Ghita Schwarz

by Displaced Persons (v5)

  Miloch, said Perla. The girls who knew him in my town all thought of him as—

  No more Miloch! interrupted Fela, only half-joking. Who is Miloch? My husband is Pavel.

  Miloch, said Pavel, smiling. The name of a hanged man. I was afraid to use my own name at that time. I was on a list—

  Pavel, please, said Fela. Let us not—

  Perla reached across the table, patted Fela’s hand. Pavel, of course Pavel. I must accustom myself. But sometimes you have a picture burned in your brain.

  It was true, thought Pavel. Sometimes a picture burned in the brain, a brand. He had one of Perla—coming home to her father’s house in winter, wearing only a slip and an undershirt, almost naked, shivering, her white skin pink from the cold, her elbows bent at her sides.

  You gave your clothes away, said Pavel.

  What? said Perla.

  Yes, that time—you saw a family without coats being sent—

  Pavel, said Tulek. You must have heard who they have in the jail.

  I hid in her father’s house, said Pavel. He saved my life, that time.

  You must have heard, repeated Tulek. Kresser.

  Kresser? said Pavel. The name came out of him like a casual question. That name! A name he spat at. He felt his heart gallop a moment, then he stilled it. His voice came out quiet, serene. Kresser. Hmm. Still alive.

  Oh yes, said Tulek. No one has killed him yet.

  What, now? His old activities, I suppose? He was a thief before the war too. So I heard.

  Tulek said, No, no. Listen: someone denounced him. They have him not for stealing but for crimes. You know, against his own prisoners.

  Oh, said Pavel. Oh.

  Fela was looking at him, worried. She wanted the conversation to change.

  Perla said to her husband, Pavel knew him too?

  Ha! Tulek gave a short laugh. Who knew him once would not forget him. Great creativity, that one. Great creativity. An artist, one might say. Original, inventive. Who says Jews cannot produce great works? That one could compete with some of the Ukrainians.

  Pavel didn’t laugh. A Jew in the jail for crimes. Probably they had caught him while up to some certain illegal activity, and someone else, a fellow smuggler even, had recognized and named him—many people went through that labor camp before it was liquidated. No doubt Kresser had managed to take another position of power when he moved on to the next one. Or perhaps not. Perhaps that little unit in eastern Germany, where they crafted helmets with machinery once meant for pots and pans, had been Kresser’s only experiment with cruelty. Perhaps Kresser, once the typhus epidemic had wiped out half the unit’s population, had seen Pavel and his comrades, those whose fevers were subsiding, carry the dead beyond the barracks, into an abandoned field designated by the camp commanders. Perhaps Kresser had seen the prisoners take the blankets of the dead, the blankets stained from shit and blood, scattered with lice, and search for a clean corner, a small strip of uninfested wool, to wipe the bodies for burial. Perhaps Kresser had seen.

  SHE WAS A GRACIOUS woman, said Fela when they were alone again, strolling to the apartment. Really. You could see she was very fine. From a fine family. A lady.

  Pavel saw that Fela meant it. She had a sweet little son, ventured Pavel.

  Fela said nothing.

  I didn’t dare ask.

  It is right not to ask, said Fela. Too painful to speak of it.

  But what of this man? said Pavel. What do you think?

  What man? Kresser? said Fela. It has nothing to do with you.

  He paused a moment. The image of Kresser in a cell did not please him. It should please him, he thought. But there were Germans roaming free, Ukrainians obtaining visas. What did Kresser think now?

  I want to go see him, Pavel blurted.

  What? said Fela. Her voice still quiet, but alarmed. What? Why do you need the trouble? We have things to do here! Our applications, we need to earn—I have only six months left, and I want the child born on American soil. American.

  I want to see if he’s sorry.

  Sorry! Fela gasped.

  He was upsetting her. No, no, Felinka. No, not to say anything, just to confront him—so he knows—

  He is not sorry! People like that—criminals like that—they never change, even if they are Jews! Especially if they are Jews. To do what that kind of person did! He will not change, Pavel, not for you, not for me, not for anyone. Please! What can it prove, what can it show?

