The Red Thread

by Rebekah Pace

  I touched the screen. “How are we putting her name in there?”

  “Easy.” He moved a little thing connected to the computer by a wire, tapped it with his index finger, and a flashing line popped up in the box.

  “Her name is Miriam. Miriam Schloss. I called her Mira.”

  “It asks for a married name, too, but we can search with only her maiden name.”

  “If she married, that I am not knowing.” I squinted at the other boxes on the screen. “She was born in 1928 and lived in Leipzig before the war.” When Jacob had filled in all the information, he looked to me for confirmation, and then clicked the blue box marked “SEND.” Dread twisted my insides as I waited. The dream could not serve as proof Mira was alive. I had gone this long without the truth. If presented with evidence of her death now, would I lose the ability to connect with her in the dream?

  Before I could tell Jacob to forget the whole thing, a message flashed on the screen: No Results for Miriam Schloss. I pointed at the message. “Does that mean she’s . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “All that means is she’s not on any of the lists on this site.” He cleared the screen. “What about you? Is your information on file?”

  “I am not knowing.”

  “Let’s check. You should set up a profile in case someone is searching for you.”

  He cleared the form and entered my information, and it turned out I wasn’t on their list, either. While Jacob set up my profile, I kicked myself for not doing this years ago. What if Mira had been searching for me?

  Jacob and I spent the afternoon visiting different websites and scouring databases. One of them listed me among those killed in the gas chambers at Auschwitz in October 1944.

  “But how is that possible? If Mira is searching for me, and she is finding that record, she will be giving up.”

  “The Nazis kept records on millions of people. Even they were bound to make mistakes now and then.”

  Jacob submitted a note to that site to correct my information. Then we ran searches for my parents and the Schlosses, on the chance that one of them had been alive when the war ended. Jacob said if one of Mira’s relatives survived, their information might provide a clue to her whereabouts.

  Soon the screen read “Search Complete.” There was a list, like an index. Multiple records. My stomach churned. I had never known for certain what happened to my parents, and now I wanted to delay the inevitable. So I started talking.

  “My father had one brother, Saul, who emigrated to America after the Great War. After he sponsored me to come to America, Uncle Saul told me he’d urged my father to emigrate back in the early thirties. Even with my uncle to sponsor us, my father balked. My parents didn’t speak English, and he must have worried about how hard it would be to give up his career as a university professor and start over.” Pinching the bridge of my nose helped me hold back tears. “It would have been better to start over here, shoveling manure, than to end up—” Swallowing hard, I pointed at the screen again. “It is time to see those records.”

  They were dead. All dead. Mutti. Vati. Mr. and Mrs. Schloss. Even though I knew there was no possibility they could still be alive, I cried like a little boy when I saw in the records that my mother was among those sent to the gas chamber upon our arrival at Auschwitz, and my father was killed while trying to escape. This was not a recordkeeping error, but a lie. I am certain he was murdered by other prisoners in the train car while we were en route.

  Hundreds of pages of testimony served as memorials to the dead. They all started the same way: “I should like you to remember that there once lived a man named . . . a woman named . . . a girl named . . . born in Leipzig, Germany, who was murdered in the Shoah in 1943 . . . 1944 . . . 1945.”

  I found one of my friends from Montessori school listed. Even though I hadn’t seen him since we were seven or eight, it saddened me to know his fate. Tears stung my eyes. “It is hard to look at the screen for so long, right?”

  Jacob waited until I’d composed myself. “Have you ever told your story to anyone, Peter?”

  “No. Never am I liking to talk about it. The past should be buried, but now the memories, they are coming back whether or not I want them. I don’t write or speak too good in English—not good enough to be in a book or anything.”

  “That doesn’t matter. If I lent you a digital recorder and showed you how to use it, would you tell the story to me? Even bits and pieces of memories are fine. You can work on it whenever you have time.”

  It would mean wallowing in sorrow. Without committing, I let Jacob show me how to use the digital recorder, and when I understood, he put it in a canvas bookbag so it would be easy for me to carry. On my way out, I stopped at the front desk and applied for a library card. I had never wanted to know what had happened to Leipzig during the war, for no amount of knowledge could change the past. But what I had learned today had piqued my curiosity.

  “Now, maybe I am borrowing some books, right?” Kara, the librarian who’d first summoned Jacob for me, walked me to the sections on Nazism, the Third Reich, and World War II.

  The books we brought to the checkout desk made a stack so tall I could not see over it.

  “I am not sure I am carrying them all at once, for I am walking to get here.” I ran my finger down the spines, prepared to leave some of them behind.

  Jacob was still nearby. “I could walk you home and help carry them.”

  “Thank you. That would be very kind.”

  He took most of the books in two canvas bags, while I carried the lightest books and the digital recorder. As we headed toward Lyons Avenue, he asked, “Have you lived in this neighborhood long?”

  “Since I am coming to America. It is changed much since then.”

  He nodded. “We have a collection of photos from the first half of the twentieth century, when Weequahic was pretty much a self-contained community.”

