Safekeeping

by Jessamyn Hope

  Margaretha would never be able to clearly recall what happened in the cellar. The family’s eyes must have gaped at her in the gloom, but she could never quite picture it. Could she really have said nothing, nothing at all, as she took Jonah from Anna’s arms? Could Anna have handed over her baby without a word? One of the boys prayed in their exotic tongue. Could she have taken this boy too? Could she have grabbed one or two of the grandchildren by the hand and led them up the stairs and out into the night and back to the safety of her house? It would have been too hard to explain to the neighbors. One could pray for and be granted the miracle of a newborn, not a twelve-year-old.

  Margaretha hastened out the back door and into the night, cradling Jonah beneath her cloak. If she were stopped, she could probably get away without revealing what was under her robe, but she didn’t want to chance it, so she weaved her way back taking streets that had already been ravaged. Running as fast as she could, she dodged the bodies splayed on the cobblestones and the flames leaping out the windows. A dismembered man dangled from an eave. She passed a wall smeared with human entrails, grateful her baby was shaded from these sights. She peeked at him only once, and he looked happy nestled in her arms. And why not? He knew her arms as well as anybody’s.

  She ran through the gate out of the Judengasse and into the quietude on the other side. As she stumbled back toward her house, gasping for breath, she wondered if there was any chance that in fifteen years she would give her son the brooch and tell him that he was a Jew. She didn’t think so, but she couldn’t be sure. When the peddlers brought the stories of torture and death from Düsseldorf, Margaretha had asked herself what she would have done had it happened in Terfur instead. She had decided she would have done nothing. What reason had she to believe that a woman like her, too meek to ask her husband to stop gambling away her hard-earned guldens, would behave any differently than the thousands who either butchered the Jews or silently watched the blood seep into the snow? But she had surprised herself. In fifteen years, she could surprise herself again.

  Part Three

  Yossi held a dinner plate covered in hardened yolk before Adam’s face.

  “Look at this! This is the third time I’m telling you: you have to do a better job scraping off the food! You’re giving us twice as much work to do, Adam.”

  “Okay.” Adam steadied himself on the edge of the conveyer belt.

  Yossi set the plate down in front of him. “Don’t make me tell you a fourth time.”

  Adam waited until Yossi rounded the dishwasher before bending down to take a swig from the water bottle hidden beneath the conveyer. He was only breaking his rule about drinking before dusk this one time. Until now he had always come to the dishroom sober, hungover but sober. But when he woke up this morning he knew he wasn’t going to get to work without some help. He could barely sit up after a night of the most brutal, vivid nightmares. He would have called in sick, but Eyal told him if he missed one more day, he would get kicked off the kibbutz. He just needed this one bottle of vodka to get through this one shift.

  He snatched the incriminating plate just before it disappeared into the washer and scrubbed at the yolk with a disgusting clump of steel wool, its grooves packed with soggy old food. Egg, more than any other leftover, triggered his gag reflexes. Swallowing his nausea, he returned the plate to the belt. What time was it? It felt like eight hours already, though it had to be more like three. He pushed down his rubber glove to peek at his wristwatch. 8:12 a.m. How was that possible? He’d barely been here an hour. He crouched down and took another swill.

  If only he could come up with another way to find Dagmar. As soon as he did, he could stop drinking. Every morning, he went to work thinking today was the day he was going to figure out his next move and sober up. He would spend all morning scrubbing plates and racking his brain, and then in the late afternoon, when he still hadn’t come up with a plan, he would start counting down the minutes until he could ditch work and buy a six-pack at the kolbo.

  Yossi came around the dishwasher, looking more weary than angry. “Adam, I think this is the same plate. The same yolk on the same plate.”

  “What?”

  “You have to scrub hard.” Yossi grabbed the steel wool out of Adam’s hand and demonstrated. “Scrub, scrub.” Adam watched, annoyed and impatient, and fully aware he had no right to be.

  “All right.” He took back the clean plate. “Got it.”

  “What happened, Adam? You were so good. And now you don’t show up half the time, and when you do, you’re a mess. I’m begging you, please, please, get your act together. I can’t come over here again today.”

