by Malka Adler
From that day onward, Yitzhak did not enter a hospital, not for himself or for others. Even today, yes, almost sixty years after that war, he won’t go into a hospital and he can barely see, he has to have cataract surgery, a simple operation for old people. I’ve arranged an appointment for him, not once and not twice, but he refuses to go to hospital.
There was one incident, after I’d spoken to him a lot, and after his wife Hannah spoke, and the children, when he agreed to have eye surgery. Nu, he got to the anesthetist’s office and sat quietly as if he intended to have the surgery. The doctor was already waiting for him, did it help us? It didn’t, because Yitzhak ran away. Yes, they looked for him in the hospital corridor, in the toilets, the yard, where was he found? Sitting at home, in his armchair.
I don’t know what will be with his sight. He hasn’t read a newspaper in ages. He can only see pictures on television, without subtitles. He can’t drive. And he loved driving, he has to drive, with cows, calves, hay, after all, he has a truck in the yard. Fortunately he works in the cow sheds with his son. They travel together, otherwise, what? I tell him, go into hospital, I’ll come with you, a few hours and they’ll solve the problem, does it help me? Nada.
He can’t bear anything to do with the infirmary either. I take care of it. I bring him his medications, vitamins. Arrange them in bags according to the day. If he needs special herbal teas, I buy those for him too. May he be healthy, my brother.
Chapter 31
Yitzhak: A new world was born in front of
me when Doctor Spielman said, your brother
has recovered and is talking sensibly.
My brother has recovered and I have begun to live.
It was as if I had walked out of the darkness and into the light.
Yitzhak
In September we left the hospital and moved to a convalescent home.
The Americans sent us to a monastery in the village of Indersdorf, thirty kilometers from Munich. It was a pleasant day, the air had a festive smell. I remember it as if it were happening today: Blue skies with clouds like enormous, shining, white sheep. I searched the clouds for father’s face. On holidays, he loved to paint the walls of the house with clean, sharp-smelling whitewash.
We wore new clothes. A checked shirt, dark trousers and a gray battledress with pockets and a zipper. We had to make a hole in the belt with a nail to keep our trousers up. The clothes had the smell of fabric that had lain in a cupboard for a long time. I liked the smell. The Americans also gave us new shoes with a strong sole and thick leather with stitching on the side, I’d never known good shoes like those, nor socks of thick, soft wool. I tied the laces with trembling hands, putting a foot on the mattress, smoothing the shoe leather with the blanket, tshsh-tshsh. I felt I was smoothing my soul, tshsh-tshsh, and went on to the pockets. I had at least eight-nine pockets in all. I put my hands in the pockets and waited a while. The pockets were empty, but I still felt as if I had a private place, just for me. From the pockets I went on to the zipper of the battledress, zip-zap, and again, zap-zip, aah, I couldn’t stop. Dov said to me, you’ll spoil the zipper, what’s wrong with you, and I said, did you see how many pairs of underwear they gave us, did you see? I made a fine pile on my bed, there were at least seven pairs of underwear and another seven pairs of socks, just for me, aah. I remembered the wool underwear the Germans gave me at Camp Zeiss, it was the only pair I had in the camps. The lice loved the wool of the underwear. They sucked my blood and got fat, and multiplied, and sucked even more, I went mad from the itching and didn’t throw them out because of the cold. Only a jet of boiling steam I sometimes found in the topmost pipe room would kill the lice. Hot water would only hurt them and then they’d get even more edgy. The steam released me from them for a day or two, and then other, stronger lice would come.
Dov and I set out from the hospital with a bag in our hands. We looked like two strangers cut out of a newspaper. We laughed, pummeling each other’s heads. Then we walked along the road, stamping on the asphalt like soldiers on a march. We wanted to hear the sound of shoes with soles from a factory. It was a strong, confident sound.
From the hospital they took us to the monastery, a gray building with a lot of windows. I was given a clean bed in a room with Dov and a few other refugees who were left from the camps. Some were Jews, some were Christians. The Americans sent us to the monastery to put flesh on our bones. Everybody looked as if they’d come back from the dead. Their eyes were uneasy and their movements sharp. They’d sit on the edge of the bed, chew their nails, or smoke a cigarette, and suddenly jump up and go outside. Outside, they’d wander the length and breadth of the yard, examine the road and look for flies. If there was the slightest noise, say a window banging in the wind, or a bucket overturning, they’d lie on the ground with their hands on their heads, or they’d hide.
