Displaced Persons

by Ghita Schwarz

  You know her? How? The words came out louder, more shocked than he anticipated.

  Not from camp. She’s much older than me, you know.

  What, a year, two?

  Maybe four. Sima’s lips went straight. Maybe five. She lies about her age, of course. I was in the army with her. She’d subtracted some years to postpone service. No birth certificate, no documents, impossible to prove. But still, hard to do, given that figure. She was developed like a thirty-year-old when she was eighteen, at least, when she said she was eighteen. Men always after her.

  She was singing.

  Ah, you heard her. She was in the acting troupe of the army. I heard her a few times. Beautiful voice.

  Yes, Chaim agreed. She had a pretty voice.

  Sima’s careful hands were cutting a pear; the juice spilled onto her polished pink fingernails. It was night. Lola was asleep. Chaim felt his hand push itself across the round table to cover his wife’s. She didn’t stop cutting.

  Do you want a piece? she said. It’s so good.

  No, said Chaim, withdrawing his hand. No.

  Sima had started for Lola one collection after another, the most extravagant and least successful being an intricate dollhouse. Lola was not delicate; she broke things, and miniatures made her nervous. She was quite tall for her age, lithe and loud. The dollhouse was kept in Lola’s room, but Lola rarely touched it. Sima dusted the insides, bought tiny furniture, small rugs, even little dishes. Sima had not had a girlhood, Chaim thought. She had not had a girlhood and so still was a girl. She had been poor and deprived but sheltered in youth, protected and watched. Now, suddenly learning to be without parents, she was learning what it was not to be young.

  Basia was old.

  SIMA GOT UP AND washed her plate. Chaim stayed in the kitchen, then went to the living room, turned on the hi-fi. He put on Rachmaninoff’s Third, a new Lazar Berman recording he had brought home from the station. He played it low and sat on the sofa, waiting for Sima to come out from the bedroom and ask him to join her.

  They had lied to Lola until Sima had come back. He had lied, because Sima had wanted him to. She wanted to tell her daughter about Berel’s death in person. He would sit in the living room with the record player on, waiting for the telephone to ring while Fela made dinner for him and his daughter in the kitchen, Lola convincing her to put chocolate in her apple cake, Pavel smiling wider than Chaim remembered ever seeing, Lola looking happy and ignorant.

  Every night the same thing. Chaim would tell a funny story about Lola. But Sima’s laughs would come out unnatural and short, barked over the international phone lines.

  Chaim, she said. How will I tell her?

  I can tell her, he offered again.

  I want to. Please, let it wait.

  But it made him nervous to wait, to watch his daughter’s mouth opening like a bird’s: “How is Sabah? What does he say? When is he coming out of the hospital?”

  He would turn away and say, “Not good, not good.” Then, as if to make himself feel more truthful: “Very bad.”

  He thought their daughter was stronger than Sima believed. Lola was healthy and exuberant, more trouble than her school could handle: good trouble, the trouble of a strong child. She was mischievous. She laughed uncontrollably at jokes made by schoolmates, whispered during emergency drills when the rule was silence. Chaim went to the meetings with Sima, nodded solemnly over their daughter’s failings, flirted gently with the teachers. Lola would burst into tears afterward and quickly recover. She knew that people died; if he told her the truth she would not collapse. Grief was grief, it did not matter who bore the message or in what form the message was given. It was not good to give their daughter the luxury of believing that when death came, it came gently, accompanied by a mother’s comfort.

  HE COULD NOT REMEMBER what he had felt when he had learned of his father’s death, when he had seen his brother—and even if he could remember he preferred to blot it out. Chaim remembered only flashes of shock and horror—the sadness had come later, when the world he once knew seemed a forgotten story, something in films, grief forming in a fog, surrounding him, but refusing to fill him the way he saw that his wife was filled.

