I heard a noise and turned to see Father coming toward me, pushing a rusty old wheelbarrow in front of him. His once white shirt neatly tucked in, his old, dirty tie hanging crookedly on the collar, now too large, making him appear even skinnier. His pants were baggy and torn at one knee, with another old tie serving as a belt. He held his old felt hat in one hand as he pushed the wheelbarrow.
In spite of his pathetic appearance, his great loss, and the crushing pain of the past few hours, Father’s head was high as always, his shoulders straight, and for a moment I saw him in his beautiful tsarist uniform holding a bouquet of flowers for his lady—just a flash from the family album. With an apologetic gesture and a faint smile he turned to me.
“I am going to put my hat beneath her head, because the streets are so uneven, and there is debris everywhere. It will be softer for her head.”
We placed Mother’s lifeless body in the wheelbarrow, Father gently placing the hat beneath her head. Lovingly, he rewrapped her legs and stomach in the dirty sheet and began pushing the wheelbarrow toward the cemetery chapel where she could stay until final arrangements could be made. I walked at the front, a few steps ahead, moving quickly to keep Mother’s head from bouncing whenever Father maneuvered the wheelbarrow over bumps and around obstacles.
We were silent and walked slowly, each of us immersed in our own thoughts. I suddenly wished I hadn’t thrown away the melted Hershey bar because I was so hungry. We hadn’t eaten anything in a day or two. The confusion of the last day of the war, at least for us the last day, the sounds of victorious American troops singing and shouting to one another, the muffled roar of something collapsing and sending clouds of dust into the air, the cries of people digging through the rubble, the rumble of a tank . . . all again was detached from me. Once again, I did not feel a part of it all, only a spectator.
Father began conversing with Mother as though she was taking a walk with him, and suddenly I felt so terribly alone. My thoughts wandered and once again I was back in “my” Belgrade before its destruction, in my favorite spot where, lying on my back nestled in deep grass, I watched fluffy white clouds against the deep blue sky, building endless dreams, seeing not clouds, but castles, animals, angels, ships . . . handsome brave warriors who would conquer the world for me, take me far away . . .
A screech of brakes startled me as a hand pulled mine, and I slipped, almost falling from the curb.
“Fraulein, what have you to trade for a candy bar?”
I jerked my hand away, and Father was instantly between me and the jeep with the soldier in it.
“Goddamned Krauts, we should have killed every one of you,” the soldier said with a sneer as the jeep sped away.
Father’s firm, gentle hand was on my shoulder then. “They have no way of knowing that we are not German,” he said firmly. “Perhaps we should not have discarded our armbands. Soldiers are soldiers. Always remember that, and always keep your distance from them.”
I wondered how long this would last. First we were spat upon and humiliated by the Germans, and now we had been liberated from the Germans, but we were still treated like dogs. I looked at Father, whose head was high and proud. No, I realized, one must remain strong in spite of everything. One must retain one’s human dignity under any circumstances.
We walked even slower then, Father finally experiencing the heaviness of the wheel barrow, the tragedy of the day, and hunger. Both of us were exhausted. Father was silent, and as I looked at his face I knew that he was reliving his life with Mother. That now, with her body in this pathetic wheelbarrow, he was saying good-bye to her, to his life, to his very reason for living. His entire reason for being was now a lifeless bundle in a wheelbarrow. His eyes were wide open, and I saw a large tear roll down his cheek and nestle in his moustache.
Strangely enough, I felt no pain then, no loss. I was only puzzled that nothing had stopped, that life simply went on. I guessed that the war must be over, at least for us. I thought it probably meant that we no longer had to worry about seeking shelter from bombs or artillery or to be at the mercy of German soldiers.
I looked at a new group of prisoners now marching past us, hands clasped on top of their heads. At least no one was spitting at them, calling them names. At least they were regarded as human beings by their American captors, not “Untermenschen.” And I knew that nobody would force them into a train of freight cars and blow them up.
