by Anna Scanlon
"This is Aliz," the woman said. Her yellow blouse was slightly stained under the armpits, her gray skirt wrinkled from hours of sitting down.
Aliz let go of the woman's hand, placing her gloved hands on the blue skirt of her dress. Obviously donated, the dress was at least two sizes two big for her small frame, hanging at an odd angle on the shoulders. She wore an extremely full crinoline under the dress, making a swishing noise as she walked. She frequently licked her lips, opening them and closing them as if in a nervous habit. She looked as if she hadn't aged past eight years old, but at the same time, her eyes bore the look of an old woman, saddened and tired from too many years on earth.
"Hello, Aliz!" Mother burst, bending down and giving the girl a huge hug. It was as if my Mother's arms had swallowed the girl whole. Instead of hugging her back, Aliz stood limply, not reacting, her hands at her side like a little soldier. She swallowed loudly as my Mother retreated, studying me and then my mother.
"Let me grab her file," the woman clicked her tongue and sat a briefcase down on one of the pew benches, opening the case's gold lock with a loud clink. As though a hurricane had struck, papers flew in every direction. The woman bent down to grab them, hair escaping from her tight bun as she knelt on the ground, scrambling.
"She was evaluated in New York," she began explaining from the ground, making sure she had everything in order before standing up, looking my mother in the eye. Clearly, she felt Aliz's English wasn't up to par to be able to understand her diatribe. "She's eleven, but has missed a lot of school. Really, they think she shouldn't be living at home. But when she does go back to school, she should be put in first or second grade. Her English is very limited, not very good. She can do advanced math problems fairly well, but she's not very good at reading, even in Hungarian. She doesn't talk very often. She said two or three words to me during the entire trip, and she didn't speak in complete sentences. She spends a lot of time scratching herself, banging her wrists on the bedposts and rocking back and forth in a chair. Sometimes she acts like one of the childhood schizophrenics. We haven't had a lot of time to find a place for her in San Francisco, we have so many cases. But we have leads. A lot of good ones. I've written a few phone numbers down. Oh, and Dr. Berman in the Castro. He's a great psychiatrist, works really well with disturbed children. He might have some answers for you."
The woman droned on about Aliz, about her quirks, how certain things set her off (like men in white coats) and how she sometimes spent days crying or banging her head against the wall until a welt developed. She hadn't even bothered to introduce herself, simply spouting information out as fast as possible. Aliz stood next to her, taking off her white sweater and putting it back on. Each time she did so, angry marks appeared on her thin, gray arms. Some were scratches, others looked like purple and black burn marks. They were in all different stages of healing, from fresh wounds, to dripping scabs to scars, dotting her sallow skin like small constellations.
"Okay, Aliz, be good," the woman finished her speech, buttoning Aliz's sweater over her chest. "There you go."
Aliz simply stared at her, her face expressionless, the way my mother had stared when she found out about her family. The ends of her mouth and eyes turned down, as if the weight of the entire world had been placed on her. She let out a small shiver, even though it was fairly hot in the train station and then knelt next to her one small suitcase. Clearly donated as well, it was a medium sized pink and brown plaid case with the initials LSJ printed over the top in curly white writing. Aliz traced them and then opened her suitcase with a clink, rifling through it for a mysterious object.
"Aliz, not here," the woman told her, looking away as if her actions were somehow embarrassing her. "You can wait to go through your things at home."
But Aliz didn't stop. She kept digging through the throngs of stuffed animals, shoes, and dresses, making a small cloud of her things next to her on the dirty floor of the train station.
"Okay, that's enough," the woman cried helplessly, as Aliz continued her quest, like a toddler plowing through bubbles in the bathtub.
"Aliz!"
The woman pulled her up by the waist, setting her down on her feet, which were clad in dull patent leather Mary Janes. Aliz put her hands to her mouth and screamed, tears springing to her eyes, falling fast and then gathering speed as they fell, making a small pool on her blue skirt.
"See what I mean?" the woman sighed, the three of us bending down to collect her things and stuff them back in her suitcase. "They were taken away on trains initially, so I guess it must be hard for them to, you know, go on one again."
