“Olga Drobot?” she asked in friendly voice, in Russian tinged with a Jewish accent.
“Yes, hello.” Olga took off her dark glasses.
“I’m Dina. Come in.”
“Hi, I’m Bjorn.” The Swede nodded his head.
They entered a small foyer.
“Are you hungry?” the woman asked. “Honestly, now!”
“Thank you, Dina, we’re full.” Olga put her bag down on the ground. “We’d like to do what we came here for as quickly as we can. If it’s possible, of course.”
Dina sighed. “Just now it is possible. Until he falls asleep.”
“Excellent.”
“Follow me,” Dina said as she climbed a staircase.
Olga and Bjorn followed her. It was cool in the house, and somewhere up above a dog shut in a room whined. On the second floor Dina led them to a door, opened it, and looked into the room. Her beautiful hand gestured to them to enter. Olga and Bjorn went in. It was a small bedroom, for one person. The venetian blinds on the window were slightly closed. On a narrow bed under a quilted blanket lay a thin old man in lilac-colored pajamas. His hands rested on top of the blanket; an empty cup stood on his chest. His breathing was heavy and loud, and the cup moved in time with his breath. On seeing the guests he picked up the cup and moved it from his chest to a bedside table.
“Papa, these are the people,” said Dina.
“I guessed,” said the old man. “And I would really like it if a half hour will be enough for you. Or else I’ll fall asleep again. This disease is so wonderful, it’s actually a delightful disease. Permanent sleep. Well, it’s not the worst illness, is it now, Dinochka?”
Dina nodded. “I already said it a million times: I’m jealous, Papa.”
“Go be jealous” — the old man grinned, baring his beautiful false teeth — “and bring them our carrot juice, the best in the world.”
“How would I manage without your suggestions, Papa!” said Dina, tossing her head and leaving.
“Sit down, we’ve already brought chairs for you.” The old man turned, leaning against two folded pillows. “And let’s get down to business.”
The guests sat; Olga got out a small Dictaphone.
“David Leibovich, we won’t trouble you too long, but believe me this is very — ” Olga began to speak but the old man interrupted her.
“No superfluous words are necessary, I beg you. For the last sixty years I’ve told this story about three hundred and eighty-six times. If today is the three hundred and eighty-seventh time, it won’t dislocate my tongue. Especially since close friends of Dina’s are asking about it. So are you ready?”
“Yes,” Olga replied.
Bjorn sat there, not understanding a word, his back straight and his tan fists on his white knees. Dina appeared with two tall glasses of fresh carrot juice wrapped in napkins and offered them to the guests.
“All right, bikitser,” the old man said, holding on to the edge of the quilt like a railing. “How I got to the camps doesn’t really matter. I was in two camps, in Belorussia and Poland, and then — over there. In short, I ended up there in the spring of ’44. I’d just turned seventeen. Well, you know what kind of place it was and what they did there, I don’t have to tell you. When our group arrived, we managed to crawl out of the cars; they lined us up straightaway, looked us over, and chose twenty-eight from the entire group. I was one of them. And we all looked alike only in that, first of all, we were all Jews, like everyone in the train cars, and second — all of us had light-colored or reddish hair and blue eyes. Now I’m all gray, my eyes have gone muddy, I’m lying here parallel to the horizon, but then I was a well-built, handsome fellow, blondish and blue-eyed. Of course, I didn’t understand where we were going and why we were chosen. None of the twenty-eight understood, and what was there to understand? There was nothing to understand. It stank of burned people all the time and ashes flew around everywhere, that’s all you needed to understand. In short, we were deloused and then taken off to the barracks. And in this barracks I saw only blue-eyed and light-haired Jews. There were two of those barracks: men’s and women’s. And everyone was blue-eyed and light-haired. There were a lot of redheads. It was kind of strange, you even felt like laughing. And there was lots of talk and guessing going on about this, a lot of people joked glumly that they were going to make us real Aryans and send us off to the eastern front to fight for the Führer. Some said that they were going to do experiments on us. But they didn’t do anything to us. The experiments were done on others. And it was others that went into the crematoriums, from other barracks. So then, six months passed. We weren’t made into ashes, as it turned out. And over this time both barracks were almost overflowing: with each train that arrived they kept on adding and adding blue-eyed Jews — five, ten, or more. And sometimes — not a single one. Then the front came nearer, the Germans started getting nervous, and the ovens worked full tilt. But still, no one touched us. And then in October, it was the eleventh, exactly, we got the command: ‘Raus!’ We left our barracks, and they looked us over. They picked out some who had hidden with us who had black eyes. Or brown eyes. Or green eyes. There were some of them too. We hid them. They were separated from us. Then we were loaded into a huge troop train and it left the camp, heading west. We didn’t know what to think, but still we were happy that we’d left that cursed place. It stank of death there. We were sure that we were being taken to Germany. But the train traveled only for about two hours and then stopped. We were ordered out of the train. So we got out. The train stood in a clear field. There was an enormous sandpit right nearby. It was this huge gully, a sandy ditch. The guards from the train took up their places along the edges of this pit. And we were ordered to go down into it. Well, we all realized that we weren’t going to any Germany, but that they’d just finish us off here. In the camp we’d heard that the Russians were attacking hard. So the Germans were in a hurry to get rid of us. And we walked down into that pit. What else could we do? There was nowhere to run — there was just a big field around. There were about two thousand of us. No less. We went down into the pit. We were ordered to sit. We sat. And prayed. Because we understood that they would start shooting off their machine guns any minute. But no one shot at us. We sat there and waited. Guards with automatic weapons stood around the edges of the pit. And suddenly, up above, from where we’d come down, two SS officers appeared with two suitcases. They opened the suitcases and took two old people out of them. They weren’t even exactly old people, but something totally strange, at first I thought that they were adolescents from our camp, emaciated, all skin and bones. But then I saw that it was an old man and an old woman. They were unbelievably thin, thinner than we were, and all sort of white, as if someone had been keeping them underground. Their hair was white as snow and very long. The SS officers carried them in their arms like children and brought them down to us. And this old couple, held in the arms of SS officers, stared at us. They had very strange faces, not evil and not good, but something bizarre, like they had already died long ago and didn’t give a fig about anything. I’ve never seen faces like that. Even in camp the goners had different faces. These faces were still very unusual. These two also had blue eyes. They watched. But it was the same kind of thing, it was like they looked straight through us. You know, there are times when a person starts thinking and fixes his eyes on something without seeing it. That’s the kind of eyes they had. They looked at us and muttered something we couldn’t hear. And the SS officers started picking out some of us: one here, another over there. This went on and on. And then they took a young guy who was sitting just by me. It was Moishe from Kraków. I met him in the camp and we even became friends a little. He was older than me. Before the war he worked as a salesman in a department store. Like me, his whole family had been killed. He was very religious and said that if God left him alive, he would become a rabbi. This Moishe from Kraków, he always carried a piece of paper with him, the waxed kind they used to wrap dried fish in before the war. He kept it with
him all day long, crumpled up. And in the evening, when they called lights-out and locked the barracks, he lay down on his bunk and smoothed that paper out on his palm. It was given to him by a rabbi in the ghetto who said that this paper here, it is you yourself: during the day life crumples you up, turns you into a little ball, and in the evening you straighten yourself out, you forget about the world and again stand before God in all your truth. At night he always smoothed the paper out and placed it under his head. That piece of paper helped him. When they dragged him out of our crowd, this old man and woman got all worked up. They were actually writhing and shaking. And then I thought they had epilepsy. They only took about thirty of us. They took them to the train and put them in the car. And they took the epileptics away. The head guy gave an order to the guards and they went back to the train. All of us, we started praying because we were certain they were going to shoot us now. I put my head down, stared at an ant, because the ant was going to live, and they were going to shoot me any minute! And suddenly I heard the engine whistle and the train jerk. They up and left. The train wheels rolled and rolled and rolled. And that was it. The train was gone. No SS officers. We were sitting in the pit. And there was nothing but empty field all around. No one understood anything. So we stood up, climbed out of the pit, and walked off. No one had the strength to run. People wandered off in different directions. I made my way with three guys, they were all from Warsaw, and I was lucky because after all we were all blue-eyed and had light-colored hair, and the Poles, even though they’re anti-Semites, they took us in, umm, they, it was...azokhen vei...there still were...kind ones and scum...that pani was named Veslava, and her father had lost an arm...and they...and they...but...not only...as usual...”
