by Bram Presser
Two sisters were assigned to the bunks beside her. The older one was surly, protective. She came from Prague. She didn’t need any help, thank you. In a way Gusta found comfort in her brashness; the girl sounded much the same as her own daughter, Růženka, had at that age. The younger sister was different in both looks and manner. She spoke softly, politely, but seemed to feel safe only in her sister’s presence. Gusta tried approaching when the girl was alone, but she shied away and scuttled to her bed, the bathroom or the corridor.
The sisters spoke hurriedly between themselves. Gusta gleaned that their father was also in the camp, a metalworker and roustabout, by the sounds of it. He seemed to arrange to see them but would be late or not show up at all. She heard them lament the nights they had sat on his bunk, picking at the straw, pressing their faces to his dirty sheets, breathing him in, waiting in vain. They spoke of his apologies and his promise of gifts that, they said, never came. They depended instead on their mother. Parcels would arrive regularly, some by the camp postal service, others through less sanctioned means—Gusta heard talk of a gendarme, a Sudeten man who was known to the family. For the first weeks the girls seemed impervious to the resentful stares from those around them. They refused to speak, not even to her. They showed no interest in her sons when they came to visit. And yet, when the lights hissed and went out, they joined in the chorus of sniffs and whimpers. Gusta edged towards them and cooed them to sleep.
Their manner thawed with the summer sun. One evening, when Shmuel arrived, the girls stopped talking and turned to watch. The young man handed Gusta a shirt and a button. Soon Jakub appeared. He hurried across to his mother, kissed her forehead and unloaded food from his jacket pocket—bread, jam, butter, flour, a jar of the acrid Terezín spread made from mustard powder and vinegar. Shmuel rubbed his hands together. ‘Tonight another feast,’ said Gusta. The brothers waited while Gusta rushed off to prepare their meal. When she returned the three of them ate on the bunk as if it were a banquet table.
Before leaving, Jakub and Shmuel kissed their mother, then touched their lips to a grey square of paper nailed to the inside column of her bunk. The next morning the older girl leaned across while Gusta was tucking in her sheet. ‘What is that?’ she asked, pointing to the paper. ‘That is my husband, the father of my children.’ The girl held out a small bonbon. It was all that remained of her most recent package. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘My name is Daša.’
‘And I’m Gusta. Please…call me Auntie.’
‘Your mother…’ Jakub bit the corner of the schnitzel and sucked on the oily crumb. ‘I’ll be at your house every night, I think.’
Daša laughed and cut into her potato. ‘She knows it is my favourite. I’m just worried they’ll spoil.’
‘No. Keep them coming, please.’ Jakub took another bite. He didn’t wait to swallow. ‘We promise they won’t go to waste.’
Gusta put her arm around Irena’s shoulder. ‘It’s good?’ The girl smiled and leaned into her. Gusta held her for a moment, savouring the warmth. Then, to Daša: ‘I’ll come too. If it’s not too much, of course. To think, we’re almost neighbours and we’ve never met.’
‘You don’t leave the house,’ said Jakub.
‘I didn’t know such charming girls existed. I must meet their mother. We have a lot to discuss.’
‘Well,’ Jakub said as he stood up, ‘thank you both. And your mother.’ He leaned over and kissed Gusta on the cheek. She prodded him, nodded towards Daša. ‘Go on,’ she said. Jakub began to crouch but caught himself and smiled awkwardly. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Thanks again.’ He knew not to turn around. Gusta would be shaking her head.
December.
Gusta’s room had changed since Jakub’s last visit. A maintenance crew had lopped the top tier from each bunk in the name of beautification. Some of the remaining inmates were packing cases while others bartered with what they would leave behind. Only the mischlinge were sitting casually on their bunks, indifferent to the bustle around them.
‘What’s the news?’ Daša asked Jakub.
‘They’re saying another five thousand people will go. Half on Wednesday then the rest on Sabbath. The lines outside the Magdeberg Barracks stretch past the gate. Those who aren’t seeking rescission are at the Labour Department begging for transfers.’
