We worked for seventeen, eighteen hours a day, with almost no food, no sleep. I grew thin, so thin that nothing of my baby showed on my body. Yet I was scared. I knew that if the soldiers found out I was pregnant, I would be killed. Sometimes I wished they would find out, so that I could simply die.
I do not know what it is in me that wanted to live. Some people call this the spirit; or say that it is God’s voice, telling us to live. I don’t know what to name it. I only know that I wanted it to be silent.
One day I returned to the camp after working from before sunrise. A woman had given birth earlier that day. She was chained to a metal pole in the center of the camp. Just out of reach, lying in a wooden crate, was her baby. One of the women whispered to me that she was being forced to watch her baby die. The soldiers wanted to see how long it would take. They were starving it to death, and taking bets among themselves on how long it would take for it to die. The mother was screaming and screaming. All night we listened to her cries, the pitiful sound keeping us awake. Just before sunrise, we heard the sound of bootsteps going out to her. The screaming stopped, and there was silence. And then, one final, terrible cry. And then — nothing.
The next morning, we saw that the mother had been stabbed over and over again with a bayonet. Her body, still chained to the pole, was slumped to the ground, her threadbare uniform dress soaked in blood. The baby had been stabbed too. You could hardly tell that it had been a human being.
This is what I witnessed. I cannot tell you the thoughts that were going through my head. I dare not tell you the thoughts I had for my own baby, for what our fate would be.
There was not time, as we have now, to wonder about G-d’s whereabouts. That is the pretty question that people ask us now, the pretty poem they want the survivors to recite. Where was Gd during the Shoah? But I try not to trouble myself with that question now, since I did not allow myself to think about it then.
But perhaps G-d protected those who were murdered first, because, even though they were lost, perhaps they were spared because their suffering was brief. I do not doubt that G-d breathed life into my soul – I do not doubt that there was even a G-d of Dachau, a G-d of Auschwitz, for even in the midst of death there were people who cared for one another, there was trust, there was hope, and to me, that is G-d.
Because I am not convinced that G-d is life. There are times when the will to live is a curse and not a blessing, and survival is nothing more than a burden – a mere heart and lungs and brain devoid of humanity, functioning only because it is their habit to do so.
Soon I grew too numb to worry about hope, about pain or fear. The world was death, the world was dead. One of my sisters disappeared. Later, we heard that a train took her and some of the others to Sobibor, where they were murdered in the gas chamber. I was sure Aron was dead. I feared in my heart that I had listened to his murder that day in the wheat field, but to stop those sounds in my memory I had convinced myself that he had been gassed long ago, his body burned, or tossed like garbage into one of the mass graves in some faraway place. I prayed that my Minna would not be lost to me, but I also feared that my prayers would be answered for I wondered, after experiencing the hell that was called Dachau, if I really wanted my daughter to live in a world that had permitted this place to exist.
If the Nazis did not discover Minna, and the countless other Jewish children hidden away in the convent, then they would be safe. And when the war was over, I would be able to return to her. Yet I did not know if we could live our lives in peace and freedom. And I feared that Minna would learn to forget any life that existed before she was hidden behind the walls that concealed her from a world that did not want her to live.
I knew that Minna would be all I had left, because my baby, my new baby, could never be brought into this world. I had made a plan to spare my baby from the suffering I had witnessed, a plan so that I could stay alive to find Minna if I could ever manage to live long enough.
Early one morning, I began to feel birth pains. I worked as silently as I could that day, digging new graves out of the barren ground. That night, I quietly slipped out of my wooden bunk and awakened my sister, the one who remained with me. We went out to the latrines. My sister stayed with me through that night, muffling my screams, stroking my hair, my face, easing me with her soft words, singing quietly to me in the warm, liquid music of our own language.
After a number of hours, outside, in the cold, on the frozen ground, amid the piles of human waste, my child came into the world.
I saw my daughter for only a moment. The cord linking us was still attached. Her eyes were a dark, milky blue, the color of the sky just before dawn. I was not convinced that she could see out of those eyes; I did not want her to see me, I did not want her to see the hell into which she had been born. I wanted to protect her from her own life.
She was so weak that she could not even cry. My sister cut the cord, and then took my baby from me. I lay on my back, looking up at the sky. My entire body was beyond pain. From behind the haze of the ache inside my eyes, the sky looked crimson, the stars were the color of new blood. My sister wrapped the baby in the remnants of a uniform she had taken from someone’s corpse, and then she placed a scrap of an old blanket over her mouth and nose. She crooned softly to thebaby in that last moment. It took a very short time for her to die.
In my heart, I named her Chava Lila, the Hebrew word for life, and the Hebrew word for night. I named her for the dark blue color of her eyes, for the night in which she arrived, and for the moment just before morning, in which I gave her back to G-d.
My sister took the body away. I do not know where she buried her. I never found out, for a few days later, my sister, too, disappeared. She was gone before morning. The soldiers found her burned body, still smoldering, upon the ground by the electrified fence. Her mouth was open as if she was silently screaming. She had killed herself.
