by Sara Young
The officer came back into the doorway carrying a bolt of wool. "Take the rest of it and pack it onto the truck," he ordered the other one as he left.
I was worrying whether they would notice two bolts were missing, and planning what I would say to explain it, and so wasn't prepared for what happened next.
The Oberschütze stood beside me and let the officer pass out of the shop. Then he dropped the wool he was holding and shoved his hand against my back, pinning me over the cutting table. His other hand pushed my skirt up and grabbed at my hip. He laughed when he found I had nothing on underneath, and began to grind himself against me.
I tried to twist away, terrified he would find the evidence I had just been with a man, and struggled to climb over the table—a pair of shears hung from a hook in the cupboard below. His hand dug into my neck and I smelled motor oil. I heard the clink of his belt buckle, the rip of his buttons.
I bit my lips so I wouldn't make a sound that might bring Isaak down and I dug harder and found the shears. I wrenched backward and jammed the open blade as hard as I could toward his throat.
"Bitch!" He knocked the shears away, drew back, and raised his hand over me.
Suddenly the officer was back. "Off her!" he yelled, pulling the trooper from me. "Animal! This one's pregnant. She's going to the Lebensborn."
The trooper released his grip and glared at me, his face sweating, red as a ham, pulling his uniform together. Then he picked up the bolts of wool he had dropped.
I backed up against the counter, not sure my legs would hold me. The officer leaned over and reached for me. "Are you all right?"
I pushed his hand away. He looked as though he expected me to thank him. He had told his soldier to respect me because I was carrying a German child, as if that were the only reason I shouldn't be raped. I would not thank him for that.
"Tell your father we'll be back tomorrow. He had better have that part." The officer straightened and motioned to the other one to leave.
"Wait," the trooper said. "Let's see her identification."
He reached for my neck. He saw me look down with disgust at his fingers, black with grease, and he smiled, then slowly wiped them down the front of my blouse, over my breast. I slapped his hand away and spat in his face. He reared back and raised his arm again, and again the officer stopped him, this time with his hand to his gun.
"Nein," said the captain. "I know this one, I've seen her picture. She's Van der Berg's daughter."
They left, the trooper hesitating at the door long enough to throw me a look of pure hatred. As if everything in the world were my fault. I sank to the floor.
Isaak came down—he had watched the men go—and found me there. He crouched beside me. "What happened?"
I looked away so I could lie. "They took the wool."
He motioned to the mess of papers on the floor, the shears, everything that had been thrown to the floor in my struggle. "You fought them? For some material?"
His eyes fell to the streak of grease over my breast and I turned away again, trying not to cry.
"That was stupid, Cyrla!" He shook his head. "You have no idea what they're capable of. They make up their own rules, and there's no one to stop them. Think of what could have happened here."
"Nothing happened, Isaak. They're gone. They wanted their blankets; they wanted my uncle."
Isaak looked out the window, thinking. "They'll come back here tomorrow, and if your uncle isn't here, they'll go to your home. And your uncle ... it would be better if you weren't there. When it's dark, you'd better come home with me. I'll tell your aunt."
I nodded, grateful for his calm and his logic and that he had stopped questioning me. He wrapped his coat around me and helped me back to the roof where we sat down on the bed of velvet again to wait for dark. Every time the memory of what the trooper had tried to do forced its way in, I pushed it away. But once I wasn't quick enough, and I thought about what might have happened: What if I had gotten pregnant with his child? I cried out. Isaak asked what was wrong. "Nothing," I said, and felt foolish allowing something I only imagined to wound me. Somehow I would have to erase his attack from my memory of this day. Isaak and I made love today ... that's what happened today, I told myself.
Later, we watched the sun set over the Schiedam gate and ate the meal my aunt had packed. I read Isaak the poem about kissing, and as I read it I was suddenly struck with the certain knowledge that today had not been Isaak's first time. I didn't know how I knew, but I did: He had been with a woman before. I'd been his closest friend since he was sixteen, and I'd never guessed. I tried to keep my voice steady as I finished the poem, but my throat hurt, as if it had been cut. I'd have to erase this from the memory of the day, too.