Aliz opened the suitcase again struggled to move back in between us and throw the things around again, but the woman finally stood, holding Aliz to her chest and letting her scream until we had collected her meager belongings. We had placed them in messily, Mother having to hold the suitcase together while I struggled to close the lock. I traced the LSJ at the top, wondering silently who LSJ was and if they had ever entertained the idea that this suitcase would end up in San Francisco, making a journey halfway around the world with a child survivor of Auschwitz.
"You do know she was experimented on, don't you?" the woman asked, leaning close to my mother. She was still holding Aliz to her chest, but speaking over her head as if speaking above her meant she couldn't hear what was being said.
"What do you mean?" my mother asked furrowing her brow. She began stuffing her hands into her off-white gloves. They had a mark on the inside from when I had shoved them on my dirty hands in fourth grade. I had tried to put on my mother's eyeliner a few moments before, leaving a smudge down my left cheek and all over my hands. I had been punished what I thought was severely: no radio shows for an entire week, prompting me to wail all night. In light of what Aliz had been through, the entire thing seemed trivial, stupid even. A pang of guilt seared through my chest as I looked into her big brown eyes. She was studying my face with the same intensity my chemistry teacher had when he peered through a microscope to examine small samples of students' blood in class labs.
"She was used for medical experiments. Did no one tell you this?"
My mother shook her head, rubbing her hairline with her gloved hand, accidentally creating a few flyaway hairs in the process. She cleared her throat, placing her hand over her mouth as if it would mask the unladylike noise.
"No," she shook her head. "I'm afraid that information was omitted. What kind of experiments?"
Aliz stood underneath the two, watching their lips, her eyes still wide with the same intensity, her mouth slack as if she were trying to take in the foreign words.
"She and her twin were used."
My mother nodded her head as if the information was rushing back to her all at once. Clouded with information about birthdates, death dates, names of concentration camps, towns in provincial Hungary, bar mitzvah dates, her head hardly had room for much more.
"I do remember this a little bit," Mother nodded slightly, putting her hand on Aliz's head that was covered by a white hat. Aliz shirked away, her eyes almost animalistic in their expression.
The woman nodded. "She has collapsed veins on her right arm. That's important for the doctor to know if she goes because he won't be able to draw blood from that side. But as far as we can tell, she doesn't really have any outstanding health problems because of it. Some of the kids go through periods of time when they get really, really ill. But we don't know what Mengele injected into them."
"Mengele?"
With that, Aliz covered her ears whimpering, as if the mere mention of the name sent pains through her body. She began stamping her feet, powdering dust on the woman and my mother's shoes, making a sound like an injured puppy. The woman put her hands over Aliz's ears, holding her still while she continued to whine, her mouth slack once again.
"He's the doctor who was in charge. She gets very agitated when you mention his name. She told one of the nuns in Katowice that he killed her sister, and we do know her sister died in the
hospital weeks later. To be totally honest, we're not sure exactly what he even did. Aliz doesn't talk about it, not even when she's directly asked. The SOB escaped with all of his files and paperwork, so we don't know what he did to the kids or why some of them are sick. And he's still on the lam. Or could be dead, we don’t really know."
My eyes widened and throat tightened. A feeling of uneasiness tingled up and down my arms, as if this Mengele person was suddenly nowhere and everywhere all at once.
"They haven't caught him?" I swallowed hard, my eyes bulging.
"No," the woman shrugged, patting her hair back. "But I think they will. They have to."
My throat felt drier than when my parents and I had driven through Arizona during the summer I was 12, our thighs sticking to the hot leather of the Studebaker, my eyes and throat on fire.
"Are you staying at a hotel around here?" Mother asked, protectively taking Aliz's hand. Aliz took a deep breath and wiped her nose over and over again, until she had rubbed a red spot over the tip of it.
The woman nodded, explaining that she would be working at one of the Veteran's hospitals in San Francisco before making her way back to Chicago to work with some children who would be arriving from Poland, by way of Germany. They, too, had been in the camps and were, just like Aliz, without parents.