I wondered if the American soldiers knew what horrors had taken place two days earlier, if they cared, or if they regarded all those things as just a part of war. But as I remembered the first soldier we had spoken to, and his comment, “You should have shot those goddamned Krauts!” I knew they would be shocked and angry.
“Asya, here we are,” Father said, turning the wheelbarrow into the entrance of the town cemetery and the last few yards to the front of the chapel. Gently, we lifted Mother’s body from the wheelbarrow to carry her inside the chapel and place her on the floor in front of the altar.
We knelt together before the altar, and Father began to pray quietly. What is he praying for? I wondered. I know that I was kneeling there deep in my own thoughts. What is to happen now? Where will we go? What is to become of us? When so many people have died, when even Mother has died, why am I still alive? No answers came, of course, and I didn’t expect any. I crossed myself and rose to follow Father out of the chapel. Outside, on the steps, he put his arm around my shoulders to say gently, “Wait just a minute, Asinka. I’ll be right back.”
Father went back into the Chapel, returning in a minute with a leather pouch.
“I almost forgot,” he said in answer to my questioning look. “Mother wore this pouch inside her dress ever since the Germans took our home. This will come in handy, now that we have nothing.”
I looked in bewilderment at the pouch which Father now put around his neck and inside his shirt.
“She slipped these jewels into her dress” Father replied to my silent question, “just as the Germans walked in to take our home in Dedinye. They were on her dresser . . .”
We walked aimlessly then, not taking any notice of the hectic pace of life around us. We returned the wheelbarrow, and slowly made our way back to the tunnel, the only place we had to spend the night. As we walked, Father asked how I had become so covered with blood the afternoon before, during that last battle at the forced labor camp. I told him about the battle and the ditch I crawled into to try to escape the planes, and the dying soldier and dead horse I was lying on. As we drew near to the tunnel, he asked me to show him where I had seen the horse.
Father drew his pocket knife, opened it, and cut large chunks of meat from the flank of the dead horse. We slowly walked back to the tunnel to spend the night there with the others from the camp. Father built a fire in one of the iron carts that ran on tracks inside the tunnel and roasted the meat for all to share. I didn’t realize how hungry I was. I thought it the best meat I had ever tasted.
I could still hear vehicles, tanks, and the shouts of American troops from the road and occasional low flying fighter planes apparently patrolling the road from above. As I looked around that night, I saw that all the faces around me looked relaxed. Safe and secure for the first time in a very, very long time. But, I realized sadly, Mother’s face would never again be among them.
Early the next morning, Father and I returned to the cemetery to make burial arrangements and found the chapel floor covered with bodies—German soldiers. The bodies were placed very close to one another because of the number of dead. Mother was at the front, directly in front of the altar, and we had to make our way through what seemed a sea of bodies. About halfway across the floor, I came to the body of a dead German soldier lying on his back with his eyes wide open, and I realized that I had no choice but to step over his head because of the crowding. How can I do this and remain graceful, I wondered, not even thinking that he could no longer see.
I gathered my dress between my legs, held it tightly, and stepped over him. Th
ere, I thought, I did that modestly and quite gracefully. I’m sure Mother will be pleased. But what am I thinking? Why do I care? Everybody here is dead. What difference does it make if one is graceful or not? Why do I care now what Mother will think?” A cold chill ran down my back as I became sharply aware that I was surrounded by death.
Father encountered a problem in securing a plot for Mother’s burial. The German authorities initially refused permission, stating that the cemetery was reserved for citizens only. They indicated that as a resident of the labor camps, she should be buried there, in an area already containing the bodies of slave laborers who had died constructing the tunnel.
Father was adamant that she would not lie in some anonymous field, and he appealed to the American commander. It took an extra day or two, but permission to bury Mother in the Blankenburg city cemetery was soon arranged. That first day, however, we returned to the tunnel to await the assignment of a burial plot.
