XII
There are three faded photographs stuffed into Wolf’s suit coat pocket. No handkerchief, no dash of color, only three small crumpled photos to commemorate a life that has already split in two. The still, serious faces scattered across paper, the family posing in a dark parlor, backs upright, gazes still. From the torn lining of Wolf’s coat, decorated with faded representations of European landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and the Leaning Tower of Pisa, to the papers tucked into his breast pocket, nothing is hidden from Wiktor anymore.
Wolf twirls a little pink string around his pinky finger. The string was given to him by his daughter, Leah. She is the spitting image of his sister, also Leah, who used the Yiddish spelling of the same name, Leye. He gazes out the window and wonders just how long it has been since he has seen these forests of endless white birch, like fragile ghosts standing, shivering imperceptibly in the silent wind. And the beautiful poplar trees, the upright topole so characteristic of his childhood. He remembers when he was studying at Slobodka Yeshiva in Lithuania, how he looked to those trees as an embodiment of the kind of man he wanted to become, proud and unmovable. Every time I travel home I will look to them as a marker of who I am becoming, he would tell himself late at night as he was falling asleep, face in a book, night giving way to the dawn. Then, early in the morning, he would take a long walk in the forest, turning over the latest ethical question in his mind. If I feel at one with that tree—he would say to himself, pointing to the tallest and most alone of the scattered group—then I will know that I am growing in the right way. Only then can I return home and call myself a man.
If only I had known. If only I had known what kind of wind was about to blow.
When we left Poland I held on to that image. I am strong inside, I told myself. I know what it is to be a moral person in this world. It may have broken my heart to make the choices that I made, but at least it did not destroy my family life. How could I have known that life can be so cruel? That even though I was a young man of twenty-five, I was still no more than a child?
Wolf cracks a sad smile and so does Wiktor, gently exposing small, crooked teeth as he listens to Wolf’s thoughts and looks out the window over his shoulder. Wolf’s suit is made of fine wool that is uncommon in Poland, especially after the war. With his black, wavy hair, his dark clothes and beard, Wolf stands out from the crowd. A small group of militiamen, the law enforcement of Poland’s communist regime, passes through the corridor of the train verifying passengers’ identities. They stop to look at him.
“Dokumenty,” the youngest of the threesome asks, a wry smile playing across his face.
Wolf removes from his pocket an American passport and hands it to the man. Wiktor notices how Wolf uses his left arm to hold the right one in place, doing what he can to conceal his trembling. The body exposes everything that the mind wishes to forget.
“What are you doing in Poland? Where are you going?” the young man asks in Polish, laughing derisively at the bald eagle on the cover of Wolf’s passport. He opens the window in the train corridor and spits sunflower seed shells out the window as he speaks. Wolf’s passport pages flutter in the wind as the young officer leans his elbow out the window, flailing his arm about. Pieces of shells leap between his teeth as he mocks the yid who has come back for a second beating.
Wolf takes a breath and sits up straight. Exhaling, he says, “I’m going to Białystok. To visit my family.” His two fingers grab on to that little pink string on his pinky as if to say, Nothing is going to happen to me baby, don’t worry.
“You have family there?” the militiaman asks, changing to Russian now.
Wolf replies in Russian.
“Yes, I do. I could not come to see them during the war, but now that the war is over, I am here. I am going back to America next week.”
The militiaman takes a step back and one of his friends nudges him to move on.
“Okay, okay,” he says, returning to Polish, handing Wolf back his passport, clinging to it for just a moment more.
The young man grasps the metal rack above Wolf’s head and leans in so close that Wiktor has to move aside. His breath is labored and has the distinctly sweet smell of alcohol that has been lingering in the body all night long.
