Ghita Schwarz

by Displaced Persons (v5)

  They spoke in Yiddish at Sima’s home too, and with Chaim Sima did not feel the embarrassment of her mother’s shaky Hebrew, her father’s pointed ventures into Yiddish, diaspora phrases he uttered just to irritate her native friends. She could see how Chaim felt special, touched to be recognized, moved by the ease with which her parents welcomed him into their tiny home. He became warm, relaxed. Questioned, he told fragments of his history to Sima’s mother and father that Sima herself had never heard. And even as she felt driven to hear them, she hated hearing them, hated their light, harsh detail. Her father would be laughing, and her mother too: Chaim in a girl’s dress, wobbling on low heels; Chaim managing to be fed and sheltered for a few weeks by a brothel; Chaim wandering through the forest and coming upon an isolated town, convincing a Pole with an enormous dog to take him in. They really were very funny snippets—the only time, before or since, she had heard him say anything longer than a sentence or two about his past—but Sima had begun to cry a little. The other three, caught up in the tales of escape and trickery, did not notice.

  SHE AWOKE SUDDENLY AS the plane began to shake, her neck stiff against the window shade. Four hours left. She heard the coffee cart being wheeled down the aisle and dug into her purse for a washed apple she had wrapped in a paper napkin.

  She wondered whether his surgeon would make an appearance. Avishai. Probably not. She hadn’t even noticed him until lunch one day with Netta, not far from the hospital last summer. Her father had sent her away, telling her he needed to rest. She had been relieved to go, a chance to gossip with a childhood friend.

  I think I am the only person I know who does not sleep with men other than her husband, Netta had said.

  You are one of two, at least, said Sima.

  That’s different, you’re in America.

  There must be others. What about Yael?

  You’re joking, right? Every time she goes to a convention there’s something else. Being a doctor—you can’t imagine the opportunity.

  Sima giggled a little.

  What, don’t you think about Avishai? The man’s attractive. And the way he dotes on your father—surely—

  What, flirt with the doctor while my father is so sick? I walk outside the hospital and am shocked to see people walking, laughing, buying groceries.

  I’m shocked you don’t notice people looking at you—your clothes—

  Netta!

  Really, you are so fresh, Sima, and pale—

  No, no, no! You’re making me feel—I feel like locusts are about to come down on my head.

  The sky doesn’t open every time someone gets cancer.

  I know, said Sima, I know. I have to tell you—it’s strange to hear you say the word. In America they whisper it.

  You don’t think Chaim does it?

  What, whisper?

  No! Sleep with women!

  Netta! It’s different there. You just said so yourself.

  Oh, yes.

  Besides, he’s a man who doesn’t like anything in his world to be upset or overturned. He likes things calm. And believe me, if I found out something like that, a storm from the sky would not be—it would not be—

  They were giggling.

  Really, though, said Sima. She thought seriously for a moment. The truth is, I don’t think so. I really don’t—we—she stopped, then began again. I do wish he would be a little more hysterical. It’s lonely to be the only one screaming at Lola.

  Well, I don’t have that problem, said Netta. Uri is the screamer. I think the children are angry with me for how quiet I am.

  They are right. Lola is the same! She tries to see how long he can ignore her.

  So it makes Chaim a good cardplayer.

  Ha! Good liar, that’s what.

  You have to lie to keep things peaceful, said Netta. Even if just to keep the car running smoothly.

  I’m not so good at it. When Lola used to fall, she would look at me to see how terrible my face looked. That’s how she knew how loud to scream. Chaim could cover it up more.

  Netta laughed. My kids just screamed no matter what.

  Chaim had a habit of closing his face. After twelve years of marriage Sima could occasionally detect that moment when his face was half-open. And just as suddenly it would shut itself. It made her more attentive to his every blink and twitch—it made everyone more attentive to him. But once in a while, once in a while, could he not react? Could he not betray himself even to her? Could he not see how the calm bothered her? He could see through everything else. She still listened for the elevator stopping at their floor around dinnertime, bringing him home.

