They Went Left

by Monica Hesse

  “Are you all right?” the man asks.

  I shake my head.

  “Stay there; I’ll get help.”

  I shake my head again, and a whimper comes out of my mouth. Don’t leave.

  “Did you fall? Do you need help getting to your feet?” He stretches out his arms, and I reach mine out, too. He puts his hands under my elbows and helps me stand. “Are you sure you’re all right? You look a little pale.”

  “A noise.” My voice comes out scratched and wavering. I clear my throat to start again. I haven’t let go of this man’s arms. I’m still clutching them, and I know it must seem strange, but I’m also afraid if I let go, I won’t be able to stand steadily on my own. “I heard a noise. It startled me.”

  Recognition dawns on his face; he pulls on a silver chain looped around his neck. “It was me. This whistle—I was testing it out to use with workers in the fields at mealtimes.”

  “For workers,” I repeat.

  “To call them back for dinner. I’m sorry it scared you. I shouldn’t have tested it inside.”

  A whistle for workers in the fields.

  But that’s not what I heard. I heard the whistle of helmeted guards as the train pulled into Birkenau. I heard a thousand screams that were all the same scream, I heard myself whispering, It will all be okay, when really I was screaming inside.

  “It’s fine,” I repeat. “I was just startled.”

  “Should we get you checked out?” the man suggests, helpful. “Would you like me to walk you to the nurse?”

  “No! I mean, no, thank you. I think I’ll go lie down.”

  It’s so silly, but really I just don’t want to be near his whistle. His whistle is part of the door that I don’t want opened, part of the path I don’t want my brain to walk down.

  “It’s so silly,” I tell him out loud now. “I don’t know why I was being so silly.”

  When I let go of the man’s arms, I make sure I’m leaning against the table in case my legs don’t support me. The table squeaks a bit on the floor under the burden of my weight, but I manage to not fall. Then I cautiously wave a hand to show him, I’m fine, I’m fine, I was just overreacting, silly me, and finally he leaves, looking once over his shoulder.

  Slowly, I pick up the book of fairy tales from the table and shelve it. Then I stand in front of the bookcase, straightening the spines, evening up the rows. It’s a pointless task. I’m sure that after the dinner hour, when the library room would be at its busiest, the shelves will quickly become messy again. I know what I’m really looking for is a mindless task for soothing and distraction. In the hospital, we would sometimes slip skeins of wool over our hands, roll them into balls of yarn. It was better to have that to focus on than whatever was tormenting our brains.

  I do not want to think about the train whistle.

  I do not want to think about a book of Polish fairy tales.

  I do not want to think about why my brother might not have remembered one, or why he might have felt the need to pretend that he did.

  I do not want to think about what I’ve been scared to say out loud, what I have been afraid to think to myself.

  I do not want to think about how he might not be my brother.

  I’M OUTSIDE THE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING AND NOT EVEN sure how I got there. I blink into the sunlight, vaguely aware of the sound of voices, the rustle of fabric as people move past me on their way to dinner. I walk with them because it’s easier than fighting the crowd and walking in the other direction and because I don’t know where I would go anyway.

  Why would I let myself ask that about Abek? How far am I letting my imagination run? As I repeat these questions to myself, they slowly transform into the same question I’ve been asking myself since the war ended. Not am I crazy but how crazy am I?

  Near the closed doors of the dining hall, I see familiar faces. Breine and Chaim. Esther, waiting for the doors to be opened, putting her eyeglasses back on after wiping them clean on her skirt, waving for me to join her in line. And Josef. Josef is also there, because this is the night he asked if he could join the rest of us for dinner. He raises his hand and smiles. He expects I’ll be happy; I can barely nod in his direction. His face falls, but I don’t have time to worry about his feelings.

  Abek is standing in the group, too. Hidden behind Chaim; I don’t see him until I’m nearly there. He and the young woman next to him are playing some kind of word game on a scrap of paper, passing it back and forth between them. He looks up and sees me, and his face breaks into a smile.

