Ghita Schwarz: Displaced Persons

The one thing he had wanted to do before he died, more than to make an oral history of himself, more than to organize the photo album of his relatives, even more than to see Larry remarry and give him a new grandchild, was to fix the stone of his mother. He had done this almost a decade ago, but now again he was unsure. Was there never to be peace?

And what of his own-but he could not think of that. He could not. If he did, he would not sleep. Fela had suggested he should think instead of the living.

Pavel dreaded sleep, and he dreaded sleeping alone. He liked to have Fela in the house in case something happened, in case he stopped breathing. He liked to have someone there, even in the next room. In the early years of their marriage she would talk to him when he woke up from his violent dreams, comforting him, holding him. Now she did the work of a nurse, giving him a pill in an emergency, judging whether to call 911. He liked to have her in the house when he rested.

Fela would be pleasantly surprised, relieved, to find him asleep in his bed, not waiting for her, letting her relax and have a good time. Pavel raised his legs with his right hand, pushed aside the bedsheets with the left. The remote control was by his bedside. He would watch the news, think of something alive and bright.

But it was a murder they were reporting, a murder and a fire, and Pavel worried that with the noise of the television he would not be aware of Larry dropping Fela off, Larry chatting with his mother before letting her go inside. Pavel put the television on mute. If something important came on he would increase the volume. But nothing important seemed to be happening.

Pavel closed his eyes to help himself hear. Think of the living. He tried to concentrate. He almost heard the door clicking open, the lock turning shut. He almost saw Fela placing her purse on the table by the coat closet. He almost dreamed Fela’s body gliding through the hallway, moving toward the bedroom to wish him good night.

I am grateful to my agent, Lisa Bankoff, and my editor, Jennifer Brehl, for their advocacy and insight; to Molly Magid Hoagland, Cathy Park Hong, Emily Krump, Aaron Kuhn, Elizabeth Perrella, Tirzah Schwarz, Kevin Young, and the MacDowell Colony for their crucial support; and to Maurie Samuels and Malena Watrous for their perceptive advice, encouragement, and generosity.

GHITA SCHWARZis a civil rights litigator specializing in immigrants’ rights. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Ploughshares, The Believer, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian .