by Nava Semel
Through the crack in the wall, she followed the coffin adorned with flowers, watching as it was lowered ever so slowly.
Where are the dead, Stash?
I don’t know.
She rummaged in the dirt, pulled out a piece of charcoal, and drew a line on the wall.
Who knows?
I don’t know.
If they are below, then why didn’t I see them?
I would like to console her by saying that her father and mother still exist too, somewhere, but I must obscure them in her memory to keep her from being engulfed by her grief over their loss. And as I make my notes, I realize that perhaps it is the sin of despair that causes me to pillage her parents’ memory in such a way, because I am competing with them for her love.
This love I want to keep to myself.
Do not forgive me, Father. I am not worthy.
7 April 1944
Good Friday
They brought their food to church in baskets. Then I went from house to house, from table to table, bestowing my blessings.
The more I become Stash, the emptier her memory becomes, and the fuller my own. What was wrought upon her in the dark is branded into me. I carry the burn for her now.
I force myself to refrain from vomiting in her presence.
9 April 1944
Easter
Before the Resurrection Mass, the men fired in the air as a sign of rejoicing. I covered the little girl’s ears.
At dawn, right after the service, they burst through the gate, led by the farmer’s son who pushed all the others out of the way. After all, the first one to reach home will harvest his crop before all the others.
The little girl and I sit on the ground eating Easter eggs. The shells we will hang from my pear tree as a symbol of fertility.
The customs are ingrained in me, Little Girl. If I deviate from them, I will be endangering your life. If only I knew how to figure out the dates of the Jewish holidays. My memory is too sparse, and I have nobody to ask. There are rumors ... unthinkable. The mind cannot grasp such horror.
Let Easter be Passover, Little Girl.
Let Pentecost be the Jewish Feast of Harvest.
Let the Sunday be the Sabbath.
1 May 1944
The farmer’s wife came to church this morning. People in the village gossip about the couple’s new wealth. They’ve bought another plot, and now their land extends all the way to the forest.
With a proud stride she marched right up to the altar, and announced that she had found a worthy mate for her son. Having searched in vain in our own village, she had turned to another nearby, and discovered a bride who was in a class befitting their own newly acquired status. She had sent her son to lay soft birch branches on the threshold of the girl’s house, a symbol of his intentions. The farmer’s wife asked me to schedule the ceremony.
How can I pronounce the wedding vows for this man, whose very name is too profane for me to utter.
What he did to the little girl in the dark.
The farmer and his wife had been childless for many years. For the sake of procreation, they had fasted and had given generous offerings and other gifts. Eventually they made a pilgrimage to the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, who answered their prayers. There isn’t a soul in the village who does not remember the baptism of this son.
If only I could add to the Scriptures “a seed for a seed”. How can you ask me to bless him and his wife-to-be? May his children be damned, and cursed be his name.
The farmers are celebrating outside. They have tied scented reeds and ash branches to their hair, and have launched a procession, carrying an effigy of the Princess of May, in green clothing.
Come out to us, Father Stanislaw. The fragrance of spring is in the air. Everything has been created anew. Their spring is my eternal winter. Do not forgive me, Father. I am beyond hope.
I hide between the branches and relieve myself.
3 May 1944
Feast of the Virgin Mary
The first day of sowing. The farmers are out in their Sunday best. They waited for me to bless their seeds before setting out towards the fields, mimicking the movements of my hand as it sprinkles the Holy Water.
Today I baptized the youngest son of Zbyszek the blacksmith. He was actually born on Sunday, but he couldn’t be baptized on a Sunday, or else he would spend his whole life seeing death coming to snatch its victims.
On their way out, the congregants chanted: “My dear kinsmen, we are back from Church. We took a little Jew. We bring back an angel.”
What is the matter with you, Father Stanislaw? Come celebrate with us. We have not had such joyous tidings since the angel Gabriel delivered the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary. With my very own eyes I saw the Jews being taken in freight cars to their deaths. A great celebration in the heavens above.
Zosha the innkeeper calls Zbyszek the blacksmith a rumormonger, and says he drank too much.
I return to the empty church, and fall on my knees.
What do you see, Stash? What do people see if they’ve been blind since birth?
Christ and the Mother Mary divested of their clothing, huddling with the rest of the group, waiting in silence for their turn. First on death row.
On the ground I inscribe the words: King and Queen of the Jews. In the morning, the little girl will erase it all as she hops about.
4 June 1944
Pentecost is over, and the Feast of the Holy Trinity has arrived. The shorter the nights, the more apprehensive she becomes. It seems that only in the dark does she feel safe. I tell her that the light-giving heavenly bodies were created on the fourth day. Here is the light of the stars, Little Girl. It has come a long way, and now it is reaching us...
She covers her eyes.
If I were in Your place, Father, I would turn off all the stars for her sake.
8 June 1944
Corpus Christi
We roll on the ground, spreading dirt around us. She pulls at my tail.
Stash, you’re the best rat in the world.
