Exodus: A memoir

by Feldman, Deborah

  “Can they do that? Can they turn them into heroes now? How is this even legal?” I said.

  “Not everyone wanted to fight in the army,” Markus said. “A lot of them were forced.”

  “Don’t you think a more appropriate title for this memorial would be ‘Our Victims,’ or perhaps ‘Our Martyrs’? Heroes—don’t you see what that implies?”

  He shrugged. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a young teenager with a blond buzz cut glance over at me surreptitiously. Had he understood what I had said? Was he a skinhead? I pointed him out to Markus.

  “Don’t talk so loud, yeah?”

  “But that’s the point! I should be nervous about talking about it, here, where it happened? Where supposedly there is the best Holocaust education in the world? Do you see any memorials here for the Jewish heroes who died?”

  But there were none, not in that town, and not in any of the other small Bavarian towns we visited in the area. I did not bring it up again, but I decided that the absence of memory was a kind of denial. To avoid the issue was to pretend it had never happened, and in that sense Bavaria was similar to Austria—it had become convenient to forget. It wasn’t fair to hold Markus responsible for that, but even though there were no lines drawn between us when we were alone in a room, outside it became easier to see him as on the other side of some great gulf.

  At dinnertime we wandered over to the Cantina, a lovely whitewashed grotto carved out of the property’s east side. Inside, it was already lively with the sounds of beer glasses clinking, dishes and cutlery being sorted in the back, and the vibrant chatter of diners. Every table was full, as the restaurant was open to the general public as well, but Gina spotted us. She approached us looking regal, wearing a floor-length robe and her hair wrapped in a silk turban.

  “Come outside,” she said. “I always keep a special table for the guests.”

  We followed her out the back door into an enclosed yard, full of rustling ferns and trickling fountains. Under a broad umbrella sat a lone table, its slatted wooden top draped in a mantilla. Red roses floated in a bowl at its center. Three men already sat around the table drinking red wine from stemless glasses.

  “A table for friends,” Gina said, smiling and nodding at the others. “Away from the noise. Here we can actually talk.”

  The men each introduced themselves; they weren’t all local but they seemed to be good friends of Gina’s. An academic, a mechanic, and a biker—it was hard to understand what made them a group. After Frederic poured us some of that deep red wine and brought out small plates of crispy octopus and pork croquettes, I relaxed a bit, and it was then that I must have switched to German without realizing it.

  “Deborah! You didn’t tell us that you speak German!” Gina said. “What a shame, I would have spoken to you in German as soon as you arrived.”

  “Oh no, I don’t really speak it,” I said, “or at least, I speak it very poorly.”

  “Not at all,” Gina said. “You speak it quite well. In fact, you should speak it more often. It would be a shame to waste it.”

  “You’ll see,” I said. “It’s not really German. If I speak it long enough, you’ll understand.”

  The biker smiled and emptied his glass. “This is a country of many dialects. You should hear me when I speak Bavarian.”

  “It’s true.” The academic nodded. “I can barely understand him.”

  “What is your dialect?” the mechanic asked. He hadn’t talked much since we had arrived, and was still nursing the same glass of wine.

  “It’s really old,” I said. “My family is of Franco-German ancestry, and my grandparents spoke this dialect, which they must have inherited from their parents and grandparents. I don’t think it’s spoken in present-day Germany anymore.” Markus looked over at me then, a curious expression in his eyes. He had been busily consuming tapas as I had carried the conversation, in his typical reserved style. Now he sat with his arms folded and lips pursed in amusement, saying nothing.

  “Why didn’t you tell them it was Yiddish?” he asked me later, as we stumbled back to our room in the dark.

  “Look,” I whispered, pointing at the sky. I had suddenly noticed it then. It was as if the universe had lowered itself to us. Constellations twinkled like sequins loosely sewn onto blue velvet. The stars shimmered so brightly they seemed to run into each other, in a pulsing twisting movement, like silvery snakes squirming in a pit. It was by far the most magnificent view I had ever seen of the night sky; it made the most impressive planetarium seem puny in comparison. “Have you ever seen the stars like this before?”