  Upon her return Sima had become silent and inward, even with Lola. He wanted to talk to her, to tell her that he too wept for her father, the man who had given him a new family, but he felt that crying in front of her would seem intrusive, presumptuous. Berel had mocked him at their first meeting. That was how Chaim remembered it—Sima’s father’s sarcasm at his painfully new Hebrew surname: Halom. Chaim had changed it, cleverly, he had thought, to the translation of his own name, his father’s name, Traum, dream. He wanted to feel new in his new country, new and native, his names rolling off the Hebrew tongue with thoughtless ease. He fooled almost no one, of course: his accent, though mild compared with that of the other Europeans, and perhaps more his face, its telltale fatigue and suspicion, gave him away as a boy from the diaspora, a meek goat who had escaped the slaughterhouse by accident, by intervention from forces stronger than himself. But the change of name signified at least a willingness to adapt and to fight. He would use the word for dream as it occurred in the Bible, not as it had been handed down to him in a murderous Europe.

  Your father’s name was not good enough for you? Berel had asked.

  Sima’s mother had scolded. Berele! Let the boy eat.

  I’m finished eating, Chaim had said. He smiled, keeping his face free of trembling. I feel I kept my father’s name. It is not as if I chose something completely different, like the others: spring or zion or song. I do not reject my father’s name. The meaning is the same.

  Ah, said Berel. The meaning.

  Sima protested. I had thought about it myself.

  So, Simale, why did you not do it? And do not try to convince your boyfriend that it was out of respect for your poor father and mother. We all know—perhaps Chaim knows too—that you always do as you please.

  I like our name, said Sima. That is all.

  Well, reasoned Chaim, the meaning would not have made a difference in Hebrew—Makow, what, a little town?

  A big town! answered Berel. With no Jews now. That is why we keep it. Even if—he shot a sly look out of his eye—even if our daughter is the last to carry our name, until she marries, of course.

  Sima flushed. But Chaim was relieved. The old man did not hate him—in fact perhaps liked him a bit. He continued his logic. If you can translate the name into Hebrew, you don’t lose the meaning. If it can’t be translated, it can’t be translated. So, of course, it is different to try to change Makower—he nodded at Sima’s mother—than to change Traum.

  Dvora broke in. I was Zambrowska, she said. Before I was anything to do with Makower. And now, look, after I married: no more of the sisters Zambrowska. No brothers Zambrowski. Nothing.

  Hmph, said Berel. You see? Are there so many Traumen left in the world that you felt you could make it one less? Berel chuckled a little at his own pun. One misses the sound too, not just the meaning. Some things cannot be translated. Now, where was your family from?

  Chaim had let himself be drawn out. A small town, north of Warsaw. Dvora had smiled—she had had family not far from there. But Chaim did not want to dwell on his origins—the facts of his family, scholarly, somewhat secular, poor, he could mention, but the details—the sisters and brothers—he did not want to spill it. He told instead scenes from his life after the ghetto—scenes of escape with the five boys, then the three, then just Tsalek, the last friend he had lost, the traveling from small town to town, the hiding in the forest, trapped in a group of incompetent gentile partisans, then in an abandoned shed in the city. To his surprise he had delighted Berel and Dvora with his tales—they chuckled and laughed, poured him tea, asked him for more. Adventure stories: preferable to the tale of his name.

  Yet when he applied for the visas to America he had put himself and his wife down as Traum. What did Halom mean in English? It would mean nothing. And once he
moved he did like the sound of his father’s surname, in the open American voice used by his new employers or in the lilting Yiddish of Fela’s kitchen. Pavel, overjoyed to be reunited, had introduced him to friend after friend by his full name, and the sound stirred in him relief, nostalgia, as for a tune he had heard in his childhood but had difficulty singing himself. It was easier to say the word Traum in English than in Hebrew—here the gaze at the Europeans was less accusatory. Here he had less to prove or to show. And for a man his age there was no army requirement in New York, and all the protests the students did over the war in Vietnam did not pain him the way he thought it should. Here he did not face his own death or the deaths of others—people he himself might harm—as he had in Israel, each time he was called for reserve duty, each time he heard of activity on the border. In Europe it had not occurred to him that a life in Palestine would mean the constant fighting and fear of fighting. Before the war even the most idealistic youths—his brothers had been among them, his cousin Rayzele and her brothers too—had thought of Palestine as a place to work and live in a peaceful collective, no neighbors to battle or expel or kill. And after the liberation, what little he had understood of the battles between Arab and Jew had not included the thought that he would join an army to move others out. He had left the house in Celle, Fela crying, Pavel, half-furious, grasping his shoulders again and again, with the idea that he would be on his way to a real home, that the fear he felt every day in Germany would dissipate and his comfort with Rayzele and her friends would grow.

