by Ragen, Naomi
They were in a state of shock, almost giddy with delight, almost ready to die from the joy of it! A shower with soap! A new light came into Esther’s eyes at the feel of the water streaming over her body, as if her downward spiral had suddenly halted, found some solid ground, some base. She suddenly felt human again, connected as a human being back to the world of human beings she had been ripped out of with such brutality.
They dried each other off. Towels? Were they dreaming? Were they already dead and in heaven?
They were taken to the storerooms and given clean women’s underwear: bras, panties, camisoles, and scarves to cover their heads . . . And then they were given dresses and shoes, and asked to try them on, to see if they fit.
Imagine! Fitted clothes!
It was like a dream, a dream.
“In a minute, we’ll wake up, and it will all vanish.” Leah shook her head.
“No, my parents have finally come for me. We are being dressed to go home,” Ariana said dreamily.
“All of us?” Esther smiled, glancing at the hundred other girls whose excited chatter filled the room with almost a normal sound, after the desperate noises of the lager.
“My parents can arrange everything.” Ariana laughed, pulling on a pair of stylish high heels, and a red wool dress. “My father is the director faques Feyder, my mother the actress Francoise Rosay!” she told them, as if she hadn’t said it a thousand times a day every day since she’d arrived.
They stared at each other, at the wondrous transformation. They were human again. Girls again. It was unbelievable.
“Look at Esther!” Leah giggled.
Esther adjusted the rose-colored collar on her dress.
“Like a fashion model.” Maria smiled, adjusting the buttons of a white blouse.
“I feel like the Sabbath is coming.” Leah laughed, adjusting a gray woolen jacket over a blue blouse and zipping up a matching gray wool skirt. “Ariana, that dress doesn’t fit you. It’s much too short. Take it back and ask for another.”
The pleated skirt stopped halfway down her thighs.
“I need something longer,” she told the kapo. “This doesn’t fit.”
He looked at her strangely. “For where you are going, it is long enough . . .”
The women stopped dressing and turned to look at him.
“Where is that?” Maria asked, her smile suddenly gone.
He beckoned for her to come closer, then leaned over, staring down at her breasts. He whispered something in her ear. Her face went white.
She crossed herself and stumbled to a corner, collapsing to thefloor. She grasped her knees and wept, rocking back and forth.
“Maria?”
“Maria, what is it?”
“Tell us!”
She averted their eyes: “We are being sent to the front.”
“But . . . for what? We are not soldiers!”
Maria looked up at them, her eyes full of pity and love. “To be the whores of German soldiers.”
Ariana jumped up: “No!” She bolted toward the door.
It was locked from both sides. The guards watched her lazily, grinning as she ran along the walls, banging her head against the boards. “I am not a fille de joie.’ Never!” Ariana wept. “When Lissette bought the brothel from Madame Heupert, she sold me to a man for the night. I was thirteen. A virgin. She got a lot of money. That was why I ran away . . . That is how the Nazis caught me . . . No one will force me to be a whore . . . never!” She wept, hysterical.
“Brothel?” Esther repeated, in shock. “But your parents, the director and the film star? Your house, and the chef and the chauffeur? The summers in the South of France—”
“I never had anyone! I was left in an orphanage with a fewish star around my neck, and a birth certificate that said my mother was a young Polish fewish immigrant. She left the space for my father blank. I picked my parents out of an old movie magazine, and my name out of a book. In the orphanage, they called me Albertine. One day, when I was ten years old, the director took me into his office and laid me down on his desk. He took off my clothes. I . . . I . . . picked up—this sharp thing—how do you call this thing?—a letter opener! It was lying on his desk. I held it in my hand like a dagger and stabbed him there, down there. When I saw all the blood, I ran. I lived on the back streets of Paris, all alone, until a whore took pity on me and took me back to her brothel on Rue Peirot. The Madame was very kind to me. But when I turned thirteen, Madame died, and the brothel was sold to Lissette. When the other girls told me what she had planned for me, I ran away to Toulouse. I always wore that fewish star around my neck. Lissette must have told the SS. They picked me up as soon as I got off the train . . . No one is going to make me into a whore . . . Never! Never!”