  After Yossi walked away, Adam imitated him under his breath, “Scrub, scrub.” Why did they have to scrub each plate clean before it went into the dishwasher? What the hell was the dishwasher for then? Adam took one last galvanizing gulp, the last one, he vowed, until quitting time. When he stood up, the room seesawed. He leaned on the conveyer belt again. When the dizziness passed, he picked up a bowl and wiped off milky porridge.

  The dream hadn’t started out so bad. It was nice to be back in the apartment again, surrounded by the old records and the pigeons cooing on the air conditioner. It all felt so real, realer than the kibbutz with its cabbage-patch fields and lollipop lamps. And then there came the knock on the door.

  “How about Moishe’s for brunch?”

  Zayde stood in the fluorescent-lit hallway.

  “I thought you were dead.”

  The old man brushed past him and into the apartment. “Just give me a minute to freshen up.”

  It was powerful to see his grandfather move again. His conscious memory was quickly reducing him to a few static images, but in his sleep he heard him, smelled him, saw him walk with that old-man grace of his, at once doddering and dandy. That’s why it was hard to say if he was having a pleasant dream or a nightmare. Did it matter that he had been rotting in a coffin for five months? Adam followed him, looking for signs of decomposition. Leaning in the bathroom doorway, like he did when he was a boy, he watched the old man comb his thick, gray hair and splash aftershave on his neck. He looked a little pale, but nothing ten minutes of sunshine wouldn’t cure.

  Together they stepped onto Essex Street, Zayde in a straw Panama hat, Adam a backwards Yankees cap. It was one of the first warm Sundays of the year, the air ripe with the scent of thawed garbage. Young women, legs and shoulders bared for the first time in months, licked low-cal ice cream in front of Tasti D-Lite, and under the yellow awning of a dingier bodega, the one that sold Adam beer before noon on Sundays, Mexican men in church suits stood smoking and squinting into the sunlight.

  Moishe’s didn’t have an electric sign, only a blue wooden shingle. Taped to the storefront window, beside a faded cholov yisroel certificate, was a yellowing New York Post article, “Best Bagels in Town,” with a picture of Moishe at the counter back when his hair was still brown. Adam had avoided their old haunt since Zayde’s death, and it felt great to be back.

  “Hey, look who’s here!” Moishe called as they pushed through the door. “Franz is back! How often do you go to a man’s funeral and then he comes into your deli? How you doing, Franz?”

  “Gut, gut. Can’t complain.”

  Moishe followed them behind the counter. “I tell you, if anyone can rise from the dead, it’s Franz.”

  Franz scanned the cream cheeses and salads behind the glass. “It’s not the first time. I’ve done it before.”

  “I know you did,” said Moishe. “You all did.”

  Without fail, Zayde mulled over the different salads as if he weren’t going to order the same thing he always did: schnitzel with kasha varnishkes. Luckily, they didn’t have to wait for a table. Laying his tray on the plastic red-and-white checkered tablecloth, Adam relished how good it felt to be a regular guy out on a Sunday afternoon. All around them regular people enjoyed their Sunday: older couples, young families, teenagers slurping sodas. Zayde arranged his blue Anthora coffee cup and pape
r plate and napkin just so before proceeding to eat his kasha with his plastic cutlery as if he were dining with fine silverware at a five-star restaurant. Adam chomped on his bagel.

  “You have cream cheese on your face.”

  Adam wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

  Zayde pointed. “The other side.”

  Adam tried again.

  Zayde laughed and waved at him to forget it.

  Adam unwrapped his black-and-white cookie. Now that they were halfway through their meals, surely his grandfather was going to bring up the brooch.

  Instead the old man said, “Did I tell you the one about the old Jewish woman on the train who was thirsty?’”

  Adam had heard all the old man’s jokes hundreds of times, and yet he never tired of them. Not because the jokes were so great, but because of the joy they brought the old man, his black eyes shining with amusement. Even before Zayde died, Adam would feel preemptive grief when the old man told his jokes.

  “Of course,” Adam said. “But tell me again.”