‘Auntie Gusta is safe?’
‘For now, yes. She longs to be with Shmuel in Birkenau. What do you hear from your father?’
‘Not much. He promises a visit to the new café soon, maybe for Irena’s birthday. His job pays, not enough for an entry ticket, but something. He has found a new circle. They play skat in their barracks after curfew. He’s confident he’ll be here for Irena’s celebration but I don’t hold him to his word. Mama wrote. She is making plans.’
‘And you?’
‘Yes. Me too. One way or another we’ll celebrate.’
The transports left as scheduled. In the streets and the barracks, there was a sense of relief. Of space. Of guilt.
On the morning of Irena’s birthday, Gusta reported sick to the Labour Department. A quick visit to the infirmary confirmed a mild case of Terezínka, the camp illness, diagnosed without examination by a harried nurse. The dormitory was empty by the time she returned but, as promised, each woman had left half a day’s bread ration under her pillow. Jakub, too, had saved his extra rations and Daša had arranged for dried fruit to be brought in from Prague. See you soon, the accompanying note from her mother had said. Gusta crumbled the stale bread into her pot, tipped lukewarm coffee over it and waited for the mixture to thicken. She then stirred in the margarine, jam, sugar, fruit and some extra flour she had traded with a baker for more regular access to the laundry.
They waited until after curfew to celebrate. The women gathered in the centre of the room as Gusta carried in the cake. Together they sang the ‘Terezín March’ while Irena merrily clapped along.
Hey! Tomorrow life starts over,
And with it the time is approaching
When we’ll fold our knapsacks
And return home again.
Where there is a will there is a way,
Let us join hands
And one day on the ruins of the ghetto
We shall laugh.
Irena closed her eyes and blew out an imaginary candle.
3
PRAGUE
At first, the postcards were enough. They came every few weeks, a couple of lines here and there: ‘Just to say we have arrived and all is as it can be. Daddy sends his love too.’ Then: ‘I have found work in the kitchen. Irča and Daddy are also working.’ And: ‘Try as I do to mend them, our socks and underwear are wearing thin.’ Františka Roubíčková sent long letters back, detailed stories of her work in the factory, of their sisters, and of their family in Miličín. But there was no warmth in words alone and, in time, she began to despair. How could she hope to help them when they were so far away? How could she hope to be a mother? That she still had Marcela and Hana was, she knew, only temporary. They, too, would be called for when they reached the requisite age.
She lay awake at night, afraid of what dreams might come. And what of Ludvík? Was there not, in the blood that had brought about their captivity, an obligation to protect, to make good on his sacred oath? She might even find it within herself to forgive if now, when they needed him most, he could finally be a father. As Marcela and Hana slept beside her, Františka buried her face in the pillow, stifling the litany of curses that she spat into the feathers. The hours passed and her rage turned inwards, a caustic mix of exhaustion, fear and loneliness. Most of all, guilt. She was, at last, living well. While most had been sent to munitions factories, she had been conscripted to a small textile firm in Nové Město, sewing garments that would be sent to the Eastern Front. It provided a steady wage, enough to feed three mouths. And that wasn’t even allowing for the visits to Miličín. She had been spending much of her spare time navigating the bureaucracy of obtaining admission stamps for the packages, and the r
est stockpiling the twenty kilograms she was permitted to send in each one: boxes with flour, salt, lentils, vegetables, with sweets and dresses. Most of all she sent a mother’s unguarded heart and then waited anxiously for the official postcards of receipt. But that was no longer enough. If she was to hold them again, she would have to go to Theresienstadt.