  He had been thrown in with the rest, inexperienced European boys near the border with Syria; with his small understanding of rifles and stealth, he had stood out as less nervous, more poised, able to lead a group of five, assisting the lieutenant with his halting Yiddish. He was a new man, he wanted to be a new man, but even as his body looked calm, stiff, in control, his mind shrank from the idea of violence, and the patrols to which he was assigned were a slow torture.

  He could wear a strong face with his peers in the three years of straight military service, but once he was married it became terrible, a mask he dreaded putting on. He developed stabbing pains, giant knives in his gut that woke him up in the night, thinking of his future, the prospect of reserve work: his strong years spent dreading the month of patrolling, his old age spent watching his children—would he have children?—it seemed so much to take on, another life—go to battle against their neighbors. But he had found himself unable to confess to the army doctors, for fear of arousing their disdain at his diaspora cowardice. Each time he was called to the reserves he was pulled out of his peaceful life with his wife, her terrible cooking of which he made fun, his work as a technician at one of the radio stations. He did not want to fight. After all his troubles in Europe—once he had time to think, he became afraid, then angry. His life had been struggle enough. Jewish natives of Israel thought him a traitor, even his wife felt reluctance and guilt, but he knew he couldn’t protect himself there. He needed a life without battle.

  Here the pain was much less frequent; it did not distract him: that was America. A phone ringing in the evening did not signify a military emergency but simply a request to visit a friend of Pavel and Fela’s, to install the new hi-fi just so. A police car speeding by, siren wailing, was on its way to someone else’s tragedy. An argument with his wife did not result in him doubling over and her giving up on the discussion, horrified by his suffering; he could buy pills over the counter that quieted him down, sometimes for a week. He had his morning ritual of choosing a shirt, he had the coffee shop where he picked up his coffee with milk, no sugar—on doctor’s advice he could drink moderate amounts—he had even the little office disputes, the routine he had devised for organizing his morning tapings, the frenzied afternoon shouts of his supervisor, whose endless ability to misunderstand the new equipment could on occasion seem endearing, sweet, naive. Once Lola arrived, and with her the increased company of Fela and Pavel, substitute grandparents, he had almost no episodes at all; it was as if the intense, almost disturbing love he had for his child had mitigated his ability to feel pain.

  Sima felt pain. At times he could gather up envy at his wife’s grief, parents to care for as they died. He envied even the solitude of her burden, the fact that she shared nothing with a brother or sister, that she alone was responsible, full. He was empty.

  HE WENT TO BED after the recording ended and fell asleep quickly. But then he awoke in the night, no pain, no dream. Restless. He looked over at Sima, lying in the bed beside him, shoulders hunched, breasts hidden, the grief in her face apparent even in her sleep. A good woman, a good mother. On drives she would paint her lips, blot with a tissue, then draw with the lipstick a face above the lip print to give to Lola in the backseat. He was a lucky man. Lucky. But he wanted to be more than lucky. He did not want his happiness to come in bursts. He wanted the explosions of his life to be over. He wanted to have the sound of happiness moving softly within him, beside him as he walked, following him and guiding him, like an accompanist at the piano.

  HE MET HER IN a café near her Midtown hotel at two, just after the lunch rush. Basia was waiting for him in a booth; he was surprised, expecting her to be later than him. She was dressed simply, in a caramel-colored blouse and skirt, a wedding ring her only jewelry, but still she seemed to glitter.

  Chaim, she said.

  Hello, he answered in Hebrew.