At night, I couldn’t sleep. I’d get into bed with my clothes and shoes on. In one hand I held bread, in the other I held the handle of the bag I’d received at the hospital. In the bag were other clothes, underwear, socks, two towels and small plastic bag for toiletries. After a few sleepless nights I put the bag under my pillow and finally managed to sleep but got up in the morning with a stiff neck. During the first days my brother and I took turns guarding our bags. Some went everywhere with their bags. I saw them going into the toilet and sitting down with their bag on their knees or on the floor. There were some who sat on their bags in the dining room. In the yard they looked like passengers on a train platform without a train. One of them wore all the clothes he had in his bag, he was swollen and nonetheless still thin.
At the monastery there were nuns and female British and American soldiers on behalf of UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Most of the female soldiers were Jewish. We suddenly had a great many young women with breasts, and beautiful long hair, and a narrow belt at the waist, and legs in nylon stockings, mmm. A pleasure. Suddenly red lips were smiling at me, and there was a black line above the eye, and hands touched me with well-done nails and soft skin scented with good soap, like perfume. The soldiers would go by and I’d get dizzy. One poor fellow would walk about the monastery with a towel in his hand. Every time he saw a beautiful soldier approaching, he’d spread the towel in front, and run to the toilet. It took him almost a month to get used to it.
The nuns wore black cloaks to the floor and a white head covering. I didn’t see hair, just a warm, loving glance as if we were a Hanukkah miracle.
The nuns and soldiers spoke patiently to us, they didn’t need to hold a loudspeaker even though they worked very hard with us. For instance, they wanted to teach us to hold back at the dining table. Take food in turn. Leave something in the main dish for others, bread, fruit, vegetables. This was a big mistake. The main dish was emptied in a second. Because of this the lesson on holding back was repeated from the beginning every morning. The soldiers are talking and I see a fellow with a wet nose descending under the table with his plate. I saw his neighbor and understood the reason. His neighbor had the look of a plate-snatcher. I peeped under the table. There were at least four or five fellows, plate in hand. They sat on the floor and took large bites, eating with their hands. And then what a laugh, I saw a large hand going down under the table, wandering cautiously over several heads, then, hop, it grabbed a chicken leg with mashed potato. Oho, what a commotion down there. All five under the table threw away their plates, grabbed the hand of the thief and pulled him down. It was the plate-snatcher. He fell with his ear in the mashed potato and began to curse, bastards, bums, leave me alone idiots, they didn’t leave him alone but pulled even more strongly, and potato got inside his nostrils, but he didn’t let go of the chicken leg.
A big female soldier came over at a run. Her black ponytail jumped like a horse brushing away flies. She stood next to the fellow with his face in the plate and said, Yosef, I’m waiting. Yosef didn’t hear. The solder leaned down near Yosef’s ear and whispered something. Yosef straightened up. He wiped his hand
on his trousers, and held his neck. And then the soldier bent down under the table and said politely and respectfully, everyone will now come out from under the table and sit nicely in their places, understood? Eight fellows came out from under the table, sat down looking at their plates. In the meantime the fellow sitting next to me jumped back as if he’d been stung in the back. He had an old face the color of a well-washed shirt. The dark fellow next to him began to whistle a cheerful tune and hops, quickly grabbed his bread. Oho.
The poor man began to shout, help, thieves, help.
The dark fellow stopped whistling and said, shut up, little girl, stop whining. The fellow with the old face didn’t want to stop whining. What he wanted was to attack the thief and take a bite out of his cheek.
In a flash all was bedlam. Three soldiers came over at a run. Shouting, sit down nicely, friends, everyone sit down nicely. Didn’t help. The soldier with the ponytail grabbed the fellow with his mouth on the cheek of the other fellow, lifted him above all the heads, pressing him hard to her breasts. She had huge breasts.