Before we left, I bit two notches into the corner of the velvet we had lain upon and ripped off a square to save. I tucked it into the bottom of my basket, and then pulled out my legitimization card and hung it around my neck, my back to Isaak. I realized joy was not something that fell randomly, something to hope for. Joy was something to steal.
NINETEEN
I felt calm and safe in Isaak's room. It was Wednesday evening, and I wouldn't leave until the next Friday morning. I thought that here the world would stop for nine days.
I was wrong.
I sat on the bed and watched Isaak while he worked. This is how it will be when we are married. And there will be a child asleep in the next room.
I realized with pleasure that from now on, when I thought of my life, it would fall cleanly into two parts—before and after this day. I went up to Isaak and put my hand on his neck, thrilled that this gesture was now mine to make. "What shall we name him?"
"Who?"
"Our child. What shall we name him? Or her?"
He turned in his chair to face me. I could tell he didn't like my question.
"This isn't ... You shouldn't count on anything..."
"You're right," I said, eager to erase his frown. "First I have to be pregnant."
While I unbuttoned his shirt and kissed his chest, he watched my face in that careful way he had, as if he were considering what to do. This time I tried to think about making a baby because I knew that was what Isaak was thinking about. But my arms around his shoulders looked like someone else's, and I couldn't help seeing the way those shoulders were ridged with neat, hard muscles that lifted in a cadence as he worked his way into me. I couldn't help stroking these muscles down to the small of his back and, although I was sore, kneading him to bring him deeper into me, trying to fill the new place that was so hungry. When I cried his name, he hushed me. I had to bite my lip to keep from crying it out louder. And when he made the sound, stifled into my neck, that meant he was spent, when I should have been satisfied because he had given me what I asked for, I wasn't.
I couldn't help it. I wanted something more.
I squeezed my legs around him, to show him I wanted him to stay. "Say my name," I asked.
He raised his head to look into my eyes. "No. When you go to Nijmegen, your life might depend on responding to Anneke's name. I won't call you by yours again."
Nijmegen. I had forgotten. "Please, Isaak. Just once more."
"No."
He lifted himself away from me then. He got up and lay down on the mattress he had put on the floor. His bed was too narrow for us both to sleep in, I understood. Still, I felt abandoned. When I could tell from his breathing he was asleep, I slipped down to the floor beside him.
I lifted his arm and curled myself up against his side. I laid my head on his chest and matched my breathing to his. Careful with my movements so as not to wake him, I unbound my hair and spread it up over his shoulder and twisted my curls into his. Then I pulled his arm across his chest, and wound his fingers through my own. When he awoke, I hoped he would understand this circle, the one I dreamed of so often. I fell asleep glowing, as if I had swallowed peace.
TWENTY
Thursday. Isaak told me he would be gone until late afternoon. I asked if I cou
ld come with him to his meetings, since they were only in the synagogue.
"No," he said right away. He averted his eyes, as if he were embarrassed by my nakedness, as if we didn't know each other's bodies now. "It would be noticed. I don't want anyone to know you're here. Not even the people I trust. The fewer who know, the better. That's always the way."
When Isaak left, I put on one of his shirts and then his overcoat, and took the clothes I had been wearing for two days to the bathroom to wash them. I scrubbed at the grease stain the trooper had left on my blouse, but it left a shadow.
In that one day, I grew absorbed with the sensations of skin, like a woman born blind who can suddenly see and is unable to sleep for the looking she must do to catch up. I lay on the bed trying to read, but was distracted by the touch of his shirt and the miracle of air on my body. I sat on the floor to work on a poem but could only write about the feel of my back pressed against the brick wall and of the sunlight streaming over my bare thighs. I craved the heat of Isaak's skin against my own. Anneke hadn't told me how hot blood was when it rose in two bodies.