  Walking down the hospital corridor, she had seen Dr. Avishai walking out of her father’s room and felt her face grow pink and warm. Ridiculous! A word from Netta and already she was distracted. But he did have a nice chest—not too broad, but fit—she loved that part of a man’s body, Chaim’s too, Chaim’s too.

  She had entered her father’s hospital room smiling. But Berel’s face was stiff. Where were you?

  Hmm?

  Did you think I had already died? Underneath the sarcasm, Sima could detect something new: a desperation, his voice rough, as if he were trying not to cry.

  I—said Sima. But you told me—

  What did I tell you? I suppose you think I also told you to move across three oceans, to keep my granddaughter from me—

  Sima’s shock stopped any tears. Her mouth was open.

  You dare to laugh at me?

  I wasn’t—I’m not—

  Yes, you are. Now Berel was weeping openly. You are, and you are right.

  Sima sat down, grabbed his hand. Her lips were trembling; her hands were shaking; her father’s was calm, a little cool.

  Sima, he whispered after a moment. I am empty.

  She looked at her father’s wet face, skin hanging from his jawbones. He had stopped crying, he was still, but he did not bother to wipe his cheeks.

  Sima waited another moment, forcing herself to swallow and breathe. If he saw even the beginning of a tear, he would—she did not know what he would do.

  Finally she answered: Maybe you want something to eat. I bought some halvah near the café. She reached into her purse. Just a bissl, she said.

  Hmm, said her father, watching her unwrap her little package. Have you broken a rule for me?

  Perhaps.

  Ah, he said. He couldn’t help smiling. All right. Of all things, this won’t kill me. So when I go, you tell the doctor it wasn’t the halvah, and even if it was, I absolved you.

  Don’t tell jokes, please, not about—

  Who said it was a joke?

  IN THE AIRPLANE LAVATORY, she washed her hands twice to rid her skin of the odor from that terrible beef they served. She hadn’t even eaten any, just opened the plastic wrapper and pushed it to the far end of her tray once she smelled it. Her hands looked dry, and the soap smelled like artificial cedar, terrible, but it made her feel better. When she returned to her seat they had already taken the tray away.

  When she was a child her mother would become angry if Sima did not finish her food. Her father would help her when her mother wasn’t looking, would take what was left on her plate—it was a secret partnership, Berel helping her look like she obeyed, Sima giving him a little more to help him feel satisfied. She and her mother had small, slim-boned bodies, but her father’s had been broad, expandable, always ready for more, a hunger they had joked about in Russia.

  She thought of her father’s lips lapping at the piece of halvah she had cut him that day in the hospital. His head leaned against the hospital wall, and he looked calmer, his eyes less red from the tears a few moments before.

  You know, Sima had ventured, your attitude is part of the problem.

  He glared at her. I think it is your attitude that is the problem.

  She said nothing. Anger, that was good, she thought. Or not so bad. It cut her, it always had, but it was better than his crying. Much better. He had been angry and sharp since she was a chil
d, she remembered it well, his quiet rage at her. There had been one night in Osh, she must already have been five, or six, maybe younger, they had both left her for work and she had wandered outside—how old was she then? She felt that they must have left Russia and gone to Germany soon after, but perhaps—

  Where had they been after Osh? She wanted to ask, suddenly—why did she not know where she had been?

  No, she could not ask.

  But she felt her lips moving, the words slipping out of her mouth. Tatteh, where were we after Osh?

  He looked at her, a little satisfied smile. She knew what he was thinking—at last, she’s admitting it, with a deathbed question.

  Hmph, he said, eyes small and alert.

  Oh, don’t answer it, if you can’t remember either.

  Of course I remember. Osh was the last place before Uzbekistan, and then from there we went back.

  How did we hear to go back to Germany?

  We didn’t hear anything. We were told to register to get on a train, and we did it. It was the rumors on the train, so many rumors that we knew it was true.

  I don’t remember the train out of there, she said. Only the train to Russia.

  It didn’t feel like a train, he said, it didn’t feel like a train because it was so slow. They had to keep stopping and hooking and unhooking the cars. And the tracks! Destroyed. It must have taken us more than a month to get to Germany.

