Ghita Schwarz - Displaced Persons

Berel had a momentum. He had a wife and a daughter to care for and protect. He had an obligation to make good on a promise-put Sima in school!-to Dvora, who, for all those years in Russian exile, had kept the three of them alive with her rage and efficiency, her insistence on sweeping the dirt floors of the huts they had slept in, her desperate and frequently victorious battle against her own hunger and fear. She could steal as if she were the eldest daughter of a skilled criminal, not a modest store owner.

His own record as a thief was unaccomplished. It was a joke to his wife and daughter, his fear. He would come back to their hut from a day in the mill in Osh and take off his shoes, empty them into a metal cup, slowly, so as not to lose a grain in the cloud puffing up from the table. It would take a week of stealing to make even a small loaf. Sometimes his fear made him laugh too.

But there would be no more theft. Or less theft-already he had heard that a black market thrived here too, just outside the confines of the camp, where starving German towns people traded their family china, elegant clothing, for a pound of the refugees’ Red Cross coffee. But Berel was not ready to start with the trading. He needed work, real work, in order to give his daughter the sense that she lived with a father, a man, that all three of them were full, flesh-and-blood bodies, not just shadows who stole and traded and lied for their food.

In the main office Berel showed the identity cards he and Sima had been issued on their entry to the camp. There was a blank square for photographs of himself and his daughter, photographs that had been taken the day before and were ready to be glued in today, their first day as displaced persons.

Now it’s official, Berel said, looking at his daughter. We have nowhere to go.

But you do, said the man stamping their papers, mounting the cards into a dark holder. You have the kitchen-he pointed-and employment. You must have work. Even when you first arrive. Believe me, I didn’t rest from the moment I came, and it helps, you see? I have a good position. You can’t let yourself rest here, if you rest, you think. You’ll find a job easily, you will, my friend. There’s plenty. You must have work.

And school. Sima’s voice broke through the sound of men, a bird sound.

The man looked at her as if he hadn’t seen her before, as if he had not been busy slipping her photograph onto a white page that held her name, Sima Makower, as if her voice was what made her real. His eyes, Berel saw, were suddenly glassy. A young lady speaking Yiddish, the man said. What a pleasure. Berel thought he heard a shake in the voice, a small tremble.

But the man went on. You must have been east, yes?

Yes, said Berel. From Poland to Bialystok, of course just at the beginning, and Siberia, and then Uz-

Yes, yes, said the man. It’s only the people from the East who came back with children. And not so many of them, and of those, not so young, like this little one. Yes, maidele ?

Sima’s hand was a fist in Berel’s palm. My wife insisted there is a school here, Berel intervened, almost apologizing. That’s why my daughter asks.

Ah, said the man, but there is!

Sima giggled.

Another beautiful sound, said the man. The maidele laughing. But listen, my friend, not yet. He gave Berel a pointed look. If you bring her with you to look for jobs-poor motherless one-they will try not to give you manual labor.

It was true. Everywhere they went-the food line, the clothing room, the newspaper office with its lists of the living-workers of the camp looked at Sima as if she were a still photograph from a movie, a movie whose name was now forgotten but whose faces were familiar, adored. There were other children, to be sure-Berel had seen one or two young teenagers doling out food packages-but the sight of a small one, attached to her father-in fact the man who had issued their identity cards was right about the manual labor. Berel had been prepared to talk about his carpentry skills, his facility with lumber, but there was no need. Sima kept herself quiet-no mention of her sick mother-and Berel was given an assignment to do bookkeeping.

Report on time! said the managing clerk. Believe me, if you are late, twelve others will be ready to relieve you.

I would like to enroll Simale in the school, said Berel. Will I have time in the morning, early?

Come here at eight in the morning, said the man. You can take a break in the afternoon, and enroll her then. You have a daughter to support, a little lamb to protect, but I simply cannot hold the job for a newcomer if you are late.

Berel walked out of the clerk’s office elated. Office work!

Let’s go tell your mama, let’s leave her a message, said Berel. She’ll be happy to hear from us. Even if all we do is tell her by note that we are all right.

She’s moving tomorrow, said a nurse at the entrance of the infirmary. You will be able to visit. You, but not the child, understand?

Berel nodded. By tomorrow he would be working at a desk, moving his pencil across dark ledgers, perhaps even feeling the need for a pair of glasses-he hoped not, of course-reporting the influx and distribution of shoes, skirts, hats, underthings. Sima herself would be at a desk, socializing with other young ones, writing in her own notebooks, making drawings, learning to sew. He would be able to tell Dvora: Today we made a start on a new life.

But tomorrow came and again they waited at the accounting office, Sima at his hip, until finally the man in charge of showing him to his place informed him the director was absent, on a trip to the American zone, something very important, Berel must understand, he would have to come back tomorrow. Yes, of course the job would be waiting, just be sure to be here in the morning, early. The managing accountant hated tardiness. And what a lovely daughter Berel had, little lamb. Berel should be sure to enroll her in the school, even if now it was perhaps too late, the children away on their afternoon games.

Berel decided they would visit Dvora after eating, so as not to look hungry when they arrived in the hospital. He wanted to appear before her with a look of energy and life.

Sima, Berel said as they entered the infirmary building, can you stay here and wait for me?

No, said Sima. I’ll come with you. How will you find her without me?

I’ll find her, said Berel. It’s not so hard.

I’ll come with you, she said.

If it was me in the hospital, you’d let your mother go, said Berel. You would know she could find me.

That’s different, said Sima.

It’s not for children, said a woman at the table for visitors. A woman who spoke Yiddish. Believe me, there is no use in trying to convince me.

You see? Berel said to Sima. There’s nothing I can do.

He was given a mask to put over his mouth, and led by a nurse through a door and up a narrow staircase. He could see Dvora waiting for him on her cot, in a broad room surrounded by perhaps a dozen feverish women. Some of the cots were empty.

She had been much sicker when she entered the camp. But in the daylight pushing in from the window, she looked different. Her skin was bruised and spotted from malnutrition. He had seen the marks, he had seen her discolored body, but he had not noticed as he did now, when she was surrounded by other women, pale women, perhaps sicker women, but none with the same scattering of bluish stains. He himself was drawn, thin, continually hungry, he knew, his skin pale, but Dvora-had she looked so weak only two days before?

He sat by her bed, in a thin metal chair. She did not allow him to touch her.

Where is Sima? she asked.

Berel began. He smiled. School has started, he said. He felt his voice filling, projecting news of Sima like a radio giving out propaganda. Sima loves it. The games, the books. There’s even a little garden for them to play in-Berel’s image of it grew more lush-where they learn how to plant, and water, and dig. And listen, Dvora-he paused for a bit of drama-she’s not so behind after all. Maybe in arithmetic, but she reads just as well as the others.