It’s my body that is being jostled. My guts are in a knot. My mouth opens wide.
Alarmed, she quickly retreats into the niche.
What was that sound you made, Stash?
I am laughing, Child.
What does laughing mean? she asks.
Then she says: Teach me, please.
24 June 1944
St John the Baptist’s Day
It is the height of summer. The earth becomes transparent and shows up the riches in its depths, glowing with celestial fire. That is what my grandmother told me. I never dared to ask where my mother was.
The old woman also told me about a rare flower that grows somewhere in the mountains, protected by evil spirits. Anyone who succeeds in picking it will gain happiness. I sprayed holy water on the horns of the goats, festooned with wreaths of alfalfa, and on the geese with garlands of daisies round their necks.
Little Girl, even the sun is going to dip in the river today. It capers through the heavens in honor of St John. The village girls dance and sing: “Play with us, for we are your sunshine.” As the sun sets, they quickly gather camomile for medicinal uses.
There are birch branches hanging in every cowshed tonight, to ward off the witches who gather on bald mountains and plot to steal the cows’ milk.
Everything that I see I tell the little girl. Out there is the world, but we are here.
25 June 1944
Just as You are cautious about what You reveal to us, so too I must be careful not to disrupt her memory for the future. Old people are required to be prudent in what they say. After all, it is their little stories that shape the generation to come.
Memory, I tell myself, is the story’s only legitimate offspring. The story’s prodigal son.
I am quick to commit to paper everything that surfaces as I scour my memory, to curb any temptation that I might have to pass it on. One woman had her son taken by a witch, who replaced him with a different baby. The woman
put the flawed infant on the doorstep and started beating him with all her might with a stick. The child’s crying was carried across the bald mountains, bringing his mother the witch, who called out: “Give me mine, and I will return yours!” There’s a thought for You, Father. Even witches love their children.
I burst out laughing.
The little girl tries to imitate me. Her body contracts. She rocks this way and that, but all she produces is a gurgle, a kind of chirping sound.
Why can’t I do it, Stash?
What am I doing wrong, Stash?
Tell me, Stash.
You promised, Stash.
I take her by the hand. I tell her that it does not say anywhere that God created laughter. Laughter is created by magic, without the Creator having any part of it.
And God saw that it was good, and left the flawed world as it was, because whenever we laugh we remind Him of our presence below and repair the damage that He Himself wrought.
Without our laughter, God Himself would be no more.
7 July 1944
I am proud of her. My little pupil is wise and perceptive. Today we finished reading the Old Testament. Before she falls asleep I remind her of her Matriarchs, Eve and Sarah, Rachel and Leah, Rebecca and Dina, Miriam and Deborah, Yael and Judith, Ruth and Esther, and Michal and Mary. Inscribed over my grandmother’s grave in a distant village are the words: “You have been a good mother to me.”
The child recites the names and asks: How do you know they all actually existed?
I say: We roll out our memory, the way you roll those beads between your fingers.
And what if the string tears? she asks.
Sleep well now, Daughter of all Mothers. Some day you too will be...
On my own tombstone it will say: And what kind of a son were you?
12 July 1944
St Veronica’s Day
On the sixth station of His final journey, a woman named Veronica came out of her house. It was very warm in Jerusalem that day, and Christ was perspiring profusely. Veronica wiped his brow with her handkerchief, and an imprint of His face remained on the cloth. I do not know where the handkerchief is. In vessels of precious gold in churches all over Europe they keep pieces of cloth bearing the imprint of His solemn face, but I think that if they ever discover the real handkerchief we will see the Son laughing.
Child, when you practise laughter, the Father struggles too, with all his might, to laugh with you.
26 July 1944
Day of Sts Joachim and Anne
Sometimes I forget who bore me. There is what little I know, and there is all that I will never know. The bed of dust is our schoolroom. With what little knowledge I have, I mark the boundaries of the world. I pour water in the indentations which serve as oceans, rake up mounds to serve as ridges, carve out valleys and expose deserts. Look, Child, deep inside there hides a lost continent.
She listens, and is careful not to tread.
I stick crucifixes in the ground. We have brothers living there, with slanted eyes, and here there are brothers whose skin is dark as coal. At once she touches herself in astonishment.
Children, so I discover, demand absolute truths. I was once like this child, but now I am riddled with doubts. One thing she refrains from asking: where are her own brothers.
Every time I use the word Jew, she is horrified.
I tell her, Joachim and Anna, father and mother of Mary, were Jews. She covers her ears with dirt to keep from hearing.
After the lessons, I find her squatting in the niche, drawing on the walls with her piece of charcoal. When I try to peek, she hides it with her body.
Stash, she says, promise me something.
I am silent. Of all my promises, especially my promises to You, Father, none have been kept.
Stash, swear to me that you will never ever die.
I am so afraid she mistakes my embrace for a promise.
1 August 1944
Blessed is the child who has heard the laughter of a rat. Somewhere in the heart of the light that leads to the traces of the life that was, this memory too lives on. To expect laughter in pitch darkness is complete madness. But the rat continues to gape.