  Markus looked up. “It’s because we’re far from the city. No light pollution.”

  “But I live in the country and I never see them like this. They always seem so far away. Do you think it’s because we’re in the Alps?”

  “You mean because we’re higher up? Could be. It seems like the difference should be negligible, though, when you think about it.”

  We fell silent, and the soundlessness around us was suddenly palpable, like a thick curtain had dropped over the town, muffling all sound. Overhead, the stars continued their dance, glowing and fading in rhythm. We walked up the darkened stairway to our room.

  “I guess I was afraid of their reactions,” I said finally.

  “I was wondering if that was it.”

  “There are no Jews here, Markus. Not one. I can actually feel it, like it’s something in the air that’s missing, a smell or a sound that I usually recognize.”

  “You may be right.”

  “That scares me for some reason.”

  It rained then, for three days straight. On the third day, we gave up trying to go out. We were lying in bed, and we had the windows open for air, so we could hear the drops pinging off the metal drainpipe and bouncing off the clay-pot roof. They plopped onto ferns and broad-leafed trees and splattered into the muddy driveway.

  “I’ll sing you something, okay?” I said to Markus, who was lying next to me with his eyes closed. “Tell me if you understand it. It’s a lullaby from my childhood.”

  “Mmm.” He nodded, relaxed.

  I began to sing in Yiddish.

  “Sleep my child, rest my soul / Keep your eyes closed. / A mother is holding you in her arms, / Ai li lu li lu. / And you should not fear / And you should not worry / That the sun is going down / For surely a new morning will come / Full of joy and happiness.”

  “Sehr schön,” he said. “It’s a nice little song.”

  “Wait,” I said. “It’s not finished.”

  I continued: “My child, you once had a mother / But you barely knew her / In the Auschwitz flames / They burned her. / An angry wind blew then, / A cold, wet rain, / When I found you, my child, / In the damp forest. / Both of us ran off together, / Looking for a safe place, / And we found some partisans, / And stayed there with them. / Don’t worry, my child, / Sleep well. / For one day you shall grow up, / And avenge your mother’s blood.

  “That’s my lullaby,” I said, and turned to look at him. His eyes were open now, and he raised his eyebrows.

  “Ja, that’s quite intense.”

  “I feel like that song sums it all up, my whole childhood.”

  Finally, the sun came out. When we opened our eyes in the morning, we jumped out of bed and scarfed down a quick breakfast. We were anxious to take advantage of the weather and do as much as possible, as the forecast was predicting more rain later in the week.

  “Where shall we go?” Markus asked once we were in the car.

  “To the mountains, of course!” I’d never seen the Alps up close, or any mountain range that could compare. I was thrilled at the prospect.

  It was a beautiful drive, the slopes a steady wall in front of us, never seeming to recede or shrink as we came closer the way I expected them to. We stopped at Mittenwald, the last town before the Austrian border, t
o catch a glimpse of the Isar River, a glacial runoff with waters the color of mint-chip ice cream, frothing around rocks and boulders, in a hurry to get somewhere. We stopped to take pictures at the riverbank, the Alps a splendid but still distant backdrop.

  Then came the sheer drops and sharp turns over the border, and finally, somewhat carsick, we arrived in Innsbruck, Austria. We walked through the old town, which was packed with tourists, and purchased a picnic lunch at a supermarket. Then we headed back out toward the less populated area, to a park with ancient willows and birches on the banks of the River Inn. Across its sparkling green rush, the brightly colored homes ascended up the hills, and the snowcapped mountains soared breathtakingly above them. Spires and cupolas peeked playfully out onto the scene. We finished our lunch and climbed down some makeshift steps to the riverbank. Markus took off his shoes and socks and ventured in, and I rolled up my jeans and did the same. The water was ice cold and sped furiously around my feet.

