Ghita Schwarz

by Displaced Persons (v5)

  BUT WHAT BURNED MOST brightly in Chaim was after, when Leo spoke about him to Pavel.

  Such a lovely voice your Chaim has, said Leo. Very musical.

  Only one mistake! said Pavel, sending Chaim a wink: there had been at least two.

  I mean what I say, said Leo. At another time, he really could have made something of it.

  His rib cage tight with pride, Chaim managed to say: Like the singer Basia, no?

  Not exactly like her, answered Leo, no, that’s something different, and she is young enough, of course, but still, you are a very fine boy, one who can appreciate, who should be exposed—

  Later Leo took him aside. My friend, I have been planning a little journey.

  Chaim breathed in, expectant, lips pressed together, keeping in the air.

  We—myself and Tina, you know—we had a plan to go to a concert in Hamburg. We were to take a couple of children. Basia, of course, will join us. And I thought you too would be interested.

  A nervous laugh burst out of Chaim’s mouth. His face felt unnaturally warm, feverish.

  Yes, I thought you would like it. Here—Leo handed Chaim a scrap of paper, an advertisement from the newspaper of the town, not the camp. It is the Mozart Requiem, next Saturday evening. We’ll take a car in the morning to Hamburg and stay overnight.

  The rest of the morning passed in a wine haze, Chaim sipping freely from a silver cup Pavel had given him as a gift, chewing happily on berry strudels and apple cake, rushing up to kiss Fela, who stood quietly behind the little table of pastries, carefully unloading.

  You are pink! laughed Fela.

  Pink, yes! answered Chaim. Pink and red! Gold and silver! He was giddy, he felt himself spilling out of his skin, the tune to his haftorah portion, Isaiah’s portion, spinning around and around in his brain. He wanted to keep his news to himself, hold it in, his reward, the small thing that would begin to compensate him for what he had lost. A concert.

  THERE HAD BEEN OPPORTUNITY in the ghetto for him to hear a concert—the ghetto orchestra had performed once or twice for free—and when it came time to applaud he had dropped his hands so as better to hear the clapping of the crowd. He loved the sound of it, a huge number of hands improvising together to make their collective percussion. When the rain came through the trees in the forest, he had sometimes thought he could hear applause, the slow building of leaves against one another, a sudden crescendo for the little bow of the soloist, a dying down again until the listeners remembered their hunger and returned to their quarters.

  He looked at his hands. A child such as the little singer Basia would clap her hands together, flat. It made more noise, but it would tire the hand out. He had seen someone make the shape of an S with their two hands, bending one hand at the knuckles, pushing the fingers of the other against the first palm. It was a sophisticated clap, softer but less tiring, one that belonged to adults. One, surely, that Tina and Leo would use when the conductor finished and turned to face the German audience.

  They would be the only Jews there, no doubt. Well, let this audience see how a refugee appreciated the music of dead Germans.

  LEO OBTAINED A SCORE and copied out the lyrics of the requiem in Latin, with a brief German translation to the side. He gave the lyrics to Chaim and little Basia to share. Basia had no patience for reading and seemed not to know written German with any fluency; she looked out the window when Leo left the two of them to study. But Chaim was fascinated. In preparation he scrutinized the Latin words with the hope of memorizing at least some of the sections. He looked for the familiar phrases: Jerusalem was the same for Christians. For Abraham, the Latin was Abrahae. This was what Mozart did when thinking of death. If one looked at it straight one became salt—or died, as Mozart did, in the throes of composing. But look, his wife, his companion, had worked to find men to finish it, to make a little memorial to her own love, her own grief, a vision not of the man she shared her life with but of the things he had made.

  Chaim could not translate the Latin words on the page into sounds in his head, and even if Leo had been able to use the phonograph in the Roundhouse, he could not have found recordings of the pieces to be performed. Chaim would have to wait, counting every hour ticking by in the classroom or the house, feeling more and more enclosed in the house, longing to leave and visit the port city where the reconstituted orchestra of the vanquished would give its first performance.

  HE HAD PLANNED TO let it out casually, as they ate on Friday evening, so that they would not see it was important to him, but Pavel forced it out sooner, in the morning.