  I wish I remembered it better.

  No you don’t, said her father. Her father leaned back into his pillow. His eyes glittered, triumphant.

  Forget about it, said Sima.

  No, no, I am delighted you ask.

  She leaned toward his ear and continued. There is no reason for you to be angry with me. No reason!

  He did not answer.

  She continued. What is it with you? Acting like a little child who did not get his way. What do you want, to prove to me you can die?

  I wish it were a little easier to prove.

  Terrible! You have a nerve!

  Oh, I see, I have a nerve. I do. His voice came out in a whisper. What a daughter I have!

  She stopped, sat in the large chair near the head of the bed, looked away from him. How ridiculous he was. Always so dramatic. He wanted to make her burst into tears! Well, she would not. It was a bad habit she had gotten into with him in the last few years, matching his moods, shout for shout. She never would have dared with her mother. No, her mother had been a mother, scolding her, hitting her—even when she was twenty already, smacking her with a towel when Sima did not come home one night, she was out with a boy from the army again—a real mother, who had died when Sima had only just become a mother herself. But her father—her father had lived long enough to become her friend.

  THE PASSENGERS APPLAUDED AS the plane rolled down the runway. The national anthem began playing through the speakers. Lola would be waking up, struggling with her father, begging him in her raspy sleep voice to let her have five more minutes, just five more minutes, then dressing lightly, stealing one of Fela’s cookies from the upper cabinet before Chaim saw, ignoring Chaim’s shout to go get her galoshes, now, right now, forgetting to grab her wool hat. She smiled at the thought of it, relieved at being here at last, of arriving on time, in time. Her neighbor in the aisle seat smiled back at her. Sima had new photographs to show her father, in a little envelope in her purse, and she touched them as she stood up to exit.

  ABOVE THE CUSTOMS HALL she could see the second floor of the terminal, families peering through the glass walls for the arriving passengers below. She looked up absently, out of habit, from when her father used to come and wait for her and Lola to arrive, then shook her head. She saw a face that looked like her aunt Zosia’s. Her heart began to pound. Why would Zosia be here? She had told her not to pick her up. But Zosia had not listened to her, of course she had not listened to her, she had not wanted Sima to come alone to the hospital, she was worried that Sima would be tired after her flight, her aunt was like a mother to her. Sima had told her not to, but of course Zosia had come to the airport to pick her up. She looked up again and squinted. Yes, that was Ze’ev with her, no doubt reluctant to let Zosia drive alone. Sima’s hands began to sweat. Are you all right? said the customs agent.

  Of course, said Sima.

  But the agent eyed her carefully and again ran through the list of questions she had just answered, just to make sure. Time was wasting, but Sima answered politely, calm. It was only noon. Nothing could have happened yet. Not even a day had passed. She walked out of the baggage check and looked for her aunt and uncle. There they were, her aunt in a blue cotton shirt and gray skirt, sunglasses on her head, her face straight, expressionless, her unshaven husband grasping her hand, her eyes—that look, thought Sima in a panicked flash, that look, something terrible has—

  What has happened? said Sima. What has happened? My God, what has happened?

  Your father—her aunt began.

  But Sima could not let her finish. “Oy, Gott,” she cried, again and again. God, Oy Gott, her words and grief were pulsing from her bones, through her skin, in all the languages she knew.

  HE HAD BEEN ALONE. She had come here to be his companion, and he had died in his narrow bed alone.

  You were with him, said Chaim. It is a blessing.

  Her husband’s voice, clear, strangely near despite the telephone, was breaking; he was crying. She could hear Fela’s voice, faint garbles of concern in the background, and she felt a wave of hate for her husband. Here she was, all alone, abandoning her daughter to her husband’s secondhand telling. She was alone here, her daughter was alone there, or almost alone, and her father had died alone, alone, alone.

  Sima’s shame was great. Yes, she lied, dry-voiced. Yes. I was with him, and he fought it. He fought with me near him. He was not alone.