When a burial plot was assigned, we stopped at the nursery to once again borrow the wheelbarrow. At the chapel we placed Mother’s body in the wheelbarrow in order to carry her to the gravesite. I was amazed at the number of freshly dug graves, and wondered who had dug them all—in two rows. We passed those and turned left down a pretty pathway to see an open grave on the right side of the path.
The casket, a hastily made, plain wooden box, stood next to the open grave assigned to Mother. Father and I lifted Mother’s body from the wheelbarrow to place her in the casket. Father lovingly covered her legs and stomach with the same old sheet we had found in the ruins.
A handful of people from our barrack came to the burial to say goodbye. We had no priest, of course. There were no Russian Orthodox churches in the area. Father and I stood at the head of the open casket as he began saying prayers, and the others joined in. For a moment, God forgive me, I suddenly envisioned Aunt ’Lyena standing at the side of the casket and laughing.
Then, as if on command, everyone began to cry loudly, looking critically at me. I could not cry. I had no tears left. I had cried ceaselessly when I held her head in my lap on that sidewalk. But now, inexplicably, I felt a strange sort of relief . . . a certain twinge of freedom that produced a sort of gladness in my heart, not tears.
Two men in the group picked up the casket cover, and Father held a hammer. Someone in the group said to Father, “It’s a shame to let those rings go to waste. You know, rings like that . . .” Someone nudged the person, and they resumed crying. The casket was still open, and each in turn bent to kiss Mother for the last time. A chill ran down my back. No. Not again. I don’t want to feel the coldness of death again; I don’t want that to be my last memory of her. I’m alive, free . . .
“Asya, Mother is going now.” I felt Father’s hand firm on my shoulder, but I jerked away. The day was bright and lovely, and the cemetery grounds were alive with bright new flowers and buds and the promise of spring, the promise of new life. I jumped over the open grave and ran from the cemetery and onto the road.
The April air felt warm and fresh on my face. The sky was the bluest I thought I had ever seen, the air filled with the songs of delightfully chirping birds and the sweet smell of new flowers. It seemed the most beautiful spring I had ever seen.
I came upon a German military motorcycle with its key in the ignition, and without thinking I half sat on it and turned the key. I had never been on a motorcycle before, of course. The bike made a jump as it tried to start, and I fell forward on my knees. Tiny pebbles were imbedded in my knee. It didn’t hurt much. I was glad to feel the pain, to see the blood, proof that I was alive. I could see and hear and feel . . .
I walked slowly back to the grave, overwhelmed at the beauty of the spring everywhere I looked. Father now stood alone. Freshly mounded earth covered the grave, and a wooden cross stood at the head, carved with Mother’s name and dates: “Born 1900—Died 1945.” Well, I thought, forty-four is pretty old. I gathered some wildflowers, saying one final, silent good-bye, and placed them on the grave, next to the cross. I looked up at Father then. This time he did not look at me with the same loving blue eyes, now red from crying. He didn’t hold my hand. He simply turned and began to walk from the grave. I felt free. I felt no pain, no regrets. That would all come much, much later. Even today I can brush my finger over the scar from the ss rubber hose, or look and see tiny bits of black gravel still imbedded under the skin of my knee, and be transported right back to the Klosterwerk camp and to Mother’s death.
The following day we returned to the town center to get identification papers from the American headquarters set up in the town hall. Father left me to sit on the steps to the hall, and he went in, returning in a moment to say that I had to accompany him to get our papers. He cautioned me that if anyone asked, I was to say that I had been born in 1926, that I was eighteen.
I was thrilled, though no one asked, and we were issued our first ID papers. They indicated that we were refugees, forced laborers brought from Yugoslavia. Mine indicated that I had been born in 1926. Father had done this, of course, because it would allow me to get adult food rations, but more importantly, extra cigarette rations for him. But I was very pleased to be “an adult.” They would remain the only identification papers I had and would prove very useful for my survival in the months immediately ahead.
