wondered: Had she been drafted into the army at the age of fifteen? We were skeptical, but it was pointless to ask questions, because the barishna was not in the habit of answering them. Even her name she did not divulge, so Barishna became her name.

  Barishna was in the habit of lunging headlong into whatever interested her.

  “That fellow Grossman you’ve introduced me to, he’s rich, isn’t he?” she asked me a few days after I introduced her to Miki, one of the few who spoke Russian.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “He must be very rich. You told me his family had owned a lot of land and houses. And he returned alone. So, he must have inherited it all. He must be a tycoon!” Barishna used the Russian word bogach for “tycoon.”

  I was taken aback by Barishna’s reference to Miki’s “wealth.” I had thought her naive and childlike and even said as much to Miki, who was annoyed at Barishna’s habit of joining us on our walks. I believed her behavior was that of an unspoiled innocent, and when Miki asked me to tell her to stop tagging along, I was reluctant to hurt her feelings. Now I was shocked when Barishna continued: “I think Grossman’s the richest man here. He is heir to a bigger fortune than any of the others.”

  I could not understand what Barishna was saying. This kind of speaking was so alien to me that it was unintelligible. Had she spoken of “fortune”? Of “inheritance”? All of us were heirs to empty homesteads, fallow fields, businesses bereft of proprietors. Every survivor was heir to the agony of a staggering vacuum. How dared she speak of material fortune when we felt only the pain of our parents’ tragic absence?

  Barishna misunderstood my silence.

  “He’s rich, isn’t he?” she went on. “Why don’t you tell me the truth? You’re his friend. You must know how much he owns. I saw his house. It’s big. And then, when we passed the other big house, the white one on the corner, you said his uncle’s family used to live there. And now it stands empty. The uncle’s family was killed; nobody came back. So it’s his. Grossman is very rich. You can’t deny it.”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because I want to marry him. I will marry him.”

  “What? You will what?”

  “Marry him. I want to stay here and marry a rich man.”

  She was surely insane. “He doesn’t even know you. He’s not yet spoken a single word to you.” I did not tell her how annoyed Miki was about her intruding on our walks. He obviously did not relish her company.

  Barishna was undaunted. “That doesn’t matter. I want to marry a rich man and settle down. I like this town. My unit will pull out soon, and anyone who wants to stay, can. I want to stay here and marry Grossman. He will make a good husband, I can tell.”

  This was too ridiculous for words. But I went along with the farce: “Don’t you want to go home and see your family in the Soviet Union?”

  Barishna shrugged: “I don’t know what became of them. The Germans killed everybody.”

  “Don’t you want to find out what became of your family?”

  “I told you, the Germans killed everybody.”

  “And how about him, Grossman? How will you get him to marry you?”

  “I will ask him to. He will marry me.”

  “What if he says no? What will you do then?”

  “I will ask him again, and again. Until he says yes. He will marry me.” Then, with a conspiratorial intimacy, she lowered her voice: “You’re my friend, so I tell you. I’ll ask him soon, before a girl from this town gets to him first. He’s rich; I must hurry.”

  The next day Miki greeted me with visible irritation: “Elli, I must speak to you.” He motioned me to follow him to his office, then shut the door: “You won’t believe what happened last night. I was awakened by loud knocking, and when I opened the door to see who the hell was making such a racket in the middle of the night, guess who was there? The Russian soldier, your protégée. She had a large, battered suitcase in her hand. ‘I want to live here,’, she said. I was so astonished, I just stood there, speechless. ‘I’m moving in here right now,’ she said, and started shoving the suitcase through the door. I told her sorry, but she couldn’t move in, she had to leave immediately. She started crying and screaming about how heartless I was turning her away in the middle of the night, how she’d fought the Germans for three years and now had nowhere to go. Her unit deployed from the region, and all her comrades left. She said I was cruel to have so many houses and so many rooms and not even let her sleep in one of my rooms for one night. Tomorrow she’ll go away. Tomorrow she’ll find another place. What could I do under the circumstances? You’ve got to do something, Elli. She’s sleeping in the back room. You must get her out of there. Let’s hurry and get it over with.”

