CHAPTER TWELVE
WILLEM
In less than a fortnight I will be leaving for Auschwitz. In our bed Lena radiates heat from her condition, and the sheets are tangled around us. I do not want to sleep tonight. I want to stay awake beside her body. I want to feel my child kick in the night. Should I fall asleep, I want Lena to wake me whenever he does. I will spend four weeks at the camp to learn some important work. To study the achievements of other brilliant doctors. Part of me is excited, the part that wishes to become the best at what I do. Three weeks after my return from the assignment, our baby is due.
Sometimes my thoughts rest uncomfortably on the ghetto, and my mind recalls the face of the young girl I met in the surgery. She is the face of discord when it comes to this cause: the fact that someone so intelligent—uncontaminated, if you will—could fall on the wrong side of acceptance. Most of the patients are closed, their emotions bricked in, unforgiving, whereas Elsi had let me in, innocently, to her life, which deserved to continue as it had been. I had not expected to experience such trust, for that is the first thing people discard when they enter the ghetto. She deepened the stain on that doubt-filled corner of my mind that is not yet conditioned to believe that we—the Aryans, the Nazis, the Germans—are the chosen ones.
“I would like to talk to you about something that happened recently,” I say to Lena. “Something I have been reluctant to talk about.” It has been nearly a month since I last treated the mother who attempted to abort her fetus. The mother’s forced pregnancy and the very personal account given by her daughter, on their second visit to the surgery, has not strayed far from my thoughts—the memory like a faint, nearly indiscernible, yet persistent noise in my subconscious. And I have been reluctant to release the information to Lena, given her present sensitive state.
“Why?”
“The nature of it is something I have not encountered before. It is perhaps something that you may find distressing.” I have discussed with her some of the conditions I treat. Lena knows why I was appointed, and we have always been honest with each other.
“You know you can tell me everything. I carry a child, not a heart condition.”
Perhaps it is for selfish reasons that I reveal this now. To speak of this—to release it—might eradicate the noise inside my mind.
“A mother came in to see me. She was hemorrhaging badly from a self-inflicted wound to remove a baby.”
“That’s terrible!” says Lena. “But you have treated such cases before, yes?”
“Yes, yes. Of course.”
“Can she not be more careful in future?”
“I have ligated her fallopian tubes so that it doesn’t happen again.”
“It is a pity that such actions have to take place. If she had been more careful, she would not have put herself in such danger.”
“It is something that she had no control of.”
“What are you saying?”
“There are certain men who do not possess restraint.”
“You mean she was raped?”
“Yes.”
“Why can’t you just say it? Why do you have to always talk in circles to protect me? By whom?”
“German officers.”
“That is truly horrible! Despicable! Can’t you stop it? Does Manz know about this?”
“He is part of the problem.”
She nods as if she is not surprised. “You have to tell your father. You have to send a report.”
“What can he do? We are not to interfere with the running of the ghettos. I am a doctor, and I have a job to do. Besides, they probably already know in Berlin. “
“Animals!” she says, and I notice that her eyes are watery. “I believe that you can do something. You can put a bullet between his eyes.”
She is referring to Manz, but I wonder if she also pictures my father when she says this.
“Oh, Lena,” I say. “How thoughtless of me! I should not have said anything.”
“It’s important that you always be honest with me.” She considers for a moment. “I think I will tell your father or someone higher if you don’t.”
“Lena, my dearest, please don’t say anything! We must keep going. Eventually things will stop.”
“When the whole race of Jewish women is eliminated!” she says cynically. “I was at college with a Jewish girl for a while, and we became good friends, and then she was told she couldn’t study. I was shocked at first, and then after a couple of years I accepted it. I thought that yes, this is Germany, our Germany. I didn’t want things to change. I didn’t want our principles, our culture, to change. Now I don’t know if I can accept this anymore. I did not think it would get any worse. As if they are not downtrodden enough, they are now the playthings of idle German idiots, who break and fix at their will.”
I know that nothing I say will change anything. She is sensitive about everything at the moment, with a heightened sense of protectiveness surrounding the future of our unborn child. I have always felt that keeping things from her was the same as betraying her, but perhaps my father is right. A certain amount of ignorance is not such a bad thing. From now on, the subject of terminations has to be carefully arranged around her, using words and phrases such as necessary or lifesaving, when in fact such procedures are enforced upon Jewish women whose married German sponsors do not want Jewish bastards.
“We must accept this. We must go on, Lena. For our child. For our life. Eventually we will be back in Germany. I will have my new posting, and one day the war will be over. Perhaps the Jews will be given their own cities to run as they please, and perhaps Germany will once again return to normality, after this madness is over. Let us not try to think too much. Please . . . Lena? Will you promise?”
“Then why tell me about this horrible incident?”
“I don’t know. I thought you needed to know it. You have always accused me of being too closed, of keeping things from you.”