  I told Itzik Rakover you would tutor his nephew, Pavel called out from his room. He wants to talk to you on Shabbos.

  Ah, said Chaim. I wanted to tell you—

  Rakover can’t stop talking about the boy. You know, they took him out from the priests, it’s terrible, the child still crosses himself—

  Pavel, said Chaim. Let’s talk with him next week. I’m traveling a little this Saturday.

  Hmm? said Pavel, emerging from his bedroom, wrapping his tie around his neck. Chaim was in the corridor.

  I will be taking a trip, said Chaim.

  A trip? said Pavel. On the Sabbath?

  We travel to the camp every week for the service, said Chaim. You have traveled on the Sabbath. So yes, this Saturday I am going to Hamburg instead.

  It is different to travel to pray, said Pavel, stiffening. And what, may I ask, calls you to Hamburg?

  Ah, repeated Chaim, calm, authoritative, his voice firm and deep—he could make his voice steady, he was a man—I am attending a concert in Hamburg.

  Pavel looked at him.

  The symphony, repeated Chaim. With Leo Meisel. He has made arrangements for his best students to go.

  Pavel paused another moment. Then he said: Out of the question.

  Pavel’s voice was not loud, but in the kitchen, where Fela prepared breakfast, the clinking of the plates and silverware suddenly stopped. Chaim turned down the corridor. He would take his coffee, he would have a piece of bread.

  Pan Pavel, he called as he walked, it is arranged already. Only for one night.

  One night! Pavel’s voice rose. And this you announce with your back to me!

  Chaim moved toward Fela, who stood at the stove, and poured himself coffee into a cup. Pavel followed him.

  Excuse me, young man, Pavel managed, his voice quieter now, quieter but tense, tight. Where will you stay for one night? In the concert hall? Or will Leo Meisel take you begging at a church?

  You stayed in churches in your time, ventured Fela, with a smile, nervous. Come, Pavel, have your coffee.

  And for what reason did you keep this from us until now?

  I did not keep anything. What did I keep? Chaim swallowed, the coffee burning his mouth. No, he would not become angry. The more furious Pavel grew, the more Chaim wanted to be solid, calm, in control.

  You knew, you had these plans! The man did not simply obtain tickets the way he picks up women!

  Pavel, Pavel. Fela was humming his name, half afraid, half amused. What? Don’t you have things you do not reveal? Don’t you have things you keep quiet?

  Not like this!

  Yes like this! Of course like this. Fela touched Pavel’s shoulder.

  But Pavel seemed not to notice. Chaim, he said. It is impossible. I need you here.

  For one night, Pavel, you do not.

  And how do we know this fine scholar will bring you back, all in one piece? Hamburg! There, no soldiers will protect you if something goes wrong.

  Pavel, interjected Fela. Let the boy enjoy himself.

  You! cried Pavel, turning to her, looking straight at her eyes, his jaw jutting forward, his teeth clenched. And how do you have the authority?

  But the teacher, Pavel, it is he who wants to give—

  Leo Meisel! Leo Meisel does not run this household!

  But already Pavel’s voice was distant as Chaim fled the kitchen, grabbed his jacket, pushed himself out the door and onto
Fela’s bicycle, pedaling furiously, sweating, toward the camp, toward school, letting the cool air cleanse his eyes from his vision of Pavel shouting. Why shouldn’t Chaim see a world? See and hear what he never had had in his life thus far, march forward? Did he have to go through life as Pavel did, looking back?

  THEY BOTH RETURNED TO the house late in the evening and did not speak to each other before retiring. But at dawn, the door to his room opened, awaking Chaim with a start. He sat up straight, his feet touching the wood floor, then saw Pavel and stopped. Slowly Chaim lay back down in his bed.

  Pavel sat on the bed, his face sagged with fatigue. Chaml, he said.

  The diminutive, the sound of which Chaim had not heard since childhood, another lifetime, awakened in him the need to sob, to scream. He stopped himself.

  I will go, Chaim answered, and turned his face to the wall.