Some months later, I – we – the ones who were left – did not hear the sound of soldier’s voices one morning. We listened, fearful, as the sound of tanks rolled into the camp. Then vehicle after vehicle followed the tanks. The guards and soldiers were nowhere to be found.
From inside the tanks and Jeeps emerged American soldiers. Some of them threw up when they saw us. Some of them took photographs as if they did not believe we were human beings, as if we were some terrible new species they had discovered. They photographed the barracks, the bodies in the ditches, our wasted bodies and faces.
Within the next few hours we were given substantial food – it was the first time in years we had seen anything but the thin gruel and the small slice of bread we were given once or twice a day – if we were fed at all. My stomach contracted with spasms the first time I tried to eat. But one of the American soldiers helped me hold the fresh white bread in my shaking hands, helped me to take slow bites of a potato so that I would not be sick.
After about a month, after the paperwork was done, after they had asked me my name and who my parents were, and I had answered in halting breaths, this same soldier helped me into a Jeep, along with three other women from my town, and took us home.
He went with me along the road to the convent; I was not strong enough to walk there on my own. My heart rejoiced at the thought of seeing my child, my Minna. But as we approached the convent, I saw that it had been burned to the ground. Another woman who had hidden her child there knelt down amidst the ruins and embraced one of the stones, weeping as she cradled it in her arms. I stood watching her. I could not cry.
Another woman told me someone had talked. Someone had told the authorities there were Jewish children being hidden. They were all arrested. The Jewish children had been shot and killed that day, their bodies taken away for burial – no one knew where. The priest, the nuns, and even the little Christian children had been taken away on the last train to leave our town. No one ever returned.
The marble statues of their saints and angels, once so majestic and haughty and cold, were shattered amidst the ston
e ruins. Nothing remained of anything. I had with me only Minna’s forged death certificate, and the small piece of cloth in which Chava Lila had breathed her first and last. All that remained of me were those two things. I was left alone, bereft, clutching at these remnants of death, for they were all I had to prove that once, long ago, my children and I had been alive.
And I knew that somewhere, in a distant field, was the book. The book my mother had given me, the book I had promised to pass on to my daughter. I knew my Minna was gone. I knew I never wanted to see the book again. I knew it would remind me of the life that had gone before, the life that had been murdered.
But I knew that someday, somehow, I would need to find the strength to return to that place, to find the book so that somehow, I could take these remnants with me into whatever life awaited. I did not know what to do.
I did not know whom I could trust. I knew I was not strong enough to find it on my own, I knew that I could not go back to the place where I had first heard what death sounded like, to that field where I thought I could hear the sound of my Aron’s voice, my beloved, as he cried out his final prayer to a G-d who was blind and deaf.
Even though I knew I could never forget, even though I knew that I knew I had survived hell, I also knew only death could take these images and memories away from me. But I was not ready to die. I knew that I did not want to die. But I did not yet know that I wanted to live.
“Jill?”
I looked up to see Aviva, standing in the hallway, still wearing her coat and holding her work bag.
“No,” I said without thinking, putting the pages behind my back. “There is no way I am letting you see this letter. I don’t care what you say.”
“Jill, it’s not that.”
I looked closely at her. She was pale, and her eyes looked fearful.
“What is it?”
“It’s the baby,” she said. “My water just broke.”
23
Aviva and I stared at one another. Her eyes held a mixture of surprise and fear, and I was sure that mine did as well. “Did you feel this happening on your way here?” I asked her.
“Not until I got to the office,” she said. “I had some light contractions last night, but this water thing,” she looked at her long skirt in dismay, “just happened.”
“But if you felt contractions, why didn’t you go right to the hospital?” I asked her. “Why did you come to the office?”
“Because,” she said simply, “I knew I wouldn’t be alone here.” Then her face contorted with pain as a new contraction hit. And then, almost as quickly as it had come, it passed. “That felt like the first real one,” she said, breathing deeply.
All right, I thought. Now is not the time to panic. “Okay, let’s get you sitting down,” I said to Aviva, as I put my arm around her, took her bag from her shoulder, and guided her to the conference room, where the elements of the team’s presentation lay in various stages of construction. “I’ll call the ambulance.”
“I don’t know if I need to go to the hospital yet,” she said, her eyes far away.
“Don’t be an idiot,” I said. “I’m calling now.”
“My cell doesn’t work in here.”
“Neither does mine.”
At that moment, Robert walked into the conference room with a sheaf of papers for the presentation. “Robert,” I said quickly, “Aviva’s in labor. Do me a favor and stay with her while I call 911.”
“Of course,” he said, putting the papers on the table and quickly coming to sit by Aviva, who looked at me in some dismay.
“Leave the door open,” she said, ever modest, as I went to close it before running down the hall to the closest phone.
“For heaven’s sake, Aviva,” I said impatiently, “do you really want the whole department in here staring at you?”
“Maybe you’re right,” she conceded.
“Besides,” Robert interjected, “I mean, I know we shouldn’t be alone together, but really,” he grinned, “this merits special circumstances.”