At dawn she kissed the two sleeping girls and rushed to the factory. She sat at her machine, forcing the material across its dimpled plane. The needle pecked at the seams, snatching them together. When a piece was done, Františka tossed it in the basket at her feet. Before lunch, she rose from her bench and approached the supervisor. ‘I must go for a while.’ The man was not unsympathetic; he had grown fond of Františka. She was skilled, able to patch together a jacket in half the time it took many of the other women. She was also known to slip him the odd cigarette, offer to join him outside for a smoke. He, too, had lost family. His wife’s brother had married a Jewess. For months they tried to obtain an exit visa, bribed everyone they thought might have influence. The supervisor himself had given them money against his better judgment, money that he now wished he had kept. When the borders closed he found himself trapped in a hopeless cycle of charity until the letter came from the Jewish Council summoning the woman and their three children to the fairgrounds. Then he sighed with relief. ‘Certainty, Roubíčková,’ he said. ‘That is what the family needed. Better just to know.’ His wife now spent all her days with the brother, comforting him with lies. She hardly ever came home to see her husband. ‘It has ruined us. But I dare not ask her to choose. Afterwards, we will see.’ He wished Františka luck and sent her on her way.
Františka waited across the road, beneath a canopy of summer blossoms. She lit a cigarette, her third, and studied the uniformed men streaming through the main gate of Peček Palace. The building had grown into its reputation. If she was not mistaken, it had blackened during the occupation. Its very presence was oppressive, this greystone Goliath that stomped on the skulls of her neighbours. Even in the heat of the day, almost all the windows were sealed. Františka puffed one last time on the cigarette then dropped the smoking butt on the ground. She was ready.
‘I wish to see my daughters.’
The man behind the desk had not even looked up when he called her from the queue. She was one of many and had waited for over an hour. Most before her turned around in tears. One man fell to his knees, pleading, crying. His howls echoed through the great hall as he was dragged away. Or perhaps Františka had confused them with the screams from the basement.
‘If they are here, there is reason. Go home and wait. You will be notified soon enough.’
‘No, you misunderstand. They are in Terezín.’
The clerk flinched, lifted his head. ‘They are Communists? Criminals? Jews?’
‘Mischlinge.’ Františka forced the word through clenched teeth.
‘It is not possible.’
‘Everything is possible. I have means—’
‘No favours. It is simply not possible.’ The clerk looked over her shoulder. ‘Next!’
‘I am not leaving. I demand to see my children, to know they don’t suffer.’
‘We all suffer during war, Paní…’
‘Roubíčková. I…sorry…Vrtišová.’
‘Even the Reichsprotektor eats gruel, Paní Vrtišová. Your girls are no worse off than you or I.’
‘I wish to apply for a permit.’
‘I’m afraid such a thing does not exist. The town is closed to visitors.’
‘Four months! Do you hear me? Four months I’ve had to survive on scraps of paper from my girls. Enough.’
The clerk looked nervously towards the approaching guards, shaking his head to ward them away. ‘Paní Vrtišová, I wish I could help. The town is closed. That’s a fact. Then there is the issue of travel within the Protectorate, registration and other such administrative burdens. First you must get…’
‘Give me the papers. I will apply now.’
The clerk flicked through the wad of forms and pulled out two sheets. He slid the glasses from his face, squeezed the bridge of his nose. ‘Do as you wish. What’s a piece of paper if it will calm your nerves? Maintain order. That’s what they tell me. But understand this: nothing will come of it.’
Františka returned every few weeks to renew the application. They all came to know her, this pitiful Aryan woman, her good sense turned septic with Jewish dreams. She took the forms without a word and filled them in at the bench in the corner before defiantly returning to have them stamped and filed.
When the plain enevelope arrived in late November, Františka Roubíčková tore it open and pulled out the paper. It took a moment to sink in: her name, a date, a heavy blue stamp. And beneath it a single word: Bohušovice.
Františka Roubíčková tilted the coat rack against her shoulder and dragged it through the hallway into the lounge. Scarves and coats drooped from its arms, brushing against the doorframe before coming to rest in wilted repose.
This will have to do, she thought as she stepped away from her makeshift tree. It could not stand in the usual corner, to do so would make a mockery of Christmas. Let it remain there awkwardly, in the middle of the room. She grabbed the coats from the rack and threw them against the window bench.
