Affinity Konar - Mischling

Miri saw what I had seen, and drew me close.

“Believe that you are safe,” she whispered, and she spent the evening scratching out the monogram— JM, it said, in silvery script — with a pin, and there was no mistaking that her efforts had such a roughness to them that she nearly put a hole in the leather.

Better a hole, she claimed, than a memory. I did not argue with this — Miri had more to forget than anyone, and it would do her good to impose large swaths of absence on her mind. But I hoped that as she pursued forgetfulness, a little memory of me might remain. Just a tiny bit, just enough so that if we were ever truly parted, she might seek me out again, someday.

I looked out my window while Jakub and Miri had one of their discussions. There were no parachutists in the sky, but the heavens were assuming a different blue, and the frost seemed soon to end. I consulted a piece of paper that one of the nurses had given me. On it, there was a series of boxes, little cages that represented days. We were halfway through the month of February. Did my Someone know this? I wondered.

Miri and Jakub spoke in hushed tones; they tried to conceal their plans. Jakub claimed that the time for worry was not ending, but it was changing a bit — the problems were different now, but so were the solutions, and he himself could escort the children toward one that was rare and brilliant. The authorities at the Red Cross confirmed the desirability of this scenario — already, they had selected eleven of Miri’s children to participate in this plan. And, of course, there was Pearl — surely she would join this exodus toward safety? The good doctor was in favor of this venture, wasn’t she?

Miri was not stirred by Jakub’s excitement. She muttered something beneath her breath, something wholly unintelligible to me aside from the mention of my name. She said it longingly, or so I believed. Perhaps I imagined this. But when I turned at the window, I caught the trail of her gaze — it was fastened on me; her eyes, they appeared fixed on my injured legs.

Palestine, Jakub continued, insistent. First, a trip to Italy, which could be dangerous — some concealment was necessary — and then a ship that did not have room for everyone but would surely accommodate the twins. Hearing this, Miri faded still further — the voice I’d not believed capable of becoming any smaller lilted softly in query.

“This flight — it is our only hope?” she asked. “Still?”

I knew the tone she used. It was the tone I heard on all the streets when people turned and asked each other if it was safe to resume living.

“Would you like to take the risk?” Jakub whispered. “Is there ever a moment when you are not looking behind your back? Yes, it is over — we are free. Until they decide that we are no longer free — the war is not over, everything remains undetermined—”

This was an argument of proponents of the Bricha, organizers of the flight. We did not know it then, but peace was still over three months away. But who was to say it would come May 8, not July or the next year? While we lived in February’s thaw, creeping toward spring, many believed that flight to another, more hospitable land was a necessary risk.

“She will be safer there than she is here,” Jakub assured her. “I will see to it.”

If there was a moment in which everything was decided, I suppose it was that moment.

Because my guardian did not increase her protest, and I did not raise one at all, and so it was assumed, by all three of us, that this was what would become of me. I would be shipped to Italy, where I would board a boat that held its own sea, a sea of numbered people like myself, young and old, survivor and refugee, and every last one a searcher seeking to purchase a new beginning.

Jakub had promised. It was to be a box quite different than the box I’d known — I was to bob within it next to Sophia, the two of us surrounded by the company of supplies: rolls of bandages, vials of medicine, tins of meats, bags of tea. But when the day came for my departure, a wooden box arrived at the hospital. It was a bit glamorous, so far as boxes go. It had a cherry-lacquered top rendered in the goyish style so as not to attract additional suspicion, and it was sized for a large adult. I could have rolled myself up like a blanket and lived in one corner. At the sight of my hiding vessel, Miri wept. Tears big as marbles rolled down her face. She tried to hide them with her hair, as was her custom.

“It’s a coffin,” she said.

“A trunk,” Jakub corrected.

“I know coffins,” Miri said.

I would only have to hide myself in order to cross the borders, he assured her. There were holes in the bottom so that I would be able to breathe. And there were other children that would be hidden alongside me, the ones that I knew so well from our journey to Krakow. We were to be quiet, but we would know we were not alone, and this, the man claimed, was a comfort.

Into the truck bed piled eleven of my thirty-two companions. While only a week had passed since I last saw them, they looked different from the children I’d known. Their faces were rounder; their eyes no longer carted hollows beneath them. Sophia had a new hair ribbon. The Blaus had gotten haircuts. One of the Rosens wore a pair of spectacles. They were ragged still, but you could tell that some hand had cared for them. I saw Miri’s face as she took in the details of their transformations and I knew that she wished she had been that hand, but she only smiled at each of them and asked if they were excited about this latest journey, and she helped seat me in a corner of the truck bed, where I could lean myself against the coffin box for comfort.

Miri had a gift for me, which she presented with her ever-trembling hands. When I saw this gift, the fact struck me with all its finality. She was not coming with me — not then, and perhaps never.

Like us, the tap shoes were a mismatched pair. One was bigger, younger than the other.

All I knew was that one shoe was blush, the other white. I am not sure how she missed these differences. Maybe she hated the exaltation of symmetry after following Mengele’s orders. I couldn’t know. Both were kissed by the necessary metal at heel and toe. She shined them for me and caressed the laces with pride. She placed the shoes in my hands. She said she’d see me again.

“In Italy?” I asked.

“If I am well by Italy.”

“And what if you aren’t well then?”

“I will be well someday,” she promised.

We would have a dinner, she said, and I could wear my new shoes. I wanted to point out that they were dancing shoes, and I could not walk, let alone dance, but she looked so pleased at the prospect of this reunion that I said not a thing. I put the shoes in the box and did not look at her as she continued to swear that this was not the end for us.

Her form, as the truck trundled off — first, distance diminished her, then the fog swept away her face. I tried to memorize Miri as the expanse between us grew, her eyes, nose, mouth, chin. Wordlessly, I said good-bye to each, until there was nothing left of her to be seen, and I told myself to be happy for this, this chance to say good-bye, to say that I loved her. My affections had found a home in her; she was not my mother, my father, my sister, my Someone, but she was who I wanted to be, she was born kind, but hardship kindled it, and her vulnerabilities did not live apart from her bravery. Miri knew what suffering was and still, she wanted to know restoration too.

I don’t know if she ever truly believed that our reunion would come to be. What is more, I don’t know if she thought she might live even an hour past my departure. But I believe she knew that she had to become well so that I could see her again, alive and restored. She could not do this with me at her side, as much as she would have loved to have me near. This was not abandonment, I told myself, years later. This was love, her dream for my future.