Aviva laughed, and her laugh suddenly turned into a cry of pain. She gripped the sides of her belly tensely, doubling over slightly.
“I’ll be right back,” I assured her.
I ran down the hall and called 911. I told the operator we had a woman in labor, gave the address, and received her assurance that they’d be on their way immediately. Then I called Security to let them know that Aviva was in labor in the conference room, and that the ambulance was on the way, and to please clear the area where the school groups were waiting to get through the metal detectors.
I hurried back to the conference room to find Aviva sitting in one of the straight-backed conference chairs, trying to breathe through a contraction, with Robert crouched on the floor beside her, singing softly in Hebrew.
“They’re on their way,” I told them. “What’s the timing?”
“About ten minutes from the last one,” Robert said.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” he said resignedly. Then he began singing the strange melody again, in a voice that sounded as if he were singing a lullaby.
“Yaànkha Adonay beyom’tsara yesag’gebh’cha shem ‘elohai yaàkobh,
yishlach-èz-rekha mi-kodhesh umitzion yisàdecha.
Yizkor kol-minchotekha veòlath’kha yedhash eneh selah.
Yitten-lekha khil’bhab’hecha vekhol-àtsat’cha ye’allai’.”
The Lord answer you in the day of trouble! The name of the God of Jacob protect you!
May he send you help from the sanctuary, and give you support from Zion.
May he remember all your offerings, and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices.
May he grant you your heart’s desire, and fulfill all your plans.
I looked at Aviva. She was breathing deeply and calmly, and seemed more at peace than she had all morning. I watched as she carefully took her arms out of her coat sleeves. “It’s so hot in here,” she said, as Robert continued to sing in Hebrew.
I picked up the papers that Robert had dropped on the table and started to fan her with them. “What’s Robert singing?” I asked quietly.
“Psalm 20,” she said. “When a woman is in labor, it’s traditional for her to hear it twelve times before her baby arrives.”
“I hope you have time for twelve renditions,” I said anxiously. “Let’s hope this baby isn’t in a hurry.”
“That would be a first for the museum,” she giggled. “But don’t worry. It’s a short psalm.”
Robert smiled at us as he sang. I continued to fan Aviva. “Why don’t you take that off?” I said, indicating her sheitl.
“Are you kidding me?” She glanced at Robert.
“Why not?” I asked. “It’s bound to come off in this process anyway.”
She leaned towards me and spoke in a low voice. “I know what you’re saying, but I —” Then her face suddenly paled again. I could tell there was another contraction starting.
“Where the hell is the ambulance?” I said, checking my watch. “Does Jacob know where to meet you?”
“I’m not sure. He knows that my doctor is at Downtown Hospital, though. That’s where they need to bring me,” she mumbled, grimacing.
“You called him, right?”
She shook her head. Then she motioned for me to come closer to her. I bent low so that she could whisper in my ear. “He didn’t come home last night.”
“Do you want me to call him?” I asked, bewildered. I had assumed she had called him from her cell phone as soon as her water broke.
She nodded, breathing in and out rapidly. Robert moved a little closer to her and sang loud enough for her to hear the words over the sounds of her breathing.
I left the conference room and went back to my desk. Aviva had given me Jacob’s office and cell phone numbers months ago, just in case something happened at work – or if she happened to go into labor while she was in the office.
I dialed his number at
work, and his voice mail picked up immediately. “Jacob,” I said, “this is Jill Levin, Aviva’s friend from the museum. She’s in labor. The ambulance is on the way, and they’ll be taking her to Downtown Hospital. So she wanted me to let you know,” I said, a little awkwardly. “I’ll try your cell in a minute. Okay. Bye.”
I pressed the button to disconnect the phone, and then called his cell phone and got the same result – voice mail. I left the same message for him and then went back to the conference room. As I passed the elevator, I could hear it coming up from the ground floor, and I fervently hoped it was the EMTs.
I couldn’t hear anything from behind the closed door. I slowly opened it and saw Aviva sitting in the same chair, but now Robert was directly across from her. He held both of her hands tightly in his own, as he continued to sing to her.
After the last repetition of the psalm, Robert leaned over and murmured some words that I could not hear, and I watched as she nodded, her eyes still closed. He loosened their entwined fingers and reached for the box of tissues, and then he handed one to her. She wiped the sweat from her face, and then clenched the tissue in her hand as she tried to muffle another groan of pain. He then leaned towards her again, and placing his fingertips gently on her forehead, he tenderly removed her wig. She tensed at first, and then exhaled deeply as her blonde hair tumbled down over her shoulders in a torrent of curls.
She then opened her eyes and looked up at me. “Did you find him?”
I shook my head. “I left messages on his voice mail at work and his cell phone.”
She nodded. And then, with her face filled with pain, she leaned against Robert’s shoulder and began to cry.
We watched wordlessly as the ambulance, lights flashing and siren blaring, pulled away from the curb. I waited until it reached the end of Battery Place, shivering in my thin sweater, and then I turned to head back inside. Robert held the door for me as we walked back into the building.
The Bookseller's Sonnets Page 26