Maria and Leah struggled to gather her into their arms.
“We might survive it. Who knows?” Esther said.
“No. They will use us up, then shoot us,” Maria said. “That is why they aren’t bothering to sterilize us first, the way they do the other girls they put into Nazi brothels. We will be dead in a few weeks!”
Ariana tore at her flesh. “I’ll kill myself first.”
Maria grabbed her hands and held them. “Suicide is a mortal sin.”
“Yes! Why should we do the Germans’ work for them?” Esther said, trembling. “Anything is better than dying.”
Leah shook her head. “No, Esther. Death is not the worst thing that can happen to a human being. My father was a Kohen, a member of the priestly class. And I am his daughter. Maria is right. They will use us up and throw us away. I will not defile myself before I die. If that is the only choice left me, I will make it.”
“Maria, you are the oldest, what do you say?” Esther begged.
“I once met a German doctor in the infirmary,” Maria said thoughtfully. “She was a prisoner too. They’d sent her to Auschwitz because she’d hidden some Jews in her apartment in Berlin. One day, the SS sent word to her that they wanted one of her patients. If she didn’t turn the patient over, she’d endanger herself, and the SS would simply choose another patient, maybe even a healthier one with a better chance of survival. She had to make a moral choice. And this is what she told me: ‘Sometimes one must do something for its own sake, without regard for its actual results.’ She chose to hide the patient. When I asked her if by endangering herself, she was not doing something wrong for her own child, she answered: ‘Perhaps he will have to wait longer for his mother, but he won’t have to be ashamed to look her in the face.’
“If we decide not to be whores for the Germans, then that’s the right decision, whatever the consequences.”
The women sat together silently, staring at the bolted doors, the guards with machine guns.
“Whatever we do, let’s make a pact to do it together,” Esther said, trembling.
“Yes, a sacred pact that can never be broken . . .” Ariana agreed.
“Like the one God made with Abraham in the Bible, when He said: ‘To your seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Perath. To your offspring, who will be like the stars in the sky . . .’ God called it a Covenant,” Leah told them. “An agreement for all eternity.”
“Let’s agree that if they try to load us on those trains to the front, we will all bolt for the fence, and die together.”
“And if we survive, let us swear to join our lives together forever,” Maria said.
“As if we were all limbs attached to the same body . . .” Leah added, with tears in her eyes. “We will do anything to help each other survive and live good lives. Make any sacrifice. Agreed?”
They all nodded.
“Then let’s join hands,” Maria said.
They touched each other, feeling warmth flow between them like an electric current, connecting them.
“God of Abraham, Isaac and facob, look down on us four women, and save us . . .” Leah began.
“I don’t know this God, I never met Him,” Ariana interrupted,
dropping their hands. “And if He did exist, there would not be an Auschwitz or Nazis. Hitler would have died at birth. On a planet ruled and created by a good God—we would not be here! Let’s make a Covenant with each other. Let’s leave Him out.”
“But if there is no God, if everything is simply random, an accident, then why, Ariana, do you want to live? Why do any of us want to live?” Leah asked.
“Because life can be so beautiful,” Ariana whispered. “The world can be such a beautiful place. I have always seen this in my dreams.”
“But when an artist paints a beautiful picture, is it an accident? Did the paints simply fall on the page, with no directing hand? Life is not an accident. Auschwitz is not an accident. There is a God who created us, and fruit trees, and sunsets, and new babies, and oceans and stars . . . who gave us the ability to make human choices. Human beings created Auschwitz, not God! It was a human choice. And we can also choose. If we choose to include Him in our Covenant, then whatever happens, it will not be meaningless. Not our lives, and not our deaths.” Leah reached out, bringing Ariana back into the circle.
“Finish your prayer, Leah,” Maria urged.
“God of Sara, Rivka, Rachel and Leah, our Covenant is this: If we have no choice but to give up our lives to sanctify them, we will do it together. But if we survive, we will survive together, becoming one person, risking everything, giving everything, to help each other live in happiness all the days of our lives.”
“Amen,” Maria said, crossing herself.
“Amen,” said Esther.
“If only we could do something,” Ariana mourned. “Even if it’s only just to curse them before we die.”
“Would that make you feel better?” Leah asked, a strange look on her face.
“It would make all of us feel better,” Esther said.
“My father’s rabbi was a mystic who studied the kabalah. There was a ceremony they did—no one would speak of it, it was so frighteningly powerful—called the Pulse de Noura. It was meant for the most severe cases, against the most terrible evildoers.” She hesitated. “But it is also very dangerous.”
“Why?”
“Because if God doesn’t accept your curse, it can backfire on those who made it.”
The women felt a chill creep up their spines.
They debated the issue long into the night.
“Surely the SS are the most evil of evildoers. Surely the curse would not turn on us,” Ariana argued.
“They are drunk with power. The Ten Commandments mean nothing to them. They don’t even have the most primitive moral code. They can kill millions of people, and be happy because they got a leather purse out of it. That makes them happy, that purse. It makes it all worth it. The SS think they are so smart, but they are all infinitely stupid, rushing toward Hell.” Maria nodded.
“Do your Pulse de Noura, Leah!”
“Yes. Let’s not leave this world without at least trying to fight back,” Ariana begged her.
“Are we all agreed?” Leah asked, trembling. They nodded. “All right. But once we start, there is no turning back.”
“Tell us what to do,” Maria said firmly.
“First, make a circle. Give me your bowl, Ariana.” Leah squatted, holding the metal bowl upside down in her lap as she used the spoon to scratch four letters into the metal.
“Is this what the rabbi did?” Maria asked skeptically.
“Exactly,” Leah assured her.
“What does it mean?” Esther asked.
“It’s the secret name of God.”
A sudden silence enveloped them.
She placed the bowl upside down on the floor. “We need earth.”
“Wait!” Maria went to the corner of the room and reached her hand through a crack, bringing in the cold, wet mud. She slipped it into Leah’s hands. Leah worked it like clay into thefigure of a man and placed it carefully over the bowl. “Now bring me some string . . .”
“String?”
“Take it from the hem of your dresses,” Leah scolded impatiently, getting caught up. She gathered the strings, winding each one separately around another finger. Then she spit on the ground and closed her eyes:
Ana Bekoach, Kal Sha-day
Et Oyevanu Le hashmeed
She rose, circling the women and the bowl seven times, all the while tying the strings into knots: “Destroy the destroyer,” she chanted. “Make knots, impediments, to all he does, revoke his rule.” She stepped into the circle: “In the name of the holy one, His secret name I invoke.” She turned the bowl over, smashing the mud figure into the floor.
“Now, step on it: the German army. The SS. Hitler. The whole Nazi regime. Step on it.”
The women got up and ground the mud into the floor, crushing it beneath their heels until nothing remained but dust.
Then they sat side by side, waiting for the morning.
Leah opened her eyes, looking up at the screen. It couldn’t be mistaken! There they were: Esther! Maria! Ariana! It couldn’t be mistaken. Three old ladies, she smiled.
Esther led the way, of course, with the puffed-up hair, the stylish dress, the red fingernails and red lipstick. What a dame, she chuckled, getting up out of her seat, walking toward the screen. And there, half-hidden by the head of some tall, pushy businessman, was Maria. The long, blond hair was silvery white now, cut short and plain above her ears. Maria, the glamorous, someone’s bo-chuh! And Ariana! She stared, shocked. Not tall anymore! Stooped, and underneath that caftan no longer slender. The looks were almost completely gone, the face a mask of too much useless camouflage that hid nothing. But that headdress! It was a turban, with a great jewel in the middle, like some Indian Raja. Oh, my Ariana. My dreamer.
