If I Should Die Before I Wake

by Han Nolan

  The girls were gathering up their instruments and filing out of the hut.

  "Well, what is your answer?"

  I went over to my chair, put on my jacket, picked up my violin, and followed the others outside. It was simple—no need for questions or reasons; more than anything, I wanted to live.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Chana

  I NEVER GOT USED to playing for the workers. I refused to look at them as they marched in front of our platform each morning and again each night, but I could feel their hate, their misery. I wanted to throw down my violin, run down to the line, and march along with them. I wanted to tell them, "I'm with you; I belong with you," but I didn't have the courage. If it weren't for the warmth of the music block, the comfort of having my own bed with a mattress and blanket, and the daily showers, I never would have survived. I was sick, spending many a morning and evening before Zählappell with my face over a lavatory hole.

  Although I could see Bubbe almost every Sunday now, she could do little to help me. Either before or after our Sunday concert, which nurses and doctors and even some prisoners were allowed to attend, Bubbe and I would exchange hurried tidbits of information. She told me about Rivke dying, and I told her about Matel. A few times she managed to hand me a couple of pills, instructing me to take them right away, but they were never enough for a cure.

  One Sunday, I was feeling so ill, I pleaded with Bubbe to let me go to the Revier.

  "No, not now. Now is the worst time. They are making selections at the hospital daily. If you can still walk, it is best you stay where you are."

  "But what is happening? Why are the Germans so jumpy all of a sudden?"

  "The Allies are advancing. The war could be over any day. Think of it, we could be liberated any day now."

  Her words were full of hope, but her eyes were not.

  "I fear they will not let us survive," I said. "The Germans will kill us all before they surrender to the Allies."

  Bubbe grabbed my hands and closed her eyes. "Just hold on, Chana. Please hold on."

  I tried to do as Bubbe said, tried to hold on, but my body was refusing to cooperate. Our daily ritual of seventeen hours of practice had become unendurable, my fingers fumbling on the strings, my left arm trembling as I tried to keep the violin in position.

  One afternoon, as we were going over "The Charge of the Light Brigade" for the thousandth time that day, my feet slid out from under me, and I felt myself slip out of the chair and onto the floor. The next thing I knew, I was on top of my bed and Eleni, a pretty Greek girl, was bending over me.

  "I am supposed to see if you are all right now," she said in a monotone.

  I sat up. "Yes, sorry."

  "If Alma were' here, she'd send you to the Revier. It is not fair, your special privileges."

  "If I went to the Revier now, I would be selected for sure."

  Eleni nodded. "Yes."

  "So that is why I am here."

  "My sister was selected from the Revier, "she said, still in her monotone.

  "Yes, that is why I am here," I repeated.

  "Why should you be so special, Jew girl? Because you are an old number? That is no reason."

  "Because I am a human being."

  She laughed. "That is nothing here."

  I watched her pick up her violin from the foot of my bed. When she tucked it under her arm, a glint of gold caught my eye. She turned to leave.

  "Wait," I called her back. "That is—that is my violin! I do not believe it, you have my violin!" I popped up from the bed and the room spun around. I fell back onto the bed.

  "This is my violin," she said. "Your violin is back at your seat, where you should be if you will not go to the Revier."

  "No, you do not understand, that is mine. Those are my initials on the back, C.S. See the gold letters on the neck? My tata had it made for me. That is mine!"

  Eleni grabbed the violin by its neck and backed away. "You are sick. You do not know if this is yours. You are sick, stupid Jew." She turned and ran back to the other side of the hut.

  I tried everything I could think of to get Eleni to trade violins with me, but it gave her too much pleasure to see me so miserable; she would never hand it over to me. Whenever she caught me looking at her, at the violin, she'd pretend to bang it accidentally against her stand, or into a chair. She'd tighten the strings so much they'd pop, and when she was through for the day, she'd wait until I was looking her way and toss the instrument into its case. She used the case to rest her muddy feet on, claiming that it made her uncomfortable to sit in a chair with her feet dangling for so many hours.