  It was as if the theft and betrayal had never happened. And hey, if a man could come back from the dead, anything was possible. Maybe the brooch was still safe in the shoebox, and everything was back to normal, except for one thing: Adam was more appreciative, and he was going to do everything he could to make Zayde’s last years happy. He was going to make sure the old man didn’t survive everything he had survived just to die with nothing but an empty shoebox and a thieving grandson.

  “That brooch . . .” Adam couldn’t wait until they got home to check if it was in the shoebox. If he was getting a second chance, he wanted to start now.

  “Yes? What about it?”

  Apparently Zayde hadn’t found it missing. He had never stolen it. The relief was overwhelming.

  “Can you tell me that story about it again, the one with the rubble?”

  Zayde rose to his feet. “All right. Just as soon as I get back from the bathroom.”

  His grandfather shuffled gracefully toward the back of the restaurant and disappeared behind a door with a handwritten sign: TOILET ONLY FOR CUSTOMER’S!!!

  Adam overheard the couple next to him, a chubby thirtyish man and a bespectacled woman, debating whether to check out the MoMA that afternoon, and Adam wondered what he and Zayde should do with their day. They could just go to the park, or do something really touristy like ride to the Top of the World.

  How long had the old man been in there? Adam watched the bathroom door, leg jackhammering. He sucked the last of his Coke. He hoped the old man was okay. A woman with a red purse knocked on the door, waited a second, and went inside.

  Adam jumped to his feet. Zayde had forgotten to lock the door. Why didn’t the woman come flying out? The door remained closed. A minute later, the woman emerged with the red purse calmly slung on her shoulder.

  “Wait!” Adam charged toward the bathroom before the next person in line could go inside. All the happy Sundayers watched him bolt past their tables. “Wait!”

  He was too late. An obese guy listening to a Walkman slipped in. Adam waited outside the bathroom. Come on, come on. He tried the handle, though he knew the guy was still in there. What the hell was the fat fuck doing for so long? Diarrhea? Jacking off? He jostled the handle again. His grandfather had to be inside. It made no sense. He didn’t remember the bathroom having two stalls, but maybe it did. But then why would it lock?

  The guy opened the door. “Asshole.”

  Adam pushed past him. No stalls. Just a toilet. He scanned the tiny room as if his grandfather might be hiding behind the cloudy mirror or bin of overflowing paper towels. Where was he? He hurried back to their table, where the only things on it now were his cookie wrapper and Coca-Cola cup. No blue Anthora coffee cup, no kasha, no plastic cutlery that had been used like fancy silverware.

  “Hey!” Adam interrupted the MoMA couple. “Did you see what had happened to that old man I was with? You know, the guy with the Panama hat?”

  The husband gave his wife a headshake and ignored Adam.

  “Hey, buddy! I’m talking to you!”

  The guy, still looking at his wife, ran a napkin over his mouth, and Adam turned to the other diners to confirm the MoMA jerk was crazy for ignoring him. The whole deli stared back, Moishe with a crestfallen face. One of the teenagers cackled at Adam, and an older woman muttered, “Holy moly, could this city get any worse?”

  Adam turned back to the jerk. “Answer me! Answer me before I smash your fucking face in! Did you see what happened to the old man I was with?”

  The guy laid down his bagel. “Listen, pal, I hate to break it to you, but you’ve been sitting there laughing and talking and going on like somebody was with you, but nobody was. Nobody. The whole time, you’ve been talking to yourself.”

  Adam tried to understand: Did this mean he wasn’t getting a second chance?

  He felt the bowl get whisked from his hands.

  “Enough. It would be easier without you.”

  It took a second for Adam to grasp where he was and what was happening. He reached for the bowl. “Sorry, I got distracted. I’ll pay better attention.”

  Yossi held it out of reach. “No, Adam. You have to go.”

  “Come on, I just said I’d pay better attention, didn’t I?”

  “Your breath stinks. I can smell the alcohol from here.”

  “Please, Yossi. Eyal’ll kick me off the kibbutz. And I don’t have any money. I’ll have to leave here without a penny. I swear I’ll do a better job. I swear on my life.”