The old man yawned and began to snore immediately.
“That’s it,” said Dina, standing at the door; she went over to the old man and straightened his blanket.
He snored very loud, his mouth wide open. His head shook on his pillow. The dog locked upstairs whined louder on hearing his snore.
Olga put the Dictaphone away and stood up. Bjorn, who didn’t understand any Russian, also stood.
“Tell me, Dina, did any of the two thousand survive?”
“Yes.” Dina took the empty cups from the guests. “In Israel he met two of them. About fifteen years ago. But where they are now, I don’t know.”
“But did he try to find out — what this was all about? Why they were put in those two barracks, taken away in the train, and then let go?”
“Yes, yes,” Dina muttered, “of course he tried...Excuse me, I have to take the dog out.”
She opened the door and ran up a narrow wooden staircase. Somewhere up above a door opened and a young female voice said angrily in Yiddish: “Your egoism knows no bounds!”
“Don’t you see we have guests?” Dina answered in Hebrew, unlocking the door. “Let’s go, Fifer.”
The dog turned out to be a huge silky black mastiff. Dina led him downstairs by a thick leash. Olga and Bjorn also went downstairs.
“And what did your father find out?” Olga asked, lifting her bag.
“He found out — ” Dina opened the door and the dog, pulling on the leash, literally jerked her out of the foyer onto the street.
“Stay! Heel!” Dina shouted in Hebrew, struggling with the dog.
Olga and Bjorn went out into the street with their things. The sun was scorching.
“And what did he find out?” Olga, squinting from the blinding sun, set her purse down on the white, hot sidewalk.
“That blue-eyed Jews were chosen on personal orders from the camp director.”
“What for?”
“There was no written explanation.” The dog pulled Dina farther down the street. “It seems it was just some kind of German madness...”
“Did anyone write about it?”
“What?”
The small window in the attic opened; a girl with curly hair stuck her head out and shouted loudly in Hebrew: “My mother is an egotist!”
And she slammed the window shut.
“Did anyone write about this? In the newspapers? Or anywhere?” Olga shouted to Dina.
“What?”
“Was this written about?”
“Yes, but no one understood...akh, you...”
“What?”
“No one ever understood — what it was...and...and...Heel! Heel! And why it was done!” Dina shouted, balancing, and then disappeared around a corner.
Olga looked back at the house. The old man’s loud snoring could even be heard on the street.
“What did she say?” asked Bjorn.
Olga sighed and put on her dark glasses.
“What did she say?” Bjorn asked again.
“That life can’t be turned back,” Olga muttered in Russian, as she noticed a taxi up ahead. “All right, then, let’s go to the hotel.”
In the car, Olga felt cold from the air conditioner; Bjorn kept asking questions, she kept sighing, muttering, “Later, everything later.”
The hotel Prima Astor that Olga had reserved over the Internet was located about a hundred meters from the sea. Olga noticed that the sea was smooth and calm. They were put on the same floor, in small one-person rooms. After taking a shower and changing into a linen blouse and striped shorts, Olga invited Bjorn into her room, sat him down in the sole chair, settled herself on the bed, and translated the old man’s monologue for him from the Dictaphone recording. The Swede listened to it, silent and tense, his hands on his knees. Then he moved his large legs and long arms, stuck out his lower lip, and said thoughtfully, “It sounds like the truth. We should think about it very seriously.”
“That’s a profound observation!” Olga nodded ironically, taking a cigarette out of a pack and lighting it.