  I felt guilty for feeling so upset about my violin. I was being childish, I told myself. What did a silly wooden case with some strings matter compared to what was going on all around me? However, everyone that fall was on edge. We felt certain that each day was going to be our last.

  At night we could hear planes flying overhead and we knew they weren't the usual run of Messerschmitts. These planes belonged to the Allies, and the bomb drops were getting closer.

  The Germans worked at a frantic pace. The crematoria were no longer able to burn all the people who were gassed each day, so they began tossing them into ravines, dousing them with benzine—not even bothering to kill them first—and setting them on fire.

  From my bed at night I could hear tortured screams intermingled with the distant bombs, and all I could do was shiver beneath my blanket and pray.

  During the day, a Lagersperre could last up to six hours, while the SS made their selections. When it was over the SS would often come to the music hut to relax, expecting us to play for them, to help them unwind.

  Usually it was the Laqerführerin, head of the women's camp, and Herr Kommandant Krammer, commandant of Birkenau, who came to hear us play. They were the true music lovers of the camp, the reason the music hut existed in the first place. But one day, after a four-hour Lagersperre, Dr. Mengele and Rapportführer Taube came strutting into our hut. Taube looked drunk. He kept knocking into Mengele as they made their way to the seats behind the conductor's platform.

  "Singen! Singen! "Taube ordered.

  Sonia bowed to the two men, turned around to face us, and signaled for us to rise. We went through our usual repertoire of German folk songs, but I could not sing. I could feel myself mouthing the words but nothing would come out. I could not perform for these two men.

  I don't know if Taube could tell I was not singing, or if he recognized me from before, but when the songs were over he called me forward. I patted down my skirt, licked my lips, and stepped up next to the platform.

  "You play the violin?"

  I nodded.

  "Then play. Play me some—some Bach."

  I couldn't think of any piece to play. I couldn't remember anything. I suddenly wasn't even sure I knew how to play the violin anymore. I stared down at the bow in my hand and wondered which way to hold it. I looked up at Taube. He had taken several steps toward me. I could see his bloodshot eyes. He clenched his teeth, his lips pressed up against his gums. I twisted away just as he raised his rifle and rammed it into the back of my skull.

  "Play!" he growled as I fell forward onto my knees and then down onto my face.

  My head was reeling, the floor beneath me seemed to be tilting, then dissolving, and then tilting again. I could feel something warm moving down the back of my head.

  "Play!" Taube repeated.

  I got up onto my hands and knees and crawled forward. I searched the faces of all the girls sitting before me for my shvester, but she was gone. When I needed her most, she was gone.

  Dear God, I prayed, be with me.

  I found myself kneeling in front of Eleni. I gazed up into her eyes, my mouth open. I tried to speak. She leaned forward, grabbed my arms, and pulled me up off the floor. Then she handed me her violin, my violin, turned me around to face my audience. "Play, Chana," she whispered. "Play for your tata."

  I closed my eyes and I played my violin. I played B
ach's "Chaconne," and when I was through everyone stood up and applauded. They rushed toward me and formed a line; they all wanted to shake my hand. I stepped forward and thanked each person there: Tata, Mama, Zayde, Anya, Mosze, Jakub, Matel, Rivke, Mr. Hurwitz, Mrs. Hurwitz, Mr. Krengiel, Mrs. Krengiel, Mr. Liebman—I stopped.

  "How long is this line?" I asked Mrs. Liebman.

  "It never ends," she replied.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Chana

  "TAUBE MUST HAVE ASSUMED you were dead," Bubbe told me when I came to in the Revier. "He told Sonia to leave you for the Leichenkommando."

  I ran my hand down the back of my head. Bubbe had sewn it up and the thick bits of thread felt strange beneath my hand.

  "I will be selected," I said. "Maybe they should have left me for dead."