  “Would you swim in this?” I asked Markus. “It’s probably dangerous because of that strong current.”

  “I’ve been watching that big branch out there in the middle, and it keeps coming back in circles. It’s like there’s a circular current out there, or two separate currents going in opposite directions.” I followed his gaze, and sure enough, a large branch was whipping back and forth in the middle of the river, seemingly tossed between two opposing forces.

  “So,” Markus said, once we had our shoes back on. “Where would my Jewish princess like to go next?”

  I was looking at the map. “Did you know we were so close to Italy?”

  “You want to cross another border?”

  “Since we are already here, it feels like such a shame not to. Who knows if I’ll ever be in this part of the world again.”

  “How far is the drive?”

  “An hour, maybe an hour and ten,” I fudged.

  It was closer to an hour and a half, but we got to see the Brenner Pass. We crossed the entire mountain range, stopping in Bolzano, the first real city on the Italian side. Formerly known as Bozen when it belonged to Austria, it had been heavily Italianized by Mussolini. Signs were printed in German and Italian. The temperature seemed to change drastically as soon as we started our descent. The sun shone brightly down on orchards and vineyards embedded into the verdant green slopes in neat, angular steps.

  We parked in front of a big church and walked across the street, where Markus ordered some pizza from a street vendor in German. We stood at a tall table under an umbrella to eat. Sparrows began to crowd around us hoping for crumbs. Markus, after having eaten his fill, started to feed them.

  “Look at this,” he said. He was making the sparrows fly to his fingertips to eat the bits of bread he held out. I watched as they approached him tentatively, batting their wings as they hovered near his hand, trying to take some bread back with them. Most of the piece would crumble to the ground, and they would be left with only the crumb in their beak.

  I threw some of my crust at the sparrows perched on the hedge near us.

  “Don’t do that,” Markus scolded. “Make them come to you.”

  “I’d rather not. It feels wrong to make them do that just for my entertainment.”

  He scoffed. I watched as he continued to coax the birds to his outstretched hand, grinning triumphantly each time a sparrow flew awkwardly out to meet it. He had mentioned to me many times how much he loved animals, and I’d seen him stop for every cat and dog on the street, but this struck me as a peculiar way to express that love.

  A pigeon approached and I tossed some crumbs its way, remembering how my grandmother had always left food out for the city birds on our porch.

  “Ach, don’t feed the pigeons!” Markus said. “They’re just stupid.”

  “Does that mean they’re less deserving of a meal? My grandmother wouldn’t have made such distinctions between the birds she fed.”

  A crowd of pigeons descended then, and the scene quickly turned to chaos. Markus had been right in a way. I watched the pigeons stumble blindly in circles, seemingly unable to see the food in front of them. Then a sparrow flew into their midst so quickly I almost didn’t see it. It left in a blur with the food in its mouth.

  “See?” Markus crowed. “They’re too stupid to even eat what you throw at them. The sparrows are getting everything.”

  My cheeks felt hot, but I didn’t say anything, because I couldn’t articulate to myself at the time what was bothering me.

  We walked around the city for a bit after that, stopping at every gelato stand until we had stuffed ourselves silly. Then we embarked on the long drive back, stopping at Hall-in-Tirol for an aperitif and then Seefeld-in-Tirol for a very late dinner.

  On the way home, I brought it up.

  “You know, you may not have realized it, but that story with the birds was kind of a metaphor for the whole idea of survival of the fittest,” I said. “You singled out the intelligent birds as the ones deserving of being fed, and then made them dance for their crumbs. Kind of fits with your whole Übermensch thing, doesn’t it?”

  “Ja, of course. I’m a Nazi after all, how can I help it?”