She said, enough Miko, enough Miko, and at that moment I was sorry I wasn’t mad Miko. Miko didn’t like her breasts. He kicked, threw himself on the floor and cried continually. The dark fellow shouted, crazy, crazy. He had nice red teeth marks on his cheek.
He returned to his chair and said, I knew we had an issue with a baby here, meeyow, meeyow meeyow.
A nun with a rather large blond mustache approached with a tray full of meat. She offered the tray to Miko and said, take two, nu, two just for yourself. Miko didn’t want to.
I said to the nun, his bread was taken, do you have any more bread?
They brought him bread and he actually calmed down. The soldier with the ponytail said, bon appetite everyone, and now listen carefully: You don’t have to grab food from one another, you don’t have to take food in your pockets to the room, and why do you hide bread in your beds, we serve you three meals a day, true or not? Everyone was quiet. She said in an even clearer tone, answer me, true? Someone farted, broooom. broooom. Everyone began to laugh. The soldier with the ponytail went scarlet. She looked at the small soldier next to her. She had a braid down to her bottom.
The soldier with the braid smiled at her and shook her head, as if to say, never mind, pay no attention, and called out, quiet, quiet. And there really was quiet. The speech of the soldier with the ponytail continued: There’s no need to steal food from the kitchen. The food in the kitchen cupboards and in the pantry is for you. The boxes delivered in the truck are also for you. And a fellow at the end of the table shouted out, what happens if the Germans take the truck, eh? I know them, they’ll take the truck, and then what will you do, eh?
Several fellows began to hammer on the table with their forks, shouting, yes, yes, yes, the Germans, damn them to hell, will come and take us to the crematorium as well.
The soldier said, no, no. The Germans won’t come, understand, the war is over.
We couldn’t understand anything. Neither could we understand the words of the American doctor they brought especially from the hospital. Nor the American officers with bars on their shoulders. We didn’t understand anything-anything. As if we had a block in our minds.
I remember four tall good-looking officers they brought to the monastery to talk to us. They didn’t know everyone had blocks in their minds, and explained to us in professorial tones that the war was over, Germany was beaten and there was enough food for everyone. We didn’t believe any of them. We’d sit at the table and check to see what fresh food could be hidden in a pocket. That could last for at least two days. The officers talked about peace in the world and we were in the war.
The soldiers and the nuns wanted to restore us to a normal life.
They taught us to bathe with soap and sponges. Wash our hair three times, yes, scrub our ears. Brush our teeth. Put paste on the brush, not eat it and spit it out in the sink, yes. They taught us to go into the shower, take turns, room by room. We didn’t want to wash. They didn’t give up. They stood us in a line for the shower and watched us so we wouldn’t run away. Sometimes that line didn’t end because they didn’t manage to shower everyone from evening till morning. They’d get one in and three would run away. There were some who refused to go into the shower before they looked in through the window and saw that water really was flowing from the tap. I understood them. I would also go into the bathroom and very carefully check the shower. When I looked, the thought always ran through my mind, what will come out of that shower. Hot water or gas, and maybe powder. I’d undress and wait. Sometimes I’d go in and immediately escape. There were many times I was certain there was gas there.
The soldiers wanted us to go to bed on time. To get into bed without our clothes on, without shoes. They’d beg, take off your shoes at night, you’re dirtying the sheet, take them off, take them off, and wear pajamas, here, choose, there are lots of pajamas in two colors.
The soldiers taught us to play the piano and sit nicely at a concert. They wanted culture for us, and that was hard for me, very hard, because they busied us with nonsense. They had a daily program for us. One day a trip. One day a play in Yiddish. Then a circus, or a concert. Aah
Seven in the evening. They seat someone at the piano in a large room in the monastery. I sit quietly as they told us, as if I was a normal human being, hands crossed on my chest, or on my legs, or with crossed legs, head up, yes, the most important thing was head up, two ears to the piano, yes, no going to sleep, we could lean on one another. I sat as the soldiers told us. The piano moves and I hear the tach. tach. Of a rifle. Tach. tach-tach. tach-tach-tach-tach. tach. Many rounds. My shoulders fall, and I weep, I weep from nerves, and I glance at my brother, and at other friends, and say to myself, am I the only one who’s going mad? And suddenly I see another friend weeping, and another wiping his face, and at the side another looks down at his shirt and pinches his leg, aah, the piano is also driving them mad. I look at the soldiers, and I see they are happy, smiling at one another, nodding, yes, yes, weep dear ones, it’s healthy. Fools, fools they thought we were weeping because of the piano they’d brought us.