  THE OPENING PIECE—MUSIC without voices, Smetana, all bright violins—ended. Chaim had held his breath through the last portion, then let it out slowly. He had not breathed steadily since their first moments in the concert hall, the usher’s downturned mouth as they walked in, the downcast eyes of the concertgoers in the seats around them. He could feel the audience around him recognizing them, if not by Tina’s crippled hand and Basia’s Gypsy-dark hair, if not by Leo’s pointed, studious face, then by Chaim’s nerves and discomfort. They could smell it on him. But how had he survived those periods of disguise as an itinerant farmhand in the Polish countryside, or those nights in the forest, pretending to be Catholic among the partisans? How had he survived all those months of the war, if this fear could so torture him now, in peace?

  Night birds moaning. The orchestra had begun their second piece, and two men and two women had turned toward the conductor, their lips half-parted, ready to twist out the Latin words Chaim had so carefully memorized. Behind them, a dozen men and women—too few, Leo whispered to him as they pushed out their first notes—

  Chaim could make out only snatches, syllables of the words he had seen on the page, as the roaring chorus grew more fierce, blocking him—then a pause and a man’s voice, the soloist, and then the higher one, the woman’s deep blood voice, and then the sound of the lightest bird, and the four of them together, with only a few of the strings behind them, so quiet, then again the calling—abrahae, abrahae, kam olim abrahae promisisti, the words taking him away from the sound for a moment, the words he had caught and remembered, studying in the barracks schoolroom.

  He looked over at the orphan girl Basia. She was silent, open-mouthed, lost. Her face glistened in the reflected light of the orchestra pit. Could she be crying? Her breathing was barely perceptible—children did not cry silently. But Basia did weep. Tears rolled down her face and neck. And as he stared at her wet face, Chaim felt tears dart into his eyes too.

  They ran down his face and touched his lips. Yes, this was how to mourn, with the roaring all around, with the ritual noise blocking out one’s own grief. What did she remember, this little orphan girl, of her losses? Less than he did himself. But something moved her. In the schoolroom there was a child with parents, a child with no cause to look back. And he—he could recall, here in the concert, a reserved woman’s hum, an aunt perhaps, not his mother, a girl’s cry in the morning—yes, here his losses, the ones he could name and the ones he could not name, became sharper, pressed into his skin, more than they had at any religious service. This music was closer to him than the tales of harvests and rams, begetting and sacrifice. Or perhaps not as close. Perhaps the distance was what made everything so clear. He could understand and remember better when the roaring was not so loud, when it came to him in low tones, near whispers, when it came accompanied by violins, not human lamentation.

  THEY STAYED THE NIGHT in a boardinghouse in Hamburg, so as not to drive back in darkness. He stayed in a room shared with Leo while Tina led Basia into one next door.

  Was it beautiful? said Leo, shutting the door.

  Yes, said Chaim. Yes, it was beautiful.

  In the night he awoke, Leo wheezing next to him, the white curtain flat against the closed window. He thought of sitting up, then decided not to move. His skin was cool, his belly calm. He touched his hand to his forehead and remembered a flash from his dream, just the images, no sounds: an empty concert hall, the walls to one side blasted open, the remnants of a battle, a place he had never seen himself, a place out of pictures, a film. It once had been a beautiful building. Chaim closed his eyes and tried to remember more. He saw himself wandering around the orchestra pit, staring up at the remains of the art-covered ceiling, the fat blond angels and naked Greek gods. Some of the velvet seats for the audience still were intact. He climbed out of the pit and sat himself down in a soft red chair, to wait for the musicians to enter.

  The Wedding

  August 1946

  YES, SAID THE AMERICAN clerk in her stuttering German. We have a Hinda Mandl. Shall I send someone for her?

  But Pavel could not answer.

  The clerk’s hands fluttered through her papers. You are not permitted in the women’s barracks. Herr Mandl? I shall send someone for her.

  Let her be warm, Pavel thought, sitting in the registry room of the Foehrenwald assembly center in the American zone near Munich. It was August and already the days seemed shorter; winter would be upon them, and his little sister would have to be prepared. Let her be warm, he repeated to himself. Let Hinda eat and be warm.