We have rarely argued, but when we have, it is usually due to her accusing me of indifference. She has often said that when I recount something terrible—especially those things I have witnessed more recently in the ghetto—that I report it with detachment, removing myself from any connection with it. She says that I refuse to consider, in any depth, the wrongdoings of my peers and countrymen, historically as well as now; through absence or indirect involvement, I absolve myself by partial ignorance.
Though she is more or less right, I have had to defend myself in this. It is perhaps that I do not prefer to analyze what might have been, or what should have been, but rather to concentrate on what I must do. It is about continuation. Reflection of wrongs, past or present, is for those who want to blame or torment themselves with regret. This is a point of difference between us, for Lena believes that we are responsible as a whole, that what one does beside us must be carried by us all.
I love Lena as much as I could ever do. She is emotional and affectionate—traits that I had always considered a weakness until I met her. But she has drawn something from me, and that is to appreciate the good in people. She has caused me to break some of my own rules: to reflect on certain events in the past and apply myself better because of them. And I oblige her. I discuss my past because this makes her happy. My greatest fear is that I will disappoint her.
I first saw Lena in the front playground of the school where she was teaching science. She was bent over a small child, glasses on, hair out of place, no makeup. She was interested, curious, and the child so focused on her teacher it was as if there were no one else in front of her. Lena has that effect on many; she draws one in with her attentiveness. She is not perhaps someone that you might notice above everyone else in a crowd. But once her eyes have found you, they can hold you to her longer than is necessary.
Ours was not an easy beginning. I had taken girls out before, but my studies always came first. Some I did not take to meet Father, knowing straight away that he would be horrified. Some of the female students at university, though br
illiant, were not the kind of women that the party promoted. They were freethinking, strong, and independent, and they talked openly about such subjects as philosophy, sociology, theology, and psychology. Some women voiced their support of Marxism, and others praised or debated the writings of Franz Rosenzweig and Karl Barth.
I myself dallied, although only briefly, with various theories, taking a special interest in the therapies and analyses conducted by the Jew Sigmund Freud, and even participating in secret forums on subjects that did not side with Nazism. But back at home with my father, Nazi ideology was first and foremost. It was to pay for my career after all. And Lena was now my passenger. She had given up everything for me.
I wipe away the tears that have pooled at the corners of her eyes, wishing to take back what I have just said. She wouldn’t probably believe me, but sometimes I, too, wish I didn’t see the things I see or know the things I know.
For Lena I will have to carry much in the future, for her own protection. I will not look so closely upon the faces I see, the ones we have broken. Yet even as I think this, there is a tightening of my chest as I picture the young girl, Elsi: the face of human conquest. I broke a rule and learned her past—not her medical records or birth date but how she felt and how much she had lost. This is something I cannot afford to do again.
“Let’s dance!” says Lena, her mood fluctuating suddenly, as it often does in her current state.
“Now? At midnight? No, of course not.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t be so staid. If I didn’t know you, I would think that you were a machine.”
“Why on earth did you ever agree to have dinner with me then?”
“I could see inside you. I could see that behind the glass shield that was your gaze, you were interesting, far deeper than anyone knew.”
She kisses me.
“And I had to release you from that terrible prison.”
I follow her into the sitting room. In her nightgown she switches on the phonograph and places a needle on the record, to hear Bizet’s Nocturne no. 1. It is her favorite. With her belly separating us, I sweep her cautiously around the floor. It was Lena who broke something in me, opening a doorway that had been locked against my own history. It was Lena who pulled out old photos, asked my aunt about my mother, and brought her back to life.
I learned that my mother had lost two children prior to having me, something my father hadn’t told me. My older sister, Lizbet, died at age two, and my second sister was a stillbirth. I came a year after her.
When Lena first found out she was pregnant, she wept for my mother, and I suddenly felt connected to a past I’d never before considered. My past had been sealed and my future planted in conformity for the sake of my father’s aims. Lena transported me to a history rich in detail. My mother had been born in France and was vivacious and kind. She liked to ride horses in the fields with her brothers and sisters and fell deeply in love with my father. Her parents had found work in Germany, where she met my father and swept him off his feet. Knowing him as I do, this is impossible to imagine. The losses of their children eventually put distance between them—this according to my aunt, who had passed this knowledge on to Lena.
For the first time I felt connected to, not restricted from, knowledge about my mother. It wasn’t that I had changed outwardly, but now there was something else within, something that didn’t involve secrecy. There were other things to consider: small things, other people, a past, a story. Her story. Life was suddenly not so straightforward. I was no longer just the son of a well-connected doctor. I was the son of two people who had fallen in love and desperately wanted a child.
“After the baby is born, we will hike to the mountains like we used to.”
“You will not feel like hiking,” I say.
“Who says? Of course I will.”