  But for him to be in an American jail—for them to—

  Ah! Fela had caught him. You want him out!

  He felt his face darken with shame. No, no.

  You want him out.

  I just want to ask him. For them to judge—

  It is not you they judge, Pavel.

  No, said Pavel. It is not. But this is something—this is something to keep inside, to keep among people who know what it means. These Americans! He stopped. Then started again, anger leaking out of his mouth. These Americans! They marry German women who sent their husbands off to war, and now look! Now it is all a court, a court to make a spectacle, a scandal, out of us!

  It is not your scandal! It is not our scandal!

  But it is!

  No. Our scandal is that we are here. We are here! Pavel, how long have we been waiting? Four years since the end of the war. Four years in Germany, living with the Germans! That is the scandal, that is the scandal. Let these others make their little history. Let this criminal pay, Pavel, let him pay. A thousand payments like his would not be enough. Fela’s voice shook, uneven, as if there were a bubble of air in her chest. Worry for your family, Pavel! You worry for your family, first! Then go to the others.

  Pavel wanted to shout: Did I not take Chaim out of jail? But he knew that Fela would respond sharply and that he would not be able to find a retort. He looked at her face straight on: almost a challenge. Perhaps she might cry. Really, he wanted her to cry. If she did he would reach over to her, smooth her hair to her cheeks, rub her back, comfort her. If she did he would say, of course, mammele, my loved one, whatever you like, whatever you want, I will do.

  HE THOUGHT IT WORTHWHILE to try his small access with Yidl Sheinbaum, again reelected as head of the Jewish Committee. Now everyone called him Yidl, soldiers, children, everyone. Since Hinda’s wedding they had nodded at each other in passing on the street. Yidl had shaken his hand once or twice at the committee meetings that Pavel attended. An air of royalty about him, benevolent dictator of the refugees. It was rumored that the visas were slower because Yidl worried about the end of his reign, the kingdom he had made, its city of rebuilt humans. But this was too terrible to consider seriously. The British hated Jews; that was plain from the struggle they had made over the Palestine question, and from the stinginess they still had with immigration papers to England. Hinda and Kuba had received permission to go to England for only two years, and now waited for a visa to New York to come before time ran out. Even the young orphans they took in came back twelve months, eighteen months later, preparing for a life elsewhere, New Zealand, South America, all kinds of places. As for the Americans, Yidl did not have the same connections with the American authorities as he might have if he had allied with the Jewish Committees in the American DP camps. People had spoken about the possibilities, but plans had fallen through, who knew why; all those German Jews in the American zone committees, one of the Belsener leaders had said, they do not respect the Eastern Jews, what do we need this for, we’ve built enough by ourselves. Whatever the reason, Yidl had not made the alliance. And as a result, with the Americans—so careful with their visas, so willing to take in these others, gentiles, anyone fleeing the Russians, victims of the Germans already forgotten, already an annoyance, a problem, a trouble—Yidl did not have the influence he deserved.

  But surely Yidl’s friends had some way of maneuvering with the immigration authorities, for their own friends. Many had left already, only some through family connections already in the United States. Pavel himself
tried to work through his second cousin, a man in New York from his mother’s side, but of course Hinda would be first, as she already had a baby. Yidl must have some way. He was a good person to know. For this reason Pavel left word through his friend on the committee that he might have something to say, an opinion. Pavel was not yet sure what it was, but he had an idea about Kresser.

  The office was plain, as he remembered it from Hinda’s wedding three years ago. A large desk, of course, a secretary sitting outside, typing on a typewriter that made little squeaks as her fingers hit the keys, a broad window, room for some dozen people to sit, but only two or three plain, wooden chairs. Pavel was glad that the office of the leader of the Jews was spare, like an old synagogue, where one came to inscribe one’s name in the books, even if here the books were the lists of those going to America, Australia, Canada. To Palestine, Israel, it was now easier to go, of course. But the scarcity there—it made Pavel shudder to think of Chaim alone there, laboring in the fields—Pavel wanted to wait for something good, for a good life for his child, his children, he would have children, like the plump ones born every week in the camp, born of marriages made quickly, the noise of infants and even older ones crowding out the quiet.