  Yossi shook his head.

  Adam stared at him, waiting for him to change his mind. When Yossi merely stared back, Adam lunged at the bowl. He snatched it and furiously scoured, hoping Yossi might slink away, give him another chance. Instead Yossi tried to retake the bowl. He got a hold of its rim, but Adam refused to let go. Adam jerked the bowl left and right until he’d yanked it free, and then threw it. The bowl flew over the conveyer belt, across the dishroom, and shattered against the cinder-block wall.

  “Fuck you!” Adam grabbed another plate and was about to hurl it too when Yossi seized his wrist. In seconds, Adam’s arm was twisted behind his back, and his chest and cheek were pressed against the hot dishwasher. He struggled to free himself, but the smallest move brought sharp pain.

  “Okay.” Adam squeezed his eyes to keep back the tears. “Okay. Enough with the fucking Krav Maga. I’ll go.”

  Yossi released him, then stood, arms hanging by his sides, looking very sorry about it all. “I liked you, Adam. I really did.”

  Adam grabbed his water bottle and stormed out of the dining hall. He walked toward the volunteers’ section, finishing it off. When he got to his room, he flung the door open so hard it smacked the wall and sent Golda fleeing into a corner.

  He marched over to his chest of drawers and tried to heave them over. They were heavier than he thought. Steadying the bottom with his foot, he tried again, pulling with all his might. At last, the chest toppled over, drawers falling out and hitting the ground first, his yellow Discman snapping upon impact, the Soul Asylum CD skidding across the floor.

  He slumped down next to the dresser and rested his head on its dusty back. What had he done? All he had to do was wash some dishes and he could have stayed here as long as he liked, looking for Dagmar. But he couldn’t manage it. Why? His grandfather managed to keep going; so what was his problem? What did he know about suffering? His alky mom died when he was a kid. Okay. He never got to meet his dad. All right. He had a hard time resisting booze and cocaine. On a scale from one to ten—where Buchenwald was a ten and, say, being bound to a wheelchair a five—where was his lot? One? One and a half?

  Adam lifted his head off the dresser. It wasn’t over. He didn’t have to give up. He still had the brooch. As long as he had it, he could still get it to Dagmar. And he hadn’t been kicked off the kibbutz—not yet. He could go to Eyal before Yossi did and beg for one last chance.

  He spotted the little dog trembling in
the corner and rushed over. “Golda!”

  Collecting the shaking bundle in his arms, he said, “Did I scare you? It’s just a bunch of drawers!” Golda calmed, lapped his hand, and Adam pressed his face against her fur. “Don’t worry, I would never hurt you.”

  After forty-five minutes of plodding under the beating sun, Ulya descended the potholed road into Kfar Al-Musa, the Arab village nestled in the foothills of Mount Carmel. She checked that the rosary she grabbed off her roommate’s nightstand hung over her loose tank top. Walking into this ramshackle village was unpleasant enough without being mistaken for a Jew. She had heard stories of Jews in Arab souks getting knifed in the back.

  A piebald mutt abandoned the trash scattered alongside the road to run up and bark at her, an earsplitting bark, but Ulya knew to never let an animal see your fear, be it a dog or human. Fear fed the thirst to attack; she never could have shoplifted for so long if she had let the dread of getting caught show on her face. She kept walking, chin up, eyes ahead, until the mongrel lost interest and trotted off.

  What a lazy people, thought Ulya, as she entered the outskirts of the town. Half the houses were unfinished, their top floors roofless, just concrete pillars sprouting rusted rebar, and yet there wasn’t a construction worker in sight. She was thirsty, but the cave-like shops were uninviting, their Coke bottles probably warm and covered in dust. She passed a bare-bones café but saw only men inside puffing on hookahs and drinking coffee, not a single woman. If these people had been living in this village for seven generations, as Farid so often pointed out, why did it look like such a shit pit? The Jews irritated people with their striving, but as far as she was concerned, it was the only good thing about them. After only fifty years, they had red Spanish roofs, satellite dishes, green lawns with yellow rosebushes. Maybe the question shouldn’t be who got here first, but who was going to make the most of it.