  “Yes, right. When I am first here, I am thinking I never have to leave here—is for sale everything I could need.” When we reached my building, I handed my bag of books to Jacob so I could unlock my door. As he followed me inside, I thought about how few people had visited me here. I’d known Benny for years before he’d been over. But I didn’t hesitate to let Jacob see into my world. That told me I’d already made the decision to share my story.

  He set the bags of books on the kitchen table, and his eyes swept the room, taking in the shabby furniture and my stuff that had seen better days. Then he spoke. “You said you gave up looking for Mira years ago. But you never stopped waiting for her. Did you?”

  I shrugged. “I am guessing no.”

  “You never changed a thing about this apartment, did you?”

  “Arbeit macht frei. So I worked. And I waited. I could have been having anything I wanted here—except I am not wanting anything but Mira, right?”

  “But work doesn’t make you free, Peter. It might have helped you survive, but from what I’ve seen, it’s love—and truth—that do the most to set you free.” He shook my hand. “I look forward to hearing your story.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  He paused at the door. “Sharing has a transformative effect on many people. You may be surprised how free it makes you feel.”

  Alone in my apartment, I read all that afternoon and evening, until my vision grew blurry and I had to stop. Then I started again the next morning, reading parts of one book, then another, until I had a clear picture of my home city’s destruction. There really had been nothing left in Leipzig for me.

  Benny had said I needed to open up and share my pain. In those hours at the library, I had told Jacob more about my life than I’d ever told anyone. Though it had been difficult to revisit those memories, I already felt lighter inside. If I recorded the worst of my memories—the ones I still had not told anyone, ever—I would benefit from the telling even before anyone list
ened to what I had to say.

  I stared down at the machine for a long time. When at last I laid my finger on the record button, I did not push hard enough to turn it on. I wasn’t ready. Loneliness swept over me and I hurried out to the bodega.

  Benny was busy with a customer, so I walked the aisles with my little basket, like I always did, but it was still empty when the door finally fell shut and we were alone. I made my way to the front.

  “Hey, Benny—ever am I telling you about Frau Bressler’s café in my hometown? Her lemon cookies were Mira’s favorite.”

  He looked at me like I was crazy. “What did you—are you speaking German?”

  “Was I? I did not notice.” I laughed nervously. “Even with no one to speak it to, it is still in my brain. Maybe it was far in the back, in the discount bin.”

  “Pete, if you don’t mind me asking—where have you been, anyway?”

  “What do you mean? I am here yesterday. And the day before. Just like always.”

  “No, you haven’t been in regular, and I was afraid you were sick or something. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I am getting my days mixed up sometimes. I am forgetting.”

  “You used to be as regular as clockwork.” He looked at me like he was trying to figure something out.

  “I am lost, Benny. Lost in memories. I am not knowing how to leave them behind. My family, my friends—they are all dead, but they are in my mind like they are waiting for me in the next room.”

  I wasn’t expecting the tears that came to my eyes. I didn’t think I had any left. Benny hurried around the counter and held me while I cried.

  22

  That evening, after supper, I made my first recording for Jacob. When I played it back, I didn’t like the way my voice sounded. As I’d feared, it was difficult to express myself in English, and my halting, fractured thoughts were not at all what I wanted to present to Jacob.

  My head felt so full of memories that Mira was just a heartbeat away. But could I find my way back to her? I used my relaxation breathing to fall asleep, hoping that when I opened my eyes again, she’d be glad to see me.

  Sunlight flooded our bedroom. I rolled over and reached for her, but her side of the bed was empty. Then I heard her heave and vomit. The toilet flushed, and water ran in the sink. When she came out of the bathroom, she looked pale, with dark smudges beneath her eyes. I turned back the covers and helped her into bed, and when she shivered, I chafed her cold hands. “Are you ill?”

  “No.” Her voice sounded forlorn as a lost child’s.

  I pulled the duvet closer around her and drew her shaking form close, sharing the warmth of my body until she relaxed with a sigh. “Then what’s the matter?” When she didn’t answer, I took her face in my hands, afraid to hope. “You’re pregnant.” I glanced down at her middle. “Aren’t you?”

  A single tear slipped down her cheek as she nodded.

  “That’s the best news I’ve ever heard! Oh, Mira. I didn’t know you could be.”

  “I didn’t know either.” She shuddered in my arms. “I was afraid you were angry with me and weren’t coming back.”

  “You were aware that I left?”

  “Yes of course.”

  “Nothing you could do would make me want to stay away from you.”

  A tear slipped down her cheek. “Don’t be so sure. I think I made a mistake.”

  “No, no this wasn’t a mistake. I want to be a father. You’ll be the best mother in the world—”

  “Not that kind of a mistake.”

  The hair on the back of my neck prickled. “What do you mean?”

  “I was greedy. I wanted too much and I think I pushed too far. Now I can feel something—I don’t know what it is but it’s watching me. I don’t know how to escape it.”

  I took both her hands in mine. “It happened to me, too, when I first came here. You need to stay in the moment. Be here, with me, in the now. That’s how I got rid of mine.”

  “Truly?”

