My mother lifted an admonishing hand, but it was too late.
The soldiers looked from me to my suddenly very pale parents and then at each other. The one who had issued the order had bright little eyes and an extraordinarily broad nose; it was he who pulled out a long white paper and read from it.
‘ “… you are capitalists and therefore enemies of the people … you are to be sent to another part of our great and mighty country …” ’
The soldier read on and on, the words seeming to pour out of his huge nostrils – so many words and so dull. Most of them were incomprehensible to me. What was a capitalist? The only words that meant anything to me were the ones that were bringing my world to an end. I was to be taken from my home, from the city where I was born, from the people I loved. I didn’t feel like an enemy of the people, only an enemy of these horrid soldiers. I hated them. Loathed them. Despised them. I wished they were dead.
My mother reached out and tried to straighten my clenched fingers. ‘I am fine, Mama, really I am,’ I said, more to reassure myself than her.
The soldier stopped reading; he seemed quite satisfied that he had performed his duty admirably, and he refolded the paper as if it were a very precious document.
My mother spoke quietly. ‘Esther, you will go to your room and gather your clothes together.’
I didn’t move. Was there to be no argument? no pleading? no miraculous adult intervention?
My mother nudged me and we both scrambled up from the floor. When my father said he would help my mother pack their things and began to get up too, the other soldier tilted his bayonet towards Father and said: ‘Don’t move. Stay where you are.’ My father obeyed, but now he held his head in his hands.
When I reached my room, I started to close my door. ‘Leave that door wide open, girl,’ the soldier shouted.
I did. I walked into my room and looked around. This was my room: my curtains were blowing in the breeze; my wallpaper continued to sprout its tiny rosebuds; my dolls were in their customary huddle on the divan; my books were on the shelves; the mystery I had been reading lay face down on the bed. No, I would not leave this room. No one could make me. I would will myself to fall down dead in a little heap on the floor before I would leave it.
When that didn’t work, I wanted to throw myself down on the bed and howl. But the door was open and the soldiers were out there. Whether from fear or bravado I cannot say, but I held my tears back and began to pack.
What clothes would one need in that ‘other part of our great and mighty country’? My light oak wardrobe was filled with skirts and blouses and school uniforms and party dresses. Left to myself, I was happiest in a pair of old shorts and a shirt. This brought me close to tears again; shorts and shirt meant fun and freedom, carefree days in the country, holidays at the sea. I picked up the albums of family photographs, the record of days with my family – picnics with aunts and uncles and cousins in the woods, bathing in the sea, baby pictures, birthday parties, the photographs of the grown-ups in what we children called their clothes of olden times, the ones that sent us into fits of giggles. At once, this album became my most important possession and I put it down on the bed along with some books, including the unfinished mystery.
The album called something to my attention, something very strange indeed. The house was quiet, much too quiet. Where was everyone? I tiptoed to the window overlooking the garden. Where was Uncle David? and Aunt Bertha? and Aunt Sonia? Where were they? The garden was quiet and deserted; no voices, no laughter from the windows.
I went back to the wardrobe with a dreadful feeling … not fright, not anger, something nameless and worse.
I gathered some clothes together and dumped them on the bed.
In the dining room, my father still sat on the floor. His shoulders sagged and he looked up at me with dull, unseeing eyes. Within a single morning, on a perfect June day, my young father had become an old man. Looking down at my father, I deliberately ignored the soldiers and their authority to tell me what I might and might not do – and asked for my father’s permission to go to my mother. He nodded and patted my hand.
My mother too had changed. Usually she was composed and fastidiously groomed, but now her face was flushed and her beautiful crown of braids was tumbling down. Her huge mahogany wardrobe and her bureaux, normally in immaculate order, were in wild disarray. Dresses had slipped off their hangers and lay crumpled on the floor; lingerie spilled out of drawers. My mother was feverishly piling clothes on the bed, zigzagging from bureaux to the wardrobe to the bed. I asked her for something to do; I had finished gathering my things and wanted desperately to be busy. Doing nothing was too frightening.
