Ghita Schwarz - Displaced Persons

But already Pavel’s voice was distant as Chaim fled the kitchen, grabbed his jacket, pushed himself out the door and onto Fela’s bicycle, pedaling furiously, sweating, toward the camp, toward school, letting the cool air cleanse his eyes from his vision of Pavel shouting. Why shouldn’t Chaim see a world? See and hear what he never had had in his life thus far, march forward? Did he have to go through life as Pavel did, looking back?

THEY BOTH RETURNED TO the house late in the evening and did not speak to each other before retiring. But at dawn, the door to his room opened, awaking Chaim with a start. He sat up straight, his feet touching the wood floor, then saw Pavel and stopped. Slowly Chaim lay back down in his bed.

Pavel sat on the bed, his face sagged with fatigue. Chaml, he said.

The diminutive, the sound of which Chaim had not heard since childhood, another lifetime, awakened in him the need to sob, to scream. He stopped himself.

I will go, Chaim answered, and turned his face to the wall.

THE OPENING PIECE-MUSIC without voices, Smetana, all bright violins-ended. Chaim had held his breath through the last portion, then let it out slowly. He had not breathed steadily since their first moments in the concert hall, the usher’s downturned mouth as they walked in, the downcast eyes of the concertgoers in the seats around them. He could feel the audience around him recognizing them, if not by Tina’s crippled hand and Basia’s Gypsy-dark hair, if not by Leo’s pointed, studious face, then by Chaim’s nerves and discomfort. They could smell it on him. But how had he survived those periods of disguise as an itinerant farmhand in the Polish countryside, or those nights in the forest, pretending to be Catholic among the partisans? How had he survived all those months of the war, if this fear could so torture him now, in peace?

Night birds moaning. The orchestra had begun their second piece, and two men and two women had turned toward the conductor, their lips half-parted, ready to twist out the Latin words Chaim had so carefully memorized. Behind them, a dozen men and women-too few, Leo whispered to him as they pushed out their first notes-

Chaim could make out only snatches, syllables of the words he had seen on the page, as the roaring chorus grew more fierce, blocking him-then a pause and a man’s voice, the soloist, and then the higher one, the woman’s deep blood voice, and then the sound of the lightest bird, and the four of them together, with only a few of the strings behind them, so quiet, then again the calling- abrahae, abrahae, kam olim abrahae promisisti , the words taking him away from the sound for a moment, the words he had caught and remembered, studying in the barracks schoolroom.

He looked over at the orphan girl Basia. She was silent, open-mouthed, lost. Her face glistened in the reflected light of the orchestra pit. Could she be crying? Her breathing was barely perceptible-children did not cry silently. But Basia did weep. Tears rolled down her face and neck. And as he stared at her wet face, Chaim felt tears dart into his eyes too.

They ran down his face and touched his lips. Yes, this was how to mourn, with the roaring all around, with the ritual noise blocking out one’s own grief. What did she remember, this little orphan girl, of her losses? Less than he did himself. But something moved her. In the schoolroom there was a child with parents, a child with no cause to look back. And he-he could recall, here in the concert, a reserved woman’s hum, an aunt perhaps, not his mother, a girl’s cry in the morning-yes, here his losses, the ones he could name and the ones he could not name, became sharper, pressed into his skin, more than they had at any religious service. This music was closer to him than the tales of harvests and rams, begetting and sacrifice. Or perhaps not as close. Perhaps the distance was what made everything so clear. He could understand and remember better when the roaring was not so loud, when it came to him in low tones, near whispers, when it came accompanied by violins, not human lamentation.

THEY STAYED THE NIGHT in a boardinghouse in Hamburg, so as not to drive back in darkness. He stayed in a room shared with Leo while Tina led Basia into one next door.

Was it beautiful? said Leo, shutting the door.

Yes, said Chaim. Yes, it was beautiful.

In the night he awoke, Leo wheezing next to him, the white curtain flat against the closed window. He thought of sitting up, then decided not to move. His skin was cool, his belly calm. He touched his hand to his forehead and remembered a flash from his dream, just the images, no sounds: an empty concert hall, the walls to one side blasted open, the remnants of a battle, a place he had never seen himself, a place out of pictures, a film. It once had been a beautiful building. Chaim closed his eyes and tried to remember more. He saw himself wandering around the orchestra pit, staring up at the remains of the art-covered ceiling, the fat blond angels and naked Greek gods. Some of the velvet seats for the audience still were intact. He climbed out of the pit and sat himself down in a soft red chair, to wait for the musicians to enter.

Y ES, SAID THE AMERICAN clerk in her stuttering German. We have a Hinda Mandl. Shall I send someone for her?

But Pavel could not answer.

The clerk’s hands fluttered through her papers. You are not permitted in the women’s barracks. Herr Mandl? I shall send someone for her.

Let her be warm, Pavel thought, sitting in the registry room of the Foehrenwald assembly center in the American zone near Munich. It was August and already the days seemed shorter; winter would be upon them, and his little sister would have to be prepared. Let her be warm, he repeated to himself. Let Hinda eat and be warm.

He had come back to the American zone with a small valise filled with silk and wool, pounds of coffee for trading, even a set of ladies’ combs that Fela had insisted he bring with him, should he find his sister. Pavel had come with these things, and coming with them made him feel more secure. Pavel had a better system for searching than a newspaper or a Jewish chaplain from the army. He had a desperation. And with Hinda, even after the first failed expedition, he felt that something was right. His other sister and his youngest brother had perished with the rest of the children in the town when the ghetto was liquidated, and of his two remaining brothers, he still knew nothing. And yet Hinda-Fishl’s Dincja had seen her alive, and no one knew of her being dead.

She had not been in Landsberg, and months had passed with few clues. But he had not allowed himself disappointment; a chaplain at Feldafing had responded after some time to his inquiry; her name had appeared on a list in a camp newspaper, with a contact address at Foehrenwald. He had sent a letter telling her he would arrive, he would arrive and wait for her, and with the letter he posted a box of cigarettes and scarves with an American army truck to the camp. He had bicycled in the heat for the next two days, his American papers secure inside his shirt, and now in the little office where a clerk at a metal desk ran through her list of recent arrivals, the papers seemed to press against his chest, making his breathing thin and slow.

He heard voices outside, more American attempts at German, and Pavel stood to wait in the doorway. Two figures approached, walking slowly. Was she weak? Was she sick? There had been a tuberculosis epidemic in the camp. Could she-the women came closer, and Pavel felt his heart hurtling against his ribs, as if to push his body toward the pair. But his body did not move. The woman’s face became clear, sharp jaw, dark eyes, the same high forehead that marked the whole family, her tiny body a shadow in front of him, blocking his view of the dirt path, the row of barracks, the watchtower, the soldiers and inmates moving between the buildings. In his head Pavel knew that she came accompanied by a young messenger, but his eyes saw only Hinda.