  I felt elated to be so intimately involved in Miki’s life, to be called upon to help. I felt really grown up. We walked into the courtyard and headed for the small room in the back. When repeated knocks brought no response, he opened the door slowly, and we walked in. The bed was made, Barishna’s clothes were neatly arranged on a shelf, and her suitcase was tucked under the bed. There was no mistake about it: The barishna had moved in.

  Miki’s face turned red. “What does she think she’s doing? Elli, you must get her out of here. You must speak to her.”

  I promised to return in the evening. Barishna, however, was not there. The next day Miki greeted me with a look of exasperation. “She came back late at night, waking me with frightful banging at the gate. When I refused to let her in, she sobbed and wailed so loud, several neighbors opened their windows. It was embarrassing. I let her in for one more night but told her you’d be coming to speak to her. Please, go there now. She’s expecting you.”

  Barishna was busily humming in the kitchen when I got to Miki’s house. “It’s working!” she exclaimed when she saw me. “He cannot get rid of me. He tried but cannot. Isn’t it wonderful? I’m staying here until he marries me. I’ve made it! Before any of the other girls. Soon we’ll be married.”

  “Barishna,” I said seriously, “Grossman asked me to tell you to leave. He knows we are friends, and that’s why he asked me. He wants you to leave at once.”

  “Oh, that doesn’t matter. He’ll change his mind. I’m staying.” No pathos. No hysterics. A simple statement of fact.

  “Look, Barishna. You can’t do things like this. In this country you can’t stay where you’re not invited. Grossman doesn’t want you to live in his house. You can stay with us, my mother and me, until you find a place to live. Pack your things.”

  Barishna swung around and stared into my face. Her freckles stood out as sharp black dots on her round, pallid face: “Leave me alone! Just go away, I’m staying here. I like this house.”

  Miki was furious: “Tonight she’s leaving whether she likes it or not.”

  The next day
Miki waved his hand in a gesture of resignation when I inquired about Barishna, and I did not ask him to elaborate. From then on Miki never referred to the matter, but it was common knowledge that Barishna lived in the Grossman house. Our walks ceased, and whenever we met, Miki averted his eyes. We barely greeted each other.

  At first everyone was appalled, and criticized Barishna’s conduct. But she ignored it all. In time snickering replaced collective outrage in the Tattersall, then indifference replaced the snickering. Miki-and-Barishna became an accepted fact.

  Later in the spring rumor spread that Barishna was pregnant. A young Talmudic scholar was brought from Dunaszerdahely to perform the wedding ceremony. After the ceremony, Mr. and Mrs. Grossman left for Palestine.

  How was it possible for this to happen? How was it possible for Barishna’s selfish manipulation to succeed? How was it possible for immorality to be made holy through a religious ceremony?

  And Miki. How could he? How could he?

  Barishna and Miki both had committed an unforgivable breach against human ethics, and yet their act was socially endorsed, legally authorized. They were a married couple now, respected members of society, soon to become parents. Who would care to remember how this came to be?

  Something terribly wrong happened, and no one seemed to care.

  In my bitterness and confusion I lose interest in my schoolwork and my friends. Is this what jealousy feels like? Is this the taste of rejection? I feel my sense of loss comes from more than just the feeling of personal betrayal. My sense of reality has been violated. I want to comprehend life, people, relationships. I have been observing and learning and drawing conclusions about the secrets of love, sex, marriage. And now the set of concepts I constructed has collapsed.

  I have hoped someone would say: “Look, Elli, what Miki and Barishna did was wrong. This is not the way things are. This is not the way the world is.” But no one has. The rabbi married them, and the others shrugged, wished them good luck, and bon voyage. No one was outraged or hurt or even indignant.