And God saw that laughter was good, and left the flawed world as it was.
Teach Him to laugh, Little Girl, and He will be forever grateful.
2 August 1944
The candle near my head is burning. The wind enters through a crack; the flame flickers and dies. Shadows follow the child, and I cannot make out her face. I do not remove my habit, and I jab my claws into the flesh underneath the garment. The body is a receptacle of sins – so I preached in my sermons. If only I could turn into a spirit too.
I am being depleted onto paper.
Why do we not come into the world equipped with a bundle of ready-made memories, a bequest that would nail a lesson into us?
What a monumental concatenation of malignant memories could be avoided if only man could contain the torments of his precursors, imprinted into him like an innate warning system.
But had the little girl known in advance what was waiting for her, wouldn’t she have refused to be born?
Only after she falls asleep do I light the candle. Every night I study her lips, to see whether a trace of a smile has begun to grow there.
3 August 1944
But nevertheless, I am at peace.
I who never thought I would be cradling a child or leading her to the serenity of peaceful dreams, am having a revelation. Her hand grasps mine, and I feel the light shine within me. She mumbles something in her sleep. Is it a comforting dream, or a nightmare? I hold my ear closer, prepared to slash through the horror and to draw her back to me.
Mama.
And again, Mama.
Do not forgive me, Father. For if I am the mother in her dream, then I am the happiest creature on earth. Despite all of Your efforts, You have not succeeded in keeping me from having this experience of parenthood. I thank You, Father. And I call out Your name with complete devotion.
10 August 1944
St Lawrence’s Day
In the early morning hours, the planes began circling overhead. The bombs fell so close that the blast caused the ground and the walls of the church to shake. The trees at the edge of the forest made a mighty roar as they fell. We huddled in the niche; the little girl shut herself in there at once. The smell of fires and smoke filtered through.
I want to live. Only now do I realize how desperately.
Today the farmers were supposed to begin the first harvest. Instead of sheaves they are harvesting death. Sinful priest that I am – I gloat over the dead who did not have a chance to receive extreme unction.
We lie there until nightfall, and I try to distract her. All day long I have been anticipating bitter sobs, but her tears are sealed in.
When the ground settles, I discover a charcoal drawing of the Last Judgment on the wall of the niche. She has painted it in the dark, like those ancient cave people. In her drawing, the hand of God reaches under the altar, tipping the scales in full view of the archangel Gabriel. Above them is the Holy Mother on her throne, holding a rat in her lap.
11 August 1944
After they buried their dead and cleared the rubble, the farmers hurried to church. Help us, Father Stanislaw, give us consolation. That is your duty.
Another sermon that I never delivered.
15 August 1944
Assumption of the Blessed
Virgin Mary Morning
The crop has turned golden. It sways in the wind at night, as if by a will of its own. As dawn breaks, a woman sets out into the field with her baby, rocking him continuously. Then she exposes her breast. The harvester has covered one plot of land already, and is now approaching the next. As the two of them come closer, they are careful not to tread on the strips of grass delimiting the plots, because those harbor evil spirits.
A world without sinners.
A world without Jews.
Their laughter cuts thro
ugh the blades of grass. The harvester leans down towards the woman. She places her baby on the ground beside her, and drops into the wave of gold. A cow lashes it tail over their heads. They abandon themselves to their lust, so much so that they do not notice the baby’s crying.
Night-time
The farmers placed the first crop of the harvest inside the church and I blessed it, walking along the pews with the censer in my hand. They breathe it in, and I yearn for my despair to cling to them.
The emptier I become, the fuller my diary is. If ever I were to deliver all those sermons, would I be able to make any difference? I compose them only to soothe my conscience.
The conscience. An organ that cannot be excised.
And there is no prosthetic conscience either.
Maybe these sermons will be delivered by someone else some day. Worthier than I am.
18 August 1944
All week long the village women prepared the enormous wedding cake. The farmer’s wife invited the entire complement of German officers to the celebration. With their very own hands they kneaded bread without salt, omen of a sweet married life together. At the top of the cake they hung golden biscuits in the shape of the sun and the moon.
I make sure all the openings of the church are sealed shut, to keep the smell from entering.
20 August 1944
I’ve performed my duties. My mouth uttered the “Till death do you part”.
I am incapable of adding a thing.
28 August 1944
The sound of thunder is heard in the distance.
The little girl and I are waiting.
Will they arrive?
When will they come?
There is a fleeting look of yearning on her face. Or maybe it’s her fear of the future. I don’t dare think about it. Perhaps she does not want them to keep their promise.
What have I done?
1 September 1944
It seems she is sleeping peacefully. How hard I fought to attain this luxury for her. Suddenly her little body convulses and her pain bursts out.
I am tormented for her. Remembering and reminding – this is the only commandment that still has any meaning, and yet I have been doing everything in my power to erase her memory. For her, forgetting is healing, but for the world, forgetting is the very disease itself.