The next day they brought two more pianos. I wanted to leap to the ceiling, and then they brought us a play in Yiddish. An actor with a hat and a scarf around his neck told us about Feigele – young girl – who wanted to drink water from a puddle. Ah. He’s talking about Feigele, and I hear, Shloimeleh and Saraleh, and afterwards a terrible noise in the ears. Like a broken radio. The actor makes faces with his mouth, his hands, according to his face I understand we have to laugh, and we didn’t laugh, we wept a lot. And then he left. The stage was empty, soundless. And that was the most dangerous thing for me. Because every silence would bring me Germans with a machine gun. And after the machine gun came the powerful silence with the strong feeling. The silence of death. I couldn’t bear that silence. I had to be in an environment where there was life, so they wouldn’t make people disappear into some crematorium and leave me alone in the world.
One day they took us to a circus. A clown with lipstick stamped his enormous shoe on the floor. He had ringing bells on his sleeve. He went ring-a-ding-ding, and I heard tach. tach-tach. And I saw blood, a lot of blood pouring onto the bells on the sleeve. Then they brought an acrobat on a rope. Everyone watched that happy acrobat, and I examined the black hole in the stage that produced Germans: Ten Germans in a line like a ruler, and twenty more Germans with rifles, and thirty more Germans with steel helmets, and finally, a thousand Germans screaming schnell, schnell, and we’ve been dead for over an hour.
I couldn’t tell the women soldiers about the hell going through my mind. Couldn’t talk about the film running through my mind, like an enormous wheel, turning, turning, back to the beginning. Turning, back to the beginning. Turning, back to the beginning. Like The Muselmann movie on the train. Prisoners trampling him and he opens his enormous eyes at me. Doesn’t shout, doesn’t cry, just waits for his life to end. And there was a film about a pri
soner who stood near the door of a barracks in the camp, nibbling a hole in the door. Nibbled, nibbled, trach. Got the butt of a rifle. His brain fell and scattered. And there was also the film about the prisoner who danced in the mouth of a large dog. Danced like a rag doll. Because three other dogs wanted pieces of him. Films with a bad ending.
Only occasionally did the film with the German girl come to me, the one who gave me food at Camp Zeiss, the girl with the braids, one tall, the other shorter. That girl brought me the most weeping of all.
I felt that life at the monastery wasn’t good for me. I had more and more blocks in my mind because of all the films I saw while sitting nicely at the table, or at the piano. I told the soldier with the ponytail, I need to work because I’m in great danger. She wanted to know, what work, Icho, tell me.
I said, teach me a profession, teach me to be a butcher, like my father.
They sent me to a German butcher. He had a back as broad as a table and a small fixed smile. I traveled with the butcher to fetch animals for slaughter. He bought cows from local farmers and slaughtered them in the yard. I loved the journeys to the villages. Loved seeing large cowsheds with dairy cows and calves. For the first few days I had a hard time. We’d arrive in a village and I’d feel suffocated. I saw that the butcher noticed me. He spoke to me and I couldn’t answer. I was sure that if I began to speak a huge flood would follow. I pinched my leg and ordered myself, control yourself. After a few days it got better. I began to take an interest in the price of cows, calves, the farmers’ hay I saw. The butcher taught me to cut meat in the right direction, to take care of the meat and what to do with the internal organs. In the meantime I learned German. He spoke to me in a soft, pleasant voice. For me it was like a new language. I didn’t know German without screams and orders like a hot nail to the brain. I didn’t know words in German like, how are you, be careful, cut slowly, didn’t know German gladness in the morning just for me. He called me boy. Come here, boy, do you understand, boy, now, boy, you do it. Sometimes he put his hand on my shoulder. His hand was wet from the water. Nonetheless, I felt a pleasant warmth on my shoulder.