  Yidl extended his hand. Then sat down in the chair in front of his desk, next to Pavel’s, and said, leaning into Pavel’s face, I know why you are here.

  Yes, said Pavel. I told your assistant to let you know—

  You know the man in the American jail. The Jewish man.

  Pavel shifted his eyes. Yes.

  Do you know anything good? Anything that might help us?

  Pavel looked at Yidl: truthfully, no.

  Truthfully?

  Pavel pulled himself up, a little offended. I do not bear false witness.

  There was silence. Then Pavel said, Still, as I said, I could talk to him—I could see if he—if he felt remorse—and then, if that were the case—

  Tomorrow, Yidl said, I have a meeting with some of our representatives at the immigration committee. So! I cannot go tomorrow. But a delegation is to go down on Sunday. Myself, and Norbert, of course, perhaps two others. Come with us.

  BUSINESS, PAVEL HAD SAID to Fela. Business. And it was true that he was to meet Marek to arrange a contract afterward. But he could see she knew it was something else. Germans did not do so much business on Sundays. Better this way, he had insisted, though she had said nothing. No one notices what we are doing, not on Sundays.

  Yet Pavel thought the American soldiers could not help noticing the committee members disembarking from the long car hired by Yidl. They were small men—but for Norbert, Yidl’s second in command—small in comparison to the soldiers, but dignified, their bodies stiff, their faces calm and accusatory. Pavel’s cap remained firm over his curled black hair, his jacket was smooth, his shirt pressed. As they entered the jail of the Bremen zone—just a barracks office with a small row of locked rooms—Pavel felt himself to be a soldier, a peace soldier, perhaps, unarmed, but part of a large, disciplined whole.

  In the bare room to which the group was led, Yidl announced: This is good.

  Norbert nodded.

  Yes, repeated Yidl, pulling a chair from the wooden table and motioning for the others to sit as well. This is good.

  The door opened: Kresser entered.

  Pavel stood. It was him. Fatter, of course, and perhaps more stooped. Still, it was the same man, with large green eyes and dark hair, olive skin, the wide mouth that spat. Pavel felt his blood knocking in his ears. Fear? But how could it be? It was not Pavel who was the prisoner. Still, his body felt tight, filled with a desperate attention.

  The rest of them betrayed nothing; perhaps they felt nothing. They did not know him, this Kresser. Yidl too remained sitting. Do you know who I am?

  Ah, yes, said Kresser, his voice clear, unwavering. The King of the Jews.

  If you like, responded Yidl. We are here to speak with you.

  Kresser lifted his brows, looked from one to the other.

  Who we have here, declared Yidl, who we have here is a witness.

  They all looked at Pavel: Pavel knew he was to speak. But what could he say? The man’s dark skin seemed loose on his cheek, on his neck. Yet he could not be old. Perhaps five years older than Pavel. Kresser, he managed at last. Do you remember me?

  Kresser looked at him in the face, then turned again to Yidl and shrugged.

  No? cried Pavel. For how well Pavel remembered Kresser, the pound of his boot on his back, his head. But then he thought: What to me was a boot, to him was a shoe. Something to keep his foot warm. Pavel repeated, more quietly: No?

  I did not say no, I did not say yes.

  Yidl gave a look to Norbert and the two others. Let us leave Pan Mandl with the prisoner.

  KRESSER, PAVEL FINALLY SAID. He had sat down again, with Kresser across. You may not remember us, but there are many who remember you. He spoke in Yiddish.

  Me? said Kresser. Am I something to remember? His eyes were on his hands, wide hands. But he too spoke in Yiddish: the American soldier would not understand.

  Yes, said Pavel. You are something to remember—you—He paused. To me, you—what you did—

  Kresser waited.

  The image in Pavel’s head, the tight feeling in his arm and back, the memory of a terrible smell—it was the smell that he still could not wipe out from his body—all rose up in him and crowded his mouth. Pavel swallowed and felt the sourness recede back into his belly.

  At last Pavel continued: Very many. There are very many who remember you. Already I have met two men, three men, who are ready, more than ready, to testify.

  I suppose I must be important, Kresser muttered. As important as the others, yes?