  Bubbe shook her head. "Everything is upside down. Even the Germans don't know what they are doing. The whole camp is being evacuated. The music block has been cleared, they are gone."

  "Gone?"

  Bubbe nodded.

  I tried to imagine the hut empty, the instruments left on the chairs. Where had they been taken? Were they still alive? I remembered my dream, my vision of all my dead friends and family lined up in front of me. Would they be in that line now? I told Bubbe what I had seen. I told her that Mama and Anya and Jakub were in that line.

  "I am sony, Chana."

  "But it does not mean they are dead, does it? I was just dreaming."

  "You have the gift," she said.

  "Your gift?"

  "Yes."

  Someone from another bunk called for water, and Bubbe left me.

  I thought about her gift. She knew so much. She knew people so well. She could read their lives, past and future. She could understand them and love them, all of them. I was not like that.

  When she returned to my side I said to her, "I do not have your gift. I cannot see the future, I cannot read people the way you do."

  "You are young yet, give it time."

  "But I am not sure I want such a gift. I see how it has been a burden to you."

  "Someday, Chana, you will be able to use it to help someone, to save someone's life. Then it will be a gift."

  I thought about that for a moment and then said, "There was this girl, I called her my shvester. I could see her, she was so real, but I think she was a—a gift."

  Bubbe nodded. "Yes, a different kind of gift. All of us here have that kind of gift in one form or another. It is how we survive. It is how we cope."

  "But who was she?"

  "She was you, Chana. She was the brave Chana, the strong Chana, the Chana who could cry and mourn so many deaths, so much destruction, so that you wouldn't have to. To pity yourself, or anyone else, is to die here—you know that. But to feel nothing, it is death to the soul. Your shvester, your other self, kept your soul alive; and you, you have kept your body alive.

  "Yes, it is good you had this shvester, but she is gone now, yes?"

  I nodded. "She will not be coming back."

  Bubbe smiled. "You will find something better."

  "What do you mean?"

  Bubbe opened her mouth to speak, but she was stopped by a voice coming from the entrance of the hut.

  "Anyone who can walk must come out. Hurry! Get up! Get up!"

  I could hear others moving. I tried to get up but Bubbe pushed me back down. "No, you must stay here."

  "But I have to go with you." I looked in her eyes. "Bubbe, please."

  She leaned over and kissed both my cheeks. "You will be all right," she said. "You have all you need. And Chana, remember. Remember all of this."

  Bubbe turned away. I tried to get up and follow her, but my feet wouldn't hold my weight. "But I need you," I called after her. "I need you!"

  I don't know how many days I spent moving in and out of consciousness. I was aware of someone feeding me, giving me lots of water, wrapping me in layers of warm blankets. Once, I woke to find Dvora huddled over me, the back of her hand resting on my cheek.

  "The place is deserted," she said. "There are just a few of us still here. I have found a whole storehouse of food, so don't worry, I can take care of you until the Russians come."

  "It will be too late when they get here; I cannot hold out."

  Dvora forced some more water down my throat. "Don't give up, Chana. I am here to care for you."

  "I thought I never wanted to see you again," I said. "How is it you are here?"

  "I have been here for several weeks on the dysentery block. Bubbe took care of me. She saved my life."

  I nodded and fell back beneath my blankets and closed my eyes. I felt my body begin to spin forward. I tried to open my eyes so I could see. I began to dream. I began to see things. I could see Bubbe taking care of Dvora, and Dvora taking care of me, and I was taking care of Matel, and Matel was taking care of her mother, and on it continued, branching out to the left and right, and then weaving and looping back around into a circle so great I could only view the merest fraction of it. And marching through this circle was the line of dead friends I had seen before, only this time, Bubbe was leading it.

  I ran up to Bubbe and I asked her, "What is the meaning of this?"

  "You know," she said.

  I stepped back and looked at all the people as they continued to weave in and out, around and around, faster and faster until they were one blur, until they were One. And then I knew what Bubbe meant. Here, was God.