Mother offered the woman to come with her in the Studebaker, saying she would drop the woman off at her hotel. The woman nodded graciously, making some joke about being Jewish and wanting to save her cab fare. Quietly, Mother and I lifted Aliz's suitcase and the small bag she had brought with her, pink-white color canvas bag with stains on the side. Wordlessly, we made our way to the parking lot, stuffing their belongings into the open trunk, the way we often did before embarking on long road trips. It was always like a jigsaw puzzle, finding ways to make each piece fit so they wouldn't slide around making clanking sounds in the trunk, which would make Mother jump and hold a gloved hand to her heart.
As we hoisted Aliz's canvas bag in the trunk, she began to stamp her feet, shaking her head so vigorously that her hat flew off a few feet to her left. I ran to grab it amidst her shaking and clamoring.
"What is it?" Mother asked, pausing and repeating the question in Hungarian, whispering next to Aliz's ear.
"Nem! Nem! Nem!" Aliz stomped, singing the Hungarian word for “no” over and over again, like a mantra.
"Aliz, you're in the United States," the nameless woman told her, placing her hands on the girl's thin shoulders. "You're supposed to try to speak English."
Aliz continued as if she hadn't heard the woman, or perhaps she simply didn't understand her. She continued to stamp and cry, finally grabbing the handles of the bag and thrusting it onto the asphalt, the zipper bursting and the contents spilling onto the ground like a broken teacup.
"Oh, Aliz," the woman sighed, her voice crackling with exhaustion. "Just because we put your bag in the trunk doesn't mean we're taking it away from you."
The words flew over Aliz's head, not reaching her ears. Ignoring the woman, Aliz got down on all fours, gathering the contents of the canvas bag. It was more of the same; shoes, dolls, shawls, a winter jacket, dresses, socks and underwear, laying still on the pavement, the San Francisco wind occasionally picking up and blowing life into the clothing. The woman bent down once again and the four of us instinctively began collecting Aliz's things, folding them and pressing them into her bag, my mother finally zipping it with an air of authority.
When the bag was finally closed, Aliz stood pulling at the handles, moving it an inch or two at a time toward the backseat of the cream colored Studebaker.
"I think she wants to ride next to the bag?" I guessed, grabbing it from her hand and thrusting it in the backseat.
"I don't think it's a good idea to indulge her," the woman shook her head. "On the way here, she saved the crust of all of the sandwiches she bought on the train and stuffed them down her dress. I spent twenty minutes in the bathroom trying to dust her off. She's never going to live a normal life here if you let her act like this."
I scratched my neck and looked to my mother, who nodded, signaling that it was okay with her for Aliz to sit next to her canvas bag. The woman continued speaking, a whirl of emotion around her head, as she discussed all of Aliz's quirks, punctuated only by the starting of the engine and the sound of the brakes as we rolled away.
Mother drove four miles out of her way to drop the woman off at her hotel, thanking her profusely. The woman, seemingly unable to take a hint, kept talking as Mother started rolling the car forward, trying to get away from her constant chatter that was now coming from the open passenger window. About ten minutes later, Mother made some excuse about having to make dinner (even though Mrs. Stein had already volunteered to make us a full meal to go with our vanilla and chocolate cakes), finally freeing herself from the prison of the woman.
"I bet you're glad she's gone," I turned to my cousin and smiled. She smiled back as if she understood before sitting up in the backseat to wave goodbye to the woman once and for all. After readjusting herself in the leather seat with a whoosh of her skirt, she reached into her white sock, digging around as if searching for something. I clicked my tongue, wondering if this was the start of some strange habit. Finally, she pulled three crusts of brown bread out victoriously, holding them above her head for a few moments of celebration before stuffing them in her mouth. Mother's eyes were focused on the road, and I said nothing of the situation, pursing my lips shut as I watched the city roll by out the window.