We left the town hall and walked to the cemetery. Father was unable to be away from Mother’s grave for very long. We walked back to the tunnel that evening in silence, Father’s shoulders slumped in grief. Over the next several days we made daily trips to the graveside, usually walking in silence.
April 25, 1945: U.S. and Soviet forces linked up at the Elbe River in Germany.
April 28, 1945: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress Carla Petacci were intercepted and executed by Italian partisans as they were trying to flee Italy.
April 29, 1945: American forces liberated Dachau Concentration Camp; Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun in his Berlin bunker.
April 30, 1945: Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide in the bunker as Russian troops closed in.
TWENTY-ONE
Blankenburg am Harz
Father could not bear to be away from Mother’s grave for very long, and he went every morning, not returning until dark. On most days, I went with him, but not always. I had no ambition to do anything or go anyplace. Mother’s death wore on me in spite of my fascination with the beauty of nature that spring. Everywhere I looked, new life simply burst out, flowers in abundance and an array of colors such as I had never seen, as if God was trying to tell the world, tell me, that a better day had arrived. It was just what I needed. It helped me to put the events of the past four years and Mother’s traumatic death aside when I needed so much to heal. But as I admired the new spring beauty all around me, I remembered her telling me that she wanted to die in spring, when the world was lovely, when the natural beauty could console people. Then one day Father returned from visiting the grave and joined me.
“Asya,” he said, “we have an opportunity to live in a real house, that is, to have a couple of rooms in a house. It is owned by an elderly widow and needs a lot of repair. I have offered to help her clean up the place and do as much of the repair as I can, and in exchange she will let us live there free . . . and it is very close to Mother. Asya?”
“Yes, Papa.”
“Well, what do you think?”
“Papa, I don’t care. It sounds fine.” Poor Papa. I knew he wanted only to be close to Mother, but I was uneasy, unsure. In the tunnel we were still among other people.
The following morning Father took me to meet the elderly lady. The house was on a delightful narrow, crooked village street, only a couple of blocks from the cemetery. It had a large garden area that was covered with debris from a summer house or large shed that had been destroyed. The lady came out to greet us.
“Oh, what a lovely child she is, and the poor thing has no mother,” she said. “Well, so many lives have been lost. I would love to have a young,
cheerful voice in the house again. You poor, poor girl . . .”
She extended her hand to stroke my head, and I quickly ducked away. I didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for me. Why should they feel sorry for me? I thought. I’m alive and free, and the sun is shining so beautifully. I followed her and Father into the house, a very modest but homey place. My God, how long has it been since I’ve seen drapes and carpets and a real couch? I thought, realizing for the first time how long it had been since we had those things. The house was intact. Only a part of the sun porch was gone, and a part of the kitchen was damaged, but everything else stood orderly in the dark but cozy house.
Father had a small guest room for himself, while I shared a bedroom with the elderly woman, sleeping on a small cot. On perhaps the second or third day after we moved in, Father and I had to go to the Burgomeister’s office to register for ration cards. German residents had been informed that, in accordance with the rules of the American occupation forces, and with the cooperation of the Burgomeister, all foreign nationals from the camps were to be allowed larger rations than the Germans.
Perhaps it was unfair, since there was so little food available, but the reasoning was that the camp residents had been on short rations for so long that they needed the extra calories, while the German citizens had kept themselves quite well fed. We now had more than we needed, since I was receiving adult rations. At any rate, we shared the food with the elderly owner of the house, so she benefited at least a bit.
The trip to the Burgomeister’s office became unpleasant for me because the Zengovitzes were among the people waiting in line. They needed us to vouch that they were indeed Russians from Belgrade and had lived in the camps as well. It was such a chaotic time that no one had a way to check the validity of such things except through the identity cards we had been issued at the camp to be able to go into town or to be vouched for by someone who already had been proven to be a camp resident. The Zengovitzes declared that they had lost the camp cards, and Father vouched for them.
Ancient Furies Page 38