‘Go and ask your father. Can’t you see I’m busy?’ She hid her face from me and I knew she was close to tears. Tears were against the rules of our house; here we shared our joys and hid our sorrows. It had always been a hard discipline; now it seemed like a cruel one. Why couldn’t we cry like other people?
‘If you want me, you’ll know where to find me, I guess.’ My mother was not amused. It was a feeble joke. An old complaint was that I was always disappearing, always running off to play just when I was needed.
There was a stillness in the dining room; the breathing of the soldiers seemed unduly heavy, my father’s too effortful. When the telephone rang, we all started, even the soldiers. My father rose automatically, but he was pushed back roughly. A soldier picked up the phone. ‘Comrade Yurenko here. Yes. Yes. The mother and the father and the child. Yes. Nothing but two old people. Across the hall with Comrades Ivanov and Filipov. The rest are gone. No. I don’t know. Empty apartments. Ten minutes is all that is needed.’ The phone went down with a bang.
Yurenko ordered my father to get dressed and get packed. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I settled on staying in the hall near my parents’ room. It seemed as if only a few seconds had passed before Yurenko wanted to know if they were ready.
‘Certainly not,’ my mother said. ‘Not nearly ready, Comrade.’
I admired my mother’s bravery, but I was fearful that she had overdone it.
‘You’ll be ready all right. In exactly ten minutes we’re leaving. Not a minute more.’
Wisely, my mother didn’t argue. She asked Father to pack a wicker hamper with things like bed linen, a comforter, pillows, a pot or two, and some cutlery. To use where? I wondered. Somehow, before she left the bedroom she managed to whisper to Father that there was a little money hidden in her vanity case.
When she came to my room carrying some of her clothes with her, I ran to her. ‘Mama, there are trucks in front of our house. I saw them.’
She stood still for a second. ‘So … so there are trucks. Why haven’t you put your things into a suitcase?’
‘Mama – will we have to ride in the trucks? Like horses?’
‘I don’t know. What difference does it make? Esther … Esther, why didn’t you do what you were told to do? Fetch a bag immediately.’
I could not tell her that to close a suitcase on my belongings was more than I could bring myself to do, that I wanted to delay the finality of that snap as long as possible.
‘Mama, where is everyone – Aunt Sonia and Uncle David?’
‘Hush, Esther! They’ve gone. They left when they heard the soldiers. Esther, you simply cannot take these.’ She was holding the photo albums. ‘We need every bit of room for our clothes.’
‘Oh, please – please, I need them so badly. Truly I do. I’ll put them in the bottom of the valise and I’ll just take fewer clothes. I don’t need the clothes nearly as much. I’d rather go barefoot …’
My mother ignored me and started sorting the clothes, her hands moving with nervous speed. Close to hysterics, I begged and pleaded. She became impatient and finally very stern; the albums were not to go. Looking over her shoulder first, she whispered that someone was bound to question us about the people in these albums. Although I didn’t understand the implications of this, something in her voice sil
enced me. Holding back my tears, I returned the albums to the shelf. Surreptitiously, I stroked them, saying my farewell.
Mother left and I stuffed the clothes into the bag, helter-skelter. My clothes consisted of some panties, vests, and slips, a nightgown, some socks and handkerchiefs, a navy-blue woollen school skirt, a white cotton blouse, a red and blue woollen sweater, and three cotton dresses. I had trouble stuffing a winter coat in and considered leaving it out. Fortunately, I didn’t. That morning I was wearing a blue cotton dress, blue summer socks, and black shoes.
The doorbell rang and I felt a great surge of hope: someone had come to save us! I flew into the dining room and looked into the hall. Yurenko was opening the door. My mother brushed past me and into the vestibule.
‘Who is this man?’ Yurenko asked.
Mother looked into her brother Liusik’s white face and quietly said, ‘I don’t know. I have never seen him before.’
The soldier kicked the door shut. As Mother turned, I was about to ask her why she had said that when I remembered the albums and held my tongue.
Yurenko looked at his watch. ‘Your ten minutes is up. Get going.’
