The Covenant

by Ragen, Naomi

  Israel was like one big family, she thought. There was one, maybe two degrees of separation. All it took was for the ambulance driver to mention it to his girlfriend, one soldier to tell his mother, a nurse to call her sister . . . News about the attack had spread like a brush fire all over the country. Hundreds surrounded the hospital, waiting for news.

  Why, then, she wondered, did she feel so alone?

  “Bubbee, something terrible has happened,” she repeated tonelessly. She heard her grandmother’s sharp intake of breath. “No . . . not a miscarriage. The baby is fine. I’m fine . . .” Her throat contracted painfully. “Bubbee—”

  Ho w am I going to tell her this? She, of all people? Ho w do you break this news to anyone, especially a survivor with a heart condition? But it couldn’t be helped. She’d hear it o n CN N soon enough.

  Elise felt her breath stick in her lungs, refusing to leave her body, giving her the sensation of choking. She had never had asthma, and it frightened her. It was the beginning of something new, she realized, some bodily reaction that was now going to be part of her life, something she would learn to live with. A friend in college had once described similar symptoms. She’d called it a panic attack.

  I can’t do this, she understood. I can’t finish this call.

  “Wait,” she wheezed into the phone, putting her palm over the receiver. “Please, Nurse, call Ruth, Ruth Silver . . . outside . . .”

  Why had she chosen Ruth, she wondered, regretting it immediately. The truth was, she didn’t really want Ruth, not really. She didn’t want someone she knew and liked to see and remember her at this moment in her life, committing it to memory. She didn’t want any witnesses. She was in the process of a metamorphosis, evolving moment by moment. Like some B-movie about an ordinary person injected with the serum of a mad scientist, she might, at any moment, turn into a homicidal maniac, or a wolf man, or simply, she thought, disappear altogether. She couldn’t bear the face of pity, confirmation that she was pitiable, from a friend, a neighbor.

  “Ruth, it’s my Bubbee. Please . . . I . . . please, Ruth . . .”

  Ruth took the phone, her dark eyes wet. Elise turned her face to the wall.

  “Mrs. Helfgott?Bubbee Leah? This is Ruth Silver, I’m a friend of your granddaughter . . . Oh yes, that’s right. Daphna’s mother, from Maaleh Sara. I’m fine, fine . . . Bubbee Leah . . . First, let me tell you that Elise is fine. She’s under a doctor’s care. But Jon and liana . . .”

  It isn’t fair, Elise thought. It isn’t right for me to ask this of her. Of anyone.

  “. . . were riding home from her ballet recital, and their car . . .”

  Elise listened as if hearing this for the first time. So it was all true then. Not a nightmare. Others could not have had the same bad dream . . . or could they? Unless this too was just part of a dream . . .

  “—No, Bubbee Leah, please, just let me finish . . .”

  Elise took a sudden deep breath and grabbed the phone. “Bubbee, they are not dead! We don’t know what happened to them. The car was hit with bullets, but they weren’t in the car. They’ve just disappeared. I don’t know any more, Bubbee . . . Bubbee, I’m going to put a policeman on the phone, someone who knows English. He’s going to explain what he can, the details—”

  She stopped, listening intently to what her grandmother was saying. “A person can live through anything, Elise. Remember that,” her grandmother told her.

  Elise felt a sharp stab of sudden anger. What was that supposed to mean? That no matter what happened to Jon and liana, that she, Elise, would be all right!? she thought, furious. No, that’s not it. That’s not what she meant, Elise understood with a sudden flash of insight.

  Years in Auschwitz surrounded by corpses, medical experiments, starvation, torture; living when millions around her had died. A fourteen-year-old girl with no one to help her . . . Her Bubbee % own survival was living proof that a person could never predict with absolute certainty what was going to happen to them. No matter how horrible your situation seemed, there was always the chance that you would be the one to somehow, miraculously, come through it, living to see great-grandchildren and die peacefully in your bed. Like people who overcome a list of terrible medical complications, or people who walk to safety out of plane wrecks in snow-covered mountains. Or like her Bubbee ‘s three friends who went on from Auschwitz to found a cosmetics fortune, run a famous nightclub and over-throw a Communist regime . . . Living proof, she thought, listening to her grandmother’s soft voice whispering comfort and prayers, that no matter what Jon and liana were faced with, there was still hope. No matter how bad it looked, they could be the ones . . . the ones who survive.