  He had come back to the American zone with a small valise filled with silk and wool, pounds of coffee for trading, even a set of ladies’ combs that Fela had insisted he bring with him, should he find his sister. Pavel had come with these things, and coming with them made him feel more secure. Pavel had a better system for searching than a newspaper or a Jewish chaplain from the army. He had a desperation. And with Hinda, even after the first failed expedition, he felt that something was right. His other sister and his youngest brother had perished with the rest of the children in the town when the ghetto was liquidated, and of his two remaining brothers, he still knew nothing. And yet Hinda—Fishl’s Dincja had seen her alive, and no one knew of her being dead.

  She had not been in Landsberg, and months had passed with few clues. But he had not allowed himself disappointment; a chaplain at Feldafing had responded after some time to his inquiry; her name had appeared on a list in a camp newspaper, with a contact address at Foehrenwald. He had sent a letter telling her he would arrive, he would arrive and wait for her, and with the letter he posted a box of cigarettes and scarves with an American army truck to the camp. He had bicycled in the heat for the next two days, his American papers secure inside his shirt, and now in the little office where a clerk at a metal desk ran through her list of recent arrivals, the papers seemed to press against his chest, making his breathing thin and slow.

  He heard voices outside, more American attempts at German, and Pavel stood to wait in the doorway. Two figures approached, walking slowly. Was she weak? Was she sick? There had been a tuberculosis epidemic in the camp. Could she—the women came closer, and Pavel felt his heart hurtling against his ribs, as if to push his body toward the pair. But his body did not move. The woman’s face became clear, sharp jaw, dark eyes, the same high forehead that marked the whole family, her tiny body a shadow in front of him, blocking his view of the dirt path, the row of barracks, the watchtower, the soldiers and inmates moving between the buildings. In his head Pavel knew that she came accompanied by a young messenger, but his eyes saw only Hinda.

  SHE LOOKED SOMETHING LIKE her own self, older, of course, thinner than the last time he had seen her, in the spring of 1942. She had come to Foehrenwald with a bundle of typhus-ridden women liberated from a barn crowded with remnants of a death march, hospitalized in one camp, then transferred to another. She was a small girl—no longer a girl, Pavel supposed, she had grown to womanhood in camps—but still sharp. Her chestnut hair, still short, had returned to its wavy beauty. He touched it as they embraced, and as they walked from the camp offi
ce he let his hands roam through it and embraced her again. He stopped every few steps to look at her. It was hard to breathe: a body created from the same bodies that created him, a living being from the same mother and father.

  Hinda, he said, again and again. Hinda, Hinda.

  Pavel, she said, Pavel.

  They walked together to a small area near the camp school. They would have some privacy. As they moved behind the building, toward a small garden, Pavel heard his sister coughing. He looked at her. So reserved a moment before, Hinda now had tears streaming down her face, and as he watched her, he realized he himself was weeping. They wept the same way: in silence. They sat on a bench, and Pavel felt his skin chapping where the salt water had dried on his cheeks. It was a humid and cloudy day.

  After some time Hinda spoke: I want to get married.

  Hmm? he said, surprised. To whom?

  She had a friend, it seemed, someone who had gotten through the war on Aryan papers—he fought on the Polish side in the Warsaw uprising! Hinda said, with an uncharacteristic excitement—and who cared for her, who had a great future in front of him, who wanted to marry her and take her out, to England or to America, whichever came first, to escape this new prison, to take her away and make her life something calm and peaceful.

  Pavel frowned. I should meet him before you decide anything, he said.

  No, Hinda said. I have decided. You should meet him, of course. But I have decided, Pavel. You are not my father. You are my brother.

  He said nothing.

  My only living brother, she said. Her tears again flowed.

  She seemed to think he had no say in the matter. After a moment, he said, I have a house. I live in a house. After I meet him, there we will make your wedding.

  It would be something beautiful. Nothing like what the other refugees had, more and more marrying after one meeting, two meetings, a walk with the intended, a dozen onlookers crowded to watch the two say their marriage prayers under a canopy made from an army-issued sheet. Hinda’s wedding would be different, not the impoverished little gatherings around a barracks of hungry people, but a party, something elegant and full, with pastries and delicacies and even, he thought, a little music. Yes, a little music. He would give to his sister what she might have experienced had she grown to be a bride under the watch of their father.