I ran for my suitcase just as Father came out of the bedroom. Carrying two travelling cases, pigskin lined with morocco, he looked like a gentleman off on a holiday jaunt, one badly in need of a holiday. Mother followed him, carrying the wicker hamper.
When we walked out of our home into the bright sunshine, I realized that once again I had stepped out with my left foot forward. But this time I knew there was no right foot any place on earth to save us. Only one truck remained and it was waiting for us. It was filled with a blur of silent people. But on the pavement there was a murmur from dozens of curious onlookers. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, nor did it matter.
Yurenko ordered us on to the truck. My father put his bags down and picked me up. I buried my face in his shoulders and he held me tighter. He set me down gently next to a woman in a silk dress. The woman didn’t move. Father helped Mother, who held her head high but whose cheeks were flaming throughout the awkward business of hoisting herself up. The suitcases and the hamper were next and then Father. Out of the blur of faces, I saw my grandfather’s and grandmother’s. There were no other members of our family on the truck.
I waved to my grandparents, but they made no sign that they had seen me. I lowered my eyelids. It was a good thing to do, it made it easier to face the crowd gawking at us from the street. It also made things move away, away from me, leaving me in a half-real daydream.
‘Raya!’ I heard my mother’s name being called.
Grandmother Sara was standing alongside the truck. She looked at Mother, then covered her face with her hands.
The back door of the truck was bolted and the motor started. The truck began to rumble down Great Pogulanka Avenue, past our white house with its mahogany door – a curtain was blowing out of the dining-room window – past our garden wall, down the avenue where I knew each house, each tree, each chipped stone on the pavement. Beneath my lowered lids I watched my world disappear forever.
I heard our names called hysterically. ‘Raya – Samuel – Esther – what is happening? Where are they taking you?’ The voice faded, but I recognized my Aunt Sonia racing after the truck with her arms outstretched and her hair flying in the wind. ‘Oh, Sonia –’ I called out to her and began to sob. My mother pressed my shoulders and softly urged me to stop weeping. I heard some others on the truck also whisper a soft ‘Shh … shh …’ But I didn’t stop; I thought it was time to weep.
Everyone else was quiet. Rumbling past the streets and the green parks and the marketplace of Vilna, in the bright sunlight they saw their fellow citizens going about their midday business – marketing, pausing to gossip, sunning on a park bench. Witnessing the end of their world, this particular truckload of people was silent.
At the railway station all was confusion: a huge mass of people was milling about; trucks, hundreds of them, were arriving from all directions, each one jammed with people. I searched for a familiar face but saw only the stricken faces of strangers. Why us? the question persisted. Why us?
A soldier with a much decorated chest came to our truck, a hero. He told us he would call our names, that we were to listen carefully to his orders. We listened. The list seemed interminable, but we were not overlooked. At last we heard:
‘Rudomin, Samuel, Raya, Esther. To the second train. Rudomin, Anna. To the second train. Rudomin, Solomon. To the first train.’
My grandmother cried out. Never have I heard a more dreadful scream, not even in a nightmare. Torn out of this frail but proud woman, it came from unspeakable pain, but also from fury and sheer bewilderment. I looked at my grandfather. He was looking out over the confusion of people and trucks and soldiers, seeing nothing.
My grandmother was pleading with the soldier hero, my grandmother who had never in her life asked anyone for anything. ‘In God’s name let me go with him. I want to go with my husband. I won’t go without him. In God’s name, I beg of you …’ The medals jingled on the soldier’s chest as he threw back his shoulders. ‘You’ll do as you’re told. No more out of you, old woman!’
In the midst of her anguish, my grandmother appeared to be astonished that anyone would speak to her that way. She put a handkerchief to her mouth and made no sound. My father tried to plead with the soldier, but his words were drowned as the soldier continued to bark instructions.
Finally, the last name had been called. The people who were to go to the first train made their brief farewells to their families and left the truck. My grandfather shuffled past us without a word.
‘Sol-o-mon …’
Grandmother’s wail slowly faded.