The gurgle of bubbling sour sauce drifted from the kitchen. Františka rushed back to stir the pot. The sauce was thick; specks of flour had congealed into tiny pebbles. In the oven below, orange light glowed over a fat fillet of beef. It was already blue by the time Marcela returned from Miličín, and had the whiff of decay, but Františka salted and scrubbed it before throwing it to the back of her icebox. To have beef at all was a luxury when the ration provided only for the discarded flank of a horse. She lowered the flame and left the sauce to simmer.
Marcela and Hana played in the back courtyard, diving into snowy dunes, squealing with delight. Most of the neighbourhood children had disappeared with their parents and so the building and its surrounds had become their private playground. Each day they invented new games based on the rumours that echoed through the stairwell, games like Razor Blade Man, where they took turns playing Prague’s most feared phantom, hunting each other down with a sharpened twig. Or Gestapo Raid, which was much the same. Františka watched on from the window, proud that she had raised such resilient girls, but more so that Marcela had kept the worst of the occupation from Hana. More than once she had seen the two of them marching together with gusto or singing or sharing parcels of food she had packed for them. She asked them what they were playing, though she knew the answer. It was always the same. ‘Daša and Irča.’
She opened the door and called to them. ‘Come inside and wash. Aunt Emí will be here soon and there is svíčková for lunch. Then a surprise.’ The girls looked up, uncertain. ‘Marcela, watch over the pot while I’m gone.’
Františka headed towards the tram stop in Mladoňovicova Street. As she neared the corner, she glanced at her watch, Ludvík’s watch; she was early. Emílie’s train was not due for a while. A few steps away, the chimes above Žofie Sláviková’s grocery door jingled. Františka ducked inside. Neither woman acknowledged the other. Žofie was eyeing her only other customer with suspicion, notebook in hand, pretending to write orders. Františka stopped to examine each item on the sparsely stocked shelves. She waited for the stranger to leave then picked up a few potatoes and a bushel of sugar before heading to the counter. Žofie Sláviková stamped the cards and handed them to Františka as the chimes went into a jangled frenzy. The two women watched Štěpánka Tičková scurry through the door, muttering to herself, arms wrapped around her hessian satchel.
‘I have it on good authority—’ she spat through cracked lips. It had been like this ever since her co-conspirator Jáchym Nemec was sent to the fortress town: Štěpánka Tičková wandered the streets of Žižkov, searching for a sympathetic ear. Turned away by all, starved of attention, she grew thin and mangy, her voice hoarse.
‘Roub�
�čková,’ the tattletale snarled.
‘Good afternoon, Štěpánka.’
‘Your daughters—’ Her index finger unfurled with arthritic effort. ‘I have noticed they grow fat.’
Žofie Sláviková slammed her fist on the counter. ‘Štěpánka Tičková! Take what you’ve come for and be quiet about it.’ Františka tucked the paper bag under her arm and rushed out the door to meet her sister.
Emílie sucked the sauce from her bread dumpling before dipping it back in. It was something she’d done since childhood, a habit that had infuriated their mother. ‘So,’ she said as a rising brown tide consumed the spongy dough. ‘What time do you leave?’
‘The train is at eight. I should arrive at Bohušovice around ten. Terezín is not far. And I will return on the last train.’
‘If you don’t mind, I brought gifts.’ Emílie reached into her bag and pulled out a damp cloth sack tied with red ribbon. ‘It’s Christmas cake. Irena’s favourite. For her birthday. Also, these.’ She placed two wooden angels on the table. ‘One for you. One for them. To watch over you all.’
Františka picked up one of the angels and ran her finger along the crest of its wings, up its neck, to the halo. From the lounge she could hear Marcela and Hana searching through Emílie’s case for Christmas presents. ‘Come,’ Františka said.
So this was the surprise, a chance to chase away the storm outside. They plundered the drawers in Františka’s studio and tore at the fabrics they found with scissors, with knives, by hand. They threw the strips in the air and watched them catch on the coat rack’s outstretched arms. In each leaf on their makeshift tree was a forgotten dream, reclaimed and repurposed for merry hearts.