  “Thank you, Bubbee” she whispered.

  She didn’t feel alone anymore.

  Chapter Eight

  Beverly Hills, California

  Monday, May 6, 2002

  11:20 A.M.

  “THE VIDEOGRAPHER IS just changing to a new tape,” the interviewer from the Shoah Foundation explained.

  “No hurry, darling. Take your time,” Esther Gold said graciously, dreading it. Tiny and imperious, she sat stiffly upright in her uncomfortable antique Louis XIV chair, queen of a vast estate whose circular driveway, manicured lawns, and beautiful, generous rooms framed her with the exqui-site simplicity and beauty of a diamond circle pin.

  Nervously, she fidgeted with the stunning string of perfectly matched black pearls around her neck and straightened the skirt of her chic gray suit. As she moved her arms, the interviewer’s eyes couldn’t help being drawn to the shocking tattoo of blue numbers that flashed out through the row of fashionable gold bangles that laddered up her arm.

  As the head of a huge cosmetics firm, Esther Gold was used to interviews. In fact, she loved to talk about her rags-to-riches story as a new immigrant, never tiring of the tale of how she had gotten a cousin with the run-down hair pomade lab in the Bronx to make up a batch of her mother’s face cream recipe; and how she had sold it customer to customer in beauty parlors, and then at Hadassah conventions, until finally convincing the big department stores to take it on. How she’d met her husband, Solly, a Dachau survivor, who was supposed to cater her wedding, and married him instead of the American groom . . . She’d told these stories a mil-lion times, and loved every minute. Even the first tape for the foundation had been all right, all the good times, before the war. No w the real torture would begin; opening the coffins, dragging out all the decayed corpses of those obscene memories she had spent all these years trying to put behind her; telling all those things she had never shared with anyone, especially not her family.

  Think about the party afterward, she told herself, the celebration, whe n all four tapes are finally done. Ho w lovely it will be to see everyone, to meet all the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, gathered together for the first time from the four corners of the earth. To see what it all came to, this will to live through the worst of times. And this was the time to do it. Before heart conditions, diabetes, or breast cancer snuffed out the possibility. They were all going in one direction, and it was irreversible.

  What about making it in the Beverly Wilshire? she mused. O r why not here, in the backyard, in the tropical garden? There was plenty of room in the house to accommodate everyone for a few days . . . weeks . . . even months! Maria’s grandson, who’ d recently graduated film school and was making documentaries, would have a great time in L.A. She could introduce him around. And Leah’s granddaughter Elise with her nice doctor husband and their little sabra and the new baby due in a mont h or two, had never seen California. Ho w lovely it would be to have little kids running around again, making noise, tracking up the Aubusson, putting sticky little fingers on the polished antiques, giving this museum a little life . . . she thought, looking at her pristine living room.

  Only last night she’d dreamed about her own granddaughter. The dream had started with a knock on the door. Whe n she’d looked through the peephole, Elizabeth had been standing there
, angry and impatient, wheeling a baby carriage while two little ones clutched her side. And whe n Esther had opened to let her in, Elizabeth had shouted angry accusations and explanations at her. Instead of defending herself, she’d just gathered her granddaughter into her arms and cried and cried and cried.

  It had felt so incredibly real.

  She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief, getting black mascara on the Belgian lace. Her daughter Marietta, Elizabeth’s mother, had dealt with the situation much better than she had. Marietta and Elizabeth were not only in touch, but mother and daughter saw each other every few months—although Marietta couldn’t actually travel to visit Elizabeth; they didn’t let Jews into Saudi Arabia.