  But she continued in Yiddish. You grew up. I meant to say it to you yesterday, but I was so shocked—so taken back in time, you know.

  He nodded.

  So I say it now, she continued. You grew up.

  He gave a nervous laugh. Yes. As did you.

  Yes, she said. I have two daughters.

  I have one.

  Don’t tell me her name. I’m sure she is beautiful.

  Not beautiful, said Chaim. Not exactly. But a charmer. Very smart.

  Of course, said Basia. How could it be otherwise?

  He ordered a soup and half a sandwich, but when it came he found it hard to swallow more than a spoonful or take more than a small bite.

  Such a delicate eater, said Basia. But she herself had a full salad in front of her, almost untouched.

  Sometimes my digestion is unpredictable, said Chaim.

  He waited for the pains to flicker inside him at the reminder, but he felt nothing. Calm.

  She began to hum. “Vedrai carino, se sei buonino, che bel rimedio ti voglio dar.”

  That is something you sang last night, yes?

  Basia smiled. From Don Giovanni. She is trying to heal her lover, trying to comfort him.

  What does it mean?

  “Sentilo battere, toccami qua,” Basia sang. “It means: feel it beating. And toccami qua: touch me here. Touch me here, touch me here.”

  She is almost ridiculous, Chaim thought. But he did not laugh.

  She repeats it, said Basia in Hebrew, until he does it. He knows he will be healed.

  When she excused herself to go to the ladies’ room he called for the check, breathing slowly, blinking away the image of her chest struggling against its sequins as she sang the night before.

  Do you have the afternoon? Basia said, returning. Let us walk.

  He had told his supervisor Russell that he was sick, and Russell had waved him off—it occurred to Chaim that he had not taken a sick day since eight years ago, when Sima had given birth, and he felt more troubled by his deception to Russell now than by his betrayal of his wife.

  Was it a betrayal? No, no, it wasn’t to do with her but with him. It wasn’t expected that he should be a man in hiding while she grieved. He had remained steady to her, in love with her, truly attached to her all the years of their marriage.

  He had been with other women in Tel Aviv, of course, though not in the first two years they were married, and only on the reserve weekends. Since Lola’s birth he had been with someone else only once, a young woman he had met one morning when the church down the street had burst into flames, an ele
ctrical fire, they said, the same church in which a deaf black boy had been killed by police because he had not heard them shout at him to turn around. But this was different from the girl at the church fire, this was a real wind in him. At the lobby of Basia’s hotel, when they stopped, he did not wait for her to ask him upstairs. He clasped his arm around her full waist. She did not try to escape.

  BASIA DECIDED TO STAY an extra day and made some excuse to her husband and daughters. Chaim had two days of her, one afternoon and another full day—he was sick, he told Russell, working late, he told Sima—spent in her hotel bed and walking in Central Park, and he felt himself to be in a French movie. When she left he felt a half-pleasant sensation of pull and loss, an easy loss. He carried her bags for her the morning she left, and on the train platform she gave him a modest kiss on the cheek that he imagined he could smell and feel throughout his day at work, cutting tape at the radio station for a public service announcement, adjusting the volume in the recording room for the announcers.

  What was it that Basia had sung that night? He wanted to call up the tune in his head, but he couldn’t remember it completely, only a note or two, the shadow of the melody. He thought of her plump white chest in the hotel bed beside him, then in the sequined dress. Her voice the opposite of her body: thin, unembellished, pure. Her body as full of music as his own was empty.

  Why had she left Israel? Her career had called her. Her husband, a Hungarian pianist, had left Hungary for the same reason.

  Really?

  Well, when the Communists came, it was more difficult.

  He must speak Yiddish.

  Of course, but now I speak a little Hungarian. I speak everything! She laughed. I am a citizen of all countries. It is crazy, but we communicate most in English now. I don’t know why. His Hebrew is all right, anyway.

  But he did not want to move there.

  You know what they say about us, Chaim. I felt that people looked at me like I had committed some crime, or else I would not be alive. Didn’t your friends say such things to you?