When he returned, I was again lying on the bed. This time he didn't look away.
"Don't move." He came over to the bed and loosened my hair, which I had twisted into a soft roll to keep out of my book. "It's like honey," he said, sifting it through his fingers and arranging it over my shoulder. "It flows like honey."
His hand brushed my breast, and I caught it and held it there. I let the book fall.
"No, I want to draw you." He pulled away. "You're beautiful."
"I'm not. Anneke is."
Was.
"No, Anneke was pretty. What's pretty can never be beautiful. You are beautiful. I'll show you. Get up, I need to move the bed for the light."
Isaak moved his desk aside and pushed the bed underneath the window.
"There, lie down," he said.
Holding his gaze, trembling, I took off his shirt. Isaak watched, then nodded. I let him arrange me as I had been before, lying on my side, one arm propping my head, the other draping my waist to lift a page of my book. I couldn't breathe when he touched me. He poured my hair over my neck, my shoulder. When he tilted my hip back into the sunlight I shivered. See me, Isaak. Want me.
He picked up a pad and a pencil and brought the chair to the side of the bed. He sat still for a long time, just looking at me, moving two fingers softly over his lips. I pretended to read, but whenever I could I watched him studying my body, appraising it with his artist's eyes. I traveled into them to see myself as he began to draw. I wanted to be found a prize.
A stream of hair fell and parted over my breast; I watched his hand shape my swell and then the half-moon shadow beneath. He traced the curve of my belly with long, smooth gestures, and I saw that it was graceful. When he swept the rise of my hip, his hand moved as if he were stroking a melon.
I could see that I pleased him—had I ever pleased Isaak before? For the first time, I felt desirable.
But I didn't want him to draw me anymore.
I rolled over onto my back and let my fingers drift along my belly and my hips, everywhere I wanted him to be. I closed my eyes so he could watch. And when he dropped his pad, I felt I had won. But if I had won, what was it he had lost?
Afterward, Isaak dressed and took his coat from its peg. I lifted my head from the pillow to ask where he was going.
"Your house." He tied his shoes. "I'll get your things. It's dark enough."
Once again I wasn't full the way Isaak seemed to be when we finished making love. If anything, I was hungrier than before. I wondered if there were any amount of lovemaking that would be enough. I wondered if something was wrong with me. I reached out and tried to pull him back into the bed.
"Go tomorrow night. I don't need anything."
"No. Your aunt's leaving for Apeldoorn in the morning. I need to get everything you'll take with you next Friday. Anneke's papers. Her clothes."
Next Friday. I got out of bed and began to dress.
"You're not going," Isaak said. "It's too dangerous. And it's not necessary; I'll get everything."
"Yes, I am going. I have to see her again." I suddenly felt guilty for how much pleasure I'd taken the last day and night while she had been alone in our empty home.
Isaak studied me for a moment, then nodded.
I wore his clothes and borrowed the lawyer's bicycle. Once more we set out across the town in the dark, with me in disguise. Like a criminal. At first the dry leaves of the plane trees overhead rustled softly like paper, but as we rode the wind picked up and they began to sound menacing, like breaking glass. A storm was coming. I wanted to be back in the safety of Isaak's room.
I could be pregnant now.
TWENTY-ONE
"Cyrla!" My aunt pulled me into the kitchen and for a second I thought how good it was to hear my name again, how it made me feel whole again. "You shouldn't be here."
It was a mistake to have come to this place that was no longer my home.
And it was difficult to look at my aunt, shrunken like an old woman, her face pouched and colorless. I looked away, but everything in the kitchen pulsed with memories, each a stiletto. My apron hung on its peg beside Anneke's, from a time when my most unpleasant chore was to chop onions. There were the Delft blue-and-white sugar and flour containers, each side painted with a different scene Anneke and I used to make up stories about. The pretty beaded milk cap we borrowed to drape over our dolls' heads. Even though the blackout shades were down, my aunt was anxious someone might be able to see me here; when she turned off the kitchen light and lit a candle, I was relieved.