  From the pictures Marietta had brought over, the children were beautiful, with Elizabeth’s blue-green eyes, and her husband’s black hair and swarthy complexion. Beautiful Elizabeth. How she longed to see her!

  But even if she could bring herself to invite her granddaughter, would Elizabeth agree to come? And if she did, would she insist on bringing the Arab with her? She felt her blood pressure rise and her face flush at the thought of one of her offspring, a convert to Islam . . .

  The interviewer coughed politely, leaning forward. “Ready?”

  “No! Wait. Give me a mirror, Morrie,” she called out.

  “Gran . . . really!”

  Whatever they said about Morrie not being the brightest star, he was her favorite; her choice to take over the company when she died. She kept him by her side.

  “I just want to check if my mascara streaked.”

  “Gran, don’t worry about it. This is not going to be broadcast on the Fashion Channel. It’s for history.”

  “Everything you do when you are seventy-five and the head of Elizabeth Estay Cosmetics is for history, Morrie.”

  “Seventy-eight, Gran,” he murmured, handing her a mirror.

  She eyed herself, taking in her still remarkably unlined complexion, the lovely blue eyes, the beautifully cut silver hair.

  “He never lets me get away with anything, do you Morrie?” she said with a sidelong glance and the barest of smiles. “All right, all right. Seventy-eight. But even when I’m one hundred and twenty, lying in that expensive, silk-lined oak box, I still want people to look at me and say: ‘That Esther Gold! I should only look as good alive as she does dead. Maybe I should buy her creams and potions . . .’ When the time comes, I could be a great advertisement, Morrie. Don’t forget.” She handed him back the mirror.

  He looked pained. “Really, Gran . . .”

  A small, wicked smile curled the ends of her perfectly made-up lips. “What do you think of this color?” she asked, turning to the interviewer, pouting. “Just in from the laboratory. They don’t even have a name for it yet,” she said, taking in the young woman’s pale lips and colorless cheeks, her ringless fingers with their chewed-off nails. Hearing these horror stories day after day would take the curl out of anyone’s lashes. Still . . . “You are a lovely young lady. You should pardon me, but you should take time from your important work to be nice to yourself. Put on a little moisturizer, some mascara, blush . . .”

  “Really, Gran . . .” Morrie protested.

  “I know what you think. Frivolous. Vain. But sometimes a woman’s looks can be a matter of life and death. In Auschwitz, I taught the other members of the Covenant to use machine grease to darken our lashes, and blood to rouge our cheeks to make us look healthier. To avoid selections. With good cosmetics, you can even flirt with the Angel of Death . . .” She sighed.

  “The Covenant?” The interviewer asked, intrigued.

  “Have you ever read the Bible, my dear?”

  “For my Bat Mitzvah.”

  “Do you remember the covenant God made with Abraham? It was more than a promise. It was an everlasting bond, an agreement that couldn’t be broken: ‘Unto thy seed have I given this land . . .’ Believe me, some of the Jews are sorry they ever agreed. They wish God would pick another people to be the Chosen Ones for the next few thousand years . . . But that’s just too bad. You agree, and that’s it. That’s what the four of us called it, the agreement we made in Auschwitz between ourselves: a Covenant. You can’t get out of it—not like what my lawyers put in my contracts—there’s no ‘escape clause.’ “ She chuckled. “Believe me, it hasn’t been easy.”

  “What did you four agree to do?”

  “Ah. I’ll get to it. I’ll get to it.”

  They had managed to keep it a secret for almost sixty years.

  “Would it be all right if we got going again, Mrs. Gold? I know your time is very valuable and we appreciate your being involved in this import—”

  She held up her hand. “Just ask.” She clasped her hands together, the knuckles turning white from the grip. “And I’ll try to remember.”

  “All right then.” The woman nodded to the cameraman, who started the camera rolling. “Let’s continue. You had just finished telling us about your childhood, before the war.”

