If I Should Die Before I Wake

by Han Nolan

  Although we were now indoors, Matel's recovery was slow. There was so little food to give her strength, so little time for rest, and because of her inability to work up to speed, she was often beaten.

  Watching her struggle, trying to control her shivering as she lay in my arms at night, her arms and legs like smoldering embers, I could only marvel at her inner strength, her fierce will to survive.

  All day, I prayed for God to make her well. I began again my old practice, long ago enforced by Bubbe and Zayde, where everything I said, everything I did, was to honor and thank God. My work was excellent and was often held up for others to see. My own health and strength improved daily. Even the SS seemed to respect me because I had survived so well and for so long. I was one of the "old numbers" now.

  All of this I did in the hopes that God would send His healing from heaven, so Matel could get well.

  Finally, as late spring's warmth gave way to summer's heat, I began to see an improvement in Matel. First it was just her eyes, no longer so feverish and glassy; and then her cough, which sounded so diy and hollow, faded to short and occasional barks. I knew she was going to make it, and together we thanked God for His power to heal a body and soul so sick and tortured.

  One night after we had climbed into our bunk, Matel rolled over to face me and said, "Let's have a ceremony."

  "A ceremony? Here? I think, Matel, your fever has returned."

  "We need to thank God officially. We can pretend it is a holiday. Please, Chana. We hardly know what day it is anymore. The only time we know it is a Jewish holiday is when Mengele shows up for selections."

  Genia, a girl of only sixteen, hung her head over the top bunk. "He is our Jewish calendar." She laughed. Then more seriously, "I would come to your ceremony, Matel."

  "Me, too," came whispers from above and below.

  "But you are not completely healed. Perhaps we should wait." There was silence. "All right, when?" I asked. "When shall we do it?"

  Everyone put forth suggestions, for not only when to do it, but how, and what needed to be organized, and who was to say and do what.

  It was a crazy thing to attempt in a place like this. Those of us who gathered in the center of the hut that evening to make plans knew that the chances of all of us even surviving until the night of the ceremony were unlikely. Selections were being made more frequently than ever. Trains arrived day and night now, with thousands of men, women, and children being unloaded and sent straight to the crematoria. The chimneys smoked continuously, and everywhere, always, the sky was red. Still, never had we felt more alive, more close and supportive of one another than we did during that week of preparation; and young Matel was in charge of it all. She spent every spare moment she had hunting down items, organizing them, planning and coordinating the big event.

  Over the next several days we smuggled extra pieces of the tough paper used to make our ropes out of the work shed. We carried these strips in our armpits or stuffed them around the toes of our clogs and at night braided them together to make candles. We ran around to the back of the kitchen barracks and collected extra scraps of food from the rubbish heaps. Anything—onion skins, wilted cabbage leaves, potato shavings, with their promise of extra life-sustaining vitamins—was used to trade for extra bread. Genia's sister worked in the Kanada Kommando and was able to pass along some matches and a beautiful red, blue, and yellow shawl.

  At last we had all the things we needed for our ceremony. We waited until night, when the Blockälteste had gone to her own room at the end of the block. The sky was black. Rain was falling and we could hear it beating down on the roof of the hut. Thunder cracked above us in the sky. Matel and several of the others dug up our cache of goodies, which we had buried in the ground inside our hut, while I hurried to the two windows and tucked a piece of dark green material around the edges of each so no light could be seen. Then I lit our first homemade candle. I carried it in my bowl over to our circle. Those who were too ill to participate, or who just wanted to watch, looked out from their bunks as we recited the blessing for the lighting of the candles. Then one by one our candles were lit. Flickering flames of light and shadow filled the hut. I raised my voice above the sound of the heavy beating of the rain and said, "We light these candles tonight as a symbol of peace and freedom, and of the light which this night brings to our souls." Thunder rolled across the sky above us. We drew in closer, forming a tight circle, and together repeated, "We light these candles tonight as a symbol of peace and freedom, and of the light which this night brings to our souls." Then everyone placed their pieces of bread on the colorful shawl that was spread out in the center of the circle. More thunder sounded above. We held one another's hands as we recited in unison, "Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who brings forth bread from the earth." I could hear the others behind me in their bunks whispering with us, and as we sat in silence eating our bits of bread, they, too, ate theirs.

  During the meditation that followed, I listened to the rain and watched the candles curling in our bowls. Then Matel stood up and moved around the outside of our circle and in a thin voice, peppered with coughs, sang, "I will extol Thee, O Lord, for Thou hast drawn me up, and have not allowed my foes to rejoice over me. O Lord, My God, I cried out to Thee, and Thou didst heal me. O Lord, Thou raised my soul from the grave, Thou kept me alive that I should not descend to the pit."

  Then I stood up and joined Matel on the outside of the circle. Together we moved around it, and I said, "What profit is there in my blood if I die? Can the dust give thanks to Thee? Can it declare Thy truth?"

  Over the sound of the rain and the thunder we heard the screech of a train braking to a stop outside. We heard the whistles and dogs barking and officials shouting. I prayed for more thunder to drown out the sounds.

