The Department of Missing Persons

by Ruth Zylberman

  Pesia lay down between my mother’s knees. She fell asleep. We no longer recognized anyone around us, the others from the convoy had disappeared. My mother tells me that the women are speaking in Czech, in Polish, in Hungarian, in Dutch, and in Yiddish. Bread and soup are being handed out. They tell us to eat slowly, not to fight each other, that there will be enough for everyone. There are still some women who steal the bread. They think that maybe we’re not really liberated, and that now we can eat what we want. Some women in white are called in, nurses who look at us and touch us. A few wear handkerchiefs over their mouths. The weakest women, the ones whimpering, stretched out on the ground, are brought outside the block. We stay. We eat. I’m bored.

  In Polish, in Yiddish, in French, my mother asks women she doesn’t know if they have heard anything about Father, Ovadia, Ovadia Stern. The others don’t answer or say no in Polish, in Yiddish, in French. Once in a while women come and look at us, at Pesia and me. It’s as if they’ve never seen children before. They look at us. One awful woman even wanted to stroke my hair but my mother grabbed her wrist and kept her from doing it. They look at us as if we are rare and extraordinary animals. And then they turn to sit and then they cry.

  Some women started screaming. There was a man with a camera who had appeared at the entrance to the block. Pictures, pictures. A few women started hiding their faces; others, though, arranged their hair, if they had any, and cleaned their faces with their saliva. He left the door wide open, light, light. Some women started singing, others laughed. One in front of me waved her cup at the photographer. He yelled for all of us to look at him, look at me, look at me.

  I had the blanket over my head. I didn’t want to take it off, I was too afraid someone would steal it from me. With all of the noise Pesia woke up but she stayed in my mother’s lap, she just turned her head.

  He took a bunch of photos and then he left for the next block. These photos are strange. Who would want to see us, to look at us?

  Who will look at us?

  ___________

  * Deuteronomy 3:27 King James Version