  Did I tell it right? Did I explain the golden summer days swimming in bright green lakes as clear as crystal? The falls and winters up in the mountains, skiing? The evenings sitting beside Father on the garden swing, with him singing Hungarian folk songs in his rich baritone? Waking up in a roomfilledwith feather beds, and hand-made dolls imported from Germany and France? The feeling of being loved and privileged and happy and safe, part of a world that was infinitely generous? Infinitely compassionate and fair?

  “What is your first memory of when things began to change?”

  In the blink of an eye, Adam and Eve banished from Eden. Had they also wondered if they’d dreamt it?

  “That was in 1940. In our Hungarian village,Jewish men were called up for forced labor. Until then, we didn’t even realize we were Jews. Father was spared because he was a war hero, but my brothers were taken. And then, in 1942, Admiral Hrothy’s gendarmes came to the store. They wrote down everything we had. Soon after, they boarded it up and took my father away.” Her voice grew husky. “I never saw him again.”

  “Would you like to stop for a minute?” the interviewer asked gently.

  Esther looked at the young face suffused with understanding and sympathy: no makeup in the world can make a face so beautiful, she thought gratefully. “No, thank you darling. Let’s just keep going . . .” She waved away the glass of water Morrie held out to her, touching his face. “It’s all right. All right.”

  She took a deep breath. “It was just me and Mother. My brothers were already in labor camps. I remember the day they forced us out of our house. Our own foreman did it. The one my father had trusted most.”

  The streets, lined with friends and neighbors, people who had worked for her good father, people who had asked for his help, asked for food, clothing, loans, and had never been turned away. Their smug, satisfied faces. Couldn’t they have at least shed a few tears?

  “The train took us to the central ghetto. They took us into an interrogation room and . . .” She mopped her forehead. “I’ll need that drink now, Morrie . . .” She waved the water away impatiently. “Double vodka, and don’t be cute.” The liquid burned down her throat.

  “They took me into an interrogation room,” she repeated hoarsely.

  The fat gendarme with the filthy fingers and the leering mouth. Her skirt lifted, hisfingersinside, searching for jewels. A young girl . . . But you don’t die of shame. Only one thing kills you, only one: death. Everything else, you can survive.

  “And then, they took my mother.”

  Mother, whose white hands painted watercolors, who sat at the head of a gracious table speaking of French cinema and Russian literature . . .

  She balled her fingers into a fist. “They molested me. And I knew what my mother was in for. I wanted to grab the guards. To stick my fingers in their eyes, to scratch their faces bloody! But I knew if I did, they would torture and kill us both. I was helpless.”

  Can she, can any American, conceive of that? Even begin to understand?

>   Totally helpless.

  “I just sat there and waited. When she came out of that room—how can I explain it?—it was as if she was already in another world. I knew then that the horrors I was about to face would be unimaginable. But at least, I thought, I wouldn’t be alone. I still had my mother.

  “We were shoved into boxcars. Each moment, she seemed to grow smaller and paler, almost translucent. She was fading in front of my eyes. I begged her to hold on, but I could see she didn’t hear me. And then, suddenly, on the third day without food or water, she turned to me with this otherworldly light in her eyes: ‘Live,’ she said. ‘Teach my grandchildren that . . . that . . . human beings are capable of infinite glory.’ ”

  She sat silently, her head bowed, staring at her lap. Her chin trembled as she took deep breaths of the sweet, clean air of her own perfumed home.

  Mother.

  “I’m sorry, but I have to interrupt. Gran . . .”

  “Not now, Morrie!”

  “Gran. It’s your friend Leah from Brooklyn.”

  “Leah? Rabinowitz?” She looked at her watch. “Listen, tell her I’m finally doing the tape. Tell her I’ll call her right back. She’ll understand.”

  “Will you excuse us a moment?” he said to the interviewer and cameraman.

  “Morrie, this is the reason that people complain about you. You don’t listen . . .”

  “Gran!”

  She stared at him, her annoyance giving way to alarm.

  He took her arm and tucked it through his, helping her out of the chair and over to the phone. “It’s Leah’s granddaughter, Elise. There’s been a terrorist attack. Elise’s husband, her child . . .”