  A blessing, wept Chaim. A blessing. He got his wish.

  The Performance

  April 1973

  SOMEONE AT WORK HAD tickets to a concert. A commentator whose companion was sick. Would Chaim like to come instead?

  Yes, he thought. He would. Normally the reporters and announcers did not mix with the technical people—it was a nice gesture, he should not refuse it lightly.

  He called Sima at home. She answered on the second ring, her voice compressed, more flat than sad, as if she was lying down.

  Go, she said. Go. Don’t worry about me.

  HE DECIDED TO STAY a bit late at his desk, grab a bite with the commentator. Bob. They sat at a coffee shop two blocks from Avery Fisher Hall, Chaim nibbling on unbuttered toast, Bob swallowing a hamburger.

  It was a concert at a small orchestra society, with a soloist whose face, when he opened the program, he thought familiar. And the name—Basia Lara—Basia. He read her biography in the program twice. Yes, it must be her.

  Basia Lehrman, now called Lara, Basia Lara. She too had gone from Germany after the war to Israel, but he had not seen her since—since when, perhaps since Europe, when a teacher in the DP camp had taken the musically gifted children to a concert in Hamburg. How old had he been, that concert? No more than fourteen, still living in the house in Celle with Pavel and Fela. He had not seen her since, but he believed he had heard something of her, a picture some years ago in a Tel Aviv newspaper, accounts of a large international prize she had won, the first for an Israeli, let alone a refugee.

  Basia had become professional, successful. She lived in Baltimore with her conductor-husband, who taught at the conservatory. But that was all he read of her before she appeared, large and dark haired, skin pale against a gleaming dress, on the stage. She began to sing, love songs in German and Italian, to the accompaniment of a piano. Lieder from Schubert, music he had not heard before and did not melt into, then an aria in Italian that flowed into him, her voice falling in minor notes like dripping water, slow but detached. Mio ben ricordati, it began, please remember, remember, my beloved, the awkward English translation almost unnecessary, the small vocabulary he had absorb
ed in youth budding up inside him, words he could recognize once he heard them but not call up before they came out of her mouth. Mio ben ricordati, how my heart loved you, and if ashes can love, from the grave I still will love you. When the song ended, there was a long pause. Chaim saw the singer’s face register surprise at the silence, then a broad smile as the clapping began.

  He told Bob he would take a walk before going home, but instead waited in the receiving room adjacent to the recital hall. She entered from a door Chaim had not noticed until she walked through it, her pianist at her side. Even at a distance he could see a silver swath of makeup extending from her eyelids, reflecting against her white skin and rouged cheekbones.

  Chaim waited until the number of concertgoers flanking her had dwindled to four. He thought he saw her looking at him with some concentration as he approached. As he came near he put on a slight smile, then murmured, “I was with you when you attended your first concert, more than twenty-five years ago.”

  She took in a breath, let it out in a laugh. Of course she remembered him, her fellow refugee, along with every detail of the concert hall, what their teachers wore, the exact music played. That night was one of the most beautiful nights of her life. The others around her moved away.

  Do you like my dress? she said, in Yiddish. It was floor length, the color of lilac, entirely sequined. The neck scooped down, leaving the plump white skin around her collarbones bare.

  Yes, said Chaim.

  You’ll never believe how I got it. One of my first recitals here, I sang in a church. Through the music school. I had nothing! I wore something I thought was very elegant, borrowed from a teacher who had worn it years before. A man came to see me afterward, backstage.

  Chaim shifted.

  An elderly man. He said—Basia moved into English, “Miss Lara, you sing beautifully, you dress terribly. I want to buy you a gown.” Basia laughed.

  Chaim said, He was Jewish.

  Of course! But I couldn’t understand. And when he wrote me the check—it seemed a shameful thing to do. I said, No, no. Finally he started to speak in German, and I answered. My German, perhaps you remember my German—but it has improved with the schooling. I can sing it, if not speak it. So! He was here tonight, I wore the dress he helped me buy, one dozen years ago. Let me tell you, it was hard to get in it. I hope I get out.