"I'm so sorry about—" Isaak began.
My aunt threw up her palms in fierce warning, then left the room. She came back in a few minutes, her face closed, with my suitcase. "Take her now," she said, handing it to Isaak. "Hurry. I saw Mrs. Bakker this morning—she said she heard voices here yesterday. I told her I must have been talking to myself, but ... And two soldiers were here this afternoon—just as you predicted. I told them Pieter had been delayed and would be back tomorrow, but I don't think they believed me. What if they're watching the house now?"
I felt ashamed hearing this, as if I'd done something wrong. I hated being someone for whom lies must be told.
"I don't think that's likely," Isaak replied. "It's only some blankets. But we'll leave. Do you have the papers?"
My aunt pulled a packet tied with string from behind the meat safe. "There's money in here, too. I didn't know what she'd need. But it's only for a few weeks, and then..." She turned to me and her face crumpled. "Oh, kleintje. How did we get to this?"
I embraced her without answering. The war couldn't go on much longer; everyone except for Isaak said this. When it was over, I would have my own home. With Isaak. With our children. I would never ask anyone to leave it.
My aunt stepped away and crossed her arms over her chest, her fingers digging into her arms as if to keep them from reaching for me again. "Take her," she said, not looking at me. "See her safe. Go now."
Isaak took my hand and pulled me to the door.
My aunt watched, then suddenly called out, "Wait!" For an instant I thought, See? She couldn't send me away after all. But that wasn't it.
She turned the light on again, pulled a pair of scissors from the shelf, and lifted them up to me. I stared, not understanding.
Isaak put my suitcase by the door. "Sit down," he said. "Undo your hair."
My hands flew to my head. "No, not that! I'll keep it pinned up. No one will know. It's the way my mother—"
They were right, though. I took the scissors from my aunt—I would cut my hair myself. And I wouldn't cry. But I turned away just in case.
I unbraided my hair and cut a handful quickly, so I couldn't change my mind. It was so thick it was like cutting rope, and I could do only a small section at a time. The room was silent except for the slicing of the steel blades and the sighs of my hair hitting the linoleum. It took so long.
I turned to face them, my head higher, freed from the weight. My aunt's hands flew to her mouth and she ran from the kitchen, but not before I'd seen her eyes. In Isaak's eyes, for just a second, I thought I saw anger—perhaps for the loss of my hair. He set his mouth and took the scissors from me and snipped at a few places. "Does it look right?" I asked.
He didn't answer. Nothing was right about this. We just stood together for a moment, not knowing what to say. My aunt came back. She kept her eyes averted, but held out a mirror.
My hand shot out and knocked the mirror from her hand; it shattered against the tiled wall. I hadn't meant to do it, but how could I have borne the sight of myself stealing my cousin's life? I bent quickly to pick up the pieces of glass, glittering in my fallen hair, but Anneke's face looked up at me from each shard.
TWENTY-TWO
Friday. For the first time, Isaak had fallen asleep beside me in the narrow bed, his long, hard thigh between my two soft ones. I thought I could stay like this forever, lying skin-to-skin with him, my breath softly feathering the hairs of his chest, the rain beating against the window hard as hurled nails. But Isaak woke and rolled to sit at the edge of the bed.
"Don't leave," I said. "Don't go to work. There's so little time."
Isaak rubbed his face awake. "I'll be back after services. We have a week."
He left, and the storm made the wait until he returned worse.
I sat at his desk to write to my father. I tried twice and tore up both letters. What of all this could I tell him? I tried a third time and made my letter short so he wouldn't read between the lines or sense where I was lying.
Dearest Papa,
I have news to tell you, but you must promise not to be sad or worried. I am leaving Schiedam. It is just a precaution, and only for a short while. Possibly you have heard that there are more restrictions here now. Isaak and I feel it would be wise for me to go away for a while, and we have found a safe place. As always, I am hopeful you will meet each other soon. How you will like him, and how Mama would have loved him!