  When I opened my eyes again I was staring up at a funny-looking man wearing a long overcoat and a peculiar cap with a red star on the front.

  He stood watching me a moment.

  I blinked.

  "Dear God," he said in Russian. "She's alive!"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Hilary

  I'M SPINNING. I can hear sounds and voices all around me. I hear sirens like a high-pitched humming in my ears. Louder than the sirens are the sounds of glass chinking, metal on metal, air whooshing, and louder and closer still, the voices.

  ... We're losing her, Doctor ... can't get a reading ... hold it steady ... come on, fight, little lady ... more blood ... can't ... heartbeat...

  The voices stop. I'm spinning—forward. All around me is dark except a pinpoint of light in the distance. I begin to spin toward the light and it spreads out before me until the whole space is bright light. I can see someone standing in front of me. Someone I know.

  "Grandma?"

  "Yes."

  "You're speaking to me."

  "Now you are ready to listen."

  "But who are you?"

  "You know."

  "I—yes—I think—yes! You're Chana! But you don't look well. You're dying."

  "You have changed, Hilary."

  "Yes. I know things now. I understand."

  "Bubbe used to say to me, 'If you can understand a person, you can love him.'"

  "Yes, I remember."

  "What else do you remember?"

  "I remember it all. It's my life, too, now. You and me, we share the same past."

  "Yes, Hilary, we all do. Everyone shares the same past, the same future, but some will see it better than others."

  "Like Bubbe and her gift. And you. It's through the gift that I've been able to live this other life, your life."

  "Yes. It was you Bubbe meant when she said that I would someday use my gift to save someone's life."

  "That was so long ago."

  "No, just a thought away."

  "Chana ..."

  "I must leave now, Hilary."

  "No! Wait! What am I supposed to do now?"

  "Use what you know to change things. You can change the world, Hilary."

  "No. I can change me, but nothing else. Things—the world has always been this way. What difference could I make? What difference did you make?"

  "I reached out to you. I touched you. I screamed, and you heard. You are a witness. It is your turn to remember, and to tell, and to keep on telling until you are sure others have heard."

&
nbsp; "You're asking too much. I don't have your gift. How can I reach anyone? Who will listen to me? I'm not even Jewish."

  "You were an Aryan Warrior, a neo-Nazi. People will listen. Students will listen. Your past will be your gift."

  "I'm afraid. I don't think I can do what you ask of me. I can't go back."

  "You have to. You are a part of the chain, Hilary. We are connected now. In hearing me, in understanding me, you have given my past new meaning. It will change the meaning of your past as well, and someday your life as an angry child who has turned her hate to love will change still another life. You're a part of the chain, one you cannot break."

  "But I'm afraid it will all be the same if I go back. Nothing will have changed."

  "You have changed. That is all that matters."

  "I can't go back."

  "You won't be alone."

  "You will be there with me?"

  "No, not I."

  "You mean God? Chana, you're fading. Chana? No, don't leave. Don't leave! I'm going with you. I will not do as you say. I will not go back. I can't do it."

  "You will be all right. I have done my job, now it is your turn."

  "No, I'm afraid. Don't leave! Chana? I'm coming with you. Please!"

  I stare out into the light. A face comes into view. I blink.

  "Dear God, she's awake. Nurse, she's awake! Look, she's awake!"

  "There now, didn't I tell you?" The nurse hovers over me. All I can see is her mouth.

  "You gave us all quite a scare, young lady. Do you know where you are?"

  "I—in bed?"

  "Yes." She laughs. "What's your name?"

  "I have—I have two names."

  "Yes! Yes, that's right. Hilary Burke!"

  "Mrs. Burke, we prefer to let Hilary answer the questions. Now, do you know who this is?"

  "Yes—Mama?"

  "That's right, good."

  "She's never called me that before."

  "Please, Mrs. Burke. Honey, do you know what year it is?"

  "I know—it's after the—the war. The war is over."

  "The war? What does she mean? Nurse, is she going to be all right?"