Lena loves to walk. Anywhere: along city streets, in the mountains, through ancient towns. I could barely keep up with her stride up steep inclines.
“And I suppose I will be carrying the baby then,” I say.
“Of course. It will be your turn.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MATILDA
Nurse does not come and get me until late afternoon. I am to be allowed a shower in the main house, but it will be my last one there. After that I must wash at the outdoor tubs with the other children. Once a month the children get a hot bath.
When I go to the bathroom in the main house, there are doors left open. I pass a large dining room. It is decorated finely, different from the rest of the house, with a chandelier, high-backed padded chairs, and a shiny dining table with curved legs.
I am given a light-gray dress with white stripes, which has sleeves down to the elbow, a long pleated skirt, and buttons at the front. I have seen other children wear this dress, too, but the older girls wear dresses of white. The dress is too big for me, and I can twist the front of it at the waist all the way to the back. I am also given a dark-gray cardigan to wear over this, and tights and shoes that have been used by someone else.
In the kitchen I am allowed fresh bread with butter and some tea. The bread is better than any bread I have ever had. Afterward I am shown to the laundry, where I must go each day to wash clothes. In the washing room I roll the clothes through the drying rods and then hang them on a line inside. There is no sign of Nurse, but I have discovered that there is one guard at the back of the house. Often he stands over to one side, close to the fence near the paddocks, where the older girls practice athletics. There is another guard at the front gate. Two others come and go at different times—sometimes patrolling at the front, and other times wandering around the back to inspect the woodlands behind it.
A few words in German and an apology, and now I am free to walk outside and smell the pine, to walk the several meters between the buildings. It is not a great distance, but this is a small piece of freedom that I didn’t have before. If I had known it was so easy . . .
Nurse hands me a folded nightgown.
“You will be living in the dormitory with the other children your age. In the mornings you will teach them to read and write in German. They are from Poland. One of them speaks German but can’t write it, and the others speak a few words only. I understand you can count in German, also.”
I debate whether to answer the truth. My first thought is that I should lie, but then I remember the painful beatings and the cold, drafty room.
“Yes . . . some.”
“All right, take her to the hut then,” says Frau, who has been standing behind her, looking bored.
Nurse leads me between the buildings, across broken pieces of pathway sunk in mud. The world has less color on the other side of the pathway. From this short crossing, I can see the road at the front of the property and several houses far in the distance.
The dormitory, also known as the hut, looks like a barn on legs. Inside there are eight beds but only four children. Nurse says that she is expecting more children over the coming months. There is no fireplace.
Four faces full of dung greet me when I walk through the door. They each wear the same dress that I am wearing, except for the boy, who has long, dark-gray shorts, long socks, and a shirt with the same stripe. Nurse tells the children that I will be teaching them to read and write German words. She tells the boy that until the younger children learn some German words, he is to translate from German to Polish. He can only speak German. He has not yet learned to write it.
I sit on the bed and wait for Nurse to leave before I speak.
“Hello, I am Matilda,” I announce to the children.
“You look too young to be a teacher,” says the boy.
“They are not my rules,” I say.
“How old are you?” asks the boy.
“Nine years.”
“Ha! I’m ten. I should be teaching you.”
I will try not to dislike this boy.
The boy is called Ernest. Adele and Luise are seven and they are twins, and the toddler does not have a name
. I ask why this is the case. The boy shrugs. He says they just call her Baby. She climbs up on the bed to hide her face in the blanket.
“They just haven’t given her a new name yet,” the boy tells me.
“New name?”
“Yes, I was given a new name when I came here.”
“Why?”
“Because they didn’t like mine.”
I am relieved that I have my name.
“What was your name?”
“Jacek.”
I think that Jacek is a nice name.
“Would you like to still be called that name?”
He shrugs.
“I can call you that if you want.”
He shrugs again.
“Where did you used to live?”
“Poland.”
“Did you like it there?”
“I can’t remember.”
“What do you mean, you can’t remember? How can you not remember?”
This boy is very stupid.
“It is has been a while since I left.”
“So you cannot remember if you liked your country, but you can remember your age?”
“Of course,” he says, crossing his arms.
I don’t believe him at all now. I think he is probably a lot younger than he says.
“What will you teach us?” says Jacek, arms still crossed.
“Things, I guess.” I scan the books on the shelves, none of which I recognize. Adele and Luise begin to speak their foreign language between themselves. I do not want them to be bored with my company. I want them all to like me since I have to share a room with them. “Do you want to hear a story?” I repeat the word story in Polish. I know some Polish words from when I visited Tata’s brother.
“Yes!” they all say eagerly.
I tell them a story about the Gypsies of Romania who got burned in the forest by the Germans. How the children were on fire, running for their parents. It was a story told by my brothers. The storytelling is terribly slow because Jacek has to repeat everything I say into Polish, and sometimes I have to repeat the sentences slowly for him to understand the German words.
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