  “Yes. Mine hasn’t been back since the first time we—”

  She didn’t let me finish, and as we made love, she clung to me as though I was the only thing tethering her to this place. For the next few days, I didn’t leave her side. We spoke only of the now and the future. But instead of growing stronger, she grew pale, and at night she woke screaming.

  When I coaxed her out of the house to sit in the garden, she wrinkled her nose. “Can’t you smell that? There’s something rancid nearby.”

  To me, the air smelled of lilacs and sunshine, just as it always had. “Maybe it would be good to take a trip. Visit someplace else for a few days.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Where would you like to go on holiday, my love?”

  “Nowhere. I’m so tired.” She squeezed my hand but turned her face away.

  I went inside and retrieved the atlas. “The automobile and its driver are yours to command.” She looked over my shoulder as I turned the pages, and soon she was game to discuss an itinerary.

  “Not Poland. Not Berlin, either. I’d rather go west.”

  I kissed the tip of her nose. “Whatever you choose.” None of the motorways built to facilitate Germany’s invasion of its neighboring nations existed in the 1900 atlas, and I assumed they would not exist here, either. I traced my finger along routes to the west. “Salzburg, Munich, Amsterdam, Brussels, Lyon, Turin . . . take your pick.”

  “You know that all roads lead to Paris.” As she got up off the garden bench and headed inside, she tossed a fainter version of her old saucy smile over her shoulder. “You’re wearing me out just thinking about all those places. It’s going to take me forever to get ready. I have a million things to do.”

  I planned to pack only my shaving kit and a change of clothes, because the dream catered to our every whim. With no need for money or travel documents, we might leave as soon as we liked.

  Mira did not share my attitude about packing. Long after I was ready, she brought out one outfit after another to compare in the mirror and tried to decide which shoes she should leave behind. She was packing as though she did not intend to return.

  Would we now live as nomads, one step ahead of the dark presence? It saddened me to think that the nursery alcove in our bedroom would never welcome our child. I packed the toy airplane in my suitcase. No matter when the baby arrived, we would be alone, without a doctor or midwife, and I could only hope the dream would continue to provide what we needed. The thought of being Mira’s only attendant during our child’s birth was both terrifying and exhilarating. I would be husband, father, and my family’s sole protector.

  I brought my suitcase and the atlas down to the car and returned for her suitcase and the violin. I caught a whiff of perfume as she closed the lid and snapped the locks closed. “That smells good.”

  “My mother always put a sachet doused with Evening in Paris in her luggage. She said that way, no matter where she was, her clothes smelled like home.”

  When we drove off after breakfast, Mira looked back at our house until it was out of sight. Then she faced forward and did not mourn what we were leaving behind. In this she reminded me more of my mother than hers, and it made me glad that she was holding fast, rather than crumbling under the strain.

  As we traveled, it was hard to imagine that anything malevolent followed close behind. All day, the sun shone down on us, and as before, each new vista was worthy of gracing a picture postcard. We passed thatched-roof cottages, clusters of homes nestled in the shadows of castles perched on hilltops, curving rivers, and the snow-capped peaks of the Alps.

  The terror and destruction wrought by Hitler’s dozen years in power had not touched this pristine version of Germany. There weren’t even any soot stains on the buildings.

  But even though it looked like the fairy-tale locale Mira sought, my initial suspicion
s about this place had been spot on. It was too good to be true.

  As the car nosed forward, I sensed that it was our energy that sparked the lovely tableaux to life, and once we passed by, the land turned dormant and gray.

  Mira slept much of the drive, and the fresh air brought color to her pale cheeks. She awoke midafternoon, just before we arrived in Salzburg. We ate in a café and strolled the cobbled streets past elegant buildings in the historic section of town. On the Getreidegasse, the main street, Mira pointed out the district’s famous wrought-iron signs, formed to show what was for sale inside each shop. Of course, they didn’t all match the current proprietors’ wares, but I craned my neck to see them, nonetheless. The shop doors were all open wide, inviting us in. When I suggested we browse in a jewelry store, she shook her head.

  “I need nothing.”

  “But you could have whatever you want.”

  “I want nothing in the shops. I know why Salzburg is on the itinerary, though.” She hummed the opening bars of “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” conducting with one hand. “We’re going to see Mozart’s violin!”

  I took her hand and kissed her fingertips. “We must pay tribute to my second-favorite violinist of all time.”

  “I shall play for you at the museum.”

  She did, and she came to life, as always, when her bow touched the strings.

  After, her energy surged, and she insisted we go up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress. As we walked around, she read from a placard, “‘Salzburg was never taken by force, but surrendered to Napoleon. The fortress was never used for defense.’”

  I looked around at the inner courtyard, ringed with shops for artisans, blacksmiths, butchers, and bakers. “They could have moved the city up here and survived a siege.”

  Inside the main building, Mira squealed with delight when we happened upon a marionette stage. “I’ve always loved these.” She stepped up behind the curtain and unhooked a furry, horned goat from its place on the wall. As she worked the strings to make it dance across the stage, she yodeled in a raspy voice.