“Is it really like they say it is?” he asks Wolf. “You know, America.… Streets paved with gold.…”
Wolf sighs, knowing he has won. “It is that and so much more.” Much, much more. The militiaman wrinkles the thick, smooth skin of his forehead and smiles quizzically, drunkenly, looking almost helpless, even innocent. He walks away without saying another word, and then moves on to train car number three, where a young schoolteacher is traveling alone with her sleeping child. He and his friends will wake her with their laughter, will pin her to the window while her child begins to cry, will lift her skirt and feel up her thighs, but they won’t go any further, because just at that moment a stranger will walk into her car to ask for a light for his cigarette, and the militiamen will retreat, giddily. The woman will pull down her skirt, sweating and trembling her way into the early morning light. Here I am, shaking again, she will say to herself. I couldn’t stand up right now even if I wanted to. For how many more years will I have to shake and remember?
Wolf looks out the window and exhales. Buds are blossoming along the road to the tune of a bittersweet cry. Those little birds, they sing with delight no matter what is happening on this earth. Their songs can shower this world with blessings, signaling the beauty of a new day, but they can also be the final arrow to remember how beautiful life once was and how it can never come back together again. To catch the shadows cast by the sun, to see the dawn coming, to live again.
Wolf closes his eyes. The sun is strong as it rises above the landscape, and Wolf stands momentarily to draw the curtain closed. As he blocks out the sun, he is reminded of how beautiful his sister looked that last summer, when they spent the day by a lake, swimming with friends and laughing. She was the only one who knew about Olga, but wouldn’t dare let on what she knew. When Wolf’s parents found out his secret, they were so upset that when they spoke about it they would shout with rage, so they just never spoke. He remembers his sister’s blue eyes and her wide mouth that seemed to embrace the world with its laughter. He sits down again and closes his eyes. Memories are beautiful, but they also keep pain alive. Would it be better to forget?
Images of Rybnik, the German soldiers, of Elżbieta, and of his beloved wife, Waleria, standing at the kitchen table flash across Wiktor’s mind in a whitewash of images while he watches Wolf struggle to find some peace. His wife’s beautiful pale blue eyes always smiling, and her hands, fleshy and almost masculine in their strength and ability, always soothing his world-weary hands and feet. She knew how to make magic happen every evening when he came home from work.
Wiktor looks to the still dark western horizon, as yet untouched by the rising sun, and sees something that resembles a vision. It begins with a woman on a train. Not the same train they are on, but a similar one. Unlike the train to Białystok, this train carries the ones who have died but who have yet to pass on. They are like him, only different. This train moves so fast but rarely arrives anywhere. It just goes back and forth and back and forth. Dressed in housecleaning rags, a white cloth tied around her head, this woman sits in the empty train car staring out at the world. In her world it is darkest night, and snow lines the tracks that take her through the countryside. You can see all the Polish landmarks on her face: the sweeping planes of her cheekbones, the long blue eyes, the pronounced nose and the narrow lip. Gone is the happy glow of life.
Dark night. She is going west and they are going east. Her hands are folded in her lap. I can wait for all eternity, but he will never come, she says to herself. This is the mantra that passes the time. She still holds the ghosts of his mother, his father, his sister, in her pockets. She washed herself in their ashes before it was her turn to go, just so she could keep them with her, so that in this world and even in the n
ext she could tell him that she had kept her word. This love may transform, but it never dies, she thinks. Soft fuzzy world, this country of hers, which shifts from brown to gray to periwinkle blue. She had always wished to travel to a place where there are palm trees, where oranges grow wild and the sun shines all winter long, but she never got farther than the Black Sea. In the distance tiny lights sparkle like Christmas tree ornaments as the green-gray light of the train car flickers. Christmas was always magical. She remembers it like yesterday. But nothing was ever so mesmerizing as the candlelit cemeteries on All Saints Day. She hums a tune to herself. Wiktor can hardly hear it, but he knows it is familiar. A lullaby, he thinks. She catches sight of the city lights approaching. Warsaw looks a little bit like the end of the world.