After chewing and swallowing, with a loud gulp, Aliz pressed her face to the window surveying her new surroundings. Her mouth formed an O on the glass, making a tiny cloud of breath in front of her. With her mouth and eyes open, she watched this new world, her new home pass in front of her. Men and women sauntered down the street arm in arm, others bought flowers from street vendors while children skipped rope and drew on the sidewalks. It was as far away as I could imagine one could get from Auschwitz, from the gray world I had seen in the magazines and newsreels.
Mother finally pulled up into our driveway, shutting the car off and making a small thud as she put the car in park. She heaved a sigh as she opened the heavy door.
"We're home," she announced.
Aliz slid out of the car, her mouth still slack from taking in what she had seen so far of San Francisco. She surveyed the house, running her eyes over it as if she were an architect inspecting the bend and turn of each angle. Gable yipped from inside and darted toward her when Mother opened the front door, his ears flopping and tongue hanging to the right of his mouth. He jumped so high that he practically reached Aliz's shoulders, knocking her down onto the driveway.
"Oh, Aliz!" Mother exclaimed, rushing toward her. Gable was on top of the small girl who was now a lump of blue and white on the driveway. "Are you all right?"
I rushed to her side, hearing small whimpers escape from her mouth every few seconds. To my surprise, she was laughing, her arms around the dog as he licked all the breadcrumbs from her face. Mother and I exchanged a smile as we helped her up, Gable snug in Aliz's tiny, gangly arms.
13 CHAPTER thirteen
✪
Two days later, Eva and I sat in my blue and white bedroom with strains of Tex Williams crackling on my record player in the background. She sat cross-legged with a large history book on her lap, making indentations in her calves. I silently wondered what the history books in twenty years would say about Aliz, Auschwitz and us.
"So, do I hand it in or not?" I changed the subject abruptly from Eva's obsessive chatter about Troy Grossman, the dreamy blond boy who sat next to her in chemistry class. Last year, he had kissed her on the cheek at Playland at the Beach, right before they went into the Funhouse. But I had more important things on my mind, more pressing things, like my future, or whether or not I was going to have one.
"Your application to college?" Eva asked, plopping down on the cream colored carpet dramatically, her history book hitting the floor with a
thud. "I don't know. Just do it. What's the worst that could happen?"
I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the absolute worst-case scenario, the scene in which I didn't go to college. I could practically see the lines in my forehead and feel the misery in Future Me's chest as I pranced around the house, picking up after my children and living each week for my husband's paychecks. The very thought of it made my stomach turn. It made me so nauseated that I had decided to apply for college a year early, in hopes that I could get out of the house a bit faster, to get away from my mother's sullen face and dead eyes.
My mother lived with the dead. They were as real to her as the women she chatted with at Temple after services. They hung in the air like a cloud of smoke, always there, even on the most joyous of occasions. And now with Aliz in our house, it was like living with a ghost. In the past couple of days, I had noticed the air felt heavy and thick. It was as if Aliz brought Auschwitz with her. I begged my mother to let me spend the night at Eva's later in the week, but she refused, saying she needed my help. All of her extra money had been funneled into paying for a visa for Aliz and her ultra-expensive journey to San Francisco. Mother had even set aside money to buy Aliz a new "American wardrobe".
"The worst that could happen is I stay here," I nodded, picking at a fleck of dirt under my index finger. "With Aliz and Mother."
"Not necessarily," Eva shrugged.
"Oh?"
"You could always marry Jimmy Price," she laughed loudly at her own joke.
Jimmy Price, a total square, carried around several handkerchiefs in his front pocket that he often used to blow his nose and put back in his pocket. He had a separate case for pens and three different protractors he rotated so that one wouldn't get too "used".
It wasn't so much her suggestion about Jimmy Price that made me shiver, but the notion that the only way I could be saved, without saving myself, involved getting married. I didn't have a boyfriend, my last one had broken my heart by leaving me for some girl from the Catholic school. I wasn't convinced I was even that good at relationships. I knew I had liked him a lot, but when he called me every night before bed "just to talk" for two or three minutes, I found myself getting totally annoyed and feeling suffocated. I wanted to be like Katharine Hepburn, to waltz into a room and demand attention, yet have men around to enjoy the pleasure of their company instead of "needing" them.