  I motioned for everyone to stand up, and again we held hands and circled around the cloth and our bowls of candles left on the ground. Together we recited the last lines of the psalm: "Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing; Thou hast opened my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness. So that my soul may sing praise to Thee, and not be silent; O Lord, my God, I will give thanks unto Thee forever."

  I had thought I couldn't cry anymore. I had thought all feelings and emotions had died in me long ago, but as we stood swaying in our circle, squeezing one another's hands and watching the last of the candles flicker, glow, then die, I felt the tears spilling down my cheeks, and I looked up to the ceiling and laughed.

  The next morning, after our long night, the whistles seemed to blow even earlier than usual, and all of us had a hard time rousing ourselves. Our Blockälteste stormed in and shouted," Alles, Stehen Sie auf—zum Zählappell!"

  I moaned and shook Matel. "Get up, come on, the beast has spoken." She did not answer. She did not move. I shook her again, but I knew it was useless. Her body was cold and hard. Matel was dead.

  The Blockälteste stormed in and cracked me on the head. "Did you not hear the whistles? Get up!" She looked down at Matel and then back at me. "Get up or you will be dragged out to the piles with her." She yanked my arms forward and I tumbled out of the bunk. "Stand up, you stupid rag." She got behind me, grabbed me from under my arms, and scooted me out the door. Then she blocked the way so I could not go back in.

  I stood on the outside of my row during Zäblap-pell that morning, not caring that it was the worst place to stand if you wanted to avoid getting beaten. It was still raining, and Matel was dragged by her feet out of the hut and through the mud that squished around our ankles. They piled her up with the other dead bodies at the end of our row, and I stood beside her praying that Zäblappell would last all day.

  Whenever I could, I'd sneak a glance at her. I'd catch her face with its summer freckles running across the bridge of her nose, or get a peek at her wrist, skinny like a baby's rattle, and I'd try to reach down and touch her. Her long body lay tangled with the others near the top of the heap. She had been dragged partway out of her knickers and her blouse was hik
ed up above her rib cage. Every time I made a move toward her, the Blockäl-teste or her assistant would come to club me on the back and shoulders.

  Zäbippell lasted only three hours that day, and when it was over I could not leave.

  Genia and her friend Zocha came up to me.

  "Chana, you must come. You cannot be late," Genia said. The two of them pulled me away from Matel.

  Already the Leichenkommando were removing the bodies.

  "Wait, please, one second," I said, and before they could get a tighter grip, I pulled free and ran back to the pile. I lifted Matel's leg out from under the body beneath her and pulled up her knickers. Then I pulled her shirt down and tried to tuck it in. A man from the Leichenkommando came up behind me, and I turned around to face him. "She was my—my ... She was mine."

  His face was blank, his eyes unseeing. I knew he didn't understand, but my shvester, standing beside him, did.

  Weeks later, a messenger girl with red spikes of hair shooting up from her head and a slight hunch in her shoulders was waiting for me at the entrance to the Weberei shed.

  "You play the violin?" she asked me.

  "Yes."

  "You play it well?"

  "I would not say I play if I did not play it well," I replied.

  "Gut, come with me."

  "Where, what do you mean?"

  "This is your lucky day. You will join the orchestra."

  "What?"

  "Yes." She nodded, her neck dipping like a goose. "It is so. Follow me."

  This couldn't be true. It was too much. I would never play in Hitler's orchestra, never, no matter what they did to me.

  "Come!" she said when she saw that I hadn't moved.

  I looked behind me. The Kapo was standing there nodding.

  "You must go," the Kapo said. "It is a good thing, you will see."

  "I do not want your favors," I replied.

  The Kapo glanced at the messenger girl and then spit on the ground. "You think I do favors for you? Never, you stupid fool. Go!" She shoved me forward into the messenger girl's arms.

  I followed the girl to the music block. Shvester was with me. She had been with me ever since Matel's death. She was my only companion now. I stayed away from everyone else, making no new friends and ignoring my old ones. I hadn't been able to see Bubbe since moving to the Weberei unit because it was too far away from the Revier to risk visiting before Zählappell. I didn't even know if she knew about Matel. I didn't even know if she was still alive, and I couldn't bear to find out.

  Stepping into the music hut was like stepping into a dream where fairy-tale images intertwined with the macabre. In the center of the room stood a woman on a platform, facing a collection of girls, all neatly dressed in dark, pleated skirts and white blouses with striped jackets. Their bodies and faces were scrubbed clean and each one held an instrument in her hands. There were violins, mandolins, guitars, flutes, pipes, drums, cymbals, and over to one side, a grand piano. There were lightbulbs turned on, hanging from the ceiling, and at one end of the room were bunk beds with real mattresses and wool blankets pulled up over them. The floor beneath my feet was wooden and clean, the walls white. There was a stove over near the dining section with a pot of water heating on it, and just outside, just a few yards away from the entrance to this fairyland, was the end of the Birkenau railway. From where I stood, I could turn my head one way and watch hundreds of people, hunched and ashen, spilling out ol cattle cars, the dead bodies that curled around their feet being tossed into a nearby pit. Then I could turn my head the other way and watch young women, warm and clean, sitting in a white room, their feet neatly placed together, instruments in their hands.