Her eyes blurred as she walked toward them.
“Leah!” they called out to her.
She reached out, and all four stood for a moment holding hands like they had once before, so very long ago. Once again, the magic circle was complete.
Chapter Thirty-four
Hadassah Hospital, Jerusalem
Friday, May 10, 2002
12:00 P.M.
ELISE LOOKED AT the four women who stood around her bed. Ariana, with her flamboyant makeup and glamorous flowing dress, covered in jewels, her long gray hair pinned back into a French knot, her green eyes mesmerizing; Esther, the famous businesswoman, chic in her black suit and long string of pearls, her silver hair expertly done, framing her still amazingly youthful face; Maria, straight-backed and proud in the unstylish white blouse and black skirt, the gray curls cut short around her tan and weathered face, her eyes still sparkling with life. And last of all, her Bubbee, simple and matronly in her flowered Sabbath dress, the gray wig pulled down low on her forehead, her smile as comforting and full of goodness as a warm glass of milk on a cold, dark night.
“You all came!” she finally managed to whisper, the knot in her throat almost painful. This is what had become of them, those four teenaged girls who had walked into the worst blizzard of evil in modern history and had emerged to tell the tale. This is what survival looked like. You got to grow old. To smile.
It was the most beautiful sight in the world. She reached out to them.
They all reached back, knocking into each other and crowding the bed. They laughed at their clumsy eagerness, pulling back a little sheepishly, allowing Ariana—the only childless one among them—to bend down first. She took Elise gently in her arms. “Ma cherefille.” She kissed her on both cheeks. “Courage! We pray for you, for your family. This terrorist, the one in Paris, we take care of him. Bien sur!”
”What did you say?” Elise gasped.
Esther put a restraining hand on Ariana’s back. “Maybe, Ariana, we should wait with the details, non?”
Ariana considered this. “Perhaps you are right.”
Before Elise could pursue it, Maria came forward, “fiak sie masz?” she said, hugging her. She smelled of wildflowers, clothes hung in the sun, ironed carefully with starch, Elise thought, hugging her. Maria
of the thousand stories. Maria who had gotten her Bubbee the job in the sorting room that saved her life. Who had given her bread when she was starving, a scarf when she was bald, a warm drink when she was freezing.
“She doesn’t understand Polish, Maria,” Esther reminded her, turning to Elise. “It means: ‘How are you?’”
“Przepraszam! Excuse me! My English, not good very. Modlmy sie! We pray!” She kissed both Elise’s hands, taking them into her own. Elise studied the swollen fingers: these were the hands my Bubbee held, she thought, comforting her in her darkest hours, and now they hold mine. Dear hands! she thought. The kindest, most beautiful hands in the world.
Esther sat on the edge of the bed, smoothing back Elise’s hair into her head scarf, studying her face. “This is the face your grandmother had when I first met her. Of course,” she glanced at Leah, “she had less hair”
A titter went through the women.
“This is true! We were bald!”
“But we had our heads, and so the hair grew back. This you told me, Maria, remember?”
“Tak, tak, my Leah. And now you cover your hair with a wig!”
Leah made a dismissive motion with her hand. “These days, the wig is nicer, believe me, Maria.”
I have only been suffering days; they suffered years. I have not yet lost anyone I love, and they lost almost everyone. Yet, they had not only survived; they had triumphed. Nothing could have brought her more comfort. “I . . . can’t . . . even . . . say how much this means to me,” Elise choked, motioning for each of them to come closer. One by one, she kissed them. “Thank you for saving her, for saving my Bubbee.”
“Elise, you have a lot more than that to thank them for . . .” Leah told her granddaughter.
Elise turned to her grandmother, surprised.
”Tell her All of you,” Leah urged them.
“The head of Hamas in Europe sent a message from Paris to the kidnappers to treat Jon and liana well. I saw him send it. He did it from my club,” Ariana said.