  Yes, to us, yes, Pavel said, a sudden hope pushing at his voice.

  So, said Kresser.

  So! answered Pavel. Tell me.

  Then Pavel paused. Tell what? he suddenly wondered. Kresser waited also, a thin smile on his lips.

  Tell me, repeated Pavel. Are you not sorry? Are you not—Pavel searched for another word, but could not find one—are you not sorry?

  What I am, said Kresser, is finished.

  Pavel thought to himself: I do not bear false witness. But he said: Kresser, Kresser, think. Think. If you tell me, just a phrase, just a word of the remorse you feel, I will say something for you.

  There is nothing anyone can do for me, said Kresser. I told you what I told you. I am finished.

  Consider it, said Pavel. Consider what a trial will do to all of us. Not just to you. After all the pain you have caused, can you not find a way to stop the scandal now? How much easier if we avoided it. I would help you. Pavel paused, gave him a significant look. I would help you! Consider it.

  Kresser looked at him, opened his mouth as if to laugh. But he did not laugh. Yes, he said. His voice was different: cheerful and inflected. Yes. I will consider it.

  Kresser stood up. He was ending the visit. The muscles in Pavel’s neck tightened. There was something he should say, one more thing that could escape his lips, to convince Kresser, to make him understand, but the words would not come. At last Pavel stood up himself, and the American boy accompanied him out of the room, leaving Kresser alone.

  HE HAD DONE WHAT he could, Pavel thought while waiting for Marek to answer the door. He had done what he could. But the worry inside him did not subside. Only three years ago he would have testified with enthusiasm and vigor in a public court against Kresser. Now everything was different. It was important for the record to be clear. It was important for those who were left not to be stained. But sometimes there was nothing one could do.

  He should push it aside. Worry for yourself! Fela had said. But he had. Already this morning Yidl had mentioned a new list he was forwarding to the Joint for their assistance, and Pavel had understood from the look Yidl had given him—a quick glance, but serious—that Pavel and Fela would be on it. So! Hinda would not be alone there with her husband and child. If this turned out. Yes, he ha
d worried for himself, and his wife, and his child-to-be. It did not mean he would not try to contribute.

  Marek opened the door. You are later than I thought.

  I had something to take care of, said Pavel. Business with the committee.

  Ah, said Marek. Pavel regretted even his small explanation. Marek had a habit of thinking everyone cheated him. No doubt he thought even Pavel made money on the side with Yidl and his friends.

  Political business, Pavel corrected.

  Of course, Marek answered.

  They climbed the two flights to Marek’s apartment. Now with Kuba gone, Marek lived with a new woman friend, but the home he had once shared with Kuba was unchanged. Empty. Pavel had met her only a few times; his business partnership with Marek was distant. Better that way. With Kuba, there had been a forced joviality, a wish to act like family. It had been awkward to disagree. But since Kuba and Hinda had left, Pavel and Marek had settled into a formality that was almost easier than what Pavel had with his brother-in-law. And besides, who was Kuba to complain now, with Pavel making enough even to send Kuba and Hinda a bit of money as they struggled in their new home? It felt good to have someone to take care of, now that Chaim had left too.

  Pavel missed Chaim. He didn’t blame him, but he missed him. The young cousin Rayzl had gone to Palestine before the war there had really finished, and she wrote to Chaim every week, begging him to hurry. She sewed shoes on a kibbutz, she could find him a space on her collective, she spoke for the new refugees on the council, she learned Hebrew at night, she had met a lovely man on the evening patrols, yes, women did it too, they were as equals, almost—there was no end to her pleading. And Pavel couldn’t blame her either. Business or no business, Pavel craved to be near his sister again, he craved to be near his blood, if she had gone to the Holy Land he might have followed her there too. Still Pavel had had a thought, an idea, that young Chaim could come with them to America, even if it were difficult, even if Pavel were difficult to live with, Fela told him so herself. But did not Chaim adore Fela? No, blood mattered, at least to the stingy immigration authorities, and with no one to sponsor him to America, Chaim could not wait anymore. And so: just as quickly as they had absorbed themselves into one life, they separated: a family after all, a family that wept to be rent.