She turns to look back at Wiktor, or rather, Wiktor sees her looking at him, and when the train comes to a full stop he can see that she is completely gone. The half-light of dawn comes through the blinds to take her place. There is a silence as passengers descend from the train at Warsaw’s main railway station, Warszawa Główna, a meeting place for all souls. Wiktor wonders just where the sad and beautiful lady went. Where is her train now, and when will he see her again?
XIII
We tried to get out once by ourselves, but it was no use. After a long struggle with crowbars and songs we were able to unlock the heavy school door, but when we walked out in a group, all forty-one of us, we found that we could go no further. The gate was locked in ways that even a man, ten meters high with hands made of steel, could not pry open, not even with all his might. These locks were made of inhuman strength, of heartache and endless regret. I cannot explain any better. My words have become different since the war and I can tell you things only the best way I know how. Words and letters are like waves moving in and out of my tongue. Sometimes they have no meaning, and at other times they seem to recreate the world.
I tried to get little Sarah, the youngest and smallest, to slide her body beneath the wrought iron gate so she could break the lock open from the other side. I had hoped she could help us get out. I even wished that this special job might give her a boost of confidence, encourage her to join the group a bit more. But when Sarah got close to the ground, she began to scream and could go no further. She refused to tell us what was on the other side. After about an hour of hysterics, she gave in and spoke.
“What we see from here, the town and the church and the smoke stacks from the factories, none of it was there when I peaked out from under the gate,” she told us. “All I could see was dead bodies. Please don’t make me try again. They won’t let us out, that much I can tell. They were howling at me to go back in.”
Then I asked Sarah, for she comes from a rabbinical lineage, and may also have some Gypsy roots, because she is afraid of nothing. She lay down on the floor and did not dare to scream as Sarah had, but simply stood up very quickly, dusted off her uniform skirt, and said that little Sarah was right, that there was no way we could get out that way. Then she looked at me sort of sideways and said, eyes wide, eyebrows knit together in an oddly mature way, “Besides, where exactly would we go?”
The girls all whispered as they marched back toward the looming schoolhouse, arm in arm. I took little Sarah by the hand and we walked slowly behind the rest of them, first stopping to look up at the new moon and the stars. That pale crescent moon was so delicate and tender that it made me remember the old days when I thought that the mere existence of such a tiny jewel in the night sky meant no harm could ever come to me or to the ones I loved. Now I look at the moon like a star-crossed lover. I look at you, and I believe in your majesty, but I am also afraid of what you can take away. I look at you, and I still want to believe. Believe that you can keep what is beautiful and make it real again. Believe that you can liberate us all, Sarah and Sarah and Sarah, and then that you can give us final freedom in that most beautiful unknown. If we are dwelling in that nothingness of the divine soul, then I believe it is you who will take us home.
I look down at little Sarah with her tear-stained cheeks and I want to hold her tight and never let go. I want to tell her all this and more, but it is too much for her young mind, even if it is enough for her ancient soul.
XIV
Warszawa Główna is indeed a meeting place for all souls. Wolf awakens to eat a sandwich wrapped in a brown paper bag. Wiktor notices that there is only cheese and lettuce in the sandwich, and he wonders how Wolf will have enough energy to get through the trip, but of course there is nothing much that he can say about it, and even if he were alive and could talk he still wouldn’t ask. He doesn’t know much about Jewish life, and he assumes that this delicate sandwich, which reminds him so much of the ones that his son, Karol, and his daughter, Elżbieta, used to eat when they were children, has something to do with the rules of this man’s culture. Wiktor and his wife used to tease the children when they ate those sandwiches, calling them their little birds, but this man looks nothing like a delicate bird.
What do I know about their culture? Wiktor asks himself. I know the dark eyes and skin that is sometimes, but not always, darker. I know they have two days reserved for God, and we have only one. People complain about this. They want to know what makes them so special? What else do I know? My wife’s parents used to sell milk from their cows to the Jews, because the milk was known around the town for being the most pure, and Jews are always searching for cleanliness, or at least that’s what I’ve been told. I never knew one until now.