  Ruffle his hair, a voice inside me instructs, so I do. I tousle his hair and say, “Do you even know how to comb it anymore?” because that seems like the kind of sisterly thing I would say to Abek.

  He laughs and turns back at his game.

  Is this my brother or isn’t it? When he first arrived, showing up at this very spot, I’d noticed things about him that looked different. He was taller, but of course he was taller. His hair was darker, but of course it was darker.

  But could I take that same information and use it to reach different conclusions?

  For the hundredth time, I wish I had a photograph. Something I could analyze to make comparisons. A photograph, or the cuts of hair my mother kept from our first hair trims, tied with ribbon and tucked in her wardrobe. I wish I had my mother here, who could talk about this with me, who could surely look at this boy and say for certain whether he was her son.

  There’s nothing, though. Everything was taken away from us, and so there’s nothing left to compare the present with the past. Nothing that can help me measure how crazy I am. Is it crazier to believe someone is your brother who really isn’t, or to find a person you’ve been trying to find for years, only to convince yourself they’re not the right person after all? To throw away your chance at happiness?

  The dining hall doors open. A mundane sigh of relief rises from the crowd. So hungry, people murmur. Hope the cabbage is better today. I walk in with everyone else, line up in front of the giant vats, accept the food ladled onto my plate, sit down at the place at the table that has somehow become mine. Put my napkin on my lap.

  I didn’t even think to arrange it so I could sit next to Josef. He’s kitty-corner from me, still eyeing me, certain now something’s wrong but not sure what it is.

  If this boy isn’t Abek, what could he possibly want? Money? I don’t have any. If he’s hoping I’ll take him back to a house filled with nice furniture and comfortable rugs, he’s about five years too late.

  What else could he want? Passage somewhere? A first-class ticket somewhere? I don’t have that, either. I have Breine’s offer of a rickety boat, but I didn’t even have that when Abek first arrived.

  Does he just want to torment me? Because that’s the only explanation I can imagine right now. He’s a con artist who takes pleasure in seeing a gullible, crazy girl parade him around, stupidly happy to have found him.

  “How was your day, Zofia?” Esther, to my right, asks pleasantly as she passes me a water glass.

  “I went to the library.” I eye Abek to see if he has any reaction to this. But his focus is on his plate, slicing the potato in front of him.

  “I was going to go there later,” a boy at the other end of the table offers. “I was going to see if they had an—”

  “I went to the library and I found a book of Polish fairy tales,” I continue loudly.

  “Oh, really? That sounds—”

  “The book had lots of ones my family used to tell when we were little,” I say even louder.

  Around me, the previously cheery conversation settles into an awkward quiet as people exchange glances, wondering if something’s wrong with me.

  Beside me, Esther also looks concerned but responds carefully. “That’s nice,” she says. “Do you want to tell us about them? I wonder if there are any stories all of us would recognize.”

  “The book looked like someone else had been reading it,” I continue, plowing over Esther’s attempt to guide my u
nhingedness. “It was sitting there, open, like someone else had just been reading it before me.”

  “Well. That is the way libraries work,” Breine says. She’s laughing, but now she has to work harder to make the laughter sound like a joke and not a bundle of nerves. “Unless the ones where you’re from are a lot different from mine. Right?”

  She addresses the question to the whole table, and almost everyone takes the opportunity to look at her and laugh.

  Now I think I’ve seen something. Abek looks up from his plate. At me and then back at his plate again.

  Is it because he’s worried about how strangely I’m behaving, or because he was the one reading the book?

  Next to me, Esther keeps her head down and her voice low as she leans over. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I say shortly, not wanting to engage in a conversation that would force me to take my eyes off Abek. But he doesn’t meet my gaze again. I want to bang my fist on the table, make a noise that will force him to look up. But what would that accomplish, besides alarm everyone else at the table?