  “I think it’s funny that I’m the one who is looking out for the underdog, trying to feed the ones that can’t feed themselves, and you clearly expressed with your behavior an idea that you don’t necessarily agree with consciously or intellectually. What does that say about how our culture is ingrained in us? I clearly have a persecution complex after the way I was raised, but I wonder if possibly you were affected by the Nazi side of your family more than you realize?”

  He shook his head impatiently. “We already agreed on this, no? That’s why I’m with you, for some Wiedergutmachung—reparations, right?”

  “I don’t even feel that that’s funny anymore.”

  “I should stop joking about it?”

  “I remember reading about Katrin Himmler, who married an Israeli Jew, the son of Holocaust survivors, and she used to say that everything was great until they argued, and then she was a Nazi and he was a Jew who couldn’t get over it.”

  Markus’s face showed no expression. His hands remained on the wheel as we sped down dark roads.

  “Of course I don’t see you like that, as Himmler’s descendant. I know you’re not like that. Otherwise I wouldn’t even talk to you. It’s just that sometimes the voice in my head that screams All Germans are evil, that voice I grew up with, it just kind of takes over.”

  “Genau. Understandable.”

  I leaned over and kissed him, and stroked his neck. He had the most beautiful face. How could I really be so horrified by my relationship with him in these odd, random moments when my whole body seemed to thrill in his presence?

  The next day I felt a bit off. It was raining again. We decided to nap after lunch. I fell asleep for thirty minutes and awoke in the midst of what felt like the peak throes of a panic attack. I had never woken up in such a state. Before I even opened my eyes, I could feel my heart racing, my body trembling from the force.

  I lay paralyzed with fear and shock for a few minutes before I was able to whisper to Markus, who was lying next to me reading a book. He had not noticed I was awake.

  “Markus.”

  “Yes, my dear?”

  “Can you feel my pulse?” I asked. I didn’t want to seem crazy. I assumed that I must look ordinary on the surface, as I was lying still on the bed. One couldn’t see a racing heart.

  “Ja, natürlich,” he said and took my hand, looking at his watch.

  After a minute, he looked over. “Quite fast, ja, especially since you’re lying in bed, no?”

  “Markus, I, I—” I faltered. “I feel really sick.”

  He sat up. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I just woke up in the middle of what feels like a heart attack.”

  He looked at m
e with concern and immediately my anxiety let loose like a racing horse at the sound of a pistol shot. My heart was pounding even harder, and now I could feel my hands and legs getting numb. I started to hyperventilate.

  He got up and came over to my side of the bed.

  “I’m scared, I’m so scared,” I cried as I thrashed under the sheets, trying to shake off the sensation.

  “Calm down,” he said, holding my arm and looking into my eyes. “What are you feeling?”

  “Everything’s numb. Why does it feel so bad? What’s happening to me?”

  “Just breathe,” he said.

  I followed his breathing, deep and slow, even though it didn’t feel like it was helping. After about ten minutes I started to feel a bit more like myself, although still woozy. I sat up.

  “You’re okay?”

  “Yes, I think so. I need some air.”

  He went back to his side of the bed and resumed his reading, as if nothing had happened.

  Outside on the patio I reflected that no one had ever seen me panic like that except my ex-husband, who never understood what I was going through. No one had ever looked at me when I felt my craziest and made me feel that normal.

  What had frightened me so much, I wondered? I knew only that it was time to leave. No matter how many beautiful visions I had encountered here, I was too uneasy to really enjoy them. Perhaps the fact that it was so lovely was the very thing that was disturbing me—did it have any right to be such a picturesque, fairy-tale-like region when it had been the birthplace of one of the greatest horrors in the world? As if I were looking through the lens of a Grimm brothers’ tale, I wanted the forests to turn dark and gnarled, the sky to be an angry purple, the brittle leaves to cut like glass. This place, I thought, should reflect what happened. To appear so innocent and calm was a wrongdoing on its part, an unforgivable betrayal.

  But the only one to feel betrayed was me. Only I didn’t belong here.