“You think that I’m too — ” the Swede began, but Olga interrupted him.
“I don’t think anything,” she said rubbing the bridge of her nose. “You know, Bjorn, first of all, I don’t like the heat, and second, I have jet lag.”
“I have tablets. I already took some.”
“Great. Then you can go to your room and think seriously for an hour and a half or so. And I’ll take a nap. Okay?”
“Okay.” He stood, smiled guiltily, and left.
Olga finished her cigarette, lowered the green blind, pulled back the covers, undressed completely, and lay down, covering herself with the sheet. The air conditioner rumbled quietly over the door.
“Sleeping sickness,” Olga thought, running her palm over the cool, fresh sheet. “Well, it’s certainly better than insomnia...”
Her hand touched her stomach. Her body was tired from the last few days.
“Two barracks. Two barracks...” Her fingers touched her navel and climbed higher. “Two barracks in an open field...no hope and no grief...Lord, why did I come here...”
Her fingers felt the scar on her chest, the small dent in her breastbone.
“A piece of paper. For wrapping herring. That’s good. I should get one of those. And straighten it out for the night...Life crumples you...”
She fell asleep. She dreamed about Todd Belieu, the top manager of the elite kitchen department, naked and incredibly thin. He was walking around the room with an iron stick, muttering something in Hebrew, and banging on the kitchen sets to test their durability.
Olga woke up when the phone rang. She opened her eyes. Evening twilight filled the room. The phone on the table by the bed was ringing. She picked up the receiver.
“Yes.”
“It’s Bjorn. Olga, it’s already 20:07.”
“Oh my God...Okay, I’m getting up.”
She took a shower and got ready. And knocked at Bjorn’s door five minutes later. Soon they were sitting in a small restaurant not far from the hotel. Bjorn ordered the local beer and lamb chops. Olga ordered chicken on toast, water, and coffee. She wasn’t very hungry.
“So have you thought about it seriously?” she asked, putting out her cigarette in a clay ashtra
y.
“Yes. Yes. I think it’s the same people who kidnapped us and our families.”
“So they existed before the war as well?”
“Yes.”
“And who are these emaciated old people?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps it was their leaders.” He took a large swallow of beer.
Olga looked at the strip of foam remaining on his upper lip. He noticed, and wiped it off with a napkin.
“It was probably related somehow to Fascism.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. But those people back then, and us now — we’ve all got blue eyes and light-colored hair. And the Fascists had that idea of a Nordic race.”
“The fair-haired devil?”
“Yes. The fair-haired devil.”
“But there were Jews in the barracks. The Fascists hated us, destroyed us. And I’m a Jew. And my parents were also Jews.”
Bjorn sighed. “It’s strange. But all the same, Olga, I think that it’s connected to Fascism in some way.”
Olga lit another cigarette.
“I don’t know...My parents and I were kidnapped by three blue-eyed guys. One was a blond, that’s definite, and two of them, I think, had dyed hair. Then, when they beat me with that ice hammer, they kept on saying the same thing: ‘Speak with the heart.’ Until I fainted. What does Fascism have to do with that?”
“I don’t know. It’s just my intuition.”
Olga laughed.
“It sounds funny, I understand,” said Bjorn, “but so far intuition is all we have. There’s nothing else.”
“Intuition!” Olga scoffed angrily. “In broad daylight some sort of monsters kidnap people, beat them to death. They disappear. No one knows who they are! The police give annual numbers of people who’ve disappeared. Statistics! Is that normal?”
“It isn’t normal. When I told everything to the police, they didn’t believe me for a long time. A hammer made of ice! ‘Speak with the heart...’ They looked at each other for a long time and thought I was nuts.”
“They didn’t believe me, either. Then they did an expert analysis of the wounds. Mine and my,” she stammered, “my papa’s and mama’s. Their breastbones were completely smashed. But all I had was a broken rib and some cracked bone. There was a puddle where they found me.”
Ice Trilogy Page 62