Spring is bursting along the tracks, but Wolf remembers the heavy snowfall that descended like a veil upon the world the day he and his new bride, Chaja, left the Old World. His mind wanders.
I remember my parents’ hopeful faces and how their tears mingled with the snow. My father and I rarely embraced, but that day I took him into my arms. I felt as if I would die there on the spot. And I would have been happy to do so rather than to suffer the pain of leaving them behind. I was going into the unknown. The starched collar of my father’s white shirt was drenched with tears, and I felt him tremble from somewhere deep inside. My mother took his hand in hers to keep him upright. Did they know somewhere inside that they would never see me again? I imagined that my parents were saplings that would recede into the earth for the winter, and when spring came, no matter where I lived in the world, they would just come back to life. But it wasn’t true. Later I would discover just how deeply buried they were in my soul, that even death could not break us apart, for they echoed in my heart and in my genes. I see them in my children’s faces. They are everywhere.
I remember that morning like it was yesterday. I went into the forest at dawn, walked through deep snow to find her there, waiting for me. Olga was standing in her pale gray sheepskin coat, blond curls surrounding her face in a halo, leaning against the trunk of my poplar tree. That was my tree, and she knew it. She had chosen that spot to make an impression on me, for she was nature and she was mine. Her eyes were red and puffy and I could see that she had been crying, but the expression on her face was one of complete resignation. It was cold, but her pale skin was warm. Here I was, following my parents’ wishes to leave Poland. Four months earlier I had also agreed to marry my cousin Chaja.
Never in my life did I love Olga more than I did that morning when I knew I was leaving. Chaja was at my parents’ house, sitting with our luggage, talking and drinking tea. She was laughing with my sister, who likely begged her to sing Yiddish songs, to dance and sing. That was the last moment of my life in Poland, and I was going into the forest toward my greatest desire. Did I know that it was my last chance to feel that pleasure? I felt so wild that nothing could have kept her from me. I would have ripped off my own skin if it would have brought us closer.
I remember that mad black crow as it flew overhead and I lifted her skirt and fell against her breasts. We remained standing as my black woolen coat spread open against the jagged bark of the tree, and I remained inside her. After four years of never giving in, we finally were able to feel each o
ther from the inside out, and in that moment there was no greater perfection on this earth and maybe even in the heavens above. Her breath became mine, and when she quivered, it felt like an earthquake inside me, yet we hardly moved at all. For five years I had walked that forest and stared at that tree, but only now could I begin to understand what it felt like to be a man.
*
White birch trees lost in the passing snow. Count the twigs that line the road and crunch beneath the wheels as we go. I see those jagged white lines like frozen beings shattering the light. They pass so fast that they turn from many into one, casting time and space aside. They become more than a forest of trees, but a great wave swelling, gaining momentum and speed. I see their arms reaching out toward the sun. That light that is long forgotten on this earth. But the trees keep trying. They bury their roots in the snow and mud and wait for things to change. I remember how they witnessed our departure, and though they didn’t show it, deep down in their innermost core, in the tiniest drop of sap that flows from unborn leaf in bud to ancient long-lived root, they wept for us. What else could they do with a living, breathing body frozen in time but stand there and wait for spring?
A tiny river is breaking through the icy ground and flowing from one end of the forest to another. Inconspicuous piles of snow melt and bleed into the water. Bare trees show their faces in reflective pools on the surface of the earth, birches hiding behind those majestic pines. The birch stands so bare, so naked, so beautiful because it cannot hide its vulnerability. Something is moving, something is alive in that dead, dead earth, and I remember how we passed that forest on our way to die. People suffocating like livestock in the hot train. Babies crying, and there was no milk, no water, not even air to feed our bleeding hearts. And how in the camp we sometimes ate the grass off the ground. It will take years for the birds to return now. For generations, there will be nothing for them to eat.
The Upright Heart Page 3