  What is any of my behavior accomplishing? My stomach is filled with dread. My stomach is filled with so much ill-defined, terrified dread.

  “Please excuse me,” I say, rising abruptly, dropping my napkin on the table. “I’m going to go lie down.”

  “Do you need any help?” Esther sets down her own napkin. “I can walk you back.”

  “It’s just a headache coming on.” I improvise, trying to sound reassuring. “A migraine.”

  “Oh, oh. My mother used to get those. They’re terrible.” Esther and the rest of the table make clucking sounds of sympathy. But also, I think, relief at having an explanation for my odd behavior. “I’ll definitely walk you.”

  “No, I think I just need to be still.” I hold up my hands, preventing her from accompanying me. “In a very quiet room,” I add, hoping the last sentence will signal that I want to be alone and she and Abek shouldn’t come check on me. “I’ll lie down for a few hours, and then I hope I’ll feel better.”

  “You don’t have a headache, do you?”

  I jump at the hand on my arm. Josef has followed me out of the dining hall, appraising me knowingly.

  “I think there’s something wrong with my head.” It’s the truest statement I can make.

  He measures what I’ve just said. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not right now.”

  “Is it about—”

  “It’s not about you,” I interrupt. “It’s about something I need to figure out.” I continue on before he can offer the help I can see he’s about to offer. “And you can’t help me figure it out, and I don’t even know if there’s a way to figure it out. I just know I need to do it alone.”

  He removes his hand from my arm. “I’m not sure how to do this,” he says.

  “Do what?”

  “I’m not sure if I’m supposed to just let you go, or if I’m supposed to insist on helping you because we’ve—because we’re…”

  “You’re supposed to let me go this time, Josef,” I say, looking anxiously down the path toward my cottage. “Maybe not every time, but right now you’re just supposed to let me go.”

  Reluctantly, he steps back. I can see him struggling with himself, wanting to listen to me but still certain something’s wrong. Finally, he forces a smile on his lips. “All right. But you’ll tell me if you need anything? I think I’ve proved that I will commit violence on your behalf. And that was before I liked you. Now I’m willing to be even more brutal. I’m willing to punch all the latrines.”

  He leans in and kisses me. And for a moment, I kiss him back; for a moment, I consider that this is what I could do instead. I could stand here and kiss him back, his fingers tangled in my hair, his lips urgent against mine. We could go back to the dining hall, and I could behave normally around Abek. Tonight I could kiss Josef again, and life could just continue. Moving forward, as Breine suggested it should. For a moment, this version seems like a possibility. For a moment, my life goes in two different directions.

  But then I pull away. Put my hand on Josef’s heart and step backward. I don’t think this version is a possibility. No matter how deeply and desperately I want it, I don’t think it’s ever been a possibility for me.

  THE COTTAGE IS TIDY AND EMPTY. OUR THREE BEDS ARE neatly made. Esther’s stenography book rests on her nightstand, opened to where she was studying for a test, and my sewing supplies are on mine. Nothing is on Abek’s. He hasn’t collected any personal effects since he arrived.

  What did he come with? I try to remember. He was holding a bag when he first appeared in the dining hall. I thought it was a pillowcase at first, but up close I later realized it was a satchel. Dirty, but well made and canvas. He was protective of it. He didn’t let me carry it when I offered.

  On the other side of his bed, there it sits, propped against the wall.

  After only a moment’s hesitation, I unbutton the flap and empty out the contents: The shirt he was wearing when he arrived. Two spare sets of underthings. A spare pair of socks. A crumpled piece of paper with painstaking handwriting providing directions to Foehrenwald.

  Another sheet of paper, which I unfold. The handwriting on this one isn’t familiar, either, but the words are: It’s the notice about Abek I composed for Sister Therese at the Kloster Indersdorf. I can’t tell whether this is her handwriting, or whether it’s one of the copies she promised to dictate to personnel at the other facilities for children.