I wedged myself between my grandmother and my father. With one hand I stroked my grandmother’s arm as she sobbed openly, and with the other hand I clung to my father, clung fiercely lest he too be taken away from me. Who knew whether this soldier might not change his mind?
When everyone who was to travel on the first train had been led away, my grandmother’s sobs mingled with the quiet mass weeping on the truck.
The soldier ordered us to make a double line and we were marched off to the second train. I walked with Mother, while my father supported Grandmother. Each one of us lugged a suitcase – my mother, the hamper – and mine kept bumping against my leg or against Mother.
Ahead of us the cattle cars were waiting for their human cargo.
CHAPTER TWO
The car stank of animals and the sun that was shining so benignly over Vilna had made a furnace of this place. Four small square holes high up in the corners of the car and the slivers of space between the filthy slatted walls were all that provided light and air. However, to be fair, cattle on their way to the slaughterhouse did not need a well-appointed car. Even in that twilight, one could see the scars on the floor made by those other beasts as they shuffled uneasily during their journey.
And now we shuffled, some forty of us, as we looked around us. Stood, huddled in the middle of the car, shuffling from foot to foot. No one talked.
There wasn’t much to see. The car had been divided in half, leaving a passageway between double rows of makeshift bunks. I was soon to discover that these wooden slabs were to be our beds, our tables, our chairs, our quarters.
No one knew what to do. My father took upon himself the job of leading this bewildered, shocked group of people. A gentle man, yet with a great capacity for making his presence felt and his orders obeyed, he now directed the older people to take the lower bunks and the young ones to climb to the uppers.
The crowd sighed. Victims of tyranny, they needed someone in authority, someone to tell them what to do. They began to select their bunks with a minimum of confusion; no one was in a mood to be fussy. Although Father had told me to climb a rickety ladder to an upper bunk, I stayed below to take a look at our travelling companions, our fellow capitalists. Possibly I imagined that by studying them I would uncover the secret o
f our own villainy, bring some sanity, however harsh, to this insanity. What I saw only added to my bewilderment; peering out from behind one of my braids, I saw nothing more villainous than peasants – women in shawls, men in cotton jackets and trousers that resembled riding breeches. I saw Polish peasants, not a rich capitalist among them; yanked from their land, they had toted their belongings in sacks, in shawls, in cardboard boxes. I saw reflected in their stricken faces our mutual shock.
Later we learned of reports that more than a million Poles had been deported as ‘class enemies’.
The train jolted violently and began to move. I scrambled up to the upper bunk and crawled into the corner, near one of the holes that was to be our window. It was from this hole in a cattle car that I would see Vilna for the last time.
Vilna had been presented to me by my maternal great-grandmother Reisa as if it were a family heirloom. In a way it was. Vilna, which was the oldest seat of Jewish culture in eastern Europe, the Jerusalem of Europe, was also the place where many of my ancestors had distinguished themselves. Among them were rabbis, teachers, scholars, and leaders of social reform. Vilna was studded with the temples where they had preached, the schools they had organized, the libraries that housed their books.
Great-grandmother Reisa was the family historian, its chronicler. Vilna was her favourite topic. She was a rich old woman who looked rather like an old Spanish duchess, always in black and pearls, with a small black lace scarf on her greying hair. She was very religious and very eccentric. (In her large house, chickens to be slaughtered for supper had a special room of their own: ‘Where does it say that chickens must be kept in a chicken coop? Where?’) And, to a child, she was a fascinating and a persuasive storyteller; always, as I walked the streets of Vilna, my ancestors walked beside me because of her. Later, when this eighty-five-year-old woman was told that the Nazis were on their way to take her from her home and ship her to some concentration camp or worse, she said, ‘Those Nazis will do no such thing. It is time for me to die and it is for me to say when and where. Not them. So I will die today, here, in my own house.’ And so she did: she lay down on her own bed, in her own black silk and pearls, in her own house, in her own beloved city, and picked the moment for dying herself. It was not suicide; by a supreme act of will, this old woman cheated the Nazis of her death.
The Endless Steppe Page 2