  They were practicing "The Blue Danube" when I entered. The woman on the platform stopped conducting when she saw me, and the music stopped. She stepped down off the platform and I saw that she was a short woman, with broad shoulders and a thick waist.

  "You are our violinist?" she asked me.

  I nodded.

  She went over to a long table covered with papers and scores and picked up the violin lying there. She handed it to me.

  "Play," she said.

  "What shall I play?"

  "Whatever you want. Whatever you know."

  I thought a moment. Did I know anything anymore? I recalled the piece by Schumann that Tata and I had worked on for the orchestra in Poland. One Sunday, just two days before my audition, we had practiced the solo section the entire day, arguing over every aspect of my interpretation of the piece. By the end of the day, I was in tears and Tata was slamming doors, his face purple with frustration. Mama was so mad at both of us she locked us in the pantry together, without music or instruments, and told us to just talk. We argued over the music for less than five minutes and then spent the evening crouched in that small space, discussing our dreams, our fears, and my future. How I wished now that I could relive that day.

  I tucked the violin under my chin. It had been years since I had done that, and yet it felt right, as if I had done it just hours ago. I plucked at the strings. It had been tuned recently, but still I readjusted the tuning pegs and ran my bow across the strings a few times. It was a way of making the instrument mine, of reacquainting myself with an old friend. I looked out at the group of girls sitting in front of me, most of them about my age or younger, their instruments resting in their laps or against their chests. A few of them smiled. I smiled back, not at them, but at Shvester. I turned to the conductor.

  "I will play the solo in Schumann's 'Reverie.'"

  I shrugged my shoulders to reposition the violin, raised my bow, and played the first few measures. Yes, I remembered it! I closed my eyes and let the music flow out of me, my fingers moving with a memory all their own. When I was through, the girls all applauded—all except one.

  "She looks terrible," said the girl. "If we took a week we could never get her cleaned up enough."

  "I think she's very ill," said another, as if I weren't even there. Then they all started in on me.

  "She would be selected for sure if she played on Sunday."

  "She's being eaten alive with lice. She might have typhus, look at all those sores."

  "She doesn't even have any shoes or socks."

  "She's way too thin and her head has bald patches. They won't want to be watching her. Claire is right, she will be selected."

  "She looks too Jewish."

  I had let all of their comments just wash right over me—what did I care what they thought? I didn't want to be in their orchestra—but this last comment startled me. I looked up and noticed for the first time that the chairs were grouped together into two sections. Jews were sitting on the left and non-Jews on the right. This had to be the only block where they allowed non-Jews to work alongside Jews.

  The orchestra leader waved her hand. "We can clean her up, you will see. And she will be wearing different clothes, and a scarf over her head like the rest of you. It will work out."

  "If Alma were still alive she would not take her," said an enormous girl who looked as if she had eaten an entire warehouse of food.

  The conductor slammed her baton down on the girl's music stand. "Alma would take her because she is a good musician, unlike most of you here; and anyway, I am the conductor now, I am your Kapo. "She turned back to me. "You can take a seat over there." She pointed her baton at a chair in the front of the other violinists.

  I hesitated.

  "Don't worry. We take showers here every day. You will be ready by Sunday," she said.

  We rehearsed all day, breaking only for our midday meal. In this strange place the Lagersuppe, with its foul odor and sickening taste, was the only thing familiar to me.

  We repeated the same simple phrase over and over, until everyone could play it correctly and up to tempo. Then we'd move on to the next phrase and do the same thing. When we returned to the music the next day it was as if most of the girls had. never seen the music before, and again we repeated each phrase a hundred times until it was correct.


  It wasn't all our fault, however. I soon realized that Sonia, our conductor, was not very good at her job. She tried to cover it up with a lot of knuckle slamming with her baton, but she left me alone. Everyone did. They didn't know what to make of me, and for the first three days I moved from place to place in a kind of trance. The existence of this block in this camp was beyond my comprehension. We took our showers daily with warm water and soap, and dried ourselves off with towels. I got not only a clean skirt and blouse to wear, but also a bra, underwear, dark stockings, and real shoes. We had to stand for Zählappell, but it was indoors, inside the hut. The only time we ever went outside at all was to go to the lavatory, the showers, or to play for the workers as they marched through the gate.

  It was during the morning of my fourth day there that Sonia came up to me and told me I was to play for the workers that morning.

  My Shvester was standing by my side when I shook my head and told Sonia I wouldn't play outside.

  "You will play or go up the chimney."

  "But I cannot. To play and cause someone to fall, or force someone to hurry who can't even pick up her legs so that the dogs are set upon her and she is eaten alive, I cannot do."

  Sonia smacked my wrist with her baton. "Where do you think you are? You are not at home. You have no choice unless you want to die. Do you? Is that why you look as you do? Is that why you act as you do?"

  All these months I had been here in the prison camp fighting with all I had to stay alive, fighting to keep from becoming a Muselman, only to come full circle. Again I was questioning everything, again I was trying to make sense out of nonsense, reason out of no reason.