  Did I ever even ask Abek exactly which one he’d come from, which one he’d seen the notice at? I don’t think I did. I don’t think I wanted to ask too many questions. I remember physically blocking the doorway with my feet because I was so afraid he’d leave. I needed so badly for this story to end the way I wanted it to.

  The bag is empty. There’s nothing else inside. I turn it upside down to be sure, shaking and shaking it, sweeping my hand over the bottom lining to be sure.

  The lining—could something be sewn into the lining?

  I rush to my nightstand and open the drawer, tossing all my belongings onto the floor until I find my scissors, leaving the drawer open as I take them back to the satchel. I hold the scissors aloft. I’m about to stab through the canvas when I stop and picture what I must look like. Hair wild. Breathing heavy. Scissors held in the air.

  What am I hoping to find? What evidence could possibly answer my questions either way? A detailed confession letter? A diary? None of that would be sewn into a lining. There’s nothing. What am I doing?

  What am I doing?

  What am I falling back into? My body feels, all at once, the way it did in the hospital months ago. My heart is heavy with nothing. My brain is aching with nothing. I have nothing, I weigh nothing, I am nothing except for the weight and grief I’ve been carrying around for what feels like forever.

  I slump against the wall, sliding to the floor, my head scraping against the plaster.

  And that’s when I see it: a dingy triangle. A scrap of cloth, peeking out from between the mattress and frame of Abek’s bed.

  I crawl over to it on my hands and knees and take it between my fingers.

  Muslin. I immediately recognize the material as muslin. But it’s older, tattered, dirty. White at one point, now rust-colored and stained. When I pull it out, I see it’s a much bigger piece of fabric than I expected. The bundle looked tiny because it was rolled into a small tube. I spread it flat on the ground and begin to unfurl it.

  Happy birthday, my little snail! May you never forget who you are; may you always find your way home.

  A is for Abek, the youngest Lederman, the spoiled son of Helena and Elie, and younger brother of Zofia, who is making you this magnificent present…

  B is for Baba Rose, the grandmother whose fingers are nimble and whose mind is more nimble, who holds the family together with patience and love in the beautiful apartment where we all live. She is the best seamstress in the city, and als
o the most exacting one…

  C is for Chomicki & Lederman, the company that will be yours one day, which makes the most beautiful clothing in Poland. It was founded by Zayde Lazer, and his best employee was a young man named Elie, whom he invited home for dinner one night. That’s the night when he first met—

  It goes on. It goes on, all the way to Z. It’s my whole family story. More detailed than I remembered it. Everything about my family that a person would need to know. I forgot how small and pretty my handwriting could be, how much I managed to fit on that one piece of cloth.

  I don’t know exactly how this fabric ended up under this mattress.

  All I know is this: The morning before we left for the stadium, I took this fabric from the wall where it had been hanging, and I quickly sewed it into the lining of Abek’s jacket.

  I sewed it into his jacket, and then a few hours later we left for the stadium and a few days after that, the Nazis made us remove all our clothes and put on new, shapeless ones that didn’t fit. And all our old clothes were placed in a pile, where they were checked for money or valuables and then sold or repurposed.

  The point is that Abek would not have been in possession of this cloth. That’s why I don’t have any of my old clothes or photographs or mementos—because we weren’t allowed to keep anything at all after that day.

  The point is that the most likely person to have discovered this letter is the prisoner with the job of sorting through the clothes, of ripping our lives apart at the seams, stitch by stitch.

  I BROUGHT YOU SOME TEA.”

  I gasp at the sound of knocking and, without thinking, ball the cloth into my fist. But it’s not Abek; it’s Josef standing at the door, knuckles still on the frame.

  “I told you, you didn’t need to come with me,” I manage, bringing him into focus, his curly hair, his sharp eyes, his slender frame.

  “And I promise I won’t make a habit of thinking I know better than you what you need,” he says. He sets his mug of tea on the nightstand. “But in this one instance, I really wanted to make sure you were all right.”